tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17617194.post2341827540198431043..comments2024-03-07T06:52:34.516+00:00Comments on Exiled Preacher: Paul Helm on the impassibility of GodGuy Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09184743462264437085noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17617194.post-88135122618550445642008-12-11T23:03:00.000+00:002008-12-11T23:03:00.000+00:00This is fascinating. (I got here by following the ...This is fascinating. (I got here by following the link from <A HREF="http://eardstapa.wordpress.com/?p=967" REL="nofollow">The Wanderer</A>, - maybe it's time i subscribed to the feed so as to read on a regular basis!)<BR/><BR/>This comment is a bit shameless actually, but I wrote a review of 'From Glory to Golgotha' which actually focused on that particular chapter - <A HREF="http://ninetysixandten.wordpress.com/books/god-does-not-cannot-suffer/" REL="nofollow">here</A><BR/><BR/>I have to say i found it rather objectionable and I'm glad to find i'm not the only one :-)cathhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02161002101062247249noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17617194.post-88651031635142774022008-11-27T23:21:00.000+00:002008-11-27T23:21:00.000+00:00Without getting too involved. Yes, God does feel a...Without getting too involved. Yes, God does feel anger against sin. But that anger is not tantamount to a raging fit of temper. It is his necessary, settled and just response to human rebellion against him. Hence, impassibility, at least as defined by Helm still stands.Guy Davieshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09184743462264437085noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17617194.post-7757590412340672752008-11-27T21:34:00.000+00:002008-11-27T21:34:00.000+00:00Perichoretic? Lovely word; what does it mean? (o...Perichoretic? Lovely word; what does it mean? (oh,yes - co-inherance. Glad I've got that cleared up...!)<BR/><BR/>I'd want to safeguard those three truths, too. It's a vital part of Christian truth, isn't it, that God's love, and his anger, are not spasmodic: he is not variable or given to changing. <BR/><BR/>But: does he feel anger? Yes. (I appreciate Helm's distinction between impassibility and impassivity. But is that distinction historically valid? I don't know.) Is God's anger produced (or provoked, perhaps you'd prefer?) by beings outside himself? Of course: for while we can say 'God is love' we cannot say 'God is anger' (the nearest to it is Hebrews 12.29). It's an interesting point - but speculative - whether God wills himself to feel anger at sin, or whether he just does feel anger at sin. If he wills it in himself, then presumably it would be possible for him not to have willed it, and not to have been angry at sin, which would lead us down some interesting roads...<BR/><BR/>And I think it's the danger of speculation - or to put it another way, its uselessness and dangerousness in practice - that's stopped me reading much about or thinking much about impassibility. <BR/><BR/>We are told that God loves, hates, grieves, etc - and while there's a sense in which such descriptions must be anthropopathic, I'm still not convinced that 'without passions' is as absolute as 'without body'.<BR/><BR/>Aseity, unchangeability and transcendence may well go together to suggest 'impassibility'. But it's not a good word for it, I think. Immutability does not necessarily imply impassibility at all. God is immutable if he always feels the same anger at the same sin; he does not have to be angry all the time to be immutable. (I know he IS angry at the wicked every day, but that's not the point I'm trying to make.)<BR/><BR/>Thanks for helping me think a little bit about this. And thanks too for pointing me to Helm's Deep - a fascinating blog I shall consult regularly. Blessings on you this weekend.Gary Benfoldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11371307545924645897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17617194.post-8433851802287305862008-11-27T21:06:00.000+00:002008-11-27T21:06:00.000+00:00I think that the doctrine of impassibility is inte...I think that the doctrine of impassibility is intended to safeguard three truths about God:<BR/><BR/>1) His aseity or emotional self-sufficiency. He is not emotionally dependent on anyone or thing outside himself because God finds complete fulfillment in the perichoretic life of his own triune being. <BR/><BR/>2) His unchangeability. His love for the world (yes <I>love</I> for the <I>world</I>!)is not an emotional spasm. It is both intense and stable, unlike say, a teenage love affair. <BR/><BR/>3) His transcendence. God's emotional life is not like ours in some important ways. He does not have moods etc. He is Lord of his own emotional life, so he loves and gives of himself freely and unconditionally. If God suffers, as he did preeminently at Calvary, it is because he chooses to suffer rather than because suffering is imposed upon him against his will. <BR/><BR/>I think that for those reasons a properly defined doctrine of impassibility is worth retaining.Guy Davieshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09184743462264437085noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17617194.post-38509899473860222652008-11-27T18:59:00.000+00:002008-11-27T18:59:00.000+00:00Thanks Guy. I confess to never having studied thi...Thanks Guy. I confess to never having studied this subject in any detail at all, obviously unlike you. From what I have read, though, the 'historic' doctrine of impassiblity goes against the most natural sense of many, many Scriptures and seems to stem from Greek philosophical ideas of deity rather than Biblical revelation. Helm, as you summarise him, seems to have a definition of impassibility that isn't quite impassibility at all; however he's the philosopher and I'm sure knows more about it than I.<BR/>I'm quite used to seeing 'God so loved the world' reduced to 'God so loved the elect...' - I'd hate to see it further reduced to 'God so loved (in a way that means he didn't feel anything at all...) Helm seems to avoid this. I just wonder why we should call his doctrine 'impassibility' at all, though.Gary Benfoldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11371307545924645897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17617194.post-91141021084376362372008-11-27T17:29:00.000+00:002008-11-27T17:29:00.000+00:00I raised Macleod's teaching in the discussion. Pau...I raised Macleod's teaching in the discussion. Paul admitted that he hadn't read all that DM has to say on the subject, but he didn't have any problems with what he had seen. I think that DM's strongest argument in favour of passibility is the chapter "The Crucified God" in <I>From Glory to Golgotha</I>, Christian Focus, 2002. <BR/><BR/>As I show in the post, in Helm's construction, impassibility does not make God emotionally distant or disengaged from his creation. The impassioned God reaches out in pity to fallen mankind. He embraces our sorrow and bears our sin in his Son at Calvary. Whether this reading of impassibility would satisfy Macleod, I don't know. Helm was cautious over whether we may speak of the Father suffering at Calvary. DM has no such inhibitions saying,<BR/><BR/>"We cling therefore to the belief that not only did God the Son suffer crucifixion, but that God the Father suffered the pain of delivering him up." (p. 107 op. cit.).<BR/><BR/>Helm agreed that it cost the Father to deliver up his Son to the cross. But he argued that to suggest the Father suffered is go beyond what we are told in Scripture. I still have some sympathy with Macleod on that point.Guy Davieshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09184743462264437085noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17617194.post-28980850738844846012008-11-27T16:49:00.000+00:002008-11-27T16:49:00.000+00:00If 'mystery' means 'Gary has no chance of understa...If 'mystery' means 'Gary has no chance of understanding' - then I'm sure it's the right word! But I'm surprised Helm finds McLeod on impassibility 'unobjectionable'; I'm sure I remember a dust-up on that one!Gary Benfoldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11371307545924645897noreply@blogger.com