Sunday, August 31, 2008

A Changing Omniscient God? Balderdash!!

I’ve heard several people say that if God changes His mind then He isn’t God as we normally understand a God to be. That is, He can’t be omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent etc. They especially focus in on omniscient. A more correct statement would be, If God changes His mind then He isn’t God as THEY understand a God to be.
But there certainly isn’t anything in the Bible, which is God’s revelation to us about Him, that precludes God changing His mind or being influenced by our requests.

God communicates with us intimately and frequently, certainly as often as we communicate with any other person sitting in the room with us who we are interested in. Because God is our Creator, Saviour, Lord, King and the Being who cares about us the most, and because God has a plan for our lives and our development as we live out that life, we communicate with God within the context of God’s plan or purposes for our lives. Because of that intimate exchange of ideas God is willing to change what He was going to do, or to not do what He had previously planned to do or not do, as long as it still leads to the goal of conforming us and transforming us into the character of Jesus.

Now, if this is part of God’s plan of interacting with us, and as long as His willingness to consider our requests is an arrangement that He himself has chosen, then it is certainly nothing against the character of God to do such a thing. In fact, the reality that God is willing to change His mind about the details of our lives shows more clearly that He is indeed a personal, loving God. After all, it is much, much better to be flexible while still bringing about the goals that One has set in advance.

No comments: