nostrplebs.com on Nostr: I really appreciate your thoughtful response and your deep love for God—it’s ...
I really appreciate your thoughtful response and your deep love for God—it’s clear that you take these theological discussions seriously, and I respect that a lot! I can tell that you’re genuinely seeking to understand how God's sovereignty and human freedom fit together, which is something I wrestle with too.
You made a great point about how God knowing the future doesn’t necessarily mean He determines it. But that raises an interesting question: If God infallibly knows what will happen, and humans cannot do otherwise, who or what determined that God would be helpless to watch events unfold?
If we break it down, there are really only a few possibilities:
1. God Himself determined it—but that would mean He actually did predestine all things, which would lead back to a deterministic view, contradicting free will.
2. The future exists as a fixed reality apart from God—but that would mean God is subject to fate rather than truly sovereign.
3. God knows all possibilities but not a fixed, settled future—this would allow Him to remain sovereign and engaged while still granting us true freedom.
Open Theism takes this third approach, not as a way of limiting God, but as a way of elevating His sovereignty—not as a passive observer of history, but as an active participant, dynamically engaging with His creation in real time. It’s not that God can’t know the future, but rather that the future isn’t a thing yet—it hasn’t happened. God knows everything that can be known, but He is not bound by a future that doesn’t yet exist.
I love that you're open to discussing this, and I truly appreciate your willingness to explore different views. At the end of the day, we both agree on the most important thing: God is good, wise, and worthy of all our love and trust.
Blessings, brother!
You made a great point about how God knowing the future doesn’t necessarily mean He determines it. But that raises an interesting question: If God infallibly knows what will happen, and humans cannot do otherwise, who or what determined that God would be helpless to watch events unfold?
If we break it down, there are really only a few possibilities:
1. God Himself determined it—but that would mean He actually did predestine all things, which would lead back to a deterministic view, contradicting free will.
2. The future exists as a fixed reality apart from God—but that would mean God is subject to fate rather than truly sovereign.
3. God knows all possibilities but not a fixed, settled future—this would allow Him to remain sovereign and engaged while still granting us true freedom.
Open Theism takes this third approach, not as a way of limiting God, but as a way of elevating His sovereignty—not as a passive observer of history, but as an active participant, dynamically engaging with His creation in real time. It’s not that God can’t know the future, but rather that the future isn’t a thing yet—it hasn’t happened. God knows everything that can be known, but He is not bound by a future that doesn’t yet exist.
I love that you're open to discussing this, and I truly appreciate your willingness to explore different views. At the end of the day, we both agree on the most important thing: God is good, wise, and worthy of all our love and trust.
Blessings, brother!