Is the Bible a History Book? Interpreting Scripture with the Early Church

Why do we read the Bible? I wonder if this is a question which many Christians have asked themselves recently.

Ever since its canonization, Christians have stressed the importance of reading, studying, and understanding the Bible for the maintenance, growth and strength of the Christian tradition. The earliest dogmas of the church, theological truths which we still hold to today, relied on a proper interpretation of scripture as they came into being.

For many who do not find themselves in the Christian tradition, scripture will be at best a good moral document, and at worst a fairy tale. However, what remains is that the Bible is a book of (usually) black words on white pages. What makes these words any more important to us than other ancient classics such as Homer's Iliad or Plato's Republic.

Christian's have always asserted that there is something more to the Bible than the words on the page, that there is something behind the text that is significant for the life of the Christian. But what is it that we find to be behind the text of the Bible?

Whether we realize it or not (and many do not), Evangelical interpretation has been greatly influenced by the historical-critical scholarship of the modern era. Historical-critical scholarship has primarily focused itself on the historical events behind the text, debating whether they happened and how the text of the Bible both coincides and differentiates from said events. 

From this method of scripture interpretation arose the discipline of biblical archaeology. While this no longer is the case, biblical archaeology began primarily as a method of proving the events, places, and people of the Bible, primarily concerning itself with the Old Testament narratives. Consequentially, Evangelical interpretation began to concern itself primarily with a historical reading of the text, with any alternative interpretations being labelled as heterodox. 

While there certainly is value in understanding that God has acted in the course of human history, must our primary concern be whether the events to which scripture attests happened exactly as penned?

My argument, informed by the Fathers of the early church, is no.

Consider this: for the Patristics, "the Bible was not a perfect historical record. Scripture was, for them the orienting, luminous center of a highly varied and complex reality, shaped by divine providence. It was true not by virtue of successfully or accurately representing any one event or part of this divinely ordained reality. Rather, the truth rested in the scripture's power to illuminate and disclose the order and pattern of all things" (John J. O'Keefe and R.R. Reno, Sanctified Vision, 11). 

For the earliest interpreters of scripture, what was important was not how things happened, but rather how the events of scripture pointed to something greater, the person of Jesus Christ. Scripture was, to the Patristics, not a history book, but rather an active and living document that revealed the saving work of Jesus Christ to his bride, the church. 

While the Patristics did not go as far as to say that the events to which scripture attests did not happen, they show no remorse for not having a historical interpretation as their primary hermeneutic. Rather, it was understood that through the documenting of these events, scripture pointed to the One behind these events. 

What is our lens in interpreting scripture? Do we read in order to prove the events, hoping that this will aid our apologetic in proving God's existence to the unbeliever? Or, rather, do we take a step of faith and allow the text to speak of something greater, to speak of our saviour, Jesus Christ? 

The Land of the Free? Living as Faithful Member's of the Kingdom

In our culture today, you don't have to look far to see despair. For some of us, a quick peek down the street and we see people without food and homes, begging for money. For others, our friends and family have been displaced by the wildfires rampaging in Fort McMurray and as a result have lost everything. For even more, a constant warring presence threatens livelihood in the countries of Syria, Israel, Palestine, etc. Despair is a global phenomenon. How, as Christians, are we to respond?

For far too many of us (myself included), we find ourselves playing the role of the priest and the Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan, turning a blind eye to the injustices of the world, for it is far easier, safer, and altogether more convenient to pretend we live in a world that is peaceful and self-sustaining. Why would I engage in the suffering of those around me when it is far easier to focus on myself?

Recently I had the opportunity to read Gustavo Gutierrez's seminal work A Theology of Liberation. Gutierrez, a Catholic scholar from Peru, writes about the oppressive situation of the Latin American, where many find themselves continuously oppressed by systemic regimes that result in the flourishing of developed nations while leaving underdeveloped nations behind. 

It is Gutierrez's understanding that a major task of theology is the critical reflection of "Christian praxis in the light of the Word" (11). In other words, the main point of consideration of Gutierrez's book is how can Christianity work to bring the people of Latin America out of the systems of oppression they live under and into a life that is flourishing.

For Gutierrez, individuals "cannot claim to be Christians without a commitment to liberation" (81). For some, this claim may be second nature while for others who grew up in situations such as my own, this may seem as a totally radical claim. Traditionally, it has been my experience that Evangelical churches have emphasized the personal relationship between the human person and God, to the point where one's physical actions are not as important as one's spiritual actions. Therefore, the task of the Christian is to remain free from spiritual sin in order to not wrong the relationship between one's self and God. 

