The Open-Theism View
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THE OPEN-THEISM VIEW
Gregory A. Boyd
he debate over the nature of God's foreknowledge is not primarily a debate about the scope or perfection of God's knowledge. All Christians agree that God is omniscient and therefore knows all of reality perfectly. The debate over God's foreknowledge is rather a debate over the content of reality that God perfectly knows. It has more to do with the doctrine of creation than it does with the doctrine of God.
Although the other three views of divine foreknowledge represented in this work disagree with one another on many points, they agree that the content of reality, and therefore the content of God's infallible knowledge, is exhaustively settled. These views agree that every detail of what shall transpire in creation has been settled from all eternity. Hence God has always been as certain about the future as he is about the past. In these views God knows possibilities only as what might have been, never as what might be. He knows possibilities only as having been forever excluded from reality, never as having been included within reality. In other words, God eternally knows reality as one settled story line in contrast to all other forever-excluded story lines. This perspective may be called "the classical understanding of divine foreknowledge," though, as I've suggested, it would be technically more accurate to refer to it as the "classical understanding of creation."
The view I shall defend agrees unequivocally with the classical view that God is omniscient, but it embraces a different understanding of creation. It holds that the reality that God perfectly knows not only excludes some possibilities as what might have been, but also includes other possibilities as what might be. Reality, in other words, is composed of both settled and open aspects. Since God knows all of reality perfectly, this view holds that he knows the possible aspects as possible and knows the settled aspects as settled. In this view, the sovereign Creator settles whatever he wants to settle about the future, and hence he perfectly foreknows the future as settled to this extent. He leaves open whatever he wants to leave open, and hence he perfectly foreknows the future as possible to this extent. This view has recently been labeled the "openness view of God," though, as with the classical view, it would be technically more correct to refer to it as the "openness view of creation."
Since exegesis should always drive our philosophy, instead of the other way around, and since this essay must be restricted in terms of its length, my defense of the openness view shall be almost exclusively along exegetical lines.' In part one, I shall demonstrate that while the Bible certainly celebrates God's foreknowledge and control of the future, it does not warrant the conclusion that the future is exhaustively controlled or foreknown as settled by God. In part two, I shall discuss the biblical basis of the openness view of the future by outlining six aspects of an important scriptural motif that depicts the future as partly open and as known by God as such. And in part three, I shall defend this view against five common objections.
Part One: The Biblical Foundation of the Classical Position
The Bible unequivocally celebrates God's foreknowledge and control of the future. The theme is found most strongly in Isaiah. At a time when many Jews were tempted to trust in pagan idols, the Lord demonstrated that he alone was the sovereign Lord of history by declaring his ability to foretell the future:
for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like me,
declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done.... I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass I have planned, and I will do it. (Is 46:9-11)
Two chapters later we read an even more emphatic proclamation.
The former things I declared long ago, they went out from my mouth and I made them known; then suddenly I did them and they came to pass. Because I know that you are obstinate, and your neck is an iron sinew and your forehead brass, I declared them to you from long ago, before they came to pass I announced them to you, so that you would not say, "My idol did them, my carved image and my cast image commanded them." (Is 48:3-5)
The Lord's ability to declare "from ancient times things not yet done" (Is 46:11) is demonstrated throughout Scripture. For example, the Lord predicted that the Israelites would be in captivity in Egypt for four hundred years (Gen 15:13-15). He occasionally foretold the future destruction of nations and cities, such as the city of Tyre (Ezek 26:7-21). Even more impressively, the Lord actually named several individuals before they were born and foretold some of their accomplishments (1 Kings 13:1-2; Is 45:1). Moreover, God foreknew that Christ would be crucified by wicked people (Acts 2:23; 4:27-28; 1 Pet 1:20). He also seems to have foretold a number of specific details about Christ's death: that his side would be pierced Un 19:34-37) and he would be served vinegar (Jn 19:28-29), for example. Indeed, Jesus himself knew that Judas would betray him and that Peter would deny him three times (Mt 26:34; jn 6:64, 70-71; 13:18- 19; cf. Jn 17:12).
These passages clearly exalt God as the sovereign Lord of history. This scriptural motif reassures believers that however out of control the world may seem, the Lord is steering history toward his desired end. His overall purposes for creation cannot fail, and his eternal purpose for our lives is secure (e.g., job 42:2; Is 14:27; Rom 8:28; Eph 1:11). This motif clearly entails that much of the future is settled ahead of time and is therefore known by God as such. Indeed, it clearly demonstrates that God can settle whatever he wants to settle about the future: "The former things I declared long ago; . . . then suddenly I did them and they came to pass" (Is 48:3).
But does this motif entail that the future is exhaustively settled and known by God as such? I would answer yes to this question if this motif constituted everything relevant to God's relationship to the future in Scripture. But as we shall see in part two, this motif hardly exhausts the relevant biblical material. In order to account for other biblical material that depicts the future as partly open, I will now show that the above biblical evidence, cited in support of the classical position, does not require the conclusion that the future is exhaustively settled.2
Declaring the end from the beginning.
Isaiah 469-11. One could argue that Isaiah 46:9-11 comes closest to suggesting that the future is exhaustively settled. God describes himself as "declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done" (v. 10). Yet does this passage teach or imply that everything about the future is settled in God's mind? Two observations suggest that it does not.
First, neither this nor any other passage in Scripture says that God foreknows or declares everything that is going to occur. This passage specifies that God declares "the end from the beginning" and "from ancient times things not yet done."' God declares the conclusion of certain processes from their inception, and God declares certain things not yet done before they occur. But the passage doesn't teach or logically imply that everything leading up to the conclusion is declared, or foreknown, nor does it imply that God declares all things "from ancient times."
Second, it's important to notice how the context of the passage qualifies its claims. Immediately after telling us that he declares "from ancient times things not yet done," the Lord adds, "My purpose shall stand, and I will fullll my intention" (v. 10). This implies that the Lord is not simply declaring information about the future that he happens to possess. He knows "the end" of the process at "the beginning" and can declare aspects of the future "from ancient times" because he has predetermined this much of the future. He knows his own purpose and intention to steer history in this fashion.
This point is emphasized when the Lord goes on to say, "I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have planned, and I will do it" (v. 11). Verse 10 specifies "the end" and the "things" that the Lord declares ahead of time. It teaches us that the future is settled to the extent that the Lord has decided to settle it. But the verse does not teach or imply that the Lord will bring everything about the future to pass and, thus, that the Lord foreknows all that will come to pass. Indeed, if everything came to pass according to the Lord's will, it seems odd that he would need to overcome the Israelites' obstinacy with these assertions about particular things in the future he intends to bring about. If the Lord controlled everything, the stubbornness of the Israelites itself would be the Lord's doing.
Isaiah 48.3-5. The same observation applies to Isaiah 48:3-5. The Lord says, "The former things I declared long ago; ... then suddenly I did them" (v. 3). The Lord does this because he did not want Israelites saying, "My idol did them" (v. 5). In other words, Yahweh proclaimed and then demonstrated his sovereign ability to bring about events as a supernatural means of confronting the lie that idols have the power to bring about events. Again, this is not simply a matter of the Lord's possessing information about what is going to take place. It is, rather, a matter of the Lord's determining what is going to take place and telling his people ahead of time. The passage does not teach or imply that the Lord determines and thus foreknows every event that shall come to pass.
Foreknown details and the openness of creation. Given the particular examples where the Lord decrees that certain things shall come to pass, must one conclude that the future is exhaustively settled in God's mind? I shall briefly consider three examples to illustrate why I believe the answer to this question is no.
