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The Pathos of God

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The Pathos of God THE PATHOS OF GOD 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. John Calvin 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 Religion, 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 theology 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 Spirit, 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 soul'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.
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