DOES GOD REALLY REGRET?

 To regret is to imply sorrow, remorse and disappointment. These are human emotions, often attributed to human beings. That is understandable, we are finite beings. Then, how does the Bible attribute similar emotions to God, an infinite being?

In attempting to justify the story of the flood in Genesis, the writer states that “the Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain” (Genesis 6:6 NIV). The English Standard Version renders it this way: “And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.”

But how could this be? Isn’t God unchangeable or immutable? Immutability suggests that God is unvarying, reliable, constant and perpetual. In reciting the word of the Lord, Balaam said, “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill” (Numbers 23:19)?

Theologians refer to these cases as anthropopathism. This is a figure of speech in which the feelings or thought processes of finite humanity is ascribed to the infinite God. It is a way to help us understand God’s work from a human perspective.

This is a classic example of anthropopathism – The term Anthropopathism comes from two Greek words. The combined word suggests the ascription of human feelings or passions to a non-human being, generally a deity. It is a way to help us understand God’s work from a human perspective.

For instance, like in the Genesis text cited earlier, the Bible often uses human language to help us understand what God is like. These biblical texts are not teaching that God has human emotions like we do. Neither are these texts teaching that God is not consistent and lives with regret.

Interestingly, the ancient pagan world was filled with an array of deities, many of which were known to change. They changed their desires almost capriciously, demanded one form of worship in one place and another form in another. They displayed fickleness, anger, jealousy, hatred, confusion, indecision, favoritism, lust, etc. All in exactly the same ways we humans do. They were mutable deities. That is, they were changeable, fluctuating, inconsistent, unpredictable, and even erratic.

Unlike some pagan deities, who exhibit emotional states in the exact same way we humans do, the God of Scripture is immutable. By immutable we mean that God is unchangeable either by process of time, external events, or internal knowledge.

If God were mutable, this would mean that He would be bound by the laws of time. That is, God would have to experience events in a sequence as we do, with His existence being at a point in space and time before the change occurred and after it occurred. This would make God a temporal being like us.

Our experience of divine emotions is totally dependent on our position before God. If we are repentant, we experience His mercy; if we are rebellious, we experience his anger and wrath; and if we are faithful to His will, we experience His kindness and blessings. God hasn't changed, we have. We’re the mutable factor in the equation, not Him.

We change our behavior, our allegiance, and our priorities. Sometimes we change them for the better, and sometimes for the worst. We can add to our relationship with God, at times we subtract from our relationship with God, because we’re mutable. However, God never adds or subtracts from His character and emotions. We should be forever grateful that God is immutable, as this provides an assurance of His love and mercy toward us sinners, who deserve nothing but the full penalty of our sins.

WHO CREATED EVIL?

 Christians believe, when God created the universe, “He saw all that He had made, and it was very good”. Christians also believe that evil is not “very good”. Then, from where did evil come? Did a holy God create evil?

Let us begin by examining what God created - especially, the creation of angels and human beings. Both were created with free-will. In other words, we were created with the capacity to choose. We were not created as robots or machines. Neither were we created with mere instincts - meaning, with a natural or inherent impulse or behaviour. Instinct is an innate, typically fixed pattern of behaviour, in response to stimuli.

To be created with the capacity to choose means that we were created with minds. Minds with which we independently think, analyse, draw conclusions and make choices. We were created with the capacity to understand principles, truths, facts or meanings, acquire knowledge, and apply it to practice. We were created with the ability to learn and to comprehend. It is in light of this capacity to develop, we contend that what God made was “very good”.

That capacity was displayed when God commanded Adam - “… you are free to eat from any tree in the garden …” (Genesis 2:16-17). The truth is, implicit in the capacity to choose is the ability to accept or reject – the ability to obey or disobey.

Like human beings, angels were similarly created. It is that potential to choose that captured the heart of the angel Lucifer. Lucifer wanted to “ascend to the heavens” and be “above the stars of God” (Isaiah 14:13). He desired to make himself “like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:14). In other words, Lucifer preferred to use his ability-to-choose, to distance himself from God. God judged Lucifer by removing him from His presence (Isaiah 14:15). That fallen angel is now known as Satan (adversary) or the Devil (slanderer).

In Ezekiel, we learned that Satan was created as a perfect, wise, and beautiful angel (Ezekiel 28:14). But then Satan rebelled: “You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you” (verse 15). That’s when the situation changed. Scripture hints at the reason Satan decided to make that choice: “Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendour” (Ezekiel 28:17).

When creatures with the ability to choose, use that ability to disobey God, that is called sin. Sin is to fall short of God’s expectations. Sin is to miss the mark. In his letter to the Romans, Paul describes sinning as “… falling short…” (Romans 3:23). To fall short implies not measuring up to a standard – God’s standard. Hence, when the angel Lucifer, chose to take a stand against God, he sinned. Similarly, when Eve and Adam took a stand to agree with Satan, they chose to disobey God – that was sin. Sin is the term we use to describe one’s stand against God.

