Chapter # TBD: Foreknowledge or Fore-guessing? Why Open Theism Must Be Rejected as Immoral

[NOTE: UNDER CONSTRUCTION!!

This chapter is under construction and has been posted for peer review. This chapter is intended to be part of the study, “The Oldest Trick in the Book: How God’s People Fall for the Serpent’s Playbook.” Here is the link: https://1lord1faith.org/the-oldest-trick-in-the-book/. This chapter is intended to follow the chapter on “Foreknowledge vs. Preexistence” which also has not yet been assigned a chapter number. It is currently located here: https://1lord1faith.org/foreknowledge-vs-preexistence/]

In the previous chapter, we addressed a topic that had a lot to do with how God communicates His foreknowledge to us. In that example, God gave humanity a calling for purpose before He even created mankind. I would like to explore another topic here that is different, but has some striking similarities.

Open theism is a theological perspective that challenges the classical understanding of God’s exhaustive foreknowledge of future events, particularly human choices. It holds that while God is omniscient and knows everything that can be known, the future remains partly open because it is not yet determined. According to this theory, God knows all possibilities and probabilities but does not necessarily know every future human choice with absolute certainty until it happens.

The problem is, like many moral topics in the Bible, the doctrine of “Open Theism” is not itself named, proclaimed, confessed, explained, or commanded in Scripture. Rather, something else most definitely is. Namely, God’s foreknowledge.

“Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done; saying, ‘My counsel will stand, and I will do all my pleasure.’” (Isaiah 46:10)

“Before the word is on my tongue, Yahweh, you know it completely.” (Psalm 139:4)

“All the days that were ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” (Psalm 139:16)

“Jesus said to him, ‘Most certainly I tell you that tonight, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.’” (Matthew 26:34)

“For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.” (Romans 8:29)

Foreknowledge is a biblical word and is mentioned or described in Romans 4:17–18, Acts 2:1–23, 1 Peter 1:20, and Acts 15:18.

“… as it is written… God… calls those things which do not exist as though they did…” (Romans 4:17–18, NKJV).

“who was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but was revealed in this last age for your sake” (1 Peter 1:20)

“All his works are known to God from eternity.” (Acts 15:18)

“This Jesus, delivered up by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by the hand of lawless men, crucified and killed.” (Acts 2:23)

Why This Is a False Dilemma—and a Sign of the Serpent’s Playbook

The core claim of Open Theism—that foreknowledge and free will are incompatible—presents a false dilemma: either God knows our future choices and we are not free, or we are free and God cannot know what we will choose. But Scripture never forces that choice. This is the same tactic the serpent used in Eden—posing a deceptive either-or choice that undermines God’s word.

In Genesis 3, the serpent asked, “Has God really said…?” not to invite understanding, but to introduce doubt and imply that God’s word was incomplete, unclear, or restrictive. The moment a false dilemma is introduced—where one must choose between two distorted extremes—God’s authority is brought down and man’s reasoning is elevated.

This is exactly what Open Theism does. It redefines divine foreknowledge by imposing a philosophical framework not explained as such in Scripture, and then insists we must either accept this human-centered version of freedom or deny God’s omniscience altogether.

But the Bible consistently affirms both:

• That God knows the future in detail, including human choices (Psalm 139:4; Matthew 26:34; Acts 2:23),

• And that humans are morally accountable for what they choose (Deuteronomy 30:19; Romans 6:16).

There is no contradiction unless one is imported from outside the text.

In fact, the very idea that God’s knowledge must be limited in order to preserve free will assumes that human freedom is more sacred than God’s sovereignty. That is a moral inversion. And wherever man defines freedom in opposition to God’s authority, we are witnessing a replay of the fall.

So yes, Open Theism acknowledges some kinds of foreknowledge—but the way it defines and limits that knowledge is based on a dilemma the Bible never presents. This method of argumentation is not innocent; it mirrors the serpent’s playbook: introduce doubt, offer a distorted binary, and elevate man’s view of freedom above God’s right to rule.

In short, the issue is not simply theological. It’s moral. A doctrine that casts doubt on God’s foreknowledge — under the pretense of protecting human freedom — has already blurred the boundary between the Creator and the creature. Scripture does not present a God who reacts to uncertainty. He knows, He acts, He speaks in advance and fulfills His word exactly. God does not guess. He declares. God knows what He is doing. He is not playing a game of wishful thinking with His creation.

Open Theism denies this. By insisting that God knows every possible outcome but not which choices free creatures will ultimately make, it undermines the integrity of His judgments, the certainty of His promises, and the seriousness of His warnings. It repositions man as the central determiner of history — and in doing so, repeats the very pattern of the serpent in the garden.

