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Does God Ever Literally Change His Mind?–Yes

by Max Andrews

Think about it for just a moment. Does God ever literally change his mind or course of action?  The Christian tradition usually sides with the, ‘No.’  Well, if you say know let me ask you something. What would you do with cognitive, so-called, anthropomorphisms concerning peitionary prayer or changing his course of action (i.e. God changing his mind in response to prayer or sparing Ninenveh)?  The traditional hermeneutic concerning anthropomorphisms approaches these statements as literary elements in which God expresses himself through human or animal terms that teach something true about God.  Expressions like “the right hand of God” or “the eyes of the Lord,” for example, communicate something true of God’s strength and knowledge.  But what does the concept of God’s changing his mind communicate? For example, if indeed it is anthropomorphistic?  If God in fact never actually changes his mind [due to prayer], saying he does so doesn’t communicate anything truthful.  It is simply inaccurate.[1]

I would argue that a multi-layered middle knowledge approach is sufficient to answer the question.  I’m approaching this as a Molinist so if you need a refresher on middle knowledge please read Middle Knowledge in a Nutshell.  By introducing a second logical moment in to God’s knowledge, knowledge of the subjunctive conditionals or would-counterfactual knowledge, it is the case that petitionary prayer actually makes a difference.  In God’s middle knowledge there rests two additional layers: the first layer being reaction and the second layer being action. The first layer is God’s progressive apprehension of the truth-value of all would-counterfactuals of creaturely freedom as they unfold in the logical sequence coupled with his original reactions to these counterfactuals.  The second layer is God’s transformation of each practicable world into a feasible world by fine-tuning it according to his full knowledge of everything that could or would happen in the entire history of that world as a result of different divine responses to creaturely choices.

For an example consider Exodus 32.9-14.

The Lord said to Moses, “ I have seen this people and behold, they are an obstinate people. 10Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation.” 11Then Moses entreated the Lord his God, and said, “ O Lord, why does Your anger burn against Your people whom You have brought out from the Land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, ‘With evil intent He brought them about to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them in the from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your burning anger and change Your mind about doing harm to Your people. 13Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants to whom You swore by Yourself, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’” 14So the Lord changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people. (Ex. 32.9-14 NASB)

God’s original reaction, only having apprehended the truth of the circumstances logically leading up to this, was to literally destroy the Israelites and make a new nation from Moses to uphold his covenant with Abraham.  Upon apprehending the logically successive knowledge that Moses, if apprised of this reaction, would implore God to spare the Israelites, God’s mind, or planned reaction, literally changed to a new course of action which left the Israelites intact.[2]

Does this effect or change God’s ontology? No.  This preserves divine perfection.  This approach isn’t as controversial as you may think (regarding divine perfection) because these logical moments are known logically prior to the creative decree.  Not only does this preserve divine perfection but it also preserves the veracity of biblical statements regarding God’s cognitive discourse without diluting the reality of the relationship in prayer and God’s sovereign control of history.

[1] Greg Boyd, “The Open Theism View,” in Divine Providence, 39.

[2] For more in the multi-layered middle knowledge see Krik MacGregor’s A Molinist-Anabaptist Systematic Theology (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2007), 87-107.

Posted on January 23, 2012 at 14:41 in Apologetics, Bible, Biblical Studies, Molinism   |  RSS feed |   Reply   |   Trackback URL

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38 Responses to “Does God Ever Literally Change His Mind?–Yes”

    
  1. Doug Beaumont
    January 23, 2012 at 15:17

    I do not see that anthropomorphisms lose their value if they do not simply reduce to literalism. Analogous God-talk differentiates statements based on what they refer to – in this case, if God is unchangeable then the changing part of the statements must be removed (just as in any analogy, only the part that is the same is retained). In this case, the traditional view would be that God promised to do one thing with respect to situation S, and a different thing with respect to situation S’. This does not entail change on God’s part. Because God is speaking to creatures existing in time, his reports appear to indocate a change of mind. No big deal.

