Position · 1994

Open Theism

The view that the future is partly open, so God knows it as a range of possibilities rather than as settled fact, and responds to the free choices of people.

It took shape in The Openness of God (1994), written by Clark Pinnock with Richard Rice, John Sanders, William Hasker and David Basinger. Holders point to biblical passages where God changes course or tests people, and argue that a relationship of real love requires a future not yet fixed. They hold that God still knows everything that can be known. In 2001 the Evangelical Theological Society affirmed God’s exhaustive foreknowledge, and in 2003 it voted on removing Pinnock and Sanders but neither was removed. Critics, especially defenders of Classical Theism, argue that it denies Scripture’s picture of God foretelling the future.