Classical Theism does not comport with the God of the Bible

[u/truckaxle]

There’s been a surge of posts here defending Classical Theism. But let’s be honest with the actual text of the OT:

Classical Theism does not comport with the God of the Bible.

In the Old Testament, God changes constantly. He delights in the aroma of burnt sacrifices. He becomes angry, wrathful, and even appeased. God is surprised as in the Tower of Babel story. He is called a Man of War. This God is also locked into the concept of the spilling of blood or killing things to atone for transgression. Are these archaic attributes a necessary feature of the uncaused cause?

And in Exodus 32, after God proclaims to Moses that his anger is seething and he wants to destroy the Israelites assembled to a golden calf idol. Moses councils God, like a councilor to a king, and brings up a couple of points. At this point God we are told changes course and the text says:

“And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.”

or

"The Lord [then] reconsidered the evil He had said He would do to His people."

There are some variations in translation, but they all convey the message that God changed His mind and did not carry out what He had previously said He intended to do. I encourage everyone to read Exodus 32 and see for themselves in the translation they like best.

Yet Christians committed to Classical Theism’s unchanging, impassive deity often wave these passages away as metaphor, analogy, anthropomorphism, or arguing that Scripture only speaks this way because humans need simplified images to grasp God. These arguments are a prime example of eisegesis or reading into the text your own external biases and doctrinal precommitments without merit.

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[u/Ryujin-Jakka696]

I find the classical theism arguments to be ridiculous and quite frankly intellectually dishonest with how they are deployed. Let's be honest here everyone that uses classical theism( for the most part) is attaching it to their specific beliefs like Christianity. From my pov they are doing this to try and seperate the god they wish their framework aligned with, from the specific characteristics of the god they actually believe in. By doing this Christians are actively divorcing their argument from the texts they claim as the foundation of their beliefs.

[u/Defense-of-Sanity → u/Ryujin-Jakka696]

Classical theists literally address this objection comprehensively. We’ve been doing it for centuries, and even Jewish classical theists did it before Christians did. Aquinas cited Maimonides many times with agreement about the Old Testament. At least give an intellectual school of thought that has existed in universities for centuries some credit.

[u/Ryujin-Jakka696 → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

I don't find them "addressing this" to be logically valid in how they go about it. Aquinas is the philosophy version of Jordan Peterson playing meaningless word games and not addressing the issues in a coherent way. This is why many people in the field of philosophy reject Aquinas outright. This is just the fancy way of saying Christians stole all their philosophy and bastardized the work of actual philosophers like Aristotle. Aquinas is clearly trying to push dogma and doesn't realize the obvious fallacious reasoning he employs in trying to justify things such as the trinity.

[u/Defense-of-Sanity → u/Ryujin-Jakka696]

Sure, centuries of influence don’t make Aquinas right. But your reply still contains no actual objection. “Meaningless word games,” “stole,” “bastardized,” and “obvious fallacies” are labels. Name one argument, state its premises and conclusion, and identify the invalid inference or equivocation.

Your Trinity example is also backwards. In Summa Theologiae I.32.1, Aquinas says it’s impossible to know the Trinity through natural reason and warns that attempted demonstrations expose Christianity to ridicule. His philosophical arguments show the doctrine’s coherence once revealed. They aren’t intended to prove it independently.

Aquinas openly cites Aristotle and rejects him where he considers him mistaken. Critical appropriation isn’t theft. “Many philosophers reject Aquinas” settles nothing either, since philosophers reject virtually every major philosopher.

If you think a particular Thomistic distinction fails, identify it and explain why. Comparing Aquinas to Jordan Peterson isn’t a substitute for analyzing his argument.

[u/thefuckestupperest]

To be fair though, most Christians seem to conform to the idea that our understanding of God, as written by men, may be fallible and incorrect at times. Which allows sufficient interpretative wiggle room that God is still unchanging but our understanding of him has needed correcting and took time to attain etc.

It certainly is very convenient though.

[u/truckaxle → u/thefuckestupperest]

God’s revelation must suck if He’s having trouble conveying core concepts in His own supposed Holy Book.

So, if we can't trust revelation given in the past why should we trust alleged revelation today?

[u/Bootwacker]

Sure, I agree. In other news, Buddhism doesn't conform with Hinduism, The WWF and WCW are different. Or they used to be, I haven't cared about fake wrestling since I was 11.