    Your response may be fine on a MK view with a God whose essence is not simple (for all change requires parts), but that position is itself in opposition to traditional views as well. Thomas Aquinas answered this issue in favor of the orthdox view long ago here: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3083.htm#article2 .

    Reply
    • Max Andrews
      January 23, 2012 at 15:28

      Thanks Doug. I still don’t see how this isn’t really a change in the course of God’s action or mind. In your response S is antecedently necessary to factor in when considering S’, which seems to unavoidably imply change. Also, I am a strong critic of divine simplicity. (Also, a difference between simple and simplicity. I agree God has no parts but change does not entail parts.) I’ve promoted aspects of divine simplicity and the multiverse but these models of modal realism and simplicity that I’ve been toying with are things I don’t actually believe to be true myself. I’m currently working on coauthoring a paper, which incorporates an aspect of simplicity but I don’t believe it to be true even though I’m using it to fiddle with these ideas I’m running with.

      Reply
  2. JT
    January 23, 2012 at 15:50

    Yeah, so…it seems something like this is true: for there to be a change of mind, there must be a before and after with respect to God’s thought (or a person’s thought who has had their mind changed). So, at time ‘t’ God believed X but then at time ‘t2’ God believed Y. The example you’re giving and your wishing for petitionary prayer to have a cause with respect to God’s action need not imply a change–of course all change is measured by time. Perhaps there is simply a logical progression rather than chronological. For example: if Moses petitions, God relents. Moses petitioned, therefore God relented. Now, it seems to me that the antecedent of the conditional doesn’t have to come in any sense chronologically prior. All it has to do is come logically prior. But, logical priority doesn’t imply time any more than a mathematical truth requires the passage of time. Truths like 2 +2 equals four are timeless truths. So it might also be the case that “If Moses petitions, then God relents” is also a timelessly true conditional.

    Additionally, if God changes his mind, then Molinism is false. The whole point of molinism–or middle knowledge–is to secure God’s perfect knowledge of future events without infringing on creaturely freedom. But, if God’s changing his mind as a temporal recourse of some temporal action, then God probably didn’t have perfect knowledge of that future. Why would you change from something you already knew to be true? That doesn’t make any sense. If I know at time ‘t’ that at time ‘t2’ Jones is going to mow his lawn, why would I believe at ‘t’ that jones wasn’t going to mow his lawn? Perfect knowledge of future contingents prevents God from having to change his mind.

    Reply
    • Max Andrews
      January 23, 2012 at 16:07

      This doesn’t require and temporal sequence. I only used and referred to a logical sequence. If I was arguing from a temporal sequence I would agree with you. (I fixed your edit issue, btw).

      Reply
  3. JT
    January 23, 2012 at 16:11

    Thanks. Well, I would say if you’re only arguing from a logical sequencing, then you don’t mean a ‘literal’ changing of mind–or a ‘change’ in any sense at all. Change requires time, logical truths aren’t temporally situated, so there isn’t any change if what we’re discussing is logical succession.

    Reply
    • Max Andrews
      January 23, 2012 at 17:27

      I’m not so sure, still working it out. So if you say this isn’t a literal change of mind then what is it?

      Reply
      • JT
        January 23, 2012 at 17:43

        It’s simply this: a demonstration of the effectiveness of petitionary prayer.

      • Max Andrews
        January 23, 2012 at 18:57

        How does petitionary prayer, then, affect God? What’s the antecedent position of God and the consequent course of action? Feel free to give a brief sketch. I know this can go on forever lol

      • apologianick
        January 23, 2012 at 18:59

        Max. I really don’t see how that could be done seeing as I don’t think God can increase in knowledge or gain new knowlege. Somehow, he knows in advance what I will pray an he knows what His response will be in advance. (In fact, I call it a pre-response) God knows from all eternity our prayers and takes them into account.

        What I’m curious is that if you want to take the mind-changing passages more literally, why not the passages about God’s body, particularly since there are also passages that say God doesn’t change his mind.

