First Principles: Thinking Through the Doctrine of Divine Immutability and the Character of God (Part 2 of 3)
The Origin of the Doctrine of Divine Immutability
We have traced the logic of Calvinism to its foundational claim: that God is immutable, not only in His moral nature, but in every respect. This includes His will, knowledge, emotion, intention, interaction, and every other aspect of God’s existence you care to name. The doctrine is not peripheral to the system; it is the deepest foundation. From it flows every major conclusion we have examined. We are left with a truly binary situation. If the Calvinist view of immutability is true, then the system that follows is internally consistent. If the premise is unsound, however, then the structure collapses catastrophically. The soundness of any system depends not only on the validity of its logic but on the truth of the premises that form its foundation. It is time then to examine that foundation to see if the house we have built stands or falls.
This doctrine is presented not as a theological deduction from the biblical text but as a philosophical necessity. It is argued that any change in God would imply imperfection. A God who changes is a God who either improves or deteriorates. Either outcome is said to be incompatible with what it means to be perfect and therefore what it means to be God. It is important to emphasize here that this line of reasoning does not arise from Scripture. It arises from Greek metaphysics, specifically from Plato.
That is a bold claim, and so it is necessary to establish it before proceeding. In
The Republic, Socrates and Adeimantus discuss the nature of the gods. Socrates concludes that “a being that is perfectly good cannot change” because any change would imply it was not perfect to begin with or ceases to be perfect afterward. This Platonic principle, that perfection requires absolute stasis, became the blueprint for later theological tradition. It is, in fact, the source of this line of thinking. No Christian has ever made this argument except as an echo from this specific secular source. The early church existed in a time when Hellenism was not merely widespread but pervasive, and the church, rather than rejecting this Greek notion, absorbed it.
Augustine of Hippo is widely considered to be one of the most influential theologians in Christian history, but he was not always a Christian. In his youth, he revered Plato and Plotinus and openly rejected the God of the Bible because Scripture depicted a God who could change His mind and respond to people. It was not until Bishop Ambrose of Milan taught Augustine how to reinterpret the Bible through the lens of classical philosophy that Augustine finally saw a way to accept the Christian faith. At that point, the greatest hurdle had been cleared. As Augustine would later confess,
“Whatever the origin of evil, I saw that no explanation would suffice which would force me to believe that the immutable God is mutable” (
Confessions VII.xxi.31). It was this Platonic conception (i.e. immutability at all costs) that defined his theological foundation. Once it was preserved, he set about constructing a theological system that harmonized Christian doctrine with the Neoplatonic ideal of an unchanging, impassible divine being.
From Augustine, this philosophical theology flowed directly into the Western tradition. Martin Luther was an Augustinian monk and explicitly praised Augustine’s influence. John Calvin, too, cited Augustine more than any other theologian. Though the Reformers diverged from Augustine on matters such as sacraments and ecclesiology, they proudly owned his doctrine of divine immutability; Reformed theologians still describe Calvinism as ‘Augustinianism refined’. There is a clearly traceable line connecting the historical dots from Plato to Ambrose, from Ambrose to Augustine, from Augustine to Luther and Calvin. The doctrine of immutability, as defined by Calvinism, is not the result of biblical exegesis but of philosophical inheritance.
It must be said that the historical origins of a doctrine, even in pagan philosophy, do not by themselves determine whether the doctrine is true or false. If Socrates rightly discerned something about the nature of God, then so be it. All truth is God’s truth. Yet as Christians, especially those who claim allegiance to
Sola Scriptura, we do not derive doctrine from Socratic reasoning and then turn to Scripture for confirmation. We begin with Scripture. If the Word of God teaches that God is immutable in the way Calvinism asserts, then we are bound to accept it, regardless of its philosophical pedigree. On the other hand, if that doctrine is absent from the biblical record or contradicts it, then no matter how ancient or sophisticated its philosophical roots, it cannot stand. Whether the logic of Socrates is sound is, at best, a secondary concern. What matters first is whether the God of the Bible is, in fact, the immutable and impassible being Calvinism claims He must be.
