God’s Openness…. question 76 part two
Ahhh… we have contact! Thank you for all the thoughtful comments. Before we review some Biblical examples, remember what the classical view states: God knows the entire future — every single bit of it — of every person, place and thing. That requires that future to have been prewritten. That does not necessarily mean that God planned every event and all of our futures, but it DOES mean that He must be aware of it, fully. Open Theism says that isn’t Biblical. To Open Theists, God knows what IS — the parts of the future He has predetermined — but it is senseless to say that God knows what doesn’t exist: the bulk of the future. He is still omniscient because He knows all things. He is still omnipotent because He can declare that something WILL be and it WILL be! However, Scripture does not indicate that He has declared all things, just some… and Scripture absolutely DOES show the future to be malleable, subject to change by God when we pray.
We have already referenced the Hezekiah story. Let’s look at some others…
Exodus 32:14 says God "changed His mind about the disaster He planned to bring upon His people." Either this means what it says or it doesn’t. Did God have a plan and, because of Moses’ intercessory prayer, He changed His mind or did the writer of Exodus get it wrong?
The very next chapter, verses 1-3 and v.14 show Moses changing God’s mind again through prayer. God had not intended to go with the people, but Moses talked Him into it. The future, therefore, cannot be set, known, and unchangeable. God can manipulate time and He can change His plans.
Deuteronomy 9:13-29 show God "intended to destroy" Israel and "ready to destroy" Aaron. Moses’ 40 days of prayer changed God’s intentions. As Greg Boyd says, "Could God truly intend to do something He was eternally certain He wouldn’t do?"
1Samuel 2:27-31 shows the reverse — God intended to bless Eli and his household but now withdrew that promise. "I promised that your house and your father’s house would minister before me forever but now, the Lord declares, far be it from me!… I will cut short your strength and the strength of your father’s house." Even God’s promises can be modified or dropped entirely when we do not live up to His standards or keep our end of the bargain. He fully intended to bless Eli but Eli’s failure as a father made Him decide to withdraw the promise He’d made.
1 Kings 21:21-29, God tells Ahab that He will bring disaster on him because of his sin. Ahab humbles himself and so God, in verse 29, says He will no longer bring that disaster on him. The plainest reading of these passages is that God changes His mind after our behavior or prayers touch Him. That means that not all of the future is set and it changes as God reacts to us and us to God.
2 Chronicles 12:5-8 has God saying He "has delivered" Israel into the hands of their enemy. After they repent, He withdraws that judgment and will no longer allow them to be beaten by their foes. He reverses an edict He Himself made in order to save them.
Jeremiah 26:2,3 — God tells Jeremiah that, if Israel repents, "I may change my mind about the disaster I intend to bring upon them because of their evil deeds." How can we read this and not see that God is open towards the future; the future has not happened and, therefore, anything He has not established as required in the future is open? The very point of passages such as this and the story of Jonah is to encourage us to pray and repent so that God’s intention to bring judgment is changed to a blessing. Prayer matters and so does repentance.
Ezekiel 4:9-15 — God tells Ezekiel to use human feces to cook with and Ezekiel asks God to change His mind as that is repugnant to him. God agrees to let Ezekiel use animal feces instead. God is willing to adjust His plans according to our requests, our sentiments, and our uneasiness with some of the things He might have told us to do. Who wouldn’t be comforted by this knowledge?
Amos 7:1-6 — in this short passage in a short book, there are two instances where God declares a judgment and Amos asks for mercy. In both instances, the scripture plainly says God "relented."
Jonah 3:10 — one of the more famous examples of God changing His mind. After sending Jonah to Ninevah, and against Jonah’s wishes, God decides to cancel the sermon He made Jonah preach! The very prophecy He gave Jonah to deliver to the people, He overruled, leaving Jonah to sit and stew at God’s (in his opinion) capriciousness.
God is God over time… and over possibilities. He is not the curator of a set future, a Calvinistic, predestined, micro-managed universe.
I’ll answer some of the questions this raises next time. For now, do some reading of these passages and see what conclusions they lead you to. For now, I’ll answer one question posed by a commenter (and which I had when I first started studying this some time back). What about Psalm 139 where God says He has written in a book all the days that were formed for David? First, even if this means that God knows the exact length of our lives, it does not mean that He knows everything we will do, down to the smallest detail, before the day of our death comes. Second, this is a poetic work and most theologians agree that it is best not to use poetic works to settle theological arguments. Third, English translators have to add in a subject here to make it the days that are determined. The subject is not named in the original text and a casual reading would lead you to think that David was talking about parts of his body being predetermined. The KJV uses that conclusion and it better fits the context of that part of the Psalm. Fourth, if God was actually saying that David’s days were counted and numbered exactly, the Bible elsewhere shows that that can be changed (see Exodus 32:33; Revelation 3:5; Isaiah 38:1-5; Jeremiah 18:6-10). It seems best to read Psalm 139 as indicating God’s intentions rather than a future set in stone.
