Glossary of Key Terms

Impassibility (Divine Impassibility)

The traditional theological teaching that God cannot be acted upon, affected, or changed by anything outside of Himself. In its strongest form, impassibility means three things: (1) God cannot suffer; (2) God cannot be causally influenced by anything external to His own nature; and (3) God cannot have emotions that conflict with His perfect goodness, rationality, and blessedness.¹ The word comes from the Latin impassibilis, which literally means "unable to suffer" or "unable to be affected." In the ancient Greek tradition, the related term was apatheia (ἀπάθεια), which meant freedom from uncontrolled passions or disturbances.

Impassibility has been a standard teaching in Christian theology since the early centuries of the church, and it was deeply influenced by Greek philosophy — especially Stoicism, Platonism, and Aristotelianism. The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), for example, declares that God is "without body, parts, or passions." Many classical theologians — including Augustine, Anselm, and Thomas Aquinas — held that God cannot be emotionally moved by anything creatures do, because such movement would imply that God is dependent on something outside of Himself, which would compromise His perfection.

This book argues that impassibility in its strictest form is both philosophically problematic and biblically unsupported. However, the author does affirm a qualified form of impassibility: God's emotions never overwhelm, destabilize, or control Him. In that limited sense — and only that sense — God is "impassible." (See Chapters 3, 7–10, 22–23, and 34 for full discussion.)

Passibility (Divine Passibility)

The theological position that God can be genuinely affected by things outside of Himself — especially by the actions, sufferings, and responses of His creatures. A passible God is a God who truly feels: He genuinely loves, genuinely grieves, genuinely rejoices, and genuinely burns with righteous anger. The word comes from the Latin passibilis, meaning "able to suffer" or "able to be affected."

Passibilists do not believe that God is a helpless victim of His emotions. Rather, they affirm that God freely and sovereignly chooses to be affected by His creatures out of love. God's emotional responsiveness is not a weakness or a deficiency — it is a perfection. It is what it means for God to be genuinely loving, genuinely compassionate, and genuinely relational. Over 400 passages of Scripture describe God's emotional engagement with His creation, and passibilists insist that these passages should be taken as referring to something genuinely real in God's experience — not as mere figures of speech that point to nothing real in God.²

The author of this book holds a qualified passibilist position: God genuinely feels, but His emotions never overwhelm or destabilize Him. (See Chapters 4, 11–21, and 34 for full discussion.)

Qualified Impassibility

A mediating position that affirms impassibility in a limited or modified sense rather than in the strict classical sense. Rather than saying "God has no emotions and cannot be affected by anything external," a qualified impassibilist says something like: "God truly has emotions, but those emotions never overwhelm, destabilize, or control Him." The word "qualified" means that a condition or limitation has been placed on the traditional doctrine — the theologian accepts part of the older teaching while rejecting or modifying other parts.

Several contemporary evangelical scholars have proposed versions of qualified impassibility. Rob Lister speaks of God as "impassible and impassioned."³ Graham Cole offers a "biblically qualified impassibility."⁴ The author of this book also holds a form of qualified impassibility: God is impassible in the sense that He cannot be overwhelmed or destabilized by His emotional life, but He is genuinely passible in the sense that He truly feels and is truly affected by what happens in the world. (See Chapters 10 and 34 for full discussion.)

Biblically Qualified Impassibility

A specific version of qualified impassibility proposed by Graham A. Cole. Cole argues that the classical doctrine of impassibility needs to be reworked so that it is consistent with what the Bible actually teaches about God's emotional life. The Bible, Cole notes, repeatedly describes God as having genuine emotional responses — love, grief, anger, joy, compassion — and any doctrine of impassibility that dismisses all of this language as mere metaphor is not being faithful to Scripture. At the same time, Cole wants to preserve the kernel of truth in the traditional doctrine: God is not overwhelmed or controlled by external forces. So he calls for a version of impassibility that is "biblically qualified" — shaped and corrected by the witness of Scripture rather than by Greek philosophy alone.⁵ (See Chapter 10 for full discussion.)

Passions vs. Affections

In historical theology, a crucial distinction was often drawn between passions and affections. Passions (from the Latin passio, meaning "something undergone" or "something suffered") referred to emotional states that are involuntary, uncontrolled, and imposed on a person from outside — like a sudden rush of anger you cannot stop, or a wave of fear that overwhelms you. In ancient Greek philosophy, passions were typically seen as irrational disturbances of the soul — things that happened to you rather than things you chose. The Stoics especially saw passions as disorders to be eliminated.

Affections, by contrast, referred to emotional states that are more stable, ordered, and under the control of reason and will. An affection is something you feel in a settled, purposeful way — not a knee-jerk reaction but a deep, abiding disposition. Many theologians in the Reformed tradition (such as Jonathan Edwards) were comfortable saying that God has "affections" but not "passions," because affections are rational and purposeful while passions are involuntary and disruptive.

This distinction matters enormously for the divine emotion debate. If emotions are nothing more than involuntary, irrational passions, then of course God — who is perfectly rational and sovereign — cannot have them. But if emotions can be purposeful, rational, and controlled (that is, if they are affections rather than passions), then there is no reason why God cannot have them. This book argues that God's emotional life consists of divine affections — genuine, real, deeply felt responses that are always perfectly appropriate, perfectly rational, and perfectly under God's sovereign control. (See Chapters 2 and 3 for full discussion.)

