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The creative suffering of the triune God: An evolutionarypanentheistic paradigmGloria L. Schaab

Online Publication Date: 01 November 2007To cite this Article: Schaab, Gloria L. (2007) 'The creative suffering of the triune God:An evolutionary panentheistic paradigm', Theology and Science, 5:3, 289 - 304To link to this article: DOI: 10.1080/14746700701622032URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14746700701622032

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The Creative Suffering of the Triune God: AnEvolutionary Panentheistic Paradigm

GLORIA L. SCHAAB

Abstract In view of the ubiquity of pain, suffering, and death, inflicted and inherent in the cosmos

and its creatures, how shall we speak rightly of God? This essay proposes that the only morally

coherent response to this question is that God suffers in, with, and under the creative processes of the

cosmos. It discusses scientific insights from evolution and from quantum physics that support the

proposal of the suffering of the Christian God from a Trinitarian, panentheistic approach to God in

relation to the cosmos and its creatures.

Key words: Theology; Suffering; Evolution; Trinity; Panentheism

Introduction

Auschwitz. Hiroshima. Rwanda. Sudan. 9/11. Iraq. Indonesia. Katrina. How shall

one speak rightly of God in view of the suffering and death that echoes from thislitany? How shall one speak rightly of God in view of the suffering and death

inherent and inflicted in the cosmos and its creatures? Clearly, the reality of

suffering that attends innocent, existential, and inflicted pain and death has

demanded a reasonable and authentic theological response in every era and has

persistently impelled theological debate concerning the relationship of God to

suffering and the conceivability of the suffering of God. However, the global

consciousness, scope, and impact of existential and inflicted pain and death in the

twentieth and twenty-first centuries have often driven this debate to an acute

pitch. Atrocities committed through multinational and multicultural conflicts and

terrorism, aberrant human relations, and environmental devastation relentlessly

provoke the question How can God rule over a world of such suffering and be

yet unmoved?1 While in a former age, some may have looked to an omnipotent

and impassible deus ex machina to provide a solution to worldly distress, the

contemporary worldview directs many twentieth- and twenty-first-century

theologians to a powerless and suffering God, a God who allows himself to be

edged out of the world and on to the cross . . . weak and powerless in the world,

and that is exactly the way, the only way, in which he can be with us and help

us . . . only a suffering God can help.2

Theology and Science, Vol. 5, No. 3, 2007

ISSN 1474-6700 print/ISSN 1474-6719 online/07/030289-16 2007 Center for Theology and the Natural SciencesDOI: 10.1080/14746700701622032


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Profoundly affected by the immensity and inexorability of such suffering, many

twentieth-century theologians have advanced a broad spectrum of proposals

addressing the mystery of Gods relation to the barbarous excess of unmerited

and senseless suffering witnessed in this last century.3 This problem of suffering

and evil moves some theologians to theodicy, to the defense of an omnipotent,

immutable, and all-loving God whose nature, attributes, and purposes mustsomehow be justified or justify the presence and purpose of suffering in response

to pain, death, and evil in the cosmos. It causes other scholars to ascribe the

presence of evil to other factors, such as human freedom or finitude.4 However,

the presence of such suffering and evil persuades many others to re-think the

classical attributions that have been applied to God in relation to the world. As

John Haught has observed, The cruciform visage of nature . . . invites us to

depart, perhaps more than ever before, from all notions of a deity untouched by

the worlds suffering.5 Moved to a departure from all notions of a deity

untouched, I join my voice with those who say that understandings of God asimmutable, impassible, and unlimited in power are no longer viable in a cosmos

beset by suffering and death. With a cohort of theologians from diverse

hermeneutical perspectives, I propose that the most viable response to the travail

of the cosmos is the recognition of the Christian God as so intimately and

immanently related to creation as to participate in the very sufferings of the

cosmos itself.

While theological proposals toward the suffering of God often seem to present

compelling arguments for the renunciation of the impassible, omnipotent God of

classical theism, other contemporary interpretations caution against too ready an

attribution of suffering to God or too uncritical an affirmation of suffering in God.These cautions rise from a diverse chorus of voices representing feminist liberation

theologies, with an incessant basso profundo from the classical Catholic tradition.

While by no means harmonized in their conclusions, a chorus of feminist

theological voices concurs that, as interpreted and developed within the

patriarchal tradition of Christianity, the image of the crucified Christ, the suffering

servant of God, tends to glorify violence, torment, and abuse and to commend

freely chosen suffering as an example to be emulated. Moreover, classical

Christologies of sin, atonement, and redemption communicate the message that

suffering is salvific in itself and that self-sacrifice effects the salvation of the world.A forerunner in the feminist critique of such interpretations is theologian Mary

Daly, who indicts the image of the crucified Christ as a scapegoat image who

bears the guilt and the blame for the failures of the dominant societal group.6

Building on Dalys foundation some twenty years later, Rebecca Parker and

Joanne Carlson Brown mount a critique of the notion that Jesus suffered in accord

with Gods will. They indict such a notion as an example of divine child abuse

perpetrated by a divine sadist in which death is lauded as salvific and the

suffering child represents the hope of the world.7

Rather than taking their critical approach through Christology, many Catholic

theologians have charted a course through the classical theological traditionconcerning the divine nature and attributes. Such theologians maintain that the

attribution of suffering to God only exacerbates the problem of evil by entangling

290 Theology and Science


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God in time, inhibiting divine freedom, and subjecting the Creator to the created

order, which leads to an eternalization and universalization of suffering that may

militate against resistance to injustice. They note that affirmation of divine

suffering radically contests assertions of divine immutability and impassibility, as

well as attributions of omniscience and omnipotence that relate logically within

that system. Hence, the assertion of suffering in God looms as a potential liabilityto every classical Christian doctrine that considers these philosophical and

theological predicates axiomatic.

