How can God be omniscint if he can't feel pain?

[Lucretius]

I’m only talking about knowledge of what it is like to experience pain, not the experience of pain itself. However, the bolded statement amounts to Nestorianism.

The Son experienced pain due to His Human Nature, not due to His Divine Nature.

Nevertheless, I have no further desire to debate the issue with you since you seem want to introduce a vague category of knowledge called “transcendent” that is neither experiential nor propositional, so you’re obviously just going to keep dancing around the issue endlessly. If nothing else, it is driving me toward laocmo’s position.

All I’m saying is that we cannot univocally compare our kind of knowledge to God’s. That means that the type of Knowledge that God has is kind of like propositional knowledge, but also kind of like experimental knowledge. Thats what is meant by transcendant.

Christi pax,

Lucretius

 

[Usagi]

Then consider the question framed atemporally: Is having the knowledge of “What it is like to experience pain” compatible with an impassible being?

As long as that knowledge does not change the being, I would think so.

Impassibility says that God does not change due to outward circumstances. It says nothing about what knowledge He has or doesn’t have.

 

[Usagi]

Now that I think about it, I have changed my mind. I don’t think we can say that through Christ’s experience of suffering, God has knowledge of the experience of pain, because God cannot both have always had such knowledge, as would be in keeping with his timelessness, and still derive that knowledge from a particular temporal experience. Or at least I don’t understand how this conclusion escapes the implication that God learned something he did not already know.

The God of classical theism that you seem to be wrestling with does not experience time. His knowledge is eternal. Even when He was living in time as Jesus, he knew every detail of my life despite the fact that it would not commence for millennia (and I’d like to think it will go on for a few more decades from my present). Similarly, even if He does only gain a human’s experiential knowledge of pain through His incarnation, He would have that knowledge during the time of Moses, the time of the dinosaurs, etc. Whether you think of it as foreknowledge or existence outside of time, “God knowing about stuff that hasn’t happened yet in human terms” is a solved problem for classical theism.

The only solution seems to be that God has a generalized experiential knowledge of pain in the same way as he has propositional knowledge of evil. Though this still seems very weak as a solution since it implies God has knowledge of an experience he has not had.

God has knowledge of many experiences He has not directly had. Why is that a problem?

Usagi

 

[Usagi]

The Son experienced pain due to His Human Nature, not due to His Divine Nature.

All I’m saying is that we cannot univocally compare our kind of knowledge to God’s. That means that the type of Knowledge that God has is kind of like propositional knowledge, but also kind of like experimental knowledge. Thats what is meant by transcendant.

Christi pax,

Lucretius

Right. That is what you seem to be missing or ignoring here. You are asking questions about how God (as conceived in classical theism) “works,” but not taking into account everything about how He “works.”

Most everything about the way we acquire and experience knowledge is not true for God, so comparing the different kinds of knowledge we can have (propositional vs. experiential) to God’s knowledge may break down somewhere along the line.

God doesn’t learn. He doesn’t experience one thing and then another. He doesn’t reason His way to a conclusion. He doesn’t strictly THiNK, at least not in a sequence of changeable thoughts the way we do. And His knowledge includes every event everywhere in space and time, as well as every possible chain of events that doesn’t actually happen. He knows our thoughts and feelings and impulses even when we fail to recognize them ourselves. Given all that, knowledge that would require direct personal experience for us may NOT, for Him.

 

[Kevin12]

The Son experienced pain due to His Human Nature, not due to His Divine Nature.

Your earlier statement amounts to Nestorianism, claiming that the passion had nothing to do with the divine nature at all. “But in every respect, too, He is man, the formation of God; and thus He took up man into Himself, the invisible becoming visible, the incomprehensible being made comprehensible, the impassible becoming capable of suffering, and the Word being made man, thus summing up all things in Himself,” said Irenaeus. You sound like at least like Theodoret who spent his most of his life denying Nestorius had divided Christ into two persons. But then again, the entire strain of Scholasticism is infected with pseudo-Nestorianism, so it is not surprising.

As I said, I have no desire to debate the main matter with you any further.

 

[Lucretius]

Right. That is what you seem to be missing or ignoring here. You are asking questions about how God (as conceived in classical theism) “works,” but not taking into account everything about how He “works.”

Most everything about the way we acquire and experience knowledge is not true for God, so comparing the different kinds of knowledge we can have (propositional vs. experiential) to God’s knowledge may break down somewhere along the line.

God doesn’t learn. He doesn’t experience one thing and then another. He doesn’t reason His way to a conclusion. He doesn’t strictly THiNK, at least not in a sequence of changeable thoughts the way we do. And His knowledge includes every event everywhere in space and time, as well as every possible chain of events that doesn’t actually happen. He knows our thoughts and feelings and impulses even when we fail to recognize them ourselves. Given all that, knowledge that would require direct personal experience for us may NOT, for Him.

