“There Is No Pain, You Are Misreading”: Is God “Comfortably Numb”?
Posted by deangonzales on February 1, 2009
Gerhard von Rad, an OT scholar, aptly depicts the spread of human sin after the Fall as “an avalanche.”1 This avalanche accelerates to such staggering proportions that God is forced to visit the world in a catastrophic flood-judgment (7:6-24). But prior to the judgment itself, God evaluates the human condition in Genesis 6:5 and issues a judgment oracle in 6:7. Sandwiched between the divine evaluation and oracle is a striking depiction of God’s inward response to the human condition: “The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain” (6:6, NIV).
Moses isn’t content to portray sin’s sway by merely dissecting man’s rotten heart.2 He quickly turns to a staggering disclosure of God’s broken heart. Using emotionally charged vocabulary, Moses depicts the Lord as feeling both regret3 for creating humanity and also heart-deep pain4 because of the rebellion of his images. In response to man’s change from very good (1:31) to very evil (6:5), the Lord genuinely feels a mixture of disappointment and anger, which in turn produces a profound heart-felt sorrow, something with which any reader who has felt the pangs of the curse can to some degree identify. The Hebrew verb translated “was filled with pain” (NIV) or “grieved” (ESV) and its cognates often refer to deep emotional pain experienced by humans. It denotes the aroused feelings of brothers whose sister has just been raped (Gen. 34:7), a loyal friend who has just learned of his father plans to murder his best friend (1 Sam. 20:34), a father who laments the untimely death of a prodigal son (2 Sam. 19:3 [Heb. 2]), and a wife whose husband has just deserted her (Isa. 54:6). Interestingly, the same terms are used to depict the “pain” Adam and Eve must suffer as a result of the curse—a pain including both emotional as well as physical dimensions (3:16, 17). Hence, man’s fall into sin brings pain to his Creator’s heart as well as to his own.
God’s emotive reaction to the proliferation of human sin serves not only as the literary connection between his inquest and doom oracle. It also serves to remind the reader that God himself has a heart that can be touched by human sin and misery. To cite von Rad once again,
From the first Fall sin had grown like an avalanche; here at a special climax the narrator pauses and interrupts the regular progress of the account. He takes us from the world of complete disorderliness to God and dares to look into God’s grieving heart…. In daring contrast to what is said about the human heart there follows a word about what takes place in God’s heart: grief, affliction, and disappointment in man. Precisely in this way, by reference to the Creator’s bewilderment, he has communicated something of the incomprehensibility of this incursion of sin.”5
Or, as another OT scholar, Franz Delitzsch, notes, “[God] does not decide on the extinction of he world with cold indifference. The divine judgment and the divine pain are but two sides the external and the internal of one and the same reality.”6
Classical and Reformed Rejections of Divine Emotivity
In their effort to preserve God’s transcendence, sovereignty, and immutability, some Reformed commentators and theologians dissuade the reader from interpreting God’s emotive response literally. John Calvin, for example, remarks, “God was so offended by the atrocious wickedness of men, as if they had wounded his heart with mortal grief.” Nevertheless, the emotional grief Calvin attributes to God with the right hand he retracts with his left hand when he couches his remark within the follow qualification:
The repentance [“grief,” NIV], which is here ascribed to God, does not properly belong to him, but has reference to our understanding of him. For since we cannot comprehend him as he is, it is necessary that, for our sake, he should, in a certain sense, transform himself…. Certainly God is not sorrowful or sad; but remains for ever like himself in his celestial and happy repose: yet, because it could not otherwise be known how great is God’s hatred and detestation of sin, therefore the Spirit accommodates himself to our capacity…. God, in order more effectually to pierce our hearts, clothes himself with our affections. This figure, which represents God as transferring to himself what is peculiar to human nature, is called anthropopatheia (emphasis added).7
So, according to Calvin, God’s transcendent and immutable condition of bliss precludes the possibility that he might experience such emotive responses as sorrow or anger.8 Thus, the reader should interpret the attribution of an emotional response in God as an “accommodation” to finite human capacity. Calvin elaborates on this use of accommodative language in his Institutes:
For because of our weakness does not attain to his exalted state, the description of him that is given to us must be accommodated to our capacity so that we may understand it. Now the mode of accommodation is for him to represent himself to us not as he is in himself, but as he seems to us. Although he is beyond all disturbance of mind, yet he testifies that he is angry toward sinners. Therefore whenever we hear that God is angered, we ought not to imagine any emotion in him, but rather to consider that this expression has been taken from our own human experience; because God, whenever he is exercising judgment, exhibits the appearance of one kindled and angered. So we ought not to understand anything else under the word ‘repentance’ than change of action, because men are wont by changing their action to testify that they are displeased with themselves (emphasis added).9
Calvin’s line of reasoning seems to run as follows: the attribution of emotional states to God has reference not to the inward feelings that you and I normally associate with emotions. Rather, it has to do with the outward actions that such feelings in us normally provoke. Feelings of sadness, grief, compassion, joy, or anger usually move us to react in certain ways. For example, if we feel compassion towards someone in need, we’ll be motivated to alleviate his or her need if possible. If we feel angry towards someone who has wronged us, we’ll seek vindication or redress. Like you and me, God acts in certain ways towards others. He shows kindness to the needy, and he executes judgment on the ungodly. But unlike us, God’s actions are not the manifestations or consequences of genuine emotions. Instead, divine emotions serve as a literary device—an anthropopathism, as Calvin calls it—that points to the effect rather than the cause.
Other Reformed commentators and theologians have followed Calvin’s view of divine emotivity. Francis Turretin, one of Calvin’s successors, articulates this perspective with great precision:
Repentance is attributed to God after the manner of men (anthropopathos) but must be understood after the manner of God (theoprepos), not with respect to his counsel, but to the event; not in reference to his will, but to the thing willed; not to affection and internal grief, but to the effect and external work because he does what a penitent man usually does. If repentance concerning the creation of man (which he could not undo) is ascribed to God (Gen. 6:6, 7), it must be understood not pathetically (pathetikos), but energetically (energetikos). Although he could not by a non-creation undo what he had done, yet by a destruction he could produce change.10
William Ames, John Owen, Stephen Charnock, John Gill, John Dick, and John Henley Thornwell argue similarly.11 This viewpoint may be part of the rational for a phrase found in the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Savoy Declaration, and the Second London Baptist Confession, all of which affirm that God is “without body, parts, or passions [emphasis added]” (II, 2). Richard Muller, an expert in post-Reformation dogmatics, seems to confirm this notion when he writes,
Since a passion has its foundation or origin ad extra [without] and its terminus ad intra [within], it cannot be predicated of God and, in fact, fails to correspond in its dynamic with the way that God knows. An affection or virtue, by way of contrast, has its foundation or source ad intra and terminates ad extra, corresponding with the pattern of operation of the divine communicable attributes and, in particular, with the manner of the divine knowing. This understanding of affections and passions corresponds, moreover, with the etymology of the terms: an af- or ad-fectio from adficio, to exert an influence on something—in other words, an influence directed toward, not a result from, something; whereas passio, from patior, is a suffering or enduring of something—it can refer to an occurrence or a phenomenon and even to a disease.12
One might illustrate Muller’s distinction between “affections” and “passions” as follows:
It’s important to note that Calvin and Reformed theology did not hatch this construal of divine impassibility. One finds similar analyses in the writings Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas.13 Anselm, for instance, discusses whether or not God really feels compassion for those in need. Writing as if he were speaking to God, Anselm queries,
How are thou compassionate, and, at the same time, passionless? For if thou are passionless, thou dost not feel sympathy, thy heart is not wretched from sympathy for the wretched; but this is to be compassionate. But if thou art not compassionate, whence cometh so great consolation to the wretched?14
Do you see the tension Anselm is highlighting? The Bible describes God as “compassionate.” The realization of such divine compassion brings great comfort to those who are in misery. Yet, Anselm is committed to the idea that God is without passions. How does he reconcile the apparent contradiction? Listen to his solution:
Truly, thou art [compassionate] in terms of our experience, but thou art not so in terms of thine own. For, when thou beholdest us in our wretchedness, we experience the effect of compassion, but thou does not experience the feeling. Therefore, thou are both compassionate, because thou dost save the wretched, and spare those who sin against thee; and not compassionate, because thou art affected by no sympathy for wretchedness.15
To illustrate Anselm’s viewpoint, think of Jesus’ parable of the “Good Samaritan.” When Jesus depicts the Samaritan helping a wounded man, he wants us to imagine not merely a kind deed but also a warm feeling arising within the Samaritan’s heart as he sees this needy victim on the roadside. Indeed, Jesus himself is said to have felt such feelings. In Matthew 9:36, we read, “When [Jesus] saw the crowds, He felt compassion for them, because they were weary and worn out, like sheep without a shepherd” (CSB). But such is not true of God, Anselm would argue. God may do kind things for needy people. But like Mr. Spock of Star Trek, God does not feel the emotion of compassion.
