UGW #16 and 17: Can We Change God's Mind?

Understanding God's Will #16:

#16:  Can we change God’s mind with our prayers? 

            
Yes and No.  

There are Old Testament examples of people who pleaded with God in prayer to not apply a punishment that He said He would do.  And as a consequence of their intercessory prayers, God relents and doesn’t do what He said He’d do.  It seems to me that the times that He has changed His mind in the Bible were almost all because of appeals to His merciful side, to spare the people the terrible consequences of their sins.  

If Calvinism is true that God predestines everything that happens, then He would be lying if He said He was going to punish the people if they didn't repent.  Because He didn't end up punishing them which meant He was never going to punish them to begin with.  It was never part of His "predestined" plan.  Calvinism essentially negates every warning God gives in the Bible that He doesn't end up carrying out.  They turn God into a liar who makes it seem like the people have a choice when they really don't and who makes it seem like their behavior affects the outcome when He already had everything predestined from the beginning.

"Oh," but the Calvinist says, "God predestined that He would change His mind."  

So first Calvi-god makes commands, then he causes people to break his commands, then he warns them that he will punish them for breaking his commands, then he causes them to repent, then he changes his mind about the punishment he said he was going to give?  

Do you hear unreliable and untrustworthy this makes him?  What a joke it makes of him, like an over-grown man-child playing all alone with his toys?  Do you hear what a joke it makes of any effort we put into making a decision, if he controls us anyway?  We are just fooling ourselves, then, if we think that anything we think or do or try to do matters or makes any difference?  Do you hear what a joke - what a lie! - it makes of his commands and warnings?

But if we truly have free-will, the right to make our own decisions between options that are equally available to us, then the fact that God changes His mind based on what we do makes sense.  He is responding to us and our choices.  And had we chosen differently, He would have responded differently.  But no matter what we choose, He already knew what we would do and how He could use it for His plans.  But He truly did leave the choice to obey or disobey up to us, and He would have altered His plans accordingly if we had chosen differently.

Do Calvinists think He is not smart enough to come up with multiple plans, using a huge variety of factors and circumstances that we contribute, to get His plans accomplished?  Or do they think He is so simple-minded that He can only handle what He causes, that if anything happens that He didn't preplan and actively cause then it would stump Him, throw Him off, confuse Him so badly that He couldn't get His plans accomplished, and so therefore He has to control everything that happens because if there's anything He didn't control it would mess Him up?

How very small Calvi-god must be! 



I said that God foreknows what we will choose to do, and so He knows how to work it into His plans.  Yet Calvinists assume that "foreknowing" is the same thing as "preplanning/causing it to happen," and so, according to them, God "foreknowing" something means it's determined/predestined to happen.  It's what He wanted to have happen.  It's "locked in."  It's "His Will."  

But just because God foreknows everything that happens doesn’t mean that He preplanned it to happen, caused it to happen, wanted it to happen, that it was His Will, or that the person couldn't have made any other choice.    

He knows when we will obey and when we will disobey.  And He knows the outcome of each choice we make.  But that doesn’t mean He causes us to do what we do, that we couldn't have chosen otherwise.  It’s just that He knows it all ahead of time, and He knows how to work it into His plans.  But we could have made any choice we wanted.  And if we had made a different choice, He would have known it and would have figured out a way to work it into His plans.

Consider for a moment 1 Samuel 23:12-13.  (Thanks to Ryan Nelson for pointing this out in his post “Predestination in the Bible: A (Possible) Counter Example.”)

In this passage, David asks the Lord if the people of the town, Keilah, will hand him over to Saul, who is pursuing him to kill him.  And God says that they will.  Armed with this foreknowledge of what will happen if he stays in that town, David leaves.  So this thing that God foreknew would happen – that the townspeople would hand David over to Saul – never happened.

But if “foreknowledge” means “predetermined by God to surely happen” then David would have stayed in that town and been handed over to Saul.  David would not have had a choice about leaving the town.  Because, as the Calvinist says, "foreknowledge" means "determined to happen," right?  

But David did have a choice.  He had the choice to heed God’s warning or to ignore it.  God didn’t determine David’s choice.  He presented David with both options, and God knew what the outcome of both choices would be, and David chose.  He knew that if David stayed, he would be handed over to Saul, and He knew that if David left, he wouldn't be.  But God let David choose!  (Reminds me how important it is to “inquire of the Lord” instead of just making decisions in my own wisdom!)

God's foreknowledge clearly does not mean "determined to happen," because in this case God foreknew the results of two opposite choices, but only one of them could, would, happen.

(Calvinism has no way to understand or excuse this example of God foreknowing something that didn't happen, other than some lame excuse like "Well, God can determine to do the opposite of what He determined to do" or "God preplans that He will change His mind."  What a joke they make of God!)

