The Impassibility of God (I)

The 1689 London Baptist Confession says in Chapter 2, article 1, "Of God and the Holy Trinity": 

"The Lord our God is but one only living and true God; whose subsistence is in and of himself, infinite in being and perfection; whose essence cannot be comprehended by any but himself; a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions, who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; who is immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, every way infinite, most holy, most wise, most free, most absolute..."

This is the same statement in the Westminster Confession. God is "without passions." Thus, God is "impassible." So, does that mean that God does not have emotions or feelings? How can he know our feelings, passions, and sufferings if he cannot experience the same? How can he have empathy or sympathy? How can he know our feelings? An even deeper question concerns whether God has what we call "experience." Does the Deity experience sensations?

In some sense God is impassible and in another sense he is passionate, that is, he has emotions.

What is the relationship between thought and emotion? Which causes which? Can there be emotion without thought, or a state of mind? What connection is there between emotion and physical constitution? Can spirits feel emotion like corporeal beings? These too are deep things to contemplate.

God does not have to feel pain to know pain. He does not have to have sensual feelings (lusts and desires) in order to know what they are.

In an Internet article titled "Does God Actually Get Angry? Why He Reveals Himself in Human Terms" Mark Jones at desiringgod.org (here) has some good things to say on this subject. He begins by saying (highlighting mine):

"However, we also find that much of what pertains to us as humans is also attributed to God. We read of God’s “face” (Exodus 33:20), “eyes” (and “eyelids,” Psalm 11:4), “ear” (Isaiah 59:1), “nostrils” (Isaiah 65:5), “mouth” (Deuteronomy 8:3), “lips” (Isaiah 30:27), “tongue” (Isaiah 30:27), “finger” (Exodus 8:19), and many other body parts. What’s more, sometimes we read of God possessing human emotions. He is sometimes jealous or grieved (Deuteronomy 4:24; 32:21; Psalm 78:40; Isaiah 63:10). After Adam sins, God, who has just made the world by acts of divine power, wisdom, and goodness, asks Adam, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9)."

So, just how are we to interpret such verses? Do we say that God is human like we are, that he has a physical body (as the Mormons teach?). Or do we see them as anthropomorphisms and anthropopathisms? Do we see them as metaphors, as symbolic or figurative language? Is God fickle and mutable? Does he change moods as we do? Does he have temper tantrums as we do? Etc.?

Jones continued:

"What are Christians to make of these declarations of God? Is God eternally unchangeable in his being, or does he, like humans, have the capacity to change? Can God really experience distress or learn something new? What does it mean for God, who is Spirit, to “get angry”? Does God really need to ask Adam where he is, as if he can’t find him?"

Excellent questions! These questions with biblical answers could be part of a catechism or bible study lesson. Of course, God being unchangeable and eternally happy in himself, he is not subject to passions as we are. God feels a certain way because he chooses to have a certain attitude or state of mind towards something. He does not experience new sensations as do humans. So wrote the prophet Job - "But he is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he doeth." (Job 23: 13) 

God cannot be "turned," which would not be true if he can become altered in his thinking by his passions as we are. God does not change his mind, except seemingly, or analogously. When the bible says that God "repented" (changed his mind), it is not to be interpreted as meaning the same thing as humans changing their minds. Any change in how God deals with men, in reaction to some action of men, was not unforeseen and not predetermined. It denotes a change in God's providential dealings with men.

Jones continued:

"If we are committed to the biblical and theological view that God is unchangeable (see Psalm 102:26–28), we are affirming that in God there is no change in time (he is eternal) or location (he is omnipresent) or essence (he is pure being). God does not change, nor can he change (Malachi 3:6; Isaiah 14:27; 41:4). Thus, there are no “passions” in God, as if in his essence he can be more or less happy or more or less angry. God is what he always was and will be (James 1:17) in the infinite happiness and bliss we call divine “blessedness.”"

I agree with this and so has most of the Christian world, of those who believe in God's immutability. Only people who believe in Process Theology and Open Theism reject this truth (wherein they deny that God has foreknowledge of human choices and knows all things, and thereby denying his immutability). 

The traditional orthodox belief affirms that our sins are not making God essentially unhappy, for that is impossible, because he is the "blessed God," which means that he is eternally and immutably happy. But more on that shortly.

Jones continued:

"An immutable God does not have passions; or, as John Owen famously said, “a mutable god is of the dunghill.” We do not deny that God has affections (for example, wrath or hatred), but affections like wrath in God are either acts of his outward will or they are applied to God figuratively."

Agreed. This is the orthodox view. It is also a truth we should keep in mind. We are not to say that God literally has hands and feet, nor are we to say that God has passions as do human beings, or any other creature with passions. Also, some texts of scripture that speak of God's feelings, are not only to be taken as metaphors and analogies, but as expressions of God's change in the way of dealing with creatures of passion. The change was in mankind which change then alters God's covenantal dealings with mankind. To say God's mood changed would not be precisely theologically correct, but yet such language metaphorically means God's actions towards us is altered, which in human language generally means a change of attitude, mood, or mind.

Jones continued:

"Passions refer to an internal emotional change, which are suitable to humans. Think of our blood pressure rising with anger. God’s jealousy — a metaphorical way to speak of him — helps us to understand outward acts of his will. When God wills for the wicked to be punished, sometimes in the most severe way (like the flood in Noah’s time), we can speak of the “anger of the Lord.” Because God is holy and righteous, he must punish sin. When he outwardly executes his punishment, the Scriptures often speak of his fury or wrath. But to suggest that Achan, for example, could upset God so that God is less happy is to make Achan into God and God into Achan (see Joshua 7)."

The idea that any creature can cause God to experience pain and suffering, can be changed in his degrees of joy and happiness, or pleasure, is to affirm that God was not immutable, and not always perfect. 

Satan in "Paradise Lost" determines to work so that he can at least make God unhappy if he cannot overthrow him. In Book 1 Satan says to his fallen comrades (See here):

"What though the field be lost? [105] All is not lost; the unconquerable Will, And study of revenge, immortal hate, And courage never to submit or yield: And what is else not to be overcome? That Glory never shall his wrath or might [110] Extort from me."

"Fall'n Cherube, to be weak is miserable Doing or Suffering: but of this be sure, To do ought good never will be our task, But ever to do ill our sole delight, [160] As being the contrary to his high will Whom we resist. If then his Providence Out of our evil seek to bring forth good, Our labour must be to pervert that end, And out of good still to find means of evil; [165] Which oft times may succeed, so as perhaps Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb His inmost counsels from thir destind aim."

If God can be altered in his state of blessedness by his creatures, then Satan will be rejoicing in his ability to "disturb" God and thus show that he is mutable, and if mutable then maybe not omniscient, maybe not omnipotent, etc. Maybe God is only conceived of as omnipotent because no one has ever put him to the test. He is just like the one who "holds the title" as in boxing. Just because he is "undefeated" does not mean he may stay that way. Every "contender for the title" believes that he can become "number one." 

God cannot be disturbed in his eternal blessedness. Satan is deluded to think he can make God mad, and to irritate God, so as to make him not so happy. Such thinking manifests the utter hate that Satan has for his Maker, the Almighty.

Jones continued:

"He condescends and, for our sake, sometimes appropriates to himself “passions” that, while not properly true of his being, are ways of speaking that help us to understand how he will relate to us in terms of his purposes and will."

That is why we call such language as anthropomorphisms and anthropopathisms. Human features applied to God is "analogous language." It is saying "it is something like that." They are metaphors and figurative language. These are "the deep things of God" (I Cor. 2: 10). We will continue our homily on this topic in the next posting.