Divine Impassibility

There was a day when the impassibility of God was impassible. That is, it was assumed as something we simply knew about God's being. But that day appears to have passed: now it seems that the mass of men and women in the know (those who think and write about such things) want to affirm as basic theology the passibility of God. And by this they mean that God feels pain and suffers emotionally as one who is subject to the free agency of others and the vicissitudes of a broken and battered world mired in tragedies.

The first step we must take, in order to decide whether or not we ought to walk in lockstep with these people on the passibility path, is one in the direction of definition. Specifically, we need to define what we mean by suffering and by emotions.

If by emotions (or we might say passions) we mean, for example, that God "loses his cool" from time to time, or "flies off the handle" (as they say), or becomes overwhelmed, or is overtaken by sorrow unexpectedly, or the like, we must assert emphatically that God has no such emotions or passions. God is the sort of being who, although experiencing emotions analogous to ours, never experiences them apart from his deliberate and sovereign choosing in line with all his perfections. And in this sense—at least vis-à-vis fallen creatures—God is sui generis. There is none like unto him, as the King's English told us hundreds of years ago.

Now, if by suffering we mean, for example, that God experiences pain inflicted upon him from without, as a passive subject of hurt or harm done to him, unable to avoid the pain or keep himself from experiencing emotional hurt, well, then, again we must assert unequivocally that God experiences no such suffering. God is "above it all" in this sense. He's out of the reach of any harm or pain that might be inflicted upon him. The aseity of God and the absolute freedom of God are unassailable. God's Godness is immutable. All that he is, he always is (God's simplicity). And no one can take his serenity or joy from him. Or anything belonging to his essential nature, for that matter.

So, at some level, in some sense, we really do need, then, to affirm the impassibility of God. For if we don't, we shall end up de-godding God. But, in doing this, let us never forget, if we go along with the cool crowd in the direction of divine passibility, we shall only be de-godding God in our idolatrous minds (for in truth God is beyond our attempts to domesticate him). And in this reducing God to the size of a giant human, we shall lose all our hope and joy. For a god who is unable to avoid pain that a creature throws his way is a god who cannot save us in our plight either. He can only commiserate with us in our misery as one subject to a similar misery. And so, it turns out, such a god is not God at all.

Yet, we must say more. Even while we seek to steer quite clear of reducing God to our size, we must also steer equally quite clear of the god of the philosophers, a deity who is stoical and untouched in any sense whatever by our pathetic condition. We must not head off in the other unbiblical direction and confess a god who commands us to "weep with those who weep" (Rom. 12:15) while he himself is unmoved by our tears. No, we ought not to suppose that the God who lives is the sort of being who puts our tears in his bottle (Ps. 56:8) without any feeling for us in his doing so. "Jesus wept" (Jn. 11:35). The God who reveals himself in Scripture is a God who grieves (e.g., Gen. 6:6; Eph. 4:30). Yet he does so (and this point is crucial) as one who embraces the grief willingly, in total control, without his perfections being altered in any way, without a loss of sovereign serenity and volcanic joy.

Immediately an objection comes to mind. (That bubble over your head gives it away.) You say: "But how can it be that God really experiences grief if he never loses his peace and joy?" To which I reply: it must be something like what Paul says redeemed humans can experience in 2 Cor. 6:10. It must be like Paul's "sorrowful, yet always rejoicing," but without any creaturely limitations or imperfections, and without God ceasing to be all that he is in his triune glory. If we can be both sad and glad simultaneously, why can't we get our minds around a being far more resourceful than we are doing the same? And doing it far better than we do, with far more integration and consistency of character. I can't see why God couldn't be infinitely glad and yet choose to embrace sorrow in some way akin to the sorrow we suffer. It seems to me that the biblical presentation of God necessitates this sort of stance and way forward in our walk with God (for after all, we're going to walk with him along the path of life, and not with those who seek to assault his glory, aren't we?).

It is important at this point to elaborate on and elucidate (one hopes) the element of choice in God's being who and how he is. Since I've now claimed twice in this post that God chooses as one completely in control of all things at all times (including his emotional or affectional life), we need to think a little how this can be so. How can it be that God would choose to experience certain emotions in response to his nearness to his creatures? We all know that you don't just turn on an emotion like you do the light switch in the entryway to your home. Right, not just like a switch. Agreed. It's not mechanical like that. But perhaps we also need to think about whether or not we're thinking about controlling our emotions entirely rightly. After all, God does command emotions in Scripture. A lot. And how could he dare do this unless there is some capacity for doing what he commands, or some culpability for not doing what he commands?