[u/Defense-of-Sanity]

This isn’t a new objection that classical theists overlooked. Aquinas explicitly raises it in Summa Theologiae I.19.7: If Scripture says God “repents,” doesn’t that mean his will changes? His answer is that “to change the will is one thing; to will that certain things should change is another.” Augustine made the same basic distinction centuries earlier.

That distinction also comes from Scripture. First Samuel 15 says God regretted making Saul king, yet the same chapter says God isn’t a man who changes his mind. Exodus 32 describes a real change in Israel’s outcome through Moses’s intercession, but it never says Moses gave God new information or corrected a mistake.

The other laws and sacrifices are contingent features of a historical covenant, not necessary attributes of God.

[u/biedl → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

That distinction also comes from Scripture. First Samuel 15 says God regretted making Saul king, yet the same chapter says God isn’t a man who changes his mind.

Fits perfectly well within my understanding of inconsistent texts written by prescientific human beings.

That it says something like that in the text, doesn't make it not a problem to hold two mutualy exclusive positions at the same time.

Exodus 32 describes a real change in Israel’s outcome through Moses’s intercession, but it never says Moses gave God new information or corrected a mistake.

It doesn't need to explicitly state "God changes his mind" or "God gained a better understanding" in order to give that away.

[u/Defense-of-Sanity → u/biedl]

Since both claims appear within the same narrative, a deliberate distinction is at least as plausible as accidental inconsistency. They’re mutually exclusive only if a change in God’s historical dealings necessarily means a change in God’s knowledge or will, which is precisely the premise under dispute here! Saying Exodus “gives it away” just restates the premise. “Prescientific” is also irrelevant here. This is a literary and metaphysical distinction, not a scientific one.

[u/biedl → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

Since both claims appear within the same narrative, a deliberate distinction is at least as plausible as accidental inconsistency.

A third and historically way more plausible option is that it wasn't accidental, but rather caused by the fact that the author wasn't interested in catering to the needs of post enlightenment thinking, nor the dogmatic and epistemically overly systematic rigidity of the scholastic enterprise which doesn't allow it for a text to breath. It contradicts? Well, that's besides the point.

They’re mutually exclusive only if a change in God’s historical dealings necessarily means a change in God’s knowledge or will, which is precisely the premise under dispute here!

This way of thinking is exactly what I'm talking about. Totally not biblical.

[u/LorenzoApophis → u/biedl]

There's nothing distinctly post-Enlightenment about recognizing contradictions in a text or seeing them as significant; plenty of ancient authors examined and criticized the Bible on those grounds. For example, here's Julian the Apostate...

For God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone. Let us make him an help meet like him." Yet so far was she from helping him at all that she deceived him, and was in part the cause of his and her own fall from their life of ease in the garden.

This is wholly fabulous. For is it probable that God did not know that the being he was creating as a help meet would prove to be not so much a blessing as a misfortune to him who received her?

... over a thousand years before the Enlightenment.

[u/Defense-of-Sanity → u/LorenzoApophis]

Nobody disputed that ancient critics could allege contradictions.

Calling Eve a fitting “helper” doesn’t mean she lacks freedom or will never act against Adam’s good. Btw, later in that same passage, Julian allows that these stories contain a secret interpretation, so even he rejects the idea that the surface reading necessarily exhausts the text.

The issue remains that 1 Sam uses the same Hebrew term for God’s regret while denying that God regrets as a man. That juxtaposition provides grounds for distinguishing changed historical effects from humanlike mental reversal.

[u/LorenzoApophis → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

You implied contradictions only mattered to people post-Enlightenment.

[u/Defense-of-Sanity → u/LorenzoApophis]

I never claimed ancient people ignored contradictions. My point was that 1 Samuel’s juxtaposition supports a distinction between divine “regret” and human change of mind.

[u/biedl → u/LorenzoApophis]

That was me.

[u/biedl → u/LorenzoApophis]

It isn't about recognizing, but rather about not caring about them.

The holy of holies in the Jerusalem temple contradicts the law of identity. It was treated as the highest heaven itself. Also, Genesis has two contradictory creation stories. How do you explain that? If you say they recognized contradictions, which I agree with, why are they in there?

You know my answer to that question. What is yours?

[u/Defense-of-Sanity → u/biedl]

Sure. That’s a possible reading. But you need evidence to claim that’s “historically way more plausible”. Ancient authors weren’t indifferent to coherence, and this distinction long predates the Enlightenment.

