In my devotional this week I was confronted with some thoughts I believe had their basis in unfounded truths. So I did some digging into what the Bible has to say (as well as a devotional guide I am reading).
Some initial thoughts:
1. The Sun stays the same ... yet changes.
How much can an object change yet still be referred to as unchanging? Time a factor. Scientists believe our sun could burn out in 5.5 billion years. So it is not in a big hurry. Shoo! Relatively speaking, the sun will be constant in my lifetime.
2. The Garden of Eden is said to have been perfect, yet it needed tending.
To what extent does perfection not reach and still hold its meaning?
Can things be perfect yet incomplete? Can the qualities of perfection still need to be maintained and be perfect? Can a garden not be perfect without the addition of a caretaker? Could the continual maintenance by God's first created human of a garden created to be incomplete add up to perfection? Perfection was not intended to be accomplished in a vaccum.
3. Now, Jesus is a part of the eternal Godhead, the Holy Trinity, prior to his hypostatic union--yet He became a man (Christmas), lived died, resurrected (Easter), was lifted up into heaven (Ascension), and sends His presence as the Holy Spirit (Pentecost). Let's toss in his incarnation and sinless life ... so, Is there a man now in heaven? Did the Trinity change?
If so, what then does unchanging really mean? Because I feel like Vizzini in The Princess Bride who with his continuous use of the word, "Inconceivable," later challenged by Inigo, "You keep using that word ... I do not think it means what you think it means."
Unchanging means, "remaining the same." So if an entity that has always been, and as a part of its quality has a mind or heart that changes for some good reasons from time to time ... so as a whole never changes in this quality, then that entity could be said to be "remaining the same." Being consistent in its changing could be spoken of as "never changes." We recognize this with the sun, which performs some major scientific activities to maintain its existence (fusion and fission) that are at the same time its essence. The maintenance is a part of its own cause and effect and purpose and meaning. We see this with Adam and Eve's activity in maintaining the Garden by God's good design and plan.
Or this could just be one of those mysteries my finite mind cannot understand, and so there are alas some things that will never change for me either.