Reply:

Here's a simple answer, maybe too simple: what moral attitude God should take towards a certain situation can depend in part upon what someone not involved directly in that situation is doing. If you can buy that, then when the someone else (in this case, Moses) does something different (prays or whatever), then new possibilities open up with respect to morally acceptable attitudes. Also, I detect the assumption that, with respect to any situation, there is exactly one "right moral attitude" for God to take towards it (it is assumed that if God changes his moral stance towards someone, and they haven't changed, then formerly - or, better, at one time or the other - God held the wrong moral attitude). If "right/wrong moral attitude" includes (as it seems to here) courses of action for God to take in response to moral assessment (punishment, or blessing, of some particular kind), then it's an implausible assumption. There might be a range of permissible responses open to God, no one of which is best. So, even if the prayer or whatever of someone outside a given situation is (contra the paragraph above) irrelevant to the "right moral attitude" (including punishment or whatever) God should take towards those in the situation, the prayer might rightly change God's choice among a range of perfectly just options.

But I'll bet Prof. Basinger has thought of these; maybe there are reasons to think such moves won't work in this particular case.

Dean

Reply:

In Exodus 32, the Israelites break the newly formed covenant with Yahweh. In response, Yahweh tells Moses he is going to destroy the people and begin his work afresh with Moses. Moses, however, argues with God, presenting God with three reasons why God should not carry out his threatened action (32:11-13). The text says that God then "changed his mind" about his threat.

I take this to mean that God genuinely changed his mind. However, Randall raises a dilemma: if God changed his mind, then either God did not know all the relevant data or God had taken a wrong moral position. Let me address each horn of this dilemma. To begin, as I stated in my The God Who Risks (pp. 63-4), God could have answered Moses three reasons quite easily and he would have remained faithful to his promises even had he destroyed the people.

Moses' reasons do not add to God's knowledge of the relevant facts in the sense in which Randall implies. He thinks God would be saying, "Oh, I never thought of those reasons, I guess Moses is right." Moses is not presenting God with new information of that sort. However, Moses is providing God with something which hitherto God did not know (in the absolute sense): what will Moses' reaction be to God's decision? What will Moses want to do in this situation? God considers Moses' relationship of such value that God is interested in what Moses desires. Like any caring relationship, what God desires, and gets, from Moses is Moses' feedback and since Moses disagrees with God's plan, God must either seek to persuade him or go the path Moses has suggested simply because God values what Moses desires.

Now for the other horn. Is it the case that if God changes his mind from carrying out a threatened punishment, then God had taken a wrong moral position? I believe there is a hidden assumption here that in any situation there is only one best or moral way to go. That is, God can only have one option open, the most morally correct one, and so any change in decision would mean that God was going with a morally inferior position which is impossible for a morally perfect being. Hasker and others have questioned the idea that any change for God would be change for the worse. In fact, we argue that there are changes which are consistent with (and perhaps even required by) a constant state of excellence (see Openness of God pp. 131-4).

In the case of Exodus 32, God was within his moral prerogatives to destroy the people and start over with Moses or to put up with the people and go on. Is there a single perfect moral position in such cases. I don't believe so. Hence, I do not believe the openness view is faced with the dilemma Randall has suggested.

[For more on this line of interpretation see Terence Fretheim's commentary on Exodus (Westminster/John Knox). Also, I recommend Patrick Miller's study of the prayers in the Old Testament where he shows that the biblical prayers typically gave God reasons, made a case, for their request. See his "prayer as Persuasion: The Rhetoric and Intention of Prayer," Word & World, 13, no. 4 (Fall, 1993):356-362.]

John Sanders
Huntington College

Reply to Dean & Sanders:

