The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God

"Open Theism" first came to my attention a few years ago, at the beginning of my brief mission work in Brazil. At that time, reading about it in Christianity Today, I thought it sounded ridiculous. How things have changed. Open theism proposes, among other things, that God does not have perfect knowledge of our future. As strange as this might sound to people trained in classic views of God, it makes a lot of what the Bible says about God much clearer. This book, "The Openness of God," is an excellent place to start studying open theism. The only section I felt uncertain about was the portion entitled "A Philosophical Perspective" by William Hasker. Most of my misgivings can possibly be attributed to lack of personal aptitude for philosophy as a field, but I also did not like the way he kept telling the reader what "a majority of philosophers" think about this or that (as though that alone added weight to what he was saying). All in all, this is a wonderful book and a great introduction to open theism.

As a college student in his late 30s who is majoring in philosophy, I can testify to the accuracy of this book's historical section. As the authors ably point out, much of the modern Christian conception of God comes not from the Bible but from the writings of Plato and Aristotle. And the God of Greek philosophy is far more remote and inhuman than the one portrayed in both the Old and New Testaments. This has created a tension in the field of theology proper which has left many perplexed and confused. The Openness of God offers a remedy to this ages-old mixture of divine revelation and pagan thinking. It challenges us to accept God as the Bible portrays Him, emotions, ambivalence and all. Readers will discover a deity who is just as powerful as the one described in classical theism, but who is also far easier for humans to relate to. This book and ones like it have been unfairly and maliciously attacked by narrow-minded critics, who call it everything from anti-Calvinist to an apologetic for Mormonism. Nonsense. What the open minded seeker will find in these pages is a cogent yet humble case for a view of the Creator which is both refreshingly new and yet millenia old. Very highly recommended for everyone interested in theology, philosophy or apologetics.

Pinnock joins four other authors to provide one of the more hotly debated books on the doctrine of God amongst Evangelical Christians. At the root of the vision of deity they designate the "Open God" is their shared conviction that love is God's chief attribute, and all other divine attributes must not undermine the primacy of love. In order to offer a coherent doctrine of God, essayists address issues of divine transcendence, immanence, power, omniscience, mutability, and passibility. At the core of his proposal is his account of divine loving activity that includes God's responsiveness, generosity, sensitivity, openness, and vulnerability. In fact, Clark Pinnock contends that "love rather than almighty power is the primary perfection of God" (114). Essayists in The Openness of God argue that no doctrine is more central to the Christian faith than the doctrine of God. Laying out a coherent, livable, biblical doctrine is crucial for the practical and theoretical aspects of theology. Many Christians, however, observe an inconsistency between their beliefs about the nature of God and their religious practice. For example, Christians ask God to act in a certain way when they pray, although their formal theology may suppose that God has predetermined all things. A major factor in assessing the viability of a theological scheme, then, is the piety question: How well does this "live?" "How can we expect Christians to delight in God or outsiders to seek God if we portray God in biblically flawed, rationally suspect, and existentially repugnant ways?" asks Pinnock (104). In his attempt to avoid rationally suspect hypotheses, Pinnock seeks to offer a coherent doctrine of God, i.e., each divine attribute "should be compatible with one another and with the vision of God as a whole" (101). The Openness of God authors share the basic conviction that love is the principal theme in Christian theology. Pinnock insists, for instance, that love is the primary perfection of God. Richard Rice, who assumes the task of offering biblical support for the open view advanced in the book, claims that the open view expresses two basic convictions Scripture supports. First, love is the most important quality humans attribute to God. Second, love is more than care and commitment; it also involves sensitivity and responsiveness. Rice further notes that, from a Christian perspective, love is the first and last word in the biblical portrait of God. When one enumerates God's qualities, one must not only include love on the list, but, to be faithful to the Bible, one must put love at the head of that list. A doctrine of God faithful to the Bible must show that all God's characteristics derive from love. Rice concludes: "Love, therefore, is the very essence of the divine nature. Love is what it means to be God" (19). Pinnock embraces the notion that God is like a loving parent when affirming these hypotheses. In this parental model, God possesses "qualiti

In 1980 Richard Rice published this book about the problem of evil and the nature of divine foreknowledge in relation to mankind's free will. The book was quickly forgotten and was out of print in a few years. However, there were a few prominent theologians who read it and were intriqued. Jump forward 14 years to 1994 when Clark Pinnock along with other authors (Richard Rice included) published "The Openness of God" (the use of Rice's title apparently a tribute to this book's influence) and brought the open theism debate to prominence. It's interesting how a seemingly insignificant book can years later have a huge impact.Personally the book was a jolt. I was comfortable with my view of God and resistant to changing it. But this book opened my mind to new possibilities. That in itself is a good enough reason to read it.

Open theism, unfortunately, has suffered much abuse from critics too quick to label it heresy but too stubborn to actually evaluate its aims and insights. I'll make it clear that I am not an open theist, but neither to I have any reason to see open theism as undermining the historic faith. Anyone who reads this book will understand that, though the position is sometimes hard to consider given our long-held notions about perfect being theology, the openist position fits well within the mainstream of history.This book does a great job of describing the open theist aims to interpret the Bible on its own terms apart from the influence of Platonic philosophy that crept into theology in the early years of the church. It does a great job of laying out the aim of presenting a God who is open to working alongside humanity to bring about a desired end, and who wants to enter a dynamic, give and take relationship with humanity. It also does an adequate job of giving an introduction to the three philosophical bases of the position: a temporal God, libertarian free will of humanity, and the denial of the existence of true counterfactuals of creaturely freedom (i.e., there is no truth value to statements like, "Had I only been there, I would have...").Being a student of Sanders and Hasker and being involved in philosopical conferences, I've had the ability to hear about the position from the sources and get to know the men behind it personally. They're good Christian people trying to make sense of God's revelation--nothing more, nothing less.For those who would like a more in-depth look at the philosophy of open theism, I recommend Hasker's "God, Time, and Knowledge." For more about the openist view of providence, try Sanders' "The God Who Risks." And for those of you who want an alternative to the openist position that honors God's foreknowledge but are dissatisfied with the Calvinist views of free will, I suggest looking into Molinism, it's best introductory text probably being Thomas Flint's "Divine Providence: The Molinist Account."