If God is immutable, impassable and eternal, why does he do anything?

[Alabaster crashes down]

Cross posting this from philosophy at the suggestion of another user

Been reading around various bits of theology and came across the idea that God is immutable (unchanging), impassable (unaffected by other things) and eternal (outside of time as we understand it). I understand that not all Christians believe this but was wondering how those that do reconcile this with God intervening in the world or even creating it in the first place.

Most Christian explanations I have read seem to suggest that God created the world because he wants some kind of relationship with human beings, either glorification (through the worship of the faithful and the punishment of sin) or love. Doesn't this imply that God gets some kind of gratification from his creation? If that is the case, how can he be immutable or impassable? And how can something eternal be influenced or affected by events in linear time in the first place?

 

[juvenissun]

Cross posting this from philosophy at the suggestion of another user

Been reading around various bits of theology and came across the idea that God is immutable (unchanging), impassable (unaffected by other things) and eternal (outside of time as we understand it). I understand that not all Christians believe this but was wondering how those that do reconcile this with God intervening in the world or even creating it in the first place.

Most Christian explanations I have read seem to suggest that God created the world because he wants some kind of relationship with human beings, either glorification (through the worship of the faithful and the punishment of sin) or love. Doesn't this imply that God gets some kind of gratification from his creation? If that is the case, how can he be immutable or impassable? And how can something eternal be influenced or affected by events in linear time in the first place?

First, immutability, impassability and creation are compatible. They do not mutually exclusive. God creates does not mean He will be affected by His creations.

If God does not create, then there will be nothing except God. Here the nothingness means no time-space. So, it is very simple to understand why does God want to create.

 

[Alabaster crashes down]

First, immutability, impassability and creation are compatible. They do not mutually exclusive. God creates does not mean He will be affected by His creations.

I'm not suggesting that they are mutually exclusive as such. What I'm asking is what God gets out of creation if he is unaffected by it.

 

[ephraimanesti]

If God is immutable, impassable and eternal, why does he do anything?

MY FRIEND,

Scripture tell us that "GOD IS LOVE." Love needs an object for His Love and so Creation arose from God's Love. Your question is kind of like asking "Why do parents have children?"

ABBA'S FOOL,
ephraim

 

[juvenissun]

I'm not suggesting that they are mutually exclusive as such. What I'm asking is what God gets out of creation if he is unaffected by it.

If God does not create, there will be no time, no space, no nothing.

God creates, so, eventually, He gets us who give love back to Him.

 

[Dunban]

Who knows? God's ways are not our ways.

 

[ebia]

Cross posting this from philosophy at the suggestion of another user

Been reading around various bits of theology and came across the idea that God is immutable (unchanging), impassable (unaffected by other things) and eternal (outside of time as we understand it). I understand that not all Christians believe this but was wondering how those that do reconcile this with God intervening in the world or even creating it in the first place.

Most Christian explanations I have read seem to suggest that God created the world because he wants some kind of relationship with human beings, either glorification (through the worship of the faithful and the punishment of sin) or love. Doesn't this imply that God gets some kind of gratification from his creation? If that is the case, how can he be immutable or impassable? And how can something eternal be influenced or affected by events in linear time in the first place?

The bible doesn't start with (any) abstract absolute statements about God - that style of doing things has more to do with Greek philosophy. The bible tells a story.

If the story doesn't fit one's abstract statements then the statements shouldn't have been made, or made absolutes, in the first place.

 

[hedrick]

I'm not convinced that the Biblical picture of God is impassible. He seems quite otherwise to me. He also doesn't seem immutable, though I don't have a clear answer on that one. There are problems if you think of God as subject to time.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Cross posting this from philosophy at the suggestion of another user

Been reading around various bits of theology and came across the idea that God is immutable (unchanging), impassable (unaffected by other things) and eternal (outside of time as we understand it). I understand that not all Christians believe this but was wondering how those that do reconcile this with God intervening in the world or even creating it in the first place.

Most Christian explanations I have read seem to suggest that God created the world because he wants some kind of relationship with human beings, either glorification (through the worship of the faithful and the punishment of sin) or love. Doesn't this imply that God gets some kind of gratification from his creation? If that is the case, how can he be immutable or impassable? And how can something eternal be influenced or affected by events in linear time in the first place?

I agree that if the "reason" for creation is God's need to have a relationship with an other that it makes God incomplete or insufficient in Himself, etc. Which is why I think it's a rather lousy way of viewing God's relationship with creation.

I much prefer a more Trinitarian focus:

Beginning first by describing the immanent or ontological Trinity--that is, how God relates to God's Self. The Trinitarian confession of God is that there is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; there is already a One and Other within the self-sufficiency of God's Being: the Father loving the Son, and the Son loving the Father, as well as the Spirit being the bond of love flowing between Father and Son in their perfect unity of Being.

Beginning there we already see St. John's confession as ontological reality: God is love. Selfish love? No, other-love. The Father loving the Son, and the Son loving the Father; One and Other.

Since God is outside of time and space, we can never speak of God beginning to create, or of a time in God's "time" that He chose to create. Indeed, we can only speak of the act of creation itself. I think it makes more sense to speak of the act of creation as being itself in some sense "eternal", that is creation began, but God never began to create. All sense of time, all frame of temporal thinking is rooted within created space-time. So we can speak of the moment of creation, the act of creation, but never of God arriving to the point of creating as though God had spent eons before choosing to make something where there had been nothing.

The creative act, I might argue, flows not from God requiring an other (for such is already sufficient in God's being), but is rather simply God qua God. The creative act is born not out of need, but out of offering; that which God is in and of Himself becomes the seminal creative act itself.

Or at least, that is how I'd try and approach the question. Even if I may need to organize some of my thoughts here better as it's rather messy.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[elopez]

Been reading around various bits of theology and came across the idea that God is immutable (unchanging), impassable (unaffected by other things) and eternal (outside of time as we understand it). I understand that not all Christians believe this but was wondering how those that do reconcile this with God intervening in the world or even creating it in the first place.

I look at it from a Trinitarian perspective. God is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Without the universe the three persons are equally eternal and timeless. Once creation was initiated, the Son and Spirit become temporal as to create while the Father remained atemporal. God intervenes in the world through Christ (incarnation) and the Spirit (directly effecting believer, conversion, etc). So, God is not just timeless, He is both timeless and in time. Both atemporal and temporal.

Most Christian explanations I have read seem to suggest that God created the world because he wants some kind of relationship with human beings, either glorification (through the worship of the faithful and the punishment of sin) or love. Doesn't this imply that God gets some kind of gratification from his creation? If that is the case, how can he be immutable or impassable? And how can something eternal be influenced or affected by events in linear time in the first place?

I think God created as it was simply in His nature to create. I don't think God is looking for glorification as He is infinitely glorified without creation just as He is with creation.