Still, it is worth pausing to examine the logic itself, because the influence it has exerted over Christian theology has been profound. Some may attempt to salvage the doctrine by appealing to the classical distinction between intrinsic and relational change, suggesting that God can alter His dealings with the world without any internal modification. That distinction, however, does not shield the doctrine from critique. The Reformed tradition has consistently insisted not only on God's unchanging essence but on His unchanging will, affections, and intentions. The very texts used to defend immutability press beyond mere relational consistency and demand a complete absence of variance. Socrates’ argument, later adopted by Augustine as foundational and transmitted in refined form through the Reformers, rests on a false dilemma: that any change must either be for the better or for the worse, and that a perfect being, by definition, cannot change without ceasing to be perfect. This framework may appear rigorous, but it collapses under even modest scrutiny. It fails to account for the possibility of neutral change; change that neither improves nor corrupts. More fundamentally, it ignores the fact that, in living beings, change is not a flaw but a feature.
The capacity to change, to act, to respond, to grow, is the very definition of life. A stagnant pond is not more perfect than one teeming with motion. A clock that does not change is not a better clock, it is a broken one. A dead tree changes less than a living one, but no one calls the stump more perfect. A corpse changes far less than a child, yet no sane person would argue that the corpse is closer to the ideal. To live is to move. To be personal is to respond, to relate, to engage. The very idea of a “living God” implies dynamism. It implies communication, affection, response, and even choice. What, then, is the premise of immutability? If life is defined by movement and interaction, then immutability, as Calvinism defines it, is not a doctrine of life but of its negation. It presents us with a God who does not move, does not respond, does not relate, and cannot engage. That is not the portrait of a perfect Person but of a frozen abstraction. It is not life but lifelessness, imported from a philosophy that viewed change, relationship, and responsiveness as defects to be overcome.
The problem is that this framework imports a definition of perfection that is static and impersonal, rather than moral and relational. It assumes that to be perfect is to be unchanging, but that is a philosophical assumption, not a scriptural one. Scripture consistently presents God’s perfection not in terms of metaphysical stasis, but in terms of moral constancy. He is righteous in all His ways, just in all His dealings, faithful to His promises, and merciful in His judgments. None of these require immutability in the Platonic sense. They require only that God is always good, always just, always true.
This confusion between metaphysical perfection and moral integrity leads to a deeper problem, one that strikes at the very heart of what it means for God to care about anything at all.
Morality is a code of values to guide one’s choices and actions, the choices and actions that determine the purpose and the course of his life.
To speak meaningfully of “value,” one must first understand what a value is. A value is not simply something admired or preferred; it is something one acts to gain or to keep. It is pursued because it matters, because its presence is better than its absence, and its loss carries real cost. If nothing can be gained, and nothing can be lost, then nothing is truly at stake, and if nothing is at stake, then nothing is of value.
We know this instinctively. Courage is only meaningful where danger exists. Faithfulness only matters where betrayal is possible. Love is not a risk-free sentiment, it is the deliberate investment of oneself in another, with the hope of emotional and relational gain as well as the possibility of loss.
Once the concept of value is established, the next question is, which values are truly worth pursuing? Not all desires are good, nor is every goal worth the cost of gaining it. A standard is required by which to judge whether a value is worth the cost required to obtain or retain it. This is the birth of morality. Morality is not merely the possession of values, but the evaluation of them. It is the rational discipline of determining what is good, what is evil, and what is worth the cost. Life is the fundamental value our nature is set to pursue. The good is that which supports, sustains, and fulfills life; the evil is that which destroys it or threatens it. To act in a way that preserves, enhances, or redeems life is to do good, and choosing that which leads to destruction is evil.
This is why the immutable God of Calvin and Augustine cannot be the source of morality. A God who cannot change, cannot suffer, and cannot be affected in any way, is a God who cannot possess any values. He cannot be pleased or grieved, helped or harmed, served or resisted. He cannot gain anything or lose anything and therefore cannot seek to gain or to keep anything. A being who cannot value anything cannot be righteous, because righteousness requires a real standard that regards one thing as better than its opposite. Nor can such a being love anyone or value any relationship, for all things are equally irrelevant to its existence. The doctrine of divine impassibility does not merely suggest this; it insists upon it. God, according to that view, does not rejoice, does not sorrow, and does not respond. What remains is not the God of Scripture, but a cold abstraction. Immutable. Impassible. Untouched. Unmoved. An immutable God, then, is an amoral God.
