Divine Impassibility and the possibility of Love

The classical doctrine of Divine Impassibility describes God's nature or essence cannot be affected by the external force as the result, His nature is immutable as well, incapable of change. This view was hold by all of the Christian writer and Patristic Theologian. Yet, Modern Theologian has swayed to scrutinized this doctrine in another light, impassibility is not match with the testimony of the Bible it but the product of the Greek Philosophy imposition.  Apparently, this critique cannot do justice to the issue. The  doctrine of Divine Impassibility is warranted in the Scripture, as we can  see vividly in the Old Testament ex: Isa 43:10 and Mal 3:6.

Therefore, to claim this doctrine is come as the result of Greek-Philosophy is to follow quickly the sentiment of Adolf Von Harnack's Theory. Adolf  argues that early Christian theology is a Hellenization of the Gospel to a rigid system of doctrine, up to the point, it has been severely sacrificing the original intended meaning. Pertaining this matter, we need to understand that every theology is contextual.

The early Patristic Theologian and Church Father were living in the environment of Hellenstic culture. It is not opaque that the early Theologian borrow the term or uses the nuance of Philosophy to articulate more clearly the message and the principles in the Scripture. Yet, It does not necessarily follows that since their doctrine are reassembled with the Greek Philosophy take for instance Stoicism, then it means, the early Theologian does not derive their theology from the Scripture at all. In fact, the early Theologian has a sober mind and opposed to this kind of practice. 

The greatest challenge to this doctrine is actually not Biblical but Philosophical. How does this doctrine in line with the notion of Divine love? If God does not capable to move or change at all, does it mean that God is cold and passionless being? The one clear example of the denial of the doctrine of the Impassibility of God is coming from Clark Pinnock, who claim that Impassibility make God as remote and therefore "lack of existential appeal". To answer the challenge, we need bring the doctrine of Impassibility in a dialectical conversation with to the Creation Theology & Incarnation Theology.

God need to be impassible to be the ground of creation. God who change by Himself cannot be said as the firm source of everything else or to use Bavinck expression, God is a "boundless ocean of being", a self-sufficient being (John 5:25; Acts 17:25; Romans 11:36). If God for instance could suffer then, he must lacked of something. God's nature is pure actuality and not God of pure potentiality as Moltmann might suggested.

Furthermore, The Divine Impassibility bring the maximum implication of love as Augustine mentioned in Confessions,"God alone is the place of peace that cannot be disturbed, and He will not hold Himself from your love unless you withhold your love from Him". The consequences of the doctrine of God immutability is clear, God's love and His presence is always there for us to cling and rest that is the reason why, we could say God as God of love (1 John 4:8).

To our attention, the apparent human-like expression of God in the narratives of the Bible must be understood in how God relates to us in our capacity and form (Anthropomorphic) not the other way round.  It is always danger to clothes God in our limited manner. Moreover, the truth of impassibility of God does not make God does not have any emotion at all, it just God emotion is not in the same category with human emotion. Moreover, The doctrine of Incarnation is not  a death blow to the doctrine of Impassibility.

The Orthodox doctrine of Incarnation holds that Christ has 100% Human nature and 100% Divine nature (Verus Deus, Verus Homo). Thus, we should locate the Christ and His suffering in his human nature not divine nature. Focusing in Christ's divine nature  Tertullian could conclude that at the end, "Christ is impassible, incapable of injury, incapable of apprehension." Having say this, we do not try to separate Christ's dual nature (Cobsubstantialem), rather we carefully distinguished it.  Thus, We can comfortably say that Incarnation support the doctrine of impassibility rather than the reverse, as James Dolezal precisely put,

"The passions of Christ are but most sublime manifestations of God's Impassible love and justice, being brilliantly shown forth within the structure of the Son's finite and passable nature."

God relate, knows, and could respond to human with His unchanging love, mercy and compassion yet at the same time, it does not make God being affected by the experience of change itself in his Divinity, nor it leads to a conclusion that He is cold, and has no emotion at all. He has a divine emotion yet in His own term, that is beyond our finite language to describe. In conclusion, the doctrine of Impassibility of God, does not exclude the possibility of love (relate & giving) rather it grounds and fostered the idea of love through God unchangeable quality.