And then there’s 1 Samuel 13:13-14.  In this passage, Saul has disobeyed the Lord’s command by improperly performing a burnt offering.  And Samuel tells him that if he had kept God’s command and done it properly, God would have established Saul’s kingdom over Israel for all time.  But since he disobeyed, God was now taking the kingship from him.

God had a plan, but it hinged on Saul’s obedience.  God was willing to secure Saul’s kingship, but Saul changed the plan when he disobeyed.

But Calvinists say that whatever God foreknows is determined to happen and that everything that happens was predetermined by Him.  

So then which one did God predetermine/foreknow: That Saul's kingdom would have been established or that Saul lost the kingdom?  

God foreknew that Saul's obedience would have secured the kingdom, but Saul disobey and lost the kingdom.  Therefore, it cannot be true that foreknowledge means "predetermined/certain to happen," because God foreknew Saul's obedience would lead to him keeping the kingdom but this didn't happen.  And it cannot be true that whatever happens is because God predetermined it, because God Himself said He had predetermined to secure Saul's kingdom if he obeyed but Saul ended up disobeying and losing the kingdom.  What happened was not what God predetermined and what God predetermined did not happen.

(One more notable verse about this idea:  1 Kings 20:42: "He said to the king, 'This is what the Lord says: 'You have set free a man I had determined should die.''"  So God determined something would happen, but then it didn't happen.  How is this possible if God determines everything that happens and nothing different could have happened?  Calvinists would say, "Well, God sometimes ordains that people disobey what He has ordained."  And I am not kidding about this.  They really do say this nonsensical garbage.  And with a totally straight face.)

If you think that God always does what He has pre-planned, that He does not allow us to make our own choice about obeying or disobeying, and that our choices don’t affect His plans ... then you would have to call Samuel a liar for claiming that God had a different plan in mind that hinged on Saul’s obedience.  There would have been and could have been no different plan in God’s mind if it was His pre-planned Will that Saul disobeyed and lost the kingship.  After all, if God always did what He pre-planned/foreknew, how could He have a plan in mind that He never carried out?

I believe that, to a degree, God sits back and lets life happen.  He lets us decide.  He lets us “inquire of Him” or go off in our own wisdom.  He lets us heed His warnings or ignore Him.  He lets us obey or disobey.  He lets us affect His plans and the path we take in life, for good or bad.  He lets us accept or reject His invitation to salvation and the gifts of faith and grace and forgiveness.  I believe God knows where each of our choices will lead and so He knows how to incorporate them into His plans, but He has not predetermined our choices ahead of time.  He lets us decide.  And so His commands are able to be obeyed, if we choose to obey them.  His warning are able to be heeded, if we choose to heed them.  They are real commands and real warnings, and we decide how to respond to them, and then He responds to us based on what we decided.  And this just makes sense!




Back to "changing His mind":

The thing is, I don’t think this “mind-changing” necessarily applies to whatever we want it to apply to.  I think that we can still appeal to God’s mercy in intercessory prayer, but I don’t think we can just alter God’s best path or plans for us with our prayers, whenever we want.  We can refuse to go His way, but this will take us out of His best Will for our lives.

I think that, many times, God has to train us for the path that He wants us to take (by pruning, convicting sin, purifying motives, etc.).  And this moves us from reluctance to acceptance, from fear to boldness.  But He may not necessarily change the “call” that He gives us or the trial that He’s allowed.  And it would be better if we let Him grow us for these calls and through the trials, instead of fighting Him.

He can’t be talked into anything He isn’t willing to do (and He has His mysterious reasons for not being willing to do it), no matter how much we pray and plead.  An example of this is in 2 Samuel 12.  In this chapter, David learns that the child Bathsheba is carrying will die, as a consequence of his sin of adultery.

Verse 14 shows the reason why God “struck the child.”  “But because by doing this you have made the enemies of the Lord show utter contempt, the son born to you will die.”  The Lord takes the child, not so much to punish David (God had already forgiven him), but because His name and His glory have been run through the mud.  And a public consequence like this shows David, the Israelites, and the enemies of the Lord that God does not tolerate this.  God’s name will be revered and there are consequences for our actions!

In verse 16, though, we see that David pleads with God to spare the life of the baby, even laying on the ground and refusing food for a week.  But David’s prayers, no matter how earnest, could not change what God had decided to do, if God was not willing to change it.

We might desperately wish that God would change something, but we have to rest in the knowledge that if He’s not willing to change it, it’s because He can see how it can be used for greater reasons and purposes than we can know (or because He knows the consequence we caused is necessary for some purpose).  And we may never see the good things that come out of it until eternity.  It doesn’t necessarily mean that He caused it for those purposes (sometimes He does), but that He looked ahead and saw the good that He can do with it.

