Search Results: divine immutability
V Theology
…3 I. A. Dörner, Divine Immutability (Fortress Press , 1994 [orig. 1856-58]) 3 P. Fiddes, The Creative Suffering of God (Clarendon Press, 1988) 3 T. Fretheim, The Suffering of God (Fortress, 1984) 2 J. Hallman, The Descent of God: Divine Suffering in History and Theology (Fortress, 1991) 2 C. Hartshorne,…
Is God Immutable? Part II
Category: Q&A
Tags: Attributes of God, God's Character, time
Topics: Attributes and Character
Yesterday, we looked at the common understanding of divine immutability and the problems inherent to it. Click here to read that post. Today, let’s look at what the immutability of God actually means. Instead of accepting Plato’s misconceived ideas about perfection, followers of Jesus should keep our eyes focused on…
How NOT To Be Christ-Centered: A Review of God With Us – Part I
Category: Essays
Tags: Book Reviews, Classical Theism, Cruciform Theology, Essay, God With Us
Topics: Biblical Interpretation
Theologians throughout Church history have used the concept of divine accommodation to account for everything in Scripture that seemed “unworthy” of God. Whatever didn’t line up with what we know about God was seen as God accommodating his revelation to our limited and fallen framework. The trouble is, theologians have,…
Is Open Theism Incompatible With a Chalcedonian Christology?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Incarnation, Q&A
Topics: Christology, Defending the Open View
…the “impassibility” of the divine nature (impassible = God does not suffer). Since Open Theists reject divine impassibility, shouldn’t they also reject the Chalcedonian Christology? In fact, couldn’t one argue that the rejection of divine immutability requires one to also reject a Chacledonian Christology? Answer: Historically, there were a number…
Getting Behind the “Letter” of Violent Portraits of God
Category: Essays
Tags: Bible, Character of God, Cruciform Theology, Essay, Hermeneutics, Jesus, Matthew Bates, New Testament, Non-Violence, Old Testament, Reformed Theology, Scripture, Violence
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
…(Baylor University Press, 2012). Among other things, Bates demonstrates that for ancient people in general, and for Paul and the authors of the NT in particular, it was generally accepted that the most important meaning of texts that were divinely inspired was not what is found on the surface of…
Was Jesus Abandoned by the Father on the Cross?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Abandonment, Cross, Jesus, Love, Trinity
Topics: Atonement and The Cross
…of the Father and the Son on the cross constitutes the quintessential expression of the loving unity of the Father and the Son. Indeed, the unsurpassable cost of this divine separation expresses the unsurpassable perfection of the love of this divine union. Perhaps the best way of thinking about this…
God’s Moral Immutability
Category: General
Tags: Classical Theism, Cruciform Theology, God's Character, Open Theism
Topics: Attributes and Character
…immutability, i.e., divine trustworthiness.”[2] Therefore, if we allow the revelation of Jesus to inform our reasoning about the nature of God, we arrive at a conception of God as a personal agent who is unchanging in all the ways in which it is virtuous to be unchanging (e.g., in possessing…
Rethinking Transcendence
Category: General
Tags: Classical Theism, Cruciform Theology, Philosophy, Transcendence
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
…counter to the divine attributes of the classical philosophical conception of God. We could argue the same for a host of other classical attributes. For example, would it ever occur to us to think of God’s omnipotence as all-controlling if we resolved that the crucified Christ was the perfect expression…
The Cruciform Center Part 3: How Paul’s Epistles Reveal a Cruciform God
Category: Essays
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Essay, Paul, Paul's Letters, Self-Sacrificial Love
Topics: Apologetics, Atonement and The Cross, Christology, Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
…immutability, impassibility). I submit that the time has come to give the cross its proper place in our thinking, which is the place it has in the New Testament. It is, I am arguing, the center of everything! In the next post we’ll look at the central role the cross…
Objections to Petitionary Prayer 1
Category: General
…never ascribe change to God (or gods) goes back to Plato’s Republic (book II). This premise quickly became a standard argument among philosophers. We even find it echoed in a multitude of early Christian writings. It actually lies at the foundation of the classical Christian doctrine of “divine immutability.” But,…