METICULOUS PROVIDENCE:

THE “UNDERMINING” OF BIBLICAL CHRISTIANITY

Revised April 29th, 2015

Caswell Johnstone

Box 4844

Professor Melody “Duke Ellington” Diemert

OT 352 – Major Prophets

A paper submitted for partial completion

of the requirements of the degree:

Bachelor of Theology

September 11, 2014

Prairie Bible College

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At first glance, yes, the title of this paper is arrogant and ignorant. It is, in part, a

response to John Piper's Beyond the Bounds: Open Theism and the Undermining of Biblical

Christianity. An eye for an eye, as they say. But who am I to claim that it is unbiblical to

believe in the meticulously provident way God relates to the future and the events therein?

Furthermore, haven't these characteristics of God long been held by the church to be true? It

seems to me that this description of God’s providence has become raised up as high as the Lord

Himself. There are also other descriptors of God ─ such as His timelessness and immutability ─

that go hand in hand with the soteriological position known as meticulous providence. It is my

suspicion that reactionary theology and greek philosophy are among some of the main

contributors to these characteristics and are therefore subject to criticism and change. I believe

that it is not necessary to uphold the concept of God's meticulous providence; Scripture does not

necessitate this attribute, a proper understanding of prophecy will direct us away from using

these descriptions, and God's relationality and sovereignty are highlighted when these attributes

are dismissed.

In a conversation with a friend on this topic a question was posed to me about Open

Theism and God’s love. “Does God always do what is most loving?” The question arose out of

discussion on prayer and whether or not it affects God and His work. The progression of thought

was: If God is love, then God’s actions will always be what is most loving. If God always does

what is most loving, then how does our prayer do anything? If we pray for healing, and healing

is the most loving thing in that circumstance, would God not heal regardless of our prayers?

These questions bring us back to the quintessential question, how does God interact with

humanity?

There are many assumptions that are inherent to this argument, first and foremost being

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that God does what is most loving on a day to day basis and that He does so meticulously. The

second assumption is that we have some ability to assess what is most loving for God to do.

There are no real dangers to either of these points, but they do pose a challenge to the

consistency of an Open Theist perspective. I submit, however, that these assumptions are either

false or misapplied.

Why must we assume that, for God to be an active agent in this world, He must act in

ways described above? In our assessment of what it means for God to interact in creation we

seem to tacitly understand that there are several variables that all have strengths and weaknesses

in this game (the variables are different characteristics of God).1 Furthermore, each of these

variables will definitely cause action in one way or another because of their strengths or

weaknesses. In some sense we reduce the relationships between God, creatures, and creation to a

simple formula. For example, God is love, therefore God will always act in a loving way. I

believe it is neither helpful nor accurate to speak of our relationship with God in such a

formulaic way. When we think differently about how this relationship exists, however, there is a

great possibility for it to become meaningful in a way that is important to both individual and

corporate worshippers of God. Our relationship with the Lord is organic; there is growth; there

is change; there is movement; and there is the introduction of variables that can change all of

these subtleties of the relationship. A visual arrangement of the hierarchy of these concepts

concerning variables could be helpful:

1. God is love,

a. Therefore, God will act in ways that are loving; that is, it is logical to assume

that God will act out of His character,

i. Therefore, when God acts in creation, we can assume that He will act

in the most loving way.

1 I use the term “variable” not because God just turns one characteristic on and another off in a flippant

way; rather, the term “variable” is appropriate because Christians have been interpreting Scripture throughout

history with lack of consensus as to whether certain characteristics are accurate of God.

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I have no issue with the progression from point “1” to point “a”. My correction would be

to back up from point “i” to point “a” and rethink the way this would be applied. The argument I

am trying to make in all this is that, if we can agree on points “1” and “a,” we ought to instead

apply these concepts by saying that the most loving thing for God to do is risk. This level of

God’s interaction in creation does not require Him to follow a formula; rather, He allows/invites

a relationship with Himself to be accessed. All parties involved in this relationship will invest

some amount of energy, and this naturally means that our own energies could be superseded by

God’s. God may heal despite our requests or lack thereof; God may wait for us to ask of Him

before He acts; God may influence us to act in a certain way. All of these options have the

potential to grow the relationship in some way, shape, or form. Yet, there is nothing that we can

expect with certainty in these interactions with the Lord in exception for our eschatological hope.

