GOD IS IMPASSIBLE AND IMPASSIONED
Toward a theology of divine emotion
By Rob Lister
IVP Apollos. 333 pages. £7.99
ISBN 978 1 844 746 019
When this book dropped through my door to be reviewed, a number of people questioned the value of it. However, this is an important book.
Lister argues that the modern trend to suggest that it is possible for God to suffer (a belief in divine passibility) raises profound challenges to an orthodox doctrine of God. In meeting these challenges, Lister’s aim is to develop the traditional (i.e. patristic and biblical) affirmation that God is both impassible and impassioned. He argues that we must insist on both parts of that dynamic. His contention is that God is impassible — in that his emotions cannot be involuntarily wrung from him by his creatures, meaning God is never passive in his emotional stance — and that God is impassioned — in that God does have divine, perfect and vibrant emotions, so is genuinely affected by his creatures but never in a way that conflicts with his choice to be so affected.
