In my recent article, Not His Plan? A Reformed Response to a Common Prooftext Error, I critiqued a popular misuse of Hosea 8:4—especially among Open Theist Provisionists who argue that certain events occur outside of God’s knowledge or decree. But a new response came in—not from an Open Theist, but from a non-Open Theist Provisionist named Jarod (not John) O’Reilly. Jarod rejects the extreme implications of Open Theism, but he still insists that Hosea 8:4 teaches that these kings were “not part of the plan.” God didn’t want it, didn’t cause it, and only afterward adapted His response.
This softer Provisionism wants to keep divine foreknowledge while denying divine ordination. But it creates more problems than it solves. In what follows, I’ll respond to four points from O’Reilly’s critique, showing that the Reformed reading not only better fits the text of Hosea 8:4, but also avoids collapsing into the very thing O’Reilly is trying to avoid: a god who reacts rather than reigns.
1. “Appealing to the two wills was a weak move.”
It’s understandable to raise an eyebrow at theological categories not explicitly stated in a single verse. But the distinction between God’s sovereign will (His decree) and His moral will (His command) isn’t a Reformed gimmick—it’s a biblical necessity.
Even Jarod O’Reilly likely affirms that God created the universe by His will. But here’s the challenge: does God will the universe into being in the same way He wills that people not sin? If yes, then God is clearly failing in power—He wills righteousness constantly, and yet sin persists. If no, then welcome to two-will theology. The only question is whether you’ll be consistent with it.
In Hosea 8:4, God says: “They set up kings, but not by Me.” Yet these very kings are later used by God to judge Israel. So did He have no sovereign intention concerning them at all? Are we really to believe He was hands-off and surprised—only to pivot quickly and use them after the fact? No. The Reformed view makes better sense: God morally disapproved, but sovereignly ordained.
This distinction is not a Reformed invention. It’s an attempt to make sense of the Bible’s own tension: God holds men accountable for sin—and yet nothing happens apart from His counsel and will (Eph. 1:11).
2. “They want the passage to say, ‘They set up kings, but I didn’t desire that.’ But it says, ‘not by Me.’”
Right—and “not by Me” is a prophetic idiom, not a metaphysical declaration of divine absence. The Hebrew lo mimmeni (לֹא מִמֶּנִּי) is used elsewhere (like Isaiah 30:1) to indicate disobedience—not lack of divine involvement. It refers to acting contrary to God’s revealed will, not apart from His sovereign plan.
The passage doesn’t require us to say God was uninvolved, surprised, or playing catch-up. It simply means the people acted without God’s moral approval. In fact, the same prophets who announce God’s disapproval also portray God as sovereignly using the very instruments of rebellion for His purposes.
3. “Appealing to two wills may be convincing to the already Reformed, but is hardly exegesis.”
This is a tired dodge. The two-wills framework isn’t something Reformed theology imposes on the text—it’s something the text itself forces us to recognize. Over and over again, Scripture reveals a God who morally forbids certain actions but sovereignly ordains those same actions for a greater purpose.
- Genesis 50:20 – “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.” Joseph’s brothers sinned—but their sin was not outside God’s intention. He didn’t merely use it after the fact—He meant it.
- 1 Kings 22 – God sends a lying spirit to false prophets, even while condemning lies.
- Acts 2:23 – Jesus was crucified “by the hands of lawless men,” yet this happened “according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.”
If you deny the two-wills distinction, then you’re stuck: either God is the author of sin (because He wanted the sin in itself), or God is helpless in the face of sin (because He had no purpose in it and is only reacting). Reformed theology refuses both extremes. Instead, it maintains what Scripture consistently teaches: that God ordains all things—including sinful acts—without being morally implicated in them.
Jarod O’Reilly dismisses the two-wills distinction as a theological construct, but then tries to smuggle it in through the back door. He says God didn’t plan these kings, but permitted them—and then used them. But wait: if God knowingly permitted their rise, and had a purpose in doing so (e.g., to judge Israel), then it was His plan—by permission. There is no way to coherently affirm divine permission without affirming divine intent. To permit something knowingly and purposefully is to plan it, even if one morally disapproves of it.
So the position ends up contradicting itself: it says God had no plan for the kings, but that He permitted them for a reason. That’s just a roundabout way of affirming God’s plan while pretending not to. The only consistent alternative would be to say God neither wanted nor planned nor permitted them—which is full-blown Open Theism.
In short: deny the two-wills distinction, and you either make God the author of sin or deny His sovereignty. Affirm it, and you get a God who is holy and sovereign—just like the Bible presents Him.
4. “This wasn’t the plan, but God can work it out anyway.”
This is the linchpin of O’Reilly’s entire critique—and it’s also where his position collapses under its own weight.