“Has God really said?” (Genesis 3:1)
“Did God really know?” becomes the modern echo.

Open Theism Turns God into a Responder Instead of the Ruler

Scripture shows that God knows not only possibilities, but certainties. He knew Peter would deny Him. He knew Judas would betray Him. He knew the cross was coming long before it happened—and He orchestrated the plan to redeem.

When Paul speaks of God’s foreknowledge, he ties it directly to the moral transformation of those who love Him: “whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.” (Romans 8:29)

God’s foreknowledge is never presented as guesswork or theoretical. It is foundational to the justice of His judgment and the credibility of His covenant.

To say that God did not know what someone would choose—yet still punishes or corrects them after the fact—is to reduce His justice to reactionary moralism, not righteous judgment. The Bible never frames God’s actions this way.

Open Theism Violates the Command to “Teach No Other Doctrine”

“As I urged you when I was going into Macedonia, stay at Ephesus that you might command certain men not to teach a different doctrine.” (1 Timothy 1:3)

A fair objection must be acknowledged here. Open theists may respond: the phrase “exhaustive definite foreknowledge” does not appear in Scripture either. If the standard is that doctrine must be named and explained by the apostles and prophets, does that standard not cut both ways?

It does not — and the reason why matters.

The standard is not whether a theological label appears in Scripture. Labels are the church’s shorthand for summarizing what Scripture teaches. The standard is whether the content of the doctrine is named, proclaimed, confessed, explained, and/or commanded by the apostles and prophets. And on that test, the two positions are not symmetrical at all.

The word foreknowledge itself is a biblical word. The apostles used it directly:

“This Jesus, delivered up by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by the hand of lawless men, crucified and killed.” (Acts 2:23)

“Who was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was revealed in this last age for your sake.” (1 Peter 1:20)

“Whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.” (Romans 8:29)

But more than the word, the content of exhaustive foreknowledge — that God knows specific future human choices with certainty — is not merely implied. It is demonstrated by explicit examples that cannot be reduced to knowledge of mere possibilities:

Isaiah declares that God speaks “the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things not yet done” — not probable outcomes, but things not yet done that He declares with certainty (Isaiah 46:10). The psalmist confesses that before a word is on his tongue, God knows it completely — not probably, not as one of many possibilities, but completely (Psalm 139:4). Jesus told Peter not that he might deny Him, or that there was a strong probability he would, but that before the rooster crowed he would deny Him — three times, with the specific count stated (Matthew 26:34). And Acts 2:23 holds together in a single statement both the free moral agency of lawless men and the foreknowledge of God — without suggesting any tension between them.

This is doctrine being named, proclaimed, and demonstrated. The content is in the text. The label “exhaustive foreknowledge” is simply the church’s summary of what the texts explicitly say.

Now apply the same test to Open Theism’s distinctive claim — that God knows possibilities but not future free choices with certainty, that His omniscience is “dynamic” and updates as history unfolds. Where is this named? Where is it proclaimed? Where does any prophet confess uncertainty about what God knows? Where does any apostle explain that God works with probabilities rather than certainties? Where does Jesus anywhere suggest the Father was waiting to see how things unfolded?

It is not there. The content of “dynamic omniscience” does not appear in Scripture. It appears in 20th-century philosophical theology. Open theists arrive at it not by reading what the foreknowledge texts say, but by reinterpreting those texts through a framework imported from outside — the same move they rightly criticize classical theism for making.

This is the asymmetry the 1 Timothy 1:3 standard exposes: foreknowledge is a biblical word whose content Scripture explicitly demonstrates. Dynamic omniscience is a philosophical category whose content Scripture nowhere states and whose conclusions Scripture explicitly contradicts.

One position summarizes what the text teaches. The other teaches something the text never says — and in doing so, redefines what the text does say. That is what 1 Timothy 1:3 forbids.

1. Did the “Sovereignty” View Come from Philosophical Influences?

Open theists often claim that the traditional sovereignty view (where God has exhaustive foreknowledge and controls history toward a predetermined goal) was influenced by Greek philosophy, particularly Platonism and Aristotelian thought. However, this claim is at best an oversimplification and at worst a misrepresentation.

A. Can This Claim Be Affirmed?

It is true that early Christian theologians (like Augustine) engaged with Greek philosophy when articulating doctrines about God’s nature, including His immutability (unchangeableness), omniscience, and timelessness. Some open theists argue that this imported Greek philosophical ideas into Christianity rather than deriving them from scripture.

However, this claim overlooks key facts:

The Old Testament already presents God as sovereign and all-knowing, long before Greek philosophical influence.

Isaiah 46:10 – “Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done.”

Psalm 139:16 – “Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me.”

Daniel 4:35 – “He does according to His will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.”

Job 42:2 – “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.”

Jesus and the apostles affirm God’s absolute foreknowledge and sovereignty.

Matthew 26:34 – Jesus knew Peter would deny Him three times before the rooster crowed.

Acts 2:23 – Jesus was crucified according to “the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God.”

Romans 8:29-30 – Those God foreknew He also predestined, called, justified, and glorified.

Jewish theology prior to Christianity already affirmed God’s exhaustive foreknowledge.

The Dead Sea Scrolls and other Second Temple Jewish writings show that Jews believed in divine foreknowledge without Greek influence.

Thus, the claim that the sovereignty view originated from Greek philosophy can be falsified, because the sovereignty of God and His exhaustive foreknowledge are clearly biblical concepts independent of Greek thought.

B. Ironically, Open Theism Itself Has Philosophical Influences

• Open theism’s view of free will comes from Enlightenment-era libertarianism, not ancient Jewish or biblical thought.

• It also shares similarities with process theology, which teaches that God is in time and learning along with creation—a view heavily influenced by 20th-century Western philosophy, not scripture.

2. Is Open Theism Based on Jumping to Conclusions and False Dilemmas?

Yes, it can be affirmed that Open Theism relies on logical errors, including false dilemmas and unwarranted conclusions.

A. False Dilemmas in Open Theism

Open theists often force a choice between two extreme options, when scripture actually presents a third, more balanced view.

1. False Dilemma: “Either God knows the future exhaustively, or humans have no free will.”

   • Biblical answer: God foreknows free choices without forcing them or revealing them.

   • Example: Jesus knew Peter would deny Him but did not cause it.

2. False Dilemma: “Either God is relational and reacts to human decisions, or He is an unfeeling, deterministic dictator.”

   • Biblical answer: God is sovereign but also personal and interactive.

   • Example: Jesus wept over Jerusalem’s rejection of Him, even though He knew in advance they would reject Him.

3. False Dilemma: “If God changes His mind (e.g., Nineveh), then He cannot know the future.”

   • Biblical answer: God sometimes expresses Himself in human terms (anthropomorphism), but this does not mean He lacks foreknowledge.

   • Example: Jonah 3:4-10 – God “relented” because Nineveh repented, exactly as He had foreseen as a possibility (Jeremiah 18:7-10).

B. Jumping to Conclusions in Open Theism

Open theists misread some biblical passages and assume they contradict divine foreknowledge when they actually do not.

• Genesis 22:12 – “Now I know that you fear God.”

  • Open theist conclusion: “God didn’t know what Abraham would do.”

  • Biblical explanation: This was a test for Abraham’s benefit, not because God lacked knowledge.

• Exodus 32:14 – “And the LORD relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.”

  • Open theist conclusion: “God didn’t know what Moses would say, so He changed His mind.”

  • Biblical explanation: God was testing Moses to act as an intercessor.

These jump-to-conclusion interpretations undermine the consistency of God’s character rather than affirming the full biblical picture.

C. Addressing the Open Theist’s Strongest Texts

The charge of jumping to conclusions is not abstract. Let’s examine the two passages Open Theists most frequently cite as their strongest evidence — and show from within those texts why the conclusions they draw cannot be sustained.

Jonah 3-4: The Prophet Who Knew God Would Relent

The Open Theist argument runs like this: God pronounced unconditional destruction on Nineveh, Nineveh repented, God relented — therefore God’s response was unplanned and genuinely contingent on what the people chose to do.

But the text itself undermines this reading, and it does so through Jonah’s own words.

When Jonah finally explains why he fled to Tarshish, he says: “I knew that you are a gracious God, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.” (Jonah 4:2)

Notice: Jonah does not say he feared God might be merciful, or that he suspected God could relent. He says he knew — with the same certainty that drove his entire decision to flee. If the future were genuinely open and God’s response to Nineveh’s repentance were genuinely undetermined, Jonah could not have known this. His certainty about God’s response would have been impossible. But Jonah did know — because he understood God’s character well enough to predict His response with confidence.

This is only coherent if God’s mercy operates according to a knowable, consistent pattern. And God Himself stated that pattern explicitly through Jeremiah:

“If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it.” (Jeremiah 18:7-8)

This is not improvisation; it is consistency of God’s character. God is declaring in advance the conditional grammar of His own judgments. The condition does not need to be stated in every oracle for it to be operative — it is a stated principle that any prophet of Israel would have known. Jonah knew it. That’s precisely why he ran.

What about the word “relented” (nacham)? Does it mean God changed His mind in the sense of reversing an eternal decree He was wrong about? No — and importantly, the same Hebrew word appears in Numbers 23:19, where it is used to distinguish God from changeable man:

“God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should relent (nacham). Has he said, and will he not do it?” (Numbers 23:19)

Nacham describes a genuine relational and emotional response — grief, a turning — that is real and not merely theatrical. God’s response to Nineveh’s repentance was genuine. But genuine response is not the same as unforeknown response. Jesus wept over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41) while knowing exactly what Jerusalem would do (Luke 19:43-44). Genuine emotion and exhaustive foreknowledge coexist throughout Scripture. Jonah is not an exception to this pattern — it is one more illustration of it.

The case of Jonah 4:2, carefully considered, is devastating to the Open Theist position because it comes from within their own key text. This isn’t importing an outside argument — it shows the text is internally inconsistent with their reading.

Genesis 22:12: “Now I Know”

When God stops Abraham at the moment he raises the knife, He says: “Now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son.” (Genesis 22:12)

The Open Theist reads this as God acquiring information He did not previously have. But this reading raises an immediate problem the text itself creates: if God did not know what Abraham would do, why did He command the test? What was being tested for, if the outcome was entirely unknown?

The answer Scripture gives is that the test was for Abraham’s benefit, not God’s information-gathering. The Hebrew construction “now I know” (attah yadati) functions as declarative acknowledgment — a formal recognition that something has been demonstrated and made manifest. This is how it functions elsewhere: when the widow of Zarephath says to Elijah “now I know that you are a man of God” (1 Kings 17:24), she is not confessing that she had no prior belief about him. She is declaring that what she believed has now been confirmed through action.

The writer of Hebrews interprets the Akedah without any suggestion that God was uncertain: “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac… He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead.” (Hebrews 11:17-19) The focus is entirely on what Abraham’s faith demonstrated — not on what God learned.

And crucially: God intervenes before the act is completed. If the purpose were to acquire information, He would have waited for the outcome. He stops it at the moment of demonstrated intent — confirming that what mattered was the orientation of Abraham’s heart, which the test brought forth and made manifest, not information God was waiting to receive.

3. Does Open Theism Use the Devil’s Method of Formulating Doctrine?

If Open Theism relies on false dilemmas and jumping to conclusions, then it does bear a resemblance to how the devil distorts truth. Consider:

1. Genesis 3:1-5 – The Serpent’s False Dilemma

   • The devil presents a false choice:

     • “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree’?”

     • (Implying that if God withholds one thing, He must be withholding everything.)

   • Open theism presents similar false dilemmas about God’s foreknowledge.

2. Matthew 4:5-7 – Misusing Scripture

   • Satan tells Jesus to throw Himself from the temple, quoting Psalm 91 but ignoring context.

   • Open theists often quote isolated verses (like “Now I know” in Genesis 22:12) without considering the full biblical picture.

3. 2 Corinthians 11:3-4 – Distorting God’s Nature

   • Paul warns against being led astray from the simplicity of Christ by accepting “another Jesus” or “another gospel.”

   • Open theism presents a different view of God—one that is less sovereign, more human-like, and not the God of scripture.

Summary: Open Theism Fails on Every Biblical Test

1. The claim that God’s sovereignty came from Greek philosophy is false.

   • The Bible, not Greek philosophy, teaches that God knows the end from the beginning.

2. Open theism is based on logical errors.

   • It creates false dilemmas that force a choice between two extremes when the biblical answer is more balanced.

   • It jumps to conclusions by misinterpreting isolated passages without harmonizing them with the rest of scripture.

3. It resembles the devil’s tactics in distorting God’s truth.

   • It subtly lowers God to man’s level, making Him reactive rather than sovereign.

   • It misuses scripture to argue for an unbiblical view of God’s knowledge.

Thus, it is affirmed that Open Theism is based on jumping to conclusions and false dilemmas—making it a deviation from biblical truth, rather than a legitimate doctrine.

Foreknowledge is a Biblical Concept

“³For though we walk in the flesh, we don’t wage war according to the flesh; ⁴for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the throwing down of strongholds, ⁵throwing down imaginations and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)

Nowhere in Scripture do we find the idea that God does not know the future. The open theist view is based entirely on assumptions drawn from emotionally phrased passages—passages which, in context, never deny God’s foreknowledge. They simply show God interacting with creation, which He has always done—even when fully knowing what is to come. Consider what is at stake concretely: Christ was foreknown before the foundation of the world (1 Peter 1:20), delivered up by the free choices of lawless men, according to the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God (Acts 2:23). The open theist position requires us to believe that the central act of human history — accomplished through free human choices — was not foreknown with certainty. Yet Scripture states explicitly that it was both: freely chosen by lawless men and determined by the foreknowledge of God. Scripture does not see that as a contradiction. Neither should we.

Open Theism Fails the Moral Test

If a doctrine blurs the line between God and man, then it falls under the oldest deception in history: the lie that man can ascend to the place of God by determining for himself what is good and evil (Genesis 3:5).

Open Theism lowers God’s knowledge to the level of man’s perspective. And it elevates man’s choices to the level of controlling God’s outcomes. That is not just bad theology—it is moral confusion.

By denying that God knows the outcome of our choices, Open Theism reduces His commandments to hopeful guidance and His judgments to reactions. More seriously, if God is not operating from absolute foreknowledge, then the restoration of mankind is not guaranteed—it becomes a risk. We should all gasp at the humanistic prospect that “God may fail” which is what the open theists are proposing. That would mean God is attempting a plan whose success depends on unpredictable actors. But the fear of the Lord is not grounded in risk—it is grounded in the certainty that His purpose will stand.

“God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind.” (Numbers 23:19)

A Doctrine That Undermines Faith and Obedience

“Without faith it is impossible to be well pleasing to him, for he who comes to God must believe that he exists, and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6)

How can we trust a God who doesn’t know what lies ahead? How can we surrender fully if the One we follow is still waiting to see what happens next?

Faith is not passive reliance on a God who is doing His best. Scripture defines faith as hypostasis — substance, underlying reality — the treatment of unseen future things as already certain (Hebrews 11:1). That is not a human invention. It is the human moral correspondent to God’s own mode of operating: the God who “calls things that are not as though they were” (Romans 4:17) commands us to do the same — to treat what is not yet seen as already substantial, what is not yet possessed as already real, what is not yet fulfilled as already certain.

This is not a peripheral command. Hebrews 11:6 states it as the non-negotiable condition of pleasing God at all: “without faith it is impossible to be well pleasing to Him.” And Romans 4:17-18 makes the correspondence explicit — God calls non-existent things as existent; Abraham “in hope believed against hope.” Same certainty, different mode. This is what Jesus meant when He commanded, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Faith is not approximating God from a distance. It is reflecting His perfection in the creaturely mode available to us. The foreknowledge view is therefore not merely named, proclaimed, confessed, explained, and exemplified in Scripture. It is commanded.

This is why Open Theism is not merely a doctrinal error but a moral one — and a self-defeating one. A God who does not know the future with certainty cannot command faith as Scripture defines it. You cannot be called to reflect a perfection your Creator does not possess. If God is still waiting to see how things unfold, then commanding us to walk in assurance of things not yet seen is commanding us to be more certain than He is. That is not “be perfect as your Father is perfect.” It is absurd. Open Theism does not just weaken faith — it makes the command to have faith morally incoherent.

Repentance has meaning because He sees the end of sin. Obedience has weight because His warnings are not experiments. His promises are certain because He is certain. And our faith — properly understood — is not a sentiment. It is the creaturely echo of the foreknowledge of God.

Foreknowledge: Future Things that Already Exist in God’s Omniscience

Let’s look more closely at the biblical concept of God’s foreknowledge. To do that, let’s examine some examples of things that were in God’s foreknowledge, but which we know did not exist at the time God spoke of them. Harnack pointed out some examples, saying, “So the Tabernacle and its furniture, the Temple, Jerusalem, etc., are before God and continue to exist before him in heaven, even during their appearance on earth and after it.” Adolf von Harnack, History of Dogma, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/harnack/dogma1.ii.iv.i.html.

For the scripture to speak as if these future things already exist, and to claim Open Theism—that they “might” exist in the future—are contradictory concepts. Remember, God calls things that are not as thought they are (Romans 4:17), but no scripture ever explains, “God calls thing as He certainly hopes they will come to be.”

Harnack derived his list, in part, from Exodus 25:9, 40, when God told Moses to build all things according to the pattern that was shown to Moses on the mountain.

Again, what we saw acted out in the OT is explained for us in the NT. The writer of Hebrews tells us:

¹Now in the things which we are saying, the main point is this. We have such a high priest, who sat down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, ²a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man. ³For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices. Therefore it is necessary that this high priest also have something to offer. ⁴For if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, seeing there are priests who offer the gifts according to the law; ⁵who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, even as Moses was warned by God when he was about to make the tabernacle, for he said, “See, you shall make everything according to the pattern that was shown to you on the mountain.” (Hebrews 8:1–5)

Let’s try to follow the train of thought here. The writer emphasizes that we now have Jesus as a high priest of a heavenly tabernacle. Then he goes on to explain that the heavenly tabernacle had a copy and a shadow, or example, in the earthly tabernacle. The reason the writer gives is that the first tabernacle was to be made according to the pattern Moses was shown in the mountain. That is to say, the first tabernacle was made to pattern the heavenly tabernacle that was to come, which in turn was in God’s plan. But it was more than just a plan: it was foreknown before the very foundation of the earth. More on that in a moment.

