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Historically, one of the attributes of God that provided the most comfort to many people was his unchanging nature - God is "the same, yesterday, today, and tomorrow." (Hebrews 13:8) Additionally, Malachi 3:3 says, "I am the Lord, I do not change." and Numbers 23:19 reminds us that God is not a man, and thus does not "repent". This doctrine of God's immutability gave solace to those, frankly, frightened of a changing world.

On the other hand, there are places where God "changes his mind" (Exodus 32 / Numbers 16) and even "regrets" making humanity (Genesis 6:6 - translated repents in the KJV!) but fundamentally the question is this:

Does the God of the Bible change and grow, as say, a progressive theologian (or is that process theologian I forget!) would maintain, or is God's constancy his defining characteristic?

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    Interesting; I'll be intrigued by the answers. In particular (not sure if it is what you had in mind), despite the oft-stated immutability, there is a notable difference in approach between OT and NT, both in terms of willingness to be a direct (rather than indirect) hand, and in the nature of the message (NT is undeniably less brutal). Even the "(infinite time)(then creates world)" is a change. Interesting topic. Jan 5, 2012 at 13:50
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    I would appreciate references to passages that you think are contradicting. That would offer a precise starting point for answering.
    – user1121
    Jan 5, 2012 at 13:52
  • related (from Catholic perspective): christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/4169/…
    – Peter Turner
    Jan 5, 2012 at 15:42
  • I wouldn't vote to close though, especially since I was looking for the reasoning behind an orthodox answer and you're posing the question directly. You may want to change the focus and just ask about the 'progressive' viewpoint though since the answers will probably yes and no depending on what you want to believe.
    – Peter Turner
    Jan 5, 2012 at 15:53

5 Answers 5

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Historical Christian teaching says that God is perfect. If he were to change, that would make him not perfect. Or else it would mean that he wasn't yet perfect, and had to change to become perfect. Therefore, if God changes, he is not perfect; if he is perfect, he does not change. It also implies time -- there was a time that he was something different than he is now.

References to God changing his mind have appeared to me to be a literary device, or a way of explaining things that we can understand. Change implies time, as Sam notes, and since we are in time, we can really only understand things within time. By describing God as changing his mind, it is describing him within time, but also in a way that we can understand. That is not because he does change, but because there is no way for us to understand what is really happening outside of time.

For another example of time based words for something outside of time, consider the concept of the Son proceeding from the Father, or the Father begatting the Son. Those words imply time, and yet are used to describe something eternal and outside of time.

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    Doesn't this assume that change is always for better or worse, and that it's impossible to change between two equally good (or even perfect) states? I'm not sure that's a given.
    – hammar
    Jan 5, 2012 at 21:47
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    This would also imply that we will not change in heaven, which to me seems strange since we won't grow. However, even Jesus (who was perfect) grew in wisdom. Jan 5, 2012 at 21:52
  • Will we be perfect in heaven? Or just sinless? Jesus grew in wisdom, but was also fully man, and was at that time bound in time. Of course he changed as a person, since he had to grow from a baby to an adult. I don't think sinless and changeless are synonomous. Jan 5, 2012 at 23:31
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    Agree with @hammar. Perfection doesn't imply inability to change—in fact, inability to change is often (if not always) a flaw in itself. The outside of time argument is better, but as you note yourself, sometimes God puts himself into time (life of Christ, etc.).
    – Muke Tever
    Jan 7, 2012 at 17:15
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    What about God's declaration to Jeremiah in chapter 18? "If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it" (Jeremiah 18:7-10, ESV).
    – Dan
    Jul 15, 2012 at 22:38
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I think that the question of God's immutability must be considered as two distinct questions:

  • Is the shared concept of God which is acknowledged by religious people of a Christian tradition (or a Muslim, Jewish, or Samaritan tradition), at least those that tend to agree that they are talking about the same thing, one of an immutable thing?
  • Is God, as described in the Bible, the figure of Yahweh, an immutable character in His descriptions?

