Tower and Foundations: The Impassible Sufferer, Intimately Forsaken

By way of introduction, the logic behind a passibilist interpretation of the cry of dereliction is characterised and the heterodox conclusions are set out. Building on the four pillar arguments so far, the central argument that persons experience in and according to natures is applied fully to a Trinitarian Christology of the cross and the cry of dereliction. I argue that the Son—as a subsistent relation—experiences forsakenness only according to his assumed human nature. The argument is coordinated with the Patristic doctrines of perichoresis and the undivided works of the Triune God. This account of the cry of dereliction is contrasted with Moltmann’s staurocentric Trinitarianism and the chapter is concluded with discussion of penal substitutionary atonement.