A problem with God sharing our pain

[Mr.Ex_Nihilo]

I understand the explanation that is given in Christianity. But it still remians problematic or paradoxical. We can cause God pain and yet God is unchangeable. Unalterable. So we cannot alter God. But we can cause God pain?

I think, to some extent, there must be some kind of anthromorphization that is occuring in the langauge we use when trying to understand God’s ways. In other words, in areas where no distinctly human component is necessary, I would gladly ascribe the “humanization” of God as being an artifact of the language we use instead of a quality directly attributed to God himself.

I do this sometimes in the Book of Joshua for example.

 

[Joyousguard]

Why does it rain and thunder? Because God is takinga shower and bowling. Simply put, one could not explain the reason why to a child and further still back in the days of paganism (not to say they still arn’t around) humanity understood god through their own experiences. Their own lives colored the lives of the gods. However, in this case God is not a creation and subject to humanity.

It is safe to say that we do in fact harm God by the fact that sin harms us. This is 100% true but incomplete, and an understanding that must suffice for now. It’s almost reminiscient of the early debates going on in the Church about the Trinity. I’m not sure I would have like the headaches that came in coming to that understanding.

 

[water]

I understand the explanation that is given in Christianity. But it still remians problematic or paradoxical. We can cause God pain and yet God is unchangeable. Unalterable. So we cannot alter God. But we can cause God pain?

In the OT, we caused God to be angry.

 

[paarsurrey]

I am not Jewish, so i cannot speak from that point of view. I may be oversimplifying the answer, but I think that the answer is that He doesn’t. I think that the terms used for how God “feels” are used to make humans understand. Part of the covenant God has with Isreal is that they are His people and He is thier God, so the suffering of His people would touch him in a special way.

Hi

I agree with you. GodAllahYHWH has a very special and kind relationship with the humans, there is no problem with him, the problem is with us the humans.

GodAllahYHWH introduces with his mercyfulness in the very first chapter of Quran.

[1:1] In the name of Allah, **the Gracious, the Merciful **
[1:2] All praise belongs to Allah, Lord of all the worlds,
[1:3] **The Gracious, the Merciful, **
[1:4] Master of the Day of Judgment.
[1:5] Thee alone do we worship and Thee alone do we implore for help.
[1:6] Guide us in the right path –
[1:7] The path of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy blessings, those who have not incurred Thy displeasure, and those who have not gone astray.

Unquote

Thanks

 

[Joyousguard]

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words would it take to describe the ultimate and the infinite?

While it can be said in Human understanding that the God of the OT was brought to anger this obviously could not be. If God is omnipotent and all powerful, “how could we bring Him to anger when he knew we would perform such actions to begin with?” Unless God was already angry to begin with before we sinned and offended him?

But even that doesn’t work for that would mean that part of God’s pre desposed nature before humanity was one of anger caused by us before we even came into existence.

We cannot harm God nor change him. Therefore either God was angry either angry as a result of humanity or angry before the creation of humanity. Now we clearly know that God is not one of anger but infinite love, Anger appears to be a human creation or result in mankind after the fall rather than something existing from creation. Therefore anger like many other things such as murder or even lust were first seen in mankind. Now since we can not influence God and it would seem that anger existed in us first it would stem to reason that anger does not exist with in God. God does not get angry but the only way we comprehend Him is by using our limited understanding to describe the infinite.

 

[Kitty_Chan]

Joyousguard et el

You make good points, about Gods anger. I still say take it back to a parent.

You know your child knows better, you know that they should do what they should, you even know that they probably are strubborn and probably wont.

and when they dont you are angry at them, even though you knew they probably wouldnt have done it.

same deal

another example someone is dying of a sickness, they die and you are hurt, everyone says “well you knew they were dying why are you so hurt?” I tell you the truth knowing doesnt help whatsoever the hurt you feel.

so maybe Im saying knowing and happening are 2 different things.

 

[Joyousguard]

Joyousguard et el

You make good points, about Gods anger. I still say take it back to a parent.

You know your child knows better, you know that they should do what they should, you even know that they probably are strubborn and probably wont.

and when they dont you are angry at them, even though you knew they probably wouldnt have done it.

same deal

another example someone is dying of a sickness, they die and you are hurt, everyone says “well you knew they were dying why are you so hurt?” I tell you the truth knowing doesnt help whatsoever the hurt you feel.

so maybe Im saying knowing and happening are 2 different things.

That would infer that our actions can affect God. That would mean that God can change.

It is still a bit difficult to grasp, but the again the best we can hope for is to continue to describe God with the emotions that we have, its much simplier this way and easier to comprehend. The specifics are wrong but the concept is right, we just have to figure out what gets us from A to C.

