#65 Dr. Joseph Miller's Response to Dr. Boyd's View on Open Theism

Open Theism, Free Will, and the Problem of Evil

Couple questions about free will. Do we really have it, or is God in control? If God really lets evil happen, how can he do that and love us anyways? How does our knowledge coexist with free will? How can God be relational and responsible without limiting his knowledge?

How do you reconcile God's goodness with things like abuse and trial and genocide? How can a wise and loving God allow suffering?

If the God of open fear is the God, he cannot promise me. He'll wipe away every tear, because he doesn't know.

That is a very hard thing to hold in both hands.

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A couple of questions about free will. Do we really have it or is God in control? And if we do or don't, if God really lets evil happen, how can he do that and love us anyways? If you remember in the past, we've had discussions about open theism with Dr. Greg Boyd, and a lot of you reached out with more questions than answers, as it was a very confusing topic.

If you haven't heard it, go back and listen to it. It was eye-opening. But today I'm going to show you a different perspective, one that's going to defend a more familiar, classical, all-knowing, all-wise view of God.

Today I have a returning guest, Dr. Joseph Miller. You are the associate professor of Christian worldview at Grand Canyon University. You do have a love that's reflected in your diverse educational background.

You've studied engineering, theology, philosophy, and ethics. And you bring an interdisciplinary approach to big theological questions, because you're a pastor, you're an author, you're a speaker, and you're a leading defender of a new concept I've never heard before, but maybe some are more familiar with, which is called omnisapient theism.

I knew that I would mess that up.

Omnisapient, yeah, that's right. It's a big, fancy word.

Okay, well, this is going to push back against open theism that we've heard before. So I'm very excited to hear more about this. Welcome to the show, Dr. Miller.

Well, it's good to be back, Cassian. And I appreciate you having me to talk about this. I know when we kind of connected and reached out and this idea came up, I was pleased you're interested in it, because I do think it's something that can be...

This idea of omnisapience, which we'll get into, is super helpful, helpful to my students in understanding who God is and how he deals with us. So I'm looking forward to the conversation.

Yeah, I wanted to reach out because in March, through your substack, you released an article that says God's omnisapience of the problem of evil. And its response to open theism was challenging because when Greg spoke about it, it was eye-opening.

This concept that we have some sort of free will, that God doesn't know which one we'll choose, but once we make a decision, he knows exactly how it'll play out. And it was this fine line between we have choice that maybe God doesn't know fully about, but once we do make that decision, he co-creates with us.

And we did have a discussion afterwards about simple foreknowledge with Pauletti, his friend. And so I feel like this conversation takes it one level deeper, as far as what are the key issues that any Sunday school Christian, like myself, wouldn't even be aware of.

But it's a beautiful way for us to explore this faith with an expert that knows what he's talking about, because I'm going to be drowning in this knowledge. So I'm really excited to get into it. How did you come to know more about this subject?

Is this something that just piqued your interest, or was this like a focus of your study?

So yeah, when I explore the nature of God, matter of fact, I don't know if you've ever seen, I have like a bunch of five-minute videos, and one video I do is on the nature of God. And one of those, we all talked about the omnis of God, right?

The omni benevolence, like he's all loving, or omnipresent, he's all present, right? All these omnis of God. And I think one of the most neglected ones is this idea of omnisapience, which just means wisdom.

It's just a word for wisdom. And the only reason I put it as an omni is because I wanted to shove it back into the way we do our, the way we think about the nature of God. And sometimes you've got to use an unusual word to get people's attention so that they don't just gloss over a thought.

So I'm not a big fan of using a lot of the big words. It's not like I do it just to be, ah, look how smart I am. But I do think sometimes you throw a word out like that, and somebody pauses because they haven't heard it, and it makes them want to think about it.

And so I've looked at that nature of God. I have a great five minute video that summarizes some of these concepts that we'll be talking about today. Separately from that, the concept of open theism. I go back to my seminary days, and there's a lot of people that advocate for an open theism or a process theology.

And there's all kinds of problems that arise with that sort of framework for understanding God. Albeit, I think the goal might be to do some positive things in helping us understand suffering and evil.

But for me, the idea of wisdom is so fundamental to understanding the problem of evil and actually to solving that problem that I think open theism creates more problems than it solves. And so that's sort of my inroad to this.

Okay, so how does omnisapience, I'm really gonna try to delicately tread, which by the way, if I knew big words like that, I'd be using them. So I don't think there's any shame in saying that.

