Hi ASA
As David's Scripture quote suggests the Hebrew concept of God is that He is
endlessly enduring, NOT "ageless".
But what is it with changelessness that the Greeks were so obsessed by?
Change, to them, implied IMPERFECTION/INCOMPLETION, and God, being most
perfect, would need to be CHANGELESS. Since He is PERFECT. But how then are
we to be PERFECT like our Father in Heaven in the Biblical sense? I believe
the real perfection lies in CHESED... covenant-faithfulness/love.... that's
the Bible's idea of perfection.
Another point is that the Greeks saw the Heavens as changeless - at least
those after Aristotle - and so Divine. From that Changeless order the
ordering of the sub-lunary world extended. So I think what they were really
trying to express is the changeless nature of physical processes, the
invariants behind all the phenomena of the World.
In our discussions about God I think we forget just how directly involved
the ancients saw God in the World's processes. In the book of Job he
expresses wonder at how clouds, full to bursting with water, are suspended
in the sky... they are wonders of God, miracles. The fact that we understand
cloud physics and we don't argue for their miraculous nature I think blinds
us to their status as acts of God just as much as the stilling of storms by
Jesus. All that we see around us is God's work... he is always working
Creation. Clothing flowers, feeding lions, teaching eagles flight and
knitting bones and sinew within the bellies of our mothers. That is
Creation, God, happening all the time.
Adam
>From: bivalve@email.unc.edu (David Campbell)
>To: asa@calvin.edu
>Subject: Re: Process theology
>Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 09:49:51 -0400
>
> >Another point is that the only really clear statements of God's
> >changelessness in the Tanakh seems to be wrt his moral nature eg. Malachi
> >3:6.
>
>A relevant verse I just found is Ps. 102:27 "But you remain the same, and
>your years will never end." (NIV) The immediate focus here is that God
>does not become old and worn out, and the broader focus of the Psalm is on
>God's eternally consistent character. He is actively involved in temporal
>events, however, rather than being some distant, external power.
>
>David C.
>
>
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