God’s ‘Regret’
Photo by @felipepelaquim on Unsplash
CATHEDRAL NEWSLETTER - 8 June 2023
Friends in Christ, I've been enjoying unpacking of early chapters of Genesis with you. I'm also aware that among the very clear things, such as God's supremacy as Creator, the dignity given to humans, male and female in his image, and the serioiusness of our sin, early Genesis also raises some questions and puzzles.
Some of these arise from how some details might intersect with what we undertand through scientific investigation. I intend to offer a seminar on early Genesis and science.
But here I want to adddress a good question about God's "regret" that arose from the Flood account last week. In Genesis 6, the Lord saw how great human wickedness had become and how evil the human heart was, Then Genesis 6:6 states that:
The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.
Some versions even translate it as the Lord "repenting" of his creation of humanity. And it is the same kind of word used of human repentance.
So the question naturally arises about how can God repent or have regrets. Given that we know God is not only all powerful but all knowing and all wise, it surely cannot be that he has been caught out by surprise at this turn of events!
At this point, many Christians have found the great 16th century reformer and pastor, John Calvin, to be helpful. Calvin spoke about "divine accommodation". God accommodates himself to our limited capacity, as finite beings, to understand his infinite power and goodness. By loose analogy, it's like an adult explaining complex things to a very young child in simple language that some might even see as babyish.
So with regard to the issue of God repenting of his actions, by implication changing within time, when God himself is outside time as we experience it, Calvin writes:
Because our weakness cannot reach [Gods] height, any description which we receive of him must be lowered to our capacity in order to be intelligible. And the mode of lowering is to represent him not as he really is, but as he seems to us. [Institutes I.xvii.13]
Those who follow Calvin would argue that repentance cannot mean that God has changed in the same way that humans change (i.e., with regret) when they repent, as God is incapable of such change. Rather the same term applied to God simply means that his procedure or action is changed, and yet, we would believe, consistently with his character and his will.
Indeed, the Bible very clearly says elsewhere, for example, in Numbers 23:19 and 1 Samuel 15:29 that God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. God is consistent and keeps his promises.
What Genesis 6:6 expresses vividly to us is the holy God's deep disapproval of the depths of human sin, and his righteous intention to express his judgment on it in a particular way. To humans within time, this stated change in action looks like repentance, but to all knowing and holy God who is outside of time there is no change involved.
Maybe you will need to re-read this to help it sink in, but I hope it's of some help to many of you.
Warmly in Christ,
Sandy Grant
Dean of Sydney