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
Lighten Up: Oh my… I am so very very scared…
Well, my dear friend Frankie V. once again has a bad case of verbal diarrhea (explains his breath lately), running off about how he’s going to smack me down in our “all-out, no holds barred, ring-side seat, verbal wrestling match” on the open view of the future. I’m supposed to shutter in my boots at…
What’s your view of the tribulation period and the rapture?
I along with most other evangelicals believe Jesus is going to return one day and establish his Kingdom. Jesus himself promised his return (Matt. 24:30; 26:64; John 14:3). At Jesus’ ascension, two angels proclaimed, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into…
In a democracy, don’t Christians have a responsibility to participate in politics?
Question: You’ve argued that Christians shouldn’t try to gain power in government on the grounds that Jesus didn’t try to gain power in the political system of his day. But his government didn’t allow for such power. Caesar and Pilate weren’t elected by anyone. Our government allows for this. So don’t we have a responsibility…
Free Will: How free will presupposes a great deal of determinism
This particular video was recorded last week when the forecast called for a high of -4F. Greg makes light of the freezing conditions before he settles into the topic of how a mostly determined world is actually the needed context for free will to operate. Stay warm out there!
How do you respond to John 21:18–19?
Jesus says to Peter, “‘[W]hen you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.’ (He said this to…