Unchanging God? Does God Change?

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How do Catholics see God as far as “changing”? From what I have read, God is described in traditional Christianity as “unchanging”. What does this mean exactly? What exactly is not “changing”? I am currently browsing a discussion on a Mormon forum that I find quite interesting, and I actually agree with many of their points, namely:

If God the Son, Jesus Christ, incarnated, then isn’t this a “change”?

If God was not creating prior to the “beginning”, then began to create the heavens and the earth “in the beginning”, isn’t this a “change”?

If God can interact with creation, and can answer our prayers, isn’t there some sort of “change”?

It seems that they are seeing an “unchanging God” as some sort of static entity that doesn’t really do anything. So, this leads me to ask, what does it really mean to say that God is unchanging?
 
How do Catholics see God as far as “changing”?
We mean the nature of God does not change, and God cannot act outside of his nature. For example, God is all-knowing, so he could never forget anything (even if he wanted to), and nothing can be hidden from him. He is all-present, so he could not “leave the room” (even if he wanted to). (of course, God could also never “want” to do either of these things, because he is also incapable of opposing his own nature - he would thus never desire evil or injustice, and he would be incapable of doing such a deed).
 
Yep, this is one of them noodle-bakers.

Since God exists outside of time and space, EVERYTHING that has, is or will happen is available to Him. That’s called ***omniscience ***(which differs from the ability to *do *anything He wants, naturally or supernaturally–that’s omnipotence).

So, basically, God doesn’t have to change because He already knows it all. He may have already done what we ask of Him to do for today or tomorrow because, well, He’s already been there.

That doesn’t mean we don’t have free will (we do) but it does play into that “pre-destination” argument, which I won’t go into since I barely understand it, either. 🙂
 
We mean the nature of God does not change, and God cannot act outside of his nature. For example, God is all-knowing, so he could never forget anything (even if he wanted to), and nothing can be hidden from him. He is all-present, so he could not “leave the room” (even if he wanted to). (of course, God could also never “want” to do either of these things, because he is also incapable of opposing his own nature - he would thus never desire evil or injustice, and he would be incapable of doing such a deed).👍
 
If God the Son, Jesus Christ, incarnated, then isn’t this a “change”?
No this is not a change. Jesus Christ is God and He was already in the beginning. (See John 1:1). That He did not come to earth before a planned date does not mean that God went through a change.
If God was not creating prior to the “beginning”, then began to create the heavens and the earth “in the beginning”, isn’t this a “change”?
God created something outside of Himself. That does not change Him.
If God can interact with creation, and can answer our prayers, isn’t there some sort of “change”?
Communication does not change God. He interacts, yes, but that does not mean that He changes.
It seems that they are seeing an “unchanging God” as some sort of static entity that doesn’t really do anything. So, this leads me to ask, what does it really mean to say that God is unchanging?
What it really means is that God did not change, does not change and will not change. This means that we can rely on Him and on His word.

Numbers 23:19
God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent.

1 Samuel 15:29
And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent.

Psalms 102:26
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:

Malachi 3:6
For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.

etc.

Because does not change He is absolutely trustworthy. He would not be trustworthy if He was slack or inconstant.

I hope that this helped you and I wish you a blessed new year.

In Him,
Janet
 
Just to add to the noodle baking.

A. If God is unchanging.
and
B. God the Father has beheld the begotten Son from all eternity.
and
C. The Glorified risen Body of Christ has the marks of the Crucifixion.
then
D. The Son who the Father has beheld from all eternity has the marks of the Crucifixion.

This makes for a good case for creation for the express prupose of redemption.

Peace to all,

Bill
 
St. Thomas Acquinas explains that in God there is no potential, that he eternally is everything he can be and that he eternally does everything he can do. This is consistent with the description of Christ as the Lamb slain “from the foundation of the world”. The apparent beginning of the Incarnation as an act is merely a relic of our limited existence as temporal beings - within the Godhead there is neither beginning nor end, and the same holds for everything he does.
 
\If God the Son, Jesus Christ, incarnated, then isn’t this a “change”?\

Echoing the teaching of the Fathers, the hymnody of the Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic churches sing that the Logos took on human nature, without ceasing to be what He always was: true God.
 
