God-Forsakenness in Soteriological Context: On Question of Reproachfulness

Abstract

The article is focused on understanding of God-abandonment and its theological analysis in the soteriological and Christological contexts. Specifically, here examines the attitude to God-forsakenness in theological thought of St. Maxim the Confessor and St. John of Damascus, who, despite they believed that the Savior accommodate God-abandonment in prosopic way, did not directly raise the question of its reproachfulness, which served as a reason for questioning it in this article. As a result, it is proposed to divide God-abandonment, like the ignorance, into sinful and sinless. Based on a little-known quote from St. Cyril of Alexandria, compelling arguments were found in favor of defining the latter. The main conclusion of this article is the admission of the blameless God-forsakenness of our nature, which is a consequence of the fall of Adam, is inherited by us like other natural sinless passions and is overcome in Baptism, when a person receives the Holy Spirit and becomes a member of the Body of Christ. From the soteriological point of view, the identification and justification of impeccable God-forsakenness gives us the opportunity to speak of it as having been really experienced on the Cross by the Lord Jesus Christ in His humanity and, as a result, healed by Him for the sake of our salvation and the curing of fallen nature.