We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded by your direct support for ReKnew and our vision. Please consider supporting this project.
What is the significance of Joel 2:13–14?
“Return to the Lord your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
and relents from punishing.
Who knows whether he will not turn and relent,
and leave a blessing behind him…?”
As we have seen, God’s willingness to alter his course of action—even after he’s prophetically announced it—is portrayed as an attribute of greatness in the Bible (cf. Jon. 4:2). God doesn’t change in any respect in which it is wrong to change, but he does change in every respect in which it is good to change. His magnificent flexibility is evident throughout Scripture but is incompatible with the belief that God’s knowledge of future free actions is exhaustively settled.
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism
Verse: Joel 2
Related Reading
Loving a Twilight Zone God?
David D. Flowers posted this insightful reflection over on his blog about an episode of The Twilight Zone and what it says about some pop views of God. Can we really love a God that exercises this kind of random control just because he can? We can certainly fear a God like this, but can…
Does God Intervene?
The Open View of the future recognizes the vast influence of all the angelic and human wills God created, which, in turn, influences the various outcomes and circumstances in life. Therefore life is arbitrary because of the way the decisions made by an unfathomably vast multitude of free agents intersect with each other. How life…
How do you respond to Ephesians 1:11?
“In Christ we have obtained an inheritance, having…been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will.” This text has frequently been used to support the view that all things happen in accordance with God’s counsel and will. But this reads too much into the text. This…
How Much of the Future is Settled? How Much is Open? (podcast)
Greg considers the mathematical nature of determinacy. Episode 566 http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0566.mp3
Isn’t it contradictory to say Jesus is “fully God” and “fully human”?
READER: God is, by definition, eternal, having neither beginning nor end. Human beings are, by definition, finite, beginning at a certain point in time. How, then, can Jesus be both God (eternal) and human (finite)? Isn’t that a contradiction? Similarly, while God is omniscient, humans aren’t. How could Jesus be both omniscient God and non-omniscient…
Ask Greg Anything on Reddit!
Greg is going to be featured on Reddit! Yes that’s right. You can ask Greg anything. Your questions might be serious like: Why is there so much evil in the world? Why can we trust the Bible? What caused you to be a pacifist? Or they might be less so: Why do you preach without…