Divine Impassibility and Our Suffering God

An important aspect of the Christian gospel that seeks to proclaim the love, mercy, and compassion of God is the affirmation of God’s identification and solidarity with human suffering. A suffering humanity needs a God who knows what it means to suffer. The church has traditionally met this need by emphasizing the passion and death of Jesus Christ. Especially in the theology of the Reformation, a “theology of the cross” sought to recognize God’s self-revelation hidden in the humility, shame, and suffering of the cross of Jesus Christ. Through the theology of the cross, God is known as the God who suffers with and for humanity. Yet, how does God identify with human suffering? Does God suffer in himself, in his own being; or is God immutable (unchanging), and therefore impassible (incapable of suffering), as the church has historically affirmed? Can God’s impassibility be upheld while at the same time affirming his real awareness of, and true identification with, human suffering? Why is it theologically important to maintain the historical witness to God’s impassibility, especially in the face of so much suffering in today’s world?

In this article, I will seek to answer these questions in two ways. Negatively, I will offer a critique of the contemporary theological trend that seeks to attribute suffering to God’s being, or to assert God’s passibility. (1) This trend affirms that God suffers in himself, and that the suffering of Jesus is the actual suffering of his divine nature. A clearly articulated representation of the general trend, and a viewpoint also being voiced in wider evangelicalism, is Jurgen Moltmann’s theology of the cross. The most important discussion of Moltmann’s theology of the cross is found in his book, The Crucified God, where he attempts both to understand God’s being from the suffering and death of Jesus and to apply this understanding to what he calls a “theology after Auschwitz.” (2) A representation of this theological project in contemporary evangelicalism is found in Dennis Ngien’s article, “The God Who Suffers,” which appeared in the February 3, 1997, edition of Christianity Today. (3) Positively, I will seek to answer these questions by reaffirming the Christian historical understanding of the trinitarian conceptual distinction, the incarnation, and Chalcedonian two-nature Christology; and by demonstrating the proper relationship between them as the context for a theology of the cross. In view of these key doctrinal formulations, I will demonstrate how an evangelical theology of the cross can and should affirm both divine impassibility and God’s true identification and solidarity with the suffering of this hurting world.

The Modern Understanding of Love

One of the key motives for affirming a theology of the cross that attributes suffering to the being of God is a modern understanding of love that is founded upon the freedom of God. This understanding of love is held in common by both theologies under consideration here. Drawing insights from modern psychology, this view of the nature of love focuses on the concept of relational reciprocity: an exchange of feelings in the voluntary opening of oneself to vulnerability, or the possibility of being affected by another. (4) This sort of love is seen as the acceptance of the other without regard to one’s own being. It necessarily includes the possibility of sharing in suffering and the freedom to suffer, and therefore must be a voluntary act of will. As such, it creates the possibility for an alternate view of suffering that is neither an unwilling suffering that results from some alien cause, nor apatheia or the incapability of suffering. When applied to God, this “suffering of love” has as its very foundation the freedom of God to choose to be affected by human action and suffering in history. Both Moltmann and Ngien move from this notion of love to divine passibility by arguing that God’s suffering love for humanity, working in freedom, must flow out of the fullness of God’s being. Furthermore, to love in the fullness of his being, God must reciprocally take suffering, even death, into his own being. Thus, for these theologies of divine passibility, God may truly and justly be God for humanity through his loving, voluntary openness to our suffering, in which he intrinsically participates.

This understanding of the nature of love is useful when applied to humanity and to the person of Jesus in general. It broadens and enriches the classical theistic view of love as merely an attitude and action of goodwill toward another. However, I contend that to apply this notion of love to the intrinsic being of God is problematic when analyzed in light of the traditional Christian doctrine of the Trinity that draws a conceptual distinction between what is referred to as the immanent (or ontological) Trinity and as the economic Trinity. In recognizing that their relational, reciprocal concept of love must focus on God’s external, or extrinsic, relationship to the creation as it is also applied to God’s own being, both Moltmann and Ngien are forced to resolve the resulting conflict between God’s external works and the triune intrinsic being of God by stressing the conceptual equivalence of the immanent and the economic Trinity. However, when this modern understanding of love is applied to the intrinsic being of God through this elimination of the trinitarian conceptual distinction, it becomes problematic in that it also eliminates the freedom of God it holds as foundational. In order to demonstrate this, I will first briefly explain what is meant by this trinitarian distinction in the historical Christian doctrine of the Trinity.