  1. “He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory: ‘This will be he who is called Antichrist,’exalting himself,” as the apostle says, “above all that is called God, and that is worshipped.”6 The Lord, declaring that this same it is that will seek his own glory, not the glory of the Father, says to the Jews: “I am come in my Father’s name, and ye have not received me; another will come in his own name, him ye will receive.”7 He intimated that they would receive Antichrist, who will seek the glory of his own name, puffed up, not solid; and therefore not stable, but assuredly ruinous. But our Lord Jesus Christ has shown us a great example of humility: for doubtless He is equal with the Father, for “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God;” yea, doubtless, He Himself said, and most truly said, “Am I so long time with you, and ye have not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.”8 Yea, doubtless, Himself said, and most truly said, “I and the Father are one.”9** If, therefore, He is one with the Father, equal to the Father, God from God, God with God, coeternal, immortal, alike unchangeable, alike without time, alike Creator and disposer of times**; and yet because He came in time, and took the form of a servant, and in condition was found as a man,10 He seeks the glory of the Father, not His own; what oughtest thou to do, O man, who, when thou doest anything good, seekest thy own glory; but when thou doest anything ill, dost meditate calumny against God? Consider thyself: thou art a creature, acknowledge thy Creator: thou art a servant, despise not thy Lord: thou art adopted, not for thy own merits; seek His glory from whom thou hast this grace, that thou art a man adopted; His, whose glory He sought who is from Him, the Only-begotten. “But He that seeketh His glory that sent Him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in Him” In Antichrist, however, there is unrighteousness, and he is not true; because he will seek his own glory, not His by whom he was sent: for, indeed, he was not sent, but only permitted to come. Let us all, therefore, that belong to the body of Christ, seek not our own glory, that we be not led into the snares of Antichrist. But if Christ sought His glory that sent Him, how much more ought we to seek the glory of Him who made us? (Augustin on John 29)
  2. Let Father and Son, therefore, be associated in worship, even as They are associated in Godhead; let not blasphemy put asunder those whom the close bond of generation hath joined together. Let us honour the Son, that we may honour the Father also, as it is written in the Gospel.127 The Son’s eternity is the adornment of the Father’s majesty. If the Son hath not been from everlasting, then the Father hath suffered change; but the Son is from all eternity, therefore hath the Father never changed, for He is always unchangeable. And thus we see that they who would deny the Son’s eternity would teach that the Father is mutable. (Ambrose selected works 6109)
(cont.)
 
But it is written95 , say they, ‘The Lord created me in the beginning of His ways for His works.’ O untaught and insensate that ye are! He is called also in the Scriptures, ‘servant96 ,’ and ‘son of a handmaid,’ and ‘lamb,’ and ‘sheep,’ and it is said that He suffered toil, and thirst, and was beaten, and has suffered pain. But there is plainly a reasonable ground and cause97 , why such representations as these are given of Him in the Scriptures; and it is because He became man and the Son of man, and took upon Him the form of a servant, which is the human flesh: for ‘the Word,’ says John, ‘was made flesh98 .’ And since He became man, no one ought to be offended at such expressions; for it is proper to man to be created, and born, and formed, to suffer toil and pain, to die and to rise again from the dead. And as, being Word and Wisdom of the Father,** He has all the attributes of the Father, His eternity, and His unchangeableness, and the being like Him in all respects and in all things**99 , and is neither before nor after, but co-existent with the Father, and is the very form100 of the Godhead, and is the Creator, and is not created: (for since He is in essence like101 the Father, He cannot be a creature, but must be the Creator, as Himself hath said, ‘My Father worketh hitherto, and I work102 :’) so being made man, and bearing our flesh, He is necessarily said to be created and made, and that is proper to all flesh; however, these men, like Jewish vintners, who mix their wine with water103 , debase the Word, and subject His Godhead to their notions of created things. Wherefore the Fathers were with reason and justice indignant, and anathematized this most impious heresy; which these persons are now cautious of and keep back, as being easy to be disproved and unsound in every part of it. These that I have set down are but a few of the arguments which go to condemn their doctrines; but if any one desires to enter more at large into the proof against them, he will find that this heresy is not far removed from heathenism, and that it is the lowest and the very dregs of all the other heresies. These last are in error either concerning the body or the incarnation of the Lord, falsifying the truth, some in one way and some in another, or else they deny that the Lord has sojourned here at all, as the Jews erroneously suppose. But this one alone more madly than the rest has dared to assail the very Godhead, and to assert that the Word is not at all, and that the Father was not always a father; so that one might reasonably say that that Psalm was written against them; ‘The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God104 . Corrupt are they, and become abominable in their doings.’ (Athanasius 12100)
  1. “We confess One God, alone unmade, alone eternal, alone unoriginate, alone true, alone possessing immortality, alone good, alone mighty, Creator, Ordainer and Disposer of all things, unchangeable and unalterable, righteous and good, of the Law and the Prophets and the New Testament. We believe that this God gave birth to the Only-begotten Son before all worlds, through Whom He made the world and all things; that He gave birth to Him not in semblance, but in truth, following His own Will, so that He is unchangeable and unalterable, God’s perfect creature but not as one of His other creatures, His handiwork, but not as His Other works; not, as Valentinus maintained, that the Son is a development of the Father; nor, as Manichaeus has declared of the Son, a consubstantial part of the Father; nor, as Sabellius, who makes two out of one, Son and Father at once; nor, as Hieracas, a light from a light, or a lamp with two flames; nor as if He was previously in being and afterwards born or created afresh to be a Son, a notion often condemned by thyself, blessed Pope32 , publicly in the Church and in the assembly of the brethren. But, as we have affirmed, we believe that He was created by the will of God before times and worlds, and has His life and existence from the Father, Who gave Him to share His own glorious perfections. For, when the Father gave to Him the inheritance of all things, He did not thereby deprive Himself of attributes which are His without origination, He being the source of all things. (Hilary - Damascus 43)
Just browsing around I have found a few quotes from these folks whom all seem to think God is unchangeable.
 
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