Doctrine Matters with Kevin DeYoung What Is the Doctrine of Impassibility?
Feb 24, 2026
A clear dive into divine impassibility and what it means for God to not suffer or change. A look at historical defenses and theological objections to a passible deity. Explores how the incarnation relates to divine suffering. Surveys communicable attributes grouped as intellect, will, and power, including God’s knowledge, holiness, love, mercy, and sovereign wisdom.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
What Divine Impassibility Means
- Impassibility means God does not suffer and cannot be acted upon from without or within.
- Kevin DeYoung ties impassibility to immutability and argues it preserves God's pure, constant activity as 'pure act' rather than being acted upon.
Historical Rationale Against Divine Passibility
- Historic Christianity has affirmed impassibility from the early church through major theologians, not merely from Greek philosophy.
- DeYoung warns that denying impassibility pushes toward viewing God as ontologically like creation and 'in process,' which risks process theology.
Impassibility Does Not Deny God's Affections
- Asserting God's impassibility doesn't make him lifeless; Scripture uses emotional language about God but not emotions like ours tied to bodies.
- DeYoung emphasizes anthropopathisms and the uniqueness of the incarnation: God suffered only by becoming man.
