The Passibility of the Biblical God

Constructing a systematic theology is difficult and dangerous business. Isaiah and Jeremiah warn of the foolishness of constructing a god from wood or stone. A god constructed of concepts could be just as foolish if it does not match reality. The good news is that humans are not left to speculate on what God may or may not be like. God has revealed Himself in the Bible and through Jesus Christ. This does not mean all the answers to what God is like are readily available because the Bible is not a systematic exposition of the doctrine of God. But it does give one datum to test the coherence of one’s hypothesis.   

​Classical theology has long held that God is, among other things, immutable and impassible. This hypothesis of God’s nature has a long history that must not be easily dismissed. Classical theology is the product of faithful Christians wrestling with the Bible and philosophy. Nevertheless, the concepts of immutability and impassibility must be scrutinized under the light of the Bible. It is at the point of biblical examination that the classical doctrine of the impassibility of God and the revealed God in the text do not match up. This paper examines the doctrines of God’s impassibility and immutability through the lens of the biblical witness. However, the personal, relational, and emotional nature of the Trinity demands that impassibility, properly defined, cannot be an attribute of the biblical God. 

IMPASSIBILITY DEFINED

History and Misconception

​To define the concept of divine impassibility, one cannot simply go to the dictionary and look up a definition because different theologians use the term impassibility to identify different concepts. The term itself (apatheia) precedes Christianity being primarily borrowed from the ancient Stoics. As part of Stoicism, impassibility was an attribute of God and a virtue to be developed. “As it was understood in ancient times, apatheia was the state of perfect tranquility, free from the cares of the world. Philosophers strove to attain it by any number of devices which were geared to produce complete mental and spiritual detachment.” It is not difficult to see how this ancient concept of apatheia is etymologically connected to the present concept of “apathy” in the English language. It is only a small step from perfect tranquility and detachment to a God without emotions or concern for the world. Only a small step, but a significant one. This is important because it seems that some theologians equate divine impassibility with the concept of being without emotion or lacking concern for the world. Grudem, in discussing impassibility, writes: “This attribute, if true, would mean that God does not have passions or emotions, but is ‘impassible,’ not subject to passions.” It is clear that Grudem equates divine impassibility with the idea of a God who lacks emotions. Meisinger agrees with Grudem’s thesis writing: “Some theologians teach the impassibility of God, which if true means that God does not have emotion, or passion.” Meisinger then attacks this idea showing from the biblical data that God does indeed have emotion.  The problems of this approach are straight forward. Any self-respecting classical theologian would not agree with this definition of impassibility. The issue here is two-fold. First, even a pre-Christian Stoic understanding of impassibility does not preclude the notion of divine emotion. Second, what a Christian meant by impassibility was not the same as what a pagan philosopher meant. Kearsley summarizes his discussion of Cyril of Alexandria: “Platonism leaves its tinge indeed upon his work, but this one thing is sure, that divine impassability in Cyril’s exposition certainly does not mean ‘impassivity’ or inactivity, untouched by the troubles of changeable and fickle humanity. Impassability, for Cyril, goes out to transform the human condition and give life to it.” Cyril, the church father, may indeed borrow the term from philosophy, but he transposes it to reflect the nature of the biblical God. It is therefore not possible to equate impassibility with a lack of emotions and call it classical theology.

Classical Definition

​A second approach to divine impassibility is closer to a classical definition. Dolezal writes: “Divine impassibility is the doctrine that underlies the denial of passions in God. It teaches, quite simply, that God cannot undergo emotional changes. In its narrower sense, it emphasizes that God cannot suffer.” The difference between this definition and the previous one is somewhat subtle but important. God is understood as having emotions, but his emotions do not change because they are fully actualized. Dolezal concludes:

As purely actual in all that he is God could not possibly be more loving, compassionate, or opposed to sin than he is from all eternity. Each of these is identical with his very nature. In truth, if he were to experience love, compassion, and hatred as passions it would signify some imperfection in his being, suggesting that his “affections” are incomplete and must come to him through a process of becoming and change. It is precisely this incompleteness that is ruled out when we confess God without passions. Indeed, a God without passions is infinitely more loving, opposed to sin, and merciful than the most passionate creature we can imagine because only a God without passions is purely and infinitely actual in all that he is.