See you next time… if God wills…
June 24th, 2008 at 5:40 am
Many years before I had a clue about open theism, I wrestled (unsuccessfully) with many of these passages. I am grateful for your insight and your sharing with us.
June 24th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Patrick, I appreciated your post on Open Theism yesterday, and this continuation today. Up to this point, practically everything I’ve read about open theism comes from people who write against it. I have learned that a topic cannot be properly understood by reading only the “con” arguments. I’m still forming my opinion. I know that God lives outside of time, and He is sovereign, but I have found taking that Bible at face value is always the best policy. I’ve been through slightly different views of God’s sovereignty over the years, and I admit it is very hard to teach a Bible class by saying “See, God didn’t really change His mind, because He knew Moses would ask that.” It never really made much sense that way.
I know you’ve read “The Irrational Atheist”, because I found out from your blog that it’s available for free online. What do you think of Vox Day’s term “omniderigence?” I thought it was a pretty good definition for how God could know everything yet choose not to. I wouldn’t count it as “the final word”, but I thought it was a good attempt at a summary.
June 24th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Great posts, Patrick. But I’m hoping you can clarify something for me in a future post. See, I’ve been wrestling with these kinds of open theism thoughts for awhile but never knew how to explain it until now. Now, I’ve been using your blogs to spark discussion with some of my friends who are very traditionalist. Last night, one of my friends asked, “Don’t you think God just wanted these people to ask for something different, that He planned all along to “change his mind?”" You kind of hit on this in your first entry on the subject, but I’d like to see you expand on it a bit more if you can. To me, a sadistic God is not a loving God, and to have God just want to force us into asking…seems a bit sadistic. So this really clashes with what I believe God is and is not, but I’m lost as to how to explain that to my discussion counterparts.
June 24th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
I have pondered the open theism question a great deal, and believe it answers many questions regarding Theodicy. Yet the thought that darkens it all for me is this; If God changes his mind what would keep him from changing his mind about providing grace through Jesus? Could you adress this question in light of open theism?
June 24th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Mike, this may be WAY over-simplified, but consider this: God can change His mind, but His character cannot change.
June 24th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
As you have pointed out many times, God is not bound by time as we are. Therefore, I believe he knows everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen. This does not mean he does not care about any of us, just that he has given us free will and when we go against His will, he allows us to do so, even though he knows we will make our own time-bound choices. We cannot forget that Satan is still in this world, and causes many to stumble and fall, but God does not stop them. He has not predestined us, but by our choices, we “predestine” ourselves. But I do believe God can change his mind, otherwise, what is the use of prayer?
June 25th, 2008 at 6:09 am
Patrick:
Tonight I sat at my desk, with my Bible opened, but unable to read. The time is now 1:03 am. Sleep escapes me. I was looking at a few interesting blogs, when I should find one with a name I was familair with.
It took only a few sentences to know I was reading a work by Dr. Mead. Thank you. This morning, I’ve read a proposition I’ve found myself in many discussion over.
Thank you for allowing this thread of discussion to take place, enabling those of us seeking a closer relationship with our Lord.
Thank you Brother
June 25th, 2008 at 7:15 am
Is there a problem with my comment since it hasn’t been released? I know you’ve been busy and mine wasn’t short, as usual. I did spend considerable time in prayer and study before writing it. I wish I could express myself in short responses. If it needs to be shortened, I can edit it. I did try to submit a shortened version but it didn’t go through either.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
My computer shows that your comment was posted in its original form. Does yours still not show it up there? Your comments are automatically posted. I tagged you as one whose comments I do NOT need to check before they are posted so the software sends it to the web as soon as you send it. If there is a problem, let me know and I’ll get our computer gurus on it. Thanks!
NOTICE: I just checked and it shows on my dashboard that it was posted… but it isn’t here anymore. I have no idea how that happened. If I can’t get my computer folk to fix that, I will copy your reply from my dashboard and post it. Sorry for the glitch.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Isn’t Renee’s comment included in the previous post, rather than this one?
June 25th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Thanks for checking, I’m going to post this in two parts because I’m afraid the length is causing the glitch. I did attempt to shorten it, believe it or not. I watched the movie, The Notebook, the other day, again, and cried, laughed, and showed all the emotions brought out by that movie as if it were the first time I had watched it. When a teacher plans a lesson they study, prepare, create materials for their age appropriate class, and then present it to the students. The teacher may ask questions to elicit a certain thought process in guiding a student to a better understanding.