This next passage speaks of the heavenly tabernacle in the past tense, which for us is still actually in the future (just as Abraham’s offspring would be in the future). Thus, it is one of “those things which do not exist” that God speaks of and sees “as though they did.”

¹⁸For you have not come to a mountain that might be touched, and that burned with fire… ²²But you have come [perfect tense] to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable multitudes of angels, ²³to the general assembly and assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, ²⁴to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better than that of Abel. (Hebrews 12:18–24)

We know that the city of the living God, the heavenly New Jerusalem, is a city yet to be revealed. That is, it is for the future. And yet the Scriptures talk as if we’ve already arrived. In one sense we have because of its assurance in God’s plan, but it has not been actualized yet. The New Jerusalem exists as one of “those things which do not exist” that God speaks of and sees “as though they did” exist.

Now here’s an amazing thing. Having faith in the coming future city of the living God is to share in God’s foreknowledge of that which is to come. This is something we learn from the following Scripture:

⁸By faith, Abraham, when he was called, obeyed to go out to the place which he was to receive for an inheritance. He went out, not knowing where he went. ⁹By faith, he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a land not his own, dwelling in tents, with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. ¹⁰For he looked for the city which has the foundations, whose builder and maker is God. (Hebrews 11:8–10)

Our faith is very much related to God’s foreknowledge. Our faith is a faint “reflection” or “image” of God’s foreknowledge of what He has in mind for our future. And that future is a city whose builder and maker is God, a city which we look for by faith, just as Abraham did.

“Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, proof of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)

²²For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. ²³Not only so, but ourselves also, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for adoption, the redemption of our body. ²⁴ For we were saved in hope, but hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for that which he sees? ²⁵ But if we hope for that which we don’t see, we wait for it with patience. (Romans 8:22–25)

So we see that although Hebrews 12:18–24 had told us we “have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,” here in Romans 8:22–25 we are told we really are still hoping for something we do not yet see. In other words, our hope for the coming city, whose builder and maker is God, is also one of those things of which “…God… calls those things which do not exist as though they did…” Just as Abraham, by faith, looked for a city whose builder and maker is God, so the same goes for us.

The substance of our faith is hope in God’s certainty, not in His wishful thinking.

Romans 8:22–25 also shows us how foreknowledge by definition excludes the possibility of preexistence. You can’t foreknow something that currently exists any more than we can see what we hope for at the same time we hope for it. Thus “foreknowledge” means knowing of things that are not but shall be, in the same exact way that “God… calls those things which do not exist as though they did…”

In other words, the Biblical doctrine of foreknowledge is not at all the same doctrine of pagan preexistence. That doctrine was first proposed by the philosopher Plato. What the Bible explains is God’s “foreknowledge” which explicitly means knowing of someone or something before it literally exists at all. Therefore, what God foreknows is what He knows of a certainty of future events.

All of this means that you and I, and everyone who ever lived, already existed in God’s foreknowledge. That isn’t to say we actually existed before we were born. It is only to say that God knew exactly who, what, and when we were to be before He even set creation into being. This is what Peter was telling us in the very start of his letter to the assemblies:

¹Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the chosen ones… ²according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. (1 Peter 1:1–2)

Prognosis: Reject It Entirely

Open theism is not a matter of preference—it is a moral deviation of faith in the infallibility of God. It introduces uncertainty where God has spoken with clarity. It invites speculation where Scripture offers assurance. And it elevates man’s autonomy over God’s authority.

This doctrine must be rejected—not merely as unbiblical, but as immoral. It erases the foundation of divine justice, undermines the integrity of God’s warnings and promises, and subtly repeats the sin of Eden: questioning what God knows, and inviting man to judge Him for it.

A God who does not know cannot be trusted.

But the God of Scripture—who declares the end from the beginning, who speaks what is to come and brings it to pass—He can be trusted. And He alone deserves our faith. Because He alone knows the future, and by that absolute foreknowledge, is preparing us for it.

