Curious Christian

I reject both Calvinism and Open Theism because I think both begin with an assumption about God’s relationship with time that I don’t share. I affirm the classical Christian understanding that God is omniscient, eternal and sovereign, and I also believe that human beings make genuinely free choices. I don’t think we have to sacrifice either side to preserve the other.

The common assumption is that if God knows what I will do, then my action must already be determined. Calvinism accepts that conclusion and makes God’s foreknowledge part of his sovereign decree. Open Theism rejects the conclusion by saying that genuinely free future choices cannot yet be definite objects of God’s knowledge. But both are assuming that God relates to the future as we do: that the future lies ahead of him, waiting to become real. I don’t think we can assume that about an eternal God.

We experience time sequentially. We remember the past, experience the present and anticipate the future. God does not have to experience reality in that way. If the whole of history is present to God in a way that it cannot be to us, then his knowledge of my future choice does not have to be a prediction that somehow fixes the choice before I make it.

This is where I think the distinction between certainty and necessity becomes important. If God infallibly knows that I will choose A, then it is certain that I will choose A. But certainty does not mean necessity in the sense of coercion or causal determination. God’s knowledge makes the outcome certain because he knows what I will freely choose; it does not make my choice necessary by causing me to choose it. The fact that I cannot make God’s knowledge false does not mean that God’s knowledge forced me to act.

Suppose tomorrow I freely choose to take the train rather than drive. God knows that I will take the train. If I had freely chosen to drive, God’s knowledge would have been of that choice instead. The direction of causation matters. God knows the choice I actually make; his knowing it does not cause me to make it.

That is why I don’t believe divine foreknowledge entails divine decree. God can know what creatures will freely do without determining those actions. Divine knowledge, divine will and divine causation are not the same thing. God is sovereign without being the direct cause of everything that happens.

At the same time, I don’t think we need to limit God’s knowledge to preserve human freedom. I believe God knows the future completely. His knowledge of our choices is logically related to those choices, but it is not temporally dependent upon them. God doesn’t have to wait for me to make a decision before he can know what I will decide.

This leads to what I call co-determinism. God is the first cause, but not the only cause. He creates and sustains a world in which his creatures genuinely participate in determining what happens. God sets the stage, but he does not dictate every action of the actors. Our choices are real, their consequences are real, and yet none of this places God outside his sovereign purposes.

So I don’t think the choice is between Calvinism and Open Theism. I can affirm the classical Christian belief that God knows the future completely without concluding that he has causally determined every human choice. And I can affirm genuine human freedom without concluding that God is ignorant of what we will freely choose.

The tension only becomes a contradiction if we assume that God’s relationship with time must be like ours. I don’t accept that assumption. God knows the future, and we genuinely participate in creating it.