THE PATHOS OF

GERALD WONDRA

The modern revolution in theological thought on the doctrine of God has been very severe on the traditional formulation of the attributes, especially the attribute of impassibility. A proper study of this change in thought would involve the whole history of Christian doctrine, as well as a thorough look at the biblical sources. I shall attempt no such vast study here. Instead, I shall attempt to grapple with one representative from both the traditional and the modern schools, and thus deal with the essentials within a limited scope. Then I shall examine representative biblical sources. For this I have chosen the books of Hosea and Hebrews. Both are brief enough to deal with adequately, and they represent re­ spectively, the prophetic view of God's involvement in history, and the apostolic understanding of the suffering of the Mediator. The choice of a modern representative was not difficult since there is virtual agreement on the inadequacy of past thought. There is, of course, variation in what is suggested as a substitute, but even here there is gen­ eral agreement on the need to return to biblical categories. Emil Brunner was chosen for his mediating stance on most issues. The choice of a traditional representative was more difficult, however. For one thing, he could be chosen from almost anywhere in the history of Christian thought; for another, ideas on impassibility are often assumed rather than elaborated. The Protestant era is closer to our own position, and so perhaps more valuable, yet even here a choice is involved. obviously assumed the impassibility of God, for he says: "God certainly has no blood, suffers not, cannot be touched . with hands." 1 I Yet he is too biblical and dynamic to elaborate a formal doctrine. In fact, he says: " . . . it is obvious that, in seeking God, the most direct path and the fittest method is, not to attempt with presumptuous curiosity to pry into his essence, which is rather to be adored than minutely discussed, but to contemplate him in his works, 1 Calvin, John, The Institutes of Jhe Christian , translated by Henry Beveridge (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1957). II, xiii, 2. 28 by which he draws near, becomes familiar, and in a manner communicates himself to us." 2 We must turn, therefore, to Protestant scholasticism for an adequate statement on impassibility. Stephen Charnock was chosen because he is perhaps the most complete in his discussion. Under each chapter, I shall deal basically with three ideas: (1) gen­ eral approach; (2) the repentance of God; (3) the divine-human suffer­ ing of the Mediator. I. STEPHEN CHARNOCK: the Protestant scholastic approach to God's impassibility. Not long after the dynamic period of the Reformation, Protestant settled back into the same scholasticism that Calvin had attacked. This happened because basic theological and philosophical assumptions had remained unchallenged, despite the apparent radicality of the Refor­ mation. In this relapse to scholasticism, the Puritans were no exception. On the attributes of God, Stephen Charnock is an outstanding example. In his great work, The Attributes of God, he adopted without ques­ tion the Greek speculative approach which makes God the last term of a process of rational abstraction. God is the most perfect being, which means he is without all the limitations of the creature (via negativa), and that he represents the perfect state of all positive qualities found in man (via eminentiae) . In adopting this approach, he was merely being the heir of the early Church fathers. Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Augustine, and others, had baptized a Neo-Platonic framework of thought in com­ batting gnostic and docetic heresies. This framework had the rational equipment which was absent from the Hebrew character of scriptural revelation. Having assumed a Greek definition of God, impassibility became a rational necessity. Charnock does not disruss impassibility as such; he does so under the heading of immutability, which is true of God by definition: "God is a necessary being; he is necessarily what he is, and therefore is unchangeably what he is. Mutability belongs to contingency. If any perfection of his nature could be separated from him, he would cease to be God. . . . Whatsoever is im­ mutable by nature is God; whatsoever is God, is immutable by nature." 3 The following is the outline of Charnock's discussion of immutability: 1. In what respects God is unchangeable. ( 1) God is unchangeable in his essence. 2Ibid., I, v, 9. 8Charnock, Stephen, The Attributes of God, (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publications) , 1840, Vol. I, p. 355. 29 (2) God is immutable in regard to knowledge. (3) God is unchangeable in regard of his will and purpose. ( 4) He is unchangeable in regard to place. 2. Reasons to prove God immutable. (1) The name of Jehovah signifies this attribute. ( 2) If God were changeable he could not be the most perfect being. (3) If he were not immutable he would not be the most simple being. ( 4) God were not eternal, if he were mutable. ( 5) If God were changeable, he were not infinite and almighty. ( 6) If he were mutable he could not order and govern the world. 3. Immutability is proper to God and incommunicable to any creature. •• 4. Propositions to clear this unchangeableness of God from anything that seems contrary to it. 5. Uses. It is under the fourth heading in the above outline that he discusses God's inability to repent, suffer, or experience any emotions whatever. Impassibility, like immutability, is a rational necessity : "Repentance is not properly in God. He is a pure , and is not capable of those passions which are signs of weakness and impotence. . . . No proper grief can be imagined to be in God: as repentance is inconsistent with infallible foresight, so is grief no less inconsistent with undefiled blessedness ." 