“Impassibility is that divine attribute whereby God is said not to experience inner emotional changes of state whether enacted freely from within or effected by his relationship to and interaction with human beings and the created order. More specifically, impassibility means that God does not experience suffering and pain, and thus does not have feelings that are analogous to human feelings. Divine impassibility follows upon His immutability, in that, since God is changeless and unchangeable, his inner emotional state cannot change from joy to sorrow or from delight to suffering.” ~ Thomas Weinandy, "Impassibility of God," in New Catholic Encyclopedia: Vol. 7, 357. (Note: the definition rightly connects impassibility and immutability, and I will referr to both these doctrines).Differently, Prof Plantinga says what follows.
"I believe God can and does suffer; his capacity for suffering exceeds ours in the same measure that his knowledge exceeds ours. Christ’s suffering was no charade; he was prepared to endure the agonies of the cross and of hell itself ('My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'). God the Father was prepared to endure the anguish of seeing his Son, the second person of the trinity, consigned to the bitterly cruel and shameful death of the cross. And isn’t the same true for other passions? 'There is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent' (Luke 15:7); is God himself to be excluded from this rejoicing?" ~ KCB, 77.Prof Plantinga's denial seems rather out of place and unexpected because his argument works equally well also assuming the traditional view of God's impassibility. But I am getting ahead of myself.
The Context of the Argument
It is not necessary to give a detailed overview of KCB's goal. For clarity's sake, it is sufficient to say that his book is dedicated to demonstrating how the religious beliefs of a Christian believer "enjoy justification, rationality, and warrant" (KCB, 70), independently of whether the believer is philosophically, theologically or scientifically trained or not. Plantinga defines warrant as follows.
"A belief has warrant for a person S only if that belief is produced by cognitive faculties [such as perception, memory, introspection, reason, and testimony] functioning properly (subject to no dysfunction) in a cognitive environment that is appropriate for S's kind of cognitive faculties, according to a design plan that is successfully aimed at truth." ~ KCB, 28.Again, I will not go through Prof Plantinga's book because it is not necessary for my current purpose. There are several reviews and summaries available online for those who are interested. Alternatively, the reader might read the book itself, which is easy to read and not long. It is sufficient to say at this point that in chapters 1 and 2, Prof Plantinga offers a summary of the academic debate. In chapters 3 to 5, Prof Plantinga discusses and argues for the warrant of holding, not only belief in God, but belief in the triune God of Christianity and Jesus Christ the incarnate Word of God.
Divine impassibility?
Chapter 6 continues what Prof Plantinga already started in chapter 5, that is, discussing the affective and volitional side of Christian faith and belief in addition to the intellectual one. Close to the end of the chapter, however, severe problems start to arise. Prof Plantinga wants to argue that, within the life of the three persons of the Trinity, there is love. This is a rather uncontroversial claim which is held (albeit with different explanations) throughout the entire Christian theological tradition, starting from "God is love" (1 John 4:8) to the present day. Prof Plantinga argues for a specific kind of love: eros. Erotic love, as Prof Plantinga defines it, is "longing, desire, a desire for some kind of union ... " (KCB, 74). The Bible ascribes this love to the three persons of the Trinity and, Prof Plantinga claims, is, therefore, incompatible with the classical Christian doctrine of divine impassibility. Prof Plantinga defines and describes the latter doctrine as follows.
