How does God think if he is immutable?

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fisherman_carl

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As far as I know the doctrine of immutability does not contradict God having internal thoughts that are characteristic with his nature.

Also, on a related topic is God’s impassability. I looked to see if impassability is a dogma. And I can not find it. God’s immutability is listed. But I don’t see impassable mentioned.
I am looking at holyjoe.org/dogmas.doc. . Is this a dogma that must be believed? If so where is it? And also what do we mean by it? Because some seem to mean that God does not suffer or change internally. While others include that God has no emotion.

Does God having thoughts conflict with him being unchangeable? And if not then what would be the difference with having emotions?. How would that conflict while thoughts do not? How far do we take the doctrine? Any help would be appreciated.
 
On the subject of God and emotions this is interesting:
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Question 1: Does God sympathize with human joy and love?
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Objection: (my professor’s comment)
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…I should say that I think what St. Thomas means by God’s experience of “joy” in His creatures is quite different than the way we use the term or, more to the point, what Hartshorne has in mind in speaking of God’s sympathetic experience of our own joy.
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I answer that,
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Aquinas believes that it is not in the nature (the properties) of God to sympathize with the experience of pain and suffering in the same way that we do. By this I mean that God’s impassible nature is such that there is no existence of passions (desires) that a human would have. I still contend (and I’d like you to provide proof against this view from the Summa Theologica or Summa Contra Gentiles if you disagree) that Aquinas believed God has emotions (not passions) such as joy and love.
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In the discussion of the Trinity I explained that the persons of God (Father, Son, and Spirit) experience love and joy on an infinite level. Catholics believe that humans can experience love and joy also (as derived from the creator) but without the infinite bliss of God. In this sense, I argued, that our experience of love and joy are analogous to God’s love and joy. Perhaps I do not understand your objection, but I still do not understand why our joy and his joy are incompatable to the point where God does not “sympathize” with our joy. I maintain that our experience of joy (such as the joy of faith or the joy of marital love) may not be equal to the bliss of God, but it is still recognizable to him. If we read a beautiful poem about the joy of romantic love to God, I think he would identify and sympathize with the “feelings” of joy and bliss as well as the joy of relationship between two people who love each other.
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saintaquinas.com/sorrow.html
 
fisherman_carl said:
As far as I know the doctrine of immutability does not contradict God having internal thoughts that are characteristic with his nature.

Also, on a related topic is God’s impassability. I looked to see if impassability is a dogma. And I can not find it. God’s immutability is listed. But I don’t see impassable mentioned.
I am looking at holyjoe.org/dogmas.doc. . Is this a dogma that must be believed? If so where is it? And also what do we mean by it? Because some seem to mean that God does not suffer or change internally. While others include that God has no emotion.

Does God having thoughts conflict with him being unchangeable? And if not then what would be the difference with having emotions?. How would that conflict while thoughts do not? How far do we take the doctrine? Any help would be appreciated.
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The Immutability of God is an attribute where “God is unchanging in his character, will, and covenant promises."
 
fisherman_carl said:
Because some seem to mean that God does not suffer or change internally. While others include that God has no emotion.
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God does not have emotions in the way that humans do.
Does God having thoughts conflict with him being unchangeable?
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God does not think – that is, ‘ratiocinate’ – as humans do. We have to go from one thought to another, and at the end of the process, our outlook has changed. God does not change; and He does not think in that way. He simply knows.
And if not then what would be the difference with having emotions?
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Good approach. But, since He does not think as we do, there’s no contradiction to say that He does not emote as we do. 👍
 
Gorgias said:
God does not have emotions in the way that humans do.

God does not think – that is, ‘ratiocinate’ – as humans do. We have to go from one thought to another, and at the end of the process, our outlook has changed. God does not change; and He does not think in that way. He simply knows.

Good approach. But, since He does not think as we do, there’s no contradiction to say that He does not emote as we do. 👍
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I agree. Notice that you are “defining” G-d based on what He is NOT rather than what He is. This is typically done within Judaism. We do not know how G-d thinks or emotes, only that He does not think or emote in the same way we do.
 
If I understand aright, God does not need to think; He just knows.

Knowing is how a mind expresses wisdom. Thinking is the error-prone human process by which knowledge and wisdom are gained.

ICXC NIKA
 
meltzerboy said:
I agree. Notice that you are “defining” G-d based on what He is NOT rather than what He is. This is typically done within Judaism. We do not know how G-d thinks or emotes, only that He does not think or emote in the same way we do.
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This is also what we do within Catholicism. We are able to come to a reasonable understanding of God pretty much by eliminating what he is not. We recognize we cannot fully understand God in terms of what he is. This is why many Catholic formulations of God are negative: what he is not.
 
fisherman_carl said:
As far as I know the doctrine of immutability does not contradict God having internal thoughts that are characteristic with his nature.