I've already mentioned one such passage (Rom. 12:15). If God commands us to "weep with those who weep," presumably there is such a thing as choosing thoughtfully to respond to others with an appropriate emotion that fits the situation. To point out only a few others, we're commanded to "rejoice always" (Phil. 4:4), and this includes even tough times. We're commanded to love our enemies (Matt. 5:44), which emotionally is not easy for reasons with which we're all familiar. And, to cite only one more, we're enjoined to be grateful in all circumstances (1 Thess. 5:18), which really can't sincerely be done with a sour attitude. So, if we are to be subject to God's mind on these matters, we must say that at least for those renewed according to God's Spirit there is a capacity to "turn on" (to stay with the light switch illustration) certain emotions.

And so now, perhaps we can see, on analogy with what we're required and enabled to do, God himself chooses to embrace certain emotional responses that are fitting and meaningful as he relates to his creatures. If his word speaks to what we're required to be and do in line with imitating who he is (and it does), then it ought to be clear that God himself behaves similarly to what he requires of us. That is, God, for example, weeps with those who weep, as it is fitting to respond this way according to his infinite perfections and wisdom.

Lastly, we need to take a look—the longer and harder the better—at the cross of Christ. For there God's glory shines most brightly. And there we see the divine Son of God suffering at the hands of sinners. On those Roman gallows hung the God-man like a damned malefactor, tortured by mere mortals, spit upon by their hatred, mocked and ridiculed by fools, all the while suspended stark naked because they chose to strip him in their malice with the volitional and legal powers they possessed as free agents. And yet, Jesus taught us that no one took his life from him, but he laid it down of his own accord (Jn. 10:18). Moved by love, he suffered the cross because he wanted to do it in obedience to his Father (Phil. 2:8) and to redeem his people (Gal. 3:13). So, yes, he experienced pain. But he did not do so as one who was merely the subject of circumstances and volitions that neither he nor his Father could thwart. No, they planned it. They foreordained that the Son would suffer (Acts 2:23; 4:28). But they were by no means passive or helpless in this. No, as the church fathers used to say, Jesus was even then reigning from the cross.

Therefore, we should continue to affirm that God is impassible. But we should not do so in a way that, for example, mutes the testimony of Scripture that God took to himself suffering by embracing a body in order to die. And we must also affirm that he experiences emotions on analogy with ours, but without any imperfections tainting the emotion, and without any diminution to any of his perfections. Surely there is mystery here. But if we're Christians at all, we've already come to grips with many such mysteries, mysteries that we glory in. We know the incarnation is true, but can't fathom how it can be true. The mechanics, so to speak, are beyond us. We know man made upright rebelled against God, because God has revealed this to us. But we can't for the life of us see the depths to how it can be so. How on earth did a righteous man do unrighteousness? Yet, there it is, from the mouth of God. And so we bow low. And submit in faith.

And so it is with the nature and character of God. We know certain characteristics about him are true, because he's revealed these, but we don't foolishly pretend or suppose we're getting to the bottom of these things. "The finite cannot contain the infinite." God is God, and we are not.

Theologian as Dragon-Slayer

"The theologian, far from having a faith based on wish fulfillment, is rather employed (at least part-time) in the role of dragon-slayer, as one who casts down false gods. Or, to put it into contemporary terms, the theologian is an ideology-critic."

—Kevin Vanhoozer, "The Nature and Purpose of Theology: Science or Sapientia?" (lecture, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, IL, September 9, 2015).

Slaves of Signs

"He is a slave to a sign who uses or worships a significant thing without knowing what it signifies" (St. Augustine, On Interpretation, 3.9).

No Room for Any Reserve

Commenting on Mark 12:30, Edwards says (italics mine for emphasis):

Here is contained in these words a description of a right love to God; and they teach us that they who love him aright do devote all to him, all their hearts, and all their souls, all their mind and all their strength, or all their powers and faculties. Surely, a man who gives all this wholly to God keeps nothing back, but devotes himself wholly and entirely to God. He who gives God all his heart, and all his soul, and all his mind, and all his powers or strength, keeps nothing back; there is no room for any reserve. All who have true love to God have a spirit thus to do. This shows how much a principle of true love to God is above a selfish principle. For if self be devoted wholly to God, then there is something above self which influences the man; there is something superior to self which takes self and makes an offering of it to God. A selfish principle never devotes self to another; the nature of it is to devote all others to self. They who have true love to God, love God as God, and as the supreme good; whereas the nature of selfishness is to set up self for God, to make an idol of self. That being which men respect as God, they devote all to. They who idolize self devote all to self, but they who love God as God devote all to him. 

—Jonathan Edwards, Ethical Writings (vol. 8 in the Works of Jonathan Edwards; ed. Paul Ramsey; New Haven: Yale University, 1989), 261–262.

The Next Great Heresy

Chesterton back in 1926, speaking with real insight into real states of affairs:

For the next great heresy is going to be simply an attack on morality; and especially on sexual morality. And it is coming, not from a few Socialists surviving from the Fabian Society, but from the living exultant energy of the rich resolved to enjoy themselves at last, with neither Popery nor Puritanism nor Socialism to hold them back . . . The madness of tomorrow is not in Moscow, but much more in Manhattan.

