The global reality of suffering and death has demanded an authentic theological response in every era and has impelled debate concerning God's relationship to suffering and the conceivability of the suffering of God. In a former age, theology proposed an omnipotent and impassible deus ex machina in answer to this question. However, contemporary theologies have proposed alternatives to this understanding of God in relation to the world. With such theologies, this book proposes that a truly viable response to cosmic suffering is the recognition that God participates in the cruciform existence of ... More

The global reality of suffering and death has demanded an authentic theological response in every era and has impelled debate concerning God's relationship to suffering and the conceivability of the suffering of God. In a former age, theology proposed an omnipotent and impassible deus ex machina in answer to this question. However, contemporary theologies have proposed alternatives to this understanding of God in relation to the world. With such theologies, this book proposes that a truly viable response to cosmic suffering is the recognition that God participates in the cruciform existence of the cosmos and its creatures. 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 book develops a systematic understanding of the Triune God's intimate involvement with the suffering of the cosmos and its creatures in dialogue with the insights of scientist‐theologian Arthur R. Peacocke. Recognizing that its proposals must demonstrate practical value in response to cosmic and human suffering, the book sets forth 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 suffering in God as steps toward Christian praxis in response to the pain, suffering, and death endemic in cosmic existence and human experience.