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God's Foreknowledge & Man's Free Will
Discusses the biblical view of the omniscience of God and examines the extent of humanity's freedom to make moral decisions
- GenresTheology
107 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1985
31 people want to read
About the author
Richard Rice
33 books4 followersRichard Rice (PhD, University of Chicago Divinity School) is professor of religion at Loma Linda University. He is the author of several books, including Suffering and the Search for Meaning, Reason and the Contours of Faith, and God's Foreknowledge and Man's Free Will, and coauthor of The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 14, 2022
"Second, the open view of God affirms that our experiences matter to God here and now. He is infinitely sensitive to what happens to us. It really make a difference to him. He appreciates to the fullest our loss, our grief, and our pain at the very time we suffer it. Indeed, His own sense of pain and loss far surpasses ours. There is nothing of value to us that does not mean a great deal to him" (pg 104)
I think this sums up the open view of God in its way of application. With this understanding we can truly relate to a God who is very much involved in His creation, but at the same time goes through suffering and pain with us, not always to bring us out or to glorify himself, but to help us and be with us.
I think it beneficial to take a look at this view not just dismiss it because it a libertarian approach to free will. For many people, including myself, a view that God is somehow behind the evil or uses the evil that is in our world does not line up with the character of Yahweh. Richard Rice indepth look into the the traditional view shows the the problems with a reformed or traditional view when you take the implications of them.
While I am not set on whether I am open theist or not, I think it is an important tool to have when reading and studying the Scriptures.
I think this sums up the open view of God in its way of application. With this understanding we can truly relate to a God who is very much involved in His creation, but at the same time goes through suffering and pain with us, not always to bring us out or to glorify himself, but to help us and be with us.
I think it beneficial to take a look at this view not just dismiss it because it a libertarian approach to free will. For many people, including myself, a view that God is somehow behind the evil or uses the evil that is in our world does not line up with the character of Yahweh. Richard Rice indepth look into the the traditional view shows the the problems with a reformed or traditional view when you take the implications of them.
While I am not set on whether I am open theist or not, I think it is an important tool to have when reading and studying the Scriptures.
December 11, 2016
This challenging book was our latest women’s book club read....
Richard Rice makes a rigorous argument for the “open view” of God which says that man has free will and is not merely a actor in a movie where the script has already been written. In other words, God does not necessarily know every move or choice we will make ahead of time which allows for “creaturely freedom”. However, he is behind the scenes with his marvelous creativity and “perfect anticipation” which means that God has an “awareness of all that could happen, but not necessarily...an advance knowledge of what actually would happen” which leaves room for man’s uncoerced free will. This is in contrast to the conventional view of God which says God is involved in the course of our lives but he is changeless and has perfect knowledge of everything in the world before it even happens.
This open view does not allow us to blame God for evil in the world because every man has free will and makes his own decisions. Instead, God can respond to evil in a way that somehow benefits us. His infinite resourcefulness can bring good out of bad.
This little book was full of wonderful logical arguments beautifully set up to make sense to us humans with our finite minds. However, the BIG question that lurked for me behind all of the intense explaining in this book was “How do we know that our logic is God’s logic?” I know we have been created in his image, but still, when I look at this world that God has created and look for the human logic in just the world of nature, for example, I am blown away by the creativity and illogic in much that I see. Consequently, I do not feel worthy of restricting God to my frail and limited human logic and I found some of the arguments in this book to be over zealous in human effort.
Nevertheless, thinking and talking about these ideas with nine other Christian women was fruitful and stimulating and I came away from this book with a deeper appreciation of God and his personal relationship with me.
Richard Rice makes a rigorous argument for the “open view” of God which says that man has free will and is not merely a actor in a movie where the script has already been written. In other words, God does not necessarily know every move or choice we will make ahead of time which allows for “creaturely freedom”. However, he is behind the scenes with his marvelous creativity and “perfect anticipation” which means that God has an “awareness of all that could happen, but not necessarily...an advance knowledge of what actually would happen” which leaves room for man’s uncoerced free will. This is in contrast to the conventional view of God which says God is involved in the course of our lives but he is changeless and has perfect knowledge of everything in the world before it even happens.
This open view does not allow us to blame God for evil in the world because every man has free will and makes his own decisions. Instead, God can respond to evil in a way that somehow benefits us. His infinite resourcefulness can bring good out of bad.
This little book was full of wonderful logical arguments beautifully set up to make sense to us humans with our finite minds. However, the BIG question that lurked for me behind all of the intense explaining in this book was “How do we know that our logic is God’s logic?” I know we have been created in his image, but still, when I look at this world that God has created and look for the human logic in just the world of nature, for example, I am blown away by the creativity and illogic in much that I see. Consequently, I do not feel worthy of restricting God to my frail and limited human logic and I found some of the arguments in this book to be over zealous in human effort.
Nevertheless, thinking and talking about these ideas with nine other Christian women was fruitful and stimulating and I came away from this book with a deeper appreciation of God and his personal relationship with me.
November 28, 2015
'“Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the Lord'
- Isaiah 1:18a (NKJV)
POSITIVE ELEMENTS:
* This good piece of reasoning justifies God's goodness.
* The chapter against Evil (chapter 4) is, in my opinion, the best part of the whole book.
It shows how the closed view of the future contains some serious problems concerning the subject of evil and the goodness of God.
* In chapter 6, Providence and the Openness of God, the author of this book gives us a moving and most biblical way of how God can reform evil, which is intrinsically evil, to bring good out of it, even in our individual lives. It contains just a few examples of the beauty of an open future.
NEGATIVE ELEMENTS:
* While this book, in its defence of the possibility of an open future, is, in my opinion, irrefutable, more Bible verses in the first chapters would have surely made this a better book.
* I also expected more of chapter 7, which talks about the connection between prophecy and the open future.
- Isaiah 1:18a (NKJV)
POSITIVE ELEMENTS:
* This good piece of reasoning justifies God's goodness.
* The chapter against Evil (chapter 4) is, in my opinion, the best part of the whole book.
It shows how the closed view of the future contains some serious problems concerning the subject of evil and the goodness of God.
* In chapter 6, Providence and the Openness of God, the author of this book gives us a moving and most biblical way of how God can reform evil, which is intrinsically evil, to bring good out of it, even in our individual lives. It contains just a few examples of the beauty of an open future.
NEGATIVE ELEMENTS:
* While this book, in its defence of the possibility of an open future, is, in my opinion, irrefutable, more Bible verses in the first chapters would have surely made this a better book.
* I also expected more of chapter 7, which talks about the connection between prophecy and the open future.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews