A friend at church said to me that he is sure that God can change his mind about future events in response to prayer. He meant, for instance that a person may be moved from being unsaved to saved, by prayer. That God's mind is not always "made up" regarding a person's salvation. This can't be true.
God changes His mind
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JOwen
Puritan Board Junior
Your friend needs to do some reading on the unchangeableness of God.
MrMerlin777
Puritan Board Post-Graduate
God changes His mind eh.... hmm....
I guess we'd all better watch out then He might decide to give us all what we deserve.
Thank you Father that you do not change!
I guess we'd all better watch out then He might decide to give us all what we deserve.
Thank you Father that you do not change!
staythecourse
Puritan Board Junior
Open Theism
here's Wiki's blurb on Open theism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_theism
Bruce Ware wrote a book entitled "God's Lesser Glory" that does a good job in refuting the idea of open theism. Popular and well accepted.
Here are some reviews of it.
Description
Christians throughout history have been strengthened by their confidence that God knows everything about the future. But consider this: What if it simply is not true? What if God can only rely on His best guess about tomorrow--just as you and I do? Would it not affect your trust in Him, your confidence in facing the future, your worship, and your motivation to leave everything in His hands? And yet this is the consequence that has to be faced if you trust what a number of leading voices in evangelicalism are proposing under the doctrine of open theism.
In its redefinition of the nature of divine providence, open theism adjusts the entire picture of God's sovereignty and involvement in our lives. Bruce Ware carefully summarizes and critiques this dangerous doctrine from a thoroughly biblical perspective, providing an excellent treatment of both the classical and openness views. He explores their implications and faithfully pinpoints the subtle ways that open theism undermines our trust in God and lessens His glory in our lives.
Open theism offers a God who, like us, does not know the future. Its sponsors see this humanizing of God as logical and devotional gain. Bruce Ware sees it as a way of misreading Scripture and impoverishing the life of faith, and he makes a compelling case for his view. I heartily commend this thorough and insightful book.
--J.I. Packer, Professor of Theology, Regent College
Open theism, which denies that God can foreknow free human choices, dishonors God, distorts Scripture, damages faith, and would, it left unchecked, destroy churches and lives. Its errors are not peripheral but central. Therefore, I thank God for Bruce Ware's loving, informed, penetrating, devastating critique of this profoundly injurious teaching. I pray that God would use this book to sharpen the discernment of leaders and prepare the people of God to recognize toxic teaching when they taste it. O how precious is the truth of God's all-knowing, all-wise, all-powerful care over our fragile lives. For your name's sake, O Lord, and for the good of the suffering church who rest in your all-knowing providence, prosper the message of this beautiful book and shorten the ruinous life of open theism.
--John Piper, Senior Pastor, Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis
Evangelical theology faces a crisis of unprecedented magnitude. The denial and redefinition of God's perfections will lead evangelical theology into disintegration and doctrinal catastrophe. The very identity and reality of the God of the Bible is at stake. The real question comes down to this--does God really know all things, past, present, and future? Or, is God often surprised like all the rest of us? The Bible reveals that God is all-knowing and all-powerful. Bruce Ware sets out the issues carefully in God's Lesser Glory. This book is a much-needed antidote to contemporary confusion, and it is a powerful testimony to the truth of God set forth in Scripture. I can only hope that Christians will read it and rejoice in the knowledge of the true and living God.
--R. Albert Mohler, Jr., President, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
At once businesslike and practical, Bruce Ware's restatement of classical Christianity in the face of contemporary challenges to it within evangelicalism is bold and bracing. Driven by the pastoral and practical importance of God's greatness, Ware's approach keeps his defense from bogging down in pedantic rhetoric. This book clearly demonstrates that the historic Christian view, against centuries of antecedents to "open theism," has been favored for so long for one reason: It is so evidently biblical.
--Michael Horton, Associate Professor of Historical Theology, Westminster Theological Seminary in California
Not even God knows whether you will decide to buy this book or read it, at least according to "open theism." But Bruce Ware shows that this position, which is seeping into evangelical churches, is contrary to Scripture, intentionally contradictory, and destructive to our Christian lives. This is a clear, fair, well-reasoned, and Bible-centered critique of a doctrinal error so far-reaching that it ultimately portrays a different God than the God of the Bible.