You can just say, all God's wisdom if you want. I'll use your shorthand. It's just like all wise.

You've earned it, all right? You're the expert here. Okay, so omnisapience. How, like in simple terms, if somebody hasn't listened to the Greg Boyd episode, what is, how does it differ from open theism?

Yeah, so the way I wanna frame this, and I kinda wanna point out, cause what are the big issues at stake? And I wanna outline six problems created by open theism. And then I'm not gonna defend those or explain those cause there's a lot.

And I don't wanna overwhelm people with all those things, but I felt like I'm just gonna rip the bandaid off. Here's six problems I see. And then I wanna give you my definition of omnisapience and how it relates to the full nature of God.

And then I think as we go through and you ask your questions, once you rip the bandaid off, it'll be a lot easier to kinda go back and examine, okay, what actually just happened right there? So I think that will make it make more sense in the end.

At least I hope so. So people bear with this. So here's the six sort of interconnected problems that we have with open theism. First, Genesis, we're left with the idea that Genesis one is wrong because God's creation is neither good nor very good, right?

So the idea that God made is good and very good, that actually ends up being not really true in an open theistic system. Second, God's character is morally compromised.

We're gonna go back and tread through these slightly, right?

Yes, and I'll give specific verses. I'm gonna give examples of these. And as you ask each question, I know you're gonna have along the way, I think all of these will be defensible or understandable at least to people, at least as they try to process this.

So again, second, I think God's character is morally compromised. Third, with open theism, the truth of scripture, specifically prophecy, is undermined. And I've got some examples from even Boyd's stuff that I think makes this clear.

Fourth, the gospel of Jesus Christ ceases to be good news. And that's a big one. That one's like, I worried about when I'm writing this down, like, oh no, I'm gonna lose people right from the start. But again, I'm just gonna rip the Band-Aid off.

This is gonna be spicy, oh my God.

Yeah.

Fifth, I think God's promise of comfort in the midst of trial and suffering is basically just left with an empty emotionalism. And that's a big one. And then sixth, of course, our hope of future and eternal restoration is lost.

Those are six big claims. And again, I think we can unpack those. Now, in contrast, the way I would say it is my argument, which sets the stage for omnisapience, right? Which I just means, oh, wise. It just simply means God knows how to navigate the problems and challenges of life.

That's what wisdom is, right? It's not knowledge. Knowledge is information. Wisdom is the ability to use that information, okay? That's how those two ideas come together. So if God is omniscient, and he knows all things, and he's all wise, he knows how to navigate any circumstances for some great purpose.

And this leads us to sort of the five omnis, because I don't think you can divorce them, like an open theism does this. They'll say, well, God is all loving. He's omnibenevolent, but he's not all knowing.

And I think that's where we end up losing the biblical nature of who God is, because you can't divorce God from his holistic picture of what the Bible creates. Here's the way I do it in sort of an informal argument.

And again, you might wanna link to a little five minute video I have on this. There's a visual that might help some people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I'll make sure you get that later. So if Yahweh is omnipotent, all powerful, then he has the power to make any possible world. And if Yahweh is omnipresent, he can have a relationship with every single person.

And if Yahweh is omniscient, he knows the heart, mind, and deeds of every person. Right, and if Yahweh is omnisapient, this is the wise part, he can orchestrate the best means to the best ends. And the fifth one is if Yahweh is omnibenevolent, all loving, his deeds will inspire love for him and for others.

And then the conclusion I go from that is that Yahweh created the best possible world, and he offers every person the best opportunity to worship and enjoy him forever. And that's the big picture, the two contrasts that I have.

And so this idea, then the big open theism, then centers really on the omnibenevolence, the all loving nature of God, but limits or outright denies the other four omnis in some way. There's a guy named Clark Pinnock, who was the first guy I ever came across before Boyd.

He predates Boyd. I came across him when I was doing my seminary days. He said this in his book, Augustine to Arminius. He says, quote, the God of the Bible displays an openness to the future, i .e. an ignorance of the future that the traditional view of omniscience simply cannot accommodate.

So again, this is the idea that God is ignorant about the future. He doesn't know the future. And they do this essentially to preserve God's moral character, but really that's in like either personal standards or modern social standards.

And this is my setup. And I know that's a lot. I apologize for the big sort of monologue there, but I think that big picture will hopefully make sense of the specific questions you have in mind for today.

Okay.

I don't know where to even place that. It's hard for me as a Christian to even like take that in and be like, I agree or disagree because like the God that I know is all loving. The God that I know is all wise, but there's this element of free will.

