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Stephen Williams' review of my book, The God Who Risks [B&C, November/December 1999], raises some issues he believes I should address and others which he thinks I sophomorically ignored. Let me see if I can shed some light on three important issues he raises, and so make the book seem less naive than the reader of his review might conclude.
Williams opens with a satire on what he believes would be my paraphrase of the Annunciation. Here the issue is predictive prophecy and whether things will happen precisely the way God says they will. It is true that there are many predictions in the Bible that come to pass exactly as God said. However, there are also a number of predictions where what God said would happen did not, in fact, occur. King Hezekiah, for example, falls ill and is informed by Isaiah, "Thus says the Lord … you shall die and not live" (2 Kings 20:1). God explicitly says that the king will not recover from this illness. However, Hezekiah prays, and God sends Isaiah back to the king to announce that God has rescinded his decision. Now, even though God spoke unconditionally, it turns out that this was a conditional prophecy (this will happen unless something changes), but we know it was conditional only because it did not occur as God first said.
One of the differences between Williams and myself is the number of conditional predictions we believe are in Scripture. Our habit is to classify the unfulfilled predictions as "conditional" and the fulfilled ones as "unconditional." In my view, many of those typically classed as unconditional were actually conditional prophecies which came about because God's unspoken conditions were met. The subtitle to Williams's review asks, "Were the biblical prophecies mere probabilities?" No. But were some (even many) of the biblical prophecies conditional utterances? The answer to that is, Yes.
Thus far, Williams has gotten me mostly correct. But am I committed to all he accuses me of in his satire? No, because he plays down the other two explanations of prophecy from the openness view. First, some predictions ex press God's intention to do something in the future irrespective of human decision. These predictions do not depend upon a "crystal ball" by which God sees the future; rather, they depend upon the power of God to carry them out (the issue is omnipotence, not omniscience). Second, some predictions are based on God's exhaustive knowledge of the past and present (our character, physical circumstances, and so on). God knew Mary's heart so thoroughly that God could be quite certain she would comply even though she retained the freedom to refuse God.1
Next, Williams claims that the passages I discuss regarding God changing his mind, regretting things, grieving over sin, and responding to prayer are not "hermeneutically significant" while the passages he cites are. He bases this claim on two grounds. First, by his deep feelings, intuitions, and "religious sensibilities" he just knows I'm wrong, so there is no need to "adjudicate all the substantive issues." This is like some present-day naturalists who say, "Because of our scientific sensibilities we just know intelligent design is wrong, so there is no need to consider any evidence which might call our sensibilities into question." What is there to argue with? Second, Williams claims that the view of God seen in the latter prophets should rule out the passages in earlier writings, such as Exodus and Samuel, where God changes his mind, grieves and responds to prayer. He asserts that I completely ignore this issue.
In fact, however, in The God Who Risks I cite several studies regarding the prophets, including some later than Isaiah, demonstrating that the belief that God changes his mind was a key doctrine throughout the Old Testament and not merely in the early writings. Jeremiah 18 has a lengthy discussion of divine repentance, and both Joel (2:13) and Jonah (4:2) have creedal formulations saying that God is a "gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who changes his mind." I take such creedal affirmations to disclose the unchanging nature of God, and it is hermeneutically significant that divine changing of mind is included in describing that nature. Williams asserts that Isaiah would not recognize the view of God portrayed in The God Who Risks. If so, then Isaiah would not recognize the God of Jeremiah, Joel, or Jonah either.
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