It is as any other relationship that we have with another human being in terms of how the

dynamics of the relationship might play themselves out.2 I might suggest to my friend that she

should pursue a relationship with a certain love interest. If she does so, have I exacted my will

upon her in a meticulous way? By no means; she has responded to my interaction with her as

she sees fit. My will might be undone by her choosing otherwise. The interaction is organic.

There is no set formula to how we act and respond. As will be discussed later, the same is

somewhat true of God’s interaction with us. We might perform in a way that undoes what He

would have initially willed to happen (see the story of Saul). Does this challenge His

sovereignty? Is His glory undone? Absolutely not.

2 By dynamics I mean methods of interaction. Obviously a relationship with God is wholly unlike any other

relationship we have when we consider the persons involved. All I am trying to propose is that God is relational and

we need to treat Him (reverently) like a person; like someone who feels and expresses themselves and acts and

loves. But not only as if He might feel and express and act, but that He does actually feel and respond to our actions.

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God created humanity in such a way that we might participate with him in creation. Just

as God is a free agent in creation, so we, created in His image, are free agents. It is in this

understanding that we see the work of Christ being made that much greater in importance. How

else is it possible to understand that God is “patient toward you, not wishing that any should

perish, but that all should reach repentance?” (2 Peter 3:9). Herein lies the ultimate importance

of understanding how we ought to be in relationship with the Lord. The entire narrative history

of Israel that we find in the Scriptures serves as case study by which the Children of God may

study and learn how or how not to be in relationship with the Lord.

It is at this point in the understanding of an Open Theist perspective that many

theologians criticize the way in which God is portrayed. The title of Bruce A. Fare’s book Their

God is Too Small serves as a perfect example of how this perspective is often received. From

what I can tell, either the Open Theists have fallen short in their descriptions of God, or their

opponents fail to pick up on the subtleties of God’s character that are brought to light in this

perspective. The purpose of this introduction is to instill in the reader some of my own

motivations in exploring the topic of Open Theism. It is my hope that I can reframe the Open

Theist perspective to show both Armenians and Calvinists that Yahweh does not have to be made

into a palatable character of lesser glory just to fit this position.

Scripture

It almost goes without saying that scripture is the beginning place for most theologians to

develop their systems of belief. Ideas or questions about God and the faith arise in a number of

different ways and when they do scripture is the standard by which questions may be answered.

It is, however, difficult to rely on this basic approach given the variety of opinions and

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presuppositions that are at work in the interpretive process. Furthermore, it is uncommon that

the entirety of the scriptures are utilized in this process. It seems that every expression of the

Body of Christ has at one point or another been guilty of either proof-texting or focusing only on

the texts that support their own cause. For every Arminian ignorant of one passage, there is a

Calvinist ignorant of another. It is for these reasons, therefore, that I will not only offer passages

in defense of my position, but also attempt to deal with rebuttals that might undermine my

position. There are a few key stories in Scripture that are commonly used by Open Theists to

defend their position; I will offer a survey of the story, a rebuttle by an opponent, and my brief

refutation of that rebuttle.

The first story is of King Hezekiah’s healing. Isaiah comes to Hezekiah informing him

that the Lord has spoken of his imminent death. Hezekiah prays through tears for God to have

mercy on him and remember “how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole

heart, and have done what is good in your sight.” (2 Kings 20:3, Isaiah 38:3). Before Isaiah even

leaves the palace, the Lord speaks to him, telling him to inform Hezekiah that his prayers have

been heard and answered.

Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry (CARM) is an organization that apparently

defends tenets of Calvinist theology (or at least has members who do). On CARM’s website

there is a list of passages used by Open Theists which is accompanied by commentary from those

in opposition. Matt Slick is one of these commentators and seeks to offer a right interpretation of

2 Kings 20: “From all eternity God knew exactly what was going to happen and had planned to

‘change His mind’ when Hezekiah prayed. This means that God works in real time and

purposely responds to the prayers of His people and then appears to change His mind when

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people pray.”3 Slick goes further to make his point by also quoting 1 Samuel 15:29: “The Glory

of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret.”

