39 Sermon Illustrations on Omniscience

The passengers on the bus watched sympathetically as the attractive young woman with the white cane made her way carefully up the steps .She paid the driver and, using her hands to feel the location of the seats, walked down the aisle and found the seat he'd told her was empty. Then she settled in, placed her briefcase on her lap and rested her cane against her leg.

It had been a year since Susan, 34, became blind. Due to a medical misdiagnosis, she had been rendered sightless, and she was suddenly thrown into of darkness, anger, frustration and self-pity.

Once a fiercely independent woman, Susan now felt condemned by this terrible twist of fate to become a powerless, helpless burden on everyone around her. How could this have happened to me?" She would plead, her heart knotted with anger.

But no matter how much she cried or ranted or prayed, she knew the painful truth - her sight was never going to return. A cloud of depression hung over Susan's once optimistic spirit. Just getting through each day was an exercise in frustration and exhaustion. And all she had to cling to was her husband, Mark, an Air Force officer who loved Susan with all of his heart.

When she first lost her sight, he watched her sink into despair and was determined to help his wife gain the strength and confidence she needed to become independent again. Mark's military background had trained him well to deal with sensitive situations, and yet he knew this was the most difficult battle he would ever face.

Finally, Susan felt ready to return to her job, but how would she get there? She used to take the bus, but was now too frightened to get around the city by herself. Mark volunteered to drive her to work each day, even though they worked at opposite ends of the city. At first, this comforted Susan and fulfilled Mark's need to protect his sightless wife who was so insecure about performing the slightest task.

Soon, however, Mark realized that this arrangement wasn't working; it was hectic and costly. Susan is going to have to start taking the bus again, he admitted to himself. But just the thought of mentioning it to her made him cringe. She was still so fragile, so angry. How would she react?

Just as Mark predicted, Susan was horrified at the idea of taking the bus again. "I'm blind!" she responded bitterly. "How am I supposed to know where I'm going? I feel like you're abandoning me." Mark's heart broke to hear these words, but he knew what had to be done. He promised Susan that each morning and evening he would ride the bus with her, for as long as it took, until she got the hang of it. And that is exactly what happened.

For two solid weeks, Mark, military uniform and all, accompanied Susan to and from work each day. He taught her how to rely on her other senses, specifically her hearing, to determine where she was and how to adapt to her new environment. He helped her befriend the bus drivers who could watch out for her, and save her a seat. He made her laugh, even on those not-so-good days when she would trip exiting the bus, or drop her briefcase.

Each morning they made the journey together and Mark would take a cab back to his office. Although this routine was even more costly and exhausting than the previous one, Mark knew it was only a matter of time before Susan would be able to ride the bus on her own. He believed in her, in the Susan he used to know before she'd lost her sight, who wasn't afraid of any challenge and who would never, ever quit.

Finally, Susan decided that she was ready to try the trip on her own. Monday morning arrived and before she left, she threw her arms around Mark, her temporary-bus-riding-companion, husband, and best friend. Her eyes filled with tears of gratitude for his loyalty, his patience, his love. She said good-bye and for the first time they went their separate ways.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday ... each day on her own went perfectly, and Susan had never felt better. She was doing it! She was going to work all by herself!

On Friday morning Susan took the bus to work as usual. As she was paying for her fare to exit the bus, the driver said, "Boy, I surely envy you." Susan wasn't sure if the driver were speaking to her or not. After all, who on earth would ever envy a blind woman who had struggled just to find the courage to live for the past year? Curious, she asked the driver, "Why do you say that you envy me?"

The driver responded, "It must feel so good to be taken care of and protected like you are." Susan had no idea what the driver was talking about, and asked again, "What do you mean?" The driver answered, "You know, every morning for the past week, a fine-looking gentleman in a military uniform has been standing across the corner watching you when you get off the bus. He makes sure you cross the street safely and he watches you until you enter your office building. Then he blows you a kiss, gives you a little salute and walks away. You are one fortunate lady."

Tears of happiness poured down Susan's cheeks. For although she couldn't physically see him, she had always felt Mark's presence. She was fortunate, so blessed, for he had given her a gift more powerful than sight, a gift she didn't need to see to believe - the gift of love that can bring light where there had been darkness.

And the best part is that God watches over us in just the same way. We may not know He is present. We may not be able to see His face, but He is there nonetheless! Be blessed in this thought: "God Loves You - even when you are not looking."

Have a Blessed Day ... Be PRAYERFUL and THANKFUL for all things!!!

*

A friend told me of a magical puzzle; the puzzle, it seems, has an infinite number of pieces and its owner distributes the pieces freely and often, but never all the pieces and never the same pieces to any two people.

What’s so magical about the puzzle? Well, with some effort each man is able to assemble his pieces into a whole picture. Left with only that fact, each man might conclude he has the entire picture; however, only when he discovers that others have formed a whole picture of their pieces, and similarly discovers that the whole is never completely seen in the part, can the man appreciate the puzzle’s magic.

The danger is in focusing on the puzzle and not the owner. You may learn to know the pieces intimately and thus know "of" the owner but, until you know the owner, all the insight into the pieces is just that … only part of the puzzle.

Comments: No man ever has the complete revelation of God, only the part, and only that part God allows him to have.

The God’s revelation is composed of two parts: general and special revelation (some say three parts, adding progressive). General is what God has revealed about Himself to all men through nature, providential control, and conscience. Special is what God reveals through His Son and the Scriptures; available only to those who have had access to these revealed truths as God wills.

There is implied in the word revelation the act of revealing, thus that which is not revealed is not revelation.

Source/Attribution: © Sermon-Illustrations-Each-Week 1999

*

The will of God will never take you,

Where the grace of God cannot keep you,

Where the arms of God cannot support you,

Where the riches of God cannot supply your needs,

Where the power of God cannot endow you.

The will of God will never take you,

Where the Spirit of God cannot work through you,

Where the wisdom of God cannot teach you,

Where the army of God cannot protect you,

Where the hands of God cannot mold you.

The will of God will never take you,

Where the love of God cannot enfold you,

Where the mercies of God cannot sustain you,

Where the peace of God cannot calm your fears,

Where the authority of God cannot overrule for you.

The will of God will never take you,

Where the comfort of God cannot dry your tears,

Where the Word of God cannot feed you,

Where the miracles of God cannot be done for you,

Where the omnipresence of God cannot find you.

Everything happens for a purpose.

We may not see the wisdom of it all now.

But trust and believe in the Lord that everything is for the best.

Ultrasound technology, which enables parents to see their

developing unborn children, is the rage among the child-bearing

generation. Parents are able to know, long before the actual birth of

their child, whether their child is a boy or a girl, and physicians

can know much about the unborn child's health condition.

Does it, therefore, seem unreasonable that God knows all about us,

even before we know it ourselves?

- James F. Looby, {Proclaim}

There is a story of a photographer who went to the docks to

take a picture of the "The Great Eastern". Its hull was black,

having been coated with tar. That same day the man went to his

own darkroom to develop the film and print it. As the picture

of the ship began to take form, the word "Lewis" appeared on the

hull. Immediately the photographer returned to the wharf to see

whether that name actually was on the vessel. But it wasn't

visible. Astonished, he contacted the office of the shipping

company and inquired about this strange phenomenon. He was told

that the word "Lewis" could be found underneath the tar. The

camera's powerful lens and the sensitive film had picked it up.

In the incident recorded in \reference{Luke 7}{Luke 7}, the Lord was

thoroughly

aware that the woman who had come to anoint His feet in the

Pharisee's house had led a wicked life. He did not ignore her

past but tactfully referred to her sin and then forgave it.

Nothing was hidden from His eye.

The North American Numbering Plan is 50 years old this year, writes Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post. Its job is to distribute telephone area codes. Some notes: The people who gave out the original area codes saw to it that the most frequently dialled cities got numbers that were quickest to dial on a rotary phone. "Thus New York got 212, L.A. got 213, Chicago 312. If you were calling Anchorage, however, you had to wait through the 26 clicks of 907. It made sense." New North American area codes are given out by Ronald Conners, a bald engineer with Lockheed Martin Inc., based in Washington. He used to design anti-ballistic missile systems. Also, "I used to have a full head of hair, before I entered the numbering business." News for the brain God also has a numbering plan. He numbers our days, the hairs on our head, the elect ...

Baptist Press editors note: The following series of articles by theologian Mark Rathel of The Baptist College of Florida in Graceville, Florida, summarizes the tenets of open theism, which denies God's exhaustive knowledge of the future. Although not currently a major issue among Southern Baptists, open theism is gaining ground among evangelicals.

Rathel's theological essays, while irenic and fair, should leave no doubt with Baptist Press readers that open theism is a theology that must be rejected as unbiblical and harmful to believers.

This series originally ran in the Florida Baptist Witness.

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“Open theism” is an energetic, controversial topic in evangelicalism today that has captured the appeal of a significant segment of the evangelical culture to the point that major evangelical publishers enthusiastically publish books authored by open theists.

This growing movement affirms some aspects of the classical view of God, such as God's independence, the Trinity, creation and relational capability. Open theism, however, rejects some of the classical views of God's attributes, specifically the changelessness of God and the divine foreknowledge of human choices.

The name “open theism” derives from the affirmation that God Himself is open to new experiences, including the experience of learning the progressive events of world history as the events unfold.

Throughout Christian history, orthodox believers expressed a common understanding of the nature of God labeled “classical theism.” The last 15 years witnessed the development of a reformation of the evangelical understanding of the doctrine of God. In calling the movement a reformation, I suggest that the movement represents a major paradigm shift in the understanding of God by some evangelicals.

The leaders of open theism are articulate, well-educated evangelicals affirming the inerrancy of Scripture. The “great triumvirate” of open theism includes Clark Pinnock, Gregory Boyd and John Sanders. Pinnock, recently retired professor of theology at McMaster Divinity College in Ontario, Canada, is a British scholar who began his North American teaching career at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in the 1960s. Gregory Boyd formerly taught at Bethel College, associated with the Baptist General Conference, in St. Paul, Minn. John Sanders teaches at Huntington College in Huntington, Ind., a Brethren in Christ school.

