Did God need to be persuaded? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
Exodus 32 is not a proud moment in Jewish history. It is the golden calf incident. In the midst of the event where Moses is on the mountain and Aaron has made the calf, we see God saying this to Moses:
7 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. 8 They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’
9 “I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. 10 Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”
11 But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. 13 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’” 14 Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.
Often times, when it comes to open theism, the idea is that God doesn’t know the future. However, the future is not the primary cause of discussion here. In this case, if we take this passage in a literalistic sense, God doesn’t know the past. Moses had a better memory than God did. God would have apparently forgot the covenant promise that He made.
So is that what happened?
Tertullian says about this in Against Marcion that
But (you say) God was even then mean enough in His very fierceness, when, in His wrath against the people for their consecration of the calf, He makes this request of His servant Moses: “Let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them; and I will make of thee a great nation.” Accordingly, you maintain that Moses is better than his God, as the deprecator, nay the averter, of His anger. “For,” said he, “Thou shalt not do this; or else destroy me along with them.” Pitiable are ye also, as well as the people, since you know not Christ, prefigured in the person of Moses as the deprecator of the Father, and the offerer of His own life for the salvation of the people. It is enough, however, that the nation was at the instant really given to Moses. That which he, as a servant, was able to ask of the Lord, the Lord required of Himself. For this purpose did He say to His servant, “Let me alone, that I may consume them,” in order that by his entreaty, and by offering himself, he might hinder (the threatened judgment), and that you might by such an instance learn how much privilege is vouchsafed with God to a faithful man and a prophet.
It’s worth pointing out that the idea that God was willing to do this was a Marcionite position. Tertullian says this was done to illustrate something about the person of Christ. Just as Moses interceded, so Jesus would intercede for His people.
Looking over other citations, this seems to be the main position of the church fathers. Moses does this to show his role as an intercessor. God gives him the opportunity to do this.
From a philosophical perspective, what we have here is a God who is not the God of all truth. He doesn’t know all truth. He is not omniscient. He needs to be reminded. This is no longer God. This is Superman. He’s just a much bigger form of us.
I conclude then that if we take this text in a literalistic sense, then we have a lesser deity.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)