Emotional Vulnerability

The capacity to be genuinely affected — emotionally moved, hurt, delighted, or grieved — by someone or something outside of oneself. To be emotionally vulnerable means that you can be touched, that what happens to others matters to you in a way that you actually feel, not just in a way that you intellectually acknowledge. Roberto Sirvent argues that emotional vulnerability is not a weakness or a defect but a moral perfection — it is essential to genuine love, genuine compassion, and genuine justice.⁶

The traditional doctrine of impassibility denies emotional vulnerability to God, because being vulnerable means being able to be affected by something external, and classical theologians regarded any such susceptibility as a deficiency. But Sirvent and others argue that a God who is incapable of emotional vulnerability is incapable of genuine love. If God cannot be hurt by our suffering or delighted by our faithfulness, then His "love" is really just a cold, detached benevolence — not the warm, engaged, deeply personal love that Scripture describes. This book agrees: God freely and sovereignly chooses to be emotionally vulnerable to His creatures, and this is a perfection, not a weakness. (See Chapters 4, 22, 31, and 34 for full discussion.)

Classical Theism

The traditional understanding of God that dominated Christian theology from roughly the fourth century through the Reformation and beyond. Classical theism holds that God is timeless (existing outside of time altogether, with no "before" or "after" in His experience), strongly immutable (unable to change in any way whatsoever), simple (not composed of any parts, with all of His attributes being identical to each other and to His essence), and impassible (unable to be affected by anything external).⁷ Classical theism also affirms other divine attributes like omnipotence, omniscience, and moral perfection, but what makes it distinctive is its commitment to timelessness, strong immutability, simplicity, and impassibility — attributes that are seen as systematically connected to each other.

Classical theism drew heavily from ancient Greek philosophy — especially from Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics — though classical theists insist that they were using philosophical concepts to express biblical truths, not importing pagan ideas into Christianity. Key classical theists include Augustine of Hippo, Anselm of Canterbury, Thomas Aquinas, and, in the modern era, scholars like Thomas Weinandy, Paul Helm, and James Dolezal. This book respectfully disagrees with strict classical theism on the questions of timelessness, strong immutability, strict divine simplicity, and strict impassibility, while affirming the core convictions of classical theism about God's self-sufficiency, sovereignty, and moral perfection. (See Chapters 3, 7–8, and 22–23 for full discussion.)

Neoclassical Theism

A modern approach to the doctrine of God that affirms God's genuine responsiveness to creation while still maintaining His sovereignty, omniscience, and self-sufficiency. Neoclassical theists agree with classical theists that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good, but they disagree about God's relationship to time, change, and emotion. Neoclassical theists typically hold that God experiences temporal succession (He has a genuine experience of "before" and "after"), that God's relational states genuinely change in response to what His creatures do, and that God has real emotional responses to the world.⁸

It is very important to understand that neoclassical theism is not the same as process theology (see below). Neoclassical theists affirm creation ex nihilo (God created the world out of nothing), divine omniscience (God knows all things, including the future), and divine sovereignty (God is in complete control of history). They simply deny that these affirmations require God to be timeless, strictly immutable, or impassible. Key neoclassical theists include Nicholas Wolterstorff, John Peckham, Terence Fretheim, and R. T. Mullins. The author of this book stands broadly within the neoclassical tradition, though with a mediating approach that affirms certain qualified insights from classical theism. (See Chapters 4, 10, and 34 for full discussion.)

Process Theology

A radical theological system developed primarily by Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) and Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000) that holds that God and the world are mutually dependent on each other. In process theology, God is not the sovereign Creator who brought the world into existence out of nothing. Instead, God and the world are co-eternal — they have always existed together. God cannot act unilaterally (that is, He cannot simply make things happen by His own power). Instead, God works by "persuasion," gently luring the world toward greater beauty and complexity, but He cannot guarantee the outcome. God's knowledge grows as the world develops — He does not know the future exhaustively because the future is genuinely open and undetermined.

Process theology is deeply passibilist: God is genuinely affected by everything that happens in the world, and His experience grows and changes as the world changes. Whitehead famously called God "the fellow-sufferer who understands." However, this book firmly rejects process theology because it denies creation ex nihilo, compromises divine sovereignty and omniscience, and makes God dependent on the world in a way that Scripture does not support. While process theologians are right that God is genuinely affected by the world, they go far beyond what Scripture teaches by making God a limited being who cannot guarantee the outcome of history.⁹ (See Chapter 5 for full discussion.)

Aseity

From the Latin a se, meaning "from Himself." Aseity is the doctrine that God's existence is self-derived — God does not depend on anything else for His existence. He was not created. He was not brought into being by any other force or being. He simply is — eternally, necessarily, and independently. As Mullins defines it, "A being exists a se if and only if its existence is in no way dependent on, or derived from, anything external."¹⁰

Aseity is closely related to but distinct from divine self-sufficiency. Aseity is about God's existence — He exists independently. Self-sufficiency is about God's nature — His perfections do not depend on anything external. Classical theists have often argued that aseity and self-sufficiency entail impassibility (if God depends on nothing, then nothing external can affect Him). But Mullins and other critics argue that this reasoning smuggles in additional assumptions — especially divine simplicity — that do not follow from aseity alone. The author of this book affirms aseity and self-sufficiency but denies that they require strict impassibility. God did not create the world because He was lacking something. But He freely chose to create and to be genuinely affected by His creatures. (See Chapters 3 and 4 for full discussion.)

Divine Blessedness

The classical theological teaching that God exists in a state of perfect, infinite joy and satisfaction. God's blessedness is the happiness He has in Himself — in His own infinite perfections and in the love shared between the persons of the Trinity. Classical theists held that God's blessedness cannot be increased or diminished by anything external. God is infinitely happy in Himself, and nothing creatures do can make Him happier or sadder.

Some classical theists went further and argued that God's infinite self-enjoyment effectively "swamps" the value of anything in creation (see "Value Swamping" below). The author of this book affirms that God's essential blessedness — His deep, abiding joy in His own nature and in the intra-Trinitarian fellowship of love — is unshakeable. But this does not mean God cannot have genuine emotional responses to His creatures. A parent can be deeply happy and fulfilled in life and still weep when a child is sick. God's blessedness is the foundation of His emotional engagement with the world, not a barrier to it. (See Chapters 3, 27, and 34 for full discussion.)

