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5Open Theism Does God know my Tomorrow? (1 of 2)
The Immutable Things of God
by George Sidney Hurd
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Until recent years Christians have universally believed that God has always had perfect knowledge concerning the future of each and every individual, just as the Psalmist declares: “You saw me before I was born. The days allotted to me had all been recorded in your book before any of them ever began” (Ps 139:16). Many of us have received promises from God and have rested in the full assurance that we have already received that which He promised because of our belief that He who knows our future and possesses all power will fulfill that which He promised.
When the future looks bleak and we can’t see what tomorrow holds we are reassured by the knowledge that God is working all things together for our good according to the counsel of His will which was ordained for us before the ages (Rom 8:28; Eph 1:11; 1Cor 2:7). An old melody that I often find myself singing when I am going through great difficulties and the future looks dim is:
“There are things about tomorrow I don’t seem to understand, but I know who holds the future and I know who holds my hand.”
Most of us have peace of mind, knowing that God, who holds our future, will not let go of our hand. But try to imagine a world in which our Father, the Creator and Sustainer of all things has no real knowledge of our future – a world in which ultimately you are the master of your own fate and God is actually learning along with you as time progresses. Imagine being in relationship with a god who, although he loves you and desires the best for you, can only guess what will take place tomorrow, since he doesn’t know any more about your future than you do.
You have just visualized the cosmovision of a growing number of people who, consciously or unconsciously, have come to believe a new doctrine commonly known as “Open Theism” or “Freewill Theism.”
In a nutshell, Open Theism claims that, either the future cannot be known by God since the future doesn’t exist – not even to Him, or else that God, out of respect for our own libertarian freewill, has somehow limited His “omniscience” so as not to know what our future choices will be. It is a very recent doctrine with no substantial historical precedent in Church history until the 1994 publication of “The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God,” coauthored by Clark Pinnock, Richard Rice, John Sanders, William Hasker, and David Basinger.
Most of these scholars would be unknown to the average Christian today. However, some of today’s most influential authors and speakers such as Gregory Boyd, Bradley Jersak, Brian Zahnd, Philip Yancey and most notoriously Wm. Paul Young, author of “The Shack,” have embraced Open Theism and are promoting it in their books and lectures.
Often, they will not publicly or directly challenge the historic belief that God in His omniscience possesses exhaustive knowledge of the future. Rather, they subtly imply it in a way designed to cause one to question God’s ability to see from eternity and work all things according to His will as traditionally believed, presenting Him instead as one trying to make the best of unforeseen events which at times get out of hand due to His inability to anticipate or intervene in the freewill acts of man.
Wm. Paul Young’s novel and movie “The Shack” so masterfully intertwined Open Theism into the narrative that few were even conscious of its underlying message. However, in his later book, “Lies We Believe About God,” while not directly expounding upon Open Theism, he is more direct in revealing its implications. He says:
“What if there is no ‘plan’ for your life but rather a relationship in which God constantly invites us to co-create, respectfully submitting to the choices we bring to the table?... God submits rather than controls and joins us in the resulting mess of relationship, to participate in co-creating the possibility of life, even in the face of death.” (emphasis mine) [i]
Instead of us seeking wisdom and understanding as to what the will of the Lord is and submitting to God’s plan for our lives, the tables are turned in such a way that it is now God who respectfully submits to us, following our lead as we co-create our own future!
It is not that they do not have proof-texts to support their position. Indeed, some passages taken literally do at first sight seem to present God as not possessing all knowledge of the future and therefore changing His mind. He is even depicted as though He needed someone like Moses or Abraham to persuade Him to show mercy, or as though He were forgetful and needed the rainbow to remind Him not to destroy the earth again by a flood (Gen 9:13-15). However, as I hope to establish, these demonstrably anthropomorphic expressions must be understood in the light of texts which clearly define God’s infinite essential attributes such as His eternality, omnipotence and omniscience, and not the other way around. This has been the understanding of all students of the Bible from the scholar to the simplest devout readers throughout history.
I believe, and hope to demonstrate, that Open Theists are guilty of attempting to conform the infinite God to the image of finite man rather than recognizing that we were made in the image of God and not the other way around. While we have been created in His image and likeness and therefore are capable of knowing Him and experiencing intimacy with Him, we must acknowledge that He infinitely transcends us and therefore, at least in the present, He has chosen to use anthropomorphic terms in order to better relate to us.
An anthropomorphism is when finite human characteristics are attributed to God. An expression in the Bible can be determined to be an anthropomorphism using the following definition: “A biblical ascription to God is anthropomorphic when the Bible elsewhere teaches that God transcends the very finite characteristics being attributed to Him, (examples: ‘the arm of the Lord,’ the eyes of the Lord,’ ‘the Lord repented,’ ‘the Lord remembered,’ ‘the Lord looked and saw,’ etc.).” Likewise, if God inhabits eternity, then all temporal limitations attributed to God are only true as it relates to us as part of His temporal creation since God transcends temporal limitations.
The Eternality of God
In order for Open Theism to be viable it is necessary that they first demonstrate that God is timebound and therefore unable to see the future. They usually argue that God cannot see the future since the future doesn’t exist for anyone, not even for God. However, if God is eternal and transcends time – existing above and apart from time, then all events, past, present and future, would ever be in His view. It would be impossible that God should not know the future if indeed He is eternal.
Some Open Theists, recognizing this problem, would say that God could see the future, but in order to preserve man’s libertarian freedom He chose to “limit His omniscience” so as to be unable to see our future decisions. However, it is an oxymoron to say that God limits His omniscience. To be omniscient is to know everything. He either knows all things or He doesn’t. Since God’s omniscience is immutable, it is not possible that He should somehow not know what He knows. And if indeed He doesn’t know the future, then He would not be omniscient.
Historically, the Church has generally held that God is atemporal. That is, that God’s existence not only precedes time, but He exists outside of time, while at the same time being imminent and involved in our time/space world without being subject to its limitations. While the Hebrew language did not have a word equivalent to “eternal” in our modern Platonic understanding of the word, we nevertheless see God’s eternality expressed by the use of the present tense of the verb “to be” when applied to God. The Psalmist says:
“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting (from olam to olam), You ARE God.” (Ps 90:2)
The phrase “from olam to olam you ARE (present tense) God” says in so many words what we can now express by simply saying “God is eternal” – i.e. God always IS. Also when Moses asked God: "when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they say to me, 'What is His name?' what shall I say to them?" (Ex 3:13), God responded saying that He is the eternal God but in words that seem strange to us since we now have “eternal” in our vocabulary and we don’t need to use so many words to express His eternality: “And God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’ And He said, ‘Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you” (v. 14). In our vocabulary today we would simply say “I AM the Eternal One – He who always IS.” His name Jehovah means: “He who exists” or “The eternal one.”
In continuation, after saying that God IS (present tense) both in the past and the future in Psalm 90:2, the Psalmist says in Psalm 90:4: “For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in the night.” Some have here mistaken this as implying that God’s existence is temporal. However, taking into account what he said in verse 2, it is evident that it is merely a poetic way of saying that, although God interacts with us in time, He is not bound by time as we are.
Also, we see that He is eternal since before the mountains were brought forth – before time itself was created with its ages, years, months and days, God IS. Before creation, time did not exist, but God always exists. We also see God’s transcendent relation to time in the response Jesus gave to those who asked Him how He could have seen Abraham. He said: “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58). Only the One who has His existence outside of the bounds of time could have made such a declaration.
In His humanity Jesus was confined to space and time, but as God He is imminent or ever-present in all of time, even as we see His omnipresence revealed in His statement to Nicodemus: “No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man WHO IS IN HEAVEN” (John 3:13). Just after telling Nicodemus that he had to be born again in order to see the kingdom of heaven – something he was struggling to grasp, Jesus made the amazing statement that the very One who was speaking to him was at that same moment in heaven. These are truths that transcend our ability to fully fathom, yet they are nonetheless divine truths which should be embraced and marveled at, rather than attempting to reduce the divine to the level of mere men.
While all finite attempts to illustrate God’s infinite attributes come dreadfully short, God’s perspective of time could be illustrated as that of one who is viewing a parade from a helicopter. From that perspective the entire procession is in view from beginning to end. He could communicate to the spectators of the procession on the ground what they will be seeing in their future before they themselves are able to see it since he can see the whole procession all at once.
Likewise, we understand that God exists above and outside of our time/space confines, since He would not otherwise be able to tell us what will take place in our future – especially in the distant future in a world with so many variables which include man’s volitional decisions. The exhaustive foreknowledge of all future events which is attributed to God in Scripture, would be impossible for a temporal being to possess.
God’s Foreknowledge
Having seen that God’s eternality, combined with His omniscience, requires that He should have an exhaustive knowledge of all things, including all future events, we can now look to the Scriptures to see if such knowledge is attributed to God and demonstrated by fulfilled prophecies.
God demonstrates He is God by declaring things to come
In Isaiah chapters 41 thru 48 God challenges all the false gods to prove themselves by declaring that which will take place in the future. Time and time again He contrasts false gods with Himself, and His exclusive knowledge of the future is presented as one of the proofs that only He is God. Since they also refute the Open Theist’s claim that God doesn’t know the future, I will here cite the main ones, highlighting key phrases:
“Let them (your false gods) bring forth and show us what will happen; let them show the former things, what they were, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare to us things to come. 23 Show the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods; yes, do good or do evil, that we may be dismayed and see it together. 24 Indeed you are nothing, and your work is nothing; He who chooses you is an abomination.” (Isa 41:22-24)
Here God challenges the false gods Israel was worshipping to prove themselves by revealing what will take place in the future. Then He mockingly says, “at least do something, whether it be good or evil so that your followers can marvel.” At their silence He says, “you are nothing and cannot accomplish anything.”