The Conceptual Trinitarian Distinction

The conceptual distinction between the immanent and economic Trinity has traditionally been affirmed in obedience to the biblical witness of God’s transcendence from his creation, and his freedom in relationship to it, and God’s immanence in the creation in terms of his external acts. Briefly stated, the immanent Trinity refers to the being of God insofar as he is transcendent from his creation and focuses on God’s internal acts (his acts ad intra). The economic Trinity refers to the God who is immanent in his creation and consists solely of God’s actions outside of himself in relation to his creation (his acts ad extra). The immanent Trinity is the intrinsic Trinity or “God in himself,” while the economic Trinity is extrinsic or “God for us.” In terms of relationship, the concept of the immanent Trinity is primary to that of the economic Trinity and therefore exists necessarily; the latter is dependent and contingent upon the former, and exists only when God acts externally. The priority of the notion of the immanent Trinity is the foundation of the freedom and self-sufficiency of God; God does not need the creation to exist-God exists in himself prior to, and independent from, his act of creation. This makes it possible to affirm that God is free in relation to his creation since he does not have to act ad extra, but can choose to relate to the creation or choose not to. Thus, intrinsically, God is independent and ontologically distinct from his creation even as he freely chooses to exist in relationship to it. It is this point that serves as the basis for the freedom of God. Here, God’s “otherness” is always affirmed in both his transcendence and immanence; and here, God is able to be immutable and impassible and creative and in relationship with creation.

The notion of the economic Trinity also relates to the immanent Trinity as its reiteration; the former corresponding to or revealing the latter. This precise reiteration makes it possible to affirm that God has truly revealed himself in his external works. Thus, the God who reveals himself to be in his acts ad extra truly corresponds to whom God is in his very being ad intra. It should be noted that while God’s acts ad extra constitute a true reiteration or revelation of himself, this revelation is not exhaustive of his intrinsic being. This differentiation serves to confirm the veracity of God’s self-revelation on the one hand, while it maintains God’s otherness, infinitude, and incomprehensibility on the other. One further important point concerning the relationship between the concepts of the immanent Trinity and the economic Trinity is referenced theologically by the phrase, “Opera Trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa” (the external works of the Trinity are undivided). This affirms that the whole Godhead is present in whatever God does ad extra, or external to himself. It seeks to maintain the unity of the Trinity in the relational actions of God that are often manifested particularly as the operation of one or another of the persons of the Godhead.

As I stated above, theologies such as Moltmann’s and Ngien’s-which seek to attribute an external, relational aspect of God to his intrinsic being,must diminish this traditional distinction between the immanent and economic Trinity. Moltmann recognizes this when he follows Karl Rahner in eliminating the distinction altogether and affirming them as one and the same. He argues that this traditional concept of the immanent Trinity as a closed circle of divine being distinct from God’s external acts is inadequate. Stressing the loving “mutual relationship” within God himself, and between himself and the world, Moltmann sees God’s relationship to the world as having a “retroactive” effect on his primary relationship to himself. God affects the world and is affected by his experiences of the world to the point that the economic Trinity can be understood as actually taken up into the immanent Trinity. Thus, he recommends a “Trinitarian concept of the cross,” which focuses on the event of the cross that occurs between the Father and the Son, and as the kyrios (pivotal or dominant event) of the history of the world. (5) Here, Moltmann affirms that, at the cross, not only suffering but all of history is taken into the intrinsic being of God. Thus, with this concept of the Trinity, rather than with that of the traditional trinitarian distinction, the true scope of Moltmann’s theology of the cross and his doctrine of divine passibility are realized.