And I think that's just like where we begin. I'm like, that's where open theism makes sense because of free will.

Yeah, absolutely.

That's where we are able to entertain open theism, not because we're trying to undermine God in any way. So that's why you're here to kind of point out the flaws in that logical thinking.

Yes.

And we do have to make sense of that, at least the best that we can. What about free will, our choice in the matter? And open theism, they have some good motives, I think. I'm not gonna go against their motives or desires to understand.

They're trying to struggle with the same questions all of us struggle with, but I just think their answer creates more problems than it solves.

Okay, given that, if you think that it is so wrong, why do you think that open theism even appeals to modern Christians, aside from just being able to balance this idea of free will?

Yeah, I think there's a lot of, in a positive sense, there's several reasons that I think in my conversations with people who are persuaded or open to open theism, if you will, I think it appeals to our dislike of arrogance and the sort of pharisaical leadership in some evangelical circles.

I think there's a people that exude this sort of open confidence of like, oh, I didn't have all the answers. And we know something is wrong with that instinctively. And I think open theism tries to deal with that hubris, the arrogance that we find in certain people.

I think it appeals to our need for justice. We see injustice in the world. We see bad things, whether it be racism or just natural disasters or anything, and we wanna have an answer to it and a God who will deal with that.

So there's an open theism appeals to that desire, that need for justice. I think it appeals to our desire to share the love of God, exemplified in Christ. It puts Christ at the center in a very positive way, in a very healthy way.

And it says, if Christ is love, then I wanna love in that same way. I think it makes an appeal to that. And I think it makes an appeal to our search for significance because it gives a big picture narrative, a view of life.

And it's trying to make that big picture view. And it's trying to use that big picture to explain the details of free will, free choice, sovereignty, providence, all of those sort of things. So those are the positive ones.

And the negative side, I think it appeals more to a postmodern denial of absolute, of absoluteness and of truth. I think it has an appeal to our sense of autonomy, of self-reliance, that we can sort of be the determiners of stuff.

And I think it honestly appeals to our need for control. It's sort of the irony. On the one side, it rejects the hubris, the arrogance of the farisical leadership that we kind of see, but it also makes an appeal to, oh wait, I can then have a control of my own destiny, which is sort of an ironic twist.

And when you said arrogance, that's when it like clicked for me. I'm like, yeah, we wanna play a role in God, like how we make a decision that God reacts to. It almost is like the upper hand that we don't wanna acknowledge.

So I can absolutely see that. But there are still elements about God that are relational, that are responsive to us. We are taught as we grow up in the church, like this is our father that wants to have a relationship with us.

And so when it comes to co-creating, that's where a relationship takes place, not just God ordains everything and we are simply just experiencing it. So is there a way that we can have this relationship without limiting his knowledge through that open theistic view?

Absolutely, and I think you phrased that very well as we have a role to play. And I think there are a lot of systems of thought, systematic theologies. There's a lot of philosophies that sort of take us out of the equation.

And I think they do that to the detriment of scripture. So yes, God can still be all knowing. He can still be all wise. And we can still have this relational piece. And I actually think this is where open theism, this is one of the flaws I see.

I think as a matter of fact, I'd argue that the God of open theism is no longer relational and responsive to the problems we face, at least not in the way the Bible promises. I think it wants us to have this relational God, but the God of the Bible responds in a way that is purposeful, that is meaningful, that is his sovereignty, that he's guiding us, right?

They want us to avoid this problem of evil, protect God from moral guilt in the evil that happens. But this God ends up being blind to the future, just like you and I are blind to the future. And that makes the problem even worse.

Because if God doesn't have wisdom and his choices are like your choices or my choices, then God's blindness leads to unintended consequences that actually can increase suffering. God can actually make choices that don't end up the way he had hoped they would end up.

And he can make things worse, right? So there's a book, just one example of this, Openness of God, it's by a guy named David Bassinger. He's an open theist. He writes this, since God does not necessarily know exactly what will happen in the future, it is always possible that even that which God in his unparalleled wisdom believes to be the best course of action at any given time may not produce the anticipated result in the long run.

So God is making choices like, hey, I've got this plan and I'm going to put something into place, but oh gosh, I didn't see that coming, I made it worse. That's the God of open theism.

Yeah, and that doesn't really seem like an all-knowing God to me.

Yeah, and he's not the father God. I'm glad you brought that up, the idea of God, the Abba, the father. That biblical imagery is powerful. It's so important to us. And I think that's an appeal we have.