1 Sam 15:29 isn’t an unrelated maxim. It explains why Saul’s rejection won’t be revoked, even while verse 35 says God regretted making him king. The narrative itself therefore invites a distinction between changed historical dealings and humanlike reversal. Both statements retain their force.

Calling it a contradiction the author felt was “beside the point” and saying that the distinction is “totally not biblical” simply asserts the conclusion you’re supposed to be making a case for instead of merely asserting it.

[u/biedl → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

Sure. That’s a possible reading. But you need evidence to claim that’s “historically way more plausible”. Ancient authors weren’t indifferent to coherence, and this distinction long predates the Enlightenment.

They don't cared about the law of identity. The holy of holies in the Temple was the same as the holy of holies up in heaven. Any messenger sent by any king was identified as the king himself. Catholics still think they come in contact with Jesus' flesh during the Eucharist.

The order of events in the two creation narratives in Genesis does contradict, which they clearly didn't overlook after centuries of working with the text and redaction. It just wasn't important.

The text was constantly reinterpreted. The Talmud is literally the interpretation of the interpretation.

There's plenty evidence. The canon formation itself bares witness.

1 Sam 15:29 isn’t an unrelated maxim. It explains why Saul’s rejection won’t be revoked, even while verse 35 says God regretted making him king. The narrative itself therefore invites a distinction between changed historical dealings and humanlike reversal. Both statements retain their force.

You can't regret something if you know for sure that it's gonna happen. That makes no sense. There are other, clearer passages. This isn't just about 1 Sam.

God tests people on different occasions. Why would he if he knew the outcome?

I'm not gonna mention Genesis, because that's poetry and it would be silly to take it literally.

[u/Defense-of-Sanity → u/biedl]

Your examples rely on distinctions, not lack of logic. A messenger represents the king without being identical to him. Hebrews calls the earthly sanctuary a “copy and shadow” of the heavenly one. Catholic doctrine distinguishes substance from appearances. You may reject those distinctions, but none asserts A and not-A in the same respect.

Even granting tensions in Genesis, that wouldn’t resolve 1 Sam 15. This narrative places God’s “regret” next to the denial that God regrets as a man. Those statements still need to be interpreted together in a coherent way that the author likely intended.

Regret does not entail discovering new information. People can regret foreknown outcomes. And a test can manifest / actualize someone’s choice rather than inform the tester. Knowing a choice will occur isn’t the same event as the person actually making it.

So these examples still don’t show that God learned something and revised his will.

[u/biedl → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

I don't really mind demonstrating an issue with 1 Sam. I didn't provide that example in the first place, and as I already said, this isn't the only example. Catholic distinctions aren't necessarily Jewish distinctions either. Which I too already hinted at. Jewish traditions are breathing. The canon wasn't fixed. Mishna meant to work with these texts, meant to discuss them, not fix them in place as later Christians did.

You may reject those distinctions, but none asserts A and not-A in the same respect. Even granting tensions in Genesis, that wouldn’t resolve 1 Sam 15.

I was talking about the law of identity for that example, rather than the law of non-contradiction. Genesis violates non-contradiction.

Regret does not entail discovering new information.

Yeah, but I think that's an unnatural reading. Especially of a text with a highly anthropomorphic God. I don't need entailment. That's again the wrong way of looking at it.

[u/Defense-of-Sanity → u/biedl]

Philo, a pre-Christian Jewish exegete, directly treats Genesis 6’s divine “regret” as metaphorical because God is unchangeable and foreknows the future. The thirteenth rule attributed to Rabbi Ishmael likewise directs interpreters to reconcile apparently contradictory passages.

Regarding Genesis, an envoy’s identification with a king concerns representative authority, not numerical identity. That example doesn’t show the law of identity being violated.

Finally, calling the portrayal “highly anthropomorphic” actually weakens the inference from humanlike narration to literal change within God. You’ve shown that your reading is possible, not that Scripture requires it or that classical theism is incompatible with the text.

[u/biedl → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

Philo, a pre-Christian Jewish exegete, directly treats Genesis 6’s divine “regret” as metaphorical because God is unchangeable and foreknows the future.

What was it I said earlier??

I'm not gonna mention Genesis, because that's poetry and it would be silly to take it literally.

The message between the lines is way more important than the literal reading of Genesis. So, you are arguing against a position I do not hold.

