If God exists, and can be said to have set the universe in motion, and make decisions as to its principles and workings (A very big IF, but not completely implausible... Only 99.9999% implausible... Okay, I haven't really done the math on this one.)
But where was I? It seems to me, simply from my own observations that God(either because he cannot, or has simply chooses not to) doesn't change the past. If something has already happened, God won't change His/Her/Its mind.
But if something has not happened yet, it lies in the future... God has made some decisions about the way things will happen... We cannot suddenly grow wings, or make become invisible, or begin seeing light in the infrared, ultraviolet, radio, and X-ray spectrums. I don't have perfect free will to do whatever I want, but I do have free will within a certain scope.
But within the realm of the actually possible--God has made no decisions on what we will do. Each of us is capable, at any time, of acting in an entirely unexpected way. It is not God, but other humans who will react and punish behavior that is too far out-of-line... (Some think that God will also send down asteroids or make volcanoes explode, or send whales after people if they make the wrong choices... But I think that asteroids, volcanoes, and whales would happen whether people made good choices or not.)
If God has not made any decisions about what we will do, he is not changing his mind when we do something unexpected. But here's what I think is a more important question than "Can God change his mind..."
"What does God Hope For?"
If I don't believe that God really exists, is it nonsensical to wonder about what God hopes for? I don't think so... It provides an opening for a discussion about what is ABSOLUTE good. What is humanity's role in the universe? Do we have a purpose, other than what we make for ourselves? If we have an ABSOLUTE purpose, then it might be possible to succeed or fail in that purpose. If our purpose is simply what we make for ourselves, then God never made made up his mind in the first place about our future.
Even so... What does God hope for? Does God hope that humankind will somehow overcome some kind of adversity? Does God hope for humankind to be a short-lived blip in the history of the universe, or a transitional stage in the evolution of creatures from flesh to robotic? Or does God hope that humankind remains on the face of the earth until the sun goes red-giant, 5 billion years hence?
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