The global reality of suffering and death has always demanded an authentic theological response and impelled debate concerning Gods relationship to suffering, as well as the conceivability of the suffering of God. The scope and impact of this suffering in the last century have driven this debate to an acute pitch, demanding to know how one can speak rightly of God in view of the suffering that is inherent and inflicted in the cosmos. While in former ages, some looked to an omnipotent and impassible deus ex machina in answer to this question, many contemporary theologians have revised their understanding of God in relation to the world. With these theologians, Gloria Schaab proposes that a viable response to cosmic suffering is the recognition that the triune Christian God participates in the very sufferings of the cosmos itself. She sets her argument within theology and science dialogue and specifically within the work of scientist-theologian Arthur Peacocke. Informed by the understandings of evolutionary science, grounded within a panentheistic paradigm of the God-world relationship, and rooted within the Christian theological tradition, this work contends that the understanding of the Triune God as intimately involved with the suffering of the cosmos is viable and efficacious in view of the suffering of the cosmos and its creatures. It develops a female procreative model of the creative suffering of the Triune God, an ecological ethics based on the midwife model of care, and a pastoral model of threefold differentiation of suffering in God as steps toward Christian praxis in response to the mystery of God within the pain, suffering, and death of cosmic existence and human experience.

Examines the history and development of ecological theological anthropology and how it engages human suffering, so that people of faith can better understand the suffering inherent to earth's creative processes and that inflicted by human sin.

Hans Gustafson proposes pansacramentalism as holding potential for finding the divine in all things and all things in the divine, which carries significant inherent interreligious implications--especially for doing theology. Presupposing the challenge of doing theology divorced from spirituality (lived religious experience), he presents pansacramentalism as a bridge between the two. In so doing, Gustafson offers a history of spirituality and sketches the foundations of a classical approach to sacramentality (through Aquinas) and a contemporary approach to the same (through Rahner and Chauvet). By presenting three fascinating case studies, this book offers particular instances of sacramentality in lived religious experience (i.e., sacramental spirituality). These case studies draw on Thomas Merton and place, Nicholas Black Elk and multiple religious identity, and Fyodor Dostoevsky and Wendell Berry and literature. The book culminates by a) constructing a philosophy of sacramental mediation and criteriology of sacrament, b) engaging panentheism and the suffering of God and world, and c) proposing "panentheistic pansacramentalism" as a new model for understanding the divine-world relationship set in the context of a pansacramental theology of religious pluralism. Finally, a method for doing theology interreligiously is offered based on the overall content of the book and within the context of the interdisciplinary field of interreligious studies.

The immense suffering caused by sin and evil within the modern world, especially in the light of the Holocaust, has had a profound impact on the contemporary understanding of God and his relationship to human suffering. Since the early part of this century there has been a growing consensus among theologians that God himself, within his divine nature, suffers in solidarity and love with those who suffer. This present theological position contradicts the traditional Christian understanding of almost two thousand years that God is impassible and so does not experience negative emotional states, such as suffering. Thomas Weinandy, O.F.M., resolutely challenges this contemporary view of God and suffering. Calling upon scripture, and the philosophical and theological tradition of the Fathers and Aquinas, Weinandy creatively and systematically addresses all of the contemporary concerns. He strongly advocates the incarnational truth that the Son of God actually does experience, as man, all that pertains to living an authentic human life, and so does indeed suffer. This book is both a challenge to much received contemporary philosophical and theological wisdom, and a scholarly, original, and refreshing account of the Christian Gospel. It is one of the most comprehensive Christian presentations of God and human suffering available today.

The Unchanging God of Love provides a clear and comprehensive account of what Aquinas really says about divine immutability, presented in a way that allows his theology to address contemporary criticisms

Participating in God claims that a doctrine of the Trinity cannot be developed in isolation from pastoral experience. It is not sufficient to view the persons of the Trinity as offering a mere example for human relationships; actual participation in this triune communication shapes both our knowledge of God and the pastoral practices that flow from it. Paul S. Fiddes develops a radical understanding of the "persons" in God as nothing other than relations, or as movements of divine relationship into which we are drawn. This important new book engages in conversation with recent thought about the Trinity in Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox theology. But it does so always through theological reflection on pastoral concerns. Fiddes brings the doctrine of the Trinity into dialogue with key issues, including the relation of the individual to community, the nature of power and authority, the effect of intercessory prayer, the problems of suffering, the power of forgiveness, the threat of death, the use of spiritual gifts, and the living of a sacramental life. Participating in God is essential reading for all those interested in Christian doctrine and pastoral care.

"In every era, the scope of pain, suffering, and death in the world and its peoples has provoked profound and perplexing questions. Attempts to reconcile such experiences with a benevolent God only further complicate the questions and confusions that arise out of suffering. If God is for us : Christian perspectives on God and suffering illustrates a profound tradition of struggling - both personally and theologically - to interpret, reflect on, and find meaning in the midst of hardship. Through biblical, theological, and philosophical resources, Schaab explores a broad range of both ancient and modern Christian interpretations of personal, communal, and systemic suffering." -- Cover.