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.

What is the significance of Exodus 32:14?

The Lord states his intention to destroy Israelites because of their wickedness: “Now let me alone,” he says to Moses, “so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them” (vs. 10). Moses “implored the Lord” (vs. 11) and, as a result, “the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people” (vs. 14).

If the classical view of divine foreknowledge is correct, God would already have been certain that he wasn’t going to “consume” the Israelites and his statement to Moses regarding his plan to do just this would be disingenuous. Scripture’s teaching that God “changed his mind” about the matter would be inaccurate as well. If God’s declared intention and Scripture’s teaching are true, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that God’s mind was not eternally settled regarding the fate of Israel at this time.

Some theologians have tried to avoid this conclusion by suggesting that God can make plans in time which go directly against what he eternally foreknows and can even eternally foreknow that he will change his mind. But it is difficult, to say the least, to get a coherent conception of God genuinely planning something he is certain will not be, or genuinely changing his mind to arrive at a conclusion he eternally foreknew.

As far as I can discern, the concept of God foreknowing he will change his mind is self-contradictory. It is like saying, “God has an eternally unchanging mind which knows that he will someday change his mind.” If God’s mind really changes, it can’t really be eternally unchanging. If it’s really eternally unchanging, he can’t really change it. Think about it.

Category:
Tags: ,
Topics:
Verse:

Related Reading

Bible in the shadow of the Cross

Answering an Objection to a Cross-Centered Approach to Scripture

Through Greg’s Facebook and Twitter, we’ve been getting some great feedback and questions regarding his cross-centered approach to Scripture. Several have voiced questions similar to the reader’s (below), so we thought it would be helpful to post Greg’s answer here on his blog.

Does The Open View Limit God?

Suppose you and I both agree that God is omniscient and thus knows all of reality, but we disagree over, say, the number of trees on a certain plot of land. I say there are 1,300 and you say there are 2,300. You wouldn’t say that I am limiting God because he knows fewer trees…

Is Open Theism Incompatible With a Chalcedonian Christology?

Question: The Chalcedonian Creed says Jesus was “fully God and fully human” and that these “two natures” remained distinct in the Incarnation, even though Jesus was one united person. I’m told that part of the reasoning behind the concern to keep Jesus’ humanity distinct from his divinity was to protect the “impassibility” of the divine…

Lighten Up: Open Theism T-Shirt

T-shirt on Zazzle designed by Jin_roh.

Podcast: If Open Theism is True, Does it Make Sense to Pray For Intercession?

Greg talks about prayer and freedom. Specifically, if free will is so important, why would God override it in answer to prayer? http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0123.mp3

God of Sense and Traditions of Non-Sense

As the title suggests, in his book, God’s Problem: How The Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question – Why We Suffer, Bart Ehrman argues that the Bible has nothing compelling to say about the problem of evil. Well, I just put down a beautifully written four-hundred and fifty page book that compellingly argues…