QUESTION VI.
Whether the Trinity can be consistent with supreme immutability.
Next it is asked whether the Trinity can be consistent with supreme immutability: and concerning this, two things are asked.
The first is whether the divine being is immutable. The second is whether the Trinity and supreme immutability are simultaneously compatible.
ARTICLE I.
Whether the divine being is immutable.
Concerning the first, we proceed as follows. That the divine being is immutable is shown thus:
1. First, by authority, Malachi 3: I am God and I do not change: the Gloss says: "He says this lest it be thought that there is any mutability in God." The Psalm: You shall change them, and they shall be changed, but You are the selfsame; the Gloss says: "immutable."
2. Likewise, the same is shown by reason thus. The divine being is absolutely and universally first: but the immutable is prior to the mutable, because the mutable must be reduced to the immutable: if therefore it is universally and principally first, then it is universally immutable.
3. Likewise, the divine being is the ultimate, toward which all other things tend as toward the highest end; but in the highest and ultimate end all other things find rest: but in nothing can other things find rest unless it is entirely immutable in itself: therefore the same as before.
4. Likewise, the divine being, as the philosophers say, and reason demonstrates, is absolutely and in every way necessary: but everything that has any variation falls in some way from necessity with respect to that according to which it is changed: therefore if it is necessary, it is also immutable.
5. Likewise, the divine being is most perfect: but nothing most perfect advances or declines: but everything that is changed either acquires something or loses something: therefore the divine being can in no way be changed.
6. Likewise, the divine being is most simple, therefore it has nothing of an adventitious nature; but in everything that is changed, either something arrives or departs: therefore mutability is not consistent with simplicity: therefore its opposite must hold: therefore it is immutable.
7. Likewise, the divine being is immeasurable: but everything that is changed is either changed to a better state, or a worse state, or an equal state; but what is immeasurable cannot be greater nor lesser nor does it have any equal: therefore it is absolutely immutable.
8. Likewise, the divine being is eternal, as is clear from the preceding; but in every change there is in some way a before and after; but this can in no way exist in eternity: therefore there is no change; it remains therefore that it is entirely immutable.
9. Furthermore, every change is either toward being, or from being, or within being, because everything that is changed either receives being, or loses being, or passes from one being into another, that is, from one mode of being into another; but God is pure being itself, since He exists through Himself and is pure act: therefore He can be changed in none of the aforesaid ways: nor can any other way be given: therefore He is immutable.
10. Furthermore, every change is either according to substance, or according to accident ; but God is not changed according to substance, since He is incorruptible, nor according to accident, since nothing at all is accidental to Him: therefore He admits of absolutely no mutability.
But to the contrary: 1. Wisdom 7: Wisdom is more mobile than all mobile things: it is clear that he speaks of uncreated wisdom: therefore if wisdom itself is most mobile, it seems that the divine being is most mutable among all mutable things.
If you say that this is said by way of cause: then it is objected: that which is mobile by way of cause and according to form is more mobile than that which is so in only one of these ways.
2. Furthermore, gradation is observed in creatures according to greater mobility, because the highest element is more mobile than the lowest, and the first heaven more than the other spheres, and the glorified body more than the heaven, and spirit more than the glorified body: but what pertains to nobility should be attributed to God; therefore etc.
Furthermore, this same thing is shown by reason according to a sevenfold way.
3. And first from the standpoint of comparison. Everything to which something comes anew in time is mutable: the divine being is of this kind, because in time He is called lord, He is called refuge, He is called king: therefore He is mutable.
If you say that "in the category of relation there is no motion"; to the contrary: Ambrose argues thus: if the Father became father from being non-father, He would have been changed, and yet father denotes a relation: therefore this does not resolve the matter.
4. Furthermore, names of this kind either signify something that is God, and thus they do not begin in time: or something created, and thus they are not said of God: or they posit nothing, and thus they are no more said of God than of anything else: or something coming to God: but this necessarily posits motion: therefore etc.
5. Furthermore, this is shown from the standpoint of action. Everything that becomes an agent from being a non-agent passes "from rest into act"; but everything of this kind is in some way changed and altered: but God is of this kind: therefore etc. If you say that this is on the part of the creature; it is objected against this: because God does not produce because the creature is produced: but rather conversely: therefore the reason for this passage must first be posited in God.