Human impassibility

The impassible suffered, the church fathers said.  Why?  To make passible humanity impassible.  As usual (“God became man, to make man God”), a neat chiasm.

But what can human impassibility mean?  Can it mean that we no longer feel ?  That’s what it sounds like, but that’s hardly possible.  The church fathers were aware human beings have bodies, and, if not aware of the nervous system, knew that we sense pain and pleasure.   Does it mean that we escape passivity, that we, like God, are incapable of being acted upon?  That can’t work either.  To be created is to be passive in relation to the active God.  Whatever it means for humans, impassibility is a gift , and thus received .

For humans, impassibility must mean that we are no longer subjected to or dominated by what we suffer.  Martyrs are impassible; they suffer, and might even suffer the passion of fear, but that does not make them shrink back.  In Christ, they have become impassible.  In fact, one might draw an even closer analogy between divine and human impassibility: God’s impassibility is not mainly concerned with God’s feelings; He is compassionate and jealous and grieves and pities.  Impassibility has to do with whether He will fall under the control of such feelings, whether He will deviate from His purpose because He is angry or grieving.  And the answer is No: God cannot be derailed from His purpose.  So too human impassibility: Not that we lack feeling, but that, whatever we feel, we are not derailed from the works that the Lord has prepared for us to walk in.