Christianity has at its center a pivotal moment in history upon with all of its theology and practice hinges. To undertake a Christology is to consider what it is in God's nature and character that would necessitate and facilitate the cross. While classical theology has often disdained any idea of a God who has feelings and emotions, Jürgen Moltmann rejects this by showing that God suffers empathically and experiences humiliation alongside humanity in the person of Jesus. This paper will set out to investigate Moltmann's concept of a God who suffers, particularly in contrast to the classical notion of the impassibility of God. It will then explore how his claim might influence theology and worship. Finally, it will briefly consider how Moltmann's theology of the cross may find application in a Wesleyan ecology of faith.
“The death of Jesus on the cross is the centre of all Christian theology.”1 If Karl Barth is Christocentric in his approach in Church Dogmatics, then Moltmann is thoroughly cross-centered in his Crucified God. He makes it clear that all aspects of theology—creation, God, sin and death, faith and sanctification, future and hope—all find their basis in the cross of Christ. The cross is not the only theme, but is “the entry to its problems and answers on earth.”2 It is through the cross that we learn the nature and character of God, especially as revealed in Trinity terms.
In his evaluation of the cross-event, from the humiliation, beating, suffering, abandonment and forsakeness to the pain and agony of his slow death, Moltmann rejects the classical position that God is apathetic and without emotion or feeling; he proposes that God is deeply moved as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There is more than a legal trans...
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...r to resurrect Him. Through the cross, God has broken into the fallen world and revealed Himself more completely than ever. Moltmann brings the loving nature of God into full view as one who would go to the greatest lengths ever—the sacrifice of a Son—in order to rescue humanity. And Jesus retained the fullness of his divinity while plunging headlong into suffering and death on the world's behalf. There is now no place where God has not been.
Works Cited
Dunning, H. Ray. Grace, Faith, and Holiness: a Wesleyan Systematic Theology. Kansas City, Mo.: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 1988.
Moltmann, Jürgen. The Crucified God: the Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology. 1st Fortress Press ed. Minneapolis: FORTRESS PRESS, 1993.
Oden, Thomas C. The Word of Life (Systematic Theolgy. Vol. 2). Peabody, Mass.: Prince Press, 2001.
The medieval theologian Julian of Norwich was a mystic, writer, anchoress and spiritual director for her time. She is gaining in popularity for our time as she provides a spiritual template for contemplative prayer and practice in her compilation of writings found in Revelations of Divine Love. The insightful meditations provide the backdrop and basis for her Trinitarian theology’s embrace of God’s Motherhood found in the Trinity. Her representative approach of the all-encompassing unconditional love of a mother who nurtures, depicts Christ as our Mother ascending to the placement of Second hood within the Trinity while giving voice to the duality of God.
One of the main principles of Christianity is the belief in both the divinity and humanity of Jesus, that these two natures are combined harmoniously in one being. In general, all modern Christians believe that Jesus was human, he was considered to be “The Word was made flesh” (John, I: 14). However, Jesus was more than just a human, despite being subjected to pain, suffering and death like all other human beings, he was sinless and also possessed the power to heal and to defy death in order to ascend, both body and spirit, into heaven. He was all man and all God, a combination of these two elements, remaining distinct but united in one being. The deity of Jesus is a non-negotiable belief in Christianity, which is referred to in many parts of scripture, “God was revealed in the flesh” (I Timothy, 3:16). The Christian faith does not perceive Jesus as God but rather a reincarnation of God, a mysterious deity who is the second person of the Holy Trinity. Throughout history, controversy has surrounded the issue of the humanity and divinity of Jesus, leading to the formation of Docetism, the belief that Jesus was fully divine but not fully human, Arianism, that Jesus was superior to all of creation, but less divine than God, and Nestorius, that there were two separate persons within Jesus. This the proportion of the divine and human within Je...
“Recovering the Scandal of the Cross,” (Green, Baker) presents an alternative means of thinking for Christians theologically. The author’s task of interpreting culture and communicating within a culture is incredibly difficult. Much of the biblical teaching of God is rooted into communicating to a specific group of people and a certain culture. Yet God has chosen the Bible as the method of communicating himself to the world. Green and Baker begin to lay the groundwork of historical influence of atonement from Anselm and Irenaeus. They later introduce ideas from Charles Hodge and penal substitution. There are four major models of explanations of the atonement: Christus Victor, penal substitution, satisfaction and moral influence. Although others are mentioned in the book, this sets the stage of the historic dilemma from which they can view atonement in their discussion of tradition.
Moehlman, Conrad Henry. How Jesus Became God; an Historical Study of the Life of Jesus to the Age of Constantine. New York: Philosophical Library, 1960. Print.
