Naught Changes Thee: The Doctrine of Divine Immutability, Part I

Introduction

From growth and aging to sickness, pain, and, finally, death, human experience is marked by change, with life in a fallen world adding negative changes that harm us in our daily lives and ultimately snuff us out like candles. However, mankind is not a passive victim in all of this. Fallen sinners constantly lie, change their minds, break promises, and give in to passions that lead to acts of treason, violence, sexual immorality, and other gross vices.

By contrast, God is a perfectly changeless and unchangeable reality who is not only unwilling but unable to break a promise, go back on His Word, or fall victim to emotional passions stirred in Him by others. These truths are expressed in the classical doctrine of divine immutability. This article will describe the teaching of confessional Lutheran dogmaticians on the subject of divine immutability and its corollary, divine impassibility, answer objections to the doctrine (such as Scriptural instances of God’s apparent repentance or the contradictory attempts by some to affirm immutability while rejecting impassibility), and explore practical implications of this doctrine for the life of the Church.

What Is Divine Immutability According to Lutheran Dogmatics?

Whenever discussing any of the attributes of God, it is helpful to clarify one’s organizational system for classifying the attributes. Francis Pieper divides the attributes of God into the categories of negative attributes (i.e. attributes that describe the ways in which “the imperfections of creatures cannot be ascribed to God”) and positive attributes (i.e. attributes that mankind possesses “but which are ascribed to God in a higher degree or in an absolute sense”).[i] For Pieper, the immutability of God falls into the category of God’s negative attributes. Revere Franklin Weidner, by contrast, acknowledges the distinction of negative and positive attributes but instead organizes God’s attributes into those pertaining to God’s essence, His knowledge, and His will, with immutability falling into the first category.[ii] Pieper and Weidner are in agreement that immutability pertains to God’s essence, attributes, and will. One cannot argue that God’s being is unchangeable while His will is mutable, or vice versa.

Henry Eyster Jacobs references the popular organization of God’s attributes into negative and positive attributes but observes that “it will sometimes be found that what are presented as two separate attributes, are only one fundamental attribute, considered in various relations.”[iii] Concerning the unchangeable divine nature, Jacobs points out that to affirm the impossibility of God’s death is to “affirm His Eternity and Immutability.”[iv] Likewise, citing Johann Wilhelm Baier, Heinrich Schmid connects divine immutability with God’s immortality and incorruptibility.[v] As is the case with any of God’s attributes, discussing one aspect of God (according to a human way of speaking and comprehension) inevitably leads to considerations of other attributes of God, since God is simple and cannot be broken into different components or parts (the doctrine of simplicity is affirmed in the Augsburg Confession, I.2).

Pieper defines the immutability of God as the fact that “God is unchangeable in His essence. He is immutable also in all His attributes, e.g., His kindness . . . His wrath . . . His will.”[vi] For a sedes doctrinae of divine immutability, Pieper suggests Ps. 102:26-27 (NKJV): “They will perish, but You will endure; / Yes, they will all grow old like a garment; / Like a cloak You will change them, / And they will be changed. / But You are the same, / And Your years will have no end.” God’s unchangeability is frequently described in the Bible in sharp contrast with the mortality and changeability of creation in general and mankind in particular, as mentioned by Jacobs above and further explored in other Scriptural passages below.

Weidner defines immutability as consisting in the fact “that God is liable to no change either as to his essence, or as to his will or purpose.”[vii] Like Pieper, Weidner cites Ps. 102:27 in support of this doctrine. He also references Jam. 1:17[viii] and Mal. 3:6[ix] as clear prooftexts. According to His divine nature and being, God is unable to die, age, abandon His promises, or otherwise change or vary in Who He is and what He wills to do.

Challenges to the Doctrine of Divine Immutability

One of the most common objections to the classical understanding of divine immutability is the fact that Scripture sometimes appears to attribute a change of mind or a change in locality to God. Pieper cites Gen. 6:6,[x] 1 Sam. 15:11,[xi] and Jonah 3:10[xii] as prooftexts that appear to indicate a change in God’s state of mind, as well as Gen. 11:5[xiii] as a prooftext suggesting a change in God’s locality. In answer to the charge that Scripture describes God as actually changing in His will or purpose (such as when He “repents” or “relents” from a previously announced decision), Pieper argues that Scripture “does so to conform to our mode of thinking in terms of time and space, cause and effect. But God is above these, and therefore no change or mutation can be predicated of God’s essence.”[xiv] Scripture frequently condescends to our finite human way of understanding, including describing God’s actions in a manner akin to the change of mind found within a human being, yet God remains unaffected and unchanged by causes outside of Himself.

As always, clear passages are to govern the interpretation of less clear passages. Concerning clear language about God’s “repentance,” Pieper turns to 1 Sam. 15:29, which is the culmination of Samuel’s prophecy foretelling the end of King Saul’s reign: “And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor relent. For He is not a man, that He should relent.” It is ironic that the same chapter, indeed the same narrative, that is often pointed to as proof of God’s supposed repentance or mutability in fact contains one of the strongest declarations of God’s inability to change in the way that men do. Pieper points out that this is a passage “in which God and man are placed into sharp antithesis.”[xv] This is similar to the stark contrast between God and Creation in Ps. 102, explored above.

Another clear prooftext describing God’s inability to repent, lie, or otherwise change His will or purpose in the manner that men do is provided by the pen of Moses in Num. 23:19: “[Balaam said]: ‘God is not a man, that He should lie, / Nor a son of man, that He should repent. / Has He said, and will He not do? / Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?’” Weidner argues that in light of Num. 23, the apparent repentance ascribed to God in Gen. 6 “does not imply any change in God, but in his relations to men.”[xvi] While God and His purposes remain objectively the same, they appear to change from the viewpoint of changeable humanity.

On the point of God’s apparent change in action or purpose in different Scriptural circumstances, Pieper explains that although God is unchanging in His essence, He “is angry and merciful according to the difference in the object of His affection. . . . He is a gracious God to the humble, poor, and contrite sinners, but a jealous God to the proud and self-righteous. . . . God remains immutable, but there is a mutability in the objects of His affection.”[xvii] The same unchanging God appears immovably wrathful to the unrepentant and immutably merciful to the penitent.

Weidner also provides a response to Jonah 3:10, a passage which Pieper references but does not reply to in his treatment of immutability. Explaining the nature of this apparent change in God’s prophetic will, Weidner states that “When prophecies are not fulfilled, this can be explained from the conditional nature of prophecy.”[xviii] In other words, the destruction prophesied by God through Jonah was conditional upon the repentance of the wicked dwelling within Nineveh. This is further explained in another passage cited by Weidner, Jer. 18:7-8: “The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it.” The clear teaching of this prophetic message directly parallels God’s apparent “repentance” in the case of Nineveh.

Regarding Biblical language that appears to suggest a change in God’s place or locality, Pieper points to Jer. 23:24[xix] as Scriptural evidence that “God enters into time and space without becoming temporal or local in His essence.”[xx] This is related to the doctrines of God’s immensity and eternity, namely, that God is “bigger” (humanly speaking) than Creation and outside of time, yet He is able to interact with His creation as it exists in space and time. God fills all things without being bound to the changes undergone by that which He fills.

