Sunday, July 26, 2020

Does Isaiah 46:9-10 Disprove Open Theism?

 

Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me. Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure. (Isa 46:9-10)

 

Recently, a Latter-day Saint raised this passage against God having contingent, not exhaustive, foreknowledge. Is this a good proof-text against Open Theism? Before we discuss this text specifically, a few points to consider.

 

Firstly, even within the chapters leading up to Isa 46, God is presented as having discursive knowledge, something consistent with Open Theism but not the “traditional” view of God’s knowledge (both then-present and future). For instance, in Isa 40:12, we read:

 

Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?

 

Isaiah is teaching that God learns the amount of water on the earth by measuring it. Interestingly enough, the measure of water on the surface of the earth fluctuates, so it continuously needs to be measured by Yahweh, further supporting the Open Theistic understanding of God and His knowledge, unless on will argue that God counts/measures things (actions which take place in time, not an "eternal now")

 

Such discursive knowledge is seen in 1 Kgs 22:19-23 where we read of Yahweh seeking advice from his heavenly council:

 

And he said, Hear thou therefore the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left. And the Lord said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramothgilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner. And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said, I will persuade him. And the Lord said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also: go forth, and do so. Now therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee.

 

When it comes to the fulfllment of prophecy for Isaiah (and, I would argue, Lehi in 2 Nephi 3:15) is not that God declares the then-future, but that he will interact in the world in a way that will guarantee the fulfillment of what he promises to take place. Consider the following from Isaiah:

 

I have declared the former things from the beginning; and they went forth out of my mouth, and I shewed them; I did them suddenly, and they came to pass. (Isa 48:3)

 

Unlike the idols the people were attributing the saving acts taking place, God instead is the one who performs these saving actions, thus, fulfilling his promises. As we read in a scholarly commentary on Isaiah 40-66 (so-called “Deutero-Isaiah”):

 

[3–5] The fulfillment of earlier prophecies serves as a precedent that the future prophecies will also come to pass, specifically the promise of redemption. Here, however, instead of using this claim of authenticity in his usual polemic against idolaters and their gods, comparing their impotence with God’s omnipotence and omniscience (e.g., 41:21–24; 42:8–9; 43:9–10; 46:9–11), Deutero-Isaiah castigates the people’s disbelief and their propensity to attribute the events to their idols. For a similar theme in a Neo-Assyrian prophecy, see Ishtar’s prophecy to King Esarhaddon: “[Esarhaddon] … you [saw] you could trust my previous statement (dababu pānīu) to you. Now you can rely on this latter one (urkīu) as well” (Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies, 10, lines 3–12). So too in an oracle addressed to King Esarhaddon, the prophetess encourages the king by declaring: urkīute lu kî pānīute, “The future ones shall be like the past ones” (ibid., 6, line 37’).

 

[3] Long ago I foretold things that would happen—For מאז (“long ago”) (repeated three more times throughout this unit, vv. 5, 7, 8), see 44:8; 45:21; cf. Ps 93:2: “Your throne stands firm from long ago (מאז).” For the verbal construction הגיד רִאשֹׁנות, see Isa 41:22; and for the term ראשֹׁנות (ה), see 41:22; 42:9; 43:9, 18; 46:9; 65:17; and the introduction, §4.)

From My mouth they issued, and I announced them—Vocalize וָאשמיעם in the past tense, parallel to הגדתי in the prior hemistich. For the expression יצא מפה (“to issue from one’s mouth”), which signifies a binding and irrevocable proclamation, see 45:23: “From My mouth has issued truth, a word that shall not turn back”; 55:11: “So is the word that issues from My mouth. It does not come back to Me unfulfilled, but performs what I purpose”; cf. Judg 11:36; Jer 44:17. The Akkadian etymological and semantic equivalent, ṣīt pî, can also denote an (irrevocable) declaration of a deity (CAD P:459; Ṣ:219).

 

Suddenly I acted, and they came to pass—Cf. Isa 42:9: “See, the things once predicted have come to pass.” For the expression בוא פתאֹם (“to come about suddenly”) in the context of Babylon’s destruction, see 47:11: “Coming upon you suddenly is ruin of which you know nothing”; cf. also, e.g., 30:13; Jer 4:20; 6:26. For the verb עשי (“to act”) without an object, see Isa 41:4; 46:4. (Shalom M. Paul, Isaiah 40-66: Translation and Commentary [Eerdmans Critical Commentary; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2012], 307)

 

