Hey All,

So, as I read more and more theology, I find more and more subjects to whet my intellectual appetite as well as confound my thinking. Here today, I present you with one such subject:

Divine Suffering. Did God suffer? Can God suffer? Now, the obvious remark is, of course God suffered on the cross. If we want to avoid all kinds of bad theology, in particular, theology that denigrates or completely undermines the truly radical notion of incarnation as God becoming flesh (!) then we must not say that Jesus just “pretended” or “appeared” to suffer. However, the traditional doctrine about Jesus is that he had two natures in himself in perfect unity, the divine nature, and the human nature. This is what theology calls the hypostatic union. So, the question is, was it only Jesus’ human nature that suffered, or can/did the divine nature suffer and if so, what does this tells us about God? Implications might include:

Is God unchanging? If so, how can he suffer?

Does God contain in herself the fulness of everything? If so, how could God experience a lack?

Discuss please.

Z

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