Divine Simplicity (Strict)

The classical doctrine that God is not composed of any parts whatsoever. In its strictest form, divine simplicity holds that all of God's attributes are identical to each other and identical to God's essence. On this view, God's love is God's justice, which is God's mercy, which is God's wrath, which is God's existence. There is no real distinction between any of God's attributes — they are all one and the same thing, viewed from different human perspectives.¹¹

This book rejects strict divine simplicity because it creates insurmountable problems for the divine emotion debate. If God's love is literally identical to God's wrath, then it becomes impossible to say that God responds differently to the repentant sinner than to the unrepentant oppressor — His "love" and His "wrath" are the same thing. Furthermore, strict simplicity seems to conflict with the biblical portrayal of a God who has distinct emotional responses to distinct situations. (See Chapters 3, 22, and 34 for full discussion.)

Divine Simplicity (Modified)

A softer version of divine simplicity that affirms God's attributes are essential to His nature and cannot be separated from it, but holds that they can be genuinely differentiated from one another. On this view, God's love is not the same thing as God's wrath — they are distinct attributes that both flow from God's holy nature. They can operate simultaneously (for example, God can be angry at child abusers precisely because He loves children), but they are not identical to each other.

The author of this book holds modified simplicity. God's attributes are part of His essential nature, but they are genuinely distinguishable. Love is love. Wrath is wrath. Joy is joy. Grief is grief. They are all expressions of who God is, and they are inseparable from His being — but they are not all the same thing. (See Chapters 3 and 34 for full discussion.)

Immutability (Strict)

The classical doctrine that God cannot change in any way, shape, or form. Strict immutability holds that God experiences no intrinsic change (change within His own being) and no extrinsic change (change in His relations to the world). As Peter Lombard explained, God cannot undergo any change whatsoever. Paul Helm adds that strict immutability even rules out what philosophers call "Cambridge change" — a mere relational change, like going from being "taller than" someone to being "shorter than" someone when the other person grows.¹²

The logic behind strict immutability runs like this: God is perfect. Any change would be either from a more perfect state to a less perfect one (which would mean God is getting worse) or from a less perfect state to a more perfect one (which would mean God was previously imperfect). Either way, change implies imperfection. Therefore, God cannot change. This book argues that this logic is flawed — not all change implies imperfection. A God who grieves when His children suffer and rejoices when they repent is not becoming "less perfect" or "more perfect" — He is responding appropriately to the situation, and appropriate responsiveness is itself a perfection. (See Chapters 3, 8, and 34 for full discussion.)

Immutability (Qualified)

A modified version of immutability that the author of this book affirms. Qualified immutability holds that God's essential character, nature, moral attributes, and purposes never change. God's faithfulness never wavers. His love never fails. His holiness never diminishes. His plan for redemption never changes course. In these deep, essential senses, God is utterly unchanging. However, God's relational states, emotional responses, and interactions with creatures can and do genuinely change. God responds differently to the repentant than to the unrepentant. He grieves when His children rebel and rejoices when they return. These relational changes do not compromise God's essential nature — they express it.¹³

The key biblical text here is Malachi 3:6: "For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed." Notice what is unchanging: God's covenant faithfulness. He does not change in His commitment to His people. But this does not mean He never has new relational experiences or emotional responses. (See Chapters 3, 4, and 34 for full discussion.)

Analogical Language

A way of speaking about God that recognizes that our words are similar to the reality they describe but not identical to it. When we say "God loves," we are using the word "love" analogically: God's love is genuinely similar to human love (it involves care, commitment, delight, and sacrificial action) but it is also different from human love in important ways (God's love is infinite, perfectly righteous, never selfish, never distorted by sin). The analogy is real — it points to something true about God — but it is not a perfect one-to-one match.

Thomas Aquinas developed the most influential theory of analogical language about God. He argued that when we apply names to God, there is a genuine quality (res significata) that God and creatures share, but the mode of possessing that quality (modus significandi) is different. God possesses all qualities in an infinite and perfect way that transcends our finite experience.¹⁴

This book argues that the analogical approach is the best way to understand biblical language about God's emotions. God's grief is genuinely similar to human grief (it involves a real sense of sorrow and loss), but it is also different (God's grief never incapacitates Him, never leads to despair, and never overwhelms His sovereignty). The analogy points upward to a greater reality, not downward to a lesser one. God's love is not less than human love — it is infinitely more. (See Chapter 6 for full discussion.)

Anthropomorphism

From the Greek anthropos (ἄνθρωπος, "human being") and morphē (μορφή, "form" or "shape"). Anthropomorphism means describing God in terms of human physical characteristics — speaking of God's "hand," His "arm," His "eyes," or His "face." Since orthodox Christianity teaches that God is a spirit without a physical body (John 4:24), these descriptions are generally understood as figurative language that communicates something true about God (His power, His attentiveness, His personal presence) without implying that God literally has a body.¹⁵

The term is sometimes used loosely to cover all human-like descriptions of God, including emotional ones, but many scholars (including Rob Lister) draw a careful distinction between anthropomorphism (physical descriptions) and anthropopathism (emotional descriptions). This distinction matters greatly for the divine emotion debate. (See Chapter 6 for full discussion.)

Anthropopathism

From the Greek anthropos (ἄνθρωπος, "human being") and pathos (πάθος, "feeling" or "emotion"). Anthropopathism means describing God in terms of human emotions — speaking of God's love, grief, anger, joy, jealousy, or compassion. The critical question in the divine emotion debate is whether anthropopathic language is merely figurative (pointing to no real emotional experience in God) or genuinely referential (pointing to something real in God's inner life, even if God's experience is not identical to ours in every respect).

Strict impassibilists treat anthropopathisms the same way they treat anthropomorphisms: as figurative language that accommodates God's self-revelation to our limited human understanding. Just as "the hand of God" does not mean God literally has a hand, they argue, "the grief of God" does not mean God literally grieves. The author of this book disagrees with this approach. Lister argues persuasively that anthropomorphisms and anthropopathisms should be treated differently: a physical body is not a prerequisite for having emotions, even though it is a prerequisite for having physical arms and hands. Therefore, "anthropopathisms are analogical and literal" — they refer to something genuinely real in God — even though "anthropomorphisms are analogical and nonliteral."¹⁶ (See Chapter 6 for full discussion.)

Apophatic Theology

From the Greek apophatikos (ἀποφατικός), meaning "negative" or "denying." Apophatic theology, also called negative theology or the via negativa (Latin for "the negative way"), is an approach to speaking about God that emphasizes what God is not rather than what He is. Since God infinitely transcends human understanding, apophatic theologians argue that we can say more accurately what God is not (not finite, not limited, not changeable, not embodied) than what He is.

Thomas Weinandy, one of the most prominent modern defenders of impassibility, uses an apophatic method: he focuses on the ways God cannot change — He cannot decrease in perfection, cannot be diminished, cannot be overwhelmed.¹⁷ While apophatic theology contains important truths (God does transcend our categories), this book argues that an exclusively apophatic approach can lead to a kind of theological agnosticism about God's inner life — if we can only say what God is not, then we cannot say that God truly loves or truly grieves, which conflicts with the clear testimony of Scripture. (See Chapters 6 and 7 for full discussion.)

Cataphatic Theology

From the Greek kataphatikos (καταφατικός), meaning "affirmative." Cataphatic theology, also called positive theology or the via positiva (Latin for "the positive way"), is an approach to speaking about God that emphasizes what God is — God is loving, God is just, God is merciful, God is powerful. Cataphatic theology takes seriously the positive statements that Scripture makes about God's character and attributes.

This book uses a combination of cataphatic and apophatic approaches. We affirm positively that God truly loves, truly grieves, truly rejoices, and truly burns with righteous anger (cataphatic). At the same time, we acknowledge that God's emotional experience transcends ours in ways we cannot fully comprehend (apophatic). The positive statements of Scripture tell us something genuinely true about God, even if they do not tell us everything. (See Chapter 6 for full discussion.)

Equivocal Language

A way of speaking in which a word means something completely different when applied to two different subjects. If I say "the bank of the river" and "the bank where I deposit money," I am using "bank" equivocally — the two meanings are unrelated. If we spoke about God equivocally, then saying "God loves" would mean something totally different from what we mean when we say "a mother loves her child" — so different that the word "love" provides no real information about God at all.

This book rejects equivocal language about God because it renders revelation meaningless. If "God loves" means something completely different from anything we understand by "love," then God's self-revelation in Scripture tells us nothing about what God is actually like. We would have no idea what it means when God says He loves us. The analogical approach avoids both extremes: our words about God are neither identical to creaturely experience (univocal) nor completely unrelated to it (equivocal). They are genuinely similar but not identical. (See Chapter 6 for full discussion.)

Hellenization Thesis

The claim that early Christian theology was corrupted or distorted by the influence of ancient Greek (Hellenistic) philosophy. According to this thesis, the early church fathers adopted pagan philosophical concepts — especially the ideas that God is timeless, immutable, simple, and impassible — and imported them into Christian theology, where they did not belong. The result, passibilists argue, was a picture of God that looks more like Aristotle's "Unmoved Mover" or the Stoics' emotionless sage than like the passionate, weeping, rejoicing God of the Bible.¹⁸

The Hellenization thesis has been challenged by scholars like Paul Gavrilyuk, who argues that the church fathers were not uncritical borrowers of Greek philosophy. The fathers affirmed a personal God, the Trinity, creation ex nihilo, the incarnation, and the goodness of matter — all of which contradicted key Greek philosophical assumptions. Rob Lister adds that the fathers themselves emphasized that their use of philosophical terminology served to express biblical truth, not replace it. Nevertheless, the influence of Greek philosophical categories on early Christian formulations of impassibility is undeniable, and this book argues that the doctrine needs to be reassessed in light of Scripture rather than defended solely on the basis of philosophical tradition.¹⁹ (See Chapters 7 and 9 for full discussion.)

Univocal Language

A way of speaking in which a word means exactly the same thing when applied to two different subjects. If I say "my dog is hungry" and "my cat is hungry," I am using "hungry" univocally — it means the same thing in both cases. If we spoke about God univocally, then saying "God loves" would mean that God's love is exactly the same as human love in every respect — same intensity, same limitations, same vulnerability to sin and selfishness. Most theologians — both classical and neoclassical — reject univocal language about God, because God is not a creature and His experience transcends ours.²⁰ (See Chapter 6 for full discussion.)

Cognitive Theory of Emotion

The view that emotions are not just raw feelings or sensations but involve judgments or beliefs about the world. On this theory, to be angry is to judge that you have been wronged. To be afraid is to judge that something is dangerous. To be sad is to judge that you have lost something valuable. Emotions, in other words, have a rational structure — they are about things, they involve evaluations, and they can be appropriate or inappropriate depending on whether the judgment they involve is accurate.²¹

The cognitive theory of emotion is extremely important for the divine emotion debate because it means that emotions are not merely physical, bodily reactions (a racing heart, a knot in the stomach, a flood of tears). If emotions involve cognitive judgments, then a God without a body can still have emotions — because He can still make evaluations, form judgments, and respond to situations with appropriate assessments. God's anger at sin is the perfectly appropriate judgment that sin is evil and destructive. God's compassion for the suffering is the perfectly appropriate judgment that suffering matters and calls for a response. (See Chapter 2 for full discussion.)

