That qualifying distinction helps a lot. Just so I am understanding correctly, is St. Thomas saying that love, joy and delight are not passions because they are not of the sensitive appetite, but since they are part of the intellective appetite they are nevertheless real, just not sensitive and complex like ours? If we cannot properly call them passions, then what do we call them? Do we have intellective appatites as well, and if so, is our love, joy and delights properly attributed to this appetite, therefore rendering them non-passions? Thanks for the comment.

Would you agree that even though the passions said of God are not the same kind as ours (in the sense of mood, i.e. God goes from a good mood to bad mood), they are nevertheless real, perhaps more real, and more certain than ours?

Yes, absolutely. I’m glad that came across despite my lack of articulation. It’s a difficult thought to express fully but that is the precise link I wanted to make between the “divine metaphor” and God’s immutability especially regarding the passions.

Bryan is right about the passions. You’ll find that the passage in the Summa he quoted is listed above (in part) in footnote number 7. Thanks for the clarification Bryan.

In any case, if the passions we see attributed to God in the scripture are not real in any way, then, since love is a passion

Love is not fundamentally a passion; only in us is love accompanied by passion, because we are material beings. But in angels and in God, love is without passion. Aquinas explains:

[A]cts of the sensitive appetite, inasmuch as they have annexed to them some bodily change, are called passions; whereas acts of the will are not so called. Love, therefore, and joy and delight are passions; in so far as they denote acts of the intellective appetite, they are not passions. It is in this latter sense that they are in God. Hence the Philosopher says (Ethic. vii): “God rejoices by an operation that is one and simple,” and for the same reason He loves without passion. (Summa Theologica I Q.20 ad 1.)

But with that qualification, the rest of your comment is correct.

In the peace of Christ,

- Bryan

I think we may pretty much agree, and the problem may only be misunderstanding on my part, or semantics, but consider the following for clarification:

Would you agree that even though the passions said of God are not the same kind as ours (in the sense of mood, i.e. God goes from a good mood to bad mood), they are nevertheless real, perhaps more real, and more certain than ours?

In any case, if the passions we see attributed to God in the scripture are not real in any way,then, since love is a passion, it cannot properly be attributed to God as a real passion. So, it would seem that the love of God is not really love, but is just portrayed that way for our limited human understanding. However, if God’s love is a real passion, then it must also be that his anger/wrath are real as well. For, since the love of God is for all that is good–principally himself, all that proceeds from himself, or is derived from him, and properly magnifies his Glory–then all that is bad and evil–those things which are not ordered toward him, the principal good, and do not magnify his Glory–God must necessarily hate, for he cannot love those things. Thus in this sense we can understand God to be immutable, because of the (intrinsic) unchanging nature of his will and disposition toward the Good (i.e. himself), yet his disposition toward us may change based on an intrinsic change in us, for we can be disposed to either good or evil intrisically, while God cannot. But this change in his disposition toward us in no way entails that he has changed intrinsically in respect to his will and ultimate disposition (i.e. toward himself, the good). In other words, that God is unchanging in his will and intrinsic disposition toward the good is the very reason he must necessarily change in his disposition toward us when we do evil, and this we should understand to be no less than a real anger (if his love is real love) and a real execution of that anger in judgment if it pleases him to pour out his wrath. It would rather make sense to say that a change in God’s disposition toward us is more like an accidental change by virtue of his immutable nature, but is nevertheless a real passionate change.

Furthermore, I think this helps establish your point above about penal atonement where the doctrine of imputation must be false because it entails an accidental change toward us without an intrisic change in us, thus necessarily causing an intrinsic change in God. For, if God is unchanging in his disposition toward the good, then for him to make an arbitrary change in his disposition toward us sinners, without an intrinsic change in us toward the good, would be in defiance of his own nature which must always and necessarily be disposed to the good.

Any change in God at all would entail that He is mutable because that’s what mutability means. The passions are not properly attributed to God in the sense that God is moved by passions as you and I are (e.g. that He sees something that makes Him angry or something happens that causes His “mood” to change). Passions are properly said of God because we find them in Scripture. However, they must be understood in the correct sense. Anger/wrath as spoken of God in scripture is not the same thing as anger/wrath spoken of men. Acts of the inellective appetite on the other hand (see footnote in the article) are properly attributed to God because they proceed from the will.

Sorry for the brevity I gotta go for now.

Tim,

Are you saying here that since God is immutable he is necessarily dispassioned, and that only our understanding of his having passions is only analogy–that they are not real passions? And, that a change in a passion (i.e. his disposition toward us) necessarily entails that he is mutable?

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P.S. Your website design is beautiful!

Nice catch! It could actually go both ways and your way might be better than mine but here’s what I meant: the skeptic reads that the Scriptures speak of the sun standing still and takes it as evidence that it is not divinely inspired. If the skeptic understood the Scripture to be speaking metaphorically, then he wouldn’t see it as an error.

On the other hand, yours is a good point as well. The fundamentalist may insist on a literal reading where it should be metaphoric.