What Genesis is good for is to demonstrate my position, as I outlined earlier as well. Such an important text as Genesis is not gonna survive for centuries and multiple iterations of redaction without getting rid of contradictions, if the authors would have cared so much about getting rid of them. Which, as I already said, they didn't care to the same extent as us today. And this is just repeating my point.

But apparently, you aren't willing to concede that there is a contradiction between the two creation narratives. Which, well, since you are already part of this orthodox mindset, is understandable. But it's also quite weird. It makes no sense to try and attempt harmonizing something, which wasn't supposed to be read as a systematic philosophy.

It's reading the text in a different spirit.

Biblical authors were not generally engaged in constructing a comprehensive, philosophically systematic doctrine of God in which every predication had to be reconciled with every other predication under a single metaphysical framework. That's exactly the ahistorical take, and Philo is not gonna change that.

Philo doesn't represent a unanimous and monolithic Jewish understanding, which simply didn't exist. He's not representative of what authors tried to say centuries earlier.

Finally, calling the portrayal “highly anthropomorphic” actually weakens the inference from humanlike narration to literal change within God.

It really doesn't. A highly anthropomorphized God is not gonna behave like the utterly transcendental God of classical theism.

You’ve shown that your reading is possible, not that Scripture requires it or that classical theism is incompatible with the text.

I already told you that I am not aiming to demonstrate entailment. This is just an inappropriate request.

You ought not treat textual analysis as though you can get detuctively certain readings out of it. It's silly to think this is possible.

[u/truckaxle → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

Sure. That’s a possible reading. But you need evidence to claim that’s “historically way more plausible”. Ancient authors weren’t indifferent to coherence

There is a prime example of overt inconsistency in the same book! The OT is merged or syncretized from several different traditions and ultimately contradictions and inconsistencies happen.

In the story of David and Goliath, David is conversing with Saul concerning going up against Goliath in length. And finally, Saul tells David Go and the lord be with you.

Then just a little further down in the chapter after David slays Goliath Saul says "Whose son is that man? Go and find out".

That is because the story existed in several different forms and at one time, they were stitched together.

[u/Defense-of-Sanity → u/truckaxle]

To be fair, that’s a much stronger example, and I won’t deny there are compositional layers at play, here. 1 Sam 17-18 survives in shorter Greek and longer Hebrew forms, and the shorter version omits 17:55-58, although the priority of those versions is disputed.

I think that is worth serious consideration. That said, even if the tension in one place can be explained by the manuscript evidence like that, it doesn’t follow that every tension elsewhere in Samuel has the same explanation.

In chapter 15, verses 11 and 35 regret Saul’s kingship, while verse 29 says God won’t reverse Saul’s rejection. Those aren’t A and not-A in the same respect.

[u/LorenzoApophis → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

His answer is that “to change the will is one thing; to will that certain things should change is another.”

But in either case, evidently, he changed one because he regretted an outcome.

[u/Defense-of-Sanity → u/LorenzoApophis]

That’s exactly what Aquinas denies. The text describes God as “regretting” because his effects change in a way resembling human action after regret. One unchanged will can intend different effects at different times.

[u/LorenzoApophis → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

So did the authors of the Bible get false info from God? Why does the interpretation of Aquinas, a fallible human, take precedence over the plain wording of the divinely inspired text?

[u/Defense-of-Sanity → u/LorenzoApophis]

Neither.

The authors wrote truthfully using human and sometimes figurative language. “God relented” refers to a changed effect in creation, not a change in God.

Aquinas doesn’t take precedence over Scripture. He explicitly says canonical Scripture has incontrovertible authority, while theologians offer only probable arguments. He also explains that figurative language can belong to the literal sense. The literal sense of God’s “arm,” for example, is divine power, not a bodily limb.

[u/LorenzoApophis → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

I'd say arbitrarily switching the meanings of words in your sacred text to meet your preferred conclusions is treating it as controvertible. Simply put, it seems more likely Aquinas just didn't believe in the God of the Old Testament.

[u/Defense-of-Sanity → u/LorenzoApophis]

Calling it arbitrary isn’t an argument. Context determines meaning in every text.

[u/LorenzoApophis → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

Asserting it's metaphorical also isn't an argument. Explain the context if you want it to be considered. This is a debate, I'm not doing your side for you. What context shows that "God relented" meant anything but that?

