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 Jeremiah 29:10–11?
The Lord says to Israel, “Only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place [Jerusalem]. For surely I know the plans I have for you, says he Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.”
The Lord brought Israel back, as he had intended from the start, once Babylon’s ordained seventy year reign over them was complete. This is the Lord’s doing and requires no appeal to exhaustive definite foreknowledge to explain.
As for God’s plans for Israel’s welfare, the fact that Israel continued to struggle and suffer even after this declaration was made shows that God’s plans can be thwarted: they are rarely unalterable decrees. In a creation filled with free creatures, God’s will is not the only variable that counts in deciding how things unfold, either on a national or on an individual level. The Bible is full of examples of God having plans which, to his great disappointment, do not come to pass, for they require the cooperation of free moral agents (e.g. Jer. 3:6–7, 19–20; 2 Pet. 3:9–10). This does not undermine God’s sovereignty in the least, however, for it was God’s own decision to graciously grant people the ability to choose for or against him.
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism, Responding to Objections
Verse: Jeremiah 29
Related Reading
What is omni-resourcefulness?
Question: What do you mean when you refer to God’s omni-resourcefulness? Can you support this with Scripture? Answer: I and others use the term omni-resourcefulness to highlight a feature of God in Scripture that the classical theological tradition consistently overlooks. Part of the greatness of the God of the Bible, we argue, is that he…
Dealing With Objections to Open Theism, Part II
There are four major objections to Open Theism. In this post, we are dealing with the third and fourth. (See yesterday’s post to read about the first two.) Objection #3: God cannot foreknow only some of the future. It is often argued that for God to be certain of anything about the future, he must be…
What did Jesus mean when he said he came not to bring peace, but a sword (Mt 10:34)?
Given Jesus’ uniform teaching about loving enemies and abstaining from violence, and given that his followers were known for their refusal to engage in violence for the first three hundred years of church history, it’s obvious that Jesus wasn’t saying he came so that his disciples would use swords. The context of Jesus’ comment makes…
Why You Have Free Will
God’s decision to create a cosmos that was capable of love and that was, therefore, populated with free agents (see previous post) was also a decision to create and govern a world he could not unilaterally control. These are two aspects of the same decision. What it means for God to give agents some degree…
What is the significance of 2 Samuel 24:17–25?
“So the Lord answered [David’s] supplication for the land, and the plague was averted from Israel.” The passage suggests that the Lord intended the plague to judge Israel further but David’s supplication persuaded him to change his mind and relent from his punishment. If the future is to some degree open and God is genuinely…