Divine Paradoxes

This book is described as a response to Process and Openness Theologies. But it is an engaging read even if you are unfamiliar with either of those schools of thought. The author asserts that in their attempt to portray God as a relational being involved with the world, Process and Openness theologies have in fact over-emphasized these qualities at the expense of God's mysterious majesty. Murphree responds by examining how some of these relational aspects can be balanced and harmonized with God's infiniteness. Some paradoxes studied include: God's timelessness & his temporal involvement; sovereignty & freedom; transcendence & omnipresence, etc. This book is college-level, philosophical reading. Yet I must add that it is engagingly written. Murphree avoids the danger of oversimplification and makes a good case for preserving a `traditional' understanding of God's infinite nature. I came away from the study both understanding more about God, and revering him more.

It is disappointing when a book review begins by poisoning the well, as Mr. Vick's has done, attacking the author rather than its content. The categorical statement "Murphree is not a philosopher" is followed by polemic trivia that fails to justify the accusation. The charge is even more questionable when this book of Murphree's has received quite a number of positive reviews from noted academic scholars, including a nontheist with a Ph.D. in philosophy from Vanderbilt and a Calvinist theologian. Having thoroughly appreciated and benefited greatly from Murphree's keen insight, I'd like to respond in part to the negative review, particularly in light of the sweeping conclusion of "philosophical blunder". Most who read the discussion on pages 111 and 112 will recognize astute philosophical perceptivity. Murphree has carefully chosen the term "self-caused", not "self-created". The Latin "a se" means God's existence is "from himself", which implies "self-caused". The point he made, however, was that God's existence is uncaused (Aquinas) rather than self-caused, a product of his nature rather than his will. Perhaps it could inferred that ancient Hellenistic philosophy referred to ultimate reality as gods or God (p. 120-121). What Murphree is really saying is that the ultimate reality which they sought and which WE call God was to them simply a "depersonalized" irreducible perfect substance. A close reading of chapter 5 should clarify another aspect which the reviewer misrepresents. The author has not used the phrase "non-conscious awareness"--which would be a contradiction. He has distinguished between God's conscious awareness and his knowledge, which is a plausible notion. It is made very clear that "God may choose to block out of his conscious awareness certain items that he does not wish to contemplate...He can refuse to think of whatever he does not wish his mind to rest on" (p.51). That is a far cry from saying that "God suffers from" partial nonconsciousness. Murphree has clearly explained how this notion interacts with God's knowledge of future contingencies, which the reviewer either did not read or did not grasp. "Allowing God to operate from controlled consciousness without curtailing his foreknowledge frees him to become aware of whatever [in the] future he might need to take into consideration" (p.55). "...that God is selectively aware of known future events" allows "God to access for instant awareness any future events..." (p.56). A blanket condemnation because the book is Arminian requires proving that Arminianism is wrong, which the review did not attempt: a clear case of begging the question. Without evidence to the contrary, the charge could be considered a virtue rather than a fault. Certainly rebutting the radical Arminianism of Openness by traditional moderate Arminianism has a value that a Calvinist rebuttal would lack.