BGC Amendment

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BGC Amendment #2

10. Implications for Bethel if the Amendment Passes

36. Does the amendment infringe on academic freedom for Bethel professors?

Freedom to think and probe and discuss are precious. That is not questioned. Freedom to come to conclusions outside the defining vision of an institution is questioned. Academic freedom is not absolute on any campus in America. At Bethel, professors know that they do their scholarly work within the vision of God and the world defined by the Affirmation of Faith. Therefore the amendment is, in principle, no more contrary to academic freedom than the existence of the Affirmation of Faith.

37. But in practice, does not the amendment put undue limits on the faculty's freedom to believe and teach what they think is true?

There are two issues here. One is whether the truth that God foreknows infallibly all that shall come to pass is unduly restrictive. We do not think so. The church universal has believed this for 2,000 years and the greatest Christian thinkers at the greatest universities and seminaries and colleges have flourished for centuries within this faith. How such a universal Christian doctrine can be viewed as constrictive or divisive is not plain to us.

The other issue is whether there would be legal problems in asking a faculty member to subscribe to an amendment that was not explicit in the Affirmation of Faith under which he or she was hired. We believe that the leaders of Bethel and the affected faculty would, in such a case, be able to work patiently toward a mutually acceptable resolution. The Concerned Pastors and Leaders have the long view and are concerned mainly for the generations to come, not a particular short-term timeline. We hope that the leaders of Bethel will see the long-term wisdom of dealing with crucial doctrine on its own terms, in spite of the challenges of pragmatic and legal matters.

11. Personal Issues

38. Why do you ignore the great good that Greg Boyd is doing for students and the wider cause of Christ?

We do not ignore it, but affirm it and give thanks for it. Greg Boyd is a winsome, effective communicator. His passion for Christ is contagious. Those of us who have had personal dealings with Greg find him an energetic delight to be around. His speaking has been used by God to win people to Christ and to awaken many to the reality of spiritual things. He is a popular teacher and effective teacher. More widely, his writings have, in many ways, served the church well. Trinity and Process delivers significant criticisms to process theology. Cynic, Sage or Son of God? helps establish the historical reliability of the portrait of Christ that we have in the Gospels. Oneness Pentecostals and the Trinity protects the church from a "Jesus only" view that can sweep many into destructive heresy. Letters from a Skeptic has much wisdom and grace in it that leads toward Christ and his great salvation. It has become a bestseller and has led many to a saving knowledge of Christ. God at War highlights the reality of spiritual warfare and the necessity of a worldview that takes Satan and demons seriously. All this we gladly affirm.

39. Then why do you continue to press for an amendment that may well push him out of the Baptist General Conference?

We are not eager for Dr. Boyd to leave Bethel or the BGC. We are eager for him to affirm and teach the Biblical truth of God's foreknowledge. The issue before us is not whether God has used Dr. Boyd or whether all that he teaches is true and helpful. The issue is whether the denial that God knows all that shall come to pass is Biblical or unbiblical, and whether it is important enough to be a part of our defining Affirmation of Faith.

40. But if you believe that God is using Dr. Boyd, how can you oppose the servant of the Lord?

We are not opposing a person, but a teaching. Would it be fair to accuse the BGC of opposing the true ministry effectiveness of all who cannot sign our Affirmation of Faith (Presbyterians, Anglican, Methodist, etc.)? Most of these people are excluded from our fellowship on matters less vital than whether God is the kind of God who foreknows all that shall come to pass.

41. So are you saying that false teaching can come from a godly person whom God is using?

Yes. Harmful false teaching does not generally originate in people who are unqualified to teach and lead people to Christ. In Acts 20:30 Paul reminds the elders of the church at Ephesus that "Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them." Even someone as great and godly as the apostle Peter needed to be rebuked by Paul in Galatians 2:14, "I said to Peter in front of them all, 'You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?'" Serious and damaging error generally starts in the teaching of an otherwise sound and helpful leader.

The story of churches and schools that have left their founding Biblical vision points up the shortsightedness of putting personality above truth. The history of such defection is a strong historical warning not to put piety and effectiveness above simple conformity to Scripture when a particular truth is in question. It is a remarkable and wonderful thing for all of us that God will use us in all our imperfections and mistakes. We would be hopeless without this grace. But God's willingness to use millions of Christians who cannot sign our Affirmation of Faith is no sign that God endorses all their teaching. Nor should we conclude that the Affirmation of Faith should be as inclusive as God's willingness to turn evil for good.

