Is God A Masochist?

I went for my weekly run today (I know, it needs to be a little more often than once a week) and I was reminded of a conversation I had with someone a few months ago. This person posed a question to me: is God a learning God? To which, of course, I replied emphatically no! If God did not know everything then God could not be all knowing, and if God is not all knowing, why serve and worship Him? I mean, He could be completely wrong about everything!

This very confused Christian then pointed me toward Genesis 6:5-6, "The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him to his heart." His point? God had no idea that man would choose sin and wickedness, and man had gotten so out of hand, that God needed to lay the smack down. Therefore, God learned that His creation was a mistake.

Obviously the vast errancy in this statement is blatantly clear. However, I will attempt to break down my defense in brief form. First, I responded that God knew that mankind would choose sin and because of this, He could not have "learned from this mistake." His response? Well then, God must be masochistic because he knew his creation would bring him pain. Yes, apparently, God is a masochist.

From here, I made two points:

1) Why can't God be masochistic? Who are we to judge God based on our finite experiences? What is that compared to His infinite wisdom? Continuing on from this thought, how can we even begin to fathom how God works anyways? God is outside of time and space. How can we try to define in our limited human words? Calling Him masochistic is awfully presumptuous!

2) More importantly, is it necessarily masochistic to do something that causes one pain? After all, running causes me quite a bit of physical pain and I know it will before I even begin to do it. I guess I must be a masochist for partaking in it, then! Or maybe my driving force of getting in shape overrides the fact that I will incur some physical pain. Maybe God's ultimate plan is more importnat than the temporary "pain" it may cause Him along the way.

So, no, God is not a masochist.