The Never-Changing God

Hey everyone,

 

Welcome to The Sunday Catholic Word, a podcast where we reflect on the upcoming Sunday Mass readings and pick out the details that are relevant for explaining and defending our Catholic faith.

 

I’m Karlo Broussard, staff apologist and speaker for Catholic Answers, and the host for this podcast.

 

In this episode, we’re going to focus on several details found within the readings for this upcoming 22^nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B. One detail comes from the first reading, which is taken from Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-8, and the related topic is the Ten Commandments as an expression of the natural moral law. Another detail comes from the second reading, taken from James 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27, which relates to the topic of God’s immutability. James teaches us that God cannot change. But the question arises as how we are to reconcile this with other passages in the Bible that seem to indicate God does in fact change. The remaining details are taken from the Gospel reading, which is Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, and 21-23. The related topics are immersion and non-immersion baptisms and the freedom we Christians have from Old Testament kosher laws.

 

Let’s get started with the first detail taken from the first reading, which again is Deuteronomy 4:1-2, and 6-8. The line I want to focus on is Moses’ teaching, “Observe [the Ten Commandments] carefully, for thus you will give evidence of your wisdom and intelligence to the nations.”

 

Here’s a question: How is it that to live according to the Ten Commandments is to live intelligently—to live smartly?

 

Well, intelligent living is to relate to things according to their natures—to relate to them according to what they are—as discoverable by reason. For example, it would be a lack of intelligence to use the microphone that I’m speaking into as a hammer for hammering nails into wood. Why? Because reason discovers the nature of the microphone and its purposes and directs the will to use it accordingly.

 

Now, such intelligent living would also include relating to ourselves according to our own nature as a human being, living according to what we are, and all the proper functions that go with being human, as discoverable by reason.

 

So, Moses is teaching us that the Ten Commandments are an expression of our natures as human beings, and how we ought to function. It’s the instruction manual for being human. Our natures necessarily involve love of God and love of neighbor. Therefore, all the behaviors that are contrary to love of God and neighbor, as spelled out in the Ten Commandments, must be avoided if we want to live consistently with our natures as human beings.

 

This way of articulating the Ten Commandments is very helpful because it allows us to view them not merely as arbitrarily imposed rules that we must follow, but rather the recipe for human happiness, since human happiness involves functioning properly as a human being. So, it has apologetical significance insofar as it can help those who are skeptical God as a moral law giver.

 

It also has apologetical significance inasmuch as it shows that the Ten Commandments are still binding on us in the New Covenant. We’re not different beings in the New Covenant. We’re still human beings. Thus, our natures still determine for us intelligent living, and obligate us to behave accordingly. Since our human nature still obligates us as humans to live consistent with it, and the Ten Commandments are an expression of the order of our human nature, then it follows that the Ten Commandments are still binding for us as Christians in the New Covenant.

 

Okay. Let’s turn now to the second reading and James’ teaching that God cannot change. He writes, “With whom there is no alteration or shadow caused by change.” In other words, this is James’s affirmation that God can’t change, which is a doctrine already revealed in the Old Testament through the prophet Malachi: “For I the LORD do not change” (Mal. 3:6). This doctrine is called divine immutability.

 

Now, a question that someone might ask is, “How do we square this with other passages in the Bible where it speaks of God changing? For example, Genesis 6:4 says that God “was sorry” for having made man. To be sorry for doing something is to imply a change in one’s disposition to whatever has been done—from approval to disapproval.

 

Another example is Genesis 22:12, where God says to Abraham, after staying his hand, “For now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only begotten-son, from me.” For God to go from not knowing to knowing, so it’s argued, implies that God changes.

 

So, how do we reconcile these passages that seem to clearly reveal that God changes with James and Malachi’s teaching that God doesn’t and can’t change?

 

The answer is that we read them metaphorically. And such a reading is not ad hoc—that’s to say, we’re not just making up this reading to save our belief that God is immutable, as if we don’t want the evidence to get in the way. Rather, we have good reason to interpret these descriptions of God metaphorically.

 

First, we have the revelation of the New Testament to shed light on the Old. Second, we have prior airtight philosophical argumentation that leads us to the conclusion that God must be immutable, given that we can know he is the unmoved mover that is pure actuality, the uncaused cause that is pure existence itself, the being of absolute and total perfection, beyond which there is nothing greater than can be conceived. All these things we know about God necessarily preclude mutability, or the ability to change.

 

So, given this prior knowledge, we can approach these “God changing” texts and reasonably interpret them metaphorically. This is no different than approaching texts that speaks of God having a “right arm,” say, or “having wings,” and interpreting these texts metaphorically given our prior philosophical and biblical knowledge that God is pure spirit.

 

Now, you might wonder, “Well, why would the ancient authors speak in this way if they’re not intending to explain the metaphysics of divinity? And what would the intended meaning of these metaphorical descriptions?”

 

As to the reason why the ancients speak this way, the answer is that the ancient authors are describing events in ways that the ancients could understand. They’re not speaking to philosophers. They’re speaking to simple people who would only understand God’s relation with humans in ways that humans relate to each other.

