The Relational Nature of Suffering

 

The Relational Nature of Suffering

 

Abstract

This essay explores the Relational Nature of Suffering by weaving together Biblical, philosophical, theological, ecological, and biological perspectives. Scripture presents suffering as a communal reality bound to covenant and divine presence, while the Fathers of the Church, medieval thinkers like Augustine and Aquinas, and Reformers such as Luther interpret it as a transformative path within the body of Christ. Modern voices, including Martin Buber, Karl Barth, Bonhoeffer, and Moltmann, emphasize dialogue, solidarity, and God’s participation in human pain. Indian philosophy and relational thought highlight suffering as embedded in interconnectedness, resonating with Christian theological relationalism. Contemporary insights from ecology, neuroscience, and sociology further reveal suffering as systemic and collective. By integrating these perspectives, the essay argues that suffering, rather than isolating, calls for solidarity, ethical responsibility, and hope in a relational framework.

 

INTRODUCTION

Suffering is among the most profound and universal dimensions of human existence. From the cries of the psalmist to the lamentations of exiled Israel, to the anguish of Job, the biblical narrative makes clear that pain is never a private matter alone—it is entangled with covenant, community, creation, and God. The Christian tradition, in its many epochs and voices, has sought to understand suffering not as an isolated misfortune but as a relational reality that reveals, disrupts, and transforms bonds between persons, societies, and the divine.

Philosophical, theological, and cultural approaches have long grappled with the meaning of suffering. For the Church Fathers, suffering was a school of love and communion. Medieval theologians framed it as purgative, linking it to the passion of Christ. Modern thinkers, such as Martin Buber, Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Jürgen Moltmann, emphasized encounter, solidarity, and divine co-suffering as central to Christian faith. Contemporary theologies further widen the horizon, showing that suffering implicates not only individuals but also ecosystems, social systems, and interreligious solidarities, demanding ethical and communal responses.

In recent decades, insights from biology, psychology, and cultural studies have illuminated suffering as relational. Neuroscience demonstrates that pain activates empathy circuits; sociology reveals that trauma is often shared across generations; ecological science shows that the degradation of creation is a collective wound. Together, these voices affirm that suffering is not merely to be explained but to be engaged—through presence, compassion, and shared responsibility.

This essay explores the relational nature of suffering across biblical, patristic, medieval, modern, and contemporary perspectives. It argues that suffering, while disruptive, bears the potential to disclose communion, deepen solidarity, and invite transformation. By placing theological insights in conversation with philosophical, scientific, and interfaith perspectives, this study highlights that suffering, when embraced relationally, can become not only a site of struggle but also a wellspring of resilience and hope.

Structure of the Essay: The discussion will begin with biblical foundations, showing how Israel and the early Church located suffering within covenantal and communal frameworks. It will then turn to patristic and medieval thought, with Augustine, Aquinas, and Luther offering theological and pedagogical interpretations. Next, it will engage modern relational voices, including Buber, Barth, Bonhoeffer, and Moltmann, who emphasized dialogue, solidarity, and divine participation in human pain. The essay will then examine contemporary and interdisciplinary perspectives—ecological, biological, and interfaith—highlighting new insights into suffering as a shared and systemic phenomenon. Finally, a synthetic conclusion and appraisal will assess the contributions, limitations, and future directions of relational approaches to suffering. 

A.    Biblical Foundations

The Bible presents suffering not merely as an individual phenomenon but as a profoundly relational reality. Human pain is narrated in connection with God, neighbor, community, and creation itself. To understand suffering relationally is to recognize that lament, endurance, and hope are always embedded in dialogue and covenant.

1. The Book of Job: Dialogue and Divine Encounter

Job’s suffering illustrates the deeply relational character of human pain. Though described as a righteous man, Job undergoes immense loss, prompting dialogues with his friends and ultimately with God. His cry, “Why did I not perish at birth?” (Job 3:11) reflects not only existential anguish but also the relational rupture between divine justice and human expectation. The speeches of Job’s friends reveal how suffering destabilizes social bonds, as they oscillate between empathy and judgment. God’s response in Job 38:41 reframes Job’s suffering within the vast relational web of creation, situating his pain within cosmic order rather than isolating it as private tragedy.[1]

2. Prophetic and Exilic Traditions: Collective Suffering

The Hebrew prophets interpret suffering as corporate and relational. Jeremiah laments: “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?” (Jer 8:22) is a cry not only for personal anguish but for the suffering of Israel as a people estranged from God. The communal laments of Lamentations, “How lonely sits the city that once was full of people!” (Lam 1:1), portray suffering as exile, a broken relationship between God and his covenant people. Thus, Israel’s pain is inseparable from its covenantal bond with Yahweh.

