TWO
The God Who Faces a Partially Open Future
Thus far we have examined the motif of Scripture that celebrates God’s sovereignty over creation and lordship over history. God predestines and foreknows as settled whatever he sees fit to predestine and foreknow as settled. We have also seen, however, that this motif of future determinism does not warrant the conclusion that God predestines and foreknows as settled everything about the future. As we will see in this chapter, there is a second major motif in Scripture that depicts the future as partly open. Balancing the determined aspects of the future is a realm composed of open possibilities that will be resolved only by the decisions of free agents.
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).
The goal of this chapter is to examine the scriptural motif of future openness. Because of the dominance of the classical view of foreknowledge with its overemphasis on the motif of future determinism, much of this material may be unfamiliar to the reader. However, this material is just as much a part of the inspired Word of God and needs to be taken just as seriously as more familiar passages. I will argue that the passages that constitute this motif strongly suggest that the future is partly open and that God knows it as such. I will also argue that the classical explanation—that these verses are less literal than those expressing future determinism—is unwarranted.
For our present purposes, it will be helpful to break down the motif of future openness into several sections.
God Regrets How Things Turn Out
God’s Regret Regarding Pre-Flood Humanity
To begin, one aspect of the portrait of God in Scripture that suggests the future is partly open is the fact that God sometimes regrets how things turn out, even prior decisions that he himself made. For example, in the light of the depravity that characterized humanity prior to the flood, the Bible says that “The LORD was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart” (Gen. 6:6). The genuineness of his regret is evidenced by the fact that the Lord immediately took measures to destroy humanity and start over.
Now, if everything about world history were exhaustively settled and known by God as such before he created the world, God would have known with absolute certainty that humans would come to this wicked state, at just this time, before he created them. But how, then, could he authentically regret having made humankind? Doesn’t the fact that God regretted the way things turned out—to the point of starting over—suggest that it wasn’t a foregone conclusion at the time God created human beings that they would fall into this state of wickedness?
God’s Regret over Saul’s Kingship
Another fascinating example of the Lord’s regret concerns his decision to make Saul king of Israel. While having a king was never God’s first choice, the appointment of Saul could have worked out well. Indeed, Scripture tells us that God had intended to bless him and his household for many generations (1 Sam 13:13).
Unfortunately, Saul chose to forsake God’s ways and to pursue his own agenda. When Saul’s heart changed, God’s plan for him changed; he was no longer going to bless Saul. Instead, God removed him from his appointed office and allowed his sin to take its course. Saul had gotten so wicked that the Lord said, “I regret that I made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me” (1 Sam. 15:10). The point is reiterated for emphasis several verses later, when Scripture says, “the LORD was sorry that he had made Saul king over Israel” (1 Sam. 15:35).
We must wonder how the Lord could truly experience regret for making Saul king if he was absolutely certain that Saul would act the way he did. Could God genuinely confess, “I regret that I made Saul king” if he could in the same breath also proclaim, “I was certain of what Saul would do when I made him king”? I do not see how. Could I genuinely regret, say, purchasing a car because it turned out to run poorly if in fact the car was running exactly as I knew it would when I purchased it? Common sense tells us that we can only regret a decision we made if the decision resulted in an outcome other than what we expected or hoped for when the decision was made.
Does Regret Imply Lack of Wisdom?
Now some may object that if God regretted a decision he made, he must not be perfectly wise. Wouldn’t God be admitting to making a mistake? Two considerations lead me to answer this question in the negative.
First, it is better to allow Scripture to inform us regarding the nature of divine wisdom than to reinterpret an entire motif in order to square it with our preconceptions of divine wisdom. If God says he regretted a decision, and if Scripture elsewhere tells us that God is perfectly wise, then we should simply conclude that one can be perfectly wise and still regret a decision. Even if this is a mystery to us, it is better to allow the mystery to stand than to assume that we know what God’s wisdom is like and conclude on this basis that God can’t mean what he clearly says.
My second point, however, is that in the open view there is little mystery involved in accepting that God can regret his own previous decisions. Once we understand that the future is partly open and that humans are genuinely free, the paradox of how God could experience genuine regret over a decision he made disappears. God made a wise decision because it had the greatest possibility of yielding the best results. God’s decision wasn’t the only variable in this matter, however; there was also the variable of Saul’s will. Saul freely strayed from God’s plan, but that is not God’s fault, nor does it make God’s decision unwise.
The God Who Risks
A wise risk is a risk nonetheless. It may not turn out as one hopes. Classical theologians, however, generally reject the notion that God takes risks of any sort. To them, it undermines his sovereignty. Two further considerations address this charge.
First, don’t we normally regard someone who refuses to take risks as being insecure? Don’t we ordinarily regard a compulsion to meticulously control everything as evidencing weakness, not strength? Of course we do. Everyone who is psychologically healthy knows it is good to risk loving another person, for example. You may, of course, get hurt, for people are free agents. But the risk-free alternatives of not loving or of trying to control another person is evidence of insecurity and weakness, if not sickness. Why should we abandon this insight when we think about God, especially since Scripture clearly depicts God as sometimes taking risks?
Second, the only way to deny that God takes risks is to maintain that everything that occurs in world history is exactly what God wanted to occur. If anything is other than what God wanted, to that extent he obviously risked not getting what he wanted when he created the world. So, if God is truly “above” taking risks, then we must accept that things such as sin, child mutilations, and people going to hell are all in accordance with God’s will.
Remarkably, some believers are willing to follow their logic to this stunning conclusion, but the vast majority of Christians reject it in horror. God is “not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). Note, however, that this means that most Christians already believe that God doesn’t always get his way. And logically this means most Christians must accept that God took risks when he created the world. Among other things, every time he created free moral agents he took the risk that they might choose to destroy themselves by rejecting him.
