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.

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 beast—all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world. ” So it is with many translations of this passage. If this is correct, the passage suggests that the crucifixion of Christ was part of Gods’ plan from the beginning, but not that people’s names were or were not written in “the book of life” from the foundation of the world.

2) The phrase “from the foundation” (apo kataboleis) can mean “from before” or “from the time of” (=since). So even if we attach the phrase to “everyone whose name has not been written…” the passage need only refer to those who didn’t enter into eternal life from the beginning of the world – that is, throughout history. As history progresses, God (metaphorically of course) puts into his “book of life” all people who enter into a life-giving relationship with him.

3) Several times in Scripture God warns people that he may blot their names out of the book of life (Exod. 32:33; Rev. 3:5, cf. Rev. 22:18). In this light, it seems we should not think that having one’s name in or out of “the book of life” is a permanent thing. On a side note, if names were written (or not written?) in the book of life before the world began, and if one can’t add or detract from this book, one might legitimately wonder what these passages mean.

Applied to the foreknowledge debate, if God foreknew from all eternity that certain names would be “blotted out” of his book, one has to wonder why God bothered to put them there in the first place? If God may indeed “take away [a]… person’s share in the tree of life and in the holy city” (Rev. 22:19), and God knew this would happen, why did he give them a share in the first place? If names can be added and/or deleted from the book of life, it suggests that the eternal destiny of these people was not fixed in God’s mind (=in “the book”) from the start .

Related Reading

The Hexagon of Opposition

Throughout the western philosophical and theological tradition, scholars have assumed that the future can be adequately described in terms of what will and will not happen. In this essay I, Alan Rhoda and Tom Belt argue that this assumption is mistaken, for the logical contradictory of will is not will not but might not. Conversely,…

Predestination: What Does It Mean?

When some people hear the biblical teaching that God “chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world” (Eph 1:4) and that “he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Christ,” (Eph 1:5) they think it means that God picked who would and would not be in Christ before the foundation of the world.…

What is the significance of Judges 10:13–16?

The Israelites cry out to God because of their oppression from foreign rulers. The Lord refuses to deliver them because they have abandoned him (vs. 13–14). The Israelites repented, put away their foreign gods and worshipped the Lord. The Lord “also could no longer bear to see Israel suffer” (vs. 16). Hence the Lord changed…

Topics:

What is the significance of Ezekiel 33:13–15?

“[W]hen I say to the righteous he will surely live, and he so trusts in his righteousness that he commits iniquity, none of his righteous deeds will be remembered…he will die. But when I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and he turns from his sin and practices justice and righteousness, if a…

Topics:

When You Doubt the Bible

Kit via Compfight Many people enter into conversations with ReKnew and Greg’s writings because they have questions and doubts about the Bible which they do not feel they can ask within their current church tradition. When they arise, and they will, what do we do with them? How do we process them in a healthy…

Are you a pietist?

Question: Soon after the publication of your book The Myth of a Christian Nation, I heard Chuck Colson charge you with being a “pietist.” Since then, others have repeated the charge. They all claim you advocate a Gospel that focuses on individual salvation but leaves social issues for government to address. Are you a pietist?…