I previously asked, What did Elder Neal A. Maxwell think about time and God? and proposed that he may have tempered his views on fixed future omniscience based on conversations with Blake Ostler. However, I have since found a few more quotes from Neal A. Maxwell after 1984 that are still fairly forceful and I want to add to the record on mostmovedmover.com about his views in this additional post. I hope to be respectful to his words while discussing how they relate to an openness view of God’s future. Hopefully, we can see why he had concerns about an attack on fixed future omniscience. In the process, I will discuss why fixed future omniscience is seen as needed to have faith in God based on multiple conversations I have had with friends and family. I will also provide explanations for a contingent future view of omniscience that equally provides a solid footing of faith in God’s power to save us.

Plain and Precious Things (1983)

In Plain and Precious Things starting on page 55 Neal A. Maxwell spends five pages putting forth his belief for a timeless God. I think his arguments for a timeless God were to combat a lack of faith in a God in whom we could trust. For him, fixed future omniscience is the justification of faith and trust in God. I think that these five pages were the building blocks of the conversation that Blake Ostler and Neal A. Maxwell had in 1984.¹ The quotes below come before the Blake Ostler letter from Elder Maxwell.

But modern revelations make it abundantly clear that God is not ‘in time’ in the manner that we mortals are. This is precisely what some able and perceptive commentators have surmised as they have wrestled sincerely with this dilemma, though without ‘plain and precious’ modern scriptures. (Neal A. Maxwell, Plain and Precious Things, p. 57)

…

For God, the past, the present, and the future are one. In fact, in modern scriptures the Lord has even defined truth as a time-spanning “Knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come” (D&C 93:24.) Truth is, indeed, time spanning, for “truth abideth and hath no end.” (D&C 88:66)

One ancient group was described as “highly favored” of the Lord. Why? Primarily because of economic blessings? No, because certain multidimensional and time-transcending facts were made know to them, “having been such a highly favored people of the Lord, … having had all things made known unto them, according to their desires, and their faith, and prayers, of that which has been, and which is, and which is to come.” (Alma 9:20) The truths given to those favored people provided a precious perspective, a longitudinality that time-bound, mortal man especially needs.

Just how crucial access is to time-transcending truth may be pondered in the setting in which Sherem, an agnostic, berated a prophet for preaching a Christ to come “many hundred years hence.” Sherem declared that “there should be no Christ.” Indeed, he said, it was even blasphemous for prophets to teach of things to come, for “no man knoweth of such things; for he cannot tell of things to come.” (Jacob 7:1-7) The anti-Christ was a “here and now” person who, ironically, put himself forward as if he were the judge of what constituted orthodoxy. (Neal A. Maxwell, Plain and Precious Things, p. 58)

These truths carry many implications that, even with the precious and helpful clarification, are too magnificent for mere mortals to manage fully. But they tell us enough to help us to trust even more deeply in the manner in which God balances our agency and His omniscience.

This pleading from King Benjamin shows the way to regard and adore our omniscient God: “Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend.” (Mosiah 4:9) (Neal A. Maxwell, Plain and Precious Things, p. 59)

Neal A. Maxwell’s conversation around Sherem in Jacob 7:1-7 seems to be the crux of his argument about God’s knowledge of the future. He seems to equate belief in a future of possibilities for us and God as equivalent to Sherem’s teaching that ’no man knoweth of such things; for he cannot tell of things to come.’ However, when those that believe in openness principles around time, God, and His omnipotence talk about the future, they (including myself) are careful to say that God knows the part of the future that is knowable and controllable by His will. He knows how to save His children in all times. You can see this phrasing in Greg Boyd’s post on openness theology².

The issue concerning the “openness of the future” is not about the infallibility or fallibility of God’s foreknowledge, but rather about the nature of the future which God infallibly foreknows. Is it exclusively foreknown and predetermined by God, or does God determine some aspects of the future and sovereignly allow other aspects to remain open?

So I agree with Neal A. Maxwell’s larger argument that a belief in a God that can’t speak and guarantee a future salvation for those that choose a relationship with God is on shaky ground. I see two ways to view omniscience to maintain the faith of a promised future salvation through Christ. A fixed future omnisicience and a contingent future omniscience both put God front and center in our faith.