The unfortunate reality of this appeal is that it creates a false Neoplatonic dichotomy as if one could separate physical actions from spiritual consequences. Indeed, a faithful reading of the Bible, especially the prophets, would suggest that one's physical actions are indeed of utmost importance to God, leading one to the conclusion that right living is more than what goes on in the spiritual realm.

To simplify this idea: our actions matter. Our lifestyle matters. How we treat our neighbour matters. The coffee we buy matters. Our hospitality matters.

To summarize Gutierrez's book, one could say that the Gospel is not the Gospel if it does not take seriously the universal livelihood of all peoples. If there are injustices that remain, there is still work for the Gospel. 

One of the main themes of the Old Testament is the idea of shalom. Traditionally translated as peace, shalom encompasses the entirety of one's wellbeing. It is a place of peace, but it is more than that. In shalom all things are well. 

Eden was shalom, but Eden is in the past. We cannot go back to the Garden. However, we can move forward. The task of the Christian is to bring shalom to all people, those who are homeless on the street, those displaced by wildfires, and those living under the threat of war. And this task begins with each and every one of us. It begins with how we interact with those around us, whether we like them or not. It begins with how we handle our finances. It begins with how we speak about God. 

If Gutierrez is right, and one cannot be a Christian without working towards shalom for all people, this must be the most pressing action of our churches today. We must not stop bringing the Gospel to all situations. And no, I am not talking about tracts, but rather the embodied Gospel, Jesus Christ, and his love and freedom. For, as the Apostle Paul states so clearly and beautifully, "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" (2 Cor 3:17). 

This challenge is not an easy one, and I do not say this in a tone of condemnation or judgment, but rather as a call for us all to return to the prophetic call and bring shalom to our neighbours. 

The Trinity and the Suffering God

           While in prison, German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously penned the words "only the suffering God can help."[1] While he was not the first to suggest that God is capable of suffering, Bonhoeffer's words are possibly the most succinct statement that has been penned arguing against the doctrine of impassibility. The idea of a suffering God has only recently been extrapolated by various theologians. Jewish scholar Abraham Heschel was one of the first to argue against a God who could not suffer, contesting that God's pathos (or passibility) is evident already in the covenantal act of calling Israel to be his children.[2] English theologian J.K. Mozley penned The Impassibility of God: A Survey of Christian Thought, a study of Anglican theologians who had made God's passibility the starting point of their work.[3] Spanish theologian Miguel de Unamuno has argued that the quintessential picture of how one is to see Christ is through what he terms Christ's conjuga--his pain, sorrow, anguish, oppression.[4] However, arguably the most influential theologian--at least of the late twentieth century--to argue against the doctrine of impassibility in favour of a God who suffers is German theologian Jürgen Moltmann.

            In his work, The Trinity and the Kingdom, Moltmann presents what he calls a "theopathy", a theology which begins from God's passion rather than his apatheia--the common starting point for supporters of the doctrine of impassibility.[5] His reason for doing this, he argues, is that theology must always begin with the pathos of God, something, he argues, is not possible when one begins with the doctrine of impassibility.[6] For Moltmann, God's pathos is best understood in the event of the passion and the love shown between the Son and the Father. Thus it follows that this act of love functions as a window for the believer into the inner-workings of the Trinity.[7] While classical theism spoke of the crucifixion of the Son as "the suffering of the God who cannot suffer",  the reality of the love present in the passion opens not only the human person of Christ to the possibility of active suffering but rather the entirety of the Trinity must have the capacity of active suffering, which Moltmann argues is "the voluntary laying oneself open to another and allowing oneself to be intimately affected by him."[8] Therefore, to summarize Moltmann's argument, it can be said that beginning one's theology with the pathos of God consequently leads one to an understanding that the God capable of love must be the God capable of being intimately affected by the one whom he loves, which consequently brings one to an understanding that this God must be a God capable of experiencing suffering as a result of said love.

            In adhering with the argument of Moltmann, it is the contention of this paper that the inherent relationality of the Trinity provides an understanding of God beginning with his three hypostases, an understanding which God viewed foremost as a monolithic entity fails to capture.[9] Part of God's inherent Trinitarian relationality, as Moltmann understands, is the capacity of suffering of all three Trinitarian persons, not simply the human person of Christ, which contenders of the doctrine of impassibility have long argued for. Furthermore, Paul F. Fiddes argues that  "within the divine perichoresis, all three persons suffer, but in different ways according to the distinction of relations."[10] Therefore, one is led to the conclusion that by speaking about the suffering of the entirety of the Trinity, indeed each member of the divine perichoresis--the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--that one is able to discern the inner-workings of the Trinity, thus giving a greater picture of who the Trinitarian God is.