 

Dolezal bases his argument on a perfect being theology that views any change as corruption. God, in his emotions, cannot change because his emotional state is perfect. To have passions in Dolezal’s definition would be for God to experience changes in his mood that would signal that He was no longer perfect. God is perfectly set in his emotional state because there is no potential energy to expend that could change his emotional state. “It is wrong to say God is ‘dynamic’ because he has no unrealized potential in him. There is no part of him that is un- or under-developed.” In classical theology, then, a God who is capable of passions is one who is able to arbitrarily change his emotional state. It is here that is seen most clearly the synthesis of the philosophical concept of impassibility and the biblical data about divine emotion. A perfect being must experience emotions perfectly. Carson notes the purpose of the doctrine of divine impassibility: “It is trying to ward off the kind of sentimentalizing views of the love of God and other emotions (‘passions’) in God that ultimately make him a souped-up human being, but no more.” There is a qualitative difference between the Creator and his creation. “For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me” (Isa 46:9). It is this distinction that classical theism tries to maintain with impassibility. 

​A second aspect of a classical definition of impassibility that Dolezal notes is God’s inability to suffer. God as the perfect being is not affected from any outside source. “Suffering is what comes upon one, against one's will. It is something of which one is a passive victim. Thus suffering is a mark of weakness and God is necessarily above suffering.” It is here that classical theology seeks to safeguard the sovereignty of God to act in ways that are exclusively determined by his own free will. In classical theism God does not respond to any human condition. God is always proactive. God is sovereign Lord who is the one who always takes initiative. The plight of humanity does not motivate God to act, rather, his love is offered freely and without compulsion. Hart affirms that for the church fathers, apatheiawas love: “love is not primordially a reaction, but the possibility of every action, the transcendent act that makes all else actual; it is purely positive, sufficient in itself, without need of any galvanism of the negative to be fully active, vital, and creative.”For classical theologians, God cannot suffer because he cannot be affected by any source outside of himself. God acts but he is not acted upon in any sense that could cause him to suffer or change. It is this concept that underlies classical theology’s insistence that God is without passions and cannot suffer. Classical theology affirms that no created thing affects God. 

​The philosophical idea of God existing in perfect tranquility is readily apparent in this definition of impassibility. Perfect tranquility requires a nature that remains undisturbed from outside forces. “God creates, sustains, and governs the world. It depends on him both for its being and for its qualities. But nothing acts on God or causally affects him. While the world is affected by God, God is not affected by it.” Divine emotion and the divine being are fully actualized and incapable of being affected by any created thing. God is the stimulus, never the response. Thus, the concept that God is not affected by any outside entity, will serve as the primary definition of impassibility. 

 

Biblical Justification

​The biblical justification for divine impassibility rests on passages like Acts 17:24-25: “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.” The act of Creation proves that God does not need anything. It is evident that humans need things from one another because they are not self-sustaining. God’s aseity means that he “depends on nothing other than himself for his existence.” God is not in need of the worship of human beings and is therefore not affected by it. There is nothing incomplete in the nature of God that requires filling by human beings. There is an “infinite abyss” inside the heart of every human being that must be filled by God. There is no such corresponding abyss in God for humans. Because God does not need humanity or creation, He is able to act in perfect freedom toward them. God can act in perfect disinterest because he is not a “needy lover.” Humanity is incapable of hurting or affecting God because there is nothing that it can withhold fromor give to God that he lacks.  In fact it is God who is the giver: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). It is therefore impossible for God to become capriciously moody. God does not get upset because he needs nothing from his creation. 

​What will easily be noted above is that a direct biblical justification of divine impassibility is not forthcoming. Theologians cannot directly assert that impassibility is a divine attribute. It must be inferred logically from specific texts about the nature of God. More problematic may be that the Bible seems to affirm that God is indeed affected by his creation. Moses begs God to “turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people” (Exo 32:12). The classical theologian who affirms impassibility would seem to already know the answer to Moses request. God is unchangeable and cannot be affected by outside influences, he must destroy the Israelites. Nevertheless, the text says: “And the LORD relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people” (Exo 32:14). If divine impassibility is to be affirmed, this imagery must be explained. It is at this point that the classical theologian turns to anthropomorphic language. 

