Try to Surprise God

[Tom Wetmore]

Is God every pleasantly surprised with the results of his creative efforts?

Is it possible for us to surprise God?

Homework assignment if you are unfamiliar with the ideas of openness theology that attempts to reconcile God's foreknowledge and man's free will - Does God Know Your Next Move?

[Bravus]

Have to admit I didn't do the homework - it's grant application season. But from my perspective, no, we can never surprise God because he knows all of time. I don't believe that foreknowledge means predestination and takes away free choice - it is possible to know something without acting on it, on God's part. We get confused because we're timebound.

[Liz]

I do think God knows our next move, however, I think He likes to see how we reason out what our next move is. So I don't think that we surprise God, but I do think that we fascinate Him with our reasoning powers.

[Nan]

I think many times God must be greatly saddened by our reasoning...He has given us so much

evidence of His care for us, and we still worry and fret and fight.

(this is note to self)

[Lineman]

I'm beginning to think that the only humor God finds when looking at our reasoning is a disappointed humor. "Funny" in that we have all this reasoning ability, yet we can be so dense and not see what He is trying to tell us. Our reasoning powers are really poor, don't you think? Even the best "thinker" today does not come close to King Solomon's ability. How much less was Solomon's thinking ability than Him that gave it?

Really though, how would it be possible to surprise God when He knows everything? I don't think anyone is trying to say that God really does NOT know what you and I are going to do the next minute.

[Neil D]

Hmmmmmmm..........so from what I see here, God MUST be able to look into the future and is NOT surprised by any human action....

Doesn't that make God a slave to the future? Always evaluating it, always changing things to the best outcome? Or at least, the outcome that He desires?

You mean that He is NOT able to NOT see into the future and NOT be surprised when the future becomes present?

[Bravus]

As I said, I think we're stuck within our own limited imaginations in relation to time. We see God as like us, moving along in time at the same rate, but being able to 'peek' into the future in a (possibly virtual) crystal ball and see what is going to happen.

Instead, I see God as knowing all of time throughout all of time. He is 'outside' time and looking in, and doesn't even have to skip forward to the end of the book to know how it comes out, because he's the Author and knows absolutely everything that has happened, is happening and will ever happen.

In that case, no, he's not fiddling and tweaking to improve things for the future, since the work is in a sense already done. But part of what He knows about the world is his own interventions - they're part of the history he already knows before it happens.

[Tom Wetmore]

The video gamer in me says it is like an uber-game that he has designed that plays out as he has designed it to an ultimate conclusion as he planned. Into that game environment (the universe) he has placed billions of players on one sub-map (earth) as one would find in a live multi-player on-line scenario. (Those who have gone from a programmed video game to its on-line multi-player version will know what a huge leap of a difference live thinking players make...) The designer can watch from outside see all angles and perspectives, and knows from close observation how each player reacts, responds and handles every variable and interaction with the environment and other players.

As the scenario unfolds with the independent free will of each player interacting with infinite possibilities, the Designer knows the limits and possibilities and probabilities extremely well as only a supreme intelligence/designer could.

To be so smart to be able to predict with a perfect level of certainty given the truly infinite number of variables that 6 billion free wills would bring to the scenario - WOW! That impresses me more than simply having keen time vision that can see passively over the time horizon into the future.

Now combine that with a God/designer with unlimited power to step in and manipulate/reprogram the whole environment and and each and every one of the players. Believing that God doesn't tinker around like that makes me realize that His most awesome power is his own power of self-restraint.

Think of Back To The Future meets Bruce Almighty.

[Bravus]

As a fellow gamer, I like it a lot! I still reckon he knows the future in more than just a probabilistic, range of possibilities (stochastic, heh, and we've come full circle!) way.

[Lineman]

Sorry guys, seems to me that God does tweek and change things a bit to allow things to happen for the good of all His creatures. (But maybe I misunderstood what was being said here. If so, sorry.)

Is't that what God did at Calvary? Didn't He change things for the good of His creation? Hasn't He done things all through history that change things a little, like letting Paul out of the prison and placing Joseph in charge of so much? And didn't He make it possible for the Jews to leave Egypt? Maybe you are saying that He planned to change these things all along. I would have to agree with that.

I also agree that God's greatest power is His self-restraint, but I do not think He will not allow Himself to every change things. Whatever happens He has directed it for the good of the Universe. He has not just left us to self-destruct. He does have a plan and He is making sure we stay with-in that plan.

[Tom Wetmore]

No, I do agree with you. I didn't mean to leave an impression of an uninvolved God. (That would put me sort of in the camp of agnostics that believe in a distant detached God) Indeed I do believe that those "miracles" do happen. Those are God's tweaking of the natural rules he put in place.

[Tom Wetmore]

A bit of a shift in focus is to ask if God ever changes His mind. If so, why would an all-knowing God need to change His mind?

[Neil D]

The only time I am aware of God changing His mind was when someone identified with His goals....

