tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-558461285642691762.post1333238988898978093..comments2023-10-02T03:39:59.884-05:00Comments on Jeff Meyers: God Suffers For UsJeff Meyershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16934932107746619375noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-558461285642691762.post-56091001671323094582007-08-09T10:58:00.000-05:002007-08-09T10:58:00.000-05:00Great question, Jim. Muse away. I'm close to mak...Great question, Jim. Muse away. I'm close to making it an affirmation, myself. If we understand "death" in a fuller, richer way as not simply that which was judicially laid on humanity as a curse after the fall, but as the original pedagogy for maturity for Adam and his posterity, then I believe we can affirm the Father's personal suffering and "death" in the Son.<BR/><BR/>It think this starts with the fact that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit relate to one another in self-effacting, "death-to-self" ways. This was God's intention for humanity. Adam was to learn to live as God lives. Imaging God means living lives of self-denial and love toward others. This is a kind of good death to self. Adam failed in the Garden. And now the training process is more painful.<BR/><BR/>Okay, I can see this discussion will be better on separate post. I'll write something up in a day or so.Jeff Meyershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16934932107746619375noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-558461285642691762.post-43954655604295275142007-08-09T10:47:00.000-05:002007-08-09T10:47:00.000-05:00This is related to the question I've been pursuing...This is related to the question I've been pursuing, which is whether there is any orthodox fashion in which we can say that the Father suffered in the death of Christ as well.<BR/><BR/>Orthodox confessions seem, appropriately to me, to affirm that only God the Son died on the cross.<BR/><BR/>Like I said, that's fine. But death is not extinction, it's separation.<BR/><BR/>So if the Son died on the Cross, i.e., was in some way cursed or separated frosm the Father, then it seems to me that the Father also suffers by being separated from the Son, albeit, the Father does not suffer "on" the cross.<BR/><BR/>What led me to ask the question is the well-known rite in Gn 15. We can't say that the left side of the lamb suffers by being separated from the right side of the lamb, but not vice versa, do we?<BR/><BR/>So how can we say that Jesus suffers from being separated from the Father, but that the Father does not also suffer in the separation?<BR/><BR/>Let me stress that that's a musing, not an affirmation.Jimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06484863804749639654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-558461285642691762.post-6901977793305390832007-08-08T15:18:00.000-05:002007-08-08T15:18:00.000-05:00Yeah, even the language of "nature" is problematic...Yeah, even the language of "nature" is problematic. The divine nature didn't die? Well, okay, I understand what this means. But death is not cessation of existence. Never was. When people say God can't die, they are almost always concerned to deny that he can't and didn't cease to exist. Sure. But that's not what death is. <BR/><BR/>Yes, the theopaschite formula is that the divine Person of the Son experienced death as a man on the cross. But I'm not sure I want to say that the divine nature remained unmoved and unaffected, as if we can separate nature and person(s) in the divine being. <BR/><BR/>But as you say, these are linguistic tightropes and it's easy to teeter and fall one way or the other.Jeff Meyershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16934932107746619375noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-558461285642691762.post-55780945438587895882007-08-08T12:51:00.000-05:002007-08-08T12:51:00.000-05:00Jim: I agree. The fathers were not under the spel...Jim: I agree. The fathers were not under the spell of Hellenistic philosophical impassibility notions. If they were, as Rowan notes, they would never have confessed what they did about the incarnation. Nicene theology, being anti-Arian, is decidedly opposed to Greek notions of impassibility. <BR/><BR/>Now, of course, that does not answer the question of whether there is a distinctively Christian way of confessing impassibility. I think there is, but it's not much like the Greek notion.Jeff Meyershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16934932107746619375noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-558461285642691762.post-30134147992858459982007-08-08T12:46:00.000-05:002007-08-08T12:46:00.000-05:00FWIW, you might want to take a look at Paul Gavril...FWIW, you might want to take a look at Paul Gavrilyuk "The Suffering of the Impassible God: The Dialectics of Patristic Thought" (Oxford, 2004). While entirely orthodox (as best as I can discern), Gavrilyuk wants to defend the idea of impassability in (early) Christian theology from the criticism that the fathers were, as it were, "under the control of the Greek philosophical impassability doctrine."<BR/><BR/>Given that impassability has been knocked about (at least by professional theologians, if not by the folks in the pew), the book is a spirited defense for "a" proper theological role for impassability.Jimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06484863804749639654noreply@blogger.com