Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible
Lesson 4
Doctrinal Discrepancies
Rationale: The student will be
familiarized with a few of many alleged
doctrinal discrepancies in the Bible and
will understand that there are answers
for such, and that the Bible maintains
logical coherency in all of its doctrines.
1. God and Omnipotence: Omnipotence
means that God is infinite and unlimited
in power; hence, He has an unlimited
reservoir of power by which He can do
anything that He ever wanted to do, even
if He does not do it.
God can do all things:
Jeremiah 32:27 (NASB)"Behold, I am the
LORD, the God of all flesh; is anything
too difficult for Me?"
Job 42:2 (NASB) "I know that You can do
all things, And that no purpose of Yours
can be thwarted.
God can do all things:
Matthew 19:26 (NASB) And looking at them
Jesus said to them, "With people this is
impossible, but with God all things are
possible."
Luke 1:35 (NASB) The angel answered and
said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon
you, and the power of the Most High will
overshadow you; and for that reason the holy
Child shall be called the Son of God.
God cannot do all things:
Habakkuk 1:13 (NASB) Your eyes are too
pure to approve evil, And You can not
look on wickedness with favor. Why do
You look with favor On those who deal
treacherously? Why are You silent when
the wicked swallow up Those more
righteous than they?
God cannot do all things:
Mark 6:5 (NASB) And He could do no
miracle there except that He laid His
hands on a few sick people and healed
them.
Titus 1:2 (NASB) in the hope of eternal
life, which God, who cannot lie,
promised long ages ago,
God cannot do all things:
Hebrews 6:18 (NASB) so that by two
unchangeable things in which it is impossible
for God to lie, we who have taken refuge
would have strong encouragement to take
hold of the hope set before us.
James 1:13 (NASB) Let no one say when he is
tempted, "I am being tempted by God"; for
God cannot be tempted by evil, and He
Himself does not tempt anyone.
•Omnipotence does not mean that God
has the power to do every conceivable
thing, but to do everything within the
sphere of logic. For an example,
omnipotence does not mean that God
can cause something to exists and not
exist at the same time and in the same
sense. The very idea is selfcontradictory and logically absurd.
God is tired and rests:
Exodus 31:17 (NASB) "It is a sign
between Me and the sons of Israel
forever; for in six days the LORD made
heaven and earth, but on the seventh
day He ceased from labor, and was
refreshed."
God is never weary:
Isaiah 40:28 (NASB) Do you not know?
Have you not heard? The Everlasting
God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends
of the earth Does not become weary or
tired. His understanding is inscrutable.
•Ceased from labor and refreshed in Ex
31:17 is merely a vivid Oriental way of
saying that God concluded His work of
creation and took delight in surveying
that work.
•God and Omniscience” to say that God
is omniscient is to say that God is
infinite in His knowledge. God
possesses total and perfect knowledge
about every detail concerning everything
that He has created.
•Also connected to omniscience is God’s
exhaustive divine foreknowledge, or
EDF. This EDF is God’s perfect and
complete knowledge about every detail
in the future.
•Opponents of EDF are of a theological
persuasion known as Open Theism. This view
teaches that man is a free will moral agent,
and because of this, the future is therefore
“open” and thus God cannot have Exhaustive
Divine Foreknowledge (EDF) of our free will
actions. Proponents of this view believe that
God is infinite, omnipotent, and even works
miracles; however, He is not capable of
knowing what our free will choices will be.
God knows all things:
Psalm 139:1-4 (NASB) 1 O LORD, You have
searched me and known me. 2 You know
when I sit down and when I rise up; You
understand my thought from afar. 3 You
scrutinize my path and my lying down, And
are intimately acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before there is a word on my tongue,
Behold, O LORD, You know it all.
God knows all things:
Hebrews 4:13 (NASB) And there is no
creature hidden from His sight, but all
things are open and laid bare to the eyes
of Him with whom we have to do.
God knows all things:
Acts 1:24-25 (NASB) 24 And they prayed
and said, “You, Lord, who know the
hearts of all men, show which one of
these two You have chosen 25 to occupy
this ministry and apostleship from which
Judas turned aside to go to his own
place.”
God seeks to find out (allegedly):
Genesis 22:12 (NASB) He said, “Do not
stretch out your hand against the lad,
and do nothing to him; for now I know
that you fear God, since you have not
withheld your son, your only son, from
Me.”
The language of Genesis 22:12 is
designed to accommodate human
understanding, it was spoken from
mankind’s perspective. By the testing
process applied to Abraham, the
exhaustive divine foreknowledge
confined to the mind of God was
revealed and verified to Abraham.