—G.K. Chesterton, "The Next Heresy," in G.K.’s Weekly, June 19, 1926.

HT: Our Transgressive Daisy Chain

Now That's a Good Question

"'I was born gay!' 'Gender is a social construct!' Hmmmm . . . which is it?"

—Doug Wilson, Our Transgressive Daisy Chain

The Fallout of a Lack of Love for God

"Where the love of God is absent, there an idolatrous love of the world and of self enters, and a positively offensive and hostile attitude towards God results."

—Geerhardus Vos, The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Kingdom of God and the Church (New York: American Tract Society, 1903), 173.

Man's Chronic (Dis)Ability to Manufacture Idols

"There is absolutely nothing that God can give us that we are incapable of turning into an idol."

—Douglas Wilson, Against the Church (Moscow, ID: Canon, 2013), 114.

What Do You Love, Trust, and Serve?

Rosner:

What constitutes a god? Martin Luther's answer, as he reflected on the first commandment in his larger catechism, was "whatever your heart clings to and relies upon, that is your God; trust and faith of the heart alone make both God and idol." We wish to confirm this view, but also to emphasize love and service: a god is that which one loves, trusts, and serves above all else.

—B. S. Rosner, "Idolatry," NDBT: 575.

Rejecting the Godness of God

Christopher Wright comments on Gen. 3:22:

God accepts that humans have indeed breached the Creator-creature distinction. No that humans have now become gods but that they have chosen to act as though they were—defining and deciding for themselves what they will regard as good and evil. Therein lies the root of all other forms of idolatry: we deify our own capacities, and thereby make gods of ourselves and our choices and all their implications. God then shrinks in horror from the prospect of human immortality and eternal life in such a fallen state and prevents access to the "tree of life." God has a better way to bring humanity, redeemed and cleansed, to eternal life. 

At root, then, of all idolatry is human rejection of the Godness of God and the finality of God's moral authority. The fruit of that basic rebellion is to be seen in many other ways in which idolatry blurs the distinction between God and creation, to the detriment of both.

—Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2005), 164.

The Idolatry of the Self

Iain Provan:

The fundamental idolatry described by the Bible lies also at the heart of the varied modern idolatries: the idolatry of the self. The self is set at the center of existence as a god; ultimate significance is found in god-like individual autonomy, self-set goals and boundaries. The sacred is defined in the first instance in relation to the self. The shadow of Nietzsche looms large. Self-expression and self-actualization are important themes in this religion, and evident in every corner of society from the advice columns of newspapers and magazines to schools, where sometimes the point no longer seems to be to learn things but to 'find oneself' and to be the best person that one can be. We are constantly urged, in fact, to believe in ourselves and to better ourselves—in our individual choices and actions, and in accordance with our personal ambition, to make and to remake ourselves in our own image, or in some other human image of perfection. We are invited to pursue the body beautiful, to take control of our personal health and fitness, to invent our own value and belief systems, with a view to gaining personal fulfillment. We are given ever-increasing permission to ignore and, if necessary, to dispense with whatever and whoever stands in our way in this quest, be it life in the womb, children, husbands and wives, the poor, foreigners, or the aged. 

—Iain Provan, "To Highlight All Our Idols: Worshipping God in Nietzsche's World," Ex Auditu 15 (1999): 33.

The Future of Protestantism in the Light of the New Birth and the Gospel

For those who watched the live steam of The Future of Protestantism (which was edifying, but not nearly as insightful as I had hoped), and those in the orbit of this discussion, here is a sensible and sturdy take on it all.

Wilson's response was roughly mine (minus the postmillenialism bit). I also found each participant saying things with which I am very sympathetic, and each man contributing something important to the discussion. However, I also want to know what a robust evangelical doctrine of the new birth (and the utter necessity of the new birth) has to contribute to this discussion.

Along with this ought to go an articulated gospel that clearly defines justification according to Scripture. Since justification in Christ is so often set forth in Scripture as the basis for our unity (see, for example, Galatians), I want to make sure we get it clear in our minds, and hold it fast in a Pauline fashion.

If, for example, Peter had not repented when corrected by Paul, but had continued down that path of making something other than faith in Christ as the basis of our unity, I dare say Paul would have called Peter a "so-called brother," at best.

In other words, I thought that the conversation emphasized ecclesiology over soteriology. And I don't see this in Scripture. I think each has to have its proper emphasis in order to support and strengthen the other. But soon as one is emphasized to the detriment of the other (as Protestants and Catholics are each guilty of doing, each in their own way), we shall soon lose both the pure Gospel and a healthy Church.

