Posts tagged Religious Studies

Why Simple Foreknowledge is Still Useless (In Spite of David Hunt and Alex Pruss)

by Brian Martin in William Hasker

William Hasker*
Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 52/3 (September 2007): 534-544
Original PDF may be downloaded here: Why foreknowledge is still useless.

I. INTRODUCTION : THE FIRST ARGUMENT

The doctrine of simple divine foreknowledge (SF) is probably the most common way of understanding divine knowledge of the future among non-Calvinist evangelicals. Simple foreknowledge means that God has complete, exact, and certain knowledge of the actual future, including the future free actions of human beings, in contrast with the probabilistic knowledge of the future postulated by open theism. Simple foreknowledge is “simple” in that it affirms merely that God knows the future, but not that he predetermines it as is held by theological determinism (Calvinism). And simple foreknowledge implies that God knows the actual future, but not (as is asserted by the theory of divine middle knowledge, or Molinism) that he knows hypothetical futures, such as what actions would be chosen by free creatures under possible circumstances that never in fact occur.

Recently, however, simple foreknowledge has been criticized by arguing that it does not, in fact, afford the theological benefits it is commonly thought to offer.1 Foreknowledge is often thought to be important because of its benefits for God’s providential government of the world. For instance, by knowing what is going to happen in the future, God is able to inspire prophets to foretell the future. He can also prearrange events and circumstances in the light of a foreknown future occurrence, so as better to achieve God’s purposes in the world. (An example: by foreknowing Saul’s disobedience and unfitness for the kingship, God was able to prearrange circumstances so as to facilitate the eventual elevation of David, such as by arranging David’s spectacular victory over Goliath.) The arguments mentioned above, however, claim to show that simple foreknowledge offers no such benefits: if God has simple foreknowledge, he is no better off in these respects than if he had only complete knowledge of past and present. To the extent that these arguments are successful, simple foreknowledge tends to be eliminated as a serious contender, and the debate about divine providence becomes a three-way discussion between Calvinists, Molinists, and open theists.2

The main objections to date against the arguments in question are those raised by philosopher David Hunt.3 Hunt does not deny that both Calvinism and Molinism afford God more providential control than can be provided by simple foreknowledge. However, he has serious reservations about both of those doctrines, and he argues that simple foreknowledge does indeed allow God greater providential control than is possible with merely probabilistic knowledge of the future. In this paper I address the most recent article in which Hunt defends his claims.4 I will show not only that he has not succeeded in demonstrating how simple foreknowledge is providentially useful, but that he cannot possibly succeed in showing this, given the understanding of divine foreknowledge with which he is working.5

My case against Hunt can be stated in the form of a simple, three-step argument:

(1) Simple foreknowledge is providentially useful if and only if God can determine, on the basis of his simple foreknowledge, how he shall act providentially in the world.

(2) If Hunt’s view of foreknowledge is correct, God cannot determine, on the basis of his simple foreknowledge, how he shall act providentially in the world.

(3) Therefore, if Hunt’s view of foreknowledge is correct, simple foreknowledge is not providentially useful.

These points, however, require further comment. Step (1) merely clarifies what is meant by the claim that foreknowledge is providentially useful. In order to be useful, it must enable God to act in the world, on the basis of his foreknowledge, in ways such as those described above–enabling prophets to predict the future, prearranging circumstances in the light of foreknown events, and the like. It should be particularly noted that simple foreknowledge needs to be of use to God in ways that go beyond what is possible for God on the basis of knowledge of the past and the present, plus probabilistic knowledge of the future such as is postulated by open theism.6 So understood, I do not think (1) is open to serious challenge.

The remaining task, then, is to justify premise (2). In order to do this we need to explain a distinction, first made by John Sanders, between two ways of understanding simple foreknowledge. The first of these is termed “Complete Simple Foreknowledge” (CSF) and is explained by Sanders as follows: “even though he knows things will occur in sequence God does not acquire the knowledge in sequence. God simply sees the whole at once.”7 The other way of understanding simple foreknowledge is termed “Incremental Simple Foreknowledge” (ISF) in which God “timelessly accesses the future in sequence or incrementally.”8 (Here as elsewhere in this article, references to God knowing or deciding things sequentially should be understood as referring, not to temporal succession–which according to SF does not exist in God’s knowing and deciding–but to the logical or explanatory order between different events. The key idea here is that events that are “later” in the explanatory order can happen because of events earlier in the order, but not vice versa.) The potential benefit of ISF is that after accessing one segment of the future God could then, on the basis of what he has accessed, make some decision concerning his own future actions before going on to access additional parts of the future.

Now, Sanders quickly dismisses CSF, and spends most of his article arguing that ISF is providentially useless. Hunt does not challenge the latter claim, but he thinks Sanders made a serious mistake in dismissing CSF. On the contrary, Hunt urges, CSF provides precisely the resources for divine providential action we have been looking for. I think it is not difficult to see that Hunt is mistaken about this. For consider: according to CSF, God “sees” the entire future all at once, in a single glance as it were, including God’s own future actions and the reasons for which God will perform those actions.9 Now, can we make any sense at all of the notion that God, on the basis of this knowledge of the future which already contains his own actions, determines what those actions shall be? I submit that we cannot. Those future actions are all already determined; they are spread out before him in his complete knowledge of the future. At this point, there is no “determining” left to be done! This can be stated as a formal argument, as follows:

(1) In order for God’s decisions to be made on the basis of his foreknowledge they must be subsequent, in the logical and explanatory order, to that foreknowledge.

(2) In order for God’s decisions to be included in God’s foreknowledge th decisions must be prior, in the logical and explanatory order, to that foreknowledge.

(3) Therefore, if God’s decisions are included in God’s foreknowledge (as they are according to CSF), those decisions cannot be made on the basis of his foreknowledge.

Once we have seen this, it is crystal clear that premise (2) of the argument given above is correct: God cannot determine, on the basis of his simple foreknowledge, how he shall act providentially in the world.
Hunt, however, wants to resist this conclusion. He writes, “Certainly God couldn’t make foreknowledge of his own action A the ‘basis’ for that very action A; but there’s no reason why he couldn’t use foreknowledge of other events as the basis for A” (p. 378). Now, the first part of what Hunt says here is undoubtedly correct. It makes no sense to picture God as saying to himself, “I know that I will arrange for David to defeat Goliath, and for that reason, I now decide that I will arrange for David to defeat Goliath.” But what is the alternative? According to Hunt, what we should suppose is that God, while fully aware that he is going to arrange for David to defeat Goliath, ignores that fact and reasons thus: “I desire the eventual elevation of David to the kingship, and for that reason I now decide that I will arrange for David to defeat Goliath.” But this makes no sense either! The only reasonable conclusion is that because God already knows all about the fact that he will arrange for David to defeat Goliath, as well as the reasons for which he will do that, there is no more decision to be made concerning that matter. But this conclusion is fatal to Hunt’s argument.

Hunt, however, still wants to resist, and in order to do this he argues that God’s knowing what he is going to do does not preclude his subsequently (in the explanatory order) deciding to do that very thing. He invokes a subtle distinction here, roughly the distinction between knowing that one will perform a certain action, and willing to do that thing–or, one might say, endorsing the action in question. He gives the example of a time traveler who, traveling into the future, sees himself committing suicide.10 He knows that he will perform this act, but he may not (at this point) will or endorse the action in question. (He may actually be horrified to see what his future self is doing.) So, Hunt reasons, God’s knowing that he will perform some providential action in no way precludes God’s subsequently deciding to do that very thing.

There are at least two reasons why this example does not help to save Hunt’s position. First of all, the time traveler knows the fact about what he will do, but be may not understand the reasons why he will do it. And even if he does know the reasons he may not yet appreciate the reasons in such a way that they lead him to endorse the decision. In order to fully appreciate them, he may need to live through the intervening life history up to the moment of suicide. But it is out of the question that God, in contemplating his own future actions, should be unaware of his reasons for those actions or should fail to fully appreciate those reasons. So the example, even if successful on its own terms, fails to throw any light on the alleged providential usefulness of simple foreknowledge.

But the example does not even succeed on its own terms. The time traveler does not, after seeing himself commit suicide, determine that he is going to perform this action. He may “decide” to perform it, in the sense that he decides to “go along with the inevitable” and do what it is already unavoidable that he should do. But the determination has “already”11 been made, by his future self; at most he can decide to ratify that already-made determination.

Given CSF, the conclusion is clear: God cannot determine, on the basis of his simple foreknowledge, how he shall act providentially. The determination in question has already been made prior to God’s accessing his foreknowledge, which already contains the actions in question. God is no more able to determine what action he will take than the time traveler is able to determine that he will commit suicide.12 Premise (2) is secure, and simple foreknowledge as conceived by Hunt is useless.

II. A SECOND ARGUMENT

At this point we turn to the somewhat different argument put forward by Alexander Pruss.13 Pruss’s specific concern is with prophecy, and his goal is to show that simple foreknowledge does indeed provide resources for divine prophecy–something that we have argued is not the case on David Hunt’s view of foreknowledge. Can Pruss succeed where Hunt has failed?

It is initially encouraging to see that Pruss is aware of some of the logical problems that are inherent in such an endeavor. He recognizes that were he to have complete knowledge of the future, including his own future actions, “then not only this knowledge would not help me make a free decision but, it seems, would undercut the very possibility of my making a free decision” (p. 435). We have seen exactly this problem in Hunt’s view of foreknowledge, so we will need to see how Pruss avoids it. Again, in speaking of Christ’s
prophecy that Peter will deny him, he says,

God’s belief that Peter will deny him must be responsive to Peter’s choice. What explains why God believes that Peter will deny him is God’s omniscience together with Peter’s actual future denial. But God’s belief is explanatorily prior to God’s decision to speak to Peter.14 And God’s speaking to Peter is explanatorily prior to Peter’s decision, it seems, since it is a part of what formed the character that Peter had while making the decision. This means that we have a vicious circularity in the order of explanation.15

Once again, it is encouraging to see that Pruss is aware of the problem. Furthermore, he lays out his strategy–or rather, two possible strategies–for avoiding these problems when he says the response must be “that God is in effect bracketing this categorical knowledge [of the future] when making the decision or that God’s knowledge of the future is posterior in the order of explanation, but not in the temporal order, to the decision about what future to actualize” (435; emphasis original). So we need to see how Pruss implements these strategies.

In order to solve these problems, Pruss needs to find something God’s decision can be based on, other than merely God’s foreknowledge of what will actually happen. In order to do this, he postulates, as a necessary truth, a “relevant similarity principle” which states that differences in circumstances do not matter for what Peter will do, so long as these differences are “invisible to the agent”-that is, they make no difference in the situation that the agent is able to detect. Pruss, however, is not fully satisfied with this, so he stakes a claim for an even broader relevant similarity principle:

The principle that invisible differences between circumstances do not matter might be part of a wider principle that all that matters in the circumstances is the time, the character of the agent, the subjective mental state, external causal influence on the agent, and maybe the history of previous choices.16

We might wonder what benefit is derived from these principles. Here is the answer: Pruss sees that it will not do to picture God as reasoning thus: “I know by my foreknowledge that I will tell Peter he will deny Jesus. Therefore, I decide that I will tell Peter that he will deny Jesus.” As he rightly sees, that sort of divine thought process would undercut the possibility of God’s making a genuine decision to say this to Peter. So, there must be some other reason, other than the mere fact that God knows he will say this to Peter, which is reason for his saying this. And the relevant similarity principles give him a way of getting this other reason. For example, very possibly, God knows that, at the time when he is questioned by various persons in the high priest’s courtyard, Peter will have forgotten (temporarily) what Jesus said to him. And this means (according to Pruss) that Peter’s character, his subjective mental state, the external causal influences on him, and so on would be exactly the same, whether or not Jesus told Peter that Peter would deny him. So God knows the following concerning Peter:

(PD) If Peter is in such-and-such circumstances in the courtyard, then, regardless of whether or not Jesus tells Peter that Peter will deny him, Peter will in fact deny Jesus.

Based on this knowledge, God issues the prophecy to Peter. And since the reason for the prophecy is not the fact that God knows that he will issue the prophecy, God’s ability to make a free choice is not impeded and circularity of explanation is avoided. Or so Pruss supposes.

By this time, however, things have gone seriously wrong. First of all, Pruss’s relevant similarity principle, which he posits as a necessary truth, is very likely false. Notice that the principle makes no mention of the subject’s neurological state: it does not matter what that may be, so long as the difference is not introspectively perceptible to the agent. Now, in the light of contemporary neuroscience, this is highly implausible. One need not be a materialist, nor need one embrace neurological determinism, to think it very likely that one’s neurological state can have a major influence on one’s decisions, even in cases where the differences in neurological state are subjectively indetectible. (Note that Peter’s neurological state was certainly affected in a significant way by what Jesus had said; this is shown by the fact that, immediately after the threefold denial, he remembered Jesus’ words to him.)

But this is really a secondary point. For, even given the relevant similarity principle, how is it that God is able to know (PD)? The answer Pruss gives is, because of his foreknowledge. That is to say, God knows that Peter will deny Jesus in the actual circumstances, in which Jesus has said to Peter that Peter will betray him. And by combining this knowledge with the (supposedly) necessarily true relevant similarity principle, God arrives at the truth of (PD). And by using (PD) instead of his foreknowledge as the reason for telling Peter that he will betray Jesus, this account avoids the problems noted by Pruss and referenced above.

But this just will not work. Explanation is a transitive relation: If A explains B, and B explains C, then A explains C. (That is to say, A is part of the explanation why C is the case; at each step, the factor indicated may not be the complete explanation.) If God’s knowledge that Peter will deny Jesus is the explanation for God’s knowledge of (PD), and God’s knowledge of (PD) is the explanation for God’s issuing the prophecy, then God’s knowledge of Peter’s denial is the explanation for God’s issuing the prophecy. So far, Pruss would not disagree. But here is the key point: Does the prophecy not constitute a part of the explanation for Peter’s denial? Pruss, I think, wants to answer the question “No,” because (by hypothesis) Peter would have denied Christ with or without the prophecy. But that, I contend, is a mistake. God’s knowledge of Peter’s denial is not to be thought of as knowledge of the bare proposition “Peter will deny Jesus.” It must, rather, be understood as a complete grasp of the concrete event of Peter’s denial, including all relevant facts about Peter at the time of the denial. And these facts will undoubtedly be different in many details as a result of Jesus’ prophetic words to Peter. (Again, recall that just moments after his denial, Peter is able to recall what Jesus had said to him.) So the prophecy is (in part) the explanation for Peter’s state when he denies Christ, and the explanatory circle has not been avoided. It is still the case that the prophecy to Peter is explained (in part) by Peter’s total state in denying Christ, and Peter’s state in denying Christ is explained (in part) by the prophecy. None of Pruss’s elaborate and ingenious maneuvering has succeeded in avoiding this explanatory circle. But as Pruss agrees, such explanatory circles are unacceptable; therefore his account fails.

Nor does Pruss escape the difficulty that God’s foreknowledge of how Peter acts under the circumstances in which he has been told by Jesus that he will betray Jesus actually prevents God from making a free decision to issue the prophecy. Admittedly, Pruss is less explicit than David Hunt on the question of Complete Simple Foreknowledge vs. Incremental Simple Foreknowledge. Matters are clarified, however, if we recall Pruss’s proposal that “God is in effect bracketing this categorical knowledge [of the future] when making the decision.” If the knowledge is bracketed, then it is “there” in his foreknowledge, even if it is not, as such, being used to make the decision. So we are in the same situation we imagined in Hunt’s case where, as we saw, “God, while fully aware that he is going to arrange for David to defeat Goliath, ignores that fact and reasons thus: ‘I desire the eventual elevation of David to the kingship, and for that reason I now decide that I will arrange for David to defeat Goliath.’” And as we observed before, this makes no sense. If the knowledge the God will issue the prophecy is included in God’s foreknowledge, then the decision to issue the prophecy is explanatorily prior to that foreknowledge. But if the decision is made on the basis of the foreknowledge (which we have seen is the case on Pruss’s scenario), then the foreknowledge is explanatorily prior to the decision. The contradiction is palpable, and it has not been avoided by all of Pruss’s skillful maneuvering.

I am afraid that for some readers the more technical nature of this discussion of Pruss’s work may pose a problem. I can only say in extenuation that Pruss’s actual discussion is a great deal longer and more technical than anything I have said about it here! What is striking, however, is that in spite of his admirable ingenuity he has not, in the end, succeeded in evading the same problems that we found in Hunt’s simpler and more straightforward presentation. To be sure, the discussion of this topic is still relatively young, and it may be premature to conclude that there will be no further twists and turns in the debate. But the fact that two extremely capable philosophers, working independently and using different approaches, still leave us with the same intractable problems should caution us against undue optimism. For now, the most reasonable conclusion to draw is that simple foreknowledge is still useless.17

Who has affirmed dynamic omniscience and the open future in history?

by Brian Martin in John Sanders

John Sanders

Updated April 2013

Briefly, the position is that God has exhaustive knowledge of the past and the present and knows as possibilities and probabilities those events which might happen in the future. God could have created a world in which he knew exactly what we would do in the future if God had decided to create a deterministic world. Consequently, God cannot know as definite what we will do unless he destroys the very freedom he granted us. Vincent Brümmer writes: “God knows everything which it is logically possible to know. But God knows all things as they are, and not as they are not. Thus he knows the future as future (and not as present, which it is not). He knows the possible as possible (and not as actual, which it is not).”1 God does not possess exhaustive definite foreknowledge (EDF) of future contingent events.

Aristotle put forth the problem of the truth value of future contingent propositions (De Interprtatione 9), claiming that they could be neither true nor false. There were questions about how to interpret Aristotle’s remarks which led to lively debate among those who discussed this question. The issues involved in divine foreknowledge were much discussed by philosophers after Aristotle.

The dynamic omniscience view was affirmed by several non-Christian writers such as Cicero (first century B.C.E.) Alexander of Aphrodisias (second century C.E.) and Porphyry (third century).2 Cicero argued that if God has exhaustive definite foreknowledge (EDF) then humans cannot have libertarian freedom so Cicero denied EDF.3

For the reasons used to support belief in an exhaustively definite future in both secular Greco-Roman thought and in Christianity see “Motivations for Ascribing Foreknowledge to God” by Gregory Boyd on this website.

Commenting on the work of Aristotle, Boethius and several medieval theologians held that statements about the future lack truth value yet they also held that God has exhaustive definite foreknowledge (EDF).4 Also, Boethius (see Consolations, 5.4), Augustine (City of God, 5.9.37-9), Bonaventure and Aquinas are familiar with the dynamic omniscience position of Cicero (see W. Craig, Problem of Divine Forekowledge, 59). Boethius also knows about Alexander of Aphrodisias who produced an argument similar to Cicero’s. Boethius and other Christians were more concerned to deflect the charge that Christianity implied fatalism rather than about Aristotle’s question regarding the truth value of future propositions. It was charged that if the God of the Bible predicts some future events, then the future must be determined.

These authors produce an array of solutions to the problem and those after them critique these answers and either modify them or offer new proposals. Most seem aware of the dynamic omniscience view but think that it either (1) fails to explain biblical predictions or (2) would imply that God has changing knowledge which would undermine their understanding of divine immutability. The great Aquinas (thirteen century) argues that if God is temporal (experiences changes of any kind) then the only options are determinism or dynamic omniscience. He says that a temporal God can only have EDF (exhaustive definite foreknowledge) if all is determined from prior causes. This is why he rejects the simple foreknowledge view because he thinks it removes human freedom. Another factor, for Aquinas, is that “the future does not exist and is therefore not knowable in itself” because it lacks being (Summa Theologica 1.89.7.3). For Aquinas, the simple foreknowledge view of the church fathers (the same view what will become dominant in Arminian and Wesleyan circles) is deterministic. He believes that if God is temporal and humans have freedom then one should affirm the dynamic omniscience view. However, Thomas argues that since God is timelessness God can know an exhaustive definite future without it being determined. The important point here is that Aquinas thought the dynamic omniscience view was a legitimate option and he thought it should be affirmed if God is temporal and humans are free.

After Boethius, the mighty river of EDF followed the channel of divine timelessness though there were a few other channels such as divine determinism. However, in recent Christian philosophy the flow in the channel of timelessness has been seriously reduced in favor of dynamic omniscience and middle knowledge

The earliest Christian proponent thus far found is Calcidius (late fourth century).5 He wrote several books one of which is against fatalism and determinism (this work did not become well known until the middle ages). In it he says that since God knows reality as it is he knows necessary truths necessarily and future contingent truths contingently.6 Some Medieval Christian writers anticipate and seem to affirm an open future: Peter Auriol (thirteenth century) and Peter de Rivo (fifteenth century).

Some Islamic scholars affirmed dynamic omniscience: some in the Qadarite school (eighth century) and Abd al-Jabbar, an important figure of the Mu’tazilite school (tenth century).7 In Judaism the view has been widely held. God’s statement to Abraham “Now I know that you fear me” (Gen 22:12) was much discussed by Medieval Jewish theologians, a number of whom affirmed dynamic omniscience and the open future including the renowned Ibn Ezra in the twelfth century and Gersonides (Levi ben Gerson) in the fourteenth.8

John Miley claims that some of the Remonstrants (Dutch followers of Arminius) advocated it in the sixteenth century.9 The Anabaptist Fausto Socinus affirmed it though he, unfortunately, also denied many traditional Christian beliefs such as the deity of Christ and the trinity.10 If one tries to discredit open theism because a heretic affirmed the same view of omniscience then should the Reformation be discredited because this same heretic affirmed several of the key tenets of Calvin?

In the early eighteenth century, Samuel Fancourt published several works defending the dynamic omniscience view including Liberty, Grace and Prescience and latter, in 1730, What Will Be Must Be. He argues that the issue is not about the scope of God’s knowledge but about the nature of reality: are contingencies real or not? Andrew Ramsay (1748) put forth a variant of this position, claiming that though the future is knowable and so God could know it, God has chosen not to exercise this ability in order to preserve human freedom. John Wesley (1785) reprinted Ramsay’s material on this in Wesley’s Arminian Magazine.11

The position became much discussed in Methodism from the latter eighteenth into the twentieth century.12 In the early nineteenth century the well known Methodist biblical commentator, Adam Clarke (1831), defended it as did the well-known circuit preacher Billy Hibbard (1843).13

Hibbard says that he learned of the view from an article in a Methodist magazine but he develops the position much more than the Methodists before him. In the latter nineteenth century Lorenzo D. McCabe, a Methodist theologian, wrote two large, detailed works covering every biblical text relevant to foreknowledge (for example, Peter’s denial) as well as numerous theological arguments.14 According to McCabe, dynamic omniscience was widely affirmed by British and German theologians of his day and he cites other Methodists who held the view. In America, McCabe’s publications sparked a significant discussion in Methodist circles that lasted several decades.15 John Miley, an influential Methodist and contemporary of McCabe, speaks highly of McCabe’s work in his Systematic Theology (which was widely used well past the middle of the twentieth century). Though Miley affirmed prescience (foreknowledge) he recognizes a key problem that he does not know how to answer: How can God interact with us in reciprocal relationships if God has prescience? He says that if belief in an interactive God is contradictory to prescience then he will give up prescience. He goes on to say that belief in dynamic omniscience would not undermine any vital Methodist doctrines and would, in fact, free Methodism from the perplexity of divine foreknowledge and human freedom.16

Quite a number of articles and books affirming open theism from people in various denominations appeared in the nineteenth century (see the “Open Theism Timeline” chart). These folks affirmed traditional Christian orthodoxy and were generally evangelical in orientation. Edward Pearson (1811). Verax (1818), James Bromley (1820), John Briggs (1825), James Jones (two books 1828, 1829), Onesimus (1828), John Bonsall (1830), Richard Dillon (1834), Robert Bartley (1839), Joseph Barken (1846), William Robinson (1866), James Morison (1867), William Taylor (1868), Hans Martinsen (1874), J. P. LaCroix (1876), J. J. Smith (1885), Thomas Crompton (1879), Isaiah Kephart (1883), B. F. White (1884), J. J. Miles (1885), Joseph Lee (1889), J. S. Brecinridge (1890), W. G. Williams (1891), H. C. Burr (1893), William Major (1894), S. Hubbard (1894), J. Wallace Webb (1896), D. W. Simon (1898), and H. J. Zelley (1900).