Moses, if you recalled, stood between God and the hebrews, who were quite stupid in thier desires, and he asked for a second chance for them....Moses reasoning was that God would look bad if, after He had miraculously removed all these tens of thousands of people out of the land of egypt and then slaughtered them, He would look like a God that desires human sacrifice.A conversation ensued to the point that Moses went so far as to offer himself to save them....

At that point, God changes His mind....

While I would love to get onto God's side, there are times, when pondering our church's stance on various issues, I wonder where His side is at?

[rab]

It's very similar to what God was saying to Abraham concerning the distruction of the people living in Sodom. The conversation style of those people in those times was to creep up on an issue one step at a time, thus giving time for the other person to develope his point of view, instead of dumping your whole argument all at once, complete with every argument and reason on his head, and so alienating him that you will never hope to get him on your side.

[Tom Wetmore]

The KJV uses the word repented to describe God's change of heart at Moses' pleading for the people. We normally thing of repenting as changing our sinning ways. The Hebrew expression, as I understand it means a change of direction, or simply to turn around or face or go a new direction.

Another way of perhaps expressing that God changes his mind with changing circumstances would be for Him to express regret over something that happened or that He did, as in Genesis 6:6 where it says that He was sorry that he created man because of the evil that resulted. This would seem to suggest that things didn't turn out quite as expected. If God perfectly foresaw the outcome of man being created and rebelling against Him, why would he regret the result of His creation of man just as He anticipated it would happen, exactly as it turned out?

The same reaction by God is expressed in 1 Samuel 15:35 that God regretted that He had made Saul king over Israel; in 2 Samuel 24:15,16 over having killed 70,000 Israelites; in Amos 7 about what evil to send against Israel; and in Jonah 3:10 over what he planned to do to Nineveh. It would seem that God was pleasantly surprised by their repentance and changed his plan and had mercy on them.

[Beryl]

It seems to me that God's need to have people to love (and for them to love in return) is the answer to the whole question.

Reading the first chapter of "Patriarchs and Prophets" was the answer to my own questioning. Here I found a picture of absolute, unthinkable love. This is just my snapshot of the picture -- and anything past this point is open to discussion. I reserve the right to be wrong!

Way back in the "beginning of eternity" I see the Godhead -- three persons, each with his own personality, but absolutely united in thought and love for each other. They needed to have others to share that love, and so angels were created, millions, trillions of them -- all kinds, all different, but all with the same desire for love and capacity to share love.

Then God began to populate the planets, with people whom He could love, and be loved in return. The angels rejoiced as each of these planets produced a wider range of persons with whom to share love.

Then the chief angel, Lucifer, realised that the Godhead was discussing another creation, and the thought went through his mind that he would love to be involved in that planning -- and, well, you know the rest of that part of the story.

God had not PLANNED that the inhabitants of earth would disobey Him. Even when Satan had tempted Eve and she had taken the fruit, I believe that it was not too late to save this earth. According to Romans 5:12 and 1 Cor.15:22 it was when Adam willingly handed his kingship over to Satan that the great "Rescue Plan" swung into action.

Jesus won the battle, which means the He is now the uncrowned King of this world, waiting for that great day when He will be crowned King at the end of the millenium, and sin will be forever destroyed, because of the unthinkable love that the Godhead has shown to the repentant sinners of this world.

Just my thoughts,

Beryl

[Lineman]

Beryl, I like your thoughts here about "absolute, unthinkable love" but for me at least they do not explain Tom's question (and many others question I'm sure) about why God would change His mind. Can you explain a little more just what you are saying, at least for me? I have always agreed with what CoAspen wrote on this point, but I have kept the subject open in the back of my head because I guess I have not taken the time to really think it through to my own satisfaction.

I see these "changes" as being God's regret that He had to do what He did because of the circumstances which we humans got ourselves into. Circumstances like what was going on prior to the flood were there was evil continuously in most every persons mind. Everyone was for SELF and there evidently was NO real concern for anyone else, just lust. God was sorry that He had to destroy human life and wished that sin had not happened (and that He had not created humans) because it was going to cause the death of His only Son. God does NOT like to hurt or destroy any of His creatures and it would have been better if they had never been created rather than Him having to destroy them.

Sodom NEEDED to be destroyed because what was happening there would have destroyed the entire earth before sin could even shows its true colors, its true ugliness, but it was not His desire to destroy them. He was just "forced" to do what He regretably had to do. God must not allow sin to spread to fast or all this pain and death will need to happen again at another time because someone would say that sin never really had a chance to prove itself.

[phkrause]

I agree with your post CoAspen. Couldn't have said it better!!

pk

[Beryl]

OK! Have you ever played Draughts -- or any other board game where you are playing with another person, trying to get your "men" from one side of the board to the opposite side, with the "opposition" making moves with their "men" to block your progress while also trying to get their "men" to take over your side?

I believe that the only way to account for God "changing His mind" is to look at it from the viewpoint of the battle between Christ and Satan -- with we humans and this earth as the "prize".

