Unchanging God of Love: Thomas Aquinas and Contemporary Theology on Divine Immutability / Edition 2

by Michael J. Dodds

Overview

Much contemporary debate surrounds the traditional teaching that God is unchanging. It is frequently argued that an immutable God must be cold, remote, indifferent, and uncaring—that an unchanging God cannot be the triune God of love revealed in Scripture. Those who reject divine immutability often single out Thomas Aquinas as its most prominent proponent. Unfortunately, such critics of his theology frequently misunderstand the fundamentals of Aquinas's actual teaching.

The Unchanging God of Love provides a clear and comprehensive account of what Aquinas really says about divine immutability, presented in a way that allows his theology to address contemporary criticisms. The book first reviews the various ways Aquinas applies the notion of immutability to creatures, showing that he is well aware of both the positive and negative implications of the concept. It then analyzes all of his arguments for divine immutability that are presented in his writings, noting his care in determining which aspects of immutability are to be affirmed and which are to be denied of God. It also demonstrates the distinctiveness of Aquinas's teaching by examining the biblical, patristic, and philosophical sources he employs.

Aquinas's unchanging God proves to be no static deity, but the dynamic, trinitarian plenitude of knowledge, love, and life, to whom not only immutability but also motion may in some way be attributed. A study of "the motion of the motionless God" reveals how the concepts of both motion and immutability function in Aquinas's understanding of the Trinity, the Incarnation, Creation, and Providence. Through this study, it becomes clear that the unchanging God of Aquinas, far from being indifferent or remote, is truly the God of compassion and love revealed in Scripture, who shares a most intimate friendship with the people he has created and redeemed.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Michael J. Dodds, O.P., is professor of philosophy and theology at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, California. He is coauthor of The Seeker's Guide to Seven Life-Changing Virtues and Happily Ever After Begins Here and Now: Living the Beatitudes Today.

PRAISE FOR THE BOOK:

"In The Unchanging God of Love, Dodds fearlessly asserts that an unchanging God can indeed be a God of love, and that any contradiction of this is rooted in misrepresentation of Aquinas' authentic theology. Writing in a prose inviting and readable even for non-theologian types, Dodds offers an honest account of how this theology applies to both God and earthly creatures." — Maura Beth Pagano, Seattle University Magazine

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813215396
Publisher:	The Catholic University of America Press
Publication date:	12/28/2008
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

Read an Excerpt

The Unchanging God of Love

Thomas Aquinas and Contemporary Theology on Divine Immutability

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By Michael J. Dodds

The Catholic University of America Press

Copyright © 2008 The Catholic University of America Press
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8132-1539-6

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Chapter One

The Immutability of Creatures

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In this chapter, we will track down the thirty-some words and expressions Aquinas uses for creaturely immutability and identify their positive and negative connotations. To him the whole spectrum of creation is marked by change and changelessness. In tracing creaturely immutability, we will have to wend our way through technical thickets of Thomas's metaphysics, cosmology, psychology, and even angelology-since all created things, from oysters to angels, get labeled as immutable in some way or other. Our aim is not to explain these subjects in depth, only to see how immutability is involved in each. Once we've waded through these topics, we will be able to give a synthetic account of the positive and negative aspects of creaturely immutability. We will then be ready to look at the plusses and minuses of divine immutability.

THE SPECTRUM OF CREATURELY IMMUTABILITY

Human Beings

Change and changelessness are applied to humans in many ways. Human nature is changeable in some ways and unchangeable in others. "Although nature, considered independently, is unchangeable (immobilis), nevertheless, considered according to its being, it is necessary that it change accidentally as the individual person changes." Humans are both spiritual and physical and are marked by motion and immobility in each aspect. Physically, mobility is a plus and immobility a minus. Being mobile is a sign of life; being "immobile (immobile)," a mark of death. In the realm of human emotion, immobility may be good or bad. The immobility of love is a sign of its preeminence. Love is the first, strongest, and most perfect of affections precisely because it is from love as "an immovable first principle (primo immobili quieto)" that all other affections proceed. The bodily immutability brought on by excess anger, fear, or sorrow, however, is not desirable and may be fatal, leading to "taciturnity, immobility (immobilitas) of the outward members and sometimes even death." If excess emotion is bad, so is deficient passion, since it may signal the indifference or "impassibility (impassibilitas)" of the vice of "insensibility (insensibilitas)." Spiritually, the soul is "immutable (immutabile)" in its being and "unfailing (indeficientem)" in its life. As the source of life and motion for the body, it acts as an "unmoved mover (movens non motum)."

