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 9:13–14, 18–20, 25?

The Lord tells Moses “Let me alone that I may destroy them [the Israelites] and blot out their name from under heaven…” (vs. 14). Moses later says to the Israelites, “the Lord intended to destroy you” (vs. 25). Moses interceded for forty days and then tells the Israelites, “the Lord listened to me…” (vs. 19). So too, “the Lord was so angry with Aaron that he was ready to destroy him, but [Moses] interceded also on behalf of Aaron at the same time” (vs. 20) and Aaron was spared.

If the future is exhaustively settled and known by God as such, the integrity of Scripture’s account of God’s expressed intention to destroy Israel and Aaron would be compromised. God cannot genuinely plan to do something he foreknows he will not do. If neither God nor inspired Scripture can be disingenuous, it seems these verses contradict the classical view of an exhaustively settled future.

Category:
Tags: ,
Topics:
Verse:

Related Reading

How do you respond to 1 Peter 1:1–2?

As I read it, I Pet 1:2 is the thematic statement for the whole chapter. As I will show in a moment, the rest of the chapter unpacks this statement, so the rest of the chapter should be used to interpret this statement. In the rest of the chapter we find that believers… * have…

What is the significance of Revelation 22:18?

“If anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away that person’s share in the tree of life and in the holy city…” For God to “take away” something he must have given it first. But, as with the previous verse, if God foreknew from whom he would…

Topics:

Lighten Up: I’m Not Worried Frank

http://youtu.be/kQFKtI6gn9Y?t=1m19s Well, my dear friend Frank Viola has been spouting off again about how my “logic will be shredded, excoriated, and turned into confetti before a watching world” when we host our debate on Open Theism this fall. I’m not too worried though, since Frank studied the art of debate in the clinic featured in…

Podcast: Where Does Omniscience Fit In Within Open Theism?

Greg pontificates on what God knows.  http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0280.mp3

Podcast: Are We REALLY Free if God is Going to Ultimately Trump Our Choices?

Greg looks at the nature of freewill, specifically: how God’s promises constricts human free will. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0070.mp3

What Does a Perfect God Look Like?

The “classical view of God” refers to the view of God that has dominated Christian theology since the earliest Church fathers. According to this theology, God is completely “immutable.” This means that God’s being and experience never changes in any respect. God is therefore pure actuality (actus purus), having no potentiality whatsoever, for potentiality is…