PASSION LANGUAGE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT:

DOES GOD EMOTIONALLY FLUCTUATE?

___________________

A Research Paper

Presented to

Dr. Tyler Wittman

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

___________________

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for

27060B

__________________

by

Corbin King

cking073@[Link]

9 April 2019

Word Count: 2,867

*I affirm the honor code.

 Introduction

Divine impassibility is a long-held doctrine describing a negative attribute of God. In

describing what God is not like, we can better understand the one true God, Who is like none

other. The doctrine of Impassibility means that God cannot emotionally change, either within or

outside Himself. Impassibility matters because it is connected to God’s other attributes of aseity,

immutability, blessedness, etc. Yet, if impassibility is true and so important, one must work

through the challenging depictions of God as passible in the Old Testament. It would appear

from a literal reading that God experiences a wide range of emotions caused by others. There are

three perspectives on how God is depicted passionately in the Old Testament. First is the view of

classical theism, which holds to God as impassible both within Himself and outside Himself.

Second is a modern modification to impassibility that God is both impassible and impassioned.

And third is the rejection of impassibility, declaring that God is passible and shares the same

emotional experience with His creatures. I argue that the classical theist view of an impassible

God is the correct way of understanding the passionate descriptions of God in the Old Testament

because it is most faithful to Scripture, orthodox theology, and the Gospel message.

Outline and Methodology

First, I will present the passibility and modified passibility views. Second, I will argue for

my view: classic impassibility. Third, I will present some possible objections my opponents

would offer and then respond to each.

The methodology will be to fairly depict the arguments for each view in four distinct

ways. Beginning with how they argue from Scripture, and form their theology of God from the

selected Old Testament passages. Then expound on their theology and how each believe their

view faithfully depicts God as He has revealed Himself. Alongside each theological argument

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will be philosophical arguments as well. Lastly, as each view derives from professing Christians,

it is important to explore how each view affects ones perception of the Gospel message, the very

heart of God’s revealed word. In examining how each view treats the Gospel message, these

ideas will be covered with brevity, as an entire paper separate from this one would be required.

Proponents of Opposing Views

Passibility

First is the view that God, as depicted in the Old Testament, is a passible God and is

emotionally affected by people. This perspective was birthed from theologians looking to

reconcile God’s love with a world full of violence and evil, especially after the events of the

Holocaust. Upon looking at the language of Scripture, it would appear that God is not only

present, but also emotionally involved with His creatures. The passibility view aims to give

comfort to the Christian depicting God as close to the sufferer and co-suffering with His people.

A prominent aspect of the passibility of God is that He suffers psychologically alongside

His people. Terence Fretheim describes God as One who suffers in three distinct ways: because

of His people, with His people, and for His people.1 Much of God’s suffering comes from His

special relationship with Israel. Because He is in a covenant with Israel, their sin and

disobedience causes God grief.2 Israel’s experiences of devastation and exile at the hands of

foreign nations also caused God to suffer.3 Other emotional experiences ascribed to God are joy

(Isaiah 65:19), anger (Deuteronomy 4:25), and jealousy (Exodus 20:5). God is depicted with a

range of emotions that appear to fluctuate, and the passibilist would affirm that God is actually

affected and changed emotionally by people.

1 Fretheim, Terence E. The suffering of God: an Old Testament perspective. Vol. 14. Fortress
Press, 1984, 11.
2 Psalm 78:40-41; Numbers 14:22; 2 Samuel 9:13; Psalm 56:5
3 Isaiah 15:5, 16:9,11; Jeremiah 48:30-32, 35-36

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 The hermeneutical approach of passibilists is practiced in two different ways, literal

readings of the text and reading the descriptions of God as anthropomorphic metaphors. The best

scholarship in this field would adhere to the anthropomorphic metaphors, as a literal reading

would ascribe too much humanity to God. The criteria Fretheim and others use are “adequacy to

common man experience…intelligibility and coherence…(and) faithfulness to the biblical

witness and the tradition in which a given image stands…looking to the human, (so we can)

learn what God is like”.4 Furthermore, the usage of metaphors must be open to interpretation and

risk being abandoned, depending on historical-cultural factors; “especially those of our

individual experience”, such as calling God “father”.5

Human experience in interpreting Scripture’s depictions of God is perhaps the

cornerstone of passibility. Passibility’s Theodicy seeks to affirm that God loves people in this

theology. Paul Fiddes aligns with modern scholarship that claims love is between two persons

and always involves suffering, because “love is the sharing of experience”.6 For God to be God,