When I mentioned in the introduction reactionary theology, Slick’s response is one of

those examples that illustrates my point. Reactionary theology describes how a certain point of

theology is built partially due to a reaction to another position on the same point. The foundation

for the interpretation of that point therefore becomes an argument against someone rather than a

well-rounded understanding of Scripture. The lengths that Slick goes to in order to explain how

God changed His mind, but really didn’t change his mind, are somewhat ridiculous. What would

be the point of God ‘appearing’ to change His mind? Why is that a necessary façade on God’s

part? This question, for me, might be similarly expressed by entertaining the concept of why

God might foreordain a massive amount of Christians to be Armenians. It appears to me that

God would be lying to Hezekiah if he knew what Hezekiah was going to ask for, but then told

him after his prayer that “I have changed my mind because of your prayer.”

On Slick’s use of the Samuel passage, my assessment is that he is simply and falsely

proof-texting. When Samuel is saying that God is not a man that He would regret or change His

mind, Samuel is talking to Saul about the specific issue of the Saul’s kingdom being torn away

from him. Nearly everything about Saul’s kingship was contrary to what God intended for

Israel, so when it comes to Samuel saying that God won’t change his mind, it is reflective only of

God not giving back the kingdom to a repentant Saul. A common criticism of proof-texting this

verse is that mere verses before and after verse 29 claim that God regretted making Saul king

(11, 35). If Matt Slick wants to do justice to the text, he should at least take the time to read the

greater context of a verse before using it as authoritative. For the purpose of my argument, 2

3 Matt Slick, “2 Kings 20:1-6, "You shall die and not live...I will add 15 years to your life."” Carm.org,

2014. Accessed October 10, 2014.

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Kings 20 still stands as a legitimate defense for an Open Theist perspective.

Jeremiah 18 is the next passage commonly used by Open Theists.4 In this passage the

reader is shown a conversation between Jeremiah and Yahweh wherein both the prophet and the

Lord are entertaining the idea that Judah might repent. We see this in the Lord’s speech through

four extremely important “if” clauses:

7 If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break

down and destroy it, 8 and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its

evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. 9 And if at any time I declare

concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, 10 and if it does evil in my

sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it.

(emphasis added).

In Jeremiah’s speech that follows we see the same idea as in 2 Kings 20, yet cast in a

negative light; the prophet knows very well that the Lord will relent if the people repent, but

Jeremiah’s frustration and disgust with their sin is so potent that he has the audacity to ask God

to not forgive them.

19 Hear me, O Lord,

and listen to the voice of my adversaries. 20 Should good be repaid with evil?

Yet they have dug a pit for my life.

Remember how I stood before you

to speak good for them,

to turn away your wrath from them. 21a Therefore deliver up their children to famine;

give them over to the power of the sword… 23b …Forgive not their iniquity,

nor blot out their sin from your sight.

Let them be overthrown before you;

deal with them in the time of your anger.

In all of this conversation there is a very real sense that God is neither exhaustively

certain of nor explicitly predetermining what Judah will do. Of all of the people with whom God

4 This paper focuses on OT Scripture because it is for an OT course, so not treating NT Scripture is

intentional.

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can reveal the future to, Jeremiah would be one of the prime candidates. In the half-baked

Western Evangelical idea of what it means to be a prophet, Jeremiah would be telling the certain

future to the people, but this is clearly not the case here. God does not tell Jeremiah that

Nebuchadnezzar will definitely come and crush Jerusalem; quite the opposite, He gives him a

substantial if-then statement. This is precisely where the motivation behind the prophetic office

comes from, but correcting the perspective on what it means to be a prophet will come later in

this paper.

In consideration of Jeremiah 18, Matt Slick again gives his take on why the Open Theist

hermeneutic ought not be applied. He even takes it a step further by claiming that this passage

works in favour of a Calvinist perspective. He begins by expressing that God works

covenantally with Israel: sin brings punishment; obedience brings blessing. He ends by stressing

the importance of the Lord’s foreknowledge bringing about repentance: “From all eternity God

knew they would repent but used His declarative threat to bring them to that place of

repentance. If He did not tell them what would happen if they were to continue in sin, they

wouldn't have repented.”5 My question to Matt Slick is, how is repentance contingent upon

foreknowledge? Isn’t repentance contingent on conviction of sin? The future does not need to

be known for someone to be convicted of sin and to then turn from it. Sin does not break future

relationship with God, sin breaks it now. The broken relationship with God and broken shalom

with one another at the time of Judah’s sin should have by far been enough for the people to

realize their own error. However, since that was not actually enough, the conviction then came

in the task of Jeremiah highlighting for the people just how bad of a break there was.