The coherence of a partially open future. The Lord prophesied that Israel would be in captivity to Egypt for four centuries long before this captivity became a fact (Gen 15:13). This is a spectacular demonstration of the Lord's sovereign control of the future. But is it evidence that the future is exhaustively settled? Not at all. It only implies that some of the future is settled. People tend to assume that if some of the future is settled, all of it must be settled. The idea of a partially settled future strikes them as implausible, if not incoherent. This is one reason they tend to misinterpret biblical evidence of a partly settled future as evidence of an exhaustively settled future. A closer examination, however, reveals that the notion of a partly settled future perspective is both coherent and plausible.
First, the coherence of the view that the future is partly open and partly settled is demonstrated whenever we deliberate about a decision, for in every act of deliberation we presuppose that the future is partly up to us to decide and partly decided for us.4 For example, suppose I am deliberating about whether or not to purchase a new edition of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason tomorrow. My act of deliberation presupposes that it lies within my power either to purchase this book or to not. It illustrates my conviction that at least this much of my future is up to me to decide. But my deliberation also presupposes that much of the future is not up to me to decide. I couldn't deliberate about this particular purchase if it were up to me to decide whether, say, the bookstore would exist or whether money would have any value tomorrow.
In other words, to deliberate about any particular matter, we must be freed from deliberating about every matter. Our sense of freedom presupposes that much of the future is already settled. Our freedom must always take place within the parameters of things we do not choose. We have no choice but to live as though some things are up to us to resolve and some things are not. In short, we live as though the future is partly settled and partly open. The openness view of the future simply roots this "as though" in reality and renders it intelligible. Of the four views considered in this book, it is the only view that can claim this.
Second, this view of reality is being explored and confirmed in many branches of contemporary science, a fact that further confirms the coherence and plausibility of the openness view. For example, contemporary physics has demonstrated that we can accurately predict the general behavior of a group of quantum particles but that we cannot in principle predict the exact behavior of any individual particle. Indeed, the regularity of the phenomenological world-despite quantum indeterminacy-is the manifestation of this statistical regularity. The phenomenological world is settled, though the world of quantum particles is somewhat open.
Similarly, chaos theory has recently demonstrated that all predictable aspects of reality incorporate unpredictable aspects and vice versa. Moreover, 5 social scientists, anthropologists and biologists have demonstrated that the behavior of groups of humans, animals and even insects is much more predictable than the behavior of the individuals. A colony of ants behaves in remarkably predictable ways, for example, even though the behavior of any particular ant is much more difficult to predict.
Our own experience and recent scientific developments demonstrate that the view of creation as partly settled and partly open is both coherent and plausible. Hence, there should be no difficulty conceiving how God could determine and foreknow that a particular event was going to take place (e.g., the Egyptian captivity) without determining or foreknowing every detail surrounding this event (e.g., every future individual decision). The classical jump from evidence for some of the future being settled to the conclusion that all of the future must he settled is unwarranted.
Prophecies against cities. Many of the fulfilled prophecies against nations or cities in Scripture can be explained this way. God can decree that a nation or city shall be judged without his ordaining or eternally foreknowing every future decision throughout all of history. 6 Indeed, Scripture makes it clear that the sovereign Lord is always involved in setting the scope and duration of nations (Acts 17:26). But it doesn't teach that God determines or foreknows as settled all the decisions of all the individuals within these nations. Indeed, Paul tells us that God establishes these national parameters with the hope "that they [the nations] would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him" (Acts 17:27). Within the parameters settled by God, there is an unsettled future, a "perhaps." God determines whatever he sees fit and leaves as much of the future open as he sees fit.7
Foreknown individuals and the openness of the future.
The names and activity of Josiah and Cyrus. As a sign to his people, God named Josiah ("the LORD strengthens") and Cyrus and declared some of their accomplishments before they were born (1 Kings 13:1-2; Is 45:1). These decrees obviously established parameters around the parents' freedom to nam ing these individuals (cf. Lk 1:18-22, 59-64) and also restricted the scope of freedom these individuals could exercise regarding particular foreordained activities. But in other respects these two individuals and their parents remained self-determining agents. To conclude from these two examples that God has settled the names and activities of all people from eternity is unwarranted. These examples certainly show that Yahweh is the sovereign Lord of history and can predetermine and thus foreknow whatever he pleases. But they do not justify the conclusion that he desires to predetermine or foreknow the whole of the future.
Peter's denial. Future actions might also be settled not only because the Lord has decided them beforehand, but also because a person's character settles them. As we all know, character becomes more predictable over time. The longer we persist in a chosen path, the more that path becomes part of who we are. Hence, generally speaking, the range of viable options we are capable of diminishes over time." Our omniscient Creator is able to predict our behavior far more extensively than we could predict it ourselves because he knows us far better than we know ourselves (Ps 44:21; 139:1-6). This does not mean that our every move is predictable, for our present character doesn't exhaustively determine our future behavior. But it does mean that our future behavior is predictable to the extent that our present character is solidified.
One of the central points of this divinely orchestrated lesson was exposing the superficiality of Peter's characteristic boldness. Peter had just made the (typically) proud claim to Jesus, "I will never desert you.... Even though I must die with you, I will not deny you" (Mt 26:33, 35). Jesus told him of his denial at this point in order to help Peter eventually realize just how deluded he was about his own character as well as about the character of the Messiah.
Like most Jews of his time, Peter believed that the Messiah would be a military leader who would not suffer but rather would vanquish his enemies. This explains why Peter opposed Jesus' teaching about the need for his sacrificial suffering (e.g., Mt 16:21-23). It also explains why Peter appeared so courageous when Jesus was performing miracles but became cowardly after Jesus' arrest. His false expectations of what Jesus was going to accomplish were shattered.
God of course saw through Peter's misplaced boldness and knew the effect Jesus' arrest would have on him. God used his knowledge to teach Peter-who would become a pillar of the church-an invaluable lesson about love and servant leadership. We do not know how much, if any, supernatural intervention was behind the events of that evening. But the outcome was just as God anticipated. Three times Peter's true character was squeezed out of him so that, after the resurrection, Christ could squeeze his character into him three times. It is no coincidence that three times the resurrected Jesus asked Peter, "Do you love me?" After each of these three refrains Jesus told Peter to feed his sheep and concluded with a prophecy that Peter would die a martyr's death, just as he had On 21:15-19). Peter would never again identify leadership with military victory. For in the kingdom of God, leadership is about laying down one's life and feeding the Lord's sheep, about knowing the meaning of love (Lk 22:24- 27; cf. Eph 5:25-27). It was a lesson Peter had to learn and live if he was to become everything God wanted him to be in the church and for the world.
In any event, we are clearly going beyond the evidence if we conclude that the future is exhaustively settled from all eternity on the grounds that Jesus predicted what Peter would do in the next twelve hours. The only conclusions justified by this episode are that God possesses perfect knowledge of the past and present and that some of the future is settled, either by present circumstances (Peter's character) or by God's sovereign design.
Judas's betrayal. Scripture says that Jesus knew "from the first" that Judas would betray him On 6:64). This phrase (ex arche) does not imply that Jesus knew who would betray him from a time before the person decided, in his heart, to betray him (let alone that he knew from all eternity, as the classical view of foreknowledge requires). It can more plausibly be taken to mean that Jesus knew who would betray him early on (cf. Phil 4:15), either from the moment this person resolved it in his heart to betray him or from the time Jesus chose him to be a disciple.
Jesus tells us that Judas fulfilled Scripture, not that Judas was the individual who had to fulfill Scripture. Judas could have and should have chosen a differ ent path for his life than the one he chose. But, as a free moral agent, Judas tragically chose a path of self-interest and ultimately self-destruction (Jn 17:12).10 If his choices had been more godly, he would not have been a candidate for fulfilling the prophecy of the Lord's betrayal. In this case the Lord would have found someone else to fill this role.
