So, you disagree with Boyd's passage here?
If the motif of future determinism required the view that the future were exhaustively settled, as the classical view of foreknowledge argues, Scripture would seem to contradict itself. Obviously, the future can’t be both partly open and exhaustively settled. As noted in the introduction, the classical view attempts to avoid this contradiction by claiming that the second motif in Scripture is nonliteral. If we accept the findings of the previous chapter that the motif of future determinism only requires us to view the future as partly settled, however, there is no contradiction. We are free to accept and celebrate both motifs in Scripture as telling us important truths about God and the nature of the future.
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. For this reason, the open view concludes that the future is literally settled to whatever degree God wants to settle it, and literally open to the extent that God desires to leave it open to be resolved by the decisions of his creations. This view, open theists argue, is truer to the whole counsel of Scripture, truer to our experience, and offers a number of theological and practical advantages as well (see chapters 3 and 4).
This openness rings true to me. Same as when I read the texts with God dealing with people in real time through the prophets. God changes his mind. People repent and He relents of impending judgement.
I don't see a need to invoke "God knows everything that hasn't happened yet". I don't think it’s a heresy, since heresies have been defined by the early church, the counsels and fathers. Openness attributes both a degree of foreknowledge to God, and a degree of openness to God and his creatures. How could that be a heresy? Its only affirming what the plain reading of the texts are indicating. What I like about openness theology is that it is not saying: “Well that verse doesn’t really mean what it says, you have to interpret it according to this other idea”.
Another point is that we all go about in life with an openness/closedness type of way. It’s how the world works. Some things are more open to me, and some things are more closed to me. I don’t have the money to fly to and rent a house in the Bahamas for a month, so that’s more closed to me, but others do have the money.
I can go to the bathroom right now and take a hot shower, but some people do not have access to a shower or hot water.
I cannot become the president of the USA, or its highly unlikely, but there are a handful of people who are quite more likely to be in that role next term. The world operates in an openness and closedness type of reality. Every day.
Seeing God similar to how we actually go about reality in the world can be very helpful, since our rational mind does not have to compartmentalize that God operates one way, but the reality we experience is another way.
Seeing God through openness theology could only help us, since it removes the barrier of the confusing aspect of God knowing all the evil that would come through evil decisions, but creating it anyway. In the end, both an openness believer and traditional view believer will go through life and at the end both love God, but the traditional view believer will have to believe and also share the fact that God knew all the evil of free will decisions and decided to create the world anyway. He could have decided to create a different world where he foreknew it would not become corrupt.
While the openness believers believe that God created the world with free agents and so He hoped they would do what is right, commanded them to do what is right, and warned them of judgement and destruction for the evil committed. All this in hopes of them not doing evil. Yet also having a Plan B, to come into the world, explain himself and his commandments in the flesh and die to show his divine nature and love for his creation.
This feeds into moral valuations.
I think it’s totally right and within our God given image bearing to make moral valuations of God. Not that we will find anything actually wrong with God, given we have the details.
My point is, God totally has to be held up to the same kind of moral standards he commands us to do. Not that's he's responsible for other moral free agents’ evil decisions, that's not what I am saying.
What I am saying is, the Devil is constantly "accusing the brethren" and constantly trying to gain access to human beings in order to tempt them or cause problems in one way or another, and he does this via a legal type thing where he brings his accusations before God, charging God with moral obligations, accusations, moral valuations. “If you are good, how can you let this person who claims to be a believer but just did that evil deed to get away with it? I want to cause suffering and chaos in his/her home because of this.” Think about what happened to David after Bathsheba, his life was chaos. God may allow the Devil access at times. Does God want it? No. God does not want the person to sin, nor does he want the Devil to accuse, slander, tear down and cause chaos and evil. But we all have free will. The Devil’s Will Be Done or God’s Will Be Done. That’s the choice so to speak.