One may find analogous reasoning among some Greek philosophers. Although the nature of deity, as depicted in Greek philosophy, differed significantly from classical Christian theology on a number of points (e.g., the Trinity), it did at points find semblance, particularly in an emphasis on a kind of transcendence that precluded the proper attribution of emotion to deity. For instance, the Epicurean Lucretius (96-55 b.c.) opined,
For the nature of gods must ever in itself of necessity enjoy immortality together with supreme repose, far removed and withdrawn from our concerns; since exempt from every pain, exempt from all dangers, strong in its own resources, not wanting aught of us, it is neither gained by favors nor moved by anger.16
Lucretius’ phrase “supreme repose” has a similar ring to Calvin’s “celestial and happy repose.” Such transcendent bliss is thought to be incompatible with emotional responses, which seem to imply psychological changes within God’s heart. And, as the great Puritan theologian John Owen argues,
That which is inconsistent with absolute blessedness and all-sufficiency is not to be ascribed to God; to do so casts him down from his excellency. But can he be blessed, is he all-sufficient, who is tossed up and down with hope, joy, fear, sorrow, repentance, anger, and the like?17
It should be noted that this view of divine impassibility does not leave us with an immobile God. That is, these theologians do not portray God as if he were in an “eternally frozen pose.”18 Unfortunately, some classic theologians have employed illustrations that may have prompted such caricatures. Thomas Aquinas, for example, sought to account for apparent changes ascribed to God in relationship to creation or humanity by means of a fixed stone pillar. When the Scriptures ascribe changes in God’s attitude, disposition, or affections toward us, they are not literally ascribing change to God but changes in us that place us in a different relationship to the fixed stone pillar.19 Such an illustration is unsuitable since it leaves one with the impression that God is immobile. Aquinas and other classic theologians clearly deny this and affirm that God is active.
Perhaps we would do better to liken God to a bar magnet. Get on his “right side,” and he finds you “attractive,” which the Scriptures might describe with such emotive terms as love, pleasure, or peace. Get on his “wrong side,” and he finds you “repulsive,” which the Scriptures might describe in terms of anger, wrath, or hatred. Or better, we might compare God to the mercury in a thermometer. The mercury within the thermometer rises or falls according to the ethical climate to which it is exposed, but the chemical properties of the mercury never change. But these illustrations, though more helpful than Aquinas’s stone pillar, still leave us with a God that seems less than personal and who is emotively detached from this world.
In sum, the classical view of God would seem to preclude divine emotivity. Emotions attributed to God in the Bible are to be interpreted metaphorically because a literal interpretation, so it is argued, would undermine divine transcendence, sovereignty, and immutability.
Is God Really Angry and Grieved at Human Sin and Misery?
Where does this leave our interpretation of Genesis 6:6? A literal reading of that text suggests the idea that God genuinely experienced heart-felt sorrow and even anger in response to the escalation and aggravation of human sin (6:5). If we follow the reasoning of some classic theists, however, we may have to revise our exegetical conclusions. We are left with a God who thinks (6:5) and a God who acts (6:7), but not with a God who genuinely feels (6:6). God’s remorse and pain, we are told, do not refer to the kind of feelings that would prompt the redemptive/punitive action described in the verses that follow (6:8ff.). They are, rather, God’s mode of “accommodating himself” to our finite understanding. “It is only by the use of such human expressions,” writes Augustine, “that Scripture can make its many kinds of readers whom it wants to help to feel, as it were, at home. Only thus can Scripture frighten the proud and arouse the slothful, provoke inquiries and provide food for the convinced.”20 Hence, it would seem that the God of Genesis 6:6 is not profoundly touched by human sin and misery. On the contrary, according to the reasoning summarized above, God is, to borrow the title of a popular song, “comfortably numb.” Accordingly, we might be tempted to provide the reader with the following lyrical caution:
There is no pain you are misreading;
It’s just God’s mode of accommodation.
When it says, “feels,” it means, “behaves”;
His heart’s “moved,” but that’s not what it’s saying.
Has God an eye? Or has he an ear?
Or hands? Come on, you silly goon!
He’s too transcendent to descend,
To grieve, to feel the plight of man.
Despite the load of evil done,
God shall remain comfortably numb.21
The satirical lyric above is, admittedly, a bit hyperbolic and rhetorically overstated.22 In fact, the God of classic and Reformed theologians like John Calvin is not heartless. Indeed, Calvin himself speaks of God’s “fatherly care,” which he extends to “all mankind.”23 Moreover, the common portrayal of God’s impassibility, as summarized above, contains a vital truth, which serves to ensure that God’s supreme authority (transcendence), absolute control (sovereignty), and perfect nature (immutability) remain intact. Nonetheless, some classic and Reformed theologians have sometimes articulated this doctrine in a way that seems, at best, somewhat one-sided and, as a result, imbalanced.
Reformed Dissent from the Classic View
Not surprisingly, there are other Reformed theologians who have expressed dissatisfaction with the classic treatment of divine emotivity sketched above. For instance, the great Princeton systematician, Charles Hodge, remarks,
The schoolmen, and often the philosophical theologians, tell us that there is no feeling in God. This, they say, would imply passivity, or susceptibility of impression from without, which it is assumed is incompatible with the nature of God…. Here again we have to choose between a mere philosophical speculation and the clear testimony of the Bible, and of our own moral and religious nature. Love of necessity involves feeling, and if there be no feeling in God, there can be no love…. The philosophical objection against ascribing feeling to God, bears, as we have seen, with equal force against the ascription to Him of knowledge or will. If that objection be valid, He becomes to us simply an unknown cause, what men of science call force; that to which all phenomena are to be referred, but of which we know nothing. We must adhere to the truth in its Scriptural form, or we lose it altogether. We must believe that God is love in the sense in which that word comes home to every human heart.24
One of Hodge’s students and the first president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, James Petigru Boyce, agreed with this mentor. Writes Boyce,
The immutability thus set forth in the Scriptures and implied in the simplicity and absolute perfection of God is not, however, to be so understood as to deny in him some real ground for the Scripture statements of emotional feeling in the exercise of joy, pity, longsuffering and mercy, or of anger, wrath and avenging justice. We could as well deny some real ground for the attributes of love, justice and truth which are at the basis of these emotions.25
Similarly, Benjamin B. Warfield employs his eloquence in favor of a theology that gives full place to divine emotivity. In a sermon entitled, “Imitating the Incarnation,” Warfield exclaims,
We have a God who is capable of self-sacrifice for us…. Now herein is a wonderful thing. Men tell us that God is, by very necessity of His own nature, incapable of passion, incapable of being moved by inducement from without; that he dwells in holy calm and unchangeable blessedness, untouched by human sufferings or human sorrows for ever,–haunting
The lucid interspace of world and world,
Where never creeps a cloud, nor moves a wind,
Nor ever falls the least white star of snow,
Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans,
Nor sound of human sorrow mounts to mar
His sacred, everlasting calm.Let us bless God that it is not true. God can feel; God does love. We have Scriptural warrant for believing, as it has been perhaps somewhat inadequately but not misleadingly phrased, that moral heroism has a place within the sphere of the divine nature: we have Scriptural warrant for believing that, like the hero of Zurich, God has reached out loving arms and gathered to his own bosom that forest of spears which otherwise had pierced ours. But is not this gross anthropomorphism? We are careless of names: it is the truth of God. And we decline to yield up the God of the Bible and the God of our hearts to any philosophical abstraction. We have and we must have an ethical God; a God whom we can love, in whom we can trust.26
More recently, Gregory Nichols, a professor of systematic theology for Reformed Baptist Seminary, has averred,
We must not deny either God’s infinite joy and blessedness or his incessant grief over human sin. Someone may object that these texts must contain a figure of speech, since God can’t really feel sensations of anguish. If so, why does Scripture ascribe this feeling to God? What truth does it actually tell us about him? All such objections fly in the face of the clear and emphatic teaching of Scripture.27
Other Reformed theologians such as Oliver Buswell, Robert Reymond, John Frame, and Michael Horton have added their voices to these witnesses. They note that some theologians have pressed the concept of impassibility so far as to deny even that God responds emotively. But they reject that view as unbiblical, noting that Scripture writers ascribe many attitudes to God that are generally regarded as emotions.28
As these examples, not all Reformed theologians have embraced the treatment of divine impassibility that precludes the attribution of genuine emotional responses to God.