The two questions are not the same, since the Bible is only a finite collection of symbols, and it is impossible to capture an infinitely complex notion with a finite character string. I think the answer to the first question is "yes", because the notion of God is outside of space and time, as an abstract figure in an external realm.

An analogy might be made with the notion of "integer", or of "shape". Both of these are outside of space and time, they live in the world of mathematical objects. They are described in Euclid's elements, and in modern mathematical textbooks in different ways. Does this mean that the concept of "17" changed between ancient times and today? Not really. It simply reflects that the notion of integer is infinite and infinitely rich, and we discover new aspects of this notion with time, so that we describe them in a different way today. It does not invalidate Euclid to say that we now can conceive of a larger world of shape and integers than Euclid could.

Similarly, the notion of God has evolved. Within the Catholic tradition, people say the same thing by saying that revelation is gradual, that new aspects of God are revealed in time (see Gregory of Nazianzu's position on the gradual revelation of the Trinity, from revealing the Father in the old testament, to the Son in the Gospels, to the Holy Spirit active in individuals, which has the capacity to inform those in the Church of Divine opinion regarding new developments), so that the conception of God is gradually enriched. This means that things that were once considered the word of God, like the rules governing slaves and multiple wives, are replaced with different rules in context, like the rules of not permitting slavery and polygamy.

It is not clear to me that the concept of God in the old and new testaments, with its authoritarian tone of submission to state authority and its disrespect for pagan belief systems and their complex artwork, is optimal for the ethical concerns which are most pressing in our day. For example, when the Taliban wrecked those Buddhas of Baminyan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamiyan), they claimed to be acting in God's service. But it's one thing to break an idol used for human sacrifice and another to shatter an image that reflects a deep meditative tradition.

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  • Ok, I just read what you wrote as, after the Bible the Catholic Church just started making up new things and calling them revelation (dogmas and visions and sacraments). Which I guess was one of C.S. Lewis's gripes with the Church. I'd think all Christians would say that the Holy Spirit is at work in individuals, whether He helps them establish a canon of scripture, choose a pope, heal a leper, cure a paralytic or discern who to marry.
    – Peter Turner
    Jan 6, 2012 at 15:24
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    "it's one thing to break an idol used for human sacrifice and another to shatter an image that reflects a deep meditative tradition" - ignoring, for the moment, that the Taliban is an islamic government, and therefore not related to Christianity at all, the "deep meditative tradition" of Buddhism is as abhorrent in God's eyes as was the child sacrifices to Molech - they are equally evil since they do not worship the One True God, but something man has created.
    – warren
    Jan 6, 2012 at 15:47
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    See my comment on your other answer but this is not a place for general philosophizing on a topic or discussing other religions. We are looking for verifiable (with links or quotes to doctrinal writings of specific Christian traditions given on request) answers about how Christianity views an issue.
    – Caleb
    Jan 6, 2012 at 16:49
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    @warren as you know very well, Islam claims to worship the same Abrahmic God - the crossover with OT views on God is not unreasonable. Jan 7, 2012 at 10:18
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Open Theism says, "yes," as do a few other belief systems I can't recall.

I say, "no." If God were to change, then there would be some timeline (not necessarily the one we age through) that He was subject to and there would be some governing set of rules that governed God's mutability.

To view this problem from another angle, if God changes, then there is some element of creation that He either does not control or is unaware of. A knowledge that is beyond Him. He ceases to be all and is subject to either entirely to this other source of knowledge or the concept of God is now distributed between God and the other holder of knowledge.

I hope that's helpful. It's a bit more philosophy than exegesis. :)

As for that particular passages you're referring to, they are typically interpreted as God acting in human terms. When Moses or Abraham contend with God and He relents, it should be taken as the author intends it, to show God's condescension to His creation.

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God does not change. He is perfect, as stated in thursdaysgeek's answer. We can understand this within the context of our mortal experience.