        (Leaving out the obvious bit of course that denying the literalness of any of those passages means you’re denying Inerrancy)

      • Max Andrews
        January 23, 2012 at 20:03

        Concerning God’s body, did you read my post on anthropomorphic hermeneutics? I don’t see there to be any good reason to take those as literal, which is why I don’t. Why can’t God learn anything? I’m an A-theorist of time and if God’s knowledge is propositional and tensed then his knowing that I will go to bed is future tensed and when it does come about that I go to bed he now knows that I am sleeping whereas he did not know that proposition before. The truth value is preserved but the tense is different. Additionally, I don’t see how this requires God to increase in knowledge at all. You seem to be be an all out Arminian by removing the third moment here. I’m not a proponent of the passive foreknowledge and it doesn’t seem to be the case that it benefits anything for a cognitive anthropomorphistic hermeneutic.

        http://sententias.org/2010/12/19/why-im-not-an-arminian/

      • JT
        January 23, 2012 at 21:09

        Well, there isn’t an antecedent position of God in a chronological sense–or perhaps any sense at all. Eventually there is just one logical antecedent to the conditional proposition. So, it seems like there are two possibilities in this case. Either Moses prays and God relents or else Moses prays and God does not relent. If the conditional(s) is true, it’s timelessly true. If it’s false, it’s timelessly false (and, in fact, there are probably possible worlds in which it is timelessly false). Asking what the ‘prior’ condition of God is seems like an illegitimate question unless you think that God doesn’t have perfect knowledge of the future. Since he’s not gaining new knowledge, but holds all counterfactuals from eternity, it doesn’t seem to make any sense to ask what came before his knowledge of any counterfactual or true conditional.

      • Max Andrews
        January 25, 2012 at 11:38

        JT, are you a Thomist in the sense of divine simplicity, at least? If that’s so there’s more fundamental issues to be had than discussing this aspect. Simplicity entails this one logical moment and the eternally present NOW. So, if you are I understand where you’re coming from and we’ll tread backwards later on. Lol

  4. B. P. Burnett
    January 23, 2012 at 16:37

    I do not think one needs to invoke the theory of middle knowledge in order to understand the movements of God’s will. I suggest that it may not even be helpful to speak of God “changing his mind” as such.

    Jacobus Arminius’ explanation of God’s mode of working and moving with free creatures I think is a superior explanation to the middle knowledge explanation you have offered, Max. Arminius recognised a biblical differentiation in God’s will given the free will of conscious creatures, wherein God operates within a conditional paradigm with human beings, and sets particular conditions upon his own behaviour according to how human beings react to his commandments; i.e. God says, “If I say A, then you do B, then I’ll do C” which propositionally expressed is ((α & β) -> γ) which appears twice in Jer. 18:7-10. for example. In both cases, the will of God has two aspects: A and C conditioned on B, or, α and γ conditioned on β. Arminius called this distinction the twofold will of God.

    For a more fuller explanation of this concept, please see my discussion of the twofold will in the context of providence on pp.22-24 of my article here: http://evangelicalarminians.org/files/the-fallenness-of-man-the-will-and-the-workings-of-grace-historical-arminianism-exposition.pdf

    Reply
    • Max Andrews
      January 23, 2012 at 17:25

      How is this different from The subjunctive counterfactuals knowledge of middle knowledge. In your scenario does God know how they could react and not how they would in these conditional situations. Arminians tried to implement MK but didn’t do it as Molina did.

      Reply
      • B. P. Burnett
        January 25, 2012 at 06:21

        Well it doesn’t necessarily contradict a middle knowledge approach, but it adds a stronger biblical element to God’s “changing God’s mind” (which I don’t think it helpful language, like I said, since mind-changing in the minds of some Christian constitutes character-change) in the conditional paradigm of how the Bible describes God’s actual interaction with human beings in tme. Middle Knowledge is a postulated logical inference to something prior to time’s existing; the twofold will of God posited by Arminius has to do with providence in time.

        And as a side note, I am not confident historically that the Arminians implemented MK at all, although Arminius did understand it. See my comment in response to this blog here for a greater explanation on that issue: http://themolinist.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/molinism-and-varieties-of-freedom-v-reformed-perspectives/

  5. apologianick
    January 23, 2012 at 18:17

    I don’t think you need middle knowledge either. God acts in advance knowing what we will pray and had we not prayed, it would not have happened. The idea of God changing His mind seems to make God temporal and subject to change.

