One of the reasons why I think a lot of people struggle with the idea of “Divine Impassibility” is that sadly it is often badly represented. Take for example, an essay that Matthew Barrett wrote for The Gospel Coalition website.
In the article, he talks about how whenever someone shares about a tragedy they have suffered, then you may well hear the response:
“Don’t worry, God is suffering with you. He is in just as much pain as you. He is just as overcome with grief as you.”
Now, don’t hear me wrong on this. I agree with Matthew that such a statement si not as helpful as we might think it is. I also agree with him that it is not an accurate way of talking about God, however well intentioned. However, read the illustration that Matthew offers in response to such statements. He says:
“To bring this point home, consider an illustration from my book, None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God. Imagine if your house suddenly caught on fire. As you escape the flames and watch from the street, you realize that your child is still inside. What if, in that moment, a neighbor ran up to you and, wanting to feel your pain and empathize with you, your neighbor lit themselves on fire?
Naturally, you would look at them in disbelief, perhaps even maddened by the insanity of their response. Who do you really need in that moment? You need that firefighter who can, with a steady, controlled confidence, survey the situation, run into the flames, and save your child from death’s grip. Only the firefighter who refuses to be overcome by emotional meltdown is your hope in that hellish experience.
Point is, a God who suffers, a God subject to emotional change, is not all that comforting on second thought. A God who suffers may be like us, but he cannot rescue us. In fact, an emotional God is just as helpless as we are. In times of suffering we need a God who does not suffer, one who can overcome suffering in order to redeem us and return justice to this evil world.
I would suggest that this illustration gets to the very heart of the problem that many people have with the current breed of neo-classical-theists. First of all, it sets up bizarre and extreme counter points. Do we have to choose between the unemotional fire-fighter and the neighbour who sets themselves on fire. Indeed, it is not surprising that people have a problem with empathy right now, if they think that what Barrett describes here is empathy.
We might also observe that if it is the fire itself that causes suffering, then the fire-fighter’s emotional distance will not protect him from the flames. The firefighter may well himself suffer as he goers in to rescue the child. Indeed, exactly because of those risks to himself, you perhaps do not want a unemotional fire-fighter. You don’t want him to be overwhelmed and have an emotional break down (again it is somewhere between fascinating and disturbing that the presumption is that this will be the result of emotion as though oit is not possible to be emotional and in control of those emotions). The risk with such a firefighter is tha the may make a calculation that the child’s life is not worth saving in terms of the cost factors. There is benefit to having the rescuer who empathises and has some emotional investment in success.
Thirdly and most significant here, I suspect that most of us are naturally going to follow biblical language and expect that an analogy about a father of a child in danger is most likely to make the analogous connection between God and the father rather than the firefighter. Does God really need an impersonal force outside of himself to save us. The illustration is poor because it fails to go with the grain of Scriptural imagery. The impression is given that an alien interloper is brought in to replace the Father God of Scripture.
There are some logical implications which Barrett claims which simply don’t follow because he is working in binary terms. The reality is that suffering would not be a barrier to God saving us, would not make him just like us. It’s possible for a doctor, fireman or indeed anyone to suffer pain and to feel emotion without that impeding their ability to act. Once again, the impression is given that whilst doctrine defenders pay lip service to true emotion, they don’t really seem to ge tit. Emotion itself is treated with suspicion. Again, I do not believe that God suffers but the reasons why this is so is not because suffering would prevent God from being able to save.
Note too, that Barret’s conclusion looks a little off centre because the reality is that unless we are prosperity teachers, the alternative to the co-suffering God isn’t usually presented as the God who will rescue you from your suffering. In fact, God is the one who most often than not sustains us through our suffering, using the suffering we go through for our good. Indeed, if the sufferer is the father in Barrett’s analogy, then suppose that we reach the critical point where the child cannot be saved. At that stage, neither the self-destructive neighbour nor the controlled confident fire-fighter are going to be any use to the man. He needs someone to come and put their arm around him, someone who gets the suffering he is now going through. Dare I say it, at that point he needs a father.
Now, Barrett goes on to acknowledge that his illustration has a flaw, though not the ones describes above. He also rightly insists that “impassible” is not the same as “apathetic, so as I’ve said elsewhere, impassibility is not a denial of God’s affections. However, I think what we have seen is that he has immediately responded to the most extreme of potential errors with regards to the doctrine he wants to defend. Further, he has defended that doctrine as a theologian and so there seems to be a lack of pastoral insight and practicality in his response. The result is that whilst he may hold and articulate the nuanced doctrine, his response to error is to hit back with what comes across as the unnuanced version.
Going back to the pastoral situation. I would want to respond to the “God is suffering with you” attempt to counsel a little differently. First, I’d encourage the step back. Most explanations rarely cut it in the midst of grief and suffering. What is needed first at that point is for us to weep with, to empathise with to suffer with our brothers and sisters. That’s what God’s Word tells us to do.
Secondly, when it is time to talk, then I do want to move us away from the language of God suffering or being overwhelmed with our grief. I do however want to talk about his affections. I do want to talk about his love for those who are suffering and I do want to talk about his sadness and wrath at evil.
Thirdly, I want to go the incarnation and describe how God the Son, in regard to his human nature took on our suffering. I want to point them to the Great High Priest that we have.
Faithroots 