I hope this discussion continues, goes deeper still, and  spreads out wider into broader Christendom.

"Conservative" Evangelicalism's Faith Healers

Non-charismatics have their faith healers too, you know. That is, "conservative" Evangelicalism looks to faith doctors as well for what ails her to defeat her demons. And they are—not for all Evangelicals (don't misunderstand), but for many (we must admit)—the psychotherapists. That's right: the professional counselor. At least this is so in my quarters. And it is there where "the moral has died," and the empty secular self reigns supreme.

David Wells writes of this shocking development. He speaks of what happened when psychotherapy "drifted away from its original context in medicine . . . where Freud had placed it. . . ." Here's what happened:

Ironically, the profession began to look like a substitute religion, with its "priests," dogmas, rituals, orthodoxies, and heresies; what it offered sometimes looked like spirituality built on secular assumptions. And soon, rank amateurs were offering their own therapies and treating themselves. 

Psychotherapy is both peculiarly adapted to the late twentieth century and a telling representation of it, psychologist Lucy Bregman has argued. It has arisen out of the sense of emptiness and meaninglessness that many modern people experience, and it could not have survived in a traditional society. It belongs amidst the complex, pressure-filled modern world, with its dense cities and technological conquests. It is an expression of that world with all of its human cost, the personal dilemmas it forces, the hollowing out of life that it effects, and its narcissism. It is at once both the proffered cure for and the symbol of the troubled, empty self. And, most importantly, it is a secular spirituality. In substantiating this point, Bregman says that even though its metaphysical framework is often obscured, psychotherapy nevertheless has such a framework. It is a means to "revision" the self; it has become a technique for "self transformation." It is, in Bregman's words, "a new framework for the ordering of interiority, for interpreting life's meanings and each person's place in the cosmos." It is, however, a metaphysic in which the moral has died.

And in the book Wells argues strongly (with tears, one senses) that herd-Evangelicalism has embraced this substitute religion in droves. The professional counselor, even of the "Christian" variety, who has embraced secular assumptions and this "substitute religion," routinely is held in high esteem by what I'm calling the herd-Evangelical.

—David F. Wells, Losing Our Virtue: Why the Church Must Recover Its Moral Vision (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 110–111.

The Bible's View of Man Alone Holds Things Together

David Powlison:

How are we—and those we counsel—simultaneously socially conditioned, self-deceived, and responsible for our behavior without any factor canceling out the others?! That is the question of the social and behavioral sciences (and it is the place they all fail when they excise God). It is also the question that any Christian counselor must attempt to answer both in theory and practise in a way that reflects Christ's mind. The Bible's view of man—both individual and social life—alone holds these things together.

—David Powlison, "Idols of the Heart and 'Vanity Fair,'" Journal of Biblical Counseling 13, no. 2 (Winter 1995): 38.

Have You Ever Noticed This Contrast?

Writing to his friend Owen Barfield, C. S. Lewis remarked:

Talking of beasts and birds, have you ever noticed this contrast: that when you read a scientific account of any animal's life you get an impression of laborious, incessant, almost rational economic activity . . . but when you study any animal you know—what at once strikes you is their cheerful fatuity, the pointlessness of nearly all they do. Say what you like, Barfield, the world is sillier and better fun than they make out.

—C. S. Lewis, Collected Letters: Books, Broadcasts, and War, 1931-1949, ed. Walter Hooper (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), 930, as cited in Michael Reeves, Delighting in the Trinity: An Introduction to the Christian Faith (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 57.

Render to God What Is God's

Render to Caesar what is his, but no more. A good reminder for this 4th of July, the year of our Lord 2013. We ought to love our country, but manifestly love God immeasurably more.

God's Handing Over

The OT equivalent of the NT "handing over" in Rom. 1:24, 26, 28 appears in texts such as Ps. 81:11-12: "But my people did not listen to my voice; Israel would not submit to me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels."

God hands people over—even his own people!—"to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels," when they refuse to listen to him, that is, when they choose to worship and serve "the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen" (Rom. 1:25).

The Inverted Valuations of Western Culture

"God, society, family, individuals, sex, property. It is an order of values that western culture has more or less completely reversed."

—Christopher Wright, Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1992), 210.

Simple Obedience

"Obedience ought not to be complicated, either by the competing claims of other gods (the moral maze of polytheism), or by the confusing rules of human experts (the moral bondage of legalism)."

—Christopher J. H. Wright, Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1992), 190.

The Greatest Christian Paradox of All

Ross Douthat:

Indeed, this is perhaps the greatest Christian paradox of all—that the world's most paradoxical religion has cultivated rationalism and scientific rigor more diligently than any of its rivals, making the Christian world safe for philosophy as well as fervor, for the study of nature as well as the contemplation of divinity.

—Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics (New York: Free Press, 2012), 11.