As with Job, God would never do that to Job himself, because he personally does not want evil at all. We all suffer in this world because there are beings who have chosen to rebel against God. God can handle his free will creatures choosing evil, but he doesn't want it.
Why does God let the Devil make accusations against humans? Allow the Devil access to humans and to use them to do evil in this world? Or do evil directly? It only makes sense if you consider that free will has to be allowed to have its course, within limitations, for a time. If not, free will would have ended. The Devil is on a leash, but he still can accuse his way into doing some of the evil things he wants to do. The Devil was supposed to be an angel with responsibility to do his job for God. That vacancy left by Lucifer, or anyone, is not simply filled in by God filling in the gaps for every disobedience that his creatures leave void. Every creature was supposed to have the role and responsibility to do. That would be in accordance to Free Will responsibility. The Devil was supposed to protect and watch over humans and serve God, not entice humans to disobey God. He did not use his free will rightly, and has caused more apostasy than just himself, via his free will. Along with the impending judgement.
Early Church Father Irenaeus talks about this some:
3. The Lord, indeed, sowed good seed in His own field; and He says, “The field is the world.” But while men slept, the enemy came, and “sowed tares in the midst of the wheat, and went his way.”6 Hence we learn that this was the apostate angel and the enemy, because he was envious of God’s workmanship, and took in hand to render this [workmanship] an enmity with God. For this cause also God has banished from His presence him who did of his own accord stealthily sow the tares, that is, him who brought about the transgression; but He took compassion upon man, who, through want of care no doubt, but still wickedly [on the part of another], became involved in disobedience; and He turned the enmity by which [the devil] had designed to make [man] the enemy of God, against the author of it, by removing His own anger from man, turning it in another direction, and sending it instead upon the serpent. As also the Scripture tells us that God said to the serpent, “And I will place enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”9 And the Lord summed up in Himself this enmity, when He was made man from a woman, and trod upon his [the serpent’s] head, as I have pointed out in the preceding book.
Irenaeus admits that Adam and Eve had a “want/lack of care” in God letting the Devil tempt them. However, the Devil should have been the angel watching over them and taking care of them, he was not doing his job. But it is God’s will to allow his creatures to actually have their free will and the consequences thereof, and not stop them immediately after they choose wrongly.
-Irenaeus Against Heresies Book 4 Chapter 40
1. This expression [of our Lord], “How often would I have gathered thy children together, and thou wouldest not,” set forth the ancient law of human liberty, because God made man a free [agent] from the beginning, possessing his own power, even as he does his own soul, to obey the behests (ad utendum sententia) of God voluntarily, and not by compulsion of God. For there is no coercion with God, but a good will [towards us] is present with Him continually. And therefore does He give good counsel to all. And in man, as well as in angels, He has placed the power of choice (for angels are rational beings), so that those who had yielded obedience might justly possess what is good, given indeed by God, but preserved by themselves. On the other hand, they who have not obeyed shall, with justice, be not found in possession of the good, and shall receive condign punishment: for God did kindly bestow on them what was good; but they themselves did not diligently keep it, nor deem it something precious, but poured contempt upon His super-eminent goodness. Rejecting therefore the good, and as it were spuing it out, they shall all deservedly incur the just judgment of God, which also the Apostle Paul testifies in his Epistle to the Romans, where he says, “But dost thou despise the riches of His goodness, and patience, and long-suffering, being ignorant that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But according to thy hardness and impenitent heart, thou treasurest to thyself wrath against the day of wrath, and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God.” “But glory and honour,” he says, “to every one that doeth good.” God therefore has given that which is good, as the apostle tells us in this Epistle, and they who work it shall receive glory and honour, because they have done that which is good when they had it in their power not to do it; but those who do it not shall receive the just judgment of God, because they did not work good when they had it in their power so to do.
