Dionysus on a Bike

Isaiah 48:6-11 – 7/10/2026

The traditional understanding of the theistic God is that God is impassible. In other words, God is not affected by that which is not God, and therefore God is unchanging. God is who and what God is independent of anything else that exists or happens. Nothing that happens and nothing that comes to exist or passes away has any affect on God according to this understanding of the nature of the deity.

The impassible God is a concept we have inherited from Greek philosophy, especially Platonism and Aristotle. For these thinkers the ground of what is, the explanation for the existence of creation is itself not created and does not become or change. That which causes change and motion is not changeable or movable. Yet, here in Isaiah we hear of a God who responds to people depending on how they will praise or defame God’s name. “For my name’s sake I defer my anger.” God is one way (angry) and chooses not to be angry in response to the way God’s people react to that anger. God desires praise and not rejection, so, according to this prophet, God relents so that God will be praised.

Other than a rejection of the impassibility of God, what does this verse mean? There certainly is some mystery to it. How precisely our attitude toward God changes how God reacts to and relates to us is not entirely spelled out. However, it is clear that God is not a God who is unchanging and indifferent. God is not the aloof detached essence that merely explains the world but does not interact with it. God changes in response to us and does what God does in order to relate to us in particular ways.

The Bible does not offer a unified concept of God. Scripture is not a blueprint for understanding essences or natures. We cannot simply read a selection of key verses to have a definition of what is truly meant by “God.” Different authors and contexts within the canon present different pictures of what they understand by the God of Abraham. In order to understand what a particular reference to the deity means, we must set aside our philosophical and theological presuppositions to attend to the text and its context. Here in Isaiah, we have the picture of a God who cares about their reputation and how they are perceived by their people and others. Whatever else we might be able to conclude from this, it is clear that in this part of Isaiah, God is intimately involved with and affected by God’s people, by those with whom God has a covenant. This contradicts both the impersonal material universe of science’s naturalism and the impassible deity of traditional theology. Neither worldview is sufficient to deal with this text. I would also argue that neither worldview is sufficient to make sense of the world as it is and our place in it with our needs and our values and our desire for a better world.

Revised Common Lectionary Readings for 7/10/2026:
Isaiah 48:6-11
Romans 15:14-21
Psalm 65:9-13

Reflections of a Dionysian Lutheran, comments on the daily readings of the Revised Common Lectionary by Justin Marquis