Does God Change His Mind?!

You show me in scripture how your statement can be backed up. I want to see how God not being able to change His mind is only regarding His nature.

Ante up.

 

Doulous

I was not comenting on the subject, just the argument itself.

Saying somebody can not do something is different then saying they will not do something.

Sorry for the confusion. I have not made up my mind yet on where I stand but I tend to think that God does not change his mind. If he did then the original course of action was not the perfict action. Or He did not have all the information he needed to make the choice. This can not be the case.

 

DeeJay,

No confusion. You said (and I quote):

If you're going to make a statement like this you need to be able to support it biblically. If it nothing more than opinion, I suggest stating so in your post. Something like, "This is my opinion. I do not have scriptural support." At least that way know what it is.

And...no need to apologize.

 

Sure, we can explain away things in scripture by claiming anthropomorphism, but that doesn’t make it go away.

Says who?

If God changes his mind, then He creates a new future reality. Furthermore, since God is active and working within His creation, he can bring His plans to fruition and keep any promises/covenants He has made.

Probably.

Not necessarily. Perhaps there were many options before God (neither one of us has God’s perspective!) and the act of Hezekiah asking moved God with compassion to select a different option.

“Needing”? You’re the only one who thinks that God “needs” to do anything. God is a Person (the one in Whose image we are made), and God is not bound by anyone or anything except His own character.

God is great enough to deal with that… God is not harried or alarmed by change.

Says who?

If you understand the nature of time as an unbroken linear series of events and choices to which we are all fated (yet God is making us march through it anyway), then you’re being consistent. If you do not perfectly understand the nature of time (which I think is every human on and orbiting the earth), then you can’t make that assertion.

Yes, I agree.

Says who? The scripture teaches that God’s nature and character does not change, but clearly teaches that God is moved with compassion.

Wow! That’s one of the most unbiblical things I’ve ever read on BaptistBoard.

Jesus clearly taught that God is influenced in prayer (Matthew 7:8-10, Luke 18:1-7).

I have to go with Jesus on this one.

Says who? Your limited and very flawed theology?

I’m not trying to be harsh, because your view of God is very popular and is taught in seminaries, from pulpits and in popular books throughout the world. Unfortunately, it is a theological model of God that does not take into account the plain teaching of scripture.

 

I've been away from the computer this weekend, and no one bothered telling me that my post in the other thread was being used as grist for a discussion.

 

“… and in confusion and frustration, God changed his mind…”

I certainly don’t believe that. Who has claimed that God has ever been confused? Regarding frustration, I think an argument can be made from the OT prophets that God is been frustrated with His people, but I wouldn’t extend that to the idea that God’s plans are frustrated.

 

If God, or for that matter, anyone, changes his mind, is there any other motive for the change of mind other than confusion or frustration?

 

Amen, Baptist Believer!

Well said!!

 

J.D.,

yes, there can be other motives.

I can say I am going to mow the grass today, but then decide I will wait until tomorrow.

God can change His mind for reasons other than frustration or confusion.

We know God was certainly frustrated in the story of the Flood account, for He said, 'My spirit will not always strive with man... man's days will be 120 years.'

 

Perhaps the creation of an alternative good or opportunities to extend compassion.

 

I don't think God is frustrated, but I sure am. I don't know how rippon and calvi and doulous and whatever etc etc can have the patience to keep mixing it up with you guys every day.

If God is changing His mind, then assurance and security of salvation is a big lie. You have nothing on which to trust but God's word, His promises. If God changed his mind about pre-flood humanity, what is there to say he won't change his mind about [B}US[/B]???

Don't you see the implication of what you're saying? If God KNOWS the future, it can not change, else he would not know it. And if God has not DETERMINED the future, then who or what did? Man? Chance?

Does the thought that even a little bit of calvinist teaching may be correct scare you guys so much that you're willing to run head-long into patently false doctrine - open theism, pelagianism, denial of original sin?

Amazing.

 

I’ll try.

Yes.

I hesitate a bit on the last point… According to Jeremiah, God did not anticipate that His people would kill their children in sacrifice to Molech.

Jeremiah 32:35 "They built high places for Baal in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to sacrifice their sons and daughters [a] to Molech, though I never commanded, nor did it enter my mind, that they should do such a detestable thing and so make Judah sin."

Yes. Omniscient = “all-knowing.” God knows everything there is to know. The future actions of creatures who have a large measure of freedom might not be knowable in complete terms. Certainly all of the possibilities are knowable for God.

I realize this is a major sticking point, so please provide scripture to back up your assertion that God knows the future with complete clarity (distinguished, of course, from areas where He is acting and will act to influence or cause future events).

You have made a reference to scripture in an attempt to support your view, but you did not give the reference. So I’ll do it for you:

Looking at the scripture in context, we can see the whole thought.

A. There is no one like God (v.9)
B. God has told His people what He intends to do (v. 10a-b)
C. God will accomplish all that He intends for His purpose and pleasure (v. 10c-d)

Therefore, this verse can’t be legitimately used to say that all things are fixed, but rather, it teaches that God will make sure that He will fulfill everything that He has declared according to His purpose and pleasure.

Your assertion that God “knows the future completely because He wrote it” is still unsupported by scripture.

This belief is based on your previous unsupported assertion.

Not necessarily. It may simply mean that circumstances have changed. (i.e. Nineveh repents, Noah finds grace in the eyes of the Lord, Moses intercedes for the Children of Israel, Hezekiah prays for healing, etc.)

“CANNOT”? That pretty strong language. God may have known that Moses was going to pray that way. It seems that the scripture teaches that God let Moses make the decision with Him.

Why not? You’ve given no biblical basis to support your assertion?

Wow! I’d say that if God is complete in all things, then He would be VERY good doing things “on the fly”. Nothing is too difficult for God!

There are no defects in God. (He’s even good at doing things “on the fly”.)

While I take “the orthodox position” very seriously, it is not scripture. Furthermore, I doubt your view has been defined since the boyhood of Jesus.

Only if you are a Calvinist.

I don’t actually see ANYTHING in there that supports your assertion that God “knows the future completely because He wrote it”. (By the way, that confession is only 317-years-old. Didn’t you claim support going back 2000 years?) God knows everything that there is to know. Perhaps, based on the unknown nature of time, the future is not certain. Or, God may simply limit His knowledge. I don’t know. But I do know that scripture teaches that God has given humankind the honor and dignity of influencing Him.

Yep. They’ve been used as justification to persecute Baptists since they deviated from the “orthodoxy” of the day.

If you think that the reason I reject your arguments is that I just have a fancy for the doctrine of free will, you are completely mistaken. I hold the beliefs I do because I’m convinced that the Bible teaches them.

And frankly, in terms of intellectual religiosity, it is a bit embarrassing to have a God who would actually condescend to loving humankind, and being executed as a demonstration of that love, and rising again in a physical, although glorified, body, and then ascending bodily into the heavens where He is seated at the right hand of the Father. It would be much more intellectually attractive for me to believe that God was some sort of impersonal force that pulls us along inescapably into a final predestined condition of joy or destruction. At least I could rationalize at sorts of things and not have to live by faith in the Person of Christ, radically transforming my daily life to follow Him in interactive discipleship.

 

I don’t post much on BaptistBoard anymore, but Marcia was the one who started this thread by using my post as a “bad” example. I don’t care to have my views misstated nor unfairly maligned so I have responded. And more importantly, I am convinced that Marcia’s assertion that we don’t influence God to be a crippling influence on the church today. I can’t easily let that slip by without refuting it with scripture.

Not at all! If you have entered into Kingdom life, you are experiencing salvation and have been given a life that will not end.

God’s word is good and His promises are trustworthy. Our security is based on the unchanging character of God.

Because He said He would not. (And frankly, if He did change His mind, what could we do about it?) But since God has demonstrated His love toward us (and gives us faith to trust Him if we are actively following Him according to the pattern of life demonstrated and supported by Christ), we know God’s word is good.

Yes.

Why do you insist that the future is determined? What is your scriptural basis?

I think humankind has a strong influence.

Nope. God had created humankind in His image with creative will, and we exercise it with God. God has the ultimate say, though.

I think that some of Calvinist teaching is correct. (We don’t initiate a relationship with God – John 6:44, etc.) Nothing about it “scares” me. I studied Calvinism carefully in my college days (I was a theology student) and found it intellectually appealing, but unpersuasive as far as the biblical basis of it goes. I had studied the Bible carefully for two years (reading it through many times) before teaching a theology course. I knew the message of scripture pretty well before I was exposed to interpretive theological systems like Calvinism and premillenial dispensationalism, so I could see the strengths and weaknesses of such systems fairly objectively.

You claim it is a “patently false doctrine”, though I have not yet seen a scriptural foundation for the doctrine that God is not influenced by humankind. Yet I, and several others here, have provided a number of clear scriptural passages that support our view.

I agree.

 

Marcia, you have amazing powers. You and those like you are crippling the work of Almighty God. Now let up a little and let God have a chance to do what he wants to do, o.k.?

 

Wow, heresy right in front of our noses, right out in the open in front of everybody.

I'm glad the real God doesn't have to figure things out as He goes along.

 

So does that mean the previous "future reality" is somehow not good enough? </font>[/QUOTE]Maybe. Or more likely, there is an new opportunity to work decisively in the life of one or more of His creatures.

For what it is worth, my term “future reality” is not a very good descriptor. Perhaps a better way to say it would be “future timeline”.