He must love His people to the point of suffering with them. In relation to the Old Testament,

Fiddes proposes that the prophets have been invited into God’s inner life. God is not only

suffering alongside Israel, but God actually grieves for His covenant people and invites the

prophets to do likewise. The Gospel for passible-affirming theologians is not centered on God

saving people from their sin. Instead, the good news is that God suffers with the suffering world

and this revelation of God’s nature was made complete in the death of Jesus.7 Furthermore,

Jurgen Moltmann argues that God is most God in the loving self-sacrifice on the cross; in this act

4 Fretheim, The suffering of God: an Old Testament perspective, 11, 16.

5 Fretheim, The suffering of God: an Old Testament perspective, 11.
6 Fiddes, Paul S. "The creative suffering of God." (1992), 16.
7 Moltmann, Jürgen. The Trinity and the kingdom: The doctrine of God. Fortress Press, 1981,
33.

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God’s divinity is most complete.8 In summation, the passion descriptions of God are

metaphorically describing real emotions and emotional change in God as He relates with the

world He loves.

Modified Impassibility

There are many modern evangelical theologians who offer a modification to

impassibility. Modifications that try to fill the gap of mystery surrounding the Old Testament

descriptions of God, a God who is impassible and yet appears to experience fluctuations in

emotions based on the actions of His creatures. Here I will examine Rob Lister, Bruce Ware, and

John Frame; who argue God is both impassible and impassioned.

Rob Lister, in a chapter of his book God is impassible and impassioned: toward a

theology of divine emotion, looks at similar Old Testament texts and traces the timeline of God’s

interactions with Israel. Tracing God’s jealousy, to anger, to steadfast love and repentance; Lister

reads the descriptions of God as “sinlessly, passionately, and voluntarily responsive in the

economy of redemption…never ultimately passive…(nor) involuntarily forced into an emotional

experience that he does not intend to have”.9 For example, in the case of God’s anger towards

Israel’s sin, He does not metaphysically change for He is immutable. But rather He

economically, in His dealings with Israel, changes His interaction with Israel from delight to

wrath.10 This change in the relationship is responsive under God’s omniscience and sovereignty,

and never spontaneous.

Theologically speaking, this view is a modification of classic impassibility. Therefore

many similarities exist, in regards to the essence and internality of God and His attributes. Such

8Moltmann, The Trinity and the kingdom: The doctrine of God, 32.
9 Lister, Rob. God is impassible and impassioned: toward a theology of divine emotion.
Crossway, 2012, 216.
10 Ware, Bruce A. "An Evangelical Reformulation of the Doctrine of the Immutability of
God." Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 29.4 (1986): 431-441.

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as transcendence, self-sufficiency, sovereignty, blessedness, and immutability. The differences

lie in God’s external works and how modified impassibilists affirm that God is not passively

responsive but relationally mutable.11 In the Old Testament, God chooses to be affected by His

people according to His foreknowledge and will. God changes His emotional interaction in

response to Israel. Within the confines of covenant and God’s economy with creation, God

chooses to experience “active travail” due to humanity’s wickedness.12 Lister, Ware, and Frame

agree that God experiences grief; maintaining both blessedness within Himself and extrinsically

grief from creation.

In reaction to the Gospel, Lister and Ware align with theologians who hold to a classical

theistic view of the Gospel message. Specifically the plan of salvation, and it being for God’s

glory and our greatest joy. That it was Christ’s humanity that suffered and died on the cross and

not His Divinity. John Frame agrees except in his view on the death of Jesus. Frame believes that

God the Father did experience suffering in the crucifixion of the Son because of their shared

essence and indwelling of the Persons.13 Due to the modifications on impassibility, there are

ramifications for God’s attributes that do indeed affect the Gospel message. More on this later.

In summation, God is not devoid of emotions and cannot be forced or surprised into an

emotional interaction. However, God as impassioned means God may be affected by His

creatures emotionally. But in a way that is predetermined and according to His will and Divine

purposes.

Classic Impassibility

11 Ware, Bruce A. "An Evangelical Reformulation of the Doctrine of the Immutability of

God”, 440.
12 Lister, God is impassible and impassioned: toward a theology of divine emotion, 257.
13 Frame, John M. The doctrine of God. P & R Pub., 2002, 613-614.

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 Classic impassibility says God does not and cannot change emotionally within or outside

Himself.14 He does not change from happy to sad, nor is He caused to suffer by His creatures.

