Gordon H. Clark on the Eternity and Immutability of God

In his book, The Incarnation, Dr. Gordon H. Clark has a footnote on page 63 where he lists several proof texts for the doctrine of God’s immutability and eternity.  God is essentially eternally self-existent and is subject to no passage of time.   Aseity is an important attribute or propositional definition of God.  Likewise, there is no passage or sequence of one thought to another in the mind of God.  God’s knowledge encompasses all logical propositions at the same time.  God knows the past, present and future all at once.  That’s because eternity includes past, present and future.

Interestingly, most of the time only James 1:17 and Malachi 3:6 are referenced.  But there are many other verses in the Bible which support the immutability and eternity of God.

Footnote 7 reads:

7.  On immutability consider I Samuel 15:29 where the writer says God never changes his mind:  never repents.  Psalm 102:27, “They shall be changed, but thou are the same.”  Malachi 3:6, “I am the Lord, I change not.”  Compare Romans 11:29 and Hebrews 1:10-12.  On God’s eternity consider Deuteronomy 32:40, “I live forever,” and 33:27 [Deuteronomy 33:27], “the eternal God.”  Psalm 90:2 “from everlasting to everlasting thou art God.”  Psalm 102:12, 27 “Thou O Lord shalt endure forever . . . thou art the same [immutability] and thy years shall have no end.”  Compare Isaiah 41:4, John 17:24, I Timothy 6:16, I Timothy 1:9, Revelation 4:8-10, and especially Jude 25 [Jude 1:25], “To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever, Amen.”

Gordon H. Clark, The Incarnation, (Jefferson:  Trinity Foundation, 1988), p. 63.

Stephen Charnock: Quote of the Day: Against Open Theism

 "Known to God from eternity are all His works. (Acts 15:18 NKJ)


2.  If God be eternal, he knows all things as present.  All things are present to him in his eternity; for this is the notion of eternity, to be without succession. (t)  If eternity be one indivisible point, and is not diffused into preceeding and succeeding parts, then that which is known in it or by it is perceived without any succession, for knowledge is as the substance of the person knowing; if that hath various actions and distinct from itself, then it understands things in differences of time as time presents them to view.  But, since God's being depends not upon the revolutions of time, so either does his knowledge; it exceeds all motions of years and days, comprehends infinite spaces of past and future.  God considers all thing in his eternity in one simple knowledge, as if they were now acted before him:  "Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world;" ἀπ̓ αἰῶνος, a seculo, "from eternity"  (Acts 15:18).  God's knowledge is co-eternal with him; if he knows that in time which he did not know from eternity, he would not be eternally perfect, since knowledge is the perfection of an intelligent nature.

Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God, 1853, reprint, (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996), pp. 294-295.

(t)  Petav.

(Cf. Ephesians 1:11).  

(a seculo or "a saeculo", Latin Vulgate).

Eternity

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