Of God's Unchangeableness
Of God's Unchangeableness Quest. 1. WHAT scriptures plainly assert this attribute?
A. Exod. 3:14. And God said unto Moses, I AM that I AM. Dan. 6:16.
For he is the living God, and stedfast for ever; Jam. 1:17. With whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
Q. 2. Whence doth God's immutability flow?
A. The immutability of God flows from the perfection of his nature, to which nothing can be added, and from which nothing can be taken away. If any thing could be added to make him better than he is; or if any thing could be taken away, to make him less good than he is, then he were not the chiefest good, and, consequently, not God.
Q. 3. By what other argument prove you his immutability?
A. I prove it from the eternity of God. If God be eternal, he must be immutable: for if he change by addition of something to him he had not before, then there is something in God which he had not from eternity: And if he change by diminution, then there was something in God from eternity, which now is not; but from everlasting to everlasting he is the same God, and therefore changeth not.
Q. 4. But it is said, God repents, and repentance is a change: How then is he unchangeable, and yet repents?
A. In these phrases God speaks to us, as we must speak of, and to him; not properly, but after the manner of men: and it only notes a change in his providence, not in his nature.
Q. 5. But how could God become man, and yet no change made on him?