Divine Perfection, Divine Immutability, and Covenants

[graymouser]

(This may be more appropriate to GRD, but I'm putting it here because it deals with alleged divine attributes. Wouldn't object to a move.)

Two assumptions are generally made about the classic theist God:

1. God is perfect. This implies that every action God takes is perfect.
2. God is unchanging. This implies that the mind of God is eternal and does not waver in purpose.

So, since God's every action is perfect, it follows that if God made the Mosaic covenant laid out in the Torah then it is perfect, and that God's mind does not waver in purpose from it. The corrolary to this is that there could not be a better covenant made since the Mosaic covenant was perfect. To deny its perfection is to deny God's perfection; to say it has changed is to deny God's immutability. This idea is indeed hammered home over and over again in the Tanakh.

Christianity proclaims the "good news" of a new covenant, better than the old - but how is this possible? Is God's original covenant imperfect, and if so, how is that possible? God is perfect, and the original covenant must necessarily have been perfect. How can any single rule - which, being from God, is necessarily perfect - ever change?

For mainstream Christianity (keeping the Tanakh as scripture), the only option is to remove the immutability and perfection of God - in direct contradiction to the Tanakh.

-Wayne

[Nectaris]

I think a typical theist defense would be that (a) god planned it that way all along, and it is really all perfect but our limited minds cannot perceive it that way or (b) the necessity of human free will threw god for a loop so he had to come up with a new plan. I think (a) has some problems because it brings up some questions, like:

Could this god change its mind and alter the plan? If no, than does god have free will and when exactly did he come up with this plan? Also if the plan has always been, is this god a thinking entity or just a deity on rails?

If one chooses the (b) route, there are also some questions, like:

How does an omniscient god not know something? How could the first covenant be wrong, given the premise that everything god does is perfect? Afterall, the plan should have been perfect regardless of what humans did to mess it up.

I'm not a theist, so these are just my speculations. . .

Dave