Is the universe ‘done and dusted’?
Bill Toner : : One of the background questions that haunts theology, philosophy, and even physics is whether ‘the future’ exists. In the sphere of theology, the answer has huge implications since it touches on key issues such as the ‘foreknowledge’ of God: It is commonly taught that God knows everything, including what is going to happen to us in the future. The nature of predestination, which is the doctrine that it is already determined whether we will be ‘saved’ when we die is a very important part of the faith of some Christians, especially Calvinists, and is widely believed to be given support by statements of St. Paul in Scripture.
Another important part of Christian faith is that God is ‘omniscient’, i.e. that he knows everything. It has been widely presumed that this must include what will happen to the world and everyone in it. Some of the most illustrious theologians in the history of the Church, notably St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas, accepted the foreknowledge of God. Aquinas proposed that God is outside time and sees past, present and future as one eternal ‘now’. Augustine taught that God knows in advance the choices we will make, though without causing them. The doctrine of the total foreknowledge of God suggests that all that is ever going to happen in the cosmos has already happened, and the universe is truly ‘done and dusted’.
Open Theology
Not everyone agrees with this position. Indeed, it is likely that the ‘commonsense’ view among most Catholics is that the future does not yet ‘exist’ but is only in the making, second by second. The ‘now’ is the threshold between the known past and the unknown future.
In addition, ‘Open Theology’ is the name given to a current movement that questions traditional teaching on predestination and God’s foreknowledge. Much of the writing and research in Open Theology seems to be carried out by protestant scholars.
During the 16th-century Reformation, those who defended the traditional faith, such as the Jesuits and Erasmus, emphasised the role of free will and the ability of humans to accept or reject divine grace. The reformers, such as Luther and Calvin, placed greater emphasis on divine grace, and Calvin regarded human free will as almost irrelevant.
This led to extreme views about predestination, with Calvin preaching ‘double predestination’, meaning that God, before creation, chose some individuals for salvation (election) and others for damnation, entirely by his grace and for his glory. The teaching is contrary to that of the Council of Orange of 529 A.D. (endorsed by the Papacy), which stated: “Not only do we not believe that some by divine power are destined for evil, but if any there be who wish to believe so much evil, we anathematise them with all detestation”(1).
It is not surprising that some recent scholars associated with the Calvinist tradition rebelled against the rather extreme doctrine of double predestination. John Sanders (b. 1956) is a notable representative of this group. Though brought up as a Methodist, he became professor of religion and philosophy at the Calvinist-owned Huntingdon University in the U.S.A. He was deeply affected by the death of his brother in an accident, and published writings on the destiny of the unevangelized, which were not considered in keeping with Calvinist tradition. For this, he was dismissed from the university and then held a succession of significant teaching posts elsewhere, including a fellowship at the University of Notre Dame. He published a book, The God Who Risks – a Theology of Divine Providence (a second revised edition in 2007), which was well received by many Christians, though not by Calvinists (2). This blog relies heavily on Sanders’ book.
For many Christians, the most striking claim of Sanders will be that God does not fully foresee the future, a view he shares with other Open Theists. This is because God wanted to create and to have a real relationship with free beings,and therefore, he gave them free will. In this way, human decisions could not be forced by God, but as a consequence, they could not be foreseen or predicted, even by God. Thus, there is an openness to the future. Everything is not being worked out according to some eternal script. Moreover, God is not behind everything that happens in life. There is a randomness in creation. As Saunders expresses it, based on his survey of Scripture, “God has sovereignly decided not to control everything” (Op.cit. p.86).
It is interesting to note in passing that the classical understanding of causality in the natural world has been seriously called in question by the discovery of quantum physics. Classical physics assumed that causality is determined, so that precise initial conditions dictate a unique future. Quantum physics calls this in question, suggesting that the future is not fixed, but is a set of probabilities; in this way, the future is ‘unwritten’ until it is observed. Thus, there appears to be an inherent randomness in creation, making prediction impossible. This random factor affects even the human will, so that it is impossible to be absolutely sure what a human being will choose to do, even though the probability of one course of action may be high.
