A Question on God's Immutability

and a grammar question, too.

 

My email inbox can be a fun place, so I’m letting you in on the fun by responding to one piece of mail right here on the blog. I have two reasons for doing it that way. First, the questions and responses might be of general interest; and second, I could use my readers’ help.

 

Here goes. From the email, first question: 

I read your post regarding God’s immutability that you posted on Sept 27, 2005:  http://theologica.worldmagblog.com/theologica/archives/2005/09/gods_immutabili_1.html

This link no longer works, but you’ll find what is essentially the same post here: God’s Immutability. 

You stated, “And while it seems certain that he does not feel emotions in exactly the same way we do, we still need to take seriously the statements of scripture that show him exercising love or joy or anger or wrath.” 

Since I posted on Theologica, I’ve gone through all the posts on God’s attributes and  revised them, and that statement is one of the places I changed things. I changed the word exercising to manifesting because, after some thought, I decided it more accurately describes what scripture intends to express when it talks about God rejoicing or being grieved, etc.

Recently, I’ve been trying to find verses that show God is completely content with Himself and does not need us for His joy. You stated that you knew of verses that illustrate Him exercising His joy; have you ever seen any verses that demonstrate the concept I’ve been searching for? 

This question touches on the subject of God’s impassibility, along with his immutability, independence and asceity (or self-existence). I think it is right to say that God is not dependent on us for his joy, or anything else, for that matter. He is independent, so if he expresses joy, this expression of joy is willingly initiated by him and is not caused by his creatures or his creation.

 

Moreover, God has always existed and will always exist in constant fullness or perfection, so it would be wrong for us to think that our existence or our actions have in any way added to his joy or any other of his affections.

 

If I were going to support that from scripture, here are some of the texts I’d use:

 

Acts 17:24-25:

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 

In other words, everything comes from God. He is not dependent on us for anything, and anything would include his own feelings or emotions, or, more precisely, his affections. God is the source of all things, including his own joy.

 

Romans 11:36

For from him and through him and to him are all things.

This comes right after a statement saying that no one can be God’s counselor or give anything to him. We are unable to actually give anything to God because everything flows the other way. Everything originates within him, is worked by him, and flows back to him. When God rejoices over his people, his joy comes from within himself and he independently wills his expression of it.

 

At the same time, we can glean from what scripture says about God’s activities in his creation that the constant fullness of his affections is manifested differently according to the nature of specific events in history. Confusing? Yep, but we only really know emotions as they exist for us as dependent, changing, finite creatures. I suppose this is another one of those things that we just have to file under the incomprehensibility of God.

 

I welcome additional responses to this question. What would you add? What would you disagree with and why?

 

Now the second question, and here’s where I really need extra help:

Off topic, but also recently, heh, I’ve been trying to improve my grammar skills. I’ve checked out multiple books from the library, and I have learned a lot, but at the same time, I’m left with many questions that these books fail to answer….I was wondering if you know of any grammar books that go into extreme depth, or grammar books that you find helpful.

I’m going to have to admit that what grammar I know I learned from my mother’s constant correction and my own constant reading, not from grammar books or lessons. Mostly, I just do whatever feels, looks, or sounds right to me, and figure that’ll be good enough.

 

If I have a question, I look it up in The Chicago Manual of Style, which is a family favorite.

 

What help can you give to someone who wants to learn grammar? What books would you suggest? 

Weather Reporting: January 15

Sunday night we had snow and quite a bit of it. That’s a good thing, because before that there was just a piddly layer of snow and it looked like the ski hill might remain closed for the whole season.

The new snow meant I spent time yesterday shoveling. Don’t feel sorry for me; I feel the same way about shoveling as I do about mowing the lawn. It’s vigorous exercise, you do it in the fresh air, and it is, for the most part, a mindless, repetitive job, which means there’s opportunity for thinking deep thoughts. And compared to more southern snow, our snow is usually light and fluffy and kind to the back muscles.

