Why Psalm 139 Is So Often Misused
Psalm 139 is one of the most beautiful descriptions of God’s care for His people. It celebrates His nearness, His attentiveness, and His unfailing presence. But it has also become a go-to passage for defenders of classical theism, who argue that it proves God exhaustively foreknows every future detail.
“O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.” (Psalm 139:1–4, NKJV)
The assumption is: If God knows my words before I say them, then He must already know every word, thought, and action I will ever commit. Therefore, the future is exhaustively settled in His mind before it even happens.
But is that really what David meant?
Reading Psalm 139 in Context
Notice the verbs: “You have searched me and known me.” This is not the language of detached foresight. It’s relational and experiential. God’s knowledge of David is described in the present — a knowledge arising from intimacy, not from scanning an eternal film reel of the future.
David continues:
- “You know my sitting down and my rising up” — these are daily, observable activities.
- “You understand my thought afar off” — not predicting, but perceiving.
- “There is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O Lord, You know it altogether” — God knows the intention before the word is fully formed, not because it was eternally scripted, but because He sees David’s heart in real time.
As Greg Boyd (an Open Theist) explains in God of the Possible (2000), “This text emphasizes God’s closeness and attentiveness to us, not His eternal knowledge of a frozen future. It’s about God knowing us better than we know ourselves.”
Knowing Thoughts ≠ Predetermining Thoughts
Modern neuroscience confirms what Scripture already suggests: thoughts are physical events. They are produced by electrical and chemical processes in the brain. Electroencephalograms (EEGs) can even measure them.
To “know” a thought is to perceive it when it occurs — to see the impulses, patterns, and intentions as they take shape. That’s very different from saying every thought was a pre-scripted entry on God’s eternal checklist.
Clark Pinnock, in Most Moved Mover (2001), says: “God’s knowledge is dynamic, not static. He knows reality as it happens. He knows possibilities as possibilities, and actualities as actualities. Psalm 139 is not about frozen foreknowledge but about a living God fully engaged with our lives.”
What About God’s Omniscience?
Some worry that this interpretation undermines omniscience. But it doesn’t. Omniscience means God knows everything there is to know.
- If the future is partly open (because of free choices not yet made), then there is nothing there to be known as a fixed fact.
- What God knows perfectly are all the possibilities and all the present realities.
John Sanders, in The God Who Risks (1998), puts it like this: “God’s omniscience is not diminished by an open future. Rather, it means that God knows reality as it is — partly settled, partly open.”
A Relational God, Not a Cosmic Scriptwriter
Psalm 139 is deeply personal. It celebrates a God who is near, who hems us in behind and before (v. 5), who formed us in the womb (v. 13), and whose thoughts toward us are precious (v. 17).
This is the God who walks with us, not a cosmic playwright watching a pre-scripted drama unfold. If you turn Psalm 139 into a doctrine of exhaustive foreknowledge, you rob it of its relational beauty.
Richard Rice (who coined the term Open Theism) writes: “The psalms portray a God of involvement, not detachment. God grieves, rejoices, reacts, and responds. The future is not a script but a relationship unfolding.”
Conclusion
Psalm 139 is not proof of determinism. It is proof of intimacy. It teaches that:
- God knows us more deeply than we know ourselves.
- God perceives our thoughts and intentions in real time.
- God’s knowledge is relational and dynamic, not mechanical and exhaustive.
When read in context, Psalm 139 harmonizes with the whole biblical witness of a God who engages with His people, responds to their cries, and genuinely interacts with their choices.
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