Mindful of these critiques, I nevertheless contend, in the words of Arthur

Peacocke, that for any concept of God to be morally acceptable and

coherent . . . we cannot but tentatively propose that God suffers in, with, and

under the creative processes of the world with their costly unfolding in time.8 To

support this position, I set myself within the theology and science dialogue.

Employing the science of evolutionary cosmology and biology to ground a

theological affirmation of the suffering of God supports the aims of this project inseveral ways. First, it extends the compass of its theoretical basis beyond the

revelation, philosophy, and metaphysics employed by the bulk of classical and

contemporary theological thought. Second, this wider scientific compass permits

an approach that is expanded to an inclusive cosmocentric perspective, rather than

narrowed by a largely anthropocentric viewpoint. Third, a scientific approach

provides a basis for its proposals in observable, empirical, experiential, and

emerging data concerning the entities, structures, and processes of the cosmos,

rather than dependent upon essentially metaphysical or logical principles. Finally,

the use of the understandings of evolutionary science increases the theoretical

defensibility of its proposals for persons who live in an age in which science asmuch as religion, theology, or philosophy shapes the personal and social

consciousness of humanity concerning itself and the cosmos of which humanity

is an integral part.

The theological model I use for expressing the relation of God to the cosmos is

that of panentheism, which suggests that the being of the cosmos is in God and the

Being of God is in the cosmos, but that the Being of God is not identified with nor

exhausted by the cosmos. With a myriad of those engaged in contemporary

systematic theology and the theology science dialogue, I contend that panenthe-

ism best exemplifies Gods creative relationship to the evolutionary worldobserved by the sciences.9 Furthermore, I conceive this panentheistic relationship

in Trinitarian terms that lead to a triune distinction in the One God as personally

Transcendent, personally Incarnate, and personally Immanent in relation to the

cosmos.10 Three consequences of this panentheistic theology of God as trinity

deserve emphasis with regard to the notion of a suffering God. First, if the triune

God as Transcendent, Incarnate, and Immanent is understood in panentheistic

terms, then no aspect of God is detached from the God world relationship.

Consequently, the being and becoming of the cosmos is integral to the Being of the

Divine. Therefore, all events in the life of the cosmos, including events of pain,

suffering, and death, are events in the life of God. All that is created is embracedby the inner unity of the divine life of the CreatorTranscendent, Incarnate, and

Immanent.11

Creative Suffering of the Triune God 291


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Key evolutionary concepts in the affirmation of divine suffering

Having situated my affirmation of the suffering of God within the context of an

evolutionary panentheistic paradigm of a God world relationship, I now ask

what insights of evolutionary science might support this inference. While

evolutionary perspectives offer a number of possible approaches, three keyconcepts ably support this proposal: the costliness of the evolutionary process, the

existential reality of cosmic unpredictability, and the whole part interaction of

God and the cosmos. I bring each of these three movements into dialogue with the

panentheistic paradigm and the Christian tradition to affirm an evolutionary

theology of the creative suffering of the Triune God.

The costliness of evolution

The first movement toward the proposal of divine suffering is rooted in

understanding creation as a costly process. While creation through the interplay

of chance and law elicits a kaleidoscopic diversity of life forms, this process also

results in a pervasiveness of pain, suffering, and death in the cosmos and its

creatures. In the evolutionary process, however, pain, suffering, and death appear

to be necessary conditions both for the survival of life and for the transition of life

to novel and emergent forms. The presence of pain in the sentient creatures of the

cosmos not only accompanies death but also functions as a warning signal for

danger and disease. The emergence of new forms and patterns within a finite

universe can occur only when the death of old forms and patterns make way forthem. Thus, as Arthur Peacocke observes,

There is a kind of structural logic about the inevitability of living organisms dyingand of preying on each other for we cannot conceive, in a lawful nonmagicaluniverse, of any way whereby immense variety of developing, biological, structuralcomplexity might appear, except by utilizing structures already existing, either byway of modification (as in biological evolution) or of incorporation (as in feeding). 12

For Christian paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the presence of pain,

suffering, and death is not just structurally logical in an evolving universe, butstatistically necessary. To comprehend this claim, one must grasp Teilhards

understanding of what it means to create.

For Teilhard, the primordial nature of matter is multiple and unorganized.

Through the evolutionary processes in which God is immanent, the multiple is

unified and organized, converging gradually toward unity in God. Therefore,

Teilhard suggests, if to create is to unite (evolutively, gradually), then God

cannot create without evil appearing as a shadow.13 According to Teilhard, pain,

suffering, and death in an evolving universe are woven into the creative

process itself. They are not solely experiences that sentient beings inflict upon one

another by necessity or by choice. Rather, they are inherent aspects of a universe inthe process of unification and transformation toward God. In Teilhards own

words,



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By virtue of the very structure of the nothingness over which God leans, in orderto create he can proceed in only one way. He must under his attractive influencearrange and unify little by little . . . But what is the inevitable counterpart ofthe complete success which is obtained by following a process of this type? Is it notthe payment of a certain amount of waste? It involves disharmony or physicaldecomposition in the pre-living, suffering in the living, and sin in the domain of

liberty.14

Free as it is, creation cannot progress toward unity without giving rise to . . . some

evil here or there and that by statistical necessity.15 Hence, so long as disorder,

disunity, and disorganization endure within the creative movement toward God,

Teilhard suggests, so long do pain, suffering, and death endure as inherent,

inescapable elements of the process.

For those in the Christian theological tradition, this scientific insight of the

costliness of evolution resonates with the theological insight of Gods vulnerable,

self-emptying, and suffering love revealed in creation and incarnation. Never-theless, in the Christian tradition, the prevailing theistic paradigm of God as

existing in a space distinct from that of the world, implies a detachment from

the world in its suffering.16 However, a panentheistic paradigm suggests no such

separation and yields no implied detachment. Hence, the panentheistic model

evokes an insight into the suffering of God in the very processes of creation. God

is creating the world from within and, the world being in God, God experiences

its sufferings directly as Gods own and not from the outside.17

In transcendent, incarnate, and immanent relation to the evolutionary cosmos,

God envelops, engages, and enters into those events of pain, suffering and death

that constitute the costly processes of evolution, as well as those events thatrepresent moral evil. However, pain, suffering, and death do not have the last

word. As evolutionary science demonstrates, life is dynamically sustained by and

emergent from the death or transformation of entities and structures that already

exist in the cosmos. This dynamic of divine creativity that transforms suffering

and death to new life in the cosmos represents a dim reflection of the divine

creativity that raised Jesus from the dead. Therefore, both the evolutionary process

and the paschal mystery reveal that pain, suffering, and death, though pervasive

in a cosmos of free process and free will, are nonetheless within the transforming

and creative love of God. God may be said to both suffer and save in the costlyevolution of the cosmos, even as God suffered and saved in Christ.

The existential reality of cosmic uncertainty

A second movement toward the proposal of divine suffering occurs with scientific

developments related to the inherent open-endedness and unpredictability of the

cosmos. Despite the virtual demise of the Newtonian mechanistic model of the

universe, science still assumes and depends upon a level of predictability in its

discipline. Such predictability seems to be obvious at the macro-level of cosmicevents, that is, at the level of the operation of necessity or natural law. However,

biological observation of the emergence and evolution of life in the cosmos and



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quantum experiments with subatomic particles reveal that there seems to be an

intrinsic indeterminacy and unpredictability at the micro-level of the cosmos.

This is the level associated with the operation of chance in cosmic creativity and

with the apparent unpredictability in measurement of particle position and

movement at the quantum level.18 This process of eliciting cosmic potential

through chance is what Teilhard termed tatonnement or groping. For Teilhard,however, tatonnement is not mere chance, but directed chance, directed by

God who is panentheistically immanent in the cosmos itself.19 Admittedly, the

idea of directed chance seems somewhat of an oxymoron. Nonetheless, the

concept is reminiscent of the response of chaos theorist Joseph Ford to Albert

Einsteins famous question of whether God plays dice with the universe.

According to Ford, God plays dice with the universe. But theyre loaded dice.

And the main objective of physics now is to find out by what rules were they

loaded and how can we use them for our own ends.20 In Teilhards own

elaboration of the notion of directed chance, he explains, The divineaction . . . cannot limit itself to enclosing and molding individual natures from

outside. In order to fully dominate them, it must have a hold on their innermost

life;21 must, in a word, be panentheistically related to the life of the cosmos.

Hence, God enters into the very life of the cosmos; every quark, every particle,

every aspect of matter and energy is connected to Gods desire and hope for the

world.22

Nonetheless, such manifestations of cosmic unpredictability in the process of

creation pose challenges to theistic notions of divine omnipotence, immut-

ability, and impassibility in relation to the cosmos. If there is irreducible

autonomy, freedom, and unpredictability evident in the cosmos from its micro-to its macro-levels; if such autonomy and freedom express themselves in the

God-given self-creativity of the cosmos through the interplay of chance within

law and the indeterminate events of quantum physics; and if such autonomy

and freedom are intended by and disclosive of a rational and loving Creator,

one might conclude that God imposed limitations upon Godself in order that

the cosmos might unfold its potentialities in free self-creativity. Christian

theologians like Arthur Peacocke, John Polkinghorne, Keith Ward, and Denis

Edwards, among others, have suggested that such divine self-limitation is

actually the definitive demonstration of the understanding of God as Love. If,in Gods nature as Love, God created both the cosmos and humanity as free

and autonomous, then God, in Gods nature as Love, has chosen not to

exercise coercive power over the cosmos and its creatures. Rather, in order to

achieve his purposes, [God] has allowed his inherent omnipotence . . . to be

modified, restricted, and curtailed by the very open-endedness that he has

bestowed upon creation.23

In preserving this open-endedness, a balance is struck between the freedom and

autonomy of the Creator and of the created. According to Ron Highfield, this

balance protects Gods deity while giving . . . freedom to the world and autonomy

to science. God . . . allows an evolving universe to explore its own possibilitiesthrough indeterminate quantum events and random mutation and natural



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selection.24 However, this balance is not without cost. In its God-given freedom

of process, evolution unavoidably makes mistakes, enters blind alleys, and

produces much suffering25 that is borne by the cosmos. Furthermore, in a

panentheistic model, these costs and risks are borne by God as well, through a

self-inflicted vulnerability to the very processes God had himself created.26 In

this vulnerability, God opens Godself to and involves Godself in the pleasures andpains, joys and sufferings, life and death inherent in all levels of the cosmos in its

costly unfolding. Moreover, in the Trinitarian panentheistic model I propose, this

vulnerability is borne in a triune manner. God as Transcendent encompasses and

embraces the cosmos in its costly unfolding; God as Incarnate enfleshes divine

love, life, and purpose by becoming one with the cosmos in its costly being and

becoming; and God as Immanent creates and transforms the cosmos within its

perilous process of evolution.

