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19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

the theodicy of God in Christ, December 13, 2004

By	matt (the reading room) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Suffering of the Impassible God: The Dialectics of Patristic Thought (Oxford Early Christian Studies) (Hardcover)

This book is only one of a few that I have read about the impassibility of God, but I must say that it was the most useful for me as it refutes a few misconceptions and bases the framework of the book on the patristic resistance to heretical modes of thought that tried to limit God to impassibility. This is a very important point to make these days. So many philosophies, and especially a religion like Islam, limit God to transcendence. It is thus in defense of God's true nature that patristic Christianity steps up to the fore in this most current of debates.

The author begins by demonstrating the falsehood of the common belief that the Hellenic temperament was universally opposed to divine passibilty. The dichotomy between the two schools of those in the bible is a false one, as it is in the Hellenic mind. Even so, the Church laid out a theology of God's own theodicy via the experience of the incarnate Christ, the Logos of the Father.

Gavrilyuk then goes onto say, "I have argued in this book that the church's rejection of the major christological heresies followed a series of dialectical turns, all taken to safeguard an account of divine involvement worthy of God. `Dialectical' is not an empty word in this description: the mind of the church rejected, step by step, the three inadequate strategies that aimed at eliminating the tension between Christ's devine staus and human experiences of his earthly ministry, most poignantly expressed in a paradoxical statement: "the Impassible suffered".

What were the three inadequate strategies? Docetism, Arianism and Nestorianism- the three main distortions of the Tradition that the Church refuted and in the process safeguarded the true love of God and possibility of our salvation. "What God did not assume is not healed." Only this maximalist christology that takes seriously the incarnation is of any use to us who are in need of redemption. As has been said by many, a God who does not suffer is of no use. But it must be stressed that God is actually still impassible, contra Gavrilyuk, and that this impassibility of the patristic sort is actually a more profound union with humanity, if we can speak that way, than a God who changes.

The two best books on this subject are "Does God Suffer?" by Weinandy and "Miracles" by C.S. Lewis. They offer the best arguments, in my mind, regarding the true nature of this subject and, as it turns out, they are in a straight line from the patristic undersatnding.

All of that said, this is still a great book and highly recommended.

ENJOY!