Episode 129 - Can God Decompose?! : Rethinking God's Immutability Through Biblical Lenses

What does it truly mean when we say "God does not change"? This profound question takes us on a journey through ancient philosophy, biblical revelation, and the very nature of creation itself.

We begin by examining a fascinating dialogue between Socrates and Cebes about what things are made of, and how this relates to decomposition and change. For Plato and his followers, composite things inevitably decay, while simple things remain unchanging. This philosophical framework eventually led many Christian thinkers to describe God as "simple" – made of one indivisible substance – to safeguard divine immutability.

But does this align with biblical revelation? The podcast challenges us to reconsider our assumptions by exploring what Scripture actually says about decay and change. Romans 8:20-21 presents a revolutionary perspective: "The creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice." This suggests decomposition isn't the natural state of the cosmos but rather a temporary condition imposed by God in response to sin – an "unnatural mode of existence in a fallen world."

This distinction revolutionizes how we understand God's unchanging nature. If decay isn't intrinsic to compositeness but a consequence of alienation from God, can we safely draw conclusions about divine nature based on observations from our fallen world? The resurrected body of Jesus offers a powerful counter-example – a composite reality that cannot decay or die.

We also explore concerns about viewing God as "modular," with separate components for power, wisdom, or righteousness. While agreeing God doesn't receive attributes from more fundamental sources, the podcast questions whether this necessitates describing God as "simple" in the philosophical sense.

By examining early Christian responses to Gnosticism and various theological traditions, we're invited to reconsider whether philosophical concepts of divine simplicity are truly grounded in Scripture or represent an importation of Greek thought into Christian theology. Perhaps God's unchanging faithfulness stems not from being made of a "non-composite divine material," but from the eternal life and relationship shared within the Trinity.

How might this reshape your understanding of God's immutable nature? Join the conversation as we seek to ground our theology in biblical revelation rather than philosophical speculation.

The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore

Transcript

Introduction to God's Immutability

Speaker 1 0:30

So welcome to the Christ-Centered Cosmic Civilization podcast. And we're right, still in the heart of this extended series, looking at the immutability of God, or what does it mean to confess the biblical truth that the Lord does not change? What does the Bible mean by that? And what have people tried to say about God and change down through history from the Bible? But really now we're looking at it more from philosophy. Now we ended the last episode by noting that, although the discussion was originally between Socrates and Kebes, is about simply what are things made of, and are they made of one single material or several different materials or components, and just noting that this is a discussion about what things are made of, but that there is an implied kind of I don't want to whether I don't know whether to call it a deeper discussion, but a further discussion. Because you could argue that, say, a computer is made of several different components the graphics card, memory chips, solid state drive, you know whatever Controller chips, things like that ports. So the computer is formed from these different components. But you could argue that those components have a more fundamental character to them and that those components themselves are made of further things like chips and silicon. The silicon from which the chips are made. So you could argue that the silicon has a more fundamental character to it than the finished computer, that the computer is based on these fundamental materials like silicon, metal, plastics, things like that, and that those materials are, then they form components, and then those components are joined together to form this finished product. But that finished product is based on a series of components which are in turn based on materials, and that those materials then are the fundamental reality underneath a computer. And so, with that way of thinking, you would say that what the computer really is fundamentally, is these materials. When you break everything down and it all falls apart or decomposes or changes, what you're left with is just these materials, a certain weight of silicon, a certain weight of metal, a certain weight of plastics or petroleum products and things like that. And so those substances are the real fundamental reality of a computer. And so the idea then is if God is made of components, or a variety of substances, or a variety of substances, then those substances have a more fundamental character than God, that they underlie the existence of God. I don't know whether that is solved by saying that, no, he's not made of several substances, but one substance, because then you're left with ah, so that one substance is more fundamental than God. But then I think in this school of thought the idea is God is that substance is identical with that material from which he is made. He is identical with his existence and his essence are the same thing.

