[kiriath_jearim]

"Open Theism": related website defining the doctrine:

http://www.carm.org/open.htm

[AppyPappy]

Open theism, also known as free will theism and openness, is the teaching that God does not know all things. That is, He does not know the free will choices that people will make in the future because God either chooses not to know or because the future isn't knowable.
Is this biblical? What are the ramifications of such a teaching? Is this a dangerous movement? Does it exalt God? Read and find out why open theism is in error and is potentially very dangeous.

[Minuteman23]

Your comments eagerly invited. :-)

[The Iguana]

This Catholic theology student says "bully" for Huntington College.

Special rules apply when you're teaching theology. There is room for theological exploration in areas where doctrine has not yet been defined. But ultimately there must be boundaries that can't be crossed. And a church has the right to set those boundaries.

"Academic freedom" is getting to be a tiresome refrain and tedious defense for theological shenanigans.

[Mad Dawg]

"A thousand ages in His sight // are like an evening gone"
(paraphrase of Ps. 90)

The teaching that God does not know the future is interestingly developed in Whitehead's thought. See especially Process and Reality which I read and failed to understand some 30 years ago. It seems to me that what Peter says about God's relation to time suggests that what we call the future is part of God's "now".

If I were going to work on this I'd re-read Whitehead first. My money is one its being non-Biblical and heretical. However, thinking that God beholds past present and future, so to speak, all at once, has its difficulties.

But then I never expected to understand God, and enjoying Him, not doping Him out, is what I hope for.

[qwertyz]

.... and how do they know God doesn't know?

[BibChr]

So, they did the right thing for the wrong reason.

Oh well, one out of two.

Dan

[one of His mysterious ways]

Since God exists outside our "timeline"; God sees all our events past, present and future at the same time. It's like taking a line ( ____________ ) and turning it so what you see is a dot ( . ) For God, all of our time'line' is but a mere 'point' to Him. So God can see all of our time and events at once. Our past, present and future are all NOW to God. Given this, God can see what we will choose do in the future with our free will, without controlling it. Because to Him, WE HAVE ALREADY CHOSEN IT. Our free will is not impacted by God's knowledge of our choices.

[Frumanchu]

Open Theism is nothing more than reverse-engineered theology from the base assumption of a libertine view of man's free will. It seeks to preserve the free will of man over and above everything else, at the expense of God's divine attributes. It proceeds from the false assumption that perfect foreknowledge of an event is necessarily a primary and directive causal factor in that event's occurance.

Open Theism is vile, a stench in the nostrils of the Lord. Plain and simple.

[suzyjaruki]

Sanders, who has taught at the school of about 1,000 students for seven years, has been a focus of controversy over open theism for the past four years

It would be beneficial reading for christian parents to take a look at this article, What In the World is a Worldview before they put their children under the teaching of someone like Sanders or others with equally heretical views.

[rwfromkansas]

Open theism is pure blasphemy.

[patriot_wes]

This is a debate where both sides suffer from self-absorbtion in thinking God has to exist and react in the way some human group wants Him to.

The fact that God knows all things and is outside the limits of our time reality does not limit God. He set in motion the fact that actions (man's) have consequences (sin) and Him watching the consequences unfold in ways that humans disagree with does not stop Him from being God, it makes Him true to His nature.

A square is square and God does not need to intervene and make it round or triangular to satisfy our needs.