​Anthropomorphic language is language that presents God or any other being as figuratively possessing human attributes to communicate something true. God does not have ears or eyes as humans do, but the Psalms that use these figures of speech communicate that God both sees and hears his people. This anthropomorphic language improperly attributes something to God in order to reveal something true. These improper attributes must be understood in a qualified way when describing God. Scripture ascribes many qualities and activities to God that might intimate some kind of limitation or development in him, such as: possession of body parts and faculties (Exod. 15:16; Deut. 8:3; 33:10; Psalm 55:3); repentance and change of mind (Exod. 32:14; 1 Sam. 15:11; Psalm 106:45); and acquisition of knowledge through discovery.” A perfect being is not limited and does not develop. Whatever passages like Exodus 32 mean, they cannot mean that God in any way changed his mind. This is simply an anthropomorphism that allows the human author to tell the story from a human perspective. “God had planned the whole thing from the beginning and was in full control of events. . . .People and circumstance change, but God does not, and the promises he made and fulfilled in the work of Jesus Christ are the same yesterday, today, and forever.” In this sense, the language about God “repenting” is placed into the same category as language that God has eyes, ears, or arms. 

CRITIQUE

​Modern scholarship has been critical of a presentation of God as impassible. It seems that theologians down through the centuries were locked into a binary understanding of the nature of God. Either God could not be acted upon by outside forces or the entity known as God was not a perfect being and therefore not God. Moltmann is displeased with these options: 

The logical limitation of this line of argument is that it only perceives a single alternative: either essential incapacity for suffering, or a fateful subjection to suffering. But there is a third form of suffering: active suffering – the voluntary laying oneself open to another and allowing oneself to be intimately affected by him; that is to say, the suffering of passionate love.

 

Whether or not one agrees with all of Moltmann’s position, he is right to affirm that it is certainly possible that a perfect being could sovereignly choose to suffer. It seems that even the church fathers held a paradoxical view of impassibility. Cyril of Alexandria writes: “The impassible [God] was in the body which suffered.” This is not to suggest that Cyril rejected impassibility, but he did rightly constrain himself to a biblical view. This view did not see the language of suffering as metaphorical. Because of this, Cyril was forced to speak in paradox about the suffering of the impassible God. For Cyril to speak this way is to open up a third option which allows God to suffer without the perfect tranquility of his nature being affected. Vanhoozer writes: 

Jesus was sinless and yet subject to real temptation in the same way an invincible army is subject to attack. Something similar, I believe, may be said for divine impassibility. It is clear from Scripture that God is “open” to commiserating with his people. In a remarkable passage that depicts the tension between God’s anger and compassion, we read, “My heart recoils within me” (Hosea 11:8). God feels the force of his people’s suffering. “I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and I have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, I know their sufferings” (Ex 3:7). Yet as Jesus feels the force of temptation without sinning so God feels the force of the human experience without suffering change in his being, will or knowledge.

 

This is clearly seen in the suffering of Jesus. Christ cries out in the garden, “Let this cup pass from me” (Matt. 26:39). The Son knows full well the suffering that is about to come upon him and his anguish is so great he sweats drops of blood (Luke 22:44). Nevertheless, the full weight of the suffering of the Son in the garden and the cross does not change God’s being or will. 

​A second criticism of the classical doctrine of divine impassibility is a logical one. Divine impassibility is often inferred from divine immutability. However, this is not a necessary deduction. “Something could be impassible but mutable if it could change itself, but nothing else could change or affect it. God could be immutable but passible. For he could be changelessly aware of events outside himself -- perhaps even caused to be aware of them by the events themselves -- and due to them changelessly feel such responsive emotions as grief.”The important part of this criticism is that it is not justifiable to use a biblical passage that speaks to God’s aseity or immutability and automatically conclude impassibility. Culver offers an excellent discussion of God’s blessedness as applicable to divine impassibility. While blessedness may indeed refer to the supreme joy of God, it does not answer the question of whether or not God is affected in some way by his creation. This was, however, the closest this writer came to finding a theologian offering direct scriptural evidence for impassibility that did not pass through immutability. 

​A third objection is to impassibility is the dismissal of all language about God changing or displaying emotions as anthropomorphic.  While it is clear that God is Spirit (John 4:24) and this implies that God does not have eyes or hands, it is not at all clear that language that involves God changing his mind is anthropomorphic. At best, this argument begs the question. The classical theologian has assumed the classical philosophical attributes of immutability and impassibility and explained away the biblical data based on these assumptions. 

