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    God cannot change physically (God is physically immutable). — Carmelics
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    God cannot change physically (God is physically 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.For Western theists, God is by nature a spirit, without body.
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    • 2.A being without body cannot change physically.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.The Incarnation, central to Christian theology, entails God the Son taking on a physical body in the person of Jesus Christ.
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    • 2.A being that genuinely possesses a physical body is capable of physical change, as bodies are by nature subject to alteration.
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    • 3.Therefore, the Incarnation commits orthodox Christianity to the possibility of physical change in at least one divine person.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Process theologians like Whitehead and Hartshorne argue God has a 'consequent nature' that is genuinely affected by and responsive to the physical world.
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    • 2.If God's consequent nature is constitutively shaped by physical events in the world, God undergoes real relational change tied to physical states of affairs.
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    • 3.Physical immutability cannot be coherently maintained by any theology that grounds divine responsiveness in God's actual relation to embodied, physical creatures.
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    Divine Attributes

    Related

    A being that genuinely possesses a physical body is capable of physical change, ...A being without body cannot change physically.For Western theists, God is by nature a spirit, without body.If God's consequent nature is constitutively shaped by physical events in the wo...
    +4 moreShow less
    Physical immutability cannot be coherently maintained by any theology that groun...Process theologians like Whitehead and Hartshorne argue God has a 'consequent na...The Incarnation, central to Christian theology, entails God the Son taking on a ...Therefore, the Incarnation commits orthodox Christianity to the possibility of p...

    Similar

    God cannot change (God is immutable).95%God is physically immutable.94%If something is immutable, it cannot be different from what it is87%Aquinas similarly holds that God is immutable yet His relations with o...86%

    Source

    AI-extracted2/3 agreementValid
    SEP: immutability
    the Western God could at most change mentally
    View source passageHide passage
    For one thing, the Scriptural witness is not really so clearly on the side of divine real intrinsic change. Much that Scripture says of God is clearly metaphor. And it is not hard to show that Old Testament texts which ascribe change to God could be speaking metaphorically. As I note later, one can parse even the Incarnation in ways which avoid divine real or intrinsic change. Standard Western theism clearly excludes many sorts of change in God. Western theists deny that God can begin or cease to be. If God cannot, He is immutable with respect to existence. Nothing can gain or lose an essenti...
    Extraction notes

    The passage explicitly states "God is by nature a spirit, without body. If he is, God cannot change physically — he is physically immutable," which directly contains both premises and the conclusion in a clear supportive logical structure.

    Validity:

    Confidence: Explicit reasoning in the text.

    Details

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