Does God change his mind?

OnceConvinced · Post by **OnceConvinced** » Mon Feb 13, 2017 4:52 pm

A Christian member of our forum recently pointed out a bible contradiction for all to see:

This verse was presented first:
Numbers 23:19 "God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind."

The Christian then attempted to trump it with a contradictory scripture where God DOES change his mind, thus exposing a blatant bible contradiction:

Jeremiah 18:8 "But if that nation about which I spoke turns from its evil way, I'll change my mind about the disaster that I had planned for it."

Here are further verses that show God changing his mind:

Exodus 32:14
So the LORD changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people.

Amos 7:3
The LORD changed His mind about this. "It shall not be," said the LORD.

Jeremiah 18:10
if it does evil in My sight by not obeying My voice, then I will think better of the good with which I had promised to bless it. (wow this is a verse where God says he will break his promise!!)

So questions for debate:

Does Got change his mind?
If he does change his mind, how do we know he hasn't changed his mind about much of what he expected from us in the New Testament?
If he does change his mind, how can we really know what he wants of us today?

Justin108 · Post by **Justin108** » Thu Feb 23, 2017 10:02 am

2timothy316 wrote: No. Someone else would have taken his place to make sure it would come true

What if the Roman offered 40 silver instead of 30? What would God have done then? Strike the Roman down until the next one comes along, offering only 30?

Blastcat · Post by **Blastcat** » Thu Feb 23, 2017 10:22 am

[Replying to post 59 by shnarkle]

[center]The Biblical "Free-will" mess[/center]

JehovahsWitness wrote:
People often confused foreknowledge with causation.

FOREKNOWLEDGE IS NOT CAUSATION

That God knows certain things are going to happen doesn't mean He makes them happen.

shnarkle wrote:
This is an excellent point, and well explained.

I completely disagree.

I found a lot of holes in the reasoning.
I'd say that his conclusion doesn't make a lick of sense.

Of course, he is correct to say that one word isn't the same as the other.

After that, his reasoning completely fails.
I think this is my main problem with his reasoning:

"If a perfect god makes a perfect plan, there is no NEED to change anything. It's all planned.. it's all perfect. Nothing is happening that isn't planned and perfect. "

I'd say that "God's plan" means that our free will is an illusion. It's not real.
God has already decided what's going to happen in advance.

Now, go .. pretend to be free to THWART or to FOLLOW his plan...

shnarkle wrote:
Paul says that our free will isn't what determines our salvation, e.g. "will or effort" (Rom. 9)

Romans 9 seems to not only say that God decides who he is going to save, but that somehow.. faith is the deciding factor. Am I interpreting this wrong?

Rom. 9:15 For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.

Rom 9:18 Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.

Where is the free will in that?
I'd say none at all.

shnarkle wrote:
So what this seems to be saying is that we have free will, but it doesn't matter. This really isn't the deciding factor.

Romans 9 , from my very brief reading, seems to equivocate. If our free will doesn't MATTER or doesn't even EXIST.. what does it matter if we freely decide to have faith in God or not? It is GOD who decides who believes and who is going to have a "hardened heart".

We can just robotically follow instructions, do as we are told to do.. have "faith" in this religion... and by saved by being a mind slave like that. Apparently, the only people who are actually FREE are free to go to hell or FREE to do as they are told.

I am always amazed at people who think that burning in hell for all eternity is a reasonable choice. The ONLY people they think would chose that kind of thing DON"T BELIEVE in that kind of thing...

To many many outsiders, the consequences of not following this religion are threats within scary stories.

Some person in here calls herself a "slave to Christ" all the time.
I guess that means a mind slave.

I don't usually like to discuss scripture because like Romans 9, I find it repetitive, ( usually ), rhetorical, weirdly contradictory, and oh so vague. I think that a new translation of the Bible with all the real PERTINENT points would take about 9 pages or maybe less...

It would be real cool if Christians could decide what the POINT of the Bible is....

2timothy316 · Post by **2timothy316** » Thu Feb 23, 2017 10:23 am

Justin108 wrote:
2timothy316 wrote: No. Someone else would have taken his place to make sure it would come true
What if the Roman offered 40 silver instead of 30? What would God have done then? Strike the Roman down until the next one comes along, offering only 30?

I'm not going down the 'what if' road because the possibilities are just too many on how God made sure it was 30 pieces. It might have been easier to make sure that the 30 pieces of silver was used than it was to put an obsessively greedy person close to Jesus. So whatever you want to make up about how it came to be 30 pieces, knock yourself out.

To clarify, it wasn't the Romans that bribed Judas. It was the chief priests of the Jews. (Mt 26:14, 15)

Justin108 · Post by **Justin108** » Thu Feb 23, 2017 10:32 am

2timothy316 wrote:
Justin108 wrote:
2timothy316 wrote: No. Someone else would have taken his place to make sure it would come true
What if the Roman offered 40 silver instead of 30? What would God have done then? Strike the Roman down until the next one comes along, offering only 30?
I'm not going down the 'what if' road because the possibilities are just too many on how God made sure it was 30 pieces

I'm not asking you to list all of them. Just one. If there are "too many" ways God could have done this then you should have no problem naming one of these many many ways?

