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’s the significance of Acts 17:26-27?
This passage is frequently cited by determinists, for Paul here states that God “marked out” the “appointed times in history and the boundaries” of nations (Ac. 17:26). This doesn’t entail omni-control on God’s part, however. It only entails that God is involved in setting temporal and geographical parameters around nations. Moreover, nothing suggests that God does this unilaterally or from all eternity. As humans make decisions, God responds to them in ways that delimit the length and scope of nations.
What’s particularly interesting for our purposes, however, is the reason Paul says God does this: because he is, at all times, working among people “so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us” (vs. 27, emphasis added). God clearly works in people’s lives hoping that they will reach out for him and find him. But this implies that whether or not people reach out for God is not a pre-settled certainty. Insofar as the future is left up to the wills of free agents, it is open and known by God as such.
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism
Verse: Acts 17
Related Reading
Podcast: What Does God Actually DO in the World?
Greg discusses what a God, who takes his hands off of us, who gives up control for us, who accommodates for us, actually does in the world. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0215.mp3
How can you believe Matthew’s report about the Jewish cover up of the resurrection?
Question: In Matthew it’s reported that Jewish authorities tried to cover up the resurrection of Jesus by saying the disciples stole the body while the guards were sleeping. I don’t buy it. How would Matthew know about this story, since it was a secret conversation the authorities had with the guards? And how could they…
Free Will: An Aesthetic Model
Greg continues his thoughts on free will by offering an aesthetic model for free will. This one gets pretty philosophical, but it’s worth toughing it out.
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…
Podcast: Are We REALLY Free if God is Going to Ultimately Trump Our Choices?
Greg looks at the nature of freewill, specifically: how God’s promises constricts human free will. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0070.mp3
Does the Bible forbid interracial marriages?
Absolutely not! Racist Christians used to argue against interracial marriage by quoting Old Testament passages that prohibited Jews from marrying non-Jews. This prohibition had nothing to do with race, however. In fact, there was no concept of different “races” until white Europeans invented it during the Colonial period, partly to justify their enslavement of other…