Category	Foreknowledge View (God Knows)	Open Theism View (God Foreguesses)
1. Moral Authority: Who defines good and evil?	God retains sovereign moral authority. His will is not subject to man’s choices. He can both declare the end from the beginning and hold men accountable for their moral response (Isaiah 46:10; Romans 9:20).	Subtly shifts moral weight to man. God must wait and see how man chooses before reacting. The implication is that God must adapt His moral plan based on man’s moral performance. God appears bound to human unpredictability.
2. Scripture: Named, Proclaimed, Confessed, or Explained?	God’s foreknowledge is proclaimed (Isaiah 46:10), explained (Psalm 139:4,16), confessed in the apostolic record (Acts 2:23; Romans 8:29-30), and commanded — faith itself, defined as hypostasis, the substance of things not yet seen (Hebrews 11:1), is the creaturely correspondent to God’s foreknowledge, and is non-negotiable (Hebrews 11:6).	Nowhere does Scripture say, “God does not know the future.” No prophet, psalmist, apostle, or Jesus Himself ever proclaimed or taught that the future was unknown to God. It is a doctrine inferred from isolated texts and silence. Therefore, it is not named, proclaimed, confessed, explained, or commanded.
3. Logical Method: Does it use the serpent’s tactics?	No. The view harmonizes with all of Scripture without forcing dilemmas. God’s full foreknowledge and man’s moral responsibility are both affirmed (Acts 2:23; Romans 9:19-21). God can know freely made choices without forcing them.	Yes. Open theism introduces false dilemmas: “If God knows, we aren’t free.” It jumps to conclusions: “If God changed His mind, He must not have known.” It also humanizes God—making Him reactive, uncertain, and emotionally surprised.
4. God’s Character: Magnified or Minimized?	Magnified. God is portrayed as omniscient, patient, just, and sovereign. He invites faith not because He’s unsure—but because He knows and is calling people into a greater purpose.	Minimized. God is often depicted as surprised, reactive, and struggling alongside creation. This undermines biblical portrayals of His majesty, foresight, and perfect justice.
5. Outcome: Does the doctrine lead to faith or doubt?	Builds trust. We are anchored in the God who has already seen the end and has made provision for all outcomes. Christ’s return, our glorification, and every judgment are certain.	Breeds uncertainty. If God is unsure of our choices, how can we trust that His plans will prevail? If prophecy is conditional, how can we know the promises of resurrection, restoration, or judgment are secure?

Conclusion: A Doctrinal and Moral Error

We have seen that there is more to doctrines like Open Theism than may meet the eye. Initially they can seem harmless, or perhaps even helpful as a way of making sense out of God’s actions that we don’t readily understand. But let’s face it—that kind of query is what tempted Eve to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: to shortcut a way of understanding rather than hearing from God.

So we need to ask ourselves some difficult questions. For example:

Does Open Theism affect a person’s standing with God? Does it fall into the category of idolatry, rebellion, or perversion of the gospel?

These are not rhetorical questions. Scripture commands us to test doctrine—not by sentiment, tradition, or intellectual curiosity—but by comparing its fruit to the moral standards God has already revealed.

1. Is Open Theism a Perversion of the Gospel?

Yes—indirectly, but meaningfully. Paul wrote in Galatians 1:6–9 that even subtle distortions of the gospel bring a curse. Open theism may not deny the kingdom of God, the crucifixion or resurrection, but it undermines the character of the God who made those promises.

If God doesn’t know future human choices, then the plan of redemption becomes a gamble. If He’s unsure how people will respond, then the gospel is not a finished work but a risky experiment. That is not the gospel the apostles preached. It’s a functional perversion—even if it isn’t framed that way.

2. Does Open Theism Constitute Idolatry?

The word “idolatry” is weighty, and it should be applied carefully — especially when the people holding a doctrine are sincerely seeking God. Open theists are not carving wooden images. Many are genuine believers troubled by real theological problems in classical theism. That sincerity deserves acknowledgment.

But sincerity does not determine whether a doctrine reshapes God into something He is not. And Scripture has a name for that — even when it happens among God’s own people.

God Himself identified it in Psalm 50:21, not in a rebuke of pagans, but in a rebuke of those who carried His covenant and gathered in His name:

“You thought that I was altogether like you. But I will rebuke you, and set them in order before your eyes.” (Psalm 50:21)

This is the precise error of Open Theism — not carved images, but a conceptual one. It takes the texts that describe God’s relational engagement, His grief, His relenting, His testing — and draws from them the man-contrived and articulated conclusion that God must therefore operate as we do: sequentially uncertain, genuinely surprised, learning as history unfolds. The reasoning feels reverent. It claims to honor the biblical portrait. But its destination is a God shaped by human limitations.

Romans 1:21-23 describes a pattern — not limited to paganism — where vain reasoning about God leads to exchanging His true glory for a diminished image:

“Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and traded the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man.” (Romans 1:21-23)

Open Theism does not openly begin in rebellion. But its method — elevating human intuitions about freedom and relationship above God’s explicit self-declarations — follows the oldest pattern in Scripture.

