If God isn’t in control of everything, the world feels unsafe. If the future is
open and if things can happen outside of God’s will, what guarantee is there
that there is a point to a person’s suffering? Maybe it’s all just bad luck.
My experience has been that many of those who honestly examine the evidence
for the open view and choose to reject it do so not because the evidence is weak
but because they fear its implications. It is true that according to the open
view things can happen in our lives that God didn’t plan or even foreknow with
certainty (though he always foreknew they were possible). This means that in the
open view things can happen to us that have no overarching divine purpose. In
this view, “trusting in God” provides no assurance that everything that happens
to us will reflect his divine purposes, for there are other agents who also have
power to affect us, just as we have power to affect others. This, it must be
admitted, can for some be a scary thought. I am sympathetic to the reaction, but
I also believe there are several considerations that can effectively address it
from an open perspective.
Fear and Truth
First, how is the scariness of a view relevant to the question of whether or
not the view is true? There is no reason to conclude that something is true to
the extent that it conforms to our wishes. Indeed, the fact that the open view
doesn’t conform to what we might wish were true actually provides one more
reason for thinking that it is true, for reality rarely conforms to our wishes.
If we are honest, our core belief in the world—manifested not by what we say but
by what we do—is that it is sometimes a scary place.
Divine Control and Comfort
Second, I do not see how affirming an all-controlling God provides any real
comfort in the face of the scary aspects of the world.
I would submit that your belief actually makes the world a scarier place. For
one thing, if God controls robbers, for instance, and these robbers victimize
godly and ungodly people alike (which no one can deny), then it might be that
God has decided to have one of these robbers victimize your family. If God has
decided this, there is nothing you can do about it. If God is the sort of God
who is capable of ordaining such evils, then you can’t trust God’s character. If
God controls all things, there’s nothing you can do about it if he has, in fact,
decided this.
If God chooses not to control all things, however, then there is something
you can do about it. As a morally responsible free person, you can make choices
that maximize your safety and minimize your vulnerability against other free
people who have chosen evil. The world is perhaps still scary, but less so than
if the Creator himself had the kind of character that made him willing to ordain
the robbery of your house.
Find Comfort in the Trials
Finally, and most importantly, in the face of a scary world, the open view
offers the same comfort that the NT offers. With Scripture, the open view
affirms that God’s character is unambiguously loving and thus he is on your
side. He doesn’t ordain evil. This view affirms that, regardless of what happens
to you, your eternal relationship with the Lord is secure (Rom 8: 31-39).
Furthermore, the open view affirms that Christ will be with us to provide a
peace that “surpasses all understanding” whatever may come our way (Phil 4:7).
It affirms that whatever happens, God will work with us to bring a redemptive
purpose out of the event (Rom 8:28). The open view also affirms that God can
alter your destiny, precisely because the open view holds that the future is in
part not settled. Finally, the open view affirms with Scripture the central hope
that when God’s kingdom is established, it will have been worth it.
The world is still scary. It is in a state of war, under siege by the enemy
of our souls, and this is not a comforting thought (1 Jn 5:19). The open view
grants this. Even God takes risks. But the world is less scary in this view than
if we try to find consolation in the belief that everything that occurs is
controlled by God and thus reflects his dubious character.
—Adapted from God of the Possible, pages 153-156
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