He then says that all who would choose such a god are an abomination. According to God’s own criteria, a god who doesn’t know the future is a false god of one’s own making and those who worship such a god are an abomination in His sight. This should be enough to make Open Theists who think that God cannot know the future stop in their tracks. He then calls upon Israel to repent and return to Him – the only true God who knows their future and works all things according to the counsel of His will:
“Remember this, and show yourselves men; recall to mind, o you transgressors. 9 Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, 10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, 'MY COUNSEL SHALL STAND, AND I WILL DO ALL MY PLEASURE.” (Isa 46:8-10)
In Isaiah 45, the Lord calls king Cyrus by name many years before he had even been born. It was some 150 years after Isaiah’s prophecy that Cyrus took Babylon. Then, in the first year of Cyrus’ reign, after the 70 years of captivity was fulfilled as prophesied in Jeremiah 25:11-12, the Lord stirred the spirit of Cyrus to issue a decree setting the Jews free to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple (2Chron 36:22-23). The Lord said in Isaiah 45:
“Thus says the Lord to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held… 4 For Jacob My servant's sake, and Israel My elect, I have even called you by your name; I have named you, though you have not known Me… 6 That they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting that there is none besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other… 13 I have raised him up (Cyrus) in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways; he shall build My city and let My exiles go free, not for price nor reward, says the Lord of hosts.” (Isa 45:1,4,6,13 cf. Isa 48:3-5)
Why did God name Cyrus before he was born? So that His people Israel would know that He is the Lord and there is no other beside Him. None other than the omniscient God who knows the end from the beginning could declare with such precision what would occur generations later. Even if God had a good idea that the Persians would rise to power and conquer the Babylonians after the Jews had fulfilled exactly 70 years of captivity, what is the likelihood that a child would be born, receiving the name of Cyrus and coming to power in the very year God said the captivity would come to an end? Cyrus was the least likely to become king. His grandfather Astyages ordered that he be put to death as an infant, but those he charged with killing him instead hid him where he was raised in obscurity. It was his courage and genius in battle that led to his rise to power in spite of all obstacles. [ii] Cyrus himself recognized what Open Theists fail to acknowledge – that God knows everything about us before we are even born. David the Psalmist also clearly understood that God knew every detail of his life even before he was formed in his mother’s womb. He said:
“Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them… 4 For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.” (Ps 139: 16,4)
Open Theists have yet to explain how it is possible for God to have seen David’s substance and fashioned each of his days before he was even formed in the womb if indeed God didn’t know what would happen in David’s future, not to mention the question of how He could know what we are going to say before we say it.
The fact that God knows what we are going to say before we say it is demonstrated by Jesus when He said to Peter, “this night, before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times” (Matt 26:34). This would require that He foreknew, not only what Peter was going to say that very night in spite of his insistence that he was willing to die for Him, but also the entire chain of events that would transpire, including the words that would provoke His denials and also that the rooster would crow at the very moment of Peter’s third denial.
The circumstances of Christ’s crucifixion also clearly illustrate God’s exhaustive foreknowledge. Numerous Old Testament prophecies describing His betrayal and crucifixion were fulfilled including a detailed description of His death on a cross long before the Romans came to power and invented that form of torture (Ps 22:14-18). Most Open Theists would deny that God foresaw Christ’s crucifixion, but it was clearly and emphatically said to have been foreknown by Him. Christ was the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world (Rev 13:8). Not only was it foreknown by God from the very moment of creation, but it was also predetermined to take place exactly the way it did. Peter said:
“For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together (passive voice) 28 to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done.” (Acts 4:27-28)
How could God predetermine Christ’s death on our behalf according to His purpose which He established from creation if He cannot know and determine the future? Here we see that, not only was Christ’s crucifixion predetermined by God, but also that all the volitional choices of each and every individual involved were foreseen, including Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles and the people of Israel, and they were included in God’s predetermined plan for the ages. If either Herod or Pilate had chosen to act differently, the crucifixion would have never taken place. If the Jews had asked that Jesus be released instead of Barabbas, He would not have been crucified. Each of them did exactly what God had predetermined would take place. The same is true concerning the details of Judas’ betrayal (Matt 26:24;27:9). This is in agreement with Acts 15:18 where it says: “Known to God from eternity are all His works.” [iii]
Example after example could be presented showing that God from eternity is working all things according to the counsel of His will and this of necessity would require that He possess an exhaustive knowledge of all future events, as well as all future volitional choices made by men. However, these few examples should be sufficient to establish that God’s omniscience is infinite and exhaustive, including all future events as well as all the future thoughts and choices of His creatures, and also that He is working all things according to His predetermined plan.
This foundational truth will later help us recognize the various anthropomorphisms for what they are – God limiting His vocabulary to “baby talk” (so to speak), so that the most simple among us can relate to Him rather than Him talking over our heads. While we can relate to God through anthropomorphisms, we must seek to understand His nature and attributes applying the more definitive transcendental truths revealed in Scripture rather than limiting Him by defining Him based upon His anthropomorphisms or “baby talk” as the Open Theists attempt to do.
God’s Predetermined Plan and Man’s Freewill
Open Theists argue that If God had exhaustive knowledge of the future and everything were predetermined according to His eternal decree, then there would be no place for man’s freewill decisions. For example, they say that If God’s decree were fixed, being based upon His exhaustive foreknowledge, and He has decreed that I will finish this blog tomorrow at 4:03 p.m., then I would not be free to do otherwise. However, that is immaterial since I would have indeed finished it freely at that time without any divine coercion. As with most of our volitional actions, it would be more correct to say that if God has decreed that I will finish it by 4:03 p.m., then I will finish it, rather than thinking of it as something I must finish.
The fact that God foreknows our volitional choices and, in His wisdom, weaves them into His eternal plan for the ages, should in no way be seen as a violation of our will. God’s determinative decree according to His exhaustive foreknowledge is not incompatible with my freewill decisions unless my freewill decisions fly in the face of that which He has determined. In such a case God would indeed disallow my freewill, for who has resisted His will (Rom 9:19). Our own self-determination is subject to God’s permissive will. That is why, instead of saying, “Today or tomorrow we will do such and such,” we should say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that” (James 4:13-16).
God is our Father, and we are His creation – not a programmer’s computer simulation. We were created as emotional rational and volitional beings, capable of enjoying communion with Him. God does not want automatons programmed to do His every bidding, nor does He want self-willed libertarians who independently live as little gods unto themselves. As our Father, God allows His children to make free decisions within controlled parameters for their own development. However, God works in us both to will and to do His good pleasure and when we obstinately defy Him or go against His determined will, He as our Father, often intervenes in a way contrary to our will for our correction (Php 2:12; 1Cor 11:31-32).
I might add that man’s insistence upon unrestricted libertarian freedom is a result of the fall and falls far short of God’s perfect will for our lives. While God does not dictate our every decision, we are called to the higher life in which we surrender our independence and bring our will into subjection to the Father of spirits (Heb 12:9). We are called to a life of surrender, not a life of libertarian freedom in which God submits to us as we co-create our own future, as Wm. Paul Young and other Open Theists would have us believe.
While God foreknows every human decision, even including decisions we would have made given different circumstances (Ezek 3:5-6; Matt 11:21-23; Luke 10:13), He does not dictate our every decision, but rather governs as the Sovereign God, working all things together for good according to the counsel of His will (Rom 8:28; Eph 1:11). The end result will be that every knee will bow and every tongue confess Jesus Christ as Lord, at which time the Son also will subject Himself to the Father, culminating in the restoration of all when God shall be all in all (Php 2:10-11; Acts 3:21; 1Cor 15:28).
The Immutability of God
Another characteristic of God’s essential nature and attributes which needs consideration for the subject at hand is His immutability. In other words, God, being eternal, never changes as to who and what He is – He remains the same as to His being and qualities:
“For I am the Lord, I do not change; therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob.” (Mal 3:6)
In contrast to the capricious implacable pagan gods whom the Israelites were following after at the time, God said that it was because of His unchangeableness that they were not consumed in spite of their abominations.
Contrary to traditional thought, God as to His essential nature is love (1Jn 4:8). Some would object, saying that it also says that God is holy (Lev 11:45; 1Peter 1:16). However, “love,” agápe, is a noun (substantive), defining God’s substantial essence, whereas “holy,” hágios, is an adjective, describing a characteristic of God’s essential nature which is defined by the noun “love.” Holy means “set apart.” God is holy or set apart from all so-called gods. And what is it that sets Him apart from all others? His love. God is set apart from all others because He is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and possesses all wisdom, but what sets Him apart from others more than His attributes is His essential nature which is love. He declares Himself to be separate from all others precisely because of His lovingkindness:
“I will not execute the fierceness of My anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim. For I am God, and not man, the Holy One in your midst; and I will not come with terror.” (Hos 11:9)
Here we see that His holiness or set-apartness is evidenced by the fact that in love He shows mercy rather than executing the fierceness of His wrath. So, His holiness – rather than restricting His love, characterizes His love as being set-apart in that, even in His wrath, He remembers mercy (Hab 3:2). God’s nature is indivisible – His wrath is in reality Love acting against evil. His holiness is likewise inseparable from His love – not in tension with it. Justice and mercy are not in conflict, since righteousness and peace kissed each other at the cross (Ps 85:10). From God’s perspective His holiness and love have never been in conflict with one another since He inhabits eternity and therefore the propitiatory work of Christ on the cross is ever before Him.
True holiness is love and true love is holiness. Love is the fulfilling of all righteousness (Matt 22:37-40; Rom 13:9-10; 1Tim 1:5). Just as love without holiness is not true love, holiness without love is not true holiness. Love separate from holiness is Libertinism while holiness separate from love is Pharisaiism (Pharisee is from the Hebrew word parush “separatist or holy one”). The Pharisees mistakenly thought that holiness was distinct from love, and they ended up crucifying the Lord of glory in the name of holiness.
While God is immutable in His essential nature which is love, His love manifests in manifold ways in relation to His fallen creatures in the realm of time. While Traditionalists are guilty of presenting God’s nature and attributes as though His holiness and His love were in conflict with each other, many Open Theists are guilty of reducing God’s love to a passive cruciform love. While God’s essential nature is not divided, it is manifold in its manifestations and not always “cruciform.”
God’s paternal love is not cruciform. Whom He loves He disciplines and scourges. Also, His love manifests in the form of anger and wrath in the face of evil and injustice. His love often manifests in the form of judgment against those who oppress the innocent. His love will even abandon for a time in order that the children of men might seek Him (Hosea 5:15-6:2; Lam 3:31-33). However, that which is immutable is His love – not its temporal manifestations in response to evil. While God is angered by sin, His anger and wrath only endure for a time (Ps 103:8-9; 30:5; Jer 3:12-13; Mic 7:18). And while He may cast off the obstinately wicked in judgment, He will not cast them off forever, because it is His love that is immutable and endures forever, not its temporal manifestations in the face of sin and injustice (1Cor 13:8; Lam 3:31-33). Even under the Old Covenant the phrase “His lovingkindness (chesed) endures forever” is repeated over 40 times. But not even once in all of Scripture is God’s wrath said to endure forever since all evil will one day cease to exist and God will then be all in all in eternity (Rev 21:4-5; 1Cor 15:28).