2. But if some had been made by nature bad, and others good, these latter would not be deserving of praise for being good, for such were they created; nor would the former be reprehensible, for thus they were made [originally]. But since all men are of the same nature, able both to hold fast and to do what is good; and, on the other hand, having also the power to cast it from them and not to do it,—some do justly receive praise even among men who are under the control of good laws (and much more from God), and obtain deserved testimony of their choice of good in general, and of persevering therein; but the others are blamed, and receive a just condemnation, because of their rejection of what is fair and good. And therefore the prophets used to exhort men to what was good, to act justly and to work righteousness, as I have so largely demonstrated, because it is in our power so to do, and because by excessive negligence we might become forgetful, and thus stand in need of that good counsel which the good God has given us to know by means of the prophets.
3. For this reason the Lord also said, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good deeds, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” And, “Take heed to yourselves, lest perchance your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and worldly cares.”3 And, “Let your loins be girded about, and your lamps burning, and ye like unto men that wait for their Lord, when He returns from the wedding, that when He cometh and knocketh, they may open to Him. Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when He cometh, shall find so doing.” And again, “The servant who knows his Lord’s will, and does it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.”5 And, “Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” And again, “But if the servant say in his heart, The Lord delayeth, and begin to beat his fellow-servants, and to eat, and drink, and to be drunken, his Lord will come in a day on which he does not expect Him, and shall cut him in sunder, and appoint his portion with the hypocrites.”7 All such passages demonstrate the independent will of man, and at the same time the counsel which God conveys to him, by which He exhorts us to submit ourselves to Him, and seeks to turn us away from [the sin of] unbelief against Him, without, however, in any way coercing us.
4. No doubt, if any one is unwilling to follow the Gospel itself, it is in his power [to reject it], but it is not expedient. For it is in man’s power to disobey God, and to forfeit what is good; but [such conduct] brings no small amount of injury and mischief. And on this account Paul says, “All things are lawful to me, but all things are not expedient;” referring both to the liberty of man, in which respect “all things are lawful,” God exercising no compulsion in regard to him; and [by the expression] “not expedient” pointing out that we “should not use our liberty as a cloak of maliciousness,”10 for this is not expedient. And again he says, “Speak ye every man truth with his neighbour.” And, “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor scurrility, which are not convenient, but rather giving of thanks.”12 And, “For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord; walk honestly as children of the light, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in anger and jealousy. And such were some of you; but ye have been washed, but ye have been sanctified in the name of our Lord.” If then it were not in our power to do or not to do these things, what reason had the apostle, and much more the Lord Himself, to give us counsel to do some things, and to abstain from others? But because man is possessed of free will from the beginning, and God is possessed of free will, in whose likeness man was created, advice is always given to him to keep fast the good, which thing is done by means of obedience to God.
5. And not merely in works, but also in faith, has God preserved the will of man free and under his own control, saying, “According to thy faith be it unto thee;” thus showing that there is a faith specially belonging to man, since he has an opinion specially his own. And again, “All things are possible to him that believeth;”2 and, “Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee.” Now all such expressions demonstrate that man is in his own power with respect to faith. And for this reason, “he that believeth in Him has eternal life; while he who believeth not the Son hath not eternal life, but the wrath of God shall remain upon him.”4 In the same manner therefore the Lord, both showing His own goodness, and indicating that man is in his own free will and his own power, said to Jerusalem, “How often have I wished to gather thy children together, as a hen [gathereth] her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Wherefore your house shall be left unto you desolate.”