"Now a widely shared traditional view of God has been that he is impassible, without desire or feeling or passion, unable to feel sorrow at the sad condition of his world and the suffering of his children, and equally unable to feel joy, delight, longing, or yearning. The reason for so thinking, roughly, is that in the tradition originating in Greek philosophy, passions were thought of (what else?) as passive, something that happens to you, something you undergo, rather than something you actively do. You are subject to and undergo anger, love, joy, and all the rest. God, however, doesn't undergo anything at all; he acts, and is never merely passive; and he isn't subject to anything. As far as eros is concerned, furthermore, there is an additional reason for thinking that it isn't part of God's life: longing and yearning signify need and incompleteness. One who yearns for something doesn't yet have it, and needs it, or at any rate thinks he needs it; God is of course paradigmatically complete and needs nothing beyond himself. How, then, could he be subject to eros? God's love, according to this tradition, is exclusively agape, benevolence, a completely other-regarding, magnanimous love in which there is mercy but no element of desire. God loves us, but there is nothing we can do for him; he wishes nothing from us." (KCB, 76-77).I believe that the quotation above does not accurately describe the classical Christian theistic view of God's impassibility, and I will attempt to show why. As a disclaimer, I am not arguing that Prof Plantinga has nowhere offered better support for his claims, and I will limit my analysis to the sixth chapter of KCB.
Actus Purus and the Incarnation
In Prof Plantinga's account there is an element that Prof Plantinga briefly mentions but that is not sufficiently discussed in his description of divine impassibility, that is, that God is actus purus (pure act, or purely active). This is an essential point because if we want to accept or reject an idea, it is important to have a proper view of that idea in front of our eyes.
The God of classical Christian theism is a purely active God, "most high, most excellent, most potent, most omnipotent; most piteous and most just; most hidden and most near; most beauteous and most strong, stable, yet contained of none; unchangeable, yet changing all things; never new, never old; making all things new, yet bringing old age upon the proud and they know it not; always working, yet ever at rest; gathering, yet needing nothing; sustaining, pervading, and protecting; creating, nourishing, and developing; seeking, and yet possessing all things. You love, and burn not; You are jealous, yet free from care; You repent, and have no sorrow; You are angry, yet serene; You change Your ways, leaving unchanged Your plans; You recover what You find, having yet never lost; You are never in want, while You rejoice in gain; You are never covetous, though requiring usury" (Augustine, Confessions, 1.4.4).
In order to have a proper view of classical Christian theism, when we mention God's impassibility it is essential to properly mention also the other side of this doctrine, that is, God's utter actuality. Stephen Charnock describes God's pure actuality and absolute and blessed fullness of being in reference to the believers' future state of glory.
"The enjoyment of God will be as fresh and glorious after many ages, as it was at first. God is eternal, and eternity knows no change; there will then be the fullest possession without any decay in the object enjoyed. There can be nothing past, nothing future; time neither adds to it, nor detracts from it; that infinite fulness of perfection which flourisheth in him now, will flourish eternally, without any discoloring of it in the least, by those innumerable ages that shall run to eternity, much less any despoiling him of them: 'He is the same in his endless duration' (Psalm 102:27). As God is, so will the eternity of him be, without succession, without division; the fulness of joy will be always present; without past to be thought of with regret for being gone; without future to be expected with tormenting desires. When we enjoy God, we enjoy him in his eternity without any flux; an entire possession of all together, without the passing away of pleasures that may be wished to return, or expectation of future joys which might be desired to hasten. Time is fluid, but eternity is stable; and after many ages, the joys will be as savory and satisfying as if they had been but that moment first tasted by our hungry appetites. When the glory of the Lord shall rise upon you, it shall be so far from ever setting, that after millions of years are expired, as numerous as the sands on the seashore, the sun, in the light of whose countenance you shall live, shall be as bright as at the first appearance; he will be so far from ceasing to flow, that he will flow as strong, as full, as at the first communication of himself in glory to the creature. God, therefore, as sitting upon his throne of grace, and acting according to his covenant, is like a jasper-stone, which is of a green color, a color always delightful (Rev. 4:3); because God is always vigorous and flourishing; a pure act of life, sparkling new and fresh rays of life and light to the creature, flourishing with a perpetual spring, and contenting the most capacious desire; forming your interest, pleasure, and satisfaction; with an infinite variety, without any change or succession; he will have variety to increase delights, and eternity to perpetuate them; this will be the fruit of the enjoyment of an infinite and eternal God: be is not a cistern, but a fountain, wherein water is always living, and never putrefies." ~ Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God, Volume 1, 298-299.God's immutability and impassibility point to God's pure actuality, absolute perfection, blessed fullness, and absolute lack of any need. Quite rightly, R. D. Culver titled the chapter of his Systematic Theology dedicated to divine impassibility: "God's Blessedness, or Impassibility" (216; emphasis mine). Missing this point means giving an inaccurate account of the doctrine at issue.
