'Men tell us that God is, by very necessity of His nature, incapable of passion, incapable of being moved by inducements from without; that He dwells in holy calm and unchangeable blessedness, untouched by human sufferings or human sorrows for ever, - haunting
The lucid intersapce of world and world,
Where never creeps a cloud, nor moves a wind,
Nor ever falls the least white star of snow,
Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans,
Nor sound of human sorrow mounts to mar
His sacred everlasting calm.
Let us bless our God that this is not true. God can feel; God does love. We have Scriptural warrant for believing, as it has been perhaps somewhat inadequately but not misleadingly phrased, that moral heroism has a place within the sphere of the divine nature: we have Scriptural warrant for believing that, like the old hero of Zurich, God has reached out loving arms and gathered into His own bosom the forest of spears which otherwise had pierced ours.
But is this not gross anthropomorphism? We are careless of names: it is the truth of God. And we decline to yield up the God of the Bible and the God of our hearts to any philosophical abstraction.'
BB Warfield, 'Imitating the Incarnation', p.5. Avaialable at: www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/files/2010/09/Warfield-Imitating-the-Incarnation2.pdf
