The Suffering of God

1
The Suffering of God

• Who Is This Old Testament God?

2
The Suffering of God Session 2

• God in Old Testament Theology

3
Opening Prayer Proper 21 (BCP)

• O God, you declare your almighty power chiefly
  in showing mercy and pity Grant us the fullness
  of your grace, that we, running to obtain your
  promises, may become partakers of your heavenly
  treasure through Jesus Christ our Lord, who
  lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
  one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

4
God in Old Testament Theology

• A Metaphoric Shift

5
A Metaphoric Shift

• Failure to consider the range of biblical
  metaphors for God leads to imbalance in our
  understanding of God
• Major shift occurred in the 1960s
• Honest to God by J. A. T. Robinson
• Womens movement
• Black Theology
• Liberation Theology
• Tended to reject images of God that validated
  control or oppression of others
• Began to focus on God as Liberator

6
A Metaphoric Shift

• Cultural changes behind the shift
• Experience of WWI WWII in conjunction with the
  image of God as Warrior
• Scientific research led many to question Gods
  sphere of activity
• Traditional divine attributes came under
  discussion
• Divine eternity
• Temporality
• Freedom
• Immutability
• Foreknowledge
• Impassibility
• Omnipotence
• Aseity
• Immateriality
• Immanence-transcendence

7
A Metaphoric Shift

• Fretheims criteria for weighing metaphors for
  God
• Should meet the needs of and match our shared
  experience as human beings
• Be intelligible and coherent
• Should reflect the biblical witness

8
Convergence Pluralism

• Biblical images for God dont always match
  previous scholarly work on theology
• Todays theologians are doing their own exegesis
• Certain biblical themes, such as divine
  repentance and anthropomorphic images, appear
  infrequently, in theological references like
  commentaries
• Recent theological work
• Reaffirmed most traditional Christian views of
  God
• Introduced a variety of new images for God

9
Convergence Pluralism

• Canonical viewpoint of the church needs to
  embrace the variety of images for God found in
  the Bible
• Ultimately the source of many denominational
  differences
• Pluralism has been canonized. (p. 19)
• Efforts to limit the canonicity of Biblical
  materials to a certain subset threaten to
  undercut theological development in response to
  future challenges

10
Directions

• Movement away from a God who acts in history to
  a more complex God and world in relationship
• OT theologies
• Systematic, addressing various attributes of God
  (Approach of Eichrodt)
• Historic, based on historical developments in
  understanding God (Approach of Gerhard von Rad)
• Claus Westermann blends these 2 approaches (God
  humans live in a history in which God acts to
  save and bless)

11
Directions

• When history is applied to God, this implies
  change and contingency for God (p. 23)
• Theological emphasis on story needs to
  recognize the interdependent nature of story with
  certain concepts that are key to interpreting the
  story
• Ex. Exodus story only meaningful if certain
  revelations to Moses are accepted
• God is the God of Abraham, Isaac Jacob
• God has heard the cry of his people
• God will be with Moses

12
Story and Generalization

• How should we determine the generalizations
  underlying the story?
• Pay attention to the generalizations that
  biblical authors disclose in telling the story
• Take note of truth-claims made by an author
  that constrain the interpretation of a story

13
Story and Generalization

• It is not enough to say that God is the one
  who saves and blesses in these stories what is
  crucial is the kind of God who is understood to
  be saving and blessing. A capricious God can
  save and bless. Even an impersonal God could
  engage in such activities.It is the truth-claims
  that Israel makes regarding the kind of God who
  was active in its life that provide a crucial
  interpretive clue to the story, and insist that
  it be read in a certain way, delimiting
  possibilities of meaning. (p. 24)

14
Story and Generalization

• Historical recitals have been highlighted as
  key to understanding the Old Testament
• Read Deut. 265-9
• Multiple variations of this material are found
  throughout the OT
• Important, but we need more information, if we
  are to have a balanced picture of the story
• Confessional statements provide a critical lens
  for understanding the OT story
• Read Exodus 346-7
• Often appear near the historical recital
• Found in different genres within scripture
• An example of Israelite abstract thinking

