Did God the Father suffer?

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Did God the Father suffer while His Son was hanging and dying on the cross?
 
God cannot suffer unless He chooses to. He is the ultimate Good.

But I did like the symbolism in the Passion of the Christ when a tear falls from heaven when Jesus dies.
 
Summa Theologica: Whether Christ’s Passion is to be attributed to His Godhead?

This discusses Christ’s suffering and His two natures. The Divine Second Person suffered, but only in His human nature. He was enabled to suffer and die because he assumed a human nature. This is because the Divine Nature is impassible–incapable of suffering, just as it is incapable of death.

Therefore, by implication, the Father could not have suffered because of the impassibility of the Divine Nature.

Justin
 
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1962Missal:
Summa Theologica: Whether Christ’s Passion is to be attributed to His Godhead?

This discusses Christ’s suffering and His two natures. The conclusion is that Christ suffered only in His human nature. By implication, the Father could not have suffered because of the impassibility of the Divine Nature.

Justin
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yep 👍
 
The Father did not suffer, that is part of a heresy known as the Patripassian Heresy which is tied with the Monarchian, aka Sebellian Heresy. At its root, it claimed that there was a unity of persons in the Trinity, and that by extension, if the Son suffered, so did the Father and the Holy Spirit because they are one. It failed to recognize the difference between the unity of the Divine Nature and the unity of Persons.
 
Did God Himself not place His wrath on Jesus as he was hanging on the cross?
 
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1962Missal:
Summa Theologica: Whether Christ’s Passion is to be attributed to His Godhead?

This discusses Christ’s suffering and His two natures. The Divine Second Person suffered, but only in His human nature. He was enabled to suffer and die because he assumed a human nature. This is because the Divine Nature is impassible–incapable of suffering, just as it is incapable of death.

Therefore, by implication, the Father could not have suffered because of the impassibility of the Divine Nature.

Justin
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Cool.
 
Thanks all for your (name removed by moderator)ut, keep it coming.

I see, and believe, that God doesnt suffer. Especially when one looks at suffering as a negative effect (which is what it is becuase of sin.)

BUT, (so as to understand where the question is coming from)
if suffering is accepted as a good, because of love, isn’t it something that actually, i don’t know how to express this, uh…mm… shows more of a being?

also, I was thinking of the relationship btwn Father and Son.
I know that the father-son relationship here on earth is an imperfect image of that which is found in the Godhead, but nonetheless, since suffering is part of the relationship btwn father and son here, can it somehow be a kind of reflection of that btwn the Father and Son?

I’m seriously asking, this is not something I’m holding to.

Cephas
 
The Father is not an angry God who demand that Christ be sacrificed.
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That is the flawed doctrine of Protestantism.
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The Church has never definitively taught one or another theory of how exactly mankind was Redeemed by Christ. She just teaches that Christ, by his Life, Death, Resurrection, and Asension redeemed man. The nuances she leaves open to debate.

Many of the early Fathers believed that Christ redeemed mankind just by virtue of his becoming incarnate, and uniting his divinity to our humanity. The theory was called “recapitulation.”

Like I said, there’s several different ways this could be viewed. I don’t think the “divine wrath” theory, properly understood, is heretical.

There is such a thing as just wrath.
 
Back to the original question.

The Church has traditionally taught that God is impassible. Meaning that God does not feel emotions, including suffering.

I do not know what the basis for this teaching it. Just that, until very, very recently, this was an unquestioned teaching of the Church’s Fathers and Theologians. I suspect Saint Thomas Aquinas had a thing or two to say about it.
 
Remember that the Divine Nature is unchanging, and thus to the extent that suffering implies change, God the Father did not suffer.

However, there may be other aspects of suffering that some of us have in mind.

So, what does the word “suffer” mean?
 
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wet-rat:
Remember that the Divine Nature is unchanging, and thus to the extent that suffering implies change, God the Father did not suffer.

However, there may be other aspects of suffering that some of us have in mind.
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Yeah.

I mean we know that man suffers because of sin. Adam and Eve sinned, mankind suffers.

but, Adam could have suffered before he sinned. He could have suffered by not sinning and face the serpent.

my point, suffering doesnt only come with sin, it comes with love.

do i make sense here? lol
 
But emotions are a human thing, a temporal thing.

We experience emotions because of the nature of our consciousness, which is bound by time. God is not bound in this way.
 
St. Augustine gives a good introduction to the unchanging and eternal nature of God in his Confessions. (He also describes space and time in a way that anticipates modern physics.)
 
Wait a minute…when you say God does not experience emotions, what do you mean by that exactly? Throughout the OT (and even NT) emotions are certainly applied to God (happiness, sorrow, love, hate—of sin—etc). Most importantly God is love…and I realize that love is more than an emotion, but the emotion aspect of love is important.
 
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twf:
Wait a minute…when you say God does not experience emotions, what do you mean by that exactly? Throughout the OT (and even NT) emotions are certainly applied to God (happiness, sorrow, love, hate—of sin—etc). Most importantly God is love…and I realize that love is more than an emotion, but the emotion aspect of love is important.
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your right. now, since the human intellect can not fully grasp the mystery of God, and because man’s language can not fully express the mystery either, what we see in the old testament (what you are referring too) is called ANTHROPOMORPHISMS.
that is, using human expressions and gestures to try and understand God and his actions.
 
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DominvsVobiscvm:
Back to the original question.

The Church has traditionally taught that God is impassible. Meaning that God does not feel emotions, including suffering.

I do not know what the basis for this teaching it. Just that, until very, very recently, this was an unquestioned teaching of the Church’s Fathers and Theologians. I suspect Saint Thomas Aquinas had a thing or two to say about it.
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But doesnt God dance for joy when we say sorry to Him at Confession??
 
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Katholish:
The Father did not suffer, that is part of a heresy known as the Patripassian Heresy which is tied with the Monarchian, aka Sebellian Heresy. At its root, it claimed that there was a unity of persons in the Trinity, and that by extension, if the Son suffered, so did the Father and the Holy Spirit because they are one. It failed to recognize the difference between the unity of the Divine Nature and the unity of Persons.
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Good information. Thank you.
 
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