The Theology of the Cross and Suffering

I won't claim with this post to resolve any of the difficulties we have with the existence of suffering, but I thought I would share a few thoughts I came across about the place of suffering in the theology of the cross, as propounded by Luther.

I think most Christians realize that the existence of evil and suffering pose difficulties for the Christian worldview and this is the subject of a good deal of our apologetics.  In my experience, most of us lean toward a more passive view of God in the midst of suffering.  In other words, we say that God "allows" suffering or "works through" suffering or something like that which in some way absolves god from the charge of being an active agent in the suffering of His people.

Luther, in his theology of the cross, didn't take such an approach - he saw God as active in the administration of suffering to His people.  The following words are pretty tough, yet they have the ring of truth, and the ring of fidelity to the Scripture, to them.  These are from Luther's Theology of the Cross by Alister McGrath, pp. 150-151.  McGrath loves the Latin and I've taken a shot at translating a couple of the terms here, but I think you can follow the main point even if you don't follow the Latin well.

God is particularly known through suffering.  Although this is a reference to the passiones Christi (sufferings of Christ), a far deeper spiritual truth is involved:  a fundamental contention of the theologia crucis (theology of the cross) is not merely that God is known through suffering (whether that of Christ or of the individual), but that God makes himself known through suffering.  For Luther, God is active in this matter, rather than passive, in that suffering and temptation are seen as a means by which man is brought to God.  This brings us to the dialectic between the opus proprium Dei (appropriate to God's nature) and the opus alienum Dei, which Luther introduces in his explanation of Thesis 16.  The basic paradox involved is illustrated with reference to the justification of an individual.  In order that a man may be justified he must first recognize that he is a sinner, and humble himself before God.  Before man can be justified, he must be utterly humiliated - and it is God who both humiliates and justifies.  'Thus an action which is alien to God's nature (opus alienum Dei) results in an action which belongs to his very nature (opus proprium Dei):  God makes a person a sinner in order that he may make him righteous.' The opus alienum is a means to the end of the opus proprium.  The significance of suffering, whether this is understood as passiones Christi or human Anfechtung (temptation?), is that represents the opus alienum through which God works out his opus proprium.  In his important study of Anfechtung, Beintker demonstrates that God himself is the source of Anfechtung: God assaults man in order to break him down and thus to justify him.  Similarly, studies on Luther's understading of the role of the Devil in the Christian life have demonstrated that he regarded the Devil as God's instrument, who performs the opus alienum Dei on his behalf in order that the opus proprium may be realised.  Far from regarding suffering or evil as a nonsensical intrusion intot he world (which Luther regards as the opinion of a 'theologian of glory'), the 'theologian of the cross' regards such suffering as his most precious treasure, for revealed and yet hidden in precisely such sufferings is none other than the living God, working out the salvation of those whom he loves.

Comments

[Jan]

Hi David,

As Luther said, the cross is theology. It was as we tore open the flesh of Christ with our sin that the glory of his self-sacrificing love, the very character of God, was seen. Hidden and yet revealed in suffering, God spoke to a crucified thief, the most pitiful and weakest of men, as he discerned the Son of God in his crucified form. God has never been more seen than in his crucifixion. Even the man who oversaw his suffering, who had charge of his death, the Roman centurion, could see God hidden there.

God's presence is often clothed in darkness, i.e. Mt. Sinai in the giving of his law and at Calvary when his Son bore the penalty of that broken law. Both Mounts were shrouded in darkness, not because God was absent, but because he was so present. Isaiah 45.15 was a favourite of Luther's: "Surely you are God who hides himself". How thankful we should be, for it means he is very, very near those he loves.

I believe Jesus is coming soon, much sooner than many imagine. Then we will see him face to face, with "no darkening veil between"!