Answering Greg Boyd's Openness of God Texts

From Gospel Translations

Answering Greg Boyd's Openness of God Texts

#1 Hezekiah's Repentance and 15 Added Years

Isaiah 38:1-5

In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, "Thus says the LORD, 'Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.'" 2 Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, 3 and said, "Remember now, O LORD, I beseech You, how I have walked before You in truth and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in Your sight." And Hezekiah wept bitterly. 4 Then the word of the LORD came to Isaiah, saying, 5 "Go and say to Hezekiah, 'Thus says the LORD, the God of your father David, I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will add fifteen years to your life.'"

Observations:

1. All agree that God did not express an exception when he said, "You shall die and not live."
2. All agree that there was an implicit exception, perhaps: "You shall die, unless you repent and pray."
3. Boyd denies that God knew whether Hezekiah would fulfill the implicit exception.
4. Historic Christian exegesis affirms that God knew that Hezekiah would fulfill the implicit exception.
5. Boyd says that it would have been disingenuous of God to say that Hezekiah was going to die if he knew that he would not die but live 15 more years.
6. But Boyd's own view also seems to make God disingenuous. Is God telling the truth when he says," You shall die, and not live," when he really means," You might die, but won't if you repent"? Boyd's criticism of historic Christian exegesis applies to himself at this point.
7. But it is not true that one must always express explicitly the exceptions to the threats one gives or the predictions one makes in order to be honest. One reason for this is that there can be a general understanding in a family or group of people that certain kinds of threats or warnings always imply that genuine repentance will be met with mercy. For example, in 1 John 4:8 "The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love." And 1 John 3:14 says, "We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death." These could be taken in isolation to mean there is no exception or escape for any failure to love. But we don't take the implicit threat that way because a general understanding exists in John's community that this refers to unconfessed and persistent refusal to love. 1 John 1:8-9 makes this clear: "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."Therefore, we do not need to jump to the conclusion that every exception to every warning needs to be expressed especially where there is an understanding that genuine repentance and confession will be met with mercy. Hezekiah's earnest prayer for mercy seems to indicate that he did not assume there was no escape clause even though none was expressed. He seemed to assume that mercy may well be given if he repented.
8. What about the sincerity of God in making warnings when he knows that the warning will be heeded and the threatened punishment averted. We deal with that in the case of Jonah and the Ninevites
   

#2 Jonah and the Repentant Ninevites

Jonah 3:4

Then Jonah began to go through the city one day's walk; and he cried out and said, "Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown."

Jonah 3:10

When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.

Observations: 

1. Both Boyd and historic Christian exegesis assume that there is an implicit condition that if the Ninevites meet, they will be spared.
2. Boyd believes that, if God knew with certainty that Nineveh would repent, the prophecy of impending destruction was insincere.
3. But the accusation of insincerity is warranted only if the threat or the condition of repentance was not true. That is, if God would NOT have overthrown Nineveh had they not repented, or if he WOULD have overthrown Nineveh even if they repented, then his threat would have been insincere. He would have been lying. But the threat and the condition were true. God would have indeed destroyed them had they not repented, and he did not destroy them when they did repent.

Greg seems to rule out the possibility that a God who knows all that will come to pass can sincerely warn against consequences that he knows will not come about (e.g., "Nineveh will be overthrown if you don't repent"). But, in fact, in God's mind, the warning may be the very means he is using to see to it that his foreknown future will come about; namely, that Nineveh will repent. God is not insincere in giving this warning. Had they not repented they would have perished.

#3 God's Changing His Plan

Jeremiah 18:7-8

At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to uproot, to pull down, or to destroy it; 8 if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent (= repent) concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it.