The invocation of cosmic uncertainty and of the self-limited omnipotence of

God, nonetheless, leads in turn to poignant questions of the pastoral efficacy ofsuch assertions. Does the attribution of self-limitation and suffering in God solve

the problem of suffering? Does the hyphen have the power to reconcile Creator

and created or is it, in Highfields term, simply theology-by-punctuation?27 Can

one build trust in a Creator in the face of divine self-limitation, suffering, and risk?

In the effort to redress past theological imbalances, has the pendulum swung too

far?28 Is it enough to claim that suffering is natural and that God suffers with

human beings? A viable response to these questions must return to the

understanding of God as triune creator and liberator of the cosmos in

panentheistic relation to creation. While plainly affirming the self-limitation and

suffering of God, the Trinitarian panentheistic approach also strongly asserts theomnipotence and omniscience of the Divine Being of God as transcendent Creator.

While clearly acknowledging the pervasiveness of divine and cosmic suffering,

this evolutionary theology maintains that suffering in the cosmos is not static, but

inexorably moves toward new or transformed life. While the freedom and the

autonomy of creation in general and of humanity in particular sometimes

hampers Gods insistent urging toward life in cosmic history, the dynamism of

redemption, liberation, and transformation toward new and abundant life is

nonetheless the essential and indisputable dynamic of the Christian God.

Whole part interaction of God and the cosmos

A third movement toward the proposal of suffering in God concerns an

understanding of Gods interaction with the universe. A fundamental under-

standing maintained by those who engage the insights of both theology and

science is that the God who sustains the laws of nature does not simultaneously

intervene to abrogate them. Hence, such scholars insist that Gods interaction with

the cosmos is not interventionist, but must be conceived in ways that do not

suggest a violation of natural processes. While in response to this position someuse models based on information input29 and others based on the principle of



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quantum indeterminacy discussed above,30 a particularly persuasive proposal

and one that is consistent with a panentheistic paradigmis the model of divine

interaction through whole part influence.31 In this model, the system-as-a-

whole influences its constituent parts and, conversely, the constituent parts

influence the system-as-a-whole. The movement of influence in this model,

therefore, is bi-directional. The realities that exist at higher levels are causallyinteractive, in both directions, with the realities that exist at the lower levels.

Based on the top-down aspect of this model, God genuinely influences events

and behaviors at all levels of creation in a whole part fashion. However, based

on the bottom-up aspect of this model, the parts of the cosmos in their

finitude and freedom also exert a part whole effect and even constraint on

influences of its personal Creator. Hence, it is conceivable that Gods capacity to

influence the cosmos may encounter resistance and rejection in the creaturely

realm, most especially in that of the human. Moreover, it is conceivable that in

divine freedom God may refuse participation in the free activities of the cosmosthat are inimical to divine intentions. In either case, within the model of whole

part interaction between God and the cosmos, the cosmos clearly has the

capacity to influence and affect the Divine, even to the point that cosmic

processes cause God to suffer in, with, and under the entities and structures of

the cosmos in its costly unfolding in time.

Because of this dynamic, the understanding of God in whole part interaction

with the cosmos provides a critical element in the affirmation of the creative

suffering of the Triune God. If God, transcendent, incarnate, and immanent, is

vivifying, sustaining, and transforming the cosmos through whole part

influence, then God has entered into the very life of things . . . every aspect ofmatter and energy is connected to Gods desire and hope for the world.32

However, since in a panentheistic model this relationship is bi-directional, the

realities of the cosmos can exert effects upon God. If this is the case, God does

not remain unaffected by cosmic realities, even those that include pain, suffering,

and death. When the natural world, with all its suffering, is panentheistically

conceived of as in God, it follows that the evils of pain, suffering, and death in

the world are internal to Gods own self: God must have experience of the

natural. This intimate and actual experience of God must also include all those

events that constitute the evil intentions of human beings and theirimplementation.33 Hence, in transcendent, incarnate, and immanent relation,

God embraces and permeates the cosmos in all its pain and suffering, false starts

and dead ends. But in Gods gracious doing so, these very events become the

means through which God draws near and passes by, disclosing Godself as

present and active in the travail of cosmic history. On this point, critics contend

that if God is understood panentheistically in transcendent, incarnate, and

immanent relation to the cosmos, then God must be conceived as actively and

receptively participative in the suffering of the cosmos, a conclusion associated

with process theology.34 Nevertheless, while a panentheistic model clearly

implies the receptivity of God to all manner of existential reality, its affirmation ofthe principle of cosmic indeterminacy and the dynamics of whole part influence

allow it to reject Gods active or volitional involvement in cosmic travail in favor



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of attributing such travail to the free process and free will of the cosmos and its

creatures.