 

As to the intended meaning of the above passages, the ancient author is communicating to the reader something about the people involved and their relation to God. In the case of God being sorry for having created humans, the intended meaning is that humans have contravened the divine will and God’s purpose for them and thus are deserving of punishment. In the case of God coming to know Abraham’s filial fear, the intended meaning is that Abraham had filial fear, and what he did was an act of obedience that had divine approval.

 

So, we can affirm with James that in God there is no change. And there’s no incompatibility between this affirmation and those passages that describe God as undergoing change.

 

Now we turn to the Gospel reading, taken from Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, and 21-23. I’ll go ahead and read the whole thing.

 

 

When the Pharisees with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem
gathered around Jesus,
they observed that some of his disciples ate their meals
with unclean, that is, unwashed, hands.
—For the Pharisees and, in fact, all Jews,
do not eat without carefully washing their hands,
keeping the tradition of the elders.
And on coming from the marketplace
they do not eat without purifying themselves.
And there are many other things that they have traditionally observed,
the purification of cups and jugs and kettles and beds. —
So the Pharisees and scribes questioned him,
“Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders
but instead eat a meal with unclean hands?”
He responded,
“Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written:
This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines human precepts.
You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.”

He summoned the crowd again and said to them,
“Hear me, all of you, and understand.
Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person;
but the things that come out from within are what defile.

“From within people, from their hearts,
come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder,
adultery, greed, malice, deceit,
licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.
All these evils come from within and they defile.”

 

As many of you listening know there are some Christians who believe that immersion baptism is the only valid form of baptism. And for support of this belief, they appeal to the Greek word that translates “baptize,” baptizō, which means “to immerse.” It’s used several times in the New Testament when reporting how someone was baptized. For example, Luke records that the Ethiopian eunuch “went down into the water” when he was baptized by Philip (Acts 8:38). Baptizō is used. If immersion is the biblical mode of baptism, so it’s argued, then any non-immersion form of baptism is unbiblical and invalid.

 

Our response to this objection is where Mark’s reference to the Jewish ceremonial washings in our Gospel reading comes into play.

 

Mark records that the Pharisees and scribes were appalled at how Jesus’ disciples “ate their meals with unclean, that is, unwashed, hands” (v.1). Mark then gives a commentary on the “baptismal” washings that Jesus’ apostles failed to uphold:

 

For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they wash their hands, observing the tradition of the elders; and when they come from the market place, they do not eat unless they purify [Greek, baptisōntai] themselves; and there are many other traditions which they observe, the washing [Greek, baptismous] of cups and pots and vessels of bronze (vv.3-4).

 

According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, the baptismal washing of hands may be performed either by pouring or immersion:

 

The pouring on of water was a sign of discipleship. Thus, Scripture says of Elisha that he poured water (2 Kings 3:11) upon the hands of Elijah, meaning that he was his disciple. The hands may also be purified by immersion; but in that case the same rules must be observed as in the case of immersion of the entire body in a regular ritual bath, or miḳweh.[i]

 

Since Mark describes the Jewish ritual washing of hands with the word baptizō, and such Jewish ritual washings could be performed either by pouring or immersion, we have biblical grounds for associating baptizō with pouring. From this it follows that it’s unbiblical to restrict the word baptizō to immersion baptisms, thereby undercutting the argument for immersion only baptism.

 

The second detail in this upcoming Sunday’s Gospel is Jesus’ teaching, “Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.” There’s a part of this verse that is left out in the Lectionary that’s important to highlight. Mark gives us a parenthetical statement, or commentary, right after Jesus says this: “Thus he declared all foods clean.”

 

What Mark means is that Jesus’ teaching reveals to us that we as Christians are no longer bound by kosher laws, those Old Testament prohibitions of certain foods. How does this relate apologetically? There are some Christians who believe that those OT precepts are still binding.

 

It also has apologetical significance for conversations with Seventh Day Adventists, who believe that we must still worship God on Saturdays. If we’re no longer bound by the Old Testament food laws, then it at least stands to reason that we would no longer be bound by the Sabbath law, namely, the necessity to worship God on Saturday.

 

St. Paul confirms this reasonable conclusion in Colossians 2:16, where he teaches, “Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a sabbaths.”

 

Conclusion

 

Well, my friends, that’s all the time we have for this episode of the Sunday Catholic Word. The readings for this upcoming 22^nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B, doesn’t sell us short when it comes to material for apologetics.

 

• The Ten Commandments are an expression of the natural moral law,
• God cannot change,
• The Bible doesn’t teach immersion only baptism, and
• The freedom Christians have in the New Covenant concerning food and drink.

 

As always, thank you for subscribing to the podcast. And please be sure to tell your friends about it and invite them to subscribe as well at sundaycatholicword.com. You might also want to check out the other great podcasts in our Catholic Answers podcast network: Cy Kellet’s Catholic Answers Focus, Trent Horn’s The Counsel of Trent, Joe Heschmeyer’s Shameless Popery, and Jimmy Akin’s A Daily Defense, all of which can be found at catholic.com.

 

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I hope you have a blessed 22^nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B. Until next time, God Bless!

 

 

 

 

 

[i] Bernard Drachman and Kaufmann Kohler, “Ablution,” Jewish Encyclopedia, www.jewishencyclopedia.com.