At 11:47 PM 1/17/2006, Pim van Meurs wrote to David:
>>Higher criticism and "liberal" theology, of
>>course, do reject this understanding, partly
>>becuase they have sought to constrain God
>>within the limits of human understanding and physical laws. ~ David
>
>I find your claims without much merrit..." ~ Pim
### Funny. I find your claims to be without much merit
See if you can recognize any of your beliefs
among those listed under: "In Their Own Words" in the item below.
This is the first in a series of articles that
will examine various doctrinal and societal
challenges the evangelical church must face early
in the 21st Century. Today we will look at the
doctrine of open theism. Future articles will
examine the Emerging Church, ecumenism,
postmodernism, and a variety of other topics.
Open theism is a relatively new doctrine that has
only gained popular prominence since 1994 with
the release of the book The Openness of God which
was written by five evangelical scholars and
edited by Clark Pinnock. What began on the
fringes of scholarship has quickly gained a
popular following, in part because of the
publication of entry-level titles such as Gregory
Boyd's God of the Possible and in part because of
the acceptance of the doctrine by various popular
authors. While many evangelicals do not embrace
this doctrine themselves, they may regard it as
an optional doctrine that remains within the pale
of orthodox evangelicalism. This article will
define the doctrine, describe its chief
characteristics, introduce its proponents and
explain the challenge to the church.
A Definition
This is a definition I have adapted from
Monergism.com. "open theism is a sub-Christian
theological construct which claims that God's
highest goal is to enter into a reciprocal relationship with man.
In this scheme, the Bible is interpreted without
any anthropomorphisms - that is, all references
to God's feelings, surprise and lack of knowledge
are literal and the result of His choice to
create a world where He can be affected by man's
choices. God's exhaustive knowledge does not
include future free will choices by mankind
because they have not yet occurred."
One of the leading spokesmen of open theism,
Clark Pinnock, in describing how libertarian
freedom trumps God's omniscience says, "Decisions
not yet made do not exist anywhere to be known
even by God. They are potential--yet to be
realized but not yet actual. God can predict a
great deal of what we will choose to do, but not
all of it, because some of it remains hidden in
the mystery of human freedom ... The God of the
Bible displays an openness to the future (i.e.
ignorance of the future) that the traditional
view of omniscience simply cannot accommodate."
(Pinnock, "Augustine to Arminius, " 25-26)
Defining Characteristics
Open theism is characterized in several ways:
* God's greatest attribute is love. God's
love so overshadows His other characteristics
that He could never allow or condone evil or suffering to befall mankind.
* Man has libertarian free will. Man's will
has not been so effected by the Fall that he is
unable to make a choice to follow God. God
respects man's freedom of choice and would not infringe upon it.
* God does not have exhaustive knowledge of
the future. Indeed, He cannot know certain future
events because the future exists only as
possibility. God is unable to see what depends on
the choices of free will agents simply because
this future does not yet exist, so it unknowable.
In this way open theists attempt to reconcile
this doctrine with God's ominiscience.
* God takes risks. Because God cannot know
the future, He takes risks in many ways -
creating people, giving them gifts and abilities,
and so on. Where possibilities exist, so does risk.
* God learns. Because God does not know the
future exhaustively, He learns, just as we do.
* God is reactive. Because He is learning,
God is constantly reacting to the decisions we make.
* God makes mistakes. Because He is learning
and reacting, always dealing with limited
information, God can and does make errors in
judgment which later require re-evaluation.
* God can change His mind. When God realizes
He has made an error in judgment or that things
did not unfold as He supposed, He can change His mind.
The most important thing to note is that God
knows the future only as it is not dependent on
human, free-will decisions. God does not know
what any free-will agents (ie humans) will do,
because those decisions do not yet exist and God
cannot know what does not exist. God decided, in
Creation, that He would limit Himself in this way
in order to give complete freedom to human
beings. Therefore, God does not know or control
the future - He learns from our decisions and
constantly adapts as necessary. He often needs to
change His mind or re-evaluate His options as the future unfolds.
Chief Proponents
The best-known proponents of open theism are:
Clark Pinnock - Clark Pinnock spent 25 years
preaching, teaching, and writing at McMaster
Divinity College after having served previously
at the University of Manchester, New Orleans
Baptist Theological Seminary, Trinity Evangelical
Divinity School, and Regent College in Vancouver.