 

[Valke2]

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words would it take to describe the ultimate and the infinite?

While it can be said in Human understanding that the God of the OT was brought to anger this obviously could not be. If God is omnipotent and all powerful, “how could we bring Him to anger when he knew we would perform such actions to begin with?” Unless God was already angry to begin with before we sinned and offended him?

But even that doesn’t work for that would mean that part of God’s pre desposed nature before humanity was one of anger caused by us before we even came into existence.

We cannot harm God nor change him. Therefore either God was angry either angry as a result of humanity or angry before the creation of humanity. Now we clearly know that God is not one of anger but infinite love, Anger appears to be a human creation or result in mankind after the fall rather than something existing from creation. Therefore anger like many other things such as murder or even lust were first seen in mankind. Now since we can not influence God and it would seem that anger existed in us first it would stem to reason that anger does not exist with in God. God does not get angry but the only way we comprehend Him is by using our limited understanding to describe the infinite.

I understand and agree with this. But it makes certain things, such as Jesus suffering, difficult to reconcile. Clearly, Jesus suffered. Clearly God is unalterable. God is One. I know that the Trinity is used to explain this somewhat, but conversely, it is necessary to come up with the Trinity in order to resolve the conflict between omnipotence and the shrinking/witdrawal of that omnipotence to the extent that God shares our pain or is harmed by our actions.

Jews have the same problem when we say that the spirit of God went into exile with Israel.

 

[Kitty_Chan]

That would infer that our actions can affect God. That would mean that God can change.

Joyous, Valke et el

Of course our actions can affect God, Jesus wept didnt He?

But did it change Him? did it change His course? not a bit.

If God wasnt affected by us He would smote us all and start over, wouldnt He?

By the very fact He loves us, means Hes affected by us.

For God so loved the world. God wants us to love the world, to see the world as He sees it. To treat our neighbour as ourselves. To give ourselves for each other.

You both are saying that our actions affect God so He changes.

No its the other way around. His actions affect us so we will change. When we see each other and the world through His eyes and heart, then we become like Him.

 

[peary]

I find the concept of God sharing our pain – a concept that is found in both Judaism and Christainity – troubling. How can the personhood of God be humaniezed, to facilitate empathy for humans, without impining on the beliefe of divine omnipotence or even opening the door for human moral weakness being viewed as a component of God.

That’s why God is God and we, being finite in our understanding, will always find Him a mystery upon which to ponder.
Christians have to address (have addressed) this issue when teaching of Jesus’ divine suffering on the cross. Jew’s need to address the issue when believing that God makes Himself vunerable by participating in Israel’s suffering and redemption.

God is known, not by nature, but by His acts. To say that God loves and that God suffers is to say that God loves and God suffers in the person of God’s own Son, or more precisely, that God’s acts in God’s Son have the character of loving and suffering. If you say that God loves the world, then you are making a claim about God’s acts - that God, through His Son Jesus Christ, has the character of love. Likewise, to say that Jesus the Christ suffers, dies, and descends to the dead is to say that God does in fact suffer - but christologically. This is the decisive point: it is irrelevant to the problem of evil whether the Father suffers in the crucifixion and whether death becomes an event of God’s trinitarian life; what is relevant is that Jesus suffers to the point of solidarity with death. It is not the transformation of God but the world in the death of Jesus that is finally the victory over death.

 

[mercygate]

Jews have the same problem when we say that the spirit of God went into exile with Israel.

BLAM! Valke2 does it again.

For a Christian, this makes perfect sense, but I never thought of it in exactly this way before. Thanks V-2. :tiphat: God went with Israel into the desert (not exactly a day at the beach – a time of both suffering and triumph). He promises never to abandon or forsake his people. God MUST go into exile with them. How else can he bring them back?

Pharisaic Judaism gets a bad rap in the New Testament, and I am constantly “rehabilitating” the Pharisees when I teach OT. Because, developing during the exile. It paves the way for the Christian understanding that the Messiah is something other than a military conquerer, that the Kingdom is “not of this world” and that the temple in Jerusalem is no longer the focal point of worship.

The “best” Pharisees always laid heavy emphasis on the human heart, on loving one’s God and one’s neighbor. Christianity also depended on the Pharisaic belief in the Resurrection (remember the riot Paul started over that in Acts?).

Placed in this context, taking into account what others have said on this thread about the suffering of God being a metaphor for the human relationship with God, then the suffering manifested in Christ becomes the epitomic witness of the consequenses of rejecting God’s nature as Love itself.

Whew! Gotta go pray that out . . .

Shabbat shalom, Valke!

