How could God know all if this didn't come into Hs mind?

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DonP

Puritan Board Junior
Jer 32:35
nor did it come into My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.'
NKJV

How are we to best understand and explain these statements in scripture?

In debating with scholarly men who claim to hold to nothing except what scripture teaches this often arises that they say, "scripture clearly tells us God does not know all, and though He may predestine some things this does not mean He micro manages every detail of everything that goes on. There are some things He allows to proceed from the decisions men make. Some He acts on based on people's choices, and He allowed Satan to come up and say I want to torment Job."
This seems to take place in time. Did God predestine Satan to ask to afflict Job? Or did God make a decision at that time to allow it and then order things based on Job's response?

Or how do we explain that God says He changed His mind, or tells Jonah that Ninevah will be destroyed, then changes and has mercy due to their repentance. And other such changes from His initial word, Christ not knowing the day of His 2nd coming, and incidents like the following verse

1 Sam 15:11
11 "I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following Me, and has not performed My commandments."
NKJV

I don't want to get into a slightly different subject at this point: that God does not take delight in the death of the wicked ; and a couple other verses His desiring all men to come to repentance, which I can only see the word all in those verses clearly meaning all US, to whom it was written in the one, the elect. And all people of all nations not just for the JEws as many thought, and all statuses, kings, rulers even as well as common or poor, in other verses. Or discussions on distinction between His will and His feelings or desire.

So please focus on the verses pertaining to God's apparent not knowing, or changing His mind, or being sad over what happens as if He could not have done it the way He pleases if He had wanted if He predestinates all things and did it before the foundations of the world.

Obviously I have my own way of explaining these consistent with the rest of scripture and Confession but I am looking for other language. :gpl::detective::book2:
Thanks.
 
If God goes one way, and then appears to us to "reverse course," we are going to have to decide whether he had a "whoops!" moment, or he has simply come to the end of one phase of his design.

If God, in the course of his interaction with us, tells us that he doesn't change his mind (Num.23:19), that his counsels stand from all eternity (Is.46:10), that the cross of Christ stands at the beginning of his reasons for creating the world (Col.1:13-20), that not a sparrow can fall to the ground apart from the will of the heavenly Father (Mt.10:29)...

when he thus says on occasion, "I repent..." something has to be taken in a "soft" sense. Either he IS in meticulous control of his world, or (like a man!) he MUST repent, regret, acknowledge failure--to anticipate, to foresee, to manage...


The stance we should take ought to be with the preponderance of the statements. It should be with the "Godlike" qualities of omniscience, omnipotence, self-determination and all over-ruling intention.

It should take the statement "I regret," as an anthropomorphism, in which (contrary to his own statement concerning his nature) he explains his action to men in a heavily accommodated manner--after the manner of a man.

It should take the statement "it never entered my mind," not as if God could not have thought of what man might do (after all, it isn't as if God wasn't aware of what men were doing in Canaan when he kicked those former nations out of there), but in the sense of the passage--that if the Israelites had considered their own God's nature and commandments, they should have known that he couldn't possibly have commanded them to perform those abominations! That which "never entered his mind" was a command to sacrifice their (his!) own children!

Men change because they are sinners (especially) and they are finite. God is neither.
 
Actually Don, I think that the verse you mentioned (Jeremiah 32:35) lands a devastating blow against the hermeneutic of open theism. I mentioned it in a non-professional paper I wrote on the subject (for my blog, used in an informal debate, etc.) a few years back. Namely, open theists tend to suggest that we take all, or most, statements relative to God's knowledge with bare and bald literalism, and reject classifying them as anthropomorphic statements.

If we were to apply their hermeneutic to this verse, then it would do far more damage to the doctrine of God than even "traditional" open theism has done. Namely, open theists tend to say that God knows everything that can be known, that He has an exhaustive knowledge of what has happened and what is happening, and that He has anticipated every possible move and turn that the world will take, with all of these possible scenarios hinging on the decisions of His creatures.

However, when their hermeneutic is applied to this verse, then we come up with a God who not only does not know the future, but one who could not even conceive of the possibility of child sacrifice (even when other nations had been involved in it in the past, as Bruce pointed out). Taken literally, this introduces a tremendous gap into God's knowledge and planning that I don't even think many open theists would want to accept at face value. To think that God not only was ignorant of the future, but literally had no conception that a rebellious and/or apostate people could fall into the pagan worship that surrounded them evidences poorer judgment and understanding, if I can respectfully say this, than we would expect from a competent human being.

I think many open theists, when dealing with the full ramifications of this verse, would, ironically enough, probably end up viewing it in the same way that a classical theist views the other "repent/regret" statements. This should set off some light bulbs in their mind as to the viability of their hermeneutic.
 
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In Jeremiah 32:35 the word translated mind is often translated as heart as in 32:41 Jeremiah 32:41 'Yes, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will assuredly plant them in this land, with all My heart and with all My soul.

It would seem that in 32:35 the Lord is saying that the wickedness that was committed was something that was never in His heart, that is, it was never something that He wanted from them.
 
Jer 32:35
nor did it come into My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.'
NKJV

The expression "nor did it come into My mind" is an idiom that is being used in conjunction with "I did not command" to suggest that the thing in question is not something pleasing to God. It relates to the revealed will of God.

It's used several times (in the same way) in Jeremiah.
 
Thanks lots of good statements here.

Yes this non-trinitarian view and open theism is spreading. More analytical thinkers are going to this apparent literal understanding.

I tell them to take an idiom or an analogy as literal is not a literal interpretation it is a mistake in grammar.
Also Transliteration is not the best translation. They don't get it.

They are so focused on dictionary definitions of words they miss the zoom out big picture and get stuck in their being RIGHT, or not being wrong.

One who thinks he is a Messianic Jew is severe in thinking each Hebrew word only has one meaning and may have different applications.
So it is hopeless to tell him the word has different meanings. I have to say OK the root of the word is this, but its applications are this and that. So we have to decide which application it has here.
Then he goes back to the root anyway. EEEKKKKE!! Can I just shake the dust off and walk away??
 
The thought that comes to mind is the idea of "should" as a moral imperative. It didn't cross His mind to command Israel to do it.
 
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