Divine Love, Freedom, and the Trinitarian Distinction

The specific understanding of love in the modern sense of reciprocity, with its focus on God’s voluntary opening of his own being to suffering, is fundamentally based on the relational freedom between God’s intrinsic being and his external acts. However, I contend that because only the historical trinitarian distinction maintains this freedom of God, theologies of divine passibility that eliminate this distinction will ultimately prove theologically unworkable. The attempt to hold together this modern relational understanding of divine love, freedom, and passibility, with the elimination of the trinitarian distinction, can be examined revealingly in terms of the conflation of one aspect of the Trinity into the other. Understanding the elimination of the trinitarian distinction in this way will show how God is not free in terms of this view, thus taking away that which Moltmann and Ngien hold as central to their theologies. This point can be demonstrated with the following two arguments.

First, if the concept of the immanent Trinity is conflated into that of the economic Trinity, then God’s being is his acts ad extra. The immanent Trinity is neither reiterated nor revealed in God’s external acts, but it is God’s external acts. Thus, God’s being exists only in terms of his external relationships and, if that is true, then God must relate to the creation in order to exist. God is no longer free not to relate to the world since he is dependent upon the creation for his existence. Furthermore, if God’s being ad intra is one and the same as his self-revelation ad extra, then it would not be possible to affirm that God existed in himself before his external act of creation. Thus, this move unacceptably leads to monism (God and the creation are one) in that it eliminates the freedom of God in his otherness and transcendence as related to his external acts.

Second, and more pertinent to these theologies of passibility, when the idea of the economic Trinity is conflated into that of the immanent Trinity, then God’s acts ad extra are in God or constitute the very intrinsic being of God. Here, God himself is not merely reiterated or revealed in his external acts; God’s external acts are “in” God himself. If God’s acts ad extra constitute his being, then these acts must necessarily take on the reality of divinity since divinity is the reality of God’s being. This is the case even if God’s acts ad extra constitute, but do not exhaust, his reality since they would take on the reality of divinity by having any part in the intrinsic reality of God. Thus, if God takes human suffering into his own being, then this suffering takes on the divine being of God. Suffering that is raised to the status of divinity by being “in” God must then become associated with the divine intrinsic nature of eternality or freedom from time. It would no longer be possible to say that there was a time when God did not suffer, and then in freedom God chose to suffer; when suffering is associated with his intrinsic being and “divinized” or “eternalized,” it is not accurate to talk of it in temporal terms. This is exemplified in the human experience of begetting as it is applied to the divine intrinsic relationship between the Father and the Son. When the Father is spoken of as begetting the Son in terms of the immanent Trinity as an act ad intra, the term “begetting” takes on an eternal and perpetual significance: the Son is eternally and perpetually begotten. In the same way, when suffering takes on an eternal and perpetual significance by virtue of its incorporation into the immanent Trinity, it can no longer be said that there was a time before when it was not and a time after when it is. When suffering is taken into the being of God, it always and everlastingly is. The God who loves from the fullness of his own being by “taking up” suffering into his own being is eternally and perpetually suffering. This suffering will never be overcome. Moreover, a passible God who takes suffering into his own intrinsic being is not and never has been free not to suffer. Divine suffering in this sense becomes as necessary for God’s intrinsic being as any of his attributes. When God is understood as eternally and perpetually suffering, he can never be understood as not suffering. Thus, it is at this key point concerning the freedom of God that the application of love as reciprocity to the being of God becomes problematic. Without God’s freedom in relation to suffering, there can be no true, voluntary love, and no divine passibility according to the terms in which modern theologies of passibility such as Moltmann’s and Ngien’s want to define them.

Yet, a mediating position might state that although God the Son, incarnate on the cross, takes suffering into his own being, God the Father could have participated in the suffering in some qualitatively distinct way that maintained God’s passibility as well as God’s freedom. Again, I answer, “Opera Trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa“; what is attributed to one person of the Trinity is necessarily attributed to the Trinity as a unity of three persons. To argue that a distinct intrinsic work, experience, or relation of God the Father is in any degree ontologically separate from that of God the Son is to deny the unity of the Godhead that this historical affirmation seeks to maintain. The unity of the Godhead is clearly disrupted if it is affirmed, for example, that while God the Son suffered and died on the cross in his own being, God the Father remained impassible and alive in his. Since it is the triune God who is always and everywhere present, it must follow that God in his tri-unity was present on the cross, although the work is properly understood as distinctly that of the divine second person. Therefore, I would argue that a move in the direction of this sort of mediating view is a move toward tritheism.