God seeks to find out (allegedly):
Deuteronomy 8:2 (NASB) “You shall
remember all the way which the LORD
your God has led you in the wilderness
these forty years, that He might humble
you, testing you, to know what was in
your heart, whether you would keep His
commandments or not.
•Here in Deuteronomy the same can be
said of Israel that was said of Abraham,
the exhaustive divine foreknowledge
confined to the mind of God was
revealed and verified to Israel.
God does not forget
Isaiah 49:15 (NASB) "Can a woman
forget her nursing child And have no
compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget, but I will not
forget you.
God temporarily forgot Noah (allegedly)
Genesis 8:1 (NASB) But God
remembered Noah and all the beasts and
all the cattle that were with him in the
ark; and God caused a wind to pass over
the earth, and the water subsided.
•The language of Genesis 8:1 is written
to accommodate the human perspective.
From Noah’s vantage point, it very well
seemed as though God did forget him
for a time.
God does not change His mind
1 Samuel 15:29 (NASB) "Also the Glory
of Israel will not lie or change His mind;
for He is not a man that He should
change His mind."
God does not change His mind
Psalm 110:4 (NASB) The LORD has
sworn and will not change His mind,
"You are a priest forever According to
the order of Melchizedek."
God changes His mind
Exodus 32:14 (NASB) So the LORD changed
His mind about the harm which He said He
would do to His people.
Jeremiah 26:13 (NASB) "Now therefore
amend your ways and your deeds and obey
the voice of the LORD your God; and the
LORD will change His mind about the
misfortune which He has pronounced against
you.
God changes His mind
Jeremiah 26:19 (NASB) "Did Hezekiah king of
Judah and all Judah put him to death? Did he
not fear the LORD and entreat the favor of the
LORD, and the LORD changed His mind about
the misfortune which He had pronounced
against them? But we are committing a great
evil against ourselves."
God changes His mind
Amos 7:3 (NASB) The LORD changed
His mind about this. "It shall not be,"
said the LORD.
Amos 7:6 (NASB) The LORD changed
His mind about this. "This too shall not
be," said the Lord GOD.
•To first address the alleged
discrepancies of God’s foreknowledge
as it relates to changing His mind
(allegedly) we must first understand
some prominent theological positions:
1. Libertarian Free will: Man is a free will
moral agent, and is free to make
independent choices as those choices
relate to God and His decrees.
2. Determinism (Universal divine causal
determinism): Every event that happens
within the realm of God’s creation
(universal) is by divine cause (God) who
determines by His eternal divine decree
that every event universally will
commence exactly as He wills.
3. Compatibilism: Mankind is free to make
choices as those choices relate to God
and His decrees, however, God still
determines every event that is going to
happen and thus God is not responsible
for determining that free will man sins,
thus free will and determinism are
compatible. Both those of the free will
and determinism positions reject this
view because it is logically inconsistent.
Thus compatibilism will be ejected from
The libertarian free will positions is
divided into two sects:
1. Those who purport in EDF (God’s
exhaustive divine foreknowledge)
2. Those who assert “open theism”,
God limits himself by not allowing
himself to know what free will
choices that mankind will make.
(Such as the testing of Abraham in
Genesis 22:12)
•Open theism stands in direct opposition
the Bible’s teaching on EDF and the
Churches view on EDF and therefore
must be rejected. Therefore the
traditional view of libertarian free will,
will serve as the position in which these
alleged discrepancies will be addressed.
God does not change His mind
1 Samuel 15:29 (NASB) "Also the Glory
of Israel will not lie or change His mind;
for He is not a man that He should
change His mind."
Psalm 110:4 (NASB) The LORD has
sworn and will not change His mind,
"You are a priest forever According to
the order of Melchizedek."
•1 Samuel 15:29 and Psalm 110:4 are
indicative of the many things that
comprise God’s “prescriptive” will. That
which God has dictated and absolutely
will not change His mind, such as the
crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus
Christ.
God changes His mind
Exodus 32:14 (NASB) So the LORD changed
His mind about the harm which He said He
would do to His people.
Jeremiah 26:13 (NASB) "Now therefore
amend your ways and your deeds and obey
the voice of the LORD your God; and the
LORD will change His mind about the
misfortune which He has pronounced
God changes His mind
Jeremiah 26:19 (NASB) "Did Hezekiah king of
Judah and all Judah put him to death? Did he not
fear the LORD and entreat the favor of the LORD,
and the LORD changed His mind about the
misfortune which He had pronounced against
them? But we are committing a great evil against
ourselves."
