Article on the Impassibility of God

[Arch2k]

Are there any thoughts on this article on the Impassibility of God?

Divine Impassibility: Why Is It Suffering? By Paul Helm

 

[VanVos]

Read the article. I thought Paul Helm nailed it. Especially his comments here:

Does God have feelings, then? We may, influenced by our touchy-feely culture, think that the answer is obvious. Of course he has. But here again some caution is called for. For we use the term "œfeeling" to cover not merely mental states, feelings of sympathy or compassion, or of betrayal or alienation, but also feeling arising from changes in our bodies, or event the fact of being embodied. We feel tired, we have aches and pains, scratches and itches, sexual pleasure, we experience cold and heat. Is this how it is the God? Clearly not. And our mental states, our feelings or emotions, are frequently the result of selfishness and ignorance. If in saying that God feels, or even that God has emotions, we are simply (and carefully) speaking of God's impassioned attitudes of delighting in, and hating, and loving in the manner sketched above, then clearly the answer is yes.

I think he does justice to those passages that speak of God having emotions by defining them as impassioned attitudes.