Saturday, January 11, 2025

Note on Jonah's Prophecy Concerning Nineveh and God's Immutability

Francis J. Beckwith and Stephan E. Parrish, in their 1991 The Mormon Concept of God, wrote the following:

 

In the book of Jonah, God made a contingent promise to the city of Nineveh. He said that if Ninevah did not repent and turn from its wicked ways, He would destroy the city. As it turned out, the city of Ninevah repented and turned from its wicked ways and was spared the wrath of God. Although it appears that God “changed” in His attitude toward Ninevah the hearts and minds of the citizens of Ninevah; God remained the same. He did not change morally. He acted in accordance with His own immutable nature. Because He punishes wickedness and rewards righteousness on the basis of His moral nature, it can be said in the case of Ninevah that God retained his immutable nature and yet responded to the repentant hearts of His creatures. God did not change; Ninevah did. (Francis J. Beckwith and Stephen E. Parrish, The Mormon Concept of God: A Philosophical Analysis [Studies in American Religion 55; Lewiston, N. Y.: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1991], 15)

 

In response, Ostler wrote that:

 

The authors’ argument here is merely sloppy, for it is clear that they really don’t mean what they say. They don’t’ really mean that God decided not to destroy the Ninevites “when,” or at the temporal time that the Ninevites repented. What the authors really mean is that God timelessly knew that the people of Nineveh would repent and that God never had any intention to destroy them (p. 16). They could say that although God told Jonah he intended to destroy Ninevah, God really never had such intention. Since God knew Ninevah would repent, they might argue that God timelessly intended to destroy Ninevah. However, this reading appears to make God a liar as to his true intentions, for he declares, through Jonah that he does intend to destroy Ninevah. It seems to me that this scripture can be interpreted consistently with the text only if God is limited in his foreknowledge. At the time he threatened destruction he expected Ninevah to continue in its wickedness. He didn’t know Ninevah would repent. He was pleasantly surprised when they did repent. This interpretation entails that God’s intentions changed when the Ninvevites repented and that he is thus mutable and temporal, or changing and within temporal succession. (Blake Ostler, “Review of The Mormon Concept of God: A Philosophical Analysis,” FARMS Review of Books 8, no. 2 [1996]: 122 n. 33)

 

 

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