The Composition of Things

Speaker 1 4:57

Anyway, hang on, if we're not careful here, we're going to get lost in a totally different discussion, because all we're really trying to get to here is the issue of change. Now, what we saw between Socrates and Kebes is this idea it is an examination of what things are made of. And then what Socrates and Kebes are doing is saying what we have observed from material things in the world around us we are speculating is true of unseen realities like the human soul, but also things like beauty, absolute beauty, absolute truth, and then, even beyond that, this concept of a supreme being, absolute being, the one thing that and we might call that God, and Platonic philosophy later just does call it God, platonic philosophy later just does call it god that it by, by analogy, by extra, by projection of what we observe with material things in the creation project, that up and come to the conclusion that the ultimate being must not be made of different things, but must be simple, that is made of just one thing, one pure substance, and therefore such an ultimate being would have no change, no variation, no decomposition in any way. Now I want to just flag up something before we follow that logic and pick it apart a little bit. I just want to note that this use of the word change is very different than the use of the word change that we examined in the first philosophical speculation. Change was about time, and so there was a kind of really absolute understanding of change that there nothing happens at all, happens at all. No, there is no sequence of happenings, one thing happening after another in the life of god. If, with that, if the, if a person follows that timelessness idea.

Speaker 1 7:26

The idea was god, um, the speculation was that god, or absolute being, or the platonic one, has no succession of moments but exists entirely in one single moment, an eternal present moment in which all action, all thought, all willing, all feeling is perfectly and maximally and absolutely done in this single moment, and there is no before and after or anything like that, no conversations, no sequence of thoughts. No, no, uh. Development, no, no, uh. One action after another. So in that sense you end up with no change because there's no variation at all. Everything, this single divine act, single divine thought, single divine will, single divine feeling, is maxed out, total act, no potential, and therefore there is absolutely no change of any kind because everything is just done in this single moment. There is no change of any kind in that, not even in. So you know all the kind of sequential nature of the revelation of God in the Bible. All of that is a kind of an illusion given to human beings to enable us Well, you know, the very clever people don't need that illusion. The idea is that the philosophers they can to think of God like that, in that kind of way, as if God was acting along the timeline. So that was that first kind of idea, and so there's absolutely no change here.

Speaker 1 9:33

The idea of change in this kind of what is God made of? So this is not a temporal view of God but a material view. So the other one was time. This is more. Or the absolute being is made of one single substance, one material, one thing, simple. Therefore there is no change. But change here doesn't mean that kind of absolutely static, or you might the word static. Then people might say oh, that's uh, that makes it sound like a bad thing. I think it is a bad thing, but nevertheless the idea that god, he does everything in a single moment, here there's none of that.

Divine Simplicity vs. Components

Speaker 1 10:56

The idea is simply, there is no change in the sense of decomposition, or no change in the sense of decay or falling apart. That seems to be the meaning of the word change here. So here the word. It's not change as in the sense of doing one thing after another, because, for example, the human soul is like. Even Plato would say the human soul is simple. Again, we don't know how he knows that, but he knows it. The human soul is simple, therefore it cannot decay, therefore it is immortal. But that doesn't mean that the human soul doesn't do things. The human soul can think thoughts one after the other and do actions one after the other. So the soul is not timeless. The soul can have a before, during and after sequence of events, can have a chronology, a timeline, but it has no change in the sense of no decay, no decomposition. So here the word change means something very different than it did in the first philosophical speculation.

Speaker 1 12:13

Ok, perhaps we can follow this logic then of Plato and we can see how he arrives at where he ends up with. He's saying by examining how things are composed on earth, we can make speculations about how unseen things are made and then keep projecting until we get to absolute being or divinity or whatever. Until we get to absolute being or divinity or whatever. But now let's take this apart. Is it safe to draw conclusions from the way things change in a fallen, decaying world and apply these conclusions to how the one living, god, father, son and Holy Spirit, must exist?

Speaker 1 13:06

It might be that the Bible takes a very different view of why things negatively change. What's the Bible's explanation of why things decompose and decay? Now we really want to meditate on this. Plato's explanation of why things decompose and decay is they are made up of separate things. It's something to do with the basic, inherent nature of physical existence in the world. All physical things decay. They inevitably decay. It's intrinsic to physicality in the world. But in the Bible that is not the explanation at all. In the Bible, the reason things decay, the reason things fall apart, the reason things decompose, is something to do with what we call the fall, with what occurs in Genesis 3. Or, as we'll see, romans chapter 8 is a further explanation of that and it comes through all the prophets also. It's even in the law, actually, in the distinction between clean things and unclean things and or anyway, yeah, so in the Bible. The reason things fall apart and change in this sense of decay and decompose is something to do with sin and alienation from the living God. So it's not about the intrinsic nature of what things are made of, but it's about something like a historical happening that has occurred that has changed the mood of existence of the heavens and the earth.

