God. Real. Right.

This post continues the series begun here, the to-date-compilation of which is available here.
2.1.2.1.2 That God repents is evidence that God makes things the best, not that He must simply act within some externally defined best.
Even accepting the mistaken idea that there are a finite number of possibilities (too great a limit on God) there is still no reason to believe that there cannot be a plurality of morally equivalent possibilities. The scriptural use of “repentance” in reference to God makes the point. Reducing repentance to relenting neither addresses the problem nor deals fairly with the vocabulary—no one has a problem using the same word to mean repentance when it concerns humans. Is it not the case that every time God has mercy it is because He has repented? His pronouncement of judgment is not false. His mercy is real because the condemnation of the guilty is real and that guilty soul’s future without God is as really condemned as any future can be real. His act of mercy then overturns His pronouncement of judgment—which is why it is mercy. It is not necessity. If it were necessity, then His mercy might as well be called justice. The distinguishing characteristic of mercy is that it is bestowed upon those who, in every sense meaningful to humanity, should not receive it. And to think of moral necessity (ought-ness) as something necessarily excluded from metaphysical actuality is right in the heart of the dilemma every theistic determinist faces. For the determinist, God has taught people that some things ought to be, then made it so that they are not and indeed cannot be. That untenable position being abandoned, the only option left is to acknowledge that God’s mercy is bestowed by a God who acts not of necessity, but freely.
But if God is repenting, is it in response to changes in man? After all, God could be changing without regard to anything outside of Himself. He could act that way. But the many descriptions of God interacting with the requests of humans in scripture do not paint a picture of arbitrary activity disconnected either volitionally or causally from creation. But if God is bestowing mercy in response to man’s activity, then is man not meriting his salvation? The answer is no. God’s repentance can be understood and explained (as God has revealed it) insofar as and because there is a consistent relationship between man’s repentance and God’s subsequent mercy. But in no way does man’s faith toward God merit salvation. Saying that something can be explained as a matter of fact is different from saying it is necessary, whether morally (as if it were merited) or naturally (as if God had no choice).
Two problems remain for this picture of God’s repentance. One has simply to do with God’s sovereignty, the other with the point of bringing up God’s repentance in the first place. On the one: just how sovereign is a God whose activity is contingent on the activity of His creation? If God acts in response (even if anticipated) to His creatures, then are not the creatures making the final calls about what happens? Again, the answer is no. God is still sovereign. God has declared that those with faith are redeemed and those without are damned. When a condemned person chooses faith in Christ, God’s repentance is expressed in His choosing to extend mercy to that person—consistent with what He had always said He would do. The soul is now redeemed not because she believed, but because God declared that all who believe are redeemed and has chosen to act faithfully regarding His declaration. A determinist might think the problem has been hidden in an equivocation. Perhaps her faith was not sufficient to produce redemption, but it was necessary, and the necessity of faith for redemption is just as undermining to sovereignty as the sufficiency of faith for redemption. But her faith is no more necessary to salvation than God has declared, leaving God’s sovereignty as unthreatened as it always necessarily is.
But what of the other problem, the one about which this issue was raised to begin with? Whether God condemns or redeems this person (who either rejects or chooses faith) He is still acting perfectly in accordance with His own chosen will. But how? If it is better that someone be redeemed than lost (or vice versa) then is it not obviously the case that God must choose the best? But one option (condemning or redeeming) need not have either a greater or lesser moral value than the other. In fact, most systematic Calvinists tend to hold something like this view. That is, God is glorified equally when condemning or redeeming. Indeed, as that view can hold, the measure of His grace toward some is fully revealed only in contrast to the actuality of His condemnation toward others. But more importantly God makes of whatever possibility is actualized the best of all possibilities. In fact, that activity of God is what redemption appears to be all about throughout scripture. It is not fortunate that Adam sins. But God does not destroy Adam and start over either. Instead, God makes of a miserably fallen world the best actuality that ever could have been. The fallen world is not necessarily the best of all possible worlds. Rather, God acts in His sovereignty to make the world which has been affected by Adam’s sin not just the best it can be, but the very best world which ever could have been. He redeems creation, and the freedom in it is no threat to Him doing so.