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 is the significance of Isaiah 38:1–5?
God tells Hezekiah “you shall die: you shall not recover” (vs. 1). Hezekiah pleads with God and God decides to “add fifteen years” to his life.
As we noted concerning 2 Kings 20:1–5, if God foreknew that he wasn’t going to end Hezekiah’s life, his declaration that he intended to do so and his decision to “add” years to Hezekiah’s life seems disingenuous. According to the classical view, however, the length of Hezekiah’s life was foreknown by God all along.
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism
Verse: Isaiah 38
Related Reading
What Does a Perfect God Look Like?
The “classical view of God” refers to the view of God that has dominated Christian theology since the earliest Church fathers. According to this theology, God is completely “immutable.” This means that God’s being and experience never changes in any respect. God is therefore pure actuality (actus purus), having no potentiality whatsoever, for potentiality is…
How do you respond to Jeremiah 1:5
The Lord says to Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” This verse shows God’s love and plan for Jeremiah before he was born. This does not imply that Jeremiah could not have “rejected God’s…
Is speaking in tongues the initial evidence of receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit?
Pentecostals have traditionally taught that speaking in tongues is evidence that a person is filled with the Holy Spirit. Those who defend this position do so primarily on the basis of a pattern they discern in Acts. They note that when the disciples were first baptized in the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, “all…
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…
God Clearly Can, So Why Doesn’t He? (podcast)
Leah expects more from God. Should she? Greg confronts God’s inactivity and underperformance. Episode 510 http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0510.mp3
How do you respond to Exodus 21:12–13?
“Whoever strikes a person mortally shall be put to death. If it was not premeditated, but came about by an act of God, then I will appoint for you a place to which the killer may flee.” Compatibilists sometimes argue that this passage shows that fatal accidents are acts of God. The Hebrew does not…