I like to shovel in spurts throughout the day, half and hour or so at a time, because after a bit even my deep thoughts get a tad boring. I intended to finish up yesterday right before supper, but I got ten minutes in and had to stop. I was downright cold. 

While I wasn’t watching the weather channel, the temperature had dropped to -27C. (Around -20F for backward thinkers.) Here’s a screen shot of the temperature throughout the past 24 hours, kindly sent to me by Chris, fellow Yukoner, but born and bred.

 

You’ll notice that the temperature was -18 (or 0F) at noon.  That’s a little chilly, but if you dress for it, it’s not that bad, especially if you’re active. Throughout the day, however, the temperature was dropping, bottoming out at -32 at 1AM, and then rising, rising, rising to a balmy -25C by the time I woke up this morning and continuing to rise so far today, reaching -13C (9F) right now as I write this at 3PM. Chris tells me our lowest temps are usually around 9AM, right around sunrise, so this weather pattern is a little quirky.

 

When I drove up the hill into my little subdivision around 10PM last night, the furnace smoke was all flowing downhill toward me. Yep, the smoke was not rising from the chimneys, but flowing immediately downward. I’m guessing there was a temperature inversion and a shallow one, something that is a common winter weather phenomenon for us.

 

That would also explain why the midnight flight landed in my bedroom. 

 

Other weather news:

• Violet says the Vancouver area is rainy, rainy, rainy, as usual.
• Islandsparrow commented yesterday that there was “[a]nother Nor’easter on the way to the east coast.” She promised to post pictures from PEI as soon as they recover from the blast. Update: Here are photos of Islandsparrow’s walk in the new snow with the pets.
• Update: In the UK, Ann’s weather today (Wednesday) is bright and sunny.
• Update: Jeanie experienced snow for the first time on “New Years day while I was in Ohio! I’m from Texas and we don’t get snow…at least I don’t call it snow! It’s more like freezing rain! I shoveled snow while I was in Ohio…just off the sidewalk!”
  

You can join in this month’s weather fun, too. You’ll find the details for participating here, and if you send me a link to your weather related post before tomorrow (Wednesday) morning, I’ll add it to this post. If you send it after that, expect to see it in this coming Friday’s weather report.

Sunday's Hymn: God's Immutability

I suppose I’ll just carry on with hymns that teach something about the various attributes of God. We’ve looked at hymns that featured God’s eternality and his infinity, and today’s hymn from Horatius Bonar teaches us about another (but still closely related) characteristic of God—his unchanging nature. 

That God is immutability ensures his faithfulness to us. We can count on the lasting peace we have with him because he is unchanging.

I Hear the Words of Love

I hear the words of love,
I gaze upon the blood,
I see the mighty sacrifice,
And I have peace with God.

’Tis everlasting peace,
Sure as Jehovah’s Name;
’Tis stable as His steadfast throne,
For evermore the same.

The clouds may go and come,
And storms may sweep my sky;
This blood-sealed friendship changes not,
The cross is ever nigh.

I change—He changes not;
The Christ can never die;
His love, not mine, the resting-place;
His truth, not mine, the tie.

My love is oftimes low,
My joy still ebbs and flows;
But peace with Him remains the same,
No change Jehovah knows.

More on God’s immutability:

• God’s Immutability
  

Other hymns, worship songs, etc. posted today:

• O Sacred Head, Now Wounded at joythruChrist
• The Collect for the First Sunday After Epiphany at Magic Statistics
• Jesus Loves Me at The Happy Wonderer
• Lord’s Day 2, 2007 at The Thirsty Theologian
  
• And Can It Be at Hiraeth
  
• The King of Love My Shephed Is at Seasoning of the Heart
• I Lift My Heart to Thee at Whatever Things…
• Will Your Anchor Hold at Home, but not alone

Have you posted a hymn this Sunday and I missed it? Let me know by leaving a link in the comments or by emailing me at the address in the sidebar and I’ll add your post to the list.