>>The Suffering of the Impassible God provides a major reconsideration of the notion of divine impassibility in patristic thought. The question whether, in what sense, and under what circumstances suffering may be ascribed to God runs as a golden thread through such major controversies as Docetism, Patripassianism, Arianism, and Nestorianism. It is commonly claimed that in these debates patristic theology fell prey to the assumption of Hellenistic philosophy about the impassibility of God and departed from the allegedly biblical view, according to which God is passible. As a result, patristic theology is presented as claiming that only the human nature of Christ suffered, while the divine nature remained unaffected. Paul L. Gavrilyuk argues that this standard view misrepresents the tradition. In contrast, he construes the development of patristic thought as a series of dialectical turning points taken to safeguard the paradox of God’s voluntary suffering in the flesh. For the Fathers the attribute of divine impassibility functioned in a restricted sense as an apophatic qualifier of all divine emotions and as an indicator of God’s full and undiminished divinity. The Fathers at the same time admitted qualified divine passibility of the Son of God within the framework of the Incarnation. Gavrilyuk shows that the Docetic, Arian, and Nestorian alternatives represent different attempts at dissolving the paradox of the Incarnation. These three alternatives are alike in that they start with the presupposition of God’s unrestricted impassibility: the Docetic view proposes to give up the reality of Christ’s human experiences; the Arian position sacrifices Christ’s undiminished divinity; while the Nestorian alternative isolates the experiences and sufferings of Christ’s humanity from his Godhead. In contrast to these alternatives, the mind of the Church succeeded in keeping God’s transcendence and undiminished divinity in tension with God’s intimate involvement in human suffering. It is precisely because God’s divinity and transcendence are never lost in suffering that the Incarnation becomes a genuine act of divine compassion, capable of transforming and healing the human condition.>>

http://www.allbookstores.com/book/buy/Amazon/0199269823

David

I agree. It is interesting to me how all these things tie together. Obviously the open theism crowd is known for their denial of God’s exhaustive foreknowledge more than their denial of impassibility. Denying God’s exhaustive foreknowlegde is touchier for Mormons than denying his impassibility simply because lots of Mormon’s believe God has exhaustive foreknowledge. But, if God has exhaustive foreknowledge, then as a logical consequence, he has most of the objectional aspects of impassiblity anyway. How in the world can God answer my prayer about whether or not I should marry Susie when he already knows as a matter of fact that I do marry her? He could tell me if I will marry her, but how would he tell me if I should marry her. Suppose he knows that I do marry her and I end up miserable. It seems a bit perverse to think he foresees my miserable marriage and thus tells me that I shouldn’t marry Susie, knowing full well that I do, in fact, marry her. The whole idea of interacting with us in a genuine way is stiffled by the concept of exhaustive foreknowledge.

That is an intersting question. From my experience, most 16 year olds from any religion know more about God than many trained theologians. The shift from thinking of God as a person to thinking of him as a list of attributes is one of the crimes of classical theology. To be fair, though, I think the Latter-day Saints have not been careful enough in making sure our definition of God still allows him to be a genuine person. I found on my mission that lay people from all religions tend to ignore the theologies of their creeds in favor of a more personal conception of God. Thankfully.

Robert,

Thanks for the link. The availability of that sort of conference is one thing I miss from living in Utah.