Evaluating the Classic View
Before dismissing the classical view of divine emotivity, we should pause and explore some of the reasons that prompted such careful thinkers as Augustine, Anselm, Calvin, and Owen to reject a more literal reading of divine emotivity.
One reason that gives these scholars pause is the fact that emotions as experienced by humans often include a physiological dimension. Sweaty palms, flushed face, rapid heartbeat, goose bumps and other like physical phenomena frequently accompany human emotivity. Since God is an incorporeal Spirit (Rom. 1:20; Col. 1:15; 1 Tim. 1:17), theologians have correctly rejected any physiological dimension to divine emotivity. This also may have been part of the reason why many theologians call emotional ascriptions to God “anthropopathisms” (i.e., human emotions ascribed to God that have a figurative not literal meaning) much like bodily ascriptions to God are called “anthropomorphisms” (i.e., human body parts ascribed to God that have a figurative not literal meaning).
But, as we’ve seen, the many classical theologians that reject a more literal reading of divine emotivity are motivated by more than a concern to protect God’s incorporeal nature. After all, with the exception of strict materialists, everyone agrees that emotivity has a psychological as well as physical dimension. If so, why can’t God experience the psychological aspect without the physical? Enter the doctrines of divine transcendence, sovereignty and immutability. Emotions, affections, and passions are commonly understood as inward reactions and/or responses to outside stimuli.29 These inward reactions and/or responses entail psychological changes. Since, according to Scripture, God is unchangeable or immutable (Num. 23:19; 1 Sam. 15:29; Ps. 102:27; Mal. 3:6; James 1:16-18; Heb. 1:12; 13:8), how can we attribute psychological “changes” to an unchangeable Being?
Moreover, the outside stimuli to which you and I respond (i.e., circumstances or events that normally provoke emotive responses) are often beyond our control. We have little or no control over the premature death of a family member that brings grief, the deceitful politician who provokes anger, or the surprise birthday party that prompts joy and gratitude. And some outward circumstances, which confront us, are so surprising and overwhelming that we have trouble controlling the emotional responses themselves. Many of us can recall the sibling or friend hiding behind the door whose “surprise” appearance and exclaimed “boo” sent us emotionally (not literally) “through the ceiling.” Almighty God, however, stands transcendently above time and space (Gen. 1:1; Pss. 90:2; Isa. 40:25-28; 57:15; John 1:1; Acts 17:24-28; Rom. 1:20; 16:26; Col. 1:16-17; 1 Tim. 1:17; 2 Pet. 3:8). Furthermore, he is absolutely sovereign. He’s planned every event that has or ever will come to pass within the matrix of human history. He actively controls every event and circumstance so that nothing can take him unawares or by surprise (Gen. 50:20; Job 23:13-14; Ps. 135:6; Prov. 16:33; Isa. 46:9-10; Dan. 4:34-35; Acts 4:27-28; Rom. 8:28-29; 9:19-20; Eph. 1:11). Since God is the supreme ruler and governor over all things, how can we attribute psychological “reactions” and “responses” that would make him seemingly the “pawn” of outward circumstance and, therefore, vulnerable?
I suspect it was this latter concern—a concern to protect God’s transcendence, sovereignty, and immutability—that primarily has driven some classic theologians to reject, minimize, or redefine divine emotivity. The concern to guard God’s non-material nature was secondary.30 This suspicion is supported by the fact that the primary heresies to which classic theists have responded on the question of divine emotivity have affirmed the non-material nature of God but have tended to reject (in part or entirely) God’s absolute transcendence, sovereignty, and/or immutability. These would include Socinianism, Pantheism, Panentheism or Process Theology, and Open Theism. None of these views attribute to God a literally body like that of man’s (though Pantheism and Panentheism closely identify God with the material universe). They all, however, to one degree or another, challenge God’s absolute transcendence, sovereignty and/or immutability. They have no hesitation, therefore, conceiving of God as less than omnipotent and omniscient. He is, therefore, not absolutely sovereign over all events in creation. Accordingly, he is subject to external stimuli and genuine change. For example, Clark Pinnock, an Open Theist, doesn’t hesitate to assert, “God does not control everything that happens. Rather, he is open to receiving input from his creatures. In loving dialogue, God invites us to participate with him to bring the future into being.”31 This line of reasoning, not surprisingly, exploits the biblical data on divine emotivity. “God is not cool and collected,” avers Pinnock, “but is deeply involved and can be wounded.”32 Indeed, this capacity to feel sorrow and pain makes God genuinely “vulnerable.”33
When one considers the clear biblical affirmations of God’s non-material nature, transcendence, sovereignty, and immutability, together with the ancient and modern challenges to these doctrines, he can understand why a number of classic theists and Reformed theologians have felt constrained to dissuade the reader from interpreting divine emotivity too literally. After all, responses to external stimuli that entail psychological changes would seem to conflict with the biblical portrait of a sovereign God who has decreed the end from the beginning and who does not change. It has seemed preferable to some, therefore, to interpose a great deal of dissimilarity between the referent we normally associate with emotional attributes and the referent to which such emotive attributions actually point when predicated of God. As a result, what you and I normally think of as emotions turn out to be quite different when applied to God. They refer, metaphorically, to divine actions (redemptive or punitive), which, in turn, spring from unchanging ethical virtues within the Godhead.
Is this classical interpretation of divine emotivity, which some Reformed theologians advance, fully biblical? Should we interpret God’s heart-piercing grief over the explosion of human sin and misery in Genesis 6:6 as a mere metaphorical expression that points proleptically to his enactment of the judgment portrayed in the subsequent context (6:7ff.)? As I demonstrated above, a number of Reformed theologians have not been persuaded by the classical treatment of divine emotivity and would, presumably, answer these questions in the negative. They insist that God has genuine feelings. I’m inclined to agree with this latter group of theologians.
Toward a Biblical View of Divine Emotivity
It’s my conviction that the a comprehensive view of the all the biblical data compels us to affirm that God has real emotions while at the same time acknowledging that there is some degree of discorrespondence between divine and human emotions.
1. The God Who Feels
I believe the Bible provides an overwhelming amount of data in favor of divine emotivity.34 God is said to feel such affections as love35 and hate,36 joy37 and grief,38 pleasure39 and anger,40 and peace.41 And this list is by no means exhaustive. Of course, the Scriptures also attribute human body parts to God, such as eyes,42 arms,43 hands,44 a mouth,45 etc. Obviously, God’s incorporeal nature constrains us to interpret the latter metaphorically, as “anthropomorphisms.” So, it has been argued, we must interpret God’s emotions in like fashion, as “anthropopathisms.”
However, as we noted above, emotivity has a psychological as well as physical dimension. This is true of mental activity as well. When humans think, there is both a psychological as well as physical dimension involved. Yet, very few theologians interpret cognitive activities ascribed to God metaphorically, as mere “anthroponouisms.” In fact, it can be argued that the essence of thinking, feeling, and choosing is not primarily physical but spiritual in nature.46 After all, may we not safely assume that the disembodied souls of righteous men in heaven presently experience joy, pleasure, and peace while the disembodied spirits of the ungodly experience sorrow, pain, and torment?47 What is more, the Bible ascribes emotional experience to angels, which are spiritual beings (Job 38:7; Pss. 103:20; 148:2; Rev. 5:11-14). It follows, then, that corporeality is not an essential feature of genuine emotivity. Hence, the obvious disjunction between human body parts (which are material) and divine “body parts” (which are metaphorical) does not equally apply to human and divine emotivity.