There is also another point that is absent from Prof Plantinga's account which only initially seems minor. Prof Plantinga says that in the classical Christian view of God, "God is impassible, without desire or feeling or passion, unable to feel sorrow at the sad condition of his world and the suffering of his children, and equally unable to feel joy, delight, longing, or yearning" (KCB, 76). Although these statements are correct, they offer a partial and mutilated view of classical Christian (i.e., incarnational) theism. Prof Plantinga has left out the unmeasurable amount of ink that classical Christian theists have used to expound and discuss God's sympathy in the incarnation of the Word: "Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need" (Hebrews 4:14-16, KJV). John Calvin says as follows.
"Another principal part of our reconciliation with God was, that man, who had lost himself by his disobedience, should, by way of remedy, oppose to it obedience, satisfy the justice of God, and pay the penalty of sin. Therefore, our Lord came forth very man, adopted the person of Adam, and assumed his name, that he might in his stead obey the Father; that he might present our flesh as the price of satisfaction to the just judgment of God, and in the same flesh pay the penalty which we had incurred. Finally, since as God only he could not suffer, and as man only could not overcome death, he united the human nature with the divine, that he might subject the weakness of the one to death as an expiation of sin, and by the power of the other, maintaining a struggle with death, might gain us the victory." ~ John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2.12.3.Just like God's pure actuality, God's condescension and mercy in Christ cannot be missing from an accurate account of classical Christian theism. In fact, I could give many other references from eminent Christian thinkers who skilfully describe both God's immutable and impassible being and His condescension in the incarnation, where the former is a reason that magnifies God's condescension in the incarnation. See, among many examples, Anselm of Canterbury's Cur Deus Homo; Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology: Vol 2, 302-303; Peter Sanlon, Simply God, 122-143.
KCB's lack of proper references to similar key elements of the traditional view of God (God as purely active and the incarnation) is a flaw that should not be overlooked. With these missing links in mind, we now have a more accurate and heart-warming picture of classical Christian theism.
Agape, Eros, and Impassibility
Let us, for the sake of argument, assume a distinction between erotic love and agape love, a distinction that is key to Prof Plantinga's claims. According to Prof Plantinga, the God of classical theism cannot posses eros love, but only agape love. This is because, according to him, eros implies "longing and yearning" which "signify need and incompleteness" (KCB, 76). "One who yearns for something," Prof Plantinga continues, "doesn't yet have it, and needs it, or at any rate thinks he needs it; God is of course paradigmatically complete and needs nothing beyond himself. How, then, could he be subject to eros? God's love, according to this tradition, is exclusively agape" (KCB, 76). Contrary to the "traditional view of God," erotic love, Prof Plantinga claims, can and has to be ascribed to the life of the Trinity.
"According to Jonathan Edwards, 'The infinite happiness of the Father consists in the enjoyment of His Son.' This presumably isn’t agape. It doesn’t involve an element of mercy, as in his love for us. It is, instead, a matter of God’s taking enormous pleasure, enjoyment, delight, happiness, delectation in the Son. Given the necessary existence of the Father and the Son, and their having their most important properties essentially, there is no way in which God could be deprived of the Son; but if (per impossible) he were, it would occasion inconceivable sadness. The love in question is eros, not agape. It is a desire for union that is continually, eternally, and joyfully satisfied." ~ KCB, 77-78.Prof Plantinga's claims, nevertheless, are far from being obvious.
