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    God cannot change (God is immutable). — Carmelics
    Home/Divine Attributes
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    God cannot change (God is immutable).

    Divine Attributes
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.God must be the perfect case of being.
      ?

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    • 2.What can change is not a perfect case of being.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.A God who genuinely loves creatures must be capable of responsive states (grief, compassion, joy) that vary with creaturely conditions.
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    • 2.Responsive relational states constitute a form of real change in the subject who undergoes them.
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    • 3.Therefore immutability, as classically defined, is incompatible with the robust personal love Scripture and religious experience attribute to God.
      ?

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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.The identification of perfect being with changelessness presupposes a Parmenidean-Platonic ontology in which becoming is inferior to static being.
      ?

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    • 2.Whitehead and process theologians argue that dynamic becoming—the capacity to be enriched by experience—is a perfection, not a deficiency.
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    • 3.If perfect being includes maximal experiential richness, then a God incapable of change would lack a genuine perfection rather than possess one.
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    Divine Attributes

    Related

    A God who genuinely loves creatures must be capable of responsive states (grief,...God must be the perfect case of being.If perfect being includes maximal experiential richness, then a God incapable of...Responsive relational states constitute a form of real change in the subject who...
    +4 moreShow less
    The identification of perfect being with changelessness presupposes a Parmenidea...Therefore immutability, as classically defined, is incompatible with the robust ...What can change is not a perfect case of being.Whitehead and process theologians argue that dynamic becoming—the capacity to be...

    Similar

    God cannot change physically (God is physically immutable).95%God is physically immutable.91%If something is immutable, it cannot be different from what it is88%Omniscience is incompatible with immutability.88%

    Source

    AI-extracted2/3 agreementValid
    SEP: immutability
    Augustine, De trinitate V, 2
    View source passageHide passage
    Augustine gave a powerful impetus to Christian acceptance of DDI. As he saw it (De trinitate V, 2), a God who gave His very name as “I am” and is perfect must be the perfect case of being. But what can change, Augustine thought, is not a perfect case of being: it does not have its being so securely that it cannot cease to be what it is.
    Extraction notes

    Validity: The premises form a valid syllogism (God is the perfect case of being; what can change is not a perfect case of being; therefore God cannot change), and this argument is clearly present in the source passage as Augustine's reasoning.

    Confidence: This conclusion is clearly entailed by the two preceding arguments taken together, though stated implicitly.

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit