Tertullian

“ Samuel says to Saul, “The Lord hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbour of thine that is better than thou;” [25] and into two parts shall Israel be divided: “for He will not turn Himself, nor repent; for He does not repent as a man does.” [26] According, therefore, to this definition, the divine repentance takes in all cases a different form from that of man, in that it is never regarded as the result of improvidence or of fickleness, or of any condemnation of a good or an evil work. What, then, will be the mode of God’s repentance? ”

“ God will never repent of an act of justice. And it now remains that we should understand what God’s repentance means. For although man repents most frequently on the recollection of a sin, and occasionally even from the unpleasantness [24] of some good action, this is never the case with God. For, inasmuch as God neither commits sin nor condemns a good action, in so far is there no room in Him for repentance of either a good or an evil deed. ”

“ Now in Greek the word for repentance (μετάνοια ) is formed, not from the confession of a sin, but from a change of mind, which in God we have shown to be regulated by the occurrence of varying circumstances. ”