--Wayne Grudem, Chairman, Department of Biblical and Systematic Theology, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
The movement known as open theism claims to be a more biblical and more practical alternative to the traditional view. Bruce Ware systematically refutes both of these claims, showing that the traditional view better handles the biblical evidence and the issues of Christian living while better preserving the glory of God. His examination of the biblical material is especially strong.
--Millard J. Erickson, Distinguished Professor of Theology, George W. Truett Theological Seminary, Baylor University
While I (basically a traditional Arminian) do not agree with all of Ware's answers, I applaud his keen discernment of the questions and issues raised by openness theology. He clearly sets forth the key differences between this view and traditional views of God, both Arminian and Calvinist; and he perceptively identifies its major weaknesses. I benefited especially from Ware's treatment of the biblical teaching on God's foreknowledge.
--Jack W. Cottrell, Professor of Theology, Cincinnati Bible Seminary
here's Wiki's blurb on Open theism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_theism
Bruce Ware wrote a book entitled "God's Lesser Glory" that does a good job in refuting the idea of open theism. Popular and well accepted.
Here are some reviews of it.
Description
Christians throughout history have been strengthened by their confidence that God knows everything about the future. But consider this: What if it simply is not true? What if God can only rely on His best guess about tomorrow--just as you and I do? Would it not affect your trust in Him, your confidence in facing the future, your worship, and your motivation to leave everything in His hands? And yet this is the consequence that has to be faced if you trust what a number of leading voices in evangelicalism are proposing under the doctrine of open theism.
In its redefinition of the nature of divine providence, open theism adjusts the entire picture of God's sovereignty and involvement in our lives. Bruce Ware carefully summarizes and critiques this dangerous doctrine from a thoroughly biblical perspective, providing an excellent treatment of both the classical and openness views. He explores their implications and faithfully pinpoints the subtle ways that open theism undermines our trust in God and lessens His glory in our lives.
Open theism offers a God who, like us, does not know the future. Its sponsors see this humanizing of God as logical and devotional gain. Bruce Ware sees it as a way of misreading Scripture and impoverishing the life of faith, and he makes a compelling case for his view. I heartily commend this thorough and insightful book.
--J.I. Packer, Professor of Theology, Regent College
Open theism, which denies that God can foreknow free human choices, dishonors God, distorts Scripture, damages faith, and would, it left unchecked, destroy churches and lives. Its errors are not peripheral but central. Therefore, I thank God for Bruce Ware's loving, informed, penetrating, devastating critique of this profoundly injurious teaching. I pray that God would use this book to sharpen the discernment of leaders and prepare the people of God to recognize toxic teaching when they taste it. O how precious is the truth of God's all-knowing, all-wise, all-powerful care over our fragile lives. For your name's sake, O Lord, and for the good of the suffering church who rest in your all-knowing providence, prosper the message of this beautiful book and shorten the ruinous life of open theism.
--John Piper, Senior Pastor, Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis
Evangelical theology faces a crisis of unprecedented magnitude. The denial and redefinition of God's perfections will lead evangelical theology into disintegration and doctrinal catastrophe. The very identity and reality of the God of the Bible is at stake. The real question comes down to this--does God really know all things, past, present, and future? Or, is God often surprised like all the rest of us? The Bible reveals that God is all-knowing and all-powerful. Bruce Ware sets out the issues carefully in God's Lesser Glory. This book is a much-needed antidote to contemporary confusion, and it is a powerful testimony to the truth of God set forth in Scripture. I can only hope that Christians will read it and rejoice in the knowledge of the true and living God.
--R. Albert Mohler, Jr., President, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
At once businesslike and practical, Bruce Ware's restatement of classical Christianity in the face of contemporary challenges to it within evangelicalism is bold and bracing. Driven by the pastoral and practical importance of God's greatness, Ware's approach keeps his defense from bogging down in pedantic rhetoric. This book clearly demonstrates that the historic Christian view, against centuries of antecedents to "open theism," has been favored for so long for one reason: It is so evidently biblical.
--Michael Horton, Associate Professor of Historical Theology, Westminster Theological Seminary in California
Not even God knows whether you will decide to buy this book or read it, at least according to "open theism." But Bruce Ware shows that this position, which is seeping into evangelical churches, is contrary to Scripture, intentionally contradictory, and destructive to our Christian lives. This is a clear, fair, well-reasoned, and Bible-centered critique of a doctrinal error so far-reaching that it ultimately portrays a different God than the God of the Bible.
