Can God change his mind?

I believe that God can feel regret and change His mind. Why does this not concern me? How can I still believe that God is sovereign? What does the Bible say?

Let us look at Genesis 6.5-7
5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord was sorry (נחם) that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved (עצב) him to his heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry (נחם) that I have made them.”(NRSV)


The Hebrew words נחם and עצב have a range of meaning, but undoubtedly they express regret in this instance. According to the flood narrative God can express regrets. Where does one go from here?

God’s response to the great evil of humanity, after expressing regret, is to blot them out. Some have a problem with God expressing regret toward his creation. Calvin dismisses the issue, “there is no need for us to involve ourselves in thorny and difficult questions, when it is obvious to what end these words of repentance and grief are applied”. The repentance, in his interpretation, “is here ascribed to God does not properly belong to him, but has reference to our understanding of him ... certainly God is not sorrowful or sad; but remains for ever like himself in his celestial and happy repose.”(Calvin, Genesis, 248-9)

This response does not address the issue; we cannot skip over parts of the Bible that do not fit into our interpretive scheme. Perhaps we need to rethink how God interacts in his creation. Does He exist away from his creation in a state of bliss. This is what Brueggemann writes, “many people hold a view of God as unchanging and indifferent to anything going on in the world, as though God were a plastic, fixed entity. But Israel’s God is fully a person who hurts and celebrates, responds and acts in remarkable freedom ... he can change his mind, so that he can abandon what he has made; and he can rescue that which he has condemned.” (Brueggemann, Genesis, 78)

God is one that interacts with his creation as an active member, participating with His created people. This should not be a cause of fear for believers that think this does not make God all powerful. This story shows how God’s eye is on the earth, it shows how He is involved in the affairs of His creation, and it shows how He can and does display His power to the world. Life is not a puppet show where God is the puppet master. God stations Himself over his creation and is ready, willing and able to act when called upon of when He sees need.

The story of the New Testament is similar. Israel, and the world, rebelled against Him, just like in Genesis, but instead of flooding the earth, He chooses another method. The world needed a Saviour; He sent his Son to redeem the world.


Brown, Francis, S. R. Driver, and Charles Briggs. The Brown-Driver-Briggs: Hebrew and English Lexicon. Peabody, Hendrickson Publishers, 2001.

Bruggemann, Walter. Genesis; Interpretation. Atlanta, Knox, 1982.

Calvin, John. Commentaries on the Book of Genesis; trans. Rev. John King. Grand Rapids, Baker Books House, 1993.