Further, there are many prophecies/predictions/promises in the Bible and uniquely LDS Scriptures that were not fulfilled, and often, did not have any contingencies explicitly stated. Indeed, a study of purportedly false prophecies by Joseph Smith (and the biblical authors) was the issue that convinced me initially of the plausibility of Open Theism. Here are some articles on the topic (if a fellow LDS apologist can provide a consistent model for understanding such contingent prophecies without engaging in divine deception being the logical result and/or God being “fixed”/determined by his foreknowledge [a major problem with “simple foreknowledge”] do let me know):

Resources on Joseph Smith's Prophecies















Now, before I (finally) get to Isa 46:9-10, let me deal with a similar text that is sometimes used by LDS critics of Open Theism:


Remember, remember that it is not the work of God that is frustrated, but the work of men. (D&C 3:3)

However, when one reads this text in his context, it is not talking about meticulous foreknowledge and providence on the behalf of God (the revelation was given as a result of the loss of the book of Lehi--unless one wishes to argue that God wanted such to happen, one cannot appeal to it to support such a model of providence and foreknowledge). Instead, in its context, it must refer to the general plans of God (e.g., the coming forth of the Book of Mormon; that God will be victorious in the end, etc are a "given"; just the exact steps are "open" if you will). Support for this view is found in v. 16 of the same revelation:

Nevertheless, my work shall go forth, for inasmuch as the knowledge of a Savior has come unto the world, through the testimony of the Jews, even so shall a knowledge of the Savior come unto my people


Here, the Lord tells the prophet that, notwithstanding the loss of the book of Lehi, which was "not in the plan," so to speak, God's work will still go forth--that is, the general "plan" of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and the gospel to the people.

Such parallels the analogy Open Theists often use to describe how we understand God's planning and foreknowledge--God can be likened to a master chess player who knows for a fact he will be victorious in the end, but the exact "moves" he and his opponent will make are still "open" and not "fixed."

Now, as for Isa 46:9-10, I will quote Blake Ostler’s comments on this and related topics:

 

Here God reveals that he has declared the end from the beginning and that he can thus accomplish all of his purposes. How shall we understand this scripture? Mormons will not understand this passage as a statement of God’s eternal decrees of predestination and determination of all future human actions. A Calvinist theologian might be tempted to read into this text such an interpretation to support the view that God predestines and decrees all events. Yet this passage supports only the view that God has adopted a plan which God can insure will be realized. Even if we took this passage as a critical definition of God’s knowledge, it certainly would not be hard to accommodate it to the notion of contingent omniscience. For God can know what he intends to bring about and that he can prevail over all challengers to his plan. God’s plans will be brought about not because he has seen what will happen before he planned—a view that is incoherent—but because God will bring them about. In other words, such scriptures can be understood as a function of Go’s power and intentions rather than of God’s knowledge.

 

An analogy, first articulated by William James, suggests that God is like a master chess player involved in a game with novices (12). God does not control the moves that the challengers to the game will make, nor does he know beforehand exactly what moves will be made. However, he knows all possible moves that can be made and that he can meet any such moves and eventually win the game. God may lose some pieces during the course of the game, just as some people choose in their genuine freedom to reject God and to thwart his plans of salvation as far as they are individually concerned. Nevertheless, Mormonism is committed to the view that God has established a plan which allows such losses to permit persons to make moves that are genuinely up to them and not up to God alone. These provisions seems to be required by the master chess player analogy:

 

1. God is omniscient: For every state of affairs SA, if SA is or has been actual, then God knows that SA; if SA is possible, then God knows that potentially SA.

 

2. God knows now all things, including the present probability of all possibilities.

 

3. God knows now that his purposes are and that he will achieve them.

 

4. God does not know now, in every case, precisely which contingent possibility will be chosen or become actual.

 

5. God knows now how he will respond to whichever contingent possibility occurs to insure the realization of his purposes.

 

These features of God’s knowledge insure that God knows all things, including all eternal truths, and events now certain given causal implication (1, 2). It also allows for free choices among genuinely open alternatives (2, 4). These provisions suggest that God knows all possible avenues of choices (2, 5) and f coupled with an idea of adequate power, entails that God’s plan and declarations of future events will be realized (3, 5). It seems to me that God’s providence is not compromised in this view. In fact, this view is clearly superior to the views of simple and timeless knowledge because God can use his knowledge of all possibilities and present probabilities to guide his decisions.