Evaluative Theory of Emotion

A refinement of the cognitive theory that sees emotions as evaluative perceptions — ways of perceiving the world as being a certain way (threatening, beautiful, unjust, delightful) combined with a felt response to that perception. On the evaluative theory, emotions are not just cold intellectual judgments; they involve a genuine felt dimension — they carry a positive or negative affect (a felt quality of pleasantness or unpleasantness). But they are also not just blind feelings; they track values and respond to the way things actually are.

R. T. Mullins draws heavily on this approach. He defines an emotion as "a mental state that involves an evaluation that has a positive or negative affect."²² This means emotions can be true (accurate, fitting the situation) or false (inaccurate, not fitting the situation). God's emotions, if real, would always be perfectly true — they would always track reality correctly. God's anger at sin is the perfectly fitting emotional response to genuine evil. This is not a flaw but a form of moral perfection. The evaluative theory is the view most congenial to the author's position. (See Chapter 2 for full discussion.)

Feeling Theory of Emotion

The view that emotions are simply raw, subjective feelings — qualitative sensations that you experience internally. On this view, anger is just a "feeling of anger," a raw sensation. Fear is just a "feeling of fear." There is nothing more to an emotion than the felt experience.

The feeling theory is widely regarded as inadequate by contemporary philosophers of emotion because it cannot explain why emotions are about things. You are angry at someone. You are afraid of something. Feelings alone lack this "aboutness" (what philosophers call intentionality). The feeling theory is also problematic for the divine emotion debate because it ties emotions entirely to physical sensations, making it easy to deny emotions to a God without a body. If emotions were nothing more than bodily sensations, then of course a bodiless God could not have them. But since emotions involve far more than bodily sensations — they involve evaluation, judgment, and intentionality — the feeling theory provides an inadequate foundation for the debate. (See Chapter 2 for full discussion.)

Chalcedonian Christology

The understanding of Jesus Christ's identity that was defined by the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451. Chalcedon declared that Jesus Christ is one person with two complete natures — a fully divine nature and a fully human nature. These two natures exist "without confusion, without change, without division, without separation." This means that Jesus is truly God and truly human, and neither nature is diminished, mixed with, or swallowed up by the other.²³

Chalcedonian Christology matters enormously for the divine emotion debate because of the question: whose emotions are the emotions of Jesus? When Jesus weeps at Lazarus's tomb (John 11:35), is this merely His human nature weeping while His divine nature remains unmoved? Or does the divine person of the Son genuinely experience grief through His human nature? The author of this book holds the latter: the divine Son genuinely experienced the full range of human emotions through His incarnate life, and this reveals something true about God's own emotional character. (See Chapters 20 and 26 for full discussion.)

Hypostatic Union

The theological term for the union of the divine and human natures in the one person (hypostasis) of Jesus Christ. The word hypostasis (ὑπόστασις) is a Greek term meaning "substance," "underlying reality," or "person." The hypostatic union teaches that in the incarnation, the eternal Son of God took on a complete human nature (body and soul) and united it to His divine nature in one person — without the two natures being mixed together, confused, or separated.²⁴

The hypostatic union is relevant to the emotion debate because it raises the question of how Christ's emotions relate to His two natures. Classical theists often argue that Christ's emotional experiences (weeping, distress, joy) belong exclusively to His human nature, while His divine nature remains impassible. But this creates a problem: if the person of the Son is a single person with two natures, can we really say that the person weeps in one nature but does not weep in the other? This book argues that the emotions of Jesus are the emotions of the divine person experienced through His human nature — they reveal the heart of God, not just the heart of a human being. (See Chapters 20 and 26 for full discussion.)

Patripassianism

The ancient heresy (false teaching) that the Father Himself was crucified and suffered on the cross. Patripassianism collapses the distinction between the Father and the Son, effectively saying that "Father" and "Son" are just different names for the same divine person. The name comes from the Latin pater ("father") and passio ("suffering"). It is associated with a broader heresy called modalism, which denies the three distinct persons of the Trinity and instead claims that God is one person who appears in three different "modes."

This book firmly rejects patripassianism. The Father was not crucified. The Son was crucified, not the Father. However — and this is a crucial distinction — the author does affirm that the Father experienced genuine anguish and grief at the cross. The Father's suffering is not the same as the Son's suffering (the Father did not hang on a cross), but the Father was not emotionally unmoved by the crucifixion of His beloved Son. A father who watches his son suffer and feels nothing would not be a loving father. The Father genuinely co-suffered with the Son — not by being crucified Himself, but by grieving as only a perfect Father can grieve. (See Chapters 26 and 27 for full discussion.)

Theopaschitism

From the Greek theos (θεός, "God") and paschō (πάσχω, "to suffer"). Theopaschitism is the claim that God Himself suffered in the crucifixion of Christ. Unlike patripassianism, theopaschitism does not collapse the distinction between the Father and the Son. Instead, it holds that God the Son — who is truly God — genuinely suffered at the cross. It is saying: "The one who hung on the cross was God. Therefore, God suffered."

In the early church, the theopaschite formula was debated but eventually affirmed in a qualified form. The Fifth Ecumenical Council (Constantinople II, AD 553) endorsed the statement that "one of the Trinity suffered in the flesh." This means it is orthodox to say that God the Son suffered — not in His divine nature considered in isolation, but in His incarnate person. The author of this book affirms theopaschitism in this qualified sense: at the cross, more than just a human nature suffered. God the Son suffered in a real and meaningful sense, revealing something that was always true about God's character — He is the kind of God who enters into the suffering of His creatures. (See Chapter 26 for full discussion.)