The alternative is not to reduce God to human frailty, but to take Scripture seriously when it calls Him the living God. The God who made us in His image is a God who values. He desires relationship with His creation, and when that relationship was broken, He did not respond with indifference. He entered into history to restore it. In the moral economy, value demands a price. And the value of man was not affirmed by divine decree but by divine action. God did not assign some imaginary worth to humanity. He revealed its worth by paying the highest possible price.
God’s existence was never at risk, but His life was given. The value He sought was not comfort, but restored relationship. When that relationship was lost, He did not dismiss the loss as meaningless, He desired to reclaim it. He did so not by appeasement or ritual, but by trade. He exchanged His life for the lives of those He loved. The cost was His own suffering and death; a price He deemed worth paying. Though the death of Christ was temporary, it was not symbolic. It was real. It was the death of the incarnate Son of God, and its value is infinite. When measured against the souls of men, it is infinitely more than sufficient. It is unending. Every man, woman, and child could be saved by it, if only they would believe.
The cross was not a gesture. It was not a performance. It was the true cost of the divine-human relationship. God did not feign loss; He fully entered into it. He did not pretend to die; He actually died. He bore the weight of sin, paid its full wages and endured real separation from the Father. He willingly gave His life to redeem what He valued. That act was not symbolic, it was just, and it was the clearest revelation of a God who pays the full price for what He desires to gain or to keep.
Historical insight reveals the philosophical origins of the doctrine, but as believers committed to Scripture, our final authority must be the Word of God. The next question, therefore, is whether the Bible itself teaches the doctrine of immutability as Calvinism defines it.
Examining the Scriptural Case for Divine Immutability
We now turn to Scripture itself, to determine whether the doctrine of divine immutability is grounded in the biblical text or imposed upon it from outside. If the Bible teaches that God cannot change in any respect, if it truly teaches the doctrine of immutability as Calvinism defines it, then that must be the end of the matter, but if the scriptural evidence does not support that claim, or if it contradicts it, then the doctrine must be rejected regardless of its historical pedigree or philosophical appeal. To that end, we begin by looking the passages most often cited in defense of the Calvinist understanding of immutability.
Before we begin, a caution is in order. The Calvinist interpretation of these texts often involves reading into them conclusions that are not stated in the text itself but are required by the system. That is, these verses are understood through the lens of absolute divine immutability, and their meaning is automatically, even unconsciously adjusted to fit that view. The problem is that this approach assumes the very thing it sets out to prove. It treats immutability not as a conclusion drawn from the biblical evidence, but as a necessary presupposition through which the entire Bible must be interpreted. This is not exegesis; it is circular reasoning.
We are attempting to establish whether the doctrine of immutability is valid and so an honest examination of Scripture cannot begin by assuming that the doctrine in question is true. That would be to beg the question and render the inquiry meaningless. The only way to fairly evaluate whether Scripture teaches divine immutability as Calvinism defines it is to do so objectively. The relevant passages then must be read and understood on their own terms, based on the plain meaning of the words used, without importing conclusions from the system. If those conclusions are present in the text, they will reveal themselves plainly. If they are not, no amount of theological pressure should force the words to say what they do not say.
Let us begin, then, by examining three of the most frequently cited proof texts:
Malachi 3:6,
James 1:17, and
I Samuel 15:29. These verses are often held up as definitive statements of divine immutability and are therefore foundational to the Calvinist scriptural argument. Yet a closer reading reveals that none of them supports the doctrine in the way Calvinism requires.
One of the most frequently cited texts in defense of divine immutability is Malachi 3:6 “For I am the LORD, I do not change; therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob.” Taken in isolation, this verse might appear to support the Calvinist claim that God is unchangeable in every respect. However, when read in context, it becomes clear that the passage affirms something far more specific: God’s consistency in upholding His covenant promises, particularly those made under the Mosaic Covenant.
The surrounding verses are vital. In verses 1-5, the Lord declares that He will send His messenger to prepare the way, and that He Himself will come to His temple to purify the sons of Levi. This priestly purification is necessary because the Levites had violated their duties under the Law, offering blemished sacrifices and showing partiality in instruction. These were clear breaches of the Mosaic Covenant, and the Lord promises to refine and judge them so that their offerings may again be acceptable. He goes on to list moral violations that directly echo commands from the Law of Moses: sorcery, adultery, false witness, oppression of wage earners and widows, and turning aside the stranger.
