Durham E-Theses God, emotion and impassibility Scrutton, Anastasia Philippa How to cite: Scrutton, Anastasia Philippa (2008) God, emotion and impassibility, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/1930/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk University of Durham God, Emotion and Impassibility Volume one of two Anastasia Philippa Scrutton PhD 2008 Abstract The current theological climate presents two extremes in speaking of the emotional life of God: Passibilism, which affirms the fullness of God's emotional life, and impassibilism, which (claiming fidelity to traditional orthodox Christianity) asserts that God cannot experience emotions. Likewise, contemporary philosophy of emotion is characterised by the extremes of cognitive views of emotion on the one hand, and non-cognitive, physiological or `feelings' views on the other. In this thesis I argue for a more nuanced account of both impassibility and emotion. I seek to show how a more subtle account of emotion may benefit contemporary philosophy of emotion, and how re-conceiving both impassibility and emotion would provide alternative possibilities within theology for speaking of God's emotional life. I begin by showing how the depiction of early impassibilism and modem passibilism as polar opposite views with few theologians inhabiting a middle ground is an oversimplification that neglects those in both camps who argue that God might choose to experience emotions and to suffer, such that God's emotions would not be contrary to God's will or challenge his omnipotence. I then argue that a re- appropriation of the Augustinian and Thomist distinction between passiones (emotions that are arational, involuntary, and in Thomas, essentially physiological) and affectiones (emotions that are potentially rational, in accordance with the will, and are not essentially bodily) as a distinction within the overarching and less discriminating category of `emotion' may provide important options for both theologians and philosophers of emotion that have previously been overlooked. I continue by exploring the relationship between emotions and intelligence, will, and the body, and the theological implications of this for divine omniscience, omnipotence and incorporeality. I suggest that applying the distinction between passiones and affectiones to contemporary theology and philosophy of emotion contributes to creating a more plausible middle ground between passibilism and impassibilism, and between cognitive and feelings accounts of emotion. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author or the university to which it was submitted. No quotation from it, or information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author or university, and be any information derived from it should acknowledged. 13 NOV2008 Acknowledgements Writing this thesis would have been impossible without the help and support of many people. My thanks go particularly to Colin Crowder for all his encouragement and wise, perceptive and witty comments without which this thesis could not have been written. I would also like to thank Peter Brown for helping me to think theologically and religiously about emotions, and Stephen Cherry for helping me to think about theology and religion in terms of the philosophy of emotion, and for sharing his psychological expertise. My thanks also go to Beatrice Meager, for her very valuable historical, theological and stylistic comments on various drafts of my thesis, and to Sam Newington, for helping me with my Greek. Thanks are especially due to Theodora Hawksley, for conversations on anger and forgiveness and for patiently explaining biological phenomena relevant to the thesis, and to Marcel Sarot for graciously sharing his wisdom, knowledge and insight about passibilism and emotion in numerous valuable conversations at conferences over the years. I am grateful to Konrad zu Löwenstein for helpful discussions on orthodox Christology and on Thomist theology, and to Tony Currer for what turned out to be a most productive conversation on immutability on an unexpectedly daedalous road-trip in pursuit of a chair. I am indebted to the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Durham, and particularly to Andrew Louth. for introducing me to the complexity of different concepts of emotion in the early church, to Carol Harrison, for discussions about Augustine, and to Stuart Weeks, for advice about Hebrew, Greek and Latin terms for emotion and emotions, and for his staunch defence of a voluntarist view of emotion. My from thanks also go to the AHRC, who funded this project 2005 - 2006. Most of all, my thanks go to Stuart Foyle, for his patience and love, and for teaching me about the value and intelligence of emotions over the years. I declare that no part of the material of this thesis has previously been submitted for a degree in the University of Durham, or any other university. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without their prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. Contents Introduction p. 3 Chapter One: 4=0O is and Impassibility p. 16 Chapter Two: Contemporary Perspectiveson Divine Passibility p. 44 Chapter Three: Augustine, Emotion and Impassibility p. 85 Chapter Four: Emotion, Intelligence and Divine Omniscience p. 114 Chapter Five: Emotion, Will and Divine Omnipotence p. 185 Chapter Six: Emotion, the Body and Divine Incorporeality p. 220 Conclusion p. 257 2 Introduction This thesis is primarily about how historical and contemporary philosophy of emotion can and should affect the debate on divine impassibility in Christian theology, and secondarily about how ancient and medieval philosophy of emotion may provide a way beyond some of the impasses in contemporary philosophy of emotion. As a working definition of impassibility I shall take the idea of impassibility as incapacity for or insusceptibility to emotional experiences. In defining impassibility in this way, I follow Richard Creel and Marcel Sarotl in moving away from the idea of impassibility as being solely about God's incapacity for or invulnerability to suffering, and focus instead on the question of whether God can have emotional experiences more broadly. This definition of impassibility is a working definition, however, and part of the purpose of the thesis is to come to a better understanding of whether experiencing emotions is a susceptibility and therefore a weakness, or whether it is a capacity and therefore a strength, what we mean when we speak of experiencing emotions, and what sort of being can experience emotions. In chapter one I explore how ancient understandings of emotion informed the early church's understanding of divine impassibility. What emerges from this discussion is that while the characterisation of the early church as promoting dnafta as a human virtue, and, concomitantly, seeing impassibility as an aspect of divine perfection, is not untrue, it is an over-simplification. I suggest two reasons for why this is the case, the first of which relates to our concept of emotion, and the second of which concerns our concept of impassibility. cf. Marcel Sarot, God, Passibility and Corporeality (Kampen, the Netherlands: Kok Pharos Publishing House), p. 30, who defines impassibility as `immutability with regard to one's feelings, or the quality of one's inner life' and R. E. Creel, Divine Impassibility: An Essay in Philosophical Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 3-9, who defines impassibility as `imperviousness to causal influence from external factors' with respect to nature, will, knowledge or feelings. 3 First, the ancient world opted for a diversity of different words for mental experiences rather than the modem monolithic category of 'emotion'. Translating terms such as irä8os and passiones as 'emotion' can give the impression that the early church had a negative view of all emotions. In some cases (particularly in the cases of eastern Christians who inherited more extreme Stoic thought on emotion) this is justified, in other cases, this portrayal overlooks the fact that other mental phenomena we now class as `emotional' are far more positively viewed. Second, while impassibility in the early church is often portrayed as unanimous and homogenous, I seek to show the many different ways in which the Fathers of the early church affirmed impassibility and the many different things they meant when they argued for it. In particular, I move away from understanding ancient impassibilism as an affirmation of divine emotionlessness, and draw attention to some interesting 'impassibilist positions proposed by some of the Fathers that seem akin to what would, in modem theology, be termed `passibilism'. Building on this, I suggest that some forms of modem passibilism may not be as much of a break from tradition as has generally been perceived, and propose these moderate positions as a way beyond the seemingly insurmountable impasse between impassibilism and passibilism. In chapter two I seek to provide a partial answer to the question of why impassibilism gave way to a passibilist consensus in the twentieth century and how this relates to altered perceptions of emotion. In the first part of the chapter 1 develop my response to this question by arguing that the idea that impassibilism was replaced by a passibilist consensus is too broad a generalisation.