Classical theism affirms that God is unchanging in His being, character, purposes and promises. Open theists delight when misinformed individuals assume that the historic theological debate between Calvinism and Arminianism drives the current debate about God's foreknowledge. Such an assumption neglects the strong emphasis on God's foreknowledge within the Arminian tradition. James Arminius, for example, wrote, “God knows all things from eternity. He knows all things immeasurably. He knows all things immutable, his knowledge not being varied.”

Thomas Oden, professor of theology at Drew University and perhaps the leading Arminian theologian in the Methodist tradition today, strongly disagrees with the openness position. In a Feb. 9, 1998, Christianity Today article, Oden wrote, “The fantasy that God is ignorant of the future is a heresy that must be rejected on scriptural grounds.”

Historically, Baptist confessional statements and theological writings reveal that Arminian and Calvinistic or Particular Baptists consistently affirmed God's foreknowledge of all events, including the choices of human beings. Southern Baptists addressed the challenge of open theism in the 1994 report of the Presidential Theological Study Committee, a 1999 resolution and the 2000 revision of the Baptist Faith and Message. Open theism, however, is making inroads into Southern Baptist life. In its June 24, 2002, issue, the Baptist Standard newspaper in Texas published a series of articles generally favorable to the openness position.

Although advocates of open theism do not agree among themselves on every aspect of their revision of the historic doctrine of God, five key elements characterize the understanding of God in open theism.

First, open theists affirm a qualified divine omniscience (all- knowing). God possesses exhaustive knowledge about proper subjects of knowledge. Since the future does not exist to know, God cannot know the future free choices of His creatures. God possesses present knowledge, that is, perfect knowledge of the past and present. Open theists do not regard this qualification as compromising God's omniscience. To buttress their case, open theists note, for example, God's omnipotence (all-powerful), does not mean that God possesses the power to do anything whatsoever. God cannot do the illogical (make round squares) or the immoral.

Second, open theists reject a monarchial metaphor of God's sovereignty in favor of a parental “at-risk” sovereignty. They argue the metaphor of a sovereign king depicts the tyrannical control of an insecure, weak and sick being. In God's “sovereignty over His sovereignty,” He chose to grant His creatures genuine freedom -- God created mankind in His image, which means that humanity participates with God in creating an open future. This risk-taking God has a goal for His creation, yet His free creatures can thwart and even frustrate the purposes of God. Rather than emphasizing God's omnipotence, open theists affirm God's omnicompetency (all-ability) to adapt to surprises and unexpected situations.

Third, open theists highlight God as a relational being. Love is the preeminent attribute of God. The dynamic God of open theism creatively interacts and responds in a vulnerable, loving fashion. God exercises control through persuasion, not coercion.

Fourth, the central component of the open theist's position is human libertarian freedom. According to Pinnock, humans have the ability to make free-choices without the coercion of “nature, nurture or God.” In line with the “at-risk” model of providence, God does not generally intervene in human affairs. Humanity, therefore, bears the primary responsibility for the developing future.

Fifth, open theists conceive of their viewpoint as a solution to the problem of evil and some forms of human suffering. Human libertarian freedom and an open future entail the possibility of great evil. God knows neither the content nor the consequences of His creatures' future free choices. God, therefore, cannot prevent evil. God is responsible for the potentiality of evil, but He is not responsible for the reality of evil.

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Why open theism is not merely an academic debate By Mark Rathel

(BP) -- Why should all Christians of all walks of life be concerned about open theism? Are the arguments for and against open theism an example of “much ado about nothing” -- an issue only relevant to “ivory tower” academicians? What are the implications of open theism for practical discipleship?

Theology may be good or bad, true or false. Yet, theology always influences how we live. Therefore, I encourage laypeople and pastors alike to follow the example of the noble Bereans and search the Scriptures “daily to find out whether these things [are] so” (Acts 17:16 NKJV).

In my opinion, open theism fails at several levels and, thus, undermines biblical Christianity. I cite at least four areas in which open theism fails.

First, open theism fails biblically. Deuteronomy 18:22 establishes the test of a true prophet as complete accuracy. In matters of prophetic future, a true prophet functions as a spokesperson for the God who knows the future. In Isaiah, the living God chides the false gods because they fail to meet the criteria of telling events yet future (Isaiah 41:21-23). While false gods fail to foretell the future, the living God declares the end from the beginning. The eighth century B.C. prophet connects God's detailed knowledge of the future with His role as Savior (Isaiah 43:11; 45:21).

Open theists, in contrast, believe that some prophecies will not happen. God, therefore, does not meet the test of a true prophet. Clark Pinnock flatly states that Jesus wrongly issued prophecies related to the destruction of Jerusalem. The God of open theism, therefore, lacks the biblical credentials of a true prophet.

Second, open theism fails in terms of practical discipleship. Prayer is one of the most vital aspects of the Christian life. Open theists teach that a personal, relational God wants to hear from us, and indeed, God may not act until He hears from us. Yet, because open theists, like the deists of the English Enlightenment, affirm that God rarely intervenes in earthly affairs, the natural question is, “Why pray?” Further, since God refuses to influence people, intercessory prayer is useless.

The issue of God's guidance is another practical discipleship problem for open theists. Gregory Boyd tells the emotive story of a missionary candidate named Susan. Susan sought God's guidance before marriage; felt that God gave her a specific spouse; yet her husband committed adultery. For Boyd, the proper pastoral response necessitates informing Susan that God Himself was shocked to learn of the divorce. Do you really want to seek out the advice of a God who can have mistaken beliefs, who regretted His own past divine actions such as the creation of mankind (a divine Oops!)?

According to Boyd, God can do a better job providing guidance in short- term matters than He can with long-term guidance. How does this guidance from an “open” God differ from the guidance of another human?

Third, open theism fails as a solution for the problem of evil and suffering. The existence of evil in light of a good, all-powerful God must remain a mystery for Christians. The problem of evil and suffering is a personal, practical issue for many of the leading advocates of open theism because of their personal, existential suffering. (Those who disagree with the conclusion of open theists must respond with tender empathy and compassion to their personal suffering.)

Open theists absolve God of any relationship to evil by ascribing evil to human libertarian freedom. A good, powerful God, for example, could not know of the future rise of Hitler. Therefore, God could not prevent the ascendancy of Hitler to control of the Third Reich. Yet, even in the open theist understanding of God, once God learned of the evilness of Hitler, He could act to prevent Hitler's atrocities. God, however, chose not to intervene even after He became educated. Does this bring resolution to the problem of moral evil?

Is the open theism explanation superior to the traditional explanations for the problem of evil? In contrast to open theism's lack of a divine plan, Christians throughout history received comfort from the realization that their suffering served an important purpose for their good.

Fourth, open theism diminishes Christian hope. Some open theists view the church as God's “good luck,” that is, a risk-taking God achieved His purpose for a people despite a lack of knowledge about the outcome ahead of time. If the church is God's “good luck,” then how can the Christian experience certain hope regarding the consummation of history? Could the risk-taking God -- a God mistaken about past events -- gamble the unknown future and lose? Can an “open” God ever be sure of final victory?

Perhaps it's the possibility of eternal insecurity that causes Pinnock and John Sanders to also hold to annihilationism -- the heretical doctrine that those who die without having trusted Christ will be destroyed at death, rather than suffer eternal punishment in hell. The vulnerable God of open theism realizes secure victory only by the absolute destruction of all enemies, angelic and human. In the end, the God of open theism truly changes His character and purposes. In the end, God becomes a sovereign king.

The God described by the Baptist Faith and Message is superior to the God proposed by open theism. “God is all powerful and all knowing; and His perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures” (BF&M, Article II, God). To this knowledgeable God, we owe the highest love, reverence and obedience.

No, this is not a merely academic debate with little importance to everyday Christian life. The assault on the biblical, historic doctrine of God found in tenets of open theism is one that must be opposed by all believers -- inspired by the model of the Bereans -- who know that our future hope is found only in a God who holds the future.

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Is open theism consistent with biblical Christianity? By Mark Rathel

(BP) -- The advocates of open theism are self-professed evangelicals affirming the inerrancy and authority of Scripture. Clark Pinnock and John Sanders hold membership in the Evangelical Theological Society, an important scholarly organization committed to the inerrancy of Scripture. Gregory Boyd is, as far as I know, committed to the inerrancy of Scripture.

In fact, open theists claim Scripture leads them to a denial of the historic understanding of God's knowledge of future events. Open theists, such as Pinnock, Boyd and Sanders, isolate five types of Scripture passages that lead them to reformulate their understanding of God.

First, open theists point to passages that speak of the future in terms of contingency, that is, what “may” happen (Exodus 4:1-9; 13:17; Matthew 26:39). For example, in Exodus 4:1-9 Moses questioned his duty if the Jewish leaders failed to believe in him. God detailed several miracles which at the hand of Moses “may” lead the people to believe in Moses as God's messenger. This passage, however, does not mean that God did not know how the Jewish leaders would respond to Moses. God told Moses in advance the response of the Jewish leaders (Exodus 3:18).

Again, some open theists interpret Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane in which He requested the removal of the cup of death as meaning the events of Calvary lacked certainty. According to Sanders, Jesus could avoid the cross, in spite of the fact of the scriptural claims that foreknew the sacrifice of Christ (Acts 2:23; Revelation 13:8.).

Second, open theists highlight as most important passages that suggest God tested people to discover people's responses. In response to Abraham's willingness to offer his son Isaac, God responded, “Now I know that you fear God” (Genesis 22:12 NKJV). However, if their interpretation is correct, then God lacked present knowledge of Abraham's heart as well as his future decisions. God previously reckoned Abraham righteous because of his faith and established an unconditional covenant (Genesis 15; Romans 4). Hebrew scholars note that the term translated in Genesis 22:12 as “know” denotes a confirmation of knowledge.

