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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    God is immutable with respect to existence. — Carmelics
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Divine Attributes
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    Part of a larger discussion

    Supports→The Western God could at most change mentally — in knowledge, will, or affect.

    God is immutable with respect to existence.

    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.Western theists deny that God can begin or cease to be.
      ?

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    • 2.If God cannot begin or cease to be, He is immutable with respect to existence.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Process theology (Whitehead, Hartshorne) holds that God genuinely changes by acquiring new experiences as the world develops.
      ?

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    • 2.If God acquires new experiential states, God undergoes real existential change, not merely relational change.
      ?

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    • 3.Therefore the claim that God is immutable with respect to existence conflates existential immutability with a broader, contestable doctrine of absolute divine changelessness.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Hegel's conception of Geist entails that the divine achieves full self-realization only through temporal historical process.
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    • 2.If divine self-realization is incomplete prior to historical unfolding, God's mode of existence genuinely changes across time.
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    • 3.Immutability with respect to existence thus presupposes a static ontology of divine being that serious speculative theism explicitly rejects.
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    Divine Attributes

    Related

    God cannot gain or lose essential properties.God is physically immutable.Hegel's conception of Geist entails that the divine achieves full self-realizati...If God acquires new experiential states, God undergoes real existential change, ...
    +8 moreShow less
    If God cannot begin or cease to be, He is immutable with respect to existence.If divine self-realization is incomplete prior to historical unfolding, God's mo...Immutability with respect to existence thus presupposes a static ontology of div...Process theology (Whitehead, Hartshorne) holds that God genuinely changes by acq...The Western God could at most change mentally — in knowledge, will, or affect.The only remaining domains of possible change are knowledge, will, and affect.Therefore the claim that God is immutable with respect to existence conflates ex...Western theists deny that God can begin or cease to be.

    Similar

    God is physically immutable.92%If God cannot begin or cease to be, He is immutable with respect to ex...92%If something is immutable, it cannot be different from what it is89%Omniscience is incompatible with immutability.88%

    Source

    AI-extracted3/3 agreementValid
    SEP: immutability
    Standard Western theism clearly excludes many sorts of change in God.
    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

    Validity: The passage explicitly states "Western theists deny that God can begin or cease to be. If God cannot, He is immutable with respect to existence," which directly matches the extracted argument's premises and conclusion in a valid modus ponens form.

    Confidence: Explicit argument in the text.

    Details

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