God’s risks are always wise, of course, for the possibility of things going God’s way is worth it. But they are risks nonetheless. In a cosmos populated by free agents, the outcome of things—even divine decisions—is often uncertain.
God Asks Questions about the Future
A second aspect of the portrait of God in Scripture that may suggest the future is partially open is that God sometimes expresses uncertainty about it. For example, he asks Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them?” (Num. 14:11). Similarly, we later read of God asking Hosea, “How long will they [Israel] be incapable of innocence?” (Hosea 8:5; cf. 1 Kings 22:20). If God wonders about future issues, does this not imply that the future is to some extent unsettled?
Some suggest that in these verses the Lord was asking rhetorical questions, just as he had done when he asked Adam and Eve where they were (Gen. 3:8–9). This is a possible interpretation, but not a necessary one. Unlike God’s question about location in Genesis, there is nothing in these texts or in the whole of Scripture that requires these questions to be rhetorical. Moreover, the fact that the Lord continued for centuries, with much frustration, to try to get the Israelites not to “despise” him and to be “innocent” suggests that the wonder expressed in these questions was genuine. The duration of the Israelites’ stubbornness was truly an open issue.
God Confronts the Unexpected
Surprise at “Wild Grapes”
Third, sometimes God tells us that things turn out differently than he expected. For example, in Isaiah 5 the Lord describes Israel as his vineyard and himself as its loving owner. He explains that, as the owner of the vineyard, he “expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes” (v. 2). He then asks, “What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?” (v. 4). Because it unexpectedly failed to yield grapes, the Lord sadly concludes, “I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured” (v. 5).
If everything is eternally certain to God, as the classical view of foreknowledge holds, how could the Lord twice say that he “expected” one thing to occur, only to have something different occur? How could the Lord expect, hope for, and even strive (“what more was there to do?”) for something he knew from all eternity would never happen? 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”?
“I Thought You’d Return”
Several other examples of the Lord confronting the unexpected are found in Jeremiah. Beholding Israel’s remarkable obstinacy, the Lord says, “I thought, ‘After she has done all this she will return to me’; but she did not return” (Jer. 3:6–7). He repeats his dismay to Israel several verses later: “I thought how I would set you among my children.… And I thought you would call me, ‘My Father,’ and would not turn from following me. Instead, as a faithless wife … you have been faithless to me” (Jer. 3:19–20).
We need to ask ourselves seriously, how could the Lord honestly say he thought Israel would turn to him if he was always certain that they would never do so? If God tells us he thought something was going to occur while being eternally certain it would not occur, is he not lying to us? If God cannot lie (Heb. 6:18) and yet tells us he thought something would occur that did not occur, doesn’t this imply that the future contains possibilities as well as certainties?
Some have tried to avoid this conclusion by pointing out that the Hebrew word āmar can be translated as “said.” But this doesn’t help the classical view of divine foreknowledge. It only transfers the problem of God thinking something was going to happen that didn’t happen, to him saying he expected something to happen that he knew would not happen.
Infallibly Knowing Probabilities
Do these verses imply that God is mistaken? They certainly do if you assume that the future is exhaustively settled ahead of time. In this case, God would be wrong for expecting one thing to occur when it was a settled fact that another thing was certainly going to occur. But no mistake is implied if you believe that the future is partly open.
If the future consists in part of possibilities, then God can infallibly think that a particular possibility has the greatest chance of occurring, even if it turns out that a less likely possibility actually occurs. Since God is omniscient, he always knew that it was remotely possible for his people to be this stubborn, for example. But he genuinely did not expect them to actualize this remote possibility. He authentically expected that they’d be won over by his grace. God wasn’t caught off guard (for he knew this stubbornness was possible), but he was genuinely disappointed (for he knew the possibility was improbable and hoped it wouldn’t come to pass).
The open view of God can thus understand these verses without detracting in any way from God’s omniscience. If the future is exhaustively settled in God’s mind, however, then no clear sense can be made out of these verses, for there are no real possibilities to God; there are only certainties. In the classical view, God’s expectations can never be different from what transpires.
It “Never Entered My Mind”
Several other passages in Jeremiah confirm this. Three times the Lord expresses shock over Israel’s ungodly behavior by saying that they were doing things “which I did not command or decree, nor did it enter my mind” (Jer. 19:5; see also 7:31; 32:35). However we understand the phrase “nor did it enter my mind,” it would at the very least seem to preclude the possibility that the Israelites’ idolatrous behavior was eternally certain in God’s mind. If the classical view is correct, we have to be willing to accept that God could in one breath say that the Israelites’ behavior “did not enter my mind,” though their behavior “was eternally in my mind.” If this is not a contradiction, what is?
God Gets Frustrated
The fourth aspect of the motif of future openness is that throughout Scripture we find God being frustrated as people stubbornly resist his plans for their lives. This dominant feature of the biblical narrative is hard to square with the view that the entire future is eternally settled. Think about it. How could the Lord genuinely be frustrated trying to achieve things he is certain all along will not come to pass?
For example, several times the Lord tried to convince Moses that he could use him despite his speech impediment. Moses repeatedly refused to accept this (Exod. 4:10–15). Finally, Scripture says, “the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses and he said, ‘What of your brother Aaron, the Levite? I know he can speak fluently’ ” (v. 14). God was clearly frustrated by Moses’ persistent unbelief. If it was a foregone conclusion that Moses would not go along with God’s plan, however, one wonders why God frustrated himself trying to get Moses to do so.
Another example of the Lord’s frustration is found in Ezekiel, as the Lord mournfully declares the judgment he is bringing upon Israel. The Lord says, “I sought for anyone among them who would repair the wall and stand in the breach before me on behalf of the land, so that I would not destroy it: but I found no one. Therefore I have poured out my indignation upon them” (Ezek. 22:30–31).