As an example of how God might appear to change His mind and yet be unchanging, consider the operation of a simple computer program:

while (not person.has_faith()):
     wait()
giveWitness()

In plain language, the computer program waits until the "person" has faith, and then gives a witness. If the person does not have faith, a witness will never be given. This extremely simple piece of code shows that it is possible to exhibit different behaviors depending on the circumstance, and yet the piece of code doesn't change at all. I am not saying that God is a computer program (He isn't), but He shares the attribute of exactness and repeatability with computer programs.

The notion that God cannot be unchanging merely because His responses to different circumstances vary grossly oversimplifies earthly concepts that are easy to understand. This was an important lesson in revelation to Peter and the Jews, when God revealed that the Gospel was to be preached to the Gentiles. God regularly changes His policies and instructions in response to timing and changing circumstances, but His laws and character never change.

I call this the "Bathtub principle" of revelation. enter image description here

It is illustrated as a parent tells his child to go and start filling a bathtub. The child does so. Later, the parent tells him to turn the water off. If we collapse this sequence into a single point in time or lack situational awareness, the parent's instructions will appear to contradict each other--but if we are aware of the circumstance and the progression of needs, it will make perfect sense. God does not change, but timing and circumstances do. God's instructions and responses to different circumstances allow us to learn line upon line how God really feels and how He uses each circumstance to express love and help us to grow.

God's knowledge and situational awareness are complete. That is what the word "perfect" implies. The notions of God's character or nature being mutable and also being perfect are mutually exclusive.

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    Loved the code example, +1. Good to see you again! Dec 20, 2023 at 4:34
  • To which God do you refer? Elohim? Jehovah? Jesus? I ask because the index in my Book of Mormon refers the reader who enquires about Jehovah to see the section on Jesus.
    – Lesley
    Dec 23, 2023 at 14:39
  • @Lesley Both the Father and the Son. "Refers the reader who enquires about Jehovah to see the section on Jesus." Yes, Jehovah is Jesus. "We would like to see Jesus". Fascinatingly this implies that although the wisdom, stature and favor with God and man of Jesus in the flesh matured and grew over time, His character never deviated from His mission to Atone for and redeem and exalt mankind, all who would repent and believe on His name to become the sons of God.
    – pygosceles
    Dec 23, 2023 at 18:23
  • Regarding your “Bathtub principle of revelation” is God the bathtub or is God the water in the bathtub? When Archimedes got into the tub of water, he cried out “Eureka” when he realised that the weight/mass of his body displaced the water in the tub, resulting in an overflow of water.
    – Lesley
    Dec 28, 2023 at 17:12
  • @Lesley God is neither the bathtub nor the water in the bathtub. He is the Parent giving the instructions.
    – pygosceles
    Dec 28, 2023 at 17:23
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Necessity is the mother of invention. Does God invent new things?

Man has now found out that the Universe is "expanding. Is God similarly becoming bigger, and is He growing in Wisdom?

Bible says that "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." That statement begs a question "In the beginning of what?" . But it clearly says that God did create something. which means it did not exist before. God created something because he felt a need for it, which means that he was not satisfied with the situation before the creation, which is why he decided to create something.

So there must have been a change in God before and after creation, because after each creation, he remarked " that it was good".

And later, God was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and said He was grieved in His heart. "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them" (Gen. 6:6-7).

I [the Lord] regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following Me and has not carried out My commands (1 Sam. 15:11).

So God's plans sometimes backfires, and he has to change his plans to correct them. But we believe that He will succeed in the end.

So God changing his character must be like how an actor can play double role in a movie, and maintain his true charachter outside the sets.

But then is God playing roles in this world?

Many people believe that this world is just a make-believe, and does not actually exist. It is just a toy God has made for his children to teach them values and truths.

Is the Bible that says "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." also a fairy story written by God for his children to teach them values and truths?

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