MULTIPLE WILLS OF GOD AND REPENTANCE OF GOD AND GRIEVING GOD

By: Guillermo Santamaria

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Here’s the gist of the book in a tight, usable nutshell:

• “Against God’s will” passages usually use will in the sense of God’s commands / delights (what ought to be), not God’s eternal purpose (what must be). So no one ever “beats” God’s decree, but men constantly violate God’s commandments.

• The preceptive vs. decretive labels are used as guardrails:

  • Preceptive = God’s precepts (commands, duty, what pleases Him morally).

  • Decretive = God’s decree (purpose/counsel that certainly comes to pass).
    Without some distinction you either (a) turn sin into “God’s will” the same way holiness is, or (b) make God’s will routinely thwarted.

• Old School Baptist (Absoluter) frame: God has one will (one sovereign, effectual purpose), but Scripture speaks of it under different relations (purpose vs command). “Against his will” means against what He has revealed (duty/ordinances), not a mutiny against His eternal counsel.

• God’s “repentance” (esp. in 1 Sam 15, Gen 6, Jonah) is treated as a change in administration/providence, not a change in God’s eternal mind or moral regret. The Hebrew often involved is נָחַם (nāḥam)—relent/regret in the sense of relenting from a threatened judgment, not “I sinned.”

• God being “grieved” is handled the same way: it expresses God’s real holiness and displeasure (and sometimes compassion), but not divine surprise or an internal change of decree. It’s covenant/government language in time, not metaphysical instability.

• Key “grieved” passages and what the original words lean toward:

  • Gen 6:6: “grieved” = עָצַב (ʿāṣab) (pained); “repented” = נָחַם.

  • Ps 78:40 / Isa 63:10: ʿāṣab again (pained/offended).

  • Ps 95:10: “grieved” leans toward disgust/loathing/weary of (from qûṭ).

  • Heb 3:10, 3:17: Greek προσοχθίζω (indignant/angry at).

  • Judg 10:16: idiom “his soul was shortened” = could no longer bear/endure (compassion).

  • Eph 4:30: Greek λυπέω (cause sorrow/distress).

  • Mark 3:5: Greek συλλυπέομαι (grieve together; sorrow over).

Net takeaway: one sovereign God, one unthwartable purpose, real commands men disobey, and biblical “repent/grieve” language describes God’s holy, time-bound dealings with creatures—without turning God into either a frustrated spectator or the moral author of sin.