God Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents God

The Open view of God has been gaining support as more and more evangelicals seek to become more politically correct and tolerant of other world views and religions. Theologians such as Clark Pinnock and Gregory Boyd have added fuel to the fire through their books that support what they deem "an evangelical but biblical view of God" (Boyd). In this work, GOD UNDER FIRE, leading evangelical scholars take aim at the Open God viewpoint. The book is deals with the subject of the doctrine of God. Each chapter focuses on the different attributes of God that are under fire by open deist. From the historic view of God to the unchanging nature of God (immutability). Each chapter is quite well written with many Scriptures to back the writers point. Each writer has many endnotes and includes the open view before building their own case from the Bible. This book is a wonderful book to read about the glory of the biblical God. As we move closer to the end of time more and more will arise to question our God (2 Peter 3:1-9). False prophets have always been around (1 John 4:1-2). We must stand firm for biblical truth (Jude 3-4) and stay grounded in the Word of God (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Only by remaining committed to the Bible do we find true security (John 8:31-32; James 1:21; 1 John 2:28).

This book is yet another book to hit the market in recent years that attempts to address the open theism issue. But unlike other books in this genre, this book does not target open theism exclusively, but attempts to critique numerous strains of questionable theology that the book's contributors believe are out of step classical Christian orthodoxy. As will be discussed below, this is both a strength and a weakness to the book.Contrary to one of the previous reviewers of this book (who either hasn't read the book or did the read the book and is deliberately misrepresenting it), this is not a book that emanates from a monolithic theological perspective. Being a collaborative effort, there are 12 contributors who have come together in this book to deal with varying issues where they believe that God has come under fire. Of the 12, at least 4 (and probably 5 in my view) come from a decidedly non-Calvinist perspective (one is even a Roman Catholic). As such, this book differs from other books such as 'Beyond the Bounds' and 'Bound Only Once' which are both collaborative efforts from a Reformed perspective nearly exclusively. The reader should take note that the theological diversity represented in this book is a formidable obstacle for the sympathizers of open theism, since it demonstrates that a diverse group of scholars who have no problem disagreeing with each other on secondary matters can unite against a theological movement that all of them see as a threat. To say that because these folks disagree on secondary matters, they therefore have no standing to critique open theism is sort of like saying that a divorced husband and wife should not come together to raise their children responsibly since they obviously disagreed on so many other things and had therefore lost their standing to come together in any other family area. I don't know of too many folks who would adopt such thinking there, it doesn't make any better sense to adopt it in the area of pertinence here.As for the book itself, there are a number of notable strengths by specific contributors. Perhaps unsurprisingly, DA Carson hits a homerun in his contribution which thoroughly devastates open theism's irresponsible embrace of love as trumping all other attributes of God. Carson, drawing upon his highly commendable work in other books on the area of God's love, demonstrates that a responsible reading of Scripture results in a fundamentally different view of God than what open theists espouse.In addition, Spiegel provides an excellent chapter on the whole issue of the open theist god having to play dice. Spiegel does a good job of debunking this. In addition, Craig nicely steps up to the plate to refute open theism from an Arminian perspective, which is quite refreshing since Arminianism, with some notable exceptions, has been less than stalwart in its repudiation of open theism. It was nice to see several Arminian/holiness folks in this book stand up to defend classical the

Airtight refutation of the discredited aberrancy floating about in some Christian circles called "Open Theory of the unaware deity who changes as it is beneficial to change in order to meaningfully relate to his fully free creation."Openism's main proponent Gregory Boyd is unmasked as a misguided Christian failing to establish credibility for his aberrant hybrid between Hartshorne's Process Theory and HistoricChristianity.(See his seminal book TRINITY & PROCESS where he acknowledges his embracing of major elements of Hartshornian philosophy contra Historic Christianity).Gregory's denial of Inerrancy is enough to call into question his continuation on the clergy roster of Baptist General Conf. and faculty position at Bethel College. In his most recent book,'Across the Spectrum', Boyd's essay on 'Infallibilist View'merely patronizes the Historic Christian teaching and puts forward an Errant Bible for consumption by the undiscerning. For Boyd, 'Infallible' means 'unfailing in matters of faith and practice ONLY', which is contrary to the Dictionary Definition or any understanding of true Evangelical Theology. Why Boyd's own superiors, BGC President Jerry Sheveland or Bethel Trustees don't ask for a retraction or resignation is troublesome when he is in open, published defiance of BGC Affirmation of Faith on Inerrancy of Scripture.One of the best essays in this excellent resource is by D.A.Carson. Here are some excerpts to get a flavor of how Openism is little more than a miscarriage, a stillbirth, an attempt at cloning new illigitimate offspring from Evangelical Theology defective from conception: "Toward the beginning of his book God at War, Boyd tells us of Zosia..who in gory cruelty the Nazis (had) blinded. The narration becomes a reason to want to believe God did not know what was going to happen..Because of his ignorance of what would take place, God (could) not prevent its happening.I(Carson) am not persuaded that this theodicy is an adequate defense of God...When God saw the Nazis were about to take out Zosia's eyes (in God's present), why did he not intervene (now that it was no longer an unknowble future choice)? Or if God still wasn't sure what they were going to do, why didn't he intervene after they took out the first eye? If God's goodness and love can only be preserved in the first instance by ascribing ignorance to God, what will protect His goodness and love at this point? Slow reaction times?" (Same with the entire Holocaust from 1933-1945: wasn't 12 years enough time for the Almighty, All-Loving to react before the first murdered Jew became 6 Million murder victims?? Boydism breaks down here.) "Gregory Boyd acknowledges his indebtedness to process thought in Trinity and Process..Hartshorne's Bi-Polar Theism Towards a Trinitarian Metaphysics..(where Boyd admits)'It is our conviction that the fundamental vision of the process world view especially as espoused by Charles Hartshorne(not even a Christian, certainly no Evangelical) is c