... of the Christian faith front and center by uniting two camps of believers in one reading; a starting point. As illustrated by the authors, “Though we have not, of course, reached agreement, we are satisfied that we have eliminated misunderstandings, that is, that neither of us has misrepresented the other. We offer the result to the reader as a celebration of shared friendship, faith, and scholarship” (xi).
In "Per Repitio Nos Studiare: The Struggles of Abraham and God," Ryan Priester also explores how one learns through repeated suffering. Instead of examining human apathy or submission in the face of pain, however, his examination of the binding of Isaac introduces us to the role of human rebellion and resistance. Both The Waste Land and the relationship between Abraham and God revolve around the human response to excess and extremity.
Brown, Raymond. A Crucified Christ in Holy Week: Essays on the Four Gospel Passion Narratives. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1986.
Paley, William. “Natural Theology,” in Introduction to Philosophy. 6th edition. Perry, Bratman, and Fischer. Oxford University Press. 2013, pp. 47-51.
A foundational belief in Christianity is the idea that God is perfectly good. God is unable to do anything evil and all his actions are motives are completely pure. This principle, however, leads to many questions concerning the apparent suffering and wrong-doing that is prevalent in the world that this perfect being created. Where did evil come from? Also, how can evil exist when the only eternal entity is the perfect, sinless, ultimately good God? This question with the principle of God's sovereignty leads to even more difficult problems, including human responsibility and free will. These problems are not limited to our setting, as church fathers and Christian philosophers are the ones who proposed some of the solutions people believe today. As Christianity begins to spread and establish itself across Europe in the centuries after Jesus' resurrection, Augustine and Boethius provide answers, although wordy and complex, to this problem of evil and exactly how humans are responsible in the midst of God's sovereignty and Providence.
Hugo Meynell's book is a clear example of the growing interest in apologetics. Meynell considers four common objections to Christian doctrine, the belief in God is morally irrelevant; that there is no reason to believe in the special claims of Christianity over those of non-Christian religions. Meynell, also says no sense can be made of the doctrines of Incarnation, Atonement, and the Trinity and that Christian doctrine about life after death is based upon an indefensible view of the nature of human persons-and shows to his own views that these remarks can be met. It should be noted that Meynell on the prior assumption that God exists. This is not because Meynell takes that assumption to be indefensible or incapable of demonstration; it is rather that the existence of God is not his topic in this book.
This essay would be debated in the view of the Theology of Christianity. The theology of Christianity would be that there was and is a man that Jesus that came to Earth on behalf of his father name God to save sinners of their sins, and have a chance of eternal living in Heaven. The theology of Christianity is to believe in the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit and the jobs that they hold eventually and as an whole. This debate of an essay will include the following Tillich and his views on Process Theology, Bonhoeffer and his views on Secular Theology of the nature of God, the validation of Process Theology of the nature of God, and lastly the non-validation of Secular theology's view on the nature of God.Tillich views on Process Theology
In Miguel de Unamuno’s novella San Manuel Bueno, Martyr, readers learn about the life of Don Manuel, a Catholic priest secretly holding atheist beliefs and doubts in the afterlife. Despite these disbeliefs, Don Manuel works tirelessly to help his community and is regarded as a saint by all who meet him, hence the handle “San Manuel,” which literally translates to “Saint Manuel.” Don Manuel’s struggle and affiliation with sainthood receives further analysis and context from Francisco LaRubia-Prado, who parallels Unamuno’s novella to elements of Greek Tragedy and heroism. Drawing from Unamuno’s background with Ancient Greek playwriting and Sigmund Freud’s Totem and Taboo, LaRubia-Prado argues that Don Manuel should be seen as a representation of Christ and must suffer in silence in order to play the role of the dying, tragic hero that saves the
A Christian apologetic method is a verbal defense of the biblical worldview. A proof is giving a reason for why we believe. This paper will address the philosophical question of God’s existence from the moral argument. The presuppositional apologetic method of Reformed thinkers Cornelius Van Til and John Frame will be the framework. Topics covered here could undoubtedly be developed in more depth, but that would be getting ahead, here is the big picture.
This paper will expose what controversies he was involved in throughout his theological career; why and how he is considered to be a key figure in the development of Christianity; and what insights
The Late Middle Ages saw great theological discrepancies through the progression of Christian mysticism. The exploration into spiritual practices and the unification of the soul during this period led to great philosophical works. The Cloud of Unknowing and The Imitation of Christ are two noteworthy texts that discuss one’s aspiration to attain union with God. The Cloud of Unknowing is an anonymously authored spiritual exercise that accentuates movement toward the contemplative life by acknowledging what is unknown by man. In contrast, The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis is a spiritual guide which emphasizes that the way to be fully Christian is to live in the imitation of Jesus Christ. While many of the thoughts concerning human reason and withdrawal from the corporal world are similar in the texts, the two are inherently different as the account in The Imitation of Christ is more compelling due to its focus on a humanistic objective while acquiring union and salvation with God.