6. Those, again, who maintain the opposite to these [conclusions], do themselves present the Lord as destitute of power, as if, forsooth, He were unable to accomplish what He willed; or, on the other hand, as being ignorant that they were by nature “material,” as these men express it, and such as cannot receive His immortality. “But He should not,” say they, “have created angels of such a nature that they were capable of transgression, nor men who immediately proved ungrateful towards Him; for they were made rational beings, endowed with the power of examining and judging, and were not [formed] as things irrational or of a [merely] animal nature, which can do nothing of their own will, but are drawn by necessity and compulsion to what is good, in which things there is one mind and one usage, working mechanically in one groove (inflexibiles et sine judicio), who are incapable of being anything else except just what they had been created.” But upon this supposition, neither would what is good be grateful to them, nor communion with God be precious, nor would the good be very much to be sought after, which would present itself without their own proper endeavour, care, or study, but would be implanted of its own accord and without their concern. Thus it would come to pass, that their being good would be of no consequence, because they were so by nature rather than by will, and are possessors of good spontaneously, not by choice; and for this reason they would not understand this fact, that good is a comely thing, nor would they take pleasure in it. For how can those who are ignorant of good enjoy it? Or what credit is it to those who have not aimed at it? And what crown is it to those who have not followed in pursuit of it, like those victorious in the contest?
7. On this account, too, did the Lord assert that the kingdom of heaven was the portion of “the violent;” and He says, “The violent take it by force;” that is, those who by strength and earnest striving are on the watch to snatch it away on the moment. On this account also Paul the Apostle says to the Corinthians, “Know ye not, that they who run in a racecourse, do all indeed run, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. Every one also who engages in the contest is temperate in all things: now these men [do it] that they may obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. But I so run, not as uncertainty; I fight, not as one beating the air; but I make my body livid, and bring it into subjection, lest by any means, when preaching to others, I may myself be rendered a castaway.”7 This able wrestler, therefore, exhorts us to the struggle for immortality, that we may be crowned, and may deem the crown precious, namely, that which is acquired by our struggle, but which does not encircle us of its own accord (sed non ultro coalitam). And the harder we strive, so much is it the more valuable; while so much the more valuable it is, so much the more should we esteem it. And indeed those things are not esteemed so highly which come spontaneously, as those which are reached by much anxious care. Since, then, this power has been conferred upon us, both the Lord has taught and the apostle has enjoined us the more to love God, that we may reach this [prize] for ourselves by striving after it. For otherwise, no doubt, this our good would be [virtually] irrational, because not the result of trial. Moreover, the faculty of seeing would not appear to be so desirable, unless we had known what a loss it were to be devoid of sight; and health, too, is rendered all the more estimable by an acquaintance with disease; light, also, by contrasting it with darkness; and life with death. Just in the same way is the heavenly kingdom honourable to those who have known the earthly one. But in proportion as it is more honourable, so much the more do we prize it; and if we have prized it more, we shall be the more glorious in the presence of God. The Lord has therefore endured all these things on our behalf, in order that we, having been instructed by means of them all, may be in all respects circumspect for the time to come, and that, having been rationally taught to love God, we may continue in His perfect love: for God has displayed long-suffering in the case of man’s apostasy; while man has been instructed by means of it, as also the prophet says, “Thine own apostasy shall heal thee;” God thus determining all things beforehand for the bringing of man to perfection, for his edification, and for the revelation of His dispensations, that goodness may both be made apparent, and righteousness perfected, and that the Church may be fashioned after the image of His Son, and that man may finally be brought to maturity at some future time, becoming ripe through such privileges to see and comprehend God.
- Irenaeus Book 4 Chapter 37
So why does God listen to the devil, or any accusation from his creatures? Because it is a moral obligation to respond to moral valuations of God. He is the judge of the universe, who created free will agents who can literally bring accusation up before God in complaint, etc. I believe he is morally obligated to respond to accusations, at least some of the time.
Jesus died so God could forgive the people who ended up not really wanting the Devil’s way. Who tasted the sweet and the sour, and rejected the lies and evils and repented to God. God had to uphold his righteousness, “That he might be Just and the Justifier…” Romans 3:26, from the accusations of the moral valuations of creatures like the Devil who do not want people to be able to be forgiven and saved if they repent. The Devil wants to hold them in his grasp forever, forever cursed like he is, to give the “middle finger to God” that he successfully took down His creation.
