Wrestling with an Unbothered God
Ramblings on Impassibility and the Incarnation
A question I’ve been floating for a while now is: Does the classical understanding of God hold any relevance and help for us today?
I’m exploring howmy deep belief in a God whose attributes, when merely named, brought me to tears, and how that affectionate belief endured turbulence and underwent confusion, causing me to question the classical view of an impassible (unaffected or unbothered) God. My thoughts on classical theism and its “relevance,” or helpfulness, should be understood as a wrestle in real-time rather than a finalized, theological position.
Aight.
The doctrine of divine impassibility is derived from the Greek word apatheia. This word was used in Greek philosophy to describe an undeniable and unrivaled quality of equilibrium. Essentially, divine apatheia is God’s inability to feel emotions of suffering or joy as a response to God’s created beings.
Theologians who affirm this doctrine, at least its contemporary iteration, are quick to dispel misconceptions that God’s unaffected nature reveals a deficiency in God’s love for us or compassion for our plight. They require a God removed from a categorically human and sentimental understanding of love. The thought goes like this: We essentially need a loving God to be unaffected because were God to be affected by our thoughts and behaviors, and our troublesome situations, then our salvation would lie in the hands of One as vulnerable as us, implicating God as a weak, unable Savior.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always spent time reflecting on the faith that has been passed down to me. My first-grade teacher taught for over 20 years before I joined her class, then for another 17 years after I passed her class (praise the Ancient One), and she still remembers the philosophical questions I would ask:
“How do we know God exists?”
“Why would God allow us to live for eternity? Isn’t that just cruel?”
But my inquisitiveness lessened as I acquired untouchable categories for God. The moment I affirmed God’s sovereignty, I thereon refused to question the goodness of God despite evil’s presence and its unrelenting consequences. God’s omnipotence became something I relied upon without qualification even when people opened up to me about the horrendous abuse they’d suffered. The sting of human suffering apparently quells in spaces quick to affirm God’s invincibility over vulnerability. This perspective becomes shaky if you sit long enough with the reality of our world. What shook my uninhibited belief in an impassible God was continued exposure to the tragic experiences of others and honest confrontation with my own.
Religion truly does become our opiate when we conceptualize God as a sadist whose greatest joy is our own joy in our suffering.
After too many incidents of cognitive dissonance, I had to acquire a conception of God that wasn’t so removed from on-the-ground realities. Before I entertained such a new path, I would tranquilize my dismay by exulting in God’s transcendence. Why? Because I was a pseudo-Reformed weirdo who was up the creek without a paddle thinking I had sorted out all the metaphysical mysteries of God.
I want to be clear: I find nothing wrong with viewing God as wholly other and as One who transcends our cognitive powers and natural abilities to create beauty out of chaos. I believe that God is wiser and more trustworthy than humans. But, whenever this affirmation necessitates a meager nod to the incalculable horrors of the world and settles for platitudes about God’s goodness amid tragedy, I get mad. At some point, we have to ask ourselves, Is God really in it with us or not? Theories of atonement and the second coming fail to communicate to our bodies the reality of a God who walks with us and has defeated death though death stares us in the face daily.
I have come to resonate with Bonhoeffer’s words written on a scrap of paper from behind prison bars, “only the suffering God can help.”
We can all wonder whether Bonhoeffer was speaking about the Triune God’s divine nature as susceptible to suffering or solely the incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ. But, I prefer to understand God’s whole self as passible, able to feel pain and joy as a response to events within the created order. Without this solidarity and empathy from God, I struggle to trust a God who is for us. Passibility does not reduce God to One as helpless as we are. Conversely, I believe it qualifies God to help us, showing us the divine willingness to enter into our grief over and over again—only unbothered by our belief we can’t keep coming to God for mercy and advocacy.
Scripture gives us irrefutable language for God’s caring response toward us that causes me to question the way we (Christians) view the Divine’s attributes. So, even if God is, in fact, immutable (unchanging) and impassible (unbothered), do we think we must be the same?
There is literally a podcast (found on all platforms) called “The Hard Men Podcast” (the Holy Spirit is restraining me from launching these jokes) whose mission statement is to “recover biblical masculinity in a world of softness.”
Not all, but some functional impassibilists try to project the very strength of God onto themselves, attempting to cultivate a stoicism that they perceive as faithfulness amid fiery trials, but I worry that a Christianity whose goal is to be unbothered is loads more disturbing than the softness of empathetic humanity.
I’m concerned that Classical Theism, if not tended to, can inadvertently lead us to resist our incarnational call, our privilege to walk alongside others in the hopes that our presence and lives point them to the embrace and care of the God of comfort.
The central tenet of Christianity is that Jesus, the Son of God “took on flesh and blood in order to rescue [God’s children] by his death” (Heb 2:14, MSG). Not only that, but the text goes on to say that “By embracing death, taking it into himself, he destroyed the Devil's hold on death and freed all who cower through life, scared to death of death.” This is not giving stoic, strong, unmoved God-vibes to me. It’s giving soft, understanding passion in the very life and heart of God.
Might it be the incarnation of Christ displays for us a new way of imagining and enacting strength? God’s capability to be bothered and moved by evil’s reign over humanity and the vulnerable natural world, manifested in Jesus Christ (Immanuel), belies the notion that God intends to shame us out of our distress at current events and timeless injustices. It also demonstrates the humility of God. The Almighty knowing weakness is only bad news for those whose God promises them a kingdom of control
God loved us enough to be troubled for us. In John 12:27, when Jesus is preparing his disciples for his death, he admits “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.”, Jesus lets us in on the secret that God is aware of our weariness, that Godself is susceptible to the woundedness of humanity, and I believe it is from this acknowledgment that we can invite people into the call to “Follow Jesus”; to sacrifice our possessions and status for the good of another, not by pretending being Christians gives us the supernatural ability to be unbothered, but by letting what bothers us give us the resolve to be present with what we are entrusted at the present hour. And, honestly, leaving what we can’t do to rest in all that Jesus has already done. Resurrection has come to us by way of a moved, bothered, yet still powerful God.
All the yes.