Open theists like Sanders assert that God cannot do what is logically impossible, which includes predicting what choices human beings will make. Therefore, in creating the world, God took risks, since, notwithstanding impulses of divine grace, it is not possible to know what humans will do. Hence, the name of Sanders’ book, The God Who Risks. Sanders refers to those who, on the other hand, believe that every event is ordained by God, as ‘classical theists’, and as having a ‘no-risk’ position.
In Sanders’ view, this is not to say that God is powerless in this situation of risk. He has infinite wisdom and can adapt creatively to situations where humans make bad decisions, such as Adam’s decision to disobey God and eat the forbidden fruit. God could not create evil, and was not responsible for Adam’s sin, which was a result of Adam’s free choice. We do not know what God originally hoped for Adam and Eve, but the rebellion of Adam must have led him to make enormous adaptations to save the human race, culminating in the incarnation of his son.
Sanders also makes an important distinction between what God ordains and what God allows. God does have foreknowledge in relation to what he ordains, even though he has always to take into account the choices humans make. As Sanders expresses it, “God does not determine all of the future, since he is open to human input… God knows all the past, the present, and that part of the future that is determined. God knows the indefinite future as possibilities and probabilities”. Most events are not specifically ordained by God (Op. cit., p. 219). Sanders asserts that his position is largely in line with the older ‘traditional freewill theism’, as opposed to ‘classical theism’, which holds that every event is specifically ordained by God.
In Sanders view, God has what he calls ‘dynamic omniscience’. God, at least since creation, experiences temporal succession and relates to one event after another. God knows everything which it is logically possible to know. But the future is not an existing reality. God, together with his creatures, creates the future as history unfolds. However, Sanders, quoting John Goldingay, an Anglican Old Testament scholar, points out that the Old Testament never talks about God having a plan for the world. It portrays the various events as responses to concrete situations.
Support from the Bible
There are many predictions about the future in Scripture, some by Jesus, some by the God of the Old Testament, and some by his prophets. For instance, in the Gospel of St Matthew almost the whole of Ch.24 is given over to a prediction of event such as the fall of Jerusalem and the end of the world: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom… the sun will be darkened… and the stars will fall from heaven… he who endures to the end will be saved”. There are prophecies in the Book of Isaiah that seem to predict in considerable detail the sufferings and death of Jesus.
In seeking support from Scripture for his positions, Sanders has to take into account classical or traditional beliefs on the nature of God. It seems likely that Greek and Hellenistic philosophers had a considerable influence in creating a dominant image of ‘God’ among Middle Eastern cultures. The tendency in these philosophies is towards an utterly transcendent God, who is anonymous, ineffable (unknowable), impassible (unaffected by anything or anyone), timeless, and immutable (unchanging) (3).
Many early Christian writers adopted these ideas. However, others accepted them only with important nuances, particularly Justin Martyr and Irenaeus. Tertullian asserted that God can change his mind in response to human actions. The Cappadocians, notably Gregory of Nyssa, broke with Hellenic thought in significant ways; the Eastern fathers held that God foresees what we will do, but his knowledge does not cause us to do so. This is still the Orthodox position.
St Augustine significantly hardened the traditional view when he stated, “If God does not know the future, then he is not God”. However, no ecumenical council discussed the issue, although this and other assertions of Augustine had immense influence on later theologians, including Aquinas.
St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, clearly had a problem with the doctrine of predestination. In his Spiritual Exercises, he states in his notes for spiritual directors that “we should not make it a habit of speaking about predestination… (People) are at times misled, so that they say, ‘Whether I shall be saved or lost, has already been determined, and this cannot be changed, whether my actions are good or bad’”(4). It is significant that Calvin published a considered position on predestination in 1539, and Ignatius published the definitive version of the Spiritual Exercises in 1548.
However, it is in his extensive examination of the Old Testament, particularly Genesis and Exodus, that Sanders seeks the evidence for a God who is very different from the Hellenic template. He identifies more than 30 instances of God changing his mind, sometimes in response to events and sometimes to human imprecation and prayer. For instance, the response of God to the worship of the golden calf by the people (Exodus Ch. 32) is significantly altered by the prayers and arguments of Moses. God says to Moses, “Let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them…” Moses beseeches God to turn from his fierce wrath and repent of “this evil” against his people. And the Lord “repented of the evil which he thought to do to his people”. The passage is remarkable for the difference it portrays from the classic Hellenic view of a ‘god’:
• It shows that God is not in every way immutable, and is shown changing his mind.
