God does change

[Luke2220]

Trying to resolve a conflict with the view that God does not change ; he does change, so goes this argument!

Original position:

1. “God does not change. He is the same yesterday, today, & tomorrow! Amen”.

Rebuttal:
Prior to the start of Christ’s ministry, I could be a Jew, who hated my brother, and could have a mental affair with my brother’s wife. Yet, I had not broken the Mosaic law.

Matt.5:21-29: When our Lord instructed about being angry with his brother = murder, or lust after a woman = adultery, that was a significant tightening of the moral filter from the Mosaic Law.
The filter of acceptance had now been narrowed, and those mental ideas, were now sins.
Therefore, the law had changed; it had become more restrictive.
Therefore, God does change.
Furthermore, Christ did invoke a new convenant, and therefore did implement change.
God does change.

Is there a legitimate conflict here with the original position (God does not change);
or a flaw in the logic &/or understanding.

Help!

Blessings,

Luke,

 

[Joe_5859]

I don’t see how this would follow logically unless someone asserted that God=The Law. So what if the Mosaic Law changed? What does that have to do with who God is in His essence?

The trickier question is explaining how God took on a human nature in the incarnation and didn’t change.

 

[meltzerboy]

Trying to resolve a conflict with the view that God does not change ; he does change, so goes this argument!

Original position:

1. “God does not change. He is the same yesterday, today, & tomorrow! Amen”.

Rebuttal:
Prior to the start of Christ’s ministry, I could be a Jew, who hated my brother, and could have a mental affair with my brother’s wife. Yet, I had not broken the Mosaic law.

Matt.5:21-29: When our Lord instructed about being angry with his brother = murder, or lust after a woman = adultery, that was a significant tightening of the moral filter from the Mosaic Law.
The filter of acceptance had now been narrowed, and those mental ideas, were now sins.
Therefore, the law had changed; it had become more restrictive.
Therefore, God does change.
Furthermore, Christ did invoke a new convenant, and therefore did implement change.
God does change.

Is there a legitimate conflict here with the original position (God does not change);
or a flaw in the logic &/or understanding.

Help!

Blessings,

Luke,

Having a mental affair with one’s brother’s wife is a violation of Mosaic Law (Torah). Jesus’ interpretation of this puts this commandment in simpler terms so that everyone can understand the meaning, but He is really in accord with Torah teaching. Lust is not considered adultery since the physical behavior is lacking; nonetheless, it reflects an unbridled “evil inclination,” as it so often leads to sin, and may itself be regarded as covert sin. According to Torah, the evil inclination (yetzer hara) is necessary for personal and species survival. Hunger, thirst, and sex are examples of this. The key is to learn to exercise control over these natural drives so that they do not become excessive and lead to inappropriate and overtly sinful behavior. However, feeling guilty due to lustful drives is not the way to exercise control since focusing on guilt drains one’s energy, which should more properly be devoted to taming the desire. Rather, the study and understanding of Torah, accompanied by prayer and good deeds, is the best solution to our exercising control over natural evil tendencies, so that they do not control us.

With regard to the New Covenant, of course Judaism does not believe there is one. Therefore, we don’t use the term “Old Testament,” but rather “Hebrew Bible.” Further, much of what Jesus said–according to His own statement–is a reinterpretation of the Hebrew Bible rather than, strictly speaking, a New Testament. For example, the commandment to love thine enemies is part of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible): “Rejoice not when thine enemies fall.” There are numerous other examples which illustrate Jesus’ rewording and reworking of the moral precepts found in the Hebrew Bible. The only thing I believe He did change are the ritual observances, such as the dietary (kosher) laws, and even many of these so-called changes have been subject to debate.

 

[meltzerboy]

I don’t see how this would follow logically unless someone asserted that God=The Law. So what if the Mosaic Law changed? What does that have to do with who God is in His essence?

The trickier question is explaining how God took on a human nature in the incarnation and didn’t change.

Joe, it has a lot to do with who G-d is in His essence. This is because G-d states many times in the Torah that the Law is Eternal and must be followed by every generation for eternity, including the time of the coming of the Messiah. (Of course, the Torah Law is binding only on the Jews; but the Gentiles are also bound by the Noahide Law.) The Law–as Christians also believe–is the Word of G-d, both the Written Word (Torah) and the Oral Word (Talmud). If the Mosaic Law can be changed to encompass both Jews and Gentiles, then why can’t the “Modified Law” given by Jesus also be changed based on a new revelation? Mormons would most likely agree with this. However, as I noted in my other post on this thread, Jesus Himself claimed NOT to have changed the Law but to have fulfilled it. I don’t entirely agree with this; however, in certain ways, He did simplify it, perhaps for the benefit of the Gentiles.