In my view, this is how we should understand the wicked activity of all the individuals who played foreordained roles in the death of Jesus: for example, the rulers who had Jesus crucified (Acts 2:23; 4:27-28), the soldier who pierced his side (Jn 19:34-37) and the soldier who gave Jesus vinegar (Jn 19:28-29)." As seen in its references to Judas, Scripture never suggests that these specific individuals were destined or foreknown to carry out these wicked deeds. It only teaches that these specific deeds were destined and foreknown to take place. Saying that someone carried out a predestined or foreknown wicked event is much different from saying that someone was predestined or foreknown to carry out a wicked event. Scripture affirms the former but not the latter. These passages only require us to believe that, when he so chooses, God can narrow the parameters within which certain people act out their freely chosen character.
Again, we are outrunning the evidence if we conclude that everything about creation is eternally and exhaustively settled based on these examples. We might be justified in going beyond the evidence in this fashion if this were all the evidence we had. If we did not have any scriptural evidence of the future's being open at least in part, then we could perhaps justifiably argue that the above evidence-which suggests that some of the future is settled-supports the conclusion that the future is exhaustively settled. As we shall now see, however, this is not at all the case.
Part Two: Scripture and the Openness of Creation
Alongside the scriptural motif that celebrates God's control and knowledge of the settled aspects of creation is another, rarely appreciated motif that celebrates God's creative flexibility in responding to open aspects of his creation. In this motif, God asks questions about the future, speaks of the future in conditional terms, regrets the outcome of decisions he has made, changes his mind in response to changing situations, and so on. I call this "the motif of future openness," and it pervades Scripture at least as thoroughly as the first motif, as I shall briefly demonstrate.
The critical difference between the openness view and all versions of the classical view is that the openness view rejects this reinterpretation of this biblical motif. Generally speaking, it interprets the second motif the same as it does the first. It believes that both motifs can and should be interpreted as describing what God and creation are really like. Thus it arrives at the balanced conclusion that the future is settled to the extent that Scripture suggests it is settled and open to the extent that Scripture suggests it is open. I shall now review six groups of passages that compose this latter motif and address objections to this view.
God confronts the unexpected Passages that describe God's response to unexpected behavior suggest that while the Lord can never be caught of f guard-for he anticipates all possibilities-he is nevertheless occasionally surprised at the improbable behavior of people.
Unexpected wild grapes. For example, in Isaiah 5 the Lord describes Israel as his vineyard and himself as its loving owner. He explains that as the owner of the vineyard, he "expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes" (v. 2). He then asks, in verse 4:
What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?
Because the vineyard unexpectedly failed to yield grapes, the Lord sadly concludes, "I will remove its hedge and it shall be devoured" (v. 5). How can the Lord say that he "expected" one thing to occur, only to discover something else occurred instead, if he is eternally certain of all that shall ever occur? Can a person expect something he is certain will never happen? Taking the passage at face value, does it not imply that God was not certain of the future of Israel, the "vineyard," until the Israelites settled it by choosing to yield "wild grapes" instead of the grapes God expected?
Similarly, three times in Jeremiah the Lord expresses his surprise at Israel's behavior by saying his children were doing things "which I did not command or decree, nor did it enter my mind" (Jer 19:5; cf. 7:31; 32:35). However we interpret the difficult phrase "nor did it enter my mind," it seems to preclude the possibility that the Israelites' idolatrous behavior was eternally certain in God's mind. If the classical view is correct, however, we have to grant that God could say, "I have been eternally certain that the Israelites would engage in this behavior, but it never entered my mind that they'd actually engage in this behavior." If this doesn't constitute a contradiction, what does?
`I thought, ... but you ... "Several other examples of the Lord's confronting unexpected behavior are found in Jeremiah. Beholding Israel's remarkable obstinacy, the Lord says, "And I thought, `After she has done all this she will return to me'; but she did not return" (Jer 3:6-7). He repeats his dismay to Israel several verses later:
I thought
how I would set you among my children.... And I thought you would call me, My Father, and would not turn from following me. Instead, as a faithless wife leaves her husband, so you have been faithless to me. Qer 3:19-20)
How is it possible for the Lord to tell us he thought something was going to happen that did not happen if he is eternally certain of all that shall ever happen? If we take these passages at face value, do they not demonstrate that the Lord faced a future in which Israel might or might not respond to him? He expected that Israel would respond, but it does not. This is not possible unless the future is partially open.
Does the fact that the Lord's expectations are sometimes not met imply that he can be mistaken? Only if one assumes that the future is settled from all eternity. In this case, given the information (i.e., Israel's future behavior), one could judge God's expectations as mistaken. But we should, rather, allow the biblical teaching-that God's knowledge is perfect-drive our understanding of what is real, not vice versa. If God wasn't certain how Israel would behave, this must mean that this information didn't yet exist; for if it did exist, God would certainly have known it. The information that did exist was that it was probable (but not inevitable) that Israel would return to God. Hence the omniscient God perfectly expected (but was not certain) that Israel would turn to him.
The classical view assumes that the future is settled and that therefore God knows it; thus proponents of this view reinterpret these passages figuratively. That is, passages describing unmet expectations-one in which God says he "thought" something would happen, yet it doesn't-are not to be taken as literally as are passages in which God says, "The former things I declared long ago" (Is 48:3). This preference for certain texts seems to be motivated by a philosophical preconception of what is and is not worthy of God (viz., God is "above" disappointment), and as such it is unwarranted and arbitrary. It also fails to adequately explain passages like Jeremiah 3. As we shall argue more fully in part three, nonliteral figures of speech must reflect reality at some point if they communicate anything meaningfully. So we must ask, what reality is reflected by passages like Jeremiah 3:6-7, 19-20?
More specifically, the question is, if in fact God never thinks an event that doesn't happen was going to happen, what truth is communicated in the Scripture when he says he thought an event that didn't happen was likely to happen? There is no adequate answer to this question-certainly none that is rooted in a straightforward reading of these texts.
God experiences regret. God sometimes expresses in Scripture disappointment with the results of decisions he himself made. This is difficult to square with the view that God knows the future as exhaustively settled for an eternity prior to any decision he makes.
Regret for making humans. For example, when the Bible recounts humanity's depravity prior to the flood, it says, "The LORD was sorry that he made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart" (Gen 6:6). How can God feel this regret if he knew, even before he created them, that humans would degenerate to this exact condition? If God truly wished he had never made humans-to the point of his wanting to destroy them and start overshouldn't we conclude that the extent of their depravity wasn't a foregone conclusion at the time he created them? Shouldn't we conclude that God hoped (but was not certain) things would not have turned out the way they did? And doesn't this imply that the future was not exhaustively settled in God's mind when he created humanity?
Regret for making Saul king. Another fascinating example of the Lord's regret concerns his decision to make Saul king of Israel. While having a human king rule over Israel was not God's first choice, God knew Saul could be a good king. Indeed, God genuinely intended to bless him and his household for many generations (1 Sam 13:13). Unfortunately, Saul chose to forsake God's ways and to pursue his own agenda. When Saul's heart changed, God's plan for him changed. Instead of blessing him, God removed him from his appointed office and allowed his sin to take its course. Saul had become so wicked that the Lord said, "I regret that I made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me" (1 Sam 15:10). This point is reiterated for emphasis several verses later (1 Sam 15:35).
