The Suffering God

[PairTheBoard]

The symbol of Christ on the Cross is unique among the major religions. To some it has been seen as a ludicrous symbol for god. "How is this a god worth having? How can this weakling god do me any good?" Yet to many others it stikes deep chords. "The world does the same thing to me" and "I regret being the cause of that kind of thing for others".

It seems to me that Chistianity's strength lies in this symbol. It shows a suffering god. One who knows us because he is one of us. This is why - debates about a magical virgin birth aside - a belief in Christ's Oneness with God, or his divinity, is vital to the religion.

I had thought that the realization of a suffering god was so obvious in the symbol of the crucifiction that it was a standard part of Christianity. I was suprised to learn this is not the case, and a suffering god has long been held to be heresy. Yet in the 20th century it has made a big comeback among many theologians. Here is a good link I think for its theological implications.

A Suffering God

The discussion in the link makes it clear that The Suffering God does not solve the theological problem of evil in the world. But suprisingly, according to the author's opinion, it does imply a need to rethink other Christian dogma such as the Atonement for Sins. The author presents a radically new theological idea that God's Suffering on the cross was not an atonement for human evil but more of an atonement for God's allowing evil in the world. He leaves with the thought that the immense and diverse develpments in theological thought in the 20th century have left the plate full for 21st century theologians. I think the link is confirming evidence of the view I've presented in this Forum that there is a much bigger picture of Christianity than what many are aware of.

I also liked these quotes I garnered from another source.

Matthew 25:34-40 The King will say to those at his right hand, "Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.' Then the righteous will answer him, "Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?' And the King will answer them, "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.'

=============


Elie Wiesel - A Jewish writer - In Context of the Holocaust

"The SS seemed more preoccupied, more disturbed than usual. To hang a young boy in front of thousands of spectators was no light matter...'Where is God? Where is He?' someone from behind me asked...For more than half an hour [the boy] stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face. He was still alive when I passed in front of him. His tongue was still red, his eyes were not yet glazed.
"Behind me, I heard the same man asking:
'Where is God now?'
"And I heard a voice within me answer him:
'Where is He? Here He is - He is hanging here on this gallows...'"

Elie Wiesel, Night. Trans. Stella Rodway, in "Night; Dawn; The Accident" London:Robson Books Ltd, 1987. pp71-2.

=======================

Son, I beseech you, don't sleep any more - Michel Quoist

"I shall be in agony till the end of time," God says.
I shall be crucified till the end of time.
My sons the Christians don't seem to realise it.
I am scourged, buffeted, stretched out, crucified. I die in front of them and they don't know it, they see nothing, they are blind.
They are not true Christians, or they would not go on living while I am dying.

Lord, I don't understand; it is not possible; you exaggerate.
I would defend you if you were attacked.
I would be at your side if you were dying.
Lord, I love you!

That is not true, God says. Men are deluding themselves.
They say they love me, they believe they love me, and, as I am willing to admit, they are often sincere, but they are terribly mistaken. They do not understand, they do not see.
Slowly everything has been distorted, dried up, emptied.
They think they love me because once a month they honour my Sacred Heart.
As if I loved them only twelve times a year!
They think they love me because they keep to their devotions regularly, attend a benediction, eat fish on Fridays, burn a candle or say a prayer before a picture of my Sacred Heart.

But I am not made of plaster, God says, nor of stone nor of bronze.
I am living flesh, throbbing, suffering.
I am among men, and they have not recognised me.
I am poorly paid, I am unemployed, I live in a slum, I have tuberculosis, I sleep under bridges, I am in prison, I am oppressed, I am patronised.
And yet I said to them: "Whatever you do to my brothers, however humble, you do to me"...Thats clear.
The worst is that they know it, but that they don't take it seriously.
They have broken my heart, God says, and I have waited for someone to have pity on me, but no one has.

I am cold, God says, I am hungry, I am naked.
I am imprisoned, laughed at, humiliated.
But this is a minor passion, for men have invented more terrible ordeals.
Armed with their liberty, formidably armed with their liberty,
They have invented...
"Father, forgive them; they do not know what they are doing."
They have invented war, true war.
And they have invented the Passion.

For I am everywhere that men are, God says,
Since the day when I slipped among them, on a mission, to save them all.
Since the day when I definitely committed myself to trying to gather them together.

Now I am rich and I am poor, a workman and a boss.
I am a Union member and a non-Union member, a striker and a strike-breaker, for men, alas! make me do all kinds of things.
I am on the side of the demonstrators and on the side of the police, for men, alas! transform me into a policeman.
I am a leftist, a rightist and even in the centre.
I am this side of the Iron Curtain and beyond.
I am a German and a Frenchman, a Russian and an American,
A Chinese from Nationalist China and one from Communist China,
I am from Vietnam and from Vietminh.
I am everywhere men are, God says.

