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
Podcast: Is Open Theism an Accommodation?
Or for that matter is accommodation an accommodation? Greg talks about things that impact God. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0407.mp3
Problems with the Simple Foreknowledge View
Some have proposed a model of divine foreknowledge which allows them to avoid the dilemma of affirming either that God creates people for the purpose of sending them to hell (Calvinism) or that he creates them without certain knowledge of their fate (open theism). In this alternative view God knows that certain individuals will be…
Henry’s Mom: Did God Author This?
Many of you were touched last month when we featured some reflections on little Henry’s death. Well, Henry’s mother Jess has started a blog to process through some of her thoughts and we wanted to share this amazing piece with all of you. Jess thinks ahead to the time when her two-year-old daughter will start…
How do I avoid feeling like God is absent?
Question: I used to see God involved in everything and used to believe every event expressed God’s will. After my wife and I lost our child in a tragic accident, and as a result of reading your books (especially Is God to Blame?), I came to embrace the warfare worldview and the open view of…
Why do you argue that discipleship and politics are rooted in opposite attitudes?
Question. At a recent conference I heard you argue against the idea that there could ever be a distinctly “Christian” political position by contending that political disputes are premised on a claim to superiority while discipleship is fundamentally rooted in humility. I don’t think I get what you mean. Can you explain this? Answer: In…
Does God Intervene?
Given the vast influence of angelic and human free will, what influence does God have in determining what comes to pass? While God has an important role to play in anticipating and creatively responding to decisions agents make, is God only a responder? Does he have anything to do with what’s going on in creation?…