The Invulnerability of God: Divine Impassibility According to Anselm

Common Places

A lecture with Q&A given by Davenant Hall Teaching Fellow, Ryan Hurd. Today, Anselm is much maligned for doing theology which results in a heartless god, and central to this caricature is his doctrine of God’s impassibility. However, critics often fail to understand the exact nature of this doctrine. Before one can even consider truth or falsity, one must determine: what does impassibility actually mean? In this lecture. Ryan Hurd determines what Anselm means by saying God is impassible, especially as found in Chapters 7 and 8 of his Proslogion, concluding that his judgment is akin to saying that someone is “invulnerable.” Although many adversities have power over us humans by virtue of our many vulnerabilities, none have any power over God, for he lacks all our vulnerabilities. This alone is what Anselm means when he says God is impassible. As he summarizes, “nothing has power against God.” Ryan Hurd is a systematic theologian whose area of expertise is the doctrine of God, specifically the Trinity. His primary training is in the high medieval and early modern scholastics as well as the 20th century ressourcement movement. He has written a number of articles and regularly does translations of early modern theology sources; but his primary project is writing a systematics of the Trinity. He is a Teaching Fellow at Davenant Hall. For more about Davenant Hall, visit our website here: https://davenanthall.com