Open Theism is the belief that God does not know with total certainty what will occur in the future. Proponents of this view are typically Arminian in their theology and have a strong view of human freewill which seems to be what leads them to this end. Keep in mind that a strong view of free will does not need to conclude Open Theism, nor are most Arminians Open Theists, but those who are Open Theists unilaterally have a strong view of Libertarian Free Will.
Essentially the issue is “How can man truly be free if God knows the future?” The thought being that if God knows for certain what will occur 5 minutes from now or a 100 years from now then those events are necessarily predetermined. For if God knows what I will do in 5 minutes then am I really free to do otherwise? In this view, then, to have free will God cannot know future events (particularly the choices of free creatures). If free will is to be retained then God cannot know with certainty what I will do in the future. God may be able to predict with a high level of accuracy, God may be able to intervene in time and space to try and get the result he wants (and he may be very good at doing so) but he can’t “know” what will happen.
What then does this do to the idea of God’s omnipotence and omniscience? Do Open Theists reject the classical Christian view of God? They would say no. They rebut this insinuation on the basis that the future has no real existence. Open Theists will say that God is indeed omniscient, that he knows everything that can be known, but since the future does not exist as a thing to itself then that is not something God knows or can know and therefore it does not impugn his status of being omniscient.
So is Open Theism an acceptable Christian view of God? No. In Isaiah 44:6-8 the Scripture states “Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: “I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god. Who is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and set it before me, since I appointed an ancient people. Let them declare what is to come, and what will happen. Fear not, nor be afraid; have I not told you from of old and declared it? And you are my witnesses! Is there a God besides me? There is no Rock; I know not any.”
Here in this passage God stakes his own divinity upon his ability to discern what will occur in the future. It is on this basis he challenges the false gods of the pagan people to prove that they are really gods. If then God stakes his own divinity on his ability to discern what will take place in the future, how then can we strip that from him for the sake of trying to preserve human freedom? Indeed free will has become an idol for some and they have placed it above the Lord himself. That’s what Open Theism is, idolatry.
So the Bible rejects Open Theism as a valid option for Christians, but what about their philosophical reasoning for pushing it in the first place. Have Open Theists stumbled upon a truth that is at odds with the biblical revelation? Is it truly contradictory for God to know the future and man to have free will?
While I hardly have the time (nor probably you the patience) to lay out all of the various models of how God’s sovereignty and human freedom might relate to one another, suffice it to say that there are some other good options on the table that don’t lead to Open Theism. But here is the rub, the primary misunderstanding for Open Theists is that “knowledge of” is the as “cause of.” They are hung up on the idea that if God knows what I will do, then I cannot possibly do otherwise and therefore what I will do is determined if God indeed knows it. But this is an unnecessary logical leap on their part. God having perfect knowledge of what I will do does not mean that he is causing me to do that thing, rather, it is to say that he simply knows what I will choose to do. If I were to decide to do something else, then God would also know that.
God knows all the possibly choices I could make, and he knows which of those choices I will actually make. But none of this necessitates the idea that I make the choice I do because God forced me to. How can God know all this? Well, again, there are several strong models of God in relationship to time that offer an explanation. Since we believe that God created time and space it is not too difficult to swallow that he is not constrained by it and is therefore able to view all of time as though it were present. But regardless of what view of God and time you might take, ultimately I would answer thus: He is God!
I don’t mean for that to be a cheap answer, but think with me a moment. Do you understand how God created all matter out of nothing? No. None of us can fathom the incredible power of God. We know that he did it. Science and philosophy strongly support this reality, but we have no working model for how to create something out of nothing (That is a true nothing, not Lawrnece Krauss’ “nothing” which is really something!). We cannot grip such an idea with our minds and yet we can reasonably demonstrate that such is the case, and the Bible says it is so. So why when we come to this issue of God’s knowledge of the future in relationship to free will do we demand that God couldn’t know the future unless he determined every part of it so as to make us puppets?
We should not have such a small view of God. It is not logically contradictory for God to know the future free will decisions of men. Open Theism is therefore not a necessary philosophical conclusion and it is also at odd with God’s self-disclosure in the Bible. As such any kind of Open Theism ought to be rejected as bad theology and bad philosophy and a form of idolatry.
