Channels, Fall 2016

Page 2 Little • Emotions and the Divine Nature God's immutability, virtuousness, and status as creator. It was used to indicate that God was not overwhelmed by passions like the pagan and gnostic deities. This article shall serve as an introductory argument for this understanding of the patristic doctrine of impassibility. In the demonstration of my thesis, I will focus primarily upon emotions in the Godhead rather than suffering. 4 Furthermore, I will focus predominantly upon the Greek apologists (specifically Justin Martyr and Athenagoras) 5 and Irenaeus of Lyons. 6 These thinkers are helpful to this project because they are situated quite early in the theological thought of the church. Furthermore, they include a philosophical theologian (Athenagoras), a Biblical theologian (Irenaeus), and a theologian who falls somewhere in the middle (Justin Martyr). Before we examine these theologians, we must first set the stage by addressing two common misconceptions: first, that the terms for impassibility had only one possible linguistic meaning that was tied to complete emotionlessness, 7 and second, that patristic theologians formulated divine impassibility by simply accepting Greek thought on the subject. Intellectual Backgrounds: Linguistic Analysis In the early Greek fathers’ writings, the terms translated as impassibility and impassible are απαθεια and απαθης, respectively. Απαθεια is the noun form, while απαθης is the cognate adjective. Understanding the origin and flexibility of these terms is important in order to understand the concept that the fathers used these words to convey. This is especially important since these terms have often been assumed to describe something as completely static and emotionless. The basic lexical structure of απαθεια suggests against such a narrow definition. Απαθεια is an apophatic term and is effectively a negation of παθος. 8 Παθος has the basic meaning of passion or emotion. 9 However, it often carries the connotation of strong desire or lust. 10 This derivation suggests that απαθεια, and by extension its cognate adjective, απαθης, has a possible range of meaning from a denial of all 4 I intend to focus on this for two reasons. First, the question of emotions specifically does not seem to have been as closely studied as the question of suffering in terms of historical theology. Second, emotions/passions seem to be the predominant focus of the theologians we shall study. This paper will further focus on this question within the question of divine nature itself rather than in the Incarnation, due to both the reasons described above and necessity of limiting the scope of such paper. Such an examination is, of course, important to a final analysis of this doctrine in Christian belief and practice. It is worth noting that many of the fathers we discuss are perfectly willing to say that Jesus was in some sense passible during the incarnation. 5 These two were selected due to their greater contribution to the subject and actual usage of απαθης (impassible). 6 The demonstration and examination contained in this paper will be preliminary in nature. There remains much work to be done on each of these thinkers. Examination of related patristic thinkers from slightly varying times and schools would be welcome as well. However, the examination contained within this paper allows us to provisionally assert a nuanced understanding of impassibility in these early Greek fathers. 7 This often a subconscious misperception, but a damaging and important one nonetheless. 8 This is clear from the usage and structure of the term itself and is noted by Liddell-Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, 170-171. 9 See both Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon, 994 and Liddell-Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, 1285. 10 Bauer, Danker, Arndt, & Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature , 748.