In the mid nineteenth century, the great German theologian, Isaak Dorner, argued that “the classical doctrine of immutability” is inconsistent with Scripture, sound reason, and spiritual living because it rules out reciprocal relations between God and creatures. He argues for dynamic omniscience saying that a consistent view of God working with us in history requires that God knows future free acts of creatures as possibilities, not actualities.17

In 1890 Joel S. Hayes published The Foreknowledge of God, a lengthy volume examining the scriptural evidence and theological arguments for foreknowledge and concluded that dynamic omniscience was a superior explanation.18 In the opening chapter, he writes “The design of this treatise is to deny and disprove the commonly received doctrine that God, from all eternity, foreknew whatsoever has come to pass. This doctrine, it seems to me, is contrary to reason and Scripture, and is in the highest degree dishonoring to the high and holy One that inhabiteth eternity.” T. W. Brents of the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement dedicated a chapter of his “biblical” theology to the defense of dynamic omniscience. His book was influential in the Churches of Christ for many decades.19

In the latter nineteenth century many people defended the view including Rowland G. Hazard and the Catholic writer Jules Lequyer.20 Proponents also include less orthodox thinkers such as Gustave. T. Fechner, Otto Pfleiderer, William James, and Edgar S. Brightman.21

Theologians include Jürgen Moltmann, Paul Fides, and Michael Welker.22 Contemporary Dutch Reformed theologians such as Vincent Brümmer, Hendrikus Berkhof and Adrio König affirm it as do the American Reformed thinkers Nicholas Wolterstorff and Harry Boer.23 Other theologians include Thomas Finger (Mennonite), W. Norris Clarke (Roman Catholic), Brian Hebblethwaite, Robert Ellis, Kenneth Archer (Pentecostal) Barry Callen (Church of God), German theologian Heinzpeter Hempelmann and perhaps Albert Truesdale (Nazarene).24 Major Jones claims that the position is well known in the African-American tradition.25

The dynamic omniscience view is exceedingly popular among analytic philosophers who affirm orthodox Christianity. Quite a number of the luminaries among Christian philosophers assert it: Richard Swinburne (Oxford), William Hasker, David Basinger, Peter Van Inwagen (Notre Dame), J. R. Lucas, Peter Geach, Richard Purtill, A. N. Prior, and Keith Ward.26 It is also affirmed by Nicholas Wolterstorff (formerly of Calvin and Yale) and Vincent Brümmer (Dutch Reformed).27 Several philosophers contributed to a book on open theism and science: Dean Zimmerman, Robin Collins, Alan Rhoda, David Woodruff, and Jeffrey Koperski.28 Timothy O’Connor (Indiana University) also affirms the openness model.29 Though there remain defenders of both theological determinism and simple foreknowledge, it seems that the majority of Christian philosophers who publish on the subject today believe that the main options are middle knowledge and dynamic omniscience.

Acclaimed physicist and theologian, John Polkinghorne, holds it as does mathematician D. J. Barholomew and physicist Arthur Peacocke.30

For those interested in biblical support for the dynamic omniscience view, the most important work is by Hebrew Bible scholar, Terrence Fretheim, who has over a dozen publications that document in detail the biblical support for this view of omniscience.31

John Goldingay, professor of Old Testament at Fuller Seminary, has defended it in his Old Testament Theology.32 The work of Boyd and Sanders also contains biblical support.

A number of theologians, philosophers and writers have affirmed the position. Clark Pinnock, Gregory Boyd, Richard Rice, and John Sanders have produced several volumes on the topic.33

Other notable scholars include Dallas Willard, Gabriel Fackre, William Abraham, Paul Borgman, Henry Knight III, Alan Padgett, Tom Oord, and Peter Wagner.34 Researchers and popular writers include Michael Saia, William Pratney, H. Roy Elseth, Gordon C. Olson, Madelline L’Engle, and Brother Andrew.35

The position is affirmed by many YWAM leaders and leaders of the Ichthus church movement in England. Many Pentecostals are supporting it.36 Some leaders in a couple of denominations have spoken in favor of it: the Evangelical Covenant Church and Independent Christian Churches. The organization, Evangelical Educational Ministries, publishes copies of the works of L. D. McCabe and Gordon Olson: http://www.eeminc.org/prodserv.html.

In sum, the dynamic omniscience view was held by a smattering of people until the nineteenth century when serious scholarship begins to be published on it.37

In the latter twentieth century the number of proponents and the amount of quality works setting forth the position has grown exponentially. In part, the view is increasing in popularity in the freewill tradition due to its ability to better explain the biblical texts and give greater intellectual coherence as to how God relates to us.

Some evangelicals do not embrace the open view of omniscience but do arrive at views that have great similarity to it. Gilbert Bilezekian, professor of theology at Wheaton and theological pastor at Willow Creek (he has been Hybels mentor since college) puts forward a view similar to the open view. He claims that God can know what we will do in the future but decides not to know. See his Christianity 101 (Zondervan). Arminian theologian, John Tal Murphy (Taccoa Falls College), interacts with open theism and suggests that though God knows all that will occur in the future God has the ability to “block out of his consciousness” knowledge of what will happen. God can, in effect, “forget” what he knows is going to happen. God does this in order to enter into genuine dialog and interpersonal relations with us. See his, Divine Paradoxes: A Finite View of an Infinite God (Christian Publications, Camp Hill, PA 1998), pp. 49-56. Though I see problems with the views expressed by Bilezekian and Murphy, I am pleased that they understand the problems with simple foreknowledge and, as evangelical Arminians, attempt to find a plausible solution that arrives, for all practical purposes, at a position quite similar to the open view.

In addition, the evangelical Arminian theologian, Jack Cottrell has recently affirmed a temporal version of incremental simple foreknowledge. This view, in my opinion, arrives at precisely the same practical implications for divine providence as the open view. See John Sanders “Is Open Theism a Radical Revision or Miniscule Modification of Arminianism?” Wesleyan Theological Journal 38.2 (Fall 2003): 69-102.

Alan Rhoda Divine Foreknowledge Divine Nescience EDF Grand Rapids Gregory Boyd John Polkinghorne New Testament North America Old Testament Open Theism P2 God Religious Studies Thomas Belt United States Vincent Br

Open and Relational Theologies Bibliography

by Brian Martin in Thomas Jay Oord

Compiled by Thomas Oord. Below are titles of books, articles, essays, and dissertations pertaining to “relational theology.” The list includes works on open theism, process theology, and others that are either for or against a relational understanding of God. The list is limited to materials published about a decade prior to 2002.

Basinger, David. The Case for Freewill Theism: A Philosophical Assessment. Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1996.

________. “Practical Implications.” In The Openness of God. Pinnock, et. al. InterVarsity Press, 1994.

________. “Can a Christian Justifiably Deny God’s Exhaustive Knowledge of the Future?” Christian Scholar’s Review. 25 (December, 1995): 133-145.

Bauman, Whitney. “God’s Creation, God’s Created, and God’s Creating: A Process View of Eschatology,” in the CTNS Bulletin, vol 21, no 4 (Fall 2001): 12-17.

Beckwith, Francis. “Limited Omniscience and the Test for a Prophet: A Brief Philosophical Analysis.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. 36 no. 3 (Sept. 1993): 357-62.

Beilby, James and Eddy, Paul. Eds. Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views. Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2001.

Berthrong, John H. All under Heaven: Transforming Paradigms in Confucian-Christian Dialogue. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1994.

Berthrong, John H. Concerning Creativity: A Comparison of Chu Hsi, Whitehead, and Neville. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1998.

Bloesch, Donald. God the Almighty: Power, Wisdom, Holiness, Love. Christian Foundations. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995.

Boyd, Gregory. God at War: The Bible and Spiritual Conflict. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997.

________. God of the Possible. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000.

________. Letters From a Skeptic. Colorado Springs, Co: Chariot Victor, 1994.

________. Satan and the Problem of Evil: Constructing a Warfare Theodicy. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001.

________. Trinity and Process: A Critical Evaluation and Reconstruction of Hartshorne’s Di- polar Theism Towards a Trinitarian Metaphysics. New York: Peter Lang, 1992.

Bracken, Joseph and Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, eds. Trinity in Process: A Relational Theology of God. New York: Continuum, 1997.

________. The One in the Many: A Contemporary Reconstruction of the God-World Relationship. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001.

________. Bracken, Joseph. “Proposals for Overcoming the Atomism Within Process-Relational Metaphysics.” Process Studies 23:1 (Spring 1994): 10-24.

Bray, Gerald. The Personal God. Patternoster, 1999.

Breazeale, Kathlyn A. “Don’t Blame It on the Seeds: Toward a Feminist Process Understanding of Anthropology, Sin and Sexuality.” Process Studies 22, no.2 (summer, 1993): 71-73.

_____. “Marriage After Patriarchy?: Partner Relationships and Public Religion.” In Religion in a Pluralism Age: Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Philosophical Theology, eds. Donald A. Crosby and Charley D. Hardwick. Peter Lang Press, 2001.

_____. “Process Perspectives on Sexuality, Love and Marriage.” In Chalice Handbook on Process Theology, eds. Jay McDaniel and Donna Bowman. Chalice Press, forthcoming.

Brummer, Vincent. The Model of Love: A Study in Philosophical Theology. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

_____Speaking of a Personal God. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Callen, Barry L. God as Loving Grace: The Biblically Revealed Nature and Work of God. Nappanee, Ind.: Evangel, 1996.

________. Journey Toward Renewal: An Intellectual Biography. Nappanee, Indiana: Evangel Publishing House, 2000.

Carson, D. A. Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility: Biblical Perspectives in Tension. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1994.

Ciocchi, David. “The Religious Adequacy of Free-will Theism,” Religious Studies 38 (2002): 45 61.

Cobb, John B. Jr. Grace and Responsibility: A Wesleyan Theology for Today. Nashville: Abingdon, 1995.

________. The Process Perspective: Frequently Asked Questions about Process Theology. St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2003.

________. Reclaiming the Church. Westminster John Knox, 1997.

________. Transforming Christianity and the World. Orbis, 1999

________. Postmodernism and Public Policy: Reframing Religion, Culture, Education, Sexuality, Class, Race, Politics, and the Economy. Albany, N.Y.: State University Press of New York, 2001.

________. and Clark H. Pinnock eds. Searching for an Adequate God: A Dialogue between Process and Free Will Theists. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2000.

Coleman, Monica A. “The World At Its Best: A Process Construction of a Wesleyan Understanding of Entire Sanctification.” Wesleyan Theological Journal. 37.2 ( Fall 2002) 130-152.

Daniell, Anne. “The Spiritual Body: Incarnations of Pauline and Butlerian Embodiment Themes for Constructive Theologizing toward the Parousia,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion. 16:1 (Spring 2000): 5-22.

Dean, William. “Historical Process Theology: A Field in a Map of Thought.” Process Studies. 28:4 (Fall-Winter 1999): 244-266.

Dombrowski, Dan. Analytic Theism, Hartshorne, and the Concept of God Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996.

________. Kazantzakis and God Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997.

________. Divine Beauty: The Aesthetics of Charles Hartshorne (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2003).

________.Being Is Power,” American Journal of Theology & Philosophy 16 (1995): 299-314.

________. “God As Absolute and Relative,” Encounter 56 (1995).

Doud, Robert. “The Biblical Heart and Process Anthropology,” Horizons 1996 (23/2: 281 – 95).

________. “Ereignis in Heidegger and Concrescence in Whitehead.” Existentia, 2001 (XI/1- 2: 1 – 12).

________. “A Whiteheadian Interpretation of Baudelaire’s Poetry.” Process Studies 2002 (31.2)

Durie, Robin. “Immanence and Difference: Toward A Relational Ontology.” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 40:2 (Summer 2002): 161-189.

Erickson, Millard. God the Father Almighty. Baker, 1998.

Erickson, Millard. What Does God Know and When Does He Know It? Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003.

Farley, Edward. Divine Empathy: A Theology of God. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996.

Farmer, Ronald L. Beyond the Impasse: The Promise of a Process Hermeneutic. Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1997.

Feinberg, John. The One True God. Crossway Books, 2001.

Flint, Thomas. Divine Providence: The Molinist Account. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998.

Ford, Lewis S., Review: Clark Pinnock, et. al. The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God. International Journal of Philosophy of Religion 41 (February 1997): 63-65.

________. Transforming Process Theism. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 2000.

Frame, John. No Other God: A Response to Open Theism. Presbyterian and Reformed, 2001.

Franklin, Stephen T. The Dying of the Sacred Light: An Essay on Religion and Culture in America. Unpublished manuscript presented at The Enlightenment in Evangelical and Process Perspectives Conference, Claremont, California, 20-22 March, 1997.

Fretheim, Terrence. The Suffering of God: An Old Testament Perspective (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984).

________. Exodus (Westminster/John Knox, 1991).

________. “The Book of Genesis,” in New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. I, ed. L. E. Keck, et al. (Nashville: Abingdon, 1994).

________. First and Second Kings (Westminster/John Knox, 1999).

________. Jeremiah (Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys, 2002).

________. “Theological Reflections on the Wrath of God in the Old Testament.” Horizons in Biblical Theology. 24:2 (December, 2002).

________. “Law in the Service of Life: A Dynamic Understanding of Law in Deuteronomy.” In A God So Near: Essays in Old Testament Theology in Honor of Patrick D. Miller (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2003): 183-200.

________. “Old Testament Foundations for an Environmental Theology,” in Currents in Biblical and Theological Dialogue, ed. J. Stafford (Winnipeg: St. John’s College, Univ. of Manitoba, 2002): 58-68.

________. “The Character of God in Jeremiah.” In Character and Scripture: Moral Formation, Community and Biblical Interpretation, ed. W.P. Brown (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002): 211-230.

________. “Hearing God from the Other,” Word and World. 22:3 (Summer 2002): 304-306.

________. “The Earth Story in Jeremiah 12,” in Readings from the Perspective of Earth, ed. N. Habel (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000): 96-110.

________. “God,” in Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000): 510-514.

________. “Divine Judgment and the Warming of the World: An Old Testament Perspective,” in God, Evil, and Suffering: Essays in Honor of Paul R. Sponheim, ed. T. Fretheim and C. Thompson (St. Paul, MN: Word and World Supplement Series 4, 2000): 21-32.

________. “Christology and the Old Testament.” In Who Do You Say That I Am: Essays on Christology, ed. M. Powell and D. Bauer (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1999): 201-215.

________. “To Say Something–About God, Evil, and Suffering.” Word and World. 19:4 (Fall 1999): 339, 346-350.

________. “Some Reflections on Brueggemann’s God,” in God in the Fray: A Tribute to Walter Brueggemann, ed. T. Linafelt & T. Beal (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998): 24-37.

________. “Divine Dependence upon the Human: An Old Testament Perspective.” Ex Auditu. 13 (1997): 1-13.

________. “The God Who Acts: An Old Testament Perspective.” Theology Today. 54:1 (April 1997): 6-18.

________. “God in Exodus.” Creative Transformation. 4/1 (Autumn 1994): 1, 3-5.

________. “Salvation in the Bible vs. Salvation in the Church.” Word and World. 13:4 (Fall 1993): 363-372.

Geisler, Norman and House, Wayne. The Battle for God. Kregel 2001.

Geisler, Norman. Creating God in the Image of Man? Bethany, 1997.

Grenz, Stanley J. The Social God and the Relational Self: A Trinitarian Theology of the Imago Dei. Westminster John Knox, 2001.

Griffin, David Ray. Religion and Scientific Naturalism: Overcoming the Conflicts. Albany: State

University of New York Press, 2000.

________. Scientific Naturalism and Christian Faith: A New Synthesis. Louisville: Westminster

John Knox Press, 2004 (forthcoming)

________. “Process Theodicy, Christology, and the Imitatio Dei,” in Jewish Theology and

Process Thought, ed. Sandra Lubarsky and David Ray Griffin (Albany: State

University of New York Press, 1996), 95-125.

________. “A Naturalistic Trinity,” Trinity in Process: A Relational Theology of God, ed. Bracken Joseph A. and Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki (New York: Continuum, 1997), 23-40.

________. “Reconstructive Theology,” The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology, ed.

Kevin J. Vanhoozer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 92-108.

________. “Panentheism: A Postmodern Revelation,” In Whom We Live and Move and Have

Our Being: Reflections on Panentheism for a Scientific Age, ed. Philip Clayton and

Arthur Peacocke (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003).

________. “Liberal But Not Modern: Overcoming the Liberal-Conservative Antitheses.” Lexington Theological Quarterly. 28 no. 3 (Fall 1993): 201-222.

________. “Process Theology and the Christian Good News: A Response to Classical Free Will Theism.” Searching for an Adequate God: A Dialogue between Process and Free Will Theists. John B. Cobb, Jr., and Clark H. Pinnock, eds. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2000.

________. Reenchantment Without Supernaturalism: A Process Philosophy of Religion. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2001.

Hallman, Joseph M. The Descent of God: Divine Suffering in History and Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991.

Hardy, Douglas S. “A Winnicottian Redescription of Christian Spiritual Direction Relationships: Illustrating the Potential Contribution of Psychology of Religion to Christian Spiritual Practice,” Journal of Psychology and Theology. 28/4 (2000):251-263.

___________. “A Response to Haynes,” Journal of Psychology and Theology. 28/4 (2000): 268- 269.

Hasker, William. “An Adequate God.” Searching for An Adequate God. John B. Cobb, Jr. and Clark H. Pinnock, eds. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2000.

________. Providence, Evil, and the Openness of God. London: Routledge, forthcoming 2004.

________.”Is Free-Will Theism Religiously Inadequate? A Reply to Ciocchi,” Religious Studies, forthcoming.

________. “The Antinomies of Divine Providence,” Philosophia Christi, 4:2 (2002): 361-75.

________. “Counterfactuals and Evil: A Reply to Geivett,” Philosophia Christi, forthcoming.

________. “The God Who Takes Risks,” in Michael Peterson, ed., ContemporaryDebates in Philosophy of Religion, Oxford: Blackwell, forthcoming 2003.

________. “Response to Helm,” in Michael Peterson, ed., Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion, Oxford: Blackwell, forthcoming 2002.

________. “The Problem of Evil in Process Theism and Classical Free Will Theism,” Process Studies 29:2 (Fall/Winter 2000): 194-208.

________. “‘Bitten to Death by Ducks’: A Reply to Griffin,” Process Studies 29:2 (Fall/Winter 2000): 227-32.

________. “In Response to David Ray Griffin,” in Searching for an Adequate God, 39-52.

________. “The Openness of God,” Christian Scholar’s Review 28:1 (Fall 1998): 111-23.

________. “Tradition, Divine Transcendence, and the Waiting Father,” Christian Scholar’s Review 28:1 (Fall 1998): 134-39.

________. “Providence and Evil: Three Theories,” Religious Studies 28 (1992): 91-105.

________. “A Philosophical Perspective.” The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1994.

Helm, Paul. “Does God Take Risks in Governing the Universe?” in Michael Peterson ed. Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion. Blackwell, 2003.

Highfield, Ronald. “The Function of Divine Self-Limitation in Open Theism.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 45.2 (June 2002): 279-300.

Holt, Joseph. Predicating Infinity of God: An Open Theist Perspective. M.A. thesis, Bethel Seminary, St. Paul, MN, 2001.

Horton, Michael. “Hellenistic or Hebrew? Open Theism and Reformed Theological Method.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 45.2 (June 2002): 317-342.

Howell, Nancy. A Feminist Cosmology: Ecology, Solidarity, and Metaphysics. Humanity Books, 2000.

Huffman, Douglas and Johnson, Eric. eds. God Under Fire. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002.

Inbody, Tyron L. The Transforming God: An Interpretation of Suffering and Evil. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997.

Johnson, Elizabeth A. She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse. New York: Crossroad, 1996.

Judd, Daniel. ed. Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Religion. McGraw Hill, 2002.

Keller, Catherine. From a Broken Web, Beacon Press, Boston, 1986

________.Apocalypse Now and Then, Beacon, 1996.

________. and Daniell, Anne. Process and Difference: Between Cosmological and Poststructuralist Postmodernisms. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002.

________. Face of the Deep, Routledge, New York, 2003.

Korsmeyer, Jerry D. Evolution and Eden: Balancing Original Sin and Contemporary Science. New York: Paulist Press, 1998.

Lamp, Jeffrey S. Review: Clark H. Pinnock, et. al. The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God. Wesleyan Theological Journal. 31 (Spring 1996): 229-231.

Lodahl, Michael Eugene. “Creation out of Nothing? Or is Next to Nothing Enough? Thy Nature and Thy Name is Love: Wesleyan and Process Theologies in Dialogue. Bryan P. Stone and Thomas Jay Oord, eds. Nashville, Tenn.: Kingswood, 2001.

________. The Story of God: Wesleyan Theology and Biblical Narrative. Kansas City: Beacon Hill, 1994.

________. God of Nature and of Grace: Reading the World in a Wesleyan Way. Nashville: Kingswood/Abingdon, 2004.

________. “‘And He Felt Compassion’: Holiness Beyond the Bounds of Community.” In Embodied Holiness, eds. Samuel M. Powell and Michael E. Lodahl. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999.

Lorenzen, Lynne F. The College Student’s Introduction to the Trinity. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999.

Maddox, Randy L. Responsible Grace: John Wesley’s Practical Theology. Nashville: Abingdon, 1994.

Master, Jonathan L. Exodus 32 as an Argument for Traditional Theism. Th.M. thesis, Capitol Bible Seminary, 2002.

McLachlan, James. “The Mystery of Evil and Freedom: Gabriel Marcel’s Reading of Schelling’s Of Human Freedom “ in Philosophy and Theology, 12 (2) 2000.

________. “Fragments for a Process Theology of Mormonism” in Element: The Journal of

Mormon Philosophy. (Forthcoming).

________. “The Desire to be God: The Theological Character of Sartre’s Atheology” in Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy, Winter 1998

________. “Mythology and Freedom: Nicholas Berdyaev and the Ungrund” in Philosophy

Today, Winter 1996

________. “The Idealist Critique of Idealism: Bowne’s Personalism and Howison’s City of

God,” in The Personalist Forum, Winter 1998.

________. “George Holmes Howison: The Conception of God Debate and the Beginnings of

Personal Idealism” The Personalist Forum, Vol. X no. 4 (Fall) 1995.

________. “Persons, Creativity, and God: Some Mormon Thoughts about Process Thought” in

Mormonism and Contemporary Christian Theology, David Paulsen, ed. State University

of New York Press and Brigham Young University Press. (forthcoming)

________. “Berdyaev’s Uses of Jacob Boehme’s Ungrund Myth.” in McLachlan, James, ed.

Philosophical and Religious Conceptions of the Person and Their Implications for

Ethical, Political, and Social Thought. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2003.

Meeks, M. Douglas. God the Economist: The Doctrine of God and Political Economy. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989.

Miller, Patrick D. “Prayer as Persuasion: The Rhetoric and Intention of Prayer.” Word and World 13, no. 4 (1993): 356-362.

________. They Cried to the Lord: The Form and Theology of Biblical Prayer. Minneapolis, Fortress, 1994.

Nichols, Jason. Omniscience in the Divine Openness: A Critical Analysis of Present Knowledge in God. M.A. thesis, Trinity International University, 1997.

Nobuharu, Tokiyuki. “God and Emptiness: Cause, Reasons, and the World’s Abyss. Forms of Panentheism in Religion and Nature” in: Sybille Fritsch-Oppermann, ed. Zufall, Notwendigkeit, Bestimmung: Der Dialog zwischen Naturwissenschaft und Religion ueber Schoepfung und Naturangesichts der Fragen von Kausalitaet und Determination, Loccumer Protokolle 15/01, Evangelische Akademie Loccum, Germany, 2001.

________. “Portraying ‘Authentic Existence’ By the Method of Analogy: Toward Creative Uses of the Analogy of Attribution Duorum Ad Tertium for Comparative Philosophy of Religion.” Bulletin of Keiwa College. 1 (February 1992): 61-83; 2 (February 1993): 127- 50: 3 (February 1994): 1-19.

________. “How Can Experience Give Rise to Religious Self-Awareness and Then to the Topological Argument for the Existence of God Cogently? Nishida, Whitehead and Pannenberg.” Process Thought. 6 (September 1995): 125-150.

________. “Hartshorne and Hisamatsu on Human Nature: A Study of Christian and Buddhist Metaphysical Anthropology.” Bulletin of Keiwa College. 5 (February 1996): 1-49.

________. “Christ As the Problem of Analogy: Concerning the Theological-Analogical Significance of Q and the Gospel of Thomas.” Bulletin of Keiwa College. 6 (February 1997): 25-51.

________. “A New Possibility for Logos Christology Through Encounter with Buddhism: Tillich and Takizawa Critically Considered and Compared.” Bulletin of Keiwa College. 7 (March 1998): 91-118; 9 (March 1999): 107-137.

________. “Toward a Global Ethic of Loyalty/Fidelity/Truthfulness.” Bulletin of Keiwa College. 9 (February 2000): 1-27.

Olson, Roger E. “Whales and Elephants: Both God’s Creatures But Can They Meet?” Pro Ecclesia 4.2 (Spring 1995): 165-89.

Olson, Roger. “Has God Been Held Hostage by Philosophy? A forum on free- will theism, a new paradigm for understanding God.” Christianity Today, 39 (Ja 9 1995): 30-34

Oord, Thomas Jay. “The Divergence of Evangelical and Process Theologies: Is the Impasse Insurmountable?” ARC: Journal for the McGill Faculty of Religious Studies. Forthcoming.

