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PJM
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What ever happened to to the OLD wisdom: control the language and you control the debate?
“Do you not believe, that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak to you, I speak not of myself. But the Father who abideth in me, he doth the works.” [John 14:10]
God Bless,
Patrick
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Wesrock
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The Divine Nature didn’t change.
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AlNg
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Is it a change if God comes down from heaven and becomes man?
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Wesrock
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If we’re going to be technical about whether there was a real potential in God that was actualized, we’re going to need to be more technical about what the Church professes about the person of Jesus Christ and the doctrine of the hypostatic union. That is, that in the person of Jesus Christ there were two natures: the divine nature and human. They were not mixed or confused together. The Divine Substance, if you want to call it that, was not morphed or changed or molded into human form. That’s not the doctrine. God is Spirit. He doesn’t have any physicality that could be molded in such a way. Rather, there was a human body and a human soul that was, from the moment of its conception, united with the Divine mind and will, such that he was one person with two natures. I don’t see how the Divine Substance itself could be localized. It’s not that the Divine Substance itself was walking and talking, but that a human substance was walking and talking, and in the personhood that human substance had was God.
There was no change in the Divine Nature in the union with Jesus Christ, it has not always been common practice to think of the term “property” so broadly. Distinctions were made between essence and properties, between properties and contingent accidents, between intrinsic accidents and relations it bears to other things. Essence, properties (as classically understood), and intrinsic accidents are not external to a being in question (not just talking about God here). These are concrete, intrinsic constituents of a being. They tell us real things about the being itself. A change in a relationship to an external thing does not imply a real, ontological change in a being. So, for example, if Plato as a boy is shorter than Socrates, but then later becomes taller than Socrates, there is a relational change here in what can be said about Socrates. Socrates is taller than Plato, then Socrates is shorter than Plato. But there’s been no actual real change in Socrates’ height. There’s no real potential in Socrates real being for being shorter than Plato which has been actualized. That is just a relation that has changed. When classical theologians declared that there is no potential in God, they refer to HIs actual reality of being, not simply relations.
People are quick to scoff at classical definitions, so I raise you 1996’ Barry Miller’s distinction between real properties and Cambridge properties. For Socrates to grow his hair longer would be a real property change in him. For Plato to grow taller than Socrates would be a change in a Cambridge property of Socrates (Socrates is taller than Plato to Socrates is shorter than Plato) but no actual change in Socrates’ real property of height.
Jesus was God through what we explain as the hypostatic union. But the Divine Nature in its being, His Power, His goodness, His knowledge, etc… was unchanged, and there were no parts of the Divine Nature that were moved or re-arranged. No potential in God was actualized.
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AlNg
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Can God change His mind?
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Wesrock
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Jesus had a human mind, and as a person is God due to the hypostatic union, and that human mind could change, but the Divine Intellect and Will (or the Divine “mind”, if you will) do not change.
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steve-b
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There’s only one in all history (Jesus ) who came from heaven, was born a human, lived, died, resurrected from the dead 3 days after He died just as He foretold, then walked again among the same people after He resurrected, then ascended back to heaven… all chronicled by eyewitnesses.
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AlNg
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The Bible says differently. The Bible says that God did change His mind.
Exodus 32:14
So the LORD changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people.
Amos 7:3
The LORD changed His mind about this. “It shall not be,” said the LORD.
Amos 7:6
The LORD changed His mind about this. “This too shall not be,” said the Lord GOD.
Jonah 3:10
When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.
Jeremiah 18:8
if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it.
Jeremiah 26:13
"Now therefore amend your ways and your deeds and obey the voice of the LORD your God; and the LORD will change His mind about the misfortune which He has pronounced against you.
Jeremiah 42:10
'If you will indeed stay in this land, then I will build you up and not tear you down, and I will plant you and not uproot you; for I will relent concerning the calamity that I have inflicted on you.
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Wesrock
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Malachi 3:6Wesrock:
The Bible says differently. The Bible says that God did change His mind.
Exodus 32:14
So the LORD changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people.
Amos 7:3
The LORD changed His mind about this. “It shall not be,” said the LORD.
Amos 7:6
The LORD changed His mind about this. “This too shall not be,” said the Lord GOD.
Jonah 3:10
When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.
Jeremiah 18:8
if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it.
Jeremiah 26:13
"Now therefore amend your ways and your deeds and obey the voice of the LORD your God; and the LORD will change His mind about the misfortune which He has pronounced against you.