Different Meanings of Change

Speaker 1 15:01

So listen to Romans 8, verses 20 to 21. It says this the creation and that's the word cosmos, the cosmos was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice. No-transcript. Do we get that? So Paul's reasoning there, based on Genesis and, in a way, job and certainly lots of what's going on in Exodus and Leviticus, the idea there and it's actually implied in the structure of the tabernacle and the fact that the curtain is placed in a secondary stage of the construction of the tabernacle so the idea there is that the creation is subject to frustration and decay, not by its own choice. So it's not something natural to the creation to decay, decay and decomposition and frustration is unnatural in some very, very deep sense. It is not how the universe was designed to be. The universe was designed to last forever, to have no decay and decomposition in this deep sense.

Speaker 1 16:41

Now, again, we could say I can't imagine a universe in which, like lots of the processes, of biological processes of the world around us, depend on decay and decomposition. Now, yeah, of course. Yeah, of course, that's true. Everything in our ecosystem is built on death and decay. The whole of it is structured around death and decay. Yeah, but the Bible has this thing like it's something beyond what we can imagine.

Speaker 1 17:14

But to say that the, the, the uh, fundamental design of the universe, from the father through the son, by the spirit. This fundamental design was for the universe to not exist in a mode centered on death and decay, but it was designed to focus on life and permanence and everlastingness. It was designed to operate in a totally different mode than we currently experience it and that we are. So that and the idea in Romans 8, 2021, is it was subjected to this frustration and decay, not naturally by its own choice the cosmos did is not naturally like that, but it says rather that god did this to the creation, imposed upon it this strange mode of operation, forcing it to be to operate according to death and decay, so that it could it, so that it could die, so that everything in the universe could die, because if it dies it can then be resurrected.

Speaker 1 18:43

That's this amazing logic in Romans 8. It's so mind-expanding and mind-blowing, the idea that God goes ah, we cannot have sin and evil in a universe that goes on and on forever and ever exactly as it is. If there is sin and evil in the universe, such a universe must be subject to decay and death, so that such a universe can be terminated in death and then the evil and sin can be done away with, and then we can resurrect into a new, in like a restored universe, that so that the without sin and evil, and so then it can kind of, then then we can have the universe carry on in its you know, or express its true design intent, which is permanence, life, life and an exuberance of life, rather than decay. So Romans 8, 20 to 21,. It was subjected to decay in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God, and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God, so that already we experience this kind of life, so that, yes, outwardly we decay and decompose, but inwardly being renewed, being refreshed, like getting younger and stronger, more life, constant, like what Jesus talks about, like a fountain of life bubbling up from within, even if outwardly there's still this order of decay and decomposition. So again here the word change, remember is not whether there is a sequence of happening.

Biblical View of Decay and Creation

Speaker 1 20:55

So in the Bible you can have an undecaying creation and then a resurrection body is undecaying, so in that sense it's unchanging. Body is undecaying, so in that sense it's unchanging. So Jesus, after his resurrection on the third day, he is a resurrected, immortal, undecaying, undying human. That resurrected body of Jesus that walks out of the tomb on the third day cannot change in this sense. So Socrates would look at that and say, well, it is made up of components, different body parts. But if he understood what he was looking at with the resurrected body of Jesus, which he would probably have really struggled to understand he wasn't very bright on a biblical way of understanding, but if he could have understood such a thing, or Isaiah would have explained it to him, or the Apostle Paul or something, then he would go oh, but that's a composite thing that is unchanging. Unchanging because it cannot decay, it cannot fall apart into death, it cannot decompose the resurrected body of Jesus.

Speaker 1 22:11

So can you see, we've got a category in the Bible or not just a category, a whole expectation of composite things, material composite things that do not change in the sense that Socrates means change. Change there for him means decay, decay, decomposition, a loss of power, a loss of ability. Now, in that sense, that use of the word change probably is a way. When it says the Lord does not change, the Bible is probably saying something like the Lord does not decay, the Lord does not decompose. That probably is something that is in the Bible. The Lord does not deteriorate over time, of course not, because the true, natural way of life is to not decompose. So in an unfallen world or the resurrection future, the new creation, future state, it really does seem that there can be composite things that do not decompose or cannot decompose because they are held together in Christ, they have this integrity in Christ and it's as if, if you remember the verse from Romans 8, 20 to 21, it's as if the order of decay and decomposition and frustration that was imposed on the creation, it wasn't natural to it. So it's as if once that curse of decay is taken away from the creation, the creation will continue in in its true, designed form, which is to have no decomposition. So it is.

