Can God Feel Regret?

Can God Feel Regret?

The Christian God is, if you talk to most Christian, omniscient, omnibenevolent and omnipotent. So, when reading Genesis 6: 6-7, it appears that this all knowing creature can feel regret that something didn’t turn out the way he expected it to.

Genesis 6:6-7

New International Version (NIV)

⁶ The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.

 ⁷ So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.”

This leaves two puzzling questions.  If this god is omniscient, shouldn’t it have known how things would turn out?  And, it this god is omni-benevolent, how could it have made a mistake in the first place?

Christians will throw the free will rationale at you just about now.  Free will is an illusion at best.  An omniscient god already knows what will happen in every event and to every human being.

Regret has a definition of “a sense of loss, disappointment, dissatisfaction, etc.”

Now, I ask you, how can an omniscient being possibly be disappointed?  It knows EVERYTHING.  It sees EVERYTHING that will ever happen.

I’m not buying what the Bible is selling in this case.  Just another nail in the coffin.  Stick a fork in it.

Walk the Path in Grace