Does God make mistakes?

Great Debates
1

As argued on this webpage :

Third, God is powerful but not perfect. God makes mistakes and admits it, as after the flood of Noah (Gen. 8:21-2). God can be seduced by Satan, as in the prologue of Job. God is unnecessarily short-tempered with the Jewish people, [5] and God repents. [6] Some argue that all such incidents are just a testing of humankind, but that does not seem to be the simpler meaning of the texts. Zoharic and Lurianic mysticism, too, left room for God’s imperfection. xx

It certainly seems from this that the Bible does show him in error at times. But how does this tie in with an all-powerful, all-knowing deity? And do modern Christians believe that he is perfect?

2

Inability to err contradicts omnipotence. Or something.

3

Genesis 8:21-22
"21 The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though [a] every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.”

Nowhere does God say he made a mistake here.

How exactly was God “seduced” by Satan? He let satan test Job. The result was to glorify God and to set an example for all of mankind.

He may seem to have a short temper. But is that imperfect?

These verses are from the link you provided regarding God repenting.
Genesis 6:6
“6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.”

No repenting there.

Exodus 32:14
14 Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.
This happens after Abraham convinces God not to destroy His children. Even though God knew the future, that he would change his mind, Abraham still had to go through the process of changing His mind. This is a valuable lesson for all of us. We can change God’s mind, if we do so out of love and if it will glorify Him. Why? Because it reinforces our faith and trust and obediance to God. It shows us that GOD is in charge. To change God’s mind, we must FIRST accept that he is in charge and it’s HIS will that should be done.

1 Sam. 15:11
11 “I am grieved that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions.” Samuel was troubled, and he cried out to the LORD all that night.

1 Sam. 15:35
35 Until the day Samuel died, he did not go to see Saul again, though Samuel mourned for him. And the LORD was grieved that he had made Saul king over Israel.

Just because God was sad that something occurred didn’t mean he was willing to prevent it. Saul had free will.

2 Sam. 24:16
16 When the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the LORD was grieved because of the calamity and said to the angel who was afflicting the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand.” The angel of the LORD was then at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.

What does a parent say when he spanks his children? “This will hurt me more than you.”
I don’t know what the original texts say. Mine says grieved, but I know some choose the word repent. I would like to know what the TRUE words are. Can someone provide this with a more insightful translation?

4

Well, having a short temper kinda implies acting irrationally on the spur of the moment, which means making mistakes.

5

Using human standards it can be said that God makes mistakes. The bible was written by men using human standards. God is not to be judged by humans. It is the other way around. :wink:

6

How can God “grieve” his own actions if he’s omniscient? How can he have his mind changed? Those thinks make no sense.

7

In the Bible there are two Gods, the Hebrew God of the Old Testament, and the God that Jesus spoke of. That’s why Jesus was executed for Blasphemy by the priests of Jehovah, because he spoke of a God other than Jehovah.

Once we realize that the Churches that serve the Hebrew God are merely corporate structures that became the largest corporations in the world due to killing or torturing unto death everyone that did not believe them, and collecting their tithes or estates after killing the witches, Jews, heretics, pagans, etc. and then note that Jesus was talking about someone else, we then can make sense of “God” making mistakes.

Jesus called the God of Abraham, (the Hebrew God Jehovah) a liar and a murderer, (John 8:44) and then was killed for blasphemy by the priests of Jehovah.

The Church has covered up many truths.

8

Cite? I’ll even accept a Biblical cite.

John 8:44 reads

Nothing about the Hebrew god in there.

Oh, and no serious observer believes that the name was ever Jehovah.

9

Yep. Shouldn’t he grieve even AS he’s making Saul king?

The problem is, I don’t think there is much evidence that when the Scriptures were written, anyone had developed these very Platonic ideas of absolute perfection in God’s character. When the Jews say that God “knows all” they don’t mean it as litterally as a later philosopher would. When they say that their God is powerful, they aren’t thinking of philsophically limitless power. Their God may or may not even know the future in exact perfect detail. Their god was a lot more humanlike.

10

God does not make mistakes. People make mistakes; even people inspired by God. The Bible was written by flawed humans. There is no question that the Bible is a human interpretation of God. Humans are prone to misunderstandings.

The biggest mistake made is not recognizing that simple fact.

Peace through Liberty

r~

11

No, His mistake, which He realized before the flood, was making man to begin with:

(Bolding mine)

12

And it seems pretty clear also that it wasn’t just human standards, but human standards of the time. For example, suppose a modern writer wants to write a scenario where all of humanity has become wicked except for one man and his family, and God wants to “wipe the slate clean” except for those lucky folks.

A writer coming up with the Ark scenario would have it thrown back in his face. “Why would an omnipotent God bother with making Noah do something so ridiculous as collecting all the animals on Earth?” his editor would tell him. "All the secondary miracles involved to make that work (Noah traveling to Australia to get Koala Bears, having a magical Tardis-like ark to hold all those animals, having the animals somehow still be a viable breeding stock when there’s only 2 or 7 of each, etc) clearly indicates you, the writer, didn’t think this through. An all-knowing God would think of a better way.

“Why wouldn’t He just have them survive miraculously on floating trees stuff like that? Or better still, why wouldn’t God skip the flood and make a virus that kills everybody but Noah and his family? And why even use a virus for that matter, he can just have everybody fall down dead for no other reason except He willed it!”

The Noah story seems very obviously written by men, and men who’s imagination was limited by the ideas and knowledge of their time. Or, limited by them trying to explain an actual natural flood event as something it was not.

13

Avacadoes. The pits are too big. :slight_smile:

Zev Steinhardt