Doesn’t the Book of Mormon describe God as unchangeable?

The ancient prophet Moroni wrote:¶

Do we not read that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and in him there is no variableness neither shadow of changing?

And now, if ye have imagined up unto yourselves a god who doth vary, and in whom there is shadow of changing, then have ye imagined up unto yourselves a god who is not a God of miracles (Mormon 9:9-10).

And, somewhat further on, Moroni asks:¶

And who shall say that Jesus Christ did not do many mighty miracles? And there were many mighty miracles wrought by the hands of the apostles.

And if there were miracles wrought then, why has God ceased to be a God of miracles and yet be an unchangeable Being? And behold, I say unto you he changeth not; if so he would cease to be God; and he ceaseth not to be God, and is a God of miracles (Mormon 9:18-19).

From the perspective of the philosophical tradition, these passages seem to clearly refer to a universal truth and the immutable nature of God. If we read the verses from this perspective, then we might conclude that if God’s servants deliver differing or conflicting instructions in two comparable contexts (which cannot be easily reduced to an abstract, universal principle), then one of those instructions is likely wrong.¶

However, these passages can be easily interpreted differently. In context, Moroni reiterates the fact that God is active in the world. He communicates with His children, performs miracles, bestows spiritual gifts, and so forth. We can interpret Moroni as arguing that a God who is not active in the world is a God who does not exist at all. To deny the revelations of God, to deny the existence of spiritual gifts and miracles is to deny the very existence of God as a living, personal, and relational being in the world. An inactive, theoretical God, whose hand is not manifest in our lives and communities, is not the living God of Israel.¶

The above passages (and others like them—see, e.g., Moroni 8:18, D&C 20:17, and D&C 104:2—assure us that God is a thoroughly reliable, covenant-making and promise-keeping being. Jaroslav Pelikan, one of the most famous scholars of Christian history, has written:¶

In Judaism it was possible simultaneously to ascribe change of purpose to God and to declare that God did not change, without resolving the paradox; for the immutability of God was seen as the trustworthiness of his covenanted relation to his people in the concrete history of his judgment and mercy, rather than as a primarily ontological category. ¹

God’s instructions do change from time to time, depending on the circumstances and choices of His children. But He is nonetheless utterly and completely reliable in His promises, and unfailing in His redemptive activity toward those who serve Him. In other words, God does not betray His commitments to His children, and He does indeed have patterns that He frequently follows. He is neither fickle nor arbitrary. And He can be described this way without attributing some sort of metaphysical unchangeability to Him. What makes the God of the Restoration the God of the Old and New Testament is not that His instructions are identical, but that it is the same heavenly being who gives them.¶

Footnotes

1. Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 1971), 22. ↩