Christians throughout history have been strengthed by their confidence that God knows everything about the future. But consider this:
What if it simply is not true?
What if God can only rely on
His best guess about tomorrow
just as you and I do?
Would it not affect your trust in Him,
your confidence in facing the future,
your worship, and your motivation
to leave everything in His hands?
And yet this is the consequence that has to be faced if you trust what a number of leading voices in evangelicalism are proposing under the doctrine of open theism.
In its redefinition of the nature of divine providence, open theism adjusts the entire picture of God's sovereignty and involvement in our lives. Open theism's denial of exhaustive divine foreknowledge provides the basis for the major lines of difference between the openness view and all versions of classical theism, including any other version of Arminianism. The implications of denying that God knows what the future holds are enormous. It is incumbent upon us to take this proposal seriously and weigh the evidence...
open theisms
straightforward reading of
divine growth-in-knowledge texts
One of the initial appeals of the openness proposal is its challenge that we take the text of Scripture simply for what it says. Stop making it say the opposite of what it so clearly and plainly does say, openness proponents argue. When the Lord says to Abraham,
for now I know that you fear God
| Gen. 22:12 |
we should allow these words to speak and mean exactly what normal conversational speech would convey. That is, God truly and literally learned what he previously had not known; this was a real test, openness advocates insist, and God learned the results only when Abraham acted.
Behind this insistence, of course, is an underlying hermeneutic. Openness defenders propose that the "straightforward" or "literal" or "face value" meaning of these passages is the correct meaning. Throughout God of the Possible, for example, Greg Boyd commends his interpretation of text after text by affirming that his understanding takes these passages in a straightforward fashion. Here are a few sample statements:
The open view is rooted in the conviction that the passages that constitute the motif of future openness should be taken just as literally as the passages that constitute the motif of future determinism.
| page 54 |
In reference to Isaiah 5:1-5, he states,
If we take the passage at face value, does it not imply that the future of Israel, the 'vineyard,' was not certain until they settled it by choosing to yield 'wild grapes'?
| page 60 |
Commenting on Exodus 4:19, Boyd bemoans the fact that many interpreters fail to acknowledge God's ignorance of how many miracles it might take to convince the people of Israel that Moses has been sent by God. He writes,
If we believe that God speaks straightforwardly, however, it seems he did not foreknow with certainty exactly how many miracles it would take to get the elders of Israel to believe Moses.
| page 63 |
Interpreting 2 Peter 3:12
as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming
Boyd says,
If taken at face value, the verse is teaching us that how people respond to the gospel and how Christians live affects the timing of the second coming.
| page 71-72 |
And, in a summary statement of his position, Boyd writes,
All the evidence indicates that the verses signifying divine openness should be interpreted every bit as literally as the verses signifying the settledness of the future.
| page 120 |
As a general rule, I believe it is wise to adopt Boyd's hermeneutical reflex, if I might use this term. Generally, he is right that we ought to take the straightforward meaning of the text as the intended meaning, even when that straightforward meaning is not culturally acceptable; and we ought to be very reticent to deny any straightforward reading unless there is compelling reason to think that such a straightforward reading is not the intended meaning of the text. Lutherans and Zwinglians, for example, disagree over whether we ought to take the words of Jesus, This is my body , in a straightforward manner. Luther felt strongly that the literal meaning of Jesus' statement was the intended meaning, whereas Zwingli believed that there were good biblical reasons for seeing this statement as metaphorical and representational. For Zwingli, This is my body must be interpreted like I am the good shepherd, I am the bread from heaven, I am the living water, and I am the door. While I agree with Zwlngli on this issue, I also affirm that we should only deny the literal meaning that Luther had insisted on if and what an important if this is the reasons are compelling that Jesus actually meant his statement to be understood in a metaphorical, not literal, fashion. So, while I am very sympathetic with the openness insistence on respecting Scripture's straightforward meaning, this openness hermeneutic raises the question an extremely important question for the outcome of the issues at hand whether in this particular case, regarding these so-called openness passages, we should rightly accept the straightforward meaning as the authorially intended meaning of these texts.
genesis 22:12 reconsidered
Let's test this hermeneutic by beginning with Genesis 22:12, one of the favorite passages of the defenders of the open view of God. Recall that in this text, God says that he learns the state of Abraham's heart | for now I know that you fear God | as he observes Abraham's willingness to offer Isaac on the altar. Without any question, the most straightforward and literal meaning of these words is just as openness advocates say it is. God now learned what previously he had not known. When Abraham actually raised the knife, then and only then was God able to say, now I know that you fear me. God learned something he had not known before, and this demonstrates that he does not have exhaustive knowledge of the future-so argues the open theist.