It is in this context that verse 6 appears: “For I am the LORD, I do not change; therefore, you are not consumed.” The point is not about ontological immutability, but about God’s moral and judicial reliability; that He remains faithful to His promises even when Israel does not. He has not destroyed them, as justice would require, because He remains consistent in extending mercy to the descendants of Jacob. This is a statement about God's steadfastness in judgment and mercy within the framework of the Mosaic Covenant, not a metaphysical claim that God cannot change in any respect whatsoever.
When read in context, then, Malachi 3:6 does not teach that God is immutable in the Calvinist sense. It affirms that He is faithful to His character and commitments, which is not the same as saying that He cannot change in any respect. To impose onto this passage a doctrine of exhaustive immutability is to read into the text something it does not say.
Another passage frequently cited in support of divine immutability is James 1:17 “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.”
At first glance, this verse appears to assert that God does not change. However, a closer reading of both the verse and the surrounding context reveals that the point being made is more specific. James is not discussing God’s comprehensive nature or metaphysical properties, but rather His moral reliability; His constancy as the source of good.
The context makes this clear. In the preceding verses (James 1:13-16), James refutes the notion that God tempts people to sin. He insists that temptation arises from within a person, not from God, who is perfectly good. Verse 17 then contrasts the nature of God with the fickleness of human desire and the deception of sin: while temptation arises from within and leads to death, every good and perfect gift comes from above, from a God who never wavers in His goodness.
The phrase “no variation or shadow of turning” is poetic and metaphorical. It refers to the consistent movement of the heavenly bodies and presents “the Father of lights” as wholly unlike them, unaffected by the shifting shadows cast by sun and stars. James draws on astronomical imagery to emphasize that God is not like the shifting patterns of light and shadow in creation. He is not capricious, unreliable, or morally inconsistent. Rather, He is always and only the giver of good.
It is important to note what this verse does and does not claim. It does affirm that God’s goodness is unwavering and dependable, but it does not teach that God cannot change in any respect whatsoever. There is no mention here of God's will, knowledge, relational engagement, or ability to respond. To treat this verse as a blanket affirmation of metaphysical immutability is to extend it well beyond what the context justifies.
As with Malachi 3:6, the focus of James 1:17 is on God's moral integrity, not on a total denial of all change. The point is that God does not oscillate between good and evil, generosity and malice, kindness and cruelty. He is the constant source of all that is good. This is a far cry from saying that God is ontologically unchanging or that His interactions with the world are fixed from eternity. The Calvinist interpretation once again imposes a system onto a verse that is neither addressing nor supporting such a claim.
The third frequently cited passage is I Samuel 15:29, which reads in the King James Version:
“And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent.”
This verse is often presented as direct proof that God cannot change His mind under any circumstance. Yet this claim collapses immediately when the context and language are taken seriously. The same Hebrew word translated “repent” in verse 29, “
nacham” appears twice elsewhere in the same chapter. In verse 11, God says:
“It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king.”
And again in verse 35:
“And the LORD repented that he had made Saul king over Israel.”
There is no difference in the Hebrew word used in these three verses. In all cases, the verb
nacham is employed, and its basic meaning is to repent, to change one’s mind, or to experience sorrow or regret over a previous course of action. The KJV is honest in preserving this translation across the chapter, but modern translations often obscure the meaning in verse 29 by replacing “repent” with “relent” or similar alternatives. This inconsistency is driven not by linguistic necessity but by theological discomfort. The doctrine of divine immutability, once presupposed, makes it unthinkable to attribute genuine repentance to God. Yet the Hebrew text does precisely that.
The supposed contradiction between verse 29 and verses 11 and 35 vanishes when we understand verse 29 not as a blanket metaphysical claim, but as a rhetorical contrast. God is not a man that He should lie or be fickle or dishonest in His dealings. He does not repent like a man, shifting back and forth or making decisions out of ignorance or impulse. His repentance is consistent with His character and is not arbitrary, emotional, or erratic. Rather, it reflects a relational and moral responsiveness rooted in truth. The same God who appointed Saul in righteousness now removes him in righteousness, because Saul’s actions have violated God’s express commands.
Thus, far from teaching that God cannot change in any respect, this passage reveals a God who does change His disposition or course of action in response to human behavior. To argue otherwise is to ignore not only the immediate context, but also the repeated use of the word
nacham throughout the Hebrew Scriptures to describe God’s own words and actions.