God is also immutable as to His omniscience. This means that God has never learned anything because there is nothing that He hasn’t always known, and His perfect knowledge cannot be diminished or added to. As it says, “Known to God from eternity are all His works” (Acts 15:18). He works all things according to the counsel of His will, predetermined from the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4,11). Because His omniscient all-comprehensive plan for the ages is immutable, the Psalmist could say, “The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart to all generations” (Ps 33:11).
Contrary to Open Theist’s claim that God submits to us as we co-create the future, Jeremiah humbly says: “I know, O Lord, that a man's way is not in himself, nor is it in a man who walks to direct his steps” (Jer 10:23). Without violating man’s choices and still holding each one responsible for their deeds, the Lord nevertheless knows the end from the beginning, and in His infinite wisdom He works all things together for good according to the predetermined counsel of His will:
“Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will do ALL My pleasure.’” (Isa 46:10)
According to these clear foundational statements of Scripture, God is not growing in knowledge or improvising, as Open Theists affirm. As it is said of our Lord, He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb 13:8).
That is not to say that God’s eternal plan does not include changes such as dispensations, covenants or even what to us may seem to be unexpected turns of events. Indeed, from our perspective there are many changes which God has made throughout the ages with many more changes predicted in the ages to come. However, they are only changes from our perspective and in relation to us, and not changes for God, since all is going according to His eternal plan.
God does not change, nor do His plans change. He has no such thing as a plan B. What He has is one immutable and eternally decreed plan for the ages which is progressively unfolding. Instead of the fall resulting in plan B, we see that the Lamb of God had already been slain from the very foundation of the world before the fall of man (Rev 13:8). Instead of plan A changing to plan B, what we see is Plan A going to A1, A2, A3, successively, with each stage working together according to the counsel of His will and culminating in God being all in all. All that which had its beginning in Him is ultimately drawn back into Him, having been brought to perfection in Him:
“For of (ek “out of as to source) Him and through Him and to (eis “into”) Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.” (Rom 11:36)
So, we can see that God is immutable as to His essential nature and attributes and therefore with Him there is no variation nor shadow of turning (James 1:17). This is a foundational truth. All anthropomorphisms or other statements which may at first appear to be saying otherwise must be interpreted in the light of Gods eternality, His exhaustive foreknowledge and the immutability of His nature and attributes.
Having laid a solid foundation of eternal immovable truths concerning God’s nature and His fixed eternal plan for the ages, we can now examine the texts of Scripture which the Open Theists present as evidence that God does not know what course we will take in the future and that He is writing the script as we ourselves create it.
[i] Young, Wm. Paul. Lies We Believe About God. Kindle Edition. Location 333,361
[ii] McClintock and Strong Encyclopedia: Cyrus
[iii] The NKJV wording of Acts 15:18 is based upon the Majority Text of the Greek New Testament.
by George Sidney Hurd
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Until recent years Christians have universally believed that God has always had perfect knowledge concerning the future of each and every individual, just as the Psalmist declares: “You saw me before I was born. The days allotted to me had all been recorded in your book before any of them ever began” (Ps 139:16). Many of us have received promises from God and have rested in the full assurance that we have already received that which He promised because of our belief that He who knows our future and possesses all power will fulfill that which He promised.
When the future looks bleak and we can’t see what tomorrow holds we are reassured by the knowledge that God is working all things together for our good according to the counsel of His will which was ordained for us before the ages (Rom 8:28; Eph 1:11; 1Cor 2:7). An old melody that I often find myself singing when I am going through great difficulties and the future looks dim is:
“There are things about tomorrow I don’t seem to understand, but I know who holds the future and I know who holds my hand.”
Most of us have peace of mind, knowing that God, who holds our future, will not let go of our hand. But try to imagine a world in which our Father, the Creator and Sustainer of all things has no real knowledge of our future – a world in which ultimately you are the master of your own fate and God is actually learning along with you as time progresses. Imagine being in relationship with a god who, although he loves you and desires the best for you, can only guess what will take place tomorrow, since he doesn’t know any more about your future than you do.
You have just visualized the cosmovision of a growing number of people who, consciously or unconsciously, have come to believe a new doctrine commonly known as “Open Theism” or “Freewill Theism.”
In a nutshell, Open Theism claims that, either the future cannot be known by God since the future doesn’t exist – not even to Him, or else that God, out of respect for our own libertarian freewill, has somehow limited His “omniscience” so as not to know what our future choices will be. It is a very recent doctrine with no substantial historical precedent in Church history until the 1994 publication of “The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God,” coauthored by Clark Pinnock, Richard Rice, John Sanders, William Hasker, and David Basinger.
Most of these scholars would be unknown to the average Christian today. However, some of today’s most influential authors and speakers such as Gregory Boyd, Bradley Jersak, Brian Zahnd, Philip Yancey and most notoriously Wm. Paul Young, author of “The Shack,” have embraced Open Theism and are promoting it in their books and lectures.
Often, they will not publicly or directly challenge the historic belief that God in His omniscience possesses exhaustive knowledge of the future. Rather, they subtly imply it in a way designed to cause one to question God’s ability to see from eternity and work all things according to His will as traditionally believed, presenting Him instead as one trying to make the best of unforeseen events which at times get out of hand due to His inability to anticipate or intervene in the freewill acts of man.
Wm. Paul Young’s novel and movie “The Shack” so masterfully intertwined Open Theism into the narrative that few were even conscious of its underlying message. However, in his later book, “Lies We Believe About God,” while not directly expounding upon Open Theism, he is more direct in revealing its implications. He says:
“What if there is no ‘plan’ for your life but rather a relationship in which God constantly invites us to co-create, respectfully submitting to the choices we bring to the table?... God submits rather than controls and joins us in the resulting mess of relationship, to participate in co-creating the possibility of life, even in the face of death.” (emphasis mine) [i]
Instead of us seeking wisdom and understanding as to what the will of the Lord is and submitting to God’s plan for our lives, the tables are turned in such a way that it is now God who respectfully submits to us, following our lead as we co-create our own future!
It is not that they do not have proof-texts to support their position. Indeed, some passages taken literally do at first sight seem to present God as not possessing all knowledge of the future and therefore changing His mind. He is even depicted as though He needed someone like Moses or Abraham to persuade Him to show mercy, or as though He were forgetful and needed the rainbow to remind Him not to destroy the earth again by a flood (Gen 9:13-15). However, as I hope to establish, these demonstrably anthropomorphic expressions must be understood in the light of texts which clearly define God’s infinite essential attributes such as His eternality, omnipotence and omniscience, and not the other way around. This has been the understanding of all students of the Bible from the scholar to the simplest devout readers throughout history.
I believe, and hope to demonstrate, that Open Theists are guilty of attempting to conform the infinite God to the image of finite man rather than recognizing that we were made in the image of God and not the other way around. While we have been created in His image and likeness and therefore are capable of knowing Him and experiencing intimacy with Him, we must acknowledge that He infinitely transcends us and therefore, at least in the present, He has chosen to use anthropomorphic terms in order to better relate to us.
An anthropomorphism is when finite human characteristics are attributed to God. An expression in the Bible can be determined to be an anthropomorphism using the following definition: “A biblical ascription to God is anthropomorphic when the Bible elsewhere teaches that God transcends the very finite characteristics being attributed to Him, (examples: ‘the arm of the Lord,’ the eyes of the Lord,’ ‘the Lord repented,’ ‘the Lord remembered,’ ‘the Lord looked and saw,’ etc.).” Likewise, if God inhabits eternity, then all temporal limitations attributed to God are only true as it relates to us as part of His temporal creation since God transcends temporal limitations.
The Eternality of God
In order for Open Theism to be viable it is necessary that they first demonstrate that God is timebound and therefore unable to see the future. They usually argue that God cannot see the future since the future doesn’t exist for anyone, not even for God. However, if God is eternal and transcends time – existing above and apart from time, then all events, past, present and future, would ever be in His view. It would be impossible that God should not know the future if indeed He is eternal.
Some Open Theists, recognizing this problem, would say that God could see the future, but in order to preserve man’s libertarian freedom He chose to “limit His omniscience” so as to be unable to see our future decisions. However, it is an oxymoron to say that God limits His omniscience. To be omniscient is to know everything. He either knows all things or He doesn’t. Since God’s omniscience is immutable, it is not possible that He should somehow not know what He knows. And if indeed He doesn’t know the future, then He would not be omniscient.
Historically, the Church has generally held that God is atemporal. That is, that God’s existence not only precedes time, but He exists outside of time, while at the same time being imminent and involved in our time/space world without being subject to its limitations. While the Hebrew language did not have a word equivalent to “eternal” in our modern Platonic understanding of the word, we nevertheless see God’s eternality expressed by the use of the present tense of the verb “to be” when applied to God. The Psalmist says:
“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting (from olam to olam), You ARE God.” (Ps 90:2)
The phrase “from olam to olam you ARE (present tense) God” says in so many words what we can now express by simply saying “God is eternal” – i.e. God always IS. Also when Moses asked God: "when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they say to me, 'What is His name?' what shall I say to them?" (Ex 3:13), God responded saying that He is the eternal God but in words that seem strange to us since we now have “eternal” in our vocabulary and we don’t need to use so many words to express His eternality: “And God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’ And He said, ‘Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you” (v. 14). In our vocabulary today we would simply say “I AM the Eternal One – He who always IS.” His name Jehovah means: “He who exists” or “The eternal one.”
In continuation, after saying that God IS (present tense) both in the past and the future in Psalm 90:2, the Psalmist says in Psalm 90:4: “For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in the night.” Some have here mistaken this as implying that God’s existence is temporal. However, taking into account what he said in verse 2, it is evident that it is merely a poetic way of saying that, although God interacts with us in time, He is not bound by time as we are.
Also, we see that He is eternal since before the mountains were brought forth – before time itself was created with its ages, years, months and days, God IS. Before creation, time did not exist, but God always exists. We also see God’s transcendent relation to time in the response Jesus gave to those who asked Him how He could have seen Abraham. He said: “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58). Only the One who has His existence outside of the bounds of time could have made such a declaration.
In His humanity Jesus was confined to space and time, but as God He is imminent or ever-present in all of time, even as we see His omnipresence revealed in His statement to Nicodemus: “No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man WHO IS IN HEAVEN” (John 3:13). Just after telling Nicodemus that he had to be born again in order to see the kingdom of heaven – something he was struggling to grasp, Jesus made the amazing statement that the very One who was speaking to him was at that same moment in heaven. These are truths that transcend our ability to fully fathom, yet they are nonetheless divine truths which should be embraced and marveled at, rather than attempting to reduce the divine to the level of mere men.
