God is Impassible. True or False?

Is God Impassible?

The doctrine of an impassible God is the belief that God does not possess any emotions, but does the Bible agree with this doctrine?

Theodoret, an early Christian bishop and theologian, wrote, “wild and blasphemous are they who ascribe passion to the divine nature. . .”

But again, what do we see when we come to the Bible? Dozens of verses can be found that clearly state God’s ability to show emotion, despite what any theologian thinks.

Genesis 6:6 says,

“And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.”

Grief as we all know, is an emotion, and here, the Bible says that God himself is grieved. There is no alternate way around this verse, therefore, it disproves the impassibility of God.

Genesis 1:27 says that God created humans in his image, making us like him. If we are like him, he is like us, therefore being like us, he would have emotions, for we have emotions.

Another argument: The Lord Jesus is God, as it says in John 1:1. John 11 tells the story of Lazarus, Mary and Martha’s brother, who was sick, and eventually died. The Lord Jesus received the news, and in verse 35, the Bible says, “Jesus wept.”

The Lord Jesus went on to raise Lazarus from the dead, but the point here is that the Lord Jesus, who is God, wept. He was sad, grieved, upset, and all of these are emotions.

The Lord Jesus also wept in Luke 19:41, which says,

“And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it.”

In Matthew 21:12, The Lord Jesus went into the temple, and seeing the moneychangers, he overturned the tables, rebuking them. This was an act of anger, which is an emotion.

I believe that God does have emotions, and the Bible clearly tells us so. I say that the impassibility of God is a false doctrine, and the theologian Theodoret’s claim that stating that God has emotions is blasphemy can easily be refuted.

The impassible God is not the God I serve. I worship the God of love, feelings, and emotions - the one true God.