Changing Along With God

Our Well-being and the Dynamic Divine

I am constantly changing. My cells change, my experiences change, my tastes change—all of that is normal as life unfolds day-by-day. But what about God? Does God change? I think the Easter and post-Easter stories of the Bible show God changes like all entities in the universe. In fact, it is essential for our well-being!

The Easter stories depict Jesus caught in the maelstrom of change during the final days in Jerusalem. The Crucifixion takes this to the ultimate with his death. Even more extraordinary is the resurrection, depicting Jesus as a quasi-physical being that convinces the disciples of his restored and transformed existence. The ultimate proof according to the Gospel of John is the opportunity to touch the wounds on his transformed body. There seems implicit in this the assertion that the scars remain as eternal testimony to the Cross as Jesus becomes fully One with God the Father.

The Open and Relational theology that I follow holds Love as the essence of God’s nature. Since Love can only exist in relationships, it follows that God’s experience connects with the experience of all the creatures of the universe. The Bible carries this witness in many narratives. God reacts to the suffering of the Hebrews in Egypt, the sin of David, and searching the heart of each person when we don’t know how to pray.[1]

It follows that the Passion experience of Jesus brought unprecedented changes to God. Jesus, the prophet, Chosen One, living in harmony with God, is reviled, tortured, and killed. The union with God conveyed in real time unprecedented suffering to the Divine. God learned with new depth suffering, loss, and betrayal. Further, God responded to the obedience of Jesus in raising him to transformed existence.[2]

We are changing and God is changing with us.

This change in God is an expression of God’s Consequent Nature. God experiences and responds to the events of the universe and adjusts to the consequences. “Every actuality that comes into existence, human or otherwise, is felt by God in its entirety.”^[3] God is not static and unchanging in some spiritual realm that is separated from the universe but continuously creating possibilities in dynamic interaction with the universe. Bruce Epperly suggests, “New things happen to God; God has new experiences… God persists as the source of possibility and order through all changes, God also is shaped by all changes… God does not fully know what the outcome of any event or encounter will be in its entirety until it occurs, but God has the resources… to creatively and loving respond to each contingency in the ongoing universe.”^[4]

(Image created by MS Designer)

Thanks for being a free subscriber to Signposts for the Journey! I publish more resources each month for paid subscriptions. See all the resources on my website https://tracksforthejourney.com. Your comments and Restacks are appreciated!