Monday, July 4, 2016

What Unfulfilled Prophesies Say About the Open View

The following is a very good, albeit brief, article on unfulfilled prophecies in the Bible and the contingent knowledge of biblical predictions:

What Unfulfilled Prophesies Say About the Open View

The conclusion reads thusly:

The phenomenon of unfulfilled prophecy tells us a lot about how different ancient Hebrews viewed prophecy from the way ancient Greeks viewed it and the way most today view it. It also reveals how flexible the sovereign Lord is in his dealings with humans as free agents (on this, see also Jere. 18:1-10). Though Goldingay doesn’t draw this conclusion, I would suggest that the phenomenon of unfulfilled prophecies implies that the future is somewhat open and that the omniscient God knows it as such. At the very least, it seems to me the Open View of the future can accommodate unfulfilled prophecies much easier than the classical view in which all facts about the future are eternally settled and known by God as such.
Compare and contrast this, for example, with James Walker and his fallacious critique of Joseph Smith's prophecies.

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