First of all, the essential meaning of "longing" and "yearning" is to strongly will something. The absence of the thing yearned or longed for is an accidental and unnecessary element that Prof Plantinga adds to the essential meaning of the terms. In fact, the Cambridge Dictionary defines "yearn" as "to desire something strongly, especially [but not exclusively] something difficult or impossible to obtain," and "long" as "to want something very much [absence of that something is not necessary to the definition]". The same is true for the definitions found in the Oxford Dictionary. In fact, a husband may deeply and strongly yearn and long for his wife even in the very moment when the two are physically very close to each other, and there is not the slightest contradiction in such a state of things.
Secondly, in the preceding pages of his book (KCB, 74-76), Prof Plantinga gives a very brief overview with definitions (referring mostly to William James and Jean-Paul Sartre) to explain why eros and agape love cannot be placed together in the God of classical Christin theism. Also here, however, the treatment is not easy to follow. The treatment seems quite ad hoc inasmuch as it defines eros and agape in a certain way (as we have seen above) only to conclude that it is not applicable to an impassible God. Moreover, apart from a few anecdotal examples that Prof Plantinga quotes, it seems to find a good number of counterexamples from the Christian tradition. In fact, theologian Thomas C. Oden (who held to divine immutability and impassibility) sees no conflict whatsoever in placing both agape and eros in the immutable and impassible life of God
"Although agapē and eros seem to be opposites, they may come together and flow in balanced simultaneity and support each other's impulses. Both are expressions of the inestimably high value the heart sets upon that which is loved. Both involve a prizing: Love prizes the beloved so earnestly that it cannot rest without its possession (eros), without experiencing the completion of itself in the other. Love prizes the beloved so highly that it does not withhold any feasible gift or service (agapē). Both involve a yearning: love as eros yearns for the self's fulfillment through another; love as agapē yearns for the other's fulfillment even at a cost to oneself. To separate eros and agapē or to oppose them or set them sharply off against each other may fail to understand how one dimension may strengthen the other." ~ Thomas C. Oden, Systematic Theology: Vol. 1: The Living God, 119 (Note: Oden's full section offers a more historically comprehensive account of eros and agape than the one offered by Prof Plantinga).The Trinity
Prof Plantinga claims that "given the necessary existence of the Father and the Son, and their having their most important properties essentially, there is no way in which God could be deprived of the Son," adding in a footnote that "this is the answer to one of the traditional arguments for the conclusion that God has no passions: the Father and the Son do indeed need each other, but it is a need that is necessarily and eternally fulfilled" (KCB, 78).
Prof Plantinga does not offer any explanation of why what he says in the footnote constitutes the answer to one of the traditional arguments for divine impassibility, and it is unclear why that should be the case. Rather, the eternal and necessary nature of the inter-trinitarian relationships that he mentions seems to play against his passibilistic claims. If the supposed "need" is necessarily and eternally fulfilled, then the fact is that there is not, there has never been, and there will never be any real need whatsoever in the inter-trinitarian relationships because, in this case, “there is no state of the Father that is not a begetting of the Son, and no state of the Son which is not a being begotten by the Father … There is no possible world where the Father exists and not the Son” (P. Helm, Eternal God, 285-286). There has never been a "need" to begin with, and this because Father-Son-Holy Spirit are just what they are and it is absolutely impossible that they cannot not be what they are. Therefore, the concept of "need" can be used in reference to the triune life of God only for explanatory purposes, and not concretely, as Prof Plantinga's position seems to require.