 

This is not the place to undertake an exhaustive survey of all scriptural passages; nevertheless, I would like to indicate how most, if not all, scriptural passages can be understood in a way consistent with contingent omniscience. For example, the scripture that asserts that all things past, present and future are continually present before the Lord (D&C 130:7), presents no problem so long as the future “things” are understood to refer to all things that are possible in the future rather than both “now actual and yet also future.” (Blake T. Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought, Volume 1: The Attributes of God [Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2001], 300-2)

 

Elsewhere (Ibid., 152-53) Ostler went into more detail about D&C 130:7:

 

At first blush this statement appears to say precisely that all things past, present and future as with God one eternal now. Such a reading supports a conclusion that God is timeless in precisely the way intended by Boethius. However, a closer reading shows that this cannot be the case. Reading this to say that God is timeless so that temporal designations of "before and after" do not apply to God is inconsistent with the statements that Jehovah contemplated these events "before" the morning stars (i.e., the sons of God in the heavenly council) sang for joy. Thus, we must look for another interpretation to make sense of the context of the statement. The entire context is describing the plan of salvation and how God preplanned and made provision for salvation of the dead by providing the doctrine of baptism for the dead. A more consistent reading of this statement is that in the deliberations leading to the plan of salvation, God considered all of the possibilities that were likely to occur. In his contemplation, God considered all things past, present and future and he made provisions for all possibilities that could befall the human family in adopting his plan. For example, he contemplated the fall of Adam and knew that it could occur. If it did occur, then God planned to provide a Savior to redeem mortals from the fall.

 

If read to indicate that God is timeless, it is hard to make sense of the notion that God was once a man as the Book of Mormon unambiguously asserts (1 Ne. 19:7-10; Mos. 13:34; 15:1-2) or that God progresses in any manner as Joseph Smith asserted in the King Follett discourse delivered in Nauvoo in 1844. For if God is timeless, then there was no real time prior to which God became man nor could there be an interval during which he experienced mortality and again became divine. Indeed, the view that the past and the future are just as real as the present leads to a clear absurdity: in the same moment of reality in the eternal now (EN) Washington is both crossing the Delaware and already dead! If God sees simultaneously with his gaze that the Apollo 11 astronauts are walking on the moon, then it follows that Washington's crossing of the Delaware is simultaneous in time with the Apollo 11 astronauts walking on the moon--for if a is simultaneous with b, and b, is simultaneous with c, then the law of transitivity requires that a is simultaneous with c (a=b, b=c, therefore a=c).

 

Some Latter-day Saint critics of Open Theism often cite some comments from Church leaders who affirm “divine timelessness” and/or the concept that God has foreknowledge in the “traditional sense.  One such LDS Church leader is that of Neal A. Maxwell in All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1979) .”As we have seen from the above, such is (IMO) a misreading of the relevant texts.

 

Further, in personal correspondence with Blake Ostler, Maxwell was careful to argue that his comments should not be seen as dogmatic proclamations of the Church in his office of Apostleship and that LDS should avoid any theory of foreknowledge and God’s experience of time that is contrary to Latter-day Saint Scripture and theology. Writing in Dialogue Ostler wrote:

 

Mormons have generally been aware that their idea of God requires that he be involved in process even though he may stand in a different relation to time than do mortals. For instance, Orson Pratt told the Reverend F. Austin: "God and all his magnificant works are limited to duration and time. It could not be otherwise." B. H. Roberts told the Reverend Vander Donckt that in taking Jesus Christ as the revelation of the nature of God, there is necessarily a "succession of time with God--a before and an after; here is being and becoming." However, the notion that God is timeless has recently been introduced into Mormon thought. Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, writes, "The past, present, and future are before God simultaneously.... Therefore, God's omniscience is not solely a function of prolonged and discerning familiarity with us--but of the stunning reality that the past, present, and future are part of an 'eternal now' with God" (italics in original). The idea of God's eternity here appears to consist not in the Hebrew notion of God's eternal duration in time without beginning or end; but of transcendence of temporal succession. In fairness to Elder Maxwell, we must recognize that his observations are meant as rhetorical expressions to inspire worship rather than as an exacting philosophical analysis of the idea of timelessness. Furthermore, in a private conversation in January 1984, Elder Maxwell told me that he is unfamiliar with the classical idea of timelessness and the problems it entails. His intent was not to convey the idea that God transcends temporal succession, but "to help us trust in God's perspectives, and not to be too constrained by our own provincial perceptions while we are in this mortal cocoon." (Blake T. Ostler, "The Mormon Concept of God" Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought vol. 17, no. 2 [Summer 1984]:64-93, here, p. 75)

 

In a footnote (no. 30), Ostler reproduces some more of his personal correspondence with Maxwell:

 

I refer to this private conversation and to excerpts from Elder Maxwell's letter with his permission. He writes, "I would never desire to do, say, or write anything which would cause others unnecessary problems.... I would not have understood certain philosophical implications arising (for some) because I quoted from Purtill who, in turn, quoted from Boethius. Nor would I presume to know of God's past, including His former relationship to time and space." Elder Neal A. Maxwell to Blake T. Ostler, 24 Jan. 1984. My thanks to Elder Maxwell for his helpful and generous comments on this and numerous other subjects.