Third, open theists accentuate passages which describe God as asking non-rhetorical questions about the future (Numbers 14:11; 1 Kings 22:20; Hosea 8:5). Yet, to call these questions non-rhetorical is a matter of interpretation. Scripture frequently records God asking rhetorical questions. For example, Genesis 3:9-13 describes God asking Adam and Eve the following questions: “Where are you?” “Who told you that you were naked?,” “Have you eaten from the tree?,” “What is this you have done?” A non-rhetorical interpretation of these passages in Genesis suggests that God lacks knowledge of the past, as well as, the present and future. In like manner, in Numbers and Hosea God rhetorically asked “how long” His people would despise Him. God frequently asked rhetorical questions in connection with the commissioning of a servant (1 Kings 22:20; Isaiah 6:8) without implying a lack of knowledge.

Fourth, open theists emphasize passages in which God expresses regret, indeed repentance, for his decisions (Genesis 6:6; 1 Samuel 15:11,35). Genesis 6:6 says, “The Lord repented that He made man on earth, and He was grieved on earth” (KJV). 1 Samuel 15:11 states, “I repent that I made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me” (KJV). Neither of these passages directly affirms that God does not know the future; rather, open theists infer that God would have decided on another course of action if He foreknew the results. To understand Genesis 6:6 as an expression of divine ignorance insinuates that God did not foresee the fall of humanity into moral corruption. If the corruption of sin took God by surprise, how could God establish a redemptive plan prior to creation?

The same chapter in Samuel affirms, “I repent that I made Saul king” (1 Samuel 15:11, 35) and “the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent, for He is not a man, that He should repent” (1 Sam. 15:29). The Hebrew verb translated “repent” (naham) means “relent” or “grieve” rather than repent. Saul could not establish a dynasty according to the Word of God; Jacob's prophecy stated the royal king would arise from the tribe of Judah (Gen. 49:8-10). God's rejection of Saul because of the king's disobedience did not violate God's plan. Because God is not man, He would neither relent nor lie regarding His decision to give the kingship to David. Yet, God “grieved” in the sense that He expressed the appropriate moral response to the failure of a leader.

Finally, open theists stress passages in which God expressed surprise or disappointment (Jeremiah 7:31; 19:5; 32:35). The passages in Jeremiah appear to support open theism. God said three times that the idolatrous abomination of child sacrifices never “entered my mind.” Yet, the passage does not claim that God never thought about this specific behavior. Three times God specifically warned Israel of this particular sin centuries before the sixth-century prophet Jeremiah (Leviticus 18:21; Deuteronomy 12:31; 18:10). Rather, the phrase “enter my mind” commonly described intention. The act of child sacrifice unashamedly opposed God's intention or will.

Bruce Ware, a professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has written a book for laymen addressing the faulty biblical rationale of open theists: “God's Lesser Glory: The Diminished God of Open Theism.”

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Mullins, Hobbs, others affirmed God's complete knowledge of future, by Staff writers

Following are excerpts from various creeds, confessions, catechisms and books from the past four centuries that affirm God's exhaustive knowledge of the future:

• “God hath before all time foreseen and foreknown all things, both good and evil, whether past, present, or to come.”

-- John Smyth, “A Short Confession of Faith” (1610).

• “Every particle of being in heaven and earth leads us to the infinite being of beings, namely God, who is simplicity; who is the only eternal being, everlasting without time, whose immense presence is always everywhere present, having immutability without any alteration in being or will; in a word, God is infinite, of universal, unlimited, and incomprehensible perfection....”

-- “The Orthodox Creed” (1679).

• “His knowledge is infinite, infallible, and independent upon the creature, so as nothing is to Him contingent or uncertain....”

-- “Philadelphia Confession of Faith” (1742).

• “Question: What does God know? Answer: God knows all things; even the secrets of our hearts; God is omniscient.”

-- John Broadus, “A Catechism of Bible Teaching” (1892).

• “God knows not only actually existing things, but also all future events.... We urge that God does know in advance the choices of His free creatures.... We cannot think of the infinite and perfect Spirit as devoid of knowledge of His creation in any respect. A God without a knowledge of all the choices of His free creatures would be without power to guide or control the universe.”

-- E. Y. Mullins, “The Christian Religion in Its Doctrinal Expression” (1917).

• “God's knowledge is not limited by time.... There are no surprises that come to God out of the future.... God's knowledge is not the result of inference on His part.... He knows directly.... God foreknows also directly the free acts of men.”

-- W. T. Conner, “Christian Doctrine” (1937).

• “God has all knowledge. He knows all things simultaneously. His knowledge is immediate, without the processes of thought, reason, or inference. His foreknowledge of events does not necessarily mean that He predetermined them. He knows the workings of His natural, physical, moral, and spiritual laws which work towards definite ends. Individuals are free to choose in the light of them, but are responsible for their choices. God knows these choices beforehand, but does not predetermine them.”

-- Hershel Hobbs, “Baptist Faith and Message, Revised Edition” (1996 commentary on 1963 edition of Baptist Faith and Message).

• “Baptists affirm that God is limitless in power, knowledge, wisdom, love, and holiness. He suffers no limitations upon His power or His personality. He is not constrained by external force or internal contradiction. We reject any effort to redefine God as a limited deity.”

-- “Report of the Southern Baptist Convention Presidential Theological Study Committee” (1994).

• “God is all powerful and all knowing; and His perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures.”

-- “Baptist Faith and Message” (2000).

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Compiled by Mark Rathel. Florida Baptist Witness, available online at www.floridabaptistwitness.com.

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #19527]

An astronomer was engaged in making some observations on the sun

with a great telescope. As the sun descended toward the horizon,

there came within view to top of a hill seven miles away. On the top

of that hill were a large number of apple trees, and in one of them

were two boys stealing apples. One was getting the apples, and the

other was watching to make certain that nobody saw them, feeling

certain they were undiscovered. But there sat the astronomer, seven

miles away, with the great eye of the telescope directed fully upon

them, seeing every movement they made as plainly as if he had been

under the tree.

An ill-prepared college student taking an economics exam just before Christmas vacation wrote on his paper. “Only God knows the answers to these questions. Merry Christmas!”

The professor graded the papers and wrote this note: “God gets 100, you get 0. Happy New Year!”

What does God know, and when does God know it?

The question has of late heated up in conservative evangelical circles with the rise of a group of scholars who describe themselves as "open" theists. They say God doesn't know exact details of the future, because it will be shaped by human decisions. Thus the future is "open" rather than predetermined.

That flies in the face of traditional theology, particularly among disciples of a resurgent Calvinism, which emphasizes God's sovereignty, foreknowledge and predestination.

Christian teaching describes God as "omniscient" -- having perfect knowledge of all things. But it also says humans have free will, setting up the classic paradox: If God already knows what I'm going to decide to do tomorrow, do I really have freedom of choice?

The debate bubbled to the surface in the Southern Baptist Convention with revisions to the "Baptist Faith and Message" adopted in 2000. A sentence added to the 1963 version's article on God says: "God is all-powerful and all-knowing; and his perfect knowledge extends to all things past, present and future, including the future decisions of his free creatures."

More recently, the Evangelical Theological Society voted overwhelmingly to reject open theism. The society of theologians and scholars last fall approved a resolution that states: "We believe the Bible clearly teaches that God has complete, accurate and infallible knowledge of all events past, present and future, including all future decisions and actions of free moral agents."

That prompted a counter-statement by a group of evangelical scholars deploring what they viewed as a tendency to "define the boundaries of evangelical faith and life too narrowly."

Stanley Grenz of Carey Theological College and Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia; Roger Olson of George W. Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University; and Jonathan Wilson of Westmont College in Santa Barbara, Calif., said evangelicals shouldn't be so hasty to close the door on debate about open theism.

Describing theological debate as a sign of "vitality," they urged evangelical leaders "to make room for reverent exploration of new ideas and reconsideration of old ones without assuming too quickly that we know what Scripture clearly does and does not teach."

Advocates of open theism say it provides answers to serious questions such as what happens to God when people pray. They point to various Scripture passages referring to God changing his mind and being grieved by human actions.

Detractors say it departs from classic Christian understandings of God's all-knowing and unchangeable nature. They say some problems, such as evil and suffering, are divine paradoxes that can't be grasped by finite minds. Open theism, they argue, reduces a transcendent God to a human scale.

Like most "-isms," both sides have trouble narrowing their arguments into a tidy package.

"There is no single, universally agreed-on definition of open theism," said Olson, professor of theology at Truett Theological Seminary in Waco, Texas. Olson says he is not an open theist but takes the approach seriously.

"Generally speaking, however, it is the belief that God is truly personal and interactive with people, such that the 'effectual, fervent prayers' of God's people can make a genuine difference in the way God acts," Olson said. "Scripture portrays God as changing his mind in response to such prayers.

"Open theism says that God has freely chosen to limit himself so that he does not foreordain or cause all that happens. The future is partly open because it depends on what human persons decide to do."

Wallace Roark, professor of Christian studies at Howard Payne University in Brownwood, Texas, said it is also a pragmatic approach.

"Open theism is an effort to bring our doctrine and our practice into harmony," Roark said. "Open theism is the theology most Christians actually live by, that unconsciously we believe."

"We live believing the good news that the future is open," Roark said. "It is dependent on how we decide to relate to God. We are free to repent of our sinful ways and turn to God, whose arms are 'open wide.' Our future is open. It is not already in and done from all eternity."

Appraisals of open theism by opponents range from "it is inadequate" to "it is heresy."

At the Evangelical Theological Society meeting last fall, Bruce Ware, a professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., said open theism undermines the deity of both God and Jesus.

Some of the harshest criticism of open theism has come from bastions of Calvinism such as Southern Seminary. Calvinism, based on the 16th century reformer John Calvin, strongly emphasizes God's sovereignty. Open theism offends Calvinists' belief that God has predestined human history and already chosen or "elected" people who will become Christians.

Ware said substitutionary atonement -- the belief that Jesus' death on the cross substituted for the eternal punishment that all humans deserve -- is invalidated by open theism. That's because Jesus could not have known who would be conceived and later sin in the future, he said.

