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Jeremiah
38:17–18, 20
If you listen to God, you will live. If not, you will die
"Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “Thus says the Lord God of hosts, the
God of Israel, ‘If you will indeed go out to the officers of the
king of Babylon, then you will live, this city will not be burned
with fire, and you and your household will survive. 18‘But
if you will not go out to the officers of the king of Babylon, then
this city will be given over to the hand of the Chaldeans; and they
will burn it with fire, and you yourself will not escape from their
hand....20But Jeremiah said, “They will not give you
over. Please obey the Lord in what I am saying to you, that it may
go well with you and you may live," (Jer. 38:17-18, 20).
Open theists
often state that God displays ignorance of the future by telling people
what will happen if they do one thing or another. They assert that
God doesn't know and that that is why He is laying out the options of
what might possibly happen in the future.
When God states that "If you do this, then this will
happen; if you do that, that that will happen," it does not
mean that God is ignorant of the future. It means that God is
revealing the results of what will happen as a result of various
choices. This absolute knowledge of God is possible because God knows
all things, including the future and all its options. By contrast,
this is not possible with the god of open theism because god doesn't
know the choices that will be made so cannot tell with certainly what
will or will not happen.
Therefore, Jer.
38:17-18, 20 is not displaying God's ignorance of the future.
It is displaying God's knowledge of it should certain conditions arise.
Given the vast permutations of free will human choices of the future
which are not knowable by the god of open theism, absolute certainty is
not something the god of open theism can have. Therefore, he could
not tell us for certainty what would happen. But
Jer. 38:17-18, 20 does tell
us. Therefore, these verses does not support open theism.
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