The Bible talk at Emmanuel today referred to a different view of God that is becoming increasingly common. Known as ‘open theism’ or ‘the openness of God theory’, it is suggested that God does not know all that is going to happen in the future.

Prof Greg Boyd of Bethel College in America, writes: In the Christian view God knows all of reality – everything there is to know. But to assume He knows ahead of time how every person is going to freely act assumes that each person’s free activity is already there to know – even before he freely does it! But it’s not. If we have been given freedom, we create the reality of our decisions by making them. And until we make them, they don’t exist. Thus, in my view at least, there simply isn’t anything to know until we make it there to know. So God can’t foreknow the good or bad decisions of the people He creates until He creates these people and they, in turn, create their decisions.

But as C. S. Lewis has written: Everyone who believes in God at all believes that He knows what you and I are going to do tomorrow.

There is a lot that you could read on this topic! If you want to read a good summary click here.  If you want just one article that suggests some of the terrifying implications of this view of God’s ‘ignorance’ click here. If you want to browse through a whole lot of articles, click here.

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