Classical theists and Calvinists use the following verse, among others, to support their false idea that God is outside of time. “But, beloved be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” 2 Peter 3:8.
At face value, this verse alone can be used to support several interpretations. But what is the context? At the beginning of Chapter Three, Peter instructs the readers to remember these things as they pertain to the end times. First, in the last days shall come scoffers, walking after their lusts. These unsaved people will say, “Where is the promise of His coming?” in a mocking and critical tone. “For things have not changed since the beginning of the creation.” Peter then reminds them that when they say this, they reveal that they are “willingly ignorant” of the great flood that destroyed the entire world. But right now, the heavens and the earth are being kept by God for the day of judgment of the ungodly in the future, in verse 7. In verse 9, Peter says the Lord is not slack concerning His promised return as some men think, but He is long-suffering toward sinners because He is not willing (would prefer a better outcome for them) that any should perish but that all might come to repentance. The day of the Lord will come when He is not expected to come, so be on your guard. Be prepared.
Far from God being outside of time, this passage actually tells us that God delays His return so that as many as can be brought to repentance might be saved. God is long-suffering, which states clearly that God waits on us, in real time, and that He exercises great patience in His anger toward the wicked. God will fulfill His promise, but delays and suffers long to save more. In other words, time is not a significant concern to God, as it is to us. This is a simile. This is not about the metaphysics of time. Since the apostles, Christ’s followers have been expecting the “soon” return of Christ. We view time differently than God does because God is eternal. He has no beginning and no end. He has all the time, infinite time. This passage is clearly not about God being outside of time, as the claim suggests.
Eternal: Timeless or Everlasting?
Many Christians believe that God exists outside of time, that He is atemporal. He doesn’t experience sequence or duration, according to them. This is part of their idea of God’s immutability.
Zondervan Academic discusses the attributes of God related to time and eternity. “God has no beginning, end, or succession of moments in His being-He is timeless-and God sees past, present, and future equally vividly.” I emphasized the errors in their statement by underlining them. The remaining statements are Biblical. However, the idea that God has no succession of moments in His being does not originate from the Bible, but rather from Plato and his definition of the immutability and impassibility of God. And where in the Bible does it ever say that God sees the past, present, and future equally vividly? This is again part of Platonic eisegesis of scripture, where it is all seen as the “Now.” Everything is “now” for God as He is outside of time, so they say. God is pure actuality, so they claim.
Tom referenced the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy to remind us of their more precise definition of eternal. That is, “eternal is the sense of timeless, that is, alive without past or future, living a life neither containing nor located in any series of earlier and later events…. Timeless life has no past or future. A timeless being enjoys its entire life in one timeless present”. If this Platonic idea is true, then the entire Bible is a charade meant to fool us all. I do not believe it.
Here are other definitions of “eternal” from an online dictionary;
- Without beginning or end: lasting forever; always existing (temporal): eternal life.
- Perpetual; ceaseless; endless
- Enduring; immutable, as in eternal principles
- Metaphysics. Existing outside all relations of time; not subject to change.
But in what sense is God said to be Eternal in the Bible? The Bible tells us that God has no beginning and no end, which corresponds to the first definition above. In fact, one resource, Open Bible Info, states that there are 60 places in the Bible where it is said that God has no beginning or end. See Psalm 90:2, Deuteronomy 32:40, and Hebrews 7:3 for examples. We are also told that God is the beginning and the end, the alpha (the first letter of the Greek alphabet) and the omega (the last letter of the Greek alphabet). See Revelation 1:18, 21:6, and 22:13 for this expression.
God is not outside of time only; He is not absolutely atemporal (free from the limitations of time), as Platonists and Calvinists declare. God is time, all time, including the past, the present, and the future. God, we are told in the Bible, is from everlasting to everlasting, with no beginning and no end. He is infinite (all time), and we and the universe God created are finite (partial time). Moreover, the Bible clearly tells us that God does live in the sequences of time. God is both inside of humanity’s time and outside of it, at the same time, for He is eternal and omnipresent. God exists both inside and outside of time, simultaneously. (I listened to a debate with Dr. James White, a 5-point Calvinist, who admitted this.) This is how I picture time and God’s interaction with time.