The Apatheia of God and the Doctrine of Impassibility

            Before one begins a study of the suffering of God, one must first comprehend the understanding of God's impassible nature that has permeated Christianity ever since the religion's early beginnings. To begin, Moltmann claims that Christian theology was not merely affected by Greek philosophy, but it acquired Greek philosophy's entire method of thought.[11] Included in this Greek methodology adopted by early Christian theologians was the Hellenistic understanding of divine beings. For Greeks, deities were spoken of to "exclude difference, diversity, movement and suffering."[12] Therefore, it was assumed that "the divine substance is incapable of suffering; otherwise it would not be divine."[13] Thus, classical theism, having found its roots in Hellenistic philosophy tended to speak freely and confidently of what the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria describes as the "apatheia of God".[14]

             Apatheia, suggests Richard Bauckham, may not be best understood vis-à-vis the English supplement "apathy", which denotes a lack of interest or concern, but rather should be understood by what is commonly referred to as "impassibility".[15] Thus, further understanding of this terminology suggests that the one possessing the characteristic of apatheia would be unaffected by the surrounding world because they had moved beyond the world into a more divine state. To be "impassible" would signify that one was self-sufficient, omnipotent, free from gaining or losing states of being. The belief of classical theism is that the "impassible" one is the ultimate being; there is none greater.[16]

            Perhaps the best way for one to understand apatheia, suggests Bauckham, is that it is the opposite of pathos.[17] Pathos, Bauckham argues, encompasses two emotive states: suffering and passion. Suffering is the state one exhibits when they are confronted with pain and calamity--either of their own or others--while passion is the descriptor of that which moves a person to act. Thus, a "pathetic" individual is one who is emotionally moved by the actions or circumstance of another. Jewish scholar Abraham Heschel describes pathos as follows: "Pathos denotes, not an idea of goodness, but a living care; not an immutable example, but an outgoing challenge, a dynamic relation between God and man; not mere feeling or passive affection, but an act or attitude composed of various spiritual elements; no mere contemplative survey of the world, but a passionate summons."[18] For Heschel, to exhibit pathos is the ultimate sense of being situated with another, wholly immersed in their life and being.

            For classical theists, a God who was both perfect and self-sufficient, a God exhibiting apatheia, was therefore to be understood as a God who could not be affected by the actions of humanity. God was transcendent, and in order to respect and pay homage to God's transcendent otherness, he was unable to experience the same kind of suffering which plagued humanity. Thus, the saving power of God was that those saved may share in God's eternal life, a life which is an escape from the sufferings of humanity into the shalom of God. A God who can save one from the life of suffering must be a God who transcends suffering, thus necessitating this God to be a God who also is incapable of suffering.[19] To be divine, God must be free from the experience of pain and calamity, even if that is the state of those whom he pours his love out to.

            Aquinas has asserted the proposition that the most appropriate name for God is  "He who Is".[20] "He who Is" is one who does not change and thus must remain unaffected by the actions and experiences of humanity. In Aquinas' view, nothing humanity is capable of achieving will ever cause God to change, for such an act would result in God to cease from being who he is. Aquinas, providing reasoning for his theological assertion, cites the work of Augustine's On the Trinity. For Augustine, God, the supreme being, is one who is without lack. Because of this, God rules "but from no position, sustaining all things without "having" them, in His wholeness everywhere, yet without place, eternal without time, making things that are changeable, without change of Himself, and without passion."[21]

            It is clear that many classical theists did not hold an understanding of God as one exhibiting pathos. However, one must not consequently make the error of assuming that classical theists believed that God was not a God of love. Augustine maintains that God has loved since before the beginning of time.[22] Aquinas describes God's love as his "first act" of the will of God.[23] However, is it possible to come to an understanding of a loving God who is not also a "pathetic" God? How can one account for the godforsakenness of Christ on the cross--the supreme act of  love--if God is not one who exhibits pathos?

            Bauckham argues that proprietors of classical theism viewed God's love as "his benevolent attitude and activity, not a feeling, and not a relationship in which he can be affected by what he loves."[24] One can see this to be especially true in Aquinas, who goes to great lengths to separate the "first act" of God from the passion of humanity in order to maintain the impassibility of God, arguing that in God love is not an act of the "sensitive appetite" but rather the "intellectual appetite." [25] Aquinas understood that in order for anything to happen, there must be a first mover, thus denoting a "first act" by this first mover. For Aquinas, God was understood to be the first mover in creation, by which all other things came to be. The "first act" of the first mover was God's love. However, he insisted that God's love is not a passionate love by creating the categories of "sensitive appetite" and "intellectual appetite". "Sensitive appetite" consisted of those desires brought forth by passion or desires of the flesh. Conversely, "intellectual appetite" is the rationality of the subject. To say that God's "first act" is an act of the "intellectual appetite" rather than the "sensitive appetite" is to say that God's love is a rational act rather than an emotional feeling. Reasoning such as Aquinas' allowed classical theists to speak of "the sufferings of a God who cannot suffer."[26] It is this paradox that Moltmann terms "the apathetic axiom".[27] However, despite this apparent paradox, the classical theists believed that the only one appropriate to conquer human suffering was the one who transcended suffering, the one capable of bringing the sufferers into a state of shalom.

