In the Open View, God's plans can be defeated. Romans 8:28 clearly says that all things that happen work for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. That means that, according to the OV, God's plans which would benefit the believer can be thwarted by the believer themself.
and how is this different from arminianism? the view of providence is exactly the same and in arminianism, God's plans can be thwarted.
Here is the problem, then: how can one hold to the Open View, denying EDF
it takes more than edf, and if you insist that edf solves your problem, we openness folks can provide just as good of a solution.
Does God have anything to do with this fact that he can work all things out with free creatures or is he just lucky and romans 8 is just a statement of the fact of God's good luck that no free creature would ever thwart his plans in the way that he could not bring any good out of? well, pretending I'm a classical arminian, God sees all of the future and anything that might happen (making this a molinism) that would not work with him will be prevented. whether God has to do it explicitley miraculously or working under the table away from human eyes, he works it out so that such unusable evil will not happen to the believer.
and does the open view have to be any different? not at all. we have the same exact view of freedom as arminians except we take it more consistently. we believe that many more possibilities actually have a chance to come true. all God has to do isremove the possibilities that won't lend themselves to being woven into his plan for those who love him.
The problem with the OV is that someone could make a bad choice and die immediately, leaving God NO TIME (since He cannot see the future) in which to make it work out for the good.
If they die they are ushered into the presence of God. Didn't Paul say to live is Christ and to die is gain?
now perhaps you're thinking that they have one last lecherous thought and then they die. Well supposing they are in that state, all God has to do is prevent them from dieing at that moment so that they might repent.
what if in that last moment they reject God and fall away. then 8:28 would no longer apply to them.
Now this is all just one possible solution.
I like what arminian put forth and I would like to see what you do with it. With the corporate groups in mind and not individuals, we are looking at what happens to the church in general. this is much easier. pretty much we have all the bases covered because if the church is persecuted, God can use that for the growth and strength of the character of the church. if they prosper, obviously that can be used for the church.
one more theing to consider is why we should take this as an absolute where every individual thing is to be viewed as something that must be used by God. consider the following:
3 men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth.
4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude. 5 for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer
so if we accept cocaine and pot with gratitude, it will be sanctified? clearly not.
but lets look closer to the context at hand.
32 He who (71) did not spare His own Son, but (72) delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?
so is God really going to give us all things? will he give us the throne of heaven? will he give us the keys to death and hell?
"all things" is a vague statement which is almost never used literally. perhaps in metaphysics its used literally. Jobeth likes to take verses such as those and argue that God created evan evil.
but you did offer evidence to take it so broadly.
there are numerous Jewish parallels to this phrase, most notably Rabbi Aqiba, "All the Almighty does, he does for good." This is something that shows an unlimited scope for this verse, meaning that it really does mean all things and not just all salvific things.
I don't see why this is evidence as to why romans 8:28 should be taken as absolutely exhaustively inclusive. but I'll grant that it is evidence. but is it proof? no way. so for this, you may have good evidence, but as we have theological problems with this (a theology which is built upon other scriptures) we'll take the less likely interpretation (if it is indeed less likely). that an interpretation is less likely is a far cry from saying that it is wrong. it's a myth of hermeneutics and of the more fundamentalistic strain of evangelicalism to insist otherwise.
How then does this square with Romans 8:28? It simply does not, and therefore I believe it is impossible to hold a high view of scripture and still hold to the Open View of God.
to say that something does not reflect God's plan and may not reflect it is not to say that God can't use that event. many children were murdered in the holocaust. I don't see any reason to say that this was apart of God's plan, but for some people, God may have used this to come closer to them in their grief. certainly for those who did not love God, this may have only driven them further away. so here we have the same event for which believers could benefit and yet it had no divine purpose to begin with.