--Wayne Grudem, Chairman, Department of Biblical and Systematic Theology, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
The movement known as open theism claims to be a more biblical and more practical alternative to the traditional view. Bruce Ware systematically refutes both of these claims, showing that the traditional view better handles the biblical evidence and the issues of Christian living while better preserving the glory of God. His examination of the biblical material is especially strong.
--Millard J. Erickson, Distinguished Professor of Theology, George W. Truett Theological Seminary, Baylor University
While I (basically a traditional Arminian) do not agree with all of Ware's answers, I applaud his keen discernment of the questions and issues raised by openness theology. He clearly sets forth the key differences between this view and traditional views of God, both Arminian and Calvinist; and he perceptively identifies its major weaknesses. I benefited especially from Ware's treatment of the biblical teaching on God's foreknowledge.
--Jack W. Cottrell, Professor of Theology, Cincinnati Bible Seminary
There are verses that might appear on the surface to imply that God "changes his mind". But to read those texts that way would require God to lose attributes that define who he is. For example, his sovereignty, his unchangableness, his will and his execution of his eternal purpose.
When we look at those verses, we should stop and ask first of all "WHO CHANGES?" in those passages. Does God change? No, not really, it is change in the creature that exposes him to a different sort of response from God.
From the human side of things, man's changes seem to cause God to react or change himself in response to man. But that would be like saying that when I approach a mountain from one direction, and then from another, that the mountain changed. Before, the path before me was a steady upgrade. Now my approach is halted by sheer cliffs. Has the mountain morphed since I am approaching it with rope and pitons instead of a walking stick? Of course not. I must assume (absent an earthquake) that the change is entirely on my part.
So, did God honestly "change his mind" when Jonah went to Ninevah and preached destruction? 1) No, whether it was expressed from Jonah's mouth or not, we should gather from the 40-day warning (as the Ninevites did) that God might be granting them room to repent. Jonah seemed afraid that God was planning on saving some Ninevites, which was why he ran the other way. "Why, Lord? Why will you save some of these heathen, and not turn the heart of Israel to you?" 2) So, God had already secretly decreed that Ninevah would repent before he sent Jonah. Jonah's words of threat were the means God decreed for changing the Ninevites' hearts.
Indeed, we can be sure that if God HAD NOT meant to redeem some, that he WOULD HAVE destroyed the people in accordance with the threat, assuming he sent a prophet to warn them at all. We know what God wills decretively once we see a thing happen. We also know some things ahead of time because God reveals those things: like the 2nd Coming. But most often, we only know the future vaguely and provisionally, if at all. We have God's prescriptive will (what he tells us he wants) and that's all we need to live lives to his glory. But God knows exactly what he is doing to execute a perfect plan, because his will was already perfect when he began the process.
In this example, it is man that changes, man who repents and approaches God in an entirely different way. The intent of God to punish sin hasn't changed. The intent of God to reward repentance hasn't changed. It only seems as though God's intent to destroy went unfulfilled. God was not obligated to include his conditions for reprieve in the warning (and for all we know, Jonah may have spoken those conditions, and they simply aren't included in the record). We know it was a conditional threat because we know the character of God, and we see what actually happened.
Since God knows who each one of his elect are from before the foundation of the world, he certainly knows who will be saved and who will not. And those numbers (and names) are unalterably fixed.
When we look at those verses, we should stop and ask first of all "WHO CHANGES?" in those passages. Does God change? No, not really, it is change in the creature that exposes him to a different sort of response from God.
From the human side of things, man's changes seem to cause God to react or change himself in response to man. But that would be like saying that when I approach a mountain from one direction, and then from another, that the mountain changed. Before, the path before me was a steady upgrade. Now my approach is halted by sheer cliffs. Has the mountain morphed since I am approaching it with rope and pitons instead of a walking stick? Of course not. I must assume (absent an earthquake) that the change is entirely on my part.
