Thank you my dear friend for asking this. My response to you is “no,” I am convinced that God does not make mistakes or errors. There is a tendency, I think, for folks to want to blame God when bad things happen, feeling that such times are indicators that God has made mistakes in planning, or in the carrying out of His plans. I once heard it asked whether God had made a mistake in the creation of man when in Noah’s day, the world had to be destroyed by the flood. But this thinking is totally wrong! In Genesis 6:6 we read: “And it repented the LORD that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at his heart.” That word “repent” seems to trouble some folks, apparently thinking this might refer to a necessary change of God’s plan.  However, I believe that this word is simply an expression in human terms of God’s revulsion at the wicked behavior of most of mankind in Noah’s day. It really is not that this occurrence (man’s sinfulness) took God by surprise, nor did the flood represent a needed alteration in God’s initial plan for the world to make corrections. We need to remember that God, who created and sustains the heavens and the earth, has all knowledge, and we humans, with our limited understanding, cannot begin to comprehend precisely why unpleasant events are allowed to arise as they do. We on this earth see only in part, but God knows how this all will work together to result in an expected outcome, and that for the good of His elect (Romans 8:28). We simply need to have faith that God is good, and that He has things well in hand. In Isaiah 55:9 we read: “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

Now, I want to assert that God has perfect knowledge, and does not need to revise plans or to learn by trial and error. We read in Psalms 139:1-6 that God knows everything about us including our daily thoughts, our activities and movements, and the very words that we intend to speak; and He ever has His hand behind and before us to help guide us.  This section ends with the exclamation of the psalmist in verse 6: “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.” Verses 14-18 of this same psalm add more amazing details about our lives that only God knows, things that are truly hidden from our own eyes and our understanding. And consider this: His knowledge of us is not just a knowledge of dry facts, but His knowledge of us is benevolent, and good for us (verses 5, 9, and 10 (see also Jeremiah 29:11). We cannot question God’s plan for our lives since He alone is the potter, and we but the clay; and He has His own purposes for those whom He has created (Romans 9:20-23).  God knows what He is doing, and His plans for us and for this world were set before the dawn of time, with full knowledge of how things would unfold. There is not nor could there be any necessity for God to “learn” by doing, or to alter or change His plan.  He is sovereign, and His perfect knowledge and will allows events to unfold according to His ultimate purposes, and these purposes are good.

But now, one might ask, was Christ an afterthought of God, or an attempt to repair a mistake? No, not at all.  God’s plan for mankind has never changed (see Malachi 3:6 where we read: “For I am the LORD, I change not…”). God’s sovereign plan included man’s need to be redeemed by the Son of God, and this plan of redemption was set in place in eternity past (Micah 5:2, speaking of the Messiah, “…whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.) We read in Ephesians 1:4: “According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world….” In Hebrews 13:20 this plan is referred to as the “everlasting covenant.” Now, in Genesis 3, after Adam and Eve had sinned having been tempted, God revealed His plan for the work of Christ as early as Genesis 3, and as I have said, this plan had been set in eternity past. When God gave the prophetic word regarding the serpent, We read of Christ’s ultimate victory over sin, death and hell, Christ being the Seed of Eve as follows: “…He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel,” (Genesis 3:15). And so you see, God had a plan for ruined man before time and place came into being, and this plan was identified at the time of man’s fall.  Christ and His redemptive work at Calvary was not an afterthought nor a corrective adjustment to God’s plan. There was never any change in God’s will, nor was any revision needed. The coming and the work of Christ was prophesied from of old. Now, we cannot say precisely why it is that God allows sin in the world. But we know that God is quite aware of all that happens on this earth, and all has been incorporated into His sovereign plan for the world. nor can we say that this result of the act of disobedience in the Garden of Eden was a surprise, or that it in any way derailed God’s plan.  There are no mistakes or miscalculations in God’s plan. What we can say is that God is sovereign, and His plan is good. It is perfect and unchanging, and it includes amazing blessing for His own, those who place their trust and faith in the Lord for salvation. God’s plan will result, for those who are His own, in heavenly bliss in the very presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that forever.  (SF)  (598.3)