I too am a theopaschite

Abraham Joshua Heschel taught me to be a theopaschite. The passibility of God should be a no-brainer to someone who has actually read the Bible, but Heschel in The Prophets lays it out with clarity and precision.

It’s been a long time since I read anything by Cornelius van Til – a Reformed theologian Karl Barth sparred with. I sat right up in my chair when I read this:

Van Til challenges the whole impassibility of God notion. God is not impassible; He is the fullness of passibility. Each Person totally feels the other two and is totally influenced by and responds to the other two. And the Spirit, who can be grieved by us, is total in His feeling and response to us.

That’s James Jordan, who must be one smart cookie. The blog in question is Biblical Horizons, very interesting. I got there thanks to Ros Clarke. In my opinion though, reformed theology generally speaking has yet to come to grips with aspects of biblical theology. How does God's omniscience, actual or potential, fit together with biblical descriptions of God's knowledge being the result of a discovery process? As in Gen 22 and the book of Job, and more generally, the God who tests / assays the hearts of men.

The situation reminds me of a quote from Lenin: trust is good, control is better. But it appears that God is not a Leninist. He's more like the CEO who could, if he wanted to, control everyone's emails, and will do so, in specific instances, if the future of the company depends on it. But generally speaking, it seems as if God chooses to dwell within time and experience us in that dimension, and in the process, create a degree of uncertainty for himself, within certain bounds. Like we do as parents, there are a lot of things he could know ahead of time if he wanted to, but refrains from knowing, so as to delight in the unfolding of our lives (or be profoundly disappointed). To be sure, God is also eternal. But that eternity is placed on the edges of time, at its beginning and end, for the sake of creating a space of freedom and delegation for humanity. Finally, eternity stands in the middle of time, and invades it, with the resurrection.

Elie Wiesel’s autobiography contains some interesting nuggets about Heschel and another favorite writer, Saul Lieberman. Here’s an interesting essay by Reuven Kimelman on Heschel and Soloveitchik – two rather different voices.

Comments

[D. P.]

The intersection between divine passibility and open theism is an interesting place, isn't it? :-)

[JohnFH]

Hi Darrell. I appreciate the concerns that open theists seek to address, but I am not impressed by the answers they give. But for all I know - not much - there are open theists that are traditional enough that I might feel some kinship with them.

[D. P.]

I'm pretty much in the same category. Open theism seems to drift too easily into becoming yet another theological system that doesn't do well with paradox or anomalous evidence. Still, they are asking some important questions.

[Lingamish]

Here you go again, confusing me with big words and even bigger ideas! ;-)

"create a degree of uncertainty for himself"

That sounds like my seven-year old. And also alludes to some of the joy I as a father feel in anticipating what unpredictable thing my kids will do next.

Whether the passibility of God you speak of is inherent or attributed is a complex question but because of my belief in humanity being created in God's image I feel that he should have feelings.

[JohnFH]

David,

I like the part about your 7 year old. If the kingdom of heaven belongs unto such as these, maybe that's because children are especially created in God's image. It would be easy to take that too far, but perhaps a grain of truth may be found there.

[Anne / Weekend Fisher]

I think there was an ancient regional council that actually made theopaschite the official position of the church, and the opposite position to be heretical.

My, how those inconvenient councils can be forgotten.

Take care & God bless
Anne / WF

[J. K. Gayle]

Very good stuff! If the one who made us wasn't a paschite, then could you and Heschel ever convince us to be theopaschites with you? I love the way Kimelman hopes to use a few Christians and Heschel to convince the Church.

As for Weisel, are you talking about Night as where he mentions Heschel? Can't seem to find it.

And back to Heschel, he lives on through his namesake high school in NYC, where "El Profe" has set up The Linguistics Club for his students.

[JohnFH]

Anne,

that sounds interesting. Perhaps Kevin E. or Esteban V. will enlighten us further.

J. K.,

I was referring to Wiesel's Memoirs. At least I think that's the title of his autobiography.

[J. K. Gayle]

Thanks John. And I'm more than curious if Heschel makes your top 13 list of teachers. Despite the fact that Kevin has tagged you with a meme much more fun, consider yourself now double tagged. Since a few weeks ago, you've been it here (but I just didn't know to hit you in the comments, sorry):

http://speakeristic.blogspot.com/2007/12/best-teachers.html

[Anne / Weekend Fisher]

Hi there

I was going from memory on my lunch break earlier. It was the Second Council of Constantinople (A.D. 553). For that part of the church which accepted the Council of Chalcedon, the Second Council of Constantinople was counted as one of the ecumenical councils. Canons #3 and #10 are the ones directly addressing whether *God* suffered, whether one of the *Trinity* suffered.

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.xii.vii.html

[JohnFH]

Thanks, Anne. What would we do without Philip Schaff? I would rather have the texts online in Greek though.