ß———————————-Infinite Time/All Time—————————————————————à
/——–Finite Time———-/
God exists in Infinite Time, and in it He created Finite time (with a beginning and an end). This world, as we know it, in Finite Time, will someday be totally recreated and become one with infinite Time. Mortality will put on immortality.
At one point, God decided to create the universe, mankind, and all that we see around us. The universe and all that is in it are not co-eternal with God (like the Qur’an and Allah). The universe has a beginning and an end. In addition, the Bible clearly tells us that God walks and talks with us in time, experiences life with us, guides us, cares for us, and saves us if we are willing. God answers our prayers in time and sequence, not from eternity past.
At one time in eternity, other than the present, there was no temporal or finite time, as far as we know. The eternal God existed before He created the universe and finite time. As far as the Word of God declares, this is His first and only universe. In eternity, God chose a time when He created the universe and finite time. One day, in the future, God will remake all that He once made. God lives in both the eternal and the temporal, for He is eternal life with no beginning and no end. God is all time, not no time.
Also, let us not forget that at a specific time and place, God became flesh and dwelt among us. God became man in the incarnation. And as a mortal man, who put on immortality, Christ rose from the dead, never to die again. He was resurrected as the God-man and lives in heaven in this state. And yet the Classical theist and Calvinist say God never changes, in any way. That couldn’t be more incorrect or obscene. For the incarnation and the resurrection seem like rather significant changes, don’t they?
Tom stated, “This website proclaims that the Psalmist affirms that God is timeless in Psalm 90:2. Does it really? Let us look at it. “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.” KJV. For the Calvinist and Platonist, this means that God is outside of time and immutable in all respects. I suggest to you that this verse states that God has no beginning and no end. God is all of time, and in that sense, God is timeless. But note well what the Psalmist says, for he declares that God in eternity chose to create the mountains and form the earth and the world. That is a change because there was an eternity before creation, a time when there was no creation. To create requires a change in God. Change undermines their flawed understanding of immutability. Of course it does.
This site also states the following, “We read in Psalm 90:4, ‘For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past. Or as a watch in the night.” KJV. The phrase “a thousand years” is a figurative expression for as long a time as one might imagine. This means all of the history is viewed by God with great clarity and vividness. To God, all of time, since the creation, is as if it just happened”. Even if that is true, it does not affirm immutability and the idea that God is outside of time. We all can remember with great clarity monumental moments in our lives. We remember these events because of the emotions they evoked. Because God has no beginning and no end, one thousand years or 10 trillion years doesn’t mean much, for God is infinite, as is time itself.
“In the New Testament, Peter tells us, ‘With the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.’ 2 Peter 3:8. Since a thousand years is a figure of speech, one day lasts forever in God’s mind.” Time, as we count it, is meaningless to God. Again, this does nothing to affirm that God is immutable and strictly outside of time, as they state.
Some say there is no time in heaven. Is that biblical?
Is that true? No, not according to the Bible. In the Book of Revelation, the seals, trumpets, bowl judgments, and so on happen in order and sequence. Revelation 6 states that when He opens the fifth seal, he saw under the altar the souls of those who were killed for the Word of God. These souls cried out to God, “How long, O Lord, until you judge and avenge our blood?”. He told them to wait a little longer for the full number to enter. This is the experience of time.
In Revelation 8:1, we are told that when He opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. This may very well be a figure of speech of some sort. The half hour may mean several things, but what is pretty clear is that there is silence in heaven for some time. Is that more of a stretch than the response of Classical Theists and Calvinists? The Classical Theists and Calvinists will say, about all these passages, that they are simply figures of speech and not to be understood as in time and sequence. What do you think? Let us consider a few more passages.
Revelation 10:5-7 talks about no more delay (that’s the sequence of time). Then, in Revelation 11:15, the next event occurs in sequence, and the seventh angel sounds the alarm, resulting in loud voices in heaven, which proclaim that the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ. Christ shall reign forever and ever. Is this not an indication that God is in time and that there is time in heaven? I believe it is clear, how about you?
