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 John 6:64, 70–71?
Jesus told his disciples, “‘But among you there are some who do not believe.’ For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him” (vs. 64). Jesus continued, “‘Did I not choose you, the twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.’ He was speaking of Judas son of Simon Iscariot, for he, though one of the twelve, was going to betray him.”
Those who hold that the future is eternally settled and that God knows it as such sometimes cite this verse as evidence that Jesus foreknew, from all eternity, that Judas would betray him. They base this upon a questionable interpretation of the phrase “from the first” (arche). However, the phrase need not imply that Jesus knew who would betray him from a time before the person decided in their heart to betray him (let alone from all eternity, as the classical doctrine requires). It can more plausibly be taken to mean that Jesus knew who would betray him early on (cf. Phil. 4:15), either from the moment this person resolved to betray him, or from the time Jesus chose him to be a disciple.
In either case, eternal and exhaustively definite divine foreknowledge is not necessary. All that is required is God’s perfect knowledge of a person’s inner motivations in the present.
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism
Verse: John 6
Related Reading
How do you respond to Exodus 21:12–13?
“Whoever strikes a person mortally shall be put to death. If it was not premeditated, but came about by an act of God, then I will appoint for you a place to which the killer may flee.” Compatibilists sometimes argue that this passage shows that fatal accidents are acts of God. The Hebrew does not…
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…
Why do you espouse Open Theism?
Open Theism refers to the belief that God created a world in which possibilities are real. It contrasts with Classical Theism which holds that all the facts of world history are eternally settled, either by God willing them so (as in Calvinism) or simply in God’s knowledge (as in Arminianism). Open Theists believe God created…
God’s Love and Your Freedom
The most distinctive aspect of the revelation of God in Christ is Jesus’ demonstration that God relies on love to defeat his enemies and to accomplish his purposes. More than anything else, it was the perfect love of God revealed in the incarnation, ministry, and self-sacrificial death of Jesus that in principle defeated evil and…
How do you respond to John 21:18–19?
Jesus says to Peter, “‘[W]hen you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.’ (He said this to…
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…