Open Theism
Hearing and Responding to God: Part 1
Category: Sermons and Video Clips
Tags: Choice, Free Will, Hearing God, Open Theism, Prayer, Video Q&A, Warfare Worldview
Topics: Hearing God, Prayer
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 Case for Including Open Theism Within Arminianism
Category: Essays
Tags: Arminianism, Essay, Open Theism, Roger Olson
Topics: Open Theism
Here is an excellent post by my good friend Roger Olson in which he makes the case that Open Theism should be embraced by Arminians as an orthodox, if somewhat non-traditional, form of their faith….
Greg on the Open View: Video One
Category: General
Tags: Open Theism
By popular demand, we’re sharing the first of Greg’s video presentations on the Open View of the future. If you enjoy it, you can find the rest of the series entitled A Flexible Sovereignty: A…
Greg on the Open View of the Future
Category: General
Tags: Open Theism
Greg was featured today on the Pangea blog. (Thanks Kurt!) The blog references a series of lectures Greg presented at the Open Theology and Science Conference at Azusa Pacific University, April 11, 2008 entitled “A Flexible Sovereignty:…
Q&A: If Salvation Depends on our Free Choice, How are we Saved by Grace?
Category: General
Tags: Grace, Open Theism, Q&A, Responding to Calvinism, Salvation
As a companion to today’s testimony and the link to Greg’s thoughts on Romans 9, we thought it would be helpful to post this Q&A on salvation by grace within the Open View of the…
Prayer and the Open Future
Category: General
Tags: Open Theism, Prayer, Warfare Worldview
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…
How can you put your trust in a God who’s not in control of everything?
Category: General
Tags: Open Theism, Responding to Calvinism
Question: I read your book Is God to Blame? and found it to be very compelling. It’s rocking my world. But I’m also finding I’m now having trouble trusting God like I used to. I used to believe…
How can prayer change God’s mind?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Christian Life, God, Open Theism, Prayer, Theology
Topics: Apologetics, Open Theism
You’ve argued that since God is all-good, he’s always doing the most he can do in every situation to bring about good. But you have also argued that prayer can change God’s mind. How are these two beliefs compatible?
If God anticipates each possibility perfectly, how does he differ from the “frozen God” of classical theism?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Foreknowledge, God, Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Attributes and Character, Defending the Open View
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…
My Car Crash and the Open View
Category: General
Tags: Open Theism, Prayer
Last Saturday night Shelley and I were involved in a rather serious four car crash on a local highway. One person was hospitalized, and I’m being treated for neck pain and an on-going dull headache….
What God Doesn’t Know (According to W.L.Craig)
Category: General
Tags: Open Theism
Hello bloggers. Here’s Part II of my response to Bill Craig’s podcast critique of the open model of providence. As I see it, the central difference between Craig’s position (Molinism) and my own (open theism)…
Two Ancient (and Modern) Motivations for Ascribing Exhaustively Definite Foreknowledge to God
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Open Theism
Topics: Defending the Open View
A historic overview and critical assessment Abstract: The traditional Christian view that God foreknows the future exclusively in terms of what will and will not come to pass is partially rooted in two ancient Hellenistic…
How do I avoid feeling like God is absent?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A, Warfare Worldview
Topics: Hearing God, Prayer
Question: I used to see God involved in everything and used to believe every event expressed God’s will. After my wife and I lost our child in a tragic accident, and as a result of…
Isn’t God “changing his mind” an anthropomorphism?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Defending the Open View, Providence, Predestination and Free Will
Question: Traditionalists argue that passages that refer to God “changing his mind” are anthropomorphic, depicting God in human terms. Open Theists take these passages literally, however. But if you’re going to take these passages literally,…
How does an Open Theist explain all the prophecies fulfilled in the life of Jesus?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Responding to Objections
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…
Open Theism and the Nature of the Future
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Open Theism
Topics: Defending the Open View, Free Will and the Future
In this philosophical essay Alan Rhoda, Tom Belt and I argue that the future cannot be exhaustively described in terms of what will and will not happen, but must also be described in terms of…
The Hexagon of Opposition
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Open Theism
Topics: Defending the Open View
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…
How can people who believe the open view trust a God who doesn’t control the future and doesn’t know for sure what will happen?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism, Providence, Predestination and Free Will
It’s true that according to the open view of the future things can happen in our lives which God didn’t plan or even foreknow with certainty (though he always foreknew they were possible). In this…
Doesn’t the open view demean God’s sovereignty?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism
The Open view demeans God’s sovereignty only if one assumes that “sovereignty” means “meticulous control.” By why think this is the way God wants to rule the world? The biblical narrative presents a God who…