• It shows that God is not in every way impassible, but is influenced by the arguments and prayers of Moses. It is a crucial example of prayer making a difference to what happens.
• It shows that God is not impersonal or remote, and has a deep relationship with Moses, to whom he continues to promise that he will make him “a great people”.
• It shows God acting in time. The classical position was that God is “timelessly eternal” and experiences all time at once.
Sanders also discusses at length the episode in Genesis (Ch.22), where Abraham is asked by God to sacrifice his son, Isaac. As Abraham was about to do so, God stops him. “Now I know, he says, “that you fear God”. Sanders asks, “Why test (him) if God eternally knew with certainty how he (Abraham) would respond?”
Sanders quotes the Lutheran scripture scholar Terence Fretheim in identifying four types of divine speech in the Old Testament, indicating that the future is at least partially open. Firstly, there are occasions where God says ‘perhaps’, for instance, “Perhaps they will listen, and turn from their evil ways, that I may repent of the evil which I intend to them. (Jer. 26, 3). Secondly, God sometimes speaks conditionally, such as in “If you repent, then I will let you remain on the land” (Jer. 7:5). Thirdly, God sometimes consults with people of faith in deciding a course of action, such as with Abraham in deciding the fate of Sodom (Gen.18). Fourthly, in deciding a course of action, God asks questions which are not rhetorical, for instance, “What shall I do with you, O Judah?” (Hosea 6:4). Sanders comments that God could have created a fully deterministic world, but chose not to.
Perhaps the most relevant part of Sander’s analysis of the New Testament is his reflection on Gethsemane and the Cross (5). He notes that three times Jesus prays the same prayer: “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not what I want but what you want” (Mt.26,39). Jesus does not want to drink from the cup, which he has been telling his disciples that he must drink. He shows some hesitancy about the path that he has told the disciples that he must take, as if he wonders if it is set in stone. Jesus uses phrases like “if it is possible”; “if it is possible, remove this cup from me”. Jesus seems to wrestle with God’s will, as if he does not believe that everything must happen in accordance with some predetermined plan.
Sanders is not convinced that the cross, as the specific means of the death of Jesus, was in the plan of God all along. He notes that the New Testament writers do not make us of Psalm 22:16, although, since the time of Justin Martyr, Christians have used it. The text is usually rendered as “they have pierced my hands and my feet”, although the Hebrew text reads “like a lion at my hands and feet”. Sanders asserts that all that is required is that the incarnation of the Son was decided on from the beginning as part of the divine project. In general, Sanders is sceptical whether any apparent predictions in the Bible offer conclusive proof of divine foreknowledge.
Various texts in St. Paul’s letter to the Romans have been used to justify a belief in either ‘single’ or ‘double’ predestination. However, many commentators, including Sanders himself do not accept that predestination is a central theme in this section (Chapters 5-11). It is rather an assurance of hope in salvation:
“we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God…Hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts…I am sure that neither death, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God…” (Romans 5-8 passim.)
Sanders consider that the central issues of Chapters 9-11 of Romans are Jewish-Gentile relations and God’s plan for the world. Paul’s concern is to clarify whether or not God’s election of Israel has turned out to be a failure (Op.cit.p.127).
Though not a theme explored by Sanders, it is notable that in many of his letters, Paul mentions the virtue of Hope. For the no-risk school of theism, it is difficult to place much emphasis on the value of hope, if everything is already decided. We normally hope that “things will turn out well”, whereas in the context of a belief in predestination we can only hope that “things have turned out well”, – the book of life is already written. But if that were so, what would be the point, in a prayer like the En Ego, in calling on God to impress upon our heart lively sentiments of faith, hope and charity? Hope is a deep and enduring prayer of the heart, but the efficacy of prayer in changing things is rejected by the no-risk school.
The Question of Prayer
In practice, the issue arising in Open Theology that most affects the day-to-day spiritual lives of Christians is, probably, whether petitionary prayer makes any difference. Is petitionary prayer (where we ask God for help or favours) of any value it the future is already determined?