He is best-known for his contribution to the book
The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the
Traditional Understanding of God.
Greg Boyd - Greg Boyd is the Senior Pastor at
Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minnesota and
previously served as a Professor of Theology at
Bethel College for sixteen years. In 2000, Dr.
Boyd founded Christus Victor Ministries, a
nonprofit organization that promotes faith which
satisfies the mind and inspires the heart. Dr.
Boyd regularly speaks at academic and religious
conferences, college campuses, and churches
throughout the United States and abroad. His most
popular book is God of the Possible which is a popular defense of open theism.
In Their Own Words
There is no better way of understanding a
doctrine than through the words of those who
believe and teach it. So let's turn to some of
the prominent Open Theists and hear them in their
own words. I will provide brief commentary where appropriate.
We must wonder how the Lord could truly
experience regret for making Saul king if he was
absolutely certain that Saul would act the way he
did. Could God genuinely confess, "I regret that
I made Saul king" if he could in the same breath
also proclaim, "I was certain of what Saul would
do when I made him king?" Common sense tells us
that we can only regret a decision we made if the
decision resulted in an outcome other than what
we expected or hoped for when the decision was made.
Gregory Boyd – God of the Possible, page 56.
Boyd tells us of a God who regrets - a God who
sorrows over decisions He has made as He is
genuinely saddened by the results of His poor decision.
God makes a covenant with his creation that never
again will virtually everything be annihilated.
The sign of the rainbow that God gives us a
reminder to himself that he will never again
tread this path. It may be the case that although
human evil caused God great pain, the destruction
of what he had made caused him even greater
suffering. Although his judgment was righteous,
God decides to try different courses of action in the future.
John Sanders – The God Who Risks, page 50.
In this quote we are told that God regrets. God
suffered greatly as a result of a decision He
made - a decision that may have been rash. It may have been an over-reaction.
I suggested to her that God felt as much regret
over the confirmation [of marriage] he had given
Suzanne as he did about his decision to make
Sault king of Israel. Not that it was a bad
decision - at the time, her ex-husband was a good
man with a godly character. The prospects that he
and Suzanne would have a happy marriage and
fruitful ministry were, at the time, very good.
Indeed, I strongly suspect that he had influenced
Suzanne and her ex-husband [toward] their marriage.
Because her ex-husband was a free agent, however,
even the best decisions have sad results. Over
time...[he] had opened himself up to the enemy's
influence and became involved in an immoral
relationship. Initially, all was not lost, and
God and others tried to restore him, but he chose
to resist the prompting of the Spirit.
By framing the ordeal within the context of an
open future, Suzanne was able to understand the
tragedy of her life in a new way. She didn't have
to abandon all confidence in her ability to hear
God and didn't have to accept that somehow God
intended this ordeal "for her own good." ... This
isn't a testimony to [God's] exhaustive definite
foreknowledge; it's a testimony to his unfathomable wisdom.
Gregory Boyd – God of the Possible, pages 105-106.
This has become one of the best-known defenses of
open theism and is a story that is told often.
God did the best with the information He had at
the time and confirmed a woman's choice of
husband. But God was later surprised to see this
man prove himself anything but a good husband.
God did His best to restore this man, but was
unable. God had ultimately made a mistake in
confirming Suzanne's choice of a spouse.
The overarching structures of creation are
purposed by God, but not every single detail that
occurs within them. Within general providence it
makes sense to say that God intends an overall
purpose for the creation and that God does not
specifically intend each and every action within
the creation. Thus God does not have a specific
divine purpose for each and every occurence of
evil. The "greater good" of establishing the
conditions of fellowship between God and
creatures does not mean that gratuitous evil has
a point. Rather, the possibility of gratuitous
evil has a point but its actuality does not. ...
When a two-month-old child contracts a painful,
incurable bone cancer that means suffering and
death, it is pointless evil. The Holocaust is
pointless evil. .. God does not have a specific
purpose in mind of these occurrences.
John Sanders – The God Who Risks, pages 261-262.
Quotes like this one were used to comfort a
shocked world during the aftermath of the Tsunami
of 2004. Many professed Christians denied that
God had a hand in this disaster, and that He had
foreknowledge of it. According to Open theology,
there is no purpose in gratutious suffering and
evil, and it occurs outside the will and foreknowledge of God.
It is God's desire that we enter into a
give-and-take relationship of love, and this is
not accomplished by God's forcing his blueprint
on us. Rather, God wants us to go through life
together with him, making decisions together.
Together we decide the actual course of my life.
God's will for my life does not reside in a list
of specific activities but in a personal
relationship. As lover and friend, God works with
us wherever we go and whatever we do. To a large
extent our future is open and we are to determine
what it will be in dialogue with God.
John Sanders – The God Who Risks, page 277.
This quote emphasizes the reciprocal nature of
the relationship between men and God espoused by
Open Theists. Humans and God work together to
create, know and understand the future. When it
comes to the future, God is no further ahead we
are and no more responsible for what will happen.
[W]e must acknowledge that divine guidance, from
our perspective, cannot be considered a means of
discovering exactly what will be best in the long
run - as a means of discovering the very best
long-term option. Divine guidance, rather, must
be viewed primarily as a means of determining what is best for us now.
[S]ince God does not necessarily know exactly
what will happen in the future, it is always
possible that even that which God in his
unparalleled wisdom believes to be the best
course of action at any given time may not
produce the anticipated results in the long run.
David Basinger – The Openness of God, pages 163 & 165.
Basinger tells us that God's guidance is accurate
only for the present - only with a view to the
knowledge God currently possesses. Because God
does not know the future, His guidance cannot
extend beyond the present. Even the best of God's
wisdom can only anticipate results based on current conditions.
Where You Might Encounter open theism
John Eldredge - Though Eldredge denies he is an
open theist, the evidence does not support his
claim. Time and time again he speaks of God in
ways that can only be explained if you hold such
views. While the following quotes are taken from
Wild at Heart, similar beliefs are expressed in
at least one of his other works (The Sacred
Romance). "God is a person who takes immense
risks" (p. 30). "It's not the nature of God to
limit His risks and cover His bases" (p.31). "As
with every relationship, there's a certain amount
of unpredictability. God's willingness to risk is
just astounding. There is definitely something
wild in the heart of God" (p. 32).
Gregory Boyd - Boyd's books are becoming
increasingly popular. The doctrine is evident
even in the books that do not specifically address open theism.
I have encountered open theism in books written by other lesser-known authors.
Concerns
The chief concerns with open theism are as follows:
* A Denial of Omniscience. While men like
Greg Boyd deny that open theism denies God's
omniscience, this is simply not true. Even if it
is true that the future exists only as
possibilities, something that is not adequately
proven by open theists, we are still putting a
limit on God's knowledge when we state that He
cannot know these possibilities. This view of
God's knowledge of the future is unique in that
it is at odds with every other Judeo-Christian tradition.
* God's goodness, greatness and glory are at
stake. The God of the Open Theists is, in the
words of Bruce Ware, too small. He is not the
all-knowing, all-powerful God revealed so clearly
in the pages of the Bible. Christians need to
always be concerned that both they and God are
making poor decisions based on inadequate
information. Thus we cannot always count on God
to do what is best, because even He does not always know what this is.
* The Christian's confidence in God is at
stake. If open theism is true, the Christian
cannot put his full trust and confidence in God.
"The God of open theism will always want our
best, but since he may not in fact know what is
best, it becomes impossible to give him our
unreserved and unquestioning trust" (Bruce Ware,
Their God is Too Small, page 20. When hardships
arise we will have to ask if God anticipated
these, or if He is as shocked and distressed as we are.
My View
Needless to say, I find this doctrine wholly
incompatible with our knowledge of God as
presented in His Word. While open theism
contradicts the understanding of God in every
Judeo-Christian tradition, it is most completely
at-odds with the Reformed understanding, which
teaches the highest view of God's foreknowledge
and sovereignty. This doctrine undermines our
confidence in God and erodes our trust in His
promises that He always has our best interests in
mind. It is a dangerous, pernicious doctrine.
Unfortunately, with it being subtly taught by
popular teachers like John Eldredge, it is being
introduced to millions of Christians who may come
to accept the view of a risk-taking God without
understanding the consequences of such a view.
Resources [snips]
If you are going to read only one book on the
debate, I would recommend
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=ur2&camp=1789&tag=dietofbookwor-20&creative=9325&path=tg/detail/-/1581344813/>Their
God is Too Small
~ Janice
Received on Wed Jan 18 01:49:47 2006
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