5 Matt Slick, “Jeremiah 18:7-11, "I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring"” Carm.org,

2014. Accessed October 16, 2014.

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Towards a Proper Understanding of Prophecy

These exegesis of the two passages from Jeremiah and Isaiah (also 2 Kings) is not a mere

fleeting glimpse of a shallow theology that an idealist might try to pull out of thin air. The

stories are substantial in their supportive content for an Open Theist perspective. There is,

however, more to these stories than just a couple of anecdotes that tell us about how God relates

to us. There is a concept that transcends these stories. The concept that I am referring to is

prophecy.

The way that prophecy has been commonly treated suggests that there are chosen men

and women who have an inside track with the God who sees the future. Yahweh divulges the

future that He sees to these chosen prophets. The prophets would bring this prophecy to the

people of Israel and/or Judah which would then serve as a judgment to them.

To be fair, it is easy to see how we might come to these conclusions; our unique

perspective allows us to see the full range of Scripture’s narrative. This is where we get our

Christological reading glasses from; we see how Christ fulfills certain aspects of the prophetic

office, so we have trouble detaching this from our reading of the Old Testament. We have no

trouble seeing what prophecies were fulfilled and how. In 1 Kings 11, when Ahijah prophesies to

Jeroboam by tearing a garment into twelve pieces, it only takes us reading until the next page or

two in Scripture to see Rehoboam’s kingdom being divided into twelve pieces. The most basic

theological deductions seem to be cut out for us; the prophet prophesied the future as it would

happen, and it happened. As we have already seen, though, this was simply not the case with the

aforementioned references in Jeremiah and Isaiah. “The trouble with an ‘armchair’ approach to

the Bible is that it fails to get involved with real-life situations back there.”6

6 Dewey M. Beegle, Prophecy and Prediction, (Ann Arbor, MI: Pryor Pettengill, 1978), 48.

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It is here that I would like to submit a major correction to the Conservative Evangelical

understanding of prophecy.7 Prophecy is not a business of future telling. Prophecy is a business

of conviction. What is common of every major and minor prophet in Scripture? I believe it is

their message that binds them; “trust in God, repent of your sins.” The chief end of all the words

and works of the prophets boils down to a call to repentance for sins and to trust in the Lord for

deliverance, providence, blessing, and whatever else the covenant people of God might need.

Unfortunately, it is not that straightforward for a prophet.

There are further challenges that arise within the prophetic office. These challenges can

provide serious roadblocks to the acceptance of the prophetic message. Some roadblocks might

include other prophets offering competing messages, or the message itself being unpalatable and

therefore rejected. It is due to these situations that we see the introduction of signs

accompanying prophesies in order to validate the claims. In the case of competing prophets, we

find an illustration in the tension between Hananiah’s and Jeremiah’s prophecies to Zedekiah in

Jeremiah 27 – 28. Jeremiah enters a conference of the king with a yoke strapped to his neck. He

urges the king to repent, lest Babylon destroy Jerusalem. Hananiah, in response to Jeremiah’s

show of entering the court with a yoke on his neck, prophesies that the yoke of Babylon will be

broken. The next logical requirement for these prophets to fulfill is the validation of their

prophecy by some sort of sign. Hananiah’s sign would be the return of exiles from Babylon in

two years (instead of his presupposed seven years).8 Jeremiah’s sign was the death of Hananiah

for false prophecy. Whose sign did we witness through Scripture to come true? Jeremiah’s sign

came true. Does this require that we believe in God’s foreknowledge? Definitely not. On the

7 Of course, Conservative Evangelicals are not the only ones who believe in divine timelessness, but they

do represent an expression of the Body of Christ that predominantly believes it to be true. 8 Beegle, Prophecy, 34.

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contrary, I believe interactions like these speak more to the Sovereignty of God to accomplish

His purposes despite us. In other words, if a prophecy suggests something will happen in the

future, it is because God has the power to accomplish it. If I say I am going to go home for

lunch in half an hour, I am not foretelling the future, I am sharing what I intend to do and,

chances are, I will accomplish it. This perspective is greatly supported by the treatment of the

passages in Jeremiah and Isaiah in the earlier section of this paper.