I don’t think we disagree

Christi pax,

Lucretius

 

[fisherman_carl]

I think behind this question may be the question does God care about our sufferings? If he is this immovable thing how could he have empathy for us? Does God care about us and our problems. And I think the Christian answer is yes he does. He cared so much for us that he sent his only begotten Son to save us. The suffering may be a result of sin, but he didn’t just leave us to rot in our sins and suffering. If that was the only data we had then we might reach the conclusion that he didn’t care. But, since he had a plan to save us all along, and he made this plan known to us through his prophets and then finally through Jesus himself I think it is safe to say that despite our sufferings he does care about us.

 

[Lucretius]

Your earlier statement amounts to Nestorianism, claiming that the passion had nothing to do with the divine nature at all. “But in every respect, too, He is man, the formation of God; and thus He took up man into Himself, the invisible becoming visible, the incomprehensible being made comprehensible, the impassible becoming capable of suffering, and the Word being made man, thus summing up all things in Himself,” said Irenaeus. You sound like at least like Theodoret who spent his most of his life denying Nestorius had divided Christ into two persons. But then again, the entire strain of Scholasticism is infected with pseudo-Nestorianism, so it is not surprising.

As I said, I have no desire to debate the main matter with you any further.

When I said passion, I meant the movements of the sensible appetite:

Again, the definition of passions of the soul is this: Passion is a sensible activity of the appetitive faculty, depending on the presentation to the mind of something good or bad. Or in other words, passion is an irrational activity of the soul, resulting from the notion of something good or bad. For the notion of something good results in desire, and the notion of something bad results in anger

ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf209.iii.iv.ii.xxii.html

who spent his most of his life denying Nestorius had divided Christ into two persons.

Nestorius might have been misunderstood.

But then again, the entire strain of Scholasticism is infected with pseudo-Nestorianism, so it is not surprising

Only as much as Chalcedon is

Christi pax,

Lucretius

 

[Kevin12]

Nestorius might have been misunderstood.

He wasn’t, though I’m not surprised to see you defend him.

 

[Lucretius]

He wasn’t, though I’m not surprised to see you defend him.

All I’m pointing out is that many Scholars today think that Nestorius might not have taught Nestorianism. Nestorianism is definitely false, as you said

Christi pax,

Lucretius

 

[Usagi]

I don’t think we disagree

Christi pax,

Lucretius

Sorry, I wasn’t actually disagreeing with you, but supporting your statement and using it as a jumping off point to disagree with Kevin

 

[Kevin12]

All I’m pointing out is that many Scholars today think that Nestorius might not have taught Nestorianism. Nestorianism is definitely false, as you said

Christi pax,

Lucretius

Read the article on Nestorius on New Advent, written after his lost work was recovered. Nestorius was indeed a Nestorian, even in that work his thinking is heretical. Or do you deny that he claimed Mary could not be called theotokos “God bearer”. Though I will again third I am not surprised to see you defending this particular heretic whose theology so resembles your own.

 

[Usagi]

Read the article on Nestorius on New Advent, written after his lost work was recovered. Nestorius was indeed a Nestorian, even in that work his thinking is heretical. Or do you deny that he claimed Mary could not be called theotokos “God bearer”. Though I will again third I am not surprised to see you defending this particular heretic whose theology so resembles your own.

Distinguishing between the capabilities and limitations of Jesus’ divine and human natures while still insisting they both belong to one Person who truly experienced everything that happened to Him is entirely orthodox.

 

[Kevin12]

Distinguishing between the capabilities and limitations of Jesus’ divine and human natures while still insisting they both belong to one Person who truly experienced everything that happened to Him is entirely orthodox.

I have no idea how that has anything to do with what I was saying. However, if people want to defend the orthodoxy of the Nestorian heresy or claim Nestorius was not a heretic, I am ill-disposed to carry on such a conversation in this thread. Though again, it doesn’t surprise me to find Nestorius has sympathizers on CAF, which has such a high population of so-called tradtionalists. The denial that God really would have *really *sullied himself by being truly united to a pathetic human nature (and what is Nestorianism but an assertion that the Incarnation is just a metaphor and God really didn’t take on flesh) is perfectly in keeping with the tenor of the Rorate Caeli blog and The Remnant.

 

[Lucretius]

I have no idea how that has anything to do with what I was saying. However, if people want to defend the orthodoxy of the Nestorian heresy or claim Nestorius was not a heretic, I am ill-disposed to carry on such a conversation in this thread. Though again, it doesn’t surprise me to find Nestorius has sympathizers on CAF, which has such a high population of so-called tradtionalists. The denial that God really would have *really *sullied himself by being truly united to a pathetic human nature (and what is Nestorianism but an assertion that the Incarnation is just a metaphor and God really didn’t take on flesh) is perfectly in keeping with the tenor of the Rorate Caeli blog and The Remnant.

You haven’t explained how any of these views are heretical, but just said they were without reason. Nestorianism is not just distinguishing between the Divine and Human in Christ. In fact, to argue such is monophysitism, the opposite heresy.

