Just after posting yesterday and mentioning Thomas J. Oord in passing, Bradley Jersak’s “Cordial Pushback” on relational/open theology hit my inbox. While I’m not deeply enough into open theology or process theology to have an informed opinion on a lot of what Jersak’s saying, I did particularly appreciate this point he made about the love of God:

The biggest stumbling stones for RT [relational theology] teachers seem to be words such as immutability (that God’s essence doesn’t change) and impassibility (that God is not subject to fleshly passions). These terms have nuanced definitions that need to be handled with care lest we misrepresent them.

First, what is immutable? God’s love. God’s love is immutable in the sense of that God’s covenants are marked by faithfulness versus fickleness. He is not like other gods who turn away or turn against their subjects on a whim. The doctrine of immutability insists that God’s love is constant and infinite—always higher, wider, longer, and deeper than our comprehension. Thus, God’s love does not rise and fall or come and go—God’s love is an ever-flowing spring that never runs out.

Further, God’s love is impassible. This does not mean God is unfeeling or unresponsive (like cold, hard granite). No. We never say that. Rather, this means that the ever-flowing spring of God’s love is not conditional on our response. God’s mercy is not turned on and off by our behaviour. Nothing can separate us from divine love.

When God sees and hears our cries, we do see a response of compassion and care, where God ‘comes down’ to help. BUT that response arises from God’s own heart, from the depths of God’s loving nature. He is responsive, not reactive, and consistent rather than codependent. Simply put, impassibility means that God’s love is not subject to or jerked around by our passions. In Christ, we see the nature of God as empathetic (co-suffering) and Cyril will say he ‘suffered impassibly’—meaning voluntarily rather than constrained.

Just beautiful.