The six attributes of God which Pinnock seeks to revise will be identified and
summarized. These revisions are found throughout the primary material but not explicitly stated
in the way this study presents them. Next, these attributes will be critiqued. The first three
attributes of God that Pinnock suggests should be replaced are immutability, impassibility, and
timelessness.
Revision Number One: Immutability
Pinnock favors the phrase changeable faithfulness over the term immutability. He
writes, In God`s case, we might say that who God is does not change but what God experiences
changes. God`s nature does not change but his activities and relationships are dynamic. God`s
character is stable but God is not static when it comes to associating with creation.
14
There is
no great distinction between the way in which Pinnock defines immutability and the way that
those who are accused of adopting Greek categories would define this doctrine. For example, A.
H. Strong discusses immutability under the category of infinity, a division of absolute, or
immanent attributes. Strong writes the following of the doctrine of immutability:
By this we mean that the nature, attributes, and will of god are exempt from change.
Reason teaches us that no change is possible in God, whether increase or decrease,
progress or deterioration, contraction or development. All change must be to better
or to worse. But God is absolute perfection, and no change to better is possible.
Change to worse would be equally inconsistent with perfection. No cause for such
change exists, either outside of God or in God himself.
15
Strong proceeds with this section by explaining that some passages of Scripture seem at
first to ascribe change to God. These passages can be understood as a demonstration of God`s
14
Pinnock, Mover, 85. Emphasis his.
15
A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology, vol. 1: The Doctrine of God (Philadelphia: Griffith
& Rowland, 1907), 257.