19
run.
39
It this is in fact true, it is hard to see how we are to pray with confidence and joy
as Jesus instructs us in Matt 6:10, that God's will would "be done on earth as it is in heaven."
40
If
God's will might well be based on his mistaken beliefs about the future, its accomplishment may
not be the best thing at all. Surely this will erode our confidence and joy in prayer.
41
In addition, all these considerations, taken together, raise serious questions about
the wisdom of God. It is hard to see how a God who makes decisions about whether and how to
39
David Basinger, "Practical Implications," in The Openness of God, 165.
40
Ware points out the vast difference between this petition in the Lord's Prayer and the
openness conception of petitionary prayer. Rather than viewing our prayer as a means by
which the will of God is shaped in the genuine give and take of our personal relationship
with God, Jesus instructs us to pray as a means of submitting ourselves to the will of God
that is viewed to be "a previously existing reality, already formed and perfectly wise" (God's
Lesser Glory, 170).
41
Erickson points out the practical implication of this as well as of our previous point
(that the God of open theism may well not be able to answer our prayers because of his
commitment to respect the functioning of libertarian free will): "This means that the prayers
of a free will theist will be uttered without a great sense of assurance, either that God will
know what is best to do or will be able to accomplish that in every instance, even if he knows
what should be done" (God the Father Almighty, 284).