​This leads to a fourth objection. The classical doctrine of impassibility is based on a conception of God that is Unitarian in nature and existing as an abstraction. The revelation of the biblical God is primarily the revelation of a Personal God in the Old Testament. This revelation is expanded in the New Testament to include a Trinitarian understanding of the one God.This Trinitarian God acts in ways that abstractions do not. The God of the Bible makes promises and covenants with people. Thiselton notes that promises and covenants are the language of self-involvement. “For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, ‘Surely I will bless you and multiply you’”

(Heb 6:13-14). The personal Trinitarian God made a covenant with Abraham that bound him to respond to Abraham. One may not like language about responding and the point is taken. Nevertheless, The God of the Bible is a God of covenants and by these covenants binds himself into contingent relationships with human beings. Thiselton concludes: “Provided that we place sufficient emphasis on divine initiative and transcendence, there is still force in [the] comment on the commissive nature of the covenant, to the effect that on the basis of the covenant a relationship is established in which human persons know where they stand.” The Psalms are full of worshippers asking God to act on the basis of his covenantal love and faithfulness. “Let your steadfast love come to me, O LORD, your salvation according to your promise” (Psa 119:41). The point is that God has bound himself to act on behalf of his people. But even more amazing is that the people of the covenant have a right to make requests of God that he must respond to if he is to be faithful to the covenant. But does this covenantal relationship somehow affect God in his being? “The answer surely must lie in saying that the persons of the Trinity are indeed moved by our suffering, but that God’s essence is untouched by it.”

​It is the essence of God that remains impassible but the Persons of the Trinity are affected. Horton writes:

Essences (or natures) cannot feel, will, or act. Only personscan love, be disappointed or delighted, angry or pleased, disturbed or satisfied. God’s essence is not a person. It is only the persons who share this essence who can be affected. The Father, not the divine essence, so loved the world that he gave his Son and turned away from the sin-bearing Savior of sinners in wrath and judgment. Love is an attribute of the divine essence (“God is love” [1Jn 4:8, 16]), but only the divine persons love (verb).

 

It is here that revelation and philosophical reflection are teased apart. The revealed God of the Bible is indeed affected by his people because he chooses to enter into covenantal relationship with them. It is classical philosophy that speaks of a Unitarian God that is impassible. This in no way detracts from what is revealed and is consistent with an understanding of what a perfect being’s nature is. It is the reason Cyril of Alexandria could write of the “suffering of the impassible God.” Nevertheless, this impassibility is not a revealed part of the God of the Bible. It is not an attribute of God’s nature that he deemed necessary to be revealed.  In fact, it seems beneficial for humans to know where they stand with God – that he has not abandoned them to destruction but has bound himself to creation and is in the process of reversing the curse of sin humans brought into the world.

CONCLUSION

​It is often the case that theologians want to begin with the biblical concept of divine immutability in passages like James 1:17 or divine aseity in Acts 17:24 and argue into divine impassibility. The problem, it seems, is that the assumption that God is impassible is already at the heart of this reasoning. Philosophically, impassibility makes sense. But it must also be noted that philosophical reflection is not the same thing as divine revelation. Plato and Aristotle reasoned well from the data that they had but did not come up with the biblical God. This is not to say that impassibility is an incorrect assumption. In his essence, God is perfect tranquility, undisturbed and unaffected by anything outside of himself. But this is not what has been revealed.

​The God of the Bible is revealed as the Trinitarian Person. It is this Personhood that is relational and covenantal. The God of the Bible chooses to bind himself in covenant to his people. He chooses to allow himself to be affected by his covenant community. This does not mean that God compromises his character. The cross is only necessary for a covenant God that is Loving and Holy in nature. The cross itself is an implementation of a new covenant. A promise fulfilled to Abraham that it is not God’s will to abandon his creation. “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself” (2Co 5:19). God does not need us and lives in perfect joy as Trinity. Nevertheless, God is jealous for his people and creation is no idle plaything. God has skin in the game. His and ours. 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Carson, Donald A. "God's Love and God's Sovereignty." Bibliotheca Sacra 156, no. 623 (July 1, 1999): 259-271.

Culver, Robert Duncan. Systematic Theology: Biblical and Historical (Ross-shire, Great Britain: Mentor, 2005.

Dolezal, James E. “Still Impassible: Confessing God without Passions.” Journal of the Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies 1: 0 (2013): 125-151.

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Kearsley, Roy. "The Impact of Greek Concepts of God on the Christology of Cyril of Alexandria." Tyndale Bulletin 43, no. 2 (November 1, 1992): 307-329.

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Meisinger, George E. “Divine Emotion.” Chafer Theological Seminary Journal 4, no. 2 (Apr 1998): 11-20.

Moltmann, Jürgen. The Trinity and the Kingdom of God. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993.

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Thiselton, Anthony C. New Horizons in Hermeneutics: The Theory and Practice of Transforming Biblical Reading.Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992.

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