On Friday evening, January 30, Notre Dame Seminary welcomed Fr. Michael J. Dodds, O.P. delivered the seminary’s annual Aquinas Lecture. Dr. David Liberto, professor of dogmatic theology at NDS, began the evening with some introductory remarks. Dr. Liberto outlined the purpose of the Aquinas Lecture series and informed the audience that Fr. Dodds’ credentials include a doctorate in sacred theology from the University of Freiburg, membership of the faculty of the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology for over 30 years, as well as membership of the faculty of the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley since 1985.
The lecture was open to the public and was attended not only by seminarians and NDS faculty, but also by several local theology professors and students, as well as others from the local community. The lecture was followed by a period in which Fr. Dodds answered audience members’ questions. The following morning, Fr. Dodds returned for further questions and discussion with faculty and seminarians.
The title of Fr. Dodds’ lecture was, “Is the God of Love (still) Unchanging? Thomas Aquinas and Current Critiques of Divine Impassibility.” In his lecture, Fr. Dodds proposed that Aquinas’ account of an unchanging God reveals a God whose faithfulness and love for humanity is unchangeably unlimited. On the other hand, Fr. Dodds proposed that the recent theological view that God suffers in response to our suffering can actually portray a less loving God who is less deeply concerned with humanity until He is moved by humans’ suffering. Fr. Dodds then emphasized that because God became man in Jesus Christ, we can say that God did actually suffer with us. According to Fr. Dodds, another sense in which God suffers with us is that, since we belong to Christ’s mystical body as St. Paul writes, then God suffers in us when we suffer with each other.
