Channels, Fall 2016

Page 10 Little • Emotions and the Divine Nature In this passage, Athenagoras continues the theme of God as creator and further ties impassibility to divine simplicity: the great creator God is not made up of parts and should not be described as being governed by distinct passions. After further discussion of God as the one creator, Athenagoras summarizes the kind of God he has presented and includes impassibility among his list of attributes: “We have brought before you a God who is uncreated, eternal, invisible, impassible, incomprehensible, and infinite, who can be apprehended by mind and reason alone, who is encompassed by light, beauty, spirit, and indescribable power, and who created, adorned, and now rules the universe through the Word that issues from Him.” 57 This passage contains three key elements in understanding impassibility. First, Athenagoras is clearly carrying on the strongly apophatic tradition of the apologists. Second, he continues to strongly emphasize the status of God as the sovereign creator. This exemplifies a tension noted by Castelo: the apologists often preferred to speak of God by describing what he is not. However, the apologists also demonstrated a desire to speak positively and actively of how God operated in the world as revealed in the Scriptures. 58 The apologists often satisfy this tension by appealing to the “Logos-doctrine,” as Athengoras does here. 59 Third, this passage relates impassibility to a cluster of terms that are also often tied to God’s incorruptibility, especially the terms uncreated , eternal , and infinite . A God who can be described in these terms is one who is stable and not subject to corruption or to decay. He is free from the vicissitudes of created life. Thus, in Athenagoras’ description of the basic Christian conception of God, he asserts impassibility as an apophatic qualifier that is tied to God’s sovereignty and incorruptibility. Athenagoras returns to the concept of impassibility when he addresses the Greek pantheon. We are told that God does not experience anger, lust, or desire. 60 He later explains his rejection of the Greek gods on the grounds that they do not match the nature of the divine being: “For either they are gods and lust does not touch them . . . yet if a god assumes flesh by divine dispensation, is he forthwith a slave of lust?” 61 Here Athenagoras makes an interesting tie between lust and slavery. The divine nature, then, cannot be touched by lust because it cannot be subjected to the domination of such a thing. 62 This relates back to Athenagoras’ earlier descriptions of the divine nature. Impassibility must be upheld to maintain the self-sufficiency of the divine nature, which is uncreated and incorruptible in contrast with the corruptible decaying matter of creation. He reiterates 57 Athenagoras, Legatio , 10.1. 58 Castelo, The Apathetic God, 50-51. 59 Mozley, The Impassibility of God, 15. Mozley notes that the Logos-doctrine allowed the apologists to uphold the Scriptural teaching of Fathership and Sonship within the Godhead without degenerating into the anthropomorphic characteristics of the Greek pantheon, characteristics that are clearly condemned within the Scriptures themselves. 60 Athenagoras, Legatio , 21, 1. 61 Ibid, 21, 4. 62 This explicitly brings out what was hinted at in Justin; the stronger passions are in some sense viewed as external forces that come “take us over” when we submit to them.