Psalm 102:25-27 is used to support the Platonic idea of immutability. It states that God, in ancient times, laid the foundation of the earth and the heavens. These things will perish, but You, O God, will endure. These things grow old like a garment, which must be changed. But you, O God, are the same, and Your years will have no end. The Platonists and Calvinists believe that God is unchanging and timeless. However, the passage clearly states that in the past, in ancient times, God laid the foundations of the heavens and the earth. That is change, and even though God changes, He endures forever. God is not like a garment that wears out.
Psalm 110:1. In this verse, there is a sequence and duration. “The LORD said to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool.” He is to sit down for now, and at a later time, His enemies will be made His footstool. This is not the Platonic Augustinian Calvinist God who never changes and doesn’t experience time.
In Mark 16:19, we read, “So then, after the Lord has spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God”. Again, we read of sequence and change. Christ is now at the right hand of God, and while on earth, the sovereign LORD was not in heaven but was on the planet.
Toward the end of the article, I will reference a debate between Dr. James White and Tim Burger on Open Theism. Dr. White is a five-point Calvinist and a determinist (he denies being a determinist, instead stating that he believes in God’s decrees, which he claims is a distinction from a determinist). Tim is an open theist. In any case, if you listen to the debate, you will find White arguing that God is both inside and outside of time, and that God meets us in time, and that is how we understand scripture. Here it is plain that White’s view is in contradiction to Classical theism and other 5-point Calvinists. If you pay close attention, you will find that Calvinists very often support contradictory beliefs at the same time. And most of us miss it. At least White did not resort to Augustine’s explanation that a created being, other than God, came to us in time, revealing messages to His prophets, who in turn told us the messages, pretending to be God but were not God.
The immutability of God. Where a person starts determines where they end.
Suppose we start with the idea that the immutability of God is His primary and most important attribute, as Plato believed, for no other reason than that it made sense to him. In that case, there are entailments or ramifications that necessarily follow and can’t be avoided. The Platonic idea of God’s absolute immutability means that God can’t and doesn’t change in any way at all, for any purpose at all, at any time at all. It is absolute and must be correct 100% of the time, allowing for no exceptions.
Immutability directly and inescapably leads to impassibility, which means God is unchangeable and unaffected by feelings or emotions. Why? All change is viewed as negative or an imperfection. These two attributes naturally lead to the idea that God is outside of time or that He is timeless. And that must lead to fate or determinism by which either fate or God predetermined whatsoever that will come to pass. God made this decision in eternity (and that alone refutes their idea of immutability, as there was a time in eternity when God made this decision, He changed). That necessarily leads to God being the sole cause of good and evil, which John Calvin and others admitted, even though Augustine most likely knew this was the reason for evil in the universe, but was unwilling to accept it. That leads to babies being born non-elect, a sinful nature, the inherited and imputed guilt of Adam’s sin, and non-elect babies with non-elect others, being sent to hell to glorify God. That leads to God ordaining or predetermining (not simply permitting) all forms of sin and wickedness including but not limited to: child sexual abuse, rape, murder and every kind of torture known to man. It is all part of the whole. When looking only at the parts, it is easier to stomach some of these false ideas, but when considered as a whole, the vile nature of these false doctrines is readily apparent. It is also very clear that this is not the God of the Bible.
What are the most important attributes or characteristics of the God of the Bible?
I have given thought to this question over the years. Perhaps you have too. Many times, I have prayed to God, praising and worshipping Him for who He is morally. I praise and love Him, not so much for His omnipotence (power and might) or His omniscience (knowing all things), but for the beauty of His holiness, His purity, and His righteousness. The Bible, in my observation and that of others, tells us that our God is truth, light, self-sacrificing love, impartial justice, eternal life, mercy, grace, compassion, longsuffering, forgiveness, and that He is for us and not against us. There is no one like our God in all the earth and the heavens above. He is worthy of worship and our obedience because He can be trusted in all things to always look out for our best interests. His immutability, when defined accurately, is essential but not to the exclusion of these moral attributes. The Platonic impassibility of God is a grave error, even though there is a minor element of truth to the fact that God, in His essence, is never permanently changed or degraded by what His creation does. His feelings of joy, grief, anger, frustration, and love touch his essence but never diminish or degrade it.
