Thinking how I should contribute, from the biblical perspective, to this discussion of whether there is change in God, there first came to my mind not biblical passages but two quotations from Anglican religion. First of all, the doleful words of H.F. Lyte in his hymn ‘Abide with Me’: ‘Change and decay in all around I see; O Thou who changest not abide with me.’ Secondly, words from the first of the Articles of Religion of the Church of England, which speak of God as ‘preserver of all things’.

My reason for mentioning these quotations is not so much because of any inherent theological value they may have but because of the kind of use to which they can be (and have been) put. Lyte’s words about God’s unchanging character are particularly appealing in a world where change is everywhere apparent. The quest for peace, security and a changelessness in God can satisfy the troubled spirit when there seems to be nothing stable in the world in which one lives. That means, of course, that those institutions which bear witness to the unchanging God must themselves be unchanging, a piece of heaven on earth, a reflection of the eternal. Similarly, the words about God being ‘preserver of all things’, heard when an Anglican incumbent entered on his ministry, reinforced the people who wanted to believe that the God whom the incumbent had come to proclaim was a God who changed nothing and preserved the status quo.

The doctrine of God’s immutability has a basis in the Judaeo-Christian scriptures, it is generally accepted. But, as is usually the case with most descriptions of God found in these sources, the belief that God does not and cannot change is not developed in any great detail. Given the Semitic thought patterns and linguistic expressions, which are concrete, this is not surprising. Nevertheless, there are certain passages which seem to provide a foundation for regarding God as immutable. For instance, in Mai 3:6 Yahweh says, ‘Surely I the Lord do not change.’ In Ps 101:27 the Psalmist addresses Yahweh: ‘Thou art the same and thy years have no end.’ Moreover, Yahweh’s revelation of himself as other than the world and man (Hos 11:9), Lord of all creation (Is 6:5; Ps 97:5), the almighty (Ps 135) who resembles nothing in the created world (Ex 20:4, Dt 5:8) and other similar descriptions apparently support that belief since God is unlike his creatures, who are subject to change. On the other hand, the Israelites experienced Yahweh as a living God (Jdg 8:19; 1 Kgs 17:1) who is actively and personally present to his people. Yahweh was their Lord and Master. In fact, the Old Testament is a record of that personal involvement of God with his people. The Old Testament, therefore, believed in a God who was utterly other but who despite this status listened, talked, wept, walked, judged and loved.

With the birth of Christianity this dual conception of God gains more significance.

In the last Sunday homily that he delivered before his death in March, 1980, Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador spoke of the turbulence and changes convulsing his country, but also pointed out to his people their source of stability and balance in the midst of a changing world: ‘May we have one thing firmly anchored in the soul: our faith in Jesus Christ, the God of history. He does not change.’ His words echo the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, the poetry of the mystics, and the daily prayer of the Church. The Second Vatican Council teaches that ‘beneath all changes there are many realities which do not change and which have their ultimate foundation in Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, yes, and forever.’ St. Teresa of Avila spoke in her poetry of the God who ‘never changes’ and ‘alone suffices’. The Church prays that in the midst of life’s changes God may ‘strengthen us through his immutability’. The common insight in all of these examples is that the God of Christian faith is a God who does not change.

In our own time, there are many who do not share that insight. They fail to see how an unchanging God can be the object of our Christian faith, hope, love, and prayer. Their concern can perhaps be best addressed by returning to the teaching of that theologian who is recognised both by those who defend and by those who question the doctrine of divine immutability as the best representative of the authentic teaching of the Church on this subject: St. Thomas Aquinas.

According to Malachi 3, v. 6 God declares that ‘I the Lord do not change.’ Citing this text and presenting arguments which conclude that God is ‘the unchanging first cause of change,’ Aquinas maintains that God, as the ‘first existent’ which is ‘sheerly actual and unalloyed with potentiality’, evidently ‘cannot change in any way.’ This doctrine, whether assumed as axiomatic or defended by reasoning, has been widely accepted throughout the history of Western theism. Reflection, though, suggests that it is also a doctrine which, while supposedly expressing the faithful’s belief, in effect creates a considerable tension between the faith which in practice governs the lives of many such people and the understanding which in theory identifies its basic character. Although, for example, the faithful may consider God to become compassionately aware of their needs as they arise, may look to God for intervening grace, and may pray for divine action to produce changes in their situation, rational reflection on theism apparently requires that God be held to be immutably and timelessly the same in every respect. Consequently some have considered that there is a fundamental discrepancy between the God in whom believers actually put their trust and the deity described in reputedly ‘correct’ theological understanding.

Can God change his mind? If not, what is the sense in praying to him? If he is really immutable, does that not imply that he is inexorable, ruthless and uncaring like a blind cosmic force? And in that case, can we plausibly be expected to love him or to believe in his love for us? This is a perennial problem, expressed for instance in Morris West’s impressive novel, The Clowns of God, by the abdicated pope Gregory XVII: ‘Our Jesus who was of the seed of Abraham said that whatever we ask will be given us. We should knock at the door and clamour to be heard. But there’s no point in that if there’s no one inside—or if the one inside is a mad spirit whirling heedless with the galaxies!’

Here, on the face of it, there is a stark and hopeless conflict between devotional expectations and the postulates of classical theology. How can the eager Christian heart, yearning for a personal friendship with God, inspired by the biblical imagery of God’s love-affair with his people, cope with a God who is changeless, unresponsive, atemporal, impassible?

Problems like this can be felt very deeply, and indeed it seems that this particular problem has been so deeply and generally felt that it is now widely assumed that it is religiously impossible to believe in the kind of God proposed to us by classical theology. It may therefore seem rather indelicate and perhaps impertinent to suggest that, after all, it is a false problem.