God has the power to accomplish delivering judgement upon a sinful nation, but in the

event that the nation repents, God will no longer pursue that course of action. If Jeremiah’s

prophecies in other chapters are read with chapter 18 in mind, it is completely legitimate to

suppose that Jerusalem might not have been razed if Zedekiah submitted willingly to the yoke of

Babylon. In fact, we can even see in Isaiah’s time how the prophesied destruction of Jerusalem

by Sennacherib was actually avoided due to the intervention of Yahweh. Here’s the punchline:

both Micah and Isaiah prophesied of Jerusalem’s destruction, but the Lord ended up telling

Isaiah that “By the way that [Sennacherib] came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not

come into this city, declares the LORD. For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and

for the sake of my servant David” (Is. 37:34 – 35). Had Yahweh lied to two of his prophets? If

God certainly knew the future, why would He have sent Micah and Isaiah down the path of

humiliation when their initial prophecies were found to be false? Certainly part of the answer is

found in the words of the above verse; that God will save the city for His own sake and the sake

of David’s. This is reminiscent in the positive what the Exodus story of the Golden Calf is in the

negative.

In Exodus chapter 32 the anger of the Lord burned against Israel when he saw the idol

that had been built while Moses was with Him on Mount Sinai. If it had not been for Moses’

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intervention, Yahweh probably would have destroyed a great deal of the idolatrous Israelites.

11 But Moses implored the LORD his God and said, “O LORD, why does your wrath burn

hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power

and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring

them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’?

Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own

self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this

land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’”

Is this possibly what the Lord was considering when He had changed his mind from what

He had revealed to Isaiah and Micah? Or, instead of remembering Abraham, Isaac, and Israel,

could the Lord have been remembering the promise made to David to establish his throne? The

fact that the Lord directly uses David’s name in the context of Sennacherib’s invasion certainly

leads the reader to think back to that promise. God appears to be saying at this point “I am not

yet ready to deliver judgment here, I will remember a little longer my relationship with and

promise to David.” For three times and for four the Lord will express his grace and love through

his longsuffering interaction with a stiff-necked people.

God’s Sovereignty and Relationality

All of what has been written so far is by and large contingent upon a certain

understanding of God’s relation to time and creation. Allow me to switch gears here and move

away from prophecy and Scripture in order to postulate about certain traits of the Lord that will

either undo or support my argument thus far.

Hand in hand with the weak understanding of prophecy described above is an

understanding that God is timeless. All of history is laid out as a book before the Lord and He

can read any section He likes, past, present, or future. But what if the future has yet to be

determined? What if God is not timeless? Where do these presuppositions arise from?

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There are a number of different views concerning how God and time relate.9 Gregory E.

Ganssle has edited a compilation titled God and Time: Four Views, and I am sure he had many

options and authors to choose from to fill those four slots. The four views outlined in Ganssle’s

book are Divine Timeless Eternity, Eternity as Relative Timelessness, Timelessness and

Omnitemporality, and Unqualified Divine Temporality. There are two theories of time upon

which any of these perspectives are built; A-Theory and B-Theory. The essential difference

between these two theories is the consideration of whether or not an event exists. A-theorists

believe that an event which is not occurring now does not exist. B-theorists hold that any event

exists, but the only qualitative difference is found in its state of occurring; that is, existence is the

object and occurrence is the action of the object, so the object does not have to be acting to be

considered real.10 When our concept of God is tried against either of these theories, the

difficulties begin to arise. “These theories are important to our topic because many philosophers

think that if the A-theory of time is true, then God must be a temporal being. God can be

atemporal only if the B-theory is true.”11 It does not take any time at all for the proverbial rabbit-

hole to go ever deeper. If B-theory is true, and God is atemporal, then God has no sense of

“present.” If God is timeless, as is traditionally affirmed, then every event is occurring now for

Him. What I am about to write is perhaps a slightly fallacious argument, but it commonly comes

up in conversation, and I think it illustrates a deeper issue that could be teased out. If God is

timeless, and sees every event as occurring now, then God doesn’t know what time it is for those

of us who live in the present, and is therefore not omniscient. This is yet another problem with

9 Forgive me if this section seems somewhat disconnected or clunky. I am no William Lane Craig or

Nicholas Wolterstorff, and I do not have the space to develop these ideas further. 10 Gregory E. Ganssle, ed., God and Time: Four Views, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 14-

15. 11 Ganssle, God and Time, 15.

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our tacit use of Greek philosophical formulas to do theology. We think that any limitation of

God removes some of His glory; if God doesn’t know the present, He doesn’t know all things,

and therefore is not omniscient, so must be limited. These syllogistic-style arguments reveal

some of the inconsistencies in affirming these classical theistic descriptions of God. As you may

be feeling, the conversation can quickly become unhelpful, but I digress. On the other side of the

debate, if A-theory is true, God must change because this would require Him to exist temporally

within a changing reality. This theory flies directly in the face of some classical theistic

descriptions. Impassibility and immutability must be relinquished, and timelessness is obviously

not an option. These issues also spill over quite quickly into the realms of time, creation, their

beginnings, and God’s relation to each of these different aspects. Part of what I am trying to do

by discussing these theories is to create a tension in these characteristics that philosophy has

donated to theology, showing some of their inconsistency and incoherence. In any case, the

logical end of this paper’s argument leads to adopting an A-theory of time.12 I also believe that

an Open Theist perspective can relieve some of the tensions felt in discussing these different

theories.

If the expositions of Scripture in the first part of this essay are true, it stands to reason

that God is a temporal being. If, however, God is a temporal being, the critique is given that God

therefore must change since He exists in a changing reality. Why must we uphold that God

cannot change? Or, if we must, why must we uphold that God’s existence in time changes Him?

It seems to me that these discussions again begin to treat God as a variable in a formula. When,

though, we consider the relational personhood of the Lord, we in no way contribute to lessening

12 While B-theory could very well be true, I still do not think the concepts of divine timelessness and

meticulous providence could stand up to that test of time, especially as relates to the witness of Scripture already

discussed.

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God’s glory or fundamentally altering who He is, as if we were exchanging Yahweh for another

foreign god. What I mean by this is to say that many of these traditionally affirmed character

traits of God are things that we can continue to affirm, even though He is a free, acting, and

relationally affected agent in creation. Just because the progression of time brings new and

changing events into play, this does not mean that the very character of a free agent in these

circumstances must change. On the contrary, God consistently acts and reacts out of what may

be considered static character traits. If God is love and an event occurs that can have any

possible outcome depending upon God’s response, God does not have to change in order to react

to that event. The consistency of His loving character will be what He acts out of. Changing

circumstances do not require that a free agent involved in those circumstances must change their

very nature in order to pass through them. A description of Yahweh’s temporal involvement in

creation, therefore, does not require making claims about God that might be construed as

heretical.

So how does any of this help to better understand God’s sovereignty or relationality?

This perspective causes us to consider more closely the details of how God works with us in

creation. If God does not know the certain and exact future, it forces us to think differently about

topics such as Christ’s messianic fulfillment. God does not know the certain future, yet He

accomplished through Christ the fulfillment of what He had spoken by the prophets. As briefly

mentioned above, I believe the sovereignty of God is both highlighted and better understood

through an Open Theist perspective. There is a poor understanding of sovereignty that is

perpetuated when we think it must mean one agent ordaining every detailed event for other

actors to follow. William Shakespeare, as a playwright, was not really sovereign over the

characters in his plays; rather, he was a director, manager, or administrator. A director is

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someone who can dictate actions for an actor to follow and they will do it. There is no battle, no

conflict; the assumed relationship is that the director ultimately controls every action of a given

actor. For someone to be sovereign, however, their power must be such that another free agent

would submit to it. The dynamics of the relationship are different. There is potential for

conflict, but the one with greater sovereignty will execute their own will.

This is how I see God working in the world. His sovereignty is such that He is able to

out-perform other free agents acting in creation and be ultimately successful. Again, though, this

is not a characteristic that may be applied through a formula to God. And this is precisely where

God’s relationality also comes into play. “God has sovereignly decided to enter into a project in

which he desires reciprocal loving relationships and so does not control everything that

happens.”13 God has a will, but he also desires to have a healthy relationship with His creation.