Human intellectual life is marked by motion and immutability. Our intellect involves mobility since it "reaches to the understanding of truth by arguing, with a certain amount of discourse and movement." It is consequently imperfect since "it does not understand everything," and since "in those things it does understand, it passes from potency to act." Recognizing these limitations, Aquinas argues "there must be a higher intellect by which the soul is helped to understand" since "what is such by participation and what is movable and what is imperfect always requires the pre-existence of something essentially such, immovable (immobile), and perfect." This higher intellect is identified as God. The human intellect, to the extent that it participates that superior intellect, is "impassible (impassibilis)."

Our intellectual faculty may be distinguished into the "possible intellect," which knows the forms of sensible things immaterially, and the "agent intellect," which makes those forms actually intelligible by abstracting them from their material conditions in things. The forms or species are abstracted by the agent intellect and then received by the possible intellect. As a receiver, it has a kind of "passibility (passio)" and so is said "to suffer (pati)." In its substance, however, it is "immutable (immutabilis)." Since its substance is immutable and since "what is received into something is in it according to the mode of the receiver," the intelligible species are received into the possible intellect "immovably (immobiliter)." The universal concept that the possible intellect then produces is also "immobile (immobile)," allowing us to "know the truth about changeable things (mutabilibus) unchangingly (immutabiliter)."

The characteristic acts of the intellect are understanding, judging, and reasoning. While understanding happens "without motion (sine motu)," reasoning entails movement and is compared to understanding "as movement is to rest." Still, reasoning begins with first principles that are "immovable (immobiles)" and "unchangeable (incommutabiles)," being "a certain likeness of uncreated truth." So "when we judge about other things through them, we do this through unchangeable (incommutabiles) principles or through uncreated truth."

Aquinas classifies the speculative sciences according to their varying degrees of abstraction from matter and motion. Physics or natural philosophy is an "immovable (immobilem)" science of movable things. It gives us "knowledge of mutable and material things existing outside the soul through universals which are immobile (immobiles) and are considered without particular matter." Mathematics yields mathematical objects that are "immobile (immobilia)" insofar as they are considered apart from motion, though they really exist only in material or mobile things. Metaphysics allows us to study entities existing without matter and motion. The contemplation of the "immutable (immutabiles)" objects of this science is one of the greatest human pleasures.

The human will, like the intellect, is characterized by change and changelessness. As the intellect adheres necessarily to unchangeable first principles, the will adheres "naturally and immovably (immobiliter)" to its last end of happiness. The will is directed by a knowledge of the good in general, which it possesses "naturally and invariably (immutabiliter) and without error." The natural habit of the first principles of action (synderesis), which warns against evil and inclines to good, is a "permanent principle which has unwavering (immutabilem) integrity." In other ways the will is changeable. As an appetitive power, it is moved by the things it apprehends. Each of them, in relation to the will, is called an "unmoved mover (movens non motum)," while the will is a "moved mover (movens motum)."

As regards free choice, the will is "changeable (vertibile) by its very nature." This changeability is good: "Although a creature would be better if it adhered unchangeably (immobiliter) to God, nevertheless that one also is good which can adhere to God or not adhere." The foundation of the will's changeable freedom is its unchanging determination to its last end: "Because everything mobile is reduced to what is immobile (immobile) as its principle, and everything undetermined to what is determined, that to which the will is determined must be the principle of tending to the things to which it is not determined; and this is the last end." Humans in this life are not marked by "immutability (immobilitas)" of will, but by "mutability (mutabilitas) in body and soul." The virtuous person does not necessarily practice virtue "unchangingly (immobiliter)," and the vicious one is not "immovable (immobilem)" in the tendency to evil.

