Does God Change?

‘Immutability’

• If god is timeless, how can He know what is happening on earth and how can He
respond to us when we pray to Him?
o You have 2 sides: you either go with (God changes) or (God does not change).

• Plato’s response:
o The reason that God does not change is that if God changes (if He were to
change) he would either change for the better or the worse.
§ If He changes for the better, then it would mean that God was not
perfect. So, God cannot change for the better.
§ If He changes for the worse, then it means that he is no longer perfect.
(from being perfect to imperfect). So, He cannot change for the worse.

• Problem with Plato’s response:

o It is saying that if God were to change, it is either changing for the better or
the worse. → false dichotomy.
§ False Dichotomy: is saying that there could only be 1 of 2 options,
were actually it could be neither.

• Aristotle’s response:
o He wants to maintain that God is perfect, so He does not change.
o Because God is perfect, He is doing the most perfect thing, which means that
God is thinking (because thinking is that highest possible activity).
§ God is an intellect (because an intellect thinks).
o God is thinking about the highest possible thing, which is Himself.
§ This is why God is a “Self-thinking Intellect”.
o Because God is only thinking about Himself, so what He is not thinking about
is lesser beings (like humans).

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§ Because this would be He is thinking about something that is lower

than Himself, which would diminish His perfection.
o This is why according to Aristotle God does not response or think about us.
§ This is what Ibn Sina comes up with.
o Ibn Sina said that God does not response to us because that would constitute a
change in God. And that would mean he is changing, and He cannot change
because He is perfect.
§ That does not mean He is not perfect. Because (according to Ibn Sina
and Ibn Rushed who also followed Aristotle), God has universal
knowledge of everything that happen in the universe. And this
universal knowledge is a much higher form of knowledge than
universal knowledge.
• Having a universal knowledge is an aim for an intellect.
o AlGhazali says that it does not matter if you say that God has a higher form of
knowledge. Saying that there is anything that God does not know is apostasy
‘irtidad’.
o But for Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushed, this would make you adhere to the inevitable
conclusion that God is changing, and that is unacceptable conclusion.
§ Because only being that are imperfect change and evolve.

o Orthodox Scholars → The problem is that when I do something wrong, for

example, God comes to a state of knowing that I’m doing something wrong.
§ This is a change in God.
o God becomes displeased in a way that he was not before I did that thing,
which is also a change in God.
o This is the same problem that they had with the creation of the universe, which
is why Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd both agreed with Aristotle that the universe is
eternal (God did not create the universe in time).
§ Because creating a universe would constitute a change in God (He
went from a state of not creating a universe to a state where He wanted
to create the universe and created it).
• This is a change which according to Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd is
impossible to God.

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PHIL 185 – Philosophy of Religion Online Notes

• Islamic response:
o They say that God knew in his foreknowledge that I would do something
wrong. So, his displeasure and his responding to my prayers is based on what
he already knew in his foreknowledge.
§ I.e., God is interacting with us and responding to our prayers, but this
is everything that He already knew in his foreknowledge.
o Just like in his foreknowledge, He knew at what point He would decree that
He would create the universe.
o None of this constitutes a change in God.
§ i.e., God is perfect and unchanging.
o Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd disagree because they believe that no change is
acceptable when it comes to God, because He is absolutely perfect in every
single way. → so, there is no maneuver in change in His perfect entity.

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