God wanted this earth to be perfect, and Adam to be the ruler of this planet. God and the angels had done all that they could in preparing Adam and Eve for the temptation from Satan. They were told to remain together. Eve wandered -- and Adam did not go looking for her! Eve was subject to the biggest temptation that the devil could devise -- and made the wrong choice.

Adam did not wait to see what God would do about the situation (he knew that God would come to the Garden that evening -- he could have waited), but he made the deliberate choice of eating the fruit -- most probably at Satan's prompting.

So, God's plan for a perfect earth had been spoiled, and so God had to "change His mind" regarding the home for Adam and Eve.

Adam and Eve had two sons -- one obeyed God, and the other one didn't. So God had to "change His mind" about Cain. As the firstborn, it would have been through his line that the Saviour would have been born, but now that privilege passed on to the line of Seth.

Coming down to our present age, we read in the Spirit of Prophecy that Jesus would have come "long before this" but as a church we were not reaching out to the world with the message of the soon-coming Saviour, and so His coming is delayed. Have we improved? Yes! But we are also told that before the end the angels will be involved. In other words, God is not going to wait forever for us to complete the work.

God has a perfect plan -- and "the adversary" also has plans to block those plans -- but God is flexible. He, in turn, will "change His mind" so that the work of salvation goes forward, despite all the set-backs that the old devil can throw our way.

Thankfully, the time is getting closer when Jesus will come. The troubles of this world will be allowed to reach their fulness, and people will be forced into situations where they will have to decide on which side they want to be -- no more "sitting on the fence"! And no longer will God be in the position that He will have to "change His mind" because of moves by the devil.

I don't know whether this answers your questions. If not, I will try again!

God bless,

Beryl

[Tom Wetmore]

The traditional explanation for these efforts to describe God and his actions is that it is anthropomorphism. Indeed God is not human, beyond our finite comprehension and not restricted to any human box we may try to put him in. But to explain himself and show himself to us most clearly he became human. As a human he showed a quite similar range of emotional responses as anthropomorphically ascribed to God in the OT. And the Jesus of the NT is not an anthropomorphic facsimile of a man, a mere divine illusion of a man. He was a real man feeling real human emotions and real human pain and real human joy. If Jesus, the God-man of the NT had those attributes, is it possible that the descriptions of the same God of the OT was not merely an anthropomorphic illusion, but just as real as the manner He decided to reveal Himself in the NT?

I wonder if perhaps there is a risk in relying too much on the traditional understanding that these OT stories were merely anthropomorphic efforts of ancient men to explain the profound mystery of God... What I mean is that if we assume these expressions of human-like regret, or changing ones mind as not really quite as described, should we also question the reality of the descriptions of God's love or caring attributes. Perhaps if God really doesn't feel regret as we might feel it or understand it, maybe the attribute of love is not so real either or not what we humanly perceive it to be. In short, it tends to depersonalize God, IMHO.

I really am not troubled by understanding God to really change his mind, express real genuine regret, to become angry anymore than I should be troubled to think He loves me passionately and cares deeply for me and that He would weep real tears to lose one person to the forces of evil.

[Tom Wetmore]

And now for a twist in a new direction using another big dollar word... :smilewink: ... Theomorphism

This is foundational to the creation story - that we were created or formed in the image or likeness of God. Of course, there has been much speculation and many theories on what this really means, but usually they are fairly minimalistic or confined to some singular attribute or similarity. If we are created in the image of God one should expect significant and not merely superficial similarities. But the traditional theory tends toward the conclusions that Biblical descriptions of God's attributes are in the seemingly opposite philosophical direction, namely anthropomorphic. Said differently, rather than embracing as evidence of this theomorphism those human qualities and characteristics that are used in Scripture to describe God, we shy away from the idea and try to deny that God has similarities to us.

I have often said that it seems that God loves a paradox. And this presents an interesting paradox. God recreates himself in the image of man to save lost man created in the image of God.

[Cosmin M.]

God knows all. But one thing, I saw this quote that said something like God can do anything and the only thing he could not do is undo the past. Is that true?

[Tom Wetmore]

Interesting thought! To see where it could take our thinking go over to the Time and God topic where I have continued this time related idea of God not being able to change the past.

As for God knowing everything, that really is the question at hand. Although time related in a sense, is God's knowing the future a matter of seeing the real future or being able to completely and perfectly analyze the results of present actions and events over time into the future?

What would be necessary in order for a God with such complete and perfect foreknowledge to be surprised, or even experience, regret or to change his mind?

Think about free will.

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

I think God *waits* to see what, when, if, how we will do something. I think there's a myriad of ways He gives us to do something, and it's up to us to choose the way we want to go. In that respect, I think we can say God could be surprised....not at the outcome, but at *how* we chose to do something. (Does that make sense??)

[Tom Wetmore]

Yes, the sense of it goes to the choice idea. If we truly have choices (free will), I think that God may occasionally be pleasantly surprised when we beat the overwhelming odds working against us by our circumstances, heredity, habits, etc. That would seem to be the inverse of being disappointed that the chosen ones went against their privileged opportunities and turned their backs toward the light and headed into darkness.