Dean and John,

Thank you for your responses to my question. There are two points I would like to make. First, my main point revolves around that fact that a very plausible reading of Exodus 32 is that Moses was successful in persuading God to change his mind. This is problematic in that a God who can be persuaded by a human is a God who either needs to be informed or reminded of facts of the present or past or needs moral advise or exhortation. But such a God is unacceptable. Thus there is a plausible reading of Exodus 32 which does not support what the Open Theist would want to affirm about God. If the Open Theist wants to use Exodus 32 as evidence for his or her position, he or she will have to show that that the above reading of Exodus 32 is not plausible. As it stands, it seems to me that a straightforward reading of Exodus 32 points to a changing God who changes in ways that are not appropriate or possible. Second, both of you claim that I am assuming that there is only one best or moral way to go. I do not hold to this. I have no problem affirming that God can change his mind concerning some moral direction he had decided to go. I have no problem affirming that God faces a range of permissible responses open to God. In particular, I have no problem with God originally intending to destroy the Israelites and then changing his mind. What I can't accept is that God can change his responses or moral direction because someone convinced God that his moral judgment was wrong or inappropriate. Whatever God's moral judgment is at any given time is beyond reproach. So God can change his mind on a judgment he made because he faces new circumstances beyond his control, but it cannot be because his original judgment was shown to be deficient by another person. So in summary, I have no problem with God changing in response to humans. My challenge does not come from traditionalist assumptions. I do have problems with God changing his mind in response to human argument and moral exhortation. But Exodus 32 can be plausibly read in this way. There seems to be an element of anthropocentrism in Exodus 32 which my fellow advocates of Open Theism do not adequately discuss. So it is not clear to me that Exodus 32 provides clear and unproblematic evidence or support for Open Theism. Exodus 32 is problematic because a straightforward reading proves too much. Thanks again for your responses.

Randall Basinger
Messiah College

Reply to Basinger:

I guess I don't see what Moses is doing here as in any straightforward way providing MORAL reasons for God to do something differently. When he says "Why should your anger burn against your people..." he's not really saying that it SHOULDN'T; of course he thinks it SHOULD, given what they've done, he just doesn't want it to burn so fiercely as to wipe them out. (Later on he says, "what a great sin they have committed", and has no problem with God's command that the Levites slaughter people left and right.) The reasons he produces are more personal in nature; he doesn't want the Egyptians thinking the wrong thing. And when he says "Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore...I will make your descendants...etc.", he's not saying "remember your promise, because the thing you're planning to do would break that promise". He can't mean that, because God just said, in effect, "I'll wipe them out, but fulfill the promise through you, Moses". Maybe he's saying, "Think about those guys you liked so well; these are their children; I'd like us to see if we can't do something with them yet." I don't know, it seems much more like Moses is saying "Give them another chance, for me, just 'cause I'd like it better that way"; that's exactly what he's saying later on, in verses 31 and 32, it seems to me anyway. There's no pretending that God's punishing them wouldn't be what they deserve; he's asking for a personal favor, not giving moral arguments, and saying "It matters this much to me that you spare them, even though they don't deserve to be spared". Well, I'm no Bible scholar, that's for sure; I'm just a lil' ol' Pentecostal boy from rural Minnesoter. But that's how it looks to me, anyway.

Dean W. Zimmerman
Department of Philosophy
336 O'Shaughnessy Hall University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN 46556-5639
Fax: (219) 631-8209

Reply:

Randy Basinger objects that Exodus 32 "proves too much" to be useful as support for the open view. His objection would have merit if we were using this passage, all by itself, as "proof" that God's mind can be changed. That would be blatant proof-texting, and I don't think any of us wants to proceed in that way. There are *many* other passages on prayer and on God's changing his mind.

Actually, though, it is Randy's own argument that proves too much. He says, "a God who can be persuaded by a human is a God who either needs to be informed or reminded of facts of the present or past or needs moral advice or exhortation." Now, that might be true if the human were serving as an *advisor* or a *counselor* to God -- but these, I take it, are not roles we are encouraged to assume in regard to the Lord. In prayer, we come as *supplicants,* and the fact that a powerful being such as God changes his plan of action in response to our supplication by no means implies what Basinger says it does. A person presenting an appeal is naturally going to set out the "grounds for the appeal" -- the considerations which, in the petitioner's view, make it reasonable and appropriate for the request to be granted. This need not, and in the case of God certainly does not, imply that the authority being petitioned was unaware or insufficiently attentive to these facts beforehand. So what is the problem?

William Hasker

Reply:

Thanks for your thoughts, Randy. I wonder if one factor that entered the situation with Moses' response was God's awareness of his continued determination to serve the Hebrews as a whole. If this--Moses' reaction--was indeed something Moses decided at the moment God announced his intentions, not known or knowable ahead of time, then there was something new for God to consider in making his final choice of what to do with the uncooperative people.

Richard Rice

Reply:

*** It would be unacceptable only if God HAD to be persuaded by being INFORMED or REMINDED of things. But can't we conceive of God WANTING to be persuaded by humans in a way that involves INFORMING and REMINDING? We often do this in prayer. Prayer has a power on God not because it informs him of something he didn't know, or reminds him of something he forgot. It impacts him because he set up the universe so it would impact him (and others). It's part of our morally responsible activity that influences the way things transpire in history. When we engage in prayer, we inform and remind, but what impacts him is the relationship of prayer which USES but does not NEED information and reminding.

Greg Boyd