Concept
Immutability (theology)
Overview
The Immutability or Unchangeability of God is an attribute that "God is unchanging in his character, will, and covenant promises."
The Westminster Shorter Catechism says that "[God] is a spirit, whose being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth are infinite, eternal, and unchangeable." Those things do not change. A number of Scriptures attest to this idea (such as Num. 23:19; 1 Sam. 15:29; Ps. 102:26; Mal. 3:6; 2 Tim. 2:13; Heb. 6:17–18; Jam. 1:17)
God's immutability defines all God's other attributes: God is immutably wise, merciful, good, and gracious: Primarily, God is almighty/omnipotent (all powerful), omnipresent (present everywhere), and omniscient (knows everything); eternally and immutably so. Infiniteness and immutability in God are mutually supportive and imply each other. An infinite and changing God is inconceivable; indeed, it is a contradiction in definition.
The Compendium Theologiae of Thomas Aquinas derives the necessary existence of God from His immutability and immobility:
For everything that has the possibility of being and of not being, is mutable. But God is absolutely immutable, as has been demonstrated. Therefore it is impossible for God to be and not to be. But anything that exists in such a way that it is impossible for it not to exist, is necessarily Being itself, ipsum esse. Necessary existence, and impossibility of nonexistence, mean one and the same thing. Therefore God must necessarily exist.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Immutability (theology) is discussed.
Thus some receive immutability from God in the way of never ceasing to exist; in that sense it is said of the earth, "it standeth for ever" (Eccl. 1:4). Again, some things are called eternal in Scripture because of the length of their duration, although they are in nature corruptible; thus (Ps. 75:5) the hills are called "eternal" and we read "of the fruits of the eternal hills." (Deut. 33:15).
Aquinas Thomas, Summa Theologica, Part I
states what it is; names the idea; author linked in the graph; opens on it
With respect to books on this subject, I do not know of any systematical ones, except Lamarck's which is veritable rubbish: but there are plenty, as Lyell, Pritchard, &c., on the view of the immutability. Agassiz lately has brought the strongest argument in favour of immutability. Isidore G. St. Hilaire has written some good Essays, tending towards the mutability-side, in the _Suites a Buffon_, entitled _Zoolog…
Charles Darwin, Charles Darwin
names the idea; opens on it
Those naturalists who believe in the immutability of species often maintain that, even in the most variable forms, the characters which they consider of specific value are unchangeable. To give an example from a conscientious writer,[139] who, relying on the labours of M.
Charles Darwin, The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication
names the idea; opens on it
It installs itself in the immutable, it posits only Ideas. Yet becoming exists: it is a fact. How, then, having posited immutability alone, shall we make change come forth from it? Not by the addition of anything, for, by the hypothesis, there exists nothing positive outside Ideas. It must therefore be by a diminution.
Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution
names the idea
In this Notion, one moment and one element goes over into the other; fire becomes water, water earth and fire. The contention about the transmutation and immutability of the elements is an old one; in this conception the ordinary, sensuous science of nature separates itself from natural philosophy. In the speculative point of view, which is that of Heraclitus, the simple substance in fire and the other elements in…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy
names the idea
Philosophers who discussed Immutability (theology)
Related ideas
- Heaven
- Abraham
- Justice
- Moses
- Thomas Aquinas
- Omnipresence
- Omnipotence
- Omniscience
- Ten Commandments
- Truth
- Ousia
- Good
- Wisdom
- God
- Existence of God
Place in the tradition
Part of Atheism.