The Crucified God Analysis

The week’s reading assignment centered around Jurgen Moltmann who wrote The Crucified God and provide an extract of his work. This work discussed the suffering of God, both his ability to suffer as well as implications surrounding his suffering and the suffering of Jesus on the Cross. Moltmann argues “If God were really incapable of suffering, he would also be as incapable of loving as the God of Aristotle, who was loved by all, but could not love” (McGrath, 2011, pg. 190). He argues that by being capable of loving, he also must be capable of suffering that comes with love, but that he does not suffer as man suffers due to their incomplete nature, but rather because of his love. Moltman also points out that while this is important, it does …show more content…
While this was a very deep reading assignment, it did help me to grasp that they were still together of one will while being separated in death. This helps to give an explanation to this conflict. It is important to come to an understanding of this dilemma, Christianity cannot function without Jesus death on the cross (it is by that death that we are saved) as such it is not something that can be bypassed or discarded. Jesus words in Matthew 27:46 “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (ESV) have the ability to completely alter your perspective of Christian theology regarding the Trinity if you do not have a clear understanding. As our reading assignment points out “The cross is either the Christian end of all theology or it is the beginning of a specifically Christian theology” (McGrath, 2011, pg. 191). Because this can cause a Trinitarian debate, it can sometimes be an unpopular theology. One of the text’s that I read to help me in understanding this assignment was by theologian Douglas John Hall he points out that one of the ways critics of the theology of the cross use to allow them to overlook the cross is by focusing on the resurrection. He quotes Moltmann in his article stating