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.
How do you respond to Acts 4:27–28?
“[B]oth Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.”
This passage is very close in content to Acts 2:23 (see How do you respond to Acts 2:23?). While it clearly teaches that the event of the crucifixion was predestined, it does not teach or suggest that the individuals who carried out this event were predestined to do so. God’s infinite intelligence and wise providence is demonstrated precisely in the ingenious way he balances his predetermined goals with the open-ended decisions of free agents. The magnitude of divine intelligence required to carry out this feat throughout history is incomprehensible. And this, I suggest, is one of the reasons why many find it easier to simply attribute exhaustively definite foreknowledge and/or an omni-controlling will to God. To preserve the unsurpassably exalted nature of God’s sovereignty, however, I believe we must resist this tendency and acknowledge that he faces a partly open future.
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism
Verse: Acts 4
Related Reading
What is the significance of 2 Kings 20:1–7?
The Lord tells Hezekiah “[Y]ou shall die: you shall not recover” (vs. 1). Hezekiah pleads with God and God says, “I will add fifteen years to your life” (vs. 6). If everything about the future was exhaustively settled and known by God as such, his prophecy to Hezekiah that he was going to die would…
Q&A: If Salvation Depends on our Free Choice, How are we Saved by Grace?
As a companion to today’s testimony and the link to Greg’s thoughts on Romans 9, we thought it would be helpful to post this Q&A on salvation by grace within the Open View of the future. Enjoy! Question: I’m an Arminian-turned-Calvinist, and the thing that turned me was the realization that if salvation hinges on whether…
What is the difference between “libertarian” and “compatibilistic” freedom?
Question: I often hear philosophers and theologians talk about “libertarian” and “compatibilistic” freedom. What do these terms mean? Answer: A person who holds to “libertarian” freedom believes that an agent (human or angelic) is truly free and morally responsible for their choices only if it resides in an agent’s power to determine his or her own choices. Their…
What is the significance of Hosea 8:5?
The Lord asks, “How long will they [Israel] be incapable of innocence?” The Lord’s continual striving with Israel regarding their lack of innocence suggests that this question was not merely rhetorical. If God knows the future to be eternally settled, however, he could not in earnest ask this (or any other) question about the future.…
Doesn’t the open view demean God’s sovereignty?
The Open view demeans God’s sovereignty only if one assumes that “sovereignty” means “meticulous control.” By why think this is the way God wants to rule the world? The biblical narrative presents a God who gives humans (and apparently angels) free will, who is flexible and creative in running the world, and who relies at…
How do you respond to 1 Timothy 4:1–3?
“…in the later times some will renounce the faith by paying attention to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared with a hot iron. They forbid marriage and demand abstinence from foods…” New Testament authors considered themselves to be living “in the later times” (e.g. Acts 2:17;…