Evaluating the proposal of the creative suffering of God

Having identified and analyzed the key concepts that contribute to an

evolutionary theology of the suffering of God, I now move to an evaluation of

my proposal by means of three criteria: (1) fit with data, (2) fecundity, and (3)

pastoral efficacy.35 The data with which such proposals must fit are threefold: the

broad features of the entities, structures, and processes of the evolving cosmos; the

fundamental insights of the Christian tradition; and the panentheistic paradigm of

the God world relationship. The fecundity of a proposal requires that it have

generativity, a vitality about it that has the capacity to foster new ideas and

creative responses regarding God and the God world relationship regardingsuffering. Finally, these ideas and responses must demonstrate pastoral efficacy, the

capacity to inspire, transform, and liberate human persons and the universe in

ways that promote the full flourishing of all manner of being in the midst of a

suffering world.

Fit with data

As indicated above, the criterion of fit with data addresses three elements

with which an evolutionary theology of the suffering God must show coherence.These elements are the insights of evolutionary science, the Christian theological

tradition, and the panentheistic paradigm of the God world relationship.

Evolutionary science. The three particular insights of evolutionary science upon

which the affirmation of divine suffering is predicated in this essay were

deliberately selected because of their support for the postulate of God as suffering

and Triune Creator. One begins with the free and autonomous evolution of the

cosmos as a costly process that inherently entails the death of old forms for the

emergence of new forms of life. This costly process may be a consequence of thefundamental indeterminacy of cosmic processes at the quantum level, or of cosmic

self-creativity operating freely and autonomously through law and chance. It may

also be a consequence of human persons operating freely and autonomously

through action and intentions that have results deleterious to persons and

purposes other than their own. When coupled with the panentheistic under-

standing of the Triune God as transcendent, incarnate, and immanent in whole

part or top-down relation to the cosmos, these two realities of evolutionary

unfolding become situated within the very life of God-qua-Creator. In this bi-

directional relation, one can conceive of God as suffering all the pain, suffering,

and death ubiquitous in the cosmos through the free will of human persons andthe free processes of cosmic unfolding. Hence, any serious consideration of God-

qua-Creator in whole part relation to the cosmos that unfolds by means of the



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costly process of evolutionary creativity under the sway of cosmic indeterminacy

is inexorably led to face the fact of death, pain, and suffering in that process and

so come to an understanding of God as the suffering Creator.36

The Christian tradition. While the introduction of this essay made much of the fact

that the affirmation of the divine suffering often conflicts with the classicaltheological tradition of Christianity, the discussion has demonstrated the

compatibility of several central Christian concepts with an evolutionary theology

of a suffering God. It has incorporated Christianitys core theology of the Triune

nature of God; its long-established belief in the transcendence, incarnation, and

immanence of God in relation to the cosmos; and its central doctrines of creation

and incarnation into its affirmation of divine suffering. However, the most

powerful argument for consonance between the suffering of God in the cosmos

and the Christian tradition continues to center on the paschal mystery of Jesus the

Christ. This paschal mystery dramatically discloses the infinite creativity of divineLove that ultimately overcomes finite pain, suffering, and death. This realization,

in fact, redeems the mystery of the cross for Teilhard de Chardin. No longer solely

a symbol of the dark retrogressive side of the universe, the paschal mystery of

cross and resurrection becomes the symbol of progress and victory won through

mistakes, disappointments, and hard work, the very dynamic of evolutionary

unfolding.37 Based on his own re-visioning of the paschal mystery from an

evolutionary perspective, Arthur Peacocke grasps a further insight, one that

concerns the very nature of God in relation to this evolving and suffering universe.

If Jesus is indeed the self-expression of God in a human person, Peacocke

contends, then the tragedy of his actual human life can be seen as a drawing backof the curtain to unveil a God suffering in and with the sufferings of created

humanity and so, by natural extension, with those of all creation. From this

perspective, The cry of dereliction [of Jesus on the cross] can be seen as an

expression of the anguish of God in a suffering cosmos.38

Despite these resonances, the affirmation of the self-emptying and suffering of

Godwhether creative in nature, Triune in attribution, or loving in purpose

does not escape the variety of existential, philosophical, and theological critiques

raised by Christian theologians concerning suffering in God discussed at the

beginning of this essay. In fact, to some extent, it exemplifies them. The associationof suffering with the divine does tend to entangle God in time, to inhibit Gods

freedom, and to subject the Creator to the vicissitudes of the created order.

Moreover, divine suffering does radically contest the assertions of divine

immutability, impassibility, omniscience, and omnipotence that are characteristic

of classical theism. Indeed, the assertion of suffering in God does loom as a

potential liability to every classical Christian doctrine that considers these

philosophical and theological predicates axiomatic.

Nevertheless, I submit that a clear emphasis on the transcendence and

immanence and incarnation of God in relation to the cosmos serves to mitigate

the force of these critiques. Because of the radical balance that Trinitarian relationsto the cosmos represent, God remains both temporal and atemporal, both free and

freely self-restrained, both subject to and Subject beyond the vagaries of the



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created order. As to further criticism of the concept of suffering in Godthat it

eternalizes or universalizes suffering, that it glorifies and commends suffering, or

that it militates against action for justice and liberationone can look to the

insights of evolutionary science for response. These insights make it clear that

the suffering that attends pain and death is an inherent, existential aspect of a

cosmos created by God in autonomy and freedom, through chance within law,with the capacity for self-creativity and the emergence of sentience and

consciousness. Moreover, suffering is a given in a cosmos in which the ultimate

emergent of that cosmos, a being who possesses self-consciousness and personal

subjectivity in addition to sentience and consciousness, has the autonomy and

freedom not only to assent to participation in the loving and creative purposes

of the Creator of the cosmos, but also to dissent from participation in these

intentions.

