6. Furthermore, every agent that acts by multiple actions, such that now by one, now by another, is necessarily changed: but God is of this kind, because now He produces, now He conserves, now He spares, now He punishes, and one of these actions is not another: therefore there is some change in God.
7. This same point is shown by the argument from mission. Every true mission and descent is a true change; but the Son of God according to the Scriptures was sent into the flesh and descended from heaven, and this cannot be according to the human nature: therefore He was changed and is changeable according to the divine nature.
8. Likewise, the Son of God is something according to which He is man; but it is impossible for something to become such from not-such without a change in it, as white from not-white: therefore it follows much more strongly in those things that express substance: therefore if the Son of God was made man, it is necessary that that hypostasis was changed.
9. Likewise, this same point is shown by the argument from inhabitation. Everything that begins to be in something and ceases to be in it is changed at least accidentally: but God by grace begins to be in the penitent and ceases to be in the sinner, and by essence begins to be in a generated nature and ceases to be in a corrupted one: therefore etc.
10. Likewise, if something is inseparably in something, when the latter is moved, it is necessary that the former be moved, because, as the Philosopher says, "when we are moved" etc.; but God by essence is in every creature and is in no way separated from it: therefore it is necessary that He be moved when it is moved.
11. Likewise, this same point is shown by the argument from power as follows. He who was able to do something before which he cannot do now has a changed power: but God, before He created the world, was able to create it, and now He cannot: therefore etc.
If you say that to be able to create is not a what -type ability; against this: it follows: whatever the Father can do, the Son also can do; but the Father can create: therefore the Son also can.
Furthermore, this does not resolve the issue, because the same consequence follows if any kind of sign whatsoever—whether qualitative, quantitative, or otherwise—is taken. — If you say that the inference should be: He can have created : similarly it is truly said of a blind man that he can have seen.
12. Likewise, whatever God can do is possible: but if whatever He was able to do He still can do, then whatever was possible for God is now possible; but this is false regarding what is impossible per accidens, which according to the Saints and doctors is impossible for God: therefore the same as before: therefore the divine power is changed.
13. Likewise, this same point is shown on the part of knowledge: because he who ceases to know something that he knew, or begins to know something, undergoes some change in knowledge; but God knew that the world was to be created, and now He does not know this, since it is entirely false: therefore etc.
14. Likewise, it necessarily follows: if God knows something, it is true: therefore if whatever He knew He still knows, then whatever was true is still true: but this is false: therefore so is that from which it follows: it remains therefore that the divine knowing is changeable.
15. Likewise, this same point is shown on the part of the will. "The will is the proximate and immediate cause of things," as Augustine says; but when the cause is posited, the effect is posited: therefore the divine willing does not precede in duration the producing itself: therefore when He began to produce, He also began to will: therefore etc.
16. Again, he who wills something and can not-will it is necessarily changed: but God wills to save some wayfarer: therefore either He can not-will it, or He cannot. If He cannot: then that person cannot be damned, or the will of God will be frustrated; if He can not-will it; but he who can pass from willing to not-willing can be changed: therefore etc.
17. Again, it is impossible that an agent acting according to will, whose operation conforms to will, by willing one of two contraries should produce the other, and conversely: but God now puts to death, now gives life, and does many other incompossible things: therefore it is necessary that His will now wills one thing, now the contrary. But every such will is changed: therefore the divine willing is mutable: but this is the same as being: therefore etc.
If you say that this is by reason of the effect: this is nothing, because God does not will something because it comes to be, but rather the converse: it remains therefore that the ground of mutability principally comes from the divine will.
CONCLUSION.
The divine being is altogether immutable.
I respond: It must be said that without doubt the divine being is altogether immutable: and this indeed must be maintained, although we cannot perfectly understand it; whence all agree in maintaining it. For all who rightly understand, not only the Saints but also the philosophers, maintain that the divine being is immutable, because it is most simple, immense, and eternal.
For inasmuch as it is most simple, it is immutable according to form: inasmuch as it is immense, immutable according to position: inasmuch as it is eternal, immutable according to time: but all motion and change, according to Augustine and Hugh, is reduced to one of the aforesaid differences: and therefore the divine being can in no way admit of change or motion.
And further, inasmuch as it is simple, it is immutable from itself: for it has nothing that is not its own essential being, which indeed "is not an accident, but a subsistent truth," as Hilary says. Inasmuch as it is immense, it is not mutable in another or by another: for nothing else can transfer it, since it is everywhere whole. Moreover, inasmuch as it is eternal, it is not mutable with another, because it itself remains fixed, while other things succeed one another.
Finally, because it is most simple, therefore it is not changed by comparison nor by operation, because neither of these denotes anything diverse or accidental to it, by whose arrival or departure the divine being would be composed or changed. Because it is immense, it is not changed either by mission or by indwelling, because such mission or indwelling occurs neither through any circumscription nor through any transition of place, but through presence and manifestation. Because it is eternal, it is not changed either by will or by power or by knowledge, for the reason that whatever it can do, knows, and wills, it eternally can do, knows, and wills: whence just as there is no mutability in eternity, so neither in knowledge, will, and power.
In every way, therefore, as is apparent from what has been thoroughly examined, it is necessary to hold that the divine being has immutability; and this all affirm.
But just as in order to understand eternity it is necessary at the same time to understand God as simple and immense, so in order to understand immutability it is necessary at the same time to understand God's supreme simplicity , eternity, and immensity. For because he is simple, nothing is accidental to him; because eternal, nothing comes to him, nothing departs; because immense, every property of dignity befits him; and therefore by himself, without anything accidental or newly arriving, he can produce and not produce, will and not will, foreknow and not foreknow, answer and not answer, as befits his supreme nobility. And just as he can do many things, though he is one; and temporal things, though he is eternal; and finite things, though he is infinite; and composite things, though he is simple: so also variable and mutable things, while he himself perseveres immutable.
And this is what Hugh says in the first part of On the Sacraments: "Let it be firmly held what is naturally implanted in every rational soul, namely that God is immutable. For he cannot be increased, because he is immense, nor diminished, because he is one, nor changed in place, because he is everywhere, nor in time, because he is eternal, nor in knowledge, because he is most wise, nor in affection, because he is most good." From which it is apparent how and why we understand God to be immutable in his being.
For the understanding of the objections, however, it should be noted that those things which are said of God in respect of the creature signify the divine essence and connote something in the creature: and this can be in two ways: in act or in habit. On the part of the principal signified, they are God himself, who neither changes nor is multiplied nor begins nor ceases. On the part of the connoted or co-understood, they express something created or creatable: and on that part there is inception and cessation and variation, but differently according to the diverse mode of connoting. For when that which is said of God connotes the created in act, then it can begin and cease, be present and not have been present without change on the part of God, but not without change on the part of the created; as is evident when we say that God conserves something. But when it connotes the creatable in habit or in aptitude, then there cannot be inception, yet there can be cessation, and it can also be present and not be present without change of God and of the creature. And the reason for this is the connotation of the future: the future however never begins to be future, as Anselm says, but it does cease to be future when it becomes present. —And again, a contingent future can fail to be without change, because it posits nothing in act in the thing. — From these things, therefore, it is evident, if one grasps it, that two opposites can be attributed to God without any change in himself; but some are such that a change of the creature is required, as in temporal things, while in others not at all. However it is understood, therefore, it is necessary to posit that the divine being is altogether immutable.