Speaker 1 24:06

In one sense we could say it is unnatural for composite things to decompose. Now that would be mind-blowing to poor old Socrates and Cebes. They'd be like, well, no, hang on. Composite things are always in danger of decomposition and we would go, yeah, no, isaiah, yeah, in a fallen world, you can't help but think like that and you're so ingrained in thinking like that. But the bible's introducing us to this much bigger way of thinking, to say decomposition is actually a kind of unnatural state that's been imposed, as if, like the God, when God designs things and makes them, they do not decompose, naturally speaking. Why would they? Why would they?

Speaker 1 24:58

So Plato considers the decomposition of the world and change, remember, in this sense, change means decomposition, means decomposition. Plato considers change and decay as a necessary feature of a world made up of separate things. But the Bible considers the decomposition of the world as a tragic temporary consequence of alienation from the living God. Decomposition is an unnatural mode of existence in a fallen world and God himself, the Father, through the Son, by the power of the Spirit, has imposed upon the cosmos a state of decay and change and decomposition that is not natural to it. So if that's all the case, is it safe to try to describe the being of the Trinity as being composed of only one substance rather than being composite?

Speaker 1 26:11

Do you see how weird is it to go, now that we've unpicked the logic, and said, hang on, socrates and Kebes, the fundamental logic is deeply mistaken from a biblical perspective mistaken, and therefore to then try to project what composite items are like in a fallen world and say I have arrived at conclusions based on looking at what things do in a fallen world under a curse of decay, and I'm going to project that up and try to make conclusions about absolute being. And then later Christians go we'll name that as God. But is that safe to do that? So yeah, we can get that Now. So that's what Socrates and Kebes is really doing. It's about change as decay. That's what Socrates and Kebes is really doing. It's about change as decay.

Speaker 1 27:11

But if you remember, we also considered that idea that the one of the problems that later philosophers would say God can't be made of components, can't be made of components, because the components would be in a way um More fundamental. Or God isn't modular because God I guess that later theologians say God is simple issue of decay and change. But they're trying to reject the idea that the living God is composed of modules that can be upgraded or removed. So if God is modular and the idea then is I mean, I know I can imagine somebody listening to this and just going what? I don't even understand what you're talking about anymore. I know don't even understand what you're talking about anymore. I know that, honestly, philosophers get into these things.

Speaker 1 28:24

But so the idea is imagine if God has like a power module and that's how, that's how he's powerful. There's a module that is like a power pack, and then there's another module like a memory pack, like thinking of the computer model. There's a power pack, and then there's another module like a memory pack, like thinking of the computer model. There's a power pack, there's a memory pack that gives greater. Then there's the CPU, the processing speed, the intelligence of the computer, and then we might say you know, and then, if it is like thinking of God, there might be like a wisdom pack and a righteousness pack, and each of these modules or components is what gives God power.

Resurrection Bodies and Unchanging Composites

Speaker 1 29:12

Intelligence, wisdom, holiness, things like that is no, god isn't. God doesn't get his power from a module like a power pack, but that god just, just, um, just is powerful. Like the power is intrinsic to god, or the holiness is intrinsic to god, like the father is the fountain of the divine life. And the father just, it's not that there is, he's plugged into a generator that gives him power, and it's not that he has like a thinking cap on that gives him the capacity to, to be clever and so on. It's not that he doesn't have to look outside himself or anything like that, nor is he composed of a series of components that together give him all these capacities. Rather, the idea is no, the bible seems to say like the father just is powerful, just is, uh, the father, son and spirit, they, they, just, they have this. There's this flow of life and power and existence and life from the Father through the Son, by the power of the Spirit, and that the Trinity just is powerful, wise, righteous and so on. And that's fair enough. If that's what we're trying to say, that's fair enough.