Amos 7:3 (NASB) The LORD changed His mind
about this. "It shall not be," said the LORD.
Amos 7:6 (NASB) The LORD changed His mind
about this. "This too shall not be," said the Lord
GOD.
•The passages from Exodus, Jeremiah, Amos
and other such passages that suggest that God
changed his mind are written to accommodate
man’s limited understanding of God and are
indicative of God’s “permissive” will. God’s
permissive will relates to those things in which
God allows man to freely choose, as man’s free
choice relates to God’s decrees.
•In such passages that relate to God’s
permissive will, such as Exodus 32:14,
Jeremiah 26:13; 19 ad Amos 7:3; 6, the
change is in man not God. For example God
has promised blessings to the righteous and
punishment to the wicked. Suppose a
righteous man should turn and become
wicked. He is no longer the man whom God
promised to bless. The promise was made to
an entirely different person, and the change
was in the man not God, however, from a
•Suppose a wicked man repents and
becomes good, he is no longer the
individual that is the recipient of God’s
promised punishment. Based off of his
free will actions, he attains a different
relationship to God. He has passed out
of the sphere of the divine punishment
into the sphere of divine forgiveness, yet
all the while there is no change in God.
3. God and human free will (libertarian
free will vs open theism and
determinism)
God hardens men’s hearts:
Exodus 9:12 (NASB) And the LORD
hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not
listen to them, just as the LORD had spoken
to Moses.
Exodus 10:1 (NASB) Then the LORD said to
Moses, "Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened
his heart and the heart of his servants, that I
may perform these signs of Mine among
God hardens men’s hearts:
Exodus 11:10 (NASB) Moses and Aaron
performed all these wonders before
Pharaoh; yet the LORD hardened Pharaoh's
heart, and he did not let the sons of Israel go
out of his land.
Deuteronomy 2:30 (NASB) "But Sihon king
of Heshbon was not willing for us to pass
through his land; for the LORD your God
hardened his spirit and made his heart
God hardens men’s hearts:
Joshua 11:20 (NASB) For it was of the
LORD to harden their hearts, to meet
Israel in battle in order that he might
utterly destroy them, that they might
receive no mercy, but that he might
destroy them, just as the LORD had
commanded Moses.
Man hardens his own heart:
Exodus 8:15 (NASB) But when Pharaoh
saw that there was relief, he hardened
his heart and did not listen to them, as
the LORD had said.
Exodus 8:32 (NASB) But Pharaoh
hardened his heart this time also, and he
did not let the people go.
Man hardens his own heart:
Exodus 9:34 (NASB) But when Pharaoh saw
that the rain and the hail and the thunder
had ceased, he sinned again and hardened
his heart, he and his servants.
Hebrews 3:7-8 (NASB) Therefore, just as the
Holy Spirit says, "TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS
VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS AS
WHEN THEY PROVOKED ME, AS IN THE
DAY OF TRIAL IN THE WILDERNESS,
•From the free will perspective, God
hardening Pharaoh’s heart is simple: The
sun by its very nature, by the force of its
heat, melts wax or hardens clay. It
softens one while at the same time
hardens another, this produces opposite
effects by the very same power. So it is
with God, by His very nature and by the
force of His nature some hearts are
softened and convicted and at the same
•As to Sihon in Deuteronomy 2:30, God
providentially arranged circumstances in
order that the wickedness of his heart
would fully develop in “hardness” and
“wrong-headedness” bring upon him
merited destruction.
•Regarding Joshua 11:20, the king of Hazor,
the king of Madon the king of Shirmon and
the king of Achshap, and the accompanying
kings led what would now be considered
“mechanized” armies, for they possessed
horses and chariots. By contrast, Israel was
an army of foot soldiers; God gave these
opposing kings up to vain confidence, pride
and stubbornness, thus hardening their
hearts and bringing upon themselves His
righteous vengeance, and allowing them to
•In terms of man hardening his own heart,
man has a personal responsibility to
respond volitionally to what man has
received cognitively. When one has been
confronted with the objective revelation of
God and His word, the responsibility to
respond positively or negatively is upon the
recipient of such revelation. When one freely
responds negatively to God, one has
hardened one’s own heart.
•Conclusion: When one considers the
alleged doctrinal discrepancies
contextually and in light of the libertarian
free will position, one must conclude
that there are no doctrinal discrepancies.
The Bible’s theological consistency and
coherency is intact.