What is the significance of Acts 21:10–12?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism
Verse: Acts 21
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,…
What is the significance of Acts 27:10-44?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism
Verse: Acts 27
This is the passage deal with Paul’s ill-fated voyage to Italy as a prisoner. The ship ran into very bad weather and Paul announced, “Men, I can see that our voyage is going to be…
What is the significance of 2 Peter 3:9–12?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism
Verse: 2 Peter 3
Peter says that the Lord has delayed his coming because “he is patient with you, not wanting any to perish” (vs. 9). We are encouraged to be “looking for and hastening the coming of the…
What is the significance of Revelation 3:5?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism
Verse: Revelation 3
“If you conquer, you will be clothed like them in white robes, and I will not blot your name out of the book of life…” If God is only the God of certainties, it is…
What is the significance of Revelation 22:18?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism
Verse: Revelation 22
“If anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away that person’s share in the tree of life and in the holy city…” For God to “take away”…
What is Open Theism?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism What it is and is not
Open Theism is the view that God chose to create a world that included free agents, and thus a world where possibilities are real. The future is pre-settled, to whatever degree God wants to pre-settle…
Is it true you’re an “Open Theist” and that you don’t think God knows the future perfectly?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism What it is and is not
I am an “Open Theist” – though I honestly don’t care for the label, because as I’ll show, the uniqueness of this view isn’t in what it says about God but in what it says…
Isn’t Open Theism outside of historic orthodoxy?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism What it is and is not
The Church has never used one’s view of divine foreknowledge as a test for orthodoxy. And while the open view has always been a very minor perspective, it has had its defenders throughout Church history…
Why the 35W Bridge Collapsed – blog post 8/09/2007
Category: General
Tags: Current Events, Free Will, Open Theism, Predestination
Topics: Open Theism, The Problem of Evil
As all of you know, I’m sure, a little over a week ago the 35W bridge in Minneapolis collapsed. This is the most traveled bridge in Minnesota. It was a tragedy, though the fact that…
Isn’t it true that God doesn’t know the future in the open view?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism What it is and is not
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…
Revelation 13:8 refers to “everyone whose names have not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life.” How does that square with open theism?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Bible, Free Will, New Testament, Open Theism, Predestination, Q&A, Responding to Calvinism, Revelation
Topics: End Times, Providence, Predestination and Free Will, Responding to Objections
Verse: Revelation 13
Three possibilities exist in terms of reconciling Revelation 13:8 with open theism. 1) First, the “from the foundation of the world” clause can attach to either “everyone whose names have not been written” or to…
Revelation 17:8 refers to people whose names haven’t been written in “the book of life from the creation of the world.” Doesn’t this conflict with open theism?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Bible, End Times, New Testament, Open Theism, Q&A, Responding to Calvinism, Revelation
Topics: End Times, Providence, Predestination and Free Will, Responding to Objections
Verse: Revelation 17
As in Revelation 13:8, the clause “from the foundation” (apo kataboleis) need not mean “from before the foundation” but simply “from the foundation” (= since the foundation). It’s not that names either were or were…
Response to Bruce Ware’s “Defining Evangelicalism’s Boundaries: Is Open Theism Evangelical?”
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Open Theism
Topics: Responding to Objections
The following essay was written in response to Bruce Ware’s article, “Defining Evangelicalism’s Boundaries: Is Open Theism Evangelical?” Published in The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, June 2002. Introduction I want to begin by…
A Brief Outline and Defense of the Open View
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Open Theism
Topics: Defending the Open View, Open Theism What it is and is not
While many Christians have found the open view of the future to be the most helpful and accurate view of God’s foreknowledge of the future based on biblical, philosophical, and experiential evidence, others have criticized…
Scientific Support for the Open View
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Open Theism
Topics: Defending the Open View
If a position is true, every avenue of reflection ought to point in its direction. What follows are two more “pointers” to the view that the future is at least partly open (indefinite, composed of…
Neo-Molinism and the Infinite Intelligence of God
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Open Theism
Topics: Defending the Open View
Classical Molinism holds that, since God is omniscient and knows all truths, he knows not only what every agent will do in the future, but also what every agent would have done in every other…
Five Brief Philosophical Arguments for the Open View
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Open Theism, Philosophy
Topics: Defending the Open View
Introduction I believe that sound philosophical arguments support the open view in which God doesn’t foreknow the future free decisions of humans. My main reasons for holding this view are biblical and theological, but since…
Is Free Will compatible with Predestination?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Free Will, Predestination, Q&A
Topics: Free Will and the Future, Providence, Predestination and Free Will
Question: Isn’t “freedom” simply our ability to do what we want? And if this is so there seems to be no incompatibility between saying that a person is “free” on the one hand, but predestined…
How can we determine what is and is not “open” about the future?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Free Will and the Future
Question: You believe that the future is partly open. You’re writing has pretty much convinced me this is true, but I’ve still got some serious questions about it. For example, how does anyone determine what…
What is your perspective on the classical view that God is above time?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Classical Theism, God, Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Attributes and Character, Open Theism
In a major strand of hellenistic (Greek) philosophy, change was seen as being an imperfection. This idea was adopted by many early Church fathers and eventually became almost an assumed dogma of the Church. It…