Divine Suffering and the Person of Jesus Christ

Although these theologies of divine passibility ultimately prove to be problematic theologically, this does not leave humanity with a God who does not relate to human suffering. I believe that both Moltmann and Ngien properly look to a theology of the cross and to the suffering of Jesus as a true revelation of God in solidarity with suffering humanity. They each ask what the cross of Jesus means for God himself. Ngien answers that the divine nature of Jesus participated in the suffering of the cross in such a way that, “The human suffering of Jesus is really God’s own suffering: God suffered as we do.” (6) Moltmann is even clearer when he concludes, “If that [God himself suffering and dying on the cross] is taken seriously it must also be said that, like the cross of Christ, even Auschwitz is in God himself.” (7) While I agree here with Moltmann and Ngien that conclusions concerning the suffering of God can and should be drawn from God’s self-revelation hidden in the humility and suffering of Christ on the cross, I contend that these conclusions must be understood within the context of properly related doctrines of Christology, the Trinity, and the incarnation. Thus, any conclusions affirming the intrinsic suffering of God’s being as the divine nature of Jesus are as problematic as those relating to the elimination of the trinitarian conceptual distinction. This point can be demonstrated by applying the conclusions reached above to the following brief outline of the historical Christian understanding of the incarnation and two-nature Christology, which focuses on the doctrine of the hypostatic union.

The hypostatic union simply refers to the synthesis or hypostasis of the divine and human natures in the one person of Jesus Christ. The doctrine of the hypostatic union is founded upon the assumption that it is cogent to speak of a human nature and a divine nature that include the full attributes or all the essential qualities that make up humanity or divinity, respectively. Furthermore, while the human nature as a created thing does not necessarily exist (since its essential qualities are found in its nature rather than in its subsistence), the divine nature does exist necessarily (since God’s nature or essence includes existence). In other words, the qualities essential to humanity can be divided from their particular instantiation or hypostasis, but God’s cannot. This distinction is important for understanding the anhypostasis and enhypostasis characteristics of the human nature of Jesus as it relates to the hypostatic union.

Although the ancient Church fathers borrowed the concepts of “anhypostasis” and “enhypostasis” from the philosophy of Aristotle, they employed these terms (in this context) to describe certain supernatural realities that transcend, not only their use in Greek philosophy, but also the possibilities inherent in our natural world. Anhypostasis defines the human nature of Jesus as not having its own instantiation or existence. Enhypostasis defines the human nature of Jesus as having its existence only in the divine Son or Logos. The human person of Jesus must be an instantiation of human nature in the same way that any specific human person must be an instantiation of the human nature. However, the doctrine of the hypostatic union holds that the human nature of Jesus exists, not in an instantiation or subsistence of a specific human person, but in the instantiation or subsistence of the divine Son. The divine Logos or God the Son, who is necessarily both divine nature and the instantiation of that nature, “took on human flesh” (John 1:14). Thus, the hypostatic union involves the divine Son, with both divine nature and hypostasis, becoming the hypostasis of the human nature. This makes it possible to affirm that the incarnate Jesus possesses a human nature and a divine nature united in one hypostasis or person. This doctrine of the two natures in traditional Chalcedonian Christology seeks not only to make a distinction between the divine and human natures, but also to assert their unity in the one person of Jesus. The one-person Jesus is both fully human, possessing all the essential qualities or attributes of humanity, and fully divine, possessing all the essential qualities or attributes of divinity. Therefore, it is equally proper to assert, from the Chalcedonian perspective, that the historical person Jesus is God and man.