While all finite attempts to illustrate God’s infinite attributes come dreadfully short, God’s perspective of time could be illustrated as that of one who is viewing a parade from a helicopter. From that perspective the entire procession is in view from beginning to end. He could communicate to the spectators of the procession on the ground what they will be seeing in their future before they themselves are able to see it since he can see the whole procession all at once.
Likewise, we understand that God exists above and outside of our time/space confines, since He would not otherwise be able to tell us what will take place in our future – especially in the distant future in a world with so many variables which include man’s volitional decisions. The exhaustive foreknowledge of all future events which is attributed to God in Scripture, would be impossible for a temporal being to possess.
God’s Foreknowledge
Having seen that God’s eternality, combined with His omniscience, requires that He should have an exhaustive knowledge of all things, including all future events, we can now look to the Scriptures to see if such knowledge is attributed to God and demonstrated by fulfilled prophecies.
God demonstrates He is God by declaring things to come
In Isaiah chapters 41 thru 48 God challenges all the false gods to prove themselves by declaring that which will take place in the future. Time and time again He contrasts false gods with Himself, and His exclusive knowledge of the future is presented as one of the proofs that only He is God. Since they also refute the Open Theist’s claim that God doesn’t know the future, I will here cite the main ones, highlighting key phrases:
“Let them (your false gods) bring forth and show us what will happen; let them show the former things, what they were, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare to us things to come. 23 Show the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods; yes, do good or do evil, that we may be dismayed and see it together. 24 Indeed you are nothing, and your work is nothing; He who chooses you is an abomination.” (Isa 41:22-24)
Here God challenges the false gods Israel was worshipping to prove themselves by revealing what will take place in the future. Then He mockingly says, “at least do something, whether it be good or evil so that your followers can marvel.” At their silence He says, “you are nothing and cannot accomplish anything.”
He then says that all who would choose such a god are an abomination. According to God’s own criteria, a god who doesn’t know the future is a false god of one’s own making and those who worship such a god are an abomination in His sight. This should be enough to make Open Theists who think that God cannot know the future stop in their tracks. He then calls upon Israel to repent and return to Him – the only true God who knows their future and works all things according to the counsel of His will:
“Remember this, and show yourselves men; recall to mind, o you transgressors. 9 Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, 10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, 'MY COUNSEL SHALL STAND, AND I WILL DO ALL MY PLEASURE.” (Isa 46:8-10)
In Isaiah 45, the Lord calls king Cyrus by name many years before he had even been born. It was some 150 years after Isaiah’s prophecy that Cyrus took Babylon. Then, in the first year of Cyrus’ reign, after the 70 years of captivity was fulfilled as prophesied in Jeremiah 25:11-12, the Lord stirred the spirit of Cyrus to issue a decree setting the Jews free to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple (2Chron 36:22-23). The Lord said in Isaiah 45:
“Thus says the Lord to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held… 4 For Jacob My servant's sake, and Israel My elect, I have even called you by your name; I have named you, though you have not known Me… 6 That they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting that there is none besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other… 13 I have raised him up (Cyrus) in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways; he shall build My city and let My exiles go free, not for price nor reward, says the Lord of hosts.” (Isa 45:1,4,6,13 cf. Isa 48:3-5)
Why did God name Cyrus before he was born? So that His people Israel would know that He is the Lord and there is no other beside Him. None other than the omniscient God who knows the end from the beginning could declare with such precision what would occur generations later. Even if God had a good idea that the Persians would rise to power and conquer the Babylonians after the Jews had fulfilled exactly 70 years of captivity, what is the likelihood that a child would be born, receiving the name of Cyrus and coming to power in the very year God said the captivity would come to an end? Cyrus was the least likely to become king. His grandfather Astyages ordered that he be put to death as an infant, but those he charged with killing him instead hid him where he was raised in obscurity. It was his courage and genius in battle that led to his rise to power in spite of all obstacles. [ii] Cyrus himself recognized what Open Theists fail to acknowledge – that God knows everything about us before we are even born. David the Psalmist also clearly understood that God knew every detail of his life even before he was formed in his mother’s womb. He said:
“Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them… 4 For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.” (Ps 139: 16,4)
Open Theists have yet to explain how it is possible for God to have seen David’s substance and fashioned each of his days before he was even formed in the womb if indeed God didn’t know what would happen in David’s future, not to mention the question of how He could know what we are going to say before we say it.
The fact that God knows what we are going to say before we say it is demonstrated by Jesus when He said to Peter, “this night, before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times” (Matt 26:34). This would require that He foreknew, not only what Peter was going to say that very night in spite of his insistence that he was willing to die for Him, but also the entire chain of events that would transpire, including the words that would provoke His denials and also that the rooster would crow at the very moment of Peter’s third denial.
The circumstances of Christ’s crucifixion also clearly illustrate God’s exhaustive foreknowledge. Numerous Old Testament prophecies describing His betrayal and crucifixion were fulfilled including a detailed description of His death on a cross long before the Romans came to power and invented that form of torture (Ps 22:14-18). Most Open Theists would deny that God foresaw Christ’s crucifixion, but it was clearly and emphatically said to have been foreknown by Him. Christ was the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world (Rev 13:8). Not only was it foreknown by God from the very moment of creation, but it was also predetermined to take place exactly the way it did. Peter said:
“For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together (passive voice) 28 to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done.” (Acts 4:27-28)
How could God predetermine Christ’s death on our behalf according to His purpose which He established from creation if He cannot know and determine the future? Here we see that, not only was Christ’s crucifixion predetermined by God, but also that all the volitional choices of each and every individual involved were foreseen, including Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles and the people of Israel, and they were included in God’s predetermined plan for the ages. If either Herod or Pilate had chosen to act differently, the crucifixion would have never taken place. If the Jews had asked that Jesus be released instead of Barabbas, He would not have been crucified. Each of them did exactly what God had predetermined would take place. The same is true concerning the details of Judas’ betrayal (Matt 26:24;27:9). This is in agreement with Acts 15:18 where it says: “Known to God from eternity are all His works.” [iii]
Example after example could be presented showing that God from eternity is working all things according to the counsel of His will and this of necessity would require that He possess an exhaustive knowledge of all future events, as well as all future volitional choices made by men. However, these few examples should be sufficient to establish that God’s omniscience is infinite and exhaustive, including all future events as well as all the future thoughts and choices of His creatures, and also that He is working all things according to His predetermined plan.
This foundational truth will later help us recognize the various anthropomorphisms for what they are – God limiting His vocabulary to “baby talk” (so to speak), so that the most simple among us can relate to Him rather than Him talking over our heads. While we can relate to God through anthropomorphisms, we must seek to understand His nature and attributes applying the more definitive transcendental truths revealed in Scripture rather than limiting Him by defining Him based upon His anthropomorphisms or “baby talk” as the Open Theists attempt to do.
God’s Predetermined Plan and Man’s Freewill
Open Theists argue that If God had exhaustive knowledge of the future and everything were predetermined according to His eternal decree, then there would be no place for man’s freewill decisions. For example, they say that If God’s decree were fixed, being based upon His exhaustive foreknowledge, and He has decreed that I will finish this blog tomorrow at 4:03 p.m., then I would not be free to do otherwise. However, that is immaterial since I would have indeed finished it freely at that time without any divine coercion. As with most of our volitional actions, it would be more correct to say that if God has decreed that I will finish it by 4:03 p.m., then I will finish it, rather than thinking of it as something I must finish.
The fact that God foreknows our volitional choices and, in His wisdom, weaves them into His eternal plan for the ages, should in no way be seen as a violation of our will. God’s determinative decree according to His exhaustive foreknowledge is not incompatible with my freewill decisions unless my freewill decisions fly in the face of that which He has determined. In such a case God would indeed disallow my freewill, for who has resisted His will (Rom 9:19). Our own self-determination is subject to God’s permissive will. That is why, instead of saying, “Today or tomorrow we will do such and such,” we should say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that” (James 4:13-16).
God is our Father, and we are His creation – not a programmer’s computer simulation. We were created as emotional rational and volitional beings, capable of enjoying communion with Him. God does not want automatons programmed to do His every bidding, nor does He want self-willed libertarians who independently live as little gods unto themselves. As our Father, God allows His children to make free decisions within controlled parameters for their own development. However, God works in us both to will and to do His good pleasure and when we obstinately defy Him or go against His determined will, He as our Father, often intervenes in a way contrary to our will for our correction (Php 2:12; 1Cor 11:31-32).
I might add that man’s insistence upon unrestricted libertarian freedom is a result of the fall and falls far short of God’s perfect will for our lives. While God does not dictate our every decision, we are called to the higher life in which we surrender our independence and bring our will into subjection to the Father of spirits (Heb 12:9). We are called to a life of surrender, not a life of libertarian freedom in which God submits to us as we co-create our own future, as Wm. Paul Young and other Open Theists would have us believe.
While God foreknows every human decision, even including decisions we would have made given different circumstances (Ezek 3:5-6; Matt 11:21-23; Luke 10:13), He does not dictate our every decision, but rather governs as the Sovereign God, working all things together for good according to the counsel of His will (Rom 8:28; Eph 1:11). The end result will be that every knee will bow and every tongue confess Jesus Christ as Lord, at which time the Son also will subject Himself to the Father, culminating in the restoration of all when God shall be all in all (Php 2:10-11; Acts 3:21; 1Cor 15:28).
The Immutability of God
Another characteristic of God’s essential nature and attributes which needs consideration for the subject at hand is His immutability. In other words, God, being eternal, never changes as to who and what He is – He remains the same as to His being and qualities:
“For I am the Lord, I do not change; therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob.” (Mal 3:6)
In contrast to the capricious implacable pagan gods whom the Israelites were following after at the time, God said that it was because of His unchangeableness that they were not consumed in spite of their abominations.
Contrary to traditional thought, God as to His essential nature is love (1Jn 4:8). Some would object, saying that it also says that God is holy (Lev 11:45; 1Peter 1:16). However, “love,” agápe, is a noun (substantive), defining God’s substantial essence, whereas “holy,” hágios, is an adjective, describing a characteristic of God’s essential nature which is defined by the noun “love.” Holy means “set apart.” God is holy or set apart from all so-called gods. And what is it that sets Him apart from all others? His love. God is set apart from all others because He is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and possesses all wisdom, but what sets Him apart from others more than His attributes is His essential nature which is love. He declares Himself to be separate from all others precisely because of His lovingkindness:
“I will not execute the fierceness of My anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim. For I am God, and not man, the Holy One in your midst; and I will not come with terror.” (Hos 11:9)
Here we see that His holiness or set-apartness is evidenced by the fact that in love He shows mercy rather than executing the fierceness of His wrath. So, His holiness – rather than restricting His love, characterizes His love as being set-apart in that, even in His wrath, He remembers mercy (Hab 3:2). God’s nature is indivisible – His wrath is in reality Love acting against evil. His holiness is likewise inseparable from His love – not in tension with it. Justice and mercy are not in conflict, since righteousness and peace kissed each other at the cross (Ps 85:10). From God’s perspective His holiness and love have never been in conflict with one another since He inhabits eternity and therefore the propitiatory work of Christ on the cross is ever before Him.
