The Doctrine of Impassibility

Because humans are made in the image of God, and humans are changeable, this seems to suggest that God Himself is changeable as well.

Additionally, because changing emotional states requires the ability to change, and because in various Scriptural accounts, God seems to change, the Bible seems to point to God being changeable. However, this is an incorrect, and potentially extremely dangerous, view of God. Rather, the view of God which theologists like Boethius, Anselm, and Aquinas agree with is right.

Boethius, Anselm, and Aquinas are correct in asserting that God is unchangeable and impassible because God is immutable and outside of time.

God must be outside of time. Gen. 1.1 says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (English Standard Version). If God created in the beginning, then before the beginning, there must have been God. The beginning denotes the beginning of a certain thing: specifically, the beginning of time. If God existed before the beginning of time, which this verse points to, God must be outside of time.

Additionally, Psalm 90:2 proclaims, “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting, you are God” (ESV). The psalmist says that God extends forever into the past and forever into the future. Only something eternal can stretch endlessly into the past as well as endlessly into the future. If time had a beginning, which it does, something eternal cannot exist inside of it. Infinite things do not exist inside finite things.

Christians must believe God is outside of time because the Scripture describes Him as being eternal, and to be eternal means to be outside of time, because eternity is infinite, and time is finite, and the finite cannot exist in the finite.

Because time is finite, and God is infinite, God exists out of time.

Philosophy tells Boethius in Consolation of Philosophy, “That which includes and possesses the whole fulness of unending life at once …  this is rightly called eternal” (Cons. of  Phil., 5.6). To “include and possess the fullness of unending life at once” means continuing eternally as the same person.

As a human’s life develops, as a human passes through time, he will change, minute to minute, second to second, millisecond to millisecond. Human life is a flipbook: every page, or second, or moment, there is a new version of the human, or a new drawing in the flipbook.

As Philosophy points out later,  “... it is one thing for existence to be endlessly prolonged … another for the whole of an endless life to be embraced in the present” (Cons. of Phil., 5.6): if existence is endlessly prolonged, this would be similar to having an infinite scrapbook.

However, that which is eternal, has a life like a painting: steady, eternal, and unchanging.

There is no new drawing every moment, as there is in a flipbook. God exists in a sort of eternal present, and all of Him exists in that moment. Only something which exists in time can change, because only something which exists in time has an opportunity to change. Because God is eternal, and exists endlessly in an “eternal present”, He is unchangeable. 

Because God is unchangeable, He is impassible.

To be human, or to live in time, is to change constantly: a tree today is different from that same tree last night, if only slightly. In the same way, any human today is different from that human even yesterday. This, in part, is because of emotions; when emotions change, the human changes. It is a different thing to be happy one hour, and sad another hour.

Emotions are only a part of a changeable creature.

As Anselm of Canterbury says it, “[God] exists as a whole everywhere” (P. ch 18). Because God exists as the same Person at all times anywhere, and because God does not change, then God cannot have different emotions at different times. He must always be just, merciful, and love. To say that God is impassible is not to deny His powerful love, but rather to assert that God is never not love.

Christians feel God’s powerful love because that is who He is, rather than an emotion that He feels.

It is impossible to both be a Christian and deny God’s powerful love, but the doctrine of impassibility does not deny it, but rather states that God’s love must exist at all times, because He is love.

However, some would still attempt to deny this idea of immutability, while looking to Scripture that seemingly paints God as a creator as changeable as His creation. Exodus 32 is a primary example: “But Moses implored the LORD his God and said, ‘O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? … Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants …’ And the Lord relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.” (Exod. 32.11-14).

In the passage, God seems to be about to destroy the Israelite people, until Moses intercedes and appears to change God’s mind. If not read carefully, one could assume that God was at one point wrathful and switches to mercy when Moses speaks to Him. But because God is always all of His attributes, this must be incorrect.

God, instead of changing His mind flippantly, is showing Moses parts of His  character to teach him His mercy.

The Israelites deserved God’s judgment, but He is teaching Moses to stand up for and to lead the Israelites in the way of God.

Again in Psalm 51, a similar problem arises in verses 16 and 19: “For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it, you will not be pleased with a burnt offering ...then will you delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar” (ESV, Ps. 51.16, 19). But because God is immutable, He is not changing His perspective on offerings, but instead showing His care about heart posture, as verse 17 explains: ““The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (Ps. 51.17). It is clear from the context of the Psalm that God is more concerned with the inward posture of the giver than the sacrifices, and He accepts the outward sacrifices when the inward is inclined towards Him.

Throughout Scripture, God demonstrates His differing attributes in different ways, but He is always the same God.

God is unchangeable and impassible, because God is outside of time, and to be outside of time means unchangeability. Additionally, His “passions” or emotions do not change Him because He does not change. Christians, like the Isralites in the Old Testament, will fail. Christians will sin, like the Israelites did.

But instead of focusing on the sin, and being afraid that they have lost God’s favor, Christians should instead repent.

Because God never changes, once He has loved you, He will not stop. The doctrine of impassibility is essential to the Christians’ assurance.

Christians need not be afraid. In fact, Christians can always trust in God, because He will never change.

Works cited:

The Holy Bible. English Standard Version, Crossway, 2011.

Canterbury, Anselm of. “Proslogion.” The Major Works, Translated by M.J. Charlesworth, Oxford University Press, 2008.

The project gutenberg ebook of the consolation of philosophy of boethius, by boethius, trans. H. R. James. (n.d.). Retrieved December 11, 2024, from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/14328/14328-h/14328-h.htm