One of the most heated debates today involves the foreknowledge of God.  Does God know all that will happen in the future?  Is everything that will ever be actualised already foreknown in advance by God, or does even Omniscience Himself experience changes in knowledge as a result of His interaction with His own created reality of infinite possibilities?

Open theism (or Freewill theism or Presentism or, more generally, Neo-Theism) proposes the view that the perfect knowledge of God does not include all future events because much of the future is still open to God, not yet 'frozen' in eternity and is highly contingent upon the free self-determinative choices of other agents in the universe apart from God.  A more systematic online presentation / elaboration of this view (its Biblical basis, practical superiority over classical ways of thinking, etc.) can be found here but for our present purposes only a crucial tenet undergirding this theology will be highlighted:  The many passages teaching the repentance (mind-changing) of God, e.g. Jer 18:7-8, 1Sam 15:11 and 29, Jonah 3:10, Jer 26:1-3 and many more (close to thirty, in fact).

Open theists (like yours truly) insist that such passages must be understood at face value and refer to genuine changes in the divine mind and we believe that all attempts to harmonise these texts with the doctrine that God never changes - in everything including His actions, experience and knowledge - are (mis)guided by philosophical and unBiblical presuppositions of God must be like.  Indeed, if God wanted to tell us that He truly is dealing with at least a partially undecided fuure and that He does experience changes of mind and knowledge, how else would He tell us (if spreading this out all over Scripture doesn't qualify)?

(The reader is encouraged to obtain a copy of Greg Boyd's God of the Possible or perhaps visit sites like opentheism.org, the BGC (Baptist General Conference) link above or Boyd's Christus Victor Ministries for a better and more complete explanation of the Open view of God).

Reformed theologian John Piper wrote a good response against Boyd and more specifically against a Neo-theistic interpretation of certain key texts in the Old Testament and its understanding of God.  His essays can be found both at the BGC site as well as in his Desiring God Ministries page and represent one of the best classical approaches to these texts I've come across.

Still, it is my conviction that Piper's harmonisations of these particular texts represent an illegitimate a priori imposition of classical dogmas upon Scripture and thus nett-out as exegesis far less compelling in meaning and integrity than that offered by open theists.  Hence, the approach here adopted will be to go through some of the passages which Piper seeks to refute as supporting open-theism and see if his word can be accepted as the last and/or the better one.  These passages would be:
 

I may address more passages which Piper did over time but now I'll just focus on the three above (besides, the Jerry and Sammy verses are one of the most significant).  The reader is advised to read and bookmark Piper's exegetical essay on these passages as the following analysis will be based upon that work.

Before we rock n' roll, please let me state that (contra many Reformed theologians, sadly) I do not believe that this need be a major division within the Body of Christ.  If this series can spur even one soul to just a minutely improved desire to study the Word of God and to know and desire Him more, I would be satisfied.

With that said, let's proceed to the theological dance-floor and let the rhythm of His Word shake our minds, starting with Isaiah...
 

AL