What is the meaning of the sentence:
“[God] cannot improve (because He is perfect), not that He cannot change”?
Do the three possibilities I mentioned exhaust the options in your view? If so, which of them seems correct to you? If not, what are the additional possibilities, and which one do you prefer?

What is unclear about that sentence? It’s possible that He can change. What He certainly cannot do is improve. There are changes that are not improvement, just change.
I explained that too. You left out the possibility that He can actually change as well, but that doesn’t mean He is pure becoming (whatever that may mean).
And regarding my own view too, I wrote it. Are you simply asking me to repeat what I wrote?

Why can’t God improve—is that derived from the ontological proof?

This is Rabbi A. I. Kook’s idea of “perfecting.” If He is perfect, how could He improve? And if He improved, that is a sign that previously He was not perfect.

Who decided that God is perfect? On the face of it, the God of the Torah seems far from perfect, and the clearest proof is that it says God created us in His image. Could it be that the perfect God is some other god meant to satisfy the perfectionists?
And Doron, what about the fourth possibility—that the concept of change simply does not apply to God at all?

Could you make this simpler for me, sharper, and more positive?

1. I didn’t ask about improvement in God, only about change in Him, so at the moment there’s no point in addressing that.

2. You are claiming roughly this:

“God is changeable (He has the ability to change even if in practice He never will).”

Right/wrong?

3. In your opinion, does God actually change too (when He feels like it, so to speak)?

Yes/no?

4. My inclination is to think that a coherent philosophical concept of God is one according to which not only does He not actually change, but He does not even have the ability to change.
It seems to me that you disagree with me on this.

Yes/no?

5. If you disagree with me, why?

The Last Questioner (any family resemblance to “the last halakhic decisor”? Something about the temperament seems similar to me).

1. The claim that God is perfect is based on a rational philosophical premise (which of course can be debated).
It is not based on the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh).

2. I do tend to agree that there are hints in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) of God’s imperfection, and I’ve written that on this site many times. I don’t know whether that is related to the “image” issue you mention.

3. In my opinion, the concept of change really does not apply to God, not even potential change.

Questioner, I didn’t understand your proof from the Torah. So what if He created man in His image?
In the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), it does imply that He is perfect (“Is anything too wondrous for the Lord?!” and more), and reason also points that way (if He is the root of all reality, there is no reason to stop His power at some arbitrary level, among other arguments).

Doron,
His honor will try to do that for you.

1. And I answered the question of change too. I simply corrected what you put in my mouth. You decided for me that I hold that He does not tolerate change, and I corrected that what I wrote is that God does not tolerate improvement.

2. It could be right. I don’t have information of course, but as far as I understand, there is no obstacle to that.

3. If in 2 I answered that there is no obstacle to that, then of course the answer here is yes. Yes.

4. Indeed.

5. Why not? You explain your position. You are claiming that He can’t do something, so the burden of explanation is on you.

I don’t know about the Rabbi, but if God created me in His image then His condition is pretty bad, and certainly far from perfection.
One could come and argue that the Torah did not mean people whose condition is pretty bad, but rather perfect human beings whom God created in His image, but from that it follows that one can grasp what perfect human beings are (let whoever claims this explain exactly what is meant), and even then the situation would remain less than inspiring.

“Is anything too wondrous for the Lord?” is said as a manner of speech by someone offended that people are belittling his word, not as a declaration of some super-power; that’s not the issue there. Moreover, it is very possible that the plain meaning there is that “too wondrous” refers to the knowledge that Sarah can no longer give birth. In other words, Sarah thought He was just another person peddling false hope, and so she laughed to herself that He was a tactless fraud who didn’t know her biological condition…

In any case, this whole business of a perfect God is strange and foreign. “Perfect” is a human concept.

The Last Questioner,
You’ll need to ask yourself the following question: if there is no such thing as “perfect” in reality (even as a potential), then where did this concept come from in your consciousness?
And if there is “perfection” in reality (whose definition is by way of negation—being without deficiency), then it has a cause: God.

