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.
What is the significance of 1 Chronicles 21:7–13?
The Lord gives David three options of how Israel may be judged. “Three things I offer you; choose one of them, and I will do it to you.”
Paralleling 2 Samuel 24:12–16, this passage reveals that the Lord gives people genuine alternatives and then responds to their choices. If the future is unalterably settled in God’s mind, however, these alternatives are merely charades. God could just as well have unilaterally declared the curse he knew David would choose.
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism
Verse: Chronicles 21
Related Reading
How do you respond to Matthew 26:36?
At the last supper Jesus said to Peter, “Truly I tell you, this very night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.” This is probably the most frequently quoted verse by defenders of the classical understanding of God’s foreknowledge against the open view. How, they ask, could Jesus have been certain Peter…
How do you respond to John 6:44?
“No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me…” Calvinists sometimes argue that this passage teaches that the Father chooses and then “draws” certain people to Christ. Those who are “drawn” certainly come to Christ (John 6:37) while all who are not drawn remain in their sin. In short, this…
A Very Brief History of Open Theism
While the open view of the future 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 African American church leaders, it has been the predominant view in the African…
What is the significance of Numbers 14:11?
In the light of the Israelites’ relentless complaining the Lord says to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them?” The fact that the Lord continued, for centuries, to try to get the…
Isn’t it true that God doesn’t know the future in the open view?
This is the single most common misconception people have about the open view. Open Theists and Classical Theists disagree about the nature of the future, not about how much God knows about it. Both sides grant that God knows everything. He is omniscient. He knows everything there is to know about all of reality, including…
What is the significance of 1 Kings 21:27–29?
Because of Ahab’s great sin the Lord tells him, “I will bring disaster on you; I will consume you…” (vs. 21). Ahab repents and the Lord responds by telling his messenger prophet, “Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the disaster…