Jeremiah 42:10
'If you will indeed stay in this land, then I will build you up and not tear you down, and I will plant you and not uproot you; for I will relent concerning the calamity that I have inflicted on you.
"For I, the LORD, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.
Numbers 23:19
"God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?
Psalm 102:25-27
"Of old You founded the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands. "Even they will perish, but You endure; And all of them will wear out like a garment; Like clothing You will change them and they will be changed. "But You are the same, And Your years will not come to an end.
Psalm 33:11
The counsel of the LORD stands forever, The plans of His heart from generation to generation.
Scripture should not be read out of context, nor apart from the interpretive tradition it exists in. God does not change. Your quotes are anthropomorphic descriptions of the relation of God’s people to God at different points in time, but there is no actual change in God or His mind, and it misses the idea of God being timeless. Try a different tact. You’ll make no progress here.
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AlNg
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It seems then that the Bible contradicts itself. Further, if the passages that I quoted are to be taken metaphorically, then the atheist can say that he believes that religious facts in general are to be taken metaphorically.
Dismissing statements made in the Bible is something that many atheists do.
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Wesrock
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They are true and literal insofar as they represent real changes. But not actual changes in God Himself. The statements are not being dismissed, they are being taken in context. Catholics reject the Protestant notion that Scripture is easily interpreted in all verses or that everyone has the education or credentials to make such interpretations. Scripture is the Word of God, but it is not the origin of the religion, but a part of it, and must be taken in context and within the interpretative traditions it belongs to. For Catholics and Orthodox Christians, that is the Church. The Jews have lengthy midrashes and commentaries preserving their traditions. I reject your approach to the Scriptures, atheist or not.It seems then that the Bible contradicts itself. Further, if the passages that I quoted are to be taken metaphorically, then the atheist can say that he believes that religious facts in general are to be taken metaphorically.
Wesrock:
Dismissing statements made in the Bible is something that many atheists do.
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AlNg
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Do you also reject prayer and the power of prayer? Does God respond to our prayers or is God immovable and unchangeable even when we petition Him in our prayers.
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Wesrock
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I believe that God is timeless. In one action without change, God touches t1, t2, t3, t4, t5, etc . . . It would be incorrect to state that at t1 God does X, and at t2 God does Y, and at t3 God stops doing X, etc . . . God does not have sequential moments. Rather, He exists in one timeless instant eternally, His action radiating out to all points at once. Imagine an author who in one instant flash of brilliance conceives an entire novel from start to finish (in a human brain this couldn’t actually be an instant, but for the purposes of illustration…). For the characters in the novel that exists in the author’s mind, there is a clear progression of time that passes away and comes to be. For the author, he holds it all in his mind at a single instant. It’s not that at the author is at t1 (as measured by those characters in the novel) and causes X to happen and then the author is at t2 and he stops causing X. To the author that’s all the same instant, to the characters that’s different times.Wesrock:
Do you also reject prayer and the power of prayer? Does God respond to our prayers or is God immovable and unchangeable even when we petition Him in our prayers.
So, having said that, yes, God does respond to our prayers. But not as if He was at t1 and He heard and at t2 He acted. For God, this all feeds into and flows out of His one timeless act.
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PJM
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AlNg
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Everything you have said about God is an anthropomorphism in some sense since it is a description based on how humans think and reason. It involves personification and generalization of characteristics and qualities familiar to humans.
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Wesrock
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Somewhat. Cerainly when it’s said that God has power, knowledge, and goodness, we mean something analagous to what it means when a human has these things. The terms can’t be applied univocally. However, this doesn’t make them meaningless words, because it bears similarity to what it means to have goodness, power, and knowledge in human terms.Wesrock:
Everything you have said about God is an anthropomorphism in some sense since it is a description based on how humans think and reason. It involves personification and generalization of characteristics and qualities familiar to humans.
The use of analogical language versus univocal and equivocal language and its application to God is a very much written about subject. And further distinctions between metaphorical and literal use of analogical language.
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Benadam
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In heaven the community of Saints see God face to face. Their souls are Beatified. They are in an eternal state of purity. Their souls are immutable. Are the souls of the Saints in the same state of being that Jesus’ soul is, assumed to God? I think Jesus could know the Word more than any other person but as it pertains to the human soul, His soul during His earthly life, not much different than Saints in heaven.
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AlNg
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So there is no way for them to absorb more knowledge and understand more of what they did not understand on earth?
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