These considerations should prompt us to reconsider the way we think of so-called “anthropomorphisms” and “anthropopathisms.” Traditionally, Bible interpreters have reserved these expressions for some language about God. But since all special revelation comes to us via human language, then all special revelation is, in one sense, “anthropomorphic.”48 Furthermore, since the heavens declare the glory of God (Ps. 19:1; Rom. 1:19-20), then we may speak of general revelation as, in a sense, “anthropopomorphic” or, more generally, “cosmomorphic.”49 Of course, this line of reasoning corresponds nicely with man’s identity as “the image of God” (Gen. 1:26-27). As such, human beings are analogues of God. More precisely, we are visible replicas and representatives of the invisible God. Hence, we might even reverse the tables and refer to humans as “theomorphs” and human language as “theomorphic.”50 Consequently, there is a reciprocal interplay between our knowledge of God and our knowledge of ourselves (and the world around us). This is the note on which Calvin begins his famous Institutes:
Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists in two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But, while joined by many bonds, which one precedes and brings forth the other is not easy to discern. In the first place, no one can look upon himself without immediately turning his thoughts to the contemplation of God, in whom he ‘lives and moves.’ For, quite clearly, the mighty gifts with which we are endowed are hardly from ourselves…. Then, by these benefits shed like dew from heaven upon us, we are led as by rivulets to the spring itself…. Accordingly, the knowledge of ourselves not only arouses us to seek God, but also, as it were, leads us by the hand to find him.51
Conversely, writes Calvin, “It is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God’s face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself.”52
Unfortunately, Calvin forgets his own counsel when it comes to interpreting divine emotivity. Instead of looking for analogy, Calvin stresses discontinuity. Hence, when interpreting God’s grief in Genesis 6:6, Calvin insists,
The repentance [“grief,” NIV], which is here ascribed to God, does not properly belong to him, but has reference to our understanding of him. For since we cannot comprehend him as he is, it is necessary that, for our sake, he should, in a certain sense, transform himself…. Certainly God is not sorrowful or sad; but remains for ever like himself in his celestial and happy repose: yet, because it could not otherwise be known how great is God’s hatred and detestation of sin, therefore the Spirit accommodates himself to our capacity.53
Two logical inconsistencies appear in Calvin’s reasoning. First, he seems willing to allow God the emotions of anger and detestation (or does he mean for us to take these figuratively too?) but not the emotions of regret and sorrow. Second, he argues that God (through Moses) uses descriptive language that, on the one hand, is not properly true of himself in order to, on the other hand, make known to us what “could not otherwise be known.” Am I missing something?
Similarly, when commenting on Isaiah 63:9, which reads, “In all [Israel’s] affliction [God] was afflicted,” Calvin remarks,
In order to move us more powerfully and draw us to himself, the Lord accommodates himself to the manner of men, by attributing to himself all the affection, love, and (sumpatheia) compassion which a father can have. And yet in human affairs it is impossible to conceive of any sort of kindness or benevolence which he does not immeasurably surpass.
So far so good. But then Calvin adds his anthropopathic qualifier: “not that [God] can in any way endure anguish, but, by a very customary figure of speech, he assumes and applies to himself human passions.”54 Of course, it’s true that divine emotivity is not univocal with human emotivity (any more than divine knowledge is univocal with human knowledge). Hence, one may speak of a degree of “accommodation” when applying language used to predicate human emotions to God. Nevertheless, as the imago Dei, man is an analogue of God. Hence, when we approach “anthropomorphic” language biblically, we won’t place all the emphasis on discorrespondence. That’s not where the Bible places the emphasis! Listen to the language of 94:9: “He who planted the ear, does he not hear? He who formed the eye, does he not see?” The psalmist is certainly not implying that God has physical ears or physical eyes. He’s assuming a certain discontinuity between Creator and creature. Nevertheless, the emphasis of the text is on continuity or correspondence. Our hearing ear and our seeing eye apparatus is a visible replica of God’s invisible and spiritual ability to perceive.55
Similarly, divine emotivity is the Archetype of human emotivity, which is the ectype. Human emotions were not designed by God in order to cloud or confuse our understanding of what God is like. Rather, they were purposely designed to provide us with some analogy of the way in which God, as a moral being, evaluates and inwardly responds to good or evil. We are, therefore, compelled to agree with Donald Carson when he writes,
It is no answer to espouse a form of impassibility that denies that God has an emotional life and insists all of the biblical evidence to the contrary is nothing more than anthropopathism. The price is too heavy. You may then rest in God’s sovereignty, but you can no longer rejoice in his love. You may rejoice only in a linguistic expression that is an accommodation of some reality of which we cannot conceive, couched in the anthropopathism of love. Give me a break. Paul did not pray that his readers might be able to grasp the height and depth and length and breadth of an anthropopathism and know this anthropopathism that surpasses knowledge (Eph. 3:14-21).56
In sum, we should not interpret God’s grief in Genesis 6:6 merely as a figure of speech that points to outward acts (i.e., judgment) rather than to an inward feelings (as it normally does vis-à-vis humans). After all, God has plenty of human words at his disposal to refer to judgment literally. Indeed, God employs such literal terminology in the subsequent context when he portends a worldwide flood (6:7ff.). So if God can use plain language to depict his imminent intervention in judgment, why employ a figurative expression that might lead the reader to the “mistaken” notion that the Almighty might have something analogous to human feelings?
Need I say more? God through Moses discloses to us that the escalation of human hubris and the misery that followed in its trail prompted him to grieve. Of course, his grief was not accompanied with literal tears or heaving breast. Nor was it tainted with sin, as post-lapsarian human grief often is. But it was grief nevertheless. Accordingly, Victor Hamilton is correct when he observes, “Verses like this remind us that the God of the OT is not beyond the capability of feeling pain, chagrin, and remorse. To call him the Impassible Absolute is but part of the truth.”57
2. Impassible & Passible
But doesn’t the conclusion reached above contradict what the Bible teaches regarding God’s transcendence, sovereignty, and immutability? If God is above time and space, if he’s decreed and determines the end from the beginning, if he’s immutably happy in his “celestial repose,” how can we conceive of him as being moved to respond with sorrow by something outside himself (i.e., human sin and misery)? In other words, if we interpret God’s emotions as genuine inward responses to outward stimuli, won’t we compromise the doctrine of God’s impassibility?
The simple answer is “no.” Ultimately, God has determined the end from the beginning. He ordained the Fall (Gen. 3:1-6) and the proliferation of human sin (Gen. 6:5). He ordained his outward redemptive/punitive response to human sin (6:7ff.) But he also ordained his inward emotional response to human sin (6:6). In that sense, we may speak of God as “impassible.” Nothing takes God by surprise. On the other hand, God manifests his covenant presence within the matrix of human history. He not only exists outside of time and space, but he has chosen to manifest his presence within time and space. And within the matrix of human history, God responds or, if I may use the term without being misunderstood, he is “moved” by human events. In this (guarded) sense, we may speak of God as “passible.” Samuel Waldron, Academic Dean and Professor of Systematic Theology at Midwest Center for Theological Studies, agrees. “We must,” argues Waldron, “augment the doctrine of impassibility with a clear doctrine of divine relationality.” That is,
We must, I think, clearly affirm that God is both impassible and passible. As the God who was free not to create, as the God who has decreed whatsoever comes to pass, as the God who has no needs not satisfied by his own fullness, He is and must be immutable and impassible. He is (always has been and will be) serene in the blessedness of the inter-Trinitarian fellowship of persons and in the execution of His immutable and comprehensive decree.