I believe part of that will is to see that none should perish. We see this desire being expressed in

its fullest in Christ. Yahweh’s sovereignty is such that He accomplished this task regardless of

whatever event may have come to pass, but His relationality is such that the gift of salvation

through Christ is freely offered to everyone. Furthermore, if the narrative history of Israel is of

any value to this topic, we see that God is willing to work around or with the variables that other

free agents bring to the table. God’s sovereign will seemed to be to have Hezekiah die, hence

Isaiah’s message to him to get his house in order. When, however, Hezekiah brought up a

legitimate variable ─ honest prayer through tears ─ God’s reacted to this variable. It is because

of God’s relationality that Hezekiah’s prayer meant anything to Him, and His sovereignty was

not the sort that plowed forward with no regard for the input of others.

The story of Jonah offers to us a kind of reciprocal understanding of the

13 John Sanders, The God Who Risks: A Theology of Providence, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press,

1998), 208.

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relational/sovereign dichotomy. Jonah was rebellious of God’s calling right to the bitter end, but

God’s sovereign will was such that He simply dragged Jonah along through it all. The

relationality of God was not compromised in this case, for we see God reacting to Jonah’s

actions. But instead of the Lord relenting because Jonah was a whiner, we see His sovereignty

being the final determining factor in the story. Some might find this perspective problematic, but

how often in every day circumstances do we operate in similar fashion with others? My will for

my children is for them to be in bed at 8:00 pm. I am not a being who can see the future or

meticulously determine what will happen in that future; indeed, the free agency of my children

might be such that they end up introducing enough variables in order to have my will

accomplished at 8:05 pm instead. In the end, though, my will is still accomplished. My

“sovereignty” is greater, but I have not removed the free will of my children, and I have been

affected by their actions.

Conclusion

This description of sovereignty is not a difficult or outlandish concept to entertain.

Perhaps it is only because this relationship is put into words that we see it for what it is and

cringe at the thought of someone being determinatively stronger than us. But, as I have laid out

above, we are not required to lay aside any dogmatic descriptions of God’s character in order to

entertain the idea of His being temporally involved in creation. The narrative of Scripture points

us in the direction of seeing God as a relational being who interacts with creation. He deals in

real-time with the variables that other free agents introduce into the relationship. The correction

of what it means to be a prophet also strengthens the claims of Open Theism. Prophets are not

foretellers as much as they are forthtellers; forthtelling being descriptive of simply telling the

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truth. And, finally, Open Theism brings to light the sovereignty and relationality of God in

potentially unique ways that might not otherwise be grasped in a Calvinist or even Armenian

theology. Given everything that has been discussed, I would like to leave the reader with a final

couple of questions for consideration: does our conception of God’s relation to the future change

how He relates to us? In other words, does God relate to Calvinists in the way that they believe

He does? Does he relate to Armenians differently? How does our speech about God’s

determinism affect our relationship with Him?

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Works Cited

Beegle, Dewey M. Prophecy and Prediction. Ann Arbor, MI: Pryor Pettengill, Publisher. 1978.

Ganssle, Gregory E. God and Time: Four Views. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. 2001.

Sanders, John. The God Who Risks: A Theology of Providence. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity

Press. 1998.

Matt Slick, “2 Kings 20:1-6, "You shall die and not live...I will add 15 years to your life."”

http://carm.org/2-kings-201-6-you-shall-die-and-not-livei-will-add-15-years-your.

Accessed October 10, 2014.

Matt Slick, “Jeremiah 18:7-11, "I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring"”

http://carm.org/jeremiah-187-11-i-will-relent-concerning-calamity-i-planned-bring.

Accessed October 16, 2014.

Works Consulted

Boyd, Gregory A. God of the possible. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books. 2001.

Frame, John M. No Other God: A Response to Open Theism. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing

Company. 2001.

Hasker, William. God, Time, and Knowledge. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 1989.

Piper, John, Justin Taylor, and Paul Kjoss Helseth. Eds. Beyond the Bounds: Open Theism and

the Undermining of Biblical Christianity. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books. 2003.

Olson, Roger E. Against Calvinism. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. 2011.

Olson, Roger E. Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic.

2006.

Walls, Jerry J. The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

2008.

Ware, Bruce A. Their God is Too Small: Open Theism and the Undermining of Confidence in

God. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books. 2003.