It is, therefore, fully possible to maintain that the three Persons of the immutable and impassible triune God exercise both agape and eros towards each other. Saying that the Father longs and yearns to dwell with the Son and that the Son longs and yearns to dwell in the Father through the Spirit does not necessarily imply any passibility, mutability, or lack (as Prof Plantinga claims). The Father does not become the Father, nor the Son become the Son, nor the Holy Spirit become the Holy Spirit. The three persons are in eternal relationship to each other so that the Father is eternally the Father, the Son is eternally the Son, and the Holy Spirit is eternally the Holy Spirit. The Father eternally begets the Son. We read of the eternal generation of the Son in John 1:14, John 3:16 and Psalm 2 (even though this Psalm talks primarily of Christ’s resurrection, as Acts 13:33 tells us). The Son is different from the Father inasmuch as the Father is the logical source of the Deity and he is the Person who plans and leads the plan of salvation. The Son is eternally generated by the Father and is the Person who reveals in time through his incarnation the plan of redemption of the Father. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son and applies the redemption in time. The eternal generation, begetting of the Son is:
"An act of both the Father and the Son, of the one generating and one generated, actively performed by the Father, passively accomplished by the Son. Scripture explicitly refers to the generation of the Son (Psalm 2:7) and to the fact that the Son is beloved (dilectus: Matt. 4:17; 17;5), the proper (propius) Son of God (John 5:18; Rom. 8:32), and only begotten (unigenitus: John 1:14, 18; 3:16; 1 John 4:9). This generation is, moreover, eternal and perpetual, and unlike the generations of things in the physical world. Marckius argues, thus, that the generation of the Son is not a physical but a 'hyperphysical generation from which–as in the via negativa approach to the attributes–all 'imperfection, dependence, succession, mutation, division, and multiplication' is absent. Nonetheless, this is a 'proper,' not a 'metaphysical,' generation, a genuine filiation flowing (fluens) from the Father according to which the Son is the true image of the invisible God, the representation of the glory and character of the Father’s person (cf. Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:3). By this generation, the Son is 'produced from the Father' in an 'eternal and incomprehensible communication of the unitary divine essence.'" ~ Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: Volume 4: The Triunity of God, 287.Simply assuming definitions of love that necessarily require passibility and mutability to work, and then applying them to the inter-trinitarian relationship of the divine Being, seems somewhat question-begging.
“Clearly, in a finite essence, generation implies some sort of division or separation–but in the infinite, simple divine essence, generation does not indicate a division or separation, much less a partitioning of the divine essence … The claim that such a generation is impossible, [John] Owen comments, rests on the error of arguing limitations of the divine on the basis of ‘properties and attendancies of that which is finite.’” ~ Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: Volume 4: The Triunity of God, 287.It is fully correct to say that God eternally begets the Son in infinite love, either eros or agape love. But this love is not something outside himself or even something that has a start inside himself, but it is the Holy Spirit himself (Augustine, On the Trinity, 6.5.7; Anselm, Monologion, 49-55; Thomas Aquinas, Compendium of Theology, 45-46; Jonathan Edwards, “Discourse on the Trinity,” 121-132), coequal and coeternal with the Father and the Son, so that God's simplicity, sufficiency and impassibility are preserved, since God has all that he "needs" (so to speak!) eternally and necessarily in Himself for the inter-trinitarian life.
God's relationship with creatures does not change what has been said. His people are in Christ before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1), and they are included into Christ by the operation of the Holy Spirit present in them (2 Corinthians 16:14) so that they are in God and God is in them. In this, the believers change and something is added to them, but nothing changes and nothing is added to God. We can consider the many Scriptural references that describe God's saving desire towards elect humans as efficaciously satisfied not only in time ("All that the Father giveth me [to Christ] shall come to me" John 6:37; John 10) but also in and "from" eternity (Ephesians 1-2; Romani 8). See Augustine for some more on this.