Imitatio Dei

A Latin phrase meaning "the imitation of God." The concept of imitatio Dei goes back to the Bible itself: "Be imitators of God, as beloved children" (Ephesians 5:1). The idea is that human beings should model their character and conduct after God's own character and conduct. If God is loving, we should be loving. If God is merciful, we should be merciful. If God is just, we should be just.

Roberto Sirvent uses the imitatio Dei principle to mount a devastating argument against divine impassibility. If God is impassible — if He has no emotional vulnerability, no capacity to be moved by others' suffering, no empathy — then He is not worth imitating. A God who cannot be moved by suffering models emotional detachment, which is a vice, not a virtue. If we followed God's example and became emotionally invulnerable, we would become cold, unfeeling people incapable of genuine compassion. But Scripture commands us to imitate God's compassion, His grief over sin, and His joyful celebration of repentance — all of which require emotional vulnerability.²⁵ (See Chapter 31 for full discussion.)

The Economic Trinity

The Trinity as God reveals and acts in the world — in the "economy" (from the Greek oikonomia, meaning "plan" or "arrangement") of creation and salvation. When we speak of the economic Trinity, we are talking about the Father sending the Son, the Son becoming incarnate and dying on the cross, and the Spirit being poured out at Pentecost. The economic Trinity is the Trinity as we encounter God — the Trinity in action, engaged with creation and redemption.

J. D. Kim argues that the economic Trinity is genuinely passible: in the economy of salvation, the Father genuinely grieves when His creatures rebel, the Son genuinely suffers at the cross, and the Spirit genuinely groans in intercession. God freely wills to be moved by the world in His economic engagement with creation.²⁶ (See Chapters 27 and 34 for full discussion.)

The Immanent Trinity

The Trinity as God is in Himself, apart from His engagement with creation — the eternal, inner life of the Father, Son, and Spirit in their mutual relations of love. When we speak of the immanent Trinity, we are talking about the eternal begetting of the Son by the Father, the eternal procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son, and the eternal fellowship of love that the three persons share.

Kim argues that the immanent Trinity is impassible in the sense that the inner Trinitarian love does not depend on creation. The Father's delight in the Son, the Son's love for the Father, and the Spirit's joyful bond between them are eternal, necessary, and not affected by anything in the created world. This does not mean the immanent Trinity is emotionless — it means that the emotions of the inner Trinitarian life (mutual love, delight, joy) are grounded in God's own being, not in creation.²⁷ (See Chapters 27 and 34 for full discussion.)

Perichoresis

From the Greek perichorēsis (περιχώρησις), meaning "mutual indwelling" or "interpenetration." Perichoresis describes the intimate, interpenetrating relationship of the three persons of the Trinity. The Father is "in" the Son, the Son is "in" the Father, and the Spirit is "in" both — and vice versa. The three persons are so deeply united that they dwell within one another while remaining distinct persons. Jesus Himself expresses this reality: "I am in the Father and the Father is in me" (John 14:11).

Perichoresis is relevant to the divine emotion debate because it suggests that when one person of the Trinity is emotionally engaged, the other persons share in that engagement. When the Son grieves, the Father and Spirit are not emotionally detached observers — they participate in the Son's grief through the perichoretic unity of the divine life. The three persons feel from different relational perspectives (the Father grieves as a parent, the Son grieves as the one who enters suffering, the Spirit grieves as the one who is resisted), but they are unified in their emotional life because they mutually indwell one another. (See Chapter 27 for full discussion.)

Dynamic Reciprocity Model

A theological model proposed by J. D. Kim to explain how the persons of the Trinity relate to one another both within God's inner life (the immanent Trinity) and in God's engagement with creation (the economic Trinity). The model suggests that within the eternal life of God, the Father, Son, and Spirit both move and are moved by each other in a dynamic, reciprocal exchange of love. The Father delights in the Son. The Son loves the Father. The Spirit proceeds as the bond of their mutual love. These movements are not one-directional — they are reciprocal. Each person is both Lover and Beloved, both acting and being acted upon.²⁸

In the economy of salvation, Kim extends this model: the three persons freely choose to be moved by the world as well. God moves toward creation (in acts of love, redemption, and provision) and is moved by creation (in genuine emotional responses to creaturely actions). Crucially, this economic passibility is free — God is not forced to be affected by the world, but He chooses to be. The dynamic reciprocity model allows Kim to affirm that the immanent Trinity is impassible (in the sense of not being dependent on creation) while the economic Trinity is passible (in the sense of being genuinely affected by creation through free choice). (See Chapters 27 and 34 for full discussion.)

Experiential Knowledge

Knowledge that comes from lived experience — from actually undergoing or encountering something firsthand. A doctor who has read about cancer has propositional knowledge (see below), but a cancer survivor who has gone through treatment has experiential knowledge — she knows what it is like to have cancer. The two kinds of knowledge are different, and experiential knowledge includes a subjective, felt dimension that propositional knowledge alone cannot capture.

In the divine emotion debate, neoclassical theists argue that God has experiential knowledge of the world — He does not merely know about His creatures' suffering from an infinite distance; He actually knows what it is like to suffer with them. This experiential knowledge grows as God interacts with creation — not because God was ignorant before, but because certain kinds of knowledge (knowing what it is like to experience something) require the actual experience to occur. Classical theists typically deny this, arguing that God's knowledge is complete and unchanging. (See Chapters 4, 24, and 25 for full discussion.)

Propositional Knowledge

Knowledge of facts — knowledge that something is the case. Propositional knowledge can be expressed in statements (propositions) that are either true or false. For example: "Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius" is propositional knowledge. "The Battle of Hastings took place in 1066" is propositional knowledge. You can have propositional knowledge about something without ever having experienced it.