If we are to assume for a moment that the universe is ‘done and dusted’ and that God has foreknowledge of all things, what is the point of prayer for particular intentions? If God knows whether Bloggs will pass or not pass his exam tomorrow, what is the point of praying about it?
The view of those who believe in total predestination (the ‘no-risk’ school) is that God never responds to us or does anything because of our prayers, as this would imply contingency in God’s plan. In this context, a contingency means an event which is possible but cannot be predicted with certainty. God is also said to be ‘impassible’, meaning that he is not subject to emotional changes or swayed by external influence. In this view, prayer cannot change anything. St. Augustine believed that our prayers have no effect on God, since that would mean that God’s will would be dependent on humans, and that would be a violation of his immutability and impassibility.
Some theologians and spiritual directors who believe in the foreknowledge of God are still likely to offer some considerations to encourage people to pray in such cases. A common suggestion is that our prayers are divinely decreed as part of the process or ‘ingredients’ that could contribute to a successful outcome. Calvin said that God ordains not only goals, but the means to accomplish these goals. Of course, this implies that if we decide ‘on a whim’ to pray for some intention that we are, in fact, only following a pre-written script. Another consideration offered by spiritual guides is that prayer – the ‘raising of the mind and heart to God’ – is always good for us, and is an acknowledgement that all things, including the success or otherwise of Bloggs, are in the hands of God.
The Open Theology school holds that petitionary prayer may influence God. God makes some of his decisions dependent on whether we pray or not. Open theists maintain that this was the position of the traditional freewill theists such as Justin Martyr.
The difference in beliefs about the efficacy of prayer does give rise to different practices. Catholics do not generally believe that the future is already written in stone, and even ‘single’ predestination is rarely discussed (see the comment above about the reservations of St. Ignatius Loyola, which probably had a strong influence on Jesuit and Catholic preaching). In Catholicism, there is a huge tradition of praying for particular intentions. Catholics also place great store on praying for the dead, relying doctrinally on a verse in the Bible (2 Maccabees 12,46 – “It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead”) and on Church tradition, as well as a belief in purgatory.
In general, those in the Protestant or Reformed traditions do not (officially, at least) pray for the dead, both because they do not believe in purgatory, and often because they accept some form of predestination, which would mean that when people are dead, they are already ‘saved’ or ‘lost’ – their destiny has been decided. The inscription R.I.P. (“Requiescat in Pace” – meaning ‘may (s)he rest in peace’) is rarely found on the gravestones of Protestants. However, most Christians, in practice, pray for various intentions, such as for peace, when some of their other beliefs may suggest that it is pointless to do so. The Lutheran theologian George Lindbeck (2023-2018) suggested criteria by which to judge the success of a theological proposal. One of these he called “adequacy for the demands of life”. Perhaps a belief that discourages us from praying for the soul of a loved one is not found adequate by many, and this may have been the case in Sanders’ own life.
In what Sanders calls the ‘risk model’ where God does not control everything that happens in the world, God is genuinely responsive to our prayers. In the Bible, God sent a message to King Hezekiah through Isaiah that the King would die very soon (2 Kings 20). Isaiah prayed and gave God reasons why God should let him live longer. On account of this, God sent Isaiah back to Hezekiah to tell him that God had changed his mind and given him another fifteen years. There are many similar examples in the Old Testament.
In a frequently quoted verse in the New Testament (James 4,2), the apostle says “you do not have, because you do not ask”. In fact, the New Testament has numerous texts in which Jesus encourages people to pray. Some of these are so strong that they give rise to interpretation problems of a different kind, for instance Mark 11,24, where Jesus tells his listeners that whatever they ask in prayer, if they believe that they will receive it, they will. And what are those who believe in a preplanned universe to make of the phrase “Thy will be done” in the prayer which Jesus taught to his disciples? It is clear too that Jesus wanted his disciples to pray for him in Gethsemane. There are numerous biblical references in the letters of St Paul to the early Christians praying for one another. What God decides to do for others sometimes seems to depend on our prayers.