The idea derives from a greek pagan term, apatheia, and was first used doctrinally by Ignatius of

Antioch.15 Unlike typical critiques of impassibility, Weinandy affirms that God is passionate but

as the Wholly Other.16 He argues that passionate descriptions of God are speaking about

something literally true about God in an anthropomorphic or anthropopathic way. For example,

God’s wrath is not a change in God from bliss to anger towards sinners. But rather, it is God’s

good pleasure towards His holiness and justice that He justly punishes sinfulness. In Genesis 6:6-

7 or Exodus 32:12, 14, God appears to change His emotions in response to Israel’s actions.

Passibilists and modified impassibilists would affirm an emotional shift in God, but Weinandy

and others disagree. Israel experiences God’s love in different ways depending upon their change

of obedience or sin, and not a change in God. They are having different experiences of God’s

love which is pure act.17

This classical view draws from greek philosophy that serves theological categories

deriving from Scripture, and works to uphold all of God’s attributes revealed in Scripture. Many

classical theists argue God’s attributes can fall under the single category of God’s name, revealed

in Exodus 3:14, where God reveals Himself as “I AM WHO I AM”. From His name, theologians

draw the attribute of God’s aseity, “which speaks of God possessing the infinite perfection of all

that HE–IS by or from Himself”.18 From aseity and Scripture’s testimony, theologians draw out

immutability, blessedness, unity, eternality, simplicity, and so forth. All of which are connected,

14 Weinandy, O. F. M. Does God Suffer?, 38.

15 Bray, Gerald. "Impassibility in the Church Fathers: Why the Great Tradition Affirmed
Impassibility." Credo Magazine, March 27, 2019. Accessed April 15, 2019.
16 Weinandy, O. F. M. Does God Suffer?, 58.
17 Weinandy, Thomas G. "Does God Suffer?." Ars Disputandi 2.1 (2002): 9-10.
18 Rennie, Charles. “Is Impassibility Really Biblical?” Credo Magazine, March 27, 2019.
Accessed April 15, 2019.

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including impassibility. Therefore, classical theists would argue God cannot suffer, because of

His blessedness that delights in all of God’s perfections that cannot change.19 This view protects

the integrity of the Gospel due to its depiction of God as the only One capable of redeeming

creation. Classic impassibility defends God’s perfect and unchanging Divinity. Because a God

that suffers and is affected is not sovereign. Nor is He delighting in His perfections in accordance

with a perfect will. But if an impassible God took on flesh, and the humanity of the God-man

took on sins, suffered, died, and rose again; then that alone could grant sinners freedom and

everlasting life.

In short, this view disagrees with passibility’s literal or passible anthropomorphic reading

of the passionate language in the Old Testament. Classic impassibility believes a literal reading

would make God pantheistic and one of us, and therefore incapable of being God or even saving

us.20 God as Wholly Other is both immanent and transcendent, and is transcendent due to His

immanence and Otherness; making Him capable of interacting with and redeeming creation

without forfeiting His Divine nature .21 Passibilists state that God depends on creation to fully

express His love, as He Himself is love and would need objects to complete that description of

Himself. Impassibilists would deny this idea because all of God’s attributes are identical to

God’s essence. God as as se does not need creation to exist or express Himself. Classic

impassibility also disagrees with an idea of God being impassioned. If the idea that Lister holds

is true, that God has inner emotional mutability, then God would no longer be immutable

(unchanging) or simple (not made up of parts). Therefore He would not be pure act, and His

potentiality would disqualify His Divinity.

19 Mullins, R. T. "Why Can’t the Impassible God Suffer? Analytic Reflections on Divine
Blessedness." (2018), 5-7, 17-18.
20 Owen, John. The Works of John Owen. Vol. 11. Johnstone and Hunter, 1853, 148.
21 Weinandy, O. F. M. Does God Suffer?, 53.

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 Objections to Classic Impassibility

Passibility

Passibilists argue against the classical descriptions of God’s attributes. For them, the

classical attributes make God not personable. They believe that God must share our experience

in order for us to know Him and He know us.22 They also argue that the imago dei principle is a

qualifier for God and man sharing the same emotional makeup.23 A further distinction that

Fretheim makes is arguing that these descriptions do not make God pantheistic, but his

explanation of God’s relation and connection to the world is very pantheistic; particularly that

God is in time, space, dependent on creation, and changes due to events in history.24 Classical

theists would counter, stating that God as Wholly Other is the good news that we are not like

Him. Therefore, He is capable of rescuing us because He is sovereign over and outside the

limitations of creation. What we see in Scripture is that God is very relational, and He Has

perfect, eternal, divine affections; and people experience those affections, not as God changes

but as we change in relation to Him.

