Re: [asa] God, Chance and Purpose

No, I don't know whether he would subscribe to either open or process theology but I can't really say since he doesn't use those terms. He does devote his last chapter to theology and titles it "God and risk." The preface paragraph summarizing this chapter states:
"The central thesis of this book is that God uses chance. This appears to carry the implication that God takes risks. This simple statement has repercussions for most parts of theology but here we focus on the central issue. What is required is a theology of risk and this is what the chapter aims to provide. After some theological preliminaries, I commend a view which it is proposed to call critical orthodoxy."

In the very last section of that chapter he writes "God's omnipotence thus remains intact because total control is simply not possible and God cannot do what is logically impossible. However our view of the matter is greatly enlarged when we glimpse the ingenuity in the interplay of chance and necessity. His way of working involves far greater subtlety than the crude mechanical analogy of naive orthodoxy."

and finally his penultimate paragraph is: "His providence is to be seen in the rich potential with which the creation is endowed. The future is not wholly predetermined and hence is open to a measure of determination by God and ourselves. God's purposes are achieved as we align our actions with his will and, perhaps, also by his direct action."

BTW, thanks to Paul's post at http://www.calvin.edu/archive/asa/200805/0075.html I got it for $19.99.

Randy
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: David Opderbeck
  To: Randy Isaac
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2008 11:13 AM
  Subject: Re: [asa] God, Chance and Purpose

  This would be an excellent choice for the reading group blog some of us are working on putting together -- except for the price ($65!!). (Shameless plug -- for those who might be interested -- a number of us are putting together a reading group -- the first book is Alister McGrath's new book on natural theology ("The Hidden Secret") -- discussion will be via a blog we're setting up -- email me if interested).

  Randy -- do you have a sense of what Bartholomew's particular theological perspective is?
  Open theist? Process?

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Thu Jun 5 11:49:02 2008