Moving Away from an "Apathetic" God

            Contra classical theism, Moltmann argues that theology must not begin with an "apathetic" God, but rather with a God who exhibits the characteristic of pathos.[28] He argues that God's love is not merely an intellectual act, as Aquinas has suggested, but rather God's love is a passionate act which is central to his being.       

            Must this be so for the modern Christian? Why must one move away from the doctrine of impassibility, a staple of classical theism, in order to embrace such a vulnerable God? For Moltmann, as he explains in The Crucified God, "the Christian church and Christian theology become relevant to the problems of the modern world only when they reveal the 'hard core' of their identity in the crucified Christ and through it are called into question, together with the society in which they live."[29] Therefore, Moltmann would argue that Christian theology is only relevant when identified with the suffering of the passion through the crucified Christ.

            Moltmann urges his reader to take upon themselves a cross-centric theology which takes very seriously the suffering of the Son. He argues, "in Christianity the cross is the test of everything which deserves to be called Christian."[30] For Moltmann, the cross is the ultimate source of hope for the Christian, for in dying such a death Christ has become the brother of the "despised, abandoned, and oppressed."[31] Therefore, "Christian identification with the crucified Christ means solidarity with the sufferings of the poor and the misery both of the oppressed and the oppressor."[32]

            For Moltmann, an "apathetic" God is one who is incapable of identifying with the poor, needy, and oppressed. It is only by suffering alongside those who suffer--by becoming fully immersed in their pain and calamity--that the Trinitarian God is moved to act, both perichoretically and towards its creation. If God is not capable of being passionately moved by the suffering of creation, then he has no reason to bring said creation out of suffering and into the divine life. Rather, it is because the Trinitarian God is love that he is moved to act, an understanding which additionally necessitates the ability to experience suffering.

The Relationality of the Trinity

            Traditionally, theological speech regarding the doctrine of the Trinity has argued in favour of a distinction between what is known as the "immanent" and "economic" Trinity. While speaking on this subject, Moltmann defines the immanent Trinity "as the name given to the triune God as he is in himself" while the economic Trinity is "the triune God in his dispensation of salvation."[33] In other words, the immanent Trinity is one who inwardly relates within itself while the economic Trinity is the one who outwardly relates with creation.

The Immanent Trinity

            For Moltmann, imperative to an understanding of the immanent Trinity are two things: that all three Persons subsist in the common divine substance, as well as that they all exist essentially in their relations towards the other Persons.[34] While Moltmann understands each Person to have distinct, personal differences, essential to their differences is their commonality from the eternal perichoresis. In the perichoretic unity of the Trinity, "the three persons are equal; they live and are manifested in one another and through one another."[35] Furthermore, "they live in one another to such an extent, and dwell in one another to such an extent, that they are one."[36] It is in the eternal perichoresis of these beings that one is able to maintain appropriate understanding of both God's threeness and unity. Each member highlights the work of the others in a way that brings beauty and glory to the whole of the Trinity.

            While Moltmann recognizes the perichoretic unity of the three Persons, his understanding of the work of each member within the perichoresis varies quite vastly from a traditional Nicene understanding of the immanent Trinity. A Nicene understanding of the immanent Trinity suggests that the Father is the supreme-being, and that from him the Son, whom is of the same substance of the Father, is begotten, and finally that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father (and the Son). While this creed still leaves much to be understood about the inner-workings of the Trinity, at minimum it provides a structure for the divine relationship, a structure understood to be ordered as Father - Son - Spirit.

