Does God Make Mistakes?

This question gets asked in two very different cases.

Sometimes it’s a sceptic, who has probably read Genesis and found the verse where God is said to be sorry He made human beings. If He regretted it, He got it wrong—and if He can get one thing wrong, why trust Him with anything?

At other times, the question is posed by Christians who’re not trying to score points at all. Did God make a mistake when He made me? My marriage? My child’s diagnosis? The years I feel I’ve wasted?

Scripture has one answer to both questions. No, God doesn’t make mistakes, never has. He simply cannot make one. That’s not pious talk—it follows from who He is.

But we cannot throw verses at the questioner and walk away. The Bible does contain passages that sound, on first reading, like God is changing His mind and regretting His decisions. Let’s tackle each of them.

First, what would a “mistake” even be?

Words matter here. In ordinary speech, a mistake is when something turns out other than you intended: you post the letter to the wrong address, or appoint the wrong person to the job. Unpack that, and a mistake always needs at least one of four ingredients—and once you see them, you can see why even one of these can be true about God.

A Mistake Requires…	Why This is Impossible in God	Scripture
Not knowing all the facts	He knows everything actual and possible; nothing is hidden from Him	Psalm 147:5; Hebrews 4:13; 1 John 3:20
Reasoning wrongly from the facts	His understanding has no limit and no learning curve	Isaiah 40:28; Romans 11:33
The result falling short of the intention	What He plans, happens; no power can frustrate His purpose	Isaiah 46:10; Psalm 33:11; Job 42:2
A standard above the one who acts	There’s no standard above God; He is the standard of right	Deuteronomy 32:4; Psalm 18:30

One distinction clears up much of the confusion: a mistake isn’t a sin. And God can do neither—but for different reasons. He cannot make mistakes because He knows everything and is perfectly wise and powerful. And He cannot sin because He is holy.

The Bible does say there are things God “cannot” do. He cannot lie (Hebrews 6:18) or deny Himself (2 Timothy 2:13). These aren’t gaps in His power but the shape of His perfection. A God who could lie would be less God, not more.

The case for a God who cannot be wrong

Start not with the difficult verses but with the places where Scripture teaches directly about God, rather than describing Him in poetic or emotional language.

His work is perfect. “The Rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are justice” (Deuteronomy 32:4). Notice where this sits—in the middle of a passage about Israel’s failure. That’s the point: human collapse is never evidence against God’s workmanship.
His knowledge isn’t gleaned from observation. This is the piece most people miss. God doesn’t learn by watching, and doesn’t gather information. He knows all things because He knows Himself and His own purpose. So there’s no moment, however brief, in which a fact sits outside His knowledge—and therefore no gap in which an error could form.
His mind doesn’t shift. “God is not man, that He should lie, or a son of man, that He should change His mind” (Numbers 23:19). Note who says it. Balaam is a hired prophet who wants Israel cursed—and even the mercenary has to admit it.
His plan covers everything. Ephesians 1:11 speaks of God working all things according to the purpose of His will. Not most things. All things.

Stephen Charnock pressed this to its end centuries ago: a God who could err wouldn’t be wise, wouldn’t be perfectly happy, and couldn’t be trusted—and let’s face it—wouldn’t be God at all. A God who sometimes gets it wrong isn’t a humbler version of the God of the Bible. It’s a different being.

RC Sproul put it memorably: if one “maverick molecule” were loose in the universe, outside God’s control, God wouldn’t be God—because that stray particle could yet ruin everything.

The verses that sound like God got it wrong

Now to the heart of the matter. If God makes no mistakes, why does the Bible sometimes sound as though He does?

One Hebrew word explains most of it

The word behind almost all of these passages is the Hebrew nacham. English versions render it “regretted”, “repented”, “relented”, “was sorry”, “had compassion”. The word genuinely covers all those senses. It carries the idea of a deep emotional turn: grief, comfort, pity, a change of course.

Robert Chisholm notes something decisive. When God is the subject, nacham is overwhelmingly used of God holding back judgement He’d threatened. It’s language that tilts towards mercy, not failure: it describes God not doing something bad, rather than undoing something wrong.

