Simplicity & Divine Impassibility

Question #28: How does divine simplicity reinforce or complicate the Catholic teaching on divine impassibility (CCC 370, 600) which states that God does not undergo emotional changes as creatures do?

Divine impassibility, as taught in Catholic tradition (cf. CCC 370, 600), asserts that God does not undergo the emotional fluctuations or suffering changes characteristic of created beings. God’s being is unchanging, not subject to moment-by-moment experiences of “ups” and “downs.” At the same time, Scripture and the Church describe God as actively loving, merciful, or even wrathful toward sin. Divine simplicity–the idea that God has no parts or internal composition–both reinforces and, at times, complicates how we articulate impassibility.

1. Reinforcement through Indivisible Essence

• Since God is actus purus (pure act) with no unrealized capacity, He cannot be “affected” in the way creatures are. Divine simplicity underscores that God’s essence is entirely actual and never in a process of becoming. This complements impassibility: if God were to undergo an emotional shift, He would move from one state of being to another, violating the notion that God is indivisible and unchanging.

• By highlighting that all of God’s perfections–love, will, knowledge–are identical with His single, uncomposed essence, simplicity ensures there is no internal part of God that can be “moved” or “stirred” by external forces. This aligns perfectly with impassibility’s claim that God is not forced into new emotional states by external events.

2. Potential Complication: Speaking of Divine “Feelings”

• On the other hand, the language of Scripture and Church teaching can describe God as experiencing sorrow, anger, or joy in response to creaturely actions. The tension arises because simplicity insists God’s “attributes” are all the same single act–He does not have “parts” that can individually change.

• This might look like a complication: How do we reconcile a God who loves passionately and reacts to human sin or repentance with a God who never experiences new states in His essence? Catholic theology navigates this by emphasizing analogy: biblical and devotional language uses anthropomorphic or metaphorical terms so that we can understand God’s personal engagement, without implying that He literally undergoes emotional fluctuations.

3. No Conflict in God’s Emotions

• Because God’s attributes are unified in His simple essence, the interplay of “love,” “justice,” “mercy,” etc. does not produce contradictory or competing “emotional states.” God is a single, infinite act of love and holiness, experienced differently by creatures depending on their disposition (the repentant experience mercy, the obstinate may experience God’s “wrath”).

• Thus, impassibility does not negate genuine relationship with God; it simply indicates that God’s being is stable, unthwarted by inner turmoil or external manipulation.

In sum, divine simplicity ultimately reinforces Catholic teaching on impassibility by ensuring there is no internal composition in God that could shift or “suffer” emotional changes. Though it may complicate our use of emotional language for God, the Church addresses that challenge through analogical, non-literal interpretations, safeguarding both God’s unchanging nature and His real personal engagement with creation.


(see #25)