We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

Isn’t God “changing his mind” an anthropomorphism?
Question: Traditionalists argue that passages that refer to God “changing his mind” are anthropomorphic, depicting God in human terms. Open Theists take these passages literally, however. But if you’re going to take these passages literally, it seems you should, for consistency’s sake, also interpret passages about God “coming down” from heaven literally (e.g. Gen. 11:5; 18:21). Conversely, if you’re unwilling to take these passages literally, how can you insist that the passages about God changing his mind are literal?
Answer: This argument assumes that since Open Theists take some passages (which are treated as anthropomorphic by traditionalists) literally, Open Theists must then take all passages in the Bible literally. How does that follow? One could just as easily argue that since traditionalists treat as anthropomorphic passages that Open Theists take literally, traditionalists must then treat all passages in the Bible anthropomorphically! It’s really a very bad argument.
The fact of the matter is that nobody takes everything in the Bible literally and no one takes everything in the Bible to be metaphorical (anthropomorphic or otherwise). We all have to determine what genre a passage fits into – and thus, whether it’s intended to be more literal, or more anthropomorphic. The only claim of Open Theists is that there’s no good exegetical or philosophical reason to take passages that speak about God changing his mind as anthropomorphic. The only reason traditionalists interpret them this way is because admitting God changes his mind conflicts with the traditional view that God exhaustively knows the future from all eternity as a domain of settled facts. If you grant that God really changes his mind, you must acknowledge that the future is partly open.
I would go further and argue that interpreting these passages as anthropomorphic renders their meaning unclear. If God doesn’t actually change his mind, then what do the passages that explicitly declare that he does change his mind mean? Saying they’re anthropomorphic doesn’t help us, for anthropomorphic expressions, if they’re true, must still communicate something accurate about God. Saying God has “a strong arm,” for example, communicates that God is strong – even though he doesn’t literally have arms. But what does it mean to say “God changes his mind” if in fact God doesn’t change his mind? This is simply inaccurate.
I therefore conclude that when the Bible says God changes his mind (which it does 39 times), it quite literally describes God changing his plans in response to changing circumstances in history. And this implies that the future is partly open.
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Defending the Open View, Providence, Predestination and Free Will
Related Reading

Does the Bible teach total non-violence?
I wouldn’t say the whole Bible teaches non-violence, for you find Yahweh engaging in quite a bit of violence in the Old Testament. But I would say that the whole Bible clearly presents non-violence as God’s dream for humanity, and I would most certainly say this dream is realized in Jesus Christ and the Kingdom…

How do you respond to Psalm 105:25?
Speaking of the Egyptians, the Psalmist says,“…whose hearts he [God] then turned to hate his people, to deal craftily with his servants” Some compatibilists cite this verse as evidence that God meticulously controls human hearts. If so, we must accept the conclusion that even grotesquely wicked hearts like Hitler’s and Stalin’s were exactly as God…

What Does It Mean that God Hardens Hearts?
Some argue that passages which speak of God hardening human hearts (Jos 11:19-20; Ex 7:3; 10:1; Rom 9:18) demonstrate that God controls everything, including people resistant to this declared intentions. He hardens whomever he wills, they argue. He could just as easily have softened their hearts, but for his own sovereign reasons he chose not…

Open Theism and the Nature of the Future
In this philosophical essay Alan Rhoda, Tom Belt and I argue that the future cannot be exhaustively described in terms of what will and will not happen, but must also be described in terms of what may and may not happen. The future, in other words, is partly open. The thesis is defended against a…

How do you respond to Proverbs 16:4?
“The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.” Calvinists often cite this verse to support the conclusion that some people are created wicked for the expressed purpose of being sent to hell. Since Scripture teaches that God is love (1 John 4:8, 16), that God loves all…

What is the significance of 1 Kings 21:27–29?
Because of Ahab’s great sin the Lord tells him, “I will bring disaster on you; I will consume you…” (vs. 21). Ahab repents and the Lord responds by telling his messenger prophet, “Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the disaster…