This passage is one of the strongest depictions of the remarkable power and awesome responsibility of prayer. It suggests that if God could have found “anyone” to pray, judgment on the nation of Israel would have been averted. But although God tried to find someone to “stand in the breach,” he found no one. This episode stands in stark contrast to the many other episodes in Scripture in which God’s plan to bring judgment was reversed through the power of prayer (see Exod. 32:14; Num. 11:1–2; 14:12–20; 16:20–35, 41–48; Deut. 9:13–14, 18–20, 25; Judg. 10:13–16; 2 Sam. 24:17–25; 1 Kings 21:21–29; 2 Kings 13:3–5; 20:1–6; 2 Chron. 12:5–8).
In any event, it is difficult to understand how God could have sincerely “sought for” someone to intercede if he was eternally certain that there would be no one. Could you genuinely look for a coin in your house that you always knew was not there? The fact that God tried to raise up an intercessor suggests that he knew it was possible that an intercessor would have responded. But this requires us to believe that it was not certain to God that there would be no intercessor when he sought one. And this means that the future must partly be composed of possibilities, not certainties.
God Tests People to Know Their Character
The fifth and strongest group of passages we’ve examined thus far that suggest the future is not exhaustively settled shows that God frequently tests his covenant partners to see if they will choose to follow him or not.
Testing and Covenantal Faithfulness
This testing isn’t a game for God. It lies at the heart of God’s call to keep covenant with him. He creates us free, for his goal is love, and love must be chosen. It cannot be preprogrammed. And so from the very beginning (Genesis 3), God’s call to covenantal faithfulness has involved testing. God is seeking to find out whether or not the people he calls will lovingly choose him above all else.
However, if the future is exhaustively settled, and if God foreknows the future only in terms of certainties, never possibilities, then there is nothing for God to “find out.” Defenders of the classical view argue that the purpose of divine testing wasn’t for God to find out how his covenant partners would behave, but for the covenant partners to find out something about themselves. Unfortunately for this view, this is not at all how Scripture describes the matter.
Testing “to Know” One’s Fidelity
When Abraham successfully passed God’s test by being willing to offer up his son Isaac, the Lord declared, “Now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son” (Gen. 22:12). The verse clearly says that it was because Abraham did what he did that the Lord now knew he was a faithful covenant partner. The verse has no clear meaning if God was certain that Abraham would fear him before he offered up his son.
Similarly, the Bible says that God tested Hezekiah “to know all that was in his heart” (2 Chron. 32:31). If God eternally knew how Hezekiah would respond to him, God couldn’t have really been testing him in order to come to this knowledge. Unfortunately for the classical view, however, this is exactly what the text says.
Corporate Testing
In keeping with Scripture’s depiction of corporate election, many of the “testing” passages of Scripture concern the behavior of Israel as a whole. For example, Moses tells the Israelites that the Lord kept them in the desert for forty years “in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments” (Deut. 8:2). Elsewhere he told the Israelites that the Lord allowed false prophets to be correct sometimes because he “is testing you, to know whether you indeed love the LORD your God with all your heart and soul” (Deut. 13:1–3).
In another instance, the Lord withheld assistance to Israel in battle “in order to test Israel, whether or not they would take care to walk in the way of the LORD as their ancestors did” (Judg. 2:22). He left Israel’s opponents alone, Scripture says, “for the testing of Israel, to know whether Israel would obey the commandments of the LORD” (Judg. 3:4). And, finally, the Lord commanded the Israelites to gather only enough bread from heaven for one day while they walked in the wilderness in order to “test them whether they will follow my instruction or not” (Exod. 16:4).
Note carefully, these verses do not say that the purpose of the testing was for the covenant partners to know their own hearts. The explicitly stated purpose was for God “to know” how they would incline their hearts. How can this be reconciled with the view that God eternally knows exactly what will be in the heart of a person to do? How is it compatible with the classical assumption that God never comes to know anything, for his knowledge is unchanging? I see no viable way of reconciling this view with Scripture.
If we accept that the future is partly open, however, and if free agents resolve their hearts only when they decide on a course of action, then these verses make perfect sense. Except in cases in which a solidified character or God’s predestining plan makes people predictable (see chapter 1), Scripture teaches us that God literally finds out how people will choose when they choose. He made us self-determining agents, and prior to our determining ourselves in one direction or another, the only reality that exists for God to know concerning our future action is the possible directions we may take.
Divine Testing and Divine Disappointment
It’s also interesting to note that many times the outcomes of these tests were not what God hoped for. For example, Psalm 95:10–11 and Hebrews 3:7–10 describe God’s frustration with Israel regarding their hardness toward him “on the day of testing” (Heb. 3:8). This raises the question as to why God strove with Israel for forty years and then for centuries after they entered the Promised Land if he was certain from the outset that they would grieve him (see Eph. 4:30)? Why test someone you know will flunk—and then experience grief over the flunking—when you were certain ahead of time what would happen?
The fact that God tested people “to know” their behavior suggests that he didn’t know what they’d choose ahead of time, and that it was, from God’s vantage point, genuinely possible for these people to pass (or fail) the test.
God Speaks in Terms of What May or May Not Be
Sixth, the motif of future openness is expressed by the way the Lord often talks about the future in Scripture. If everything was settled in God’s mind from all eternity as the classical view holds, you would expect God to speak of the future in absolute terms. There would be no “maybes” for God. Remarkably, however, the Bible records numerous examples of God speaking in terms of what might or might not happen. Since God is omniscient and knows reality exactly as it is, these passages suggest that the future consists in part of things that might or might not happen.