That is a very strange proof (to tell the truth, I suspected that this is what you meant, but I judged you favorably).
According to your suggestion, when they say that Isaac was born with Abraham’s likeness, the meaning would be that already at birth it was impossible to distinguish between them (was he born with a beard? Or did Abraham have a baby face?). Alternatively, when Isaac was born he was already a prophet equipped with all the ideas of our forefather Abraham. That is nonsense, of course. Isaac resembled Abraham in a certain sense, but was not identical to him in every respect.
So too when they say that a human being is in the image of God, the intention is not that he is God, meaning that there is identity between them, but that there is something in him of the image of the Holy One, blessed be He. For example, that he can choose, unlike the rest of nature, which is deterministic. That doesn’t mean that he always chooses the good. On the contrary, the ability to choose enables him to choose evil. It also doesn’t mean that a human being has no body, or that God has a body. According to your approach, the claim that man was created in the image of God means either that man is perfect or that God is not perfect. But that is a childish interpretation of such a comparison. This is a general comparison being made here between the image of God and the human form. Comparison is not identification.

Rabbi Michi,
When I read the plain meaning of the verses, “image of God” sounds to me like it means that man rules over nature like God. It says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens, etc.” Scripture explains what it means by “image of God.”

Sorry for the gibberish above, that’s what happens when you don’t check the message before sending…

Corrected version:
When I read the plain meaning of the verses, “image of God” means that man rules over nature like God. It says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens, etc.” Scripture explains explicitly what it means by “image of God.”

Shai, two children are playing with a toy and start fighting. One says, “I have the best toy.” The second says, “Forget it, mine is way way better.” The first attacks back: “Mine is way way way better.” That’s how it goes on. Until one of them hits on a trick and says, “I have the perfect toy.” The other asks what the word “perfect” means, and gets the explanation that perfect means “best” 100 times in a row. They didn’t know how to count above 100, so the fight stopped with the inventor’s victory. A few months pass, and the second one, who learned various things, says, “My toy is more perfect than yours, because my perfect includes 1,000 times ‘best’…” And so it continued… After a few thousand years it reached the point where nobody has a problem being told that God is the most perfect toy than which there is none more perfect.

The plain meaning in the Torah of “in our image, after our likeness” is of a person who knows and understands language and speech. So He can command him, “Be fruitful and multiply and rule.” As for free choice, that may perhaps be connected to man’s ability to be commanded, but it doesn’t seem like that is the issue.

Shai, that’s perfectly fine. Whatever the meaning of the expression may be, it is clear that there is no identity here. By the way, what you write does not necessarily contradict what I said: the ability to choose gives us the power to rule.

Here is the explanation why God cannot actually change (if necessary, I’ll also explain why even potential change cannot be attributed to Him):

1. In my opinion, God is completely transcendent to man and to the world.
Agree/disagree?

2. If He is completely transcendent, then He is completely abstract; that is, He cannot be embodied in the senses or in the imagination.
Agree/disagree?

3. If He is completely abstract, then there is no multiplicity in Him, for the reason that multiplicity means internal distinctions—in other words, that something is made of “parts.” God is not made of such “parts” (“the Lord is our God, the Lord is One”).
Agree/disagree?

4. If you say that although God cannot be embodied in the senses or in the imagination, there can nevertheless be abstract multiplicity in Him (as, for example, in the series of natural numbers), I will answer that our concept of God includes the idea of total abstraction. In total abstraction there is no multiplicity at all.
Right/wrong?

5. For change to be logically possible (all the more so for it to go from potential to actual), the concept of multiplicity must be involved. The reason is very simple: a thing that changes passes between different states or different “phases.” Therefore the concept of multiplicity and the concept of change are logically bound up with one another.
Agree/disagree?

6. Conclusion: in God there is no change.
Agree/disagree?

These riddle-like writings are getting us nowhere.
1. Define “transcendent.”
2. Indeed.
3. No. That only means that we will not perceive the change in Him, but not necessarily that there is no change in Him. Here you jumped from abstractness to unity. That’s a logical leap.
4. You answered yourself what I answer you.
5. See 3.

These things are very simple in my eyes.

