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dwelleth in eternity pass on to the creation of the world, become incarnate in Christ, and in the
Holy Spirit take up His abode in the Church? Is He not represented as revealing and hiding
Himself, as coming and going, as repenting and changing His intention, and as dealing
differently with man before and after conversion? Cf. Ex. 32:10-14; Jonah 3:10; Prov. 11:20;
12:22; Ps. 18:26,27. The objection here implied is based to a certain extent on
misunderstanding. The divine immutability should not be understood as implying immobility, as
if there were no movement in God. It is even customary in theology to speak of God as actus
purus, a God who is always in action. The Bible teaches us that God enters into manifold
relations with man and, as it were, lives their life with them. There is change round about Him,
change in the relations of men to Him, but there is no change in His Being, His attributes, His
purpose, His motives of action, or His promises. The purpose to create was eternal with Him,
and there was no change in Him when this purpose was realized by a single eternal act of His
will. The incarnation brought no change in the Being or perfections of God, nor in His purpose,
for it was His eternal good pleasure to send the Son of His love into the world. And if Scripture
speaks of His repenting, changing His intention, and altering His relation to sinners when they
repent, we should remember that this is only an anthropopathic way of speaking. In reality the
change is not in God, but in man and in man’s relations to God. It is important to maintain the
immutability of God over against the Pelagian and Arminian doctrine that God is subject to
change, not indeed in His Being, but in His knowledge and will, so that His decisions are to a
great extent dependent on the actions of man; over against the pantheistic notion that God is
an eternal becoming rather than an absolute Being, and that the unconscious Absolute is
gradually developing into conscious personality in man; and over against the present tendency
of some to speak of a finite, struggling, and gradually growing God.
C. The Infinity of God .
The infinity of God is that perfection of God by which He is free from all limitations. In ascribing
it to God we deny that there are or can be any limitations to the divine Being or attributes. It
implies that He is in no way limited by the universe, by this time-space world, or confined to the
universe. It does not involve His identity with the sum-total of existing things, nor does it
exclude the co-existence of derived and finite things, to which He bears relation. The infinity of
God must be conceived as intensive rather than extensive, and should not be confused with
boundless extension, as if God were spread out through the entire universe, one part being
here and another there, for God has no body and therefore no extension. Neither should it be
regarded as a merely negative concept, though it is perfectly true that we cannot form a
positive idea of it. It is a reality in God fully comprehended only by Him. We distinguish various
aspects of God’s infinity.