Having taken a stand against God, Adam and Eve had to live with the consequences of their action. One such consequence was to pollute the human race with the sin virus. This is how the apostle Paul described this situation – “… just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned…” (Romans 5:12).

By this point it should be obvious that sin was not created by God. Rather, it is a condition that describes the choice made by God’s creatures. A choice that degenerates to another condition we describe as evil. Evil is wickedness, an attempt to cause unnecessary harm. It is an attitude of malice. Evil is behaviour with malevolent intent.

The Bible teaches that the penalty of sin is death (Romans 6:23). This is exactly what God said to Adam before he sinned (Genesis 2:16-17). Death was not only the cessation of life, but separation from God. Succinctly, because of God’s holiness, sin must be punished.

But wasn’t that the reason Jesus died? He died for sinners. Christians believe Jesus took the punishment for sin and died on a cross. This is how the Bible puts it – “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). In other words, although born a sinner, no one needs to die as a sinner. Jesus died, so that every sinner might live. I conclude with this, “For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19).

HURRICANES CAN BE HELPFUL

Usually, the words hurricane and helpful are never in the same sentence. Today I will attempt to marry them. Because we analyze hurricanes through the lenses of human activity, we limit our perspective. We see only destruction, disaster, adversity and tragedy. Our perspective will be quite different if we viewed hurricanes through the lenses of nature.

I found Jonathan Belles’ 2017 article to be extremely helpful in pulling this commentary together. Jonathan contends that there are at least five benefits of hurricanes.

In the first place, hurricanes bring rainfall to areas that need rainfall. Hurricanes are extremely efficient at rainfall production, and thus, can also be efficient drought busters. For instance, moisture from decaying hurricanes in the eastern Pacific occasionally gets caught up in the west-to-east flow of the United States, and reaches the Desert Southwest. These regions are desperate for rain, so an influx of moisture from a hurricane could be good news.

Hurricanes also break-up bacteria and red tide. As hurricanes move across the ocean, winds and waves toss the water. This mixing breaks up patches of bacteria that lurk in the water and can bring an earlier end to the red tide. Red Tide or algae blooms, deplete water of oxygen, discolor the waves and release toxins into the water. These tides kill, more specifically, fish, dolphins, manatees and many other animals in the ocean. Hurricanes help to oxygenate the near surface waters, helping to return life to areas where the red tide once existed.

In the third place, hurricanes help provide global heat balance. Said differently, hurricanes bring a temperature balance between the north/south poles and the equator. The earth is always trying to spread warmth around the world, and hurricanes are one of the primary ways this is done. Due to their size and interactions with the upper levels of the atmosphere, hurricanes are very efficient movers of equatorial heat. The equator would be considerably warmer, and the north/south poles could be significantly cooler if hurricanes did not exist.

Hurricanes replenish Barrier Islands. These are long broad sandy islands lying parallel to shores that are built up by the action of waves, currents, and winds and that protect shores from the effects of the ocean. Hurricanes have the power to pick-up substantial amounts of sand, nutrients and sediment from the bottom of the ocean to barrier islands. Storm surge, wind and waves will often move these islands closer to the mainland as sand is pushed or pulled in that direction. Without hurricanes or artificial restoration, barrier islands would eventually shrink and sink into the ocean.

And finally, hurricanes replenish inland plant life. As hurricanes make landfall, their wind blows spores and seeds further inland from where they would normally fall; this effect can be seen a thousand miles inland as storms move away from the shoreline. These seeds can replenish lost growth after fires and urbanization. Hurricanes often thin out tree foliage, which can be beneficial in firefighting efforts. The act of pruning trees as to mitigate damage can also help. Fresh nutrients and sediment brought in by hurricanes can spawn growth spurts in new plant life, which can later lead to upticks in animal life.

Agreed, hurricanes can cause much harm to human activity. So can rainfall. The difference is that we have learned to protect ourselves from the possible harm that rain brings. However, because of the wind force of hurricanes we need to be more prepared. Science has helped us to predict hurricane seasons, hurricane paths and the severity of hurricanes. When we fail to adequately prepare ourselves, we experience destruction, disaster, adversity and tragedy.

However, when viewed through the lenses of nature, we see hurricanes as uniquely designed to be a vital part of our ecosystem. Did I say designed? You bet I did say designed. The word suggests that organisms, as well as forces of nature were created. There was order and intention in their formation. The times, seasons, tides, elements, weather, reproduction, and all the cycles of life, growth, and death are orchestrated by Him. Each plays its role in God’s glorious harmony in nature and is given for humans to enjoy. Remember to thank God for hurricanes and prepare yourselves to live with their intensity.