In yesterday’s post I described how classical theism contradicts (to my eye) penal substitutionary atonement. That is to say, if we describe a change in God’s affections toward us upon the death of Jesus on the cross, then this cannot be so. Relatedly, there is no “prior state” in the life of God. As Eternal Being, God has no before and after, unlike the temporal sequence often described by penal substitutionary atonement.
Now, I expect the last post kicked up some questions. Whenever I write about classical theism’s claim that God’s love never changes, I always get some pushback. Habits of mind and mental prejudices are hard to dislodge! Specifically, there is this common assumption that for us to have a “real relationship” with God, God’s emotions have to “change.” But this is foolishness. Here are two choices:
God’s love never changes.
God’s love changes.
Which God would you rather be in “a relationship” with? I’m picking #1. I’d rather be in a relationship with a God who always loves me, no matter what, than with a God who can stop loving me.
Phrased differently, the changeability of God’s love does not constitute relationality. You can be in a relationship with someone who loves you. And you can be in a relationship with someone who hates you. What love affects is the quality of the relationship, not the existence of the relationship. The best of our relationships are those in which we experience constant and unconditional love. The same is true with God. That God’s love never changes does not make it a non-relationship. It makes it the best possible relationship we could ever experience.
The confusion here is that people seem to be equating “relationship” with “emotional volatility.” But this is confused. What defines a relationship is responsiveness, the give and take between two people. That responsiveness can be hurtful or healing. Just ponder all the relationships you’ve ever had and their mixed profiles. Our relationship with God, because God is love, is a responsive and healing relationship. And the fact that this responsive and healing relationship does not change, never becomes harmful or abusive, is what makes it the safe and lifesaving relationship we all long for.
So when I say that God is love and that God’s love never changes, receive it as the good news it truly is. For if God is love and you demand that God change, I don’t think you’re going to like what comes next. Because it’s not going to be love, by definition. So here’s my plea: Stop trying to argue God into hating you.
All that said, the main question yesterday’s post kicks up is obvious: Doesn’t the Bible describe the wrath of God? And doesn’t the Bible describe God’s wrath relenting and changing toward mercy? Given these biblical depictions and descriptions, how are we to make sense of these texts in light of the view of God set forth in classical theism?
My view is that we should approach all the emotional and changing descriptions of God in the Bible as relations to love rather than as anthropomorphisms. That is to say, we should not use human psychology as our model for God. Human psychology is a hot mess, and we should not turn God into a hot mess. The better route is to describe how our hot mess always stands in relation to God’s love.
Consider, as an analogy, a loving parent disciplining their child. From the child’s perspective, the punishment is experienced as the parent’s anger and wrath. But from the parent’s perspective, the discipline is an expression of love, a love that has never changed and never will change. Punishment and wrath, therefore, describe the child’s relation to love in moments of disobedience. Relatedly, sometimes the child experiences fear and guilt. They have done something secret and naughty in relation to the parent’s love. Consequently, the child fears exposure and punishment, and rightly so. But the parent does not love the child any less should the exposure occur and punishment be meted out.
In short, the parent’s love is constant and unchanging, but what the child experiences in relation to that love—from punishment to guilt—is dynamically dependent upon their choices in any given moment. Consequently, the child’s experience of the parent’s love is varied and diverse. Again, love doesn’t change, but love is responsive. And it’s this responsiveness that makes the give and take of the relationship dynamic and particular.
Love and wrath are not, therefore, conflicting emotions within God, where one wins out over the other, back and forth. Wrath names, rather, our relation to God’s love. Like how a disobedient child stands in relation to the parent’s love. As with a child stealing a cookie from the cookie jar, guilt and fear are not descriptive of the parent’s heart. They are, rather, symptoms of a broken relation.
Now, is any of this biblical, or am I just playing word games here?
This is biblical. Scripture says it clearly: “God is love.” More, Scripture describes how the constancy of God’s love is rooted in God being God and not subject to the volatile experience of love in human psychology. For example, from Hosea 11: “I will not execute my burning anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.” That God will not punish in wrath is a sign of God being God and not a hot mess. God’s enduring love is consistently contrasted with the vicissitudes and inconstancy of human affection in Scripture. Another example, from Isaiah 49: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.” The love of human mothers can fail--“even these may forget”--but God’s love endures.
My go-to example to describe all this, which I put to use in The Book of Love, is the Parable of the Prodigal Son. The son journeys off to a far country and faces the natural consequences of his rebellion against the father’s love. And during that entire time, the father’s love never changes. Simply put, in our disobedience we can run off to a “far country.” And there we will, eventually, hit our “rock bottom,” as the recovery community likes to put it. And in that moment, does the son feel shame, guilt, regret, and fear upon turning back home? Yes, he does, and appropriately so. The change in the son would not be a change at all if he returned entitled, demanding, and unrepentant.
As a final example, here is a Johannine expression of what I have been describing. From John 3:
And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.
Notice, the light doesn’t judge. The light just shines. The judgment is this: we love the darkness rather than the light. The judgment is our anti-relation to the light. And notice also the guilt and the fear: we do not come to the light lest our works be exposed.
All that to say, when I evacuate wrath from the heart of God, I am not evacuating our relation with God of moral dynamism. Our experiences of wrath, punishment, guilt, and fear are real and legitimate. Those Biblical depictions should be heeded. They do not, however, describe God as a hot mess. Rather, they are experiences of our anti-relation to Love.
