PRÉCIS ON THE DESECRATION OF GOD AND TRUTH: THE ABOMINATION OF OPEN THEISM

SCRIPTURE. “Even before there is a word on my tongue [still unspoken], Behold, O Lord, You know it all.” – PSALM 139:4, AMP

KEY TERM: “YOU KNOW!” ‘Yada’ [יָדַע]: “From a primitive root, ‘To ascertain by seeing;’ imp. Observation, caring, recognition, instruction, designation or punishment; acknowledgement; comprehension; discernment; have [complete] knowledge of; ‘prognostication (or prediction);’ understanding; to be skillful; to declare to make one to know;to discriminate, distinguish, i.e., ‘to learn and know the difference between good and evil.’”

QUOTATION. “If God does not know with certainty all that will come to pass, as ‘Open Theism’ argues, believers cannot have the assurance that God has a purpose for every event of their life. Tragedies may occur that God did not specifically ordain or allow, for He did not even know for certain that they would come about. Against such a notion, Scripture encourages believers to look for the hand of God in the midst of their hardships (Exod. 4:11; Heb. 12:3–13).” ― GREGORY A. BOYD,Across the Spectrum: Understanding Issues in Evangelical Theology, 2002; edited

COMMENTARY. “‘There is not a word in my tongue,’ &c. — Thou knowest what I speak, and with what design and disposition of mind. There is not a vain word, not a good word, ‘but Thou knowest it altogether’ —What it means, what thought gives birth to it, and with what intention it is uttered. Or, as others render the clause, ‘When there is not a word,’ &c.; Thou knowest what I am about to speak, either in prayer to thee, or in conversation with men, when I have not yet uttered one word of it. ‘Thou hast beset me behind and before’ —With Thine all-seeing and all-disposing Providence; so that, go which way I will, I am under Thine eyes, and cannot escape its penetrating view in any way possible; ‘and laid Thy hand upon me’ —Thou keepest me, as it were, with a strong hand, in Thy sight, and under Thy power.” – JOSEPH BENSON, Notes on the Holy Bible, 5 vols., 1811-1818; edited

DK. A brief anecdote to make the searing point of this essay. I once was overseer of a major Christian ministry whose faculty were my responsibility. One of the, we shall call him LB, held a revised Open Theism View of God:

OPEN THEISM is the Thesis that, because God loves us and desires that we freely choose to reciprocate His love, He has made His knowledge of, and plans for, the future conditional upon our actions. Though omniscient, ‘God does not know what we will freely do in the future.’ Though omnipotent, He has chosen to invite us to freely collaborate with Him in governing and developing His creation, thereby also allowing us the freedom to thwart His hopes for us. God desires that each of us freely enter into a loving and dynamic personal relationship with Him, and He has therefore left it open to us to choose for or against His will.” – JAMES RISSLER, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ret. Mar. 1, 2024; edited

An altogether lovely, brilliant, seminary trained kind man, after three years of wrestling with his theology, I fired him after one student in particular, a young man came to my office sobbing, begging me to clarify what he was hearing in the classroom.

Note: I was fired within a year of that termination for my own stumbling along the way. God is no respecter of persons, beloved, but will hold His Truth high above every man (Romans 2:11). ‘Every man!’

CODA. So are we all cautioned to: ‘Mind His Doctrines!’ They are what I liken to the very Gold of Heaven, the Sacred Chalice, the Holy Grail after which we run and cling to upon our very lives, or if necessary, unto our sacrificial deaths. They – and He – are worth it, beloved. So profoundly worth it!