 

[Joyousguard]

I understand and agree with this. But it makes certain things, such as Jesus suffering, difficult to reconcile. Clearly, Jesus suffered. Clearly God is unalterable. God is One. I know that the Trinity is used to explain this somewhat, but conversely, it is necessary to come up with the Trinity in order to resolve the conflict between omnipotence and the shrinking/witdrawal of that omnipotence to the extent that God shares our pain or is harmed by our actions.

Jews have the same problem when we say that the spirit of God went into exile with Israel.

Well, this does become an interesting point. Christ was both fully human and fully divine, however, His divinity existed before His humanity indicating that our understanding of God getting angry in the OT is not correct, for again, we can not change God.

However, bringing up the point of Jesus’s humanity rasises an interesting question. It is no debate that Christ suffered on the cross and throught the passion but the question becomes “Is Jesus still fully Human in Heaven as well?” If Jesus is still both fully human and fully divine then there might be creedence in this. It is clear that Christ could be hurt in a physical sense by humanity and He did feel sorrow for us. But does feeling sorrow, anger etc constitute a change in “God”?

Perhaps it could be said that God needed to become man so we could understand that He indeed is hurt by what we do.

 

[Stephen0]

It seems funny but I believe that this particular argument about the omnipontence of God is similar to the Jewish culture’s view of God. That belief made it impossible for him to be revealed as also totally human in Jesus. I firmly believe in paradox, we define the term and God surmounts it.

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

We are created in God’s image, so it does not surprise me that we share emotions with God. God’s emotions are pure and undefiled. Our emotions are impure and defiled. So, we should not be trying to view God in light of how we practice emotions, and other aspects of the divine image. We should look at how God himself reveals his emotions without coloring them with our perspective.

For example, Psa 5:5 says God hates, but when you dig in, you will find hate here simply means “unwilling to put up with”, whereas, hate in the human emotion is tainted by sin, and has an evil connatation.

 

[Joyousguard]

It seems funny but I believe that this particular argument about the omnipontence of God is similar to the Jewish culture’s view of God. That belief made it impossible for him to be revealed as also totally human in Jesus. I firmly believe in paradox, we define the term and God surmounts it.

Please elaborate if you could. Thank you.

 

[Joyousguard]

We are created in God’s image, so it does not surprise me that we share emotions with God. God’s emotions are pure and undefiled. Our emotions are impure and defiled. So, we should not be trying to view God in light of how we practice emotions, and other aspects of the divine image. We should look at how God himself reveals his emotions without coloring them with our perspective.

For example, Psa 5:5 says God hates, but when you dig in, you will find hate here simply means “unwilling to put up with”, whereas, hate in the human emotion is tainted by sin, and has an evil connatation.

First and foremost even elements of the Bible are colored with the authors own individual style and taste. Look at the differences bewteen the Gospels and there particular writers. The Bible is colored, to a certain extent but in regards to how the message is portrayed not in actual substance.

Even Christ Himself colored His message using stories and allegories. The Lord Himself reduced, for lack of a better word, the finite so that humanity could understand it as best they could. God becoming man to bring salvation to mankind. God being born a slave in order to come and repair the damage of originaly sin and explain to us who God really is and what He wants.

 

[East_and_West]

My issue is not that God wants to share our pain. But that to do so, we have to get a little fuzzy with the omnipotence attribute of God. When we speak of God sharing our pain, we are humanizing Him. Human and Omnipotence (sp?) are contradictory.

You are going to have to clarify how sharing in pain limits God’s omnipotence. Be precise.

 

[Valke2]

You are going to have to clarify how sharing in pain limits God’s omnipotence. Be precise.

It implies that we can cause God pain. That our actions can change God. This seems contrary to the belief in an ominipotent being. To cause a being that is unlimited power pain seems contradictory.

 

[East_and_West]

It implies that we can cause God pain. That our actions can change God. This seems contrary to the belief in an ominipotent being. To cause a being that is unlimited power pain seems contradictory.

I see your point. However, I think a Thomist would say that when we say that God feels our pain, it is simply a poetic usage of the word “feels”. A simple literary device known as anthropomorphizing. What really goes on with regard to God and emotion is not revealed to us and, in a sense, totally mysterious as the human mind should not be able to comprehend the inner working of the infinite God.

 

[Valke2]

I see your point. However, I think a Thomist would say that when we say that God feels our pain, it is simply a poetic usage of the word “feels”. A simple literary device known as anthropomorphizing. What really goes on with regard to God and emotion is not revealed to us and, in a sense, totally mysterious as the human mind should not be able to comprehend the inner working of the infinite God.

There are times when it is a literary device. But no christian that I know of denies Jesus suffering real pain.