Norman Leo Geisler’s biblical critique of divine omniscience in open theism

The article is dedicated to a biblical critique of open theism by the evangelical theologian Norman Leo Geisler. Open theism is a theological concept formed by Protestant theologians in the late 20th century. Open theism has caused a great discussion and controversy within Evangelicalism, which requires research and has a certain relevance for the Orthodox theology, since the ideas of open theism are currently expressed by some Orthodox theologians and publicists. One of the most important elements of open theism is a specific understanding of the divine attribute of omniscience. According to open theism, God is exhaustively aware of the past and present, but his omniscience does not extend to the future, since it does not exist ontologically and cannot be cognized due to the creatures’ free action unpredictability. This article examines the basic interpretation methods of the Bible by open theists and the biblical counterarguments formulated by Norman Geisler concerning the omniscience. N. L. Geisler is one of the first evangelical theologians to criticize the concept of open theism. Geisler authored his first critical monograph against open theism in 1997, and in 2001 he released his second study, which took into account new works by open theists and refined and supplemented the arguments of the previous monograph. The paper concludes with an evaluation of Geisler’s biblical arguments based on his two studies.