Our God desires a close, loving relationship with us, just as He had with Adam and Eve before they sinned, when He walked with them in the cool of the day in the Garden of Eden. The Word of God tells us that we can become the children of God. What good Father doesn’t love His children deeply and passionately, seeking to have an ongoing relationship with them? Scripture tells us that believers are also referred to as the bride of Christ. What groom doesn’t love his bride passionately and doesn’t want to have a close relationship with his bride? What bride doesn’t love her groom passionately and wants to have a close relationship with her husband? Intimacy is essential in any relationship.
A god who is first and foremost a god that is immutable (never changes and never speaks to us in real time) and impassible (not affected by feelings and emotions) is not anything close to the God of the Bible. It is the idol god of paganism as conceived by godless men such as Plato. It exhibits some of the characteristics of a wooden or stone idol. If that is the God you seek to serve, I feel very sorry for you. The one true God is vastly different and infinitely superior to Plato’s idol god.
Immutability’s Logical Conclusions
Plato said, “If God changes at all, he can only change for the worse… Then it is impossible that God should ever be willing to change; being, as is supposed, the fairest and best that is conceivable, every god remains absolutely and forever in his own form.” Plato, The Republic Book 11 (c. 360 BC). Change indicates a flaw; therefore, God can’t change.
These Greek and Roman philosophers start with the idea that if there were a god, he must be immutable in his perfection. These are the vain imaginations of the unregenerate heart, for this is not what the Bible declares to be most important about God. Is it not rank idolatry to create god from your mind? According to the Bible, God is the Savior of sinners, the Good Shepherd, and so on. Little is said about God being immutable, and nothing is said in Scripture about God being absolutely immutable as Plato, Calvinists, and others defined it. The Bible knows no such thing as an Almighty God, the creator of everything seen and unseen, who never changes His mind or repents, because that is not true.
Aristotle, in his book, Metaphysics XII, Part 8 (c. 350 BC) wrote that, “… the first mover must be in itself unmovable…” In other words, God must be immutable and impassible. God can’t be affected by such things as our prayers. Why do Calvinists tell Christians to pray? They typically say that prayer changes us and not God. They are half right and half wrong. It’s a good thing King Hezekiah didn’t know that before he asked God to let him live longer. God told the king to get his house in order for he was going to die. Hezekiah prayed to God and asked God to change His mind, which He did. Prayer can change the mind of God. That was just one example.
Plotinus said, in his work titled, Enneads III.7.3 (c. AD 250), “Supreme…a Life never varying, not becoming what previously it was not, the thing immutably itself.. and knowing this, we know Eternity…knowing nothing of change, forever in a “Now”… it can’t include any past; …Futurity, similarly, is banned;” In other words, God is timeless and has no sequence.
Augustine said, (you may recall this earlier quote), “…the old scriptures (the Bible)….had seemed absurd…and I listened with delight to Ambrose… recommending…to view the spiritual meaning of what seemed to teach perverse doctrine if it were taken according to the letter.” In other words, Augustine said that the Bible was absurd and perverse until he began reading it as an allegory, where he could determine its meaning (eisegesis) so that it aligned with Platonic ideas. A literal interpretation of the Bible would at once overthrow the fallacious teachings of Plato and others. Because the Bible does not place ultimate importance on immutability and most certainly refutes impassibility, that alone caused Augustine to call the Bible absurd and perverse. I am not sure about you, but I find Augustine’s comments about the Word of God distasteful.
About 800 years later, Thomas Aquinas wrote about God’s immutability as we have seen. Then Luther and Calvin took up the mantle of Augustinian Platonism and brought it into the Protestant Christian Church. Luther wrote, “God foreknows nothing by contingency, but that he foresees, purposes, and does all things according to His immutable, eternal, and infallible will. By this thunderbolt, “Free will” is thrown prostrate, and utterly dashed to pieces—Luther’s Book, Bondage of the Will, Sect. 9 (1525). At least Luther was willing to admit the obvious, that free will was non-existent in Augustinian Platonism and his theology. Many a Calvinist refuses to admit this truth even today. They redefine the meaning of free will to get around the obvious. Calvin wrote, “…by His providence, not heaven and earth and inanimate creatures only, but also the counsels and wills of men are so governed as to move exactly in the course which He has destined.” Institutes i.16.8 (1530). According to these individuals, humans do not possess free will, despite claiming to believe otherwise.
