Theodicy and the Cross of Christ

A New Testament Inquiry

Tom Holmén

• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780567684820
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

The death of Jesus is commonly regarded as the one radically novel perspective from which the problem of suffering is viewed in the New Testament, as opposed to the appropriation of viewpoints present elsewhere in contemporary writings and in the Old Testament. Tom Holmén's focus on the death of Jesus as a source of New Testament theodicy reveals a two-fold reasoning: the lasting relevance of the theme of Jesus' death on the cross and theodicy, and the lack of thorough and sustained New Testament investigations into this theme. Holmén's argument focuses on the changes in the concept of suffering occasioned by the unprecedented sacrifice of Jesus. He explores both the derivative nature of suffering as God's retribution or a test for discipline – in line with the traditions known in the time contemporary to the formation of the New Testament – and the sharp, wholly new contrast of suffering as intercessory in the crucifixion of Christ, Son of God, appearing to the world as 'impossible'. Holmén considers many issues in his discussion, including the context of providence and covenant, and the problem that Jesus' death causes for theodicy. He also examines other perspectives, such as the writings of Paul, and practical considerations of coping with anguish. Taken as a whole, this study provides a fresh examination of the crucifixion's central role for understanding New Testament approaches to suffering.

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION: THE CROSS AS A SOURCE OF THEODICY THINKING

1.1The Point of Departure: Understanding and Coping with Suffering

The task of this study is to examine the death of Jesus as a source of New Testament theodicy thinking. By ‘the death of Jesus’ I do not mean only the historical fact that Jesus died on the cross,¹ but also the belief in it as displayed in the New Testament, including interpretations, that is, the various (theological) responses to the fact, the most notable among them being the interpretation of the death of Jesus as the cross of Christ. Further, by ‘theodicy’ (and cognates) I do not mean only attempts to solve the intellectual problem of suffering, that is, the difficulty of understanding suffering in a world construed as divinely conditioned, but also attempts to cope with suffering, to come to terms with it. As will be seen, the inclusion of these two aspects – understanding and coping with – within the concept of ‘theodicy’ corresponds both to the modern apprehension of the concept and to the ways suffering was encountered and dealt with in the New Testament world.²

The reason for focusing on the death of Jesus as a source of New Testament theodicy thinking is twofold: the many-sided relevance of the theme and the lack of thoroughgoing investigations into it. The death of Jesus is commonly regarded as the one radically novel perspective from which (the problem of) suffering is viewed in the New Testament.³ In many other respects the New Testament has appropriated viewpoints present elsewhere in contemporary Jewish writings and in the Old Testament.⁴ Such are, for example, the idea of God’s retribution⁵ as well as perceiving suffering as God testing⁶ and disciplining⁷ of his own.⁸ Adhering to these views, in fact, the New Testament agrees with theodicean traditions known almost universally in its contemporary world.⁹ However, the message about Jesus’s death on the cross – according to the New Testament interpretation, the cross of Christ, Son of God – was perceived by the world of the change of the eras as ‘ridiculous’,¹⁰ ‘mad’,¹¹ ‘repulsive’,¹² ‘absurd’,¹³ ‘impossible’¹⁴ and ‘perversely superstitious’.¹⁵ It is this radicalness, then, that also granted the novelty of the perspective of the cross in viewing (the problem of) suffering.

The novel New Testament perspective has, however, remained rather unexplored in biblical exegetical scholarship. There is an abundance of studies into the New Testament interpretations of the death of Jesus.¹⁶ Similarly, the approaches to suffering in the Christian Bible in general have been surveyed relatively often.¹⁷ Nevertheless, the relevance of Jesus’s death to New Testament theodicy thinking is regularly settled with the brief remark that the experience of Jesus having died in reality led to a diminished interest in theodicean questions on the part of the New Testament writers.¹⁸ As I shall demonstrate later on, such a remark is not accurate at all but there are many questions that require further attention.

