Apathy rules. Is God impassible?

(This post is one of a sporadic series on the Church of England’s Thirty-nine Articles)

Anecdotal evidence and conversation suggest to me that rather a lot of people might have problems with the first of the Church of England’s 39 Articles. Many of them would be among those self-describing as conservative or biblical – and probably think of themselves as those upholding the Articles and “traditional Anglicanism”.

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 unity of this Godhead there be three Persons, of one substance, power, and eternity; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Most of this would seem familiar from creedal affirmations; the problem comes, I think, with the phrase “without body, parts, or passions” and particularly the last of those non-attributes. The impassibility of God – that God is not subject to feeling, emotion, pain or suffering – presents a problem for many contemporary Christians.

A few days ago John Anderson asked what sort of God people believed in – from an OT perspective. He included these among his answers:

God is . . . . intimately and deeply affected by creation to the point that God at points changes His mind, repents, withdraws, mourns, etc.
God is . . . . one who suffers because of, with, and for creation.
God is . . . . a paradox. Vulnerable yet powerful. Tricky yet faithful. Present yet absent

You don’t have to read very far in the Old Testament to find the basis for such a picture of God. And it is with such a picture in mind, reinforced by the NT story of he whom Moltmann called The Crucified God, that many (most?) contemporary Christians think of God. The idea that the Church Fathers and magisterial Reformers alike though of God as impassible (the Westminster Confession adds “immutable” and the two adjectives rather belong together) seems strange, if not shocking.

The first thing worth noting, whatever we think of this attribution of non-feeling to God, is that reading the Bible is hardly a straightforward matter. The fathers knew all the texts attributing one or other emotion to God, to say nothing of the concept of God’s repentance and change of mind. They simply read them figuratively and allegorically. Nor can we simply set this up (as some have done) as a Greek corruption of a Hebrew concept, or a philosophical betrayal of the primitive faith. After all, the most “Greek philosophical” statement about God in the NT comes in the most “Jewish practical” book”

[God is] the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. (James 1:17)

In this light we need to note that whatever else the articles will say elsewhere about the privileging of scripture over tradition, they begin in a different place, with the tradition and not against it, using it to read scripture (as they would see it) responsibly. There will be those who say that on this point the Reformers and the articles still needed to be reformed, and offer a scriptural critique – perhaps even a rebuttal – of the traditional affirmation of impassibility. Starting on this point suggests that the articles are more in dispute and open to question even among conservatives and “biblical traditionalists” than is often claimed to be the case.

But let me essay a few points in defence of the first article’s most contestable claim, and ponder whether there is more to be said for the tradition of impassibility than some seem to think.

• We do not read many of Scriptures anthropomorphisms literally. Moses didn’t get to watch God’s bum sashaying away from him as he passed. (Ex 33:23) Philosophical, linguistic and theological viewpoints guide our reading generally.
• I think that whatever is involved in speaking of God, all God-talk is of necessity metaphorical or analogical. This is true of language of God’s anger, and it is true also, I think, of language of impassibility. (I find myself wondering whether negative statements are less metaphorical than positive statements.) I think that part of what that means is that impassibility reminds us that all talk of anger is metaphor, and that the vast tracts of the OT (in particular) that talk of anger remind us that impassibility is also analogical.
• Impassibility is about the “God-ness” of God, which traditional doctrine this article so strongly affirms: his perfection in eternity, and his being “not such a one as us” – not contingent, not in need of growth, not externally influenced. A failure to truly appreciate God’s transcendence lies behind a great many of the atheist objections to God’s being, which they confuse with the existence of all other things, visible and invisible. But it also lies behind many of the trite expressions of Christian faith and worship which all too often reduce the Almighty to the All-matey.
• It seems to me that among other things, it is precisely the transcendent distance of God that makes his immanence and incarnation truly good news, the unswerving and implacable nature of his loving purposes, his not being swayed from accomplishing his will, these are the things that the first article safeguards. It is precisely because God cannot suffer in eternity, that his free decision to suffer in Christ is so powerful an expression of his redemptive love and power. (And I know that’s where it gets really complex to find words at all)

I’m not a systematic theologian – so much of that might be completely wrong-headed. But it seems to me there’s more to be said here than just a simple dismissal of the idea. Given that (as I think) the mainly middle- and neo-platonic cradle within which the church’s theology grew from infancy has a complex relationship with the scriptural tradition, and both are some distance away from contemporary patterns of thinking, how do we work out problems we might see which our forebears did not? I doubt a simple “either-or” will provide the answer.

Tagged as: 39 articles, anglican, impassibility