Speaker 1 30:42

And so there was an early church father called Irenaeus in the second century, and he's combating Gnostic heresies, and the Gnostics had this idea that there's this like supreme God, who then may create angelic beings. They get called things like ogdodes and things like this, or yeah, there's different names that are given to these things, but the idea is, there's these angelic beings, and one of them is like righteousness and one of them is truth, and one of them is wisdom, and one of them is truth and one of them is wisdom, and so one of them is peace and so on. Love one of them is love, and so it's almost as if there's this divine being who creates these attribute angels, and then there's this idea that is, that that this divine being is, is, is upgrading itself by, by creating these attribute substance and isn't like doesn't. And I guess what Irenaeus is trying to say is this single divine substance that is God doesn't get partitioned out into these angelic components, out into these angelic components. That's what it is. It's hard for us to grasp because, in truth, gnosticism is actually very big today, but that particular kind of way of thinking it seems quite alien to us. So reneas sort of appeals back to that platonic idea of god being just a single substance that has everything in it over against this gnostic idea of god where god can like partition out love, peace, righteousness, power, wisdom or whatever into these angelic, um attribute beings. Kind of okay, we get what Irenaeus is trying to say there, but I don't know if that totally does answer the Gnostic thing, because the Gnostics could go yeah, the absolute being is a simple being but still creates these attribute angels. I don't know whether Irenaeus is that.

Speaker 1 33:23

Irenaeus does better when he's basing his arguments from the Bible so that when the Bible talks about love, peace, righteousness, wisdom, it isn't talking about these attribute angels, but it's talking about wisdom, love, peace and righteousness that comes from the father through the son, by the spirit. Irenaeus is better when he does that. When he tries to deal with the Gnostics by appealing back to that platonic way of thinking, it's not as effective, I think. So, um, where have we got to? We'll just.

Speaker 1 33:59

I know we've run on a bit in this episode, but let me just try and close it off. I think what we can say is yeah, it's true that the living God doesn't have modular upgrades, that the father doesn't say I need a bit more power. I'm going to, I'm going to get myself an extra power module or, like Iron man, I'm going to upgrade my armor or something to give myself more power or more righteousness or more holiness. All of that is obviously ridiculous and the Bible just. It's insanely irrelevant to the bible. So we can. So that kind of way in which that god is not to be thought of as a series of components or modules or upgrades, obviously that's ridiculous and the bible doesn't count and such a thing.

God's Nature Beyond Modular Components

Speaker 1 34:55

But it does seem strange when we went back and listened to the argument of Plato and Plato, socrates and Kebes. It seems strange to even get into subjects like what is, what is the Father, son and Holy Spirit made of? What material, what substance or substances are they made of? Now, um, we could look at a thinker like bardation, who's in eastern christianity, going east of jerusalem. There is a tradition of thought that that does think about what's what materials? What different materials is the Father, son and Spirit made of? And they think very different to the Plato tradition. They think being made of several different substances and materials is an advantage, is a better thing than being made of just one single material or substance. We can't explore that now, that takes us too far.

Speaker 1 36:01

But I just want to say this I think it's strange to even speculate upon, let alone to insist with such clarity and determination, determination that the father, son and spirit are made of one single simple substance, essence. And in consequence of this, we know that god does not decay. That seems really weird, like the reason that the father, son and spirit do not decay in that sense of change, or they do not deteriorate and lose ability over time. That sense of change is not because they are made of a single homogenous material. It's because there is this like fountain of life that flows out from the father through the son, through the spirit that they are, like, they have. The nature of their very life is eternal life, this immortality that they have, that is the life that they share together.

Speaker 1 37:19

It's and I kind of now think we should do an episode on what does the bible mean by immortality? Um so, but let me let me just conclude. It's not at all clear that the bible ever suggests that the reason we can trust in the faithfulness and the reliability of the Father, son and Spirit is because these three share a non-composite divine material that cannot be broken down into components. I'm not aware the Bible ever says that If someone can send in and say, oh no, like in Hezekiah 3.9, can send in and say, oh no, like in Hezekiah 3.9,. It does say that the Father, son and Spirit are made of a single material and therefore they are faithful and can be trusted. But look, I'm joking, of course, but I have to confess that although I can appreciate that many religious philosophers sincerely, and even devoutly, find comfort in this kind of argument about divine simplicity, I'm personally unpersuaded either that it is true or that it is even hinted at within the Bible.