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How strikingly contrasting this is with Jesus' approach to living life, in which he said

repeatedly, "I have come to do the will of my Father who is in heaven." How presumptuous to
think that we, together with God, could arrive at a better overall plan than the one God alone, in
his infinite wisdom, can devise! The words of Isaiah 40:13-17 reveal how utterly foolish and
deeply offensive this appeal in open theism is.

4.

Open theism's denial of exhaustive divine foreknowledge calls into question the
Church's ultimate eschatological hope that God will surely accomplish all his plans and
purposes, exactly as he has told us in Scripture that he will, and openness assurances that
he will succeed ring hollow, in that not even God knows (i.e., can know) what
unexpected turns lay ahead and how severely these may thwart his purposes or cause him
to change his plans.

Openness advocates want it both ways. They want high risk, and they also want high

assurance of God's success. They cannot have it both ways. Clearly, what wins in the open
view is risk; what loses is assurance of God's success. If even God cannot now know the
outcome of his purposes with free creatures, we certainly cannot be sure whether those plans and
purposes will prevail.

Open Theism and Boundaries for Evangelicalism

So, we return to Dr. Pinnock's questions: "Why draw the line at foreknowledge? . . . .

What church council has declared it to be impossible? Since when has this become the criterion
of being orthodox or unorthodox, evangelical or not evangelical?"

Allow me two comments,

and then my conclusion.

First, no church council took up this matter, because no serious proposal was ever set

before the church that would deny what all Christians believed without question, viz., that God,
as God, knew the future, as well as the past and present, exhaustively. Because church councils,
creeds, and confessions are occasional in nature, and because no reason ever occasioned councils
or synods to speak on this issue, therefore God's exhaustive foreknowledge was accepted
without defense or formal creedal declaration. But does this history not also imply that when
something as fundamental and basic to Christian commitment as, in this case, its confidence in
God's exhaustive foreknowledge, is questioned, or rather denied, that Christians ought to unite to
declare now what we believe on this matter? In other words, as the church in past generations
felt obligated to face these weighty doctrinal deviations and give voice to its most cherished and
non-negotiable commitments, so too in our day, thoughtful Christians, particularly Christian
leaders, must speak out on the openness proposal to say what the glory of God, the truthfulness
of Scripture, and our own consciences require.

Second, while the question of theological boundaries for evangelicalism is highly

complicated, I agree with Derek Tidball in his Who Are the Evangelicals? who writes:

Pinnock, Most Moved Mover, 106, 110.