R. C. Sproul writes, “If there is one maverick molecule in the universe, then God is not sovereign. And if God is not sovereign, He is not God…If there is one maverick molecule in the universe…there is not the slightest confidence that you can have any promise that God has ever made about the future will come to pass.” Meaning if God doesn’t decree every act of good and evil, He can’t be trusted. Many people actually swallow this nonsense and praise God for teachers like Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and Sproul, and many others. God’s moral righteousness is the more important reason why God can be trusted.
How does God’s sovereignty fit into this scheme?
It is essential to acknowledge God’s sovereignty and the meaning behind Calvinist interpretations of it. For many Christians, the sovereignty of God means that ultimately, God is in control of all things, as He is the Creator and Owner of everything. But to the Augustinian Calvinist, the sovereignty of God means God’s absolute, exhaustive, and meticulous control over all that comes to pass in the moral and physical universe. There are no maverick molecules or individual free will decisions in the universe because God controls everything and micromanages it according to His eternal decrees. Sproul states that God’s meticulous sovereignty is the reason we can trust God to fulfill His promises about the future. I beg to differ. First and foremost, we can trust God because He is morally perfect and good, and secondly, because He has the power to fulfill His words. We all know people who have the power to fulfill their promises but don’t because they lack moral integrity.
Every Christian theologian believes that they are using exegesis —reading out of the text —when interpreting the word of God, and not using eisegesis—reading into the text —when interpreting the word of God. But like everything else, in religion, people are easily manipulated and deceived. I trust that has already been demonstrated.
Immutability is the foundation.
From the Blue Letter Bible website.
According to this site, we find the following definition under the attributes of God. The BLB says immutability is one some 16 attributes;
Immutability means: unchanging and unchangeable.
We will examine the idea of absolute immutability more closely, which is partly true and partly false. His moral goodness and spiritual essence are immutable, but not to the extent that He doesn’t change in mind and plans in real time, as the Bible clearly indicates. In that sense, God is mutable because He does change His mind and He does answer prayer.
The BLB says, “In God’s immutability lies a great source of comfort to the believer. The fact that God does not change His mind, His characteristics, His plan or anything else is a security better than any earthly insurance for it guarantees His quality of character and gives security to the believer that if He has saved one of us, that saved person WILL preserver to the end for God has chosen him and will not change his mind and let that man slip through His fingers into the breach of hell. No. God neither changes His plan, His covenants, His prophecies nor His justice; this lends greatly to His dependability (“There is (in God) no variation or shadow of turning” James 1:17”).
They smuggle in the false doctrine of eternal security to assure the reader that the doctrine comes from their understanding of the immutability of God. I have already addressed the comment about immutability providing us with great comfort by stating that we have more assurance and comfort in knowing that the one true God is morally perfect. That is much more comforting than the idea that God is immutable. We all know those who can fulfill their promises but do not because they are not good and not trustworthy. The fact that God changes His mind and plans (based on our repentance and our prayers) is much more of a comfort than their false belief in the absolute immutability of God. Don’t you agree?
From the Got Questions website with Allan Parr as the host.
What about the attributes of God? The authors of this website list some of the names of God. Tom notes that one missing name for God is the “Living God”. Names in the Bible often indicate an attribute of the person. The “Living God” is used 15 times in the Old Testament and 15 times in the New Testament. In Jeremiah, we are told that a man must carry the idols. Idols do nothing good or bad. The LORD is the true God. He is the “living God” compared to the deaf, dumb, and non-living idols.
The title “Living God” implies a God that changes because all living things change. However, they do not believe that God changes at all or in any way. That is their Platonic idea of the immutable God. That might explain why the name “the living God” is missing from this website. Immutable and living seem to indicate opposites. Idols are certainly immutable and non-living. Idols do not and cannot change. God is the living God, and He is constantly evolving and changing. However, He never changes His righteous moral character or His essence. Still, He often changes His mind and plans in response to changing circumstances and the decisions of free moral agents. God also changes His mind in response to the intercession and prayers of His people.
