"The will of God is eternal because He does not begin to will what He did not will before, nor cease to will what He willed before"
About this Quote
Ames is doing metaphysical damage control, and he does it with the clean, almost bureaucratic precision of Reformed scholasticism. The line is crafted to shut the door on a very human habit: imagining God as a superpowered person who changes His mind. If God starts willing something He did not will before, or stops willing what He once willed, then God is caught in time, responding, revising, learning. That would make the divine will look like ours: a sequence of preferences shaped by new information or shifting moods. Ames refuses that anthropomorphic God. He wants a God whose willing is not an event.
The intent is doctrinal as much as philosophical. Early 17th-century Protestant thinkers were defending divine immutability against both popular piety (which often treats prayer as negotiation) and theological rivals who seemed to make God more reactive. Ames, a major Puritan-era theologian-philosopher, is also protecting providence: if God’s will can change, history becomes less a governed order and more a divine improvisation.
The subtext is reassuring and unsettling at once. Reassuring, because an unchanging will suggests stability in a world of religious conflict and political volatility; God is not fickle, salvation is not subject to celestial mood swings. Unsettling, because it implies that “response” language in scripture and prayer is, at best, accommodated speech - God appears to react, but nothing in God actually shifts.
Rhetorically, the sentence works by symmetry and negation. It doesn’t paint a picture; it removes possibilities. Eternality here isn’t poetic infinity. It’s a logical consequence of insisting that God is not one more actor inside the timeline.
The intent is doctrinal as much as philosophical. Early 17th-century Protestant thinkers were defending divine immutability against both popular piety (which often treats prayer as negotiation) and theological rivals who seemed to make God more reactive. Ames, a major Puritan-era theologian-philosopher, is also protecting providence: if God’s will can change, history becomes less a governed order and more a divine improvisation.
The subtext is reassuring and unsettling at once. Reassuring, because an unchanging will suggests stability in a world of religious conflict and political volatility; God is not fickle, salvation is not subject to celestial mood swings. Unsettling, because it implies that “response” language in scripture and prayer is, at best, accommodated speech - God appears to react, but nothing in God actually shifts.
Rhetorically, the sentence works by symmetry and negation. It doesn’t paint a picture; it removes possibilities. Eternality here isn’t poetic infinity. It’s a logical consequence of insisting that God is not one more actor inside the timeline.
Quote Details
| Topic | God |
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