CDM requests some examples:
I noticed the Arminian-friendly here argue by philosophical perspectives, and seeming truths. How about backing your assertions up with Scripture? Christians shouldn’t care what one thinks if the Word contradicts one’s humanistic arguments.
Since Greg Boyd already went to the trouble of looking up more than a few verses which demonstrate this, I see no reason to reinvent the wheel.
When the Bible says that God “changed his mind” (e.g. Ex. 32:14; 2 Chr. 21:15; Jon.3:10, Jere. 26:2-3; Joel 2:13-14), I simply do not see anything, in the text which suggests it is intended to be taken as figurative. So too, when God adds fifteen years to Hezekiah’s life after he’s prophetically informed him of his intention to end it immediately (Isa., 38:1-5; 2 Ka. 20:1-6), 1 assume that God altered his plans. The same is true when God says he will reverse his prophesied decision to bless or curse a nation if that nation changes (Jere. 18:7-11). I don’t know how to faithfully interpret this passage unless God really changes his mind. And this, so far as I can discern, implies that the fate of the nation was not from eternity a foregone conclusion.
In just the same way, when the Lord says that he thought Israel would turn to him and expresses disappointment over the fact that they didn’t (Jere. 3:6-7, 19-20), I personally don’t know how to interpret this with integrity without concluding that what Israel was actually going to do was somewhat up in the air at the time God thought this. When the Lord says that he “regretted” the way even decisions which he made turned out, I have to take this as factual (Gen. 6:6, I Sam. 5:12, 35). And when the Lord speaks of the future using words like “if,” “perhaps” and “maybe,” as he frequently does, I don’t know how to acknowledge these words as absolutely authoritative in my thinking- without concluding that the aspects of the future to which he refers is genuinely a “maybe,” not a settled issues (e.g., Ex. 4:1-9; Jere. 38:17-18, 20-21, 23).
It is more than a little ironic that the omniderigistas require a figurative interpretation of the Bible in defense of their orthodoxy. They aren’t generally quite so eager to accept the non-literal argument when it comes to other matters, such as the Revelation or the Gospels.