3. The Psalms: Relational Lament and Trust 

The Psalms raise the voice to the suffering in a dialogical way. In Psalm 22, the psalmist cries, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Ps 22:1). Such words were later taken up by the Gospel writers to understand the cry of Christ on the cross. Here, suffering is not silent resignation, but a protest that presupposes a relationship. Psalm 42 captures the oscillation between despair and hope: “My tears have been my food day and night” (Ps 42:3), followed by the exhortation: “Hope in God; for I shall again praise him” (Ps 42:5). The psalmist’s pain exists within covenant dialogue, where lament is itself an act of faith.[2]

4. Christ’s Passion: Relational Abandonment and Solidarity

The New Testament locates suffering at the heart of Christ’s passion. On the cross, Jesus cites Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mk 15:34), expressing the depth of relational abandonment. Yet, paradoxically, the cross becomes the supreme revelation of relational solidarity—God with humanity in suffering. Isaiah’s Servant Song, “Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases” (Is 53:4), anticipates this relational bearing of suffering by the Messiah. Christ’s suffering is thus simultaneously vertical (relation to the Father) and horizontal (solidarity with humanity).[3]

5. Pauline Theology: Suffering in the Body of Christ

Paul interprets suffering as relational participation in Christ and the community of believers. In 1 Corinthians 12:26, he writes: “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.” Suffering is not borne in isolation but within the relational organism of the Body of Christ. Furthermore, Paul situates human pain within the cosmic dimension of creation: “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now” (Rom 8:22).[4] This passage extends suffering beyond human experience, portraying creation itself as relationally entangled in human destiny, awaiting redemption.

B. Patristic and Medieval Witness

The early Church Fathers and medieval theologians interpreted suffering not as an isolated reality, but always as relational between God and humanity – within the body of Christ and in the cosmic order. Their writings shaped the theological grammar of suffering for subsequent Christian thought.

1. Patristic Voices

For Augustine, suffering is integrally linked to love and the disruption of right relationship. In “City of God”, he interprets human misery as the consequence of disordered love (amor curvus), where the will turns inward rather than upward to God.[5] Yet suffering itself can become relationally transformative: “God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to allow no evil to exist.”[6] Here, Augustine frames suffering as a relational pedagogy, drawing humanity back into communion with God through patience (patientia) and hope.

The Cappadocians, like Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa, emphasized the communal dimension of suffering. Gregory, in “On the Soul and Resurrection”, presents human pain within the framework of participation in divine life, suggesting that suffering draws the soul toward its goal in God.[7] Basil, in his homilies, stresses charity and solidarity with the poor and sick, making suffering a call to relational responsibility within the Christian community.[8]

Gregory’s “Moralia in Job” interprets Job’s trials as paradigmatic for the Christian life, where suffering is not punishment but relational discipline. He describes suffering as a fire that purifies love and binds the sufferer more intimately to God.[9] His commentary became foundational for medieval spiritual interpretations of suffering.

2. Medieval Synthesis

Aquinas integrates Aristotelian philosophy and Christian theology, interpreting suffering (especially passio) as part of the relational nature of embodied existence. In the Summa Theologica, he insists that suffering is not only privation but also a means of merit through charity, since “the passion of Christ wrought our salvation because he suffered out of love”.[10] For Aquinas, suffering’s relational dimension lies in its orientation: when borne in love, suffering unites the believer with both God and neighbor.

Medieval mystics such as Julian of Norwich and Meister Eckhart explicate the relational intimacy that suffering opens between the soul and God. Julian’s famous assurance, “All shall be well,” arises from her vision of Christ’s wounds as a relational embrace of human suffering.[11]

3. Reformation Insight

Luther’s theology of the cross (Theologia Crucis) radically reframes the suffering of relational. Against triumphalist theologies, he insists that God is revealed precisely in weakness and suffering.[12] For Luther, suffering is not simply endured; rather, it becomes the very locus of divine relationship: “It is not sufficient for anyone, and it does him no good to recognize God in his glory and majesty, unless he recognizes Him in the humility and shame of the cross”.[13] Suffering thus manifests God’s relational self-disclosure in Christ and shapes the believer’s life of faith and community.

