The Impassable God Cannot Comprehend Suffering
The first reason that
the impassible God cannot satisfy the conditions for mutual closeness is
because the impassible God cannot comprehend what it is like to suffer, and
thus cannot comprehend what it is like to be Sally in her suffering. An
impassible God cannot suffer because an impassible God is necessarily in a state
of undisturbed bliss. For such a God, it is metaphysically impossible for Him
to comprehend what it is like to be Sally in her situation of agony. Sally is
in a deep mental anguish, and that is a mental state that an impassible God
cannot possibly understand.
Recall that the classical
theist maintains that God has a perfect cognitive grasp of His own nature. In
grasping His own nature, God experiences perfect, undisturbed bliss. Thus, the
impassible God knows that it is metaphysically impossible for Him to suffer. (R.T.
Mullins, God and Emotion [Cambridge Elements Philosophy of Religion; Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2020], 46-47)
The Impassible God Cannot Be Moved
There is a second
reason that the impassible God cannot comprehend what it is like to be Sally,
and thus is prevented from enjoying mutual closeness with her . . . [in
Classical Theism] it is metaphysically impossible for an impassible God to be
moved or acted on by anything outside God. His emotional state of perfect happiness
is based entirely on Himself. Since an impassible God’s emotional state is
based purely and entirely on Himself, it is metaphysically impossible for an
impassible God to comprehend what it is like to have one’s emotional states
wrapped up in another person. As Randles explains: “The happiness of God is
from the perfection of His nature independently of all other beings . . . it is
not in the power of the creature to spoil or diminish His infinite blessedness”
(Marshall Randles, The Blessed God: Impassibility [London: Charles H.
Kelly, 1900], 44) . . . An impassible God cannot possibly comprehend what it is
like for Sally to place the emotional weight or subjective value that she does
on her son Ben because it is metaphysically impossible for God to have His
emotional states depend on something external to the divine nature. It is
metaphysically impossible for an impassible God to be emotionally invested in
another person because such an investment would render God’s emotional life
dependent on something ad extra to the divine nature. Such a dependence
would be in clear violation of divine impassibility. So an impassible God
cannot possibly understand what it is like to be Sally in her emotional vulnerability
towards her son. Ibid., 47-48)
. . . the
impassibilist might try to argue that some person P could have an understanding
of what it is like to suffer without ever having suffered. Perhaps something
like the following story will get your intuitions pumping in the impassibilist’s
favor:
STORY: Imagine that
the universe popped into existence only five minutes ago. The universe came
into existence with all the appearance of age, including a whole host of
memories and psychological states, etc., that lead the inhabitants of the
universe to believe that it is in fact 13.5 billion years old. Imagine that
Bill finds himself in this universe with the distinct memory of having his foot
caught in a bear trap fifteen years ago. The memory of this experience does not
cause Bill any pain or discomfort at present. However, Bill does understand
what it is like to experience having his foot caught in a bear trap.
The impassibilist might
insist that Bill understands what it is like to suffer even though his
understanding of suffering is not based on any actual experience of suffering.
The goal of this thought experiment is to give the impassible God comprehension
of Sally’s suffering without God’s actually experience Sally or her conscious
states in order to help the impassible God satisfy the desire for union with
the beloved. The passibilist finds this suggestion to be perplexing to say the
least. This is because there is a deep disanalogy in the thought experiment between
Bill and God.
In the thought experiment,
Bill is not in an analogous epistemic situation to that of an impassible God.
Even though Bill does not actually experience suffering, Bill is at least
capable of suffering. The ability of Bill to suffer is one way a philosopher might try to
justify the claim that Bill understands what it is like to suffer. Thus, one
point of disanalogy is this: Bill has the ability to suffer whereas the
impassible God lacks the ability to suffer. Yet there is another point of
disanalogy: an omniscient and impassible God knows that it is metaphysically
impossible for Him to suffer. The impassible God can never be in the same
epistemic state as Bill because He knows His nature well enough to know that
such a thing is impossible. (Ibid., 48-49, emphasis in bold added)