We want this deep relationship. But if the father of open theism, he's not a father who makes choices that guide us into a sure future, right? He's not a father that has the wisdom to take us down the road.

We can know he ends up being like the father of our teenage years where everything you say is wrong. Oh my gosh, right? You don't know anything, Dad, right? That's the Abba of open theism. He's just the God of our teenage years who is really just as clueless as we are about the future, who just pretends to have this sort of wisdom.

Let me give you one example of Genesis. This is really, I mean, this is where we

Yeah, let's go to scripture. Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is an example of where I said prophecy doesn't become anything but God's best guess. It's not really a promise, it's just that God's guess. So think of the story of Joseph, Genesis chapter 50, right?

Is where we'll pick up the story. But remember, this is Joseph sold into slavery, goes to Potiphar's house, put in prison, dreams come, God gives him the interpretation. God says, hey, there will be years of plenty.

There'll be seven years of plenty, seven years of famine, right? God's prophesying these future realities.

Yeah.

And here's what God says when his brothers discover that, hey, brother's not dead, all this good stuff, right? He says, Joseph said to his brothers, do not fear. I'm not gonna do to you what you did to me.

I'm not gonna put you in jail. I'm not gonna kill you. For am I in the place of God? As for you, you met evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today.

So think of the interplay of what's really happening in that. One, God knew the future. He knew what would happen. He knew his brothers would sell him to slavery. He knew Potiphar's wife would accuse Joseph of rape or attempted rape, right?

He knew all of these things would happen. Yet God was able to put all of the events, even their choices, which they meant for evil, so they're morally culpable for their evil choice, but God put it together for good so that many would be alive today who would have otherwise starved to death.

This is the interplay of the five omnis of God and why his love has to be connected with his knowledge and his wisdom.

Would one argue though, that like in the open theistic view, where there's many decisions that can be made and God knows how each decision can play out, just not which decision will make, is there an element there of somebody made a decision that played out in that way of all of it working together for the glory of the Lord?

And God knew that once that decision was made, that it would play out in that way. Does that make sense? Am I saying that in a way that makes sense?

Yeah, I know what you're saying, but what we end up saying is in effect is, well, but then God had to know in his probabilistic knowledge, his philosophical knowledge, well, 98 chance this will happen, but there's still a 2 chance that it won't.

So what if Joseph said, hey, brothers, I know God wanted something good here and you matter for evil, but I'm really mad, so I'm gonna kill you. He could have chosen that according to open theism. He could have chosen to slaughter his brothers, but then God's promise that Abraham through his descendants, all nations be blessed, isn't fulfilled.

So God couldn't really make the promise to Abraham that all those things would happen. All God was doing is saying, hey, Abraham, I hope this really happens. And if you choose the right things, then my promise is gonna be true.

But it's not really a promise at that point. It's God's best guess that this is what will happen.

Interesting. Okay, okay. So based off that scripture with Joseph, and I'm sure there's more. Do you have more? It's just, it's, it's

That's all for now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Let's go through the whole Bible.

I think that's a good example.

Yeah, no, yeah, exactly. No, I think, I think that's the only verse I want to point out here, because I think as we go through and we explore, you know, the questions that'll come up, I know that you've got a lot of good ones coming up here.

We'll kind of have verse by verse and just give some clear examples of, I think, where in my own sort of time preparing for this conversation, I think what's, the reason I wanted to open up even the way I did was, sort of tearing off the band-aid is, I think there's such an interconnectedness to all of these ideas that when our philosophy or our theology tries to pull apart the nature of God, we see where the scripture starts to fall apart because all of these ideas are interwoven together.

So this is, this is why it's so hard and overwhelming. We're trying to pull apart this piece, that piece, that piece, but scripture doesn't do that, right? It puts it all into one big thing. So I think as we go through each question and each concept, I think we'll be able to tease out different elements as opposed to trying to treat them as independent.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, okay. So let's just go for the big one. How does foreknowledge coexist with free will? I think the main issue here with open theism versus simple foreknowledge is free will. So in your, how does foreknowledge, the one that you believe in, how does that exist with free will?

How do we even have choice if God knows what's going to happen?

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Yeah, so I think there's a couple of ways I can illustrate this that might be helpful. And then we'll look at some specific verses that how they go, how all these things work together. Think of the idea of foreknowledge and free will as maybe like a jazz musician, right?

Have you ever listened to jazz music? Are you a fan of jazz? I don't know. Do you like jazz music? So when you look at jazz music, you've got one person who plays a piano and then another person joins in on a guitar or the bass or they have the saxophone or whatever other instrument.