            For Moltmann, the Nicene creed functions only as a starting point. For him it is not enough to say that the Son and Holy Spirit proceed eternally from the Father but rather that this form is just one biblical understanding of the inner-relationship of the Trinity.[37] Insisting that his method is a biblical understanding of the Trinity, Moltmann argues that while the Nicene-Trinitarian order of Father - Son - Spirit is present in the biblical narrative (most notably during the lordship of Christ and the sending of the Spirit), in the delivering up and resurrection of Christ the sequence is altered and the functional form is Father - Spirit - Son, for the Father gave up the Son through the work of the Holy Spirit.[38] Further, in the age of the Spirit, during the eschatological consummation and glorification, the ordered sequence is Spirit - Son - Father, for it is the life-giving Spirit who is the primary actor, functioning as a witness to and revelation of the Son, who has done the work of the Father.[39] Therefore, for Moltmann, the inner-life of the Trinity is not a closed structure where the Father is the first member of the Trinity and the Son and Spirit follow. Rather, Moltmann insists on what he terms to be an "open unity" of the Trinity, where Father, Son, and Spirit are not structured hierarchically, conformed to a single pattern, but rather, coinciding with their loving nature, all members work together to accomplish God's rule.[40]

The Economic Trinity

            In Moltmann's opinion, the statement "God is love" can also be understood as "God is self-communication."[41] That God decides to communicate himself is a statement which is a disclosure of his own being. In communicating, God is revealing a part of his perichoretic substance to his creation as an act of intimacy with said creation. Therefore, "God communicates himself to other beings, not out of compulsion and not out of some arbitrary resolve, but out of the inner pleasure of his external love."[42] This act of God's love being poured out to a being other than God's self is the great outward act of the economic Trinity.

            Moltmann recognizes that it is because of the work of the economic Trinity that humanity is able to participate in the divine life, which comes about primarily through the death and resurrection of Christ. In his understanding, "there is no experience of salvation without the expression of that experience in thanks, praise and joy." [43] Therefore, for Moltmann, it is synonymous to refer to the economic Trinity as the doxological Trinity, for it is through the knowledge of the divine life offered to humanity through the economic Trinity that one is able to obtain knowledge of God, humanity's source of thanks, praise and adoration.

            It is important for one to understand, however, that Moltmann does not suggest one is to worship God solely because of the saving action of the Trinity. Rather, the act of salvation is necessitated by the being of the economic Trinity. Therefore, one's worship is not to be limited to the saving action of the Trinity. Rather, one's worship is to be extolled as a result of the character of the Trinity, the being who offers to humanity such a gracious, saving act. At the ground of the economic or doxological Trinity's being is not merely that he is the one who gives good gifts, but rather that he himself is good.[44] God is therefore not worshipped for what he does but for who he is. In the outward salvific work of the economic Trinity, humanity is drawn into the inner-life of God, finding unity with the one who is unity, given life by the life of the perichoresis.

The Unity of the Immanent and Economic Trinity

            On the subject of the Trinity, Karl Rahner has famously argued that "the "economic" Trinity is the "immanent" Trinity and the "immanent" Trinity is the "economic" Trinity."[45] While he was not the first to argue such an idea (Augustine has been interpreted as suggesting that these "Trinities" are the same),[46] it is Rahner who is credited by Moltmann et al as the originator of this thesis.[47] For Moltmann, not accepting Rahner's statement as true is to misunderstand the nature of the Trinity. To ignore this unity, for Moltmann, is to ignore the history of salvation regarding God and his creation.

            Moltmann argues that nothing within God can contradict the history of salvation, and conversely nothing within the history of salvation can be outside of God.[48] Therefore, a statement such as "God is love" must be understood primarily through the history of salvation. Thus, for Moltmann, the working out of the history of salvation leads one to say that the liberty of God "cannot consist of loving or of not loving . . . his love is his liberty and his liberty is his love."[49] The immanent Trinity can only be the immanent Trinity if it at the same time is the economic Trinity. God cannot be love if God has nothing to love, which Moltmann would argue comes to be as a result of the history of salvation. It is not that God cannot be God without the world, but God cannot reverse the history of salvation in order to bring about a world where he has not worked in the history of salvation. It is this that leads Moltmann to extrapolate on Rahner's statement and say "statements about the immanent Trinity must not contradict statements about the economic Trinity. Statements about the economic Trinity must correspond to doxological statements about the immanent Trinity."[50]

             The one who cannot separate the immanent Trinity and the economic Trinity, Moltmann argues, is the one who begins with the understanding of God's pathos. The separation of these two Trinitarian entities is only possible from a God who can separate himself from the world. However, a God who can separate himself from the world is a God who can separate himself from love, and that God would not be the Trinitarian God. Argues Moltmann:

People would like to distinguish God and the world from one another, so as to be able to say that the world is dependent on God, but that God is not dependent on the world. A distinction of this kind between God and the world is generally a metaphysical one: the world is evanescent, God is non-evanescent; the world is temporal; God is eternal; the world is passible, God is impassible; the world is dependent, God is independent. It is obvious that these distinctions in the metaphysical doctrine of the two natures are derived from experience of the world, not from experience of God.[51]

Moltmann understands God's pathos to be so essential to his nature that it is impossible to envision God without one to love, which therefore makes it impossible to distinguish between the immanent Trinity and the economic Trinity. These entities must be understood together.