Moses interceded on behalf of the Jews and asked God to consider His holy name and not destroy the nation of Israel and make of himself a great nation. God listened to Moses and changed His mind. Speaking of Moses, do you recall when God called Moses to go back to Egypt to be His spokesman? Moses tried to avoid the call from God by offering excuses. Frustrated with Moses, God changed His mind and offered up Aaron to speak on Moses’ behalf. Is this story just a charade? Or does this story tell us, like hundreds of other such examples in the Bible, that 1) God feels (He is not impassible), and, 2) that God changes His mind (God is not absolutely immutable as they define the word) and plans based on present circumstances and the prayers of people.
According to the Got Questions website, God is eternal. “Eternal means ‘everlasting’, having no beginning and no end”. They use Psalm 90:2 as a proof text. But let us not forget that, as it says in Genesis, chapter one, verse one, in the beginning God created. What does that mean? God is eternal, and He has existed since before He created the universe. That proves that God underwent a significant change. It also indicates that at the beginning of recorded time, God already existed, for He has no beginning and no end. And that alone does not prove or establish that God is immutable, as these folks maintain. His act of creation indicates just the opposite. Of course it does.
“In Exodus 3:14, God said to Moses, I am that I am. This signifies the real being of God, His self-existence, and that He is the Being of beings. It also describes his eternality and immutability, as well as His constancy and faithfulness in fulfilling His promises, because it includes all time, past, present, and future.”
This passage says nothing about the immutability of God as they define it. It does say that God is eternal, with no beginning and no end. God is all of time. It doesn’t say that God is outside of time, as they preach. It is true that God is faithful and will perform His words of promise as long as the conditions are met.
The Got Questions website regarding the immutability of God states the following. They use the following proof texts: Malachi 3:6, God affirms, “I the Lord do not change.” See also Numbers 23:19, 1 Samual 15:29, Isaiah 46:9, and Ezekiel 24:14.
James 1:17 also teaches the immutability of God: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of light, with whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning.” The shadow of turning refers to our perspective on the sun: it is eclipsed as it moves and it casts its shadow. The sun rises and sets, appears and disappears every day; it comes out of one tropic and enters into another at certain seasons of the year. But with God, who, spiritually speaking, is light itself, there is no darkness at all; there is no change with Him, nor anything like it. God is unchangeable in His nature, perfections, purposes, promises and gifts. He, being holy, cannot turn to that which is evil; nor can He, who is the fountain of light, be the cause of darkness. Since every good and perfect gift comes from Him, evil cannot proceed from Him, nor can He tempt any to it. (James 1:13). The Bible is clear that God does not change His mind, His will, or His nature.”
This is not true or accurate unless hundreds of passages indicating that God relents, repents, changes His mind, answers prayers of the righteous, feels emotions such as anger, frustration, compassion, joy, and pleasure are all disregarded and assumed to be some sort of a figure of speech. The overwhelming evidence from the Bible suggests that God is not absolutely immutable, as defined, and God is not absolutely impassible, as specified. A plain reading of the Bible also indicates that God is not atemporal and outside of time, as commonly defined. God is with us in time and is as close as our heartbeat.
Got Questions continues, “There are several logical reasons why God must be immutable, that is, why it is impossible for God to change.
- “First, if anything changes, it must do so in some chronological order. There must be a point in time before the change and a point in time, after the change. Therefore, for change to take place it must happen within the constraints of time, however, God is eternal and exists outside of the constraints of time (Psalm 33:11; 41:13; 90:2-4; John 17:5; 2 Timothy 1:9)”.
As mentioned more than once already, this is the Platonic idea that God is outside of time, which is incorrect. All of scripture, including God’s first interaction with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, reveals that the eternal God is inside of our time, because He walked with them in the cool of the evening in the garden and He spoke to them about what they could and couldn’t eat. The entire Bible reveals that God is intimately involved with humanity throughout time. Jesus Christ, the second person of the Godhead, became a man in time. What a change that was!
- “Second, the immutability of God is necessary for His perfection. If anything changes, it must change for the better or worse, because a change that makes no difference is not a change. For change to take place, either something that is needed is added, which is a change for the better, or something is lost, which is a change for the worse. But, since God is perfect, He does not need anything. Therefore, He cannot change for the better. If God were to lose something, He would no longer be perfect, therefore, He cannot change for the worse.”