These three verses, Malachi 3:6, James 1:17, and I Samuel 15:29, are often presented as decisive proof texts for the doctrine of divine immutability. Yet in each case, the context limits and makes clear what is being affirmed. None of them teaches that God cannot change in any respect. Rather, they affirm His faithfulness, His moral consistency, and His reliability in both mercy and judgment. The doctrine is not derived from these passages; it is read into them. The Calvinist must bring their conception of immutability with them to the text to find it there. When these verses are allowed to speak for themselves, without theological imposition, they reveal not a static, impassible abstraction, but a living and relational God who remains true to His word while interacting meaningfully with His creation.
While these three verses are not the only passages Calvinists cite in support of divine immutability, they are the primary ones and serve as representative examples of how such passages are typically handled. More importantly, they stand in stark contrast to a much broader biblical pattern; one in which God is shown responding, repenting, and engaging dynamically with human beings.
Beyond the three most frequently cited verses, there are numerous passages in Scripture that explicitly present God as changing His mind, responding to human actions, or experiencing emotional movement. These cannot be swept aside as mere anthropomorphisms without undermining the very nature of Scripture as a revelatory text. If the Bible shows us what God is like through His interactions with people, then those interactions are meaningful. They reveal a God who is personal, relational, and responsive. One of the clearest and most compelling examples is found in the book of Jonah. The entire narrative of Jonah revolves around a single divine decision that is reversed. God sends Jonah to proclaim impending judgment on the city of Nineveh: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” (Jonah 3:4). There is no condition stated. No appeal is offered. No promise of mercy is included. The declaration is presented as final. Yet the people repent. They fast, they pray, and they plead with God for forgiveness. And what does the text say? “Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil that He had said He would do unto them; and He did it not” (Jonah 3:10, KJV). There is no ambiguity in the language. God changed His mind. He did not do what He said He would do. The Hebrew word used is
nacham, the same word that appears in I Samuel 15:11 and 29, and which carries the meaning of relenting, repenting, or being moved to pity. Calvinist interpreters, uncomfortable with the theological implications, often translate it as “relented” or “withdrew,” softening its meaning. The word, however, is consistent in meaning throughout the Old Testament. It describes a change of mind, an alteration in intention, a reconsideration based on new factors. It means, “repent”!
What makes Jonah especially striking is not only that God changed His declared intention, but that Jonah himself expected that He might do so. This is the prophet’s complaint in chapter 4. He is angry because he knew, in his own words, that God is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, one who relents from doing harm” (Jonah 4:2). Jonah understood God’s character, and it was precisely that character that made him reluctant to go. He did not want Nineveh to be spared, and he feared that God would, true to His merciful nature, change His course if the people repented. That fear was justified. To argue that the message of Jonah supports divine immutability is to strip the text of its entire point. The message is clear: God responds to repentance. He is not locked into a fixed decree that cannot be altered. He acts according to His nature, but that nature includes mercy, patience, and the willingness to relent from judgment when people turn from evil. The book of Jonah does not depict a God who feigns responsiveness for narrative effect. It shows us a God who is genuinely engaged with His creatures and whose decisions, though righteous and true, are not immune to reconsideration in light of moral change.
Other passages tell the same story. In Exodus 32, after Israel’s sin with the golden calf, Moses intercedes and pleads with God not to destroy the nation. The Lord initially declares His intention to wipe them out and start over with Moses, but after Moses’ intercession, the Scripture says, “So the LORD repented from the harm which He said He would do to His people” (Exodus 32:14, KJV). The same Hebrew word appears here again:
nacham. God intended one course of action, was presented with new input, and altered His course accordingly. These are not isolated literary flourishes. They are part of the fabric of the biblical narrative. The God of Scripture is not unmoved and unaffected by human choices. He is not confined to a fixed script. He engages, He reacts, He adjusts. Not because He is morally unstable or intellectually inconsistent, but because He is living, rational, and responsive. That is what it means to be personal. That is what it means to be good. If we are to understand divine immutability biblically, it must be understood in a way that does not negate these interactions. Otherwise, we are not interpreting Scripture, we are denying it. The Calvinist must claim that God cannot change in any respect, yet the Bible repeatedly presents Him doing precisely that. Rather than explain these passages away, we should let them speak. They reveal a God whose character is consistent and true, but whose actions are not preprogrammed. They reveal not an immutable abstraction, but a living God who interacts with real people in real time.
