What then is meant by the term repentance [which is attributed to God]? The very same that is meant
by the other forms of expression, by which God is described to us
humanly. Because our weakness cannot reach his height, any description
which we receive of him must be lowered to our capacity in order to be
intelligible. And the mode of lowering is to represent him not as he
really is, but as we conceive of him. Though he is incapable of every
feeling of perturbation, he declares that he is angry with the wicked.
Wherefore, as when we hear that God is angry, we ought not to imagine
that there is any emotion in him, but ought rather to consider the mode
of speech accommodated to our sense, God appearing to us like one
inflamed and irritated whenever he exercises judgement, so we ought not
to imagine any thing more under the term repentance than a change of
action, men being wont to testify their dissatisfaction by such a
change. Hence, because every change whatever among men is intended as a
correction of what displeases, and the correction proceeds from
repentance, the same term applied to God simply means that his procedure
is changed. In the meantime, there is no inversion of his counsel or
will, no change of his affection. What from eternity he had foreseen,
approved, decreed, he prosecutes with unvarying uniformity, how sudden
soever to the eye of man the variation may seem to be.
- John Calvin (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.17.13)
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