Monday, May 07, 2007

Divine impassability?

The overwhelming consensus in twentieth century theology was that divine impassability had become an untenable doctrine. In the wake of Auschwitz and Hiroshima, it seemed impossible to believe in a God who is not sensitive, emotional and compassionate. Moltmann wrote:

The doctrine of the essential impassability of the divine nature now seems finally to be disappearing from the Christian doctrine of God.

While the tradition has fairly consistently taught impassibility of one form or another for 1900 years unbroken, there are of course good biblical grounds for questioning it at least. And Colin Gunton in his book Act and Being (which I think is one of his best) calls it a 'doctrine that damages as well as supports the gospel' (p. 125). It was the heresy of Nestorianism that taught the Eternal Son did not suffer, after all. Whatever account is given must incorporate a fully two-natured account of Christ on the cross, or Christianity itself is denied.

Gunton concedes in the end that

the doctrine expresses...the ontological integrity of God, his immunity from alteration in his being as the result of things done by creatures. It is linked with his moral consistency and integrity, as well as his sovereignty - the assurance that he cannot be deflected from achieving his purposes. p. 131

This sounds more than a little reluctant on Gunton's part. But, I think that while rejecting impassability fits in with the zeitgeist I am not sure it can be any way said to reflect orthodox teaching, not really. Trouble is, how to articulate it without depersonalising the deity... Perhaps Thomas Weinandy's Does God Suffer? will help.

1 comments:

Jon said...

Weinandy's Book is immense!

Obviously the flip-side argument would be found in Karl Barth - Gottes sein ist im Werden type argument...