They have accepted me, they possess me, the traitors!
Hail, Master!
And now I am with them, one of them, their very selves.
Now, see what they have done to me...
They are scourging me, crucifying me,
They tear me apart when they kill one another.
Men have invented war...
I jump on mines, I gasp my last breath in foxholes,
I moan, riddled with shrapnel; I collapse under the volley of machine-gun fire,
I sweat men's blood on all battlefields,
I cry out in the night and die in the solitude of battle.
O world of strife, immense cross on which, every day, men stretch me.
Wasn't the wood of Golgotha enough?
Was this immense altar necessary for my sacrifice of love?
While around me, men keep on shouting, singing, dancing, and, as if insane, crucify me in an enormous burst of laughter.
Lord, enough! Have pity on me!
Not that! it isn't I!

Yes, son, it is you.
You, and your brothers, for
several blows are needed to drive in a nail,
several lashes are needed to furrow a shoulder,
several thorns are needed to make a crown,
and you belong to the humanity that all together condemns me.
It matters not whether you are among those who hit or among those who watch,
among those who perform or among those who let it happen.
You are all guilty, actors and spectators.
But above all, son, don't be one of those who are asleep, one of those who can still fall asleep...in peace. Sleep!
Sleep is terrible!
"Can you not watch one hour with me?"

On your knees, son! Do you not hear the roar of battle?
The bell is ringing,
Mass is starting,
God is dying for you, crucified by men."

Michel Quoist, Prayers of Life, (Logos Books 1954, 1963) translated by Anne Marie de Commaile & Agnes Mitchell Forsyth.
===================

I realize this theology can be attacked from both sides. My view is that when we talk about "god" we are talking about that which we don't know how to talk about. If you're going to believe in god it seems to me that despite all the ways this one may not make sense it makes more sense than a lot of others.

PairTheBoard

[ QUOTE ]


I realize this theology can be attacked from both sides. My view is that when we talk about "god" we are talking about that which we don't know how to talk about. If you're going to believe in god it seems to me that despite all the ways this one may not make sense it makes more sense than a lot of others.

PairTheBoard

[/ QUOTE ]

I can see why you believe in Santa Claus and why Sklansky thinks yur trying to have it both ways. yeah that stuff is pretty crazy although certainly not as crazy as some other stuff.

You say if yur gonna believe in something crazy why not this. fair enough, but how about not believing in something crazy? why not just take the powerful symbolic and other messages of Christs life and the bible and view them the same way you would any other story?

[David Sklansky]

"You say if yur gonna believe in something crazy why not this. fair enough, but how about not believing in something crazy? why not just take the powerful symbolic and other messages of Christs life and the bible and view them the same way you would any other story?"

It would be much better if it was Andy Fox arguing your points. I'm about to ask him to do it.

[m1illion]

The symbol is of self sacrifice. So everytime you are asked/told to sacrifice and you do something as wicked as "think for yourself", the cross is there to show you the error of your way.

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
The symbol of the moon crescent and the star is unique among the major religions. To some it has been seen as a ludicrous symbol for a religion. "How is this a god worth having? How can this hopelessly romantic symbol do me any good?" Yet to many others it stikes deep chords. "The world gives everyone the same view of the moon and the stars as me" and "I regret being the cause of that beauty kept hidden for others".
<font color="white"> . </font>
It seems to me that Islam's strength lies in this symbol. It shows ...
etc etc

[/ QUOTE ]

"FYP". I trust you realize we can find uniqueness in every religion under the sun.

[ QUOTE ]
I had thought that the realization of a suffering god was so obvious in the symbol of the crucifiction that it was a standard part of Christianity.

[/ QUOTE ]

There is a basic, defining contradiction in the tenets of Christianity, one that my primary school teachers were getting upset over whenever I raised it at them time, and one that no Christian friend of mine (I am one too, formally) has been able to address in any satisfactory way. As expected.

This is the (very simple, really) contradiction:

God is all-knowing and all-powerful. Nothing can be outside God, whether it be in time or space (i.e. God knows what's going on in every nook and cranny of the cosmos; and God knows what has happened, what is happening and what will happen.)

How and why can such a God create Man?

Christianity does not answer that satisfactorily. Why would God need lowly mortal subjects to "worship" Him and "celebrate His glory" ? This is becoming of an Latin American tinpot dictators, not God.

If indeed God created Man, He was essentially creating something that, as He would have ascertained, would fullfill its mission whatever it was (eg glorify God, etc). We cannot assume the opposite, because that would mean that God would create something outside His powers! In other words, God cannot be a gambler, and, even worse, a wagering fool.

So, either God has constructed something, us, Man, which has a CHOICE (that decides Man's AFTERLIFE) and then God helped Man towards the path of the Good Choice by sending down His Son (which is Him again really, only as a manifestation of a man born in Bethlehem) to teach Man and try and set him on the Righteous Path -- in which case, God has created a Man-who-can-fail when He could have created instead Man-who-succeeds. Since we assume that God is capable of both creations, He is only proving (to Himself) that he can create something imperfect!

