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Immutability of God.

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  • Originally posted by 37818 View Post
    I believe in the immutability of God. Here I am going to argue against it.


    "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." -- Genesis1:1.

    This being understood to be an ex nihilo creation.

    God never creating anything, then after never creating anything, this God acts and creates everything.
    God went from not being the Creator to becoming the Creator. A change which negates any real claim to immutability.
    This may be necro-ing, but anyway...

    No. God is not changed by His acts ad extra - that is, by acts “outside” His intra-Personal Trinitarian Life. What does undergo change, is what God creates and governs. But in God Himself, there is no change or alteration of any kind.

    The Incarnation of the Eternal Divine Word did not “do anything” to the Word, Who Is eternal with the Father. What was changed, and given infinite dignity, was the human nature assumed by the Word. For the human nature assumed by the Word is created.
    Last edited by Rushing Jaws; 01-25-2018, 11:38 PM.

    Comment


    • Originally posted by Rushing Jaws View Post
      This may be necro-ing, but anyway...

      No. God is not changed by His acts ad extra - that is, by acts “outside” His intra-Personal Trinitarian Life. What does undergo change, is what God creates and governs. But in God Himself, there is no change or alteration of any kind.
      If God did not change in His action then that action would be something that God has always done from eternity. There was never a first time.

      The Incarnation of the Eternal Divine Word did not “do anything” to the Word, Who Is eternal with the Father. What was changed, and given infinite dignity, was the human nature assumed by the Word. For the human nature assumed by the Word is created.
      Two things here. One, nothing was "made" except by the Word (John 1:1-3). And secondly, the Word being "made" flesh (John 1:14) was in fact a change.
      . . . the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; . . . -- Romans 1:16 KJV

      . . . that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: . . . -- 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 KJV

      Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: . . . -- 1 John 5:1 KJV

      Comment


      • I believe all the matter in the universe has always existed it just changes form endlessly. I see God(Hashem)as the Author of consciousness. I argue primitive man cocieved a creator I ask to ponder that this creator admits God would therefore be an uncaused causes. If an uncaused cause is possible? Than isn't it possible with matter that it could not have came from nothing if in fact matter headed a cause? Than what created the first cause? Who I'd the creator of the creator? The En Sof can not be described in words. Religion tried to explain the unexplainable thus will always fail to put Absolute Truth in words.

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        • Sorry about typos.I wrestle with spell check and lose.

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          • Originally posted by 37818 View Post
            I believe in the immutability of God. Here I am going to argue against it.


            "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." -- Genesis1:1.

            This being understood to be an ex nihilo creation.

            God never creating anything, then after never creating anything, this God acts and creates everything.
            God went from not being the Creator to becoming the Creator. A change which negates any real claim to immutability.
            That creatures come to be, is not a change in God.
            It is a change in what is not-God, from non-being, to (creaturely participation in) being.
            God is not changed by His works ad extra
            Creation is an exercise, in a created and therefore limited mode, of what God eternally is. God is no more changed by inventing what was not, than a human author is. Creation is a manifestation, in a limited manner, of the infinite fullness being of God - it is not God;
            and is not evil;
            not necessary to God;
            It does not imply any lack in God.

            Before creation there was no “when”, “before” or “after”. Those words have meaning only “within” creation, the making of which they presuppose. We can’t rightly say “before creation”, because doing so treats God’s eternity, and time as creatures experience it, as though they were the same, and therefore as continuous, the same in kind. That is like asking when Coruscant was built. That would be a worthwhile question to ask a Jedi, but it would be absurd to ask George Lucas, because the Jedi and George Lucas belong to different modes of being, different realities. The history of that galaxy, Coruscant included, has no where or when but George Lucas and its other creators.

            One cannot, in reality, go from Coruscant to Skywalker Ranch, because the two places, each real in its own reality, are not equally real. For one was imagined, and then built as a humanly accessible place which is accessible in the body; while the other is humanly accessible only by imaginative sympathy, because it belongs to the Secondary World of feigned history. Coruscant “is not real” - Skywalker Ranch “is real”.

            I think Dante was right - every “when” and “where” is “present in” the TriUne God. Which hardly goes beyond what St Paul says of Christ in Colossians 1. If all creation is “in God”, why and how is God changed by it ? Creation is not external to God, or not in the way that a triangle, cube or polyhedron is external to a maths teacher. I think the relation of creatures to God is better dealt with by the metaphysics of being, than by thinking of creatures as discrete material objects “outside” God. God is “Other” than creatures, because God is the Holy One. And neither materialism nor metaphysics is equal to “comprehending” that. I think it is a great wonder, that the Most Holy God can be the Creator of all things.
            Last edited by Rushing Jaws; 06-20-2021, 09:06 PM.