Hence, given the existential reality of pain, suffering, and death that subsist as

inevitabilities in a cosmos that evolves through free processes and free will, theattribution of suffering to God does not glorify or commend suffering in the

cosmos and in its creatures. Rather, it seeks to offer a morally acceptable and

coherent response to the suffering of the cosmos and its creatures in their

existential situation. Moreover, although God does not prevent the occurrence of

the inherent and inflicted evil that results from the freedom and autonomy of the

cosmos and its creatures, neither does the evolutionary creativity of Gods

suffering love intend that pain, suffering, and death endlessly endure or

eschatologically triumph.

The panentheistic paradigm. The theological affirmation of the transcendent,incarnate, and immanent Triunity of God, coupled with an emphasis on the

doctrines of creation and incarnation, leads to the affirmation that the

panentheistic model of the God world relation is the most appropriate to

exemplify a God-qua-Creator in relation to creation. Furthermore, as demonstrated

above, this model also possesses an especially fine fit with the notion of the

suffering of God. By using the panentheistic paradigm with the concept of the

Triunity of God as transcendent, incarnate, and immanent in relation to the

cosmos, one possesses a means by which to affirm the suffering of God in all

aspects of divine relation to the cosmos. Despite the critiques of classical theology,there is neither need nor justification to preserve the Being of God from being

scathed by the experience of suffering. To do so would be a morally incoherent

response to the ubiquitous suffering of the cosmos. Nevertheless, the panentheistic

paradigm of the Triunity of God in relation to the world provides a model that

adequately offers the moral and coherent response to suffering that this essay

proposes, while simultaneously preserving the transcendence of God that assures

that such suffering need not have the last word. In the panentheistic paradigm of

divine transcendence, incarnation, and immanence, God embraces, participates in,

and permeates the cosmos in its costly unfolding. As God does so, God freely

suffers any and all things that the cosmos itself endures and willingly suffers anyand all things in a continuous creativity that incessantly brings the cosmos to new

and abundant life.



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Fecundity

One of the most significant features of evolutionary theology in general, and of the

theology of the suffering of God in particular, is the fecundity of such proposals.

By situating its theology within an evolutionary worldview and within the

panentheistic paradigm, this essay generates a myriad of new perspectives andpossibilities for contemplating and symbolizing God, the cosmos and its creatures,

and the God world relationship. The concept of the Triune nature of God as

personally Transcendent, Incarnate, and Immanent in, with and under the creative

processes of the cosmos; of the cosmos as freely and autonomously self-creative, as

characterized by kaleidoscopic fecundity and ubiquitous suffering, and as

evolving through free process and free will; of the world as within God and of

God within, but not exhausted by, the worldeach and all of these images of God

and of the cosmos are pregnant with the promise of deeper and broader

theological insight and discourse. Moreover, such a theology expands the settingsin which the symbols of God, the cosmos, and their interrelation function,

especially the symbol of God as suffering Creator. God does not suffer solely for

creations human emergentsfor the atonement of human sin, or for the salvation

of human souls, or for ransom from human bondage, or even for the liberation

from human oppression. God suffers in, with, and under the creative processes of

the cosmos for the healing, the salvation, the transformation, and the liberation of

the whole of the cosmos itself. Consequently, this theology of the suffering of God

addresses not only the obstacles that hinder classical theology in its efforts to

respond morally and coherently to the ubiquity of pain, suffering, and death in the

cosmos and in its creatures, but also the concerns of those served by liberationtheology and ecological theology. It does so not only by addressing morally and

coherently the sources of suffering visited upon and experienced by the oppressed

and by the cosmos, but also by lifting the burden of philosophical and theological

paradigms of God and suffering that have only added weight to their experience

of oppression. Furthermore, it does so in a way that respects the insights of science

that reject an interventionist model of God world interaction and that respect the

core elements of the Christian tradition concerning the God who is self-emptying

and vulnerable Love disclosed in Jesus the Christ. By affirming the concept that

God suffers transcendently, incarnately, and immanently in, with, and under theinherent and inflicted pain, suffering, and death of the cosmos and its creatures,

the theology proposed here offers to all who suffer the promise of a God who is

not only a companion in their suffering, but also a God who is an incessantly

creative impetus and catalyst for the transformation of pain, suffering, and death

into new and emergent life.

Pastoral efficacy

In the earlier examination of the effect of cosmic indeterminacy on the concept ofthe suffering of God, significant questions arose concerning the pastoral efficacy of

such a concept to alleviate the experience of existential suffering endemic in the



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cosmos. These questions concerned whether the attribution of self-limitation and

suffering in God served to solve the problem of suffering and whether a self-

limited and suffering Creator was worthy of human trust. In the perspective I seek

to set forth in this essay, it is not the affirmation of the suffering of God that renders

the Divine impotent and unworthy of trust. Rather, it is the denial of suffering in

God that renders the Divine ineffective and irrelevant in the face of the existentialreality of suffering in human and non-human creation. If one is left with

theodicys dilemma of attempting to defend either the omnipotence or the

benevolence of God or of trying to reconcile the two by means of divine

omnisciencein other words, left with the understanding that God arbitrarily can

intervene but refuses to do so for some reason known only to Godthen

Christians are the most pitiable people of all.39 However, in the proposals of this

essay, there is no such dilemma. Rather, through the integration of the insights of

evolutionary science and the Christian tradition, one obtains a pastorally

efficacious understanding of a Triune God who, in transcendent, incarnate, andimmanent vulnerability, is familiar with suffering and bears cosmic grief.

