Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Pool, Jeff B

Titel

God's wounds: Structure and dynamism in the Christian symbol of divine suffering. (Volumes I-III)

Ort / Verlag

ProQuest Dissertations Publishing

Erscheinungsjahr

1994

Link zum Volltext

• ProQuest

Quelle

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• In this project, I examine only Christian attestations to Divine suffering. I do not limit my choice of Christian attestations, however, to those either from any single historical period or from any single geographical area. Instead, I carefully study Christian attestations to Divine suffering across the broadest possible historical, geographical, and cultural spectrums. Despite the numerous hermeneutical problems in such a broad approach, however, this study requires it. I aim to discover among the many Christian attestations to Divine suffering the common pattern as well as to elucidate this common pattern's rationality. I designate this common pattern as the Christian symbol of Divine suffering. With a threefold method, I interpret the common pattern in Christian attestations to Divine suffering. First, I use eidetic analysis, as developed by Langdon Gilkey, with which to restrict my study to the historical significance of these attestations. Second, I use a criteriological principle to identify Christian attestations to Divine suffering. Third, I develop an anthropological principle, in order to discern a grid of distinct occasions for Divine suffering. This grid's operation on these attestations enables the appearance of distinct moments of Divine suffering among numerous testimonies to this phenomenon. With the previous method, my dissertation identifies three moments of Divine suffering as the basic structure and dynamism of this symbol, of which I examine only two: Divine grief and Divine Self-sacrifice. A creaturely occasion as well as both passive and active Divine responses comprise each moment of Divine suffering. Part One of this work delimits the problem, describes my method, and hypothesizes this symbol's structure and dynamism. Part Two examines two presuppositions which generate this symbol: (1) the Self-limiting creative God of love; (2) the human, or imago Dei, as love. Part Three analyzes Divine grief: (1) human sin as its occasion; (2) Divine sorrow, the passive response; and (3) Divine anguish, the active response. Part Four analyzes Divine Self-sacrifice: (1) human bondage to sin, as its occasion; (2) Divine travail, the active response; and (3) Divine agony, the passive response.