Lord Increase our Faith (1994)

About 10 years after the Blake Ostler letter Neal A. Maxwell published a book in 1994 titled Lord Increase our Faith³ where he he reiterates his belief in a timeless God.

While a person is thinking his way through his particular hesitations or reservations about faith, he might ask, “Does God really know what I am passing through?” The answer is “Yes!” He knows! He also knew—through His foreknowledge. We worship an omniscient Father—a stunning characteristic of God which we forget at the peril of our perspective. Hence understanding the implications of key doctrines is part of further developing one’s faith. (Lord Increase our Faith, Pg. 39)

I love the question, ‘Does God really know what I am passing through?’ and I love his answer. I also believe that God fully comprehends what each of us is passing through. I also agree that if we can’t answer the question of God’s understanding and concern for us in the affirmative that we may be struggling with our faith. However, he is also stating that God sits outside of our time and that he knows and knew at the same moment. He may be implying that we can either believe in his fixed future timeless omniscience or fall into doubt and fail to trust God.

He is eloquently stating what I have heard many friends and family try to say around fixed future omniscience. If God doesn’t know the future then He doesn’t know us and what we are passing through. Thus, they are equating fixed future omniscience with intimacy and safety in a relationship with God. When fixed future omniscience is challenged they feel that God’s caring is challenged and rightly defend God’s character of love. However, I am not sure that dichotomy is the only choice.

Openness theology looks to God’s agency, wisdom, faith, and power to bring a future to pass that He wills as an equivelently grand way to trust God. We see His wisdom and love that works with us in the now to bring us into an intimate union with the Godhead. I see this relational theology concept in the continuation of Neal A. Maxwell’s quote which is a great treatise on relational agency and love.

One may ask, with all else God has to do, does He really care about me or mine? Yes! He is a perfect Father, with attributes of perfect love and mercy. He is not only fully aware, but He cares. He knows, too, how good and conscientious parents can sometimes “take” more themselves than they can watch their children “take.” But since He would not take away the cup from His Only Begotten and “Beloved Son” in Gethsemane and Calvary, He will not always intervene for us, either, as we might sincerely desire in the life crises of our children. (Lord Increase our Faith, Pg. 40)

I love that paragraph and enjoy the sentence, ‘He is not only fully aware, but He cares’ as a great way of describing omniscience and how it is used with His omnibenevolence.

Then Neal A. Maxwell dips back into fixed future omniscience to justify how God can handle our missused agency and quotes Joseph Smith in saying that God ‘has made ample provision’ as connected to God knowing each outcome of our lives.⁴ I would argue that an omniscience where all possible futures are known instead of the exact fixed future fits with the following paragraph’s argument to trust God.

Does God already know the outcome of that through which I am passing? Yes! And He has taken that outcome, foreknown to Him, into account along with all other outcomes. In the Prophet Joseph Smith’s words, God “has made ample provision,” so that the purposes in His plan of salvation will be achieved—including our part within that plan, if we are faithful. (Lord Increase our Faith, Pg. 40)

Finally, Neal A. Maxwell may be referencing omniscience in the use of the word foreknowledge. He requires the foreknowledge and love of God for us to believe in a God that does not intervene to make our lives less challenging.

The inability to believe in the foreknowledge of the Father and Jesus and in their perfect love perhaps accounts for many failures of faith. As some encounter life’s proving purposes, resentment of the challenges may cause a misunderstanding of God’s plan. To those of little faith, His nonintervention is mistakenly taken to mean God either isn’t there or doesn’t care. (Lord Increase our Faith, Pg. 39)

I think I might rephrase his quote to say, ‘The inability to believe in the [Father’s and Son’s power and agency to guarantee our opportunity to choose Them] and in their perfect love perhaps accounts for many failures of faith …’ We can devote our lives to Him because we trust his omnipotence to ‘do the future’ as He speaks His word.