God doesn’t like to see us in pain.  He doesn’t want to see us sick and dying and heart-broken.  I believe that it pains Him to not grant certain requests because it hurts Him to see us in pain, such as not granting prayers for healing.  (Think of Jesus’ crying when He saw the pain that Mary and Martha were in when Lazarus died.)  But we have to trust that He’ll use it for good, as He promised.  And that may be the only bit of comfort that we have in the pain: knowing that God hurts with us, that good will come out of it someday, that He can make something beautiful out of all our messes and mistakes, and that He will wipe away all tears in heaven where evil will be no more.

But now, on the other side of the coin, if what we request is something that He’s willing to do, He will alter things based on our prayers.  If we pray according to His Will, He hears it and will do it; as seen in numerous examples in the Bible, when God hears a prayer and changes His plans because of it.

One such example is the story of Hezekiah.  In 2 Kings 20, we read how God informed Hezekiah (through the prophet Isaiah) that he was going to die.  In verse 2-3, we read this:  “Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, ‘Remember, O Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.’  And Hezekiah wept bitterly.”

In response to that prayer, the Lord relents.  “I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you ... I will add fifteen years to your life.”  (Verses 5-6).  We have no indication that God would have given more years if Hezekiah had not prayed and pleaded with Him.  But we have every indication that it happened in response to the prayer, that the prayer made the difference.  (However, what happens in the extra years he was granted was not good.  So maybe it would have been wiser to go with God’s first plan.)  

The more I learn, the more I think that prayer makes a difference.  Not always, but definitely if it lines up with what God is willing to do.  If we do not pray for what God is willing to grant, He is not obligated to grant it.  This is a natural consequence of God giving us the right to make our own choices, to include Him or not.



#17: But what about the Bible verse that says that God can’t change His mind?

1 Samuel 15:29 says, “He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind; for he is not a man, that he should change his mind.”  

I grew up believing this as a simple fact about the nature of God: He is incapable of changing His mind.  It made sense.  I mean, if He knows all things and knows what’s best for all things and always does what’s best in all things, then, of course, we can’t change His mind.  How could we talk Him into something other than what He’s going to do?  

(Note: I was falling into a typical Calvinist trap, thinking that just because God is all-powerful and knows what's best and wants what's best, then it must mean that He always uses His power all the time, controlling all things to always work out what He wants to have happen.  But this is not supported in the Bible.  It is an assumption, and then we err greatly in basing the Bible and defining God's character according to our assumptions, even though it flies in the face of so many biblical examples.)

But then I didn’t know how to think of all the Bible passages that talk about how God changed His mind when dealing with the Israelites.  He said that He’d bring them to the Promised Land, and then He had them die in the desert.  He said that He’d destroy them in His righteous anger, and then someone prayed and so He didn’t.  It sure looked like He changed His mind to me.  So how could I understand that verse?  And what is God’s real nature, then?

This is where an older version of the Bible comes in handy.  Older versions do not say that God does not change His mind; they say that He will not “relent.”  It’s not that He “does not change His mind ever,” as though He is incapable of doing it.  It’s that, in this passage, He had determined a punishment for the continued disobedience of the Israelites and He would not relent (go back on the punishment) this time.  And given their hard hearts and continued false repentance, He shouldn’t have to.  This, for me, totally changes the meaning of the verse and my understanding of God.

And then there’s Numbers 23:19 that says, “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind.”  In this example, it's important to look at the context.  In this chapter, Balaam’s second oracle, Balaam was asked by Balak to curse the people of Israel.  But God commanded Balaam to pronounce a blessing on them instead.

If you look at Numbers 23:19-20, it says this:  “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind.  Does he speak and then not act?  Does he promise and not fulfill?  I have received a command to bless; he has blessed, and I cannot change it.”

Again, I do not think this is saying that He is incapable of changing His mind.  I think that, in this context and instance, it means that He will not fail to do what He said He would do.  Even though Balak had summoned Balaam to curse the Israelites, God had pronounced blessings and would not change His mind.  And He can be trusted to follow through with His promises.

[It’s a neat fact to me that God can be talked into changing His mind when someone prays for His mercy, but that He doesn’t really change His mind when He’s decided to bless.  (As long as we do our parts!  Our disobedience can delay or alter the fulfillment of promises, such as the Israelites’ trip to Canaan.)  He’s so much more willing to be generous and merciful than punishing and hard-nosed.

This is so different from humans.  We are usually so quick to make offers or promises that sound good (with good intentions, of course), but then we change our minds and don’t follow through.  And we are so good at holding grudges against people for the things they’ve done to us, refusing to extend the kind of abundant mercy that God shows us.  Just goes to show what a merciful, loving God we have.]

So, yes, I believe God can and does change His mind when He wants to, based on our choices and prayers.  And this is what the Bible clearly shows in many examples.  He has not predestined what we choose, what we do.  He leaves our choices up to us, and then He takes whatever we do and works it into His plans.




For the posts in this series, see the "Understanding God's Will" label in the sidebar (or find the original series, without the Calvinism info, by clicking here).