Dogmatic Theology Vol 1 - Shedd - XXIII - Chapter 5 The divine attributes commenced

Required reading

Dogmatic Theology Vol 1 by William G.T. Shedd (Available from Amazon or free here) - Commence Chapter 5 Divine attributes by reading up to the paragraph beginning 'God is an intelligent being, and knowledge is one of his communicable attributes' (page 353 of my edition).

My summary

Today we begin Shedd's chapter on the attributes of God.

Firstly, Shedd looks at different classifications of the attributes.

Secondly, Shedd examines the attributes of:

(i) self-existence;

(ii) simplicity;

(iii) infinity;

(iv) immensity;

(v) eternity;

(vi) immutability.

What grabbed me

I continue to be fascinated by the immutability of God: 

'The act of creation ex nihilo made no change in God. It did not affect his own eternal essence; and his will and power to create were the same from eternity. Emanation ad extra would make a change in the essence. This is the outward effluence of substance, and diminishes the mass from which it issues. Incarnation made no change in God. The Divine essence was not transmuted into a human nature, but assumed a human nature into union with itself.

God is said to repent. Gen. 6:6," It repented the Lord that he had made man upon the earth ;" Jonah 3:10, "God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them." This means no change in his attributes and character, but only in his manner of treating men. "Repentance in God is not a change of will, but a will to change." If God had treated the Ninevites after their repentance, as he had threatened to treat them before their repentance, this would have proved him to be mutable. It would have showed him to be at one time displeased with impenitence, and at another with penitence. Charnocke (Immutability of God) remarks that "the unchangeableness of God, when considered in relation to the exercise of his attributes in the government of the world, consists not in always acting in the same manner, however cases and circumstances may alter; but in always doing what is right, and in adapting his treatment of his intelligent creatures to the variation of their actions and characters. When the devils, now fallen, stood as glorious angels, they were the objects of God's love, necessarily; when they fell, they were the objects of God's hatred, because impure. The same reason which made him love them while they were pure, made him hate them when they were criminal." It is one thing for God to will a change in created things external to himself, and another thing for him to change in his own nature and character. God can will a change in the affairs of men; such as the abrogation of the Levitical priesthood and ceremonial; and yet his own will remain immutable, because he had from eternity willed and decreed the change. In like manner, promises and threatenings that are made conditionally, and suppose a change in man, imply no change in the essence or attributes of God. "If that nation against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them," Jer. 18: 7-10. Ko change is made in God, as there is in the creature, by his knowledge. A creature increases his knowledge, and experiences a change intellectually. But God's knowledge is a fixed quantity, because it is infinite. He knows everything from everlasting to everlasting, and at each instant, and there is no more than everything.'

God does not change in his substance. But he does change in his manner of treating men.

Next week's reading

Continue Chapter 5 Divine attributes by reading up to the paragraph beginning, 'Justice is that phase of God's holiness which is seen in his treatment of the obedient and the disobedient subjects of his government' (page 365 of my edition).

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.