According to Sanders, open theism affirms the core doctrines and practices of freewill theism but believes that freewill theism needs to be modified on two points to explain certain biblical passages better and to be logically consistent. First, the majority (but not all) of freewill theists have affirmed that God is atemporal and so does not experience time. Open theists believe this is incompatible with the biblical portrayal of God interacting with creatures in which there is a before and an after and a give and receive in the divine experience. Also, Sanders believes that divine atemporality is incompatible with the core tenets of freewill theism since an atemporal being cannot be said to receive or respond to anything because an atemporal being simply cannot change in any respect. Since freewill theists believe that some of God's decisions are responses to human actions (e. g. in prayer and salvation) which implies change in some of God's actions, they should not affirm divine atemporality. Open theists hold that God is everlasting (always was, is, and will be) rather than atemporal.