To remain virtuous, humans must develop good habits and persevere in them "immovably (immobiliter)." A habit becomes a virtue only when possessed "firmly (firme)" and "immutably (immutabiliter)." Aquinas finds Aristotle and St. Paul in agreement on this point: "Among the various conditions of a good will, one is that the will be firm (firma) and steadfast (stabilis) ... Whence the Apostle admonishes: 'Be steadfast (stabiles) and immovable (immobiles).' And according to the Philosopher, it is required for virtue that one act firmly (firmiter) and immovably (immobiliter)."

The theological virtues provide an example of such immovability. By faith, we embrace the "never-changing truth (semper eodem modo se habentem veritatem)" of divine knowledge and so are "freed from the instability and multiplicity of error." We enjoy the "immutability (immobilitatem)" of the faith of the elect who stand "immovably (immobiliter)" and are "firmly (firmiter)" established in the truth. In hope, we find a "most steadfast (firmissimum)" consolation, which is associated with two "immutable (immobiles)" things: "God, who promises and who does not lie" and "the oath in which the confirmation of the truth is greater." As an anchor "immobilizes (immobilitat)" a ship, hope "firmly fastens (firmat) the soul to God in this world, which is a kind of sea." Finally, charity unites us with God and "rests immovably (sistat)" in him. Charity is the root of all virtues since virtue arises from a desire for the "immutable (incommutabilis)" good, and charity is that very desire for or love of God.

If virtue consists in being in some way "immutably fastened (fixus)" to God, vice is found in those who, lacking this attachment, seek their happiness in other things. Sin is defined as a turning from the "immutable (incommutabili) good to some changeable good." It is the mark of Christian maturity to abandon the instability of the child who "is never fixed (fixus) or determined in anything," and to become firm in faith. Such stability does not imply apathy or insensitivity. Following Aristotle, Aquinas rejects the opinion of the Stoics that virtues are "certain apathetic states (impassibilitates quasdam)." Inordinate impassibility, like inordinate passion, is a vice: "As the intemperate man abounds in his quest for pleasures, so the insensible (insensibilis) man-his counterpart-is deficient in the same affairs.... But one following a middle course in these matters is temperate." The "immobility" of virtue does not denote imprisonment in apathy but the freedom of the children of God: "Paul induces to good when he says, 'Stand fast.' As if to say: Since you have been set free from the bondage of the Law through Christ, stand fast and, with your faith firm (firma) and feet planted (fixo), persevere in freedom. When he says, 'Stand fast,' he exhorts them to rectitude.... Likewise he exhorts them to be firm: 'Therefore, be steadfast and unmovable (immobiles).'"

The virtuous cannot remain unchangeably upright through human power alone. Every creature, since it is made from nothing, is changeable. And whatever is changeable in itself "needs the help of an immovable mover (moventis immobilis) so that it may be fixed on one objective." The human being who is changeable in the choice of good or evil "needs divine help in order to continue immovably (immobiliter) in the good." This aid is found in grace, which "draws free choice to the character (rationem) of its own invariability (immutabilitatis), joining it to God." Given our changeable human will, however, even one who has received grace does not necessarily abide "unchangeably (immobiliter)" in good. Only by a special gift of God is one able to remain steadfast in grace until death.

On the social level, some human institutions are characterized by immutability. Perfect friendship, for instance, is "of itself unchangeable (intransmutabilis)." Civil happiness does not possess an unqualified "invariability (immutabilitatem)," but is called "unvarying (immutabilis)" in that it is not easily changed. In the area of law, Aquinas makes a number of distinctions. The eternal law, which is the design (ratio) of divine wisdom as moving all things to their due end, is itself "unchangeable truth (veritas incommutabilis)." Natural law, which is the participation of the eternal law in the rational creature, "is altogether immutable (immutabilis) in its first principles." This law, however, may be changed by addition (when it is supplemented by divine and human laws), and it may be changed by subtraction in its secondary principles "in some particular cases of rare occurrence." The commandments of the divine law (especially the Decalogue) are "unchangeable (immutabilia)" with respect to the principles of justice they embody. As applied to individual actions (in determining for instance, whether or not a particular action should be considered murder), they admit of change, sometimes by divine authority alone, and sometimes also by human authority. Human laws are changeable since human reason is changeable and imperfect.