The Incarnation, Again
"Can we say that Christ qua human being (according to his human nature) suffered while Christ qua divine (according to his divine nature) did not? This is hardly the place to try to address a question as ancient and deep as this one, but I'm inclined to think this suggestion incoherent. There is this person, the second person of the divine trinity who became incarnate. It is this person who suffers; if there really were two centers of consciousness here, one suffering and the other not, there would be two persons here (one human and one divine) rather than the one person who is both human and divine." ~ KCB, 77.Prof Plantinga says that "this is hardly the place to try to address a question as ancient and deep as this one" (KCB, 77). However, answering this question is foundational for the entire structure of his discourse. In this regard, Prof Plantinga's claim collapses because of the way he frames the issue. His argument can be summarised as follows.
a.) According to classical Christian theism, Christ suffered only according to his human nature, and not as according to his divine nature.
b.) a implies "two centres of consciousness," one suffering (the human nature) and the other not (the divine nature).
c.) b implies "two persons here (one human and one divine) rather than the one person who is both human and divine."
d.) c is unorthodox (a sort of Nestorianism).
e.) Therefore, a is false.This is a rather confused argument. a is the classical Christian position. However, Prof Plantinga interprets it not according to its own classical Christian theological categories, but according to the terms found in b which are not the theological categories through which a is usually explained. Prof Plantinga's theological categories of b ("three centres of consciousness") belong to the recent reformulation of the doctrine of the Trinity. To interpret the classical position through contemporary categories only to conclude that the classical position is wrong is simply circular reasoning.
a does not imply b ("two centres of consciousness," whatever Prof Plantinga means with that, he does not define it in the chapter). Therefore, c is false. a implies two natures, one suffering and the other not. "Nature" does not necessarily equal "centre of consciousness" and, therefore, it is correct to say that there are not two persons (as premise c mistakenly says) but one person and two natures. For these reasons, Prof Plantinga's argument does not pose any problem for a (and, by implication, for the doctrine of divine impassibility) simply because it uses terms and categories (b and c) that do not belong to a and that a actually rejects at the very outset.
"Others ... have had recourse to the supposition of a twofold personality in the Saviour—holding that the Son of God, when He became incarnate, united Himself to 'the man Christ Jesus,' and that the union between these two persons was somewhat the same in kind with that which is constituted by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in believers, although doubtless much more intimate and indissoluble. This notion also is at variance with the facts of the case. For, so far as we are taught in Scripture, the human nature of our Lord never had any existence by itself as a distinct and separate person. It existed from the first, and still continues to exist, in union with the divine nature of the Son of God, and no otherwise. The incarnation, therefore, is not at all the case of one person joining himself to another person; but the case of one person, possessed of the divine nature, assuming the nature and attributes of humanity into union with those of divinity which had previously pertained to Him.
How this was done, it would very ill become us, in the silence of revelation, to conjecture. But, that it was done, is the plain doctrine of the Scriptures. They everywhere speak of the Saviour as one person, although they ascribe to Him, in His incarnate state, such a union of human with divine attributes as is nowhere else to be found in one person. In some passages they represent Him as divine, while in other passages they represent Him as human; but both of these representations are applicable to one and the same person, Jesus Christ our Lord. Nay, sometimes, when He is denominated by one or other of His divine titles, we find things said of Him which are only attributable to His human nature, as when we read that 'the Lord of glory was crucified' (1 Cor. 2:8) and sometimes also, when He is denominated by one or other of His human titles, we find things said of Him which are only attributable to His divine nature, as when 'the Son of Man' is said to have 'come down from heaven.' This 'communion of attributes,' as it has been called—when things which properly pertain to the one nature are ascribed to Christ when designated with reference to the other nature—evidently implies the sameness of the person to whom both classes of names and attributes equally belong, and who, as possessing both, may have the one in combination with the other appropriately assigned to Him." ~ T. J. Crawford (1812-1875), The Mysteries of Christianity, 205-206 (for more on the issue of the communication of attributes [communicatio idiomatum], see Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology: Vol 2, 321-332; Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Vol. 3, 308-316).For more on this, see Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology: Vol 2, 310-321; Bavinck, Our Reasonable Faith, 326-327; Reformed Dogmatics: Vol. 3, 256-259, 298-308. I warmly suggest reading W. G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 613-644 (especially the section "Incarnation and Divine Immutability"), 649-658. In addition to being clearly written, Shedd's pages are a good corrective for most (if not all) the misunderstandings contained in Prof Plantinga's argument. Shedd's Dogmatic Theology can also be found online.