Pieper points out two further objections that those who doubt God’s immutability raise, namely, that the act of creation and the miracle of God the Son’s incarnation each “imply a change in God.”[xxi] Pieper responds to the former claim by pointing out that creatio ex nihilo does not militate against the view of God as unchangeable, which cannot be said for pantheists who view the creation as part of God’s essence.[xxii] To create something from nothing outside of Himself is not to cause a change in God’s being, for the Creator and the creation always remain distinct in their respective essences.[xxiii]

In answer to the latter charge (i.e. that the incarnation suggests a change in God’s being), Pieper argues that the change that occurred in the incarnation was not a transformation of the deity of God the Son, but rather an assumption of a human nature by that same divine person.[xxiv] This response evokes the language of the Athanasian Creed, which states that “Although [Jesus Christ] is God and man, He is not two, but one Christ: / one, however, not by the conversion of the divinity into flesh, but by the assumption of the humanity into God.”[xxv] Mysteriously, the divinity of the Son remained unchanged in essence even as the divine person assumed a true human nature. As Weidner puts it, “In the incarnation there is no change in the divine nature, but in the divine mode of manifestation.”[xxvi] Both Pieper and Weidner contend that the incarnation only poses a threat to divine immutability if one holds to the kenotic theory of the incarnation.[xxvii]

Reformed theologian Wayne Grudem provides a helpful overview of another challenge to divine immutability: 20th century process theology. This school of thought states “that process and change are essential aspects of genuine existence, and that therefore God must be changing over time also,” or else the actions of those outside of God are meaningless because they are unable to affect God.[xxviii] Grudem points out that the notion that human significance is only possible if our actions can affect God is foreign to Scripture, which teaches that “our ultimate significance comes not from being able to change the being of God, but from the fact that God has created us for his glory and that he counts us as significant.”[xxix] To put it another way, human meaning is derived from the fact that we have been created by an unchangeable God who has immutably purposed that mankind will glorify Him. Process theology also commits the same error as theological pantheism in assigning mutability to both Creator and creation.[xxx]

In the second and concluding part of this article, we will examine how the doctrine of immutability is related to the doctrine of divine impassibility.

[i] Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics (St. Louis: Concordia, 1950-53), 1:435.

[ii] Revere Franklin Weidner, A System of Dogmatics, vol. 1, God and His Works (Ithaca, NY: The Weidner Institute, 2022), 261.

[iii] Henry Eyster Jacobs, Elements of Religion: A Treatment of Christian Doctrine (Ithaca, NY: Just and Sinner, 2020), 22.

[iv] Ibid., 23.

[v] Heinrich Schmid, The Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, 3rd edition, trans. Charles A. Hay and Henry E. Jacobs (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1899), IV.I.IV., paragraph 18, https://ccel.org/ccel/schmid/theology/theology.iv.i.iv.html.

[vi] Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 1:440.

[vii] Weidner, God and His Works, 262.

[viii] Jam. 1:17: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.”

[ix] Mal. 3:6: “For I am the Lord, I do not change; / Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob.”

[x] Gen. 6:6: “And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.”

[xi] 1 Sam. 15:11a: “[The Lord said to Samuel]: ‘I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following Me, and has not performed My commandments.’”

[xii] Jonah 3:10: “Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it.”

[xiii] Gen. 11:5, emphasis added: “But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.”

[xiv] Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 1:440.

[xv] Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 1:440.

[xvi] Weidner, God and His Works, 262.

[xvii] Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 1:440-441.

[xviii] Weidner, God and His Works, 262.

[xix] Jer. 23:24: “‘Can anyone hide himself in secret places, / So I shall not see him?’ says the Lord; / ‘Do I not fill heaven and earth?’ says the Lord.”

[xx] Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 1:440.

[xxi] Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 1:441.

[xxii] Ibid.

[xxiii] Cf. Jn. 1:1-3 for a Scriptural description of the Creator-creature distinction: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.”

[xxiv] Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 1:441.

[xxv] “The Athanasian Creed,” vv. 32-33, in Lutheran Service Book, prepared by the Commission on

Worship of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (St. Louis: Concordia, 2006), 320.

[xxvi] Weidner, God and His Works, 262.

[xxvii] Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 1:441; Weidner, God and His Works, 262.

[xxviii] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994), 166.

[xxix] Ibid., 167, emphasis in original.

[xxx] Ibid.; cf. Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 1:441.