4 But this stance places Charnock in obvious tension with scriptural revelation where repentance, grief, and other passions are ascribed to God. He explains the tension and defends himself, first by saying that anthro ~ pomorphisms are necessary to God's communication to man. 5 If God did not speak human language he could not be understood. Apparent changes in God are actually only changes in the creature-changes of relation, not of essence, "a change of events, not of counsels." 6 Pushing his explanation one step further, Charnock makes the strange claim that these anthropomorphisms describe what God would be like if he were capable of passions! " . . . so would God have joy at the obedience of men, and grief at the unworthy carriage of men, and repent of his kind­ ness when men abuse it, and repent of his punishment when men reform under his rod, were the majesty of his nature ca­ pable of such affections." 7 Charnock also feels constrained to explain how the divine nature of Christ could have remained with him in his suffering. He does maintain, unlike Nestorians, that the divine nature was present at the crucifixion: 4 Ibid., p. 381. 5fbid., p. 382. 6 Ibid. 1 I bid., p. 383. 30 " . . . therefore when he was bowing the head of his humanity upon the cross, he had the nature and perfections of God, for had he ceased to be God, he had been a mere creature, and his sufferings would have been of as little value and satisfaction as the sufferings of a creature." 8 Yet the divinity, though present, remains unaffected by the suffering: "The glory of his divinity was not extinguished nor diminished, though it was obscured and darkened under the veil of our infirmities; but there was no more change in the hiding of it than there is in the body of the sun when it is shadowed by the interposition of a cloud." 0 His argument here rests heavily on analogy. In addition to the analogy of the sun darkened by a cloud, he uses the 's union with the body, to prove that Christ's divinity could be present, yet unaffected. Such analogy cannot overcome the impression of gross incongruity between the scriptural account and Charnock's. To say that an impassible divine nature was present in Christ during his suffering, would sound to the writer of H ebrews like sheer nonsense! II. EMIL BRUNNER: the modern Neo-orthodox approach to God's impassibility. Emil Brunner, like most modern theologians, is acutely aware of the influence of Greek speculative thought on Christian doctrine. He says that the early Church fathers, in their effort to communicate with the Hellenistic world, unwittingly adopted alien thought forms, which would prove to be incalculably detrimental to Christian theology. 10 This adop­ tion involved the combination of two radically different and irreconcilable notions of God; one would have to give way to the other. Since the speculative approach offered more possibilities for apologetics, it won the battle, and bequeathed its inheritance to the entire history of Christian thought: "It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the theological doctrine of the Divine Attributes, handed on from the Early Church, has been shaped by the Platonic and neo-Platonic idea of God, and not by the Biblical Idea." 11 Brunner feels that the distinction between the two is that in the Bible, God is a personal subject who reveals himself, whereas the Greek ap­ proach makes him the object of thought which is attained by a process of one's own thinking.12 In this respect, Christian thought has failed to take revelation seriously. God has revealed his nature in the Bible by BJbid., p. 380. OJ bid. 10Brunner, Emil, The Christian Doctrine of God, translated by Olive Wyon (Lon­ don : Lutterworth Press, 1949), p. 15 3. llJbid., p. 243 . 121bid., p. 154. 31 his acts of redemption and his covenantal love, not intending it to be explained away in terms of a religiously inferior philosophical approach. In place of the traditional attributes of immutability or impassibility, Brunner discusses God's "unchangingness." But he warns that this attri­ bute does not mean God is unconcerned with the historical process; on the contrary, he is intimately involved and is affected by what happens to his creatures. "He alters his behavior in accordance with the changes in men." 1 3 The objection to the repentance of God, he says, is the same objection that can be raised against calling God a person, or indeed, against saying anything about him, once the Absolute Being of philosophy is assumed to be the Christian God. But the assumption is wrong; the God of the Bible does not ride the crest of a rational system. He "enters into the activity of man and acts accordingly." 14 He dialogues with men, hears their prayers, loves, and judges them. Here Brunner adds the interesting caution that in rejecting impassi­ bility, we must not swallow the modern and equally unchristian notion that God is a part of the universal process- that he is "becoming" along with all of us. The God of the Bible, then, is unchangeable, but he is unchangeable in the terms of "faithfulness" rather than impassibility. He steps into the historical process as the unchanging, faithful God. This is closer to the meaning of the name Jahweh than what Charno.ck suggested. It also fits the prophet's picture of God's faithfulness to his covenant people despite their disobedience. His faithfulness solves the otherwise insoluble of holiness and love. 1 5 In The Mediator, Brunner presents a view of the divine-human suffer­ ing of Christ, which is more consistent with Hebrews than was Char­ nock' s. He emphasizes the paradox of the crucifixion event and the im­ possibility of separating the divine from the human at the cross. Christ could only represent humanity because of his divinity: " . . . the human element, in the deepest sense of the word, constitutes the material for this sacrifice; therefore it must be suffered in a truly human way. But this can only be achieved by God himself; therefore the person who thus acts, the person I in whom human nature truly suffers, must be the divine per­ son." 16 J The answer to the question whether God can suffer or not is: HE HAS! In Christ, God suffered as a man ! l3Jbid., p. 268. 