They “May” Believe
One of the most interesting examples of this is when God tries to convince Moses to be his representative to the elders of Israel who are in bondage to Pharaoh. The Lord initially tells Moses that the elders will listen to his voice (Exod. 3:18). Moses apparently doesn’t hold to the classical view of divine foreknowledge, however, for he immediately asks, “suppose they do not believe me or listen to me?” (Exod. 4:1).
God’s response to him suggests that God doesn’t hold to this view of foreknowledge either. He first demonstrates a miracle “so that they may believe that the LORD … has appeared to you” (4:5). Moses remains unconvinced, so the Lord performs a second miracle and comments, “If they will not believe you or heed the first sign, they may believe the second sign” (4:8). How can the Lord say, “they may believe”? Isn’t the future behavior of the elders a matter of certainty for the Lord? Apparently not. Indeed, the Lord continues, “If they will not believe even these two signs or heed you, you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground; and the water that you shall take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground” (4:9).
If the future is exhaustively settled, God would of course have known exactly how many miracles, if any, it would take to get the elders to believe Moses. In that case, the meaning of the words he chose (“may,” “if”) could not be sincere. 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.
This verse demonstrates that God is perfectly confident in his ability to achieve the results he is looking for (getting the elders of Israel to listen to Moses) even though he works with free agents who are, to some extent, unpredictable. That the Israelites would get out of Egypt was certain; how many miracles it would take to pull this off depended on the free choices of some key people. This is a picture of a God who is as creative and resourceful as he is wise and powerful.
The Glory of True Divine Sovereignty
As noted in the previous chapter, we have difficulty fathoming such a creative, wise, and lovingly powerful sovereignty. And this, perhaps, explains why many are inclined to assume that God needs an exhaustive blueprint of what is coming in order to accomplish his purposes. If we simply allow biblical texts to say what they seem to say, however, we are led to embrace the conclusion that God is so wise, resourceful, and sovereign over history that he doesn’t need or want to have everything in the future settled ahead of time. He is so confident in his power and wisdom that he is willing to grant an appropriate degree of freedom to humans (and angels) to determine their own futures.
In my view, every other understanding of divine providence to some extent diminishes the sovereignty and glory of God. It brings God’s wisdom and power down to the level of finite human thinking. We would need to control or possess a blueprint of all that is to occur ahead of time to steer world history effectively. But the true God is far wiser, far more powerful, and far more secure than we could ever imagine.
Remember whom we are speaking about. This is the omnipotent Creator who “flexes his omnipotent muscle,” as it were, by being born in a stable, growing up with the stigma of being an illegitimate child, hanging out with sinners, and dying a God-forsaken death on the cross! To the natural understanding, this is foolishness, but to the apostle Paul, it is the wisdom and power of God (1 Cor. 1:18). This demonstrates that the normal human way of thinking about sovereignty only as control is misguided (see Matt. 20:25–28). God is so sovereign, he chooses to save the world by allowing himself to become weak.
Since Jesus is for believers the very definition of God (John 1:18; 14:7–10; Heb. 1:3), we must not think of the cross as an exception to the way God really is. Rather, the cross constitutes the supreme example of the way God is. God rules by love, not control. God’s unchanging gracious character leads him to change in response to us. God’s glory is displayed in his allowing himself to be affected by us. And God’s sovereignty partly consists in his openness to us and to the future we help create.
Speaking in Conditional Terms
We have been arguing that the way God speaks about the future in conditional terms is evidence that the future is partly open. It may prove helpful to provide just a few more examples of this pervasive tendency.
In Exodus 13:17, for example, we learn that the Lord decided against leading Israel along the shortest route to Canaan because Israel would have had to fight the Philistines. The Lord thought it best to avoid this, saying, “Lest the people change their minds when they see war, and they return to Egypt.” The New International Version translates this, “If they face war they might change their minds and return to Egypt.” If we accept this language as inspired by God, doesn’t it clearly imply that God considered the possibility, but not the certainty, that the Israelites would change their minds if they faced battle?
In an even more impressive example, the Lord had Ezekiel symbolically enact Israel’s exile as a warning, telling him, “Perhaps they will understand, though they are a rebellious house” (Ezek. 12:3). As it turns out, Israel did not “understand.” If God was certain all along that Israel would not understand, how can we avoid the conclusion that he was lying when he told Ezekiel they might understand? Indeed, if the “perhaps” that the Lord spoke didn’t indicate a real possibility to God, one wonders what the point of this symbolic enactment was in the first place.
Similarly, the Lord commanded Jeremiah to preach to the cities of Judah, telling him, “It may be that they will listen … and will turn from their evil way, that I may change my mind about the disaster that I intend to bring on them because of their evil doings” (Jer. 26:3). Jeremiah’s preaching did not bring about the result God hoped for, which leads to this question: If God was certain the Judeans would not repent, was he not lying when he led Jeremiah to believe that they might repent? Indeed, if God never really changes his mind, was he not misleading Jeremiah and all the people by encouraging them to think of him as one who might change his mind (see Jer. 26:19)?
If we hold that the future is somewhat open, then passages such as these make perfect sense. When God gave Ezekiel and Jeremiah their assignments, there was at least a chance that people would respond favorably to them. God knows all of reality exactly as it is, so God had a perfect knowledge of what this chance was. He spoke genuinely when he told Ezekiel and Jeremiah that the people might understand and repent. The fact that the Israelites refused to understand or repent simply explains why God said “perhaps” and “maybe” instead of “surely.”
“If It Is Possible”
Yet another impressive example of the Lord speaking about the future in open terms is found in Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus “threw himself on the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me’ ” (Matt. 26:39). As we saw in the previous chapter, if anything was fixed in the mind of God ahead of time, it was that the Son of God was going to be crucified. Indeed, Jesus himself had been teaching this very truth to his disciples (Matt. 12:40; 16:21; John 2:19). This makes it all the more amazing that Jesus makes one last attempt to change his Father’s plan “if it is possible.”