It is a mere assertion by the Got Questions author that any real change in God must be for the better or worse. This sounds exactly like how Plato and others, who followed him, describe change. A lateral change may be a neutral change but a good change nonetheless. It may have nothing to do with perfection at all. And the fact that God is longsuffering, merciful and desires to bless and save sinners when He sees a repentant heart is a wonderful change in God. In strict justice God could have condemned every sinner to damnation. Praise God that His immutability does not forgo His mercy, forgiveness and pardon. This is a tremendous change in God when He forgives and pardons sinners. Do you not agree?
- Third, the immutability of God is related to His omniscience. When someone changes his or her mind, it is often because new information has come to light that was not previously known or because the circumstances have changed and require a different attitude or action. Because God is omniscient, He cannot learn something new that He did not already know. So, when the Bible speaks of God changing His mind, it must be understood that the circumstances or situation has changed, not God. When Ezekiel 32:14 and I Samuel 15:11-29 speak of God changing His mind, it is simply describing a change of dispensation and outward dealing toward man. Numbers 23:19 clearly presents the immutability of God: “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should change His mind. Does He speak and then not act? Does He promise and not fulfill? No, God does not change His mind. These verses affirm the doctrine of God’s immutability: He is unchanging and unchangeable.”
It is the author’s mere assertion that it is not God who changes but us. It is true that the circumstances or the situation may change but he asserts that this should never be considered a change in God. I do not believe it nor does the Word of God indicate any such thing. God saw that the people of Nineveh repented of their wickedness based on the preaching of the truth by Jonah. When God saw them humble themselves, God changed His mind and His prophetic pronouncement that judgment would fall on Nineveh. God repented of the evil He planned to do to them. This is repeated many times in scripture. It is true that God is immutable in certain ways, such as always being honest, truthful, faithful to His word and promises if the conditions are met. And God is unchanging in His essence. But God changes His mind and plans from time to time, as it is clearly reported in the Bible. God changes His mind when we change our mind and repent. God changes His mind when we pray fervently. As just mentioned, God gave the good King Hezekiah an additional 15 years of life when this righteous King prayed.
I repeat myself. God is trustworthy not because He is immutable as Plato and Calvinists define this term. God is trustworthy because He is morally good and not because He can’t change. Got Questions website gives three proof texts……
- Malachi 3:6 is one of them: “For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore, ye sons of Jacob are not consumed”. Starting at verse one of chapter three, we are reminded that the one whom they seek will come suddenly to His temple. Does that in any way suggest to you that God is impassible and immutable? If you seek God, God will move, but if not, God will not change His plans or His mind.
- In verse 2, it states, “But who shall abide the day of his coming?” God is a refining fire who will only accept pure gifts, gifts in righteousness. And then their offerings are “pleasant unto the LORD and are in the days of old, and in former years” verse 4. If God is impassible, how can it be pleasant unto the LORD? If God is outside of time, how can He respond and suddenly come? How can God come as in the days of old and former years if He is outside of time?
- In verse 5, we are told that He will come to them in judgment on evildoers and those who oppress the widow, the poor, and the fatherless.
- That brings us to verse 6 quoted above. When God says, I am the LORD, I change not, He is saying that He blesses only those who walk in righteousness and brings judgment on all those who walk in wickedness. He is not saying He is absolutely immutable in the sense that He never changes His mind or plans, for He clearly does, based on what we do or don’t do.
- And in verse 7, God refutes their notion of His absolute immutability. God has not lied, but the children of Israel have lied repeatedly. God is faithful even when they are not. God will change His mind and return to you if you change your mind and return (repent) to Him. God doesn’t change in that He will never lie, cheat, or refuse to fulfill His words of promise like men do all the time. But God will eagerly change His plan of judgment and damnation when He encounters a repentant person.
- Numbers 23:19 is another passage. “God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath He said, and shall not do it? Or hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good?” This chapter contains the story of Balaam and Balak. Balaam heard a word from God and reported it back to Balak.
