Joshua Porter writes:

To this day, after reading many articles, essays and books that speak out against open theism, I have not read anything that I believe to be a convincing case against it. In my experience, I see folks paint a very nasty picture of something they call open theism, but isn’t actually open theism at all. Almost every argument I have ever read against Openess Theology is simply a straw man.

For instance, Moody’s Handbook of Theology states in the first line of its evaluation of open theism “Openness theology directly affects the doctrine of biblical inerrancy. By postulating that God does not know the future and makes mistakes, how are the prophetic portions of Scripture believable?”

I’ve never heard of any Open Theist that believes God does not know the future and makes mistakes. It seems that some detractors of Open Theism believe, personally, that this is inevitable where Open Theism leads, but the fact is that open theists do not. If i argued that Calvinists believe God is hateful, arbitrary, unjust and sadistic, I suspect a Calvinist would (rightly) refute the claim. Just because I believe an idea leads to a certain conclusion does not mean that it does.

The truth is that Open Theists believe that God is completely all-knowing (omniscient), incapable of mistakes, omnipotent and completely sovereign (in control). Open Theists simply believe that God’s omniscience and sovereignty function in a different way than, say, Calvinists or Armenians believe. These conclusions are based on scripture alone and not opinions or personal conflicts outside of the bible.