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 Galatians 1:15–16?
“…when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me…I did not confer with any human being…”
As with Jeremiah (Jer. 1:5), John the Baptist (Luke 1:13–17) and other God-ordained prophets, Paul was aware that God had decided on a unique vocation for him while he was yet forming in the womb. If we refrain from reading into the text a preconceived idea of what “set apart” and “called” entail, but rather simply allow Scripture to define these terms, I believe we will see that this setting apart and calling does not rule out the free will of the agent. Many of the things God plans, ordains and even announces ahead of time do not come to pass, for God has sovereignly created a world in which his will usually isn’t the only variable deciding what comes to pass: people and angels have freedom as well.
God certainly had a unique plan for Paul’s life and he went to great lengths to bring him into the Kingdom (Acts 9:1–5). But as Paul himself suggested to king Agrippa, he could have nevertheless been “disobedient to that heavenly vision” Acts 26:19). Had he done so, God would have raised up a different uniquely prepared servant to bring his message to the Gentiles and we would now know Saul of Tarsus only as an evil persecutor of early Christians.
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism, Responding to Objections
Verse: Galatians 1
Related Reading
What is the significance of Jeremiah 18:7–11?
The Lord states that “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.” But if a nation which he has declared he will bless “does evil in my sight…I will change my mind about the good that…
How can you put your trust in a God who’s not in control of everything?
Question: I read your book Is God to Blame? and found it to be very compelling. It’s rocking my world. But I’m also finding I’m now having trouble trusting God like I used to. I used to believe that God ordained or at least foreknew all that was going to happen. Now I’m questioning this, and I’m wondering…
Q&A: If God is So Great, Why Would He Care About Us?
Question: I’ve read that scientists estimate that the number of stars in the universe is 10 to the 24th power (10 with 24 zeros after it). I’m told that finding the earth amidst all these stars would be like finding one particular grain of sand in a sand pile the size of the United States piled…
What is the significance of 2 Chronicles 32:31?
“God left [Hezekiah] to himself, in order to test him and to know all that was in his heart.” God tests his covenant partners to discover whether they will choose to remain faithful to him, an exercise that is absurd if God exhaustively foreknows exactly how faithful every person will choose to be. If the…
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?
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 “the lamb that was slain.” For example, the TNIV translates this passage “All inhabitants of the earth will worship the…
If God shouldn’t get blamed when free agents do evil, why should he be thanked when they do good?
Scripture tells us that every good gift comes from God the Father who “does not change like shifting shadows” (Ja 1:17). I interpret this to mean that God is always good and that he’s always working for good. In all circumstances, Paul said, “God is working for the good” (Rom. 8:28). We live and move…