Open Theism

Several years ago now I warned my flock about the dangers of open theism. I began a two part message with these words: “What does God know?” and “When does God know it?” These startling question lie at the heart of what may well become the hottest theological debate among evangelical Christians in the next few months. At stake is whether evangelical churches remain committed to what the church has always believed about God, or veer off in favor of a more user-friendly deity."

Since that time, the debate has intensified and more professing evangelicals are promoting the view. For a more detailed treatment you can read my sermons. (pt. 1 and pt. 2) Sean Doherty has a basic statement of what Open Theism teaches:

"Open Theism" basically claims that God does not know the entire future, and the future is not therefore utterly set and unalterable. This might be because God deliberately chooses to limit his knowledge (e.g. of which human beings will choose to know him and which will reject him) or because it is simply not in God's nature to know the future exhaustively. Because God doesn't know everything that will happen, God is not himself limited or definitively committed to any particular course of action (e.g. which human beings he will save). God is open and the future is open. This does not exclude the idea that God might know much about the future and might be completely decided in certain courses of action (e.g. to become incarnate and die to rescue us from sin and death, to return in glory and bring healing and deliverance from pain and misery and to conquer death, etc). But it leaves open certain (more minor) things, such as whether God will make it sunny today or whether he will reduce Sodom and Gomorrah to rubble.

This solves oodles of problems. Firstly, it explains why God created the world even though the world became a place of great suffering. Secondly, it explains how prayer works (God can really be affected by it). Thirdly, it prevents God from being seen as arbitrary and cruel in choosing to save some people but not others - because it's up to them. Fourthly it means human beings have genuine free will."