Does God Change His Mind?
Immutability
God is impassible. This means, not that God is impassive and unfeeling (a frequent misunderstanding), but that no created beings can inflict pain, suffering and distress on him at their own will. In so far as God enters into suffering and grief (which Scripture’s many anthropopathisms, plus the fact of the cross, show that he does), it is by his own deliberate decision; he is never his creatures’ hapless victim. The Christian mainstream has construed impassibility as meaning not that God is a stranger to joy and delight, but rather that his joy is permanent, clouded by no involuntary pain.
Questions concerning God’s Immutability. Tensions are apparent to people when they read passages asserting God’s unchangeability alongside passages stating that God repents (Gen. 6:6; Ex. 32:12; 1 Sam. 15:11, 35; Jer. 18:10; Amos 7:3, 6; Jonah 3:9–10; 4:2), changes his purpose (Gen. 18:23–32; Ex. 32:10–14; Jonah 3:10), gets angry (Ex. 4:14; Num. 11:1, 10; Ps. 106:40; Zech. 10:3), turns from his anger (Ex. 32:14; Deut. 13:17; 2 Chron. 12:12; 30:8; Jer. 18:8, 10; 26:3), relates differently to the unbeliever than to the believer (Prov. 11:20; 12:22), is pure to the pure but opposes the wicked (Ps. 18:25–26), is incarnated in time (Gal. 4:4), indwells the church (1 Cor. 3:16–17; Eph. 2:19–22; Col. 1:27), rejects Israel (Rom. 11:15), receives the Gentiles after having rejected them for years (Acts 11:18; Rom. 11:11–15), is wrathful at one time and forgiving at another (Ex. 34:7; Num. 14:18; Psalm 78), and is close at one time and far off at another (Jer. 23:23).
To resolve this tension, many, such as open theists, have said that God really does change his mind, purposes, and promises in response to what humans do. They contend that one cannot justly harmonize God’s “changes” in Scripture with the traditional doctrine that God is unchangeable. They claim that if sinners turn from sin and respond in faith and love toward God, he will turn from (repent of, change his mind about) the judgment he intended and give them blessing instead. Correspondingly, if they turn from trusting in him, he will revoke any promises of blessing. According to open theists, God does not know how people will respond to him, and he waits to see what they will do in each moment before he chooses his response to them.
There are many errors in open theism and other such false teachings that deny God’s immutability, each of which is refuted by viewing God’s immutability in proper biblical perspective. Immutability does not mean that God is static or inert, nor does it mean that he does not act distinctly in time or possess true affections. God is impassible—not in the sense that he is devoid of true feeling or has no affections but in the sense that his emotions are active and deliberate expressions of his holy dispositions, not (as is often the case with human emotions) involuntary passions by which he is driven.
A good way to understand God’s apparent changes in Scripture is to consider that God reveals himself in his relations to people. They perceive only one aspect of God at a time. God never changes, but creatures do change, and they perceive God’s perfections and actions according to their current state. Thus, God’s actions do not imply a change of essence or purpose.
For example, the language of God “repenting” or “changing” in any way is anthropopathic language—figurative expressions that communicate to man on his level of understanding about changes of dispositions or actions. Thus, God’s perceived “changes” are always in the context of his eternal omniscience and will, so they are never because God is surprised and has to adjust. They are done in harmony with his truth and faithfulness (see 1 Sam. 15:29). All his acts that might be perceived as changes are eternally foreknown and predetermined.
“Grieve” (yinnāḥem), translated “repent” in the AV, has troubled many expositors since elsewhere Scripture says God does not “repent” (Num 23:19; 1 Sam 15:29; Ps 110:4). We find the same expression (yinnāḥem YHWH) only twice more in the Pentateuch (Exod 32:12, 14).146 In the wilderness God changes his harmful intentions against idolatrous Israel because of the intercessory prayers of Moses: “Then the LORD relented [yinnāḥem] and did not bring on his people the disaster [rāʿâ] he had threatened” (Exod 32:14; cf. Ps 78:40–41).
