Confessing Divine Impassibility

[JAL]

Are you satire? Last time I checked, a personal God is by definition supernatural.

Why? Look, Scripture summons us unto "fellowship" with God (1Cor 1:9; Phi 2:1; 1Jn 1:3, 6), and there's only one possible definition of fellowship.

Fellowship between two parties is a mutual exchange of sensations more or less distinct ("loud and clear").

It is an eminently material/sensory transaction. Even God-given feelings of love/joy/peace must be more or less distinct (loud and clear). Example of fellowship:

"The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend" (EX 33).

You see what 2,000 years of incoherent ramblings have done? They have COMPLETELY deceived us as to what maturity/fellowship looks like.

 

[JAL]

Hollow and deceptive philosophy: how entirely it misses the mark.

Having been born before Plato, the OT saints understood Yahweh - and theology in general - much better than we do. They only thought in simple material terms, and rightly so.

 

[Philip_B]

No. The Bible has numerous examples of God experiencing emotions because of what humans have done.

I do not think the emotions attributed to God in scripture speak against impassibility. In the beginning, God already was, God is before all, beyond all, and our experience of God and indeed all we know of God is the result of revelation (God revealing himself, for God could choose to remain unknown), and the revelation is pre-eminently understood in the person of Jesus Christ.

 

[Mark Quayle]

The Thirty-Nine Articles seem to imply impassibility in the 1st Article.

I. Of Faith in the Holy Trinity.​

There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions; of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the Maker, and Preserver of all things both visible and invisible. And in the unity of this Godhead, there be three Persons, of one substance, power, and eternity; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.​

Nonetheless, scripture has many examples where that sense of impassibility is augmented. In the account of creation, we have the sense of God surveying his work and perceiving it to be very good, in the account of Jonah we have the sense of God repenting, and in the Gospel of John, we see that Jesus wept.

In a sense, I feel this is a reflection of the dialogue between the Transcendence of God and the Immanence of God. We have a need for an understanding of both, and the dynamic tension between them both.

But we should keep in mind that this dialogue is US talking, according to our human way of thinking. WE are the ones who must think of God as though he is made of many parts; but he is not, so we should always bear that in mind, particularly when we start getting dogmatic. It is easier to say what God is not, than what he is, and what he does not do, than what he does. Yet we have Scripture as to what he does.

 

[Mark Quayle]

He did it the way He wants it, an interactive reality that He participates in with us.
So yes, He does want to relate to us. And it is reality.

I think that is, at least predominantly, for OUR sakes; it is pretty obvious, that he having made us, he knows everything about us. He didn't need to experience it to know.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Sorry you guys but I don't get why is this even coming up.
Scripture plainly states that people can please God and that people can displease God.
That people can make Him angry, sad, disappointed. That He can love. And just the opposite.

All of God's attributes are one. His pleasure and displeasure don't exist apart from all his other attributes. It is WE who find it necessary to assess them separately, as though he can "become". But he is first cause, therefore, he 'is' only what he 'always' is. WE are the ones who 'become'. And what 'becomes', does so because there 'is' a prior cause.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Doesn't 'feeling' imply a change in God?

I wouldn't say that God does not 'feel'. Impassability opposes the notion of his reacting in parts, as though divine simplicity does not apply, i.e. that he is composed of parts. Wrath, justice, love, etc are all one in God, whether emotion or not. To my thinking, anyway, the emotion component of what he is, is irrelevant as a consideration in itself.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Why? Look, Scripture summons us unto "fellowship" with God (1Cor 1:9; Phi 2:1; 1Jn 1:3, 6), and there's only one possible definition of fellowship.

Fellowship between two parties is a mutual exchange of sensations more or less distinct ("loud and clear").

It is an eminently material/sensory transaction. Even God-given feelings of love/joy/peace must be more or less distinct (loud and clear). Example of fellowship:

"The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend" (EX 33).

You see what 2,000 years of incoherent ramblings have done? They have COMPLETELY deceived us as to what maturity/fellowship looks like.

@JAL said, "Look, Scripture summons us unto "fellowship" with God (1Cor 1:9; Phi 2:1; 1Jn 1:3, 6), and there's only one possible definition of fellowship. Fellowship between two parties is a mutual exchange of sensations more or less distinct ("loud and clear")."

From where did you get that definition of fellowship? And, to what does "loud and clear" serve as adjective/adverb?