Also, on a related topic is God’s impassability. I looked to see if impassability is a dogma. And I can not find it. God’s immutability is listed. But I don’t see impassable mentioned.
I am looking at holyjoe.org/dogmas.doc. . Is this a dogma that must be believed? If so where is it? And also what do we mean by it? Because some seem to mean that God does not suffer or change internally. While others include that God has no emotion.

Does God having thoughts conflict with him being unchangeable? And if not then what would be the difference with having emotions?. How would that conflict while thoughts do not? How far do we take the doctrine? Any help would be appreciated.
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For one that knows everything and outside of time, there is really nothing to change. Change indicates there was something lacking previously. But with God, there is no deficiency of knowledge in Him. With God, there is no “previous” as He is outside of time.
 
Ok. Then, how do we interpret this passage?

“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” Eph 4:30

How an God be grieved if he can not experience emotion or suffering? What does that even mean?
 
ericc said:
For one that knows everything and outside of time, there is really nothing to change. Change indicates there was something lacking previously. But with God, there is no deficiency of knowledge in Him. With God, there is no “previous” as He is outside of time.
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Change doesn’t always indicate something is lacking. Was there something lacking in God when He created the universe a finite time ago? I don’t think so.
 
fisherman_carl said:
Change doesn’t always indicate something is lacking. Was there something lacking in God when He created the universe a finite time ago? I don’t think so.
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There is no change in God’s nature or his timelessness. Whether he created something now or 14 billion years ago is all the same for someone outside of time. But the things he created do change, like the universe or the angels.
 
fisherman_carl said:
Change doesn’t always indicate something is lacking.
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It kinda does. Change either implies that things were less perfect and became more perfect (i.e., I learn to play the piano, and become more skilled) or were more perfect and become less perfect (i.e., an abandoned house goes from ‘solid’ to ‘ready to fall over’).

In the context of God, that creates a problem: if He changes, it either implies he was less perfect earlier or less perfect after the change. Neither make sense if He’s omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. 😉
Was there something lacking in God when He created the universe a finite time ago? I don’t think so.
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That doesn’t represent a change in God, though, does it? We’re talking about His nature, aren’t we? 😉
 
Gorgias said:
It kinda does. Change either implies that things were less perfect and became more perfect (i.e., I learn to play the piano, and become more skilled) or were more perfect and become less perfect (i.e., an abandoned house goes from ‘solid’ to ‘ready to fall over’).

In the context of God, that creates a problem: if He changes, it either implies he was less perfect earlier or less perfect after the change. Neither make sense if He’s omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. 😉

That doesn’t represent a change in God, though, does it? We’re talking about His nature, aren’t we? 😉
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I was thinking more that God made a decision. Right? Because before he created the Universe he still existed for all of eternity. But, then at some finite time ago he decided to make the universe.

This, incidentally, I think is a good argument for the cause of the universe being a personal agent, rather than some impersonal force or ‘energy’. Because if it was an impersonal force then the universe should have been created a long time ago. It should be eternal. Because if the conditions always existed to create the universe then the universe would have always been. Just like if the temperature was always below zero then water would have always been frozen. Water, wouldn’t have waited until some finite time ago to freeze. However, if the cause of the universe is a personal agent that can choose to create a universe then this explains why the universe only came about a finite time ago.😉
 
fisherman_carl said:
I was thinking more that God made a decision. Right? Because before he created the Universe he still existed for all of eternity. But, then at some finite time ago he decided to make the universe.

This, incidentally, I think is a good argument for the cause of the universe being a personal agent, rather than some impersonal force or ‘energy’. Because if it was an impersonal force then the universe should have been created a long time ago. It should be eternal. Because if the conditions always existed to create the universe then the universe would have always been. Just like if the temperature was always below zero then water would have always been frozen. Water, wouldn’t have waited until some finite time ago to freeze. However, if the cause of the universe is a personal agent that can choose to create a universe then this explains why the universe only came about a finite time ago.😉
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God did make a decision but this decision was from eternity, not linearly, as God is not linear. There is no “before” the universe was created because time began with the universe. We are forced to use linear thinking because of our own inherent limitations, but God is not bound by this limit. There is no such thing as “before” the universe because there was no time before the universe. Therefore, God’s decision to create is an eternal decision, not something that popped up at one point after a span of time of not having made that decision. Again, goes to the immutability of God. He is not something at one point that he was not at another.
 
fisherman_carl said:
I was thinking more that God made a decision. Right? Because before he created the Universe he still existed for all of eternity. But, then at some finite time ago he decided to make the universe.
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You write as though time is something independent of God that He experiences. In fact, time is a part of the created universe that God made. For God, there was no existing for an infinite amount of time “until” 45 billion years ago (or whatever it is now), when He decided to do something different. He chose to create from all eternity, and time itself came into existence at His will.

