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 Matthew 21:1–5?
Jesus commanded his disciples, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this: ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately” (vs. 1-4).
Though this verse is sometimes appealed to by defenders of the classical view, it does not support their view of an exhaustively settled future. For the Father to reveal this to Jesus he need only know all present circumstances: there’s a donkey and a colt tied up right now somewhere in Jerusalem. If the Lord needed to exercise some providential influence to get the owner of the animals to go along with Jesus’ request, that could be easily accomplished. The fact that Jesus speaks in conditional terms—“If anyone says anything to you”—shows that this is not an infallible preview of an unalterable future.
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism
Verse: Matthew 21
Related Reading
Sermon Clip: Does Romans 9 predestine you to Hell?
Did God predestine you to Hell? Can he even do that? In this short sermon clip, Greg Boyd talks about his own struggles when trying to understand Romans 9 which on the surface seems to imply that God determines who goes to heaven and hell. In the full sermon, Greg takes a deep look at…
Does God Intervene?
Given the vast influence of angelic and human free will, what influence does God have in determining what comes to pass? While God has an important role to play in anticipating and creatively responding to decisions agents make, is God only a responder? Does he have anything to do with what’s going on in creation?…
What is the biblical basis for “free will”?
Question: Much of your theology depends on a supposed ability humans have to thwart God’s will by our free choices. But what is the biblical basis for your conclusion that people have “freedom”—at least “freedom” in the sense that we can decide to go along with or thwart God’s will for our lives? Answer: Scripture…
Does the Open View Undermine God’s Sovereignty?
A common objection to the concept of a risk-taking God is that it seems to undermine God’s sovereignty. If any particular individual can opt out of God’s plan, then every individual could conceivably opt out of God’s plan, and it seems that God’s entire plan for world history could ultimately fail. Some have argued that…
How can people who believe the open view trust a God who doesn’t control the future and doesn’t know for sure what will happen?
It’s true that according to the open view of the future things can happen in our lives which God didn’t plan or even foreknow with certainty (though he always foreknew they were possible). In this view, trusting in God provides no assurance that everything that happens to us will reflect his divine purposes, for there…
Don’t Miss Out!
See that little sign-up button for our newsletter at the bottom of this page? If you don’t already get the newsletter, you’re going to want to now. You get all kinds of special goodies like book recommendations and exclusive video. This month’s issue (which is set to send on Monday) will include a video of Greg…