 

[Jesus_123]

:bible1:
**Jesus Christ, **
yesterday, and today; and the same for ever.
- Hebrews 13:8

+You are arguing with divinely inspired Sacred :bible1: Scripture . . . the thoughts of . . . God Himself . . . what you are observing is God’s . . . **infinitely wise **. . . progressive timetable . . . throughout finite time . . . of holy activity in His work with fallen sinful mankind . . . for the salvation of souls . . . **God Himself ** . . . was, is and always will be the same . . . trying to disprove and debate against this holy truth revealed clearly in Sacred :bible1: Scripture . . . is an activity that will . . . always . . . end in failure . . .

Facets/facts of the holy nature of our . . . **Wonderful God and Saviour **. . . like facets of a multi-faceted cut diamond . . . are revealed throughout **God’s Holy :bible1: Word **. . . trying to pit one revealed facet/fact. . . against . . . another revealed facet/fact . . . to try to prove something about the whole nature of our God is not possible . . . a whole is made up of the sum of all its parts . . . there is no division . . .

. . . :coffeeread: . . .
CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
PART ONE: THE PROFESSION OF FAITH

Article 2 - THE TRANSMISSION OF DIVINE REVELATION

81
Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit.

Article 3 - SACRED SCRIPTURE

104
In Sacred Scripture, the Church constantly finds her nourishment and her strength, for she welcomes it ** NOT** as human word, "but as what it really is, the Word of God."

**In the sacred books,
the Father who is in heaven
comes lovingly to meet his children,
and talks with them. **

:bible1: “How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand …” Psalms 139:17-18b​

:bible1: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.” Isaiah 55:8​

. . . all for Jesus+
. . . thank You Blessed Lord+​

 

[tonyrey]

The trickier question is explaining how God took on a human nature in the incarnation and didn’t change.

The trickier question is explaining how God took on a human nature in the incarnation and didn’t change.

The divine nature did not change when the Son became incarnate because “In God we live, move and have our being”. “In” is obviously metaphorical given that there is no word to express how God causes change without changing, i.e. without being altered by what He does. We cannot expect to understand how the Creator brings us and everything else into existence ex nihilo. But we do know that even though our attitudes and emotions change when we procreate we remain** the same persons**. Otherwise we wouldn’t be responsible for what we did before we had children!

Similarly the Son retains His divine identity which is immutable. Love cannot cease to be love but it is creative and dynamic nevertheless…

 

[Trevor_Stamm]

Summa Theologica
Prima Pars
Question 9. The immutability of God
Article 1. Whether God is altogether immutable?

Objection 1. It seems that God is not altogether immutable. For whatever moves itself is in some way mutable. But, as Augustine says (Gen. ad lit viii, 20), “The Creator Spirit moves Himself neither by time, nor by place.” Therefore God is in some way mutable.

Objection 2. Further, it is said of Wisdom, that “it is more mobile than all things active [Vulgate ‘mobilior’]” (Wisdom 7:24). But God is wisdom itself; therefore God is movable.

Objection 3. Further, to approach and to recede signify movement. But these are said of God in Scripture, “Draw nigh to God and He will draw nigh to you” (James 4:8). Therefore God is mutable.

On the contrary, It is written, “I am the Lord, and I change not” (Malachi 3:6).

I answer that, From what precedes, it is shown that God is altogether immutable.

First, because it was shown above that there is some first being, whom we call God; and that this first being must be pure act, without the admixture of any potentiality, for the reason that, absolutely, potentiality is posterior to act. Now everything which is in any way changed, is in some way in potentiality. Hence it is evident that it is impossible for God to be in any way changeable.

Secondly, because everything which is moved, remains as it was in part, and passes away in part; as what is moved from whiteness to blackness, remains the same as to substance; thus in everything which is moved, there is some kind of composition to be found. But it has been shown above (Question 3, Article 7) that in God there is no composition, for He is altogether simple. Hence it is manifest that God cannot be moved.

Thirdly, because everything which is moved acquires something by its movement, and attains to what it had not attained previously. But since God is infinite, comprehending in Himself all the plenitude of perfection of all being, He cannot acquire anything new, nor extend Himself to anything whereto He was not extended previously. Hence movement in no way belongs to Him. So, some of the ancients, constrained, as it were, by the truth, decided that the first principle was immovable.