A.J. Conyers, professor of theology at Truett Seminary, also faults open theism, saying it oversimplifies some vital but complex ideas about the nature of God.

"It obscures the fact that Christianity begins in a paradox, namely the incarnation of God in Christ," Conyers said.

Although humanly illogical, God could have exhaustive, definite foreknowledge of events and be never changing, even while giving humans freedom and experiencing a loving, personal relationship with them, he insisted.

Proper handling of divine paradox -- Jesus being fully human yet fully divine; God being all-knowing and unchanging yet interactive with humanity -- is the key to Christian theology, and open theism fails at this point, Conyers said.

Nevertheless, open theists say they still believe God is completely sovereign over all creation and deny their view diminishes God's power or knowledge.

John Sanders, professor of religion and philosophy at Huntington College in Huntington, Ind., author of a best-selling book, "The God Who Risks," summarized open theism with five principles:

-- Sovereign God freely determined to create humans capable of experiencing God's love.

-- Although totally free and sovereign, God's love for people led God to base some actions on what people do.

-- In divine wisdom, God exercises "general" rather than "meticulous" providence -- or control -- over the future.

-- God has given people the freedom necessary to establish "a truly personal relationship of love" with God.

-- God, who indeed is omniscient, "knows all that can be known or all he wants to know."

Like other conservative Christians, open theists cite both biblical and theological reasons for their beliefs.

"The main line of biblical argument in favor of open theism is all the instances in which God relents in response to prayer," Olson said. "For example, God granted King Hezekiah more time to live after declaring he would die very soon. God changed his mind in response to prayer.

"Open theists interpret this very literally -- God changed his mind in response to prayer."

Sanders said that at least three dozen biblical texts report God changing his mind.

The Old Testament repeatedly says God changed his mind in response to his people, Roark added. "Love is always open and dynamic and thus open to change its course in its genuine involvement and interaction with the loved one."

Olson said the main thing going for open theism is that "Scripture portrays God as loving and personal, and to be both loving and personal is to interact."

"A being who cannot be acted upon -- who cannot be affected by other persons -- is neither truly personal nor loving," Olson said. "The God of the Bible is a God who goes on a journey through history with his people. He remains superior to them in his omnipotence, but he condescends to allow them to affect his smaller plans and ways."

Open theists contend that if God is immutable -- or cannot be changed -- as traditional Christian belief asserts, there is no reason for intercessory prayer. Why pray for people and causes if the future is determined and God will not change it?

"After 25 years of digging into Scripture, researching theology and philosophy, and reflecting on our spiritual lives, especially prayer, I've concluded that we actually can affect God," Sanders said.

"Hence, what most evangelicals live out in piety is correct," he added, advocating a "biblically faithful, logically consistent and spiritually helpful view of who God is and the nature of God's relationship with us."

"Open theists argue that their view of God and God's foreknowledge is consistent with the ordinary Christian's prayer life," Olson stressed. "Christians pray as if their prayers can make a real difference in the way God acts."

Open theists also say their approach helps explain evil and suffering. Since freedom is a necessary component for reciprocating divine love, they contend it can be misused to do evil. That is the price humanity pays for the opportunity to experience God's love.

Conyers faults open theism as being "off target" in trying to simplify paradoxes of the Christian faith. "It leads ... to a less mature and satisfactory Christianity," Conyers said, "but not to heresy per se."

Ware, on the other hand, has called open theism "unacceptable as a viable, acceptable model within evangelicalism."

But Olson said evangelicals and traditional Baptists should make room for dialogue with open theists.

"The open theists are not arguing against Scripture; they are arguing against a traditional interpretation of Scripture," he said. "Their unanimous appeal is to Scripture itself and not to philosophy or experience or tradition. While they respect and use those sources and norms, they do not rely on them over or against the Bible."

"Open theism will always remain at most a 'minority report' within evangelical Christian and Baptist circles," Olson said. "Rather than get all worked up about it and go on a witch hunt to root out open theists, let's keep discussion about it open, civil and constructive."

*

God Will Make A Way

Read: Psalm 27

Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart. --Psalm 27:14

Rebecca was at her lowest as she drove her aging car to the day-care center to pick up her daughter. Her boss was making life difficult again. The landlord was raising the rent. And as a single mom, she felt all alone. "I'm trying my best," she told God. "Please help me."

Just then these words by Don Moen came on the radio in a song:

God will make a way

Where there seems to be no way;

He works in ways we cannot see,

He will make a way for me.

"Please do that for me, God," Rebecca pleaded. "I can't go any further."

The psalmist David too called out to the Lord when he was in desperate straits. He prayed, "Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice!" (Ps. 27:7). Then David testified expectantly, "Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart" (v.14).

God specializes in showing His power in hopeless situations. Israel was in just such a place when God parted the sea before them (Ex. 13:17-14:31). Daniel was protected in the lion's den (Dan. 6:10-23). Paul and Silas were delivered from prison (Acts 16:25-40).

God made a way for Rebecca too. A better job she had applied for months earlier suddenly opened up. The increase in her income would cover the rent. Then a family in her church made a newer car available to her.

If life seems to be closing in on you, don't despair! Trust God. He has promised to make a way. --DCE

Our unknown future is secure in the hands of our all-knowing God.

Answering Some of Greg Boyd’s Key Texts Used in Support of His "Open" View of Foreknowledge:

1. HEZEKIAH’S REPENTANCE AND 15 ADDED YEARS

Isaiah 38:1-5

In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill. And Isaiah the

prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, "Thus

says the LORD, ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die and

not live.’" 2 Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and

prayed to the LORD, 3 and said, "Remember now, O LORD, I

beseech You, how I have walked before You in truth and with a

whole heart, and have done what is good in Your sight." And

Hezekiah wept bitterly. 4 Then the word of the LORD came to

Isaiah, saying, 5 "Go and say to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the

LORD, the God of your father David, I have heard your prayer,

I have seen your tears; behold, I will add fifteen years to

your life.’"

Observations:

1. All agree that God did not express an exception when he said, "You shall die and not live" (v. 1).

2. All agree that there was an implicit exception, perhaps: "You shall die, unless you repent and pray."

3. Boyd denies that God knew whether Hezekiah would fulfill the implicit exception.

4. Historic Christian exegesis affirms that God knew that Hezekiah would fulfill the implicit exception.

5. Boyd says that it would have been disingenuous of God to say that Hezekiah was going to die if he knew that he would not die, but live 15 more years.

6. But Boyd’s own view also seems to make God disingenuous. Is God telling the truth when he says, "You shall die, and not live," when he really means, "You might die, but only if you don’t repent." Boyd’s criticism of historic Christian exegesis applies to himself at this point.

7. But it is not true that one must always express explicitly the exceptions to the threats one gives or the predictions one makes in order to be honest. One reason for this is that there can be a general understanding in a family or group of people that certain kinds of threats or warnings always imply that genuine repentance will be met with mercy.

For example, in 1 John 4:8 "The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love." And 1 John 3:14 says, "We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death." These could be taken in isolation to mean there is no exception or escape for any failure to love. But we don’t take the implicit threat that way, because a general understanding exists in John’s community that this refers to unconfessed and persistent refusal to love. 1 John 1:8-9 makes this clear: "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Therefore, we do not need to jump to the conclusion that every exception to every warning needs to be expressed, especially where there is an understanding that genuine repentance and confession will be met with mercy. Hezekiah’s earnest prayer for mercy seems to indicate that he did not assume there was no escape clause, even though none was expressed. He seemed to assume that mercy might well be given if he repented.

8. What about the sincerity of God in making warnings when he knows that the warning will be heeded and the threatened punishment averted? We deal with that in the case of Jonah and the Ninevites.

* * *

2. JONAH AND THE REPENTANT NINEVITES

Jonah 3:4

Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he

cried out and said, "Yet forty days and Nineveh will be

overthrown."

Jonah 3:10

When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked

way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had

declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.

Observations:

1. Both Boyd and historic Christian exegesis assume that there is an implicit condition, and that if the Ninevites meet it, they will be spared,

2. Boyd believes that, if God knew with certainty that Nineveh would repent, the prophecy of impending destruction was insincere.

3. But the accusation of insincerity is warranted only if the threat or the condition of repentance was not true. That is, if God would NOT have overthrown Nineveh had they not repented, or if he WOULD have overthrown Nineveh even if they did repent, then his threat would have been insincere. He would have been lying. But the threat and the condition were true. God would have indeed destroyed them had they not repented, and he did not destroy them when they did repent.

Boyd seems to rule out the possibility that a God who knows all that will come to pass can sincerely warn against consequences that he knows will not come about (e.g., "Nineveh will be overthrown if you don’t repent"). But in fact in God’s mind, the warning may be one of the crucial means he is using to see to it that his foreknown future will come about, namely, that Nineveh will repent. God is not insincere in giving this warning. Had they not repented they would have perished.

* * *

3. WHEN GOD CHANGES HIS PLAN

Jeremiah 18:7-8

At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning

a kingdom to uproot, to pull down, or to destroy it; 8 if that

nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will

relent [= repent] concerning the calamity I planned to bring

on it.

Observations:

1. It is entirely possible to see the "plan" of God here to be the thought or intention of his mind that went something like this: "I will bring calamity against a people which is this evil and unrepentant." This is true and sincere. In other words God’s "plan" or "intention" or "thought" or "mind" may simply be such a fixed resolve in his mind. His resolve to punish correlates with the evil presently in the people when he expresses the resolve. If the people repent, God’s resolve or "plan" or intention toward that people changes; that is what is meant by his "relenting" or "repenting." This does not necessarily mean he has not foreknown this change in his "plan." In fact, the expression of his resolve to punish the kind of people he sees may be the means he uses to bring about the change in them that he foreknows, so that his own change of resolve will accord with their new condition.

2. Boyd says that people have tried to evade the meaning of these texts by saying that God is speaking "anthropomorphically." Moreover, the only reason one would argue this way he says is that one brings to the text a philosophical presupposition that God cannot literally change his mind.