Observations:

1. It is entirely possible to see the "plan" of God here to be the thought or intention of his mind that went something like this: "I will bring calamity against a people that is evil and unrepentant." This is true and sincere. In other words, God's "plan" or "intention" or "thought" or "mind" may simply be such a fixed resolve in his mind. His resolve to punish correlates with the evil presently in the people when he expresses the resolve. If the people repent, God's resolve or "plan" or intention toward that people changes, that is what is meant by his "relenting" or his "repenting." This does not necessarily mean he has not foreknown this change in his "plan." In fact, the expression of his resolve to punish the kind of people he sees may be the means he uses to bring about the change in them that he foreknows so that his own change of resolve will accord with their new condition.
2. Boyd says that people have tried to evade the meaning of these texts by saying that God is speaking "anthropomorphically." Moreover the only reason one would argue this way, he says, is that one brings to the text a philosophical presupposition that God cannot literally change his mind.
3. But I do not argue this way. I say that there is a real change in God's mind, but that this does not imply a lack of foreknowledge. God can express an intention or a resolve toward a people that accords with what is true now, all the while knowing that this condition will not be true in the future, and that his resolve will also be different when their condition is different. That an future-knowing God speaks this way is owing to the fact that he really means for his word to be the means of bringing about changes in people to which he himself responds in a way that he knows he will.
4. The kind of change of mind Boyd wants to see, namely, a change owing to unforeseen future developments, is resisted perhaps not out of philosophical presuppositions, but out of exegetical insights from other relevant texts which make us hesitant to affirm that God changes his mind without qualification. (See 1 Samuel 15 and the issue of God's repenting that he made Saul king.)
   

#4 God's Repenting that He Made Saul King and God's Repenting that He Created Man

• God says, "I repent that I have made Saul king; for he has turned back from following me, and has not performed my commandments."

1 Samuel 15:28-29

And Samuel said to [Saul],"The LORD has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day, and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you. 29 And also the Glory of Israel will not lie or repent for he is not a man, that he should repent."

Observations:

1. A natural reading of 1 Samuel 15 would seem to imply that there is a way that God does "repent" and a way that he does not. That is what I am arguing in the texts that Boyd puts forward. He insists that God repents in a way that implies lack of foreknowledge of what is coming. I think this is the kind of "repentance" that would fall under Samuel's criticism: "God is not a man that he should repent."
2. In other words, God does not have the human limitations of knowledge that would involve him in repenting that way. Rather his repentance is an expression of a resolve or an attitude that is fitting in view of new circumstances. That God is ignorant of what will call for that new resolve or attitude is not necessarily implied in the change.
3. So the repentance over Saul means not that he did not know what Saul would be like, but that he disapproves of what Saul has become and that he feels sorrow at this evil in his anointed king and that he looks back on his making him king with the same sorrow that he experienced at that moment when he made him king, foreknowing all the sorrow that would come.

For God to say, "I feel sorrow that I made Saul king," is not the same as saying, "I would not make him king if I had it to do over knowing what I know now." God is able to feel sorrow for an act that he does in view of foreknown evil and pain, and yet go ahead and will to do it for wise reasons. And so later when he looks back on the act he can feel the sorrow for the act that was leading to the sad conditions, such as Saul's disobedience.

Genesis 6:5-6

Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.

Observations:

1. In view of the warning in 1 Samuel 15:29 that, "The Glory of Israel will not lie or repent; he is not a man, that he should repent," we are slow to attribute human-like repentance to God.
2. Rather it is plausible to find a "strange" repentance that is unlike anything we experience, namely, that God regrets what he foreknew - that the human race would fall into sin and be in need of a savior.
3. We are led to believe that God did foreknow this because of 2 Timothy 1:9 "God has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity." If the grace we needed in Christ was foreknown (even planned) from eternity, then the fall and the misery of man was known too.
4. In 1 Chronicles 29:18 David prays for the people after they have so willingly given to build the temple: "O LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, our fathers, preserve this forever in the intentions of the heart of Thy people, and direct their heart to Thee." This phrase is the same as the one in Genesis 6:5 but here it seems as if David assumes that God can govern what "intents of the heart" we have. If so, we should not assume too quickly that God can't know what they are in the future.
5. I propose that God created the world already feeling both the joy of this final salvation and the grief of the intervening fall and misery. When the fall and misery reached a height in Genesis 6:6 it is not unfitting for God to express this sorrow the way he does.
   

#5 When God Says, "Perhaps"

Jeremiah 26:1-3

In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came from the LORD, saying, 2 "Thus says the LORD, 'Stand in the court of the LORD'S house, and speak to all the cities of Judah who have come to worship in the LORD'S house all the words that I have commanded you to speak to them. Do not omit a word! 3 Perhaps they will listen and everyone will turn from his evil way, that I may repent of the calamity which I am planning to do to them because of the evil of their deeds.'"

Observations: