Reading a nice collection of essays in Divine Impassibility and the Mystery of Human Suffering (Eerdmans, 2009). The essayists include passibilists and impassibilists.

Open theists all agree on a single defining belief—divine epistemic openness regarding future contingents. That’s pretty much it. But not all open theists defend that claim exactly the same way (though there is general agreement on some core arguments). And there are a couple of things open theists have also agreed upon that differentiate them from process theists too (like belief in both the Trinity and creation ex nihilo). But even here there are some novel combinations. You have open theists like Tom Oord (I think he sees himself an an open theist), who is trinitarian but denies ex nihilo. So he's unlike process folks in that he affirms the Trinity but agrees with the process doctrine of a necessary God-World relation (in which the world contributes to constituting God ‘essentially’). I suppose one could press Tom O on why he thought God was Trinitarian and what relationship the World has to determining the Trinitarian relations. Some (McCormack, McCormack’s ‘Barth’, and Robert Jenson) want to say that God achieves his triune identity/being dialectically in and through the World’s history (namely, via incarnation and resurrection).

Here’s the thing. Since open theism got airborne there’s been emerging a continuum stretching between process theism and classical theology along which open theists take up positions on the question of God’s transcendence and the freedom and gratuity of the act of creation. The patriarchs of open theism (Pinnock, Sanders, Rice, Boyd, Basinger, and Hasker) all believe in ex nihilo (i.e. they affirm the freedom and gratuity of God’s choice to create. Whatever else they may believe about divine transcendence, it includes the belief in aseity (which has to do with God’s self-existence and self-sufficiency sans creation). God—in God’s deity, his God-defining qualities—is already eternally all God need be to be God. He’s essentially unsurpassably “full” as God. I’m sure there are differences here, but this basic point is secure.

But this patriarchal view may become a minority view among open theists. As I read online and visit blogs, it does seem to me that many open theists see little value in anything like a traditional view of divine aseity. That’s seen as just so much ‘classical’ theism to be let go of along with other objectionable attributes (like divine simplicity and timelessness). Tom Oord (‘Yes’ to Trinity but ‘No’ divine aseity sans creation) may represent what becomes the main form open theism takes.

I for one see ex nihilo as an important doctrine and find great value in divine aseity sans creation (i.e., the freedom and gratuity of the act of creation). So I gravitate toward the Orthodox end of the spectrum that stretches between process and traditional theisms. Part of my research over the next few years at London will be arguing that open theism is best located at the Orthodox end of the spectrum.

I’ve been reading more in favor of the traditional (‘classical’) view on divine impassibility and I have to say that I’m not as—what shall I say?—judgmental or dismissive of it as I was when I first encountered it via the writings of open theists themselves. When I read Weinandy, Gavrilyuk or Hart on the Fathers it seems to me that there actually is something important about God that they want to protect which I as an open theist agree OUGHT to be protected. To have thought critically enough to make the important changes they made to Neoplatonism’s worldview makes it impossible to argue that the Father’s were just drunk on Neoplatonism and blindly let it dictate how they conceived and articulated the Christian faith. So while I still think impassibilism and divine timelessness are wrong, I’m also not so sure open theists have done enough toe-to-toe work with the actual arguments for why God ought to be viewed as, for example, ‘impassible’ or ‘timeless’.

With that in mind, I want to post a bit of an argument from Thomas Weinandy’s essay “God and Human Suffering” in the above volume. Weinandy has written two relevant books (Does God Change? [St. Bede’s, 1985] and Does God Suffer? [Notre Dame, 2000]) and is an impassibilist. I thought his arguments open up a great opportunity for discussion. I’ll post separately so this post doesn’t become so long.

Tom

Post Edited (Tom) : 3/25/2010 11:56:56 AM (GMT-5)

Here’s Weinandy (minus the footnotes):

The Act of Creation as Revelatory of God

Here I want to recast Aquinas’s argument found in his De Ente et Essentia. There Aquinas distinguishes, within finite beings, ente (being) from essentia (essence). In order for finite beings to exist they must be given being, for their essence or nature does not necessitate that they exist, and they of themselves cannot account for their own existence. Aquinas concludes that God must be “pure being”* (esse tantum) or “being itself” (ipsum esse), for “being” is required if creatures are to be, and only a being who is “being itself” is able to bestow “being” upon others. To reinforce what Aquinas concludes, I want to highlight the nature of that “giving” or “bestowing of being,” that is, the act of creation, for it is the “act of giving” which necessarily determines and so accentuates the ontological nature of God as “giver.”

When we survey the cosmos as a whole, we find that everything that exists is in potency to change—either to become more or less what it is (accidental change), or to cease to exist in the process of becoming something else (substantial change). It is this actualization of potency, this process of change that accounts for time and thus marks out history. However, this potential for change, whether accidental or substantial, must necessarily be constitutive of something that presently is, for if it did not exist it would not possess the potential to change. Thus, “change” is the process by which something is in act in one manner and, through and action of its own or by an action of another, is subsequently actualized in another manner. For example, Charles must exist as Charles in a certain actualized manner in order for him to change and so be Charles in a newly actualized manner. Thus, there is an ontological priority of “existence” (esse), that is, that something is and is in act in a certain manner, over that of “potency,” what it could be by way of change, on that something possesses potency only insofar as it exists and is in act in a certain manner.

While the cosmos and everything in it exists, and so is in act in some manner with the potential to further change and so be in act in another manner, neither it as a whole nor the individuals within it are of such a kind that, following the truth expressed by Aquinas, what they are ontologically demands that they actually be; nor can they account for their own existence. While stars, dogs, human beings, etc., exist and are in act in a certain manner, there is nothing intrinsic in what they are that demands that they be or accounts for the fact that they actually do exist. However, since the cosmos and everything within it does actually exist and since existence is ontologically prior to potency, the act of creation is that act whereby something comes to be or exists and so to be in act in a certain manner with the consequent potential to be in act in another manner—either accidentally or substantially.

Because the act of creation is the bringing of something into existence, that is, that it be in act in a certain manner, that which brings something into existence must possess the ability to do so. That being would be God. However, as seen above, such ability cannot reside within a being which is in act in one manner and is capable of being in act in a subsequent manner through change, for such a being would possess the same contingent ontological status as everything else, and so could not be God. Rather such ability to enact the act of creation can only reside in a being whose very nature is “to be,” that is, to be “pure act,” and as such is ontologically incapable of further enacting some self-actualizing or self-constituting potential after the manner of everything else that exists. It is precisely because such a being possesses no inherent self-actualizing potential that it does possess the positive potential to bring something other than itself into existence, that is, to be in act in some manner. Thus the very character of the act of creation reveals and so demands that God be “being itself” and so “pure act,” for any other mode of existence, one which by necessity would possess self-constituting potential within its own actuality, would be incapable of performing such an act.

It is obviously true to say that God can create because he is almighty and all-powerful, but for him to be such demands  that he exist in a certain manner. It is not just, as Jenson would seem to have it, that he possesses undefined and indeterminate infinite amount of power, but rather he must possess this infinite power in a very specific and precise manner. From our analysis, the act of creation determines and so defines that to be almighty or all-powerful necessitates that a being be “pure act,” for “might” is power in act; and to be almighty demands that one simply be “pure act” and so possess the plenitude of power. Thus, God as “being itself,” creates by the pure act that he himself is because no other act than the “pure act” that he is is capable of so doing.**

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*Tom’s note: Weinandy later explains “…to say that God is ‘being itself’ and thus ‘pure act’ means that he is immutable not in the sense of being static or inert, but rather that being ‘pure act’ he is so dynamic that no further self-constituting action could possibly make him more dynamic.” Elsewhere he says there is in God no “self-actualizing potential” which is unfulfilled. God’s ‘identity’ as a personal being, or his being ‘as a person’, is fully and utterly realized and actual. He cannot “become” any more personal than he eternally is, cannot achieve a personal ‘identity’ which is not already eternally his own. Any open theist can agree with this! As he opens his essay, he asks, “Do such divine historical actions [viz., creating] bear upon the very being of God, that is, do they ontologically affect God in a manner that is constitutive of who he is….” I’d say, they do affect his very being but NOT in a manner constitutive of ‘who’ he is. God cannot change or increase his “who.” Any open theist can agree with this as well! So where’s the argument then? Surely there’s more to ‘classical’ theism than this. There is. But it’s found in arguments that move FROM this fullness of personal being and identity to other things (like divine timelessness and impassibility) that Weinandy (and the WHOLE classical tradition) thinks is entailed by God’s being full and unimprovable in this sense. They think God’s being this full does entail such timelessness. I don’t think it does.

**Tom’s note: One could object that if God commands creation be by the same pure act which constitutes his own existence (as Weinandy argues), and if creation’s actuality is entailed in God’s command that it be (and it is), then the freedom and gratuity of creation are destroyed. Creation can be no more gratuitious than God can be on this view (something Weinandy denies). Weinandy has an escape: “While the act of creation demands that God act by no other act than the ‘pure act’ that he is, our minds are incapable of conceiving the manner in which ‘pure act’ acts, for our direct knowledge is limited only to actions of beings who are not ‘pure act’.” Sweeeeeet play of the mystery card there!

Post Edited (Tom) : 3/25/2010 12:12:26 PM (GMT-5)

TOM: He doesn't "come to possess" (i.e. "actualize" ) WHO he is by creating.

JEFF: Can't we say God BECAME a father of created beings by creating? I think what we want to say is that God doesn't BECOME socially-relational by creating. He already was that independent of creation. But He apparently can take on relationships that were contingent in the sense that they didn't have to "start" but are necessary NOW in the sense that His nature compels their continuation.

Post Edited (Daniel M) : 3/30/2010 12:24:52 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (Tom) : 3/30/2010 10:32:46 PM (GMT-5)

Let's never forget.  The ONLY Person in the Trinity who has been incarnated is God the Son, but the incarnational experience of the Son "ripples" into the very inner life of the Trinity as a NOVEL expression of divine personhood.

Post Edited (One Love) : 3/30/2010 2:21:44 PM (GMT-5)

By the way, it is this "life exchange" between the divine and human in the one Person of the Incarnate Word (God the Son) that allows for human persons to be "adopted" as sons and daughters of God.  (Galatians 4:1-7; Romans 8:12-21)

Post Edited (One Love) : 3/30/2010 4:53:17 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (One Love) : 3/30/2010 11:28:06 PM (GMT-5)

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Gregory Palamas: defender of Hesychasm
 
about the year 1337, hesychasm attracted the attention of a learned member of the Orthodox Church, Barlaam, a Calabrian monk who at that time held the office of abbot in the Monastery of St Saviour in Constantinople and who visited Mount Athos. Mount Athos was then at the height of its fame and influence, under the reign of Andronicus III Palaeologus and under the 'first-ship' of the Protos Symeon. On Mount Athos, Barlaam encountered Hesychasts and heard descriptions of their practices, also reading the writings of the teacher in Hesychasm of St Gregory Palamas, himself an Athonite monk. Trained in Western Scholastic theology, Barlaam was scandalized by hesychasm and began to combat it both orally and in his writings. As a private teacher of theology in the Western Scholastic mode, Barlaam propounded a more intellectual and propositional approach to the knowledge of God than the Hesychasts taught.

Barlaam took exception to the doctrine entertained by the Hesychasts as to the nature of the light, the experience of which was said to be the goal of Hesychast practice, regarding it as heretical and blasphemous. It was maintained by the Hesychasts to be of divine origin and to be identical to the light which had been manifested to Jesus' disciples on Mount Tabor at the Transfiguration.[5] This Barlaam held to be polytheistic, inasmuch as it postulated two eternal substances, a visible and an invisible God.

On the Hesychast side, the controversy was taken up by St Gregory Palamas, afterwards Archbishop of Thessalonica, who was asked by his fellow monks on Mt Athos to defend hesychasm from the attacks of Barlaam. St Gregory himself was well-educated in Greek philosophy. St Gregory defended hesychasm in the 1340s at three different synods in Constantinople, and he also wrote a number of works in its defense.

In these works, St Gregory Palamas uses a distinction, already found in the 4th century in the works of the Cappadocian Fathers, between the energies or operations (Gr. energeies) of God and the essence of God. St Gregory taught that the energies or operations of God were uncreated. He taught that the essence of God can never be known by his creature even in the next life, but that his uncreated energies or operations can be known both in this life and in the next, and convey to the Hesychast in this life and to the righteous in the next life a true spiritual knowledge of God. In Palamite theology, it is the uncreated energies of God that illumine the Hesychast who has been vouchsafed an experience of the Uncreated Light.

In 1341 the dispute came before a synod held at Constantinople and presided over by the Emperor Andronicus III; the synod, taking into account the regard in which the writings of the pseudo-Dionysius were held, condemned Barlaam, who recanted and returned to Calabria, afterwards becoming bishop in the Roman Catholic Church.

One of Barlaam's friends, Gregory Akindynos, who originally was also a friend of St Gregory Palamas, took up the controversy, which also played a role in the civil war between the supporters of John Cantacuzenus and John V Palaeologus. Three other synods on the subject were held, at the second of which the followers of Barlaam gained a brief victory. But in 1351 at a synod under the presidency of the Emperor John VI Cantacuzenus, Hesychast doctrine was established as the doctrine of the Orthodox Church.

Post Edited (One Love) : 3/30/2010 11:37:59 PM (GMT-5)