Godhead Here in Hiding: Incarnation and the History of Human Suffering (Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium)

The central tenet of Christian faith, namely, that God, through the incarnation, has immersed Godself in human history and undergone its terrors, does not dispel the mystery of the world's pain and may indeed make the mystery that much more profound. This volume examines both the implications of the doctrine of incarnation for the understanding of human suffering and the attempts to provide a theologically responsible account of this article of faith. It combines biblical and systematic-theological reflection with a thoroughgoing survey of the panorama of responses to human suffering developed during the course of Christian history, ranging from the early Christian martyrs, across the medieval mystical tradition and the Reformation, and into modernity. Moreover, it examines late- and postmodern attempts to come to terms with human suffering, by means of either retrievals, or thoroughgoing revisions, of traditional theological conceptuality, and considers non-Christian attempts to address the perennial problem of human pain and death.