We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

13867958675_b49f7acb57

The Open View of Messianic Prophesies

Image by Lawrence OP via Flickr

A number of passages speak of particular events being foreknown by God, even events resulting from individuals’ free will. For example, dozens of prophesies in the OT accurately predict details about the coming Messiah (e.g., he would be born in Bethlehem; arise out of the lineage of Abraham; be executed with criminals; have his side pierced; be buried with the rich; atone for the sins of many). Most of these predictions seem to involve future free decisions of individuals.

How are the messianic prophesies possible unless God possesses exhaustive definite foreknowledge?

In point of fact, however, these passages present no difficulty for the view of the future which is partly open. While the open view holds that humans must be free to the extent that they are capable of love, this freedom obviously has limits. Indeed, the concept of freedom is only meaningful against a backdrop of limited determinism. Our freedom is conditioned (but not extinguished) by our genes, our environment, our previous choices and acquired character, and most certainly God’s will. The open view of the future thus affirms that many aspects of the future are determined either by God or by inevitable consequences of present causes. It is therefore compatible with the biblical portrait of God as the sovereign Lord of history who knows all settled aspects of the future ahead of time, and who is able to determine whatever he wants to ahead of time to accomplish his objectives. There is therefore no logical problem in reconciling the biblical truth that the Lord predestined and foreknew various details about the Messiah.

However, in Acts 2:23 and 4:28, God seems to predestine a wicked deed (crucifying Jesus) while at the same time holding the perpetrators responsible for it. Does this undermine the claim that morally responsible free acts cannot be part of the future that is settled? Two points.

First, neither of these passages suggest that the individuals who crucified Jesus were predestined and foreknown. These verses only affirm that it was preordained and foreknown that the Messiah would be crucified. That Jesus would be killed was predetermined. Who would do it was not. As long as God knew that in certain circumstances there would be a certain percentage of people who would act as the wicked people spoken of in these passages acted, he could predestine and thus foreknow that the Messiah would be crucified without undermining the freedom of any individuals.

Second, the open view affirms that God at times predestines certain acts of wicked individuals, while denying that this predestining occurred before these individuals had freely resolved their own character. God would be morally culpable if he predestined people to carry out wicked acts prior to their birth. But he is not morally culpable if he chooses to direct the path of people who have already made themselves wicked.

Moral responsibility applies to the acquired character of self-determining agents even more fundamentally than it applies to the particular decisions agents make which reflect and reinforce their character. There is no contradiction in the claim that a person is morally responsible for an act even though they could not have done otherwise, so long as the character that now rendered their action certain flowed from a character they themselves acquired. It was not “infused” into them by God.

Hence, a person who has solidified his character as a greedy person by making multitudes of free decisions is morally culpable not only for all the further greedy acts he performs but also and even more fundamentally for being the kind of person he has freely become. Moral culpability is not just about people acting certain ways when they could have and should have acted differently. It’s more about people becoming certain kinds of people when they could have and should have become different kinds of people. If God decides that it fits his providential plan to use a person whose choices have solidified his character as wicked, God is not responsible for this person’s wickedness.

One final illustration: Scripture suggests that the Messiah’s betrayal was predestined and Jesus foreknew that Judas would betray him (Jn 6:64, 70-71, 13:18-19). This doesn’t contradict the view that morally responsible, self-determining actions cannot be predestined or foreknown as long as Judas was not in particular chosen to carry out this deed before Judas had made himself into the kind of person who would carry out this deed. After Judas unfortunately hardened himself into this kind of person, God wove his character into a providential plan. Jesus could then foreknow that Judas would be the one to betray him. But nothing suggests that it was God’s plan from eternity that Judas would play this role.

—Adapted from Satan and the Problem of Evil, pages 119-123

Related Reading

God is Flexible: Romans 9, Part 4

As we continue this series on Romans 9, [Here’s the link to the first post in the series.] today we will look at the famous potter/clay analogy. Most tend to interpret the potter and clay image as supporting the deterministic view of God. But in fact, it teaches just the opposite. This is the fifth argument…

What is the significance of Acts 21:10–12?

While Paul and Luke were making preparations to go and preach in Jerusalem, “a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea.” The prophet approached Paul, took his belt, and announced, “Thus says the Holy Spirit, ‘This is the way the Jews in Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and will hand him…

Topics:

What is the significance of Exodus 13:17?

The Lord didn’t lead Israel along the shortest route to Canaan because Israel would have had to fight the Philistines. The Lord wanted to avoid this, “Lest the people change their minds when they see war, and they return to Egypt.” [NIV: “If they face war they might change their minds and return to Egypt”].…

Topics:

How do you respond to Malachi 3:6?

“For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, have not perished.” Some cite this verse as evidence that God need never be flexible in his plans and change his mind. But this claim contradicts all the explicit declarations in Scripture which state that God does frequently modify his plans and…

Is God Good?

Andrew Stawarz via Compfight This reflection by David D. Flowers seemed like a good addition to Greg’s recent blogs on free will. Here David talks about the problem of evil and how it is that we can call God “good” in light of a world full of evil. He even quotes Greg extensively. From the…

Isn’t it true that God doesn’t know the future in the open view?

This is the single most common misconception people have about the open view. Open Theists and Classical Theists disagree about the nature of the future, not about how much God knows about it. Both sides grant that God knows everything. He is omniscient. He knows everything there is to know about all of reality, including…