The Future: Open or Closed?

[Jason]

Steve responded to a call about open theism last Thursday and he made a decent case for why Open Theists hold the view of an open future. However, I've been moving toward this view in recent months and it's not because of the reasons Steve gave on his program. So I'd like to give the main reason I'm moving toward this view, and let you all respond to it.

When I read the scriptures I see countless examples of God being disappointed in the choices of people and nations. He told Moses to do certain things to convince Pharoh and when Moses responded that it wouldn't work, God told him "Ok, try this instead... if that doesn't work, do this, etc." For God to be disappointed or speak in this way, it seems necessary that he sees the future as a set of possibilities. He's God, so he knows all the possibilities and knowing our thoughts, could probably know with great accuracy what a person is going to do in a given situation. However, it seems from scripture that he is sometimes surprised by the choices people make.

Jesus himself knew the thoughts of men, but the bible says he sometimes marveled at certain things. He tested the woman whose child was sick and then seemed genuinely surprised by her humble response. Likewise the Centurian whose servent was healed. He also seemed very disappointed that a great number of Jews rejected his message, as if he didn't know that would happen. I could be wrong in all these exmaples, but from reading the texts I get the impression that Jesus' knowledge of men's thoughts didn't mean he always knew what kind of response they would give.

Jesus also prayed that his cup be removed and I don't think he would've done so if the future had already been determined. Did Jesus not know the Father? Of course he did! So it would seem that his request would've been at least possible. We have examples in scripture of God changing his mind so it's not a new concept.

I'm not, at this time, fully convinced of the open view of the future, but it seems to make the scriptures a lot less confusing.

[Paidion]

Jason, you may want to review some of the threads on the old forum ---- for example:

Open Theists Believe in the Omniscience of God

[Jason]

Paidion, thanks for the link. That thread dropped off rather abruptly, no?

[Jess]

So, would God's knowing ahead of time about our failures make Him somehow less disappointed in them?

[Suzana]

I think we have to differentiate between the OT & Jesus' actions and attitude - having taken on humanity, and emptied Himself of supernatural God attributes, He would have been relying on what the Holy Spirit revealed to Him, (which should also be available to us today), and perhaps also natural wisdom & experience.

With the OT instances - like Jason's example, "...when Moses responded that it wouldn't work, God told him "Ok, try this instead... if that doesn't work, do this, etc...." - couldn't this be just a case of God relating to us at our level, & communicating to us in a way we would understand?
Sort of like "come now, let us reason together...", even though His ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts.

For example, when God said about Sodom & Gomorrah:
"I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which has come to Me. And if not, I will know." (Gen 18:21), we don't really think God didn't already know exactly what was happening; He was just borrowing an expression we might use, for emphasis, as a forewarning that God had decided it was time to intervene in that situation.

[darinhouston]

What I would REALLY like to see is a debate between a rational Arminian (like Steve) and a rational Open Theist. Too often the Open Theism debates are between people with extreme views such as Calvinists. The result is predictable and they're too far apart to gain much benefit from anything more than a caricature of their respective positions. At best, you can learn the "basic" positions from such a debate.

Instead, a debate between an Arminian and an Open Theist should get to the heart of the matter, I think.

[steve]

If I were to debate an Open Theist, I think I would disappoint my fellow Arminians, by not caring enough about winning the debate.

I have reasons for not embracing Open Theism—namely certain instances of God knowing future human choices that He is not likely to have directly determined (like Peter's three denials). I do not think that an Open Theist can explain how God or Jesus knew such things without them giving up too much ground. For example, by whatever means Jesus could predict accurately what Peter would do before the coming dawn, could He not, by the same means predict what Peter would do before lunch the next day, or before his next birthday, or before his death (a matter also accurately predicted by Jesus)?

As Suzana said, Jesus depended upon the Holy Spirit to reveal things to Him, so that His knowledge of future events was an indication of God's knowledge of those events. When Jesus did not know something, it was because of His human limitations, and the failure of the Holy Spirit to reveal to Him things "which the Father has put in His own authority." Thus, Jesus could know well enough to predict that "because iniquity will abound, the love of many will grow cold," (because that was revealed to Him), but could express uncertainty about "when the Son of Man comes, will He find the faith on the earth [or land]?"

It does seem unwise to pronounce upon the limits of God's knowledge simply by appeal to statements where He seems not to know something—because these statements sometimes entail matters of knowledge even of past and present events (as when He asked Cain, "Where is your brother?")—which omniscience could not fail to know. But openness people argue their point from philosophic grounds that make a lot of sense. I have always said that, when it comes to God's ability to know the future without determining it, both Calvinists and Openness Theologians have simpler answers than does the Arminian.

So it seems that the options are:
1) accept Arminianism, along with the difficulties of how God can know the future and man's choices still be free; or
2) accept Openness, along with the difficulties in explaining how God seems to know what people will choose in many cases.

I suppose a third option is to accept Calvinism, along with the difficulties squaring these doctrines with the goodness of God, but that seems to be the most scripturally compromising option.

[darinhouston]

If I were to debate an Open Theist, I think I would disappoint my fellow Arminians, by not caring enough about winning the debate.

OK, but I'm not, personally, interested in clinging to either position either. You have indicated, however, some scriptural difficulties with their position and so I think a debate would put a laser beam on the scriptural and philosophical proofs of both positions and -- who knows -- perhaps reveal a fourth position that reconciles the three or at least identify the specific difficulties in maintaining one or the other of the positions.

I don't see debates as beneficial to maintaining or affirming either of the debated positions but instead revealing and hitting head-on the specific weaknesses in one or both. Winning is of little consequence, but solid defense of both and critique of the other is essential.

[darinhouston]

For what it's worth, I think my position is not too common but not unheard of either -- that God (including the Father and to the extent the Holy Spirit is a "person," the Holy Spirit) were at all times "capable" of seeing the future, but has chosen to veil themselves from such knowledge (as with the kenosis of Christ) except where necessary to achieve God's greater purpose.

My present view of soteriology includes an aspect of this -- I think God is fully capable of compelling all to come to Him, and sometimes does do but chooses (most of the times) not to do so, choosing to intervene only as necessary to ensure Pauline conversion and the like and directing/compelling specific paths on occasion. I can't support this fully but it satisfies me at present. One could argue whether compulsion is necessary since we're weak enough to respond to varying degrees of influence, but I suspect God has even put some "on a puppet string" on occasion to ensure a particular outcome.

It's all a bit unknowable in the end, of course, and I seem to always look for the middle position I think.

[Paidion]

I'd like to take a stab at "Christ knowing" about Peter's denial or "God knowing and revealing it to Christ" as the case may be.

First notice that Matthew and Mark's accounts of the incident do not appear to be consistent:

Matthew 26:34 Jesus said to him, "Truly, I say to you, this very night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times."

Mark 14:30 And Jesus said to him, "Truly, I say to you, this very night, before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times."

Mark wrote that Jesus said that before the cock crows TWICE, he would deny him three times.
Matthew seems to have Jesus saying that before the cock crows AT ALL, he would deny him three times. What did Jesus actually say?

The gospels were written long after this event occurred. It seems that Matthew and Peter (who told Mark) remembered the words differently.

Now both remembered that Peter had denied Christ three times, and so both "remembered" that Christ had said "three times". But had He? Suppose Christ had actually said, "Before the cock crows you will deny me." If so, this could have been a prediction rather than knowledge. Christ knew the character of Peter, since Peter was with Him as his disciple for a long time. Christ knew his impulsiveness. Christ knew he had a mind for self-preservation. Christ could very well have made such a prediction whose fulfillment was likely.