2timothy316 wrote: So whatever you want to make up about how it came to be 30 pieces, knock yourself out.

I'm not the one claiming there are several means for God to make sure it's 30 pieces. The only two I can come up with are
1) God knew the future
2) God made the Roman offer 30 pieces by removing his free will

You disagree with both of these methods so again I ask, if God did neither of these, how did God make sure the Roman offered exactly 30 pieces of silver?

2timothy316 wrote: To clarify, it wasn't the Romans that bribed Judas. It was the chief priests of the Jews.

My mistake, but this hardly changes the situation. How did God make sure the chief priest offered exactly 30 pieces of silver?

a) God knew the future
b) God made the chief priest offer 30 pieces by removing his free will
c) Other (please specify)

2timothy316 · Post by **2timothy316** » Thu Feb 23, 2017 10:36 am

[Replying to post 94 by Justin108]

The sum fixed by the religious leaders appears designed to show their contempt of Jesus, viewing him as of little value. According to Exodus 21:32, the price of a slave was 30 shekels. Carrying this forward, for his work as a shepherd of the people, Zechariah was paid thirty pieces of silver. Jehovah scorned this as a very meager amount, regarding the wages given to Zechariah as an estimation of how the faithless people viewed God himself. (Zec 11:12, 13) Consequently, in offering just 30 pieces of silver for Jesus, the religious leaders made him out to be of little value.

Blastcat · Post by **Blastcat** » Thu Feb 23, 2017 10:44 am

[Replying to post 93 by 2timothy316]

[center]
I don't want to play your game, let's play mine, instead[/center]

2timothy316 wrote:
I'm not going down the 'what if' road because the possibilities are just too many on how God made sure it was 30 pieces.

But you seem really interested in going down the "What if what I think is all true?" path.

If hypothetical situations are not to be considered, theology is DEAD.

2timothy316 wrote:
So whatever you want to make up about how it came to be 30 pieces, knock yourself out.

Let's play "What if?" But let's just play MY "what if?"

My game, my rules.

Justin108 · Post by **Justin108** » Thu Feb 23, 2017 10:45 am

2timothy316 wrote: The sum fixed by the religious leaders appears designed to show their contempt of Jesus, viewing him as of little value.

How did God know exactly how much contempt the religious leaders would have for Jesus 500 years before Jesus even existed? The prophecy of the 30 pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12-13) was written 520 BC so how would God know what the religious leaders would think of Jesus 500+ years later?

So God not only guessed that the religious leaders would have strong contempt for Jesus, but he also guessed that they would express this contempt by asking for 30 pieces of silver exactly? And this is without God knowing the future?

Blastcat · Post by **Blastcat** » Thu Feb 23, 2017 10:48 am

redundant post

Blastcat · Post by **Blastcat** » Thu Feb 23, 2017 11:05 am

[Replying to post 95 by 2timothy316]

[center]
What's the value of 30 pieces of silver: One person's junk is another person's treasure.[/center]

2timothy316 wrote:
The sum fixed by the religious leaders appears designed to show their contempt of Jesus, viewing him as of little value.

Well, that's an interpretation.
Was it of "little value" to Judas, is the actual question here.

According to the story, it was enough. Enough is enough.
But it's time for me to get rough:

By my very rough ( I might say extremely rough ) estimation, 30 pieces of silver might have been the equivalent of $ 5,000 to $10,000 dollars.

Of course, like almost everything else in the Bible, the actual VALUE of 30 pieces of silver is very hard to estimate.

But even if the value of the coins were 5 bucks in today's money... so what?
If someone hands me 5 bucks, I go "Yea !! Five more bucks than I had yesterday !!"

I was going to betray Jesus anyway, but now I get free Biblical Starbucks.

2timothy316 · Post by **2timothy316** » Thu Feb 23, 2017 11:17 am

Justin108 wrote:
2timothy316 wrote: The sum fixed by the religious leaders appears designed to show their contempt of Jesus, viewing him as of little value.
How did God know exactly how much contempt the religious leaders would have for Jesus 500 years before Jesus even existed? The prophecy of the 30 pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12-13) was written 520 BC so how would God know what the religious leaders would think of Jesus 500+ years later?

In reading the Bible you'll see that Israel rarely valued anything or anyone from God. Seeing that they had contempt for God's Son is not really that big of a surprise considering they used to kill prophets of Jehovah in the past because they didn't agree with their prophecies. So their contempt was Jesus isn't really that much of a surprise.

So God not only guessed that the religious leaders would have strong contempt for Jesus, but he also guessed that they would express this contempt by asking for 30 pieces of silver exactly? And this is without God knowing the future?

Actually, now that I'm looking in the Bible I know of no prophecy that says it would be the chief priest to be the ones that would pay. Just that 30 pieces of silver was to be the set price by the 'sons of Israel' as that is what the had valued God to be worth centuries before. Then it played out again for the price of betraying Jesus. It appears for a long time to pay 30 pieces of silver for something was supposed to be an insult. It was nothing new.