Of course, Calvinist theologians are aware of these passages. Their standard response is to classify such texts as “anthropomorphic”; figurative descriptions in which God is represented in human terms to make Him more relatable. According to this line of reasoning, when Scripture says that God repents, changes His mind, or responds emotionally, it does not mean that He actually does so. Rather, these are merely accommodations to human understanding, not accurate depictions of God's actual nature.
The problem with this explanation is that it grants license to redefine the plain meaning of any passage that conflicts with the system. Once it is assumed that God cannot change in any respect, then every biblical instance of God changing must be reinterpreted, regardless of context, language, or intent. The result is not exegesis but theological filtration. The text is no longer being interpreted; it is being overridden.
Such an approach undermines the revelatory function of Scripture. If the Bible shows us who God is by showing us what He does, then His actions matter. To say that God says He repents, acts as if He repents, and is understood by prophets and apostles to repent, but that He does not actually repent, is to empty language of meaning. It treats God’s self-revelation as a kind of divine charade, in which He must act like a responsive person in order to teach us timeless truths, all while insisting in the background that He is nothing of the kind.
Worse still, this hermeneutic is applied selectively. When God says, “I am holy,” no Calvinist suggests that holiness is merely anthropomorphic. When Scripture speaks of God’s wisdom, love, justice, or righteousness, those attributes are affirmed as literal, essential, and eternal. Only when the Bible speaks of God changing, repenting, or being moved do Calvinists suddenly invoke anthropomorphism. This selectivity is driven not by the grammar or structure of the text, but by the needs of the system.
To be sure, Scripture sometimes employs metaphor, and careful readers must distinguish between figurative and literal language, but the language of divine repentance in passages like Exodus 32, Jonah 3, and I Samuel 15 is not cast as metaphor. It is not described as if God changed His mind. The text simply says that He did. And the surrounding narrative reinforces this reading, showing God responding rationally and relationally to human repentance or disobedience. To dismiss these portrayals as mere accommodation is to reject the integrity of the narrative and, by extension, the nature of revelation itself.
This is not a minor point. If the doctrine of divine immutability requires us to reject or reinterpret every biblical passage that shows God acting contrary to that doctrine, then the doctrine is not drawn from Scripture but used as a filter through which Scripture is forced to pass. It is not derived from the text, but read into it, compelling the Bible to conform to a predetermined theological system. It renders entire sections of Scripture misleading unless decoded through a system that stands above the text. That is not submission to Scripture. It is submission to system, which is precisely the error that sola scriptura is supposed to prevent.
The issue at stake is not merely the misinterpretation of a few proof texts or the evasion of problem texts. It is the methodological error of letting a theological doctrine dictate the meaning of Scripture, rather than allowing Scripture to define doctrine. Calvinism begins with immutability as a non-negotiable premise, and then reads the Bible through that filter, forcing the text to conform to what the system requires. This is not an objective search for truth, but a protection of a preconceived dogma. It renders the plain sense of numerous passages unintelligible unless interpreted through a framework that already presupposes the outcome. That is not submission to Scripture, it is submission to system. Sola scriptura demands that our doctrine arise from the text, not that the text be bent to serve our doctrine. When we allow the Bible to speak on its own terms, we do not find an abstract, frozen deity incapable of relationship, but a living God who reveals Himself in history, responds to real events, and interacts with real people. That is the God of Scripture.
The same tendency to overstate and misapply Scripture is evident in how the Calvinist system defends its versions of omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. These attributes, as traditionally defined, are not simply affirmations of divine greatness. They are metaphysical extensions of immutability, rendered into absolutes that bear little resemblance to the God revealed in Scripture. And just as the proof texts for immutability are made to say more than they actually say, so too are the texts used to support these omni-doctrines.
Omniscience is often defended by citing verses like Psalm 147:5, “His understanding is infinite,” or Hebrews 4:13, “There is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.” These verses affirm the greatness of God’s understanding and the comprehensive nature of His judgment, but they do not establish that God possesses all knowledge in a timeless, unchanging block. Nor do they suggest that God’s knowledge is involuntary or exhaustive in a metaphysical sense. Rather, they affirm that nothing escapes His notice and that He sees what He chooses to see, particularly in moral matters.