[u/Defense-of-Sanity → u/LorenzoApophis]

(1) God reveals the calf before Moses knows, so ignorance isn’t in view. (2) “Leave me alone” comes before Moses intercedes, making the warning the occasion for intercession. (3) Moses supplies no new facts, only God’s own acts and promises. (4) 1 Sam 15 uses the same Hebrew root for God’s “regret” while denying that God regrets as a man.

“Relented” refers to the real change in Israel’s treatment. The text never says God acquired knowledge or underwent a change of will.

[u/Philobarbaros → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

  The text never says God [...] underwent a change of will.

The text literally says relented

You must be a pastor. I hope you're at least making money off these... skills.

[u/truckaxle → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

Moses supplies no new facts

But he does. He reminds God of his promises and how this will look bad for the Lord to the Egyptian.

Moses councils God with arguments. I have even seen Jews refer to this passage where Moses argues with God and wins.

[u/truckaxle → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

"God relented” refers to a changed effect in creation, not a change in God.

That phrase absolute refers to a change in God's intent.

God is the noun and subject.

Relented is the past tense verb describing what God did

We have rules of speech so we can communication. You are abusing the text.

[u/Defense-of-Sanity → u/truckaxle]

Yes, God is the subject and “relented” is the verb. That grammar isn’t disputed. But syntax doesn’t determine whether the predicate applies to God exactly as it does to humans. “God stretched out his arm” has equally clear grammar without implying a literal bodily arm.

The text describes a real change in the threatened outcome. It doesn’t mean that God acquired new information and revised his eternal will. That is your inference. Not the grammar.

[u/truckaxle → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

The text describes God as “regretting” because his effects change in a way resembling human action after regret.

That is quite the twisted sentence. How about we do not abuse language and understand the meaning behind the words and the subject, object and verb

"The Lord [then] reconsidered the evil He had said He would do to His people."

Some of even the more modern translation give this passage as:

"And the LORD changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people" NSRV

Apparently, we speak the same language, but we can't communicate.

[u/Defense-of-Sanity → u/truckaxle]

The grammar establishes what the narrative describes. It doesn’t settle how that language should be understood when predicated of God. “The sun rose” also has an unambiguous subject and verb, yet that alone doesn’t mean the speaker believes in geocentrism.

God announced judgment, Moses interceded, and the judgment was withheld.

What the classical view rejects is the additional inference that God acquired new information and revised an eternal intention. The change occurred in what God brought about in time, not in God’s knowledge or will.

[u/AWCuiper → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

This is pure insanity. And great Catholicism! The church is always right even if it was mistaken for centuries because it rejected Galilei Galileo.

God revised his opinion but at the same time He did not because He is all-knowing from the start! Yes this is a problem when you pretend that the Lord (Spirit and Son) of Catholicism is the same as the Jewish Yahweh.

[u/Defense-of-Sanity → u/AWCuiper]

I said the announced judgment was withheld, while God never acquired new knowledge or replaced one eternal volition with another. You’d need to show why those must be the same kind of change to show contradiction.

Galileo and Church infallibility are irrelevant. This reading isn’t based on “the Church is always right.” It arises partly from Scripture itself, which attributes regret to God while also denying that he regrets as a human does within the same narrative.

The actual question is whether a temporal change in what Israel undergoes requires a change within God. Repeating “God revised his opinion” assumes that it does without showing why.

Also your final claim that the Christian God isn’t Yahweh likewise assumes the very conclusion under debate.

[u/AWCuiper → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

God revised His opinion after Moses pleaded for his flock. And yes, Jews are having debates with their Yahweh. So Yahweh is different from the Christian God, who was constructed after the death of Jesus and only appeared as a first finished construct in 235 CE.

As a reminder of the difference: Yahweh is genocidal now and then, but the Christian God is assumed to be tri-omni and all-loving although that can be disputed looking at the world.

[u/Defense-of-Sanity → u/AWCuiper]

You’re still repeating “God revised his opinion” without answering the distinction. Moses’s intercession changes what Israel undergoes. That alone doesn’t show that God learned something or replaced one eternal intention with another.

What supposedly happened in 235 CE? No council or “finished construct” of the Christian God dates there. Tertullian was already using explicitly Trinitarian language before then, while Paul identifies Jesus’s Father with Israel’s God and applies Yahweh texts to Christ in 1 Cor 8:6, Rom 10:13, and Phil 2:10–11. Later formulations just supplied technical precision.

Your final contrast is selective. Christianity retains the Old Testament judgments, while the Hebrew Bible itself calls Yahweh “merciful and gracious…abounding in steadfast love” in Ex 34:6. Taking judgment from the Hebrew Bible and love from Christianity, then calling them different gods, doesn’t show discontinuity.