3. But we do not argue this way. We say that there is a real change in God’s mind, but that this does not imply a lack of foreknowledge. God can express an intention or a resolve toward a people that accords with what is true now, all the while knowing that this condition will not be true in the future, and that his resolve will also be different when their condition is different. That a future-knowing God speaks this way is owing to the fact that he really means for his word to be the means of bringing about changes in people to which he himself responds in a way that he knows he will.

4. The kind of change of mind Boyd wants to see, namely, a change owing to unforeseen future developments, is resisted not out of philosophical presuppositions but out of exegetical insights from other relevant texts which make us hesitant to affirm that God changes his mind without qualification. See below on 1 Samuel 15 and the issue of God’s repenting that he made Saul king.

* * *

4. GOD’S REPENTING THAT HE MADE SAUL KING AND GOD’S

REPENTING THAT HE CREATED MAN

1 Samuel 15:11

God says, "I repent that I have made Saul king; for he has

turned back from following me, and has not performed my

commandments."

1 Samuel 15:28-29

"And Samuel said to [Saul], "The LORD has torn the kingdom of

Israel from you this day, and has given it to a neighbor of

yours, who is better than you. 29 And also the Glory of Israel

will not lie or repent; for he is not a man, that he should

repent."

Observations:

1. A natural reading of 1 Samuel 15 would seem to imply that there is a way that God does "repent" and a way that he does not. That is what we are arguing in the texts that Boyd puts forward. He insists that God repents in a way that implies lack of foreknowledge of what is coming. We think this is the kind of "repentance" that would fall under Samuel’s criticism: "God is not a man that he should repent."

2. In other words, God does not have the human limitations of knowledge that would involve him in repenting THAT WAY. Rather, his repentance is an expression of a resolve or an attitude that is fitting in view of new circumstances. That God is ignorant of what will call for that new resolve or attitude is not necessarily implied in the change.

3. So the repentance over Saul means NOT that he did not know what Saul would be like, but that he disapproves of what Saul has become, and that he feels sorrow at this evil in his anointed king, and that he looks back on his making him king with the same sorrow that he experienced at that moment when he made him king, foreknowing all the sorrow that would come.

For God to say, "I feel sorrow that I made Saul king," is not the same as saying, "I would not make him king if I had it to do over, knowing what I know now." God is able to feel sorrow for an act that he does in view of foreknown evil and pain, and yet go ahead and will to do it for wise reasons. And so later when he looks back on the act he can feel the sorrow for the act that was leading to the sad conditions, such as Saul’s disobedience.

Genesis 6:5-6

Then the lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the

earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was

only evil continually. 6 The lord was sorry that He had made

man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.

Observations:

1. In view of the warning in 1 Samuel 15:29 that, "The Glory of Israel will not lie or repent; he is not a man, that he should repent," we are slow to attribute human-like repentance to God.

2. Rather, it is plausible to find a "strange" repentance that is unlike anything we experience, namely, that God regrets what he foreknew - that the human race would fall into sin and be in need of a Savior.

3. We are led to believe that God did foreknow this, because in 2 Timothy 1:9 Paul says, "God has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity." If the grace we needed in Christ was foreknown (even planned) from eternity, then the fall and the misery of man was known too.

4. In 1 Chronicles 29:18, David prays for the people, after they have so willingly given to build the temple: "O lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, our fathers, preserve this forever in the intentions of the heart of Thy people, and direct their heart to Thee." This phrase ("intentions of the heart") is the same as the one in Genesis 6:5, but here it seems as if David assumes that God can govern what "intents of the heart" we have. If so, we should not assume too quickly that God can’t know what they are in the future.

5. We propose that God created the world already feeling both the joy of this final salvation and the grief of the intervening fall and misery. When the Fall and misery reach a height in Genesis 6:6, it is not unfitting for God to express this sorrow the way he does.

* * *

5. WHEN GOD SAYS, "PERHAPS"

Jeremiah 26:1-3

In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah,

king of Judah, this word came from the lord, saying, 2 "Thus

says the lord, ‘Stand in the court of the lord’s house, and

speak to all the cities of Judah who have come to worship in

the lord’s house all the words that I have commanded you to

speak to them. Do not omit a word! 3 Perhaps they will listen

and everyone will turn from his evil way, that I may repent of

the calamity which I am planning to do to them because of the

evil of their deeds.’"

Observations:

1. The word "perhaps" may be spoken here by God not to express that he is unsure what they will do, but to express that FROM A HUMAN VANTAGE POINT the people may or may not listen to him. But if they do, he will have mercy and not bring calamity.

2. Are there any clues in Jeremiah that we should be hesitant to say God does not know what will come to pass in the future? Jeremiah 10:23 causes us to be hesitant: "I know, O LORD, that a man’s way is not in himself, Nor is it in a man who walks to direct his steps." On the face of it this text seems to say that ultimately man is not the one who governs his steps. If so, then man does not have the kind of self-determining power that Boyd attributes to man. This means that man is not in a position to "create" out of nothing choices that surprise God. Rather man’s steps are finally governed by something outside him, and God would be able to know what these influences are and thus know the future.

3. Therefore, we should be slow to jump to the conclusion that when God says "perhaps" something will come to pass, he is expressing his own uncertainty rather than the perspective of man who cannot know ahead of time.

* * *

6. DOES GOD MAKE WRONG PREDICTIONS AND GET SURPRISED?

Jeremiah 3:6-7

Then the LORD said to me in the days of Josiah the king, "Have

you seen what faithless Israel did? She went up on every high

hill and under every green tree, and she was a harlot there. 7

I thought [literally: I said], "After she has done all these

things she will return to Me"; but she did not return, and her

treacherous sister Judah saw it.

Observations:

1. Boyd says that God really thought that the people would turn to him. But I do not see how he can evade the problem that this involves God in a mistake. God thought a something would be true that turned out not to be true.

2. He says that God had a "perfectly accurate assessment of all probabilities" and, given that assessment, he thought that the people would repent. But, he says that "self-determining creatures opted for the more improbable course of action."

3. This implies two important things: one is that the only way that God cannot be mistaken here is if his statement (they will turn) included the implicit qualification: "given the ordinary expectations under these conditions." This is what I think God meant. The difference between us and Boyd is that we believe God knew what the people would really do, when he implied that ordinary human probabilities would seem to lead to repentance. But Boyd believes that God did not know what they would do.

4. The other implication is that this text shows how vulnerable God would be if Boyd’s view is right. God would do his very best in predicting on the basis of infinite knowledge of the present, and would miscalculate, because of human self-determination. The implications of this are huge. It means that all talk of God’s managing the world on the basis of known human influences is not very encouraging, because it is the essence of human self-determination that the most utterly unexpected choices can arise from the human will and surprise God.

* * *

7. THE TESTING OF ABRAHAM’S FEAR OF GOD

Genesis 22:9-12

Then they came to the place of which God had told him; and

Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood, and bound

his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood.

10 Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay

his son. 11 But the angel of the LORD called to him from

heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am."

12 He said, "Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and

do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you

have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me."

Observations:

1. Boyd says that God did not know if Abraham would remain faithful and that the words "now I know" are disingenuous if this were not so. The test would be a charade if God already knew the outcome.

2. There is another way to think about God’s knowing here. If God knows what will come to pass, does that mean that all testings in history are pointless? we don’t think so. God has not created the world simply so that it might have been foreknown. He created the world to be actualized in history. That is, he wills not just to foreknow, but also to know by observation and experience. That is the point of creating a real world, rather than just knowing one that might be. Therefore, may not God truly know what Abraham is going to do, and yet also want to externalize that reality in a test that enables him to know it by observation, not just prognostication? "Now I know," thus may mean, "Now I see . . . now I experience by observation of your real action."

3. A problem with Boyd’s view is that God cannot really be sure it is true when he says, "Now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son." The knife had not been put into the boy’s chest and this is the moment when the will may well rebel and say No. We have seen from Jeremiah 3:7 that, from Boyd’s way of seeing things, God’s predictions can be "mistaken." God cannot be sure that Abraham would have killed his son, because the volition had not yet been created for God to know. But perhaps this is not significant, since, even if Abraham had killed his son, God could still not be sure Abraham would not in the next moment rebel against God because he had forced him into such a test. In Boyd’s view of the human will, no text can assure God that we will fear him five minutes after the test.

* * *

8. WHICH SIGNS OF MOSES DOES GOD EXPECT TO BE BELIEVED?

Exodus 4:7-9

Then He said, "Put your hand into your bosom again." So he put

his hand into his bosom again, and when he took it out of his

bosom, behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh. 8

"If they will not believe you or heed the witness of the first

sign, they may believe the witness of the last sign. 9 "But if

they will not believe even these two signs or heed what you

say, then you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it

on the dry ground; and the water which you take from the Nile

will become blood on the dry ground."

Observations:

1. Can a God who knows what will come to pass with certainty say meaningfully, "Such and such may come to pass. If it doesn’t, then do this." Yes. Because he may merely be saying that he chooses not to reveal what will, in fact, come to pass. He will only reveal possibilities and how to respond to them. He is not saying that he only knows possibilities. God may have his reasons for sometimes wanting to communicate to us possibilities about the future, and other times certainties.

2. Boyd would say that it is disingenuous of God to say they may believe on the basis of the first or second miracle when he knows exactly how many it will take to persuade them. But there is at least one clue that God intended for Moses to do all the signs, namely, Exodus 4:17 where God says to Moses, "You shall take in your hand this staff, with which you shall perform the signs." God seems to know that more than one will be needed.

3. There are passages in the Pentateuch that show that there is a disconnect between the way that God talks about knowing, and the way he actually knows. For example, in Genesis 18:21 God says, "I will go down now, and see if they have done entirely according to its outcry, which has come to Me; and if not, I will know." This text portrays God as if he were too far away in heaven to know for sure what is happening in Sodom. Neither Boyd nor historic exegesis thinks God’s distance from an event hinders his knowledge. Rather there are reasons for this way of speaking. For example, it stresses God’s condescension to be involved with his creatures and his intimate dealing with them and his knowledge of them. Similarly, we assume God has his reasons for speaking in Exodus 4:8 as if he did not know whether the elders would believe.

