The idea that man can and even should argue with the Creator—found most famously in the biblical passage where Abraham challenges God over His decision to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah—received much attention in 20th-century Jewish thought, especially through the work of Abraham Joshua Heschel and Elie Wiesel. In his recent book, Pious Irreverence, Dov Weiss investigates the development of this idea in ancient and early-medieval rabbinic texts. (Interview by Alan Brill.)
[T]he tannaim (the rabbis of the 1st and 2nd centuries CE) were . . . adamant that God is infallible and morally perfect. As a result, [they] declared that it would be entirely absurd—and sinful—to argue with God.
The bold notion that God is fallible and not morally perfect—and therefore that protesting God might be legitimate—surfaces in [the later talmudic] literature of the 5th century CE, and appears most starkly in post-talmudic literature of the 6th and 7th centuries. In these later texts, we read of biblical heroes teaching or counseling God to adopt a more ethical approach to governing the world. Strikingly, God accedes to these moral critiques and challenges, declaring that the contentious encounter has caused Him to adopt a new moral position. [These stories suggest the possibility of a] fundamental change in God’s attitude toward His governance of the world, rather than a one-time concessional act of divine mercy as we have in the Hebrew Bible or earlier rabbinic texts.
Read more on Book of Doctrines and Opinions: https://kavvanah.wordpress.com/2016/09/06/interview-with-dov-weiss-pious-irreverence-confronting-god-in-rabbinic-judaism/