Care for the life of the soul (2003)

In one of his last General Conference talks in 2003 Neal A. Maxwell reiterates his belief in a fixed future omniscience with the sentence; ‘God lives in an eternal now where the past, present, and future are constantly before Him (see D&C 130:7).’ I previously discussed Wendy Ulrich’s understanding of ‘one eternal now’ that helps us understand this phrasing without imposing a timeless God.⁴

Our own intellectual shortfalls and perplexities do not alter the fact of God’s astonishing foreknowledge, which takes into account our choices for which we are responsible. Amid the mortal and fragmentary communiques and the breaking news of the day concerning various human conflicts, God lives in an eternal now where the past, present, and future are constantly before Him (see D&C 130:7). His divine determinations are guaranteed, since whatever He takes in His heart to do, He will surely do it (see Abr. 3:17). He knows the end from the beginning! (see Abr. 2:8). God is fully “able to do [His] … work” and to bring all His purposes to pass, something untrue of the best-laid plans of man since we so often use our agency amiss! (see 2 Ne. 27:20). (Neal A, Maxwell, General Conference (2003))

Once again, Greg Boyd has an articulate explanation of God’s future knowledge that lines up well with most of the above quote.

[Some depict] open theists as denying “exhaustive divine foreknowledge.” Open Theists often contrast their view with the classical view of “exhaustively definite foreknowledge,” not “exhaustively divine foreknowledge.” Indeed, the phrase “exhaustively divine foreknowledge” seems quite redundant. Is there a non-divine form of exhaustive foreknowledge?

The difference between “exhaustive divine foreknowledge” and “exhaustively definite foreknowledge” is significant. If one is willing to understand the open view in terms of its own understanding of reality, open theists do not deny that God possesses exhaustive knowledge of the future. In our view, as in the classical view, God’s knowledge is co-extensive with reality. What we deny is that the future is exhaustively definite. In our view, the future is partly composed of possibilities. Hence, precisely because we affirm that God’s knowledge is perfect, we hold that God knows the future as partly definite and partly indefinite. He possesses exhaustive foreknowledge, for he knows everything about the future there is to know. But he does not possess exhaustively definite foreknowledge, for the future he perfectly knows is not exhaustively definite. As we have consistently maintained, the disagreement between open theists and classical theists is not over the scope of God’s knowledge, but over the content of reality that God’s perfectly knows.

Neal A. Maxwell’s larger message throughout all of his quotes on God’s knowledge of the future fits well with openness theology. He does attach to one concept that seems to imply ’exhaustively definite foreknowledge’ when he repeatedly says ‘God lives in an eternal now where the past, present, and future are constantly before Him (see D&C 130:7)’. I have referenced my understanding of Joseph’s quote about ‘one eternal now’ and D&C 130’s ‘past, present, and future’ in my posts Understanding the Rythm of ‘one eternal now’, [Pondering Past, Present, and Future continually before the Lord (D&C 130:7)](../ pondering-past-present-and-future-continually-before-the-lord-d-c-130-7/), and It’s about time (Abraham 3 and D&C 130). Like Joseph Smith and Neal A. Maxwell, I believe that God’s plan of salvation and the wonderful works of Jesus Christ were known before they happened and that those facts can be leveraged to support our faith in diety and our future salvation.

Conclusion

I don’t think the doctrine of omniscience and it’s relation to the future is settled in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For those that think within fixed future omniscience, their reasoning is often based on a belief in a God that is not bound by past, present, and future - that he lives in a timeless space or reality.⁵ This timelessness creates logical problems with God knowing the future and our individual agency to choose our future. Those LDS that want a fixed future omniscience know that God can’t force our hand on agency and that He will respond to our prayers of faith. This connundrum leaves them to proclaim the incrompehensibility of God stated by King Benjamin in the Book of Mormon, ’that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend.’⁶

I too proclaim incomprehensibility in God. However, my incomprehensibility is in how He can state His Word in the face of the chaos of billions of agent’s contigent choices and that His plan of salvation can be guaranteed. I think a contingent future omniscience allows God to act in our lives in the moment and to be affected by us in the moment in our’s and God’s Now without reaching for incomprehensibility around fixed future omniscience, time, and agency. As Neal A. Maxwell stated, we can trust in God’s knowledge of the future ‘so that the purposes in His plan of salvation will be achieved’ and that each of us is provided the agency to have a ‘part within that plan, if we are faithful.’ I believe He is the Most Moved Mover and that he responds in the moment to our agency which then changes part of the future for Him and can drastically change our future with Him.

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