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Second, Boyds discussion of might-counterfactuals is misleading insofar as it gives the

appearance of providing God with some additional basis by which he can better regulate the
future states of affairs that obtain throughout time. For instance, Boyd writes that, "because God
possesses infinite intelligence, his knowledge of might-counterfactuals leaves him no less
prepared for the future than his knowledge of determinate aspects of creation."

But how is this

so? After all, since God knows by "might-counterfactuals" the myriad of possible choices that
might or might not be made, but since he cannot know from "might-counterfactuals" just what
choices will be made and what consequences will follow from them, he still must wait until
libertarian free choices are made to know what actual choices are made and actual actions
performed. So, how will such might-counterfactual knowledge help God? Boyd assures us that
since God has infinite intelligence, he is able to attend to every possibility "as though it was the
only possibility he had to consider."

While this is meant to be reassuring, I fail to see how it is.

After all, God still must rely on contingency plans in the event that libertarian freedom is used in
ways he doesnt want, or doesnt expect, and he still faces situations which are incalculably
awful and over which (due to libertarian freedom) he has no control. Although God has given
infinite attention to each and every possible eventuality, he still is faced with creaturely free
decisions that are tragically contrary to his purposes and which result in no immediate or
ultimate good.

When I read Boyds triumphalism regarding any possible future decision, that "from all

eternity God was preparing for just this possibility," and that God "is as perfectly prepared for
the improbable as he is for the probable,"

I cannot help but bring to mind actual horrors and

evils that have happened in history. On openness grounds, how does this rhetoric apply when
asking how Gods knowledge and infinite intelligence "perfectly prepared" him for dealing with
the unfolding horrors of the Holocaust? How well does Gods prior infinite attention work when
assessing Gods preparation to handle the circumstances in Warsaw that day when Zosias eyes
were cruelly plucked out, as Boyd describes in his God at War?

Or, I cannot help but wonder

how this will reassure the woman, Suzanne, whose sad and gripping story of betrayal and
desertion by her "Christian" husband, Boyd also tells us.

In other words, what practical benefit

does this category of "might-counterfactual" knowledge give God in guiding the history of this
world he has made, the one in which he is "perfectly prepared" for every possibility? It seems to
me that infinite intelligence and "might-counterfactual" knowledge notwithstanding, open theism
presents us with a God who watches in absolute horror and utter dismay as unspeakably evil
situations unfold, over which he is unable (due to libertarian freedom) to exercise control.
Despite Boyds claim that it is "altogether unfounded"

to describe the God of open theism as

wringing his hands in the face of unwanted yet relentlessly unfolding evils, I see no other way to
understand this god, and Boyds reassurances of Gods infinite intelligence and might-
counterfactual knowledge help his god out not one whit.

Boyd, Satan and the Problem of Evil, 128-129.

Ibid., 129.

Ibid.

Gregory A. Boyd, God at War: The Bible and Spiritual Conflict (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1997),

33-34.

Gregory A. Boyd, God of the Possible: A Biblical Introduction to the Open View of God (Grand Rapids: Baker,

2000), 103-106.

Boyd, Satan and the Problem of Evil, 128.