Faith and Philosophy

published on December 10, 2014

Closing the Door on Limited-Risk Open Theism

This paper argues against a version of open theism defended by Gregory Boyd, which we call “limited risk,” according to which God could guarantee at creation at least the fulfillment of His most central purpose for the world: that of having a “people for himself.” We show that such a view depends on the assumption that free human decisions can be “statistically determined” within certain percentage ranges, and that this assumption is inconsistent with open theists’ commitment to a libertarian conception of human freedom.