    Reply
  6. Roger
    January 23, 2012 at 18:41

    I pretty much agree with JT, I guess. This just seems to be a *denial* of MK; there’s no coherent view of MK in which God literally changes his mind about anything. That’s just the point of MK; the other view–the view you share here–is the point of Open Theism.

    And I don’t understand how, as you say in your response to JT, that what you mean is a change of mind in the sense of *logical* priority, or logical sequencing. Indeed, I don’t see who there *could be* any such thing. At any rate, I don’t see how we’d be able to make coherent sense out of any such thing. Are you saying there is some logically prior ‘moment’ in which God decides to destroy Israel (or whatever), and then some other subsequent logical moment in which God decides to refrain form so destroying? Was there a ‘surprise’ of some kind between the ‘moments’? That account doesn’t make any sense to me.

    Changing of the mind implies some kind of reactive attitude, a reactive attitude that implies an element of surprise. Of course God can have reactive attitudes like ‘when the so-and-so’s do such-and-such, I’ll react by doing thus-and-so’. But that’s the sort of reactive attitude that entails no surprise. But changing one’s mind (in any literal sense that *makes* sense)? I don’t see how changing one’s mind could do otherwise than entail an element of surprise. And, on MK, God isn’t surprised by anything. Indeed, He’s sovereign over (and has planned) all of it.

    Reply
    • Max Andrews
      January 23, 2012 at 18:55

      This is actually quite distinct from the open theism perspective because they place this change logically posterior to the creative decree, in God’s free knowledge. I’m putting it in the folds of MK. So, I don’t see how this destroys MK at all–It’s an explication of it. Molina discusses the things in Foreknowledge, 4.52.1-8, 20-30. I don’t see how reaction requires surprise or an ignorance of the counterfactual of such action. None of this is surprise.

      Reply
      • JT
        January 25, 2012 at 07:28

        I guess my issue is that this whole bit about a change occurring logically prior to the creative decree (which you seem to be saying in contradistinction to Open Theism) is a bit incoherent. So, it’s either the case that God has perfect future knowledge of some event E (either through his natural, free or middle knowledge) or he does not. If he does, there isn’t any meaningful way to express any sort of “changing one’s mind.” The very words “he/I/you changed his/my/your mind” implies that the subject of the sentence didn’t know perfectly before hand -without ever not knowing- that event E would happen. The *only* position currently in existence that can account for God’s literally changing His mind is a position which expresses that God does not have perfect knowledge of future events.

        With respect to the hermeneutical issues: well, that’s precisely the issue that Open Theists are stumbling over. They see it simply arbitrary that we who hold to a more classical view of God’s knowledge of future events take seriously the texts which ascribe to God the glory of perfectly knowing the future–in fact, the truth value of future tensed propositions. I can understand the objection, but it just seems ridiculously obvious that God knows, in specific detail, what free creatures are going to do and various other events. None of which is guaranteed on Open Theism (e.g. Peter’s denying Christ *3* times). Anyway, you’ve heard all the arguments.

        But, here is the main hermeneutical problem as I see it. Open Theists want the Bible to answer abstract questions: “does God know the future?” Well, the Bible isn’t written in such with the purpose of answering that question. It may very well give us an answer, but only a corollary to it’s real purpose–and that purpose is practical living. The Hebraic thought form is not at all concerned with metaphysics, it’s concerned with living life. So, when we come to the biblical text as if it’s going to be a handbook for answering metaphysical questions, we’re looking at the text and attempting to use it in a way in which it was never intended. As I said, it may very well give us clues on the periphery–when we’re glorifying God in practice we are going to say some abstract things (e.g. all things are possible with God!), but approaching the Scripture as if it’s a systematic theology or philosophical theology handbook is to approach it in the wrong manner.

        So, what did Moses mean when he wrote that God changed his mind? He meant that prayer works. That’s it. I can say, with near certainty, that Moses never once thought “I wonder if a perfect God can change His mind” or “I wonder if God knows the future.” Those questions are absent in Hebrew cosmology and metaphysics–of which there is extremely little in his time.

    • Max Andrews
      January 25, 2012 at 11:42

      Do any of my recent comments clarify anything? I don’t think surprise is necessary for this. At one logical moment God is going to destroy Israel. The next moment is, having Abraham respond to this, God changes his course of action because of his intercession. Would you prefer it being a change of action instead of a change of mind? It’s a slightly nuanced difference but not that big of a difference, really. God changing his course of action, from possible to feasible worlds to the actual world is wholly Molinism. I see no conflict between this and Molinism, in fact I find it in Molina like I cited earlier.

      Reply
      • JT
        January 25, 2012 at 14:13

        Right, so the idea of “logical moments” is, in itself, nonsense. Logic transcends ‘moment’. Logic is timeless, no? If God has never not known how a certain thing would happen, the idea of change is left out. If it’s in Molina, then he’s not been careful with his wording. There isn’t any reason to defend him on this point (if you’re reading him correctly); rather, this is something on which we should disagree with him.

        It sounds like what you’re saying is no more than this:

        1. If Moses does not pray, God will destroy Israel.
        2. If Moses does pray, God will not destroy Israel.
        3. Moses prays
        4. God does not destroy Israel (from 2)

        Exactly where is the change? I think it’s just better to acknowledge that God’s perfect knowledge throws out any conception of changing his mind. Otherwise it begins to sound silly.

      • Max Andrews
        January 25, 2012 at 15:17

        Logical moments are timeless, correct. However, it’s not nonsense. There are many things that have logical priority. In order to measure the hypotenuse of a triangle there must be a triangle to measure. So I don’t find it nonsense. Possibility is logically prior to actuality (unless you’re a Thomist and an extreme one-world necessity fatalist 😉 , something I’ve been going back and forth with Dr. Beck on). God’s original course of action was to destroy Israel. So, God’s desire for the destruction of Israel is a necessary condition for Moses’ prayer. If Moses’ prays it’s only because God was going to destroy Israel. Only after apprehending the next counterfactual (2), that Moses prays, God reverts from his first course of action, to destroy, because of Moses’ prayer. So, Moses’ prayer is a sufficient condition for God not to destroy Israel (at least being faithful to the text, there are countless other counterfactuals to consider). God did not destroy because of Moses’ prayer.

      • Max Andrews
        January 26, 2012 at 10:06

        Would you be more comfortable if this was categorized as a value neutral change?

      • JT
        January 25, 2012 at 23:22

        It seems you may have confused what I mean. I’m not suggesting there isn’t a logical sequencing or logical priority. What I’m saying is, in logic, there aren’t moments. There may be moments between how events play out that can be then termed in logical semantics, but it doesn’t follow from that that the logical semantics–in themselves–have a sequence of moments. They have a sequence of premises, propositions or whathaveyou. The only way you can have a change mind is outside of the realm of a logical sequencing. It is either the case that God has always known what Moses was going to do, or He hasn’t always known. If he’s always known, then He hasn’t changed his mind about what He’s known–by definition. You’re simply confusing your terms. If you’re going to insist that there was a moment in which God did not know a particular counterfactual, then you’re going to have to say that God does not have perfect knowledge of the future. At the very least, He didn’t know at time ‘t’ that he was going to know the next counterfactual at time ‘t2’. Middle knowledge is suggesting that God is–all at once–apprehending every possible counterfactual. He’s not having to go through a sequence. He’s not, as it were, gazing at one possible world, then another, and then another…he’s beholding them all at the same instance–or time if you like. If you believe God acquires new knowledge, which it seems you do when you say that God apprehends one counterfactual and then a new one and then a new one (etc), then you deny Middle Knowledge properly so called and actually advocate some form of Open Theism whereby some portions of the future are Open (even if the only moments open to God are the moments through which He’s supposedly doing this bit of sequencing between choice A, B, C, D, etc).

        Again: logic requires no time and can, by God, be apprehended all at once:

        1. If Moses does not pray, God will destroy Israel
        2. If Moses prays, God will not destroy Israel
        3. Moses prayers; therefore, God will not destroy Israel.