Summary 

From Augustine’s pedagogy of suffering, through Gregory’s exegetical insights, Aquinas’s metaphysical synthesis, and Luther’s theology of the cross, the Christian tradition consistently refuses to see suffering as isolated. Rather, it is a relational event—binding the believer to God, shaping communal solidarity, and situating human pain within divine providence. 

C.    Modern Relational Thinkers

The modern period saw a decisive turn from abstract metaphysics toward existential, dialogical, and historical understandings of suffering. Against the backdrop of war, oppression, and cultural upheaval, relational thought emphasized suffering as an event of encounter—between persons, between humanity and God, and within the community of life.

1. Martin Buber (I-Thou)

Buber’s relational philosophy centers on the distinction between I-It (objectifying) and I-Thou (relational) modes of existence.[14] In suffering, the human person is often reduced to an “It”—an object of pity, avoidance, or even exploitation. Yet Buber insists that genuine healing emerges when suffering is met in an I-Thou encounter, where the sufferer is recognized as a subject in communion. God Himself is the Eternal Thou who meets humanity most profoundly in vulnerability and suffering. For Buber, suffering becomes relationally redemptive when it is borne together in dialogue and mutual presence.

 

2. Karl Barth: God’s Solidarity in Christ

Barth rejects all attempts to explain suffering through speculative theodicy. In the Church Dogmatics, he insists that God does not stand aloof from human suffering but enters it fully in Jesus Christ.[15] The cross is not an abstract solution to evil but God’s concrete act of solidarity. For Barth, the relational meaning of suffering is that God chooses to be with humanity in its deepest affliction. Christ’s passion reveals that suffering is not separate from God but becomes the very arena of divine presence and reconciliation.[16]

 

3. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Suffering for and with Others

Bonhoeffer’s prison writings articulate a profoundly relational theology of suffering. In Letters and Papers from Prison, he declares: “Only a suffering God can help”.[17] This suffering is not passive resignation but active participation in Christ’s vicarious representative action (Stellvertretung). Bonhoeffer interprets discipleship as Mit-leiden—suffering with Christ for the sake of others. In the face of Nazi terror, he embodied the truth that suffering is not endured in isolation but in solidarity with the oppressed and in participation in God’s suffering love.

4. Jürgen Moltmann: The Crucified God

Moltmann revolutionized 20th-century theology by affirming that God Himself suffers. In The Crucified God, he argues that the cross reveals the mutual suffering of the Father and the Son in the Spirit.[18] Far from impassibility, God enters the relational depths of abandonment, making divine love present in the very absence of God (Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani). For Moltmann, human suffering is taken up into God’s own relational life, offering hope not by eliminating pain but by transforming it within the trinitarian embrace.

 

 5. Process and Relational Theology

Process thought views reality as fundamentally relational, composed of events in dynamic interconnection.[19] Whitehead understands that God is not a distant, immutable being but the “fellow-sufferer who understands”.[20] Charles Hartshorne and John Cobb extended this vision, interpreting suffering as woven into the relational fabric of the cosmos. In this perspective, God does not override creaturely freedom but receives and redeems the world’s pain into the divine life. Suffering thus becomes relationally significant as part of the ongoing co-creation between God and the world.

 

6. Other Modern Voices

Simone Weil saw suffering (malheur) as the radical opening of the self to God’s relational presence through attention and consent. Paul Tillich framed suffering within the “courage to be,” where existential anxiety becomes the site of encountering God as the ground of being.

Contemporary Feminist and Liberation Theologies interpret suffering relationally as solidarity with the oppressed. Dorothee Sölle, in Suffering, insists that unrelieved suffering isolates, but redemptive suffering builds communities of resistance and hope.

Summary

Modern relational thinkers dismantled abstract explanations of suffering and re-centered it in the lived encounter with God and others. Buber taught the dignity of dialogical recognition; Barth declared God’s solidarity in Christ; Bonhoeffer embodied vicarious suffering for others; Moltmann revealed suffering within the Trinity; and process thought articulated a relational metaphysics of divine co-suffering. Each reaffirms that suffering is never an isolated condition but always a relational event where love, presence, and transformation are possible.

