Before Time Began, God Knew I'd Write This Review

Review of:
What Does God Know and When Does He Know It?
By Millard J. Erickson

Several years ago, I discovered that some serious, evangelical Christian scholars believed that God may not know everything about the future. That surprised me, to say the least. I wonder if God saw this coming.

I had always been taught that God knew everything, past, present and future. In fact, I was taught that He even knew future contingencies that wouldn’t actually occur, but, if they did, this is how it would happen. God’s complete omniscience seemed to be a reasonable concept to me. After all, He’s God, right? He exists outside of time, so how could a matter that hinges on time (past, present, future) present a limitation for Him?

Well, I discovered that some theologians would be quick to say, “Wait, just a minute, buddy boy. What about this passage where God seems to change his mind?”

Or, “what about this passage where God’s actions are changed based upon what a person does?”

Or, “what about this passage where God seems to truly discover something about a person based upon a test He has given the person?”

Or, “how can people really have a free will and, yet, God already knows what they’re going to do?”

And, so, the debate is on.

Millard J. Erickson’s book, “What Does God Know And When Does He Know It?” presents the issues of this debate in a reasonably fair and comprehensive manner.

Erickson presents the arguments for the Traditional View of God’s foreknowledge and he presents the Open View of God. He offers a biblical basis for each position. He examines the hermeneutics and doctrinal structure of the issues. He looks at the historical development of the matters and the philosophical influences. And he presents some of the practical issues that follow.

Erickson has a keen eye for identifying the logical inconsistencies of the Open View.

Erickson, himself, holds the Traditional View of God’s foreknowledge and he makes that clear, in the book. However, he also states that his book represents an attempt “to deal with these issues with an open mind and to listen carefully to the arguments on both sides.” He does acknowledge the strength of the Open View on the points where he perceives they have the stronger argument, especially in the “Evaluation and Conclusion” section of the book.

Summing it up, he writes this, “On balance, then, while no single view has given final answers to the issues involved in the foreknowledge debate, the traditional view of God’s exhaustive definitive foreknowledge appears to have considerably more cogent intellectual support and fewer difficulties than does the alternative.”

This is a good introduction to Open Theism.

Dan Marler
Oak Lawn, IL

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