The Lord says that he regretted making Saul king because Saul "turned back from following [him]." But if he was eternally certain that Saul would "turn back" when he made him king, how can God regret making him king because he "turned back"? Don't God's regret and sorrow over his decision suggest that at the time he appointed Saul he truly hoped Saul would not turn back from following him? Moreover, doesn't Samuel's inspired declaration that the Lord "would have established [Saul's] kingdom over Israel for ever" had he not sinned mean that God genuinely intended to bless Saul prior to his turning back (1 Sam 13:13)? Doesn't all of this imply that at the time of Saul's appointment it was at least possible that he would not fall and that God hoped this possibility would be actualized?
Does regret show a lack of wisdom? Some argue that we cannot interpret passages like this literally because if God were to regret his own decisions, he could not be perfectly wise. However, if God never does regret decisions he's made, the "nonliteral" meaning communicated when Scripture explicitly tells us he does regret some decisions is not clear. We should allow Scripture to reveal the nature of divine wisdom rather than assume we know what divine wisdom entails and then dismiss passages that suggest otherwise as not depicting what God is "really" like. If Scripture says God regretted a decision and if it also says that God is perfectly wise, then we should simply conclude that regretting a decision apparently does not mean that one is not perfectly wise. Even if this is a mystery to us, allowing the mystery is better than presuming that we know what God's wisdom is like and thus concluding that Scripture can't mean what it clearly says.
Actually, there isn't much mystery involved in reconciling God's perfect wisdom with his occasional regret over previous decisions. Once we understand that the future is partly open and that humans are genuinely free, the paradox of how God genuinely regrets a decision disappears. God made a wise decision because his decision had the greatest possibility of yielding the best results. But God's decision wasn't the only variable in the matter of Saul's kingship: Saul's will was also a variable. Saul freely strayed from God's plan, but that is not God's fault. Nor does it make God's decision unwise. If God was certain how Saul would behave once he made him king and certain that he'd regret his decision to make him king-and then went ahead and made him king anyway-that would not only be unwise, it would be incoherent.
This scriptural truth has some helpful pastoral implications, though we can't discuss them at length now.13 Suffice it to say that Christians often sense God's leading about a decision they should make, only to have the decision turn out disastrously. Suppose God gives a young woman the "green light" on a marriage proposal. Then, two years into the marriage, her husband becomes persistently unfaithful and abusive. In the classical view either this woman failed to discern God's will or the pain of having an unfaithful and abusive husband was God's plan for her all along. The openness view offers a third alternative: God's decision to lead these two to marry was perfectly wise, for it was likely to become a God-honoring marriage. But like Saul, the husband made sinful choices and ruined God's good plan. And God now regrets allowing this woman to marry him just as he regretted making Saul king. This is not the woman's fault: she discerned God's will correctly. Nor is it God's fault: he led her wisely. The fault rests squarely on the man who chose to become unfaithful and abusive.
In the openness view we aren't forced to conclude either that this woman was spiritually deaf or that God set her up for the pain she experienced. Whenever we go through painful circumstances, we can know that God is graciously at work to bring good out of them (Rom 8:28). When a Saul "turns back" from following God, there is a David waiting in the wings (1 Sam 16:18- 23). The sovereign and creative God revealed in the Bible is never without options. He knows no limits.
God expresses frustration. In the Bible we find many occasions when God expresses frustration toward people who stubbornly resist his plans for their lives. These passages are difficult to reconcile with the view that the future is exhaustively settled and known as such by God from all eternity. How can the Lord become frustrated trying to achieve things he is certain will never come to pass?
It is difficult to understand how God could have sincerely "sought for" someone to intercede if he had been certain all along that there would be no one, as the classical view of foreknowledge must contend. Could someone genuinely search his house trying to find, say, a pair of shoes he knew he didn't own? And even if someone did do this, would one consider him supremely wise for doing so? Of course not. Yet the classical view would have us believe that the all-wise God sought for an intercessor he eternally knew would not be found. Given that God tried to raise up an intercessor, is it not more reasonable to conclude that it was possible an intercessor would have responded to God? Yet to do so would mean admitting that the future is composed partly of possibilities, not exclusively of settled realities.
Creating damned people. We also see God's frustration when we consider that not everyone he creates accepts his invitation to eternal life. Peter tells us that the Lord delays his return because he doesn't want "any to perish, but all to come to repentance" (2 Pet 3:9). The God whose essence is love wants everyone he's created to turn to him (Ezek 18:23, 32; 33:11; in 3:16; 1 Tim 2:3- 4; 4:10). Paul teaches that the Creator steers world history in hopes that all people "would search for [him] and perhaps grope for him and find him" (Acts 17:27), for "he commands all people everywhere to repent" (Acts 17:30). God's Spirit continually strives with people to bring them to the place where they put their trust in him, and he is genuinely grieved when they refuse to yield to his influence (e.g., is 63:10; cf. Eph 4:30; see also Acts 7:51; Heb 3:8, 15; 4:7).
Why would God strive to the point of frustration to get people to do what he was certain they would never do before they were even born: namely, believe in him? Doesn't God's sincere effort to get all people to believe in him imply that it is not a foregone conclusion to God that certain people would not believe in him when he created them? Indeed, doesn't the fact that the Lord delays his return imply that neither the date of his return nor the identities of who will and will not believe are settled in God's mind ahead of time? God delays his return in hope of saving more people, whoever would believe (Jn 3:16-18). If this isn't what 2 Peter 3:9 explicitly teaches, what does it teach?
In the openness view, when God creates people, he knows the possibility (but not the certainty) that they will become citizens of the eternal kingdom. He genuinely strives to win them because he hopes that they will surrender to him. When they refuse, he is genuinely grieved, for he knows that their loss was not inevitable. They could have, should have and would have been his children if only they had said yes to him.
God speaks in conditional terms. If everything were settled in God's mind from all eternity, as the classical view holds, we would expect God to speak of the future in terms of what will and will not happen. Remarkably, however, throughout Scripture God often speaks of the future in terms of what might or might not happen.
They may believe. For example, when God tries to convince Moses to be his representative to the Israelite elders who are in bondage to Pharaoh, he initially tells Moses that the elders will heed his voice (Ex 3:18). Moses apparently doesn't hold to the classical view of divine foreknowledge, however, for he immediately asks, "But suppose they do not believe me or listen to me?" (Ex 4:1).
God's response suggests that God doesn't hold to this view of foreknowledge either. He first demonstrates a miracle "so that they may believe that the LORD ... has appeared" to Moses (Ex 4:5). Moses remains unconvinced, so the Lord performs a second miracle and comments, "If they will not believe you or heed the first sign, they may believe the second sign" (Ex 4:8). How can the Lord say, "they may believe"? Isn't the future behavior of the elders a matter of certainty for the Lord? Apparently not. Indeed, the Lord offers Moses a third sign in case the second sign didn't work (Ex 4:9).
If the future is exhaustively settled, God would have known exactly how many miracles, if any, it would take to get the elders to believe Moses; and this means that the meaning of the words he chose (may and if) could not be sincere. If, however, God is speaking straightforwardly here, it seems he did not foreknow exactly how many miracles it would take to get the elders of Israel to believe Moses.
This passage demonstrates that God is perfectly confident in his ability to achieve his desired results (viz., getting the elders of Israel to listen to Moses) even though he works with free agents who are, to some extent, unpredictable. He is able to declare to Moses the conclusion of his plan from the time he first announces it (cf. Is 46:10, "the end from the beginning") without controlling every variable in between. That the Israelites will get out of Egypt is certain; how many miracles it will take to pull this off depends on the free choices of some key people. This is a picture of a God who is as creative and resourceful as he is wise and powerful.
