Godforsakenness: ‘the scourge of God’ or hidden gift?

ABSTRACT

The article offers a phenomenological study of the interpenetrating experiences of suffering and Godforsakenness from the perspective of ‘the scourge of God’, based on the works of Albert Camus. The study reveals the complexity and ambiguity of this experience and its transcendental significance as being ‘without God’, and invites eschatological and soteriological discussions. However, special attention is focused on understanding the suffering of humanity which manifests the quintessential experience of Godforsakenness. Suffering becomes a space of total vulnerability, not only before God but also before the neighbour and the Church. The experience of Godforsakenness also becomes a tool of apophatic theology and a sign of the reconciliation of suffering and God's love. In addition, the experience of Godforsakenness in suffering may produce original gifts: hope, solidarity, and faith as “confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Hebrew 11, 1).

KEYWORDS:

• Godforsakenness
• ‘the scourge of God’
• kenosis
• suffering
• Albert Camus

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, 194–7.

² Halík, Patience with God: The Story of Zacchaeus Continuing in Us.

³ Pascal, Pensées, 57.

⁴ Merton, ‘Camus and Church’, 263.

⁵ Camus, Mars 1951 – Décembre 1959, 149.

⁶ Rimpioja Riippa, Réécritures bibliques chez Paul Claudel, André Gide et Albert Camus, 122.

⁷ Moeller, Littérature du XXe siècle et christianisme, 41–42.

⁸ Camus, Le premier homme, 154–9.

⁹ Todd, Albert Camus: A Life, 20–21.

¹⁰ Ricœur, Le conflit des interprétations: essais d’herméneutique, 149.

¹¹ Westphal, Suspicion and Faith: The Religious Uses of Modern Atheism, 13.

¹² Whistler, ‘”Saints Without God” Camus’s Poetics of Secular Faith.’

¹³ Cristaudo, ‘The Johannine Christianity of Albert Camus Culture’, Theory and Critique 52, no. 2–3 (2011): 159.

¹⁴ The problem of suffering and related issues for Albert Camus were personal: he was born into a poor family, his father died during the First World War, and his mother was physically handicapped; he was slowly dying of tuberculosis, and in the last years of his life he experienced an existential crisis related to the war in Algeria, where his mother lived, and various socio-political challenges that drove him out of the public life in Paris. We know from the pastor Howard Mumma that Camus wanted to be baptised. See Mumma, Albert Camus and Minister.

¹⁵ Merton, ‘Camus and Church’, 263.

¹⁶ Camus, L’homme Révolté, 41.

¹⁷ Ibid., 43.

¹⁸ Todd, Albert Camus: A Life,167.

¹⁹ Merton, ‘Camus and Church’, 181.

²⁰ Camus, The Plague, 119.

²¹ Ibid., 90.

²² Ibid., 201.

²³ Ibid., 203.

²⁴ Todd, Albert Camus: A Life, 166.

²⁵ Ibid., 202.

²⁶ Ibid., 217.

²⁷ Merton, ‘Albert Camus “The Plague”’, 213.

²⁸ Camus, L’homme Révolté, 41.

²⁹ Balthasar, Mysterium Paschale, 13.

³⁰ Ibid.

³¹ Moltmann, The Crucified God, 227.

³² Bulgakov, ‘Sofyologyya Smerty’, 26.

³³ Lewis, Letters: C.S. Lewis [and] Don Giovanni Calabria: A Study in Friendship, 106–7.

³⁴ Lewis, A Grief Observed, 13–14.

³⁵ McGrath, C. S. Lewis A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet, 343.

³⁶ Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom, prayer of Anaphora.

³⁷ Weil, ‘The Love of God and Affliction’, 124–5.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yulia Vintoniv

Yulia Vintoniv, PhD student at the Ukrainian Catholic University (Lviv, Ukraine) and Lecturer of the Department of Pastoral Theology. Interest: phenomenology of experience, theological anthropology, and trauma theology. Email: [email protected]