A system of doctrine that has been gaining momentum in recent years is that which has become known as "Open Theism." In a nutshell, the Open view teaches that God, wanting to relate to his creatures, has chosen to not exercise his ability to know the future (as such knowledge would be an impediment to authentic relationship and genuine human freedom).
Open Theism stands outside of the traditional Calvinism/Arminianism debate about predestination, disagreeing strongly with both sides. Whereas Calvinism has God foreordaining the future (determining people's destiny from before the foundation of the world) and Arminianism has God fore-knowing the future (being aware of people's destiny from before the foundation of the world), the Open view asserts that God has neither known nor determined the destinies of people from eternity past.
Historically, Christianity has seen God as "outside time" altogether, but the Open View strongly objects to this, arguing that God progresses along a Time sequence as humans do.
The crux of the whole system is founded as an attempt to resolve an alleged contradiction: if God knows the actions of humans before they act, then those actions could not be genuinely free. Historically, Christianity (not just Calvinism) has seen the relationship between God's foreknowledge and human freedom not as a contradiction, but merely as a mystery, incomprehensible to finite minds.
Common Objections Raised by Open Theism
1. Believing the Elect's Destiny is Unalterably Predetermined Amounts to Fatalism
The Reformed view of election is distasteful to Open Theists because it allegedly violates human freedom, rendering men puppets. If the elect's destiny in heaven has been known by God from all eternity, it is a foregone conclusion, and therefore the elect need not bother about progressing in holiness or striving to persevere, the Open View argues.
Calvnism's answer is to reaffirm human responsibiity in the realm of sanctification--it's not Biblical to "let go and let God" as if the Christian life were a passive ordeal. But neither is it right to found our hope of heaven on our own ability to persevere.
The elect’s relationship with God is, up to a point, like a marriage, but it’s not an exact parallel. Christians can “divorce” God, but God will never “divorce” his elect. There may be periods of separation, but the elect cannot permanently and finally fall away. If they could, then God’s eternal plan of redemption would be emptied of its power. The elect are not simply those whom God would like to see redeemed, in a passive sense—they are those whom God does in fact redeem and preserve in their faith.
All relationships with fallen human beings are inherently vulnerable to the prospect of collapse. We've all heard horror stories of couples married for three and four decades, and then the marriage falls apart when one or the other is unfaithful. The hope that Paul is expounding in Romans 8 (those whom God justifies, he also glorifies) is in a far different category. If a person claims to be elect, and yet uses that as a rationale to do whatever they like, believing there’s nothing they could do to possibly jeopardize their relationship with God—the Church would say such a person is in very dangerous waters. Whenever Paul mentions election, he does so to encourage his audience to be grateful to God and to respond to God in gratitude by living obediently before him. To abuse election—“Let us sin so that grace may abound”—is to thoroughly miss the point.
Some may argue that
Paul is saying here that although the nation of
One could cite point out the apostle Peter's quote (“Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall,”) to build a case that the elect are being encouraged to do certain things in order to maintain their election. However, if the Open View asserts this, there, again, is a sound refutation. Peter isn't telling his readers that they need to do certain things in order to make sure that God decides to elect them. If that were the case, he would be teaching a system of works-righteousness. R.C. Sproul interpreted this verse to mean that Peter is urging his readers to cultivate in themselves the marks of God’s people, so that they can have more and more inward assurance that they are God’s elect. In other words, he’s saying, “If you want to have assurance that you are a child of God, make sure that you are living as becomes a child of God.”
If the destiny of the elect wasn't settled, the ramifications would be devastating. It would undermine the assurance we have regarding God’s love for us and his desire to keep us from stumbling. It would undermine the concept of election by grace, and put the weight of responsibility back on us and on our sinful “free” will.
2. If Humans Don't Choose Christ of their Own Free-Will, Their Faith is Mechanical and Automated, not Real.
This is a powerful objection that has been raised against Reformed theology for many centuries now. This objection too is based on a misunderstanding, an understating the significance of the Fall of Man's effect on the human will.
