It’s not a shtick from a Danny Kaye movie, but a real theological question: Given his depiction in Scripture, is it impossible that God is impassable? I was reading a collection of writings of the Fathers last night and came across a great answer from Origen. When the Scriptures speak about God as he is in himself, not in relation to men, they speak in lofty absolutes about how unlike men he is. “But,” Origen writes,
when it is a matter of that dispensation by which God is involved with the affairs of men, then he takes on the mind, the ways, and the speech of a man. When we talk to a two-year-old, we use baby language for the child’s sake, because if we were to keep to proper adult speech and talk to children without coming down to their way of speaking they would not be able to understand. Imagine something very like that to be true in the case of God when he has dealings with the human race, and especially with those who are still infants. ( Homilies on Jeremiah 18, 6 )
The same holds true, Origen says, for mentions of God’s wrath. Even though we love children who have done wrong, and sometimes might not be that angry with them, we put on an angry face to make it clear that what they did was wrong. Likewise, God’s love remains unchanging, but appears as wrath so that we will know the reality and gravity of sin.
In his relations with us, God reveals himself as having human characteristics so that we can understand him and ourselves better. It’s not the only explanation, but I think it works quite nicely. And it means that it’s not impossible that God is impassable.
