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What is the significance of Jeremiah 3:6–7?
Regarding Israel, the Lord says “I thought, ‘After she has done all this she will return to me’; but she did not return.”
If the future is exhaustively settled in God’s mind, the meaning of this verse is unclear. How could God really think that something was going to happen if he foreknew with absolute certainty it would not happen? (See Isa. 5:1–5, Jer. 3:19–20). It must have been at least possible, if not probable, that what God expected to happen would in fact happen — but also possible that it would not. And this entails that the future is, to some extent, open.
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism
Verse: Jeremiah 3
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