The prayer reveals that in the mind of Jesus there was at least a theoretical chance that another course of action could be taken “at the eleventh hour.” It was not possible, of course, so Jesus was crucified. Yet this doesn’t negate the fact that Jesus’ prayer presupposes that divine plans and possible future events are, in principle, alterable. In short, Jesus’ prayer evidences the truth that the future is at least partly open, even if his own fate was not.
Hastening the Lord’s Return
Closely related to the conditional way the Lord sometimes speaks about the future in Scripture is the flexible way inspired biblical authors describe the future. This constitutes the seventh aspect of the motif of future openness we need to discuss.
For example, Peter addresses a group of Christians who are discouraged that the Lord’s promised return has been taking so long. He tells them that the Lord has delayed his coming because he is “patient with you, not wanting any to perish” (2 Peter 3:9). He then encourages them to be “waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God” (3:12) [“speed its coming,” NIV].
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. But how is this teaching compatible with the view that everything, including the timing of the second coming, is eternally fixed in God’s mind? What is the point of talking about God’s delay due to his patience or encouraging believers to speed up Christ’s return by how they live if in reality the exact time has been settled from all eternity?
The “Day and Hour” of the Coming
Part of the reason believers have generally assumed that the timing of the second coming is settled is that Jesus told us that “about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Mark 13:32). The meaning of this statement must be considered in relation to 2 Peter 3:9–12. In other words, we cannot simply decide to believe one passage and ignore the other.
As it turns out, there is no difficulty in affirming both texts. Jesus’ statement can easily be understood as an idiomatic way of saying that it lies in the Father’s authority, no one else’s, to finally decide when the second coming will occur. It need not mean that the Father has already set the exact date.
For example, I may respond to my daughter’s question about when she will be old enough to date boys by saying, “I alone know when it’s time.” But this doesn’t mean that the exact date is already fixed in my mind. It simply means that it’s in my authority to determine this. I know the kind of maturity I’m looking for to tell me that she’s ready to start dating, though I am not certain as to exactly how long it will take for her to acquire this.
Indeed, to press the analogy a bit further, I may actually encourage her to “hasten the day” by acting in a certain manner. So too, we can readily understand how the Lord could tell us that the Father alone “knows about that day or hour” of his return while also, through Peter, encouraging us to speed it up.
Why Create Condemned People?
Another aspect of this passage is worth mentioning. Peter tells us that the delay in Christ’s return is due to the fact that God doesn’t want “any to perish, but all to come to repentance” (3:9). God wants everyone he’s created to turn to him. If everything about the future was settled before God ever created the world, however, God would of course have known exactly who would and would not respond to him. This not only creates difficulties understanding the meaning of God patiently delaying his return as he holds out hope for others to repent, it also raises the even more poignant question as to why God would create people he is certain will go to hell in the first place.
It is not difficult to understand why God sorrowfully allows people to choose evil and hell once he creates them. To take back freedom once it is given on the grounds that it is being used wrongly would mean that freedom was never given in the first place. This risk is inherent in creating free beings. But it is very difficult to understand why God gives freedom to beings he is certain are going to misuse it to the point of damning themselves to eternal hell. If it is better to never have been born than to suffer in hell, as Jesus says (Matt. 26:24), and if God always does the best thing, why would he not simply refrain from creating these condemned people?
Even more puzzling is the fact that God continues to strive with these people, trying to get them to believe. He is grieved when they resist him (see Isa. 63:10; Eph. 4:30; Acts 7:51; Heb. 3:8, 15; 4:7). Why would God expend this energy and experience this frustration if it was from all eternity a foregone conclusion that these fated people would not yield to his loving influence? Conversely, doesn’t the fact that God sincerely tries to get these people to believe imply that it was not certain to God that they would not believe when he created them?
Blotting Out from the Book of Life
Similarly, several times in Scripture God warns people that he may blot their names out of the Book of Life (Exod. 32:33; Rev. 3:5; cf. Rev. 22:18). This raises an interesting question: If God foreknew from all eternity that certain names would be “blotted out” of his book, why did he bother to put them there in the first place? If God may indeed “take away [a] … person’s share in the tree of life and in the holy city” (Rev. 22:19), and God knew this would happen, why did he give them a share in the first place? If we take these verses at face value, doesn’t this “blotting out” and “taking away” describe a genuine change in God’s attitude toward these people? And doesn’t this change entail that the eternal destiny of these people was not fixed in God’s mind from the start?
As the texts stand, they give us every reason to believe that God truly planned on saving these people, which is why their names were written in the book and they were given “a share” of the Tree of Life. Then they rebelled, so his plan for them was altered. They were “blotted out” and their share “taken away.” If these texts don’t teach us this much, it is not at all clear what they are intended to teach.
From an open view perspective, God creates the people he creates because he sees the possibility (but not the certainty) that they will become citizens of the eternal kingdom. He genuinely strives to win everyone because he hopes that they will surrender to him. When they meet the condition of salvation by exercising faith in him, he writes them in his book. When the condition is lost, so are they. The God who loves the entire world (John 3:16) is genuinely grieved when this happens. He knows that their loss was not inevitable. They could have, should have, and would have been his children.
So far as I can see, the open view makes better sense out of this wealth of biblical references than the view that people’s destinies are certain before they are ever born.
Jeremiah 18 and the Flexible Potter
The final aspect of the motif of future openness we need to examine is also the strongest. Numerous times in Scripture we find that God changes his mind in response to events that transpire in history. By definition, one cannot change what is permanently fixed. Hence, every time the Bible teaches us that God changes his mind it is teaching us that God’s mind is not permanently fixed. This directly contradicts the classical understanding of foreknowledge. It means that some of what God knows regarding the future consists of things that may go one way or another. He adjusts his plans—changes his mind—depending on what does or does not take place.