When I read the scriptures I see a God that has watched the reality movie of time, while playing the leading role in it as it happened with the free agents He created, sharing insight and hindsight in it as a teacher does in a lesson, and writing the preview so as not to give away everything that’s going to happen in each setting as it occurs until it plays through to the end. He knows that last day and the last one that chooses Him. That seems impossible to us and we do have to do mental gymnastics to wrap our minds around it. However, in my opinion, that is the only way to reconcile the scriptures He has given us about His nature and His knowledge.
His ways are beyond our ability to understand. A prayer said, whether known by God presently or in past tense, still elicits(ed) a response from Him. It makes (made) a difference. You don’t know you are going to say it yet but He knows you will. Just because He knows it, doesn’t mean He made you say it; you said it of your own free will.
June 25th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Renee, your comment was posted on the earlier blog already. If you meant it to be on this one, we can just ask people to head back to that blog and see it there.
June 26th, 2008 at 9:04 am
When I was a teenager I read Oedipus and it tapped a deep resentful fear in me. No matter what the protagonist did, however valiantly he strived or spent and twisted himself he was a pawn of fate, unable to escape the wretched future carved out in stone for him. My fear (sheltered and cultivated by things I had been taught about God) that I have no choice in my future absolutely slaughtered my prayers and my heart toward God.
I’m not saying I have a neatly packaged theology now, or that I understand how my God who cannot lie and does not change like shifting shadows can decree His Good Will and then ‘take it back’. But I can say what I experienced. Beginning to believe that prayer was more than just a mental exercise — that it Works, that God Cares, that my desires Matter to HIM and that He Hears me — that was the beginning of everything for me.
Patrick, I’m so glad I met you and that you told me about this blog. I know it’s a blessing to many people — it’s a blessing to me.
June 26th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
If I could reach forward in Time and grab a DVD of the Big Game yet to be played, I could watch it and observe it without in any way influencing the event. This is the way I think of God. R.D.
June 27th, 2008 at 2:39 am
Patrick, I’ve spent the last two days praying over this blog. While I admit, I was looking at this without taking time to walk through the open theism position. I find many verses that seem to contradict this position.
How are you going to respond to:
Psalm 139:4, “You know what I am going to say even before I say it, LORDâ€
Psalm 139:16, “You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.â€
These are only a few I present for sake of time.
I am not here to blast this position, but to test it to see if it is sound.
June 27th, 2008 at 4:20 am
Mike, you have asked a good question “If God changes his mind what would keep him from changing his mind about providing grace through Jesus?”
I hope Patrick will address this question since he would do a much better job than I, but here is my thought process about the question poised.
After searching the examples Patrick provided above, it appears to me that this is not the nature of God according to the scripture presented above. Could God change his mind about his promise of salvation? Open Theism obviously suggests that this would be possible, but our scripture indicates that such an event is not in God’s nature. Scripture reflects that when God changes his mind then it is done with a favorable outcome of the person, the nation of Israel (or in our case his sheep), or serves the best interest of his creation in order to lead them back to him.
The only examples above that could be considered negative at all would be Eli’s case (1Samuel 2:27-31) or Jonah (Jonah 3:10). You might even include Ezekiel (Ezekiel 4:9-15) if your not a fan of using feces to heat your cooking fires.
In Eli’s case, Eli was the one who failed to meet God’s covenant made between Eli and God, it was not God removing his covenant from Eli simply because God changed his mind. God’s sheep were suffering from Eli’s failure to serve God in his chosen role to serve as the High Priest. Instead Eli allowed his own sons sinfulness to continue dishonoring God and they were misleading his sheep. (1Samuel 2:30) Therefore the LORD the God of Israel declares: ‘I promised that your house and the house of your father should go in and out before me for ever’; but now the LORD declares: ‘Far be it from me; for those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed.
God continues to promise that he will honor those who honor God, but if they change their minds then God can certainly change his mind as well in favor of his sheep (using the Open Theism concepts).
In Jonah’s case Jonah is being self-centered and difficult during the entire trip to Ninevah wishing he did not have to be obedient to God’s command. For some reason instead of changing his mind and sending a different prophet to Ninevah, God wills Jonah there anyhow. God’s message is delivered and God changes his mind about destroying Ninevah. This might appear negative toward Jonah, but by sending Jonah to Ninevah they did repent and were spared from God’s wrath. There is no room for a self-centered person if we are true servants of God.
I have not researched for any further examples outside the ones provided by Patrick, but I would be surprised to see any scriptural evidence reflecting that any of God’s decisions would negatively impact his sheep or remove from us as Christians his promise of salvation.