God has planned properly. (You imply that God has every detail of a timeline mapped out, that is not necessarily true.) Since God is working with His creatures (that’s us ) who exercise a measure of freedom, He is acting and reacting with or against us.

Options? Why does God need options? </font>[/QUOTE]Because He has elected to give us a measure of free will.

Again, you assume He has not given us a measure of free will and has made a detailed timeline. The underlying assumption that motivates this objection is false, in my opinion.

God is great enough to deal with that! God is not harried or alarmed by change.
</font>[/QUOTE]I know, because God knows the future! </font>[/QUOTE]Again, you’re assuming a certain simplistic theory of the nature of time. God knows what He will do in the future and can make promises based on that, and God is also at work in the present and guides the overall sweep of human history. I cannot say with assurance that God does or God does not know the future in complete detail because I have found no solid scriptural basis for either assertion.

I reject the second explanation you listed and I don’t know about the first one. I think God does know at least some of what will happen with the decisions of His creatures since He knows us so well… but I’m not convinced that everything is mapped out in advance. Furthermore, I’m not so sure that there isn’t a third way that you haven’t listed.

God is merciful and compassionate, but if he changes plans because he is moved by compassion, you have put him in time. </font>[/QUOTE]And the problem with God being in time?

Jesus lived in time and was moved by compassion, yet did not give up His divine nature or authority. Furthermore, there is the possibility that God exists within time (he certainly speaks to me – a person trapped in time) as well as outside of time.

Moreover, what exactly is the nature of time? If we knew, it would settle this conversation very quickly.

If time is merely a sequence of events and nothing more, then God is certainly within time.

And the problem with this?

Since when does not planning to be moved by compassion mean that God planned wrongly?

Do you have any scripture that tells me that God exists outside of time? (This is not a rhetorical device… I’m really interested.)

Scripture please. (Same attitude as above.)

Yes.

Wow! That’s one of the most unbiblical things I’ve ever read on BaptistBoard. </font>[/QUOTE]To say God is influenced is to say that God reacts to man, which means he is not perfect in his existence outside of man. </font>[/QUOTE]Where did you get that idea? Do you have scripture for it? I sounds quite a bit like Plato.

Where did you get the idea that “perfection” forces the perfect thing to be static? Again, that’s Greek philosophy. Does you have any scripture to support your view?

He did not say God is influenced - he taught us to pray this way to depend on God and to realize he is compassionate. Once again, I believe this is the only way for man to understand God because he is beyond us. </font>[/QUOTE]So why are you objecting to this view that you concede that Jesus taught??? Do you know more than Jesus does about this subject? (I’m not trying to be haughty here, but this is very important!)

As a disciple of Jesus, I have to go with what He teaches, no matter if the implications of it scandalize the theological systems of others. The view that I understand Jesus to present does not conflict with biblical teaching in my opinion. However, it does conflict with the views of many other people. I regret that.

Are you an Open Theist? </font>[/QUOTE]No.

I have quite a bit of sympathy toward the open theist viewpoint, but I don’t consider myself an open theist. And speaking of open theism, I have yet to see a critique of open theism that really deals with the issues and scripture. Usually the critique falls along the lines strawman arguments and emotional attacks on the so-called “diminished God” of open-theism.

I find the views of Dallas Willard in his book, “Divine Conspiracy”, to be helpful on these issues. It is definitely much needed book on the Kingdom of God for this age.

My main objection to the open theism discussion is that I do not understand the nature of time, and knowledge of the true nature of time will likely settle the question. Furthermore, I am uncomfortable with some of the more radical ideas that God has no inkling of the future.

I believe there is a great mystery there that I am not in a position to solve at this time.

Therefore, I assert that God is influenced by humanity – since Jesus clearly teaches it and the rest of the scripture also supports it, and we have a measure of free will which we exercise in the context of God’s permissive will, that is all flowing in time toward a day when faith will be sight and the children of God will be unveiled in the full glory of the new heavens and new earth. In the meantime, God is somehow working all things together for the good of those who have entered into the Kingdom of God, and will continue to be faithful to His people until the Son is revealed in glory.

[ May 15, 2006, 07:04 PM: Message edited by: Baptist Believer ]

 

You must be an Open Theist, right? This is an Open Theist view you've just expressed here. </font>[/QUOTE]I am not.

I'm pointing out the true meaning of the word "omniscient" and speculating on the nature of future knowledge. I don't know how much of the future is knowable. I believe a significant part of it can be.

And yes, some open theists would express this viewpoint.

The problem here is that the discussion has been divided into Calvinism and Arminianism, while those of us who reject both extremes, yet try to take the scripture seriously find that other people want to put a label on us and put us into a category.

As I said in a previous post, I have some affinity for open theist thinking, but I also have some reservations.