To his credit, Jarod O’Reilly admits that my original article gave a solid response to Open Theism. But here’s the irony: the very reading of Hosea 8:4 that he offers ends up affirming the core of Open Theism anyway. While claiming to reject the idea that God is caught off guard or lacks foreknowledge, O’Reilly insists that these kings arose outside of God’s plan—that God didn’t want it, didn’t cause it, and merely adapted after the fact. That’s functionally no different from the Open Theist claim that some events are outside of God’s sovereign design. A different vocabulary can’t cover over identical logic.
Let’s grant the premise for a moment: the people set up kings, and God didn’t approve. Reformed theology agrees. But what O’Reilly insists on is more than moral disapproval—he insists it wasn’t part of God’s plan. That’s a step too far. Because once you claim something happened that God didn’t will in any sense—not morally, not sovereignly, not providentially—you’ve left classical theism and opened the door to a reactive, contingent god who responds to history instead of ordaining it.
Provisionists like O’Reilly want to say God is sovereign and all-knowing, but then treat large swaths of history as outside His intention. They say, “Well, this wasn’t the plan, but God can still use it.” But if it wasn’t the plan, how exactly does God know how to use it? What information is He using to repurpose events He supposedly didn’t foresee or decree?
At best, this reduces divine sovereignty to post hoc brilliance—God as a master chess player responding to our moves. That’s not the God of Scripture. That’s a deistic strategist, not a sovereign Lord.
Let’s go further. O’Reilly says God “didn’t plan” these kings, but Scripture contradicts that at every turn:
- Acts 17:26 – “He made from one man every nation of mankind… having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place.”
- Romans 13:1 – “There is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.”
- Daniel 2:21 – “He removes kings and sets up kings.”
- Proverbs 16:33 – “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.”
These aren’t isolated prooftexts—they represent a consistent biblical witness. The rise and fall of kings, the rebellion of nations, even evil plots like the crucifixion (Acts 2:23)—all fall under God’s sovereign plan, even as He remains morally pure.
So when O’Reilly says, “this wasn’t the plan,” he’s pitting his interpretation of Hosea 8:4 against the rest of the Bible. That’s not sound exegesis—it’s tunnel vision.
And it gets worse. If this wasn’t God’s plan, then either:
- God was unaware it would happen (denying omniscience),
- God was powerless to stop it (denying omnipotence),
- God saw it coming but decided to allow it without any purpose (denying providence), or
- God saw it coming, didn’t want it, didn’t cause it, but now has to work around it (affirming divine improvisation).
All four options are theological disasters. And three of them walk right into the Open Theist framework O’Reilly says he rejects.
There is a way to uphold both divine sovereignty and moral disapproval without collapsing into contradiction—and that’s the Reformed view. God ordained even what He hates. He uses sinful human decisions to accomplish righteous ends. That’s how Joseph’s brothers meant evil, but God meant it for good (Gen. 50:20). That’s how the greatest evil—the crucifixion of Christ—was done “according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23), even though it involved wicked men.
O’Reilly’s view can’t make sense of this. He wants to protect God’s goodness by denying divine intention—but he ends up denying God’s sovereignty in the process. What he needs is what Reformed theology provides: a sovereign God who ordains all things, even the rebellion of men, for His glory and the good of His people.
So let’s be clear: Hosea 8:4 is a statement of covenantal disapproval—not cosmic shock. The people acted against God’s law, but they did not step outside His plan. If your theology says otherwise, it’s not the Bible you’re following—it’s a philosophical system that’s allergic to tension.
5. “God didn’t even know them—so how could it be His plan?”
This objection might seem decisive on first glance: “They appoint princes, but I do not know them” (Hosea 8:4). Doesn’t that imply these leaders arose apart from God’s knowledge or plan? Not if you understand the way Scripture uses the language of divine knowing.
Duane Garrett helpfully clarifies that the phrase “I do not know them” (וְלֹא יָדָעְתִּי) does not mean God lacked information about these leaders. God is omniscient. Rather, this is covenantal language. These rulers were “strangers to Yahweh”—not recipients of His grace, not chosen, not appointed by Him in any moral or redemptive sense. As Garrett notes:
“The implied object of ‘know’ is the leaders whom the Israelites appoint. The NIV’s ‘without my approval’ is an odd translation for yada. Israelites appoint leaders without consulting Yahweh, and… those whom they appoint are themselves strangers to Yahweh in the sense that they are untouched by grace and outside the covenant (much as what ‘I never knew you’ implies in Matt 7:23).”
In other words, this is not about epistemology—it’s about election and relationship. The leaders Israel chose had no covenantal legitimacy. But God absolutely knew of them. In fact, He used them to bring judgment. The point is not ignorance or absence of control, but rejection of their legitimacy and rebellion against God’s ordering of leadership.
To press this further: if O’Reilly really thinks this verse teaches that God didn’t even know the rulers Israel appointed, what kind of theology of God is he working with? Does he believe God learns things? That He discovers who the king is after the fact? That’s not just bad exegesis—it’s a concession to Open Theism.
The Council 