Divine Immutability

[N/A Gone]

In which way is Divine Immutability dogmatically understood? Is this for the universal church or just the Latin rite?

[Thy Geekdom Come]

Divine immutability, as I understand it, means that there is no change in God. I'm not an expert in Eastern theology, but I would suspect they agree.

However, immutability is not the same as saying that God doesn't..."respond"...to things we do...depending on your perspective and definition of response.

[kafka]

I think it should be for every human being regardless of creed.

How could God possibly change? Would he change for the better or change for the worse? Would He change His mind, or change His will? If these things were possible His Divine Nature would change into a limited finite nature which we know is impossible.

If this were possible He wouldnt be God. It would mean that He is divided. If God could change He would be subject to Time. Time is the ordering and separation of events into a fixed sequence of before and after. If God could change He would be subject to moments in Time, since one moment He would be (A) God and after the change He would be (B) God after He changed. But God is Eternity existing beyond Time and unbounded by Time. And since God is Eternity, beyond Time and Place: He is One, Undivided, Unlimited. And therefore He is One Divine Eternal Act. One Divine Eternal Act is God.

If God could change He would be fallible. Yet we know God is entirely infallible: without flaw, omission, or imperfection.

Just some jumbled thoughts to share

[pippo buono]

Divine Immutability seems to be a requisite for Christianity as a whole. However, some people unknowingly maintain beliefs that call the doctrine into question, the most common of these being if God experiences emotion. For many, this implies that God's "feelings" change, which would imply that He is not immutable. However, there is a plethora of scriptural references to God's responses (as Raphael put it) of anger, delight, etc.

One way to reconcile these points finds basis in God's transcendence of time. When referring to this transcendence, a natural image is to see God as a sort of time traveler, going able to go back and forth between the past, present, and future. A more accurate image is that God is in present in all of time all the time. By this i mean that is [i]always[/i] in the past, present, and future. Therefore, one might say that he is [i]always[/i] experiencing these emotions. This would mean that He is always experiencing sorrow for the souls who do not choose Him while also always experiencing delight in those who do choose Him.

Another explanation is that are our human emotions are different from those of God.

The final possibility is that God actually does not experience emotion and the scriptural references to His emotional experiences are an human attempt to understand God by anthropomorphism.

Naturally, once the focus is placed upon Jesus and the hypostatic union of his human and divine nature and how he experienced changes in emotion, hunger, and what not, then this becomes all the more confusing. i'm sure different rites and denominations would have different ways of explaining or dismissing the difficulty.

[N/A Gone]

Prove that the eastern theological tradtion, both catholic and orthodox, follows the immutability. Please

[quote]The Byzantine Churches reject the Western philosophical notion of divine simplicity, which ultimately involves the reduction of the persons of the Trinity to relations of opposition, and which is based upon the pagan philosophy of Aristotle.[/quote]

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Revprodeji' post='1394596' date='Sep 27 2007, 10:50 PM']Prove that the eastern theological tradtion, both catholic and orthodox, follows the immutability.[/quote]
No.


[quote name='Revprodeji' post='1394596' date='Sep 27 2007, 10:50 PM']Please.[/quote]
Ahhh man.. The magic word.. No fair.

Lemme see here... I won't presume to "prove" anything, but I'll flap my trap a bit for what its worth.

[N/A Gone]

waiting for the flapping.

L_D, you know the personal ramifications this has for me. Please, flap away.

[Luthien]

[quote name='Revprodeji' post='1394725' date='Sep 28 2007, 12:25 PM']waiting for the flapping.

L_D, you know the personal ramifications this has for me. Please, flap away.[/quote]
This is L_D...

Sorry bro, I feel asleep before I could post a response.. :-(

[Aloysius]

"for this reason shall a man leave father and mother and cleave to his wife's screenname"

"...and the two become one screenname"

[Innocent]

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1394884' date='Sep 29 2007, 01:53 AM']"for this reason shall a man leave father and mother and cleave to his wife's screenname"

"...and the two become one screenname"[/quote]

[shameless self-promotion disguised as humour]

[url="http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?showtopic=73143&view=findpost&p=1393380"]'For your hardness of heart dUst allowed you to have separate screennames, but from the beginning it was not so'[/url]

[/shameless self-promotion disguised as humour]


Pippo, when you talk of God being not bound by time, would it make sense to consider God's Responses as some kind of Relativistic effect, (like time dilation or length contraction ) from Man's frame of Reference (which is time-bound) ?

Isn't trying to get a deeper understanding of God through anthropomorphism a large part of what Pope John Paul II did?

Edited September 29, 2007 by Innocent

[pippo buono]

[quote name='Innocent' post='1395069' date='Sep 29 2007, 11:13 AM']Pippo, when you talk of God being not bound by time, would it make sense to consider God's Responses as some kind of Relativistic effect, (like time dilation or length contraction ) from Man's frame of Reference (which is time-bound)?

Isn't trying to get a deeper understanding of God through anthropomorphism a large part of what Pope John Paul II did?[/quote]

i think that makes perfect sense. i'm just considering Augustine's reflection that God is not necessarily in all things but all things are in God (Confessions I:2). One can say time is one of these.

i wouldn't know if JPII took a particular interest in utilizing anthropomorphism. For certain topics it is nearly a necessity to understand God by applying human characteristics towards Him. After all, we were made in His image.

[Innocent]

I was reading the [i]Confessions[/i] today, and I came across these lines in [url="http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confess.ix.iii.html"]Book Eight, Chapter Three:[/url]

[quote]For it is thou who rejoicest both in us and in thy angels, who are holy through holy love. For thou art ever the same because thou knowest unchangeably all things which remain neither the same nor forever.[/quote]

Is St. Augustine saying that when we rejoice, it is actually God who rejoices?

Edited October 1, 2007 by Innocent

[N/A Gone]

L_D---fixxy-fix this I want to play.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Revprodeji' post='1395954' date='Oct 1 2007, 09:16 AM']L_D---fixxy-fix this I want to play.[/quote]
I REALLY REALLY REALLY want to post on this thread but I'm facing a tight deadline right now with work and don't think I can post on this topic real quick (I'd like to at least try and do it some justice).

I'll be able to join in on this discussion soon, but not quite yet.. Sorry dude.

[N/A Gone]

You have a deadline? I thought you were a mystical monk!!!!

jp

I need to finish my filioque paper also. Maybe we can agree to have a thread and deal with this in a month or so?

[pippo buono]

[quote name='Innocent' post='1395879' date='Oct 1 2007, 01:44 AM']Is St. Augustine saying that when we rejoice, it is actually God who rejoices?[/quote]

i think he is saying that God rejoices with us and that he is delighted with us.

Edited October 3, 2007 by pippo buono