In the divine emotion debate, the distinction between propositional and experiential knowledge is crucial. Classical theists typically hold that God has complete propositional knowledge of all things — He knows every fact about every creature's suffering. But passibilists argue that propositional knowledge alone is insufficient for genuine love and compassion. Knowing that your child is in pain is different from knowing what it is like for your child to be in pain. A God who has only propositional knowledge of suffering but no experiential knowledge would be like a doctor who reads about pain but has never felt it. (See Chapters 4 and 24 for full discussion.)

Value Swamping

A concept discussed by R. T. Mullins in the context of the divine emotion debate. Value swamping is the classical theist claim that God's infinite goodness and self-enjoyment is so overwhelmingly valuable that nothing in creation has enough value to move God emotionally. The infinite gap between Creator and creature means that no creaturely event — no matter how terrible or wonderful — can "register" on the scale of God's infinite self-satisfaction. God's own perfections "swamp" (overwhelm, drown out) the value of anything created.²⁹

This claim has devastating pastoral implications: it means that the Holocaust, child abuse, genocide, and every human tragedy are infinitely insignificant compared to God's self-enjoyment. If nothing in creation can disturb God's perfect bliss, then our suffering simply does not matter to God in any emotional sense. This book argues that value swamping is both philosophically questionable and morally troubling. A God whose infinite self-enjoyment prevents Him from being moved by the suffering of His creatures is not the God of the Bible — who weeps over Jerusalem, grieves over His rebellious children, and rejoices when a single sinner repents. (See Chapters 3, 22, and 29 for full discussion.)

Divine Empathy

The idea that God has the ability to understand and share in the emotional experiences of His creatures — to know what it is like for them to feel what they feel. Just as a compassionate friend can enter into your sorrow and "feel with" you (the literal meaning of "compassion," from the Latin compati), God enters into the emotional experience of His creatures. He does not merely observe suffering from a detached, intellectual distance — He feels it with the sufferer.

The concept of divine empathy is central to the passibilist position. If God genuinely loves His creatures, then He must genuinely enter into their experience — including their suffering. However, divine empathy raises some philosophical complications (see "Simplistic Divine Empathy," "Omnisubjectivity," and the two inconsistency criteria below). (See Chapter 24 for full discussion.)

Omnisubjectivity

A concept developed by philosopher Linda Zagzebski. Omnisubjectivity is the claim that God has a perfect, complete, and accurate understanding of every conscious creature's subjective experience — He knows what it is like for every being to experience what they experience. God has perfect "total empathy" with all of His creatures. He grasps the full subjective reality of every joy, every sorrow, every fear, every delight, and every pain that any creature has ever experienced.³⁰

Omnisubjectivity is a powerful concept because it captures the idea that God's knowledge of His creatures is not merely factual or detached — it is deeply personal and experiential. However, it also raises difficult questions: if God perfectly understands every creature's subjective experience, does He also understand what it is like to feel lustful, hateful, or prideful? These are the kinds of questions explored under the "creepy emotions" problem. (See Chapter 24 for full discussion.)

Simplistic Divine Empathy

A naive or oversimplified account of God's empathy that some critics attribute to passibilists. Simplistic divine empathy involves two conditions: (i) God has the same feelings (the same qualitative, felt sensations) as His creatures, and (ii) God has the same evaluative judgments (the same approval or disapproval) as His creatures. If both conditions hold, then God would feel exactly what a sadist feels and would also agree with the sadist's evaluation — which is obviously morally monstrous.³¹

However, most passibilists reject simplistic divine empathy as a straw man. Real empathy does not require agreeing with the other person's judgments. A therapist can empathize with a patient's anger without sharing the patient's evaluative judgment. God can understand what it is like for a creature to feel hatred without Himself hating what the creature hates. (See Chapter 24 for full discussion.)

Moral Inconsistency Criterion

A test used in the "creepy emotions" debate to evaluate whether divine empathy would lead to God having immoral emotions. The moral inconsistency criterion states that God cannot have an emotion whose evaluative content conflicts with God's moral perfection. For example, God cannot approve of what a sadist approves of, because sadistic pleasure is morally evil and God is perfectly good.

Zagzebski argues that omnisubjectivity does not violate the moral inconsistency criterion because genuine empathy does not require sharing the other person's moral evaluations — only understanding their experiential perspective. God can understand what it is like for a creature to feel sadistic pleasure without Himself approving of sadism.³² (See Chapter 24 for full discussion.)

Rational Inconsistency Criterion

A companion test to the moral inconsistency criterion. The rational inconsistency criterion states that God cannot have an emotion whose cognitive content conflicts with God's perfect rationality. For example, if a creature feels "stupid" (an emotion involving the judgment "I am intellectually deficient"), God cannot genuinely feel stupid, because God is omniscient and it would be irrational for Him to believe He is intellectually deficient.

As with the moral criterion, Zagzebski argues that omnisubjectivity does not violate the rational inconsistency criterion because God can understand what it is like for a creature to feel stupid without believing that He Himself is stupid. Empathy involves grasping the other's experience, not adopting their beliefs about themselves.³³ (See Chapter 24 for full discussion.)

Mediating Position / Mediating Theology

Any theological approach that tries to find a middle ground between two opposing extremes. In the context of this book, a mediating position is one that tries to hold together the genuine insights of both classical impassibility and modern passibility — affirming that God truly feels while also affirming that God's emotional life is qualitatively different from ours in important ways (His emotions never overwhelm Him, never destabilize Him, and never compromise His essential nature or purposes).

Several contemporary scholars have proposed mediating positions: Rob Lister's "impassible and impassioned" framework, J. D. Kim's "constructing a mediating theology" with its distinction between the impassible immanent Trinity and the passible economic Trinity, Graham Cole's "biblically qualified impassibility," and John Peckham's "qualified passibility." The author of this book stands within this mediating tradition, though leaning more toward the passibilist side than some mediating scholars do. (See Chapters 10 and 34 for full discussion.)

Compatibilism

The philosophical view that human free will is compatible with determinism — that a person can be genuinely "free" even if their choices are determined by prior causes (including God's sovereign decree). On compatibilism, freedom means acting in accordance with your desires without being externally coerced, even if your desires are themselves determined by God or by prior causes. Many Reformed theologians hold some form of compatibilism.

Compatibilism is relevant to the divine emotion debate in discussions about whether God's emotional responses are genuinely responsive to creaturely choices. If human choices are predetermined by God, then God's "responses" to those choices might seem staged or artificial — He is responding to events He Himself determined. This book does not take a definitive position on the compatibilism vs. libertarian free will debate, though the author's view of divine emotion fits more naturally with a model in which creaturely choices involve genuine contingency. (See Chapter 25 for background.)

Foreknowledge

The doctrine that God knows the future exhaustively — He knows everything that will happen before it happens. God's foreknowledge extends to all events, including the free choices of human beings. This is the standard orthodox Christian position, affirmed by the vast majority of Christians throughout church history.

Foreknowledge is relevant to the divine emotion debate because of a common objection to divine passibility: if God already knows that a child will die, how can He genuinely grieve when it happens? Does foreknowledge negate the genuineness of emotional response? This book argues that it does not. Knowing something will happen and experiencing it when it happens are two different things. A parent can know weeks in advance that her child will undergo painful surgery and still weep on the day of the operation. God's foreknowledge does not negate the genuineness of His emotional responses. (See Chapter 25 for full discussion.)

Libertarian Free Will

The philosophical view that human free will requires the genuine ability to choose otherwise — that when you make a choice, you could have made a different choice under exactly the same circumstances. On libertarianism, your choices are not determined by prior causes (including God's decree) but are genuinely up to you. Many Arminian, Wesleyan, and Molinist theologians hold some form of libertarian free will.

Libertarian free will fits naturally with the divine emotion debate because it implies that creaturely choices are genuinely unpredictable in the sense of not being predetermined by God — which means God's emotional responses to those choices are genuinely responsive, not staged. However, even on a compatibilist model, the author argues that God can have genuine emotional responses to events, because knowing and determining are not the same as experiencing. (See Chapter 25 for background.)

Open Theism

The theological view that God does not exhaustively know the future because the future is genuinely "open" — not yet determined. Open theists believe that God knows all things that can be known, but since future free choices do not yet exist, they are not available to be known — even by God. Prominent open theists include Clark Pinnock, Gregory Boyd, and William Hasker.

This book firmly rejects open theism. The author believes that God knows all things exhaustively — past, present, and future — including future free choices. Open theism is mentioned because some critics assume that anyone who affirms divine passibility must also affirm open theism (since genuine emotional responsiveness seems to require genuine surprise, and genuine surprise seems to require not knowing the future). But this assumption is false. God can foreknow an event and still genuinely experience it emotionally when it occurs — just as a parent can foreknow a painful experience and still genuinely feel it. (See Chapter 25 for full discussion.)

Fellow-Sufferer Theodicy

A specific approach to the problem of evil that finds comfort and meaning not in philosophical explanations of why God allows suffering, but in the conviction that God suffers with us. On this approach, the answer to the question "Where is God when I suffer?" is: "Right here, suffering alongside you." God is not a distant observer watching from a state of undisturbed bliss. He is a fellow-sufferer who enters into the pain of His creatures and bears it with them.

Alfred North Whitehead's famous description of God as "the fellow-sufferer who understands" captures the essence of this theodicy, though the author of this book distances himself from Whitehead's process theology while embracing the pastoral insight. Nicholas Wolterstorff powerfully expressed this insight after the death of his son: he found comfort not in philosophical arguments but in the conviction that God too is a grieving parent.³⁴ The cross is the ultimate expression of the fellow-sufferer theodicy: God did not just allow suffering — He endured it Himself. (See Chapter 28 for full discussion.)

Lament

A form of prayer, worship, or expression that gives voice to grief, sorrow, complaint, and even anger before God. The Bible is full of laments — nearly one-third of the Psalms are psalms of lament (e.g., Psalms 13, 22, 42, 88), and the entire book of Lamentations is devoted to grieving over the destruction of Jerusalem. Lament is not a sign of weak faith — it is an act of profound faith, because it brings our deepest pain honestly before God rather than hiding it behind a mask of false cheerfulness.

Lament is relevant to the divine emotion debate because the practice of lament presupposes a God who cares about our grief, who hears our cries, and who is moved by our pain. If God is strictly impassible — if our suffering cannot touch Him emotionally — then lament is essentially pointless. We would be crying out to a God who receives our tears with the same undisturbed serenity with which He receives everything else. But if God genuinely grieves with us, then lament becomes a deeply relational act — we bring our pain to a God who truly shares it. (See Chapter 33 for full discussion.)

Theodicy

From the Greek theos (θεός, "God") and dikē (δίκη, "justice"). A theodicy is an attempt to justify or defend God's goodness and power in the face of the existence of evil and suffering. The basic theodicy question is: if God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good, why does evil exist? Why does God allow innocent children to suffer? Why do natural disasters kill thousands of people? Various theodicies have been proposed throughout Christian history — the free will theodicy (evil is the result of human free choices), the soul-making theodicy (suffering builds character and spiritual growth), and the greater-good theodicy (God permits evil because it serves a greater purpose that we may not be able to see).

This book argues that the divine emotion debate adds a crucial dimension to theodicy. If God is impassible, then the best He can offer the suffering is: "I have a plan, and your suffering is part of it." If God is passible, He can offer something far more powerful: "I am with you in your suffering. I feel it with you. I weep with you." The latter does not "solve" the intellectual problem of evil, but it transforms the pastoral and existential dimension of the problem in a way that strict impassibility cannot. (See Chapters 28–30 for full discussion.)