One aspect of praying to God is that it suggests a two-way relationship between God and ourselves. Many spiritual people will say that they believe they are in such a relationship. Theologians of the classical no-risk school strongly resist this notion since it seems to run counter to the impassibility and immutability of God. People are changed by their relationships, and in the no-risk view this cannot happen to God. Yet this argument seems to be contradicted on every other line of the New Testament, where God is described by Jesus as our father, and where we are told that he loved the world so much that he gave his only-begotten son. Sanders quotes with approval the Jesuit theologian W. Norris Clarke, who states that “God is one who enters into deep personal relations of love with his creatures… God is a God who really cares, is really concerned with our lives and happiness, who enters into truly reciprocal relations with us, who responds to our prayers…”(6).
Modern Science
A number of reasons were given at the start of this blog why Christians might have difficulties in arguing against predestination, since it has featured for so long in various strains of theology. One point, coming from the world of physics, but not explored above, is Einstein’s assertion that time is relative, not absolute. In the world of physics, Einstein’s theory of relativity called in question the existence of a universal ‘now’. For instance, what is ‘now’ to me would not be the same ‘now’ for a person travelling at a different speed or in a different gravitational field. Einstein postulated that time is relative, not absolute, and that the distinction we make between past, present, and future is “a stubborn illusion”.
It is very difficult for a non-specialist to offer a credible opinion on the physics of this, and Sanders concedes that he is in this category, as am I. However, I think a few observations can be made. Firstly, Einstein is talking about the space-time continuum, a mathematical construct he and others proposed to address the remarkable puzzle of relativity. Images like that of an undulating fabric are proposed to help the imagination grapple with this construct, but the totality of the continuum is not an observable object. The ‘future’ may be a blank part of the spacetime continuum which has yet to be filled.
What is notably missing from Einstein’s statement is anything about the content of the future. For instance, as I write this blog, I am alive, and at some time in the future, I will not be. But there is only one now that I am conscious of, not two (or multiple) nows, in one of which I am alive, but, in the other, dead. It may be, as mentioned above, that, due to relativity, my now is not quite the same as your now, but for me (and for each of us), there is only one current reality. It is doubtful if there are many who believe that the distinction between ‘alive’ and ‘dead’ is part of a ‘stubborn illusion’. Einstein seems to have had some kind of profound insight about the universe, but he has not managed to describe it well.
Conclusion
This blog has relied on various points taken from Sanders’ book, The God Who Risks, which at least raises questions about the validity of this doctrine in its classical form. Sanders attributes to John Calvin the statement that no theologian can be more than seventy per cent correct.
Different readers will find some of Sander’s arguments more compelling than others. People’s beliefs about predestination are shaped by many factors, such as their personality, the kind of God they want to believe in, their experience of great, inexplicable tragedies, their religious upbringing, and so on. Sanders says about the different models that “all models have problems…the model you settle on often comes down to a decision about which problems you are willing to live with.” In the end, it is up to you, dear reader, to decide whether or not the universe is “done and dusted”.
Notes
1. Quoted in The Teaching of the Catholic Church (Karl Rahner), Mercier Press, 1967, p.413.
2. My thanks to Patrick Murphy for bringing Sanders’ book to my attention. Patrick is a semiconductor R & D engineer working on the design of microchips for AI. He is also a Catholic healthcare chaplain and is currently pursuing an M.Th. in St. Patrick’s Pontifical University, Maynooth. He is also an occasional contributor to The Furrow.
3. Hard copies of The God Who Risks are scarce, and it appears that they can only be ordered online. Soft copies can also be found online, but the book is 384 pp.
4. It should be noted that in 325 A.D., the Council of Nicaea declared that the divinity of the Son was immutable. However, this was in response to an Arian statement that “There was a time when he was not”. The statement was made to safeguard the divinity of the Son, not to rule out reciprocal relations between God and humans, which would imply that God is affected by external agents.
5. The Spiritual Exercise of St.Ignatius trans. Louis J.Puhl, S.J., The Newman Press, 1954, p.160.
6. In this section Sanders acknowledges the contribution of E. Frank Tupper’s A Scandalous Providence: The Jesus Story of the Compassion of God, Mercer University Press, 1995.
7. Sanders, Op.Cit. p.164. Quotation from W. Norris Clarke, God Knowable and Unknowable, Fordham University Press, 1973, p.44.