Moreover, this integration identifies a God who in transcendent, incarnate, and

immanent creativity moves toward life and offers healing liberation. In the words

of the Christian liturgy, an evolutionary theology of the creative suffering of God

assures those who suffer that Life is changed, not ended.

As I have continuously noted throughout this work, the evolutionary process of

the emergence of new life and novel forms in a closed universe frequently entails

the death, the passing, or the transformation of old forms of life in order for the

new to appear and develop. This dynamic process varies. At times it involves the

death or extinction of species through natural selection or through the naturalprocess of aging; at other times, it involves the incorporation of more rudimentary

forms into more complex forms through the process of eating. Sometimes this

process takes place through geologic or atmospheric eventsthrough earth-

quakes, through volcanic eruption, through inclement weather conditions, and

through tsunamiswith often calamitous results. In contrast, there are ubiquitous

occasions when pain, suffering, and death are not part of natural evolutionary

processes, but are inflicted by the exercise of human freedom and autonomy upon

the otherthrough starvation, through violence, through genocide, through

warfare, and through despoilation. Hence, whether the source is inherent in thenatural evolution of the universe or inflicted by iniquity of humanity, in a cosmos

characterized by free process and free will, pain, suffering, and death happen. The

essential question is what the juxtaposition of this evolutionary insight concerning

cosmic reality with the paschal mystery of Jesus the Christ has to tell humanity

about the responsiveness and potency of God in the face of such existentials in the

cosmos and in human experience. I suggest that what the cosmos reveals is

thoroughly consonant with what the paschal mystery of Jesus the Christ reveals:

that pain, suffering, and death are within the liberating and transforming embrace

of the creative Love of God and that this creative Love of God has the capacity to

bring forth from the most deleterious of events in cosmic and human history newand emergent modes of life. Fundamentally, the evolutionary process and the

event of Jesus the Christ remind human beings that, ultimately, life is changed and



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not ended. Moreover, a theology of the suffering of God discloses that the

efficacious, creative, and salvific Love of God has the potential to be all the more

effective because of its incarnate and immanent suffering in, with, and under

cosmic history, a suffering that communicates to conscious and self-conscious

creatures not separation, but companionship; not apathy, but empathy; not

absence, but intimacy; not arbitrariness, but steadfast love.In addition, a theology of a suffering God can disabuse Christians of the perilous

notion that God is the source of cosmic or personal suffering and, conversely, can

reveal that suffering in the cosmos and in its inhabitants grieves the Creator as it

grieves the created. Furthermore, a panentheistic theology of the suffering God

affirms that the Creator God is immanent and incarnate within suffering creation

and at the same time infinitely transcends it. Hence, the Creator and creation do not

remain mired in pain, suffering, and death, but, in infinite creativity, possess the

capacity to move continuously toward transformation, liberation, and new life. In

addition, because it is the cosmos and not just humanity that participates in thebeing, life, and creativity of the Divine in the panentheistic model, this theology can

inspire an ethics of care and justice that is not only personal and communal, but

also ecological. As Christians grow to contemplate and to emulate the God that

embraces, permeates, and suffers with both human being and cosmic being, action

for transformation and liberation will extend not only to all manner of abused and

violated persons, but also to all levels of the abused and violated cosmos itself. In so

doing, these insights can bear fruit toward the transformation and emergence of life

for the cosmos and its creatures that bear the sufferings and death of Christ in their

being and becoming even to this day.

Endnotes

1 Ronald Goetz, The Suffering of God: Rise of a New Orthodoxy, The Christian Century,103 (April 1986): 387.

2 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, trans. Reginald H. Fuller (New York:Macmillan, 1962), 219 220.

3 Edward Schillebeeckx, Christ: The Experience of Jesus as Lord, trans. John Bowden (NewYork: Crossroad, 1999), 725.

4 Kenneth Surin, The Impassibility of God and the Problem of Evil, Scottish Journal ofTheology, vol. 35, no. 2 (1982): 103 104.

5 John Haught, God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 2000),46.

6 Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father (Boston: Beacon, 1973).7 Joanne Carlson Brown and Rebecca Parker, God So Loved the World?, in Violence

Against Women and Children: A Christian Theological Sourcebook, eds. Carol J. Adams andMarie M. Fortune (New York: Continuum, 1995), 36 59.

8 Arthur Peacocke, The Cost of New Life, in The Work of Love: Creation as Kenosis , ed.John Polkinghorne (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2001), 37.

9 See Michael W. Brierley, Naming a Quiet Revolution: The Panentheistic Turn inModern Theology, in In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being: Panentheistic

Reflections on Gods Presence in a Scientific World, eds. Philip Clayton and Arthur Peacocke(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2004), 1 15. Brierley lists nearly seventy theologianswho ascribe to the God world relationship in panentheistic terms.



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10 Throughout this essay, I acknowledge the insights of Arthur Peacocke, whoseTrinitarian formulation has greatly influenced my thinking on the subject. See ArthurPeacocke, The New Biology and Nature, Man and God, in The Experiment of Life:Proceedings of the 1981 William Temple Centenary Conference, ed. F. Kenneth Hare(Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto, 1983), 27 88.

11 Ibid., 35.

12 Arthur R Peacocke, The Challenge and Stimulus of the Epic of Evolution to Theology,in Many Worlds, ed. Stephen Dick (Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation, 2000), 88 117,106.

13 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Christianity and Evolution, trans. Rene Hague (New York:Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971), 134.