14lbid., p. 269. 15lbid., p. 273 . 16Brunner, Emil, The Mediator, translated by Olive Wyon (Philadelphia: The W estminster Press, 1947), p. 50 2. 32 III. HOSEA AND HEBREWS: God's involvement in human history. If there is an attribute of God discussed in Hosea, it is pathos. 17 God is not removed and detached from men; he is involved! He loves Israel, beats his breast over its disobedience, longs for its repentance, threatens judgment, promises mercy. So intimate is God's relation to Israel that it is likened to a marriage covenant. God is pictured as wooing Israel: "Therefore, behold, I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her and there I will give her vineyards, and make the valley of Achor a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of Egypt" ( 2: 14-15) . He promises an eternal covenant: "And I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy, I will betroth you to me in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord" (2:19-20). God is the deserted husband who is hurt by the wife's unfaithfulness. Later, the image changes, and God is the loving Father of Israel who grieves for his prodigal son: "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called to them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Baals, and burning incense to idols" (11:1-2 ). This desertion by Israel causes a reaction in God both of love and v:rath. Often the two follow each other in close proximity, which proves that they are part of the same basic attitude- pathos. The eleventh chapter provides the clearest example. Here an announcement of judgment, ("They shall return to the land of Egypt and Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to turn to ine.") 11 :5, is followed immediately by a promise of mercy: "How can I give you up, 0 Ephraim! How can I hand you over, 0 Israel! How can I make you like Admah ! How can I treat you like Zeboiim ! My heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger, I will not again destroy Ephraim, for I am God and not man, The Holy One in your midst, and I will not come to destroy" ( 11 : 7-9) . 17Heschel, Abraham, The Prophets (New York: Harper and Row, 1955), pp. 39ff. 33 Note that in this passage the essence of God is seen as his forgiveness, his ability to alter a course of planned judgment in favor of compassion. Moreover, the "Holy One" is not far removed from men; he is "in your midst!" God establishes a real dialogue with human history. He can be grieved, he can judge, he can forgive, in accordance with the response of man. He can change his mind; he can (as explicitly stated in the book of Jonah) "repent." This is not seen as a weakness but as his glory; nor does it detract from his basic faithfulness. This pathos of God comes to fullest expression in the incarnation­ and especially at the cross. H ebrews clearly presents the divine-human character of Christ's suffering. Godhead is attributed to the son. He is presented as God's final Word to men ( 1: 2), as creator and sustainer ( 1: 3), as co-ruler with the Father (1 :4). Moreover, he is explicitly called God in 1 :8: "But of the Son he says: 'Thy throne, 0 God, is for ever and ever.' " Yet the divinity of the Son does not obscure the reality of the incarnation. Christ experienced the depths of human existence, for as our eternal High Priest and representative before God, it was necessary for him to know what it is to be man: "Since, therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he him­ self likewise partook of the same nature . . . " ( 2 : 14) . "For we have not a High Priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sinning" ( 4: 15). The suffering of our High Priest, therefore, is the suffering of man : "Therefore he had to be made like his brethren in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful High Priest in the service of God, to make expiation for the sins of the people" (2: 17). But it is also, at the same time, the suffering of God: "For it was fitting that we should have such a High Priest, holy, blameless, unstained; separated from sinners, exalted above the heavens. He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for the sins of the people; he did this once for all when he offered up himself" (7 :26-27) . There is no talk here of Christ suffering only in his human nature. Moreover, there is no formulation of two natures in Christ. It belongs to his person as the mediator, the eternal High Priest, that he is the Ged­ man. And this hyphenated existence does not imply a dual personality; his manhood was God, his Godhood was man. In him, God suffered as a man! 34 Our conclusion is that the modern neo-orthodox approach is closer to Hebrews and Hosea than that of the Protestant scholastic. If a caution is needed, it is that Brun.ner tends to adopt the modern existential phil­ osophical posture, just as the early fathers adopted Greek rationalism. This existential posture is also in tension with scripture in its extreme subjectivism and individualism. Yet the biblical world was far more existential than metaphysical, and we can rejoice in the demise of such notions as the impassibility of God.

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