Everything you just typed there we disagree with completely too

Christi pax,

Lucretius

 

[Kevin12]

You haven’t explained how any of these views are heretical, but just said they were without reason. Nestorianism is not just distinguishing between the Divine and Human in Christ. In fact, to argue such is monophysitism, the opposite heresy.

Everything you just typed there we disagree with completely too

Christi pax,

Lucretius

I’m not going to respond on the issue of Nestorianim any further as it doesn’t bear on the topic of the thread. If you still think Nestorius wasn’t a Nestorian, I’ve already pointed to the article showing this is incorrect. I’m now unsubscribing from the thread.

 

[Lucretius]

The facts themselves bear witness and his divine acts of power teach those who doubt that he is true God, and his sufferings show that he is true man. And if those who are feeble in understanding are not fully assured, they will pay the penalty on his dread day.

If he was not flesh, why was Mary introduced at all? And if he was not God, whom was Gabriel calling Lord?

If he was not flesh, who was lying in the manger? And if he was not God, whom did the Angels come down and glorify?

If he was not flesh, who was wrapped in swaddling clothes? And if he was not God, whom did the shepherds worship?

If he was not flesh, whom did Joseph circumcise? And if he was not God, in whose honour did the star speed through the heavens?

If he was not flesh, whom did Mary suckle? And if he was not God, to whom did the Magi offer gifts?

If he was not flesh, whom did Symeon carry in his arms? And if he was not God, to whom did he say, “Let me depart in peace”?

If he was not flesh, whom did Joseph take and flee into Egypt? And if he was not God, in whom were words “Out of Egypt I have called my Son” fulfilled?

If he was not flesh, whom did John baptise? And if he was not God, to whom did the Father from heaven say, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased”?

If he was not flesh, who fasted and hungered in the desert? And if he was not God, whom did the Angels come down and serve?

If he was not flesh, who was invited to the wedding in Cana of Galilee? And if he was not God, who turned the water into wine?

If he was not flesh, in whose hands were the loaves? And if he was not God, who satisfied crowds and thousands in the desert, not counting women and children, from five loaves and two fishes?

If he was not flesh, who fell asleep in the boat? And if he was not God, who rebuked the winds and the sea?

If he was not flesh, with whom did Simon the Pharisee eat? And if he was not God, who pardoned the offences of the sinful woman?

If he was not flesh, who sat by the well, worn out by the journey? And if he was not God, who gave living water to the woman of Samaria and reprehended her because she had had five husbands?

If he was not flesh, who wore human garments? And if he was not God, who did acts of power and wonders?

If he was not flesh, who spat on the ground and made clay? And if he was not God, who through the clay compelled the eyes to see?

If he was not flesh, who wept at Lazarus’ grave? And if he was not God, who by his command brought out one four days dead?

If he was not flesh, who sat on the foal? And if he was not God, whom did the crowds go out to meet with glory?

If he was not flesh, whom did the Jews arrest? And if he was not God, who gave an order to the earth and threw them onto their faces.

If he was not flesh, who was struck with a blow? And if he was not God, who cured the ear that had been cut off by Peter and restored it to its place?

If he was not flesh, who received spittings on his face? And if he was not God, who breathed the Holy Spirit into the faces of his Apostles?

If he was not flesh, who stood before Pilate at the judgement seat? And if he was not God, who made Pilate’s wife afraid by a dream?

If he was not flesh, whose garments did the soldiers strip off and divide? And if he was not God, how was the sun darkened at the cross?

If he was not flesh, who was hung on the cross? And if he was not God, who shook the earth from its foundations?

If he was not flesh, whose hands and feet were transfixed by nails? And if he was not God, how was the veil of the temple rent, the rocks broken and the graves opened?

If he was not flesh, who cried out, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me”? And if he was not God, who said “Father, forgive them”?

If he was not flesh, who was hung on a cross with the thieves? And if he was not God, how did he say to the thief, “Today you will be with me in Paradise”?

If he was not flesh, to whom did they offer vinegar and gall? And if he was not God, on hearing whose voice did Hades tremble?

If he was not flesh, whose side did the lance pierce, and blood and water came out?And if he was not God, who smashed to gates of Hades and tear apart it bonds? And at whose command did the imprisoned dead come out?

If he was not flesh, whom did the Apostles see in the upper room? And if he was not God, how did he enter when the doors were shut?

If he was not flesh, the marks of the nails and the lance in whose hands and side did Thomas handle? And if he was not God, to whom did he cry out, “My Lord and my God”?

If he was not flesh, who ate by the sea of Tiberias? And if he was not God, at whose command was the net filled?

If he was not flesh, whom did the Apostles and Angels see being taken up into heaven? And if he was not God, to whom was heaven opened, whom did the Powers worship in fear and whom did the Father invite to “Sit at my right hand”. As David said, “The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, etc.”

If he was not God and man, our salvation is a lie, and the words of the Prophets are lies. But the Prophets spoke the truth, and their testimonies were not lies. The Holy Spirit spoke through them what they had been commanded.

• St. Ephrem the Syrian