________. “Divine Love” and “Theodicy.” Philosophy of Religion: Introductory Essays. Thomas Jay Oord, ed. Kansas City, Mo.: Beacon Hill Press, 2003.

________. “Evil, Providence, and a Relational God.” Quarterly Review. 23:3 (Fall 2003): 238- 250.

________. “Boston Personalism’s Affinities and Disparities with Wesleyan Theology and Process Philosophy,” Wesleyan Theological Journal. 37:2 (Fall 2002): 115-129.

________. Matching Theology and Piety: An Evangelical Process Theology of Love. Ph.D. Thesis. Claremont Graduate University, 1999.

________. “Evangelical and Process Theologies.” Chalice Handbook of Theology. St. Louis, Mo.: Chalice. Forthcoming.

________. “Divine Power and Love: An Evangelical Process Proposal.” Koinonia: The Princeton Theological Seminary Graduate Forum. X.1 (Spring 1998): 1-18.

________. “A Postmodern Wesleyan Philosophy and David Ray Griffin’s Postmodern Vision.” Wesleyan Theological Journal. 35.1 (2000): 216-44.

________. “A Process Wesleyan Theodicy: Freedom, Embodiment and the Almighty God.” Thy Nature and Thy Name is Love: Wesleyan and Process Theologies in Dialogue. Bryan P. Stone and Thomas Jay Oord, eds. Nashville, Tenn.: Kingswood, 2001.

Park, Andrew Sung. “Self-Denial for Racists and Their Victims in Japan,” in Surviving Terror: Hope and Justice in a World of Violence (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2002), edited by Victoria Lee Erickson and Michelle Lim Jones

________. “A Theology of the Way (Tao),” in Interpretation (October 2001): 389-399.

________. The Other Side of Sin (New York: State University of New York Press, 2001), co- editor: Susan Nelson

________. “A Theology of Transmutation,” in A Dream Unfinished, edited by Eleazar Fernandez & Fernando Segovia. Maryknoll: Orbis, 2001.

________. “God Who Needs Our Salvation,” in The Changing Face of God, edited by Frederick W. Schmidt (Morehouse Publishing, 2000)

________. “Asian-American Theology,” in Dictionary of Third World Theologies edited by V. Fabella and R. S. Sugirtharajah, (Orbis, 2000)

________. “Sin and Han–the Pain of a Victim,” The Living Pulpit ( October-December 1999): 22-23.

________. “Theo-Orthopraxis,” Journal of Theology 1993

________. The Wounded Heart of God: The Asian Concept of Han and the Christian Doctrine of Sin. Nashville: Abingdon, 1993.

Peters, Ted. God as Trinity: Relationality and Temporality in Divine Life. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1993.

Picirilli, Robert. “An Arminian Response to John Sanders’s The God Who Risks: A Theology of Providence.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 44/2 (September 2001): 467-491.

Picirilli, Robert. “Foreknowledge, Freedom, and the Future.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 43/2 (June 2000): 259-271.

Pinnock, Clark. Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1996.

________. Most Moved Mover: A Theology of God’s Openness. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2001.

________, et. al. The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1994.

________, and R. Brow. Unbounded Love: A Good News Theology for the 21^st Century. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1994.

Piper, John. ed. Beyond the Bounds: Open Theism and the Undermining of Biblical Christianity. Chicago: Crossway, 2003.

Placher, William C. Narratives of a Vulnerable God: Christ, Theology, and Scripture. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994.

Polkinghorne, John, ed. The Work of Love: Creation as Kenosis. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2001.

Pratt, Douglass. Relational Deity: Hartshorne and Macquarrie on God. Lanham: University Press of America, 2002.

Pyne, Robert and Spencer, Stephen. “A Critique of Free-Will Theism.”, in two parts Bibliotheca Sacra 158 (July 2001): 259-286 and (October 2001).

Rice, Richard. “Biblical Support for a New Perspective.” The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional understanding of God. Clark H. Pinnock, et at. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1994.

________. “Process Theism and the Open View of God: The Crucial Difference,” in Searching for an Adequate God: A Dialogue between Process and Free Will Theists, ed. John B. Cobb, Jr. and Clark H. Pinnock (Eerdmans, 2000).

________. “The Openness of God: A New Level of Discusion,” Spectrum: The Journal of the Association of Adventist Forums, Summer 2001, pp.56-63.

Robinson, Franklin Webster. Adversity, Crisis Counseling, and the Openness of God: An Evaluation of Open Theism for Pastoral Response to Victims of Violence. Doctoral dissertation, Azusa Pacific University, 2002.

Robinson, Michael. “Why Divine Foreknowledge?” Religious Studies 36: 251-275.

Roy, Steven. “How Much Does God Foreknow? An Evangelical Assessment of the Doctrine of the Extent of the Foreknowledge of God in Light of the Teaching of Open Theism,” Trinity International University (2000).

Sanders, John. The God Who Risks: A Theology of Providence. Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1998.

________. With Chris Hall, Does God have a Future? A Debate on Divine Providence. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003.

________. “Historical Considerations” and “Introduction” in The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God. Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1994.

________. “Why Simple Foreknowledge Offers No More Providential Control than the Openness of God,” Faith and Philosophy 14, no. 1 (Jan. 1997): 26-40.

________. “Is Open Theism a Radical Revision or Miniscule Modification of Arminianism?” Wesleyan Theological Journal (Fall 2003).

________. “The Assurance of Things to Come” in Looking to the Future, ed. David Baker, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 2001.

________. “On Heffalumps and Heresies: Responses to Accusations Against Open Theism” Journal of Biblical Studies 2, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 1-44

________. “Be Wary of Ware: A Reply to Bruce Ware” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (June 2002): 221-231.

________. “A Tale of Two Providences.” Ashland Theological Journal 33 (2001): 41-55.

________. With Chris Hall, “Does God know your Next Move?” Christianity Today, May 21, 2001, pp. 38-45 and June 7, 2001, pp. 50-56.

________. “Truth at Risk,” Christianity Today, April 23, 2001, p. 103.

________. “Theological Lawbreaker?” Books and Culture (January, 2000) pp.10-11. Reprinted in Daniel Judd, ed. Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Religion. McGraw-Hill, 2002.

Sarot, Marcel. “Omnipotence and Self-Limitation.” Eds. Gijsbert van den Brink et. al. Christian Faith and Philosophical Theology: Essays in Honour of Vincent Brümmer. Kampen, Netherlands: Kok Pharos, 1992.

Schreiner, Thomas and Ware, Bruce. eds. The Grace of God, the Bondage of the Will, Baker, 1999.

Sponheim, Paul R. Faith and the Other: A Relational Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993.

Stone, Bryan P. and Thomas Jay Oord, eds. Thy Nature and Thy Name is Love: Wesleyan and Process Theologies in Dialogue. Nashville, Tenn.: Kingswood, 2001.

Stratton, S. P. “Selfhood, Attachment, and Agency: Love and the Trinitarian Concept of Personhood.” The Loss of Self in a Postmodern Therapeutic Culture. Paul P. Vitz, ed. Forthcoming.

________. “Trinity, Attachment, and Love.” Catalyst. 29:4 (2003): 1-3.

Sturm, Douglas, ed. Belonging Together: Faith and Politics in a Relational World. Claremont, CA: P&F Press, 2003.

________. Solidarity and Suffering: Towards a Politics of Relationality. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998.

Suchocki, Marjorie Hewitt. The Fall to Violence: Original Sin in Relational Theology. New York: Continuum, 1994.

________. In God’s Presence: Theological Reflections on Prayer. St. Louis: Chalice, 1996.

________. Divinity & Diversity: A Christian Affirmation of Religious Pluralism. Abingdon, 2003.

________. The Whispered Word: A Process Theology of Preaching. Chalice Press, 1999.

________. Suende: Ein Unverstaendlich Gewordenes Thema. Co-edited with Sigrid Brandt and

Michael Welker. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1997.

________. Co-Edited with Joseph Bracken Trinity in Process: A Relational Theology of God.

New York: Continuum, 1997.

Swinburne, Richard. The Coherence of Theism. Revised ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Thompson, Craig W. John Sanders’s Philosophy of Religious Language: An Analysis of Divine Predication in ‘The God Who Risks’. Th.M. thesis, Dallas Theological Seminary, 2002.

Tiessen, Terrance. Providence and Prayer. Downers Grove, IL. IVP, 2000.

Timpe, Kevin. “Toward a Process Philosophy of Petitionary Prayer.” Philosophy & Theology. 12.:2 (2000): 397-418.

Tupper, Frank. A Scandalous Providence: The Jesus Story of the Compassion of God. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1995.

Vacek, Edward Collins. Love, Human and Divine: The Heart of Christian Ethics. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1994.

________. “Love, Christian and Diverse.” Journal of Religious Ethics 24.1 (Spring 1996): 29-41.

Viney, Donald Wayne. “Jules Lequyer and the Openness of God,” Faith and Philosophy. 14, no. 2 (April, 1997): 212-235.

________. The Life and Thought of Charles Hartshorne. Pittsburgh, Kans.: Logos-Sophia, 1997.

Voskuil, Duane. “Hartshorne, God and Metaphysics: How the Cosmically Inclusive Personal Nexus and World Interact Process Studies, 28/3-4, Fall-Winter 1999.

Ware, Bruce. God’s Lesser Glory. Crossway Books, 2000.

Wheeler, David. “Toward a Process-Relational Christian Eschatology.” Process Studies 22:4 (Winter 1993): 227-237.

White, Carol Wayne. “Recreating Ourselves: Valuing the Material, Relational Self.” In Belonging Together: Faith and Politics in a Relational World, ed., Sturm, Douglas. Claremont, CA: P&F Press, 2003, pp. 45-59.

Williams, Stephen N. “What God Doesn’t Know,” Books & Culture, November/December 1999. vol. 5, no 6, p.16.

Wright, R. K. McGregor. No Place for Sovereignty. Downers Grove, Ill: IVP, 1996.

Yerxa, Donald A. “A Meaningful Past and the Limits of History: Some Reflections Informed by the Science-and-Religion Dialogue.” Fides et Historia, 34.1 Winter/spring 2002: 13-30.

Yong, Amos. “Divine Knowledge and Relation to Time.” In Philosophy of Religion: Introductory Essays. Kansas City, Mo.: Beacon Hill, 2003.

________. “Possibility and Actuality: The Doctrine of Creation and Its Implications for Divine Omniscience,” The Wesleyan Philosophical Society Online Journal [http://david.snu.edu/~brint.fs/wpsjnl/v1n1.htm] 1:1 (2001).

________. “Divine Knowledge and Future Contingents: Weighing the Presuppositional Issues in the Contemporary Debate,” Evangelical Review of Theology 26:3 (2002): 240-64.

Christianity Today Evangelical Theological Society John Sanders Open Theism Process Studies Religious Studies Thomas Jay Oord

Bibliography on Open Theism

by Brian Martin in John Sanders

by John Sanders

Updated 4/2013

This bibliography is arranged in five categories: (1) multi-views works, (2) works supporting open theism, (3) works engaging open theism, (4) works against open theism, and (5) doctoral dissertations and masters theses engaging open theism.

Things That May Be Only?

by Brian Martin in George M. Porter

A Paper Prepared for Presentation to the Forum of The Oxford Society of Scholars Meeting in Rewley House/Kellogg College, University of Oxford 12-14 January 2004

printed with permission

by George M. Porter
B.R.S., B.A., M.A., M.Litt., D.Phil.

Lorenzo Dow McCabe and Some Neglected Nineteenth Century Roots of Open Theism in North America

‘Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if preserved in, they must lead,’ said Scrooge, ‘But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change.’ (Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol)

When old Ebenezer Scrooge asks the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come whether the dreadful scenes foretold him were shadows of things that will be or only of things that might be, he touched upon some of the vital questions posed by human beings from time immemorial. Dickens’s fictitious miser was neither the first nor the last to utter the major existential question of whether the writing could yet be sponged away.

The vast literature of humankind – including major works in philosophy and theology – continues to be permeated by questions about the nature of the future, whether it exists as a fixed reality or only as potential, as well as what can be known of it, or even whether it can be known with any degree of certainty at all. ¹ Related questions concerning divine omniscience, along with the possibility, nature and extent of divine foreknowledge, go beyond academic significance as people are faced with tasks of coping with both personal and social scale suffering and by encounters with evil. ²

These questions have specifically troubled the waters of Christian doctrine and practice since apostolic times without bringing healing resolution. Many attempted the quest for answers, but Augustine and the Scholastic thinkers developed the approaches and theories which became the dominant answers to these vital questions. They were consistent with most post-apostolic theology and philosophy. ³

As the Christian world was shaken by the massive changes of the late medieval and renaissance period, and as controversies of the Protestant Reformation rekindled the questions, along with variations of those Augustinian and Scholastic dogmas, Erasmus and Arminius popularised alternative approaches. Debates since that time have been largely variations on these themes – themes which re-emerge in various contexts and historical epochs throughout Christian history.

In the turbulent years of the American Civil War, its aftermath and continuing on through the First World War in the early part of the last century, issues related to God’s knowledge of the future re-emerged. Questions of moral government in the light of social and justice issues, questions of maintaining the goodness of God in the face of moral evil including suffering and war (ie, ‘theodicy’), and questions of liberty and self-determination in a revivalist frontier environment combined to give rise to intense and sometimes heated reconsiderations of root issues concerning the various attributes of God (including omniscience) and the nature of God’s relationship to humans (including freedom of the will and foreknowledge). ⁴ Though philosophers and theologians of many denominational backgrounds addressed the issues, these concerns were engaged with new urgency among American Wesleyan, Methodist and holiness groups.

These perennial questions are alive and well once again at the dawn of our so-called postmodern age, characterised by change and uncertainty brought about by a massive paradigm shift affecting nearly all areas of western thinking, believing and living. Relativity, quantum physics and chaos theory have resurrected questions about the nature of time. ⁵ Revolutions, wars and threats of annihilation, combined with heightened global awareness of human rights issues have brought questions of theodicy again to the fore. ⁶

While not exclusive to Christians in the western world, North American evangelicals seem particularly engaged with questions of the nature of human free will, as well as related concepts of divine sovereignty, providence, and omniscience. Christian publishing houses, current popular periodicals, academic philosophical and theological journals, and evangelical theological and philosophical societies, are scenes of verbal combat verging on an ecclesiastical civil war over these ancient, unresolved issues. ⁷

Of particular concern is a growing debate between those who consider themselves ‘orthodox traditionalists’, embracing ‘classical’ theistic stances toward questions of the nature of God and God’s relationship to creation and time, and a loose association of theologians and philosophers variously labeled as ‘open theists’ or ‘freewill theists’, espousing an ‘openness of God’ theological paradigm. ⁸ The interactions generally carry little of the character of badinage among colleagues appreciating diversity in a common quest for theological articulation. ⁹ The former commonly depict themselves as defenders of the faith and champions of orthodoxy, polemically charging opponents within evangelical circles with quislingesque heresy and warning of dire peril to both individuals and the whole evangelical community in embracing these ‘neo-evangelical’ views. ¹⁰ Much of the work of open theists has, therefore, necessarily taken on an apologetic flavour.

In general, the former are found primarily in various shades of Augustinian or Calvinistic determinism. The latter identify more with Arminian and Wesleyan sources, toned by freewill beliefs, though they are sometimes deemed to go beyond Arminianism, finding themselves opposed and excluded even by many freewill traditionalists. ¹¹

Clark Pinnock describes it as ‘a Wesleyan/Arminian model with a twist.’ ¹² He claims that ‘[n]inety percent of it is in agreement with these evangelically oriented theological traditions, while ten percent is contested.’ ¹³ While John Sanders identifies the basic area of conflict within that smaller contested area as this very Arminian identity, Pinnock rightly recognises that it is open theism’s affirmation of what he terms ‘current omniscience’ and denial of exhaustive divine foreknowledge that are the most visible and contested sticking points in contemporary debates. ¹⁴

These debates intensified dramatically with the 1994 publication of The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God , co-authored by five of open theism’s leading thinkers. ¹⁵ Since that time a virtual flood of articles, books and internet publications continues to pour forth and sustain the controversies. Pinnock identifies open theism as ‘a variant of Wesleyan/Arminian theology which enjoys a respected place in evangelical tradition’ – an identification that most other evangelical open theists would affirm. ¹⁶ Opponents, however, speak of it as a clear departure from traditional evangelical orthodoxy, attacking it alternatively as either a new teaching or a restatement of an ancient heresy.

Despite clear distinctions, most critics associate this model with that of process theism. ¹⁷ While major proponents of open theism grant an appreciation for certain aspects of process theology, they are also very clear about radical distinctions between these two approaches. Though Pinnock, for example, has spoken of open theism as an attempt to find a via media between classical and process theisms, he has been specific about where the two models differ. ¹⁸ Gregory Boyd has been particularly forceful in presenting both the affinities and incompatibilities between them. ¹⁹ Despite certain limited similarities, evangelical open theists have not identified process thought as the source of their ideas.

Neither have they identified with Socinianism – after the teachings of the Polish reformer Faustus Socinus – another theological variant commonly critically associated with open theism. ²⁰ Whereas process theologians indicate the importance of these sources, open theists are aware that there exists an unbridgeable gap between Socinian heresy and orthodox evangelical theism. ²¹ The resemblance between Socinian formulas concerning divine omniscience and similar expressions in open theism, though remarkable, are actually historically accidental rather than relationally dependent. ²²

Ideas about limiting of foreknowledge in such a way that the future remains to some degree undetermined and uncertain, even for God, are not new. Not only did the Socinians hold an understanding of divine omniscience close in wording to the current omniscience of open theism, but the medieval Jewish theologian Gersonides said that in creating beings with genuine free will God limited the divine omniscience, even abdicating some dimensions of divine foreknowledge. ²³ Likewise, Ambrose is reported to have said concerning prayer that ‘if God foreknows the future, and if this must needs come to pass,’ and ‘if all things come to pass by the will of God, and his counsels are fixed, and none of the things he wills can be changed, prayer is vain.’ ²⁴

Contemporaries of Ambrose – Porphyry, Albinus and Calcidius – held similar ideas. The latter was reputed to have been a Christian, possibly even a Milanese deacon. He wrote that ‘it is true that God knows all things, but that he knows everything according to its own nature: that which is subject to necessity as submissive to necessity, the contingent, however, as provided with such a nature that deliberation opens a way for it.’ ²⁵ And furthermore, ‘contingent things are not inflexibly arranged and determined from the beginning with the sole exception of the very fact, that they must be uncertain and depend upon a contingent course.’ ²⁶

More specifically, however, open theists have insisted that this theological model is part of the larger picture Arminian and Wesleyan theological traditions. Open theism is seen not so much as a variant of this set of traditional views as a consistent development of, or within, it. Rather than being theologically discrete, it is traditional Arminian and Wesleyan belief evolved to a further level. ²⁷

These roots of open theism as they developed during the second half of the nineteenth century are all but ignored by its opponents. Few critics allude to these historical developments, and fewer still take them seriously, despite the fact that open theists have consistently identified these factors as influential in their theological formation. ²⁸

Rather than stretching credulity and the bounds of anachronistic fallacy, the major components of evangelical open theism can be found, at least in embryonic form, within these strangely neglected late nineteenth century historical theological developments among Arminian, Wesleyan, and holiness writers and preachers of the American frontier. While most of the writers from this period were content to simply replay themes previously heard, several of them articulated in their preaching and teaching barely-formulated ideas about how to understand divine omniscience and foreknowledge in ways which allowed humans authentic freedom of the will.

Methodist theologian and biblical scholar, Adam Clarke, for example, said that God ‘knows Himself, and what He has formed, and what He can do; but it is not necessitated to know as certain what He Himself has made contingent.’ ²⁹ Although he described divine omniscience in a way which resembles ‘presentism’ or ‘current omniscience’ in open theism – the view that God has perfect knowledge of the past and present, as well as of what God determines to do in the future – he also insisted that ‘God’s gracious design to save a lost world by Jesus Christ could not be defeated by any cunning, skill, or malice of men or devils.’ ³⁰

John Miley would later say that Clarke ‘held in the part of God a purely voluntary nescience’ – a position which he criticised as inconsistent because ‘a voluntary nescience in God must imply a knowledge of the things which he chooses not to know.’ ³¹ Miley, along with others of this period, understood ‘nescience’ – literally ‘not knowing’ – to be the antonym of prescience. He recognized that ‘[t]he divine nescience of such volitions would be a necessity, not a free choice.’ ³²

In saying this, Miley recognised the importance of the work of the Methodist theologian and philosopher Lorenzo Dow McCabe. ³³ Although Miley himself did not embrace what was becoming known, primarily through McCabe’s teaching and writing, as the divine nescience of future contingencies, he was very aware of, and even sympathetic to, this understanding. He noted that ideas of divine nescience had already been put forth in the sixteenth century among the Socinians and among some Remonstrants (Dutch followers of Arminius), though not Arminius himself, but praised McCabe’s articulation as both powerful and persuasive. ³⁴ He wrote that this ‘doctrine itself has more recently been treated with a definiteness and thoroughness and supported with a force of argument which are quite new,’ and he confessed that ‘it is much easier to pronounce the arguments of Dr. McCabe a nullity than to answer them in a process of lucid and conclusive logic.’ ³⁵

McCabe’s influence spread through both his students and writings. ³⁶ During the late 1800s, the pages of the Methodist Quarterly Review and other more local periodicals regularly set forth either McCabe’s ideas or reactions to them. ³⁷ He published three books. The first, on the subject of sanctification, was followed by two more lengthy treatments of his ideas concerning divine foreknowledge, which he generally termed ‘prescience’, and nescience of future contingencies. ³⁸ At the time of his death, he was planning two further books: one expounding a new theory of the atonement which he had worked out, believing it superior to any others then known, and another setting forth his ethical theory.

Open theists refer primarily to the two books published on divine nescience. One of McCabe’s colleagues noted that his ideas about this doctrine were perceived as novel by many American clergy, while they were already fairly well known in both Germany and England. He claimed that the professor’s thinking in the area of divine nescience was ‘the product of his absolutely original investigations into the teachings of the Bible, and of the unbiased human reason,’ and that he was motivated by ‘daring but devout attempts to place our Arminian theology on an impregnable basis’ to embark on ‘a new and brave departure from the beaten path in the agonizing struggle of men to make God just, as well as the justifier of the sinner.’ ³⁹ Such a claim is rendered somewhat plausible by the fact that due to perennial problems with his eyesight, McCabe was never a prolific reader.

Samuel W. Williams wrote that McCabe wanted his books to form ‘a complete refutation of the Calvinistic doctrine of decrees.’ ⁴⁰ He traced the genesis of McCabe’s thinking about divine nescience to ‘a hint of the subject given him by Professor [F. S.] Hoyt,’ following which ‘he carried on independently.’ ⁴¹ McCabe confirmed this relationship in a tribute in the preface to his book on foreknowledge, where he also claimed that his motives were simply to further the search for truth and resolution in the unresolved problems between absolute divine foreknowledge and human freedom. ⁴² McCabe also quoted someone (perhaps Daniel Curry) who he regarded as ‘[o]ne of the ablest thinkers American Methodism has yet produced [as saying]: “The denial of absolute foreknowledge is the essential compliment of the Methodist theology, without which its philosophical incompleteness is defenseless against the logical consistency of Calvinism.”‘ ⁴³ McCabe clearly viewed his directions as refinements of Arminian belief.

McCabe expressed disappointment in Bledsoe’s work on theodicy, saying that it was just a restatement of existing Arminian theology and did not resolve the problematic issues of reconciling an absolute divine foreknowledge and human freedom. ⁴⁴ He regarded as equally tragic the resignation and despair indicated by those who could not find a way to resolve this dilemma inherent in Arminianism. McCabe’s Arminian and Wesleyan approach to theology, together with his literal biblical hermeneutics, dominated the development of his beliefs about the definition of divine omniscience and limits to, but not complete elimination of, God’s foreknowledge.

Miley realised that there were problems in reconciling both Calvinistic and traditional Arminian beliefs about God’s knowledge with the belief in God as personal being. He went so far as to write that ‘[i]f the ministries of providence in the free agency of God … be not consistent with his foreknowledge, the foreknowledge cannot be true,’ and ‘[i]f there must be for us an alternative between the prescience of God, on the one hand, and his true personal agency in the ministries of providence, on the other, the former doctrine must be yielded, while we cleave to the latter, because it embodies the living reality of the divine moral government.’ ⁴⁵ Likewise I. W. Wiley wrote in 1881 that there were many things about God and God’s relationship to creation which were yet problematic, and that these things could be resolved either by Calvinistic determinism or Arminian simple free will, nor through some ‘eclecticism which would combine parts of both.’ ⁴⁶ While he preferred the Arminian approach, he confessed that ‘Arminianism has not freed [people] from all difficulties, and especially [not] from those very serious embarrassments which … [grew] out of the doctrine of the divine foreknowledge of contingent or volitional events.’ ⁴⁷ McCabe declared that the ‘surrender of prescience [was] indispensable to the respectability of Arminianism.’ ⁴⁸

Open theists are not simply ‘McCabites’. The theological phraseology of McCabe’s era sounds somewhat stiff and rigid to most people today. Open theists have, therefore, generally chosen alternative terms, and they recognise limitations in his work. They also, however, express a debt of gratitude for McCabe’s systematic exposition of the doctrine of divine nescience as helpful in formulating and articulating the ideas of open theism, especially limited foreknowledge and current omniscience.