Yet by His free act of creation God has chosen to subject Himself to the influences of His creatures. Of course, He has done this without giving up His position as the Creator and Sovereign of the universe who in Himself is immutably serene, has no need-based emotions, and who is immutable in His comprehensive purpose. Thus, He is only passible in exactly those ways and for exactly those purposes that He has freely chosen in His decree and in no other way. The fact, however, that He has chosen to be passible and passible in only those ways He has chosen does not devalue or deny the fact of His passibility. It simply means His passibility is limited and has to do with His purposes in the world—His free decision to glorify His name in the world. It also means that it coexists with an infinite and transcendent impassibility in God considered in Himself eternally.58
John Frame, Professor of Apologetics and Systematic Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary, speaks in a similar fashion:
Although God’s eternal decree does not change, it does ordain change. It ordains a historical series of events, each of which receives God’s evaluation. God evaluates different events in different ways. Those evaluations themselves are fixed in God’s eternal plan. But they are genuine evaluations of the events. It is not wrong to describe them as responses to these events.59
In the words of J. Oliver Buswell, “Does ever a sinner repent, there is always joy in the presence of the angels (Luke 15:7, 10). Does ever a child of God, ’sealed’ by the Spirit, fall into sin, the Holy Spirit is ‘grieved’ (Eph. 4:30).”60 In other words, God really responds emotively to events that transpire within creation and redemption history. One might say that God is “impassible” from the perspective of his transcendence and “passible” from the perspective of his immanence.
I’ve tried to think of a good illustration. Imagine God as the cosmic movie scriptwriter, producer, and director. God’s also chosen, like many modern directors, to participate in the story as one of the main actors. Indeed, he’s given himself the leading role. He’s created a magnificent epic. It’s full of tragedy. But it has a happy ending. As the scriptwriter, producer, and director, God takes pride in his work and enjoys it with a sense of peace, calm, and gratification, knowing the plot has a glorious ending. But as God actively participates in the various stages of the plot in the capacity of actor, he weeps at misfortune, grows angry at injustice, and rejoices in the triumph of good. Granted, this illustration fails to capture the full complexity of God’s heart. But I believe we must embrace all the biblical descriptions of God (those emphasizing his transcendence as well as those emphasizing his immanence) even if we can’t fully conceptualize their relations.
So I affirm that God is self-contained, independent, and wholly satisfied with himself. He possesses a kind of joy that cannot be marred. Yet, I also affirm that within the matrix of human history God experiences grief, sorrow, anger, pleasure, love, hatred, jealousy, joy and peace. All of these emotional responses are perfectly consistent with his unchanging “being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.”61 The complementary perspectives of divine impassibility and passibility may be illustrated as follows:
God’s emotivity is both an inward reaction to external states of affairs and events and also an inward response of his moral virtues toward eternal states of affairs or events within the matrix of human history. Moreover, all outward states of affairs and events, as well as God’s inward reactions and responses within the matrix of human history have been decree by God outside the matrix of human history.
3. Is this Consistent with the Confession of Faith?
The framers of the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Savoy Declaration, and the Second London Baptist Confession assert that God is “a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions [emphasis added]” (II, 1). Does the affirmation of divine emotivity (above) require us to reject the Confession’s teaching that God is “without … passions”? Some scholars believe so.62 But I’m not convinced we need disagree with our forefathers. We may, however, need to clarify or augment their teaching.
I have a facsimile copy of the 1689 (actually, 1677) Baptist Confession of Faith. There’s no proof text given. I don’t have a facsimile edition of the Westminster Confession. But in the edition I do have,63 as well as later editions of the Baptist Confession, Acts 14:11, 15 is given as a proof text. In that passage, Paul and Barnabas dissuade the crowds in Lystra from venerating them as “gods” (v. 11) since they were mere mortals, that is, men of “like passions” (v. 15, KJV). Most modern translations render it “the same [like] nature” (NKJ, NAS, ESV, CSB; NET) or “human like you” (NIV). At best, the text teaches that humans have human passions and, by way of inference, that deity does not have human passions. So the framers of our Confession may have been thinking of the physiological dimension of human emotion, which, of course, could not be predicated of God. This would fit the context since the term “passions” is immediate preceded by the words “body” and “parts.”64 Perhaps adding the term “human” before “body, parts, or passions” would help to clarify the intent of the Confession and prevent modern Reformed Christians from arriving at the unbiblical conclusion that God does not experience what are analogous to human emotions.
On the other hand, I’m not convinced that the framers of the confessions (WCF, Savoy, LBCF) were uninfluenced by philosophical notions related to divine impassibility. It is possible, therefore, that their doctrinal formula, viz., that God is “without … passions,” reflects an attempt to protect God’s transcendence, sovereignty, and immutability by means of precluding any genuine emotivity as a proper predicate of God.65 If so, then we may laud their zeal to protect God’s transcendence and agree that God is the ultimate cause behind every event in human history, including his own responses to sin (inwardly and outwardly). Hence, God is not passive. He is, in this sense, impassible.
But affirming God’s impassibility vis-à-vis his transcendence, sovereignty, and immutability is only one part of the truth. God, as we have seen, is also covenantally present within the matrix of human history. Consequently, it may be appropriate at some point, for the sake of removing ambiguity and enhancing clarity, to augment the Confession’s excellent summary of God’s nature with an affirmation of his relationality toward the work of his hands not only outwardly (via the works of creation and providence [redemptive/ punitive]) but inwardly (via emotive responses). Somehow, we, as Reformed Christians, need to make it plain to the world and to the church that the God we worship and serve is a God who genuinely feels.
Bob Gonzales, Dean
Reformed Baptist Seminary
- Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology, trans. D. M. G. Stalker (Peabody: Prince Press, 2005), 1:154, 168. [↩]
- This theological assessment of human evil underscores the spread of sin in at least three ways. First, it describes sin’s distributive spread among humans. Just as people “began to multiply on the face of the land” (6:1a) so sin commensurately multiplied. Second, the verse highlights the inward spread of sin. Not merely the actions of humans but their thoughts and affections are tainted and inclined towards evil. Moreover, this inward character of sin is pervasive and prevailing. Thus, the narrator affirms the doctrine of total depravity. Third, 6:5 underscores the durative spread of sin. That is, as God surveys the human landscape, he does not only see intermittent discreet acts of sin but a perpetual habit towards sinful behavior. Humankind is thoroughly given over to the sway of evil. For a similar analysis, see Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1947), 50-51. [↩]
- The Hebrew verb nhm can mean (1) to feel emotional sorrow or regret, (2) to be comforted or to console oneself (3), to repudiate a past course of action, or (4) to change one’s mind or to deviate from. The first sense best fits Gen. 6:6 since the juxtaposed clause “and his heart was filled with pain” serves an explanatory function. See C. F. Keil, The Pentateuch, trans. James Martin, Commentary on the Old Testament (reprint, Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1986), 1:139-40. For a detailed study of nhm, see H. Van Dyke Parunak, “A Semantic Survey of NHM,” Biblica 56 (1975): 521-32. [↩]
- Literally, “and he felt pain unto his heart.” The NLT captures the sense idiomatically: “It broke his heart.” [↩]
- Gerhard von Rad, Genesis: A Commentary, 2nd ed., trans. John H. Marks (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1961), 117. [↩]
- Cited by Claus Westermann, Genesis 1-11: A Continental Commentary, trans. John J. Scullion (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994), 408. [↩]
- Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis, trans. John King (Reprint, Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2003), 1:248-49. One will find Calvin employing the same “accommodative” hermeneutic in other passages that attribute emotional responses to God. See his commentaries on Deuteronomy 5:29; 32:29; Psalm 81:13; Isaiah 63:9; Lamentations 3:33; and Hosea 11:8. [↩]
- Interestingly, Calvin seems to allow for divine “hatred” and “detestation,” both of which are commonly defined as feelings. [↩]
- Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, ed. John T. McNeill (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960), 1:227 [Book I, 17.13]. [↩]
- Institutes of Elenctic Theology, trans. George Musgrave Giger, ed. James T. Dennison, Jr. (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1992), 1:206. [↩]
- See William Ames, The Marrow of Theology (Reprint, Durham, NC: The Labyrinth Press, 1983), I, iv. 62; John Owen, Vindiciae Evangelicae, in vol. 12 of The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Gould (1850-53; reprint, Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1966), 108-15; Stephen Charnock, Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God (1858; reprint, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1979), 341-42; John Gill, A Complete Body of Doctrinal and Practical Divinity (London: Thomas Tegg and Co., 1839), 1:146; John Dick, Lectures on Theology (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1878), 206; James Henley Thornwell, Collected Writings (1875; reprint, Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1974), 1:201-02. [↩]
- Post-Reformation Dogmatics (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 3:554. Here, Muller appears to argue that the orthodox Reformed theologians affirmed “affections” as properly belonging to God while rejecting “passions” as properly belonging to God. This, however, is not exactly accurate. Reformed theologians like John Owen treated “affections” as synonymous with “passions” and, therefore, when used in a certain sense, as inappropriate to God (3:554-55). Muller is aware of this and so, following Owen and other Reformed theologians, finds the resolution in treating both “affections” and “passions” when ascribed to God as “anthropopathisms” (3:555-61). [↩]
- See Augustine, The City of God, XV, 25, trans. Marcus Dods (New York: The Modern Library, 1950), 515; Anselm, Proslogium, VI-VIII, in St. Anselm, trans. Sidney Norton Deane (Chicago: The Open Court Publishing Co., 1910), 11-14; Aquinas, Summa Theologica, vol. 2, trans. Timothy McDermott (New York: McGraw-Hill Company, 1964), 31-35. [↩]
- Proslogium, VIII [p. 13]. [↩]
- Proslogium, VIII [pp. 13-14]. [↩]
- Cited by Charles M. Bakewell, Source Book in Ancient Philosophy (New York: Gordian Press, 1973), 309. [↩]
- The Works of John Owen, 12:115. [↩]
- This phrase is used by J. I. Packer, “God,” in New Dictionary of Theology, ed. Sinclair Ferguson and David Wright (Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 1998), 276. [↩]
- Summa Theologica (New York: McGraw-Hill Company, 1964), 1a.13.7. [↩]
- The City of God, XV, 25. [↩]
- The phrase “comfortably numb” is the title of one of Pink Floyd’s popular songs. My satirical poem is a wordplay from the refrain of their song. [↩]
- I could have avoided a “catchy” title and the use of satire to avoid misunderstanding. Hopefully, my qualifying remarks will clarify my intention. Because I do think the issue of divine emotivity is often confusing to modern believers, I wanted to get people’s attention. Bland titles don’t serve that purpose well. [↩]
- Commenting on Psalm 24:1-2, Calvin writes, “We will find in many other places the children of Abraham compared with all the rest of mankind, that the free goodness of God, in selecting them from all other nations, and in embracing them with his favor, may shine forth the more conspicuously. The object of the beginning of the psalm is to show that the Jews had nothing of themselves which could entitle them to approach nearer or more familiarly to God than the Gentiles. As God by his providence preserves the world, the power of his government is alike extended to all, so that he ought to be worshipped by all, even as he also shows to all men, without exception, the fatherly care he has about them.… Now, as from the creation of the world, God extended his fatherly care to all mankind, the prerogative of honor, by which the Jews excelled all other nations, proceeded only from the free and sovereign choice by which God distinguished them” (emphasis added). Commentary on the Book of Psalms, trans. James Anderson (Reprint, Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2003), 401, 403-04. [↩]
- Systematic Theology (Reprint, Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1989), 1:428-29. [↩]
- Abstract of Systematic Theology (1887; reprint, Hanford, CA: den Dulk Foundation, n.d.), 74. [↩]
- “Imitating the Incarnation,” in The Person and Work of Christ (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1950), 570-71. [↩]
- “The Emotivity of God,” Reformed Baptist Theological Review 1:2 (July 2004): 125. [↩]
- J. Oliver Buswell, A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion (Grand Rapid: Zondervan, 1962), 1:57; J. I. Packer, “God,” in Sinclair Ferguson and David Wright, eds., New Dictionary of Theology (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1998), 277; Robert Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1998), 181-82; John Frame, The Doctrine of God (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2002), 608-11; Michael Horton, Lord and Servant: A Covenant Christology (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2005), 28, 52. [↩]
- Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1998) defines “emotion” as “A moving of the mind or soul; excitement of the feelings, whether pleasing or painful; disturbance or agitation of mind caused by a specific exciting cause and manifested by some sensible effect on the body.” Some definitions assume a strict dichotomy between the mind, will, and emotions. For example, one dictionary defines “emotion” as “an affective state of consciousness in which joy, sorrow, fear, hate, or the like, is experienced, as distinguished from cognitive and volitional states of consciousness” (Dictionary.com Unabridged based on the Random House Dictionary, 2006). However, Jonathan Edwards does a fine job of demonstrating the connection between emotions (or “affections” as he calls them) and the will. A Treatise on Religious Affections (1746; reprint, Banner of Truth, 1961), 24-27. Moreover, John Frame shows the connection between the mind and the emotions–emotive responses being intertwined with cognitive evaluations of events or states of affairs. The Doctrine of God, 509-12, 528-29, 608-11. Recently, Matthew Elliott has published a monograph entitled Faithful Feelings: Rethinking Emotion in the New Testament (Kregel Academic, 2006) in which he demonstrates the cognitive element of emotions from the Scriptures. In any case, emotions are undoubtedly responses or reactions that entail psychological changes in the way one feels. [↩]
- It may be the classic theism’s apparent concern to guard the incorporeal nature of God was influenced not merely by Scripture but by Greek philosophy. The latter tended to have a negative view of emotions altogether. The former certainly does not. [↩]
- The Openness of God, ed. Clark H. Pinnock, Richard Rice, John Sanders, William Hasker, and David Basinger (Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994), 7. [↩]
- Ibid., 118. [↩]
- “An Interview with Clark Pinnock,” Modern Reformation (Nov-Dec, 1998), 37. [↩]
- Greg Nichols provides a helpful overview, collation, and exposition of the biblical data related to God’s emotions in his article, “The Emotivity of God,” 95-143. The verses below related to divine emotivity are drawn from Nichols’ survey. [↩]
- Deut. 7:13; 10:15; Ps. 18:19; Prov. 11:1; 12:22; 15:8; Isa. 42:1; 61:8; Jer. 9:24; John 17:24. [↩]
- Pss. 5:5; 11:5; Prov. 6:16; Isa. 1:14; 61:8. [↩]
- Deut. 28:63; 30:9; Jdg. 9:13; Neh. 8:10; Pss. 16:11; 60:6; 104:31; Isa. 62:5; 65:19; Jer. 32:41; Zeph. 3:17; Luke 15:7, 10; John 15:11; 17:13. [↩]
- Gen. 6:6; Jdg. 10:16; Pss. 78:40; 95:10; Isa. 63:10; Eph. 4:30; Heb. 3:10, 17. [↩]
- Num. 23:27; 24:1; 1 Kings 3:10; Pss. 69:3; 149:4; Prov. 16:7; Eccl. 7:26; Ezra 10:11; Rom. 8:8; Phil. 4:18; Col. 3:20; 1 Thess. 4:1; Heb. 11:5, 6; 13:16, 21. [↩]
- Num. 11:10; 22:22; Deut. 4:25; 6:15; 7:4; 9:18, 19: 13:17; 29:20; Josh. 7:1; Jdg. 2:12, 14, 20; 3:8; 10:7; Pss. 2:12; 7:11; 78:49; 85:3; 90:11; 103:8; 145:8; Jer. 4:8; Rom. 1:18; 2:5, 9; 9:22; 12:19; Eph. 2:3; 5:6; Col. 3:6; 1 Thess. 1:10; 2:16; 5:9; Heb. 3:11; Rev. 6:16, 17; 14:10, 19; 15:1, 7; 16:1, 19; 19:15. [↩]
- Ps. 23:4; John 14:27; Rom. 15:33; Phil. 4:7, 9; 1 Thess. 5:23; 2 Thess. 3:16; Heb. 13:20. [↩]
- Gen. 6:8; Deut. 11:12; 2 Sam. 7:19; 15:29; 1 Kings 15:5; 2 Kings 12:2; 14:3; 15:3, 34; 16:2; 18:3; 19:16; 2 Chron. 17:17; 14:2; 16:9; 24:2; 25:2; 26:4; 27:2; 28:1; 29:2; 34:2; Pss. 11:4; 34:15; Prov. 5:21; 15:3; 22:12; Isa. 37:13; Jer. 5:3; Amos 9:8; Zech. 4:10; 1 Pet. 3:12. [↩]