It is not our concern to minimize the effectiveness of Dr. Boyd. Our concern is: Does God foreknow infallibly all that shall come to pass? Is this truth important enough to be part of what defines us? We believe it is. And we believe that the very strengths that make Dr. Boyd so effective now, will also serve to spread his error, which, in the long run, will undo much of the good he has done.

12. Conclusion

We end where we began, with prayer. We know that those who disagree with us are also men and women of prayer. Our hope is that God, in his great mercy, will sort through our petitions and work his good and gracious will for the Baptist General Conference.

Our plea to the delegates is that you keep focused on the issue and not be distracted into matters of personality or politics or procedures. Do not be overwhelmed or confused by the subtle distinctions behind the issue of God's foreknowledge. This kind of careful, detailed and subtle reasoning is necessary in the explanation and defense of all crucial doctrines - from creation to incarnation to atonement to justification to inspiration. But, the good news is that the conclusions of such complex reasonings can be, and should be, stated in simple ways. Thus we say that "there is one living and true God, eternally existing in three persons." And we say, "We believe in Jesus Christ, God's only begotten Son." These are massive statements that have been confuted and debated for centuries, with abstruse and subtle distinctions being made. But happily, we have the distilled Biblical wisdom of the church in simple and understandable statements.

So it is with the doctrine of God's foreknowledge. There are many problems that have been debated over the centuries. There are many views in the church as to how God can know all that shall come to pass. But we may be thankful that, as with all other major doctrines, we have the distilled Biblical wisdom of the church in the simple and straightforward conclusion that God foreknows infallibly all that shall come to pass. May God give us the grace and wisdom and courage to keep the main issue before our eyes: Is it a biblical truth that God foreknows infallibly all that shall come to pass? And is this truth important enough to be a part of our Conference-defining Affirmation of Faith? We believe the answer to both questions is yes.

Appendix One

Various Theologians on Omniscience and Foreknowledge

CARL GUSTAF LAGERGRENOmniscience. [Forgive the very rough translation of the Swedish] God knows perfectly and eternally everything, which can become object for knowledge; he knows himself perfectly, he knows everything, not only what has happened, is happening and shall happen, but also that, which possibly could have happened. God knows every detail, and at the same time the whole in its context.

God's knowledge is perfect. It is immediate or intuitive, has not its ground in sensual sensations or imagination. It has not come into existence discursively through observations and reasonings. It is determined, free from unclarity and confusion, true, corresponding perfectly against the reality, eternal as included in a timeless act of the divine intelligence.

When God knows everything as it is, so does he know the necessary consequences of his creation as necessary, the created beings' free acts as free, the ideally possible as ideally possible. The condition that one cannot from the present conditions decide, which free beings' acts in the future must according to the law of nature with necessity occur, hinders not, that God foresees such deeds, when his knowing is immediate, not mediate. The time is the form for a future thinking, which the divine thinking is not subject to. The "foreknowledge" is yet in itself not the basis for acts. It must not be mixed up with God's "predestination." Free deeds take not place, because they are foreseen, but they are foreseen, because they are going to occur, that is to say, because God decided either to immediately or mediately work them out or also not to hinder them. The predestination precedes and is cause to the foreknowledge.

The omniscience concerns that which is real and possible, not that which is self-contradictory and impossible, for that cannot become the object for knowledge.

Carl Gustav Lagergren, Bibelns grundlaror, Systematisk Teolog, vol. 1 (Minneapolis: Veckobladets Boktryckeri, 1922), p. 198 [vol. 2 of translated manuscript].

JOHN ALEXIS EDGREN

God is omniscient. To God all things in the past, present and future are at all times fully known. God knows everything that ever was, everything that now is and everything that is to be; all that is actual and all that is possible. Therefore God knows in advance all the free acts of all free creatures.

John Alexis Edgren, Fundamentals of Faith (Chicago: BGC Press, 1948), pp. 19-20.Augustus Hopkins STRONG

Omniscience. By this we mean God's perfect and eternal knowledge of all things which are objects of knowledge, whether they be actual or possible, past, present, or future.