During, and immediately after, his lifetime, McCabe’s ideas were subjected to heated debate, criticism, ridicule and rejection by some, and warmly welcomed and appreciated by others. ⁴⁹ Nevertheless, he was acknowledged as remaining solidly within the bounds of Arminian and Wesleyan orthodoxy as understood in his historical and cultural context. Fellow professors and former students bore witness to McCabe’s commitment to a verbal theory of biblical inspiration bordering on dictation. ⁵⁰ One former student wrote that ‘[h]e was so extremely orthodox that he was inclined to believe all the discrepancies of the Word of God to be the direct dictation of the Spirit!’ ⁵¹

In terms very similar to those used by open theists, McCabe argued that absolute divine prescience is contraindicated by the biblical writers. He noted as ‘remarkable how constantly it is implied, or assumed, in the Scriptures, that God does not foreknow the choices of free beings while acting under the law of liberty,’ and that ‘there are numerous passages in which is clearly found the assumption of the incapacity or inability of omniscience to foreknow … the choices of beings endowed with the power of original volition and action, unless it should be through a violation of the law of human freedom.’ ⁵²

Clearly, there are occasions when God can and does override normal operating principles of creaturely freedom to accomplish certain ends which God has determined to bring about. ⁵³ For example, he contended that some biblical prophecies are to be understood in this light, for ‘God in prophecy … overrides the law of liberty, just as he overrides the law of material forces in miracles.’ ⁵⁴ He stressed that the human person is so constituted, that his will can be brought under the law of cause and effect, by bringing overpowering influences to act upon reason and his sensibilities. ⁵⁵ Those circumstances are, however, understood to be exceptions to the normal operations of both God and human beings, and in them choices cease to be free. Choices under such circumstances cannot have a moral or responsible component for the chooser. ⁵⁶

McCabe described human beings as ‘free moral agents … co-creators, co-causes, co-originators’ with God, and noted that ‘the Scriptures represent man as having … the power of taking the absolute initiative,’ such that if people are ‘not … free being[s] there can be for [them] neither right, wrong, justice, moral philosophy, or moral government.’ ⁵⁷ As in the claims of open theists, therefore, absolute divine prescience is incompatible with the nature of human freedom and choice, as well as with responsibility and moral accountability.

McCabe argued further that such prescience of future free volitions is inherently contradictory and therefore impossible. Since future choices have no actual existence, they cannot be said to be actually known. To speak of knowing what is quite literally nothing is meaningless and absurd. ⁵⁸ Concerning contingencies, he wrote, that ‘only from that moment … a contingency becomes a knowable thing. Up to the point of some free being originating its conception and determining to actualise it, it is pure unreality …. If … a thing [is] unknowable, it is no reflection upon Omniscience to affirm its incapacity to know it.’ ⁵⁹ McCabe clearly understood that denial of absolute prescience was not a denial of omniscience. He noted that ‘knowledge of a nothing is self-contradictory, and [a human] free choice before [someone] made it is a nothing.’ ⁶⁰

Writing about the same time as McCabe, Joel S. Hayes produced a volume on the foreknowledge of God in which he interacted with critics of the emerging doctrine of divine nescience. He argued that there is no biblical evidence that necessitates God’s absolute foreknowledge, but rather that God ‘does not state that he knows more than he has foreordained.’ ⁶¹

Like McCabe, he goes beyond simple defense of free will, however, arguing that ‘God, though infinite in power and wisdom, did not and could not know before man was created whether he would sin or not’ and that ‘having created man a moral agent … he could not prevent his sinning; nor could he before having created him, not knowing who would sin and who would not, have put any other moral being in his place with expectation of better results.’ ⁶² Nescience of future actions of moral agents is, therefore, inherent in, and necessary to, genuine human freedom. ⁶³ Absolute divine foreknowledge is an idea incompatible with true human freedom, for ‘to foreknow a free volition is a contradiction.’ ⁶⁴

Both McCabe and Hayes spoke of God knowing and using probabilities. Hayes differed from McCabe in defining foreknowledge primarily in terms of ‘moral certainty’ – an understanding which relies on the concept of probabilities as the basis for a kind of virtual certainty about the actions of human beings as a class rather than about individuals or the free choices of individuals. ⁶⁵

McCabe’s understanding of the relationship between God’s prescience and probabilities more closely resembles that of most open theists. He wrote that

God could … estimate approximately what are likely to be the choices of free agents in the early future. And this estimate of probabilities may be so nearly indubitable, in many cases, as to resemble prescience itself. ⁶⁶

He agreed with President Tappan that ‘[o]ur calculation of future choices … can never be attended with absolute certainty, because the will, being contingent, has the power of disappointing calculations which are made upon the longest observed uniformity.’ ⁶⁷ Furthermore, ‘[a] contingent thing must be a pure origination by a being possessing power to select and originate one out of many. But this is possible only on the hypothesis that the future is now undetermined, unfixed, and, therefore, uncertain in the universe of contingencies.’ ⁶⁸ In a similar way, ‘[a]lteration, in the nature of things, necessitates subjective uncertainty in the divine mind,’ and therefore ‘[t]he state of omniscience is … a state of uncertainty as to which … alternates will certainly come to pass.’ ⁶⁹ In short, the future must be at least partly open. ⁷⁰

The concept of risk is implied in such a statement. Though not specifically developed in detail by McCabe – he termed this a ‘pure adventure’ – or his contemporaries, the idea that God risks disappointment in endowing creatures with genuine freedom, since such freedom implies ability to choose against God and against God’s will. ⁷¹ He wrote that God created human beings ‘clothed with the august endowments of liberty, and an ability to disappoint [God's] desires and expectations and defeat his purposes.’ ⁷² Understood in this context, God’s ‘sovereignty … is a sovereignty over sovereigns, not a sovereignty over mere machines or passive instruments, under the reign of mechanical philosophy.’ ⁷³ As among open theists, however, this does not imply that God is ultimately unable to accomplish those things which are divinely appointed. McCabe was quite clear in believing that ‘[t]he Scriptures indicate that God has two kinds of plans relative to this world and its inhabitants, – one sovereign, the other contingent,’ and that God’s ‘sovereign plans are determined upon absolutely’ and ‘will be accomplished by one set of means or by another, ordinary or extraordinary.’ ⁷⁴ God may even determine ‘in his mind the identical agent through whom [some sovereign purpose] shall finally be brought about.’ ⁷⁵ In other words, the future is both partly open and partly closed.

In this context McCabe, in words echoed almost verbatim by open theists, asserted that God is both wise and resourceful enough to handle any situations and contingent developments which arise from undetermined freedom among humans. ⁷⁶ Furthermore, God can do so while acting within the realm of present knowledge, without the necessity of prescience. ⁷⁷ He asserted that ‘God is fully able to meet any and every emergency, no matter how great, how sudden, or how complicated, that can arise anywhere in infinite space or endless duration.’ ⁷⁸ After all, he asked, ‘[i]s not God omniscient in respect to all knowable things, to all free choices as soon as they are put forth? …. Those attributes of Jehovah [sic] could overcome all difficulties and provide for all hazards, and turn to best account all developments that may be made in all the boundless universe and throughout eternity.’ ⁷⁹ McCabe delighted in demonstrating that ‘[n]escience presents … the sovereignty of God with most impressive magnificence as he goes forth over the boundless universe overcoming all difficulties, and arresting, as far as possible, all evils which are inevitable in the government of beings whose choices originate in the depths of their own free-wills.’ ⁸⁰ Such resourcefulness would be highly valued among human beings and would actually be more praiseworthy and glorious in the divine being than would insistence upon an omniscience which included absolute prescience. ⁸¹

Along with this, McCabe consistently argued that there would be no real advantages to either God or creation for God to possess unlimited prescience. Not only does God not need such prescience to perfectly rule in divine providence, but God would actually be hindered by having this kind of foreknowledge. God could do nothing to change what God foreknew would happen, since what is foreknown cannot, by definition, be changed. ⁸²

This kind of omniscience would also rule out any form of actual change within God. McCabe contended that ‘universal prescience … is positively inconsistent with [God's] character and office as the moral governor of the moral universe,’ for

[a] real trial, a trial that is not a mere delusive semblance, requires that God’s feelings and his conduct toward an accountable spirit should be constantly changing and varying with the ever varying volitions which that spirit puts forth in the exercise of his endowment of freedom. But this can only be possible on the supposition of God’s nonprescience of those volitions. To affirm that God’s feelings, purposes, and conduct can change just as the free volitions of the subject do actually change, when he has perfect foreknowledge of all the future volitions of that free subject, is to assert a manifest impossibility. ⁸³

Contained within this pericope are safeguards for authentic mutuality in the divine-human relationship, the capacity of God (contra classical understandings of the attributes of impassibility and immutability – related notions that God does not experience emotional or any other changes) to actually feel experientially rather than just know about emotions cognitively and to change in some ways by experiencing the sequentiality of time. ⁸⁴ In this context, McCabe quotes Isaak August Dorner’s claim that ‘[i]n the world … God must live as historical life, a life that is conditioned by man’s use of freedom.’ ⁸⁵ God’s eternality is, therefore, not conceived in terms of ‘timelessness’ or some Boethian ‘eternal now’ but in terms of endless duration, without beginning or end. ⁸⁶

In like manner, nescience is essential if God is to be understood in personal terms or as entering into personal relationships with humans. Absolute prescience would rob God of every attribute essential to personal being. God would not be free because God could never choose, do, think or act in any other way than God does act, otherwise the divine prescience would be false, which it cannot by definition be. In fact, God would be immobilised – unable to think, choose, initiate, act, react, or interact – like the idols which were so often the object of divine wrath. Ultimately, God’s omniscience would conflict with God’s omnipotence, since, as McCabe asserted, ‘if God is not able to form a conception that he never thought of, then he has never in all the eternity past possessed the power to form any new conception, and then, consequently, all his conceptions must be eternal; and if eternal they were never originated, and God, therefore, has never been able to form a new conception, or to originate and determine any one thing.’ ⁸⁷ This, however, would represent an intolerable situation. ⁸⁸ It would also, he contended, contradict apostolic witness in Scripture. ⁸⁹

Like both McCabe and open theists, Hayes declared that genuine human freedom is essential since a ‘doctrine of necessity makes God the only real agent or actor of sin in the universe’ because otherwise ‘the creatures which he has made [are] merely passive instruments in his hands to accomplish his purposes. ⁹⁰ God would ultimately be responsible for evil, and a satisfactory theodicy would be impossible. ⁹¹ In contrast, however, McCabe located ‘the origin of sin in the human will’ and declared that ‘[t]he simple and single choice of a free will was the absolute incipiency of moral evil into the moral universe.’ ⁹² However, ‘no considerations, no ends, no final causes, could ever justify God, before an intelligent universe, in violating absolute rectitude, or in overriding freedom in free agents, or in outraging benevolence, either in planning wickedness, or in desiring its inception, or in creating individual souls who he foresaw would certainly be wicked and miserable and everlasting blotches upon his moral universe.’ ⁹³ In contrast, ‘divine nescience brings beauty, quietness, profit, and assurance forever into the great theodicean [sic] problem.’ ⁹⁴

Concerning the future state of the reprobate, McCabe is less willing than open theists to abrogate the doctrine of eternally conscious separation in hell. He does, however, advocate the idea that ‘[t]here must … be a point in probation beyond which the power of alternative choices cannot be continued.’ ⁹⁵ In other words, the human characteristic of indeterministic freedom is not eternal; it will come to an end. ⁹⁶ McCabe described something of a psychological or character evolutionary process in which habitual choices, dispositions and behaviours progressively take on a permanent form, giving rise to an immutable character. ⁹⁷ This works gradually in such a way that ‘[e]very additional volition adds additional weakness to the conscience, darkness to the mind, hardness to the heart and perverseness to the will. In this process the soul finally reaches a state in which it is irredeemably fixed in its awfully shocking depravities,’ ultimately resulting in a condition of ‘being morally petrified.’ ⁹⁸ Once this condition is reached, a person is lost to God and beyond the reach of God’s love and mercy. ⁹⁹

McCabe identified other specifically pastoral concerns which would be better addressed in the language of divine nescience than in that of absolute prescience. It better addresses the reality of spiritual warfare, as well as the urgency of evangelism and missions. ¹⁰⁰ McCabe lamented that

[m]uch of the indifference, the casting off of personal responsibility, and the non-development of latent spiritual power, that have so sadly characterised and paralyzed the Church, is … chargeable to the belief of the old dogma of universal and absolute prescience. The old view of the divine foreknowledge – involving the fixed certainty of all future events – has ever been most enervating and repressing. It has made pigmies of those who might have been giants, and mere glimmering lights of many pulpits which should have sent a powerful and saving radiance far across the moral darkness of this world. ¹⁰¹

It better fit the nature and efficacy of prayer and thoroughly resolved intellectual objections to that discipline. He quoted Richard Rothe’s phrase: ‘If absolute prescience be true, prayer becomes not only nonsense, but inexcusable.’ ¹⁰² Further concerning prayer, McCabe argued that ‘[t]he logical and practical effect of … belief in divine foreknowledge is …. [that one] can never infract or modify that which God infallibly foreknows.’ ¹⁰³ Real prayer, however, ‘means that God will do for a soul, on condition of its compliance with the duty of prayer, that which he will not do if that condition is not complied with,’ and therefore, ‘[i]f the condition be complied with it effects changes in God, or prayer is a meaningless institution’ ¹⁰⁴

It makes Christianity more palatable to those who are not themselves of the Christian faith. In this light, McCabe referred to Albert Barnes agonised confession of his inner turmoil and confusion resulting from his inability to resolve the tensions between prescience and freedom. ¹⁰⁵ Neither was he alone, said McCabe, for ‘almost every Christian believer fights a life-long battle with this most obtrusive and harassing dogma,’ and ‘[t]he doctrine of the absolute foreknowledge of God has occasioned more perplexity and intellectual torture than any other in all the departments of theology.’ ¹⁰⁶ Accepting divine nescience would resolve the spiritual turmoil experienced nearly universally resulting from the dogmas of absolute omniscience and total prescience.

Miley wrote that ‘[t]he divine nescience of future volitions, if accepted as truth, is not necessarily revolutionary in theology,’ neither for Calvinism (which, he argued, logically allows no authentic contingencies) nor Arminianism, since ‘[e]very vital doctrine would remain the same.’ ¹⁰⁷ Furthermore, in contrast to contemporary critics of open theism, he asserted that ‘[i]f the truth of nescience were established or accepted, it would be as little revolutionary within the sphere of practical truth as in that of doctrinal truth,’ and [c]ertainly it could not in the least abate any of the moral forces of Christianity.’ ¹⁰⁸ On the contrary there could even be positive results.

Critics of open theism frequently link it with Socinianism or with process theism. Both associations are compatible with the apologetic and theo-political aims of these writers, but they are historically inaccurate and fallacious. While certain tenets of open theism bear resemblance to some aspects of both Socinian and process thought, these resemblances are historically accidental. Some open theists have expressed appreciation for process theology, but they have not identified it as a significant source for the formation of their thinking. They do, however, consistently identify their roots in Arminian and Wesleyan tradition, especially certain developments among Methodists on the American frontier during the late nineteenth century, particularly the thinking of Lorenzo Dow McCabe. Amidst the furious attacks by detractors of open theism these historical roots have strangely been almost entirely neglected. Open theism is, in fact, neither the radical new departure from evangelical orthodoxy nor the embracing of unbiblical heresy it is purported to be. Perhaps recognition of the roots of open theism in a stream of orthodox Christian heritage can begin to rebuild what has been already been broken as a result of contemporary controversies among North American evangelicals, generate a climate in which differences are both recognised and appreciated, and contribute to better equipping people to encounter questions and issues arising from the shift toward postmodernism.
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- Open Theism - TheopediaOpen theism, also called free will theism and openness theology, is the belief that God does not exercise meticulous control of the universe but leaves it "open" for humans to make significant choices (free will) that impact their relationships with God
- Open Theism - WIkipediaOpen theism is a recent theological movement that has developed within evangelical and post-evangelical Protestant Christianity as a response to certain ideas that are related to the synthesis of Greek philosophy and Christian theology.
- ReKnewThis is where Greg is temporarily blogging until the official site, ReKnew.org, is launched in June.
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Jesse Ward

July 29, 2013 at 1:24 pm

History will ultimately fulfill God's objectives for humanity. But this does not mean that His will is realized in the case of every human being. On the individual level God's designs are often thwarted. The Bible says that God desires the salvation of all men (1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Pet. 3:9). But not all men accept salvation. Many will eventually be lost (see Matt. 25:41; Rev. 19:12-15). Consequently, while a person may not prevent the realization of God's overall purposes, he may certainly interfere with God's intentions for his own life - Richard Rice

Thomas Jay Oord I understand what Rick is getting at, but I don't think I buy it. How can God's objectives be fulfilled and yet individuals be lost forever? I'd say one of God's main objectives is that all will be saved. To put it another way, it would be a real shame if God has objectives that don't include the redemption of all creation. It would be kind of like the shepherd saying, "Hey, I've got 99 sheep, why go looking for the lost one?"

July 29, 2013 at 1:29 pm

Nathan Greeley But Tom, one of the main tenets of free will theism is that God doesn't always get what God wants, and this nonetheless does not make God a failure. If God always gets what he wants in the end, the importance of free will starts to seem trivial.

July 29, 2013 at 1:59 pm

Thomas Jay Oord I'm agreeing with you, Nathan. As I understand the quote above, you and I would disagree with Rick Rice.

July 29, 2013 at 2:13 pm

Nathan Greeley But I would say obstinate refusal to submit to God's will would make it impossible for fellowship with God, and at least in principle, it is possible that there will be people that do so refuse and so will never enter the kingdom. Isn't that essentially what Richard is saying?

July 29, 2013 at 2:17 pm

Nathan Greeley I see better what you mean now. Sorry for the confusion. I thought you were arguing for universalism, but I see now you were making a point about what God's objectives are. And yes, I agree.

July 29, 2013 at 2:23 pm

Joe Garratt I expect Richard Rice would agree with you two too! People often say things that can be read in a few different ways and sometimes come at things from angles they wouldn't always prefer in order to try to focus in on particular issues :)

July 29, 2013 at 2:50 pm

Thomas Jay Oord Perhaps, Joe. But Rick thinks God COULD override creaturely freedom, should God decide to do so. He believes God is voluntarily self-limited. I don't think God can override creaturely freedom, because I think God's love requires that God give freedom.

July 29, 2013 at 4:52 pm

Nathan Greeley I have a question about that idea, Tom. Take the following scenario: God incarnates himself in Jesus of Nazareth and then someone somehow prevents Jesus from either beginning, continuing, or finishing his ministry on the cross. His message never is sufficiently heard, and Christianity never happens. Would your reply be that God, as soon as he came to know of such possibilities, would warn Jesus? And that he would heal or rescue Jesus if, for some reason, his warning came too late? Thus God would not override people's wills, but he would foil their plans?

July 29, 2013 at 5:26 pm

Rick Farwell I guess this might go along with Dr. Rice being an annihilationist, Who's to say that given enough time the lake of fire would eventually be emptied of its denizens. Rev. 22:14-17 seems to offer the possibility of drinking from the river of life freely, washing their robes, and having a right to the tree of life, in close context to those outside the city.

July 29, 2013 at 6:07 pm

Thomas Jay Oord Great question, Nathan! I don't have a ready, nice and neat answer. I want to affirm that free creatures could thwart God's plans in Jesus. But I also want to affirm that God would never quit seeking to offer as full a revelation as possible. I do think God can warn us (and Jesus), and I think those especially in tune with God can "hear" God's voice better (which Jesus would have been able to do well, although not inerrantly). I'll keep thinking about this great set of questions!

July 29, 2013 at 6:09 pm

Thomas Jay Oord Rick - I'm not sure what Rick Rice's position on the afterlife might be.

July 29, 2013 at 6:20 pm

Rick Farwell Perhaps I am mistaken, but I believe he is a Seventh Day Adventist.

July 29, 2013 at 6:30 pm

Thomas Jay Oord Yes, Rick is definitely SDA.

July 29, 2013 at 7:09 pm

Rick Farwell SDA is conditional immortality, IOW annihilation.

July 29, 2013 at 7:14 pm

Thomas Jay Oord IOW?

July 29, 2013 at 7:19 pm

Rick Farwell Sorry, in other words.

July 29, 2013 at 7:20 pm

Keith Noren I certainly hope all will be saved from eternal torment in hell and in fact that God will get his way eventually (all will be “saved” to an eternal bliss). Perhaps some will simply be annihilated (never to be conscious again after earthly death). But that is well above my pay grade and I find no crying need to be certain about any afterlife matters.

For now, I’ll live to please God (as events unfold) with a responsible sense of using my free will to increased my peace in this life and my chances in any future; and encourage others to do the same.

July 29, 2013 at 10:42 pm

Keith Noren Not as it stands today; but I’ve got my eye on it.

July 29, 2013 at 10:48 pm

W Scott Taylor Yes Keith, that was a sensible thing to say. God being who He is, and we being what we are it just makes sense to expect, that He at least knows what He's about. There is a certain psychosis evident when one loses sight of what he can do and focuses on what he will never be able to do. Or be believed that he has an independent answer.

Though it does go a long way to being influential if one is able to maintain rational consistency in one's affirmations.

July 30, 2013 at 1:32 am

Joe Garratt That's fair Tom I just meant that with respect to that post I wasn't sure it was clear enough whether Richard would disagree with what you and Nathan were saying- I didn't realise you were speaking more broadly :)

July 30, 2013 at 2:44 am

W Scott Taylor Good grief, the op is plain enough on the surface and I'd be more persuaded if Rice weighted in to tell us that he meant the logical opposite of what he did write.

"A salient feature of conditional prophecy needs to be applied to prophecy in general. Conditional prophecy summons people to a relationship with God. It vividly reminds them that the future depends on their response to Him. The primary purpose of all prophecy is to evoke a positive response to God. God seeks to establish a saving relationship with human beings in all His communications. Biblical prophecy is never presented merely as a source of information for the detached or disinterested observer. It always involves a decision. It is alway an invitation to respond to God in the present" "God's Foreknowledge & Man's Free Will" 1980 (Originally entitled 'The Openness Of God") Richard Rice.

Man must respond to God's overtures. Wait, that's what he said to begin with. Or not depending on who's reading evidently.

July 30, 2013 at 3:05 am

Eric Maggard Tom... I don't agree with this section and would like clarification: "I do think God can warn us (and Jesus), and I think those especially in tune with God can "hear" God's voice better (which Jesus would have been able to do well, although not inerrantly)."

"not inerrantly".... Are you are saying that Jesus could probably hear God's voice or the Spirit, but either not clearly enough or there might be miscommunication leading to misunderstanding or errors?

For that part of the discussion, I think that if there were plots on Jesus' life before God's plan was fully developed, God could easily have guided Jesus to thwart their plans, or could have put roadblocks in their way to frustrate their plans.

Now, how do I know Jesus could be lead by God away from enemies? Matt 5:19 "Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever [a]the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner." I think that if there was any miscommunication or Jesus could not hear God's voice clearly enough, He would have stopped and prayed until the communication was restored.

We know that Jesus didn't always want to do the Father's will, and at least once prayed for it to be changed. I believe Jesus remained sinless in a way and manner that is available for every Christian and believer to follow and do.... ie hear God's voice and do what He is leading us to do. That is why He gave us the Holy Spirit.

July 30, 2013 at 10:49 am

Thomas Jay Oord Great questions, Eric! I suppose the tension here is between Jesus being fully human and fully divine. As divine, I don't see how there can be miscommunication within Godself. But as a human, I think miscommunication is part of the finite condition. And as you point out, we have biblical passages that suggest Jesus isn't quite sure what God is doing (e.g., "My God, why have you forsaken me" or "know one knows the day or hour, not even the Son").

July 30, 2013 at 11:16 am

Thomas Jay Oord Two other things, Eric: I also think Jesus was sinless. And I also think we have the HS to guide us. But having the HS to guide isn't the same as getting crystal-clear, entirely unambiguous guidance from the HS. I think our inherently limited capacities as humans prevent us from such entirely unambiguous access. We do see some things, but we see "as if looking through a dim glass."

