The Open View of God

The Error of Foreknowledge and God

It has for many centuries been considered an orthodox doctrine within Christian theology to attribute God with omniscience. Omniscience traditionally refers to God as an all-knowing being who knows all events past, present, and future. Omniscience in this form however, is an attribute of God that cannot be Scripturally supported and contradicts some of the earliest teachings of the Church including Calcidius from the fifth century. The classical view of God has its roots not in Scripture, but in a Hellenistic view of the world that “infected” theology through the writings of Saint Augustine of Hippo and later through John Calvin. It has become a staple doctrine that God has “foreknowledge” of the future and even predestines all events. In recent years however theologians have been revisiting these Platonic doctrines and have realized not only the philosophical error of such doctrines, but the basic contradiction such a view poses to both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures.

This alternative view is termed the “Open View” of God. It is different from “Process theology” which holds that God does not know or predetermine anything about the future; Open theists hold that God only knows and predetermines specific things about the future. While God is omniscient about the past and present, the future is always uncertain and unknowable.

The best book on this topic is Greg Boyd's "The God of the Possible." This essay reflects on and summarizes his portrayal of the Open View of God. I mainly differ with Boyd in that I believe the future is even more radically open and unknown to God than he attributes. Also, Boyd asserts that he is merely redefining "omniscience" while I would prefer to lose the term entirely because it is too misunderstood and misused.

Indeed, God is so confident in God’s sovereignty, we hold, God does not need to micromanage everything. God could if God wanted to, but this would demean God’s sovereignty. God chooses to leave some of the future open to possibilities, allowing them to be resolved by the decisions of free agents. It takes a greater God to steer a world populated with free agents than it does to steer a world of pre-programmed automatons." 1

God does not predestine all events and does not know and cannot know what much of the future holds. The future is not exhaustively settled and God’s knowledge of the future is limited. God intervenes and foreknows some events within a cosmological structure of both determinism and free will. God, like us, is waiting to see what people will choose and what events will transpire in the world.

The Evidence from Scripture

The classical view of God does not take into account the full witness of Scripture which its theology is supposedly based upon. While Scripture demonstrates a God that intervenes and guides some events, it also reveals a God who does not know the future at many, if not most, turns.

God Experiences Regret

God regretted Saul’s Kingship: “I regret that I made Saul king, for he has turned his back from following me” (1 Sam.15:10) and later, “the Lord was sorry that he had made Saul king over Israel” (1 Sam. 15:35). If God knew how Saul would turn out, God could not genuinely regret God’s decision to appoint him king.

God Experiences Surprise and Disappointment

God describes Israel as a vineyard that God lovingly tends and says in Isaiah 5:2, “I expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes” and asks, “What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?” (v.4)

In Jeremiah 3:6-7 the prophet records God saying in regards to Israel, “I thought, ‘After she has done this she will return to me’; but she did not return” and expresses much dismay over Israel’s refusal to turn to God. God later states that Israel’s behavior “never entered my mind” (Jer. 19:5 and see 7:31, 32:35).

Certainly a God who foreknows the future does not experience surprise and disappointment…nothing could not have “entered God’s mind” if God was omniscient regarding the future.

God Experiences Frustration

At numerous points Scripture shows God as striving with people only to be frustrated at their lack of willingness to do what is right. Ezekiel records God saying “I sought for anyone among them who would repair the wall and stand in the breach before me on behalf of the land, so that I would not destroy it: but I found no one” (22:30).

God Changes God’s Mind

Numerous times in Scripture it is recorded that God changes God’s mind. If that which is fixed or set cannot be changed. God does not know the future…the future is not decided. A powerful example of this is from Jeremiah 18:

"At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring upon it. And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do for it" (vv.7-10).

Classical theologians argued that change is akin to weakness, so surely God could not truly change. However, a willingness to change is a sign of confidence and mercy, particularly in relationship to other people. The future is not exhaustively planned or known by God and God changes in response to people’s free choices. The list of Scriptural examples of God changing God’s mind are too numerous to list.

Objection: Can God can make mistakes or make unwise decisions?

This is likely the main and most obvious objection to the Open View. But if the future is truly open, there can be no "mistakes" regarding the future because the future will always depend on the actions of free agents. If people are truly free to make choices unknown to God, then God simply responds to these. God’s decisions can continue to be wise but simply not all-knowing as the Open view demonstrates.