D. Contemporary and Emerging Voices (Ecological, Biological, Interreligious, Indian)

Contemporary relational thought expands the horizon of suffering beyond the individual to include ecosystems, social systems, interreligious solidarities, and even the relational constitution of organisms. New dialogues between theology, philosophy, and the sciences converge on a pivotal claim: suffering is a signal of relational rupture—and healing unfolds as relational repair. 

1. Ecological Theologies: Creation’s Groaning and Planetary Suffering 

Building on Romans 8:18-25, Eco theologians interpret environmental degradation as the “groaning” of creation in travail, a profoundly relational image in which human sin reverberates across the biotic community.[21] Sallie McFague conceptualizes the world as “God’s body,” so ecological harm becomes a wound to a theologically construed relational whole.[22] Elizabeth A. Johnson extends this to a “deep incarnation” of the Logos into material history, binding the suffering of creatures to the redemptive sweep of God’s love.[23] Pope Francis's “Laudato Si” gives a magisterial articulation of integral ecology, insisting that social and environmental sufferings interpenetrate—“one complex crisis.”[24]

Liberationist and feminist ecologies stress that the poor and women disproportionately bear ecological harms.[25] Suffering here is intersectional and relational, linking environmental breakdown with patterns of domination and exclusion.

2. Biological and Cognitive Sciences: Empathy, Interdependence, and Relational Biology

Neuroscience, like Rizzolatti and Iacoboni suggest, suggests that we are wired for relational attunement: mirror neuron systems correlate with empathic responses to others’ pain.[26] While the scope of mirror-neuron explanations is debated, evidence supports a neural basis for perceiving and sharing others’ effects, making compassion not merely a moral aspiration but an embodied capacity.[27]

From Maturana and Varela’s autopoiesis to Robert Rosen’s relational biology, organisms are best understood as networks of relations rather than isolated substances.[28] Disease, on this view, often reflects breakdowns of systemic relations (cell–tissue–organ–environment). Theologically, this resonates with ecclesial and ecological images of the Body in which suffering is borne communally and addressed systemically.

Evolutionary biology links costly caregiving (to offspring, kin, even non-kin) with group survival—suggesting that altruistic response to suffering enhances fitness in social species.[29] Theologically, such findings can be read (non-reductively) as nature’s parable of agapeic relationality.

 

3. Interreligious Solidarities and Comparative Relational Insight

Conversation partners (e.g., John Cobb; Raimon Panikkar) explore the convergence of Buddhist karuṇā (compassion) with Christian agapē, each reading suffering through dependent origination (Pratitya Samutpada) or communion.[30] The Bodhisattva vow (bearing others’ suffering) and Christian discipleship (taking up the cross) both enact relational responsibility for the afflicted.

Modern Vedāntins like Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan construe duḥkha as misrelation born of avidyā, while Christian theology frames it as fractured communion—two grammars, one relational intuition.[31] Abhishiktananda (Henri Le Saux) and Bede Griffiths pursue a contemplative synthesis: suffering clarifies the ego’s entanglements and opens to communion in the Ground.

Jain ahiṃsā extends relational responsibility to all sentient life. Sikh seva (self-giving service) translates compassion into structured solidarity (free kitchens, disaster relief), embodying communal responses to suffering. 

4. Contemporary Christian Relational Theologies

Following Jürgen Moltmann, theologians articulate divine co-suffering and public hope: God’s trinitarian life embraces creaturely pain without collapsing it.[32] Dorothee Sölle contends that unprotested suffering isolates, while “suffering-with” builds communities of resistance and hope.[33]

John Zizioulas maintains that the person exists from and toward communion.[34] Suffering thus signals broken communion yet can deepen ecclesial participation: “If one member suffers, all suffer together” (1 Cor 12:26) becomes ontology, not metaphor.

Karl Barth’s rejection of abstract theodicies and insistence on God’s self-giving in Christ keep suffering tethered to a covenantal relation rather than metaphysical speculation.[35] Martin Buber’s I–Thou continues to animate pastoral and clinical contexts: recognizing the sufferer as Thou, not It, is the first act of healing.

Process and open-relational theologies of Cobb, Pinnock, Rice – present God as responsive and affected—not helpless, but relationally involved.[36] The value (and risk) of creaturely freedom entails that God works persuasively, luring creation toward shared goods even amid pain.