July 30, 2013 at 11:18 am

Eric Maggard Thanks Tom... yes, I agree that we see "as if looking through a dim glass." and also God definitely doesn't revel His whole plan to us.

July 30, 2013 at 11:22 am

7 Comment

Dan Baker

July 27, 2013 at 6:22 pm

I'm pretty certain that this post fits with Open Theism.
http://defrostingwindows.wordpress.com/2013/07/22/would-our-god-create-lucifer-knowing-he-becomes-satan/

Would Our God Create Lucifer Knowing He Becomes Satan?

defrostingwindows.wordpress.com

It is time to take a stab at answering some questions. Would our God with all-comprehensive, constant foreknowledge create Lucifer who He absolutely knew would become the devil? First of all, we ne...

Stewart Pepper Here's a great sermon on the topic of open theism. Hope you enjoy. http://www.boulevardsda.org/site/1/podcast/02_16_13_The_Love_of_God_Is_Greater_Still.mp3

July 28, 2013 at 10:02 am

W Scott Taylor No

July 28, 2013 at 11:40 am

Dan Baker Is that "No" to the question "Would Our God Create Lucifer Knowing He Becomes Satan?", or "No" to "this post fits with Open Theism"?

July 28, 2013 at 12:19 pm

W Scott Taylor Your question fits Open Theism, to the question would God Create Lucifer knowing He become Satan, that is an unqualified NO.

July 28, 2013 at 12:26 pm

Guy Abernathy Of course He would have calculated the risk, don't you think? Isn't that the double edged sword of freedom? I don't know a whole lot about open theism, but it interests me because why would God, a relational Being create without any element of mystery for Himself. It seems you could not have a relationship with Your creation if you removed any mystery at all. I am so saddened by the determinism Calvinists cling to... it is no surprise many of them cannot love as we are called to.

July 28, 2013 at 1:51 pm

W Scott Taylor Guy, the op reference has "Would our God with all comprehensive, constant foreknowledge create Lucifer who He absolutely knew would become the devil?"

The question presumes that possession of foreknowledge, in and of itself is able to ascertain absolute knowledge of contingent future free choices .

The question can only be hypothetical and stated with the present assumed conditions the only answer that can be given is NO.

July 28, 2013 at 2:51 pm

Guy Abernathy I agree, not sure what you are getting at I'm just saying God has common sense. He did know the possibility that giving free will to a created being can go either way.

July 28, 2013 at 2:54 pm

W Scott Taylor Guy, I'm merely answeing his question as stated. That's all he asked. I presume that he'll qualify his interest as we go.

July 28, 2013 at 2:56 pm

Guy Abernathy It's all good I was just thinking out loud

July 28, 2013 at 2:58 pm

Eric Maggard Yes

July 28, 2013 at 8:11 pm

W Scott Taylor Now I can speak for Eriks "yes". He means to affirm the opposite of what I said. Not that he's contrary but in this case I suspect he believes the affirmative.

July 28, 2013 at 8:24 pm

W Scott Taylor While we're at being 'complimentary' I haven't heard back from you on Pilot Wave or the latest from Bohr. Eric Maggard

July 28, 2013 at 8:26 pm

Eric Maggard http://www.spaceandmotion.com/Physics-Niels-Bohr.htm

July 28, 2013 at 8:34 pm

Eric Maggard http://www.livescience.com/8869-8-shocking-learned-stephen-hawking-book.html

July 28, 2013 at 8:35 pm

Eric Maggard I haven't been thinking much of wave theory and qm... I have been busy doing programming and image analysis. But these are a couple of sites I stumbled across...

July 28, 2013 at 8:35 pm

W Scott Taylor That's it? Like Einstein said 'if you can't explain it yourself in simple terms you don't understand it.

July 28, 2013 at 8:36 pm

Eric Maggard About my "yes"... If God wanted to give people and angles free will.... and a choice... then yes, God probably foreknew that someone, at sometime would choose B.

July 28, 2013 at 8:37 pm

Eric Maggard Then I guess that is why you quote others?

July 28, 2013 at 8:38 pm

W Scott Taylor The expression lacks precision and generalities don't say anything.

July 28, 2013 at 8:39 pm

W Scott Taylor I don't quote what I don't understand. Big difference.

July 28, 2013 at 8:39 pm

W Scott Taylor The incipiency of the will as an intrinsic attribute of God, and an essential element or endowment of personality for man (Imago dei) then by your reasoning God expects that He might sin sometime in the future. Or at least He should expect it.

July 28, 2013 at 8:43 pm

Eric Maggard No... because He is the only one that is good. Matthew 19:17

July 28, 2013 at 9:51 pm

W Scott Taylor Goodness is no guarantee against future possibilities. Goodness is a moral attribute. When He created all other moral beings (angels) they were originally good as well. There is no probabalistic link between moral attributes and sin.

July 28, 2013 at 9:53 pm

Eric Maggard What is sin? How did Jesus remain sinless?

July 28, 2013 at 9:58 pm

Stewart Pepper Interesting argument W Scott Taylor. Here's the deal. There is no Scripture that consistently implies that God is all-knowing. But the core of God is that He is a God of love. Everything must be seen in that context. If people don't have free choice because all of their decisions have been decided from eternity, then God cannot be love. Neither can He learn or choose because all of His thoughts have been known from eternity. Love requires free choice. The Bible does say God cannot sin. That would be true because He is love. He can't be love unless He has choice. If everything He will ever do has been known for all eternity past, then He has no choice but to do what He knows.

Conclusion: God's knowledge must be limited by free choice. His as well as ours.

July 28, 2013 at 10:00 pm

2 Comment

W Scott Taylor

July 28, 2013 at 1:37 am

"Causality & Complementary" by Niels Bohr - Delivered at the Second International Congress for the Unity of Science, Copenhagen, June 1936

[ or: " How The New Physics Rebukes anti-Trinitarianism" ] :)

At the foremost platform to speak as spokesman for the 'new physics' Niels Bohr explains complementary to the greatest assemblage of Scientists the world over.

"In order to give as clear an idea as possible of the new epistemological situation which we meet in atomic physics, we may briefly consider those measurements designed to obtain an account of the space-time course of some physical event. The account consists in the last analysis in the establishment of a series of unambiguous connections ...which define the system of reference involved in the space-time description. [(i.e. limit variable set of phenomena)] ... In case, however-as in the region of quantum phenomena - this interaction plays an essential role for the appearance of the phenomena themselves, the situation is completely changed, and we are in particular forced to renounce the combination, characteristic of classical physical description, of the space-time coordination of the event with the general conservation theorems of dynamics."

If that is not perfectly clear to you then you are in very large company. So let me cut to the chase and try to simplify the discussion which of course you can verify later by reading the address for you self.

The famous double slit experiment where electrons were teased off a source in a magnetic field and 'fired' at a curved rectangular strip that had two slits closely spaced is our demonstrator. The electrons were aimed at the slits but came singly in succession and some didn't go through either slit but a percentage did, in single succession. The experiment took longer than one might first imagine but as "dots" appeared at first randomly on the backing plate an over all shape that looked like wave interference patterns formed over time. The were very similar to the kind of wave-wave interference patterns that are generated when water goes through a similar device that has regularly space slots. Problem was there were only dots on the backing plate. Compare that with the photoelectric effect and you realize that the two are evidence of very different interactions of light with matter. The first appears wave like in behavior and the later is corpuscular, i.e. ball-ball collision. Remember, we are talking about measurements in the Planck scale. To track the position of a subatomic particle involves interfering with with either its position or momentum, the very things desired to ascertain.

Schroedinger's wave equation describes the time history of such phenomena and Heisenberg relations took into account the probabilistic nature of predicting where a thing will be at any given time based on the description of its initial position and momentum. All that to point out the problem of describing the space-time relation of subatomic phenomenal with other known causal based space-time objects. The impossibility of doing so led Bohr to the conclusion that the wave-particle duality, though contradictory was 'complimentary'. And that there was no way to ascertain what the thing was in it self. For Bohr that meant that it was neither, but when interacting with other 'neithers' it collapses into the space-time world we know.

Just so you know what complimentary is, it is combining two apparently contradictory states that matter can be in at any given time and accepting that they are somehow complementary. It is the ultimate logical contradiction of all time and has been regarded as the zenith of man's understanding of what kind of world and universe he lives in.

Anti-Trinitarians then are the most unscientific in their approach to the phenomena of what is by a trite recitation of abstract mathematics. One is 1 and anything else is not One anymore. Hence there is only One person in the Godhead.

Now just taking the single most important life that has ever graced human existence in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ and examine His teaching, personal exhortation and prayer life and you cannot say that He believed in singleness of personal identity in the Godhead. But, as long as religious people have been denying that they are logically inconsistent and that their view of reality is scientific and at the same time deny the truthfulness of Plurality of Persons in the Godhead I say such people have erred in the one place it matters most.

They are denying the possibility of a stated plurality in the Godhead in the most unscientific manner possible. Instead of synthesising facts, they selectively prefer only the one that makes their case plausible.

That they have risked insulting the plain exposition of the Lord Jesus Christ of the Plurality of Persons in the Godhead in this way undermines the intellectual integrity with which they can be regarded but also demonstrates they are more concerned about being right in their own mind than honoring an unthinkably wise God by humbling themselves when there is a benefit of doubt to be granted.

In Science if the facts all point one way and you disregard the ones that are inconsistent with your view, you are out of a job and publicly disgraced. Theology, it seems ,is the only place where you can do that on a regular basis and still have a job.
-----
PS After you read Bohr's address I don't want to hear anymore about long sentences, (see symbol for tongue-in-cheek) and two somebody make sure that Tom Belt gets ahold of this. He's been asking for something like this for a long time.

http://db.tt/65W8oiNv

Annie Welch Britt "The Zenith of mans understanding of what kind of world and universe he lives in"...

July 28, 2013 at 2:13 am

Annie Welch Britt How can Tom Belt get this?

July 28, 2013 at 3:43 pm

W Scott Taylor Oh he has it.

July 28, 2013 at 3:44 pm

Annie Welch Britt good good...i was thinking on that all morning..

July 28, 2013 at 3:45 pm

W Scott Taylor Theology, it seems ,is the only place where you can do that on a regular basis and still have a job.

July 28, 2013 at 3:47 pm

Annie Welch Britt I caught that statement yesterday...interesting..u said something like ..in science if u were proven wrong u would be outa a job...........lol

July 28, 2013 at 3:48 pm

Annie Welch Britt i am not laughing at the overall importance of this...just merely that statement.

July 28, 2013 at 3:53 pm

W Scott Taylor There are no targets that I can see, other than those it will do good.,

July 28, 2013 at 3:55 pm

Annie Welch Britt I am so thankful for the trinity.I see no issue with accepting this as a truism. It only becomes a problem,if,like you said, they are more concerned about being right in their own mind ,then they are about honoring God.That can be problematic.Big Time.....js

July 31, 2013 at 9:00 pm

4 Comment

Jesse Morrell

July 31, 2013 at 7:45 pm

Does God Blind The Eyes and Harden the Hearts of Unbelievers? Is this Predestination instead of free will? A Calvinist posted this on my facebook: "John 12:40 says that God hardens some mens hearts, and blinds their eyes so they can’t understand and be converted and healed. John12:39 says that they could not believe because of this. So did these men have a free will to believe in God."

I posted my response here: http://biblicaltruthresources.wordpress.com/2013/07/31/does-god-blind-the-eyes-and-harden-the-hearts-of-unbelievers-is-this-predestination/

Does God Blind The Eyes and Harden the Hearts of Unbelievers? Is this Predestination?

biblicaltruthresources.wordpress.com

A Calvinist posted this on My Facebook: John 12:40 says that God hardens some mens hearts, and blinds their eyes so they can't understand and be converted and healed. John12:39 says that ...

1 Comment

Jesse Ward

July 29, 2013 at 5:41 pm

Anyone coming to this?
http://reknew.org/resource/upcoming-conference/

Upcoming Conference

reknew.org

Let's come together for another ReKnew Conference. Our last event was a delight as we hosted Open 2013. This time we'll focus our time on Faith and Doubt at a conference we're calling Faith, Doubt & the Idol of Certainty. Do you have doubts and questions about God, the Bible and ...

Thomas Jay Oord The topic looks great, and I really like Greg's promo video. But I've got other plans that conflict with my attending.

July 29, 2013 at 6:12 pm

Michael Faber Sheesh, is there anything that isn't an "idol" these days? Does anyone know what an actual idol is?

July 29, 2013 at 7:12 pm

Annie Welch Britt an Idol is a god..a false god.

July 30, 2013 at 1:20 am

W Scott Taylor Michael, isn't an idol and externalized hand wrought object that is a representative for one's God? And as such is placed in an area of veneration and bowed down to in adoring compliance?

July 30, 2013 at 1:22 am

W Scott Taylor The implication being? If you do have certainty then your faith is in doubt? Hmm, sure that isn't a mix-up at the printers office?

July 30, 2013 at 1:37 am

Comment

Jason Amato

July 29, 2013 at 5:11 pm

Join Team Nehemiah!! http://eepurl.com/CZ4K5

Weekly Newsletter- Join Team Nehemiah!!

us4.campaign-archive1.com

One minute, 6-year-old Nathan Woessner was scampering up a massive dune in northern Indiana with his dad and a friend. He was gone the next, without a warning or sound.

Comment

Jesse Morrell

July 29, 2013 at 2:36 pm

This is my response to an email I received relating to the issue of original sin, sinful nature, total depravity, omniscience, etc. This person has been reading Calvinistic theology and articles from Calvinists against Moral Government Theology, so he is confused.

http://biblicaltruthresources.wordpress.com/2013/07/29/moral-government-theology-on-free-will-sin-nature-original-sin-total-depravity-etc/

Moral Government Theology on Free Will, Sin Nature, Original Sin, Total Depravity, etc...

biblicaltruthresources.wordpress.com

This was an email dialog I [Jesse Morrell] was having with a man over the topic of Moral Government Theology as it relates to free will, sinful nature, original sin, total depravity, spiritual deat...

Jesse Morrell I posted this here because of the section dealing with Open Theism or the doctrine of Omniscience within the Moral Government theological camp.

July 29, 2013 at 2:38 pm

Comment

Jason Amato

July 22, 2013 at 4:37 pm

Nehemiah asks for a favor! http://eepurl.com/CGwMj

Weekly Newsletter- Nehemiah asks for a favor!

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One minute, 6-year-old Nathan Woessner was scampering up a massive dune in northern Indiana with his dad and a friend. He was gone the next, without a warning or sound.

1 Comment

Drew Gasaway

July 14, 2013 at 3:31 am

I thought this might be interesting because when you study Jewish view of God and sin its very open theist. It goes back at least 3000 years or even to creation.

Does Judaism Believe in Original Sin?

http://www.outreachjudaism.org

Does Judaism Believe in Original Sin?

William Lance Huget I imagine many Open Theists believe in original sin (tradition vs truth). It is Moral Government Theology that specifically denies Augustinian original sin. The Open Theism emphasis on free will is more in line with denying original sin than Calvinism/TULIP. Most free will Arminians also embrace original sin. Some of us Open Theists also embrace MGT, so there may be guilt by association on that point (but I think it is MGT vs Open Theism that is the bigger denier of orig. sin).

July 14, 2013 at 4:25 pm

W Scott Taylor Drew, I've seen your previous post on this series and am just not sure you can go from anthropology to divine nescience or 'openness' from there. Can you give some concrete examples?

July 18, 2013 at 8:10 pm

Drew Gasaway Well, the new testament sources used by Augustine and later theologians don't really support the notion in context. There is a difference between being tempted by an evil element and being drawn to sin. The notion of being drawn to sin is problematic because it insists God created man in way that could cause evil. This requires mans evil nature to be created hence God creating Evil. Now in Isaiah, I think Ezekiel, Ephesians 2 it explains both the Devils creation in his free will hence the origin of evil and mans choice to follow evil. The problem with original sin is its a giant leap in logic that no recorded person thought of prior to Augustine. The Jews have traditions that don't impact the messiah that show they never believed in original sin. For Augustine it was a gold mine for the RCC and majesty it opened the door of the church atoning for sin. Later this was extrapolated to buy and sell for a ticket to heaven from papal authority.

July 20, 2013 at 2:21 pm

Drew Gasaway You see original sin means your not solely in control of your choice to sin. That creates the ability to have offerings of atonement. Buying $1000 candles, $500 masses and even pardons. It's the foundation to lots of papal authority and support of majesty.

July 20, 2013 at 2:25 pm

Drew Gasaway If people can atone for sin of their free will with repentance there is no need for father confessor. If people can choose to live a life and "sin no more" as Jesus said there is no need for blessings.

July 20, 2013 at 2:28 pm

Drew Gasaway I agree once we become aware we have sinned but it does not require a sinful nature. Were surrounded by temptation that is not pre set in our mind. How many times does a sin start with a friend introducing it like the serpent did?

July 20, 2013 at 2:30 pm

Drew Gasaway Even with the destruction of Sodom her sin was caused by the temptation of those she was thinking of. Sin is often environmental if you can't see the theological evidence. People tend to do what their friends do.

July 20, 2013 at 2:32 pm

Drew Gasaway I see this is God leaving a challenge for us to over come the evil in the world with our good nature.

July 20, 2013 at 2:33 pm

Annie Welch Britt People do what their friends do, that is why I try to pick good friends...lol

July 20, 2013 at 3:25 pm

Eric Maggard My Observations: First, this Rabbi doesn't seem to believe that Jesus is the OT Messiah... so that affects his reading of the NT. Second, the verse from Deut he uses is from the KJV... the section "that you may do it" is translated "so you may obey it" in the NIV, and "that you may observe it" in the NASB... personally I like the NASB translation the best. Third, from the Deut verse he quotes, the key section is "if you turn unto the Lord thy God with all your heart and with all your soul; for this commandment which I command you this day is not too hard for you neither is it too far off." What is that? Faith... it has always been Faith. Abraham was justified by it, not by works. So... can we save ourselves on our own? NO... only by Faith.

July 20, 2013 at 6:45 pm

Annie Welch Britt Faith without works is dead though...just saying ..and not that works saves us, but repentance accompanied with faith does have a part to play.

July 20, 2013 at 7:01 pm

Eric Maggard Works is a result OF Faith, works doesn't save us, it is an outpouring of the Faith we have. Kind of like the Chicken and Egg... but Faith comes first, then works.

July 20, 2013 at 7:23 pm

Annie Welch Britt i first had to repent (turn from my wicked ways) and change my mind before I experienced any kind of real faith....so ya, the chicken and the egg.( but the chicken really did come first....lol)

July 20, 2013 at 7:26 pm

Eric Maggard If you want to get technical, you needed to be convicted of your sin and have Faith that repenting would make a difference. But, we could go around and around... it is just semantics. Bottom line... works alone will not save... hence, the OT law just convicts and does not save.

July 20, 2013 at 8:00 pm

W Scott Taylor I don't see a theological connection to 'open theism' via anthropology. That is, 'open theology' does not have a core view on the sin nature question.

July 20, 2013 at 8:01 pm

Drew Gasaway Well, actually it should because you can't really have true free will without denying original sin. Original sin implies a lack of control over sin. Hence being designed by God to sin.

July 20, 2013 at 8:18 pm

Drew Gasaway This goes back to my point at Augustine's motives. He needed to create a tool for the RCC to atone for sin rather than just our choice of Christ. That is paramount in majesty doctrine. The issue of the Rabbi and his reading of the new testament sources he got from supporters of original sin are cleared up when you read the chapters. In context they don't support original sin as Augustine claimed. Genesis to does not support it because each sin involved demonic temptation of some sort. This is the problem Augustine's Gnostic views he got from the book of Thomas dictate God controls the actions of satan and planned them. This creates a problem of owning up to the issue of demonic temptation. Augustine can't or his house of cards collapses that's why he had so many contradictions.

July 20, 2013 at 8:25 pm

Drew Gasaway I was reading the wrong article from another source. In his case in this article he is denying solid Rabbinical theology of fulfilling a covenant. Not many Jews look at covenant like he does because of the covenants of Adam, Noah and so on. Most Jews get that I am not sure what his point is from a jewish stand point. I had Jewish relatives and they understand covenants.

July 20, 2013 at 8:41 pm

Drew Gasaway The problem with trying to mix covenants even from a Jewish stand point is you can't be righteous under an old covenant. The laws do change for example after Adam more law existed and after Noah less law did.

July 20, 2013 at 8:47 pm

Drew Gasaway It would be like saying I will live under the one law of Adam and still be righteous.

July 20, 2013 at 8:49 pm

David Cole It's always been about listening to the word and doing what is right and the power to do so is ours though difficult it may be.

"The word is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it."

"If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”

"The words I say to you are spirit and are life"

July 20, 2013 at 8:49 pm

Drew Gasaway I know but from a covenant stand point Rabbi Singer is smoking dope. By his Moses argument one could live under the law of Adam. Every Rabbi I talk to knows the law changes with covenants.

July 20, 2013 at 8:52 pm

David Cole Some aspects of the law changed with each covenant but the core aspect of "righteousness" and "doing what is right" has remained the same in all of God's covenants. I believe Christlikeness was what God intended as "righteousness" in all covenants.

July 20, 2013 at 8:58 pm

Drew Gasaway I agree I was referring to the written law for example Leviticus. The written law was an agreement for each covenant. The 10 commandments were reintroduced in the new covenant by Christ and clarified in Matthew 5 if I remember right.

July 20, 2013 at 9:01 pm

David Cole The 10 Commandments are based on "eye for eye, tooth for tooth". In Matthew 5 Jesus contrasts Law and Grace. Grace forgives instead of demanding repayment. Grace repays more for wrongs done to others. Grace goes the second mile. Grace offers help to anyone, even one's enemy. What Jesus taught went far beyond the 10 Commandments in righteousness. Christ's love goes beyond justice to sacrificial love.

I think one of the biggest differences between the Law and Grace might be motivation. The Law could not offer forgiveness of sins only condemnation for them but a forgiven person loves more and is therefore more motivated to not only live lawfully but practice sacrificial love. We love because he loved us.

July 20, 2013 at 9:15 pm

5 Comment

Drew Gasaway

July 20, 2013 at 6:32 am

The trinity is God responding to a need after taking a peak? We know each covenant was a corrective course for man by God. So is it an example of when God is not pleasantly surprised? So many ways to describe the same God and what he does. Jehovah, Yahweh, Elohim, Emanuel, Yeshua, Messiah, Christ and Jesus. That is why I describe the trinity as 3 functions of God rather than 3 persons.

W Scott Taylor The function metaphor makes me think of the Fourier Series, where the single function is expanded as a series of, in this case, three 'terms'. Each one being orthogonal to the other...hmm orthogonality would be problematic ... sigh. where to go or end with 'functional equivalence? jk

July 20, 2013 at 6:53 am

Drew Gasaway The doxology of 3 persons is even more problematic. It implies 3 God's. You would be surprised how many Jews I make progress with once I explain I don't believe in 3 God's. Emanuel is a good place to start. If Jesus was with man like God was shown through a burning bush he was leading the nation. So the son is God with us. The 3 personage term sounds pagan. I don't like to accuse anyone but lots doctrines were made based on pagan ideas. I don't want to start rumors I believe in the trinity but also believe in one God. You actually can find 3 words used to describe God in rabbinical writings and that's helpful.

July 20, 2013 at 7:00 am

Dennis Murphy I think I agree with you, Drew, about the difficulty of discussing the trinity. The more detail and description there is in theological writings about it just seem to make it all the more like three Gods, as you wrote. I believe in God as a trinity, but it's something I seldom try to describe. It works best for me to simply pray to and worship God as our Creator and heavenly Father, to realize I can do that in the name and authority of Jesus, and that God's Spirit gives us power to live the kind of life to which He calls us. I use the terminology and I realize the Bible gives divine descriptions of each of those names, but I don't try to describe or explain how I worship one God. I think it's best to leave it as mostly mystery.

July 20, 2013 at 8:09 am

Jane E Clark The fact that God is not just three aspects but three persons is evident at the Cross. How could the Father turn away from the Son, otherwise?

July 20, 2013 at 8:54 am

Jane E Clark Trinity as Tri-unity. Jesus prayed that we would be one as He and the Father are one, in John 17.

July 20, 2013 at 8:55 am

David Cole I think God had Christ and the New Covenant in mind when he made Adam so I'm not sure each covenant other than the Noahic Covenant was "corrective" in nature.

July 20, 2013 at 9:49 am

Drew Gasaway I think John 17 disproves that there are 3 Gods Jane. In Los Angeles Dennis I work with lots of Jews and agnostics who know more about the bible than lots of professors. Lots of the agnostics come from a reformed or catholic background. The trinity, Augustine and politics are all common reservations. The biggest threat to churches here was Augustine. They take parts of his teachings and other theologians and translate his flaws into contradictions. I worked almost a year on an agnostic who graduated from the Masters. Jews tend to bring up "our pagan three God's." Most people though cut to the chase and get down to the political nature of most churches. I make friends with people its the only way to make a real connection. David Cole it was meant as a theoretical question.

