It is a dogma of our Faith that God is immutable — that is, unchangeable. But sometimes we speak of Him as if He changes.
The Church’s Liturgy, like Holy Scripture, speaks in a human way about divine realities, indeed about God Himself. Some prayers of the liturgy, at first glance, suggest that God is changeable. Take this example, which has been teasing my mind this Lent; it is the oration for the Thursday after Ash Wednesday, and here is a hyper-literal translation:
O God, who by sin art offended, and by penitence appeased: mercifully look upon the prayers of Thy suppliant people; and turn away the scourges of Thy wrath, which for our sins we deserve.
God being offended, appeased, and having wrath implies emotion, and emotion both conceptually and in its etymology — coming, as it does, from the Latin verb for “to move” — absolutely necessitates change. How do we explain that?
Before I answer that apparent contradiction, let me suggest another series of questions which are more timely, given the grand liturgical days that are soon upon us: Was Jesus, in His Sacred Humanity, immutable while He was in this life? Did He remain so after the Resurrection? How’s about now, after the Ascension?
These are matters, once studied, that we can ponder in mental prayer. The high wisdom that the Church dispenses to her children on these subjects can root us and make us strong amid the manifold vicissitudes of life. Indeed, knowing that God is unchangeable — unchangeably true, unchangeably faithful to His promises, unchangeably good — serves as a firm foundation for Christian Faith, Hope, and Charity.
Let us go back to the beginning, to the divine immutability I mentioned at the top. I said it is a dogma of the Faith. Here is the Fourth Lateran Council, in 1215, defining against the heresy of the Albigensians:
We firmly believe and confess without reservation that there is only one true God, eternal, infinite, and unchangeable [incommutabilis], incomprehensible, almighty, and ineffable, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; three Persons, indeed, but one essence, substance, or nature entirely simple.
Some 655 years later, the First Vatican Council used that same word in Dei Filius when it said of God that, “As He is one, unique, and spiritual substance, entirely simple and unchangeable [incommutabilis], we must proclaim Him distinct from the world in existence and essence….”
This doctrine of God’s complete changelessness rests on a solid scriptural foundation:
James 1:17: “…the Father of lights, with whom there is no change, nor shadow of alteration.”
Malachias 3:6: “For I am the Lord, and I change not…”Numbers 23:19: “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor as the son of man, that he should be changed.”
Psalm 101:27-28: “They shall perish but thou remainest: and all of them shall grow old like a garment: And as a vesture thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed. But thou art always the selfsame, and thy years shall not fail.”
Philosophically, we say that God is “Pure Act,” and that there is no potency in Him. As all change involves putting potency into act, God cannot change.
If all this is the case, how can we apply such things as being offended, being appeased, showing wrath, etc., to God?
The simple answer is that these words and concepts are applied metaphorically to God. Saint Thomas explains it here:
Anger and the like are attributed to God on account of a similitude of effect. Thus, because to punish is properly the act of an angry man, God’s punishment is metaphorically spoken of as His anger. (ST, Ia, Q. 3, A. 2, ad 2)
Both the punishment of sin and vice, and the reward of penance and virtue are things God eternally wills. When we say that God is offended or wrathful because of sin, we are not saying that there is a change in God, but we are referring to the objective disorder of sin in relation to God’s unchanging will. So, too, when we say that He is pleased or placated, we are describing a change in us and in our relationship to the unchangeable will of God — not a change in Him. By sinning, we oppose God’s immutable will. By repentance, we unite ourselves back to that will.
In short, we change, not God.
Now, what about the Man-God, the Incarnate Logos, Jesus Christ? As Man, did He change in this life, or after the Resurrection; or, even now, does He change after the Ascension?
The Sacred Humanity of Our Lord is a creature and therefore, by nature, mutable. The Evangelist from Syria tells us that He “advanced in wisdom, and age, and grace with God and men” (Luke 2:52). That means certain potencies were put into act. If Our Lord was not mutable, He would not be passible; He, therefore, would not have been able to undergo His Passion for God’s glory and our salvation.
The Resurrection itself represented a change — one of the greatest sort, called “substantial change” in philosophy — when the Divinity of Our Lord united the constituent elements of the Sacred Humanity to which It remained united during the three days of death. The Divine Word was united to the Body of Jesus in the Tomb; as well to His Blood spattered about the Fortress Antonia, the Via Dolorosa, the Cross, and the Shroud; and, lastly, to the Soul of Jesus that descended into Hell, where He “preached to those spirits that were in prison” (1 Pet. 3:19).
After the massive change of the Resurrection, Our Lord walked, at times using the qualities of a glorified body to pass through solid matter. He also ate. All of this is real change, the kind that God does not do. But Jesus could no longer suffer or die. (“Knowing that Christ rising again from the dead, dieth now no more, death shall no more have dominion over him” [Rom. 6:9].) So, by having the attributes of a glorified body, the kind of change Jesus could undergo is now limited compared to before His Resurrection.
Saint Thomas, in answering the question “Whether it was fitting for Christ to ascend into heaven?” says this:
That which is best and possesses its good without movement is God Himself, because He is utterly unchangeable, according to Malachi 3:6: “I am the Lord, and I change not.” But every creature is changeable in some respect, as is evident from Augustine (Gen. ad lit. viii). And since the nature assumed by the Son of God remained a creature, as is clear from what was said above, it is not unbecoming if some movement be attributed to it. (ST III, Q. 57, A. 1, ad 1)
Elsewhere, the Angelic Doctor wrote — citing Saint Augustine — that “God alone is altogether immutable; whereas every creature is in some way mutable” (ST Q. 9, A. 2.). It we take this as a principle, then we can apply mutability and potency to Christ’s glorified Soul as well as His Body, but in such a way that all of His moving, knowing, willing — His affections of love and joy — are without imperfection, corruption, or pain, and perfectly ordered to the Beatific Vision He beholds in His human Intellect. In short, Christ in His glorified state, is the archetype of what human nature will be in heavenly glory. We might call this a “relative immutability” that participates in the divine immutability, but it still entails real change, even though the created nature remains fixed perfectly on its end, which is the Holy Trinity ever glorified and the love of creatures in that Trinity. Indeed, as far as we creatures go, Christ remains our Eternal High Priest in Heaven, “always living to make intercession for us” (Heb. 7:25).
Given what was just said, the blessed in Heaven also enjoy a certain participation in the divine immutability, while still subject to change because they remain, after all, creatures. The “accidental joys of Heaven” (e.g., “the fellowship of the saints”) are an illustration of change in the blessed. But, for all that, the blessed are fixed in their beatitude: faith gives way to vision, hope to possession (no more striving); only charity remains. Perfectly knowing and loving the immutable God — who is Pure Act — they ceaselessly participate in His changeless dynamism.
Meantime, we are, by the will of God, stuck in this veil of tears. This is good; for, if we advance in holiness in this world where change of the zaniest sort abounds, we will have, even here below, a certain participation in the relative changelessness of the blessed — if we remain, with God’s grace, firm in virtue, living the life of the Beatitudes, which are a foretaste of the supernal happiness of Heaven.
A holy Triduum and a Happy Easter to you all. God bless and Mary keep you.
