Did God the Father suffer?

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yes As any Father would whose son or daughter was suffering. As one person who posted stated as in the Passion of the Christ, the Tear fell when Jesus died… so the Fathers tears fell for what His Son had just gone though. I am a simple person, but I believe Our God to be a Mercifull and Loving God.
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Cephas:
Did God the Father suffer while His Son was hanging and dying on the cross?
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DominvsVobiscvm: Could you please elaborate? (That is, on your answer: “Strictly speaking, no” regarding God experiencing joy).
 
God is love and the Ultimate Good. He contains the fulness of all things good.

But to feel is a human emotion, that I am not sure we can ascribe to GOD.
 
I am confused… but yes would not GOD experience Joy sometimes also? He did at creation…
 
DominvsVobiscvm: Could you please elaborate? (That is, on your answer: “Strictly speaking, no” regarding God experiencing joy).
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The Church’s tradition regards God as impassible. This means that he does not have emotions.

The philosophical basis for this was given by wet-rat:
Remember that the Divine Nature is unchanging, and thus to the extent that suffering implies change, God the Father did not suffer.
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This was the teaching of the Church Fathers and Doctors. It was pretty much unquestioned until modern times, and its liberal (read: Modernist) theologians who have questioned it.

I’m sure Saint Thomas Aquinas would be able to give a better explanation. I’ll see if I can find something . . .
 
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DominvsVobiscvm:
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.
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No. Divine Wrath is entirely heretical.

Read the entry.

Here’s more by Jimmy Akin.
 
Beng:

Documentation, please? I don’t see the relevant information in Jimmy Akin’s article.

The Church has always distinguished between rightful and unrightful wrath/anger.

To quote but one example:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. {Romans 1:18}
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Darn that heretic, Saint Paul! 😉
 
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DominvsVobiscvm:
Beng:

Documentation, please? I don’t see the relevant information in Jimmy Akin’s article.

The Church has always distinguished between rightful and unrightful wrath/anger.

To quote but one example:

Darn that heretic, Saint Paul! 😉
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What is wrong and heretical is “Christ NEEDS to be sacrificed to subdue God’s wrath”

God is wrathful because of sins of the whole world.

But not wrathful in a sense, “AARRRGGHH I’M ANGRY. I NEED SACRIFICE SO I DON’T KILL EVERYONE!”
 
From the newadvent entry

In their general conception on the atonement the Reformers (the deformers I might say) and their followers happily preserved the Catholic doctrine, at least in its main lines. And in their explanation of the merit of Christ’s sufferings and death we may see the influence of St. Thomas and the other great Schoolmen. But, as might be expected from the isolation of the doctrine and the loss of other portions of Catholic teaching, the truth thus preserved was sometimes insensibly obscured or distorted. It will be enough to note here the presence of two mistaken tendencies.

The first is indicated in the above words of Pattison in which the Atonement is specially connected with the thought of the wrath of God. It is true of course that sin incurs the anger of the Just Judge, and that this is averted when the debt due to Divine Justice is paid by satisfaction. But it must not be thought that God is only moved to mercy and reconciled to us as a result of this satisfaction. This false conception of the Reconciliation is expressly rejected by St. Augustine (In Joannem, Tract. cx, section 6). God’s merciful love is the cause, not the result of that satisfaction.
 
Ah, I see what you mean, Beng.

Yes, the Reformers did teach an exagerrated version of the Church’s doctrine of substitutionary atonement.

Here’s a good explanation of the Church’s stance on this issue:
Substitutionary atonement per se is part of the Catholic tradition because it is part of the biblical witness. It is not the only biblical metaphor for the work of Christ but it is clearly present. . . . Where Catholics must take exception is to certain extreme notions of “Penal Substitution” which allege that Christ has suffered the penalty for all of our sins so that no further penalty of any kind is necessary for sin or for Christian discipleship. It is clearly part of the Biblical witness that God will chastened those whom he loves and that we are to suffer purgation for sake of our own sanctification before God.
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There can be many metaphors drawn from the bible about the work of Christ. The Catholic tradition recognizes several of them. The central BIBLICAL image though is of a perfectly righteous man devoted to God as no one before him or since who died at the hands of sinful men because of his righteousness. He consciously offered himself to God as a propitiation for sin at the Last Supper and with his final breath on the cross commended his life to God. It was this offering of himself unto death – NOT his death itself – that was the real sacrifice of Jesus. As such, “penal substitution” in its extreme form is unacceptable because it fails to do justice to this central biblical metaphor and elevates a vision of the atonement which is crassly economic and mechanical.
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Good to see we agree, after all.

🙂
 
You say due to His divine nature, God does not experience emotions? What about His love for us. Is that not an emotion?
 
Arlyne said:
You say due to His divine nature, God does not experience emotions? What about His love for us. Is that not an emotion?
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This is a very old thread, but your question is new so I’ll answer it the best I can. God doesn’t feel emotions, and love is not an emotion but rather an action of the will. Love, in us, can come along with emotions of affection and such but that isn’t necessary; we can still love someone without the emotions involved.

Emotions are basically something affecting us beyond our power and control, and this can’t happen to God. Emotions are a lesser thing, not a higher thing, as even animals can feel emotions. This doesn’t mean that the highest thing is like an unfeeling robot, however, it simply means that what we often call emotions are actually not the limit of good feeling. True love, for example, is not unfeeling, but neither is it an emotion, and this is the same with things like happiness.

Peace and God bless!
 
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