AUGUSTINE ON IMMUTABILITY
Open Theists are famous for their disdain for Calvinism and Augustinian teachings because of the doctrine of divine immutability that Augustine derived from Platonistic thought. Open Theists believe that God changes in some ways, such as in His mood, His state of mind, His actions, etc., but not in others such as in His character and personality. That is to say, God is mutable in some ways and immutable in others. Augustinians happen to agree, but Open Theists are so fond of the argument that Augustine believed in utter divine immutability, that God cannot change at all in any way whatsoever, that they refuse to accept what Augustine himself wrote about God's mutability and immutability.
Note that in none of what precedes or follows do I profess agreement with Augustine's doctrine. In some cases I agree, in others I don't. That is not the point of this brief essay. The point is to expose how Open Theists selectively quote Augustine in order to smear him and to attack the Calvinistic doctrines that they so vociferously denounce.
The following are quotes that show not only that Open Theists do not understand Augustine's view, but that the Open Theists actually are in agreement (!!!) with Augustine on the matter of divine immutability:
From Augustine's Confessions, pp 78,79:For who is Lord but the Lord? or who is God save our God? ... Thou lovest, and burnest not; art jealous, yet free from care; repentest, and hast no sorrow; art angry, yet serene; changest Thy ways, leaving unchanged Thy plans; recoverest what Thou findest, having yet never lost; art never in want, whilst Thou rejoicest in gain; never covetous, though requiring usury ... [Emphases added]
From the Letters of Augustine, pp. 949, 950... this Word of God, I say, took to Himself, in a manner entirely different from that in which He is present to other creatures, the soul and body of a man, and made, by the union of Himself therewith, the one person Jesus Christ, Mediator between God and men, His Deity equal with the Father, in His flesh, i.e. in His human nature, inferior to the Father, unchangeably immortal in respect of the divine nature, in which He is equal with the Father, and yet changeable and mortal in respect of the infirmity which was His through participation with our nature. [Emphases added]
Again, Open Theists assert that Augustine believed that "[God] could not change at all in any way whatsoever." Yet, above we see Augustine, as do all of the Calvinistic authors I've ever read, qualifying the ways in which God has experienced change and ways in which He has not changed, just like Open Theists do.
~James Hilston, Nov. 8, 2005
