i) Proponent
Gregory Boyd
ii) Overview
a) By Gregory Boyd
“While there is never a question whether these foes [the forces of evil] will be ultimately vanquished by the work of Christ, it is also perfectly clear in the Gospels, as throughout the entire Bible, that these cosmic foes genuinely resist the reign of God and exercise a formidable destructive influence in the world today.” [12]
“… Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane … asked if it was possible for the Father to alter the divine plan to accomplish the mission in some way that avoided the hellish spiritual and physical agony of the cross (Matt. 26:39). In this particular instance, of course, it was not possible. Yet this prayer – by the only one who truly knows the Father (Matt. 11:27) – reveals that God is in principle open to modifying his plans in response to human input, as we find him doing throughout the biblical narrative (e.g., Ex. 32:12-14)” [13]
“God’s decision to create a cosmos that was capable of love and that was, therefore, populated with free agents was also a decision to create and govern a world he could not unilaterally control.” [14]
“To the extent that God gives an agent free will, he cannot meticulously control what that agent does. Yet the “cannot” in this statement is not a matter of insufficient power, for God remains all-powerful. It rather is simply a matter of definition. Just as God cannot create a round triangle or a married bachelor, so too he cannot meticulously control free agents.” [15]
“God’s knowledge of what will come to pass in the future is incomprehensibly superior to ours, simply because he perfectly knows all past and present variables that effect what comes to pass, including his own will. Yet, amid all the things we do not have say-so over, the open view holds that free agents have (or at least had) some degree of say-so, however slight it may be in the total scheme of things.” [16]
“In contrast to the classical view that assumed the future could be exhaustively described by propositions asserting what will or will not come to pass, the open view holds that, insofar as agents face ontological possibilities, the future must be described by propositions asserting what might and might not come to pass.” [17]
“Since an omniscient God must know the truth-value of all propositions, in other words, he must know the truth value of “might” propositions as well as “will” propositions.” [17]
“… what it is about divine omniscience that renders it metaphysically impossible for God ever to create a world in which the future was causally open to alternate possibilities and therefore known by God as such?” [18]
“While Scripture certainly depicts aspects of the future as settled either in God’s mind (foreknowledge) or by God’s will (predestination), no Scripture forces the conclusion that the future is exhaustively settled, let alone necessarily settled from all eternity.” [19]
“The very fact that Jesus inquired [in Matt. 26:39, 42] about this possibility presumes that it is in principle possible for God to change his mind in response to prayer. Yet it is hard to see how God could ever modify his plans in the flow of history if every one of his plans had been unalterably settled from all eternity.” [20]
“Similarly, if the future is eternally settled in God’s mind and/or by God’s will, it is challenging to see how God could genuinely regret some of his decisions in light of how events played themselves out (Gen. 6:6-7; 1 Sam 15:11, 35)” [21]
“… if the future is eternally settled, it is difficult to see how God could express surprise over how humans behave, and even confess several times that he expected people to act differently (e.g., Jer. 3:7, 19; Isa. 5:1-5).” [21]
“Along the same lines, it is quite hard to understand why Scripture on numerous occasions would depict God as testing people to see how they would choose if their choices were settled in eternity before their testing (e.g., Deut. 8:2; 13:1-3)” [21]
“So too, it is not clear how Scripture could encourage us to speed up the time of the Lord’s return by how we live if the exact time of his return was eternally set in stone (2 Peter 3:11-12).” [21]
“God, the author of the adventure of creation, as it were, predetermines the overall structure of the adventure as well as all the possible story lines and all the possible endings within this adventure. Moreover, if God predestines certain events to take place if certain story lines are chosen and other events to take place regardless of what story lines are chosen. Yet within this predetermined structure, free agents are empowered with a certain amount of say-so as to which of the many possible story lines is actualised.” [22]
“… an infinitely intelligent God is as prepared for every one of any number of possible future events as he would be for a single future event that was certain to take place.” [23]
“While not everything happens for a divine purpose, in the open view, everything happens with a divine purpose, for God from eternity has been preparing a response to each and every possible event in case it takes place. It is evident, then, that the God of open theism knows the future just as effectively as the God of classical theism, who faces an eternally settled future.” [24] |