It starts with legitimate questions — ‘Why does God appear to change His mind in response to human actions?‘ That is a fair observation from the text, and it deserves a fair answer. Where the questioning runs off the rails is the refusal to let the full body of Scripture answer it — specifically the foreknowledge passages this paper has examined, which explain precisely what is happening in those relational texts. Once those explanations are set aside, the serpent’s oldest reframing gets employed: the question subtly shifts from ‘what has God said?’ to ‘what can God actually know?’ — and the destination is a God who cannot declare the end from the beginning — who did not know with certainty that Peter would deny Him, whose plan of redemption was not a finished work but a calculated risk.

That is not a minor adjustment to the portrait. It is a painting of a different God.

So is it idolatry? By the pattern of Romans 1 and the specific warning of Psalm 50:21, yes — not in the sense of paganism, but in the precise biblical sense of attributing to God the limitations of man. The charge is not against the person. It is against the doctrine. And the most pastoral thing we can do for someone moving in this direction is name clearly what is happening — before the image they are building drifts further from the one Scripture reveals.

3. Is Open Theism Morally Deceptive or Rebellious?

Yes. Open theism uses false dilemmas, speculative reasoning, and moral inversions that closely match the serpent’s tactics in Genesis 3:

• “Has God really said…?”

• “You will not surely die…”

• “You will be like God…”

Open theism echoes all three:

• Does God really know the future?

• Would a loving God really predetermine outcomes?

• Doesn’t real love require that we be totally unpredictable, even to Him?

This is moral rebellion disguised as theological humility. It doesn’t just question how God works—it elevates human logic over God’s own self-revelation. Make no mistake: it isn’t wrong to question how God works. It is wrong when we don’t listen to Him for His explanations. Sometimes that takes patience, and often a lot of studying the Bible. But when we try to shortcut the process of hearing from God—like Eve did in the garden—then we have fallen for the serpent’s playbook. It’s really just that simple.

4. Can a Person Be Saved and Still Hold to Open Theism?

Salvation is by grace through faith—not doctrinal perfection. So yes, a person may be saved while sincerely misjudging aspects of God’s nature. But that’s not the whole story.

If someone persists in this belief after God’s Word has clearly been shown to contradict it, they are no longer merely mistaken. They are suppressing the truth (Romans 1:18). That’s not an intellectual error—it’s a moral one. And Scripture always warns that knowingly rejecting God’s truth is rebellion, not ignorance.

The Fruit Test

If these conclusions do not come from examining fruit against God’s immutable standards, then the words of Scripture become subject to personal preference and human reasoning. But we don’t get to choose what God calls moral or immoral. He already told us.

God’s words must be tested by the standards He Himself revealed. As Jesus said, “You will know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16), and as Paul wrote, “Examine yourselves, whether you are in the faith” (2 Corinthians 13:5). That means we must assess not just theological precision, but moral outcomes.

Open theism fails that test. It undermines the fear of the Lord by introducing risk into God’s promises. It destabilizes trust by making God’s judgments reactive instead of righteous. It blurs the moral distinction between Creator and creature. And worst of all, it elevates man to a place of determining good and evil—just as the serpent offered.

This isn’t just a doctrinal error. It is a moral failure—one that distorts the gospel, diminishes God’s glory, and leads others into a god of man’s own making.

And there is one final test that Open Theism cannot pass—one that requires no philosophical debate, no untangling of free will arguments, and no appeals to Greek thought or Enlightenment logic. It is simply this: quote the scriptures.

Show us where any prophet proclaimed that God’s foreknowledge is limited by future human choices. Show us where any psalmist confessed uncertainty about what God knows. Show us where any apostle explained that God works with probabilities rather than certainties. Show us where Jesus Himself ever suggested that the Father was waiting to see how things would unfold.

It isn’t there. Not named. Not proclaimed. Not confessed. Not explained. Not commanded. Nowhere.

Every doctrine that belongs to the faith can point to chapter and verse where it is taught as doctrine—not inferred from silence, not extracted by reinterpreting anthropomorphic language, not assembled from isolated phrases stripped of context. Foreknowledge can do that. Open Theism cannot. And that alone is sufficient grounds for rejection, quite apart from everything else this chapter has demonstrated.

That is why Open Theism must be rejected—not just as incorrect, but as immoral.

In the last chapter, we talked about “one-anothering” each other as a necessary part of walking faithfully in God’s kingdom. This isn’t a country club where we just gather to socialize and avoid uncomfortable truths. We owe it to one another to speak up when a friend is drifting into error. That’s not being judgmental—that’s being kind. Ignoring error isn’t love. Correcting it is.

“Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.” (Proverbs 27:6)