God as supremely bored.

Or,

God has created Man in order for Man to carry out a MISSION that has already been pre-ordered and pre-determined, i.e. to glorify God, etc, and Man is kept in the dark about his fate, and left to suffer pointlessly. This is a course of events which conforms with the Christian Church's definition of God's attributes --- but leaves Man at a most perilous position, like a disposable and much abused appliance in God's kitchen!

God as supreme sadist.

--Cyrus

[PairTheBoard]

Cyrus --
"Or,

God has created Man in order for Man to carry out a MISSION that has already been pre-ordered and pre-determined, i.e. to glorify God, etc, and Man is kept in the dark about his fate, and left to suffer pointlessly. This is a course of events which conforms with the Christian Church's definition of God's attributes --- but leaves Man at a most perilous position, like a disposable and much abused appliance in God's kitchen!

God as supreme sadist."

I think this is exactly the point which Goetz tries to address in the link,
"The Suffering God: The Rise of a New Orthodoxy by Ronald Goetz."

When he says,
"The death of God’s Christ is in part God’s atonement to his creatures for evil."

Cyrus --
"There is a basic, defining contradiction in the tenets of Christianity, one that my primary school teachers were getting upset over whenever I raised it at them time, and one that no Christian friend of mine (I am one too, formally) has been able to address in any satisfactory way. As expected."

What do you mean when you say, "I am one too, formally"?

PairTheBoard

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
The death of God’s Christ is in part God’s atonement to his creatures for evil.

[/ QUOTE ]
Only a supreme sadist would allow, while being all-powerful, for evil to exist. (Else, He is NOT all poweful but impotent before evil.)

Notice also that the notion of God dying introduces yet another in the series of paradoxa, in Christianity.

[ QUOTE ]
What do you mean when you say, "I am one too, formally"?

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm formally a Christian, although not exactly a practicing one. (But let me emphatically add, in case you wana invite me to your daughter's wedding, that I fully respect the ceremonial!)

[PairTheBoard]

Goetz --
"The death of God’s Christ is in part God’s atonement to his creatures for evil."

Cyrus --
"Only a supreme sadist would allow, while being all-powerful, for evil to exist. (Else, He is NOT all poweful but impotent before evil.)"

Did you read the whole discussion by Goetz on the link? I think his argument is that God allows evil for the sake of some ultimate good and that this is the best of possible worlds in the grand long term view. Given that, god suffers along with humans so that he's not asking anything of us he's not willing to go through himself. Thus the cross as symbol of his atonement to us for the evil he allows. Goetz admits this is a radical theology. I'm not sure what to make of it myself.


You might notice that I mentioned in my OP that Goetz does not suggest that a Suffering God solves the problems of good and evil that you describe in your post. In fact, Goetz says that The Suffering God excacerbates those problems. You might argue now that not only is God a Sadist to allow Evil but a Masochist to suffer with it.


I do find the idea of a god who suffers with us one that a lot of people intuit as part of their personal relationship with god. As Goetz points out in his discussion, most theologians he talks to agree with the idea of god suffering with us although they may not embed it in their theology. It seems to me a healthy thing for Christians to believe that god is involved and participates when they mistreat another or when they suffer from mistreatment themselves.

Cyrus --
"I'm formally a Christian, although not exactly a practicing one. "

How then do you reconcile your Christian beliefs with the paradoxes you raise above?

PairTheBoard

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
[Goetz's] argument is that God allows evil for the sake of some ultimate good and that this is the best of possible worlds in the grand long term view.

[/ QUOTE ]
Notions such as "possible worlds" and "long term view" have meaning only in human terms. As far as God is concerned (according, at least, to what He told us), He can choose anything He wants. Which means, that "experimenting" with humans ( to see if they will go this or that route) is meaningless: He knows either way!

We can speculate on His reasons with Goetz for weeks but it all comes down to the same dilemma: Bored or sadist?

[ QUOTE ]
You might argue now that not only is God a Sadist to allow Evil but a Masochist to suffer with it.

[/ QUOTE ]
Only to the extent that, for some Godforsaken reason, God chooses to limit his powers! And allow Evil elbow room.

...You realize what a can of new worms such an interpretation opens.

[ QUOTE ]
Given that, god suffers along with humans so that he's not asking anything of us he's not willing to go through himself.

[/ QUOTE ]

I note, with horror, the absence of respectful caps in the words referring to our Lord. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img] Remember, He reads everything!

[ QUOTE ]
How do you reconcile your Christian beliefs with the paradoxes you raise above?

[/ QUOTE ]
I did not say I hold Christian beliefs. I said I'm formally a Christian. I was baptized a Christian and have not formally denounced Christianity. (8I wouldn't even know how to do that.)

[David Sklansky]

When I write more about Sklanskyanity, you will see that I postulate that God is not, or chooses to become not, all powerful. That gets out of the paradox.