            Comment


            • I'm not willing to scrap scripture for the sake of supporting the concept of an immutable God. The conception of Christ - he who became flesh - who later died (by his own declaration, according to scripture) - who now sits at the right hand of God - shows that (according to scripture at least) God is mutable.
              1Cor 15:34 Come to your senses as you ought and stop sinning; for I say to your shame, there are some who know not God.
              .
              ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛
              Scripture before Tradition:
              but that won't prevent others from
              taking it upon themselves to deprive you
              of the right to call yourself Christian.

              ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛

              Comment


              • Doesn't God have a throne and scepter? Are these items co-eternal with God or did He create them?

                Comment


                • Originally posted by Rushing Jaws View Post
                  That creatures come to be, is not a change in God.
                  It is a change in what is not-God, from non-being, to (creaturely participation in) being.
                  God is not changed by His works ad extra
                  Creation is an exercise, in a created and therefore limited mode, of what God eternally is. God is no more changed by inventing what was not, than a human author is. Creation is a manifestation, in a limited manner, of the infinite fullness being of God - it is not God;
                  and is not evil;
                  not necessary to God;
                  It does not imply any lack in God.

                  Before creation there was no “when”, “before” or “after”. Those words have meaning only “within” creation, the making of which they presuppose. We can’t rightly say “before creation”, because doing so treats God’s eternity, and time as creatures experience it, as though they were the same, and therefore as continuous, the same in kind. That is like asking when Coruscant was built. That would be a worthwhile question to ask a Jedi, but it would be absurd to ask George Lucas, because the Jedi and George Lucas belong to different modes of being, different realities. The history of that galaxy, Coruscant included, has no where or when but George Lucas and its other creators.

                  One cannot, in reality, go from Coruscant to Skywalker Ranch, because the two places, each real in its own reality, are not equally real. For one was imagined, and then built as a humanly accessible place which is accessible in the body; while the other is humanly accessible only by imaginative sympathy, because it belongs to the Secondary World of feigned history. Coruscant “is not real” - Skywalker Ranch “is real”.

                  I think Dante was right - every “when” and “where” is “present in” the TriUne God. Which hardly goes beyond what St Paul says of Christ in Colossians 1. If all creation is “in God”, why and how is God changed by it ? Creation is not external to God, or not in the way that a triangle, cube or polyhedron is external to a maths teacher. I think the relation of creatures to God is better dealt with by the metaphysics of being, than by thinking of creatures as discrete material objects “outside” God. God is “Other” than creatures, because God is the Holy One. And neither materialism nor metaphysics is equal to “comprehending” that. I think it is a great wonder, that the Most Holy God can be the Creator of all things.
                  Is it a change or not a change for God? From never creating to to creating? Yes or no?
                  . . . the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; . . . -- Romans 1:16 KJV

                  . . . that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: . . . -- 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 KJV

                  Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: . . . -- 1 John 5:1 KJV

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by 37818 View Post
                    I believe in the immutability of God. Here I am going to argue against it.


                    "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." -- Genesis1:1.

                    This being understood to be an ex nihilo creation.

                    God never creating anything, then after never creating anything, this God acts and creates everything.
                    God went from not being the Creator to becoming the Creator. A change which negates any real claim to immutability.
                    Dead people don't move (act).
                    ...WISDOM giveth life to them that have it. (Ecclesiastes 7:12)
                    ...the ISLES shall wait for his law (Isaiah 42:4)
                    https://philippinesinprophecies.wordpress.com/

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by Christianbookworm View Post
                      Moved: Immutability of God

                      But that doesn't make any sense! Though, good luck trying to understand a Being that doesn't have human psychology.
                      My cat probably doesn't understand me perfectly. I certainly don't understand her perfectly. Nor will I ever do so.

                      Yet she and I are radically similar, because both of us are creatures. We are therefore far more alike than either of us is like God.

                      But how can creatures, beings radically unlike God, expect to understand, and perfectly, the Creator God Whom they are so unlike ? ISTM that the real surprise is, that anything can be known of God at all.

                      To understand God fully, we would need to know God as fully and completely as Christ does. Since we do not have the infinite and eternal "capacity tor God" that Christ does, that is not possible.

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