 

Interestingly, personal associates of Joseph Smith did not hold to God existing in an “eternal now.” One such acquaintance was W.W. Phelps, who acted as Joseph Smith’s “ghost writer.”


Commenting on W.W. Phelps’ love for the esoteric doctrines contained in the Book of Abraham, Bruce Van Orden, in his excellent biography of Phelps, wrote:

Phelps forever kept close to his heart the doctrines he learned and cherished while he wrote down new truths Joseph Smith received from the Book of Abraham. No doubt Smith, Cowdery, and Phelps often reflected in conversation about these concepts. Perhaps they knew of additional insights that came through revelation but did not appear in published versions of the Book of Abraham. On the other hand, in his enthusiasm for new doctrine, Phelps may have come up with speculative doctrine on his own—ideas that may have been related to Joseph Smith’s revelations but did not actually originate with him. An example may be Phelps’s somewhat garbled statement in the Times and Seasons several months after the Prophet’s assassination: “Jesus Christ, whose goings forth, as the prophets said, have been from old, from eternity: and that eternity, agreeably to the records found in the catacombs of Egypt, has been going on in this system, (not this world) almost two thousand five hundred and fifty five millions of years . . . It almost tempts the flesh to fly to God, or muster faith like Enoch to be translated and see and how as we are seen and known! (“The Anwer,” T&S 5, no 1 [January 1, 1845]: 758) The 2,555,000,000 years that Phelps seems to be alluding to can be arrived at by multiplying 1,000 (referring to the number of years for Kolob to rotate on its axis) by 7 (referring to seven separate time periods for the earth’s creation) by 365 (the number of days in an earth year). The Creation and Kolob are concepts strongly discussed in present-day Abraham chapters 3-5. Kolob is the planet nearest to the throne of God. The number of years mentioned in this article appears to be Phelpsian doctrine, based on Phelps’s own musings, and not learned from Joseph Smith. (Bruce A. Van Orden, We’ll Sing and Shout: The Life and Times of W.W. Phelps [Provo and Salt Lake City, Utah: Religious Studies Center at Brigham Young University and Deseret Book. 2018], 198-99)

Elsewhere Van Orden (Ibid., 477) presented Phelps’ translation of Dan 4:22 that appeared in “Nebuchadnezzar Still in Pasture” and published in the Deseret Almanac (1861), pp. 23-24:

They will drive thee from men, and thou must dwell with the beasts of the field: and thou shalt graze grass as an ox; and the rain of heaven shall fall upon thee, till two thousand, five hundred and twenty years shall have passed over thee, until thou hast learned that the Most High rules among the kingdoms of men, which are set up to be true.

Van Orden, in a footnote attached to “two thousand, five hundred and twenty years” wrote:

Phelps noted at the end of his translation, “Joseph Smith, the Prophet, said that the day of an angel was one year, a week, seven years, a month thirty years: a time, three hundred and sixty years . . . A day with the Lord God in Kolob is one thousand years.” (Ibid., 489 n. 57)

I present this information here, not to defend Phelps’ understanding of the age of the universe or use of the Book of Abraham to understand God’s time and its exact relationship to our measuring of time, etc, but to show that Phelps, a close friend and associate of Joseph Smith, did not believe that God existed in an “eternal now” or was “timeless”—instead, he existed in what I sometimes call “super time”—that is, God has a moment by moment existence and experience with time, but his experience and relationship to time is different than ours.

I like how one Roman Catholic apologist put it:

[Just] as Christ does, the Father and the Holy Spirit exist moment by moment, and in that sense there is no differentiation in the time-existence within the persons of the Godhead. There is no significance to postulating that God is an “Eternal Now,” or that there is “no time in eternity.” All that we can conclude is that in eternity time is not calibrated in the same way it is on earth. In the existence of each eternal being, none of them can go back to the previous moment or ahead to the next moment while in the present moment. Whether we say God sees all things in their immediacy, or that all things are known to Him simultaneously, does not negate that the Father, Son or Holy Spirit cannot exist in and/or go back to the past or ahead to the future, even though They thoroughly know the past and the future. They, as we, exist moment by moment, and thus God relates to us on earth and in heaven, moment by moment. (Robert A. Sungenis, Not by Bread Alone: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for the Eucharistic Sacrifice [2d ed.; Catholic Apologetics International Publishing, Inc., 2009], 372)

So, in conclusion, does Isa 46:9-10 refute Open Theism? While I would not appeal to this passage to support Open Theism, I do believe, in light of the various issues discussed in this post, it is not a sound proof-text to use against it, too.







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