True holiness is love and true love is holiness. Love is the fulfilling of all righteousness (Matt 22:37-40; Rom 13:9-10; 1Tim 1:5). Just as love without holiness is not true love, holiness without love is not true holiness. Love separate from holiness is Libertinism while holiness separate from love is Pharisaiism (Pharisee is from the Hebrew word parush “separatist or holy one”). The Pharisees mistakenly thought that holiness was distinct from love, and they ended up crucifying the Lord of glory in the name of holiness.
While God is immutable in His essential nature which is love, His love manifests in manifold ways in relation to His fallen creatures in the realm of time. While Traditionalists are guilty of presenting God’s nature and attributes as though His holiness and His love were in conflict with each other, many Open Theists are guilty of reducing God’s love to a passive cruciform love. While God’s essential nature is not divided, it is manifold in its manifestations and not always “cruciform.”
God’s paternal love is not cruciform. Whom He loves He disciplines and scourges. Also, His love manifests in the form of anger and wrath in the face of evil and injustice. His love often manifests in the form of judgment against those who oppress the innocent. His love will even abandon for a time in order that the children of men might seek Him (Hosea 5:15-6:2; Lam 3:31-33). However, that which is immutable is His love – not its temporal manifestations in response to evil. While God is angered by sin, His anger and wrath only endure for a time (Ps 103:8-9; 30:5; Jer 3:12-13; Mic 7:18). And while He may cast off the obstinately wicked in judgment, He will not cast them off forever, because it is His love that is immutable and endures forever, not its temporal manifestations in the face of sin and injustice (1Cor 13:8; Lam 3:31-33). Even under the Old Covenant the phrase “His lovingkindness (chesed) endures forever” is repeated over 40 times. But not even once in all of Scripture is God’s wrath said to endure forever since all evil will one day cease to exist and God will then be all in all in eternity (Rev 21:4-5; 1Cor 15:28).
God is also immutable as to His omniscience. This means that God has never learned anything because there is nothing that He hasn’t always known, and His perfect knowledge cannot be diminished or added to. As it says, “Known to God from eternity are all His works” (Acts 15:18). He works all things according to the counsel of His will, predetermined from the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4,11). Because His omniscient all-comprehensive plan for the ages is immutable, the Psalmist could say, “The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart to all generations” (Ps 33:11).
Contrary to Open Theist’s claim that God submits to us as we co-create the future, Jeremiah humbly says: “I know, O Lord, that a man's way is not in himself, nor is it in a man who walks to direct his steps” (Jer 10:23). Without violating man’s choices and still holding each one responsible for their deeds, the Lord nevertheless knows the end from the beginning, and in His infinite wisdom He works all things together for good according to the predetermined counsel of His will:
“Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will do ALL My pleasure.’” (Isa 46:10)
According to these clear foundational statements of Scripture, God is not growing in knowledge or improvising, as Open Theists affirm. As it is said of our Lord, He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb 13:8).
That is not to say that God’s eternal plan does not include changes such as dispensations, covenants or even what to us may seem to be unexpected turns of events. Indeed, from our perspective there are many changes which God has made throughout the ages with many more changes predicted in the ages to come. However, they are only changes from our perspective and in relation to us, and not changes for God, since all is going according to His eternal plan.
God does not change, nor do His plans change. He has no such thing as a plan B. What He has is one immutable and eternally decreed plan for the ages which is progressively unfolding. Instead of the fall resulting in plan B, we see that the Lamb of God had already been slain from the very foundation of the world before the fall of man (Rev 13:8). Instead of plan A changing to plan B, what we see is Plan A going to A1, A2, A3, successively, with each stage working together according to the counsel of His will and culminating in God being all in all. All that which had its beginning in Him is ultimately drawn back into Him, having been brought to perfection in Him:
“For of (ek “out of as to source) Him and through Him and to (eis “into”) Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.” (Rom 11:36)
So, we can see that God is immutable as to His essential nature and attributes and therefore with Him there is no variation nor shadow of turning (James 1:17). This is a foundational truth. All anthropomorphisms or other statements which may at first appear to be saying otherwise must be interpreted in the light of Gods eternality, His exhaustive foreknowledge and the immutability of His nature and attributes.
Having laid a solid foundation of eternal immovable truths concerning God’s nature and His fixed eternal plan for the ages, we can now examine the texts of Scripture which the Open Theists present as evidence that God does not know what course we will take in the future and that He is writing the script as we ourselves create it.
[i] Young, Wm. Paul. Lies We Believe About God. Kindle Edition. Location 333,361
[ii] McClintock and Strong Encyclopedia: Cyrus
[iii] The NKJV wording of Acts 15:18 is based upon the Majority Text of the Greek New Testament.
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Open Theism (2 of 2)
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The Mutable Things of God
by George Sidney Hurd
While God is immutable in His essential nature and attributes and therefore is unchangeable in those fundamental aspects, He nevertheless interacts with us in our time/space world. While He inhabits eternity and transcends His creation, He is nevertheless not far from any one of us (Acts 17:27-28; Col 1:17; Heb 1:3; Ps 139:7-8).
Since God exists outside of time and He always IS before time began, the ages from beginning to end have ever been in His view and always will be (temporally speaking). Since He is omniscient, it is impossible that He should not always know all things from beginning to end. Since He is all-wise love, it is impossible that He should not have an all-comprehensive plan for the ages whose culmination is better and greater that its beginning (Eph 1:11).
As we saw in the last blog, God’s exhaustive foreknowledge and predetermined plan for the ages, which also encompasses every detail of our lives individually, is in no way incompatible with our volitional choices. While He guides and oversees our decisions as any good father would, He does not dictate them. While He works in us to will and to do His good pleasure, He normally does not force His will upon us.
A few notable exceptions in history are the flood, the confounding of the languages at Babel, and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. These interventions have taken place at a predetermined time, at a moment when a further delay of divine intervention would have led to humanity’s self-destruction. In the case of the flood, things had degenerated to the point that only Noah’s family had not utterly corrupted themselves. In the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, there were not even ten righteous remaining. As to Christ’s intervention at His Second Coming, Jesus said that if those days were not cut short then no flesh would be saved (Matt 24:22).
It would go counter to God’s purpose in creating us to dictate our every decision. What is God’s purpose in creation? While it isn’t specifically stated, we can surmise God’s overall purpose by looking at creation’s final outcome. In the consummation of the ages all will have been reunited in Christ and then God will not only be in all, but He will be “all in all” (Eph 1:10; 1Cor 15:22,28; Rom 11:36). In the beginning all things came out of God as to source or origin (2Cor 5:18 <ek theos>). In the consummation all will have been restored into Him – not only that which is in heaven and on earth, but even all who are under the earth (Acts 3:21; Php 2:10 cf. Rev 5:13).
In the beginning God created man in His own image and likeness. However, that was only the beginning. Adam and Eve were innocent but not perfect in their development. It would require the fall and God’s redemption and finally the restoration of all mankind unto Himself for them to be perfected in their experiential knowledge of Him in all His glory. Without the fall we would have never known God’s love as grace, mercy and longsuffering. We would have never known the futility of living independently of Him, according to the will of the flesh, rather than the will of God.
The knowledge of the glory of His grace will result in a depth of adoration and worship never possible before the fall (Rev 5:13). While such a glorious consummation would not be possible according to the Traditional model of eternal torment for the majority, it is clearly the way in which God’s glorious plan for the ages comes to perfection. If the latter end of God’s creation story wasn’t going to be greater than its beginning, He would have never created. What God begins, He perfects.
So, while God knows every decision we will ever make, they are nevertheless our decisions. He masterfully weaves them into His masterplan in order that we might learn life’s lessons, finally coming to experientially know God, living according to His will and not according to the desires of the flesh.
God answers Prayer
Open Theists argue that if God had an exhaustive predetermined plan which includes all future events, then He would not really be answering our prayers. However, that is a strawman argument, since only a few hyper-Calvinists hold to such a rigid determinism that would rule out all free human volitional choices. We have already seen that, although God has a determinative plan, it is not incompatible with human interaction. On the contrary, we see that our interaction is an essential part of that plan.
It is true that our prayers must be according to God’s will, since He will never act in a way contrary to His own will (1John 5:14). Also, in order to pray according to His will, it is necessary that we abide in Christ, walking in obedience and praying in the Spirit rather than praying according to our natural understanding (John 15:7;1John 3:22; Rom 8:26-27; Eph 6:18). We must pray believing that He is and that He is the rewarder of those who seek Him (James 1:5-6; Heb 11:6). We must also pray unselfishly and not for self-gratification (James 4:3).
However, our participation is an integral part of His eternal plan, since our spiritual growth and conformity to the image of Christ is central to it (Rom 8:29; Eph 1:4-6). While He knows each and every move we will make before we make it, it is a misconception to see us as merely pawns in His hands. Rather, He as our Father is child-training us, either granting our petitions or denying them according to His good will for us (Gr. paideuo, “chasten, discipline, child-train” Heb 12:6,11). Our Father knows what we need even before we ask Him (Matt 6:8). Nevertheless, it is essential that we come to live a life of dependence upon Him, and prayer is an expression of our faith and dependence.
He calls upon His people to pray and seek His face, promising that He will respond if they seek Him with all their heart (2Chron 7:14-15). As James says: “The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” (James 5:16). However, it is not that God is changing His eternal plan when He responds to our prayers, but rather He allows circumstances in the temporal realm which cause us to turn and seek Him. He tests our hearts because it is our hearts He wants. Although He is the One who tests us, the testing changes us – not Him or His eternal plan. The changes in His relationship towards us in the temporal realm in response to our prayers is part of His eternal plan, rather than them being in conflict with it.
God repents
In the Old Testament the Lord is often said to “repent.” The Hebrew word often translated as “to repent, to relent or change one’s mind” is nacham. Nacham is used 30 times in reference to the Lord. It often means to feel regret or sorrow. Regret or sorrow refers to emotion rather than a change of mind. While it would be impossible for God to literally change His mind, since that would require a change in His eternal immutable plan, the Scriptures nowhere imply that God is without emotion.