14 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Comment je vois, in Georges Crespy, From Science toTheology: An Essay on Teilhard de Chardin, trans. George H. Shriver (New York: AbingdonPress, 1968), 99.

15 Ibid.16 Arthur Peacocke, Paths from Science Towards God: The End of all our Exploring (PSG)

(Oxford: Oneworld, 2001), 141.

17 Ibid., 142.18 E.g., Heisenbergs Uncertainty Principle.19 Theodosius Dobzhansky directly disputes this notion in his essay Teilhard de Chardin

and the Orientation of Evolution: A Critical Essay, Zygon, 3 (1968): 242 258.According to Dobzhansky, what directs the operation of chance is not God, but theanti-chance process of natural selection.

20 James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science (New York: Penguin Books, 1987), 314.21 Teilhard de Chardin, Christianity and Evolution, 27.22 Jeffrey C. Pugh, Entertaining the Triune Mystery: God, Science, and the Space Between

(Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity, 2003), 53.23 Arthur Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and Becoming: Natural, Divine and

Human (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1993), 121.24 Ron Highfield, Divine Self-Limitation in the Theology of Jurgen Moltmann: A Critical

Appraisal, Christian Scholars Review, vol. 32, no. 1 (2002): 49 71, 63.25 Ibid.26 Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age, 124.27 Highfield, Divine Self-Limitation, 61.28 See this discussion in Jonathan Doye, Ian Goldby, Christina Line, Stephen Lloyd, Paul

Shellard, and David Tricker, Contemporary Perspectives on Chance, Providence, andFree Will, Science and Christian Belief, 7:2 (1995): 117 139.

29 See, for example, John Polkinghorne, Science and Theology: An Introduction (Minneapolis:Fortress, 1998), 84 95 and Science and Providence: Gods Interaction with the World (West

Conshohocken, Pa.; Templeton, 2005), 23 42.30 See, for example, George Ellis, The Theology of the Anthropic Principle, in QuantumCosmology and the Laws of Nature: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, eds. Robert J.Russell, Nancey Murphy, and C. J. Isham (Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory/Berkeley, Calif.: CTNS, 1993), 367 405; and Nancey Murphy, Divine Action in theNatural Order: Buridans Ass and Schrodingers Cat, in Chaos and Complexity: ScientificPerspectives on Divine Action, 2nd ed., eds. Robert John Russell, Nancey C. Murphy, andArthur R. Peacocke (Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory/Berkeley, Calif.: CTNS,1997), 325 357. They have also co-authored the work On the Moral Nature of theUniverse: Theology, Cosmology, and Ethics (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996).

31 Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age, 53 61 and 157 160. Peacocke bases his insightson the work of D. T. Campbell, Downward Causation in Hierarchically Organized

Systems, in Studies in the Philosophy of Biology: Reduction and Related Problems, eds.Francisco J. Ayala and Theodosius G. Dobzhansky (London: Macmillan, 1974), 179 186;and R. W. Sperry, Science and Moral Priority (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983).



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32 Pugh, Entertaining the Triune Mystery, 53.33 Arthur Peacocke, Articulating Gods Presence in and to the World Unveiled by the

Sciences, in In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being: Panentheistic Reflections onGods Presence in a Scientific World, eds. Philip Clayton and Arthur Peacocke (GrandRapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2004), 151.

34 John Polkinghorne, Creatio Continua and Divine Action, Science and Christian Belief

(1995): 102 103.35 These criteria were influenced by the insights of Ian Barbour, Religion and Science:

Historical and Contemporary Issues (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997), 109 110;B. G. Mitchell, The Justification of Religious Belief (London: Macmillan, 1973); andD. Pailin, Can the Theologian Legitimately Try to Answer the Question: Is theChristian Faith True?, Expository Times, 84 (1973): 321 329. In his work Axiomatics andDogmatics (Belfast: Christian Journals, 1982), J. R. Carnes employs the alternate termsexistential relevance (fit), adequacy (cogency), and economy (simplicity).Peacocke himself presents two somewhat different lists within Theology for a Scientific

Age, 15 and 91. The criterion of pastoral efficacy relates to the theological aims of thispresent work.

36 Arthur Peacocke, Creation and the World of Science: The Bampton Lectures 1978 (Oxford:Clarendon, 1979), 200.

37 Teilhard de Chardin, Christianity and Evolution, 217.38 Peacocke, The Cost of New Life, 42.39 Cf. 1 Corinthians 15: 19. The quote itself concerns resurrection: But if Christ is preached

as raised from the dead, how can some among you say there is no resurrection of thedead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then neither has Christ been raised. And ifChrist has not been raised, then empty too is our preaching; empty, too, your faith. Thenwe are also false witnesses to God, because we testified against God that he raisedChrist, whom he did not raise if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are notraised, neither has Christ been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is

vain; you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ haveperished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people ofall. See 1 Corinthians 15: 12 19 (NAB).

Biographical Notes

Gloria L. Schaab, Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology and Director of the

Master of Arts in Practical Theology, is a Sister of Saint Joseph of Philadelphia, Pa.

Schaab gave the keynote presentation Evolutionary Theory and Theology: A

Mutually Illuminative Dialogue for the Arthur Peacocke Symposium at theZygon Center for Religion and Science in February 2007. Her recent publications

include Midwifery as a Model for Ecological Ethics (Zygon 2007) and A

Procreative Paradigm of the Creative Suffering of the Triune God (Theological

Studies 2006). Her book The Creative Suffering of the Triune God: An Evolutionary

Theology was published by Oxford University Press, September 2007.


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