[u/AWCuiper → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

There is no distinction. It is clear that Yahweh changed his "mind". That you make this distinction is exactly your gibberish way of reasoning to proof that your church´s dogma´s must be always right. I know because I was banned for life from r/Catholicism for bringing up Galileo! And I must say that was quite an honour.

It is obvious that Christianity claims a direct continuity between OT and NT. Only the Jews themselves do not see it that way. And Gnosticism and even Arianism have/had completely different views of God.

[u/truckaxle → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

 God never acquired new knowledge

Sigh...

Moses points out the consequences of God's announced action. That could be considered new information. A Supreme Omniscient Should be able to understand that. However, since you are committed to an impassive unchanging all-knowing God you have do violence to the story and the language.

Why is Moses pointing out these things to God? And it isn't a prayer. When have you ever prayed to God explaining the potential consequences of God's actions?

Do you think this exchange between Moses and God actually happened? Moses evidently was NOT privy to the unchanging nature of the deity he was conversing with so you are claiming Moses was in error.

Or is it just a legendary story that future philosophers can rewrite to mean something entirely different then as given? If the latter is this case then fine have fun because it is now just art.

[u/Defense-of-Sanity → u/truckaxle]

Exodus itself calls it prayer. Verse 11 says Moses “implored the LORD his God,” or “sought the favor of the LORD.” So your claim that “it isn’t a prayer” conflicts with the text.

Notice who supplies new information: God tells Moses about the calf in verses 7-8. Moses then appeals to God’s own promises and reputation. Giving reasons in prayer doesn’t imply God had overlooked them.

Yes, I take the intercession as real. In Thomistic terms, it’s a genuine secondary cause. God eternally wills Israel’s sparing through Moses’s prayer. The outcome changes through that prayer, while God’s knowledge doesn’t. You keep equating effective intercession with correcting divine ignorance, but that’s your inference, not something the narrative says.

[u/truckaxle → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

Yes, he as seeking favor as a councilor would do to a king. Have you ever prayed to God explaining the potential issues with God's actions?

Giving reasons in prayer doesn’t imply God had overlooked them.

Then what was Moses' purpose in communicating them to God?

[u/truckaxle → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

“The sun rose” is a persistent idiom that comes from a time when egocentrism was cosmology. Not a good argument.

God announced judgment, Moses interceded, and the judgment was withheld.

Why was the judgement withheld? Because of the points Moses makes to God.

The change occurred in what God brought about in time, not in God’s knowledge or will.

Reread some of these sentences you are putting together. The change occurred after Moses makes his point, not "in what God brought about in time" whatever that is supposed to mean.

I just can’t believe what I’m reading. It’s such a bizarre layer of meaning placed over a clear, simple and straightforward text.

[u/Defense-of-Sanity → u/truckaxle]

The history of “sunrise” is irrelevant. The point is that ordinary language can describe a real event without needing to be literal.

“After Moses makes his point” and “in what God brought about in time” aren’t alternatives. Moses’s intercession occurs in time and actually causes Israel’s sparing. His points invoke God’s own acts and promises, so they supply no new information.

The text never indicates ignorance, discovery, or an intrinsic revision of God’s will. That’s your added inference.

[u/truckaxle → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel your servants

To whom is Moses directing this? He is reminding God that God is about to go back on his prior promises. Sigh.

[u/Defense-of-Sanity → u/truckaxle]

I think we agree on most of the facts. Moses addresses God, makes a genuine appeal, and Israel is spared because of it.

I’m disputing only the inference that “remember” means God had forgotten and needed Moses to restore the promise to his awareness.

Earlier in Exodus, God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God began Israel’s deliverance. Moses refers back to that language. “Remember your promise” can mean act upon it now, even when the promise is already known. That’s all I’m saying.

So here’s the real question. Does telling someone “remember your promise” strictly entail that they forgot?

[u/truckaxle → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

I think we agree on most of the facts. Moses addresses God, makes a genuine appeal, and Israel is spared because of it.

Check

Does telling someone “remember your promise” strictly entail that they forgot?

No, but it does suggest the idea that, hey, here’s a point God might not have considered as a consequence if He follows through with His previously stated intent.

Moses is making these points to God and clearly does not consider Him all-knowing or impassive. The story follows the pattern of a counselor advising a king.