*

With the Super Bowl next week, another year of end zone theology comes to an end - another season of praying or gesturing to heaven after scoring a big touchdown.

Each year, there seems to be more of it. It has the look of a bidding war - a competition between players over who gets most-favored status in the eyes of the Lord.

A particularly hapless example came early in the season on TV.

A college quarterback completed a long pass to pull his team ahead late in the game. He pointed to heaven and folded his hands in prayer. The Almighty had surely arranged victory just for him. Five minutes later, the cosmos shifted. The opposing team scored - and won the game. Adding to his mockery, the QB’s team was hugely defeated a few weeks later, and he lost his starting position.

The luckless quarterback’s prayer looked harmless enough. It happens all the time - we petition God to bless our side, not their side. But there’s something thoughtless about it. People think nothing of asking God to hold off the storm clouds for their picnic, though this might mean farmers suffer for lack of rain.

Such are the small ways that believers skirmish with the big question of religion: Where is God in daily life?

A debate is sizzling among theologians on the subject right now. It centers on "open theism," the view that God doesn’t have complete foreknowledge of the future because he depends on the free will actions of human beings to play a role in shaping the future.

Open theism suggests God can’t be blamed for tragedies because God can’t stop them from happening.

Open theism’s supporters say their view is biblically sound, spiritually coherent for real-life experience and a corrective to the glib assumptions of those who think they know the mind of God.

The debate is flaring within the Evangelical Theological Society, a guild of scholars who teach in theologically conservative seminaries and schools.

"God does not control everything that happens," theologian John Sanders, author of THE GOD WHO RISKS: A THEOLOGY OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE, says on a Web site at www.opentheism.org.

"Rather, he is open to receiving input from his creatures. In loving dialogue, God invites us to participate with him to bring the future into being. ... Sometimes God alone decides how to accomplish these goals. On other occasions, God works with human decisions, adapting his own plans to fit the changing situation."

Critics are alarmed. They say open theism departs from the classical view of a biblical God in charge of all of creation, and they worry that open theism will be popular because it serves an unthreatening deity to a culture obsessed with self-esteem.

"What is ultimately at stake is the glory of God," says Bruce Ware, a Southern Baptist professor and author of GOD’S LESSER GLORY: THE DIMINISHED GOD OF OPEN THEISM.

"This is a complete redefinition of God as the church has understood him throughout its history."

It’s rare for such a debate to go public. Baptist Press, the news arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, is one of the few religion news agencies to follow it.

The debate broke out among Texas Baptists last year and will likely surface at the scholar society’s next meeting.

If so its critics call it part of a larger social trend of assault against biblical values: "... Scripture rings clear in affirming the classical view of God," Ware assured Baptist Press.

It’s hard to know whether the Super Bowling Ravens and Giants might be sympathetic to open theism or not. If it comes down to a Hail Mary pass at the end, then pigskins and theology both will be up for grabs.

*

In the 1960s, Clark Pinnock was a young professor at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary who took on the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention for its lack of commitment to the inerrancy of Scripture. Now, Pinnock is once again turning sights on Southern Baptists, but this time from the left. What is most surprising about this transformation is not that Clark Pinnock has changed his mind; it's that Pinnock now thinks God changes his mind too.

For several years, Pinnock, professor of theology at Canada's McMaster Divinity School, has advocated a view known as the "openness of God." This perspective holds that God does not know the future decisions of his creatures. Therefore, Pinnock argues, God sometimes changes his mind, moving from Plan "A" to Plan "B" as God gains new information about the unfolding of history. Pinnock's newest book, "Most Moved Mover: A Theology of God's Openness" (Baker Book House) seeks to explain further exactly what Pinnock means by this.

In developing this new view of God, Pinnock devotes much space to lamenting the stance taken by the Southern Baptist Convention in affirming the traditional view that God knows everything. Pinnock specifically takes aim at the SBC's 2000 Baptist Faith and Message confessional statement, which explicitly repudiates "open theism." The BFM 2000 instead states that God is "all powerful and all knowing; and His perfect knowledge extends to all things past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures." Pinnock further laments that the SBC passed a 1999 resolution, authored by Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr., which affirmed the classical view of God as omniscient and omnipotent.

Pinnock contends that the Baptist Faith and Message's statement on God is linked to its further statement that the Scripture limits the pastorate to qualified men, and that husbands are to lovingly lead their homes.

"I get suspicious when the same people who want to protect God's sovereignty also want to keep women in their subordinate place," Pinnock writes, pointing to the 2000 BFM. "Why do they not see that the Father whom they claim to exalt is not the 'father' of patriarchal power but the God of Jesus Christ who woos us through his self-giving love?"

Additionally, the conservative theologians Pinnock engages in the book are, almost to a man, Southern Baptist scholars. Pinnock takes particular issue with Mohler and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professor of Christian theology Bruce A. Ware. Ware's most recent book, "God's Lesser Glory," is a defense of the orthodox doctrine of God's knowledge against the revisionist view asserted by open theists such as Pinnock, Gregory Boyd and John Sanders. Pinnock acknowledges that Ware understands and fairly states the open view, but Pinnock vigorously disagrees with Ware's contention that the open view is blatantly unbiblical.

Although most of Pinnock's volume is a restatement of the "open" view of God already articulated by him and others, the book does include several surprising new arguments. For example, Pinnock reveals just how far his doctrine of Scripture has evolved. While on the faculty of New Orleans Seminary in the 1960s, Pinnock traveled the country calling Southern Baptists to a "new reformation" of belief in the words of Scripture as totally true. His most far-reaching influence, however, may have been in the classroom where he taught the importance of biblical authority to students, many of whom would later lead the conservative resurgence in the SBC.

Having years ago abandoned this conservative view of Scripture, Pinnock goes so far in the pages of Most Moved Mover that the biblical writers sometimes simply disagree among themselves, even on the question of what God knows.

"The Bible does not speak with a single voice; there is a dialogue between the different voices," Pinnock argues. "The writings contain a long and complex search for the mind of God and in this struggle various points of view compete and interact."

Pinnock also makes the frank claim that God's limited knowledge of the future causes him sometimes to get prophecies simply wrong. Noting that evangelicals "might not like to admit it," Pinnock recites a litany of prophecies that turned out to go unfulfilled. Pinnock suggests that John the Baptist was wrong when he prophesied that Jesus would cast the wicked into the fire, and that "contrary to Paul, the second coming was not just around the corner." Perhaps most startlingly, Pinnock claims that Jesus was wrong at one point because "despite Jesus, in the destruction of the temple, some stones were left one on the other (Mt 24:2)."

"God is free in the matter of fulfilling prophecy and is not bound to a script, even his own," Pinnock argues. "The world is a project and God works on it creatively; he is free to strike out in new directions. We cannot pin the free God down."

Pinnock further "strikes out in new directions" of his own when he suggests that there is another issue "that has not been raised yet in the open view of God," namely the question of whether God has a body. While classical Christian doctrine has always insisted that God the Son does indeed have a body, having taken upon himself human nature in the Incarnation, orthodox Christianity historically has maintained that the Father is a spirit, a consensus Pinnock asks Christians to reconsider.

The publication of Pinnock's book comes as the debate over the "openness of God" reaches the boiling point in evangelical life. In its November meeting in Colorado Springs, the Evangelical Theological Society is expected to vote on whether open theists may remain as members of the professional organization for conservative theologians and biblical scholars.

Pinnock's book also highlights the role of the SBC in this discussion. Not only has the nation's largest Protestant denomination taken a confessional stance on this controversy, the revised statement of faith also ensures that SBC seminary faculties and publications are to reflect the convictions of Southern Baptist churches that God's knowledge is unlimited.

Not all Baptists agree with this stance. A leading defender of the evangelical authenticity of the "open" view is Roger Olson, professor of theology at the Baptist General Convention of Texas' George W. Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University. Olson has endorsed books promoting open theism by authors such as Bethel Seminary professor Gregory Boyd and has declared himself "open" to open theism.

_____________________

Moore is instructor of Christian theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., where he also serves as executive director of the Carl F. H. Henry Institute for Evangelical Engagement.

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The current controversy over divine foreknowledge was theologian Millard Erickson's focus in a 2002 lecture series. "The vitality of a church is dependent in part on the depth and accuracy of its doctrine," Erickson, president of the Evangelical Theological Society, said. "In this area of foreknowledge, the simplified question is: 'What did God know and when did he know it?' That is the basic question in this controversy."

Hermeneutical, philosophical and historical perspectives on the issue of God's foreknowledge were examined by Erickson during the lecture series. Erickson is professor at Truett Seminary, the divinity school of Baylor University in Texas, and author of numerous books on theology, ethics, preaching, postmodernism and evangelical issues.

Erickson said Christians are returning to one of the original questions of the church as it developed doctrine throughout history: "Who is God?"

"The traditional view of divine foreknowledge -- and what most of us learned as children even in Sunday School -- is that God knows everything, past, present and future," he explained. "The open view, or open theist view, is that God knows the past, the present and some of the future. There's some future that he doesn't know because it doesn't exist yet."

Each view has difficulties from the hermeneutical, philosophical and historical perspective, Erickson said. The traditional view has fewer difficulties, and more strengths, in each area, he held.

Six principles should be followed in looking at the issue of divine foreknowledge in Scripture, Erickson said.

1) universal liability, or, as he explained, "Can you take this view when you consider all of Scripture, not just some of it?"

2) literalism. "We must ask ourselves what the criteria is for taking this literally and what not literally," he noted.

3) comparing Scripture with Scripture.

4) examining narrative and didactic passages that relate to the issue. Scripture has stories about what God has done, and stories that tell who he is, Erickson said, noting that the question is, which do you use to interpret the other? "Open theists favor the narrative passages over the didactic; the traditional view does the opposite," he said.

5) examining controlling metaphors. "With each relevant metaphor we study," Erickson said, "we have to consider which ones are truer to all of Scripture, what emphasis within the metaphor is strong and what is subtle, the level clarity in it, and how frequently the metaphor occurs."