Of men's future free acts: Is. 44:28-"that saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd and shall perform all my pleasure." Of men's future evil acts: Acts 2:23--"him, being delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God."

Since God knows things as they are, he knows the necessary sequences of his creation as necessary, the free acts of his creatures as free, the ideally possible as ideally possible.

The fact that there is nothing in the present condition of things from which the future actions of free creatures necessarily follow by natural law does not prevent God from foreseeing such actions, since his knowledge is not mediate, but immediate. He not only foreknows the motives which will occasion men's acts, but he directly foreknows the acts themselves. The possibility of such direct knowledge without assignable grounds of knowledge is apparent if we admit that time is a form of finite thought to which the divine mind is not subject.

Augustus Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology (Westwood, NJ: Fleming Revell, 1963), pp. 282-85.

DONALD BLOESCH

God's omnipotence includes his omniscience, by which he knows all things - even before they happen. Theologians as well as philosophers have had difficulty reconciling God's foreknowledge and foreordination with the incontestable fact that history includes the emergence of genuinely new things - new experiences and new outcomes.

It is important to emphasize (as did Calvin in his time and Barth in more recent times) that human freedom and divine providence are by no means mutually exclusive. Our freedom comes from God, and it is realized as God works with us and in us. The paradox is that the more the human will submits to God the more free it becomes. Human freedom is upheld and fulfilled by divine providence, not annulled.

God's knowledge encompasses the past, the present and the future, but he does not experience the future until it actually occurs.

Donald Bloesch, God the Almighty: Power, Wisdom, Holiness, Love (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1995).

JAMES ARMINIUS

The understanding of God is that faculty of his life which is first in nature and order, and by which the living God distinctly understands all things and every one, which, in what manner soever, either have, will have, have had, can have, or might hypothetically have, a being of any kind. . . .

He knows what things from the creatures, whether they will come into existence or not, can exist by his conservation, motion, assistance, concurrence, and permission. (3.) He knows what things He can do about the acts of the creatures [convenienter] consistently with himself or with these acts.

Omniscience. By omniscience is meant the perfect knowledge which God has of Himself and of all things. It is the infinite perfection of that which in us we call knowledge. Consequently we read that His understanding is infinite (Psalm 147:5). God understands and knows the hearts of men. Nothing is hidden from him.

James Arminius, The Works of James Arminius (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1986), private disputation XVII [vol. 2, p. 341].

H. ORTON WILEY

Both the Arminian and Calvinistic theologians hold to the scientia necessaria, or the knowledge that God has of Himself, and scientia libera, or the free knowledge which God has of persons and things outside of Himself. However, they differ as to the ground of this foreknowledge, the Arminians generally maintaining that God has a knowledge of pure contingency, while the Calvinistic theologians connect it with the decrees which God has purposed in Himself.

H. Orton Wiley, Christian Theology (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill,

1963), vol. 1, pp. 354, 356.

STANLEY GRENZ

Second, we declare that God is omniscient (all-knowing). The medieval theologians generally viewed this attribute in the abstract. For this reason, they debated whether God not only new [sic] all actual but also all possible events. We have concluded, however, that the attributes are relational terms. Consequently, in declaring "God is omniscient" we are not intending to make a claim concerning God's theoretical knowledge, but to affirm his perfect cognition of the world. God is cognizant of all things precisely because they are present to him immediately and as themselves. The divine mind perceives the entire temporal sequence - all events - simultaneously in one act of cognition.

Stanley Grenz, Theology for the Community of God (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1994), pp. 120-21.

WAYNE GRUDEM

Another difficulty that arises in this connection is the question of the relationship between God's knowledge of everything that will happen in the future and the reality and degree of freedom we have in our actions. If God knows everything that will happen, how can our choices be at all "free"? In fact, this difficulty has loomed so large that some theologians have concluded that God does not know all of the future. They have said that God does not know things that cannot (in their opinion) be known, such as the free acts of people that have not yet occurred (sometimes the phrase used is the "contingent acts of free moral agents," where "contingent" means "possible but not certain"). But such a position is unsatisfactory because it essentially denies God's knowledge of the future of human history at any point in time and thus is inconsistent with the passages cited above about God's knowledge of the future and with dozens of other Old Testament prophetic passages where God predicts the future far in advance and in great detail.

Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), p. 192.

GORDON LEWIS and BRUCE DEMAREST

God has unerring knowledge of the future, a knowledge that embraces his own actions (Exod. 9:18-20) and the free choices of human agents. God also knows the future of human beings in a way that does not destroy their freedom or responsibility.

Gordon Lewis and Bruce Demarest, Integrative Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987), vol. 1, pp. 221, 231-32.

THOMAS ODEN

Only God knows creation omnisciently, without limitation or qualification. A special perplexity of the divine omniscience is the relation between human freedom of the will and divine foreknowing. God foreknows the use of free will, yet this foreknowledge does not determine events. Rather, what God foreknows is determined by what happens, part of which is affect by free will. God knows what will happen, but does not unilaterally determine each and every event immediately, so as not to respect human freedom and the reliability of secondary causes. God fully understands and knows all these specific secondary determining causes that are at work in the natural order, but that does not imply that merely by fiat God constantly acts so as to overrule or circumvent these causes. God's merely foreknowing these causes does not negate or damage their causal reality.

Thomas C. Oden, The Living God: Systematic Theology, vol. 1(San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987), pp. 69, 71-72.

KARL BARTHWe now take a further step and say of the divine knowledge first that it possesses the character of foreknowledge, praescientia, in relation to all its objects, with the exception of God Himself in His knowledge of Himself. . . . Finally it is worth while noting at this point that among the res creatae are also the created wills of angels and men. If we say of them that they, too, have their cause in the divine foreknowledge and are its effect, this cannot mean that they are not real as wills (as created wills), that they do not have freedom of choice and therefore contingency (even if a created freedom and contingency).

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. 2, part 1 (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1957), pp. 558, 560.EMIL BRUNNERHe [God] knows of an action of the creature which is not His own action. He knows above all about the free activity of that creature to which He has granted the freedom to decide for himself. . . . The future can only be known by us in so far as it is contained in the present, as it necessarily follows from that which now is. The freedom of the Other is the border-line of our knowledge. For God this limitation does not exist. His knowledge of the future is not a knowledge based upon something that exists already in the present, but it is a knowledge which lies outside the boundaries of temporal limitations. . . . God knows that which takes place in freedom in the future as something which happens

Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of God (London: Lutterworth, 949), p. 262.

Appendix Two

Answering Some of Greg Boyd's

Key Texts Used in Support of His

"Open" View of Foreknowledge1. Hezekiah's Repentance and 15 Added Years

Isaiah 38:1-5

Observations:

1. All agree that God did not express an exception when he said," You shall die and not live" (v. 1).

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 only if you don't 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 might 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

Jonah 3:10

Observations:

1. Both Boyd and historic Christian exegesis assume that there is an implicit condition, and that if the Ninevites meet it, 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 did repent, 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.

Boyd 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 one of the crucial 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. When God Changes His Plan

Jeremiah 18:7-8

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 which is this 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 "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 we do not argue this way. We 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 a 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 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 below on 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

1 Samuel 15:11

1 Samuel 15:28-29

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 we are 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. We 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

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 in 2 Timothy 1:9 Paul says, "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 ("intentions of the heart") 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. We 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 reach 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

Observations:

1. The word "perhaps" may be spoken here by God not to express that he is unsure what they will do, but to express that from a human vantage point the people may or may not listen to him. But if they do, he will have mercy and not bring calamity.

2. Are there any clues in Jeremiah that we should be hesitant to say God does not know what will come to pass in the future? Jeremiah 10:23 causes us to be hesitant: "I know, O LORD, that a man's way is not in himself, Nor is it in a man who walks to direct his steps." On the face of it this text seems to say that ultimately man is not the one who governs his steps. If so, then man does not have the kind of self-determining power that Boyd attributes to man. This means that man is not in a position to "create" out of nothing choices that surprise God. Rather man's steps are finally governed by something outside him, and God would be able to know what these influences are and thus know the future.

3. Therefore, we should be slow to jump to the conclusion that when God says "perhaps" something will come to pass, he is expressing his own uncertainty rather than the perspective of man who cannot know ahead of time.

* * *

6. Does God make Wrong Predictions

and Get Surprised?