        There aren’t any moments included in the reasoning if you’re God. God holds all of that information without a need for sequencing. Humans think things like “I understand 1, now I understand 2, now I understand 1 and 2 word together to bring about 3.” God doesnt. Why would He? If he did, he lacks knowledge about what he’s going to understand at the next moment (e.g. when he understands 1, he doesn’t already know that he understands 2 and so forth). So, you’ve got yourself in a pickle here.

        Either God has perfect knowledge of the future or He doesn’t.

      • Max Andrews
        January 26, 2012 at 10:01

        To confound this we open theism is to not take the models for what they are actually saying. The future is closed in a middle knowledge perspective, as I would advocate. Open theism makes the change in the third moment. So to call these two the same is to not listen to what each position is actually saying. The change is in the third moment for openness, and properly so since that’s where temporality rests in the logical sequence. Additionally, I think there must be a distinction in logical moments. I think it’s just the fundamental disagreement.

  7. Gary Plavidal
    January 23, 2012 at 20:09

    A change of mind needs new information–either from new input or reanalysis of existing data. This is not applicable to God as an omniscient being, but it does apply to us because we need education through revelation, study and practice. Therefore, the anthropomorphism speaks through our perspective. He tells us that if we do such and such then He will respond according to His will.

    So our choices do matter as of course does God’s election. In the interest of minimizing conflict between Arminians and Calvinists I prefer to leave the mystery of election vs freewill unpacked most of the time, though the discussion can be fascinating. I am curious to see how a debate between Arminians and Molinists would go.

    Reply
    • Max Andrews
      January 23, 2012 at 20:37

      I’m not sure I agree that change of mind requires brand new information. It’s a redirection of prehending the information.

      Reply
      • Andrew Ryan
        January 24, 2012 at 05:59

        Hi Gary, hope you’re good. I’d say that changing your mind is not compatible to omniscience. If you know today whether tomorrow you’re going to choose heads or tails, that means you can’t change your mind tomorrow without making today’s ‘prediction’ incorrect.

        Max: “It’s a redirection of prehending the information.”
        Your own choices count as ‘information’. The choices that God makes would count as information, and therefore if he’s omniscient surely God should know in advance even the ‘changes of mind’ he will eventually make?

      • Gary Plavidal
        January 24, 2012 at 17:13

        Max, wouldn’t a change of direction without new information imply arbitrariness (or capriciousness) that is incompatible with God’s immutability attribute? I had defined “new” to include existing data given a fresh look. I agree with Andrew that new information doesn’t come to omniscience. I think you are specifically trying to avoid open theology, but including the word, “literally” in the title makes it hard to escape unless “literally” doesn’t really mean literally. Perhaps you’re speaking more of God’s will according to possible outcomes that we don’t know in advance–but God does know.

        I was merely suggesting that the anthropomorphism is teaching us more about our relationship with God as personal rather than the anthropomorphism trying to paint a picture of God’s essence.

        Hi Andrew, nice bumping into you here. Doing well and hope the same for you.

      • Max Andrews
        January 25, 2012 at 11:35

        I think God does literally change his mind in accordance to a variable, Abraham’s intercession, and he does so according to his will. If he wills a change there’s no conflict with with immutability. There is a problem in changing his will though. He wills the change in this situation, that’s the nuance.

  8. Andrew Ryan
    January 24, 2012 at 06:13

    To me the more likely and simpler explanation for God ‘changing his mind’ is that the bible writers at the time didn’t see God as omniscient. This is similar to Judges 1:19, where we’re told “And the LORD was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.”

    One can come up with some sophisticated reason why the bible tell us that an all-powerful being is stopped by some iron chariots, or how an omniscient being can change his mind. Both remind me of early Superman cartoons where we’re told the Man of Steel’s powers include being able to ‘Leap a tall being in a single bound’. Given that this is a being who can actually FLY, it used to strike me as odd to boast about who high he could jump.