But God got the upper hand on the cross. Jesus hanging on by a thread, “Father, If this cup may pass…” and this death blow to the Devil’s accusations proved all the accusations wrong…. that God was good intentioned to create a world of free agents, not foreknowing the evil they will choose, and genuinely wanting them to obey his commandments and enjoy the love of God and life.
This death blow to his creature, Lucifer, a death blow not of violence but of self-sacrifice, his angel created to serve God and watch over the creation, who decided to apostatize from God, become an accuser, become evil, taking down other angels with him and also bringing the Fall on the human race. God demonstrating his divine nature on the cross to Lucifer, that He was right in commanding Lucifer to do what is right, and obey God. That all his accusations and slanders are false, and evil. What a free will the devil had, that God would actually let him do all that for a time! Dang. Talk about God’s commitment to his moral obligations to create a world with free agents and be willing to deal with anything they choose to do!
It makes more sense to me that the Garden of Eden with the Tree of Knowledge was actually a choice that could go either way, that God actually gave them the choice and did not foreknow beforehand what would happen. That would be a real world. With a real God, who created real people, with real free will choices, good or bad. Jesus’ death could have been foreordained, if and when had Plan A not been successful. Adam and Eve could have actually not eaten from the tree, or slept on the snake’s words for a night, to think about it first, maybe talked to God about it the next day. “This snake told me you are holding something from me God, is this true?” There is a whole slew of different options we could think of, real options, just like the options we have in the real world today.
If Jesus being foreordained to die would mean Adam and Even were foreknown to eat of the Tree, this would mean God knew this creation would fall and created it anyway. My moral valuation of God, if this were the case, would leave me extremely frustrated and angry, since it would have been in his power not to create such and such a world. Its totally in his power, if the Traditional View is true, and both Foreknowledge and Free Will coexist, to just create a world in which he foreknew no disobedience. Do you think God needs sin to be glorified in the end? That would not be consistent at all with his character, he hates evil. If he commands us not to sin, but secretly he creates a world he foreknows will disobey, just so he can be more highly glorified in the end, how is he actually good? Do you see the absurdity?
However, openness theology makes complete sense of all these difficult topics. Openness theology just means that some things are open, and some things are closed. Just like the real world we live in, just like the texts read.
Should we be like the Devil, accusing God? No. But we should morally evaluate theologies in order to make sense of them. God gave us his image and likeness and it’s our duty to think through things with moral valuations. Now the Devil does this for evil purposes, but we do not have to do like that at all. We can just ruminate on a particular teaching or theology with our God given ability to valuate things morally, and try to understand the logical implications. And like you said, pray through and mediate, etc. To see whether it makes sense of the whole of scripture, and if it’s in agreement with God’s divine nature and purpose.
One last thing I want to ask. Regardless of whether each of us changes their mind, or even benefits from the other: Do you at least understand where I am coming from?
Do you understand that I am losing nothing by accepting openness theology over Complete and Exhaustive Foreknowledge?
But that holding on to Complete and Exhaustive Foreknowledge is not only hard me to deal with personally, but I feel like an idiot trying to explain that kind of God to others, that that kind of God is good. I would much rather explain how free will has brought evil into this world, and that God never wanted that. I can hold up God high in glory, being unstained by sin, and even taking it upon his own sinless flesh to save us.
BTW, I don’t care much about what the world thinks, unless the world is actually right about something.
This post includes some of the "redoing" of the post I accidentally deleted.
Also about the point that a God who does not have Complete and Exhaustive Foreknowledge not being glorious, but it reduces his glory.
Hold on a minute there. We both know there is a Divine Being who is Omnipotent and created this huge universe we are living in, and created human souls with minds in the image of God, self awareness, higher thought, capacity for love, and to create offspring. How much more glorious can you actually be?
Complete and Exhaustive Foreknowledge would reduce his glory, because its not glorious to foreordain the crucifixion of Jesus for sins which you knew were coming, and made the world anyway. It becomes a very strange story. Does not seem real, like the world we live in each day.
