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.

Prayer and the Open Future
Kurt Willems posted a blog today written by Derek Ouellette regarding why understanding that the future is partially open is the only thing that really makes sense of prayer. Derek addresses his thoughts to your younger self, the self that was more “Open. Teachable. Curious. Adventurous.” Let’s all be willing to respect and freely interact with the part of ourselves that is hungry for truly satisfying answers.
From the blog post:
Let’s assume that God is all-competent and all-wise. He’s not a buffoon or an imbecile. He’s able – not just by sheer strength, but by wisdom and competence. We always talk about how God is all-power and all-knowing. We never talk about how God is all-competent. God is able to work through the most complex situation without having to flex his bulging omnipotent bicep. He’s able to work through it by his know-how. He is, after all, omnicompetent.
Image by Derrick Tyson. Used in accordance with Creative Commons. Sourced via Flickr.
Category: General
Tags: Open Theism, Prayer, Warfare Worldview
Related Reading

Six Theses of the Warfare Worldview
The trinitarian warfare worldview seeks to reconcile our experience of radical evil with the conviction that reality is created and sustained by an all-loving, all-powerful God. Six principles form the foundation for this view. These principles are based on Scripture’s account of God’s battle with Satan as well as our experience with the war-zone reflected…

How do you respond to Jeremiah 29:10–11?
The Lord says to Israel, “Only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place [Jerusalem]. For surely I know the plans I have for you, says he Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give…

How Does God Hear All Our Prayers?
Q: At any given moment there are millions of people praying to God. How is it possible for God to pay attention to my little, silent prayer amidst all the chatter? The reason you or I can only effectively listen to one person at a time is because we only have a limited amount of…

How does an Open Theist explain all the prophecies fulfilled in the life of Jesus?
Question: Throughout the Gospels it says that Jesus “fulfilled that which was written.” Some of these prophecies are very specific and involve free decisions of people. For example, a guard freely chose to give Jesus vinegar instead of water (Jn 19:28), yet John says this was prophesied in the Old Testament, hundred of years before…

The Hexagon of Opposition
Throughout the western philosophical and theological tradition, scholars have assumed that the future can be adequately described in terms of what will and will not happen. In this essay I, Alan Rhoda and Tom Belt argue that this assumption is mistaken, for the logical contradictory of will is not will not but might not. Conversely,…

How do you respond to Genesis 15:13–15?
The Lord tells Abraham that his offspring “shall be aliens in a land that is not theirs, and shall be slaves here, and they shall be oppressed for four hundred years; but I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.” This passage may constitute…