The Greek New Testament confirms it by silence. The word for changing one’s mind about a wrong course, metanoia, is never once applied to God. Romans 11:29 calls his gifts and calling ametamelētos—literally, “not to be regretted”.

Genesis 6:6—“the LORD regretted that He had made man”

This describes God’s settled moral horror at human evil, put into the language of human grief so we may feel its weight. Had the verse read “God disapproved of sin”, we’d nod and move on. Instead we’re told His heart was grieved—and suddenly sin looks like what it is.

Two details in the surrounding text settle the matter.

Genesis 3:15 comes first. The promise of a deliverer to be born of woman is already on record, chapters before the flood. The flood isn’t panic clean-up of a project gone wrong. The rescue plan was announced before the flood was needed.
Genesis 6:8 comes immediately after. “But Noah found favour in the eyes of the LORD.” The line of promise isn’t broken for even one verse.

1 Samuel 15—the hardest one, and the most helpful

Here God says He regrets making Saul king. This is the sceptic’s favourite chapter, and it should be ours too, because it answers itself:

1 Samuel 15: 11 “I regret that I have made Saul king.”
Verse 29: “the Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for He is not a man, that He should have regret.”
Verse 35: the regret is stated again.

Same author, same chapter, same Hebrew word. The writer wasn’t confused, and he plainly tells us verse 29 explains how we’re to read verse 11. So what’s going on?

Saul was never the goal. Israel demanded a king like the nations, and God said they had rejected him (1 Samuel 8:7). Hosea 13:11 is blunt: “I gave you a king in my anger.” Saul was a granted request that doubled as a lesson.
David was the plan long before Saul. Genesis 49:10 gives the royal sceptre to Judah, and Saul was from Benjamin. While Saul still sits on the throne, God speaks of “a man after his own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14). The kingdom was heading to Judah all along.
God’s dealings changed because Saul changed. God’s attitude to a disobedient Saul had to differ from His attitude to an obedient one—precisely because God’s own righteousness does not change.

Jonah 3:10—God “relented” over Nineveh

Jeremiah 18:7–10 gives us the rule. When God announces judgement on a nation and that nation turns, He holds back; when He promises blessing and that nation turns away, He withholds it. There’s God’s unbending righteousness on view again. Threats and promises to nations carry a built-in condition, whether or not it’s spelt out.

Then Jonah 4:2 seals it. Jonah is furious, and he complains he knew this would happen—which is why he ran. A “change of mind” that God’s own prophet predicted from God’s revealed character is no change of mind at all.

Exodus 32:14—God “relented” after Moses prayed

Read verse 10 first: “now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them.” That is not God restrained by a stronger will. It’s a door left open, almost an invitation to intercede. And notice what Moses argues: God’s own promises and God’s own reputation among the Egyptians (verses 11–13). He is pleading God’s words back to Him.

God had determined to spare Israel, and to do it through the prayers of Moses. Prayer sits inside God’s plan; it’s not a lever we use against it.

Hezekiah—15 more years (2 Kings 20)

Hezekiah is told he will die. He prays. And he is told 15 more years have been granted him—years in which Manasseh is born, the worst king Judah ever had. Surely a bad call? But follow the story to the end. Manasseh repents in prison (2 Chronicles 33:12–13), and his name appears in the genealogy of Jesus Christ (Matthew 1:10). The passage often cited to prove a divine blunder turns out to be a thread in the line leading to the Saviour.

The Rule That Unlocks Every One of These Passages

Read the picture-language in light of the plain teaching—never the other way round.

Numbers 23:19 and 1 Samuel 15:29 are statements about God’s nature. Genesis 6:6 and Jonah 3:10 describe God acting in time, in human terms, so that we can feel them.

John Calvin called this accommodation: God “lisps” with us the way a nurse baby-talks to an infant—not because the truth is small, but because we are.