Scripture shows God asking questions, not to feign ignorance, but because He genuinely engages with His creatures. He tests, He searches, He investigates. In Genesis 18, God says He will “go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me” (Genesis 18:21). In Hosea 8:4, He says of Israel, “They set up kings, but not by Me; they made princes, but I did not acknowledge them.” These are not rhetorical devices. They reflect a relational God who chooses to engage, to inquire, and even to withhold knowledge when it suits His purposes (see Deuteronomy 29:29). Omniscience, then, must be understood not as a static possession of all facts but as the perfect discernment of all that God wills to know. His knowledge is complete, yes, but it is purposeful, not exhaustive for its own sake. He knows all knowable things that He chooses to know.
Omnipotence is likewise exaggerated beyond what Scripture claims. Passages like Matthew 19:26 “With God all things are possible”, and Job 42:2 “I know that You can do everything, and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You” are often used to support the idea of total, unbounded power. Yet even here, the context is not abstract capacity but moral purpose. God can do anything He chooses to do, consistent with His nature. He cannot lie (Titus 1:2), He cannot deny Himself (II Timothy 2:13), He cannot be tempted by evil (James 1:13). These are not limitations on His power but affirmations of His character.
More than that, Scripture shows God sharing power. He entrusts it to others. He gives authority to Adam, to angels, to kings, and to the church. In Exodus 4:15, God tells Moses, “I will be with your mouth and with [Aaron’s] mouth, and I will teach you what you shall do.” In Luke 9:1, Jesus gives His disciples “power and authority over all demons, and to cure diseases.” Power, in the biblical sense, is not something God hoards. It is something He originates, delegates, and can reclaim at will. Omnipotence, rightly understood, is not about absolute control, it is about being the source of all true authority and the sovereign over how that authority is exercised. God retains the ability to intervene at any time, but His greatness is most clearly seen in how He empowers others, not in how He micromanages them.
Omnipresence, too, is often overstated. Psalm 139 is frequently cited: “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?” (v. 7). Jeremiah 23:24 likewise says, “‘Do I not fill heaven and earth?’ says the Lord.” These passages affirm that God is not confined by space and that His reach is beyond limitation, but they do not mean that God is equally present in all places in the same way at all times.
Scripture repeatedly presents God as moving toward or away from people. He “draws near” to the righteous (James 4:8), “departs” from the temple in judgment (Ezekiel 10:18), and “comes down” to observe the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:5). These are not poetic illusions. They are relational realities. God is not spatially restricted, but neither is He equally present everywhere by default. He is present where He chooses to be, and He is absent where He chooses to be.
It is not necessary for God to be an immediately present, first-person witness to every vile act committed by man. He does not dwell in the midst of evil, nor does His presence sanctify sin. Indeed, there is no indication in Scripture that God is now, or will ever be, present in the Lake of Fire. It is described not as a place of divine fellowship or engagement, but of separation, of “outer darkness,” where those cast out are forever removed from the presence of the Lord (cf. II Thessalonians 1:9; Matthew 25:30). To say that God is present the Lake of Fire in the same way He is present in His own throne room or even present among His people is to flatten the very distinctions Scripture itself draws. God is not spatially bound, but neither is He omnipresent in a sterile, metaphysical sense. His presence is purposeful, not automatic. It is relational, not ambient.
Thus, each of these so-called “omni” attributes, when understood through the lens of immutability, is transformed into an abstraction: God knows everything, not because it matters, but because He must; He is everywhere, not because He cares, but because He cannot move; He is all-powerful, not because He does what is good, but because He controls everything. This is not the biblical picture. It is the result of importing Greek metaphysics into Christian theology and redefining divine greatness as metaphysical absoluteness rather than moral perfection.
The biblical portrait of God is something altogether different.
He is not the prisoner of His own attributes, but their Master. He knows what He wants to know. He is present where He wants to be. He is the fountainhead of all power and delegates it freely while retaining sovereignty with the ability and right to intervene, overrule, or reclaim that power at any time. His greatness is not in being unable to change, it is in always choosing what is right. His glory is not that He controls all things, but that He governs wisely through real relationships with moral agents.
In every case, the alternative to classical theology is not a diminished God. It is a living one. If that is true, then the way we interpret Scripture must reflect it.