July 20, 2013 at 10:33 am

David Cole I like the way Francis Schaffer described it. In order for God to create a universe that displays so much unity and diversity, he had to be both perfect unity and perfect diversity at the same time, hence the philosophical necessity of the trinity. He didn't elaborate as much as I would have liked on the subject but it made sense to me.

July 20, 2013 at 11:22 am

William Lance Huget Drew, your view sounds modalistic (Oneness/Sabellian). The biblical, historical, orthodox view is trinitarian. It is more than 3 functions, but 3 personal distinctions/conscious centers. We cannot make sense of Scripture otherwise. Since there is only one nature/substance/essence/being, there are NOT 3 gods (straw man argument against God's triune nature). http://www.amazon.com/Definitive-Look-Oneness-Theology-Defending/dp/076182992X/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=1FB5V5O53QPQN&coliid=I2X8RRFYLGDS2Q

July 20, 2013 at 11:26 am

William Lance Huget http://www.amazon.com/dp/0801010195

July 20, 2013 at 11:26 am

Drew Gasaway I am triniitarian because I believe God has three functions. Now these can take different forms but its one God. Now I do reject most orthodox stances. For example I don't accept almost anything written by Augustine. Lots of false orthodox doctrines originated from the Gnostic gospels and I encourage you to read Thomas you will never see Augustine the same again.

July 20, 2013 at 11:30 am

Drew Gasaway I deny he is three separate God's like the Greeks had. Explaining God is like Swiss army knife he has more than one blade but its still the same God.

July 20, 2013 at 11:31 am

Drew Gasaway For example when he appeared in the burning bush he was in a form. When the angels appeared in human form instead of spirit form they were the same angels.

July 20, 2013 at 11:33 am

William Lance Huget Modalists are not trinitarian. Your language is unorthodox/imprecise. You continue to attack a straw man of 3 gods vs 3 personal distinctions in one God. Some people who claim to believe the Deity of Christ actually deny it, but they co-opt the term to sound orthodox by redefining it. I disagree with much of Augustine, but trinity is biblical, not Augustinian/Catholic/pagan.

July 20, 2013 at 11:33 am

William Lance Huget Theophany and incarnation are consistent with a triune understanding. God is compound unity, not solitary.

July 20, 2013 at 11:34 am

Drew Gasaway I proud to be unorthodox. Most open theist are. I am trinitarian I believe in God in three forms. The idea of three God's is unbiblical. They even describe themselves as being connected. Now do you believe Augustine was correct? Your orthodox line suggests your not an open theist?

July 20, 2013 at 11:36 am

Drew Gasaway I don't deny the trinity I just don't view it in the pagan Augustinian way. Saying there are 3 God's is pagan. We have one God with three functions.

July 20, 2013 at 11:38 am

William Lance Huget I am Open Theist. Gregory Boyd is one of the most prominent Open Theists. The book I linked is his refutation of Oneness (formerly embraced) and defense of the trinity. Most Open Theists are trinitarian. Arianism and Sabellianism are condemned heresies. You are not trinitarian if you deny 3 personal distinctions and reduce them to forms of one person. You are also deaf. Trinity does NOT teach 3 gods. You are attacking a straw man out of your ignorance of the trinity. Read the creeds and theology books. They explicitly reject 3 god polytheism. You are arguing like a JW, not a Christian.

July 20, 2013 at 11:39 am

Drew Gasaway The father form, the son form and the spirit form. So I am trinitarian. I think saying otherwise is a straw man argument. Do you believe there are three separate Gods? No think about that carefully. This is where theologians confuse people.

July 20, 2013 at 11:41 am

Drew Gasaway There is one God he just has three forms. That is the trinitarian triune God.

July 20, 2013 at 11:41 am

Drew Gasaway Now lots of Pagans tried to write about there being more than one God in Greece and the Celtic christian cult.

July 20, 2013 at 11:42 am

Drew Gasaway Define the meaning of alpha and omega?

July 20, 2013 at 11:44 am

Drew Gasaway You quoted John Calvin on your wall?

July 20, 2013 at 11:45 am

Drew Gasaway If they are not all the same God then God was lying by decreeing himself Alpha and Omega.

July 20, 2013 at 11:46 am

Drew Gasaway The first thing a Calvinist does when the want to attack your position is they say its unorthodox. They call you a heretic and if they get around to it they accuse you of denying the trinity. There are many problems with their apologetics including contradictions in the their sources and even their theologians views. Generally someone has to be indoctrinated to believe this God. I used to be a 5 point Calvinist and I almost lost my faith after finding contradictions in the theology and the bible. There was also some legalism involved. So I know your apologetic's very well.

July 20, 2013 at 11:54 am

2 Comment

Jesse Morrell

July 19, 2013 at 1:40 pm

A Calvinist recently posted this verse on my wall: “And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained [ἦσαν τεταγμένοι] to eternal life believed.” Acts 13:48.

Does this verse teach predestination and refute free will, as Calvinists allege? No, I posted my response here:

http://biblicaltruthresources.wordpress.com/2013/07/19/a-greek-exposition-of-acts-1348-as-many-as-were-ordained-to-eternal-life-believed-jesse-morrell/

A Greek Exposition of Acts 13:48 - "as many as were ordained to eternal life believed." Jesse...

biblicaltruthresources.wordpress.com

A GREEK EXPOSITION OF ACTS 13:48 By Jesse Morrell A Calvinist recently posted Acts 13:48 on my My Facebook to try to refute the idea that believing is man’s choice. The verse reads: “And when the G...

David Cole 46 And speaking boldly, Paul and Barnabas said, ‘To you it was necessary that first the word of God be spoken, and seeing ye do thrust it away, and do not judge yourselves worthy of the life age-during, lo, we do turn to the nations; 47 for so hath the Lord commanded us: I have set thee for a light of nations — for thy being for salvation unto the end of the earth.’ 48 And the nations hearing were glad, and were glorifying the word of the Lord, and did believe — as many as (did) were appointed to life age-during; YNG

You can also consider word order. Young did.

July 19, 2013 at 9:50 pm

Drew Gasaway Jesse I loved your documentary BTW but I simply deal with reformed apologetic's like this. Do you have a criticism that's not based in pejoratives or name calling? I also like to point out St. Calvin was called a heretic by the same source and slavery was once orthodoxy. I liked your response. Chuck Smith talked about this same verse once. Context and Calvinism don't exist.

July 20, 2013 at 6:43 am

3 Comment

Timothy Fisher

July 17, 2013 at 11:40 am

What is the best book on Open Theism that you've read?

Daniel Mininger I think there is a trifecta that leads to a deep understanding of Open Theism and some of its philosophical cousins:

1. Process and Reality - Whitehead
2. Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes - Hartshorne
3. Trinity and Process - Boyd

I know process is something of a dirty word in some Open Theism circles, but the inter-connectivity between the open view, and process thought can bring about some interesting fruit.

Disclaimer: None of these books are for the faint of heart, they are all very technical. But you asked for the best, not the easiest read :)

July 17, 2013 at 12:05 pm

Chase Green The God Who Risks- Dr. John Sanders

July 17, 2013 at 12:29 pm

Luke DeLong Most moved mover by Pinnock

July 17, 2013 at 1:36 pm

David Ricci hopeful imagination: voices in exile - walter brueggemann

July 17, 2013 at 1:50 pm

Jacob Matthew Hunt Satan and the Problem of Evil.

July 17, 2013 at 1:56 pm

W Scott Taylor One must keep in mind that Christian's who already believed in that which was the precursor to the 'Openness of God', that is Divine Nescience were mislead into thinking it was a continuation of that work by Historically Biblical Theology was in fact more of a justification of the philosophical viability of 'openness thinking' in general. As a result it is to be though of as a Philosophical Construct independent of the Bible per se and is metaphysically germane to the notion of God.

July 17, 2013 at 2:51 pm

Luke DeLong ...big and complicated words to not answer a simple question about a book

July 17, 2013 at 2:59 pm

W Scott Taylor Well, after the announcement of the 'trifecta' it seemed some kind of clarification was called for. If things were a bit more clearly stated when the book was originally published we would not have the issue at all.

July 17, 2013 at 3:15 pm

Paul Laughlin The Openness of God by late great Pinnock & friends, followed by Greg Boyd's God of the Possible

July 17, 2013 at 3:18 pm

William Lance Huget The Process stuff sounds complicated. I think the best books would allow opponents or unsophisticated people to grasp the simplicity of the view as well as be challenged. I would include possible introductory books such as 'The Openness of God' (original, Pinnock, etc.); Boyd's 'God of the Possible'; Sander's 'The God who Risks'; Pinnock's 'Most Moved Mover'; Boyd's 'Satan and the problem of evil'; various 4 views books on time, foreknowledge, predestination, etc. https://opentheism.info is a quick, valuable resource (Sanders).

July 17, 2013 at 3:19 pm

Paul Laughlin Agreed William Lance Huget, agreed.

July 17, 2013 at 3:21 pm

Michael Faber I liked most moved mover

July 17, 2013 at 3:21 pm

Robert Boylan Hasker, God, Time, and Knowledge.

July 17, 2013 at 3:24 pm

W Scott Taylor "The Openness of God" 5*

July 17, 2013 at 4:03 pm

John Sanders Mr. Fisher, there are several outstanding works on open theism that have different audiences, academic levels, and specific question in mind. To me, it depends upon what your needs and questions are. for general overviews, the Openness of God, and God of the Possible are both good. Most Moved Mover responds to a number of crticisms but also introduces the topic. for those with analytic philosophy background Hasker's God, Time and KNowledge and more specifically his Providence, Evil, and the Openness of God responds to many philosophical criticisms. Fretheims, The Suffering of God and his God and the World in the Old Testameant provide excellent studies of the Old TEstament support for open theism. The God Who Risks, second edition,also responds to many criticisms. For a list of books supporting open theism see my website: opentheism.info Dr. Sanders

July 17, 2013 at 4:47 pm

Glen Balmer The Bible.

July 17, 2013 at 5:53 pm

Marcio Polheim Unfortunately, it's extremely difficult to find some good book about open theism not written in english. Why these books are not translated to portuguese? I only read a very old article by Clark Pinnock and because of that I discovered open theism. However, I try to develop my knowledge by myself, because I don´t speak english fluently. So, I don't have books to read! So, I believe my knowledge on open theism is not good...

July 17, 2013 at 10:01 pm

W Scott Taylor This may be the very word that sets the wheels in motion for the need you spoken of. Thank you for saying so.

July 17, 2013 at 10:20 pm

Jenny Page God's Strategy in Human History by Roger Forster (now reprinting)

July 18, 2013 at 5:54 am

W Scott Taylor Hmmm, it was originally bundled on the Bible Research Fellowship CD from Gordon Olson's Library. Jenny, how did you come across it?

http://ywamambassadors.com/media/gods-strategy.pdf

July 18, 2013 at 6:08 am

Jenny Page I am part of Ichthus Christian Fellowship. The book will be on Amazon soon, or you can buy it from ichthus.org.uk

July 18, 2013 at 8:02 am

Annie Welch Britt I love Gods Strategy in human history.......! It was one of my first.....lol

July 18, 2013 at 5:17 pm

David Cole The book I like is What the Bible Says About Covenant by Mont Smith. It's not on "open theism", it's on "covenant" and the "restrained power" of God. Open theology is a natural implication of restrained power and necessary for covenant.

July 18, 2013 at 6:06 pm

Paul Laughlin Yes Forster's book is good too - I corresponded with Roger for a couple of years on Open Theism and learned a lot from him. In fact Roger introduced me to my favourite author, Greg Boyd.

July 19, 2013 at 12:04 pm

1 Comment

Drew Gasaway

July 14, 2013 at 2:21 am

What caused you to become an open theist?

Christian Boehm Good question. I read Boyd's Letter from a Skeptic, which briefly explained Open Theism. Then, I read his God of War and Satan and the Problem of Evil; these books convinced me fully. Also these were the first theology books I read. Been loving theology since

July 14, 2013 at 2:26 am

Christian Samuel Hering The fact that there was nothing that caused me to be an open theist. :)

July 14, 2013 at 2:29 am

William Lance Huget I freely chose to be an Open Theist based on research as a new believer. YWAM/Winkie Pratney/Gordon Olson/McCabe, Pinnock, Boyd, Sanders, Hasker, etc.

July 14, 2013 at 2:39 am

Drew Gasaway I used to be a 5 point Calvinist but I started studying the Jewish view of God in my roots. It's interesting how the origins in the Torah teach both concepts taught by Pelagius and open theism. Jewish doctrine has taught for thousands of years that God would not create laws he did not believe they could follow. It also has never taught the concept of original sin. I really think its important to read how Rabbi's look at Genesis. They actually can substantiate this way of looking at God long before Christ. The main issue they have is God being in the form of man and what Isaiah was actually saying.

July 14, 2013 at 2:45 am

Drew Gasaway I don't think God knew people would keep breaking all the covenants. I think he did some of the time but not all the time.

July 14, 2013 at 2:47 am

Rod Roguedemonhunter An online fallout with calvinists & going back to reading the Bible.

July 14, 2013 at 2:52 am

Jennifer Hauserman Lehman God knew ----OT is truth

July 14, 2013 at 2:52 am

Drew Gasaway Have any of you seen The Adjustment Bureau? It was written by a Calvinist and produced my one. What is interesting is he gets very close to addressing many of the areas Augustine missed without realizing it. The idea that God changes the plan. When we read the old testament its quiet clear that it was not God's will for man to disobey. Jewish understanding of the Torah has matched this for over 3000 years that we have record of. This alters the truth away from what Augustine taught.

July 14, 2013 at 3:00 am

Brutus Balan Since 1975, I have always read the Bible in its natural understanding as I fought off Calvinism. Openness as a word or a theological position was never heard off at that time and only of recent I associated with this label. I am now more inclined to move away from this position since Openness is moving to the errantist position and its liberal tendencies. I am considering calling my position as the 'Conservative Openness Theist'.

July 14, 2013 at 3:02 am

Drew Gasaway I think rather than look at it like the modern open theist have its more helpful to look at it like the Rabbi's do. The view is man making choices that God allows and changing the law in accordance with the current covenant. It's clear that when God made the earth perfect that it was not his intention to see man mess it up. It is also clear that he did not will originally to destroy the earth. The nature of God is progressive. I think God's ability to foresee the future is much more complex than what most think. Free will means the course of ones future actions can change. Hence making it less clear. Its just a thought.

July 14, 2013 at 3:07 am

Brutus Balan I don't think anyone can claim an ownership of "Open Theism'. It was the natural understanding of those who read it without the Calvinistic or Armenian bias. Sure, God is more complex than trying to fit Him in our neat little theological box without a lid.

July 14, 2013 at 3:12 am

Drew Gasaway That is my point exactly and looking at God from an older Jewish perspective takes us away from the invented doctrines. I think Augustine promoted doctrines that promoted the early stages of majesty. The reason orthodox view attacks anyone who questions Augustine is his doctrines give the foundation of their authority. If you believe the church and king are ordained by God their is no limit to their power and in fact they can speak for him like popes and kings have.

July 14, 2013 at 3:19 am

W Scott Taylor Historically 'Open Theism' is too young to be other than a new branch on an existing theological plant. Before the construct of 'Open Theism' (circa 1990) was coined Arminianism began a major articulation of a new category called "Divine Nescience." That is that the fullest ramifications of the incipiency of the will in man and God necessitated the logical corollary that to speak of conclusive knowledge of future moral decisions was a logical absurdity. That's just history.

July 14, 2013 at 3:21 am

W Scott Taylor I know of no present day academic who hails as an 'Open Theist' who ties their own entry into the construct from that older historical lineage.

July 14, 2013 at 3:25 am

Drew Gasaway Arminianism and open theism are very different. There is a much older view point that matches open theism. Read about how Jews view sin. Its interesting and is essentially open theism. Lots of their views on the nature of God are identical. Arminianism and Calvinism both rely on Augustine's doctrines but don't agree on all doctrines. Its interesting that none of his views existed before him and how they fit into majesty doctrine.

July 14, 2013 at 3:26 am

Drew Gasaway You guys might find this interesting. Jews believe God thought they would always obey, believe righteousness is of our own free will and that there is no original sin. http://www.outreachjudaism.org/articles/original-sin.html

July 14, 2013 at 3:28 am

Drew Gasaway I actual did not know reading about Jewish view of righteous choice and God changing his plan was open theism at first. God clearly did not know or intend for man to break the law.

July 14, 2013 at 3:45 am

W Scott Taylor Yes, Drew, on anthropology western Christendom id squarely in the Augustinian lineage (comp neo-platonism) but the Palestinian Church history's don't even have Augustin in the index! And it is true that Judaism doesn't have much by way of deterministic anthropology prior to Jamnia (60 AD).

But Judaistic anthropology and divine nescience are not coupled ontologically. I would say your source has more of a presumption of fatalistic observance in the ethos of the expectation of the perpetuity of faith. And present history wouldn't be terribly supportive of that being historically significant.

Tom Lukashow who also hails from the Divine Nescience lineage has documented an important history of concrete influences for the affirmation of divine nescience and has made that research available in a PDF file (presented at the 2013 OTCON.

A definitive historical work on the Augustinian vs Pelagian controversy from the original sources shows that none of the the early fathers held to original sense prior to Augustine ( see Gustav Wiggers).

Some Catholic sources actually cite Aquinas as having written in favor of nescience of future contingencies. But by far and away the best history of nescience come via the sources previously cited.

July 14, 2013 at 4:34 am

Jacques More As I read my bible, prayed and thought about the God of the bible whom I knew, the concept of God making new plans not held before, made it impossible to see God as knowing all things future.

July 14, 2013 at 6:13 am

W Scott Taylor From time to time I hear testimonies like that Jacques and it just goes to show that the God of the Bible, is not the God of Theology or Philosophy.

You reminded of an incident in my past when I was about 8 years old. I was brought up in the Catholic Church and got catechism on a regular basis. On the way to the neighborhood school bus stop one day I distinctly remember thinking 'if God knows everything, even what we're going to do in the future (as per catechism) then He knows what I'm about to think. So I decided to test that out. I decided I was going to 'sort of spin around mentally' and then just think something randomly. So I remember blanking my mind of any thoughts and then just randomly thinking of something. I don't remember what it was, but it was unrelated to the previous thoughts I was having. I knew that I couldn't predict the outcome and didn't feel any different when the new thought came. I was doubtful that God knew it before hand either. That ended my experience in applied theology.

July 14, 2013 at 6:32 am

Michael Faber For me, it was biblical and philosophical consistency. Between seeing how God is portrayed both in the Old and New Testaments, and the incompatibility between free will and foreknowledge, Open Theism was the only way to go. (FYI, I was Open Theist before I knew there was such a thing.()

July 14, 2013 at 7:22 am

Jacques More Yes, whatever name is given to the belief whether divine nescience or OT for me too it was the fact that God did not know everything future - more than everybody else put together, yes, but not everything - as revealed in the bible (which is his book of Him revealing what he is like to us) which was seen as true before I knew there was a title to that belief.

July 14, 2013 at 7:38 am

Karl Oehling It was an argument by a Rabbi that was an Old Testament Hebrew scholar. His argument that "now I know" was a good translation was far better than the scholars arguing "now I know" meant "I've always known." That was the first crack in my settled view armor.

July 14, 2013 at 8:16 am

Warren Christianson I did not what it was until some one saidthat you are one. So I looked into the group.

July 14, 2013 at 9:24 am

David Cole Probably came to an OT view in 1976 from the teaching of my professors in Bible College. Didn't know it's name until a couple years ago.

July 14, 2013 at 9:44 am

1 Comment

Jason Amato

July 15, 2013 at 10:00 pm

Getting yourself committed - http://eepurl.com/CmgCz

Weekly Newsletter-Getting yourself committed

us4.campaign-archive1.com

A mother took her little boy to church.While in church the little boy said, “Mommy, I have to pee.”The mother said to the little boy, “It’s not appropriate to say the word ‘pee’ in church. So, from now on whenever you have to ‘pee’ just tell me that you have to ‘whisper’.”The following Sunday, the l...

Comment

W Scott Taylor

July 14, 2013 at 4:40 am

Hey shout out to Maddey Hopkins, Structural Engineer with the United States Air Force. Engineers make the best Theologians! Welcome.

Michael Faber A friend of mine says that there are two kinds of engineers.. those who design weapons and those who design targets... which are you, Maddey?

July 14, 2013 at 8:23 am

Tom Lukashow Hey what about Finney? He was a lawyer!

July 14, 2013 at 10:37 am

W Scott Taylor Tom! :) Well, it wasn't for very long.

July 14, 2013 at 11:11 am

3 Comment

Jim Gilles

July 10, 2013 at 12:05 pm

Joshua Tom,
Have you ever met Jesus Christ with the resulting awareness that you were set free from any and all desire for sin? If so, do you have any family or friends that would attest to a sudden change in lifestyles by you from that point in time?

Joshua Tom This is an odd question, asked in an odd forum, that I am disinclined to answer.

July 10, 2013 at 12:23 pm

Jim Gilles Res Ipsa Loquitur.

July 10, 2013 at 6:00 pm

David Ricci Jim this post is rather immature and an amateur way of manipulation. are you fishing for some tactic or wanting josh to feel bad or look bad? if he is a christian than this post is very disrespectful to another brother just because he disagrees with you on a subject. however, if he WASN'T a christian how much worse does this make you look? is that really how you would approach someone who doesn't know god? by asking them a personal question on a public forum with zero degree of respect or actual care? i feel that if you genuinely were curious about his 'status' with god, you would send a private message. but sadly this just shows you trying to ask an immature pointed question in an impersonal way which shows you care little for the actual answer or josh. love one and other.

July 10, 2013 at 8:01 pm

Jim Gilles David Ricci,
In every Christian circle that I have conversed with for the last 33 years, such a question is commonplace. Why, ask it of me and see if I refuse to answer it. Every Christian that I know can not wait to tell their testimony.

July 11, 2013 at 12:17 am

Adam Butts This is definitely the wrong forum. Maybe try growing up, Jim.

July 11, 2013 at 2:38 am

Matt Parkins He wouldn't have gotten away with this question in BOT ;)

July 11, 2013 at 2:48 am

W Scott Taylor I know Jim. He's grown up.

July 11, 2013 at 9:39 am

Jim Gilles I am sorry, but, when I read the rules of this group I found the following:
1) God and creatures enjoy mutually-influencing relations
- God experiences others in some way analogous to how creatures experience others.
- Both creatures and God are relational beings, which means that both God and creatures are affected by others in give-and-take relationships.
- Creatures are called to act in loving ways that please God and make the world a better place.

R - Responsibility (Libertarian Freewill)

God has granted free agents significant freedom and responsibility to make moral choices for which they are culpable and upon which at least part of the future hangs. The choices of free agents effect others, the future, and God.

E - Emotion

God is Love. God is affected by the choices of free agents. God responds to free agents. God changes God's mind and plans in response to free agents. God is the most moved mover. It is God's desire to extend the intense love that God has always shared in the Trinity to the creatures God created forever.

I did not know, that to some herein, this group exists entirely for academic purposes and not for practical ones.

I am an individual who has personally "enjoyed mutually-influencing relations" with God and it is my desire for each and every person to "enjoy mutually-influencing relations" with God.

July 11, 2013 at 9:45 am

T. C. Moore No Jim, that is the group description. The Group Rules are posted in a document that spent many weeks penned to the top of the group's wall. It now lives in the "Files" tab. Here is the link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/opentheism/doc/10152898155330372/

Your question of Joshua Tom doesn't directly break any rule, but I do think it is disrespectful. If we you are truly concerned about the authenticity of Josh's faith (even though faith is not required for participation in this group), that sort of concern is best expressed in a private venue. From this point on, I ask that you refrain from such comments. Thank you.

July 11, 2013 at 11:49 am

Rod Roguedemonhunter Hi Jim! This is Rod, a moderator for this group, and also someone who has met Josh IRL. Please refrain from repeating posts like this. They are insulting, and suggestive by way of innuendo. This post has been left up by moderators as an example of fundamentalist concern trolling.you have been warned.

July 11, 2013 at 12:36 pm

Jim Gilles T. C. Moore & Rod Roguedemonhunter,
One of your rules forbids "Rude, insulting, condescending or belittling comments and insinuations."

Are you not impugning my character by alleging that I had but the purest of motives for my above question?

Would not David Ricci's accusatory usage of the words "immature," "amateur," "manipulation," "fishing for some tactic or wanting josh to feel bad or look bad?," "this post is very disrespectful," "zero degree of respect or actual care?," "but sadly this just shows you trying to ask an immature pointed question in an impersonal way which shows you care little for the actual answer or josh" fall within the purview of the above rule?

Would not Adam Butts', accusatory usage of the following, "Maybe try growing up, Jim." fall within the purview of the above rule.

