I wrote this several days ago and never posted it but I want to get it off my desktop now and I figure this is as good a place as any to dump it.
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What does the “test of Abraham” (Gen 22)prove about the knowledge of God?
For the open theist who claims this passage proves his point, he is on the horns of a dilemma for it proves too much. First, it erases God’s knowledge of the past and present. God had already known Abraham’s faith and counted it to him for righteousness. For the OT, such knowledge and “crediting” is useless because there was still more to be known. He could not know the present state of Abraham’s heart for he must await a test to find it out. However, even then, the most the test would prove is the immediate commitment, not the future commitment. That would still await to be seen. Therefore, God could say nothing of the future. Second, it renders ridiculous the claim of the author of Hebrews that Abraham believed God would raise him from the dead if necessary. Third, it renders the test meaningless because God since God stopped him short of carrying out the act, he could not really know anything about Abraham’s true faith. Perhaps in the last several inches of the plunge with the knife, Abraham would have backed out. Fourth, Abraham's faith was already known by the statement "We will go worship and we will come again." There are other reasons that could be given but this is enough for now. Gen 22 is a very weak passage to support a very weak position.
The God of the OT renders prayer unnecessary and useless for divine intervention that might sway the free choices of man would certainly be less than fair. The God who risks must want a level playing field (isn't that the reason for abandoning control to begin with?) Therefore, to intervene for one person from whom people are praying while not intervening for another person who simply was not lucky enough to have concerned Christian friends who prayed for him would be a gross injustice and violation of fairness.
The OT has no real God at all. The God of the OT is not omnipotent; he is reactive—omnicompetent—able to react to whatever man might throw his way. The God of the OT cannot have ordained a redemption before the foundation of the world because he simply could not have known man would have sinned. He could not have had a predetermined plan for the crucifixion as Peter says in Acts 2 because he had no way to know that man would sin and no way to know that Rome would have domination over the Jews and no way to know that Jews would hate the Messiah and … ad infinitum. God could only know the almost infinite numbers of possibilities thereby filling God’s head with useless information.
The God of OT deals with the suffering of mankind with, as one person put it, plausible deniability. He simply didn’t know what would happen. He could not, as Joseph said, "meant it for good." In fact, he could not have meant it for anything because he could not have meant it period. He simply could not have known what the brothers would do. He has, as this person said, become Clintonian: “I didn’t know. I feel your pain.” What a glorious God that must be.
The most recent two issues of BibSac have a two part review and rebuttal of the Open Theism idea which is well worth reading.
[ October 17, 2001: Message edited by: Pastor Larry ]