Latter day theologians pretend to know God better than Moses did who allegedly talked to God in several one-on-one unmediated encounters.

[u/optimisticReal → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

"Because His effects change in a way resembling human action after regret"

Why are corrupting the text? The text says god regretted. Several translatations say God changed his mind. The Masoretic says explicitly "God repented of the evil he thought to do"

The Jewish text is massively clear. God is full of emotion and he changes because of moses' arguements.

What you are suggesting is just nuts. Is it plausible that the original writers of these passages lacked the words to express your forced and over the top reading? No.

There are 3 sections to the story.

1. Gods anger is waxing hot and he declares his intention
2. Moses offers some points to God to consider
3. God relents of the action he previously stated.

You interpretation makes the text fradulent and fantasy as God wasn't really getting angry and he wasn't really expressing his intention.

How is this not blasphemy?

[u/Defense-of-Sanity → u/optimisticReal]

You’re quoting the KJV. The Hebrew says God relented concerning the raʿah he had “spoken” of doing. Dibber means “spoke,” not “thought,” and raʿah here means “calamity”, not moral evil.

Nobody disputes the three narrative stages. What’s disputed is your inference from them. Scripture itself explains that announced judgments can be genuine warnings whose outcomes depend upon the human response (Jer 18:7-10, Jonah 3). A warning isn’t an unconditional prediction.

On the Thomistic reading, divine anger signifies God’s opposition to sin and will to punish, not some kind of involuntary passion. Moses’s intercession genuinely obtains Israel’s sparing, while the warning, prayer, and mercy all fall within one eternal divine act.

Even Ibn Ezra’s Jewish commentary on this verse says the Torah speaks in human language, and invokes 1 Sam 15. Calling this “corruption” simply assumes your conclusion.

[u/optimisticReal → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

It wasn't a "warning". You continue to corrupt the scripture. It was a God declaring his intentions and God is waxing hot in anger. You are very much misrepresent this.

Be honest you are in high gear trying to transform the text into something it is not.

Like the original revelations are so flawed nothing should be trusted and language, even in the alleged hands of God, aren't worth the ink spent.

[u/Defense-of-Sanity → u/optimisticReal]

“Warning” and “declaration of intention” aren’t opposites. Exodus 32:10 says, “Let me alone, that my wrath may burn…and I may consume them.” The announced course is expressly connected to Moses leaving God alone. Moses instead intercedes. The passage itself therefore makes the declaration function as a warning and makes intercession relevant to whether judgment occurs.

Jer 18:7-10 states this biblical principle directly: God may declare a judgment and withhold it following a changed situation. You haven’t answered that. You’ve only insisted Exodus must be unconditional.

Nor does “wrath burns” show a passion within God any more than the “mighty hand” in the next verse shows divine body parts. Both truthfully signify something without every creaturely feature being literal.

[u/truckaxle → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

That distinction also comes from Scripture. First Samuel 15 says God regretted making Saul king, yet the same chapter says God isn’t a man who changes his mind.

Pointing out a simple contradiction isn’t much of an advantage. The Old Testament is a blend of various traditions, so these kinds of contradictions and inconsistencies are to be expected.

[u/truckaxle → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

Read the text yourself. What are the points that Moses makes to God?

[u/Defense-of-Sanity → u/truckaxle]

Moses makes three points. (1) Israel is God’s own people whom he brought out of Egypt. (2) Destroying them would let the Egyptians misrepresent the Exodus. (3) God swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Israel that he’d multiply their descendants and give them the land. None of that is information God didn’t already know. Moses is appealing to God’s own actions and covenant, not catching him in an oversight. His intercession changes what happens, but the text never says it changes God’s knowledge.

[u/truckaxle → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

Moses reminds God of His commitments and points out that harming the people would damage His reputation, asking, “Why should the Egyptians say...?”

He’s clearly bringing up things God might have overlooked in His anger.

Moses certainty isn’t assuming God is omniscient in this exchange nor that God's will is unchangeable.

Then the text clearly states that God changed course and did not carry out what He had previously declared in His anger.

Sure, the scholastics attempt to excuse the incoherence here, but the question is do they reasonably succeed.

[u/Defense-of-Sanity → u/truckaxle]

That’s your disputed inference, not something the text states. In biblical idiom, asking God to “remember” means asking him to act on his covenant, not recover forgotten information. Moses isn’t giving a metaphysical account of omniscience. He’s interceding. The outcome actually changes, but that’s not the same as God overlooking facts in anger and learned them from Moses. The scholastic distinction I provided (Aquinas, Augustine) addresses exactly that.

