Where is God During a Pandemic? Suffering with His People (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Impassibility of God Reconsidered
The Bible writers employ conceptual metaphors that utilise human relationships involving emotions (the source domain) to describe the nature of God (the target domain). Modern conceptual metaphor theory maintains that although such metaphors have a discontinuity in that not all concepts contained in the source domain are transferred to their intended target domain, they nonetheless illustrate a truth. Based on that understanding this paper looks to challenge the classical view of the impassibility of God.
The hegemony of passibilist theological construals since the last quarter of the twentieth century has garnered a mixed response from within the conservative evangelical subtradition, from outright rejection, to widespread acceptance, to various qualified (im)passibilist via media. The seismic shift from impassibilist to passibilist ways of representing the God-world relationship has been documented, as have the historical-critical and philosophical developments that contributed to the shift. However, the existential dimensions of the phenomenon have not been extensively inventoried and assessed. This project seeks to address this lacuna. Following the Loyola Institute of Ministry (LIM) practical-theological model, the work surveys the more important contemporary (post-1973) literature; proposes a typology of existential considerations (denominated devotional, psychological, ethical, apologetic and missional); critically assesses these five species of argument by means of two benchmark Biblical texts (Acts 17:24-28 and Hebrews 2:17-18) and twin core conservative evangelical theological foci (God’s transcendence and God’s relatedness) and evaluates the impact of passibilist proposals on conservative evangelicals, including scholars, leading opinion-shapers and rank-and-file believers. The hypothesis is that passibilist arguments are unsustainable Biblically and theologically, that qualified impassibilist existential arguments are more compelling than their counterparts and that an impassibilist account best meets the Biblical and theological demands of the conservative evangelical academy as well as the existential needs of rank-and-file church members. The research confirmed the hypothesis. The dissertation concludes with practical suggestions for teaching a more balanced theology of divine transcendence-relatedness that honors the Biblical witness and makes use of the conceptual resources within the inherited Tradition, including a Chalcedonian two-natures Christology and a Cyrillian communicatio idiomatum.
The Suffering of the Impassible God, 2004
Many modern theologians advocate the claim that God suffers and are convinced that divine impassibility is untenable on philosophical, exegetical, and broadly religious grounds. As a result, the scholars often interpret the patristic notion of divine apatheia as a Greek philosophical axiom the acceptance of which led to a distortion of the biblical image of the (allegedly) suffering God. This dominant interpretation is awed. The problems with the unrestricted divine passibility are equally serious. Passibility and impassibility are correlative concepts, both of which must have their place in any sound account of divine agency. The introduction also provides a summary of the book.
Why Can't the Impassible God Suffer? Analytic Reflections on Divine Blessedness
According to classical theism, impassibility is said to be systematically connected to divine attributes like timelessness, immutability, simplicity, aseity, and self-sufficiency. In some interesting way, these attributes are meant to explain why the impassible God cannot suffer. I shall argue that these attributes do not explain why the impassible God cannot suffer. In order to understand why the impassible God cannot suffer, one must examine the emotional life of the impassible God. I shall argue that the necessarily happy emotional life of the classical God explains why the impassible God cannot suffer.
The Living God ATTRIBUTES AND PERSONS: Divine Impassibility and Self-Limitation
TheoGlobal Journal , 2024
This paper seeks to explore the paradox of God's suffering in the Person of Jesus Christ and God's essential nature of not being subjected to change by exploring the concept of divine impassibility as articulated by select theologians in the history of the Church. This study will argue that a re-examination of divine impassibility in light of the doctrine of divine self-limitation does provide a better framework to comprehend the paradox of God’s suffering, albeit certain cautions are warranted in this process.