This classical understanding of God leaves the Christian
with a curious notion of God’s goodness, love, and rationality. To start, God
has no reason to create anything at all since the values of possible creatures
are not appropriate objects of divine response. Thus leaving us with an arbitrary
creation. Further, God has no reason to love his creatures, nor any reason to
engage in self-sacrificial acts on behalf of his creatures. Any self-sacrificial
acts on God’s part would seem to be utterly arbitrary. Why die for creatures
that you do not deem to be worthy of responding to? On a divine whim? That
hardly seems like a fitting reason for the cross. Yet the problem is deeper
than this.
The God of classical theism can only act on behalf of his
own self-interest since his own goodness is the only value that is appropriate
to respond to. Self-sacrificial acts are, by definition, not in one’s own
self-interest. Thus, the God of classical theism cannot perform self-sacrificial
acts. That hardly looks anything like the Christlike God who dies for the sake
of his beloved children. As I see it, The God of classical theism cannot be
considered loving nor morally perfect. It should come as no surprise, then,
that a contemporary classical theist would argue that love and moral goodness
are not really divine perfections! Tor this, and many other reasons,
Christianity is simply incompatible with classical theism. (R. T. Mullins, Eternal in Love: A Little Book
about a Big God [Studies in the Doctrine of God; Eugene, Oreg.: Cascade
Books, 2024], 26)
To be sure, there are
passages like Num 23:19, 1 Sam 15:29, and Mal 3:6 that say that God is not a
man that he should change his mind. Yet those passages are all very clear in
the respect to which God does not change. None of them say that God does not change
in any way, shape, or form. In each case, the passages say that men are liars
who do not keep their promises. God is not like that. When God makes a promise,
he will keep it. His promises are not empty lies. What these passages teach is
that the promises of God are trustworthy. They do not teach that God is completely
and utterly unchanging. They simply teach that God will not change his mind about
the promises that he has made.
Traditional accounts
of God’s omnipotence and perfect moral goodness factor this in by saying that
the almighty God cannot change the past nor undo the promises that he has
previously made. Changing the past is logically impossible, and failing to keep
a divine promise is morally unacceptable. Thus, it is unthinkable that God would
fail to keep his covenantal promises. This is important to keep in view when
one is reading Hosea 11. Again, this passage teaches that God does change his
mind because he is not like a suborn man who lacks compassion. God will change
his wrath to forgiveness toward his chosen people. Why? God made a covenantal
promise toward his people, and he plans on keeping that promise. (R. T.
Mullins, Eternal in Love: A Little Book about a Big God [Studies in the
Doctrine of God; Eugene, Oreg.: Cascade Books, 2024], 45)
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