July 11, 2013 at 12:56 pm

Rod Roguedemonhunter Jim, no but now i believe you are insulting our intelligence.

July 11, 2013 at 12:58 pm

Jim Gilles Rod Roguedemonhunter,
The world that you live in only has one way streets.

July 11, 2013 at 1:49 pm

Rod Roguedemonhunter Thanks for letting me know how smart i am jim. I'll forever treasure your concerntrolling words!

July 11, 2013 at 1:50 pm

Adam Butts I would say that my comment was not rude, insulting, condescending, or belittling. Rather, I was making reference to one of the greatest phrases I have ever heard: "Stop worrying about being born again and just grow up."

July 11, 2013 at 1:58 pm

W Scott Taylor Actually it is the all that you deny that it is, and presumes you know whether of not he has.

July 11, 2013 at 4:15 pm

Rod Roguedemonhunter screen capped this convo, obvious ex. of concern trolling. also a failed attempt at a personal insult.

July 11, 2013 at 4:43 pm

Jim Gilles I wish that I had a dollar for every time that I was asked my question by someone and I gladly answered it.

July 12, 2013 at 12:08 am

Annie Welch Britt Amen JIm....

July 12, 2013 at 1:04 am

John Moore Based on what I am reading, am I to assume that being "born again" is not as important as "growing up" to this group? As I have seen no objections to Adam's comment. Or is it Jim's direct approach in his question to Joshua Tom that is your problem?

July 12, 2013 at 1:10 am

Annie Welch Britt That particular quote was a BIG red flag to me..disturbing in my spirit to say the least..idk..that could be just me though. Adam..for clarification..u don't really mean that do u?

July 12, 2013 at 1:15 am

Rod Roguedemonhunter Obviously John & Annie dont recognize an inquisition when they see one. This is clearly a personal attack, and Joshua has every right not to dignify the "question" with a response.

July 12, 2013 at 8:28 am

Rod Roguedemonhunter To Jim: I wish I had a dollar for everytime I was on a facebook group about theology, and concern-trolls start personal attacks. I'd be a rich man. Like Bill Gates rich.

July 12, 2013 at 8:30 am

John Moore Rod, in my many years I have seen men who were very versed in the mechanics of open theism. Some had even written books. Many even had letters after their name signifying their importance to some. But the first letters we need after our name is BA... Born Again!

What would it profit a man if he was correct about the foreknowledge of God but he didn't "know" God?

You may disagree with Jim's methods but based on Joshua's previous comments Jim's question is valid. I cannot imagine any forum that has taken the name of Christ, being a forum where the basic tenets of Christianity is out of place.

July 12, 2013 at 12:40 pm

Rod Roguedemonhunter John, if you Jim, or Annie have any questions about Joshua Tom's salvation, the best person to take it up with is God, you know, the Author of salvation as Scripture says. That means Christian evangelists and pastors who make themselves gatekeepers of the kingdom, need to find a chair & take many seats. Yes I mean Jim.

July 12, 2013 at 3:01 pm

Comment

W Scott Taylor

July 13, 2013 at 6:34 am

~ ❦ To Write Upon The Sky ❦ ~

If God could write it on the sky, the hearts of men could never understand the depths of benevolence that has lived aeons before the darkness began to be.

The Apostle John gave *the* witness to that life that is the light of men also said that darkness never comprehended the light has left to the rest of Scripture to tell that The Light has never understood the darkness either.

At the heart of every campaign that Heaven promotes against the spread of darkness there lies a question mark and remonstrance on the Heart of the Ancient of Days:

"Cast away from you all your transgressions that *you* have sinned and make for yourselves a new purpose of life and new mind to live it; for WHY WILL YOU DIE?" ... I have no blessing or happiness in the death of any man say's the Lord God; {STOP!} Turn yourselves, now and live! " (based on Ezekiel 18:31,32)

That such a passage lies inert in the hearts of men and women every where is an indictment on the face of it. And while the ethos behind a part time theology is in truth so much a 'pact with death' in thinking 'it will not come nigh to us', a more bitter lament comes in the silence of scandal of indinancy for actually being called to believe in it.

5 Comment

Kurt Johnson

July 12, 2013 at 7:34 pm

Weighing in (in short form) on inspiration...

http://kurtkjohnson.wordpress.com/2013/07/12/on-inspiration/

On Inspiration

kurtkjohnson.wordpress.com

Christian scripture is a rich and complex compilation of writings from many authors over many centuries. Scripture is considered an authoritative source for faith and practice by the Church primar...

W Scott Taylor Kurt, I like your post, thought it was well crafted to bring a side of the discussion concerning 'Scripture' that is usually not heard with out the analog of synchrotron radiation. IOW well done.

The passages that you've chosen to give commentary about are, in my view, central to the overall message of κηρύσσων τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τῆς βασιλείας, that Jesus had as his charge every where he went.

It is propositional at core, with narrative and other idiomatic flourish but all subsumed in the Message. But it also contains objective information on questions of metaphysics that can be discussed according to discipline.

No matter how it is approached Scripture above all should not be used to demean or harm others. That goes for the 'schools of thought' that invariably tend to collect in 'herds' of shared opinion. And I wish it was more so as shared community across various interests.

The kingdom of God that Jesus went every where heralding was essentially the announcement of the 'Favorable Year of the Lord' where grace upon grace has come to the world.

"Open Theism' should be able to accommodate the ardor of varied interests with the same elevated regard for other participants that the Scriptures themselves speak to whether one receives the kingdom in to their own lives or not.

July 12, 2013 at 11:43 pm

2 Comment

Rod Roguedemonhunter

July 11, 2013 at 10:56 pm

Greene's post on Wesleyanism, free will, and the inerrancy debate: http://unsettledchristianity.com/2013/07/so-i-am-uncharitable-maybe-you-should-grow-a-pair/

So I am uncharitable? Maybe you should grow a pair...

unsettledchristianity.com

Catchy title huh? But it arises out of a really disappointing experience that I had recently. I am a theology junkie. I am committed to Orthodox Christian faith but I am not a fundamentalist. I am ...

Thomas Jay Oord I may have made a mistake. I don't recall blocking Jason (although I do recall blocking someone making ad hominen attacks; but I forgot his name). I apologize, Jason.

July 12, 2013 at 10:56 am

Keith Noren That did seem out of character for you.

BTW, my son a UMC minister read your Relational Theology book and found it good - he says it is consistent with his Integral Theology Ken Wilbur that he is trying to make me read.

July 12, 2013 at 7:20 pm

Thomas Jay Oord Thanks, Keith. I remember reading excerpts from Wilbur's book, but your comment makes me want to take a second, closer look!

July 12, 2013 at 7:24 pm

Jason Douglas Greene Thanks for the correction. It certainly made no sense to me. I love your work and I was totally baffled. I am also far from perfect and I think that many of us "moderates" being nice to "fundamentalists and liberals" are deeply ingrained in our nature, yet sometimes we are harsh on our best allies. I truly love your work and am glad that we cleared up our misunderstanding...

July 12, 2013 at 10:20 pm

Jason Douglas Greene blessings :)

July 12, 2013 at 10:20 pm

2 Comment

Adam Hersberger

July 9, 2013 at 7:40 am

Many of the discussions here seem to be evaluating or defending OT in a Christian context. What other religions allow or even promote open future and/or open theism?

Warren Christianson It would not make any difference if the religion is not God's.

July 9, 2013 at 8:08 am

Alan Rhoda As I define open theism, it is neutral between *monotheistic* traditions. The most explicit proponent of open theism during the middle ages was the 14th century Jewish thinker Gersonides.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/gersonides/

July 9, 2013 at 9:05 am

Jonathan Mark Tillotson Theism makes sense only in a particular context, be it Abrahamic: and within that Christian, Jewish or Islamic; or be it Oriental: Hindu, Buddhist or Taoist ( although these are hardly theistic, though they are both religious); or be it more animistically or paganly multi-theistic; or be it a 20th century syncretistic conflation, such as New Age Theism. After choosing the context, the Open bit then concerns, within those contexts, the relationship to be adopted towards established tradition on the one hand and innovative thought on the other. If a context is not first chosen we just have a vague spiritual speculativeness. Is this group Open Christian Theism, or what?

July 9, 2013 at 9:44 am

Alan Rhoda Hi Jonathan,
Regarding whether "theism makes sense only in a particular context," I think that's probably true when we're viewing theism *religiously* as, roughly, a concrete way of life oriented toward matters of ultimate concern. But it's not true of theism considered purely *theoretically*. In that sense one can be a theist without being either a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, or what have you.

July 9, 2013 at 10:06 am

Adam Hersberger Alan, you've described the source of my question exactly. I'm not implying anything against Christianity. I'm just wondering where Open theories may lead to or emanate from if you don't start by assuming Christianity. Maybe there is something to be learned from other perspectives.

July 9, 2013 at 10:30 am

Alan Rhoda Hi Adam,
As to where open theories "emanate from", I think it has to do with the (apparent and arguably genuine) tension between the ideas of free will, moral responsibility, and future contingency and the idea that the future is somehow already *settled*, either in the mind or will of God. Since those concerns arise in all theistic traditions, I don't think of open theism *per se* as a uniquely Christian or sectarian position.

July 9, 2013 at 10:43 am

Adam Hersberger So, let me rephrase: When I Google "Open Theism", I get a bunch of Christian apologists telling me it's heresy. Under what religious/spiritual heading would I find people saying, "Yeah, that's no problem"? I'm just looking for a list so that I can go do some reading.

July 9, 2013 at 10:50 am

Jonathan Mark Tillotson I agree Alan but the question then is what kind of a God is it that we are addressing when we call God Christian or jewish etc. If these Gods are all the same then why bother calling them either Christian or Jewish etc...call God something else....or just be honest and ditch God as an objective external referent and keep religion and religiours morality for its functional societal efficacy and aestetic value (like Don Cupitt etc). But, against non-realism, if we keep a Real God, the problem then is still, call God what? And on what authority other than the 'anarchy of individual or trans-individual or even quasi-collective (ie tribal) but never universally collective experience' (God is no longer a Public Empirical Event after all, as he presurmably was at Sinai). As for heresy, I think any kind of Open Theism, of whatever tradition, should be prourd of being heretical. Jesus was obviously a Heretic, as was Paul, as was Luther...as is anyone who thinks for himself...which is presumably what being open means.

July 9, 2013 at 11:48 am

Jonathan Mark Tillotson Ok I should have written unashamed as opposed to proud, given pride's justifiably bad reputation in religious discourse. Btw, I'm not a non-realist myself, I believe very much in an independently existing God, a theity as opposed to a deity- given deisms impersonal associations. Just sceptical about what humans on a tiny planet in one small solar system can authoritatively say objectively about this personable objectivity. Far from this justifying defensive dogma to counteract this objective uncertainty, I'd favour precisely open theism as a humble and receptive mode of approaching the mystery. Nor do I dispute the notion of revelation and I personally do believe Christianity is a unique revelation. Problem is many people disagree, and even amongst those who agree there Is so much diasagreement about meaning and interpretation. This situation can either be dealt with by mere assertion of I am right u r wrong, which gets everyone nowhere, though it gratifies the ego, or we can generously, charitably and with curiosity proclaim our positions, openly, and see what happens.

July 9, 2013 at 12:15 pm

John Sanders Dear Mr. Hersberger, As Alan mentioned Gersonides a Jewish thinker. There were other proponents of open future and a God who is affected by creatures in both Jewish and Muslim thinking in the middle ages. Marc Brettler, a well known Hebrew Bible scholar gave me lots of quotes of ancient Rabbis in second temple Judaism who made remarks that seem to promote open theism. Brettler was surprised by evangelicals callilng the view a heresy. He said that in Judaism it is a well known position. In Islam the view was held by a number of Mutazelites in the middle ages. on the contemporary scene I am in contact with three Muslim scholars who are investigating open theism (one in Turkey and two in Iran). Bill Hasker told me that he met Muslim philosophers in Turkey who loved his presentation on open theism and claimed that the view is held by a number of Muslims. I know that the issue of free will and divine determinism has long been discussed in theistic Hinduism but I've not come across any discussion of openness.

July 9, 2013 at 12:30 pm

William Lance Huget Creation Made Free (Thomas Jay Oord) has a chapter on the Openness debate in Islamic Theology by Michael Lodahl. Jehovah's Witnesses (cult) deny that their Jehovah has exhaustive foreknowledge (they limit God in too many ways, though). Mormons/LDS (cult) also have dialogue with Open Theists (makes sense that it could fit their finite godism/polytheism, but Open Theism is NOT finite godism). Other religions can be right about Open Theism principles. I have had atheists grasp it quicker than traditional Christians, in theory.

July 9, 2013 at 2:46 pm

Adam Hersberger Thanks, John and William. That's the kind of stuff I was looking for.

July 9, 2013 at 3:06 pm

William Lance Huget I also imagine there are philosophers who are not theists or Christians who could argue intellectually against determinism, for free will, against settled, knowable future, etc. They can use modal logic to show this apart from the Bible.

July 9, 2013 at 3:45 pm

David Cole Ancient Judaism promotes OT. I know of no other religions that do. Most are pantheistic/deterministic.

July 11, 2013 at 8:11 am

2 Comment

W Scott Taylor

July 7, 2013 at 3:03 am

⌦ The Danger of Selective Use of Science as Biblical Hermeneutic ⌫

The presumption of the truth value of the conclusions of science persists with out normal verification practices among people of faith in God. This is true in general and of particular interest to this group those in academic and para-academic careers. The irony for proponents of Open Theism accrues from pronounced efforts to "Engage Science" as evidenced in a number of publications over the last few years.

The presumption of the reliability or permanence of the characterization of fundamental 'discoveries' of the behavior and nature of matter is the most serious case in point. It has lead to challenges of the veracity of certain parts of Scripture in relation to cosmology and biological origin and history of human development.

In "Quantum Aspects of Life: Relating Evolutionary Biology With Theology Via Modern Physics" (Zygon, vol 48, no. 1, March 2013) Anna Ijjas argues for the structural similarities between quantum mechanics and evolutionary theory and creation theory. Quantum theory is also fundamental to Big Bang Cosmologies in that the Copenhagen Interpretation of the famous 'double slit' experiment is the basis for String Theory as well.

It may be helpful as the last point of the opening thread on the implications of premature adoption of fundamental propositions of Science as Biblical Hermeneutic is to draw attention to a National Geographic Daily News feature entitled "Biggest Thing In Universe Found - Defies Scientific Theory" (see link). It is stated: "Quasar cluster is 'challenge to our current understanding,' astronomer says."

As the first concret example of why our vetting process of the veracity of Scientific pronouncements should remain ever vigilant is the conflict that has existed in the Astrophysics Community concerning the importance of redshift as a key metric in establishing the Big Bang Cosmology. Since 1969 and the publication of Halton Arp's 'Encyclopedia of Peculiar Galaxy's'. Since that time Arp has been arguing that those plates contain the evidence against Big Bang Cosmology for the discovery of an alternate cause of red shift that is non-velocity recessional. If true, that would fundamentally undermine Big Bang Cosmology.

The clear upshot is that no doctrine of a Biblically propositional nature or inferable therefrom should be countermanded by the tenants of Science, merely because of its source.

Biggest Thing in Universe Found—Defies Scientific Theory

news.nationalgeographic.com

Talk about a whopper—astronomers have discovered a structure in the universe so large that science says it should not exist.

Tom Belt Scott, could you please tell me what outdated science has or is being used by open theists (don't name them if you don't want to) to criticize inerrancy?

July 7, 2013 at 7:05 am

W Scott Taylor Tom, I've posted here before on the expose of the political nature of Bohr's success of getting 'complimentary' adopted at the 1927 Solvay Conference. It has been widely published, and even admitted by Polkinghorne that 'the Copenhagen Interpretation' is a metaphysical conclusion and not one of science. You understand the implication of that ,I trust. Consequently, if Bohr's view is incorrect, then the phenomena of causality is intuitively apprehended in every realm of 'mechanics'. String Theory and every variation of supposed quantum fluctuation prior to the Big Bang is baseless.

The article I cited by Ijjas represents THE attempt by open thinking with which to "Engage Science" . The failure to responsibly and credibly 'vet' quantum cosmology has laid the whole 'open' community to the scorn of those in the Scientific community (and the public at large) who have uncovered the history of Bohr's bane and seen that the de Broglie - Bohm Pilot Wave theory 'makes more sense.' How does it feel to have nearly 75 years of fundamental doctrine in quantum theory dissolved in the space of an hour.

It is this very penchant to acquiesce to 'Scientific Knowledge' or theory's thereof by theologians that has been the neuralgic for 'errancy' thinking for a long time. The combined 'revisions' that are happening in fundamental statements of how the universe works in ever area that Quantum Mechanics touches should be 'life changing'.

July 7, 2013 at 7:46 am

Tom Belt Can you give me an example of an open theist using any interpretation of quantum science to falsify inerrancy?

July 7, 2013 at 7:57 am

W Scott Taylor In your angst to resolve the tension (so it seems) you just now made the discussion a witch hunt by implication that there are some who think there are 'Open Theists' hiding out in the bell tower waiting for a 'high view' motorcade to pass by within sniper range. The truth is that the bifurcation in Biblical Hermeneutics has come about over a long period of time and for complex reasons. The present state of fracture is based in part on a dialog and its nomenclature that it self is dated and inaccurate but has remained in stasis ever since.

I think you need take some time to consider what's been pointed out here. If, just if, there has been the kind of systemic perpetuation of 'metaphyiscal bias' pushing supposed 'proven' Science in an area as far reaching as the one involved in the theory of Quantum Mechanics, then one must consider how far back might that go.

The real problem that should be surfacing is how do we know who's correct? If there are problems with biological evolutionary 'science' then what is the implication for Biblical Heremenutics? This is about problem resolution, not eradication of information.

July 7, 2013 at 8:27 am

Tom Belt No Scott. I don't have any angst. And I'm not on a witch hunt. I'm trying to understand your specific claim so I could enter this conversation, assuming you're interested in conversation.

- I could say you don't make much sense when you write.
- I could say some of your sentences and paragraphs are so poorly worded and so obviously trying to exceed that they hardly make sense.
- I could say that when in public you discuss things like the "pronounced efforts of proponents of open theism" or "as evidenced in a number of recent publications" you make statements that are open to question and you have to be prepared to substantiate your claims and explain yourself.
- I could say being prepared to substantiate one's claims is standard policy for public forms like this.
- I could say that using the site as your own personal billboard is not what we're here for, and that you don't get to post stuff like this and then dismiss people when they ask you to substantiate what you say.
- I could say such bill-boarding deserves to be removed from the site when you make claims that you won't explain...

...but I prefer to try again. It's YOUR post, Scott. That means you WANT questions and conversation. I really want to understand how open theists are wrongly using quantum science to try to falsify biblical inerrancy. You should WANT to explain this, Scott.

July 7, 2013 at 8:59 am

Tom Belt So, again my friend. Please share with us an example or two of what YOU claim, that is, an example or two of these "pronounced efforts" of open theists who have "in a number of recent publications" used any interpretation of quantum science in an effort to falsify inerrancy. If you will not enlighten us, then we can only conclude you're not interested in conversation but instead just want to use this site as a billboard to publicize your own personal agenda.

July 7, 2013 at 9:10 am

Eric Maggard Scott... it seems to me that "the de Broglie - Bohm Pilot Wave theory 'makes more sense.' " doesn't throw out completely Quantum Mechanics, but the there might be a slightly better theory... even you state: "How does it feel to have nearly 75 years of fundamental doctrine in quantum theory dissolved in the space of an hour. " It seems you saying Quantum is completely wrong, should be thrown out and everything since then should also be thrown out and started back at the beginning with the better de Broglie-Bohm Pilot Wave theory. is that correct?

To me... I don't take the Bible as authorative for science or even history. It is a document to help us understand God and as 2 Timothy 3 states: "16 All Scripture is [h]inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for [i]training in righteousness; 17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work."

The Catholic church was wrong in pushing science based on the Bible's "Authority". It is not the purpose of the Bible.

July 7, 2013 at 11:52 am

Eric Maggard BTW... I think you have written too many technical papers and need to review your word selection and break it down to simpler words so 1) you don't have to define their means based on your context, and 2) make it easier for readers to clearly understand your meaning. It is not just you.... I have noticed that others have a tendency to do that when talking theology... when you are immersed in the terminology so much... you don't know others don't know the application of the words you are using, or the very words themselves.

July 7, 2013 at 12:02 pm

W Scott Taylor Eric for your last two posts, the last especially, i have to congratulate you for your conscious effort to move past the initial disturbance of the facts themselves, and your ability to analyze the issue of 'style' in a way that shows you do understand that 'specialist subject matter' is non-ideal for others.

That in it self is demonstrative of a willingness to engage the subject matter, and that has an impact on me.

On the 'de Broglie-Bohm' Pilot Wave Theory (PWT) discussion I do want to point out that the equations of motion used to formulate Quantum Mechanics remain and have never been the subject of disagreement. Unfortunately, the 'mechanics' in this case leave what the quantum is in it self undefined. It has been through testing (ie. double slit experiment) that the distribution of electron impacts on the recording plate on the other side of the double slit panel looked like wave interference patterns.

From that data, Bohr et. al. concluded that after the electron was emitted form a source it became a wave just infront of the double slit panel and passed through both openings at the same time! and immediately collapsed back to a single particle and then collided with the recording panel. Remember that the recording panel shows a wave like distribution of a collection of circular impacts.

July 7, 2013 at 4:21 pm

W Scott Taylor Part II follows...

July 7, 2013 at 4:22 pm

Annie Welch Britt does this hint toward science proving that God exists, rather than disproving as some may say?

July 7, 2013 at 4:48 pm

W Scott Taylor From that experiment Bohr concluded not only that the quantum or electron in transit is not just in a probabilistically determined phase between particle and wave, but rather it was neither! Most 'Open Theists' don't know that. Most of those familiar with the double slit experiment don't know that either!

Bohr's 'Copenhagen Interpretation' grew from that and as such it has become the 'paradigm' for matter as non-intuitively non-causal. That is 'A can be non-A' and from that Quantum Cosmologies have been predicated upon non creation (see non causal) origin. String theory, the fluctuation in the primordial quantum field that resulted in this universe. A non-creation origins cosmology was reintroduced.

PWT consisted of a model of the electron as basically a spherical glob surrounded by a wave field. The significance of that model presented at the 1927 Solvay conference was shouted down by Bohr's faction, and yet if explains the wave like distribution of the particle impacts without resorting to a strange postulate that had no correlation man's causal based intuitive reason. It wasn't until 1952 that Bohm revitalized the PWT as 'de Broglie-Bohm PWT and the Scientific community is being similarly revitalized and rejecting Bohr's model. Einstein never bought off on Complimentary notions and neither did Schrödinger.

The import of this resurgence of PWT has called into question every cosmology based on the old view and that is certainly 'life changing'.

The impact for Open Theists? The upshot, in very general terms is that if we could have been mislead on this important topic, what does that portent for the Biological Evolutionary view of origins?

And it has been here where Science has been cited as corrective to Biblical range on its propositions to be exegeted with Scientific as exegetically superior.

July 7, 2013 at 5:05 pm

Annie Welch Britt Science is the authority now for truth? Not the bible? that is not true..how and why would anyone want to think that...? Science interpreting bible instead of the other way around?....That could be dangerous,if I am reading that correctly.No?

July 7, 2013 at 5:23 pm

Tom Belt Scott: The impact for Open Theists?...And it has been here where Science has been cited as corrective to Biblical range on its propositions to be exegeted with Scientific as exegetically superior.

Tom: Wait a second. Your point--that some open theists are using bad science to criticize inerrancy--is all about evolution? You think a Christian has to be an errantist in order to believe in evolution?

July 7, 2013 at 7:20 pm

W Scott Taylor No Tom, and I was just now answering your questions after taking up some of Eric's comments/question. I'm coming back to your concerns - now

July 7, 2013 at 7:23 pm

W Scott Taylor Tom, which post am I supposed to answer?

July 8, 2013 at 7:48 pm

Tom Belt Never mind Scott. We're done.

July 8, 2013 at 8:36 pm

Eric Maggard Scott... from my review of Bohm's Pilot-Wave Theory, here are my thoughts:

1) One nice thing about the theory is that it simpler and more compact.
2) The pilot waves cannot be confirmed experimentally or with any type of observer. So, when you try to take measurements, it changes the waveform and you have to change the waveform equation.
3) The waveforms are not localized, so you have to use a modified Schrodinger equation.
4) The Pilot-Wave theory also suffers, if you want to call it that, the multi-dimensional/universe problem, but they call it empty waves.

I really don't see the benefits of the Bohm theory, and as you say, the quantum model does fit all experimental results up to this point. I don't mean that it is complete, but I don't see how it should be thrown out and replaced.