The same thing happens when Genesis 11:5 says God “came down to see” Babel. No one thinks He needed directions. Or that He couldn’t see clearly enough from His throne.

God changes His dealings; He does not change His mind

The old illustration is still the best. The same sun that melts wax hardens clay. Nothing changed in the sun.

So when God treats the repentant differently from the unrepentant, that’s not inconsistency but consistency. A judge who treated a confession and a cover-up identically would be the one who’d changed.

So the Bible can say in one breath God doesn’t change His mind, and yet, in the next, tell us He turned from judgement He’d announced. His character is fixed. It’s our position that isn’t.

But what about the Fall? Surely that went wrong

This is the strongest form of the objection. If God made a good world and it broke within a few chapters, was that not a failure?

Three things need saying.

It was neither ignorance nor an accident. God ordained whatever comes to pass, and did so in such a way that He isn’t the author of sin and no violence is done to the will of His creatures. Both halves must be held: human beings sinned freely and are fully guilty, and God’s purpose was never in doubt.
The Bible gives us the pattern for how both can be true. Joseph tells His brothers, “you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20). One act, two intentions, two verdicts. Peter says the same of the crucifixion: Jesus was delivered up by God’s definite plan, and killed by lawless men (Acts 2:23). The worst act in history was wicked in the doing and planned in the purposing.
And this is the argument that settles it. The cross wasn’t a rescue plan drawn up after things went wrong. Christ was “foreknown before the foundation of the world” (1 Peter 1:20), and we were chosen in Him before that same foundation (Ephesians 1:4). The Saviour was appointed long before there was a Fall to fix.

Sit with that. God didn’t react to the Fall or improvise. Redemption wasn’t Plan B, because with God there has never been a Plan B—only the plan.

The same logic applies wherever people imagine God was knocked off course by human refusal. Facing the hardest case of all—Israel’s unbelief—Paul concedes nothing: “It’s not as though the word of God had failed” (Romans 9:6).

What about the modern claim that God can be wrong?

Some professing Christians now argue openly God can be mistaken. The position is called open theism; its best-known advocates include Clark Pinnock, Gregory Boyd and John Sanders. The claim: God doesn’t know future free choices, takes real risks, and can be genuinely surprised. Boyd builds much of his case on the very “regret” passages we’ve just examined.

Three problems sink it.

It reads the Bible backwards. It takes the emotional, picture-language passages literally and treats the direct statements—“He is not a man, that He should have regret”—as figures of speech. That’s exactly the wrong way round.
It fails God’s own test. In Isaiah 41:21–24 God challenges the idols to prove they’re gods by telling what is to come. Knowing the future is the test of deity God Himself sets—and a God who might be wrong about the future cannot pass it.
It leaves you without assurance. Bruce Ware argues this is the real cost: a God who cannot guarantee the future cannot guarantee our salvation either. Philippians 1:6 becomes a hope rather than a promise, and every comfort in the Christian life quietly turns provisional.

Why this matters

Which brings us back to the second person asking—the one not looking for an argument.

We’re not accidents. Psalm 139 says God formed us and wrote our days in His book before one of them happened. However unplanned we were by anyone else, we weren’t unplanned by Him.
Our hardest circumstances aren’t oversights. Romans 8:28 doesn’t say all things are good. Some things are terrible. It says God works them together for good for those who love Him. Those are very different claims, and only the second is true.
Not every hardship is a punishment. When the disciples assumed a blind man’s condition must be somebody’s fault, Jesus said no—it was so that God’s work might be displayed (John 9:3). Suffering isn’t always a verdict.
None of this means shrugging. God works through means. He ordains ends, and He ordains the prayers, decisions, doctors and hard conversations that get us there. Proverbs is a book about making wise choices, written for people whose God makes none of them.

None of this means our grief is faithless, or that pain is fine, or that we should stop praying for change. Jesus wept at a tomb He was about to open.

John Piper has a line worth keeping close: God is always doing far more in your life than the one or two things you can see. Perfection isn’t simplicity. It means nothing is loose.

