Skip to content
Wellsprings
christian-theology-properfeatured in 25 works

Divine Impassibility

Can God suffer? The ancient conviction that nothing outside him can move his nature

Divine impassibility teaches that God does not undergo change of emotion or suffering in his divine nature caused by anything outside himself. Writers such as Clement and Cyril of Alexandria upheld it as part of God's perfection and freedom. The doctrine is contested in modern theology: passibilist theologians argue that God genuinely suffers with creation, whereas the patristic consensus affirmed impassibility.

How it traveled

  1. A Plea for the Christians
    Alexandria · 190
    explains
  2. Three Fragments from the Homily on the Cross and Passion of Christ.
    · 311
    explains
  3. A Treatise on the Anger of God Addressed to Donatus
    · 325
    applies
  4. On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia. (De Synodis.)
    Alexandria · 373
    explains
  5. Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.)
    Alexandria · 373
    explains
  6. Against Eunomius
    Nyssa · 395
    explains
  7. Answer to Eunomius' Second Book
    Nyssa · 395
    explains
  8. The Great Catechism
    Nyssa · 395
    explains
  9. The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom
    Constantinople (Istanbul) · 407
    explains
  10. The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Timothy, Titus, and Philemon
    Constantinople (Istanbul) · 407
    explains
  11. A Commentary on the Apostles' Creed
    Aquileia · 411
    explains
  12. City of God
    Hippo Regius · 430
    redefines
  13. Expositions on the Book of Psalms
    Hippo Regius · 430
    explains
  14. Concerning the Nature of Good, Against the Manichæans
    Hippo Regius · 430
    explains
  15. Letters of St. Augustin
    Hippo Regius · 430
    explains
  16. The Confessions
    Hippo Regius · 430
    explains
  17. On the Morals of the Manichæans
    Hippo Regius · 430
    explains
  18. The Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, and Letters of Theodoret
    Cyrrhus · 458
    explains
  19. The Letters and Sermons of Leo the Great
    Rome · 461
    explains
  20. John of Damascus: Exposition of the Orthodox Faith
    Damascus · 749
    explains
  21. Proslogium
    Canterbury · 1109
    explains
  22. Anselm's Cur Deus Homo
    Canterbury · 1109
    explains
  23. Treatise on The One God (QQ[2-26])
    Paris · 1274
    explains
  24. Treatise on the Incarnation (qq[1]-59)
    Paris · 1274
    explains
  25. Treatise on Man (qq[75]-102)
    Paris · 1274
    explains

Key passages(20)

A Commentary on the Apostles' Creed · Rufinus of Aquileia

Very high

A Plea for the Christians · Athenagoras

Very high
Very high