5. Social Suffering, Trauma, and Structural Sin

Medical anthropologists like Arthur Kleinman emphasize that suffering is socially produced and distributed—war, poverty, racism, casteism, and displacement embed pain in systems.[37] Theologically, this is structural sin, requiring structural conversion. Contemporary trauma studies by Shelly Rambo redirect attention from explanation to accompaniment—Holy Saturday as a theological space for survivors where breath and witness sustain fragile continuity.[38] Churches, gurdwaras, temples, and sanghas function as relational infrastructures—rituals, food-sharing, small groups, chaplaincy, and advocacy translate compassion into durable practices that carry sufferers.

6. Emerging Directions

Eco-trauma & Multi-species Justice: from coral bleaching to zoonoses, suffering is entangled across species; theological ethics turns to restorative practices (rewilding, watershed covenants).

Digital mediation, like AI, Technics, and care, can either isolate or amplify relational care. Suffering read through caste, race, and empire insists on historicized relational repair through Postcolonial and Dalit Theologies. Ecclesial lament can reform communal affect by preventing the privatization of pain and sustaining shared endurance. It can be helped through Affect Theory & Liturgies of Lament!!

Summary

Across ecology, biology, and interreligious conversation, contemporary voices converge on a single claim: suffering is constitutively relational. It signals rupture in our bonds—with God, neighbor, creatures, and our bodies—and invites repair through solidarity, justice, and communion. Theology, when practiced relationally, resists explanation at a distance and chooses presence, participation, and public hope.

 

 

CRITIQUE

This essay has a bird’s view of the relational nature of suffering across biblical, philosophical, theological, ecological, biological, and interreligious perspectives, demonstrating that suffering is neither isolated nor purely individual. From the covenantal dialogues of Scripture to the communal insights of the Church Fathers, the pedagogical reflections of medieval theologians, and the dialogical and existential emphases of modern and contemporary thinkers, a consistent theme emerges that suffering is a relational event that calls for presence, solidarity, and ethical engagement.

The essay’s strength lies in its integrative approach. By juxtaposing Biblical, patristic, medieval, and modern thought with ecological and biological insights, it illuminates the multi-layered dimensions of suffering. The inclusion of thinkers as Martin Buber, Karl Barth, Bonhoeffer, Moltmann, and process theologians highlights the dynamic interplay between human and divine relationality. Contemporary ecological, social, and interfaith perspectives further extend this vision, underscoring that suffering is embedded not only in human interactions but within cosmic, environmental, and systemic networks.

Nevertheless, certain limitations are apparent. First, the essay’s breadth occasionally sacrifices depth in individual treatments, especially regarding complex Indian philosophical traditions and emerging postcolonial voices. Second, while relationality is convincingly foregrounded, the essay could engage more critically with counterpositions, such as theodicies that attempt to explain suffering in abstract or metaphysical terms, to contrast them with relational approaches. Third, empirical scientific insights, though referenced, could be further elaborated to explore the interplay between biology, neuroscience, and theological anthropology.

In appraisal, the essay succeeds as a comprehensive, interdisciplinary exploration of suffering through a relational lens, offering both intellectual depth and practical ethical guidance. It challenges readers to reimagine suffering not as an isolated event but as a space for communion, solidarity, and transformation—personally, socially, and spiritually. Since this paper is intended only to present a bird’s view of the Relational Nature of Suffering, it takes each theme in depth in the later developmental papers. Future work will expand these insights by more deeply integrating empirical, postcolonial, and interfaith perspectives, thereby enriching the discourse on suffering and relationality in a religious, global, pluralistic context.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica. Trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province. New York: Benziger, 1947.

Augustine, The City of God. Trans. Henry Bettenson. London: Penguin, 2003.

Augustine. The City of God. Trans. Henry Bettenson. London: Penguin, 2003.

Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics, IV/1. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956.

Basil of Caesarea. On Social Justice. Trans. C. Paul Schroeder. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2009.

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Letters and Papers from Prison. Ed. Eberhard Bethge. New York: Touchstone, 1997.

Brueggemann, Walter. The Message of the Psalms: A Theological Commentary. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984.

Buber, Martin. I and Thou. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Scribner, 1970.

Cobb, John B., Jr., and David Ray Griffin. Process Theology. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1976.

Cobb, John B., Jr., and David Ray Griffin. Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1976.

Francis. Laudato Si’. 2015.

Gebara, Ivone. Longing for Running Water. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999.

Gregory of Nyssa. On the Soul and Resurrection. Trans. Catharine P. Roth. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1993.

Gregory the Great. Moralia in Job. Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1844.