1. In any case, you already agreed to section 2 above (where I wrote, “If He is completely transcendent, then He is completely abstract; that is, He cannot be embodied in the senses or in the imagination”).
Your response was “Indeed.”
If you agreed, why are you asking me to repeat the definition we both already agree on?
2. Your section 3 does not address clearly and sharply the problem I raised in my section 3. I spoke especially about the relation between total abstractness and multiplicity, whereas you answered me with something that relates especially to change and to our ability or inability to perceive it.
3. Please, I beg you, address only the question of multiplicity: do you agree with me that something completely abstract must be devoid of distinctions, for the reason that if it has internal distinctions (= multiplicity), then it has some residue of concreteness (that is, it is “less” abstract)?
One may further explain: in the process of abstraction that we carry out in our thought, we strip more and more characteristics from the object that we are abstracting. If we want to be consistent, we must abstract from the object even its internal “structure,” until what remains is sheer absence.
For this reason, I like to compare God to space itself, and in fact I tend to identify the two.
Agree/disagree?
4. In my opinion, the other sections are not important right now, until the above points are clarified.

That is usually the problem in our discussions: what is simple to you is not at all clear to me. 🙂

1. The definition is not clear from your section 1. In light of what you wrote in section 2, I wrote yes. I didn’t ask you to repeat the definition, but to give it (and not ask about it in 1 and give it in 2).
2. I don’t understand anything.
3. My answer is no. It depends on your definition of a completely abstract thing. If you define it as devoid of multiplicity, then of course you are right (that is a tautology). But “abstract” could also mean something that cannot be perceived, and more.

1. As a reminder: my claim was that God does not change and cannot even change.
2. You did not agree with me on this.
3. To justify my words, I argued that God’s inability to change follows from His transcendence.
4. I defined transcendence as something abstract from the standpoint of human perception (it cannot be embodied in sense or imagination).
5. I added another layer to the definition of transcendence and claimed that the property of total abstractness means an absence of distinctions/an absence of multiplicity in Him.
6. At this point, not only did you agree with me, but you also attributed to this definition the status of a tautology.
7. In that, you went further than I did and made my definition necessarily true.
8. Again, I urge you to focus and address only the question of multiplicity—do you agree with me that God’s being completely abstract leads us to the assumption that there is no multiplicity in Him at all?
Yes/no?
9. Since I am in an entreating mood, I appeal to the intelligent readers to help show me my mistake (or alternatively, to show you yours).

In section 4 you defined His abstractness only from the standpoint of our perception. I already explained that this is irrelevant to the discussion. In section 5 you added that abstractness also includes the absence of distinctions and multiplicity in Him. I didn’t understand that. If you mean that He is like a point-particle devoid of all properties and characteristics, I do not agree. But indeed, if that is the definition, then change does not apply there, since change always applies to properties, and if there are no properties there is no change. That is, of course, a tautology.

It seems that our positions aren’t all that far apart after all 🙂
1. You raised the hypothesis that supposedly I meant to say that God—because He is totally abstract—is a point-particle (or like a point-particle).
2. That hypothesis is incorrect. I used a different image—the image of space.
3. The image of space is more successful in my eyes because it is more precise (I already explained why, and if necessary I’ll explain again).
4. But it seems that even according to the image you chose (a point-particle), God is devoid of all changes (and probably also, according to your view, devoid of multiplicity). You yourself say this.
5. All the more so space is like that (devoid of changes).
6. Now we can return to God Himself, who, in my view, is like space, and summarize:
7. In God there is no change whatsoever (a fact that follows from there being no multiplicity in Him, a fact that follows from His being totally abstract, a fact that follows from His being completely transcendent to man and to the world).
8. On the highly reasonable assumption that you will not agree with my conclusion in the last section (7), please tell me what is flawed in my inference.

See my previous message. It is a tautology derived from an assumption I do not accept. I think we’ve exhausted this.

I laid out my claims and gave my reasons. The intelligent reader will render his judgment.

By the way, it seems to me that this topic (change and non-change in God) ought to stand at the center of every theology, and perhaps even at the center of every philosophy. To a large extent, all the other discussions should be derived from it.