Final Issues
"The thought that God is triune distinguishes Christianity from other theistic religions; here we see a way in which this doctrine makes a real difference, in that it recognizes eros and love for others at the most fundamental level of reality. Does this suggest that we should lean toward a social conception of the trinity, the conception of Gregory and the Cappadocian fathers, rather than the Augustinian conception, which flirts with modalism?" ~ KCB, 78. Emphasis added.The reader should not take these claims at face value. They are swift and inaccurate generalizations which require long answers. However, suffice here to say the same kind of claims Prof Plantinga's makes (the ones in italic) broadly belong to the recent reformulations of trinitarian thinking and have been heavily disputed by many scholars. For instance, "social trinitarianism is a recent departure from classic Trinitarianism and provides an alternative answer to how God is one in essence and three in person: the three persons are distinguished not by their relations of origin but by relationships. That is, the three persons of God each possess what we would call a personality, including a distinct volitional will, and how these relate to one another is what distinguishes Father, Son, and Spirit. Typically, both the economic roles and the volitional relationships that bind them (e.g., eternal material subordination) distinguish Father, Son, and Spirit" (M. Y. Emerson, "The Role of Proverbs 8: Eternal Generation and Hermeneutics Ancient and Modern," in Retrieving Eternal Generation, 46). Here, I will limit myself to give suggestions for further reading.
The claim that the Cappadocian Fathers supported what is today called "social trinitarianism" is, at the very best, highly doubtful. Rather, many have argued that "social trinitarianism [is] a seemingly modern innovation and one lacking in biblical warrant" (Emerson, "The Role of Proverbs 8," 65). See, among several examples, Stephen R. Holmes, The Quest for the Trinity, 30-32, 56-146.
Prof Plantinga also claims that the classical doctrine of divine impassibility "is one of those places where it has paid too much attention to Greek philosophy and too little to the Bible" (page 77). In this case also, this grandiose claim (as it intends to cover over 2000 years of Christian theological production in just a few words) is without any support and is, in fact, misleading. See, among many examples, see Vv.Aa., Confessing the Impassible God, 89-223; R. B. Culver, Systematic Theology: Biblical and Historical, 216-225.
Augustine is certainly not the last word, but the claim that his doctrine of the Trinity "flirts with modalism" (KCB, 78) is very far from being an uncontroversial statement and, in my opinion, mistaken. See, among several examples, Lewis Ayres, Augustine and the Trinity.
Passibility Unproved (and Unnecessary)
Simply put, divine passibility is left without any successful philosophical argument in the section of Prof Plantinga's KCB I have examined. This is true also theologically inasmuch as simply quoting a few biblical passages is neither arguing nor exegeting. Prof Plantinga quotes Matthew 27:46 and Luke 15:7, and Isaiah 62:5, but he does not explain why they are supposed to support his theological claims. For developed discussions on this issue (the so-called "communication of attributes or properties," communicatio idiomatum), see the references at the end of the indented quote from T. J. Crawford. More importantly and even more puzzling is the fact that Prof Plantinga's epistemological argument for the warranted nature of Christian belief does not need divine passibility in order to work. The goal of chapter 6 was to expand the volitional and affective side of his epistemological model. That model requires mutable and passible receptiveness from the finite moral agents who become involved in and recipients of the salvific work of God, and the chapter does not explain at all why said epistemological model should require mutability and passibility in God himself. Nevertheless, Prof Plantinga unexpectedly brings up a controversial doctrine (divine passibility) that is philosophically unnecessary for his epistemological argument and that does not have any sufficient exegetical or theological support in the section I have examined. Why such tangential and unsubstantiated theological claims are extensively mentioned in the middle of the good argument of a good book is, for me, hard to understand.
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