But, probing this understanding and the Scriptures a bit deeper, how does this straightforward interpretation of Genesis 22:12 fare? There are at least three problems raised by this openness interpretation.
First, if God must test Abraham to find out what is in his heart (recall that the text says, for now I know that you fear God), then it calls into question God's present knowledge of Abraham's inner spiritual, psychological, mental, and emotional state.
Consider that 1 Chronicles 28:9
for the LORD searches all hearts,
and understands every intent of the thoughts
and 1 Samuel 16:7
God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart
teach us that God knows fully the thoughts and intentions of the hearts and inner lives of people. So, doesn't God know Abraham fully? In fact, doesn't God know the state of Abraham's heart better than Abraham himself does? Is there any facet of Abraham's inner thoughts, feelings, doubts, fears, hopes, dreams, reasonings, musings, inclinations, predispositions, habits, tendencies, reflexes, and patterns, that God does not know absolutely, fully, and certainly? Does not God understand Abraham perfectly? Cannot God read Abraham exactly?
Because the openness interpretation of Genesis 22:12 claims that only when Abraham raises the knife to kill his son does God know Abraham's heart, this open view interpretation cannot avoid denying of God at least some knowledge of the present. As such, this straightforward interpretation ends up conflicting with Scripture's affirmation that God knows all that is, and it contradicts open theism's own commitment to God's exhaustive knowledge of the past and present.
______________________________
Second, the even more interesting and important question is this:
Does God need this test to know specifically
whether Abraham fears God?
That is, while it is significant that the openness interpretation implicitly denies God's present knowledge (the first point), even more telling here is the implicit denial of the specific content of this present knowledge, that is, knowledge that Abraham fears God. For we are told that only at the point that Abraham raises the knife over his son does God then learn that Abraham in fact fears God. But is it reasonable to think that God really does not know until this moment whether Abraham is God-fearing?
Granting that God knows Abraham's inner life perfectly, it seems highly doubtful, even by openness standards, that God actually and truly learns at this moment that Abraham is God-fearing, In general, open theists are sympathetic with this argument. They respect and even appeal to God's intimate and perfect knowledge of his creatures' inner states of mind and heart. Consider on this issue how convenient Boyd finds it to appeal exactly to God's perfect knowledge of people's inner lives in his explanation of Jesus' prediction of Peter's three denials of Christ. Boyd writes:
Sometimes we may understand the Lord's foreknowledge of a person's behavior simply by supposing that the person's character, combined with the Lord's perfect knowledge of all future variables, makes the person's future behavior certain. As we know, character becomes more predictable over time. The longer we persist in a chosen path, the more that path becomes part of who we are.... Our omniscient Creator knows us perfectly, far better than we even know ourselves. Hence we can assume that he is able to predict our behavior far more extensively and accurately than we could predict it ourselves.'
| page 35 |
Amazingly, Boyd uses this line of reasoning to explain how Jesus could predict accurately that Peter would deny him three times. More will be said on Peter's denials later in this chapter, but suffice it here to suggest that if one compares the two cases, Abraham's heart seems far more predictable than Peter's three denials. That is, it seems apparent that Abraham's past conduct provides a better basis for knowing the state of his heart than Peter's past expressions of character would have provided for predicting that he would deny Christ specifically three times. And yet, with Abraham, we are told that until he raised the knife over Isaac's body, God did not know whether be feared him.
Consider this: Romans 4:18-22 tells us that Abraham had such strong faith in God that even when both he and Sarah grew old and so moved past their ability to parent children, year after year Abraham believed that God would keep his promise and give Sarah and him a son! In hope against hope, and without becoming weak in faith, and giving glory to God are phrases in this account which reveal that Abraham truly, faithfully, and lastingly feared God and he did so all these years, long before the Genesis 22 test of sacrificing Isaac. Abraham's faith in God, in fact, is so notable that the apostle Paul uses it in Romans 4 as a supreme illustration of the nature of true faith. Clearly God knows this about Abraham.
Consider this also: Hebrews 11:8-12, 17-19 is devoted to the faith of Abraham, charting his faith all the way from his call in Ur of the Chaldeans through the episode of the near-sacrifice of Isaac. Through each of these instances in the lives of Abraham and Sarah, a consistent pattern of faith in God is evident. And the writer to the Hebrews chooses to emphasize particularly Abraham's consistent and commendable heart of faith. Clearly God knows this about Abraham.