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
Neo-Molinism and the Infinite Intelligence of God
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 “possible world.” In this essay I argue that classical Molinism overlooked a whole category of truths that an omniscient God…
Isn’t Open Theism outside of historic orthodoxy?
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 and it has never been called “heresy” (until in mid 1990s when some started using this label). According to some…
Podcast: Is an Open Future World a Logically Possible World?
Greg gets technical in this abstract, yet profound, introduction to an open theist’s interpretation of the square of opposition. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0217.mp3
What is the significance of Ezekiel 22:29–31?
The Lord says he “sought for” someone to stand in the breech for Israel “but I found none.” Hence Israel experienced the wrath of God. If everything that shall ever come to pass is eternally fixed in the divine mind, God would have foreknown that no one would respond to his call for a Moses-like…
Does The Open View Limit God?
Suppose you and I both agree that God is omniscient and thus knows all of reality, but we disagree over, say, the number of trees on a certain plot of land. I say there are 1,300 and you say there are 2,300. You wouldn’t say that I am limiting God because he knows fewer trees…
What Would You Do If Someone Attacked Your Family?
The New Testament commands us never to “repay evil with evil” but instead to “overcome evil with good” (Rom.12:17; cf. I Thess 5:15; I Pet 3:9). Jesus said, “Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also”(Mt 5:39). He also said, “Love your enemies, do good…