The vulnerability of God

I've posted about vulnerability before. Reading  The God Who Weeps: How Mormonism Makes Sense of Life, by Terryl and Fiona Givens has given me new insight that I have to mention here.

So, Givens brings up "the problem of vulnerability wrought by love" and how it in some ways makes us hostage, quoting Freud that "We are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love" (Kindle Edition Loc 406).

But, it is exactly this exposure to suffering that makes the choice to love so meaningful; the value is in its cost. And apparently this is as true for God as it is for us!

Givens explains this by beginning with Job's question on the matter:

"What is man, that thou shoudest magnify him? and that tho shoudest set thine heart upon him?" The astonishing revelation here is that God does set His heart upon us. And in so doing, God chooses to love us. And if love means responsibility, sacrifice, vulnerabiity, then God's decision to love us is the most stupendously submlime moment in the history of time. He chooses to love even at, neessarily at, the price of vulnerability. 

It is God's response to the manifold creatures by whom He is surrounded, the movement of His heart and will in the direction of those other beings -- us -- that becomes the defining moment in His godliness, and establishes the patter of His divine activity. His freely made choice to inaugurate and sustain costly loving relationships is the very core of His divine identity. (Kindle Edition Loc 422).

Let me just repeat that last part:

His freely made choice to inaugurate and sustain costly loving relationships is the very core of His divine identity.