However, one should also be cognizant that there is indeed a lively discussion going on about the cross of Christ and theodicy, although not within New Testament scholarship. During the recent hundred years or so, the theme of the cross of Christ has importantly fuelled the modern philosophic-theological discussion of the theodicy problem. In particular, the theme has provided apposite material for elaborating the so-called suffering of God theodicy.¹⁹ In this context, the cross of Christ appears not exclusively or primarily as the locus of the vicarious suffering of Christ for the sins of the world, but as an expression of God’s empathy, solidarity and co-suffering with the suffering creation.²⁰ In part due to the contribution of the theme of the cross,²¹ the suffering of God theodicy nowadays forms one of the central practical approaches to the problem of suffering.²² Such approaches have, with emphasis, come to the side of many more theoretical and traditional approaches that are increasingly being accused of coldness and cynicism inappropriate in view of the subject matter in discussion.²³

Despite the many exclusive starting points that such a ‘theodicy of the cross’ – as we could call it – owes to New Testament ideas or at least figures of speech, the philosophic-theological discussion has not been interested in viewing the issues involved from the viewpoint of the New Testament writings themselves. This may be understandable since, needless to say, such an interest is the trademark of the discipline of biblical exegesis. Nonetheless, the fact remains and only emerges as more conspicuous that a proper New Testament inquiry into the question of the death of Jesus as a source of theodicy thinking is lacking. The possibility that such an inquiry could, besides its significance for New Testament research, serve even wider purposes only gives further reason for embarking on the enterprise.

The following sections of this introductory chapter will set the stage for the implementation of the outlined study. Aligning with the task, stated above, the approach of the study will be an exegetical one, standing in the tradition of New Testament scholarship. This orientation applies to the method, to the questions posed, as well as to the contextualization of the New Testament texts. However, the scholarly discussion about the death of Jesus and theodicy has almost exclusively taken place within the realm of modern philosophic-theological research. Not even a study approaching the theme from a New Testament perspective can neglect familiarizing itself with this discussion. Accordingly, a short review of the philosophic-theological usage of the theme of the cross of Christ in tackling theodicean questions will be in order (cf. 1.2). Afterwards, I shall briefly survey some central interpretations of the death of Jesus in the New Testament (cf. 1.3). This survey will display the general theological ambiance of the New Testament in dealing with Jesus’s death, the ambience in which the looked-for theodicean motifs and ideas are like plants in the soil. It will also provide a basic inventory, which can be referred to in the various parts of the study.

1.2The Cross and Modern Theodicy Discussion: Co-suffering

It is good, at first, to recollect that the dominantly intellectually grasped difficulty of reconciling the benevolence and omnipotence of God with the reality of evil in the world (trilemma), so trying to plead the cause of God²⁴ (theo-dicy), did not take firm shape until the Enlightenment and the work of philosophers such as Leibniz.²⁵ In fact, this era brought about many kinds of changes in dealing with the problem of suffering. For instance, in earlier times, when experiencing a contradistinction between the reality of suffering and certain characteristics of God, people were prompted to seek an improved understanding of the deity.²⁶ After the rise of the modern problem of theodicy in the Enlightenment, the crucial question has largely been how to altogether believe in the existence of a divine being.²⁷

The immediate context for the use of the theme of the cross of Christ in modern theodicy is, however, formed by the theopaschite debates and the idea of a suffering God – an idea which, in turn, required further changes to be introduced into the then usual discourse and use of concepts.²⁸ For a long time, in both pre- and post-Enlightenment discussion, the impassibility of God was something taken for granted, a dogma that could be thought of as being differently construed no more than other epithets of the divine.²⁹ The Council of Chalcedon (451 ce) states:

But there are those who are trying to ruin the proclamation of the truth, and through their private heresies they have spawned novel formulas: . . . others by introducing a confusion and mixture, and mindlessly imagining that there is a single nature of the flesh and the divinity, and fantastically supposing that in the confusion the divine nature of the Only-begotten is passible.

It [the Holy Synod] expels from the assembly of the priests those who dare to say that the divinity of the Only-begotten is passible.³⁰

And long after that, at the beginning of the twentieth century, a well-known thinker still argues for the impassibility dogma by articulating his mystical experience:

And here . . . appeared Joy, pure joy, an Ocean of it, unplumbed, unplumbable, w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Library of New Testament Studies
• Title Page
• Contents
• Preface
• List of Abbreviations
• Chapter 1 Introduction: The Cross as a Source of Theodicy Thinking
• Chapter 2 Theodicy in Context: Providence and Covenant
• Chapter 3 Historical Considerations: The Death of Jesus as a Theodicy Problem
• Chapter 4 Theological Considerations: Paul and Others on Understanding Suffering
• Chapter 5 Practical Considerations: Coping with Suffering
• Chapter 6 General Summary of Conclusions
• Bibliography
• Index
• Copyright Page