Can We Change God’s Mind?
Does God ever change? More importantly, can God’s mind change? This is a tricky question that plays two different and important theological concepts against each other. On the one hand, many Christians believe God is changeless. Some say that God exists outside of time. Some say that God knows the future perfectly, and thus cannot be changed. From God's perspective, the future is already set. Either there is a definite, unalterable plan for the universe, or time simply doesn’t pass for God. God holds the past and future together simultaneously, all equally real from the divine perspective. Think about what the world looks like from a moving vehicle. You feel like you are sitting still because your frame of reference is in motion. The world is moving past you. Paradoxically, someone may be standing still on the sidewalk watching you go by. From their perspective, you are moving and they aren’t. From your perspective, they are moving and you are sitting still. From the perspective of empty space around us, the entire earth is hurtling through the cosmos at around 67,000 miles per hour. From our perspective, the world is moving, passing through time. From God’s perspective, everything is still. The obvious implication of this is that even if it appears that God changed, that is only from a human frame of reference. If God responds to things that happen in the world, God had planned that from the very beginning. We might cite verses like Numbers 23:19 to support this view.
On the other hand, Christians believe that prayer works. We want to believe that when we cry out to God for help, God hears and responds. The doctrine of prayer suggests that we actually can change God’s mind. Not that we are some kind of authority figure to God, and not that God does whatever we say, but just as Jesus said in Matthew 7:7-11, our heavenly Father will give us the good things we ask for in prayer. And while the view that God never changes is popular, we have a few Biblical examples that show humans negotiating with God. Abraham argues with God about how many righteous people must be found in Sodom for it to be spared in Genesis 18. Moses convinces God not to wipe out the Israelites in Exodus 32. And in Jonah 3, the repentance of the people of Nineveh causes God’s mind to change. And let’s not forget Hezekiah’s fatal illness, desperate prayer, and subsequent recovery in Isaiah 38. While some verses of the Bible and a lot of theological and philosophical work indicate that God’s mind never changes, the Bible also seems to disagree with that. What are we to make of this?
To start with, we should remember that sometimes we don’t need to resolve paradoxes. The work of some modern Christian apologists has inadvertently made Christianity a slave to logic. We feel like we need to use philosophical logic to prove the rationality of God’s existence, striving against the ongoing wave of philosophical materialism flowing out of the Enlightenment. We hear people try to disprove God with some witty paradox and we immediately rush to defend God by arguing logically against the paradox. This isn’t necessary. We don’t always have to make God fit into logic. There is a strong tradition in theology and philosophy of meditating on paradoxes, not in an effort to explain them, but simply because sometimes, human life is paradoxical. Sometimes the world is irrational and illogical, and we cannot always use these tools to make it work. We can simply embrace the paradox. Yes, God has a certain plan for the future. Even so, God hears my prayers and answers me in my time of need. If those two things seem to contradict, we can say that the mystery of faith is a beautiful thing, whether or not we can make it rational.
But if we had to choose between the God of certain plans and unchanging mind and the God who listens to and responds to prayers, I think the latter interpretation is more faithful to the Bible. While there is certainly some comfort in God’s changelessness as we navigate the fickle and chaotic realities of our lives, it is really hard to fit that idea into some of these passages in the Bible. Isaiah 38 in particular is challenging because Isaiah, the prophet, declares Hezekiah’s imminent death as the divine word of God. Then God sends him back to declare the exact opposite after the king’s prayer. Not only did that prayer appear to change God’s mind, it reversed God’s explicit words spoken through the prophet. We would need to be really creative to make sense of this as an example of God never changing a decision in response to human activity. And frankly, I think it is more comforting to have a God who cares, listens, and responds, than to have a God who already has everything figured out. In times of tragedy, I would rather call upon Christians to watch and join God at work in caring for the people who have been most affected, instead of shrugging my shoulders and saying that all of this is part of God’s mysterious plan.
The obsession with God’s changelessness is part of an infiltration by intellectualism into faith. This is not to say that reason and logic aren’t important in discerning God’s will and doing the work of the church, but they cannot be seen as the only tools. Ever since the beginning, people have demanded the church conform to the worldly rules of rationality, but we respond by preaching Christ crucified and let worldly wisdom itself stumble (1 Corinthians 1:22-23). But how do we make sense of passages in the Bible that tell us that God doesn't change?
Hebrews 6:17 refers to “the unchangeable character of his purpose.” We should note that it isn’t God who doesn’t change. It isn’t God’s mind that doesn’t change. God’s purpose doesn’t change. God keeps God’s promises and purpose. God may declare destruction against a wicked city, but upon seeing their repentance, turn and forgive them. God may tell a king that he will not recover from an illness, but upon being moved by his desperate plea, turn and heal him. God hears our prayers and responds, sometimes in the way we want and sometimes differently. However, throughout history, God’s purpose has remained the same. God is saving us from our sins. God is restoring all of Creation to its proper order. And God promises to be with us always, even “to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)
