16
It is clear that we are not in a position to advise God with infallible wisdom.
Open theists affirm that God is far more knowledgeable and wise than we humans are. Yet they
view it as a strength of their position that God will listen to us and make his decisions in part on
what he hears from us in prayer. The cogency of such a concept is questionable, however, as
Bruce Ware notes:
When one considers that only God (and not us) knows all that can be known, and only
God (and not us) has unsurpassable wisdom to discern what is best in any situation, and
only God (and not us) has purity of motives and freedom from the distortion of sinful
perspectives and urgings, and only God (and not us) is in the optimal situation to judge
the probable effects of a decision on other people, situations, future developments, and
kingdom purposes, it begins to make one wonder why it is so wonderful that "divine
activity is at times dependent on our freely offered petitions."
33
In fact, the openness insistence that our prayers inform God and guide him in his decision-
making is contrary to the repeated teaching of Scripture.
Who has understood the mind of the LORD, or instructed him as his counselor? Whom
from him (Matt 26:39-42) and from his refusal to remove Paul's thorn in the flesh (2 Cor
12:7-10) that God does not always answer the prayers of his children even when there is
nothing sinful about them (which we know about Jesus' prayer from the consistent NT
teaching about the absolute sinlessness of Jesus Christ and which, I would argue, we can
reasonably infer concerning Paul's prayer). Thus the question remains huge: on what basis
can the God of open theism know whether and how to grant the requests of his children?
33
Bruce Ware, God's Lesser Glory: The Diminished God of Open Theism (Wheaton, IL:
Crossway Books, 2000): 168. The quotation is taken from Basinger, "Practical
Implications," in The Openness of God, 160.