Iacoboni, Marco. Mirroring People. New York: FSG, 2008.

Johnson, Elizabeth A. Ask the Beasts. London: Bloomsbury, 2014.

Julian of Norwich. Revelations of Divine Love. Trans. Elizabeth Spearing. London: Penguin, 1998.

Kleinman, Arthur, Veena Das, and Margaret Lock, eds. Social Suffering. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.

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Luther, Martin. Heidelberg Disputation (1518).

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McFague, Sallie. A New Climate for Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008.

McFague, Sallie. A New Climate for Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008.

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Moltmann, Jürgen. The Crucified God. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993.

Moltmann, Jürgen. The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992.

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Pinnock, Clark, et al. The Openness of God. Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1994.

Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli. An Idealist View of Life. London: Allen & Unwin, 1932.

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Rambo, Shelly. Spirit and Trauma: A Theology of Remaining. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010. 

Rizzolatti, Giacomo, and Corrado Sinigaglia. Mirrors in the Brain. Oxford: OUP, 2008.

Rosen, Robert. Life Itself. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991.

Wright, N. T. The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus’s Crucifixion. New York: HarperOne, 2016.

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Zizioulas, John D. Being as Communion. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1985.

 

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[1] Cf. Carol A. Newsom, The Book of Job: A Contest of Moral Imaginations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 256–60.

[2] Walter Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984), 51–54

[3] Cf. N. T. Wright, The Day the Revolution Began (New York: Harper One, 2016), 203–8.

[4] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 274–77.

[5] Augustine, The City of God, trans. Henry Bettenson (London: Penguin, 2003), XIX.13.

[6] Augustine, Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love, trans. J. F. Shaw (Washington, DC: Regnery, 1961), §11.

[7] Gregory of Nyssa, On the Soul and Resurrection, trans. Catharine P. Roth (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1993), 98–101.

[8] Basil of Caesarea, Homily on the Famine and Drought, in On Social Justice, trans. C. Paul Schroeder (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2009), 45–63.

[9] Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job, trans. John Henry Parker (Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1844), I.5.

[10] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, III, q.48, a.2, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York: Benziger, 1947).

[11] Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, trans. Elizabeth Spearing (London: Penguin, 1998), 77–79.

[12] Martin Luther, Heidelberg Disputation (1518), thesis 20.

[13] Ibid., thesis 21.

[14] Martin Buber, I and Thou, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Scribner, 1970).

[15] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, Vol. IV.1 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956).

[16] Ibid., IV.3, on Christ’s passion as God’s self-identification with human suffering.

[17] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, ed. Eberhard Bethge (New York: Touchstone, 1997), 360.

[18] Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 244–250.

[19] John Cobb and David Ray Griffin, Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1976).

[20] Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality (New York: Free Press, 1978), 351.

[21] Rom 8:18–25.

[22] Sallie McFague, A New Climate for Theology: God, the World, and Global Warming (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008), 33–54.

[23] Elizabeth A. Johnson, Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 263–86.

[24] Francis, Laudato Si’ (2015), §§137–162.

[25] Ivone Gebara, Longing for Running Water: Ecofeminism and Liberation (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999).

[26] Giacomo Rizzolatti and Corrado Sinigaglia, Mirrors in the Brain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

[27] Marco Iacoboni, Mirroring People: The New Science of How We Connect with Others (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008).

[28] Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, Autopoiesis and Cognition (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1980); Robert Rosen, Life Itself (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991).

[29] David C. Geary, Male, Female: The Evolution of Human Sex Differences, 3rd ed. (Washington, DC: APA, 2010), 199–234.

[30] John B. Cobb Jr. and Christopher Ives, eds., The Emptying God: A Buddhist–Christian Conversation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1990); Raimon Panikkar, The Intrareligious Dialogue (New York: Paulist Press, 1999).

[31] Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, An Idealist View of Life (London: Allen & Unwin, 1932); Bede Griffiths, The Marriage of East and West (Springfield, IL: Templegate, 1982).

[32] Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 244–50.

[33] Dorothee Sölle, Suffering (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975).

[34] John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985).

[35] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV/1 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956), 157–205.

[36] John B. Cobb Jr. and David Ray Griffin, Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1976); Clark Pinnock et al., The Openness of God (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1994).

[37] Arthur Kleinman, Veena Das, and Margaret Lock, eds., Social Suffering (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).

[38] Shelly Rambo, Spirit and Trauma: A Theology of Remaining (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010).