This is not merely a logical deduction I am making. It is the explicit teaching of Scripture. Perhaps the best example of this is found in Jeremiah 18. Many in Israel had heard that the Lord was planning on punishing her for her wickedness and had wrongly assumed that this meant “It is no use!” (Jer. 18:12). If God has prophesied against us, they reasoned, there is nothing that can be done about it. It seems that they were reading into God’s prophecy the assumption that the future was unalterable.
To correct this fatalistic thinking, the Lord directed Jeremiah to go to a potter’s house to watch a potter at work. “The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him” (v. 4). The Lord then instructed Jeremiah: “Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done?… Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel” (v. 6).
The Lord then continues:
At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it (vv. 7–10).
The Lord then applies this teaching to Israel: “Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings” (v. 11). There are several points worth making regarding this remarkable passage.
A Virtuously Flexible Omnipotence
First, many ancient and contemporary interpreters have used the potter/clay analogy to argue that God exercises unilateral control over us. They mistakenly read Paul to be using the analogy in this fashion (Rom. 9:21–23). Entering into a full discussion of Paul’s analogy would take us too far astray (see chapter 4, question 13). What is important for us to note is that in Jeremiah (the passage Paul is alluding to), the analogy is used to make the exact opposite point. As the potter was willing to revise his vessel once the first plan was “spoiled,” so God is willing to revise his initial plan when circumstances call for it. He is not a unilaterally controlling God; he is a graciously flexible God. The “clay” he works with is not lifeless but has a mind and will of its own, to which he responds appropriately.
Change and Certainty
Second, we must take very seriously the Lord’s word in Jeremiah 18 that he will “change [his] mind about the disaster that [he] intended to bring” on one nation (v. 8) and/or “change [his] mind about the good [he] had intended to do to” another nation, if these nations change (v. 10). If the future were exhaustively fixed, could the Lord genuinely intend to bring something about and then genuinely change his mind and not bring it about? How can someone sincerely intend to do something they are certain they will never do? And how can they truly change their mind if their mind is eternally made up?
Is the “Change” Merely Appearance?
Classical theologians usually argue that texts that attribute change to God describe how he appears to us; they do not depict God as he really is. It looks like God changed his mind, but he really didn’t.
Unfortunately for the classical interpretation, the text does not say, or remotely imply, that it looks like the Lord intended something and then changed his mind. Rather, the Lord himself tells us in the plainest terms possible that he intended one thing and then changed his mind and did something else. How can God’s stated intention be explained as an appearance? There is simply no reason to interpret language about changeable aspects of God less literally than language about unchangeable aspects of God.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that God wanted to tell us in Scripture that he really does sometimes intend to carry out one course of action and that he really does sometimes change his mind and not do it. How could he tell us this in terms clearer than he did in this passage? He says here (and many other places), “I change my mind.” How could he say it any clearer? If this passage doesn’t teach us that God can truly change his intentions, what would a passage that did teach this look like?
I suggest that if this text isn’t enough to convince us that God’s mind is not eternally settled, then our philosophical presuppositions are controlling our exegesis to a degree that no text could ever teach us this. People who affirm the divine authority of Scripture do not want to be guilty of this charge.
The Virtue of Changeability
Fourth, while classical theologians have always considered the notion that God changes his mind as denoting a weakness on God’s part, this passage and several others (Jonah 4:2; Joel 2:12–13) consider God’s willingness to change to be one of God’s attributes of greatness. When a person is in a genuine relationship with another, willingness to adjust to them is always considered a virtue. Why should this apply to people but not to God?
On the contrary, since God is the epitome of everything we deem praiseworthy, and since we ordinarily consider responsiveness to be praiseworthy, should we not be inclined to view God as the most responsive being imaginable? He never changes his perfect character, of course, for this would not be praiseworthy. But as Scripture indicates, he is wonderfully willing and able to adjust his plans and emotions as his relationship with us calls for it. The Israelites were mistaken precisely because they didn’t appreciate this aspect of God’s greatness (Jer. 18:12).
God Is Not a Human That He Should Change
Finally, we must reconcile Jeremiah 18 and all the other passages that speak of God “changing his mind” with Samuel’s statement to Saul that “the Glory of Israel will not recant or change his mind; for he is not a mortal, that he should change his mind” (1 Sam. 15:29). A nearly identical statement was made by Balaam when he told Balak, “God is not a human being, that he should lie, or a mortal, that he should change his mind” (Num. 23:19). Some defenders of the classical view of foreknowledge seize these two verses and insist that, unlike all the verses that describe God changing his mind, these do not speak figuratively or in terms of how things appear. These verses rather describe God as he really is—one who does not change his mind.
A closer examination of both passages reveals that they do not contradict the teaching that God changes his mind and do not speak about God any more literally than the passages in which God does change his mind.
God Will Not Change—But He Could
Regarding Samuel’s statement to Saul, it is important to recall that both before and after this verse we find Scripture explicitly teaching that God regretted making Saul king over Israel (1 Sam. 15:11, 35). He intended to bless him but ended up judging him instead (1 Sam. 13:13–14). We cannot declare the middle verse to be literal and the other two nonliteral just because the middle verse might fit best with our theological preconceptions. There is no indication in the text of a switch from literal to nonliteral speech.
Some argue that we must consider that some sort of switch occurs, for otherwise we would have to assume that the Bible contradicts itself (in the space of a dozen verses or so!). If we carefully read each verse in context, however, we find that there is no contradiction between them, even if we interpret them all literally.