Jeremiah 3:6-7

Observations:

1. Boyd says that God really thought that the people would turn to him. But I do not see how he can evade the problem that this involves God in a mistake. God thought a something would be true that turned out not to be true.

2. He says that God had a "perfectly accurate assessment of all probabilities" and, given that assessment, he thought that the people would repent. But, he says that "self-determining creatures opted for the more improbable course of action."

3. This implies two important things: one is that the only way that God cannot be mistaken here is if his statement (they will turn) included the implicit qualification: "given the ordinary expectations under these conditions." This is what I think God meant. The difference between us and Boyd is that we believe God knew what the people would really do, when he implied that ordinary human probabilities would seem to lead to repentance. But Boyd believes that God did not know what they would do.

4. The other implication is that this text shows how vulnerable God would be if Boyd's view is right. God would do his very best in predicting on the basis of infinite knowledge of the present, and would miscalculate, because of human self-determination. The implications of this are huge. It means that all talk of God's managing the world on the basis of known human influences is not very encouraging, because it is the essence of human self-determination that the most utterly unexpected choices can arise from the human will and surprise God.

* * *

7. The Testing of Abraham's Fear of God

Genesis 22:9-12

Observations:

1. Boyd says that God did not know if Abraham would remain faithful and that the words "now I know" are disingenuous if this were not so. The test would be a charade if God already knew the outcome.

2. There is another way to think about God's knowing here. If God knows what will come to pass, does that mean that all testings in history are pointless? we don't think so. God has not created the world simply so that it might have been foreknown. He created the world to be actualized in history. That is, he wills not just to foreknow, but also to know by observation and experience. That is the point of creating a real world, rather than just knowing one that might be. Therefore, may not God truly know what Abraham is going to do, and yet also want to externalize that reality in a test that enables him to know it by observation, not just prognostication? "Now I know," thus may mean, "Now I see . . . now I experience by observation of your real action."

3. A problem with Boyd's view is that God cannot really be sure it is true when he says, "Now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son." The knife had not been put into the boy's chest and this is the moment when the will may well rebel and say No. We have seen from Jeremiah 3:7 that, from Boyd's way of seeing things, God's predictions can be "mistaken." God cannot be sure that Abraham would have killed his son, because the volition had not yet been created for God to know. But perhaps this is not significant, since, even if Abraham had killed his son, God could still not be sure Abraham would not in the next moment rebel against God because he had forced him into such a test. In Boyd's view of the human will, no text can assure God that we will fear him five minutes after the test.

* * *

8. Which Signs of Moses

Does God Expect to Be Believed?

Exodus 4:7-9

Observations:

1. Can a God who knows what will come to pass with certainty say meaningfully, "Such and such may come to pass. If it doesn't, then do this." Yes. Because he may merely be saying that he chooses not to reveal what will, in fact, come to pass. He will only reveal possibilities and how to respond to them. He is not saying that he only knows possibilities. God may have his reasons for sometimes wanting to communicate to us possibilities about the future, and other times certainties.

2. Boyd would say that it is disingenuous of God to say they may believe on the basis of the first or second miracle when he knows exactly how many it will take to persuade them. But there is at least one clue that God intended for Moses to do all the signs, namely, Exodus 4:17 where God says to Moses, "You shall take in your hand this staff, with which you shall perform the signs." God seems to know that more than one will be needed.

3. There are passages in the Pentateuch that show that there is a disconnect between the way that God talks about knowing, and the way he actually knows. For example, in Genesis 18:21 God says, "I will go down now, and see if they have done entirely according to its outcry, which has come to Me; and if not, I will know." This text portrays God as if he were too far away in heaven to know for sure what is happening in Sodom. Neither Boyd nor historic exegesis thinks God's distance from an event hinders his knowledge. Rather there are reasons for this way of speaking. For example, it stresses God's condescension to be involved with his creatures and his intimate dealing with them and his knowledge of them. Similarly, we assume God has his reasons for speaking in Exodus 4:8 as if he did not know whether the elders would believe.

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Note on the preparation of this booklet

John Piper, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, is responsible for the first draft of this document. Material was drawn from many sources, and thanks are owing to more than fifty Concerned Pastors and Leaders who met from time to time August, 1998 through May, 1999. Their care for the BGC and for Bethel and the generations of Conference people to come was a great help in this project.