Hello Brandon Cal,
Let me try to help a little.
At first the consensus of the thread seemed to be that it’s nonsensical to speak of natures suffering,
The posters do not present the idea of suffering in a nature as nonsensical. Although when I first finally got how people understand that Jesus can offer His suffering infinitely which is because Christ had both a divine and a human nature; it did seem to me to be ‘nonsensical to speak of natures suffering’ but at least now I get it. I wasn’t getting it because it is quite an extraordinary way to consider that someone suffers/suffered on account of their ‘type’. In actuality, then, it can also be said that
maleness suffered on the cross too because, all things considered, Jesus was the type of human that was male.
and so it seemed likely that any and all three of the persons of the trinity (no matter their natures) are capable of suffering, loving, hating, being joyful, etc.
They are not saying that God Himself suffered, but, that since Christ had a divine nature, divinity suffered but not divinity itself. In other words, the Word did not suffer, the second person of the Trinity did not Himself suffer.
People who understand that Jesus suffered in His human nature and not His divine nature can still hold either of the views of one; God can suffer or two; God cannot suffer. So, they are saying that He suffered in His human nature because He was human. That is, on top of the ‘fact’ that His human nature and divine nature suffered; how He suffered was as a human.
The Trinity has one nature and it is divine.
Now, JimG says that the only reason why the Person of Jesus was capable of suffering is because he took on a human nature.
Right.
So it follows that God the Father and God the Holy Ghost do not suffer?
They are not saying that it follows, they have not even touched on the question; Can God suffer?
They have just explained how it is understood that the atonement can be offered eternally because of the participation of the divine nature in the person of Christ.
Give the above clarifications - then your questions below remain. Can the divine itself suffer?
Traditionally, the thinking has been a flat “no”. The reason being that since God is inmmutable (non-changing) He cannot suffer. The argument goes that to suffer necessitate a change from point A (not suffering) to point B (suffering) and additionally it is a point in time and God does not exist in
time but is eternal. Furthermore, God is perfect, and if He changes then there was a
point where He was more or less perfect than at another.
But, all these traditional arguments have been challenged by some modern theologians :
Among Catholic theologians, while they may differ as to the exact manner and extent of God’s passibility, one nonetheless finds a strange mix of theological bedfellows. They include, among others, Raniero Cantalamessa, Jean Galot, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Roger Haight, Elizabeth Johnson, Hans Küng, Michael Sarot, and Jon Sobrino. Of course one must add the host of Process Theologians who, following the lead of Albert North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne, hold, by the very character of their philosophical position, that God is by nature passible and so can suffer. This theological shift has been so overwhelming, so thorough, and has been achieved with such unquestioned assurance that Ronald Goetz has simply, and in a sense rightly, dubbed it the “new orthodoxy.”
If so, then are they capable of feeling anything? Why does it require a human nature to suffer but not to have joy? I would think that if any of the persons of the Trinity were capable of any of the passions then they’d be capable of all of them.
firstthings.com/article/2007/01/does-god-suffer-6
It begs the question, can we split Christ? I think not. I priest once told me that when we start splitting then we are no longer speaking of Christ because He was both…
