I have officially renounced Open Theism as my philosophy of choice. I ignored the usual objections to Open Theism because I thought that these stemmed from a lack of truly understanding the philosophy. The philosophy, in my opinion, doesn’t rob God of any of His omniscience; on the contrary, it made His omniscience all the more powerful by giving Him the ability to see that which Might Be, not just that which Is.

Open Theism supposes that God knows everything that can be known about the future, not everything there is to know. The actual act of making a free choice on our part is what makes the event present, or real. God doesn’t know what actual choice we are going to make until it happens, but He knows all of the choices that we will consider and is ready for each one. He knows the ramifications of each choice in relationship to the ramifications of the choices faced by everyone in the world in relationship to what is definately going to happen no matter what anyone decides.

Complicated. Find a better explanation and essays here if you want to better understand the philosophy.

It’s much simpler to assume that, since God intimately knows our hearts, that He already knows what we will decide once faced with the choice. I hated this because it seemed to me, then, that the future was written. But, J.P. Holding, webmaster of Tekton Apologetics Ministries, made a statement regarding Open Theism that set my mind at ease. “Just because God knows that we will decide X doesn’t mean we must decide X. It only means that we will.” Profoundly simple! The choice is still ours! But God knows that we will make it because of how well He knows our hearts.

That settles my mind. Orthodox Theism for me all the way! God is still sovereign. He didn’t write the future ahead of time, He knows it because He loves us so much that He knows our hearts better than we do–down to the last word I will type in this blog entry. Which is funny, since I don’t even yet know what that word will be!

God is truly awesome and I pray that He will build from this blog the ministry that He wants.

I plan to work tomorrow on getting an official web address. Microsoft is, apparently, having trouble with the Live Beta tests. Live Mail was terrible–I went back to using Hotmail. It was far less buggy, and I should be able to send hyperlinks and file attachments again! The arrow keys should work to navigate the text on the screen instead of having to use mouse clicks only!

If that works out, then I should be able to get some personal information up. My Bio, and What is the Josiah Concept? should be up Thursday or Friday. I’m going to hold off on putting up a Statement of Faith until I manage to work through Systematic Theology, and before I can work through it, I have to first obtain it. So that may be a while. Alternatively, I could just put a simplified one up and refine it later. Especially if it seems as though I may be waiting a while to get Systematic Theology or if other projects intervene (as they almost always seem to).

And the last word of this blog is “Sasquatch.” (Betcha didn’t see that coming–but God did!)

Refutations of Open Theism

• from CARM
• from GotQuestions Minsitries
• from Christian Research and Evangelism

I would also like to blog on an article my wife sent me some time ago, about a Catholic Rent-a-Priest website found here. From my initial perusal of the site, they shouldn’t even bother calling themselves Catholic, let alone Christian. It would be interesting to learn more about this organization.

Time, time, oh how I don’t have enough of you! If only I got paid to do this; then I would have more time. Anyone interested in donating some money so that I can make this ministry full time? E-mail me. SASQUATCH!!