            For Moltmann, there is no better place to understand the mutuality of the immanent Trinity and the economic Trinity than in the crucifixion. If the outer working of the economic Trinity is the act of salvation, which is the outer working of the perichoretic love of the immanent Trinity, and if, therefore, Christian salvation is found nowhere but in the crucified Christ, it must follow that the crucified Christ is the place where humanity encounters the economic Trinity and the immanent Trinity in all of their fullness, where they are able to see the "image of the invisible God".[52] Thus the crucifixion stands as the ultimate self-revelation of God.

            This act, argues Moltmann, is not a one-way revelatory act where God is revealed to humanity but not conversely affected by the response of humanity. Rather, in the economic, or doxological Trinity, humanity and God are given a mutual relationship. "On the cross God creates salvation outwardly for his whole creation and at the same time suffers this disaster of the whole world inwardly in himself."[53] God is affected by the response of humanity to his salvific act: in humanity's praise, God is glorified; in humanity's suffering, God suffers alongside. It is in the outer-working of the economic Trinity that humanity is drawn into the life-giving realm of the immanent Trinity.

The Vulnerability of God

            The "pathetic" God is the God who, in solidarity with the world, opens himself up to the suffering and pain of his creation, all in an act of vulnerability. But how exactly does God suffer? Moltmann maintains that although in his suffering God suffers alongside of humanity, God does not suffer in the same way that human beings suffer.[54] However, he does argue that God's "outward acts correspond to inward suffering, and outward suffering corresponds to inward acts."[55] In order to see how God as a Trinity suffers, it is beneficial to evaluate how each member of the Trinity suffers as individual hypostases.

The Passion and the Suffering of the Son

            It remains impossible to view the passion of the Son as an event free from suffering. For Moltmann, there are two aspects of the Son's paschal suffering: inward and outward suffering. The outward suffering is the most commonly referenced aspect of Jesus' suffering, for that encompasses his rejection at the hands of the Sanhedrin, his torturing and execution at the hands of the Romans.[56] However, consecutively the Son experienced an inward suffering, a suffering which is "forsakenness by the God whom he calls 'Abba, my Father'."[57] To be forsaken by his Father is an area of great concern for Jesus already in the Garden preceding his death. In the Son's final prayer, Moltmann argues that the cup of suffering the Son ask to be relieved of is not the outward suffering of physical death, but rather the inward suffering resulting from the Father's rejection.[58] The Son is left abandoned and alone, leaving him to face death on his own, without his family, without his disciples, and ultimately without the Father. To face such a separation, to be so far removed from the presence of the Father, argues Moltmann, "this is the experience of hell and judgment."[59]

            This cup of godforsakenness that the Son drinks is a death not only an outward physical death, but also an inward death. Just as the human person of the Son died, so too in the crucifixion was there an "'eternal death', 'the death of God'."[60] When the Son died in his godforsakenness, what followed is what Moltmann describes as "the breakdown of the relationship that constitutes the very life of the Trinity."[61] In his last words, the Son does not pray "my Father" but rather "my God."[62] Therefore, it is not only the Son who experiences death, but the entirety of the Trinity suffers in the death of the Son, for the most fundamental relationship of Father and Son has now been destroyed. The relationship is broken, "the Son is forsaken, rejected and cursed. And God is silent."[63]

            In Moltmann's explication of the suffering of the Son, it is imperative that one does not understand the suffering of the Son as some sort of "unwilling, fortuitous suffering." Rather, for Moltmann, the suffering of the Son is a passio activa, a suffering which the Son actively engaged in as the ultimate loving act.[64] It is in this passio activa that the Son experienced the rejection of the Father. However, the suffering of the Son is not an isolated incident, for, as Moltmann argues, "if the Father forsakes the Son, the Son does not merely lose his sonship. The Father loses his fatherhood as well."[65] As stated above, the suffering of the Son cannot and must not be contained to affect only one member of the Trinity, but rather is the focal point by which humanity has access to understanding all perichoretic suffering.

The Rejection of the Son and the Suffering of the Father

            It is understood by Christians that the suffering of the Son was embraced in order to fulfill the will of the Father (cf. Lk. 22:42). However, what classical theists have often missed in this paradigm is the action of the Father in his surrender of the Son. It is common to focus on Jesus willingly led like a lamb to the slaughter (cf. Isa. 53:7), yet often no concern is shown for the emotion of the Father in this act of surrendering. However, Moltmann argues that the surrendering of the Son is an act of suffering not only for the Son, but also for the Father who surrenders the Son.