    The problem in all three cases is that we’re while seeing the same character, we’re looking at different stories from different authors told at different times. All the different powers of Superman were developed over time – for the most part his back story was changed so that he got more powerful over time (until eventually the comic writers realised story tension was being compromised when the hero could pretty much do anything).

    Similarly, it seems to me that (at least some) early Old Testament writers did not have the concept of the ‘maximally powerful’ being yet. Their God was more local, and wasn’t even necessarily the only God around.

    Reply
    • Gary Plavidal
      January 24, 2012 at 17:16

      The ’50’s tv series “Adventures of Superman” opened each episode with the “able to leap tall buildings”, yet Superman was able to fly in episode one. The phrase was clearly an understatement, but it was not a contradiction so long as we don’t interpret being able to leap over skyscrapers to mean Superman would necessarily be bound by gravity. With God, even our most informed understanding is going to fall short.

      Reply
      • Andrew Ryan
        January 24, 2012 at 17:44

        “In the early years of his super-heroic career, Superman was not endowed with the power of flight. Although he possessed superhuman speed, he moved from place to place by running or by executing gigantic leaps. Month by month, however, Superman’s running speed increased, along with the length of his leaps and the complexity of the aerial maneuvers he was able to perform once he had left the ground. The transition from leaping to actual flying was extraordinarily gradual and was punctuated with a great deal of inconsistency. Not until May 1943 is Superman explicitly referred to as a “being who can fly like a bird” and not until later that same year can it be said, without qualification, that Superman actually possesses the power of flight.”

      • apologianick
        January 24, 2012 at 19:16

        I agree with Gary and JT. To ask what was antecedent in God is to beg the question that God is temporal and since I deny that, the question makes no sense to me. I also agree that for God to change His mind would require a new way of looking at data which means something was revealed to Him he did not know before. Note though that in Exodus, it’s Moses reminding God of his covenant promise. Are we to say God forgot that? Are we to say God did not know He would not destroy Israel due to the promises he’d made of the Messiah coming through the line of Judah which would have been obliterated?

        Also, only on the internet can a discussion about God’s omniscience turn into if Superman could fly.

        Which we know he didn’t truly unleash that power until he fought against Darkseid at the end of Season 10.

      • Andrew Ryan
        January 25, 2012 at 04:43

        “To ask what was antecedent in God is to beg the question that God is temporal and since I deny that, the question makes no sense to me.”

        I don’t think that’s the point I was making!

        I always the point was that God didn’t change his mind, he just wanted to get Moses to make the argument to him. The object was to make Moses defend Israel.

        That said, this line is pretty hard to explain away: “So the Lord changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people”.

        It clearly said He ‘changed his mind’. Either you take that at face value or you get into the game of explaining away any passage in the bible that bothers you.

      • Max Andrews
        January 25, 2012 at 11:33

        Well, I haven’t given the explanation of divine regret, repentance, or forgetfulness. But soon 🙂

        However, I really don’t see how this implies divine temporarity. I do believe God is temporal as an A theorist, adamantly, but this change occurs atemporally prior to the creative decree. Notice this is something you’ll have to admit unless you’re a hard determinist. There are certain things that God allows in his permissive will that, unless otherwise not an actual state of affairs, God changes or accommodates his will because of that situation. This change is a logical sequention. Just like God cannot change his will temporally, I.e. the moment of creation, but he can will a change.

  9. Archsage
    January 25, 2012 at 17:40

    I have to agree with you completely here. I’ve been internally contemplating this and it was the same exact conclusion that I came to. God must change His mind if his mind was set on doing one thing and, in light of temporal events and external volitional action, sets His mind on doing something entirely different from what He was going to do.

    I don’t believe that this makes God mutable, as in the nature or essence of God changes like Mankind does. All that it means is that God actually interacts with the temporal world in a temporal way, and that our actions and deeds affects God as opposed to God being wholly apart and above Creation (which, I would say, is a slight on deism).

    By the way, I think there is a typo in your fourth sentence. Currently it says, “Well, if you say know let me ask you something.”. But shouldn’t it read “Well, if you say [no] let me ask you something.”? Nonetheless, great post!

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