BTW, I also looked at CERN, and their "Standard Model" was developed in the '70's which was way after the '27 and even the '52 events that you posted. I don't think that we are close to fully understanding the particles and universe, but the current models with General Relativity and such is proving to be a pretty good model... but as you say, we need to keep asking questions and looking for new ideas.

Link: http://home.web.cern.ch/about/physics/standard-model

BTW, wonder why Steven on RelativityChallenge hasn't posted that the "faster than light" particles were caused by measurement error?

July 9, 2013 at 2:26 pm

W Scott Taylor Eric ^^^ Finally somebody engaged! I was beginning to think that most 'Open Theists' (academics included) would flounder to explain 'half life' of radioactive isotopes. Forgive me. But I'm just going to savor the moment for a bit. I'll be back shortly. Just to make sure no one is unduly embarrassed at being slow in science I've included this little visual nemonic

http://tinyurl.com/lwcqno6

July 9, 2013 at 3:01 pm

W Scott Taylor One correction on my assessment of known OT here and that is for Keith Noran. He is a six sigma in that regard and has my respect as an honest 'theologiser' and competent person of science. If there's a chink in a scientific theory I was advocating I'd expect Keith to sus it out.

July 10, 2013 at 3:34 am

W Scott Taylor Eric, I appreciate that you are conversant with the dialog on the implications of the metaphysics of quantum theory.

There is a fairly important aspect that goes with Bohr's Complementarity Interpretation that many see as just so categorically different that the rest of physics that it constitutes a paradigm shift (if true) in the way reality is perceived period. In every other area in which phenomena is apprehended it is via the fundamental intuition of causal relations.

And as Polkinghorne points out, what we're talking about is not science in this interpretation of what's 'underneath' the physics (Wave Equation etc.). It metaphysical and that, is personal preference, not science.

Why would Bohr opt for an interpretation that is defies rational categorization. We know that Schrodinger and Einstein both were appalled the Bohr's hermeneutic was accepted when learning of de Broglie's alternative view that is consistent with the rest of the 'causally apprehended' physics of modern science.

What is not generally, if at all, understood is what Bohr really meant by the complimentary statement:

“In contrast to ordinary mechanics, the new quantum mechanics does not deal with a space-time description of the motion of atomic particles. . . The diﬃculties · · · seem to require just that renunciation of mechanical models in space and time which is so characteristic a feature in the new
quantum mechanics.” [Bohr 1934]"

“ [The quantum postulate] implies a renunciation of the causal space-time coordinates.” [Bohr 1934]

Is it clear now what he's saying? The quantum is not in a probabilistic state of wave-particle duality, or anything like that. He is saying that the quantum is *neither* until an event precipitates either collapse or distributed (wave) state.

Top Level link to the TOC of: "Pilot-wave theory, Bohmian metaphysics, and the foundations of quantum mechanics"

http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~mdt26/pilot_waves.html

And to the Lecture notes from which the quotes were taken above:

http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~mdt26/PWT/lectures/bohm7.pdf

July 10, 2013 at 5:16 am

Keith Noren That was kind words Scott. And you are right these days I am more a “theologizer” (and political animal) than a physicist despite my work title “Chief Scientist MDA Targets and Countermeasures”. None of that work “science” has to do with cosmology, quantum mechanics, biological origins, brain function, the nature of time, or wave/particles optics. I am too busy (home, work, church, and golf) to delve into them at all adequately for these discussions to “sus(?) it out”. Sorry maybe after retirement which I’m hoping is soon.

W/o a thorough defense, I will say I do not find any old or new science as providing support or non-support to the debate over Open Theism. But perhaps I do not know the new science that well.

July 10, 2013 at 8:57 pm

4 Comment

W Scott Taylor

July 10, 2013 at 6:26 am

Open Theism: A Generous Theology - A place where different ideas about how we got to this place 'theologically & philosophically' are sometimes discussed with surprise and incredulity.
-----
W Scott Taylor 4:19pm Jul 8
Tom, I've said it a number of times, but by far and away the neuralgic point of the divide between a 'critical view' and lets call it something not so inflammatory: 'non-critical view', and that is the assertion of single cell biological origin of species and the perpetuation thereof by the putative means of natural selection.

Tom Belt 5:30pm Jul 8
Scott, I'm done trying to get straight answers from you. I will never take you seriously ever again--period.
-----

Look, we all have stuff in our presuppositional cedar chest that might do well to see the light of day. I know that to some, to question biological evolutionary origins of our species may seem silly, but you really ought to see how it looks from the other side once in awhile. :)

A chimp-pig hybrid origin for humans?

phys.org

(Phys.org) —These days, getting a Ph.D. is probably the last thing you want to do if you are out to revolutionize the world. If, however, what you propose is an idea, rather than a technology, it can still be a valuable asset to have. Dr. Eugene McCarthy is a Ph.D. geneticist who has made a career ....

Troy McGehee Maybe I'm just not smart enough to see this, but are pigs being observed mating with chimps anywhere in the world today?

July 10, 2013 at 6:50 am

W Scott Taylor Troy, I hope that to get that Ph.D it doesn't require simulation studies. :(

July 10, 2013 at 6:51 am

W Scott Taylor Wow Chad ...

July 10, 2013 at 7:23 am

W Scott Taylor Right in between where phased quantum collapse occurs while thinking - wow this is all about YEC

July 10, 2013 at 7:29 am

Joshua Tom W Scott Since in the other thread you were claiming that we all needed to be able to understand the mathematics and physics of quantum theory, can I take you are claiming to be literate in the biological and chemical sciences when it comes to this issue?

July 10, 2013 at 8:13 am

W Scott Taylor Actually, Joshua, I said early on, that if a person is going to argue for cosmological interpretations based upon 'the vicissitudes of scientific discovery' (to quote Boyd) it would behove a person to get informed and in a hurry. The Einstein Lorentz teaser was a challenge to a perceived lethargy in doing the basic ground work of vetting for oneself. Yet you can often hear the terminology in discussion of Quantum cosmologies of every stripe.

It should be worth knowing that Einstein himself felt the implications of relativity he believed that the distinctions between past present and the future was only illusory. So the Spherical Wave Proof was a key formulation to understand.

The implications for metaphysics where quantum theory is invoked the forefront where 'open theology is seeing to engage science. That's sound relevant for someone who also wants to engage others with and honestly determined perspective.

And the answer to your final question is yes. The issue here is something like the question posed by Robin Ford in a song : How Deep in the Blues Do You Want To Go.

July 10, 2013 at 8:32 am

Joshua Tom Informed is better than uninformed, I'll grant you that. On the other hand, given that an informed opinion is functionally impossible for the majority of us, the best we can do is go with the expert consensus, which seems to run against you on the issue of quantum theory (and on the issue of evolution), best as I can tell. Why shouldn't Open Theists engage science on the level of the current consensus, in the language and concepts that are widely accepted? It's not a mark against us if in the future the consensus turns out to be wrong. It just means that we were making do with our best understanding of the field at the time.

In fact, the only irrational choice to make for the uniformed layperson is to go *against* the scientific consensus.

July 10, 2013 at 9:38 am

Karl Oehling Huh... I thought I would never post in this forum despite being an Open Theist. Joshua Tom; The learning requirement to show that Common Descent is wrong is very minimal. It doesn't require any knowledge of quantum mechanics. It requires a simple understanding of math and common sense. The rest of what you need to know to show that Common Descent is wrong comes entirely from scientists who believe Common Descent is correct.

July 10, 2013 at 9:52 am

Jim Gilles Modern expert scientific consensus? Am I in the National Atheists fb group? As if "science," in many circles, is not and has not been politicized, bought and paid for?

Pardon my plebeian attempt below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=12rgtN0pCMQ

July 10, 2013 at 10:10 am

Joshua Tom Karl I suppose the question then becomes, why do the overwhelming majority of experts think common descent is true? "Math and common sense" are most assuredly not enough to debunk a decades-long consensus across multiple scientific disciplines.

July 10, 2013 at 10:10 am

Joshua Tom Jim So your stance is that the scientific community is engaged in a widespread conspiracy whereby they are paid off, in monetary or social capital, to support evolution? Surely we can give the millions of people working in the sciences the benefit of the doubt as to their actions and motivations.

July 10, 2013 at 10:13 am

Karl Oehling Joshua Tom; They think it's true because they like to eat. But, yes, it only takes math and common sense. If you'd like, we can go over the numbers. It begins with knowing how many nucleotides it takes to make a protein. I know it varies, but if we take a survey of the ones we know, can we come up with a rough average?

July 10, 2013 at 10:15 am

Joshua Tom So "math and common sense" really means "this is really really complicated and I can't conceive of how it could have occurred except by special creation". If we were ever satisfied with that argument we would still be trying to control the weather with fancy dances.

July 10, 2013 at 10:19 am

Jim Gilles Joshua Tom,
In many circles it is called "Tenure."

July 10, 2013 at 10:19 am

Joshua Tom I think you have a funny conception of how academia operates. Most people don't do work on evolution qua evolution, they do research on tangential and small-scale questions. As it turns out, this research builds a body of literature that supports the broader theory of evolution. If this research ever started poking holes in the theory of evolution people would notice, but that hasn't happened. So again, I have to ask, are you suggesting that scientists are suppressing evidence, deliberately misinterpreting evidence or offering false evidence?

July 10, 2013 at 10:28 am

Karl Oehling Joshua Tom; Huh? Your response does not follow. No, it has to do with being simple enough and common sensical that anyone not invested in keeping Common Descent as a paradigm can understand. And, BTW, "they like to eat" is a little more involved, but I can explain that, too, if you'd like.

July 10, 2013 at 10:30 am

Joshua Tom Karl Could you expand on your argument against common descent then?

July 10, 2013 at 10:31 am

Joshua Tom Jim It occurs to me that we might would expect to find creationists coming out of the closet post-tenure, if tenure indeed was deterring creationist research. Can you cite any examples of this ?

July 10, 2013 at 10:32 am

Karl Oehling Joshua Tom; I can expand on my argument against Common Descent. We begin with a survey of the number of nucleotides it takes to make a protein. Why proteins? Because we have information on a number of them.

Michael Behe is one off the top of my head. There are others but not many. The reason the paradigm is upheld is because evolution is so completely useless as a framework that there is no cost to including it in any research. But there is a cost to denying it, even if one is tenured.

July 10, 2013 at 10:46 am

Joshua Tom Behe's argument from irreducible complexity isn't a good scientific argument though. It really does come down to what I said previously: "It's too complicated to happen except by God". Until people keep digging and figure out how it could have happened naturalistically, and then Behe has to keep pushing his argument farther down. It may be that at some point God's interference was required, but arbitrarily stating "It had to happen here" simply hamstrings the scientific enterprise. Besides, unless things have changed Behe doesn't deny common descent, he advocates irreducible complexity.

July 10, 2013 at 10:50 am

Jim Gilles Joshua Tom,
Please see the below documentary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEvq4xIHmH4

July 10, 2013 at 10:53 am

Karl Oehling Joshua Tom; So you asked for a tenured professor knowing I would mention Behe... just so you could argue against him? I'm not using Behe's argument.

Kudos, that is a slick debate tactic.

July 10, 2013 at 10:54 am

Joshua Tom Behe isn't a creationist. He doesn't argue against the evolutionary history of humanity or common descent. I don't see how he helps the anti-evolutionist camp in this regard

July 10, 2013 at 10:55 am

Joshua Tom Jim I've seen Expelled, I was not impressed. It's essentially a Michael Moore documentary for evangelicals, much too shady to be taken seriously. Stein misrepresents and manipulates hte interviews to a disappointing degree

July 10, 2013 at 10:56 am

Jim Gilles Joshua Tom,
I do know by personal observation that back in the 80's there were a slew of Creation Science v Evolution debates on college campi across this country. As the evolutionists were soundly defeated the debates waned to almost non existent now. Dr. Duane Gish and Dr. John Morris personally told me that the debates were decreasing as it was increasingly hard to find an evolutionist who would enter into a public debate on a college campus. One of the last ones that I attended was at Florida State.

My all time favorite was A.E. Wilder-Smith. He was such a gifted speaker, that is, if you could break through his deep German accent. He had such a grasp of his subject matter that he could make the complex simple. For example, he was the first that I knew of to state that God told us the formula for life way back in Gen 2:7 " And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." A.E. taught that for life it takes four essential elements, time, matter, energy and one of his favorite words "teleonomy." The dust was your matter, the breath of life was your energy, a nano second was your time, while God was your teleonomy.

July 10, 2013 at 11:02 am

1 Comment

W Scott Taylor

July 1, 2013 at 1:32 am

"Failure of the Einstein-Lorentz Spherical Wave Proof"
-----

I have been mildly entertained by the creative ways some 'Open Theists' parley the 'Science' card in trying to show cause against 'inerrancy'. Most couldn't whip their way out of a wet bag of linear algebra never mind critique intelligently Einstein's entry level material on Relativity. But boy can they wax seemingly knowledgable.

I'm including a link to the four page publication above that claims the failure of said 'proof.' I'd like to know how qualified these critics are to validate what they use in arguments. Any one care to check the numbers?

http://db.tt/eXrLbIkg

Warren Christianson It is beyound my ability to check. Concept fine, but playing at this level not for me.

July 1, 2013 at 4:59 am

W Scott Taylor "While the findings of science cannot be ignored, if a particular interpretation of a theory fundamentally conflicts with Scripture, Christians are obliged to stick with Scripture and judge that the interpretation of the theory is misguided." Greg Boyd - "Satan And The Problem Of Evil" pg 140.

Yes indeed.

July 1, 2013 at 5:09 am

Warren Christianson Stick with scripture is good, the problem is how one interpretates that scripture along with how one interpretates the findings of science.

July 1, 2013 at 5:46 am

Brent Henderson Bryant's math and ideas have been checked all over the Internet and found wanting. No idea what this could have to do with open theism, though. I don't think Bryant is religiously motivated, certainly not by some desire to prove Open Theism.

July 1, 2013 at 9:23 am

Brent Henderson Also note Boyd does not say in that quote that the scientific theory is misguided, but that it's interpretation is. He's referring to the sorts of infantile arguments one sees today (often from very smart people) that evolution properly interpreted entails atheism. The problem is not evolution, but it's interpretation.

July 1, 2013 at 9:26 am

W Scott Taylor Brent, thank you and I do appreciate enthused dialog. In your zeal to respond you made some pretty fundamental blunders. One, you obviously did not think through the equations closely enough before you announced that

"Bryant's math ... [has] been found wanting."

In fact I'm hard pressed to believe that you actually took 'pencil in hand'. If one goes through the derivations and discussion of where Einstein's proof amounted to a 'false positive' it can be readily seen that the author has identified an error that invalidates Einstein's assumptions of proof.

You made some pretty positive statements in order to invalidate the author's claim without having demonstrated to your self, at least, that the author was wrong and where. That is exactly what I wanted to determine and that is how knowledgeable you think one has to be about Science to make categorical statements against other views. Not pretty.

July 1, 2013 at 11:00 am

W Scott Taylor Brent [cont]: Actually, Brent you are projecting your own animus into Boyd's quote. In fact the section the quote I supplied came from had nothing to do with Evolution and was purely concerning 'Physics and the Open Future.' It's going to be pretty much like like shooting fish in a barrel if more responses like this show up. You were warned.

July 1, 2013 at 11:22 am

Brent Henderson Thanks for confirming my suspicions about you, Scott. I won't be engaging you again. In my experience (as a professor and in life), people who get life from winning arguments are never worth arguing with. If you will google "Steven Bryant relativity" you will find no shortage of well-qualified physicists who point out Bryant's mistakes.

July 1, 2013 at 11:36 am

W Scott Taylor I'm afraid 'Open Theists' will need to be made of sterner and more multi-disciplined stuff to rise above their erstwhile bumbling counterparts. If you cant 'do the math yourself' then you ought to be a bit less condescending to those who can.

July 1, 2013 at 11:44 am

W Scott Taylor I am astounded by those in academia who are influential among 'Open Theists' that are so dated in their 'proofs' that the Bible has errors that cannot be 'patched' they reveal that they've been resting on their laurels. They think they've done a masterful job by defeating the arguments of men who have been dead for nearly 100 years!

Do yourself a favor - pedal to the curb quickly. Otherwise you will be run over by a younger generation who has long ago peeked behind the curtain of the old Scientific status quo and have found that you were also deceived. ijs

July 2, 2013 at 1:34 am

Eric Maggard Scott... yes, here is my review:

1) Errors in his calculations in Table 2.
2) I didn't work through the equations, but I think there is an error in his equation 11.

I have a couple of other issues with him and his "proof"

1) In his presentation in video 22, he doesn't include time in his "Brute-Force" method... which is necessary for the calculations
2) If he wants dialog, why are all of the comments disabled on his "relativitychallenge" website?
3) He posts the preliminary results from CERN about "faster than light" particles as "proof", but then doesn't post that they were in error. See title: "CERN Faster Than Light Experiment Proves Relativity Theory is Wrong"

I also did a cursory look on the internet and found a couple of posts about his paper, but they were shot down pretty readily. It seems he is also not applying the time and distance transform correctly, but didn't go into it. From this short review, I can see that he has some issues and don't want to waste my time with it.

I am curious as to why you are posting this on Open Theism, when most of the people here are probably Religion/Theology people with no background in Math?

July 3, 2013 at 11:46 am

Tom Belt My popcorn bowl is full and I'm enjoying the show.

July 3, 2013 at 12:05 pm

W Scott Taylor Eric, thanks for taking the time to personally look at the authors publication. The analysis of Einstein's Spherical Wave Proof showed that he did not recognize that his condition of the the proof of the theory allowed for a false-positive conclusion.

Equation 11, that you cited follows the method of verification of the solution of equations of assumed displacements by evaluating the derivative of the equation at known boundary's. In the case where values are known to be zero derivative of the equation must of course be zero. That's about as fundamental as one gets. You must have made a mistake there.

The supposed error you claim exist in Table II, since you did not run the numbers you are essentially 'wishing it were so'.

In short your effort was 'cursory' with a mild bias. The main point of my post and the article it self was to determine what kind of critics are using Science as the ground for marginalizing the 'inerrancy' of the Bible.

This article presents in a simple and direct manner what the Spherical Wave Proof consists of and uncovers a 'claimed' false positive by Einstein. While the claim is portentous for SRT and GRT, the check is relatively (no pun) simple to accomplish.

The rest of your effort was outside the main intent of the post. It seems that you didn't take to seriously. I am not surprised as that is the model or pattern of various 'Open Theists

July 3, 2013 at 12:28 pm

W Scott Taylor Eric, your response further reveal the typical response of those are accustomed to 'taking the word' of others for important Scientific postulates and theories. How easily the Bible can be marginalized these days.

You said "It seems he is also not applying the time and distance transform correctly, but [I] didn't go into it." Indeed.

Further, you asked:

"I am curious as to why you are posting this on Open Theism, when most of the people here are probably Religion/Theology people with no background in Math?"

The contention of many 'Open Theists' in academia is that Science is an important discipline for its influence in not just pure science, but in Cosmology as well, and there have been numerous conferences and books written by 'Open Theists' that indicated active participation in dialog with Science is a very high level of importance effort. And its no secrete that many Open Theists in academia use the 'supposed' finding in science to militate against the 'high view' of Scripture. I would think that at least they were availing themselves of this kind of exercise so that their own influence in this regard would be authentic and honorable.

July 3, 2013 at 12:38 pm

W Scott Taylor Tom Belt, you will surely need to refill you bowl, it get's better from here on out.

July 3, 2013 at 12:41 pm

Eric Maggard So, Scott... tell me why on the lines he highlights in Table 2, the time values are different than the others? I have to go to a meeting, but it seems to me the differences he is seeing is because of the time difference he is applying to the equation on those two lines. If you are going to calculate a circle or sphere... you need apply the same time to all points.

July 3, 2013 at 12:57 pm

Eric Maggard Scott: "While the claim is portentous for SRT and GRT, the check is relatively (no pun) simple to accomplish." Since it is so easy to accomplish, why didn't Bohr, Planck, or even Hawking refute it?

Scott: "You said "It seems he is also not applying the time and distance transform correctly, but [I] didn't go into it." Indeed." When you do translations like that, you need to do time AND space transforms like the Lorentz.

If you are going to correct my grammar... how about: "And its no secrete that many Open Theists in academia use the 'supposed' finding in science to militate against the 'high view' of Scripture." It is no secrete? Really? The really only way for someone to prove the "Open View" either true or false is to know the nature of God. Since we can't know that... then we can't prove or disprove Open Theism.

So how about Steven not updating his site and remove that "CERN Faster Than Light Experiment Proves Relativity Theory is Wrong"? He has been trying to "disprove" SR for 9 or 10 years now... SR has stood for over 100... don't see it being disproved yet.

July 3, 2013 at 1:41 pm

Eric Maggard How's the popcorn so far, Tom? :-)

July 3, 2013 at 2:33 pm

Tom Belt I keep waiting for a specific application of any of this to open theism. And I still have the same problem (sorry Scott) with Scott's...approach? attitude? categorical dismissal of those who disagree? It's easy to promote your view on a subject that requires a competency (math/physics in this case) that nobody among those you're promoting your view shares. One can always just say, "Well, if you could do the math, then I'd listen to you." Then why are you having this conversation here at all? Just to alert us to these cool articles we could read if you were interested? But we don't do the math, so...? And round and round we go.

I could post articles and debates on Arabic literature and grammar that none of you could participate in because you don't know Arabic, but what's the point of doing that HERE?

What I can do is notice that when it comes to the interpretation of quantum physics, there certainly seem to be competent physicists who can do the math and who disagree. So if I can't do the math, why should I believe Scott? Or that person? Or this person? I have to do the best I can to adjudicate the disagreements among experts who debate in a language I don't speak. And to the extent I can do THAT I'm inclined to think Scott is overly confident.

July 3, 2013 at 3:00 pm

Brent Henderson Peer review isn't perfect, but it is pretty effective. Much more trustworthy than 'doing the math ourselves.'

July 3, 2013 at 3:04 pm

Eric Maggard Tom... I guess the application for open theism is that if GTR or STR is debunked... then there would be no possibility for wormholes. If there is STR, then there is a possibility for God to create wormholes and travel through space/time and know what the actions/results would be for free will beings... How's that? So can God create and use these wormholes?

July 3, 2013 at 3:51 pm

Tom Belt Wow. God using wormholes! More popcorn. Told ya I liked Science-fiction!

July 3, 2013 at 4:15 pm

Brent Henderson Or is it that relativity is a threat to an exhaustively pre-determined future and therefore has to go? I thought maybe that was the reason.

July 3, 2013 at 4:17 pm

W Scott Taylor Now that you fellas have had your say, and complain that I'm really just brow beating others (gasp, wouldnt that be awful) or trying to suggest that your mode of thinking is really an expression of hubris all its own in marginalizing the Bible, I'll answer. :) Watch the butter Tom, it has a way of narrowing the old blood vessels.

July 3, 2013 at 5:59 pm

W Scott Taylor You guys are focusing on the minutia and obsesses in analyzing presumed psychological factor of why I'm making a big deal out of the apparent dearth of real exposure to that which Open Theism is seeking in the numerous seminars and dialogs between theologians and materialistic evolutionary scientific cosmology. And my don't we bristle at the hint of the pedantic in 'others'.

Arabic, Tom? Really? what in the hills of hot sand does Arabic have to do with:

"Open Theology Engaging Science" ?

I'm not sure but I think I have achieved part of my intended purpose in this OP and thread. In part that is to make the point, that so many who have majored in philosophy and theology and stress the importance of understanding the history and foundational concepts of discipline and spend endless hours of debate and censure of the schools that still languish in apparent ignorance of the the importance of proper vetting of various steps and conclusions in their discipline are themselves seemingly bereft of basic practical experience or a credible theoretical critique of that which they are sure invalidates a 'high view of scripture'.

The hubris of those who should know better by virtue of their profession who blindly 'go with the flow' of the latest views of 'Science' concerning Cosmology and the biological and geological facts of the planet we live on, is more than mildly appalling.

I cannot respect the criticism of those affirm a ''critical view' of Scripture based upon the naive adoption of the affirmations of a metaphysically materialist scientific community and its cosmology.

The incongruity of claiming a higher level of enlightenment and yet be so lopsided, in the main, in interdisciplinary experience across the cosmological divide offends me.

July 3, 2013 at 7:21 pm

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Jason Amato

July 8, 2013 at 5:16 pm

Weekly Newsletter- Don Chamberlain "Not REALLY Love Ballads Of The OT" http://eepurl.com/B3JAr

Weekly Newsletter- Don Chamberlain- "Songs Of The Night" or "Not REALLY Love Ballads Of The OT"

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Posts tagged Religious Studies

Why Simple Foreknowledge is Still Useless (In Spite of David Hunt and Alex Pruss)

I. INTRODUCTION : THE FIRST ARGUMENT

II. A SECOND ARGUMENT

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Open and Relational Theologies Bibliography

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Things That May Be Only?

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