Theological glossary · FaithLogic

Open theism

The view that God knows everything knowable but that the future free choices of creatures are not yet 'there' to be known, so God does not have exhaustive foreknowledge and governs a genuinely open future.

From the 'openness of God' — the title of the 1994 book that named the movement.

Appeals to Genesis 6:6; 22:12 ('now I know'); Exodus 32:14; 1 Samuel 15:11; Jeremiah 18:7–10; and the many texts of God relenting, testing, and expressing surprise or disappointment.

A late-20th-century evangelical proposal (Clark Pinnock, John Sanders, Greg Boyd, William Hasker), motivated by libertarian freedom, dynamic divine responsiveness, and a distinctive theodicy. It has been formally rejected by several evangelical bodies and has no precedent in the historic church.

The mainstream objection: Isaiah makes detailed predictive knowledge the test of true deity (41:21–23; 46:9–10), the NT rests its case on fulfilled prophecies of free acts (Acts 2:23), and a God who cannot know the future cannot guarantee his promises about it.

Rejected by classical theism, Molinism, and classical Arminianism alike (all of which affirm exhaustive foreknowledge); open theists reply that foreknowledge would fix the future and negate freedom.

Open in the glossary for related terms and the doctrines this concept appears in.