6) progressive revelation, the idea that God has progressively revealed more and more of himself throughout history.

Erickson focused his second lecture on the philosophical issues regarding divine foreknowledge. To the open theist argument that the traditional view is held hostage to the influence of Greek philosophy, he donned a pair of green-tinted glasses and remarked, "We all have colored lenses; they're just different colors. We all have to tease out our presuppositions and deal with those first. But I would not simply accept that the traditional view is philosophically based and the open theist view is biblically based."

Erickson's third lecture addressed the historical record of the doctrine of divine foreknowledge. Enumerating a list of orthodox theologians throughout church history who held to the traditional view, he said, "There is a long and strong tradition, all the way to the early church fathers, that God's foreknowledge is complete and unlimited."

While there is historical record in favor of the open theist view, it is rarely from theologians who would be considered accepted, orthodox church leaders, he said.

Erickson also shared his testimony and answered questions at a luncheon for area pastors after the second lecture. He told of his initial coming to faith in a small church in Minnesota, of his love for the pastorate, and of his intention, in writing Christian Theology, to provide an easily accessible, yet thorough work on evangelical Christian theology that he could use in the classroom.

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It is becoming increasingly fascinating to see the role forensic science is playing in solving crimes. DNA can be recovered in anything from a few skin cells to a licked postage stamp. Forensic scientists can establish or exclude an association between a suspect and the crime scene with a single strand of hair. It seems we leave traces of our presence whereever we go.

Interestingly enough, your hair not only tells people you've been there, it also tells your story, or at least provides some noteworthy details to that story. Scientists have discovered that your hair can divulge significant habits and particulars of your lifestyle, what you eat, where you live, if you smoke or drink, if you are of Asian or European decent. And a single hair can keep records for months if not years depending on its length.

When my mother first told me that God knew the number of hairs on my head I was thoroughly amazed at the thought of it. The number of hairs on my head was something I didn't know about myself; it was something no one else knew about me either. It meant that someone knew me better than my mom. It meant that someone had the ability and the desire to know me and all of my details.

Even as I looked at this promise quite literally, it was at once both comforting and troubling. When I brushed my hair and caused several strands to fall out was I making Him have to recount them all again? Why did He care how many hairs I had anyway? Certainly it was one detail that He could overlook? And then I was given the rest of Jesus' words uttered that day: “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows” (Luke 12:6-7). Strand of hair or simple sparrow, worry, fear, or dream, God does not overlook even one.

That He knows the number of hairs on our heads is still a thought at which we do well to wonder. For wrapped up tightly within such knowledge is the wonderful and fearful truth about who we are praying to when our eyes grow heavy with sleep, who walks beside us through shadowy valleys and streams of still waters, who hears our groaning when we don't know what we mean. God knows you more specifically and more effectively than you know yourself — a thought that reminds us He is Father, a detail that holds both immeasurable love and great consequence. He knows not only the stories told in each strand of your hair but every detail of who you are, the desires of your heart, the worries you carry, the questions you don't even know how to ask. In his perfect love our fears are cast aside and we are given not only reason to trust, but responsibility to obey.

According to the Natural History Museum of London, the average person has up to 150,000 hairs on his or her head. The One who knows exactly where you stand in that average knit you together in your mother's womb and knows each word on your tongue before it is formed. Like the psalmist at this thought we wonder, “What is man that you care for him, the son of man that you think of him? He is like a breath; his days are like a fleeting shadow” (144:3-4). In the echoing of that question across time the promise of Christ is also heard: “I tell you, whoever acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man will also acknowledge him before the angels of God” (Luke 12:8). Not even one of them will be forgotten.

__________

Copyright © 2004 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

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Version from July 5, 2006:

It is fascinating to see the increasing role of forensic science in solving crimes. DNA can be recovered in anything from a few skin cells to a licked postage stamp. Forensic scientists can establish an association between a suspect and the crime scene with only an eye lash or single strand of hair. It appears we leave traces of our presence where ever we go.

Interestingly enough, your hair not only tells people that you have been there, it also tells your story -- or at least provides some noteworthy details to that story. Scientists have discovered that your hair can divulge significant habits and particulars of your lifestyle: what you eat, where you live, if you smoke or drink, if you are of Asian or European decent. And a single hair can keep records for months, if not years, depending on its length.

When my mother first told me that God knew the number of hairs on my head I was thoroughly amazed at the thought of it. The number of hairs on my head was something I didn't know about myself; it was something no one else seemed to know about me either. This meant that someone knew me better than my mom or my grandma. It meant that someone had the capacity -- and the aspiration -- to know me and all of my details.

Even as I looked at this promise quite literally, it was at once both comforting and troubling. When I brushed my hair and caused several strands to fall out was I making work for Him? How often did He have to recount them? And why did God care how many hairs I had anyway? Certainly it was one detail that He could overlook.

Then sometime later I was given the rest of Jesus's words uttered that day: “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows” (Luke 12:6-7). Strand of hair or simple sparrow, worry, fear, or dream, God does not overlook even one.

That God knows the number of hairs on our heads is still a thought at which we do well to wonder. Wrapped up tightly within such knowledge is the great and fearful truth about who we are praying to when our eyes grow heavy with sleep, who walks beside us through shadowy valleys and streams of still waters, who hears our groaning when we don't know what we mean. God knows us more specifically and more effectively than we know ourselves -- a thought that reminds us He is Father, a detail that holds both immeasurable love and great consequence. He knows not only the stories told in each strand of your hair but every detail of who you are: the desires of your heart, the worries you carry, the questions you don't know how to ask. In his perfect love our fears are cast aside and we are given not only reason to trust, but a will to obey.

According to the Natural History Museum of London, the average person has up to 150,000 hairs on his or her head. He who knows exactly where you stand in that average knit you together in your mother's womb and knows each word on your tongue before it is formed. Like the psalmist at this thought we wonder. “What is man that you care for him, the son of man that you think of him? He is like a breath; his days are like a fleeting shadow” (144:3-4). In the echoing of that question across time the promise of Christ is also heard: “I tell you the truth, whoever acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man will also acknowledge him before the angels of God” (Luke 12:8). Not even one of them will be forgotten.

________

Copyright © 2006 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

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[Original illustration here was a duplicate in HolwickID 25837-26027]

Angela Merkel, next to the inimitable Margaret Thatcher, is the most consequential elected female leader in European history. Born in Hamburg in 1954, Merkel grew up in East Germany where her father was a Lutheran pastor. Before turning to politics, Merkel was a physicist with a Ph.D. from the University of Leipzig.

Recently, she revealed that as a young woman she was once approached by the infamous and much-feared Stasi (short for Staatssicherheitsdienst), the state security service of East Germany, which tried to recruit her to work for them. She refused but continued to live under the shadow of the world’s most repressive and invasive surveillance police state. By the time the Berlin Wall finally came down in 1989, the Stasi employed 102,000 persons to snoop on a country of only 17 million. This fact prompted Simon Wiesenthal to claim that “the Stasi was much, much worse than the Gestapo, if you consider only the oppression of its own people.” While the Gestapo had 40,000 officials watching a country of 80 million, the Stasi had nearly three times that many in a country one-fourth the size.

When President Obama visited Berlin earlier this month, the Stasi was in the news again. Chancellor Merkel publicly scolded the American president in light of the NSA revelations. To be sure, she did so with tact and moderation, as one might expect from a good politician facing re-election this fall. Merkel said that she recognized the need to gather information but stressed that this must be kept in equitable balance to protect the privacy of citizens. But the NSA revelations point to a system of massive intrusion, with little restraint, lacking proportionality. Some of Merkel’s colleagues were not so tempered in their remarks. The German minister of justice called the unbidden tracking of all communications “deeply disconcerting.” A society that monitors, observes, and controls its people is not free, she said. Markus Ferber, a Merkel ally from Bavaria and a member of the European Parliament, was even more blunt. He accused the Obama administration of using “American-style Stasi methods.” “I thought this era had ended when the DDR fell,” he said, insinuating that the United States has now replaced East Germany as the new Stasiland.

The stunning news that the United States may be the most surveilled society in human history has opened a fierce debate on security, privacy, and accountability. It has also brought about an amazing and unpredicted political realignment, at least on this issue. Rand Paul and Al Gore singing from the same hymnal? Dianne Feinstein and Michele Bachmann in agreement on something?

Clearly not everyone is buying the line that the searches and seizures of the NSA are reasonable and justified. Provisions of the Patriot Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act are cited to give legal cover to the hyper-collecting of metadata of millions of Americans with no connection to terrorism. But as Professor Laura K. Donohue of Georgetown University Law Center has pointed out, the secret FISA courts have given the surveillance bureaucracy a virtual (meaning also real) carte blanche. Out of some 8,600 invasive search requests, only two have been denied.

In a dangerous world where people of ill will plot to do harm to others, some surveillance capacity must be allowed. But it is by no means clear that the system presided over by the current administration is either effective or morally justified. We know for sure that it did nothing to stop the massacres at Fort Hood and the Boston Marathon.

When potential for the violation of civil rights and the abuse of privacy are mentioned in the debates, the president and other defenders of the status quo say, in effect, “Trust me.” There was a time in American history, not so long ago, when that response might have been sufficient. In the era of Truman and Eisenhower or even Carter and Reagan, American institutions, including government, enjoyed a substantial reservoir of trust and credibility. But the last two decades have witnessed the erosion of such trust. Debates over the non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq during the Bush-Cheney years and the scandal-a-month syndrome under Obama — the killer drones, Benghazi, Pressgate, IRS, NSA, and who knows what next? — have taken their toll. “Trust me” no longer works.

Privacy is a porous legal concept with an uneven history ranging from Justice Brandeis’s 1890 definition of “the right to be left alone” to the so-called constitutional right of privacy delineated by William O. Douglas and used by William J. Brennan to support the abortion license in Roe V. Wade. The latter construal was effectively challenged by Robert Bork. The issue of abortion is not about the right of privacy but rather the extent of the human community and whether we will afford legal protection to the most vulnerable members of our society.