 

[ViaCrucis]

I believe God is impassible, though I don't believe Divine impassibility means God is some kind of "divine stoic". Rather, God is without the fickleness, mutability, and pettiness that is inherent to our human, particularly our fallen human, emotions.

St. Ignatius in his Christological hymn speaks of Christ as both passible and impassible, as regards His humanity and Divinity.

Impassibility, to me, points to God's immoveable nature; it means that God is non-reactive. He loves us, for example, because that is Who and What He is; it is not a response toward our doing something or saying something that He then reacts to favorably. Likewise, when we speak of God's wrath, it would be wrong to think of this in terms of reaction--as though we hurt God's feelings and now He's mad at us, or wants to "get back" at us.

God loves us because that's God being Himself, and we can't make Him love us or make Him stop loving us--it's Who and What He is. God's wrath is not God being mean, cruel, or "angry" in the sense of the ways we get angry when we are hurt and take action against another; but rather wrath is what we behold when we see God through the lens of His Law in the guilt and brokenness of our own sin. When I look at God hidden in His divine majesty and holiness, when I look at the Law, I see that I have fallen short, immeasurably short, incomprehensibly short, and that I am indeed a sinner and a wretch. But God Himself, in His disposition toward me as He reveals Himself in Christ, is the God who descends into weakness, humility, suffering, and death in order to rescue me.

So the Law is a mirror and what I see is terrifying, because I see myself as the naked wretch that I am before a truly good God; but God toward me is the love and grace super-abundantly poured out through the life, suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In the Law I see that I am sinful beyond measure; in the Gospel I find that God is loving and compassionate beyond measure. And the meeting place of these two things is the Cross of Jesus, who bears the entirety of the weight of my sin and death, and reconciles me to the Father by way of Himself, and gives me the Holy Spirit by whom I a may now call out to the Father, "Abba! Father!". So great, so immense, so amazing the loving kindness of God.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Mark Quayle]

I believe God is impassible, though I don't believe Divine impassibility means God is some kind of "divine stoic". Rather, God is without the fickleness, mutability, and pettiness that is inherent to our human, particularly our fallen human, emotions.

St. Ignatius in his Christological hymn speaks of Christ as both passible and impassible, as regards His humanity and Divinity.

Impassibility, to me, points to God's immoveable nature; it means that God is non-reactive. He loves us, for example, because that is Who and What He is; it is not a response toward our doing something or saying something that He then reacts to favorably. Likewise, when we speak of God's wrath, it would be wrong to think of this in terms of reaction--as though we hurt God's feelings and now He's mad at us, or wants to "get back" at us.

God loves us because that's God being Himself, and we can't make Him love us or make Him stop loving us--it's Who and What He is. God's wrath is not God being mean, cruel, or "angry" in the sense of the ways we get angry when we are hurt and take action against another; but rather wrath is what we behold when we see God through the lens of His Law in the guilt and brokenness of our own sin. When I look at God hidden in His divine majesty and holiness, when I look at the Law, I see that I have fallen short, immeasurably short, incomprehensibly short, and that I am indeed a sinner and a wretch. But God Himself, in His disposition toward me as He reveals Himself in Christ, is the God who descends into weakness, humility, suffering, and death in order to rescue me.

So the Law is a mirror and what I see is terrifying, because I see myself as the naked wretch that I am before a truly good God; but God toward me is the love and grace super-abundantly poured out through the life, suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In the Law I see that I am sinful beyond measure; in the Gospel I find that God is loving and compassionate beyond measure. And the meeting place of these two things is the Cross of Jesus, who bears the entirety of the weight of my sin and death, and reconciles me to the Father by way of Himself, and gives me the Holy Spirit by whom I a may now call out to the Father, "Abba! Father!". So great, so immense, so amazing the loving kindness of God.

-CryptoLutheran

From a simple logical, or philosophical, reasoning, God being Omnipotent, is First Cause. That implies many things, among which is the fact that he is the beginning of all else, and therefore, nothing that did not descend logically from him can move him.

Another thing implied is the Simplicity of God. In this we see that even what he reacts to does not move him without all the other attributes of God being present in the reaction. This does not negate anything. In fact, it could be shown that it intensifies everything. The fact WE see, for example, his wrath, (and we really don't begin to see how strong his wrath is!), means that his very being is brought to bear on whatever his wrath is focused on.

Thus, free will, whatever it is, descends logically from him, and he reacts to disobedience, and to obedience, to prayer, and to rejection and lies concerning him.