A number of theologians throughout Church history, apparently influenced by Aristotle’s concept of God as the “unmoved Mover,” have insisted that God is impassible. The term impassible is from the Latin, in-, “not,” and passibilis, “able to suffer or experience emotion.” However, only an ivory tower theologian or philosopher could ever conjure up such a stoic concept of God.
While it is true that God is immutable as to His essential nature and attributes, these attributes are immutable in that they always remain constant – not that they are inert or non-existent. For example, His love is immutable in that it is infinite and never diminishes or increases. Nevertheless, His love is manifested to creation in manifold ways. To say that God only condescendingly gives the appearance of acting in love, when in reality He feels no emotion nor pain, is a logical absurdity.
According to this line of reasoning, when we tell someone that God loves them, we must say it tongue-in-cheek if in reality God is emotionally immovable. It would mean that the Father giving His only begotten Son was of no cost to Him since He feels no emotion and knows no pain. How can such reasoning be reconciled with the multiple descriptions of God’s love and tender mercies throughout the Scriptures? For example:
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another… 19 We love Him because He first loved us." (1John 4:7-11,19)
To me, the doctrine of impassibility finds no support in the Scriptures but rather it is the sterile lofty and vain speculations of stoic philosophers such as Aristotle who never had a genuine encounter with the God of love presented to us in the Scriptures. It is a doctrine of men who never experienced the love of God being poured out in their hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom 5:5).
While it is difficult for us to comprehend, the God who inhabits eternity has always had the whole panorama of the ages in His view and He is actively and personally involved with His creation, rather than being distant and removed, as the Deists taught. He somehow experiences emotional pain or grief in the realm of time on account of our sin and rebellion (Gen 6:6; Eph 4:30). Because God is love, He is angered by our persistent sin (Ps 7:11; Rom 1:18; 2:5-6). Because He is love, He is compassionate and longsuffering (Ps 86:15; 1Cor 13:4). It is a logical contradiction to say that God is impassible and at the same time compassionate, or to say that He suffers long without feeling pain. God is also said to rejoice over us (Isa 62:5).
There are literally thousands of passages of Scripture which present God as emotionally identifying with us and suffering as a result of our unfaithfulness and sin. James tells us that the Spirit jealously yearns for us when we commit spiritual adultery, loving the world more than God (James 4:4-5). How can one read Hosea and still believe that God is the “unmoved Mover” who is unaffected by our sin and idolatry? Reading Hosea, one can feel what God feels over the unfaithfulness of His people Israel:
“How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I set you like Zeboiim? My heart churns within Me; My sympathy is stirred. 9 I will not execute the fierceness of My anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim. For I am God, and not man, the Holy One in your midst; and I will not come with terror.” (Hos 11:8-9)
Returning to the subject of God’s repentance, we see that the word “repentance” has two distinct uses: one in the emotional sense of feeling sorrow or regret, and the other in the sense of one actually changing their mind – something that Scripture indicates He cannot do any more than He can lie, since His knowledge is perfect.
The Hebrew word nacham is used to refer to both the emotion of regret or sorrow and also an actual change of mind about something. Its meaning depends upon the context in which the word appears. It is worthy of note the choice of words which the LXX translators made when translating nacham from the Hebrew to the Greek the four times it is used in 1Samuel 15. The LXX was translated by 72 Greek speaking Hebrew scholars in the 2nd century B.C. who had a better understanding of the nuances of the Hebrew than we do today. Of the four times the word nacham appears in 1Samuel 15, the first and last occurrences are translated with words which express the emotion of sorrow or regret:
“Now the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying, 11 "I greatly regret ( Heb. nacham, LXX parakaleo, “to regret”) that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following Me, and has not performed My commandments.” (1Sam 15:10-11)
“And Samuel went no more to see Saul until the day of his death. Nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul, and the Lord regretted (Heb. nacham, LXX, metameleomai, “to feel regret, to be sorry”) that He had made Saul king over Israel.” (1Sam 15:35)
In both of these references the LXX translators translated nacham into Greek using words which express emotion, not volition. However, when Samuel speaks of God’s declaration that the kingdom had been taken from Saul and given to another, the translators used two other words for nacham, both of which refer to God’s determinative will rather than His emotion of regret:
“And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor relent (Heb. nacham, LXX apostrepho “to relent or take back, to turn away”). For He is not a man, that He should relent (nacham LXX metanoéo “to repent, to change one’s mind”).” (1Sam 15:29)
Here in the first occurrence of nacham the translators rendered it as apostrepho in Greek which means “to relent or take back what one has said.” Samuel associates going back on one’s word with telling a lie. Just as it is impossible for God to lie, so it is impossible for God to repent in the sense of going back on His word (Heb 6:18). He may regret or feel sorry for having to take a certain course of action in history because He is not without empathy, but it is impossible for Him to act contrary to His eternally decreed will since He has a perfect knowledge of all things and works all things according to the counsel of His will (Eph 1:11).
In the second occurrence of nacham in verse 29 the LXX translators rendered it metanoéo which literally means “to change one’s mind.” Open Theists must argue that God is continually changing His mind in order to accommodate man’s libertarian freewill, just as we often must do. However, Scripture tells us that God is not a man that He should change His mind since all things are known to Him from eternity (Acts 15:18). Therefore, any apparent change of mind on the part of God is merely an anthropomorphism – God speaking in human terms that even a child can understand.
Something which also needs to be taken into account are the conditional promises given while Israel was under the Old Covenant of the Law. Under the Law, most promises were not unconditional, as was the promise made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Implicit in the promises under the legal system of the Old Covenant was “If you…then I will...” Due to the conditional nature of His promises under the Law there are instances where God said that He would do something, but then later says “because you did not…I will not…” However, these do not constitute God as being One who goes back on His word since they were conditional promises where man’s unfaithfulness constituted a breach of contract. This was expressly the case with Saul. Samuel said to Saul:
“You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you. For now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. 14 But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be commander over His people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.” (1Sam 13:13-14)
Here we see that Saul’s continuance as the king of Israel was conditional and because he disobeyed the Lord’s command, God rejected him as king of Israel. However, while God felt sorrow, He did not change His mind or go back on His word, since all His works are known by Him from eternity.
This is evidenced by the fact that Jacob by the Spirit had long before prophesied over Judah saying that the kingly line would not depart from his house (Gen 49:10). Therefore, God knew all along that Saul would disobey and be rejected, and that David from the tribe of Judah would be placed as king over His people Israel.
Another important point to emphasize is that, in an anthropomorphic sense, looking at it from our perspective, when man repents God relents. Due to God’s immutable nature, which is love, His mercy always goes out towards those who truly repent from their heart, and He relents (so to speak) from the judgment which He pronounces against the unrepentant. This “change of mind” stems from His essential nature of love which reaches out in mercy towards the truly repentant:
“And rend your heart and not your garments. Now return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness and relenting of evil.” (Joel 2:13-14)
God’s mercy is an immutable attribute of His essential nature, which is love, and for this reason, when man repents, God in mercy relents in the temporal realm. However, it is not as though He doesn’t already know when one will repent. He who inhabits eternity has sworn that all will someday look to Him and be saved, bowing the knee in repentance, making an oath of allegiance to Him (Isa 45:22-24). He will ultimately convict all of their disobedience in order to have mercy on all (Rom 11:32).
This was something that Jonah understood about God, even before going to Nineveh. Jonah didn’t want to warn Nineveh since they were Israel’s worst enemy at the time, and he knew that God’s intention in announcing judgment upon them was to produce true repentance in the Ninevites so that He could spare them. When Jonah saw that Nineveh repented, he was very angry with God and said:
“Please Lord, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity.” (Jonah 4:2)
It was also apparently something that the king of Nineveh intuitively knew about God’s nature. After hearing Jonah’s proclamation of God’s judgment against the city, the king said to the Ninevites:
“Who can tell if God will turn and relent, and turn away from His fierce anger, so that we may not perish?” (Jonah 3:9)
The king of Nineveh also somehow sensed that the God of Israel was a compassionate God who would relent of the calamity declared against the city if they would repent of their evil deeds. And when they repented, God relented of the judgment He had declared against them:
“Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it.” (Jonah 3:10)
So, did God actually relent when He saw Nineveh’s repentance? I believe the answer is both yes and no. God is both immutable and transcendent as to His essential nature and is therefore unchangeable as to His nature and predetermined plan for the ages. Yet, at the same time He is also imminent in our time/space world and is continually interacting with us. In real time, when we repent, God relents (so to speak), even though there is no change in His eternal plan since such temporal interactions with us have always been foreknown and predetermined by Him from eternity.
Does God Learn?
Open Theists point to God’s interaction with Abraham after having tested him, telling him to offer up his son Isaac, as evidence that God grows in knowledge. When Abraham was ready to plunge the knife in Isaac’s heart in obedience to the Lord’s command, the Lord intervened saying:
“Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” (Gen 22:12)
The Lord said, “now I know.” How are we to understand this? In the light of all we have already seen, is it possible that the Lord actually learned something new which was unknown to Him prior to Abraham’s testing? Was it mere coincidence that the ram was caught in the thicket, providing a sacrificial lamb in the place of Isaac at the very moment that the Lord stayed Abraham’s hand? No. The Great I AM inhabits eternity, and therefore “nothing is hid from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account” (Heb 4:13). When the Bible ascribes to God a finite human characteristic which Scripture elsewhere clearly teaches that He transcends, then it must be understood as an anthropomorphism.
When God tests us, it is to reveal our hearts to us, not to Him, since He already knows the hidden motives of the heart (Jer 17:10; John 2:24-25). Time and time again we see in the Scriptures that the Lord knows what we are going to say and do before we do it. Therefore, when finite human characteristics are attributed to God, such as remembering (Gen 8:1; 9:16; Ex 2:24), learning (Deut 8:2; 13:3), going down to see (Gen 11:7; 18:21) etc., we intuitively know that God is expressing Himself using anthropomorphisms so that we can more readily understand Him. Prior to the rise of Open Theism this was generally understood by even the most simple believer reading the Scriptures.
A final example I would like to present which clearly illustrates the anthropomorphic nature of expressions used of God is when the Lord visited Abraham prior to Sodom’s destruction. Even Open Theists are agreed that God is omnipresent, and while they deny that God is omniscient as concerns the future, they would say that He knows all things past and present. Yet God expresses Himself to Abraham in a manner that, if taken literally rather than anthropomorphically, would indicate that He is neither omnipresent nor omniscient. The Lord said:
“Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grave, 21 I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me; and if not, I will know.” (Gen 18:20-21)
We know that God knows all and is everywhere all the time. Yet, He is here described as being far away in heaven where their outcry had to reach Him in order for Him to take notice. Then He is presented as coming to earth in bodily form where He first appears to Abraham. He then presents Himself as one who must first go down to the city in order to determine their true condition. He speaks as one who must investigate by going to a certain locality before knowing something. All of us know that God, being omnipresent and omniscient, was fully aware of the moral condition of the inhabitants of Sodom as well as the intervenient judgment He was going to have to carry out against them.
