Oh, sure, Q, He stands there with earth models and ponders "Should I use this one or that one...decisions, decisions" and He must have had an awful lot (like infinite number) of man models to choose from...three legged, two-headed...pink eyed, green hair, chicken-footted...etc.
And all the outcomes He had to "choose" from when it came to events that were to unfold..."Should I make earth first and then the light...should I make earth this big, or that big, and what if I Adam doesn't eat the fruit...etc., etc. etc. LOL!!!
God does not have to choose between this and that. God never wonders what He should choose. Nor does God have a choice imposed on Him, nor does He not know what to do. God making "choices" is an oxymoron, an anthropomorphism, or stuffing God into our little human mindset box, which is what happens with literalist bible-reading.
SO THEN, GOD CANNOT have preferences?.. preferring one thing in one situation and another, in another.. Basicallly GOD is a machine?.. You know like the chinese god.. that they pray to with mechanistic prayer on prayer wheels?.. A Robotic God..
So God cannot have qualia, desire, hopes, and preferrences?..
DAMN!!.. how can he be my friend?..
NOTE: Some things are literal and some things are metaphor, wisdom is in knowing the difference.. But you are correct.. some things biblically are metaphor.. maybe even most things.. but not all..
Your construction on Scriptural, spiritual reality vis a vis God is not mine.
Perhaps a words study of all the Scriptures about God choosing would be fruitful.
I happen to believe that God chose
to use the word
CHOOSE/CHOSE
IN SCRIPTURE
rather than some words like . . .
forced, bottled, zapped, striped, pointed, furry, polka-dotted, bumpy, cracked, grainy, mushy, smelly, hard, brittle . . .
BECAUSE
as ALMIGHTY GOD
He DECIDED that
“choose” & “chose”
fit HIS MEANING FAR BETTER.
Now, I suppose you can give
ALMIGHTY GOD
vocabulary lessons, if you feel up to the challenge.
But I’d recommend stopping by 7/11 for a dozen cases of cheekiness, first.