            As Moltmann understands, "to say that Jesus was forsaken by the Father on the cross means that the Father cast him off and cursed him."[66] Before one can move to the eschatological hope of the Father who raised Jesus from the dead, one must first encounter the one who has cast off and cursed his own Son.[67] However, it is imperative that in this act of forsaking one does not view the Father as a capricious tyrant, longing for the pain and suffering of the forsaken one. Rather, in assuming Moltmann's understanding of a Father who suffers alongside the Son in the crucifixion, the Father becomes one who experiences the pain of the Son, thus experiencing the pain of the world.

            For Moltmann, one cannot underestimate the importance of the Father suffering alongside the Son:

The Father who sends his Son through all the abysses and hells of God-forsakenness, of the divine curse and final judgment is, in his Son, everywhere with those who are his own; he has become universally present. In giving up the Son [the Father] gives 'everything' and 'nothing' can separate us from him. This is the beginning of the language of the kingdom of God, in which 'God will be all in all'. Anyone who perceives God's presence and love in the God-forsakenness of the crucified Son, sees God in all things, just as, once having faced the experience of death, a person feels the living character of everything in a hitherto undreamed of way.[68]

For Moltmann, the Father who suffers alongside of the Son is the Father who will bring all people to himself. Nothing will stop the Father from doing this, because he has already overcome all things in suffering through the death of the Son. Therefore, the life brought from the entirety of the passion narrative is not solely from the suffering, death, and resurrection of the Father. Rather, it equally places the suffering of the Father as part of the life giving power accessible to Christians today through the work of the Spirit.

            As John 3:16 states, the giving of the Son by the Father was the way that he showed his love to the world.[69] This act was not solely an act of love by the Son, but rather, as this verse states, was the very act of the Trinitarian God. For Moltmann, the God who suffers alongside of the Son is a self-giving God, an attribute which leads the Father to give everything and suffer everything for "lost men and women."[70] For Moltmann, the cross is not an act solely of the Son, but rather is "the centre of the Trinity", where both the Father and Spirit engage in suffering alongside the Son.[71]

The Responsive Entity and the Suffering of the Holy Spirit

            It has now been put forth that Moltmann views both the Son and the Father as beings who suffer, most notably in the passion. However, in order to construct a truly Trinitarian doctrine of passibility, it must be put forth that the Holy Spirit is also capable of suffering alongside the Son and the Father. It is because of this that Moltmann asserts that "the surrender through the Father and the offering of the Son take place 'through the Spirit'."[72] However, even if this is true, why must the surrender through the Father and the offering of the Son take place 'through the Spirit' rather than merely as a direct working between the Father and the Son?

            Moltmann's The Crucified God once again functions as a valuable resource for interpreting his writing in The Trinity and the Kingdom. In The Crucified God, Moltmann argues that what proceeds from the surrender of the Father and the offering of the Son "is the Spirit which justifies the godless, fills the forsaken with love and even brings the dead alive."[73] Three attributes are attributed to the Spirit here: 1) justifier of the godless, 2) filler of the forsaken, and 3) bringer of life to those who are dead. One would do right to note that the negative characteristics the Spirit is attempting to counteract have previously been taken upon by both the Son and the Father though their suffering in the passion. The Son, being forsaken by the Father, found himself godless on the cross, yet the Father was the one who raised the Son from the dead. So, as the Father and the Son relate to each other in the passion, the Spirit relates to humanity and their suffering on behalf of the Father and the Son. "The Spirit is the divine power that gives life to the dead. He is the divine energy of the new creation."[74]

            In the suffering of the world today, it is the Spirit of God who comes to suffering alongside the sufferers. For Moltmann, the experience of the Spirit is the experience of the entirety of the Trinity, for in the indwelling of the Spirit one is transformed into the likeness of God by experiencing union with God.[75] Thus, the ultimate goal of God's future restoration for humanity is made possible through the work of the Spirit, for the Spirit is the one who draws humanity into the divine unity of the Trinity.

Conclusion

            For Moltmann, there seems to be no comprehensible way to speak about God without at the same time speaking of the pathos of God. Therefore, Moltmann insists that one must understand that a God who is capable of exhibiting pathos must also be one who is also vulnerable, capable of being exposed to suffering. Furthermore, this is act of pathos is not something limited to one member of the Trinity (namely, the Son), but rather is something that each member of the Trinity embodies and exhibits. This pathos is enacted in both the immanent Trinity and the economic Trinity, for at the same time that each member of the Trinity loves the other members, so too does that love extend outwards to humanity. Having experienced the pain and suffering of the passion in the history of salvation, God is eternally exposed to the pain and suffering of humanity, lovingly entering into the world alongside humanity in solidarity with them. The question of suffering is not one that can ever be fully resolved, and Moltmann would argue that humanity is forced to live in this tension. However, it is in this tension which the suffering God enters into the world of humanity, suffering alongside those who suffer in a relationship build upon God's pathos.