- Pss. 44:3; 89:10, 13; Isa. 40:10-11; 51:5, 9; 52:10; 53:1; 62:8; John 12:38. [↩]
- 1 Sam. 15:11; 2 Chron. 20:12; Job 19:21; 27:11; Eccl. 2:24; 9:1; Mark 16:19; Acts 2:23; 7:55, 56; Rom. 8:34; Col. 3:1; Heb. 10:12; 1 Pet. 3:22; 5:6. [↩]
- Deut. 8:3; Jos. 17:4; 2 Chron. 35:22; 36:12; Isa. 1:20; 34:16; 40:5; 58:14; 62:2; Jer. 9:12; 23:16; Micah 4:4; Matt. 4:4. [↩]
- Both Charles Hodge and John Gill affirm that the capacity to think, will, and feel belong properly to the nature of spiritual creatures. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology (Reprint, Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1986), 1:378, 79, 80; Gill, A Complete Body of Doctrinal and Practical Divinity (London: Thomas Tegg, 1839), 1:51. Unfortunately, Gill, unlike Hodge, denies that affections “properly” belong to God (1:146). [↩]
- One need only think of the prospect of emotional happiness that awaited the thief on the cross in Paradise (Luke 23:43) or the apostle Paul when he would be “absent from the body” (Phil. 1:21, 23; 2 Tim. 4:7-8). [↩]
- See Vern Poythress, God-Centered Biblical Interpretation (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1999), 32-36. [↩]
- James Jordan, Through New Eyes: Developing a Biblical View of the World (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1988), 19-26; idem, Creation in Six Days: A Defense of the Traditional Reading of Genesis One (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 1999), 105-11; Frame, The Doctrine of God, 366-68. [↩]
- Moisés Silva makes this point in God, Language, and Scripture, vol. 3 in Foundations of Contemporary Interpretation, ed. Moisés Silva (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 206. [↩]
- Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1:35-36 [Book I, 1.1]. [↩]
- Ibid., 1:37 [Book I, 1.2]. [↩]
- Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis, 1:248-49. [↩]
- Commentary on Isaiah, trans. William Pringle (Reprint, Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2003), 3:346-37. See also his commentaries on Deuteronomy 5:29; 32:29; Psalm 81:13; Lamentations 3:33; and Hosea 11:8. [↩]
- As biblical theologian Richard Gaffin observes, “[The questions of Psalm 94:9] are plainly rhetorical and, within the broader framework of biblical teaching, highlight that capacities in human beings, like hearing and seeing, do not merely derive from God but are reflective of his own divine capacities.” “Speech and the Image of God: Biblical Reflections on Language and its Uses,” in The Pattern of Sound Doctrine: Essays in Honor of Robert B. Strimple, ed. David VanDrunen (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2004), 182-83. [↩]
- The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2000), 58-59. [↩]
- The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1-17, NICOT, ed. Robert L. Hubbard Jr. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1990), 274. [↩]
- Samuel Waldron, “‘Without Body, Parts, or Passions’: A Contemporary Defense of Divine Impassibility,” an unpublished paper, pp. 15-16; cited with the author’s permission. [↩]
- The Doctrine of God, 610. [↩]
- A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1962), 1:57. [↩]
- The phrase is taken from the Westminster Shorter Catechism Q/A #4. [↩]
- In his defense of divine emotivity, Wayne Grudem thinks it necessary to reject the doctrine of impassibility. Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 65-66. In my opinion, this move is unnecessary. [↩]
- I’m using the edition printed in Philip Schaff’s The Creeds of Christendom, 6th edition (Reprint, Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1990), 3:598ff. [↩]
- Robert Reymond adopts this reading of the Confession. He writes, “When the Confession of Faith declares that God is ‘without … passions’ it should be understood to mean that God has no bodily passions such as hunger or the human drive for sexual fulfillment.” A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1998), 179. [↩]
- A number of commentators on the Confession press the discorrespondence beyond the metaphysical distinction of divine/human and ethical distinction of holy/sinful. They follow most classical theists and interpret emotions predicated of God as mere metaphors for divine volition or action. Gordon H. Clark, What Do Presbyterians Believe? The Westminster Confession: Yesterday and Today (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1965), 29-30; Robert Shaw, An Exposition of the Westminster Confession of Faith (1845; reprint, Ross-shire, U.K.: Christian Focus Publications, 1992), 26-27; G. I. Williamson, The Westminster Confession of Faith for Study Classes (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1964), 24. A. A. Hodge at first appears to affirm divine emotivity when he writes, “By spirit we mean the subject to which the attributes of intelligence, feeling, and will belong as active properties” (emphasis added). But when he addresses the Confession’s preclusion of “passions” to God, Hodge remarks, “When [the Scriptures] speak of his repenting, of his being grieved or jealous, they use metaphorical language also, teaching us that he acts toward us as a man would when agitated by such passions.” Commentary on the Confession of Faith (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath-School Work, 1901), 73-74. [↩]
February 1st, 2009 at 10:51 pm
That lyrical ballad was hilarious!!!
As one who once agreed with Calvin and others on the issue, I can understand their concern. We see those entrapped in process theology and open theism, so it sounds like a safe place to be.
But that would take the comfort out of the idea that “He does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men” (Lam. 3:33) or take the joy out of comprehending “what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge” (Eph. 3:18-19). As D. A. Carson wrote, are we to think Paul prayed for believers to know the anthropomorphism that passes understanding?
February 2nd, 2009 at 8:58 am
Marie,
You appear to be well-read and conversant in theology. I commend you.
Like you, I reject process and open theism as serious errors. In some respects, these views are similar to the Socinianism faced by our Puritan forefathers. As I’ll indicate in the subsequent installments, Calvin and Reformed theologians were correct to maintain that God is never ultimately passive. He not only ordained every thought and deed of men (whether good or evil), but he also ordained his responses to those human thoughts and deeds. So God’s emotive responses, unlike ours, do not find their cause in something outside of him over which he has no control. In that sense, he is impassible.
But impassibility need not imply inactivity, apathy or the absence of genuine emotive responses within the matrix of created history. This is the point sometimes missed by some theologians. I think this is seen in their misuse of the ideas of “accommodation” and “anthropopathism.” Used rightly, these terms highlight the fact that man’s emotivity is not univocal but analogical to the Archetype. This is part of what it means to be God’s “image.”
Your servant,
Bob G.
February 2nd, 2009 at 12:59 pm
[...] Robert Gonzales (Dean and Professor of Biblical Studies at Reformed Baptist Seminary) has posted a very good essay on the Emotivity of God: There Is No Pain, You Are Misreading”: Is God “Comfortably Numb”?. [...]
February 3rd, 2009 at 11:46 am
Good introduction Bob, I’m looking forward to the rest of this series. I think this is a hugely important subject not just in theology but also because it impacts upon our evangelism, apologetics and so forth. Also, as I’m sure you’ll point out there are some rock-solid reformed theologians who are in much agreement with your position.
Paul
February 3rd, 2009 at 11:54 am
Thanks, Paul. I agree with you that this topic has important ramifications for theology at both an academic level and, perhaps more importantly, at a practical and pastoral level. I do plan to cite a number of Reformed theologians who see no conflict in affirming divine impassibility and divine emotivity.
Your servant,
Bob G.
February 4th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
[...] pain as he assessed the proliferation of human sin and misery on the earth. But as we noted in Part 1 of this series, some classical and Reformed Bible scholars caution the reader against reading emotions predicated [...]
February 5th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
How would you define “emotions” and “genuine emotions”?
When we speak of “passions” we usually think of emotions which move us; but is God ever “moved” by His “emotions” or does His will determine what He “feels” at all times?
Also, if the deepest part of God can be grieved, how can God be pure joy?
Finally, Are you in favor of revising the Confession and, if so, how would you revise the text so that it is clearer and more biblical?
Thanks brother, I always enjoy your posts.
