the Week of Proper 26 / Ordinary 31
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Bible Encyclopedias
Immutability
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
or the divine attribute of unchangeableness indicated in the great title of God, I AM. So James 1:17 : "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." Psalms 33:11 : " The counsel of the Lord standeth forever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations;" Psalms 102:25-27 : "Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end." God is immutable as to his essence, being the one necessary being. He is immutable also in ideas and knowledge, since these are eternal. "If we consider the nature of God, that he is a self- existent and independent Being, the great Creator and wise Governor of all things; that he is a spiritual and simple Being, without parts or mixture such as might induce a change; that he is a sovereign and uncontrollable Being, whom nothing from without can affect or alter; that he is an eternal Being, who always has and always will go on in the same tenor of existence; an omniscient Being, who, knowing all things, has no reason to act contrary to his first resolves; and in all respects a most perfect Being, who can admit of no addition or diminution; we cannot but believe that, both in his essence, in his knowledge, and in his will and purposes, he must of necessity be unchangeable. To suppose him otherwise is to suppose him an imperfect being; for if he change it must be either to a greater perfection than he had before or to a less; if to a greater perfection, then was there plainly a defect in him, and a privation of something better than what he had or was; then, again, was he not always the best, and consequently not always God: if he change to a lesser perfection, then does he fall into a defect again; lose a perfection he was possessed once of, and so ceasing to be the best being, cease at the same time to be God. The sovereign perfection of the Deity, therefore, is an invincible bar against all mutability; for, whichever way we suppose him to change, his supreme excellency is nulled or impaired by it. We esteem changeableness in men either an imperfection or a fault: their natural changes, as to their persons, are from weakness and vanity; their moral changes, as to their inclinations and purposes, are from ignorance or inconstancy, and therefore this quality is no way compatible with the glory and attributes of God" (Charnock, On the Divine Attributes).
"Various speculations on the divine immutability occur in the writings of divines and others, which, though often well intended, ought to be received with. caution, and sometimes even rejected as bewildering or pernicious. Such are the notions that God knows everything by intuition; that there is no succession of ideas in the divine mind; that he can receive no new idea; that there are no affections in God, for to suppose this would imply that he is capable of emotion; that if there are affections in God, as love, hatred, etc., they always exist in the same degree; or else he would suffer change: for these and similar speculations, reference may be had to the schoolmen and metaphysicians by those who. are curious in such subjects; but the impression of the divine character, thus represented, will be found very different from that conveyed by those inspired writings in which God is not spoken of by men, but speaks of himself; and nothing could be more easily shown than that most of these notions are either idle, as assuming that we know more of God than is revealed; or such as tend to represent the divine Being as rather a necessary than a free agent, and his moral perfections as resulting from a blind physical necessity of nature more than from an essential moral excellence; or, finally, as unintelligible or absurd. The true immutability of God consists, not in his adherence to his purposes, but in his never changing the principles of his administration; and he may therefore, in perfect accordance with his preordination of things, and the immutability of his nature, purpose to do, under certain conditions dependent upon the free agency of man, what he will not do under others; and for this reason, that an immutable adherence to the principles of a wise, just, and gracious government requires it. Prayer is in Scripture made one of these conditions; and if God has established it as one of the principles of his moral government to accept prayer in every case in which he has given us authority to ask, he has not, we may be assured, entangled his actual government of the world with the bonds of such an eternal predestination of particular events as either to reduce prayer to a mere form of words, or not to be able himself, consistently with his decrees, to answer it, whenever it is encouraged by his express engagements." See Watson, Institutes, 1, 401; 2, 492; Perrone, Tractctus de Deo, part 2, ch. 2. Knapp, Theology, 20; Graves, Works, 3:283; Dorner, in Jahrbuch f. deutsche Theologie, 1859, 1860 (see Index). (See ATTRIBUTES); (See GOD).
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McClintock, John. Strong, James. Entry for 'Immutability'. Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/tce/i/immutability.html. Harper & Brothers. New York. 1870.