Reformed theology begins by emphasizing the total deadness of humanity in sin. It then emphasizes the fact that if any are to be saved, God is the one who has to do everything. If humans were left to themselves to choose Christ, all would be lost. If human beings were left to persevere in their own will after becoming Christians, all would be lost. The decision to follow Christ is initiated by God. The ability to persevere is initiated by God. Reformed theology, understood rightly, humbles us to the dust by making us see just how needy we truly are before God.
That which distinguishes believers from unbelievers isn’t that they made a good decision to receive Christ, while the others made a bad decision to reject Christ. If that were the case, throughout eternity Christians would, as Paul said, “have something to boast about.” Every other system on the market, it seems, gives man too much credit, or at least leaves the door open to giving man too much credit. That’s not at all to imply that Christians who aren’t Reformed are, on that account, prideful or that they love God any less.
3. If God Chose Certain People to Be Saved Before the World Was Created, and the Decision Wasn't Based on Anything in the Individuals, Doesn't this Make God's Decision Arbitrary? What is the Functional Difference Between Grace and Luck?
Far from showing God to be arbitrary, the doctrine of election says that God is more gracious than we could ever imagine. There is absolutely nothing in us that is better or more virtuous than those who perish. God redeems us from our sin purely and solely out of his own kindness. As the hymn says, “Nothing good have I whereby thy grace to claim.”
In asking what is the functional difference between grace and luck, one should point back to Ephesians:
“God has now revealed to us his mysterious plan regarding Christ, a plan to fulfill his own good pleasure. 10 And this is the plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything in heaven and on earth. Furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God,[c] for he chose us in advance, and he makes everything work out according to his plan.” (New Living Translation)
Notice that Paul keeps making reference to a “plan.” Verse 5, in the ESV, says this:
In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.
Verse 11 says:
“Having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.”
God chose the elect, not arbitrarily, randomly, or whimsically, but rather according to his own purpose, his own wisdom, according to the counsel of his will. R.C. Sproul, in his book Chosen by God, does a very good job explaining how Reformed theology doesn’t imply arbitrariness on God’s part.
4. In the Open View, the Saved are Those Who Choose to Come to Christ--this is Fair. The Reformed View, Where God Picks and Chooses, Indicates Unfairness on God's Part.
God is loving and gracious to all, even those who are not elect. It’s not that God loves some people and hates other people. However, the love God has for the elect is different, in nature, from the love he has for humanity in general.
The Scriptures as a whole clearly teach that God knew individuals before the world began this. If God knows all things, this includes the future. If God, being perfect, is therefore “immutable” then there has never been a time when he didn’t know what he knows now. Therefore, God knew all about all he would ever create before he created. This is inherent in the very doctrine that God is omniscient.
Paul’s point in the opening chapter of Ephesians is that God’s plan to choose some for himself and conform them to the image of his Son was a plan that began before the foundation of the world. Revelation says Christ is the “Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.” In what sense is this true? This is so because God knew the elect before the world was founded and knew that they would need a sacrifice to redeem them.
What does that say about God? It says that he is all-knowing, that he is in control. That Adam’s rebellion didn’t catch him by surprise, but that he had already made a provision for man’s redemption before the first man was ever even created.
5. The Idea that God is Outside Time is Mere Philosophy--Not Rooted in the Words of Scripture. God's Time-Scheme is Not Different From Ours--His Now is our Now.
Open Theists would do well to read C.S. Lewis’ “Time and Beyond Time”, which is a chapter towards the end of Mere Christianity. God is not in time at all. He is outside of it altogether, since he created it, and is in no sense bound to it as we are. Our past, present, and future are all part of God’s “eternal now.” If God is bound by time constraints, as we are, he is not almighty or all-powerful.
Some would assert that God's future and our future are in the same category and that the only way in which God differs from humanity, time-wise, is in the past--God has no beginning. However, if the only way in which humans are different from God, regarding time, is the past, then God is not infinite. To say that God has a “future” at all is to speak of him as if there elements of reality that God is uninformed about. God is not only infinitely different from us, as far as the past is concerned; he is infinitely different from us in every possible respect—past, present, and future. All of this is implied in the word “almighty.”
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