Reformulating the Meaning of God’s Compassionate Love

Abstract

Our reflections in Part I on various experiences of suffering and some of the practical responses by believers to its challenge yielded some images of God. One such image, we suggested earlier, is that of a God who is a co-sufferer. For many people God is experienced, despite initial feelings of abandonment, as one who is present with them in their hour of sorrow. Somehow they experience God’s sympathy in the compassion shown to them by others. For this reason they also speak of a compassionate God. It is an image that gives them hope. But how is one to understand the meaning of such an image? How can one develop further the implications of believing in a God who is a sympathetic participant in our sufferings?