EDIT: Wow, I was way off on that. The estimated age of the universe is less than 14 billion years, not 45.

Usagi
 
fisherman_carl said:
As far as I know the doctrine of immutability does not contradict God having internal thoughts that are characteristic with his nature.

Also, on a related topic is God’s impassability. I looked to see if impassability is a dogma. And I can not find it. God’s immutability is listed. But I don’t see impassable mentioned.
I am looking at holyjoe.org/dogmas.doc. . Is this a dogma that must be believed? If so where is it? And also what do we mean by it? Because some seem to mean that God does not suffer or change internally. While others include that God has no emotion.

Does God having thoughts conflict with him being unchangeable? And if not then what would be the difference with having emotions?. How would that conflict while thoughts do not? How far do we take the doctrine? Any help would be appreciated.
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*Last week I published my January web column for First Things on some recent scholarly discussion of the doctrine of divine impassibility. In brief, that doctrine is that God is unable to suffer (that’s the basic definition of the word “impassibility”). More technically and precisely, it is the denial that God is liable to suffering in God’s own nature the way creatures are in theirs. Being creatures, we are not only the subject of actions, but we receive, or suffer, the actions of others. God, who is “not part of the metaphysical furniture of the universe,” in Stanley Hauerwas’s memorable phrase, is not able to undergo the actions of creatures in the same way. God has no “fellow creatures” who might impinge on God’s turf, as it were. …

Put positively, because the Christian God is radically transcendent (which “impassibility” gestures toward), therefore God can take human nature to himself without displacing it or destroying it. And because the transcendent God has taken human nature to himself, the suffering which God undergoes in that nature is redemptive, rather than simply passive victimhood and solidarity with us. Because it is God who suffers in Christ, that suffering is not simply the suffering a fellow-sufferer who understands but is instead the suffering of One who is able to end all suffering by overcoming it in resurrection and ascension and immortality.*

firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2015/01/the-impassible-god-of-the-bible
 
porthos11 said:
God did make a decision but this decision was from eternity, not linearly, as God is not linear. There is no “before” the universe was created because time began with the universe. We are forced to use linear thinking because of our own inherent limitations, but God is not bound by this limit. There is no such thing as “before” the universe because there was no time before the universe. Therefore, God’s decision to create is an eternal decision, not something that popped up at one point after a span of time of not having made that decision. Again, goes to the immutability of God. He is not something at one point that he was not at another.
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There are some different theories of time by philosophers. As well as different understandings of how God thinks without losing imperfection. Your theory is just one of them. For instance, there is the possibility that God has tensed knowledge. That is his knowledge can change depending on what is happening right now, like what time it is. For instance say the time is 3:01 pm. God would have tensed knowledge that it is now 3:01 pm. Now, when the time is 3:02 pm then God would have tensed knowledge that it is 3:02 pm. Thus, God’s knowledge would have changed depending on what was occurring in the now. This would imply change in God. But, it is not a change that makes God less perfect, but more perfect. Because, it would be greater to know what is happening right now like what time it is then to not know what is going on in the present moment. If God did not know what was going on right now then that would be a strike against the doctrine of omniscience.

Now, some may counter that God is present in every moment and our ‘now’ just seems to us to be the now. But, for God his ‘now’ is every moment of time past, present, future all at once. However, there are some problems with this theory. If God is always at every moment of time for all eternity that means that nothing really changes. For instance, evil is never really vanquished, because it is always present before God. Sure, at some later time of the time line evil is vanquished, but the past where evil is still doing evil is always present before God. So, it is like evil is always present before God. Whereas, if God was in time, or experienced his own passage of time, then he would experience the vanquishing of evil. Since evil would eventually be in his past. And, he would have experienced conquering evil.

Now, if God was in time then it would seem that he had tensed knowledge of the present. That is he would know what is happening now, like what time it is. And, this would imply internal change of God without violating the doctrine of immutability. For it is not a change that implies less perfection. Rather it would be less perfection if God could not have this change because it would mean God not knowing something, like what time it is.
 
Another thing I could say about creation. If you are going to say creation always existed in God’s mind beforehand, then you would have to acknowledge that there would be a time in which creation did not exist, but only in God’s mind, which means a change when creation came into existence. Now, this would be a change in God’s relation to creation. Before creation existed only in his mind. And then it existed in his mind and in existence. This implies there was a before. And implies at least an extrinsic change. But a change nonetheless which implies that there is a before creation.
 
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