Here’s the weight of the whole question. If God could make mistakes, no promise He has made would be secure—a mistaken God might have been mistaken about the promise too. Every comfort in the Bible would carry an asterisk.

Because He cannot, every one of them holds.

Tough Questions, Honest Answers

Did God make a mistake when He created Satan?

No. Satan was created good, and Ezekiel 28:15 describes him as blameless until wickedness was found in him. His fall was his own—it came from pride, not from a flaw in his making. God created a being capable of falling and ordained that fall within his wise purpose, without Himself being the author of evil. And notice how Scripture consistently presents Satan: on a leash and already defeated. He must ask permission in Job 1:12 and Luke 22:31, and his end is fixed in Revelation 20:10. A world in which God triumphs over a real enemy through the cross displays more of His glory than a world that’s devoid of enemies totally.

Did Jesus make a mistake in choosing Judas as one of the Twelve?

No, and John says so directly. Jesus knew from the beginning who would betray Him (John 6:64), and in John 6:70 He says outright that one of the 12 He had chosen was a devil. This wasn’t a failure of judgement but the fulfilment of Scripture (John 17:12, quoting Psalm 41:9), which is exactly how Peter explains it in Acts 1:16. At the same time, Judas isn’t excused for a moment—Luke 22:22 holds both truths in a single sentence: the Son of Man goes as it has been determined, and woe to the man who betrays Him. Judas did what he freely wanted to do, and what God had purposed.

Hebrews 8:7 says the first covenant wasn’t “faultless”. Was the old covenant a divine mistake?

Read the next verse: “He finds fault with them”—the people, not the covenant’s design. The old covenant did exactly what it was given to do: expose sin, teach through shadows and sacrifices, and lead Israel to Christ. Galatians 3:24 calls the law a guardian until Christ came; Hebrews 10:1 calls the old system a shadow of the good things to come. Scaffolding isn’t a failed building. Its removal means the building is finished, not that the plan was wrong.

If God makes no mistakes, are there mistakes in the Bible?

Not in what God gave. Scripture is God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16) and the prophets spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21), so the original writings are free from error. What we hold in our hands, however, are copies and translations, and copyists were never promised inspiration. There are small differences between manuscripts—spelling, word order, the occasional repeated line. But the manuscript evidence is enormous, the differences are overwhelmingly trivial, and no article of the faith rests on a disputed reading. As for apparent contradictions, most dissolve once we allow for different purposes, partial reporting, rounded numbers, and the ordinary freedoms of ancient historical writing.

Why does God ask questions if He already knows the answers?

Because questions do something statements don’t. When God asks Adam “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9), He’s not looking for a location—He’s calling a hiding man out of the bushes. When He asks Cain “What have you done?” (Genesis 4:10), He’s inviting confession. When He asks Jacob his name, Jacob has to say it himself. Job 38–41 is over 70 questions in a row, and not one of them is for God’s benefit. Any good parent or teacher knows the technique: we ask what we already know so the other person gets to say it out loud.

Does prayer change God’s mind, or does it only change me?

Neither answer on its own is quite right. Prayer doesn’t inform God or talk Him round—He isn’t persuaded by better arguments. But prayer genuinely accomplishes things, because God has appointed it as one of the means by which He brings about what He has purposed. James 5:16–18 says the prayer of a righteous person has great power, and points to Elijah as proof. So prayer really changes outcomes; it just doesn’t change God. And yes, it changes us too—Calvin described prayer as digging up the treasures God has already promised, which is work that shapes the digger.

Can God change His mind about saving me?

No. Jesus says He will lose none of those the Father gives Him (John 6:37–39), Paul says nothing in all creation can separate us from God’s love in Christ (Romans 8:38–39), and Romans 11:29 says God’s calling isn’t something He takes back. Our assurance doesn’t rest on the strength of our grip on Him but on the strength of His grip on us. This isn’t a licence to be careless, because real faith always shows itself—those who finally walk away reveal what they always were (1 John 2:19).

Truths to die for

First, what would a “mistake” even be?

The case for a God who cannot be wrong