Modified Impassibility

Lister, Ware, and Frame would respond by describing classic impassibility as an over-

realized or forceful version of the doctrine. They would argue for why God, by His will and

foreknowledge, can experience change in emotional dispositions. Moreover, if the language of

God’s passions in the Old Testament are anthropomorphic, then how are we to hermeneutically

read other descriptions about God that classic theists take literally?25 Frame finds frustration with

classical theists in the fact that the impassibility of God is not explicitly stated in Scripture. The

22 Fiddes, "The creative suffering of God." (1992), 17-19.

23 Fretheim, The suffering of God: an Old Testament perspective, 10-12.
24 Fretheim, The suffering of God: an Old Testament perspective, 34-35.
25 Frame, The doctrine of God, 609-610.

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classic impassible stance would respond by stating that they are being hermeneutically faithful to

the literature by reading descriptions of God’s passions as analogous. For it is impossible for

man to comprehend God or know Him without God first condescending and revealing Himself

through creaturely mediums.26 This does not make revelation any less true, rather we must accept

that we are made in His image and God not in ours. Just as Frame would agree that we do not

read literally the descriptions of God having body parts, he should likewise agree that we should

not read literally descriptions of emotional flux in God. Therefore our interpretations cannot be

based on human experience and then used to describe God for the sake of Him appearing more

immanent. It must be reiterated that God must be Wholly Other in order for the incarnation to

have any significance and for Christ to accomplish His work. If there is any mutability in God’s

emotional life, He is not fit to be our redeemer; for He too would need a redeemer.

Conclusion

By exploring the testimony of Scripture, theological categories deriving from Scripture,

and the effects of each view on the Gospel message; I have proposed that classic impassibility is

most faithful to those three categories. Passibility seeks to reconcile a loving God with a

suffering world, but this view strays too much from an orthodox description of God and confuses

God’s condescension in God’s explanation of Himself with an elevation of humanity to Divinity.

Modified Impassibility aligns in many ways to classic impassibility, but this view’s allowance of

mutability in God’s inner life, along with sovereign and providentially allowed suffering in

relation to people is a major difference. In this distinction, there are inconsistencies that diminish

other attributes of God and would prevent Him the ability to save or redeem anyone. Classic

impassibility, though not explicitly stated in the text of Scripture, is derived from careful

26 Charnock, Stephen. The Existence and Attributes of God. Sovereign Grace Publishers,
2001.

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exegesis of how God reveals Himself. It accurately holds up God’s eternality, immutability,

simplicity, aseity, and blessedness. Being impassible throughout eternity and in God’s interaction

with Israel in the Old Testament, the impassible God would eventually take on flesh. And in His

humanity would suffer and die for sinful men. And as Wholly Other, He would rise from the

grave and grant anyone who trusts and believes in Him the same resurrection life and freedom

from sin and death.

Bibliography

Frame, John M. The doctrine of God. P & R Pub., 2002.

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Lister, Rob. God is impassible and impassioned: toward a theology of divine emotion. Crossway,

2012.

Ware, Bruce A. "An Evangelical Reformulation of the Doctrine of the Immutability of God."

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 29.4 (1986): 431-446.

Fiddes, Paul S. The creative suffering of God. (1992).

Moltmann, Jurgen. The crucified god. Fortress Press, 2015.

Moltmann, Jürgen. The Trinity and the kingdom: The doctrine of God. Fortress Press, 1981.

Fretheim, Terence E. The suffering of God: an Old Testament perspective. Vol. 14. Fortress

Press, 1984.

Weinandy, Thomas. O. F. M. Does God Suffer?. University of Notre Dame Pess, 2000.

Weinandy, Thomas G. "Does God Suffer?." Ars Disputandi 2.1 (2002): 1-13.

Owen, John. The Works of John Owen. Vol. 11. Johnstone and Hunter, 1853.

Bray, Gerald. "Impassibility in the Church Fathers: Why the Great Tradition Affirmed

Impassibility." Credo Magazine, March 27, 2019. Accessed April 15, 2019.

12
Mullins, R. T. "Why Can’t the Impassible God Suffer? Analytic Reflections on Divine

Blessedness." (2018).

Rennie, Charles. “Is Impassibility Really Biblical?” Credo Magazine, March 27, 2019. Accessed

April 15, 2019.

Charnock, Stephen. The Existence and Attributes of God. Sovereign Grace Publishers, 2001.

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