Trevor
February 5th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Trevor,
Good questions. I plan to address them in the subsequent posts. But I’ll offer a brief response here. First, an “emotion” is commonly defined as “an affective state of consciousness in which joy, sorrow, fear, hate, or the like, is experienced, as distinguished from cognitive and volitional states of consciousness” (Random House Dictionary, 2006). This definition tends to reflect a certain view of psychology that compartmentalizes the mental, emotional, and volitional faculties. Jonathan Edwards does a fine job of demonstrating the connection between emotions (or “affections” as he calls them) and the will. John Frame does a good job of showing the connection between the mind and the emotions–emotive responses being intertwined with cognitive evaluations of events or states of affairs. Recently, Matthew Elliott has published a monograph entitled Faithful Feelings: Rethinking Emotion in the New Testament in which he demonstrates the cognitive element of emotions from the Scriptures. In any case, emotions are undoubtedly responses or reactions that entail psychological changes in the way one feels.
But how should we define divine “emotions”? I’m not sure I could improve on Greg Nichols’ definition: “God’s emotivity is his supreme capacity to act responsively and sensationally; to feel pure and principled affections of love and hate, joy and grief, pleasure and anger, and peace; in accord with his supreme, spiritual, and simple Being and impeccable virtue (103).” [Note: he includes a myriad of proof-texts that I omitted to conserve space.] So, according to a general and a theological definition emotions are “responses” or “reactions” to events or states of affair. Accordingly, I see nothing wrong with conceiving of God evaluating human sin and misery (6:5) and, as a result, responding inwardly with grief (6:6) and outwardly with redemption for Noah and judgment for the world (6:7ff.). In that sense, God’s emotions are analogous to human emotions. Better, human emotions are the ectype of divine emotions, which are the Archetype.
This leads to your next question: “When we speak of “passions” we usually think of emotions which move us; but is God ever “moved” by His “emotions” or does His will determine what He “feels” at all times?” I would answer your question, “Yes.” That is, “Both.” Ultimately, God has determined the end from the beginning. He ordained human sin. He ordained his inward emotional response to human sin. And he ordained his outward redemptive/punitive response to human sin. In that sense, we may speak of God as “impassible.” Nothing takes him by surprise. On the other hand, God manifests his covenant presence within the matrix of human history. He not only exists outside of time and space, but he has chosen to manifest his presence inside of time and space. And within the matrix of human history, God responds or, if I may use the term without being misunderstood, he is moved by human events. In the words of J. O. Buswell, “Does ever a sinner repent, there is always joy in the presence of the angels (Luke 15:7, 10). Does ever a child of God, ’sealed’ by the Spirit, fall into sin, the Holy Spirit is ‘grieved’ (Eph. 4:30)” (ST, 1:57). In other words, God really responds emotively to events that transpire within creation and redemption history. One might say that God is “impassible” from the perspective of his transcendence and “passible” from the perspective of his immanence.
Your third question is more challenging: “if the deepest part of God can be grieved, how can God be pure joy?” The answer to this question may partly depend on what is meant by the superlative “deepest.” The apostle Paul commands Christians to “rejoice in the Lord always.” Only one human being has been able to obey that command perfectly. Ironically, he’s called “the Man of Sorrows,” Jesus Christ. When Jesus was in Gethsemane, was grief or joy the “deepest” emotion? We certainly know he was weighed down with an unimaginable sorrow. Yet, we also know that he could endure that sorrow because of “the joy set before him.”
I’ve tried to think of a good illustration. Think of a movie director. He’s created a magnificent epic film. He knows the story from heart beginning to end. He knows it has a happy ending. Nevertheless, he also wrote tragedy into the script. As he watches the premier showing for the first time, he finds himself experiencing a complex of emotions. Deep down, there’s a sense of pride and joy in the masterpiece he’s created. Moreover, he has a sense of peace and calm, knowing the plot has a glorious ending. But as those tragic events come up in the film, he finds himself weeping at misfortune or angry at injustice. Granted, this illustration doesn’t come close to capturing the complexity of God’s heart. But I believe we must embrace all the biblical descriptions of God even if we can’t fully conceptualize their relations. I affirm that God is self-contained, independent, and wholly satisfied with himself. He possess a kind of joy that cannot be marred. Yet, I also affirm that within the matrix of human history God experiences grief, sorrow, anger, pleasure, love, hatred, jealousy, joy and peace. All of these emotional responses are perfectly consistent with his unchanging being, wisdom, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.
Finally, you ask whether I’m in favor of revising the Confession? If so, how so? Well, as I suggested in a response to a comment left on Part II of this series, if the framers of the Confession simply meant to say that God is without human passions, then I think we should insert the term “human” in order to prevent the all too common misconception that God doesn’t have real emotions. If the framers were alluding to the fact that God is the ultimate cause behind every event and is not subject to events outside his control, then I’d agree with that idea. But I’d like to see it stated in less ambiguous terms. Moreover, I’d like to see the balancing truth affirmed, namely, that God does respond inwardly and outwardly to events and states of affairs within the sphere of history. One could affirm this truth while still affirming God’s absolute sovereign decree and providence over all things.
Hope this helps.
Your servant,
Bob Gonzales
February 5th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
Bob,
I am looking forward to the whole series of articles. I have for years held that God does, indeed, “feel.” But I have stressed that His emotional responses were also an aspect of His predestined will. Thus, when He predestined the Fall, He did so knowing that sin would be sorrowful to Him and with His own sorrow over sin as part of His plan.
I look forward to seeing how you deal with this, though, because I still need to think more about it. I and my fellow-elders, however, have removed the phrase that states that God is without “passions” from our version of the Baptist Confession of 1689. We believe its assertion that God is “immutable” is sufficient.
By the way, I haven’t yet read the second article (I hope to this evening), but I vaguely recall J. Oliver Buswell having anticipated these issues in his theology text.
Thanks for your willingness to tackle this issue.
February 8th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
Thanks Dr. Gonzales, I’m looking forward to your next parts of this series. I liked the movie director illustration.
Trevor
February 9th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
[...] and theologians whether we should take such emotional responses ascribed to God literally. In Part 1 of our study, we observed that many Bible scholars resist a more literally reading of emotivity ascribed to God. [...]
February 17th, 2009 at 10:01 am
John 4:8 says, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
This verse clearly states that God has love. But many people say that true, pure love, is not a feeling, but rather an action. This seems to go along with John Calvin’s view of God’s emotions.
I am not disagreeing with you, Dr. Gonzales, but I want to know what you would say to these people.
February 17th, 2009 at 10:31 am
Great question, “iRe4m.” First, I would affirm that there is a demonstrative element to genuine biblical love. As the apostle John remarks, “If anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” (1 John 3:17). Second, I would point out that true love cannot be reduced to merely outward, altruistic acts of piety or benevolence. For the apostle Paul notes,
Third, I would point out biblical data that constrains us to see an inward dispositional and affectional dimension to biblical love. Note, for example, the synonymous parallelism below:
Accordingly, when God commands us, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deut. 6:5), he wants our affections. Merely giving him lip service and going through religious motions will not do (Isa. 29:13; Matt. 15:8).
Hope this helps.
Bob G.
February 25th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
[...] sovereignty, and immutability. For those interested in reading those installments click here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. I received a number of comments on the posts, some public and some private, most [...]
May 30th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
[...] sovereignty, and immutability does not preclude the attribution of genuine emotions to God (see my “There Is No Pain, You Are Misreading”: Is God “Comfortably Numb”?). Third, the analogy of Scripture does not require the reader to relate every divine desire to [...]
June 9th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
[...] question in debate is “How much discorrespondence is there?” I demonstrate in my essay “There Is No Pain, You Are Misreading”: Is God “Comfortably Numb”? that not all Reformed scholars have agreed. There is, in other words, a considerable Reformed [...]
November 8th, 2009 at 12:17 am
[...] these articles by Bob Gonzales here: “There Is No Pain, You Are Misreading”: Is God “Comfortably Numb”? | RBS Tab… ?There Is No Pain, You Are Misreading?: Is God ?Comfortably Numb?? Part 2 | RBS Tabletalk ?There [...]