- In verse 8, it is written, “How shall I curse, whom God hath not cursed? Or how shall I defy, whom the LORD hath not defied?” Balak was upset because he wanted Balaam to get God to curse his enemies. Balak persuaded Balaam to try one more time.
- Balaam reports back what we quoted in verse 19.
- In verse 20, God commanded Balaam to bless and not curse Israel, and that he must do so and he can’t reverse God’s command.
- God is not a man that he should lie and change His mind like men do. Is there anything in this verse that teaches the absolute immutability of God? Yes, God never lies and always fulfills His promises. But conditional promises are only fulfilled when the conditions have been met. This means that God keeps His promises and will not be persuaded to do otherwise. He is not like men who lie and break promises. But this is a far cry from what the Classical theist and Calvinist mean by immutability of God. For God does change His mind every time we turn to Him in repentance and faith. God also answers the prayers of His saints in real time.
- Jeremiah 15:6 is the third passage. “Thou hast forsaken Me, saith the LORD, thou has gone backward: therefore, will I stretch out my hand against thee, and destroy thee, I am weary of repenting.” God says He is weary of repenting or of changing His mind and giving them multiple opportunities to repent of their sins. How might an impassible God become weary? How might an immutable (never changing) God get tired of changing His mind so often?
- In verse one, God says that even though Moses and Samuel stood before Him and pleaded for these people, that would not change His mind toward them anymore. They have sinned away the day of grace, and only judgment remains. God is sick and tired of giving them repeated chances to repent. Judgment is at the door. He has given them many opportunities to repent, and they have failed to do so. God would no longer have pity, or mercy, or hear their prayers.
Other passages might be looked at. There is 1 Samual 15:29, God never sins; therefore, He will never repent of sin (He has none) like men do (who have much sin to repent of). Isaiah 46:9 emphasizes that there is no God like the God of the Bible. Ezekiel 24:14, which says that God will lay His vengeance on Edom by His people, who will do according to the anger and fury of the LORD (how can a God that is impassible feel anger, wrath, and vengeance?). Psalm 102:25, which says of old did God lay the foundation of the earth and the heavens, clearly refutes the immutability and timelessness of God as the Calvinist and Classical theist believe. Feel free to check these other verses, they sometimes use.
Zondervan Academics is another site worth considering
This site differentiates between God’s communicable and non-communicable attributes. “God is unchanging in his being, perfections, and promises, (Psalm 102:27, Malachi 3:6 and James 1:17). God’s unchangeableness is also referred to as his immutability.”
“So, what about passages where God appears to change his mind? For example:
- Moses prayed to prevent the destruction of the people of Israel. Exodus 29:9-14
- God added fifteen years to the life of King Hezekiah. Isaiah 38:1-6.
- The people of Ninevah repented, and God withheld his promised wrath. Jonah 3:4 and 10
“Aren’t these instances where God did change? These instances should all be understood as true expressions of God’s present attitude or intention towards the present situation. If the situation changes, then of course God’s attitude or expression of intention will also change. This is just saying that God responds differently to different situations.”
What the heck did he say? Did you make any sense of what the author is actually trying to say? These individuals believe that God is in a state of “Now” or pure actuality and that God is outside of time (atemporal). So, how can they discuss “expressions of God’s present attitude toward a present situation”? Is the present different from the past and future? They say God sees it all in the “Now,” don’t they?
Are they affirming what I am saying because it sounds like it to me? But no, they are not. They are trying to soften what they actually believe, and apparently trying their level best to confuse the readers. They are saying these three examples are but an illusion that God changes, for they do not believe it. God can’t and doesn’t change in any way at any time according to their Platonic metaphysics. They are saying that these examples are a type of figure of speech that we are not to understand literally. This is very typical of how these folks respond to objections to their ridiculous and unbiblical ideas. They think they can answer any objection with a word salad calculated to confuse and mislead. Is that not the very definition of sophistry?
Are there other websites?
Suppose you are interested in exploring the views of other supporters of Classical theism or Calvinism on this subject or any other topic. In that case, numerous resources are available, including Ligonier Ministry, Alpha and Omega Ministries, and many others. The same goes for those who reject Classical theism and Calvinism.
In Part 3, we will conclude this brief overview of theism. We will address Open Theism and Dynamic Omniscience among other topics.
