Question About Open Theism

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Nolan

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Does God’s foreknowledge of the future cause it to be fixed?

For example, if God already knows what a person will do in the future, how can they make a decision other than what God knows will happen?

And if they are able to make a decision other than what God knows, wouldn’t that falsify God’s knowledge of the future events?
 
JudgeRightly

JudgeRightly

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Nolan said:
Does God’s foreknowledge of the future cause it to be fixed?

For example, if God already knows what a person will do in the future, how can they make a decision other than what God knows will happen?

And if they are able to make a decision other than what God knows, wouldn’t that falsify God’s knowledge of the future events?
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Causal to be fixed? Not necessarily.

But it does preclude alternatives. So in a sense, yes?

Recommend reading this:
 
JudgeRightly

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And yes, if someone was able to choose other than what God foreknew, then His knowledge could not, by definition, be infallible.
 
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Nolan

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Nick M said:
Him knowing what he will do does not change your ability to chose. And I think that is what you are really asking.
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Yes sir, that is basically what I’m trying to figure out.

If God knows that someone will turn left but they choose to turn right, does that invalidate God’s foreknowledge? Or can that person not do anything other than turn left?
 
JudgeRightly

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Nolan said:
Yes sir, that is basically what I’m trying to figure out.

If God knows that someone will turn left but they choose to turn right, does that invalidate God’s foreknowledge? Or can that person not do anything other than turn left?
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It invalidates the concept of infallible foreknowledge, yes.

Or as some like to call it, Exhaustive Divine Foreknowledge (EDF).

But the Bible shows many times where God thought men would do one thing, and they ended up doing another.
 
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Nolan said:
Thank you sir for your response.

Is it possible that there are times when God chooses not to know that something until after it happens?
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I suppose so. Often, God turns away from Israel due to their wickedness.
 
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Nolan

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JudgeRightly said:
2 Kings 17.
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Is this what you’re referring to?

Verses 18-20 (RSV)

Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight; none was left but the tribe of Judah only. Judah also did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the customs which Israel had introduced. And the Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel, and afflicted them, and gave them into the hand of spoilers, until he had cast them out of his sight.
 
Nick M

Nick M

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Nolan said:
Can you give me an example please?
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Read Romans 11. Here is a sample.

11 I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. 12 Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!

13 For I speak to you Gentiles; in as much as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, 14 if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them. 15 For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?

Prophecy is conditional. The 70th week of Daniel and the restoration did not happen. The future is open and our creator is free.
 
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