While there will always be limitations in our ability to comprehend the infinitely incomprehensible God and Creator of all, most of us know instinctively how to distinguish between the transcendental truths of God’s nature and attributes alluded to in Scripture and the condescending anthropomorphic terms He often employs in order to relate to us as finite mortals.
The Inevitable Implications of Open Theism
Many who are attracted to Open Theism have not adequately reflected upon what is being sacrificed. Open Theism was not built upon the firm foundation of sound biblical exegesis but rather upon the philosophical foundation of 19th century Liberal Process Theology. If indeed God does not have perfect knowledge and control of the future, then the Scriptures are not infallible – much less inerrant.
If the future is not perfectly and exhaustively known and predetermined by God from eternity, then the fulfillment of all the declarations concerning future events in the Bible are dubious at best. They become nothing more than that which God hopes to bring to pass if the multiple libertarian choices man makes in the future do not frustrate His plans.
If Open Theism is true, then we are the masters of our own fate, and our salvation ultimately is in our hands rather than God’s. Even though God has sworn that all will look to Him and be saved (Isa 45:22-24), according to Open Theists He is powerless to guarantee such an outcome since our libertarian freedom requires that we be the masters of our own fate. That is why some Open Theists like Gregory Boyd speculate that God will have no other option than to annihilate some (against their freewill), realizing that some will not have exercised their own freewill for their own salvation before the curtains fall at the end of the ages.
In the turbulent times our generation will doubtlessly have to go through, we need more than ever to have the full assurance that God holds the future and that all things are working together according to the counsel of His will, predetermined from eternity. We need to be fully assured that the signs of the times given to us by Jesus in the Gospels through the apostles and in the book of Revelation are an infallible roadmap of the future and that, no matter how severe the tribulations be that we must go through, God’s plan for the ages culminates in all being saved, regenerated and restored unto God.
Rather than exalting human reason as the final measure of truth, we need to submit ourselves to God’s self-revelation in His inspired Word, recognizing the limitations of our ability to fully comprehend the depths of divinity using our own finite understanding. As Paul says:
“Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!
For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counselor?
Or who has first given to Him and it shall be repaid to him?
For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things,
to whom be glory forever. Amen.”
(Rom 11:33-36)
The Mutable Things of God
by George Sidney Hurd
While God is immutable in His essential nature and attributes and therefore is unchangeable in those fundamental aspects, He nevertheless interacts with us in our time/space world. While He inhabits eternity and transcends His creation, He is nevertheless not far from any one of us (Acts 17:27-28; Col 1:17; Heb 1:3; Ps 139:7-8).
Since God exists outside of time and He always IS before time began, the ages from beginning to end have ever been in His view and always will be (temporally speaking). Since He is omniscient, it is impossible that He should not always know all things from beginning to end. Since He is all-wise love, it is impossible that He should not have an all-comprehensive plan for the ages whose culmination is better and greater that its beginning (Eph 1:11).
As we saw in the last blog, God’s exhaustive foreknowledge and predetermined plan for the ages, which also encompasses every detail of our lives individually, is in no way incompatible with our volitional choices. While He guides and oversees our decisions as any good father would, He does not dictate them. While He works in us to will and to do His good pleasure, He normally does not force His will upon us.
A few notable exceptions in history are the flood, the confounding of the languages at Babel, and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. These interventions have taken place at a predetermined time, at a moment when a further delay of divine intervention would have led to humanity’s self-destruction. In the case of the flood, things had degenerated to the point that only Noah’s family had not utterly corrupted themselves. In the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, there were not even ten righteous remaining. As to Christ’s intervention at His Second Coming, Jesus said that if those days were not cut short then no flesh would be saved (Matt 24:22).
It would go counter to God’s purpose in creating us to dictate our every decision. What is God’s purpose in creation? While it isn’t specifically stated, we can surmise God’s overall purpose by looking at creation’s final outcome. In the consummation of the ages all will have been reunited in Christ and then God will not only be in all, but He will be “all in all” (Eph 1:10; 1Cor 15:22,28; Rom 11:36). In the beginning all things came out of God as to source or origin (2Cor 5:18 <ek theos>). In the consummation all will have been restored into Him – not only that which is in heaven and on earth, but even all who are under the earth (Acts 3:21; Php 2:10 cf. Rev 5:13).
In the beginning God created man in His own image and likeness. However, that was only the beginning. Adam and Eve were innocent but not perfect in their development. It would require the fall and God’s redemption and finally the restoration of all mankind unto Himself for them to be perfected in their experiential knowledge of Him in all His glory. Without the fall we would have never known God’s love as grace, mercy and longsuffering. We would have never known the futility of living independently of Him, according to the will of the flesh, rather than the will of God.
The knowledge of the glory of His grace will result in a depth of adoration and worship never possible before the fall (Rev 5:13). While such a glorious consummation would not be possible according to the Traditional model of eternal torment for the majority, it is clearly the way in which God’s glorious plan for the ages comes to perfection. If the latter end of God’s creation story wasn’t going to be greater than its beginning, He would have never created. What God begins, He perfects.
So, while God knows every decision we will ever make, they are nevertheless our decisions. He masterfully weaves them into His masterplan in order that we might learn life’s lessons, finally coming to experientially know God, living according to His will and not according to the desires of the flesh.
God answers Prayer
Open Theists argue that if God had an exhaustive predetermined plan which includes all future events, then He would not really be answering our prayers. However, that is a strawman argument, since only a few hyper-Calvinists hold to such a rigid determinism that would rule out all free human volitional choices. We have already seen that, although God has a determinative plan, it is not incompatible with human interaction. On the contrary, we see that our interaction is an essential part of that plan.
It is true that our prayers must be according to God’s will, since He will never act in a way contrary to His own will (1John 5:14). Also, in order to pray according to His will, it is necessary that we abide in Christ, walking in obedience and praying in the Spirit rather than praying according to our natural understanding (John 15:7;1John 3:22; Rom 8:26-27; Eph 6:18). We must pray believing that He is and that He is the rewarder of those who seek Him (James 1:5-6; Heb 11:6). We must also pray unselfishly and not for self-gratification (James 4:3).
However, our participation is an integral part of His eternal plan, since our spiritual growth and conformity to the image of Christ is central to it (Rom 8:29; Eph 1:4-6). While He knows each and every move we will make before we make it, it is a misconception to see us as merely pawns in His hands. Rather, He as our Father is child-training us, either granting our petitions or denying them according to His good will for us (Gr. paideuo, “chasten, discipline, child-train” Heb 12:6,11). Our Father knows what we need even before we ask Him (Matt 6:8). Nevertheless, it is essential that we come to live a life of dependence upon Him, and prayer is an expression of our faith and dependence.
He calls upon His people to pray and seek His face, promising that He will respond if they seek Him with all their heart (2Chron 7:14-15). As James says: “The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” (James 5:16). However, it is not that God is changing His eternal plan when He responds to our prayers, but rather He allows circumstances in the temporal realm which cause us to turn and seek Him. He tests our hearts because it is our hearts He wants. Although He is the One who tests us, the testing changes us – not Him or His eternal plan. The changes in His relationship towards us in the temporal realm in response to our prayers is part of His eternal plan, rather than them being in conflict with it.
God repents
In the Old Testament the Lord is often said to “repent.” The Hebrew word often translated as “to repent, to relent or change one’s mind” is nacham. Nacham is used 30 times in reference to the Lord. It often means to feel regret or sorrow. Regret or sorrow refers to emotion rather than a change of mind. While it would be impossible for God to literally change His mind, since that would require a change in His eternal immutable plan, the Scriptures nowhere imply that God is without emotion.
A number of theologians throughout Church history, apparently influenced by Aristotle’s concept of God as the “unmoved Mover,” have insisted that God is impassible. The term impassible is from the Latin, in-, “not,” and passibilis, “able to suffer or experience emotion.” However, only an ivory tower theologian or philosopher could ever conjure up such a stoic concept of God.
While it is true that God is immutable as to His essential nature and attributes, these attributes are immutable in that they always remain constant – not that they are inert or non-existent. For example, His love is immutable in that it is infinite and never diminishes or increases. Nevertheless, His love is manifested to creation in manifold ways. To say that God only condescendingly gives the appearance of acting in love, when in reality He feels no emotion nor pain, is a logical absurdity.
According to this line of reasoning, when we tell someone that God loves them, we must say it tongue-in-cheek if in reality God is emotionally immovable. It would mean that the Father giving His only begotten Son was of no cost to Him since He feels no emotion and knows no pain. How can such reasoning be reconciled with the multiple descriptions of God’s love and tender mercies throughout the Scriptures? For example:
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another… 19 We love Him because He first loved us." (1John 4:7-11,19)
To me, the doctrine of impassibility finds no support in the Scriptures but rather it is the sterile lofty and vain speculations of stoic philosophers such as Aristotle who never had a genuine encounter with the God of love presented to us in the Scriptures. It is a doctrine of men who never experienced the love of God being poured out in their hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom 5:5).
While it is difficult for us to comprehend, the God who inhabits eternity has always had the whole panorama of the ages in His view and He is actively and personally involved with His creation, rather than being distant and removed, as the Deists taught. He somehow experiences emotional pain or grief in the realm of time on account of our sin and rebellion (Gen 6:6; Eph 4:30). Because God is love, He is angered by our persistent sin (Ps 7:11; Rom 1:18; 2:5-6). Because He is love, He is compassionate and longsuffering (Ps 86:15; 1Cor 13:4). It is a logical contradiction to say that God is impassible and at the same time compassionate, or to say that He suffers long without feeling pain. God is also said to rejoice over us (Isa 62:5).
There are literally thousands of passages of Scripture which present God as emotionally identifying with us and suffering as a result of our unfaithfulness and sin. James tells us that the Spirit jealously yearns for us when we commit spiritual adultery, loving the world more than God (James 4:4-5). How can one read Hosea and still believe that God is the “unmoved Mover” who is unaffected by our sin and idolatry? Reading Hosea, one can feel what God feels over the unfaithfulness of His people Israel:
“How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I set you like Zeboiim? My heart churns within Me; My sympathy is stirred. 9 I will not execute the fierceness of My anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim. For I am God, and not man, the Holy One in your midst; and I will not come with terror.” (Hos 11:8-9)
Returning to the subject of God’s repentance, we see that the word “repentance” has two distinct uses: one in the emotional sense of feeling sorrow or regret, and the other in the sense of one actually changing their mind – something that Scripture indicates He cannot do any more than He can lie, since His knowledge is perfect.
