Finally, the omniscient God knows all that can be known or all that he wants to know. The debate over divine omniscience in the Christian tradition, between Thomism and Molinism for example, has always been about the content of precisely what can be known. In the openness debate the focus is on the nature of the future: is it fully knowable, fully unknowable or partially knowable and partially unknowable? Even if the future is fully knowable does God choose not to know it? According to open theism God knows the past and present with exhaustive definite knowledge and knows the future as partly definite (closed) and partly indefinite (open). God’s knowledge of the future contains knowledge of what God has decided to bring about unilaterally (that which is definite or settled), knowledge of possibilities (that which is indefinite) and those events that are determined to occur (e. g. an asteroid hitting a planet). Hence, the future is partly open or indefinite and partly closed or definite. It is not the case that just anything may happen, for God has acted in history to bring about events in order to achieve his unchanging purpose. Graciously, however, God invites us to collaborate with him to bring the open part of the future into being.
continued
Date: 2005-11-17 11:02 am (UTC)