So, did God honestly "change his mind" when Jonah went to Ninevah and preached destruction? 1) No, whether it was expressed from Jonah's mouth or not, we should gather from the 40-day warning (as the Ninevites did) that God might be granting them room to repent. Jonah seemed afraid that God was planning on saving some Ninevites, which was why he ran the other way. "Why, Lord? Why will you save some of these heathen, and not turn the heart of Israel to you?" 2) So, God had already secretly decreed that Ninevah would repent before he sent Jonah. Jonah's words of threat were the means God decreed for changing the Ninevites' hearts.
Indeed, we can be sure that if God HAD NOT meant to redeem some, that he WOULD HAVE destroyed the people in accordance with the threat, assuming he sent a prophet to warn them at all. We know what God wills decretively once we see a thing happen. We also know some things ahead of time because God reveals those things: like the 2nd Coming. But most often, we only know the future vaguely and provisionally, if at all. We have God's prescriptive will (what he tells us he wants) and that's all we need to live lives to his glory. But God knows exactly what he is doing to execute a perfect plan, because his will was already perfect when he began the process.
In this example, it is man that changes, man who repents and approaches God in an entirely different way. The intent of God to punish sin hasn't changed. The intent of God to reward repentance hasn't changed. It only seems as though God's intent to destroy went unfulfilled. God was not obligated to include his conditions for reprieve in the warning (and for all we know, Jonah may have spoken those conditions, and they simply aren't included in the record). We know it was a conditional threat because we know the character of God, and we see what actually happened.
Since God knows who each one of his elect are from before the foundation of the world, he certainly knows who will be saved and who will not. And those numbers (and names) are unalterably fixed.
VaughanRSmith
Puritan Board Sophomore
You should ask your friend if a sovereign God can "factor" answering prayer into his plan.
toddpedlar
Iron Dramatist
If this is a recurring theme with this friend (or if not) you should get a hold of "Out of Bounds" by John Piper, a very good book that deals explicitly with this very issue. Historically, a view that God changes his mind about future events (i.e. that he has not decreed all things that shall ever come to pass) is a novelty - rather, the historic Christian position is that God ordains both means and ends; both prayer and results of prayer, for example.
Todd
toddpedlar
Iron Dramatist
You also might like to consult John Flavel's Mystery of Providence, an excellent, brief book in the Puritan Paperbacks series from Banner, and Edward Pearse's very short treatise on God's immutability, entitled "A Beam of Divine Glory", published by Soli Deo Gloria (don't know if it's still in print, but it's one of SDG's books that I consider most valuable).
Todd
Todd
Gloria
Puritan Board Sophomore
Perhaps you can show your friend these verses:
Isaiah 40:
"12Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand
and marked off the heavens with a span,
enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure
and weighed the mountains in scales
and the hills in a balance?
13Who has measured the Spirit of the LORD,
or what man shows him his counsel?
14Whom did he consult,
and who made him understand?
Who taught him the path of justice,
and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?
15Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,
and are accounted as the dust on the scales;
behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.
16Lebanon would not suffice for fuel,
nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering.
17All the nations are as nothing before him,
they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness. "
Isaiah 46:8-11
8"Remember this and stand firm,
recall it to mind, you transgressors,
9remember the former things of old;
for I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like me,
10 declaring the end from the beginning
and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, 'My counsel shall stand,
and I will accomplish all my purpose,'
11calling a bird of prey from the east,
the man of my counsel from a far country.
I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass;
I have purposed, and I will do it."
Isaiah 55:8-9
8"For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
9For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts."
Isaiah 40:
"12Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand
and marked off the heavens with a span,
enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure
and weighed the mountains in scales
and the hills in a balance?
13Who has measured the Spirit of the LORD,
or what man shows him his counsel?
14Whom did he consult,
and who made him understand?
Who taught him the path of justice,
and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?
15Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,
and are accounted as the dust on the scales;
behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.
16Lebanon would not suffice for fuel,
nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering.
17All the nations are as nothing before him,
they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness. "
Isaiah 46:8-11
8"Remember this and stand firm,
recall it to mind, you transgressors,
9remember the former things of old;
for I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like me,
10 declaring the end from the beginning
and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, 'My counsel shall stand,
and I will accomplish all my purpose,'
11calling a bird of prey from the east,
the man of my counsel from a far country.
I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass;
I have purposed, and I will do it."
Isaiah 55:8-9
8"For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
9For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts."
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