A wandering Aramean was my ancestor he went down
into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in
number, and there he became a great nation,
mighty and populous. When the Egyptians treated
us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard
labor on us, we cried to the LORD, the God of our
ancestors the LORD heard our voice and saw our
affliction, our toil, and our oppression. The
LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand
and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying
display of power, and with signs and wonders and
he brought us into this place and gave us this
land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, The
LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow
to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and
faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the
thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and
transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing
the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the
parents upon the children and the childrens
children, to the third and the fourth generation.
15
Story and Generalization

• These creedal statements should receive more
  attention than the historical recital since
  other OT texts suggest that the Israelites will
  forget their history (Jer. 237)
• Creedal statements of the kind of God Israel
  worships function even if the story about God and
  Israel is suspended
• Gods story continues (p. 27)
• Lam. 321-33
• This kind of God carries hope for the future

Therefore, the days are surely coming, says the
LORD, when it shall no longer be said, As the
LORD lives who brought the people of Israel up
out of the land of Egypt,
16
Story and Generalization

• Confessional statement of Ex. 34 is presented
  as revelation
• Appears in the situation of the story of the
  golden calf incident
• It could be said that it is the way that God
  does not act, in response to human sin, that is
  as revealing of his nature as the more
  spectacular salvific events. (p. 28)

17
Story and Generalization

• The God who saves and blesses is always
  faithful, loving, gracious, and righteous. (p.
  28)
• This two-pronged confession (historical
  creedal) indicates that even the OT authors
  subscribed to a canon within the canon view
• Understanding the diversity within the canon
  depends on certain key confessions of unity

18
The OT God Contemporary Issues
Who caused his glorious arm to march at the right
hand of Moses, who divided the waters before them
to make for himself an everlasting name, who led
them through the depths? Like a horse in the
desert, they did not stumble. Like cattle that
go down into the valley, the spirit of the LORD
gave them rest. Thus you led your people, to
make for yourself a glorious name. Look down
from heaven and see, from your holy and glorious
habitation. Where are your zeal and your might?
The yearning of your heart and your compassion?
They are withheld from me. For you are our
father, though Abraham does not know us and
Israel does not acknowledge us you, O LORD, are
our father our Redeemer from of old is you name.

• Impact of Liberation Theology on OT theology
• Search for images of God as Liberator is
  beginning to take account of the complex
  interaction of biblical images of God (pp. 29-30)
• God raises up the poor and gives strength to the
  king (1 Sam. 21-10)
• God is comforter and warrior (Is. 6312-16)
• Images come out of a cultural context and then
  act to shape the culture after having been
  applied to God

19
The OT God Contemporary Issues

• Within the biblical text one can see development
  with respect to slavery and womens issues (Ex.
  20-23 Deut. 10 15)
• Certain images for God rise to prominence in the
  context of certain situations
• God as Liberator in the Exodus
• Israel as Gods spouse when Hosea is called to
  oppose the fertility cults

20
The OT God Contemporary Issues

• Church can reach balanced view of God
• Giving proper attention to neglected images for
  God
• Understanding the OTs use of certain metaphors
  with specific settings

21
The OT God Contemporary Issues

• Fretheims recommendations for working with OT
  metaphors for God
• Determine the central metaphors
• That which provides for the most fundamental
  continuity through the centuries is not the story
  of ever-lapsing Israel, nor the heritage of faith
  which is always being reformulated it is the
  history of a certain kind of God who will always,
  come what may, execute justice and love the
  sojourner (Deut. 1018). Gods salvific will is
  never diminished Gods righteousness is never
  compromised Gods steadfast love endures
  forever. (p. 31)
• Pay close attention to what images for God say
  about God and the faith community

22
Bibliography

• The Book of Common Prayer (1979). The Seabury
  Press.
• Fretheim, Terence E. (1984). The Suffering of
  God. Philadelphia Fortress Press.
• Slide design template. Microsoft Office Online.
  http//office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/CT0113
  77381033.aspx (18 Sep. 2005)