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 Jeremiah 3:19–20?
“I thought how I would set you among my children…And I thought you would call me, My Father, and would not turn from following me. Instead, as a faithless wife…you have been faithless to me…”
If the future is eternally and exhaustively settled, and if God therefore knows it as such, he could not have really planned to bless Israel and have truly expected them to respond to his kindness with fidelity, only to be disappointed when they persisted in their rebellion. Only if the future is partly composed of possibilities, and not exclusively of certainties, can verses such as this have any clear meaning (see Isa. 5:1–5).
Does this mean that God was mistaken? If the future was settled one way and God thought it would go a different way, then we’d have to say God was mistaken. But if the future is by divine choice partly a realm of possibilities left open for free agents to decide, then we need not, and should not, conclude this. If this is how the future really is, there is no difficulty in understanding how an omniscient God could suspect that one thing would occur but then discover that a different thing occurred.
For example, if it is the case (in reality, not just in our limited speculations) that the chances of the Chicago Bulls winning the Championship are 9 to 1 in their favor, then anyone (viz. God) who had a perfectly accurate assessment of reality would expect the Bulls to win. Still, the unlikely sometimes happens: they could lose. But even if they did, this wouldn’t change the fact that before they lost it was most likely that they were going to win.
God was thus not mistaken in expecting that the Israelites would follow him even though it turned out they didn’t. For before they acted in this surprising manner, it was indeed more probable than not that they would follow him. This doesn’t mean that God was caught off guard, for the omniscient Lord knows all possibilities. But it does mean that what the omniscient God thought was most likely to occur did not occur.
The open view can thus make sense out of this verse without detracting from the omniscience of God. If the future is exhaustively settled in God’s mind, however, then no sense can be made out of this verse, for there are no real possibilities or probabilities to God. There are only certainties.
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism
Verse: Jeremiah 3
Related Reading

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…

How do you respond to Job 1:21?
“…the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” This passage is often quoted as the proper attitude pious people should assume in the face of tragedy, with the implication that all tragedy is the Lord’s doing. This teaching lands hard on the ears of parents who have…

How do you respond to Isaiah 53:9?
Speaking of the suffering servant Isaiah says, “[T]hey made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich…” As with most evangelical exegetes, I believe that Isaiah 53 constitutes a beautiful and stunning prophetic look at the person of Jesus Christ. The most impressive feature of this prophecy is that the suffering servant…

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).…

How do you respond to 2 Samuel 16:10?
David says of Shimei’s cursing him, “If he is cursing because the Lord said to him, ‘Curse David,’ who then shall say, ‘Why have you done so?’” Some compatibilists cite this text to suggest that David regarded evil deeds, including cursing, as taking place in accordance with the sovereign will of God. If we accept…

What is the significance of 1 Samuel 15:10?
In light of Saul’s sin the Lord says, “I regret that I made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me.” Common sense would suggest that one can only regret a decision one makes if the decision results in an outcome other than what was expected or hoped for. If God foreknows all…