The Hebrew word nacham is used to refer to both the emotion of regret or sorrow and also an actual change of mind about something. Its meaning depends upon the context in which the word appears. It is worthy of note the choice of words which the LXX translators made when translating nacham from the Hebrew to the Greek the four times it is used in 1Samuel 15. The LXX was translated by 72 Greek speaking Hebrew scholars in the 2nd century B.C. who had a better understanding of the nuances of the Hebrew than we do today. Of the four times the word nacham appears in 1Samuel 15, the first and last occurrences are translated with words which express the emotion of sorrow or regret:
“Now the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying, 11 "I greatly regret ( Heb. nacham, LXX parakaleo, “to regret”) that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following Me, and has not performed My commandments.” (1Sam 15:10-11)
“And Samuel went no more to see Saul until the day of his death. Nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul, and the Lord regretted (Heb. nacham, LXX, metameleomai, “to feel regret, to be sorry”) that He had made Saul king over Israel.” (1Sam 15:35)
In both of these references the LXX translators translated nacham into Greek using words which express emotion, not volition. However, when Samuel speaks of God’s declaration that the kingdom had been taken from Saul and given to another, the translators used two other words for nacham, both of which refer to God’s determinative will rather than His emotion of regret:
“And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor relent (Heb. nacham, LXX apostrepho “to relent or take back, to turn away”). For He is not a man, that He should relent (nacham LXX metanoéo “to repent, to change one’s mind”).” (1Sam 15:29)
Here in the first occurrence of nacham the translators rendered it as apostrepho in Greek which means “to relent or take back what one has said.” Samuel associates going back on one’s word with telling a lie. Just as it is impossible for God to lie, so it is impossible for God to repent in the sense of going back on His word (Heb 6:18). He may regret or feel sorry for having to take a certain course of action in history because He is not without empathy, but it is impossible for Him to act contrary to His eternally decreed will since He has a perfect knowledge of all things and works all things according to the counsel of His will (Eph 1:11).
In the second occurrence of nacham in verse 29 the LXX translators rendered it metanoéo which literally means “to change one’s mind.” Open Theists must argue that God is continually changing His mind in order to accommodate man’s libertarian freewill, just as we often must do. However, Scripture tells us that God is not a man that He should change His mind since all things are known to Him from eternity (Acts 15:18). Therefore, any apparent change of mind on the part of God is merely an anthropomorphism – God speaking in human terms that even a child can understand.
Something which also needs to be taken into account are the conditional promises given while Israel was under the Old Covenant of the Law. Under the Law, most promises were not unconditional, as was the promise made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Implicit in the promises under the legal system of the Old Covenant was “If you…then I will...” Due to the conditional nature of His promises under the Law there are instances where God said that He would do something, but then later says “because you did not…I will not…” However, these do not constitute God as being One who goes back on His word since they were conditional promises where man’s unfaithfulness constituted a breach of contract. This was expressly the case with Saul. Samuel said to Saul:
“You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you. For now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. 14 But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be commander over His people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.” (1Sam 13:13-14)
Here we see that Saul’s continuance as the king of Israel was conditional and because he disobeyed the Lord’s command, God rejected him as king of Israel. However, while God felt sorrow, He did not change His mind or go back on His word, since all His works are known by Him from eternity.
This is evidenced by the fact that Jacob by the Spirit had long before prophesied over Judah saying that the kingly line would not depart from his house (Gen 49:10). Therefore, God knew all along that Saul would disobey and be rejected, and that David from the tribe of Judah would be placed as king over His people Israel.
Another important point to emphasize is that, in an anthropomorphic sense, looking at it from our perspective, when man repents God relents. Due to God’s immutable nature, which is love, His mercy always goes out towards those who truly repent from their heart, and He relents (so to speak) from the judgment which He pronounces against the unrepentant. This “change of mind” stems from His essential nature of love which reaches out in mercy towards the truly repentant:
“And rend your heart and not your garments. Now return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness and relenting of evil.” (Joel 2:13-14)
God’s mercy is an immutable attribute of His essential nature, which is love, and for this reason, when man repents, God in mercy relents in the temporal realm. However, it is not as though He doesn’t already know when one will repent. He who inhabits eternity has sworn that all will someday look to Him and be saved, bowing the knee in repentance, making an oath of allegiance to Him (Isa 45:22-24). He will ultimately convict all of their disobedience in order to have mercy on all (Rom 11:32).
This was something that Jonah understood about God, even before going to Nineveh. Jonah didn’t want to warn Nineveh since they were Israel’s worst enemy at the time, and he knew that God’s intention in announcing judgment upon them was to produce true repentance in the Ninevites so that He could spare them. When Jonah saw that Nineveh repented, he was very angry with God and said:
“Please Lord, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity.” (Jonah 4:2)
It was also apparently something that the king of Nineveh intuitively knew about God’s nature. After hearing Jonah’s proclamation of God’s judgment against the city, the king said to the Ninevites:
“Who can tell if God will turn and relent, and turn away from His fierce anger, so that we may not perish?” (Jonah 3:9)
The king of Nineveh also somehow sensed that the God of Israel was a compassionate God who would relent of the calamity declared against the city if they would repent of their evil deeds. And when they repented, God relented of the judgment He had declared against them:
“Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it.” (Jonah 3:10)
So, did God actually relent when He saw Nineveh’s repentance? I believe the answer is both yes and no. God is both immutable and transcendent as to His essential nature and is therefore unchangeable as to His nature and predetermined plan for the ages. Yet, at the same time He is also imminent in our time/space world and is continually interacting with us. In real time, when we repent, God relents (so to speak), even though there is no change in His eternal plan since such temporal interactions with us have always been foreknown and predetermined by Him from eternity.
Does God Learn?
Open Theists point to God’s interaction with Abraham after having tested him, telling him to offer up his son Isaac, as evidence that God grows in knowledge. When Abraham was ready to plunge the knife in Isaac’s heart in obedience to the Lord’s command, the Lord intervened saying:
“Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” (Gen 22:12)
The Lord said, “now I know.” How are we to understand this? In the light of all we have already seen, is it possible that the Lord actually learned something new which was unknown to Him prior to Abraham’s testing? Was it mere coincidence that the ram was caught in the thicket, providing a sacrificial lamb in the place of Isaac at the very moment that the Lord stayed Abraham’s hand? No. The Great I AM inhabits eternity, and therefore “nothing is hid from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account” (Heb 4:13). When the Bible ascribes to God a finite human characteristic which Scripture elsewhere clearly teaches that He transcends, then it must be understood as an anthropomorphism.
When God tests us, it is to reveal our hearts to us, not to Him, since He already knows the hidden motives of the heart (Jer 17:10; John 2:24-25). Time and time again we see in the Scriptures that the Lord knows what we are going to say and do before we do it. Therefore, when finite human characteristics are attributed to God, such as remembering (Gen 8:1; 9:16; Ex 2:24), learning (Deut 8:2; 13:3), going down to see (Gen 11:7; 18:21) etc., we intuitively know that God is expressing Himself using anthropomorphisms so that we can more readily understand Him. Prior to the rise of Open Theism this was generally understood by even the most simple believer reading the Scriptures.
A final example I would like to present which clearly illustrates the anthropomorphic nature of expressions used of God is when the Lord visited Abraham prior to Sodom’s destruction. Even Open Theists are agreed that God is omnipresent, and while they deny that God is omniscient as concerns the future, they would say that He knows all things past and present. Yet God expresses Himself to Abraham in a manner that, if taken literally rather than anthropomorphically, would indicate that He is neither omnipresent nor omniscient. The Lord said:
“Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grave, 21 I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me; and if not, I will know.” (Gen 18:20-21)
We know that God knows all and is everywhere all the time. Yet, He is here described as being far away in heaven where their outcry had to reach Him in order for Him to take notice. Then He is presented as coming to earth in bodily form where He first appears to Abraham. He then presents Himself as one who must first go down to the city in order to determine their true condition. He speaks as one who must investigate by going to a certain locality before knowing something. All of us know that God, being omnipresent and omniscient, was fully aware of the moral condition of the inhabitants of Sodom as well as the intervenient judgment He was going to have to carry out against them.
While there will always be limitations in our ability to comprehend the infinitely incomprehensible God and Creator of all, most of us know instinctively how to distinguish between the transcendental truths of God’s nature and attributes alluded to in Scripture and the condescending anthropomorphic terms He often employs in order to relate to us as finite mortals.
The Inevitable Implications of Open Theism
Many who are attracted to Open Theism have not adequately reflected upon what is being sacrificed. Open Theism was not built upon the firm foundation of sound biblical exegesis but rather upon the philosophical foundation of 19th century Liberal Process Theology. If indeed God does not have perfect knowledge and control of the future, then the Scriptures are not infallible – much less inerrant.
If the future is not perfectly and exhaustively known and predetermined by God from eternity, then the fulfillment of all the declarations concerning future events in the Bible are dubious at best. They become nothing more than that which God hopes to bring to pass if the multiple libertarian choices man makes in the future do not frustrate His plans.
If Open Theism is true, then we are the masters of our own fate, and our salvation ultimately is in our hands rather than God’s. Even though God has sworn that all will look to Him and be saved (Isa 45:22-24), according to Open Theists He is powerless to guarantee such an outcome since our libertarian freedom requires that we be the masters of our own fate. That is why some Open Theists like Gregory Boyd speculate that God will have no other option than to annihilate some (against their freewill), realizing that some will not have exercised their own freewill for their own salvation before the curtains fall at the end of the ages.
In the turbulent times our generation will doubtlessly have to go through, we need more than ever to have the full assurance that God holds the future and that all things are working together according to the counsel of His will, predetermined from eternity. We need to be fully assured that the signs of the times given to us by Jesus in the Gospels through the apostles and in the book of Revelation are an infallible roadmap of the future and that, no matter how severe the tribulations be that we must go through, God’s plan for the ages culminates in all being saved, regenerated and restored unto God.
Rather than exalting human reason as the final measure of truth, we need to submit ourselves to God’s self-revelation in His inspired Word, recognizing the limitations of our ability to fully comprehend the depths of divinity using our own finite understanding. As Paul says:
“Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!
For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counselor?
Or who has first given to Him and it shall be repaid to him?
For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things,
to whom be glory forever. Amen.”
(Rom 11:33-36)