It’s important to note that Samuel had prayed all night trying to change the Lord’s mind regarding Saul’s dethronement (1 Sam. 15:11–12). This alone is enough to demonstrate that Samuel believed that God could, in principle, change his mind about things. It’s just that, after trying all night, he came to conclude that in this instance God wouldn’t change his mind. There is a big difference between “couldn’t” and “wouldn’t.” The classical view of divine foreknowledge teaches the former, but Scripture on occasion teaches the latter. We find several examples of God declaring, “I will not change my mind” (Ezek. 24:14; Zech. 8:14). But note carefully, these exceptions prove the rule. It is only meaningful for God to say he will not change his mind if it is true that he could change his mind if he wanted to, and if it is true that many times he does want to (see Jer. 18:7–10; Jonah 4:2; Joel 2:12–13).
First Samuel 15:29 does not teach that God couldn’t change his mind, only that in this instance he wouldn’t change it. Perhaps if Saul had truly repented of his sin instead of begging Samuel to change things with a purely selfish motive (v. 27), God would have reversed his decision once again. Unfortunately, Saul gave God no reason to forgive him or restore him. And, unlike fallible and fickle humans, God can’t be cajoled into altering his plans for any reasons other than those that are consistent with his unchanging holy character.
God’s Prophecies Are Not for Hire
Something similar may be said regarding Numbers 23:19. In this passage, Balak attempted to get Balaam (a “prophet-for-hire”) to prophesy what he wanted to hear (22:38–23:17). The Lord informed Balak that he, the true God, is not like a human being who can lie when it’s profitable or a mortal who will change his mind for the sake of convenience. This was a common practice for false prophets who spoke on behalf of false gods. But for the first time in his life, Balak (and Balaam!) had confronted the real God. This God is not like a mortal who would change his mind for the reasons Balak gave him to do so.
We see that there is no good reason to interpret these two passages more literally than those that teach us God can and does change his mind. If read in context, both sets of verses may be affirmed as accurately depicting God as he really is. God’s mind is unchanging in every way that it is virtuous to be unchanging but open to change in every way that it is virtuous to be open. No contradiction needs to be resolved. No strained reinterpretation of a major motif of Scripture is needed. The only thing required is that we accept that the future is partly open as well as partly settled, and thus that God is not only the God of what will certainly be but also the God of all possibilities.
Reversed Divine Intentions
Jeremiah 18 is hardly alone in explicitly declaring the truth that God changes his mind when circumstances call for it. Let us consider several other examples.
Dispatched to Destroy
In 1 Chronicles 21:15, for example, we are told that the Lord, in his righteous anger, “sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it.” However, “when he was about to destroy it, the LORD relented concerning the calamity.” We have to wonder: Could the Lord genuinely have intended “to destroy” Jerusalem—to the point of actually dispatching an angel to accomplish the task—if he was certain from the start that he wouldn’t destroy the city? If God always knew he wouldn’t destroy it, isn’t Scripture simply wrong in claiming that God sent the angel “to destroy it”?
Note also how impossible it is to dismiss texts such as this one as speaking only in terms of appearances, not reality. The information that this inspired text imparts to us concerns a subjective motive on God’s part that we would not have known about had Scripture not revealed it.
An Expanded Life
Along similar lines, in 2 Kings 20:1–6 the Lord tells Hezekiah through an inspired prophet that he would not recover from his sickness; he would die. Hezekiah pleaded with him, however, and as a result the Lord reversed his stated intention: “I will add fifteen years to your life” (v. 6). Jeremiah later encouraged the fatalistic Israelites by reminding them of this great reversal. “Did [Hezekiah] not fear the LORD and entreat the favor of the LORD, and did not the LORD change his mind about the disaster that he had pronounced?” (Jer. 26:19).
Now, if we accept the classical view of foreknowledge and suppose that the Lord was certain that he would not let Hezekiah die, wasn’t he being duplicitous when he initially told Hezekiah that he would not recover? And if we suppose that the Lord was certain all along that Hezekiah would, in fact, live fifteen years after this episode, wasn’t it misleading for God to tell him that he was adding fifteen years to his life? Wouldn’t Jeremiah also be mistaken in announcing that God changed his mind when he reversed his stated intentions to Hezekiah—if, in fact, God’s mind never really changes?
Further Examples of Divine Mind Changes
This theme is far more pervasive in Scripture than most believers realize. Consider briefly the following small sampling.
Exodus 32:14. Because of Moses’ intercessory prayer, “the LORD changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.” David later recounts this episode when he notes that the Lord “said he would destroy them—had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him, to turn away his wrath from destroying them” (Psalm 106:23). Did God really plan on destroying Israel, and did he really change his mind?
Exodus 33:1–3, 14. In the light of Moses’ pleading, the Lord reversed his plan not to go with the Israelites into Egypt. Was God simply toying with Moses when he told them he was planning on not going?
Deuteronomy 9:13–29. The Lord “intended to destroy” the Israelites (v. 25), and was even “ready to destroy” Aaron (v. 20). Moses’ forty-day intercession altered God’s intention (vv. 25–29). Is Scripture speaking truly when it tells us God intended to do something he later decided not to do? Could God truly intend to do something he was eternally certain he wouldn’t do?
1 Samuel 2:27–31. Because Eli “scorned” God’s sacrifices and did not punish his sons for their vile behavior, the Lord says, “ ‘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! Those who honor me I will honor, but those who despise me will be disdained. The time is coming when I will cut short your strength and the strength of your father’s house’ ” (vv. 30–31 NIV). Could God have authentically promised Eli something he eternally knew would never take place?
1 Kings 21:21–29. The Lord tells Ahab, “I will bring disaster on you” because of his sin (v. 21). Ahab humbles himself before God, and the Lord responds: “Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the disaster in his days” (v. 29). Is not the easiest reading of texts such as these one that simply admits that God truly intended to bring disaster and then changed his mind in response to human repentance?
