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 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 (see Gen. 1:28). Hence he empowers Adam to freely choose the names of all the animals. The passage tells us that God brought the animals to Adam in order to see—to find out—how Adam would choose. If God was certain of this all along, however, Scripture is incorrect when it describes God’s motive in bringing the animals to Adam.
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism
Verse: Genesis 2
Related Reading
Podcast: Is God Outside of Time?
Greg discusses the nature of time, the importance of sequence, and the centrality of poetry. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0286.mp3
Open Theism Timeline
Open Theism Timeline by Tom Lukashow An argument that is frequently raised against the open view is that it is a recent innovation. Paul Eddy had discovered Calcidius, a fifth century advocate, and I and others knew of L.D. McCabe and Billy Hibbard, two 19th century advocates. But that was about it – until I…
How People Misunderstand Open Theism
Open theism holds that, because agents are free, the future includes possibilities (what agents may and may not choose to do). Since God’s knowledge is perfect, open theists hold that God knows the future partly as a realm of possibilities. This view contrasts with classical theism that has usually held that God knows the future exclusively as a domain…
Predestination Part 2: Seeing Destiny Rightly
For Part 1, click here. In Ephesians Paul teaches that God “chose us in [Christ] before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight” (Eph 1:4). In Christ, Paul continues, God “predestined us for adoption to sonship…to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in…
How do you respond to 2 Samuel 24:1 and 1 Chronicles 21:1?
One text says the Lord incited David to count the warriors of Israel and Judah. The other text says that Satan incited David to count the warriors of Israel. (The Lord had forbidden this, as it displayed a confidence in military strength rather than in Yahweh’s power). Compatibilists frequently cite this as an example of…
What is the significance of Deuteronomy 30:19?
After establishing the terms of the covenant he was entering into with Israel, the Lord says, “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.” This passage represents the most fundamental motif…