---

[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison (London: SCM Press, 1967), 361.

[2] Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 25. A discussion of the doctrine of impassibility and its opposition will be provided below.

[3] Ibid., 30-31.

[4] Ibid., 36-37.

[5] Ibid., 25. An understanding of apatheia will be provided below.

[6] Ibid., 26, 22.

[7] Ibid., 24.

[8] Ibid., 22, 23.

[9] Ibid., 16-20. Moltmann sets forth what he terms to be "a social doctrine of the Trinity" which begins with the evaluation of God as Trinity before the argumentation that God is "one". Moltmann argues that beginning with an understanding of God as "one" prior to understanding leads to monotheism, or, a complete lack of understanding and appreciation for God as Trinity. For Moltmann, beginning with the Trinity is the only appropriate way to approach the doctrine of God.

[10] Paul F. Fiddes, Participating in God: A Pastoral Doctrine of the Trinity (Atlanta: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000), 184.

[11] Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, 22.

[12] Ibid., 21.

[13] Ibid., 21.

[14] Richard Bauckham,  "'Only the suffering God can help': divine passibility in modern theology" (Themelios 9, no. 3 (April 1984): 6-12.ATLA Religion Database with    ATLASerials, EBSCOhost (accessed April 7, 2016)), 7.

[15] Ibid., 7.

[16] Elizabeth Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Co., 1992), 246-47.

[17] Bauckham, "Only the suffering God can help", 7.

[18] Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), 224.

[19] Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, 23.

[20] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, SUMMA THEOLOGICA: Home. 2008. Second and Revised Edition, 1920. Literally translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Online Edition Copyright © 2008 by Kevin Knight. Accessed April 6, 2016. http://www.newadvent.org/summa/index.html) Pt. 1, Q 13, Art. 11. Aquinas lists three reasons why the name "He who Is" is the most appropriate way for understanding God: 1) the essence of God is his existence, 2) the universality of such a name, and 3) present, eternal existence.

[21] Augustine, On the Trinity (CHURCH FATHERS: On the Trinity (St. Augustine). 2009. Translated by Arthur West Haddan. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 3. Edited by Philip Schaff. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. Accessed April 8, 2016. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1301.htm), 5.1.

[22] Ibid., 5.16.

[23] Aquinas, Summa, Book 1, Q. 20, Art. 1.

[24] Bauckham, "Only the suffering God can help", 8.

[25] Aquinas, Summa, Book 1, Q. 20, Art. 1.

[26] Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, 22.

[27] Ibid., 22.

[28] Ibid., 25.

[29] Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), 3.

[30] Ibid., 4, 7.

[31] Ibid., 24.

[32] Ibid., 25.

[33] Ibid., 151.

[34] Ibid., 174.

[35] Ibid., 176.

[36] Ibid. 175.

[37] Ibid., 74. This most common form, Moltmann argues, is based off the baptism of Jesus. It is but one form of the Trinity, but not the form of the Trinity.

[38] Ibid., 82-83.

[39] Ibid., 88-90.

[40] Ibid., 90, 94.

[41] Ibid., 58.

[42] Ibid., 58.

[43] Ibid., 152.

[44] Ibid., 153.

[45] Karl Rahner, The Trinity, Trans. Joseph Donceel (New York: Crossroad, 1998), 22.

[46] Fiddes, Participating in God, 17. Fiddes argues that "Augustine gave an initial impetus to this trend by insisting that in the outward acts of God towards us the three persons are not only 'indivisible' but indistinguishable."

[47] Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, 160.

[48] Ibid., 153.

[49] Ibid., 151.

[50] Ibid., 154.

[51] Ibid., 158.

[52] Ibid., 159.

[53] Ibid., 160-161; italics author's.

[54] For further discussion on Moltmann's perceived differences between divine and human suffering, see ibid., 47-52.

[55] Ibid., 98.

[56] Ibid., 75-76.

[57] Ibid., 76.

[58] Ibid., 76, 77

[59] Ibid., 77.

[60] Ibid., 80.

[61] Ibid., 80.

[62] Ibid., 78.

[63] Ibid., 79.

[64] Ibid., 75.

[65] Ibid., 80.

[66] Ibid., 80.

[67] Ibid., 81.

[68] Ibid., 82.

[69] Ibid., 82

[70] Ibid., 83.

[71] Ibid., 83.

[72] Ibid., 82.

[73] Moltmann, The Crucified God, 244.

[74] Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, 122.

[75] Ibid., 126.