What may or may not happen. While the Lord often expresses his future plans as certainties (e.g., Christ's return, ultimate victory over Satan), there are also times in Scripture where God expresses his desires for the future as possi bilities. For example, the Lord instructed Ezekiel to symbolically enact Israel's exile as a warning, telling him, "Perhaps they will understand, though they are a rebellious house" (Ezek 12:3). As it turns out, Israel did not "understand." So if God was certain all along that Israel would not understand, then he must have lied to Ezekiel when he assured him that they might understand. Yet if we agree that God cannot lie (Heb 6:18), then his statement to Ezekiel must reflect reality. That is, when God gave Ezekiel his instructions, God must have hoped (without certainty) that the Israelites might understand. Their response, therefore, could not have been known by God beforehand.
Along the same lines, the Lord commanded Jeremiah to stand in the court and preach to the Judeans, promising him that "it may be that they will listen, ... that I may change my mind about the disaster I intend to bring" (Jer 26:3). God's use of the subjective as well as his willingness to change his declared intention is difficult to reconcile with the view that God eternally knows the future as exhaustively settled.
Similarly, Scripture states that God did not lead the children of Israel near the Philistines because "God thought, `If the people face war, they may change their minds and return to Egypt"' (Ex 13:17). In this passage God actually reveals his inner thoughts and motives-things we would never know if he didn't tell us. And we find that to some extent God thinks about the future in terms of possibilities. Since God is the only one in a position to know the nature of the future perfectly, we would do well to take his thoughts about it as the surest indication of what the future is actually like. It is, in fact, partly composed of possibilities!
One final example of the Lord's speaking or thinking about the future in open terms will have to suffice. In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus "threw himself on the ground and prayed, `My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me"' (Mt 26:39). Now, if any event was settled in the mind of God from the creation of the world, it was that the Son of God was going to he killed (Acts 2:23; 4:27-28; Rev 13:8). Indeed, Jesus himself taught this very truth to his disciples (Mt 12:40; 16:21; Jn 2:19). Yet here Jesus made one last attempt to change his Father's plan, saying, "If it is possible ..."
This prayer is unintelligible if Jesus believed that the entire future was eternally settled in the Father's mind. Jesus must have believed there was at least a chance another course of action could be taken at the eleventh hour. Jesus' prayer illustrates the truth that to God the future is at least partly open, even if in this instance Jesus' own fate was not.
God tests people "to know" their character. God often tests his covenant partners to discover whether or not they will choose to follow him. Throughout the Bible, this testing lies at the heart of God's call to keep covenant with him. For example, when Abraham successfully passed God's test by being willing to sacrifice his son, Isaac, the Lord declared, "Now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son" (Gen 22:12). The verse clearly says that it was because Abraham did what he did that the Lord now knew he was a faithful covenant partner. What do the terms now and because mean if God had been certain from all eternity that Abraham would remain faithful? Similarly, the Bible says that God tested Hezekiah "to know what was in his heart" (2 Chron 32:31). Again, if God eternally knew how Hezekiah would respond to him, God couldn't have really been testing him in order to gain this knowledge. Unfortunately for the classical view, however, this is exactly what the text says.
Many of the "testing" passages of Scripture concern the behavior of Israel as a whole. For example, Moses tells the Israelites, "The LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments" (Deut 8:2). Later he tells the Israelites that the Lord allowed false prophets to be correct sometimes because the Lord "is testing you, to know whether you indeed love the LORD your God with all your heart and soul" (Deut 13:1-3). And in another instance God leaves Israel's opponents alone "for the testing of Israel, to know whether Israel would obey the commandments of the LORD" (Judg 3:4).
Note carefully that these verses do not say, as defenders of the classical view usually contend, that the purpose of the testing was for covenant partners to know their own hearts. Rather, these inspired passages specify that the tests were so God could know. How are these passages to be reconciled with the classical assumption that God never "really" comes to know anything, for supposedly his knowledge is eternally settled? These verses can only be accepted straightforwardly if we accept that God and humans face a partly open future.
Some have attempted to resist this conclusion by arguing that if God truly tests people "to know what is in their heart," he cannot know all present realities. Since Scripture clearly reveals that God knows all present realities, they argue, we must interpret these "testing" passages figuratively.'6 We must wonder if "God tests people to know what is in their heart" does not reveal that God truly tests people to know what is in their heart, what do they truly reveal? The standard claim that God tests people so that they will know what is in their heart does not explain these passages, it flatly contradicts them.
An examination of the context of each of these passages reveals a much easier way of reconciling them with the truth that God knows all present realities. The context interprets "in their heart." In each episode God elicits a decision from the people he tests. God wants to know whether Abraham will choose to obey him or not, for example. So too he tests the Israelites "to know what was in [their] hearts, whether or not [they] would keep his commands" (Deut 8:21). If read in context, there is no difficulty reconciling the testing passages with God's knowledge of all present realities; future decisions are not present realities.
God changes his mind. Scripture contains many examples of God's changing his mind in response to events that transpire in history. By definition, one cannot change what is permanently fixed. Hence, every time the Bible describes God's change of mind, it suggests that God's knowledge and intentions are not eternally settled.
Scripture clearly depicts God as willing and able to change his mind. One of the best illustrations of this is found in Jeremiah 18. The Lord has revealed his plan to bring judgment on Israel, but he wants Jeremiah and the Israelites to know that he is willing to change his plans if they will change their wicked ways. So the Lord directs Jeremiah to go observe a potter at work.
The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him.
Then the word of the LORD came to me: Can I not do with you, 0 house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the LORD. Just like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, 0 house of Israel. At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it. (vv. 4-10)
The Lord then applies this teaching to Israel, saying, "Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings" (v. 11).
Though Calvinists frequently cite the potter-clay analogy in support of an omnicontrolling model of divine sovereignty, the only passage that develops the analogy at length makes the opposite point. This passage celebrates the fact that God is not a unilaterally controlling deity who decrees an unalterable future. Instead, this passage teaches that even after God has devised and announced a certain course of action, he (like a flexible potter) is willing and able to revise his plan if the people (like the clay) will change.
If the future is eternally and exhaustively settled in God's mind, then it is not clear what this passage is intended to communicate. If God knows from all eternity that a certain nation will repent, how can he genuinely "devise a plan" against it in case it doesn't repent? Can God sincerely plan a course of action he knows with certainty he will never carry out? And how can God honestly "change his mind" if he eternally knew he would never embark on the course of action he is now supposedly deciding against? These are serious difficulties for the classical position, for the point of this passage is to encourage people to believe that God is willing and able to change his mind. If we, following the classical tradition, insist that God never "really" devises a plan against a nation and then changes his mind, we are not simply reinterpreting the passage-we are contradicting it.
The Lord emphasizes his virtuous flexibility again in Jeremiah 26:2-3. As we saw earlier, the Lord here tells Jeremiah to prophesy to Judah that they should repent, saying, "I may change my mind about the disaster that I intend to bring on [Judah] because of their evil doings." When the priests and officials of Judah hear Jeremiah's prophecy, they want to kill him because they are angry about the judgment he has pronounced (Jer 26:7-11). But Jeremiah responds, "Amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of the LORD your God, and the LORD will change his mind about the disaster that he has pronounced against you" (Jer 26:13). Some of the elders come to Jeremiah's defense and remind the priests and officials of another instance in Judah's history when, because of the repentance of King Hezekiah and the people of Judah, God changed his mind about the judgment the prophet Micah had prophesied against them (Jer 26:16-19; cf. Micah). This passage encourages believers to trust in God's wise flexibility. Scripture celebrates this as one of God's attributes of greatness (Joel 2:12-13; Jon 4:2).
