A Superb Analogy

The following is an analogy used by Dan Phillips to an article James Spurgeon posted over at Pyromaniacs. Both the Article and the comment thread is very good. The post has brought up some questions in my mind about the doctrine of impassibility. Some believe it is scriptural and some do not. Regardless, these guys at Teampyro can make a fellow think...there's no doubt about that. See what you think about Dan's analogy below:

"Is it true to say that a train never turns? I think so. Is it also true to say that trains change direction? It has to be -- or there'd just be piles of trains in the Atlantic and Pacific, and they'd have to keep building new ones to get passengers back to the other coast.

So a train never turns, yet it does change direction. How can both statements be true? Because the train always stays on the tracks. It never deviates. The tracks themselves are laid so as to accomodate land features, and so as to reach different destinations -- but the train never leaves those tracks.

The application of the analogy would be that God always acts according to His character and purposes (the two tracks?). He never departs. But in the expression of His character, and in the accomplishment of His purposes, we discern changes (I will destroy all Israel / I will not destroy all Israel). But what we discern as changes are not actual changes to His fundamental character, or ultimate purpose."