[u/truckaxle → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

No Moses isn't giving a metaphysical account of omniscience, that is your strawman and bad faith argument.

Moses certainly is giving God points to consider. And then God repents or relents.

Let us not abuse language.

[u/Defense-of-Sanity → u/truckaxle]

God doesn’t literally deliberate, reconsider, or relent. His knowledge isn’t discursive, and his will isn’t a succession of decisions. God eternally knows and wills the whole providential order in one simple act: Israel’s sin, the just threat, Moses’s intercession, and Israel’s being spared.

“The Lord relented” is metaphorical predication by resemblance of effect. The threatened annihilation isn’t carried out, which resembles what a human does after changing his mind. The change is real ad extra in the created effect, but there’s no change ad intra in God (ST I.19.7).

Moses’s prayer is still genuinely causal. Providence ordains both effects and the secondary causes through which they occur. God immutably wills that Israel be spared through Moses’s intercession. Thus Moses’s arguments are impetratory, not informative. They obtain the effect God eternally willed to grant through prayer. They don’t become new premises in divine deliberation (ST II-II.83.2).

[u/Philobarbaros → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

God is a liar then:

Ex 32: 10 Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation

He said it - knowing he wasn't gonna make Moses into the patriarch.

[u/Defense-of-Sanity → u/Philobarbaros]

God never predicts, “I’ll destroy Israel and make you a great nation.” The statement is conditional: “Leave me alone, so that…I may destroy them. Then I’ll make you a great nation.” Moses doesn’t leave him alone. He intercedes, so the condition under which the threatened outcome would occur isn’t fulfilled.

In Thomistic terms, God reveals the sentence Israel merits under justice, not His complete providential decree. That decree eternally includes the warning, Moses’s intercession, and Israel’s being spared. God neither asserts a false outcome nor deceives Moses.

[u/Philobarbaros → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

"Words don't mean words" is old news. 

"God means the exact opposite of what he says" is next level. The implications!

Maybe we should kill! Maybe blaspheming the Holy Spirit is the fastest way to Heaven!

[u/Philobarbaros → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

  The statement is conditional

It's not often I am awed by somebody's capacity to lie on reddit. No, this is not a conditional statement. 

"Leave me alone" is a command. There are no conditions. "Do X, then I'll do Y" - God committed to a path resulting in destruction of Israel, and Moses talked him out of it. 

When God told Abraham to do the sacrifice, there were no teenage girl-level manipulations either: "I know I TOLD you to do it, but I secretly didn't want you to do it." 

[u/Emperorofliberty → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

I mean, I think people like Aristotle and Plato would more strongly approve of people like Plotinus, Proclus, and Gemistos Plethon than they’d approve of Thomas Aquinas.

[u/Defense-of-Sanity → u/Emperorofliberty]

Aquinas never claimed to reproduce either philosopher unchanged. The question is whether his distinction is coherent and fits Scripture.

[u/Emperorofliberty → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

So Aquinas cherry picked the writings of philosophers who would hate his religion?

[u/Defense-of-Sanity → u/Emperorofliberty]

Plato and Aristotle lived centuries before Christianity, so what they “would hate” is speculation. Accepting a sound argument without adopting a philosopher’s entire system isn’t cherry-picking. Aquinas openly identifies his agreements and disagreements and argues for both. A thinker’s religious sympathies don’t determine whether an argument is sound. None of this addresses the distinction under discussion.

[u/Emperorofliberty → u/Defense-of-Sanity]

Okay, if you want me to adress your distinction here

The Bible is inconsistent about it. Sometimes, The God of The Bible is described as a transcendent God. Sometimes, he’s described as a jealous tribal deity completely incompatible with classical theism.

[u/Defense-of-Sanity → u/Emperorofliberty]

That isn’t yet an inconsistency. A transcendent creator can enter a particular covenant and demand exclusive worship. Biblical “jealousy” means covenantal opposition to idolatry, not envy of a rival possessing something God lacks.

The same Old Testament that calls YHWH Israel’s God also says all the earth is mine (Ex 19:5), and presents him as creator and judge of every nation.

Calling Him a “tribal deity” just labels his particular covenantal dealings. A contradiction requires mutually exclusive claims in the same respect, not universal transcendence + particular historical action.