Notes on Systematic Theology - The Immutability of God

 

The attribute of God's immutability simply means that God does not change in any way whatsoever. 

Scripture teaches this doctrine clearly in a number of places:

- Malachi 3:6

- Psalm 102:26

- James 1:17

- Isaiah 46:10

Reason also supports this biblical teaching. Anything that changes, will change either for better or for worse. Thus, if God changes, he is either becoming greater (and hence He is not a perfect being), or for the worse (then this would diminish His attributes in some way and He would be God).

"Whatever therefore dies, both from better to worse, and from worse to better, is not God; because neither can supreme goodness proceed to better, nor true eternity to worse" (Augustine, Tractate 23 on the Gospel of John)

Further Clarifications

"Creation did not produce a change in God, but in creatures; not a physical change and properly so called (which supposes its material), but hyperphysical by which the creature passes from nonexistence to existence. An agent said to be changed (which in itself becomes different from what it was before), but which becomes different (not in itself but only relatively and in order to another thing) cannot be said to be changed. Now when God became the Creator, he was not changed in himself (for nothing new happened to him, for from eternity he had the efficacious will of creating the world in time), but only in order to the creature (because a new relation took place with it). And as to the act of creation being transient not immanent, it is not so much in God as from him." (Francis Turretin)

"Repentance is attributed to God after the manner of men (anthropopathos) but must be understood after the manner of God (theoprepos): not with respect to his counsel, but to the event; not in reference to his will, but to the thing willed; not to affection and internal grief, but to the effect and external work because he does what a penitent man usually does. If repentance concerning the creation of man (which he could not undo) is ascribed to God (Gen. 6:6, 7*), it must be understood not pathetically (pathetikos), but energetically (energetikos). Although he could not by a non-creation undo what he had done, yet by a destruction he could produce change." (Francis Turretin)

Answering Modern Objections

Bruce Ware has argued for the idea that there is relational mutability in God (while still claiming to retain God's ontological immutability). 

“God cannot change for the better or the worse, but he can change in some sense nonetheless. He changes from anger to mercy, from blessing to cursing, from rejection to acceptance. Each of these changes is real in God, though no such change affects in the slightest the unchangeable supremacy of his intrinsic nature.” (Bruce Ware)

James Dolezal answers this idea of Ware in his book on the attributes of God:

"it is incoherent to say that God is ontologically immutable while denying that He is absolutely immutable, unless one believes there are changes in God that are not alterations of actuality or being (which is de facto ontological). But then these changes would not be the alteration of anything real, and therefore any cogent intelligibility of Ware’s point collapses. If the mutable relations do really exist in God, as Ware clearly intends, then it turns out that there is in fact ontological mutability in God. This is because relational and accidental states of being are no less ontological—that is, existentially actual—than one’s nature or essence. Every state of being, whether essential or nonessential, is an ontological state" (James E. Dolezal, All That Is In God, pgs. 25-26)

What about those texts that talk about God "repenting", "regretting", and "changing His mind" (an example of this would be Genesis 6:6-7)?

"How then shall we interpret Genesis 6? The text contrasts God’s “heart” to man’s “heart” after the fall of Adam (Genesis 3). Man’s heart, once good, has changed into a mass of corruption that continually produces evil (6:5). God’s repentance communicates that his heart is “highly displeased” with human sin, as the word grieved indicates (v. 6), for its “evil” violates the goodness of his creation and his image in man (1:26–28, 31). Consequently, the Creator of the pristine world is the Destroyer of the sinful world. In this sense, we may say that God “repented” or turned from universal blessing to cursing in order to express his hatred of sin." (Joel Beeke)