Reply to Objection 1. Augustine there speaks in a similar way to Plato, who said that the first mover moves Himself; calling every operation a movement, even as the acts of understanding, and willing, and loving, are called movements. Therefore because God understands and loves Himself, in that respect they said that God moves Himself, not, however, as movement and change belong to a thing existing in potentiality, as we now speak of change and movement.

Reply to Objection 2. Wisdom is called mobile by way of similitude, according as it diffuses its likeness even to the outermost of things; for nothing can exist which does not proceed from the divine wisdom by way of some kind of imitation, as from the first effective and formal principle; as also works of art proceed from the wisdom of the artist. And so in the same way, inasmuch as the similitude of the divine wisdom proceeds in degrees from the highest things, which participate more fully of its likeness, to the lowest things which participate of it in a lesser degree, there is said to be a kind of procession and movement of the divine wisdom to things; as when we say that the sun proceeds to the earth, inasmuch as the ray of light touches the earth. In this way Dionysius (Coel. Hier. i) expounds the matter, that every procession of the divine manifestation comes to us from the movement of the Father of light.

Reply to Objection 3. These things are said of God in Scripture metaphorically. For as the sun is said to enter a house, or to go out, according as its rays reach the house, so God is said to approach to us, or to recede from us, when we receive the influx of His goodness, or decline from Him.

 

[TimothyH]

Trying to resolve a conflict with the view that God does not change ; he does change, so goes this argument!

Original position:

1. “God does not change. He is the same yesterday, today, & tomorrow! Amen”.

Rebuttal:
Prior to the start of Christ’s ministry, I could be a Jew, who hated my brother, and could have a mental affair with my brother’s wife. Yet, I had not broken the Mosaic law.

Matt.5:21-29: When our Lord instructed about being angry with his brother = murder, or lust after a woman = adultery, that was a significant tightening of the moral filter from the Mosaic Law.

The filter of acceptance had now been narrowed, and those mental ideas, were now sins.
Therefore, the law had changed; it had become more restrictive.
Therefore, God does change.
Furthermore, Christ did invoke a new convenant, and therefore did implement change.
God does change.

The filter of acceptance had now been narrowed, and those mental ideas, were now sins.
Therefore, the law had changed; it had become more restrictive.
Therefore, God does change.

Or one could say that the mosaic law was a relaxation of what was originally instituted as per God’s design before sin entered the world and which Christ brought us back to and enabled us to live out. Jesus was asked point blank about divorce;

***He said to them, “Because of the hardness of your hearts *Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. (Matthew 19:8)

In answering the question with a reference to the way it was “In the beginning”, Jesus was taking the Pharisess back to the first chapter of Genesis where man and woman lived without sin, side by side with God in the garden. Before sin entered the world, there was no “Hardness of heart” which demanded divorce. After sin entered the world, God made allowed divorce as a concession, and gave the mosaic law to instruct, so that sin might become evident and visible and correctable.

Yet I did not know sin except through the law, and I did not know what it is to covet except that the law said, “You shall not covet." (Romans 7:7)

The law was an act of mercy for people who did not know how to behave. The law showed people what was sinful, and gave them an objective standard against which they could gauge their behavior. Without the law, there was no way to tell if you were behaving correctly or not. God was giving man a measuring stick against which he could measure his behavior and in some way, determine how pleasing he was to God. What God did was grant mercy through the law…

In the same way, my brothers, you also were put to death to the law through the body of Christ, so that you might belong to another, to the one who was raised from the dead in order that we might bear fruit for God. For when we were in the flesh, our sinful passions, awakened by the law, worked in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, dead to what held us captive, so that we may serve in the newness of the spirit and not under the obsolete letter. (Romans 7: 4-6)

…and then even more mercy through Jesus Christ who enabled us not only to obey the law, but to live out our lives in accordance to God’s original design, the way it was “In the beginning” before sin and our hardness of heart entered the world.

The law was mercy. Christ was even more mercy. God simply poured mercy on top of mercy in light of our sins. God is mercy. And that does not change.

-Tim-

 

[shoe]

God’s immutability does not mean that God doesn’t have the ability to think, understand, and make decisions; nor does it mean God cannot vary the way He works with mankind. Since the Eternal God knows all things in advance of their happening, including His own decisions and responses, God’s changing His mind about a person, thing, or situation cannot possibly change or infringe upon the immutability of His Divine nature.