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.

If God anticipates each possibility perfectly, how does he differ from the “frozen God” of classical theism?
Question: If God anticipates each and every possibility as if each were only possibility, how does God ever experience novelty and adventure? It seems that a God who perfectly anticipated (from all eternity) every single possibility as if it were the only possibility would not differ from the timeless “frozen God” of classical theism
Answer: My claim is not that God experiences every possibility as if it was the only possibility; its rather that God anticipates every possibility as if it were the only possibility. In my view, God’s actual experience of a possibility once it becomes actual always involves an element of newness and additional definiteness — which, I believe, is the main definitional difference between possibility and actuality (I defend this in my book Trinity and Process). This is also how I would account for God’s experience of novelty and adventure. Because an ontological (viz. not merely epistemological) possibility is always one among many, there is always something new in God’s experience when one possibility is actualized (viz. when it transitions from a possibility to an actuality). When an improbable possibility is actualized, God naturally experience something like “surprise” (without, however, any loss of preparedness). When things are at risk, there is an appropriate sense of adventure.
By the way, one problem for classical theists who argue (against open theists!) that God’s knowledge cannot be improved upon by the unfolding of time is that they have difficulty articulating how God’s experience of the actual now differs from God’s foreknowledge of now. Unless something is added by the actual experience, how does God that the “now” is happening? In other words, how does God know what time it is?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Foreknowledge, God, Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Attributes and Character, Defending the Open View
Related Reading

Terror in the Night
I’ll never forget the night it first happened to me. I was thirteen, sharing a bedroom with my older brother. I woke up in the middle of the night and felt as if something was pinning me to the bed, choking me, and electrocuting me, all at the same time. The wind was blowing through…

What about the thief on the cross?
Question: You hold that most people who are saved will nevertheless have to go through a “purging fire” to have their character refined and fit for heaven. Whatever is unfinished in our “sanctification” in this epoch must be completed in the next. But how does this square with Jesus telling the thief on the cross,…

Hearing and Responding to God: Part 1
A reader contacted Greg asking about making “right decisions” assuming an open future and in light of the fact that God seems to rarely speak clearly. In this first response, Greg acknowledges that even with the best of intentions, our decisions can have outcomes that are unexpected even to God! How can we move forward…

The Open View and Radical Suffering
Jessica Kelley spoke at Open2013 this morning, sharing her journey with tenderness and authority. Jessica began wrestling with her view of God a couple of years ago and embraced Open Theism prior to the diagnosis and eventual death of her four-year-old son, Henry. Everyone here at the conference was profoundly affected by her story and…

Can Christians serve in the military?
Question: Jesus ministered to military people (e.g. a centurion) and didn’t tell them to leave their military post. So do you think Christians can serve in the military? I believe it’s a Christians duty is to serve their country, aid the wounded, defend the oppressed, protect our families, stand for truth and justice, and kill…

Is the open view the only view that is compatible with the Incarnation?
Question: You have said that the Open view of God is the only view that squares with the Incarnation and the only view that truly exalts God’s greatness. On what basis do you say this? Answer: The revelation of God in the Incarnation is the ultimate expression of God’s willingness and ability to change that…