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 Much of the Future is Settled? How Much is Open? (podcast)
Greg considers the mathematical nature of determinacy. Episode 566 http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0566.mp3
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?…
What is the significance of Matthew 26:39?
Jesus threw himself on the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.” Scripture indicates that much about the life and death of Jesus Christ was foreordained and thus foreknown long before it came to pass. Given that this…
What’s the significance of Isaiah 63:8-10?
The Lord said (or “thought”) to himself, “Surely they are my people, chidren who will not deal falsely.” So, the text says, “He became their savior” (Isa. 63: 8). But “they rebelled and grieved his holy spirit.” So the Lord “became their enemy” (9-10). If the future is exhaustively settled from all eternity, how could…
What is the significance of Exodus 32:14?
The Lord states his intention to destroy Israelites because of their wickedness: “Now let me alone,” he says to Moses, “so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them” (vs. 10). Moses “implored the Lord” (vs. 11) and, as a result, “the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that…
When God Discovers
Scripture consistently portrays God’s knowledge as conforming to the ways things really are, and part of the way things really are is temporally conditioned. Scripture never expresses the commonly-held sentiment that time is somewhat illusory. God “remembers” the past and anticipates the future. Insofar as he empowers humans to freely determine the future, this means…