Of course, many issues arise from this outline of the hypostatic union that are all worthy of serious analysis. Important to this discussion, however, are the implications of the trinitarian distinction and the doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum (communication of proper qualities between the two natures) as they are applied to this basic understanding of the hypostatic union. These implications form the proper context for a theology of the cross as they profoundly affect the way God may be understood as suffering in the person of Jesus. Because Jesus Christ is not merely a revelation of God, but actually God the Son incarnate, the intrinsic being of God must be present necessarily, actually, and ontologically in the person of Jesus as his divine nature and hypostasis. Thus, the trinitarian distinction relates to the incarnation in such a way that it can be affirmed that Jesus is fully God himself, and that the extrinsic work of the person Jesus is a true reiteration or self-revelation of God’s being, or “God for us.” It is for this reason that Jesus understands his personality and personhood in terms of Sonship; that is, as the Son of God (Matt. 11:27; John 10:30), as well as Son of Man (Matt. 16:13). In this context of the hypostatic union, the tradition affirms the doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum in order to better understand the way in which the human nature and the being of God as the divine nature coexist in the one person of Jesus. By this doctrine, it is generally understood that the proper qualities of each nature in the unity of the person of Jesus are interchanged or communicated from one nature to the other within the hypostatic union. Given this simple definition of the doctrine, it is important to note the one key implication that demonstrates the problem with affirming God’s intrinsic passibility in the suffering of Jesus.

This implication of the communicatio idiomatum is simply that there are some attributes distinctly related to each nature that are not communicated to the other. That is, what can be properly attributed to one nature of the hypostatic union is not necessarily properly attributed to the other. For example, the divine attribute of infinitude, while fully present in the divine nature, cannot be communicated to the human nature. This is simply because an infinite human nature is something more than what is properly human; therefore, if Jesus possessed an infinite human nature, soteriological problems would arise since he would not be human in the same sense as humanity in general. If this were the case, Jesus would not be truly human in the same way he would not be truly God if his divine nature did not possess infinitude, or if the finitude of the human nature were attributed to the divine. Likewise, while it is proper to attribute suffering to the human nature, the divine nature of Jesus could not suffer as the intrinsic being of God for the reasons concluded in the discussion of the trinitarian distinction above. The specific human quality of suffering cannot be attributed to God’s eternal being in the same way that the specific human quality of finitude cannot be attributed to God’s infinite being. Suffering is an experience of human nature that cannot be properly communicated to the divine. Therefore, it should be concluded that, although the person of Jesus did indeed experience suffering, the divine nature-which, as I have shown, must remain impassible in order to be freely and fully God-could not and in fact did not suffer within the hypostatic union. The precise reality of the communication of divine and human attributes in the person of Jesus is beyond human comprehension. Yet, this discussion demonstrates the importance of maintaining an understanding of the doctrine between the boundaries of a total separation (Nestorianism) and a complete confusion (Eutychianism) of the attributes of the divine and human natures.

Theologies of the cross holding to divine passibility, such as Moltmann’s and Ngien’s, which seek to affirm the intrinsic suffering of God in the passion and death of Jesus, push the doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum beyond what it historically intended to affirm. Moltmann criticizes Martin Luther’s theology of the cross for not relating what he referred to as the suffering of God in the person of Jesus to the intrinsic triune being of God. This is due, as Moltmann acknowledges, to Luther’s careful articulation of the suffering of God within the context of traditional Chalcedonian Christology. (8) Moltmann, however-by articulating the Christology of Chalcedon within the context of his notion of love and divine passibility-proceeds beyond Luther in denying, at least in terms of suffering, the qualitative distinction between the divine and human natures of the one person of Jesus that the doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum seeks to maintain. In the context of Chalcedon, Luther rightly wants to speak of God as truly suffering in the person of Jesus; but he does not want to attribute this suffering specifically to the divine nature and ultimately to the intrinsic triune being of God. Thus, Luther holds his theologies of the Trinity, incarnation, and two-nature Christology in proper relationship and as the context for his theology of the cross.

Properly Relating These Key Doctrinal Formulations

The properly related historical doctrines of the trinitarian distinction, incarnation, and two natures of Christ do not allow free movement between what is properly attributed to the hypostatic unity of the person of Jesus (which may be the essential attributes of each nature) and what is properly attributed to each specific nature. For example, it is proper to affirm that the incarnate person of Jesus as the God-man is infinite and eternal, as well as able to suffer and die. But it is not proper to say that the specific human nature of Jesus is infinite and eternal, or that the specific divine nature of Jesus can suffer and die. To take the doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum out of the context of the person of Jesus and apply it without limitation to the particular natures of the hypostatic union, is to confuse the two natures and push the doctrine beyond the boundary of Eutychianism.