2 Chronicles 12:5–8. The Lord was going to allow the Israelites to be conquered because of King Rehoboam’s rebellion. “You abandoned me, so I have abandoned you to the hand of Shishak” (v. 5). The king and his officers repent, so the Lord changes his plan. “They have humbled themselves; I will not destroy them … my wrath shall not be poured out on Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak” (v. 7). Could God really intend to deliver the Israelites over to Shishak if he was eternally certain he wouldn’t?
Jeremiah 26:2–3. The Lord tells Jeremiah to prophesy to Israel that they should repent, saying, “I may change my mind about the disaster that I intend to bring on [Israel] because of their evil doings” (v. 3). If in truth God never changes his mind, is he not lying when he tells the Israelites that he might do so? Is there not something odd going on in evangelicalism today when certain believers (open theists) are labeled heretical for taking God’s promise (“I may change my mind”) literally? Indeed, isn’t the point of this and similar passages (see Jer. 18:7–10; 26:19; Joel 2:12–13; Jonah 4:2) precisely to encourage people to think about God as one who really is willing to change his mind? Can anyone be faulted for taking this encouragement to heart?
Ezekiel 4:9–15. As an object lesson, the Lord tells Ezekiel to cook some food using human excrement as fuel (vv. 12–13). Ezekiel finds this too offensive and objects. So the Lord says, “I will let you use cow’s dung instead of human dung” (v. 15). The passage reveals God’s willingness to adjust his plans in response to the sentiments of his children. What was the point of God’s first command if he was certain he would revise it in the light of Ezekiel’s objection?
Amos 7:1–6. The Lord revealed two judgments he was planning on bringing upon Israel. Twice Amos intercedes, and twice Scripture says, “The LORD relented concerning this …” (vv. 3, 6). Was the Lord simply toying with Amos when he showed him what he planned on doing to Israel? Is there any other way to view God’s interaction with Amos if we believe that God was certain all along that he wasn’t going to bring these visions about?
Jonah 3:10. God “changed his mind” about the destruction he planned to carry out on Nineveh. Note, neither this nor any other verse says or even remotely suggests that God appeared to change his mind. It simply says, in as plain and straightforward a way as can be imagined, that God “changed his mind.”
The list could be expanded, but the point has been made (see the appendix for further examples). Clearly, the motif that God changes his mind is not an incidental one in Scripture. It runs throughout the biblical narrative and is even exalted as one of his praiseworthy attributes. It is very difficult to see how passages such as these can be fairly interpreted if we assume that the future is exhaustively settled and known by God as such.
If we simply free ourselves from the Hellenistic philosophical assumptions that God must be unchanging in every respect and that time is an illusion, we will be able to embrace the plain meaning of these texts along with the glorious picture of divine sovereignty and openness that they engender. God is not only the God of future certainties; he’s the God of future possibilities.
Conclusion
In this chapter, we have examined the scriptural themes that together constitute the biblical motif of future openness. These passages suggest that the future is partly open just as clearly as the passages that constitute the motif of future determinism depict the future as partly settled. Put together, and taken at their face value, these two motifs lead us to the simple conclusion that the future is partly open and partly settled.
Classical theology cannot accept this conclusion because of philosophical preconceptions of what God must be like: He must be in every respect unchanging, so his knowledge of the future must be unchanging. This is why those holding this view were forced to reinterpret the motif of future openness in strained ways, as we have seen.
Because of this philosophical presupposition, God is not allowed to say what he wants to say in Scripture. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that God wanted to tell us he really does change his mind. How could he do so in terms clearer than he did in passages such as Jeremiah 18:8 and 10 in which he explicitly tells us, “I will change my mind”? Or suppose, for the sake of argument, that God wanted to tell us he really does regret certain decisions he’s made and really does experience unexpected disappointment. How could he do so in terms clearer than he did in passages such as 1 Samuel 15:11 in which he explicitly tells us, “I regret that I made Saul king,” or Jeremiah 3:7 in which he tells us, “I thought … ‘she will return to me’; but she did not return”? It’s difficult to conceive of how God could be more explicit. The fact that verses as explicit as these aren’t allowed to communicate that God really changes his mind or experiences regret or unexpected disappointment testifies to the truth that the classical exegesis of these passages is driven by philosophy rather than by the texts. If these verses aren’t allowed to teach these truths, no verse ever could. In short, it seems that what Scripture is allowed to teach about God has been decided ahead of time—on the basis of a philosophical preconception of what God must be like.
On the other hand, if we simply accept the plain meaning of Scripture, we learn that God sometimes regrets how decisions he’s made turn out. He sometimes questions how aspects of the future will go. Other times he confronts the unexpected and experiences frustration because free agents choose unlikely courses of action. We learn that many times God tests his children “to know” their character, which is being formed by their decisions. Often God speaks and thinks in terms of what may or may not occur. And, we have seen, many times he genuinely changes his mind about intended courses of action.
If we do not read into this material a philosophical preconception about what God must be like, we have no problem affirming this motif of future openness alongside the motif of future determinism. Indeed, the two motifs are complementary and together constitute the one perspective that squares with our actual experience of the world. As noted in the previous chapter, with every decision we make we assume that the future is partly open and partly settled.
This concludes our investigation of the biblical side of the open theism debate. Two more tasks remain to be accomplished, however. First, since the pragmatic viability of a theory is one test of its truthfulness, we must flesh out some of the practical implications of the open view. This will be our goal in the next chapter. Second, since the ability of a theory to answer difficult objections is another test of its truthfulness, I will respond to the most common philosophical and theological objections to the open view in the fourth and final chapter of this work.
