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 Deuteronomy 8:2?
Moses tells the Israelites that the Lord kept them in the desert forty years “in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments.”
In the classical view, God would have of course eternally known the character the people would develop in the desert and thus there would be no point in testing anyone. Nor could Scripture be straightforward in its explanation of the purpose of this testing (viz. “to know…”).
What is more, Psalm 95:10–11 and Hebrews 3:7–10 describe God’s disappointment in the outcome of this testing. Such disappointment is difficult to reconcile with the view that God was certain of the outcome before he created the world. Indeed, if God eternally foreknew the character of these people one wonders why he nevertheless strove with them for forty years. How can an all-wise God genuinely strive to accomplish something he foreknows will fail?
Along the same lines, we must wonder why Scripture repeatedly says that God’s Spirit is “grieved” by people who resist him (e.g. Eph. 4:30) — if indeed we believe that the Spirit eternally foreknows that his work with these people will be fruitless. So far as I can see, the authenticity of God’s striving and the reality of God’s grief depend upon the uncertainty of the outcome.
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism
Verse: Deuteronomy 8
Related Reading
How do you respond to Ruth 1:13?
Because her husband and two sons had died, Naomi says to her two daughter-in-laws (Ruth and Orpah), “[I]t has been far more bitter for me than for you, because the hand of the Lord has turned against me” (1:13, cf. vs. 20). Some compatibilists cite this passage to support the conclusion that all misfortune is…
How do you respond to 2 Timothy 1:9–10?
“…this grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus…” Those who hold that the future is eternally settled and that God knows it as such sometimes argue that God had to foreknow who would believe in order…
How do you respond to Isaiah 48:3–5?
The Lord proclaims to his idolatrous people, “The former things I declared long ago, they went out from my mouth and I made them known; then suddenly I did them and they came to pass. Because I know that you are obstinate, and your neck is an iron sinew and your forehead brass, I declared…
What is the significance of Genesis 2:19 ?
“So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was the name.” God wanted Adam to have authority over the animal kingdom…
Doesn’t Psalms 139:16 refute the Open View of the future?
One of the passages most frequently cited in attempts to refute the open view of the future is Psalm 139:16. Here David says that God viewed him while he was being formed in the womb (vs. 15) and then adds: “[Y]our eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in…
What is the significance of Psalm 106:23?
“Therefore he said he would destroy them— had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him, to turn away his wrath from destroying them.” Moses (on several occasions, we have seen) persuaded God to change his mind regarding his plan to judge Israel. This inspired verse explicitly says that God “would destroy…