-Removed-I have done just that. I have put aside my personal belief that 'God does not exist' and taken God as he is portrayed in the Bible. A perfect, unchanging and infallible deity. It is to such a God that I identify the contradictions that seem to allude you. For such a God to 'change His mind' indicates that His previous plan was deficient in some way and that he isn't actually omniscient.
Let's say you were an architect, the best in your field, and you had designed a perfect city with everything working according to a purpose in every minute detail. If an ant happened along who had no possible conception of your perfect plan and asked you to change it. Would you?
@petewxyz saidAn interesting God indeed sir, but that isn't the God we are presented with in the Bible.
Maybe God is strategic? Perhaps God nurtures mankind's moral development by putting things out there for us to challenge? A parent does not nurture development without interaction. How do you know these weren't tests in which God hoped to be overruled?
People who try and overrule the biblical God don't fare so well...
-Removed-Taking God's omniscience as a starting point, I think there is an inherent folly in saying, 'I know you’re planning to do this God, but have you considered this instead?”
Please consider Ephesians 1:11:
"In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will."
@ghost-of-a-duke saidThe question seems to be how does an omnipotent parent still be a parent? Of course they could just do it all for you themselves and never let you experience figuring it out for yourself, but would that be a successful father?
Taking God's omniscience as a starting point, I think there is an inherent folly in saying, 'I know you’re planning to do this God, but have you considered this instead?”
Please consider Ephesians 1:11:
"In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will."
@petewxyz saidI think the question does indeed become easier sir when one craftily replaces omniscience with omnipotence.
The question seems to be how does an omnipotent parent still be a parent? Of course they could just do it all for you themselves and never let you experience figuring it out for yourself, but would that be a successful father?