If we refuse to believe that God is capable of changing his mind-insisting instead that God is "above" such change and that the future is exhaustively settled in his mind-aren't we disobeying the explicit teaching of Jeremiah 26? If we don't contradict this passage when we say that God doesn't change his mind, what would a contradiction of this passage say? Similarly, if this text does not teach that God may really change his mind, what would a text that did teach this say? Suppose, for the sake of argument, that God in fact wanted to tell us, "I may change my mind." How could he do so more clearly and convincingly than he did here? If his saying "I may change my mind" in Scripture isn't enough to con wince us that God may in fact change his mind, then nothing would be.
Other passages showing divine flexibility. Many other passages reinforce the teaching that God may change his mind. Space allows us to sample only a few. In 1 Chronicles 21:15, for example, the author tells us that the Lord sent "an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it." However, "when he was about to destroy it, the LORD ... relented concerning the calamity." We must wonder whether the Lord genuinely intended "to destroy" Jerusalem-to the point of actually dispatching an angel to accomplish the task-if he was certain from all eternity that he wouldn't destroy the city? If God always knew he wouldn't destroy Jerusalem, isn't Scripture simply wrong in claiming that God sent the angel "to destroy it"?
Similarly, the Lord told King Hezekiah he would not recover from his sickness (2 Kings 20:1). Hezekiah pleaded with him, however, and as a result the Lord reversed his stated intention, even saying, "I will add fifteen years to your life" (2 Kings 20:6). Now, if the Lord was certain all along that Hezekiah wouldn't die, wasn't he being duplicitous when he told Hezekiah he would not recover? And if God's plan all along was for Hezekiah to live another fifteen years, isn't Scripture misleading when it says God added fifteen years to his life?
One of the most familiar examples of the Lord's changing his mind involved Moses as an intercessor. Because of Moses' intercessory prayer, the Bible says, "The LORD changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people" (Ex 32:14). David later recounts this episode when he writes:
Therefore he [the Lord] said he would destroy themhad not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him, to turn away his wrath from destroying them. (Ps 106:23)
If God was certain from all eternity that he wouldn't bring disaster on his people, isn't Scripture wrong when it explicitly states that God planned on doing just this?
Other examples that further illustrate this point include the following:
I I At one point, the Bible says, "the LoRD intended to destroy [the Israelites]" (Deut 9:25; cf. 9:14) and was even "ready to destroy [Aaron]" (9:20), but Moses' forty-day intercession altered God's intention (9:25-29).
God promised Eli he would allow his family to minister before him forever, but God then reversed his decision when Eli scorned God's sacrifices (1 Sam 2:27-31).
God announced his plan to "bring disaster on [Ahab]" but then changed his mind when Ahab "humbled himself' (1 Kings 21:21-29).
Because of Rehoboam's rebellion the Lord announced his plan to allow Shishak to conquer the Israelites but then reversed his decision when they repented (2 Chron 12:5-8).
When Ezekiel found a request of the Lord to be offensive, the Lord modified his request (Ezek 4:9-15).
The Lord gave Amos several visions of future judgments he was planning; God then changed his mind in the light of Amos's intercessory prayer (Amos 7:1-6).
❑ The people of Nineveh repented and believed that "God may relent and change his mind" (Jon 3:9). Consequently, "God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring on them" (Jon 3:10).
i Several times the Lord threatens to "blot out" the names of people he has written in his book of life (Rev 3:5; 22:18-19; cf. Ex 32:32; Ps 69:28), demonstrating a change in God's heart and intentions toward people.
Scripture explicitly teaches and frequently illustrates that God changes his mind. Together with the other passages that compose the motif of future openness, they form a compelling biblical case for the partial openness of the future. If we accept what these texts clearly say, we must conclude that, despite the classical view's conclusion, the first motif does not tell the whole story of God's relationship to the future. The motif that celebrates God's control and foreknowledge of a partially settled future is complemented by an equally strong motif that celebrates God's wise and creative responsiveness to a partly open future.
Part Three: Five Objections
We have discussed the biblical foundation of the classical view and have concluded that it does not warrant the conclusion that the future is exhaustively settled. We then outlined the biblical case for the openness view of creation and have concluded that it warrants the conclusion that the future is partly open. Our final task shall be to defend this view against five of its most common objections.
First, nothing in any of these passages suggests that they are either anthropomorphic or phenomenological. They don't say that it is as though God changes his mind, regrets previous decisions, is surprised or disappointed and so on. They rather teach these things in a very straightforward manner (cf. Jer 26:3). As we have argued earlier, if God can't convince us by explicitly saying he can and does change his mind, experience regret and so on, how could he convince us if he wanted to?
Calvin's argument is inconsistent, however. He apparently believes that his "weakness" does not preclude him from "attaining to" God's "exalted state." In other words, Calvin exempts himself from his explanation of why God must use anthropomorphic language (viz., that our weakness cannot attain to God's exalted state). And from this exempt position he then represents God to us as he truly is as opposed to the way God represents himself in Scripture (viz., "according to our weakness" and as he "seems to us").
Not only is this line of reasoning inconsistent, it is presumptuous and arbitrary. It could be used to defend any philosophical presupposition. To illustrate, suppose my philosophical presupposition is that God is really "above love." Following Calvin, I could argue that when Scripture says God loves us, it is describing God as he appears to us and in language we can understand, not God as he really is. God accommodates himself to us in this way because our weakness cannot attain to his "exalted state." Fortunately, I am exempt from this weakness and can therefore see past this accommodation and understand God in his "exalted state." Indeed, I now reveal to you what God had difficulty revealing in a literal fashion: namely, that in truth neither God's nature nor his will is really loving. Don't be deceived by God's accommodation. Follow my theology and think of God as he truly is. For people who adhere to the princi ple of sola scriptura, the presumptuousness of this approach should be cause for concern.
Third, the texts that constitute the second motif do not readily lend themselves to the classical interpretation. Like all figures of speech, anthropomorphisms must reflect reality at some level if they communicate anything truthful. Expressions like "the right hand of God" or "the eyes of the Lord," for example, communicate something true of God's strength and knowledge. But what does the concept of God's changing his mind communicate, for example, if indeed it is an anthropomorphism? If God in fact never changes his mind, saying he does so doesn't communicate anything truthful: it is simply inaccurate.20 This observation is especially important when we recall that several passages expressly encourage us to think about God as being capable of changing his mind (Jer 18:1-10; 26:2-3, 13) and depict God's willingness to change as one of his praiseworthy attributes (Joel 2:13-14; Jon 4:2).
Nor do these passages easily lend themselves to phenomenological interpretations. Most of them concern material that doesn't appear to us at all. When Scripture reports that the Lord's expectations or plans did not come to pass, for example, it is revealing something we wouldn't otherwise know. We are given access to God's subjective states-what he thinks, plans and feels. For example, "God thought, `If the people face war, they may change their minds' " (Ex 13:17). There is nothing apparent about the material of these passages; hence they can't be explained away phenomenologically.
Fourth, as we saw in the passages that depict God as changing his mind, these passages cannot be dismissed as anthropomorphisms without undermining the integrity of Scripture. For example, Scripture says that because of Moses' intercession, "the LORD changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people" (Ex 32:14; cf. Deut 9:13-14, 18-20, 25; Ps 106:23). If the Lord didn't really change his mind, then neither did he really plan to bring disaster on his people. Scripture thus misleads us when it explicitly tells us the Lord planned this before he changed his mind. While other expressions such as "the right hand of God" are rightly considered anthropomorphisms to preserve the integrity of Scripture, considering the portrayals of God's changing his mind in this fashion has the opposite effect. Out of fidelity to Scripture we ought to abandon this classical interpretation.
