Abstract
I claim that Kenotic Passibilism not only maintains the intuitions of the process passibilists for a God who suffers out of His love for creation, but also can maintain many of the significant premises of Thomistic impassibility. Kenotic passibilism is grounded in the theologies of Sergei Bulgakov and Hans Urs von Balthasar. Sergei Bulgakov, a Russian Orthodox theologian, and Hans Urs von Balthasar, a Swiss Catholic theologian, present an image of kenotic Trinitarian love that consists of a self-gift of the persons of the Trinity to each other. This understanding of Trinitarian love entails that there is both activity and receptivity within the Godhead. Beginning with this concept of Kenotic love, both philosophers conclude that the dynamism of Trinitarian love extends to God’s love of creation. This theological framework entails that God’s relationship with man involves activity and active receptivity through which He gives Himself to man and receives him as a self-gift. After examining these theologies, I argue that God's suffering is entailed when man turns away from His sacrificial self-gift of Himself, for suffering results when love does not achieve its telos.