Love and Foreknowledge

July 29, 2008

Joe,

As you know, last week my daughter Halle had her first birthday, and it was a time for us to recall the Lord’s abundant mercies over the past year. I have learned a lot about the Lord and myself during this year, and am grateful for these lessons. One of them that I’ve been pondering especially over the past couple of days is how my experience with Halle has helped me to understand that foreknowledge does not quench a deep, intimate love relationship.

Maybe that sounds pretty abstract; what kind of lesson is that to be learning from parenthood? Well, along with being a dad in the last year, I also have become a pastor full-time. And one of the things I am responsible for as a shepherd is to protect the flock from false doctrines.

One of the doctrines that has been infiltrating the contemporary church is the idea of open theism. Essentially open theism is a philosophy of God’s knowledge which says that God cannot and does not know the future choices of human beings. One of the common reasons why open theists insist that this must be so is that in order to have an authentic, dynamic relationship of love with His people, God cannot know everything that we are going to do in the future. If He did, then we would be mere robots, and we could not really experience the thrill of a relationship with Him.

For example, in Matthew 8 Jesus is amazed at the faith of a centurion. If God knew how this centurion would react from all eternity, He could not really be amazed at his expression of faith. Therefore, God does not know the future exhaustively. It is more complicated than that, but I am trying to keep this post relatively short!

Anyway, in interacting with Halle this year, I am seeing the shallowness of such an argument. Though I do not really have foreknowledge, to a certain extent it feels like I do. What I mean is, since the day Halle was born I ‘knew’ that the time would come when she would roll over, crawl, stand on her own, walk, etc. Of course you could say I did not know it for certain, because maybe she would be handicapped in some way. But for all intents and purposes, I think you’d agree that once a healthy baby is born, the fact that she will one day stand on her own is pretty certain.

Nevertheless, when Halle began standing on her own a week or two ago, I was thrilled. There is genuine delight and excitement in watching her do something which I have been pretty certain of happening for the last twelve months. Apparently when it comes to loving my daughter, foreknowledge is not a hindrance to genuine love and excitement. And if that is so for me with my daughter, why should it not be so for God?

For some time I have known that the Bible contradicts open theism. My precious daughter has taught me that human experience contradicts it too.

Larry

Posted by Larry | Filed Under Random Musings, Seeking Him 

Comments

2 Responses to “Love and Foreknowledge”

  1. Kev on July 29th, 2008 3:55 pm

    Larry,

    Great post - not sure if you heard or not, but we welcomed our little boy into the world on Saturday (Kyle Francis). I’ve been thinking how it will deepen my knowledge and relationship with God and your post was a excellent catalyst. Thanks!

    Kev

  2. Larry on July 29th, 2008 6:14 pm

    Congrats, brother! I forget where, but I did hear that the other day.

    You are right indeed that your knowledge and love for God will deepen as you experience the joy of fatherhood.

    Enjoy it!

    Larry

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