Finally, it can be argued that the classical view of God as "above" time, change, disappointment, suffering, empathy, vulnerability and so on is itself anthropomorphic .2' This philosophical presupposition is not based on theological reflections of Jesus Christ as the definitive revelation of God (Jn 1:18) or on acceptance of the plain meaning of Scripture. Ancient Greek philosophers advocated essentially this view of God without the aid of the revelation of Jesus Christ or the biblical narrative. This view of God is arrived at rather as a result of people's relying on natural reason, thus making God in their own image, according to their own expectations of what God is "supposed" to be like. The truly nonanthropomorphic God does not conform to our natural expectations. He reveals his unchanging character of love by his willingness to change in response to us (Jer 18:1-10). He reveals his unchanging omnipotence by his willingness to become a human being who is crucified. He reveals his unsurpassable sovereignty by his willingness to move with us in history, to experience disappointment and frustration and to become vulnerable to those he loves.
The openness view contradicts Scripture. Another objection frequently raised to the openness view of the future in general, and the notion that God changes his mind in particular, is that it seems to contradict several passages of Scripture. In 1 Samuel 15:29, the prophet Samuel tells Saul that "the Glory of Israel will not recant or change his mind; for he is not a mortal, that he should change his mind." Numbers 23:19 declares that "God is not a human being, that he should lie, or a mortal, that he should change his mind." Defenders of the classical view of foreknowledge argue that these two passages contradict those passages that describe God as changing his mind. Unlike all those verses, however, these two verses specify that they are speaking about God in nonanthropomorphic ways (e.g., God is not a human being). Hence, it is concluded, these passages describe God as he really is, not in human terms or in terms of how he appears.
A closer examination of both passages reveals that they do not contradict the teaching that God changes his mind and do not warrant being taken more literally than passages which teach that God changes his mind.
1 Samuel 15:29. First, the teaching that God changed his mind about Saul's kingship is not based on one or two incidental phrases in this chapter, but rather it is central to the broader narrative. Scripture tells us that God originally intended to have Saul's family reign and to bless him (1 Sam 13:13-14). In good faith God made him king over Israel. After Saul's fall, however, God revoked his blessing and replaced his kingship with David's. The two statements in 1 Samuel 15 reveal the motive behind this change in divine plans: God regretted his decision to make Saul king. The point is that this portion of the narrative is structured around God's regret concerning Saul's kingship. We cannot dismiss these two statements as anthropomorphisms without calling into question the integrity of the history which this portion of the narrative reports.
Second, Samuel prayed all night trying to change the Lord's mind regarding Saul's dethronement (1 Sam 15:11). Apparently Samuel believed that God could in principle change his mind about things. After crying out to the Lord all night, however, Samuel concluded that in this case God wouldn't change his mind. There is a big difference between couldn't and wouldn't. The classical view of divine foreknowledge teaches the former, but Scripture teaches the latter-and only in certain instances. We find several examples of God's declaring, essentially, "I will not change my mind" (Ezek 24:14; Zech 8:14). At one point the Lord actually declares, "I am weary of relenting" (Jer 15:6). Sometimes the Lord resolves to change his mind no more. But the exceptions prove the rule. It is only meaningful for God to say he will not change his mind if it is also true that God can and does change his mind when he wants to.
If Saul had genuinely repented of his sin instead of begging Samuel to change things with a purely selfish motive (1 Sam 15:24-25, 30), God may have reversed his decision once again for all we know. Unfortunately, Saul gave God no reason to forgive him or restore him. And, unlike fallible and fickle humans, God can't be cajoled into altering his plans for any reasons other than what are consistent with his unchanging holy character. In this sense he "is not a mortal, that he should change his mind."
Numbers 23:19. In Numbers 23:19, Balak attempted to get Balaam (a "prophet for hire") to prophesy what he wanted to hear (cf. Num 22:38- 23:17). The Lord informed Balak that he, the true God, is not like a human being who can lie when it's profitable or a mortal who will change his mind when it's convenient. False prophets like Balaam commonly portrayed fickle false gods when it suited the prophets' cause. But for the first time in his life, Balak (and Balaam!) had confronted the real God. This God is not like a mortal who would change his mind for the carnal reasons Balak gave.
There is no contradiction between this teaching (i.e., God is not a mortal) and the pervasive teaching that God's intentions can and do change. There is, therefore, no reason to interpret less literally than these passages the numerous passages which teach that God sometimes changes his mind. Both sets of passages should be affirmed as accurately depicting God as he really is. God's mind is unchanging in every way in which it is virtuous to be unchanging, but it is open to change in every way in which it is virtuous to be open to change.
The openness view undermines God's omniscience. The openness view of the future is often accused of undermining God's omniscience. Indeed, sometimes it is referred to as the "limited omniscience" position.22 As noted in the introduction, the disagreement between the openness and classical views is not over the scope or perfection of God's knowledge; it is rather over the content of reality that (we all agree) God exhaustively knows. More specifically, it is over whether or not reality includes, or merely excludes, possibilities. God's omniscience is the presupposition, not the subject matter, of this debate.
To illustrate, suppose two people disagree about the number of hairs on someone's head. They both believe that because God is omniscient, God perfectly knows the number of hairs on this person's head (Mt 10:30). While they may disagree over the number of hairs on this person's head, they are not disagreeing about the perfection of God's knowledge. It would be ludicrous for one party to accuse the other of limiting God's knowledge on the grounds that in their view God knows a smaller number of hairs. Accusing openness theists of limiting God's knowledge is no less ludicrous, however. Openness theists could just as easily accuse a defender of the classical view of limiting God's knowledge because they deny that God knows possibilities as genuine possibilities.
Christians have historically agreed that God cannot do the logically impossible. God cannot create a rock so heavy he cannot lift it, for example, because the concept of such a rock is meaningless. We would not be ascribing anything positive to God by insisting that he could create such a rock because he is omnipotent and can therefore "do anything." For the same reason, we would not be ascribing anything positive to God by insisting that he could know the weight of this unliftable rock because he is omniscient and thus "knows everything."
Now, theologians sometimes disagree about whether or not something is a logical contradiction and thus about whether or not God can perform it. But that doesn't mean they question whether or not God is omnipotent. For example, some Calvinists claim that God is able to determine all events while nevertheless preserving the morally responsible freedom of agents. Arminians argue that God is not able to do this because it constitutes a logical contradiction. But they are not, on this account, disagreeing about whether or not God is omnipotent. So too, the classical view affirms that God can eternally foreknow the future with exhaustive settledness while nevertheless preserving the morally responsible freedom of agents. Openness theists argue that God is not able to do this because it constitutes a logical contradiction. He can't know future free actions before they are resolved for the same reason he can't know the weight of a rock he cannot lift. But this doesn't mean openness theists question God's omniscience. This frequent criticism of openness theism is a caricature that only serves to install unnecessary fear in people's minds toward this view. It hinders the discussion from moving forward in a healthy, Christian manner.
The openness view undermines God's sovereignty.
Sovereignty and control. Another common objection to the openness view of creation is that it undermines God's sovereignty. The extent to which the future is open-ended, it is argued, is the extent to which God is not in control. For 23 some critics, this is tantamount to denying that God is God.
The openness view does emphasize the role of free agents in influencing what transpires in world history. It also agrees with classical Arminianism that not everything happens according to God's will. This explains why the world is full of suffering and evil even though it was created by an all-holy and allloving Creator. As in classical Arminianism, the openness view holds that humans and fallen angels can and do thwart God's will for their own lives and interfere with God's will for others.