Persons of faith should be deeply concerned about the current surveillance flap not because privacy is an absolute end in itself but rather because it points to and safeguards something else even more basic and fundamental, namely, human dignity. According to Vatican II’s Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignitatis Humanae, real dignity requires that human beings “should act on their own judgment, enjoying and making use of a responsible freedom, not driven by coercion but motivated by sense of duty.” Such responsible freedom is the basis for both the establishment of friendships and the maintenance of family life. Without the possibility of non-coercive self-disclosure, which is vitiated by unfettered intrusion, such relationships are fatuous.

In the same way, conscientious religious commitment also requires a personal fiducial response to the divine. Thus religious freedom presupposes the recognition of privacy as an expression of human dignity. By no means is this a strictly Catholic or even Christian issue. The Southern Baptist Convention was right to pass a resolution at its annual meeting in Houston this month defining religious liberty as “the freedom of the individual to live in accordance with his or her religiously informed values and beliefs,” and citing in support Article 18 of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance.”

Only God is omniscient. To God alone are we to be a completely open book. To God, and only to God, should we say — or need to say — ”You know when I leave and when I get back; I am never out of your sight. I look behind me and you are there, then up ahead and you are there, too ... is there any place I can go to be out of your sight? If I climb to the sky, you are there! If I go underground, you are there! If I flew on morning’s wings to the far western horizon, you’d find me in a minute — You are already there waiting!” (Psalm 139:1-10). Only to God. And that is why all persons of faith should be deeply concerned about the hegemonic assumptions of the surveillance state.

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First published on First Things on July 1, 2013. Dr. George serves as the chairman of the Colson Center’s oversight board and is dean of Beeson Divinity School of Samford University.

Pastoral theology is tested in a time of crisis. War, famine, natural disasters, and plagues are winds that sift chaff from wheat, or purifying fires revealing so much dross mixed with the precious gold of the gospel.

What do you do when you can’t meet? When you can’t take the Lord’s Supper together as a body? When you want to counsel the sick and the needy, but you’re unable to reach them? How should Christians respond? With repentance, fasting, and prayer? Jeremiads of judgment? Long-winded theodicies?

N.T. Wright has weighed in with a widely-shared bit of pastoral counsel over at TIME. Against rationalists who want either easy explanation for everything (it’s God’s judgment, it’s a trial, it’s for the greater good), and Romanticists looking for a “sigh of relief”, he wisely reminds us that the Christian Scriptures offer the tradition of lament. In lament, Christians follow the Psalmist in crying out to God, giving full vent to our frustration, horror, and pain. We bring before him our confusion, our loneliness, our misery, our sins and our accusations We grieve before God’s face.

Of course, that raises the ultimate question: who is God in the middle of all this? What kind of God are we lamenting to?

According to Wright, the mystery of the Biblical story is that he is one who, “also laments.”

God was grieved to his heart, Genesis declares, over the violent wickedness of his human creatures. He was devastated when his own bride, the people of Israel, turned away from him. And when God came back to his people in person — the story of Jesus is meaningless unless that’s what it’s about — he wept at the tomb of his friend. St. Paul speaks of the Holy Spirit “groaning” within us, as we ourselves groan within the pain of the whole creation. The ancient doctrine of the Trinity teaches us to recognize the One God in the tears of Jesus and the anguish of the Spirit.

And so, because God is a God who laments with us, we are invited to put down our easy explanations, lament, and embody the love of God.

Now, as with most of what Wright says, the issue comes not so much when we look at what he affirms, but what he seems to deny. Against the God who laments and cares, he poses the God of, “Some Christians” who “like to think of God as above all that, knowing everything, in charge of everything, calm and unaffected by the troubles in his world.”

Two problems emerge.

First, and largest, is that this seems to be a description of the Biblical God. According to the Psalmist, God is above all that — unlike fickle, finite, pagan gods who are just like us, he sits enthroned in the heavens and does what he wants (Ps. 22:3; 115:3). God sees all and knows all — even the mischief of evildoers (Ps. 10:13-14). God is immovable, a Rock, a fortress, a deliverer and high tower (Ps. 18:2). It is to God the Rock that David calls out in distress and commits his spirit into his hands (Ps. 31:2-5, 15). It is to God the Rock is the one to whom David cries “why have you forgotten me?” (Ps. 42:9). God the almighty, who rules the raging seas, calming them with a word (Ps. 89:8-9). God the everlasting, God the one who brings our days to an end by his anger (Ps. 90:7-8), is the one who can “satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love” (90:14). That is the God before whom Psalmists lament.

Second, that description fits the view of most Christians throughout church history. Reading those verses, they’ve affirmed God’s transcendence, his omniscience, his immutable sovereignty, and his impassibility. As the 39 Articles have it, he is “without body, parts, or passions; of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness,” since as “the Maker and Preserver of all things both visible and invisible” he is incapable of being overwhelmed or changed by them.

Furthermore, they affirmed all these things even while reading Biblical language about God repenting and lamenting. Knowing that immutability didn’t mean immobility and that a lack of passions did not mean a lack of concern, they saw these as expressions of God’s grace. As a humble and kind Lord, in order to convey his divine care, he takes up human language and conceptualities and accommodates himself to our capacity to understand even if they did not apply to him as proper expressions of his divine being.

Now, in the 20th Century it’s been common trade in something like this “classical” package for a more relational God, a fellow-sufferer who feels our pains by scrapping immutability, impassibility, and modifying our understanding of his sovereignty and wisdom. This is a special temptation for scholars with a bad case of biblical studies prejudice. This is bad, for many reasons.

Perhaps Wright isn’t trying to do something that drastic in a brief, TIME article even if it reads that way on the surface. Folks do get touchy with Wright, over-reacting and over-interpreting. What’s more, this could be an instance of his trademark “let me inadvertently caricature others while critiquing a caricature“ move.

All the same, in reviewing the Biblical material, we see the problem with Wright’s intended corrective is that he ends up neglecting to set all the language of God’s passion in their broader theological and Biblical context. And for that reason, we lack the proper context for lament.

In the Psalms, we can bring our laments before the Lord precisely because he is “above all that.” When a child runs hurting to Dad, yes, there is something comforting about sympathy, about Dad saying, “Yes, there, there, I know it hurts. I understand.” But ultimately, you run to Dad because he is not overwhelmed just like you. Because he is a shelter. Because he can hold you when you cry. Because he’s strong enough to absorb the shaking and trembling without trembling himself. Because he can do something about it. And if he doesn’t yet, he’s big enough that you can trust him because he’s wiser than you.

In other words, yes, God grieves human sin and then he sends a flood and a man with boat. God is dismayed at Israel’s infidelity and so he exiles them and brings them home. Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus and then he told him to get back up.

Indeed, that is the heart of the gospel — the God who cannot suffer and die in himself, the one who is high and exalted, humbles himself, becomes lowly, taking on human flesh so that he can suffer, die, and be raised again for our salvation. It is precisely because God is “above all that” in himself that he can enter in to do something about all that. It is only because God is blessed in himself — the sovereign fullness of life, peace, and joy — regardless of all the vicissitudes and pains of history, that he can communicate a blessedness that overcomes and restores that history.

It is not, then, God the grand co-commiserator who gives us the freedom to cry out, but God the Rock. This is the God we can trust with our pain, our confusion, and grief even when he gives no answers, precisely because he is big enough to be the only answer we need.

As the dust settles on the recent horrors in New York and Washington, secular man has begun to think of the sacred. Frantically searching for the key to unlock the mystery of why this happened, 21st-century America wonders what lies beyond the door of the unseen. Exactly what does all of this mean -- and how can we face the future?

Sadly, evil is nothing new, and early Christians understood and even anticipated its reality in their lives. In 1677, a group of Baptists boldly confessed in the Second London Confession, "God hath decreed in himself from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably, all things whatsoever comes to pass." Believing that God is never the author of sin, they carefully stated that despite sinful man's best efforts to act in rebellion, the "contingency of second causes" could never thwart God's wise and holy (albeit often unknown) purposes.

Unlike those early Baptists, modern theologians of all stripes are scrambling to defend God's good name. Many are quick to point out that God in no way caused this to happen, and was, to hear them talk, taken by surprise just as we were. Various pastors are also boldly stating that God is unable to control evil. He reacts as we do -- with shock and disbelief.

We must not refuse, as C.S. Lewis put it, to "follow our thoughts home." To believe in a God who shares power with evil in a co-equal or, in many cases, subservient manner, is to have no God at all. More than one supreme being means there is no supreme being. God -- to be God -- must stand above and over evil in some way if God is to exist at all. To fashion a God capable of emotion but not power is simply to concoct a fantasy and call it God. And such a "God" is not worthy of worship. Here, then, are our options: God is evil; God is impotent; or evil is a real and present mystery that we cannot fully understand.

When faced with a similar situation, Jesus Christ minced no words. Another vicious act of terrorism is recorded in Luke's gospel (chapter 13). The despotic ruler Pilate murdered a group of innocent Galileans. Not content with their dead bodies, Pilate sought to defile their souls. He took some of their blood and mingled it with that of the animals brought for their sacrifices.

The reply of Jesus is shocking, to say the least. Rather than run down the perpetrator, he talked about the victims. He ignored their question of "why?" and resorted to a question of "when?" Challenging their ideas about tragedy and sin, Jesus called on his hearers to repent or face the same end -- death. Jesus went on to speak of 18 other people who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them. Again, he spoke not of why -- but when. Faced with death, he called on his hearers to repent.

How offensive! How insensitive! How cruel!

Or how comforting. For a closer look reveals a deeper truth. The window on the unseen world is opened by Jesus. The path to the defeat of death is -- of all things -- repentance. These dreadful days bring yet another opportunity to call a world in peril to repentance -- the ultimate, and only, answer to the sorrows of this life.

God is never the author of sin, but he is never surprised by it. In a world promised to bring pain and hardship, Jesus brings a word of refuge -- repentance toward God and faith in the Christ.

_____________________

Baker is the Kampouris Fellow in the study of Christianity and culture at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., and a member of Capitol Hill Baptist Church.

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