This error is exemplified by Ngien when he states, in focusing on the person of Jesus, “Evangelicals should not be offended at the thought that the death of the crucified Christ involved not only the humanity of Jesus but also his deity”; and then states, when he moves to a focus on the two natures of Jesus specifically, “Christ’s death would be the death of just another human being, [if not for] the death of the Son of God.” (9) I agree that the suffering and death of Jesus do involve his humanity and deity in the sense that he is the incarnate God-man; that God suffered and died for us in Jesus Christ is a true and accurate assertion. However, in light of a properly applied doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum, it must be affirmed that the divine nature of Jesus did not specifically suffer and die in and of itself, but only in reference to the unity of the person of the God-man. For, in addition to the conclusions stated above, the intrinsic death of God in the specific death of the divine nature of Jesus is obviously problematic since in God we all “live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). If God actually and intrinsically dies, then the whole of creation, which he alone sustains, must also die with him. Furthermore, a death experienced by God within which he may still actively sustain creation or resurrect himself is not a death in solidarity with that experienced by humanity. The mystery of the incarnation is not in the actual death of God’s intrinsic being; it is in the precise reality of the communication of attributes between the two distinct natures in the unity of the one person of Jesus. Thus, within the relational context of these historical Christian trinitarian, incarnational, and christological doctrines, it is possible to affirm that Jesus, as the God-man in the true mystery of the incarnation, suffered in a way that makes possible the affirmation that God, though intrinsically impassible, truly suffered in solidarity with humanity.

Divine Impassibility and Our Suffering God

I have argued that the modern understanding of love, which is a primary motivation for contemporary theological affirmations of divine passibility, is founded upon the freedom of God; and that the freedom of God is preserved by the traditional conceptual distinction between the immanent Trinity and the economic Trinity. Furthermore, I maintained that the trinitarian distinction must be confused or eliminated when this modern understanding of love is applied to the intrinsic being of God; and that the resulting loss of God’s freedom makes divine passibility, based upon this notion of love, problematic. In addition to this, I demonstrated that when this conclusion is properly applied to the incarnation and traditional two-nature Christology, the problem with attributing suffering specifically to the divine nature of Jesus is also clear. Thus, I have shown how affirming divine passibility is problematic for evangelicals who want to remain faithful to the revelation of Scripture as it has been witnessed to historically in the traditional doctrinal formulations of Christology, the Trinity, and the incarnation. I have also shown how evangelicals, by maintaining a proper relationship between these doctrines serving as the context for a theology of the cross, can affirm both divine impassibility and God’s identification and solidarity with human suffering in the person of Jesus Christ. I will now conclude with an answer to the concern as to why modern evangelicals should affirm both divine impassibility and the suffering of God with a focus on the trinitarian distinction.

It should be understood that the trinitarian distinction is the conceptual key that locks the door on our attempts to “humanize” God or, in this case, to bring the infinitely qualitatively distinct and incomprehensible God closer to humanity through the application of human suffering to God’s intrinsic triune being. In this way, the trinitarian distinction prevents us from re-creating God after our own image. Yet, the trinitarian distinction is also the conceptual key that opens the door for the understanding of God himself as freely relating to humanity in the incarnate person of Jesus. It properly points humanity to Jesus, who is the only mediator through which God and humanity may meet in true solidarity. The more human we try to make God, the less we need the incarnation. But the more we acknowledge the radical otherness and transcendence of God, through the affirmation of traditional doctrines such as the trinitarian distinction and divine impassibility, the more we will cherish, lift up, and worship Jesus Christ who is the incarnation of God, the Immanuel, or “God with and for us.”

Rather than following after the contemporary trend of theological thought that seeks to affirm divine passibility in the face of profound human suffering, evangelicals should reaffirm this historical Christian doctrine of the trinitarian distinction with its christological and incarnational implications. Through this doctrine, we understand that God must be impassible to be freely and fully God for humanity. Only through this freedom and fullness may God truly be in loving relationship with humanity. And only in the affirmations of this trinitarian distinction, as they are properly applied to Christology and the incarnation as the context for a theology of the cross, may we affirm both the divine impassibility of God and the loving, voluntary choice of God to suffer in the passion and death of the person of Jesus Christ in true solidarity with suffering humanity.