In their original state of innocence, humans were in some ways "impassible (impassibilis)." Aquinas explains that in the proper sense of the word "passion (passio)" refers to what a thing is said "to suffer (pati)" when it is changed from its natural disposition. In this sense, human beings were "impassible (impassibilis) both in soul and in body" since they could prevent both "suffering (passionem)" and death so long as they refrained from sin. In a more general sense, "passion (passio)" refers to any sort of change, including those changes that are part of the "perfecting process" of nature, such as understanding and sensation. In this sense, humans were "passible (passibilis) both in body and soul." Such passibility, however, might better be called perfectibility since it is not a source of "suffering (passum)," but of becoming "perfected (perfectum)." All beings are passible in this sense, except the one who is completely perfect or "pure act, namely God."

Aquinas argues that in the life to come humans will enjoy a condition free from change (statum immutabilem). They presently experience a natural desire for lasting happiness, which the vicissitudes of this life cannot satisfy: "Unless the human attains unmoving (immobilem) stability along with happiness, he is not happy, for his natural desire is not yet at rest." Indeed, the very notion of happiness implies a certain "immovability (immobilitas)." In presenting his arguments about the next life, Thomas recognizes that change is often a source of enjoyment for us now. That fact, however, merely indicates the present imperfection of our human nature, which needs change "because it is neither simple nor completely good, for motion is the act of what is imperfect." Our imperfect and changeable nature makes change a source of pleasure for us. We like change because what is suitable to us at one time does not suit us at another, as sitting close by the fire is enjoyable, but only until we feel sufficiently warmed. Similarly we may find joy in contemplation since it delights the intellect, but not an unbroken diet of it since it neglects the imagination. As regards knowledge, change is desirable because we want to know things completely and can sometimes do this only if the thing changes "so that one part may pass and another succeed and thus the whole be perceived." Because we are not yet perfect and we achieve perfection through change, we find change itself pleasurable. For although in changing we do not have perfectly what we are seeking, we do have the beginnings of it, "and in this respect motion itself has something of pleasure."

In the next life we will attain our ultimate perfection and find happiness not in change but in a good that is "altogether unchangeable (omnino intransmutabile)," the goodness of God. Possessing that good, we will enjoy complete immutability of mind and will. The restless inquiry of our intellect will cease when it attains the first cause in whom all things are known. The will's hunger for the good will be satisfied when it possesses the ultimate good. "Thus it is clear that man's ultimate fulfillment consists in perfect rest (perfecta quietatione) or immovability (immobilitate) both with respect to his intellect and with respect to his will."

If the eternal reward of the just is marked by immutability, so is the eternal punishment of the wicked. The will is changeable only as long as soul and body are united in this life. Separated from the body at death, the will becomes "immovable (immobilis)" with regard to its desire for the ultimate end. Then the just will cleave "unchangeably (immobiliter)" to God as the good that they have chosen in this life, and the wicked will cleave "unchangeably (immobiliter) to the end they have chosen." The just will enjoy the dynamic changelessness of ultimate fulfillment, but the wicked will suffer the frozen immobility of eternal loss.

(Continues...)

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Table of Contents

Contents

Abbreviations....................ix
Introduction....................1
1. The Immutability of Creatures....................5
The Spectrum of Creaturely Immutability....................5
The Meaning of Creaturely Immutability....................29
Immutability and Creaturely Perfection....................39
2. The Immutability of God....................46
Aquinas's Arguments for Divine Immutability....................46
The Sources of the Arguments....................105
The Meaning of Divine Immutability....................134
3. The Motion of the Motionless God....................161
Trinity....................162
Creation....................163
Providence....................183
Incarnation....................198
4. The Unchanging God of Love....................204
Human Love as Moving and Motionless....................205
Divine Love as Dynamic Stillness....................207
Eschatological Union with the Unchanging God of Love....................238
Conclusion....................241
Bibliography....................245
Index of Texts of Thomas Aquinas....................265
Index of Names....................271