Is God every pleasantly surprised with the results of his creative efforts?

Is it possible for us to surprise God?

Homework assignment if you are unfamiliar with the ideas of openness theology that attempts to reconcile God's foreknowledge and man's free will - Does God Know Your Next Move?

Have to admit I didn't do the homework - it's grant application season. But from my perspective, no, we can never surprise God because he knows all of time. I don't believe that foreknowledge means predestination and takes away free choice - it is possible to know something without acting on it, on God's part. We get confused because we're timebound.

I do think God knows our next move, however, I think He likes to see how we reason out what our next move is. So I don't think that we surprise God, but I do think that we fascinate Him with our reasoning powers.

HEY LIZ

YES I agree with you LIZ about GOD
being fascinated with our reasoning....
and maybe HE sees a little humor with
us also

dgrimm60

I think many times God must be greatly saddened by our reasoning...He has given us so much
evidence of His care for us, and we still worry and fret and fight.

(this is note to self)

HEY NAN

WELL yes I am sure that we all have
sadden GOD by some of our choices....
I know I have made poor choices

but when we make choices for him I know
it makes HIM happy and full of joy
and GOD can see the humor in our life's
for sure....

dgrimm60

I'm beginning to think that the only humor God finds when looking at our reasoning is a disappointed humor. "Funny" in that we have all this reasoning ability, yet we can be so dense and not see what He is trying to tell us. Our reasoning powers are really poor, don't you think? Even the best "thinker" today does not come close to King Solomon's ability. How much less was Solomon's thinking ability than Him that gave it?

Really though, how would it be possible to surprise God when He knows everything? I don't think anyone is trying to say that God really does NOT know what you and I are going to do the next minute.

HEY LINEMAN

I am sure GOD can see what will unfold
as our day progresses but we still have
the freedom of choice and can change or
paths for this hour and day.....


dgrimm60

Hmmmmmmm..........so from what I see here, God MUST be able to look into the future and is NOT surprised by any human action....

Doesn't that make God a slave to the future? Always evaluating it, always changing things to the best outcome? Or at least, the outcome that He desires?

You mean that He is NOT able to NOT see into the future and NOT be surprised when the future becomes present?

As I said, I think we're stuck within our own limited imaginations in relation to time. We see God as like us, moving along in time at the same rate, but being able to 'peek' into the future in a (possibly virtual) crystal ball and see what is going to happen.

Instead, I see God as knowing all of time throughout all of time. He is 'outside' time and looking in, and doesn't even have to skip forward to the end of the book to know how it comes out, because he's the Author and knows absolutely everything that has happened, is happening and will ever happen.

In that case, no, he's not fiddling and tweaking to improve things for the future, since the work is in a sense already done. But part of what He knows about the world is his own interventions - they're part of the history he already knows before it happens.