But none of them know exactly what the other person is doing, but they can sort of improvise as they go, right? And the only reason that works though is because they understand chord progressions. They understand how music should sound.

There's a structure to it. And inside that structure, inside that framework, they can improvise and be creative. The other example I think of is God is a weaver, right? That if God is, he's able to take all the threads and think of our lives as like these little threads.

When somebody weaves a tapestry, you put all these things together. And if you look at it from the back end, it's just a mass of tangles and knots. And you see all these like uncut threads. But when you flip the tapestry around, you see, oh my gosh, there's this amazing piece of artwork.

And God can be an analogous I would put foreknowledge and free will in the same sense. That God has built a structure, his ordinances, his laws, his commands have set the stage. And we get to make a lot of choices in the midst of that.

And the choices where we have these sort of freedom, like say, if I choose the red shirt today or the black shirt, that kind of stuff. None of that challenges his ultimate plan or purpose, the ultimate structure of the universe, the way he's planned our lives.

And where he has ordained certain things, I'm okay with God leading us to certain things or actually manipulating circumstances and controlling that. And I do think I'm okay with him saying, yeah, he just knows our character and nature well, and he knows what decisions we'll make beforehand.

I think it's all of the above menu for God, not just one or the other. Does that kind of help make sense where I'm at going on this?

It does.

And it's so funny that it does, because Dr. Boyd also used the analogy of a tapestry when describing open theism of like a co-creation.

I listened to your thing, yeah.

A co-knitting of it. But the way that you frame it of like, our ultimate, all the above, the times that he directly intervenes, this divine intervention versus the choices that we make, he's already aware of them.

He already knows what that tapestry is going to look like and how the times that he intervened versus the times that we thought we were leading, but he was leading us to that water, whatever it might be.

Yeah, the weaver has to know. That's where his use of that thing, I think, fails. And the weaver has to know. The weaver has to have a clear plan or else the front end looks as bad as the back end, right?

You get a lion with three eyes or something.

It can't work. So there's freedom within limits.

How little? We don't even need to know what the tapestry is. What is this obsession? Because my next question is like, okay, well, if God already knows what we're going to choose, if God already knows what the tapestry is going to look like, then are we even free at all?

Which is so ego-driven. Why does that even matter that I need to ask that? Full surrender is like, I don't actually want to be in charge of a tapestry. But it is a question. Does free will exist then?

Yes.

So this is, you know, does it exist? There's our challenge, right? I think for me, one of the ways that's helped me think through this over the years is that I'll make a distinction between free will, which is our capacity to choose, and our free choice, which is the specific act of choosing.

So we're responsible for our choices. But in truth, our capacity to choose, according to passages like John 8, 34, are bound by sin. We're slaves to sin. So we actually don't have a free will in that sense.

Our will has never been free. It's the illusion of freedom that actually we have. So this is what's so important. I think this is why open theism, it's asking a good question. It's the question we ask, but the question is flawed in its premise.

Because it assumes that without God controlling, that we're absolute autonomous creatures, but we've never been autonomous. Not from the moment we were created. Our very existence is contingent on the thoughts, the nature of God thinking about us.

And think about the beauty of that. Even at the cross of Christ, you know, He's there hanging on the cross for our sin. And He's the God who sustains, He's the creator God who sustains the world by His very thoughts, right?

And if He would cease to think about us, we would cease to exist. He didn't have to call angels down to free Him. He could just say, I'm going to stop thinking about these soldiers. And they would have ceased to exist in that moment because He is God, the sustainer of all things.

So our existence has always been contingent on God. Yet somehow in that contingency, our full dependence on God, He has made us with the capacity to choose. But when we chose to rebel, Adam and Eve, garden, tree, knowledge, all that kind of stuff, then our free will was bound, not by our nature created as image bearers, but our nature corrupted by sin, right?

And so this is the beauty of the gospel. Remember I said at the beginning, like, you know, the nature of the gospel gets corrupted. So Ephesians 2, 8 through 10 says, for by grace you have been saved through faith.

This is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not as a result of works so that no one can boast. For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

In other words, all the good deeds that we should do, God has known from the foundation of the world and He prepared them for us. And we still have to choose to walk in them. And so there's that relationship.

There's that back and forth of the weaver, the jazz musician kind of thing. It's all going together. Somehow they coexist and we're responsible. Yet God is still sovereign.

I want to take a minute and say thank you.

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