The tension between these characterizations of God partly lies in the diverse contexts in which “grieve/relent” occurs in the Bible.147 Genesis 6:6–7 is describing the emotional anguish of God; our verse does not present an abstract statement about God’s decision making. This would be altogether out of place for the intention of the passage, which depicts God as wronged by the presumptuous sin of humanity. Moreover, the parameters of this verse have been dictated by the author’s intention to imitate 5:29 with its distinctive vocabulary and mood. This is shown especially by the subsequent clause, where it describes God’s heart as “filled with pain” (yitʿaṣṣēb).148 This further echoes the painful consequences of human sin in the garden, where the cognate nouns narrate the “painful toil” the man and woman will endure (3:16–17; 5:29).
The NIV rightly reflects contextual differences by translating “grieved” (“was sorry,” NRSV, NASB) in 6:6–7 but “change his mind” in 1 Sam 15:29 as well as “relent” in Exod 32:12, 14 (also Amos 7:3, 6). In Samuel’s chastening of Saul the concern is the character of God’s word, as indicated by the parallel “does not lie” (šāqar; 1 Sam 15:29). Close to the sense of 6:6 is God’s sorrowful concern over Saul’s moral failures, which precipitate rejection of his kingship: “I am grieved that I have made Saul king” (1 Sam 15:11; also v. 35). Similarly, Exodus 32 is speaking of a new course in God’s dealing with his people. This too is not a comment on the nature of God’s sovereignty or promises. It is told so as to highlight the intercessory position of Moses with God, a reassuring thought for Israel. We have mentioned earlier the common language of our passage and Exodus 32. Now to this we can add “wipe” (māḥâ) from Gen 6:7, which is rendered “blot out” in Exod 32:32–33. If the Exodus passage is a veiled remembrance of God’s “pain” at antediluvian humanity, Moses is expressing the same remorse over the sins of Israel. In the case of Israel, Moses’ mediation delivers his people, but antediluvian man has no intercessor, and the whole world suffers as a result. It is solely by the grace of God that the human family has any chance at all.
God’s response of grief over the making of humanity, however, is not remorse in the sense of sorrow over a mistaken creation; our verse shows that God’s pain has its source in the perversion of human sin. The making of “man” is no error; it is what “man” has made of himself. By recurring reference to mankind (ʾādām) in 6:5–7, the passage focuses on the source of his grief. God is grieving because this sinful “man” is not the pristine mankind whom he has made to bear his image. The intensity of the pain is demonstrated by the use of nāḥam elsewhere in Genesis, where it describes mourning over the loss of a family member due to death.149 But his is not regret over destroying humanity; paradoxically, so foul has become mankind that it is the necessary step to salvage him.
This “grief” is explicated by the parallel clause of the sentence, “and his [God’s] heart was filled with pain” (v. 6b).150 By allusion to the “pain” and “painful toil” in God’s pronouncement of punishment for the crimes of our first parents (3:16–17; cf. 5:29), God indicates that unbridled human sin has become his source of anguish. Yet this anguish does not reflect impotent remorse; it entails also God’s angry response at the injury inflicted by human rebellion. Our earlier verb nāḥam may also indicate the execution of God’s wrath to relieve his emotional pain.151 “Lament is always an integral part of the wrath of God.”152 In the only two other passages where the same verb, “pained” (ʿāṣab), is used of God’s feelings (Ps 78:40–41; Isa 63:10), both motifs of divine grief and anger represent his opposition against rebellious Israel in the desert when they “grieved his Holy Spirit” (Isa 63:10; cf. Eph 4:30). But we hear a mitigated mood in Hos 11:8–11; there the Lord refuses to execute his full wrath against his wayward son, Israel (cf. Deut 21:18–21). The reason is not human repentance; on the contrary, God’s repentance is because he is “not man” (Hos 11:9). The motivation for reversal is God’s constancy of promise and purpose, unlike capricious mankind (cf. Mal 3:6). Similarly, God’s anger is tempered by his favor toward Noah, the ark builder (Heb 11:7), who is the beneficent recipient of God’s promise to humanity.
