Jul 21
Impassibility and anger
John Hobbins responds thoughtfully to my post on the first of the Anglican 39 articles. In particular he picks up the question of impassibility, and how it relates to an earlier post of his also on God’s anger. Both his posts are worth reading in full. I note one excerpt here:
It has always struck me that ancient Hebrew poetry is awash in descriptions of God’s anger. Classical prophecy, many of the Psalms, the book of Job – they fall apart conceptually if one removes this element from the whole.
It raises the question: is it possible to speak truthfully about God, and do without language that refers to God’s anger? Over the long haul, I’m not sure it is.
There are a number of points, questions really, that are worth pondering..
- 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 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.
- Given that (as I think) the mainly middle- and neo-platonic cradle within which the church’s theology grew from infancy is neither the framework of the Hebrew Scriptures, nor the framework of contemporary thought, how do we deal with areas where we see serious conflicts that our forebears in the faith did not? I am not convinced that we can simply resolve the conflict with a modern either-or, but must find our own both-and.
- If impassibility is to be questioned by the preponderance of biblical metaphor, do some forms of that questioning risk losing, say, that distinctiveness of God’s God-ness which makes creation, incarnation and salvation acts of love, grace and free will and instead render them as some kind of divine compulsion?
- If impassibility is to be retained, as I think in some form it must be, how do we bear proper witness to what it has safeguarded in terms appropriate to our cultural discourse. This is where I need help from capable theologians. (Hardly the only place
) But it seems to me that among other things, 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. How do we best express them today?
July 21st, 2007 at 4:05 pm
I hope I can bear with you as I look forward to your notes - not that I think God needs safeguarding :), nor even the beleaguered Anglican Church - hoping it does not pull all its buttons from its cloak. Perhaps as I work through Frymer-Kensky, my not-as-much-fun-book as HP, I will find a way to interact with ‘the Articles’. Your point 2 above is very important - can we put more flesh to it? Example? (easy one first)
July 21st, 2007 at 6:04 pm
[...] with the idea of God being angry, not least that it is inconsistent with his classic attribute of impassibility. Of course the Bible does teach of God’s anger at sin, but this anger has to be understood [...]
July 21st, 2007 at 6:17 pm
Doug,
As always, thought-provoking. I suppose that the question that arises out of your last point for me is something like “What does it mean for God to love if He is impassible?” Really, isn’t intimacy the most passable thing - the thing that leaves us most emotionally vulnerable and invested in someone else?
As far as apophatic statements go, I agree that they are truest about God, but I also take the perspective that positive statements are true as far as they go. To the extent that God can be “good” (although God is greater than all “goodness” of which we can conceive) that statement is true. This is a real shortcoming of all language, as the actual living God is going to be greater than “goodness,” “truth,” “love,” “greatness,” and even “God.” If He wasn’t, He’d hardly be the deity of worship and awesomeness that He is, right?
Anyway, keep up the good work, I suppose. And just in case you haven’t seen this yet, here’s the Primate of Uganda on the Anglican faith.
-JAK
September 15th, 2007 at 6:51 am
Doesn’t impassability essentially mean “unable to feel”? Wouldn’t it essentially, therefore, be impossible for any person (or Person) to be impassable?
September 15th, 2007 at 10:24 am
Technically, it means unable to suffer, partly in the sense of being unable to “have things done to you.” On the positive side, this stresses God as “the one who acts,” the eternal subject who is never an object.
July 6th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
A couple of thoughts come to mind. One is Julian of Norwich’s comment in Showings that she found no wrath in God, only in men. Something simliar was said by William Law. The other is Jurgen Moltmann’s statement that God’s waiting only appears to be passive, but in fact it is the awaiting of one fully engaged. I have experienced God’s awaiting, calling, “luring” me in my own life, thanks be.
I was very glad to be directed to your site. A great idea! I look forward to reading your futher comments on the Articles.
July 6th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
Bob, thanks for the compliment! And welcome.
July 7th, 2008 at 5:49 am
Yikes — I’m only a new viewer, but already I want to write a book on the impassability of God! Of course God MUST be impassable if God is to be outside of time and unchanging — and God must be both, since God existed “before” time and created time, so God cannot be bound by time. And if God is beyond time, God is beyond change (time is merely the measurement of change). And God’s love has nothing to with God’s FEELING anything. Aquinas’ definition of love as “willing nothing but good for the other” is perfect: love is an act of WILL, not an emotional condition - so God’s love for us simply means that God invariably and always wills the best for us. I mean, our most perfect demonstration of God’s love happened at Golgotha, and there wasn’t much sentimental mush involved in that gift of love!
Oh, I have to stop this or I’ll go on forever. I appreciate Bob’s mention of our patroness Dame Julian: “I saw no wrath in God…” Right on!