The question of God’s capacity for suffering ‘even unto death’ is one which has become a prominent issue in 20th century theology, Moltmann’s book “The Crucified God” being one example of such a concern with this issue.Traditional understandings of God’s impassibility have come under severe criticism. I aver that Moltmann’s understanding of the notion of impassibility as it acts in someone like Aquinas’ theology is completely mistaken.
Moltmann feels that in order to do justice to a theology of the cross he must reject the notion of impassibility. But his understanding of impassibility stems more from a preconceived idea that impassibility renders God something of an apathetic rock. He follows the thesis of the disastrous ‘hellinisation’ of theology wherein God’s Triune nature is clouded and the emphasis is placed primarily on God as an Aristotelian ‘Unmoved mover’. This, Moltmann contends, divorces theology from its necessary basis – the cross of Christ.
Moltmann speaks not of the ‘death of God’, but of ‘death in God’, and this can only be achieved by thinking in exclusively Trinitarian terms and not by starting with the concept of a monotheistic God which has been derived from philosophical arguments. For Moltmann then, it cannot be asserted that ‘God’ died on the cross, but that the Son did, and in so doing death itself was brought into the midst of the Godhead itself and as a consequence death itself is overcome.
Thus Moltmann feels he must overcome the axiom of apatheia, in favour of a dynamic, interpersonal understanding of the Triune God, which enables one to speak of the death of the Son, and the suffering of the Father, who yet remain bound in love even in the midst of this momentous event in the history of God himself.
However, contrary to Moltmann’s thinking, the doctrine of God’s impassibility does not render God completely ‘immobile’ and uncaring in the face of human suffering. This can best be illustrated with a brief look at Aquinas’ understanding of the issue. To state that God is impassible is not to say that He is incapable of love but that He could not possibly love any more than He always has. (cf. Thomas Weinandy’s “Does God Suffer?”) The assertion of God’s impassibility is a function of an apophatic theological method: it simply states that God has no deficiencies of being whatsoever – He is the actus purus. God cannot be ‘moved’ to love because He already loves absolutely, or to be more exact, He already is Love. The love between the persons of the Trinity is already complete in itself.
Comments are welcome.