God is no robot. We know him as a personal, living God, not a static principle, who while having transcendent purposes to be sure also engages intimately with his creation. Our God is incomparably affected by, even pained by, the sinner’s rebellion. Acknowledging the passibility (emotions) of God does not diminish the immutability of his promissory purposes.153 Rather, his feelings and actions toward men, such as judgment or forgiveness, are always inherently consistent with his essential person and just and gracious resolve (Jas 1:17). When we consider the metaphor of God as a feeling person who loves, is angry, and grieves, the aim of the figure is to point to a mitigated correspondence between human experience and God. This does not say that the emotions of humans and God are equivalent in their entirety either in intensity or in quality, for God does not grieve in the same way as men and women. Nor is he angry in the same fashion as sinful mortals, but to conclude that such language reveals nothing of God’s essential personhood makes all such language pointless.154 For what purpose is there in describing God in any terms understandable to us other than to reveal something of God’s mysterious nature? In Christ we see God so moved by grief and love that he chooses to take upon himself the very suffering of our sins.155 Do we not appeal to the incarnational role of Christ as our vision of the nature of his Father (cf. Matt 23:37 par.)? God is not a dispassionate accountant overseeing the books of human endeavor; rather he makes a personal decision out of sorrowful loss to judge Noah’s wicked generation.
Does God Change His Mind?
God’s response to humanity’s corruption in Gen 6:6 is the Hebrew verb nacham, often translated “regretted” (LEB, NIV). Other translations render nacham as “repent” (JPS, AV), while still others translate it as “was sorry” (NASB, NRSV, ESV). The verb nacham occurs more than 100 times in the OT, and it has a range of meaning that includes “to comfort,” “to be sorry,” and “to repent.” Context is the primary determiner for the translator. Deciding which meaning best fits the context of Gen 6:6 is complicated by theological concerns about the nature of God.
The idea that God changes His mind raises questions about His sovereignty and the role of human responsibility. Calvin and Ware represent the view of classical theism that God is unchanging (immutable) and all-knowing (omniscient), and thus He cannot change His mind because something happened that He was not expecting. This view finds support in verses such as Num 23:19 (“God is not a man … that he should change his mind”) and 1 Sam 15:29 (“for he is not a human that he should regret”). Thus, God’s action in Gen 6:6 is an anthropopathism, a literary device that ascribes human (anthropos) emotions (pathos) to God. A similar device is anthropomorphism, in which writers ascribe human form or activity to God (for example, God has a right hand, and He walked in the garden of Eden).
Other scholars, including Boyd, argue that the traditional view is inconsistent with the biblical portrayal of God, who appears to change His mind in response to human activity. This view is known as open theism. Its advocates contend that God is unchangeable in His essential characteristics, but since He endowed humans with freedom and responsibility, He does not necessarily know what they will do.
• Boyd’s book in favor of open theism is one of the foundational resources in the modern debate.
“Preface” God of the Possible: A Biblical Introduction to the Open View of God
• Calvin represents the classical theism of the Reformers in his interpretation of Gen 6:6. He contends that the Bible represents God in imagery we can understand since we are unable to understand Him as He is.
“Genesis 6:6” Calvin’s Commentaries: Genesis
• Ware presents a full-length treatment in favor of classical theism in light of open theists’ challenges.
“Preface” God’s Lesser Glory: The Diminished God of Open Theism
• Walton surveys the options for understanding Gen 6:6 and then reanalyzes the word nacham in its usage and context to suggest a way through the theological impasse.
“Genesis 6:7” The NIV Application Commentary: Genesis
• Wenham discusses what it means for God to “repent” throughout the Bible and concludes that He decides to act differently based on intercession (Exod 32:12, 14) or changes in the human heart (1 Sam 15:11).
“Genesis 6:6” Word Biblical Commentary: Genesis 1–15
Key Word Studies
Nacham, “To be sorry, comfort oneself.” The Hebrew word nacham describes God’s response to the world’s corruption in Gen 6:6. The word is used often throughout the OT to express God’s reaction to human behavior. In Exodus 32:14 God relents from His decision to destroy the people for worshiping the golden calf, and in 2 Sam 24:16 He turns back from His destruction of Jerusalem after David sinned by taking a census. Occasionally the word refers to humans changing their minds, as God feared the Israelites would do if they faced the Philistines upon fleeing Egypt (Exod 13:17).
Nacham is also used when people console themselves after the death of a loved one. Isaac, Judah, and David each comfort (nacham) themselves after losing a relative (Gen 24:67; 38:12; 2 Sam 13:39). The term also refers to God and people pitying or comforting others (Judg 2:18; 21:6).
“Genesis 6:7” The NIV Application Commentary: Genesis
“Nacham” Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament
“Nacham” Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament