But does this mean that God can make mistakes? The answer is a fuzzy "yes and no." I'll try and explain both of these answers the best I can. Pay close attention; I had to do it myself during this research.
If the answer is "Yes."
I'll give you two early examples of God claiming to have made a mistake. Right before the Great Flood and the story of Noah and the Ark, God repents that He ever made humans at all. To repent of something is to express regret for doing something. In other words, He felt that it would have been better if He had never made humans at all. In this manner, He considers it a mistake to have done so.
A second example comes in the form of the first king of Israel, Saul. For all intent and purposes, Saul honestly did look like a good pick for King. Even I think so. God loves humble beginnings for His leaders. Who better to choose than a simple person out looking for his lost donkeys? But somewhere down the line, it seemed that there was something extremely wrong with Saul. He made a lot of awful decisions and did not seem to understand the wrongness of them.
God's reaction to Saul messing up was almost laughable. Not only did He regret anointing Saul as King, He seemed rather emotional about it. When Samuel seemed to feel for Saul's shortcomings, God asked him why he was feeling bad for such a ridiculous person. This whole thing suggests that God, at one time, liked Saul, but then realized that it wasn't working out and wished He had never bothered with him.
These two examples show God's regret for doing something. Regret denotes that a mistake has been made. This concludes my argument that God does indeed make mistakes. But now...
If the answer is "No."
There is a solid argument in why it is still correct to say that God makes zero mistakes, and that has much to do with what I have, in past, called the Creation Tiers. It has to do with the fact that we exist on a different plane than does God. Everything God does creates our reality. He can change our reality, but there is nothing we can do to change His.
Because of this, every "mistake" God makes, is simply a reality or obstacle we have to overcome. We don't really have a say one way or another when it comes to the actions of God. In a very real sense, it's none of our business. We are not in the right Creation Tier to judge Him. Since everything came from God, He is the standard by which all things are judged anyways. So to point a finger at Him and say, "What you did was a mistake!" would be a little odd since God was the very origin of the standards used to judge those so-called mistakes to begin with. It's backwards thinking.
The only reason the former argument can even be made is because God openly claimed to be wrong about something Himself. So we can say to one another, "God said He made a mistake," but what we cannot do is say, "It seems to me that God made a mistake," because we are in no position to properly judge Him. We can only take God's word for it.
As a side note, we are well within our right to judge Satan on his mistakes. This is because Lucifer is on the same Creation Tier as we are. He may be a vastly more powerful being as we are, but he is only one level down from God. So are we.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, it is all a matter of perspective. You can try to see things from God's perspective. It is a very difficult thing to do, for sure. There are reasons why both answers to the question are true, but only when you apply the proper perspective to either. Just remember that you still have to deal with reality the best that you can. It is your job to live this life on the Tier that you were born on. Let God deal with His own business, and you deal with yours. Hope this clear things up a bit.
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You explained the paradox PERFECTLY. Created beings cannot judge God because they must defer to HIS standards to do so. HE decided THEY would exist and HE had HIS OWN reasons why. The created is DESIGNED, thus, is SOMEONE ELSE'S idea.
ReplyDeleteThe significance of the Trinity is that God wanted his Way to be SINCERE. He did not want it biased. His creations are HIS ideas, thus, innately biased. He involved an outside party, the ONLY other who exists unto itself. The bias of God is irrelevant in dealing with this... OTHER, that is EVERYTHING unto itself. Because God brought the outsider inside, as the Spirit of his very Word, we have OBJECTIVE REALITY. God made mistakes because their is the Outsider. It would be impossible for him to make mistakes otherwise.
God's standard morality could have easily been his own. It could have been what I refer to as subjective morality. However, he did utilize the Holy Spirit to be his standard. So he defers judgement to his spirit despite himself. It's in my book!
DeleteAbsolutely, very well put. We should be living our lives on our tier and let God deal with his own, everything we are is directly from him. Objective morality exists because of God, so our right or wrong does not apply to God's tier. God lets things play out as they are set in motion for better or worse.
ReplyDeleteIf we listen carefully enough, we can hear and imagine what it must be like for God, but we are not there.
DeleteHaving free will means we can choose to do what He would rather we did not. Given all the problems this causes, I can see why He might regret it. If we did not need to be saved, He would not have sent us a Savior.
ReplyDeleteWell, we certain proved that we can't be not stupid.
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