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 22:12 ?
Abraham passed God’s “test” (vs. 1) by being willing to sacrifice his son. The Lord says “…now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son…”
If the classical understanding of foreknowledge is true, God’s statement “now I know” seems disingenuous. The meaning of God’s explanation for this knowledge — “since you have…” — is also obscured. Indeed, if the future is exhaustively settled there would be no point in his test of Abraham, because God would never have to find out anything.
Defenders of the classical view of foreknowledge usually argue that God’s testings were not for his sake, but for the sake of the person being tested. God eternally foreknew whether or not the person(s) would pass the test, but he wanted the person’s character to be manifested to them. This explanation sounds plausible except this verse explicitly records God proclaiming “now I know…” Other verses contain similar statements (e.g. Deut. 8:2, 13:1–3). The only reason I can see as to why someone would insist that the testings were for the people, not God, is because they bring to the text a theology which will not allow them to accept the straightforward meaning of the text: God tests people to find out how they shall resolve their character.
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism
Verse: Genesis 22
Related Reading
What is the significance of Revelation 3:5?
“If you conquer, you will be clothed like them in white robes, and I will not blot your name out of the book of life…” If God is only the God of certainties, it is not clear how he can honestly speak in conditional terms (“If you conquer…”) and it is not clear why he…
Five Brief Philosophical Arguments for the Open View
Introduction I believe that sound philosophical arguments support the open view in which God doesn’t foreknow the future free decisions of humans. My main reasons for holding this view are biblical and theological, but since truth is one we should expect that the truths of Scripture and the truths of reason will arrive at the…
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!
Is God All-Powerful?
I want to answer yes and no. God is all-powerful in the sense that God originally possessed all power. Before Creation, God was the only being who existed, and thus had all the power there was. He could do anything, and nothing opposed Him. But with the creation of free creatures, I maintain, God necessarily…
Is the Bible against body piercing and tattoos?
Some Christians argue against body piercing and tattoos on the basis of a couple of Old Testament verses that prohibit them (Lev. 19:28). Several years back an aggravated lady tried to get me to preach against these things in my church (she’d observed that a number of people in the congregation had body piercings and…
Boyd’s Bad Ass Tattoo
by: Greg Boyd In the process of working through a philosophical issue surrounding the openness of the future around twenty years ago, I and two friends (Alan Rhoda and Tom Belt) ended up creating the “Hexagon of Opposition”, or “Hexagonic Logic of Futurity,” as I’ve sometimes called it. I’ll explain what it all means in…