God As A Risk Taker

God is the most flamboyant risk taker of all. Rather than an insecure controlling, weak individual who must control all events, God has created a world where free agents themselves determine much of their own future and the future of the planet.

I believe God does intervene at times in the world in response to prayer and according to God’s own will and overarching plan for creation. However, people are radically free to determine their own futures. God has a vested interest in people’s lives and the more we involve God, the more God is involved: but only at our invitation because God honors free will above all.

Advantages to the Open View of God

The Open View of God is more compatible with Science

The old Newtonian assumption that the world moves forward in deterministic fashion has been replaced in quantum theory by an understanding of causation that includes an intrinsic element of indeterminism. The previous universally held assumption that science could, in principle, predict everything about the future has (especially among recent chaos theorists) given way to the understanding that an element of unpredictability is intrinsic to significantly complex systems. In short, the old assumption that that the world is stable, solid, deterministic, thoroughly rational, and an utterly predictable system has been replaced by a view of the world as a dynamic process that is to some extent indeterministic and unpredictable.2

As Boyd points out, the Open view is in line with Quantum theory. The Open View demonstrates a God who determines some events but also leaves the future open to the decisions of free agents. It seems the universe is permeated with a balance between free and determined events and predictable and unpredictable occurrences. Just as science can predict the range of possible behaviors of a quantum particle but cannot predict it’s exact behavior, no one can predict the exact behavior of an individual. In science, this inability to predict the movement of quantum particles isnot due to a failure in the measuring devices used in quantum mechanics; this is due to the way things are, the very nature of reality. Free will operates in the same mannger. It is in God’s own joy and freedom to allow us to act freely within a given structure without knowing what we will choose.

A Tenable Response to the Problem of Evil

In the Open view of God, the traditional “Problem of Evil” is based on a flawed premise that God is all knowing including knowledge of the future. If God, like us, does not know the future, the very basis of the traditional Problem of Evil is misguided.

The Problem of Evil is stated as: “How can an all powerful, all knowing, and wholly good God exist and evil also exist?” This seems to be a contradiction and indeed, it is.

However, the very “Problem” is based on a faulty premise about God, namely that God is impassable (unchanging) and foreknows the future. If God cannot know the future as Scripture indicates, the burden of evil falls back into the lap of free will. While this does not resolve the problem entirely, it does offer a stringent critique of the classic problem.

The Open View is a Better View of God

In the Open view we realize God experiences what we experience: surprise, wonder, creativity, and adventure. God is a dynamic being who walks with us in the sequence of time and waits to see how the future will unfold.

In the Open view God is taken out of the role of a controlling deity who must be in charge of everything. Rather, God is confident, takes risks, invites vulnerability, and honors free will. God demonstrates divine power by empowering us to make our own choices! Out of love for creation however, God works our decisions into an overarching providential structure and plan.

This view does not demean God’s sovereignty, power, perfection, or wisdom. In fact, it enhances it!

My Reflections

For me, the Open view of God as presented by Greg Boyd was revolutionary! I've struggled with the Problem of Evil (theodicies) and never found a solution I was intellectually satisfied with. See The Problem of Evil Part I It was clear to me philosophically that a God who knows the future and predestines events was then, by default, responsible for all evil and suffering. I believe the classical view of God is more akin to the God of the Islamic faith, whereby God is blatantly accepted as being responsible for evil. It was also unclear to me how free will was possible in the Classical view.

I believe that The Open View of God may be the most important theological step in modern theology. For centuries critics and philosophers have pointed out problems in classical theology and satisfying responses were always lacking. My reaction to the Open View was, "I can't believe no one has said this before! It's so obvious!"

I also hold to the concept that God suffers and experiences emotion. The Open view of God supports and undergirds such a concept. God is more in keeping with how we experience God. And if Jesus is the Divine Incarnation, we realize God does make choices, does experience pain and all human emotions. If we are in God's image, our emotions are apart of that. It is ridiculous to say that we experience that which God is incapable of experiencing.

If we are open to taking in the full witness of Scripture and gaining a concept of God more in keeping with Judaism and early Christianity, we will find the Open View of God to be most comforting and helpful along our journey.

Written January 10, 2002

1 Boyd, Gregory, God of the Possible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000), 31.

2 ibid., 108.

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