This does not compromise God's sovereignty over the world, however. In contrast to what is called "process thought," openness theism and classical Arminianism hold that God chose to create this world and give agents power to resist him. Only in this way could God create a world that was capable of love, for love must be chosen. In making this decision, God temporarily limited his own ability to unilaterally get his way. But, as Scripture clearly shows, God has not given away more power to creatures than he can handle. That would obviously be an unwise decision, and thus an all-wise God would not make it.
Far from diminishing his sovereignty, this understanding of God's relation to the world most exalts it. Some Christians use the word sovereignty as though it is synonymous with control. Hence any view (including classical Arminianism) that does not portray God as controlling everything by definition undermines God's sovereignty. But can't we conceive of a more praiseworthy way that God might choose to be sovereign over his creation? If we take our model of divine sovereignty from the biblical narrative, centered on the crucified Son of God, we discover that God's sovereignty is a sovereignty of love rather than control. Fallen humans tend to make God after our own image by projecting our own lust for control onto him. But, I submit, such a portrait of God is not reflected in Scripture or revealed in the character of Christ.
God demonstrates his sovereignty by empowering others to enter into a loving relationship with him. He demonstrates his sovereignty when, out of love, he puts himself in a position where his heart might be grieved and frustrated because of the adultery of his beloved (Hos 3). And, most importantly, he demonstrates his incomprehensible sovereign power when he himself comes to earth and allows himself to be crucified for sinners. This is what it is for God to have all power and authority, and this ought to be the model by which we exercise power within the body of Christ (Lk 22:24-27; Eph 5:25-27; Phil 2:5-8).
It takes a truly sovereign God to make himself vulnerable like this. It takes a God who is truly in control to be willing to give away some of his control, knowing that doing so might cause him incredible pain. It takes a truly wise and creative God to guarantee victory without having to control every detail of history. By contrast, to simply control others so that you always get your way is a sure sign of insecurity and weakness.
The praiseworthy chess master. At this juncture an analogy might help demonstrate this point. Which of the following three chess masters would you admire most? The first chess master is confident of victory in a given match because she is playing a computer that she personally programmed. She foreknows every move her "opponent" will make because she programmed its moves. The second chess master is confident of victory because she too is playing a computer. While she didn't personally program this computer, she possesses a manual with exhaustive information of exactly how the computer will respond during this match. A third chess master is confident of victory even though she is playing a real person, not a computer. Though she cannot be certain of how her opponent will move, for her opponent is a free agent, she is certain she can wisely out-maneuver him. This chess master does not foreknow exactly what moves her opponent will make, but she perfectly anticipates all the moves her opponent might make. And on the basis of this superior intelligence, she is confident of victory.
Acknowledging that all analogies break down somewhere, I believe the scenario of the first chess master corresponds to the Calvinist view, in which God foreknows everything as settled because he predestines everything. The second corresponds to the Arminian view, in which God foreknows everything as settled though he has not predestined everything. The third corresponds to the openness view, in which God neither predestines nor foreknows everything as settled but is nevertheless certain of victory because of his divine wisdom. It is the only model in which God wins by virtue of his wisdom, creativity and problem-solving intelligence, because it is the only model in which God has to genuinely think, plan and respond to other personal agents. To simply control or possess information about the future requires no virtuous attributes.
Despite the various claims made by some today that we must protect ,the sovereignty of God" by emphasizing his absolute control over creation and by denouncing the openness view, I submit that we ought to denounce the view that God exercises total control over everything, for a truly sovereign God is powerful enough to share power and face a partly open future.
The openness view is discomforting. A final objection is that the openness view of creation has pastoral disadvantages. If God doesn't foreknow all that shall come to pass, he doesn't specifically choose to allow all that comes to pass. Hence, in the openness view, there is no assurance that all the events in our life fit into God's plan. Our suffering may be meaningless. As a pastor I am sensitive to this charge, and I shall offer four responses to it.
First, it is important that we distinguish between objective and personal preferences. In our postmodern age people tend to decide what they will and will not believe on the basis of what they like and don't like. But does truth always conform to our preferences? We don't think so when the truth is a doctor's report on our health. So too, some may find it comforting to believe that everything that happens was specifically pre-ordained or at least pre-allowed by God. But this sense of comfort doesn't at all count in favor of the truth of these beliefs or against the view that denies these beliefs.
Second, while the belief that there is a specific purpose behind every event is sometimes comforting, at other times it is horrifying. Every year several thousand children disappear. Suppose this year your daughter becomes one of them. In one nightmarish moment, your life changes forever. You now live in the tormented reality of wondering what is being done to your little girl, if she is still alive. How does the belief that God always knew this would happen and intentionally allowed (or ordained) it for a higher purpose help you cope with this nightmare? Would it not make God a co-conspirator with the kidnapper?
I do not mean to suggest that the openness view by itself adequately resolves the problem of evil. But I believe it is an important piece of a comprehensive approach that does adequately resolve this problem. We can understand why God must allow free agents to exercise their freedom once he has given it, for to revoke freedom because it is being misused would mean that it was never genuinely given in the first place.24 But how are we to understand God's giving freedom to creatures whom he is certain ahead of time (let alone has predestined ahead of time) will use it to commit atrocious acts on innocent people and eternally damn themselves to hell? The answer that he has a "good sovereign reason" wears thin, especially when you are the parent of a kidnapped child.
Third, as I have argued elsewhere, the assumption that there is a divine reason behind every event in history is contradicted by Scripture.25 True, God sometimes ordains or at least allows hardships to occur to individuals or nations in order to punish them, to refine their character or to achieve some other purpose. But nothing warrants the assumption that this truth should be universalized to cover all hardships. For example, without exception, Jesus treated disease as ultimately coming from Satan, not God (Acts 10:38). He demonstrated God's will by defeating the devil and eliminating these things.26
Fourth, while the openness view can't assure people that all the events in their lives fit into God's plan (if this should be called an "assurance"), it can offer people the same comfort the New Testament offers. The New Testament never guarantees people protection from harm. Instead, it promises them eternal life in the coming kingdom of God, and this makes hardships in this life worth enduring (Rom 8:18). Jesus taught us to pray that the Father's will would be done "on earth as it is in heaven" (Mt 6:10)-which implicitly assumes that his will is not uniformly being done on earth now. In the meantime, we find assurance in the New Testament that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ (Rom 8:35-39). It promises that God is with us in the midst of our suffering (Mt 28:20; Rom 8:17) and that he gives us a peace that passes understanding (Phil 4:7-9). And it promises that whatever happens, God will work to bring good out of it (Rom 8:28). Because God is infinitely wise and sovereign, no event remains meaningless for those who love God and work with his sovereign purposes (cf. Eph 1:11). This, I suggest, is a much better-and more biblical-consolation than the belief that every nightmarish thing about our world is specifically allowed or ordained for a divine reason.
Conclusion
Proponents of the classical view mistakenly interpret the scriptural evidence that some of the future is settled as evidence that all the future is settled. This required them to dismiss the entire motif of future openness as anthropomorphic or phenomenological. Though opponents of the openness view frequently allege that it is unbiblical and principally motivated by philosophical considerations, I submit that in fact the classical view is unbiblical and overly motivated by philosophical considerations. Though I would argue that sound philosophy also supports the openness view, the motivating force behind the openness view is a desire to be faithful to the witness of Scripture. The openness view does not interpret the motif of future openness any less literally than it does the motif that celebrates God's control over and foreknowledge of the future.
I concede that traditional concepts should not be revised without a lengthy and prayerful process of discernment. Yet Protestantism is fundamentally rooted in the conviction that if there are sufficient scriptural reasons to do so, traditional doctrines can and should be revised. This essay has argued that the classical understanding of God's foreknowledge is a case in point. I have argued that in the light of Scripture it should be modified and expanded to include possibilities rather than limiting God's foreknowledge to settled facts.