ST: Paper Introduction

I realized my paper would be far too long to post on here all at once. So, here is the introduction, and part of the first section. This is still a rough draft, and I'd love feedback. :)


Introduction

Open theists would like to prove their beliefs on the grounds of the Word of G-d, but they are confronting the very authority of Scripture. Clark Pinnock, et al, present their views in The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God. Open theism cannot continue to manipulate Scripture to promote its heretical theology without a Biblical response from the confessing church. Bruce Ware addresses the Biblical and theological problems of open theism in two works, Their God is Too Small: Open Theism and the Undermining of Confidence in God, and God’s Lesser Glory: The Diminished God of Open Theism. The open view of G-d claims that G-d’s emotional responses to human actions suggest he is dependent on human choices, and must “wait-and-see” before he can pursue his eternal plans. Open theists often use G-d’s regret over making Saul king (I Sam 15:11, 35) as a primary example that G-d did not know Saul would disobey him. I intend to show that this is categorically false, as it is both a willfully misguided interpretation of “regret” in the passage, and fails to see the story of Saul in the larger context of I Samuel (cf. 8:6-18), and in the organic path of redemptive history foreshadowed by the kingship of David.

What is Open Theism?[1]

Open theism presents itself as the alternative to placing G-d in the confines of a predetermined world. The openness of G-d refers to His open approach to the future, and the view emphasizes divine love. He has designed the world, allowing freewill humans to hold sway in their future, the fate of humanity, and the specifics of G-d’s redemptive plan. It’s important to understand that, under open theism, G-d has purposefully limited his future omniscience to create a give-and-take relationship between Himself and his creation. This granting of freedom allows us to collaborate or frustrate G-d’s will, and He adjusts His plans to fit situations in order to accomplish His goals. This is crucial for understanding the framework of open theism. Open theists protect G-d’s sovereignty by claming that G-d does not control everything that happens because he’s designed the world to operate that way. He waits to respond to human decisions, showing Himself as a loving and kind G-d.

This idea of an ultra-relational G-d is caught on the notion that human freedom and G-d’s control of future events are at odds. How can there be real love between G-d and man if we are just robots, and cannot truly choose to love him? For open theists, human freewill must be defined in the libertarian sense. A choice can only be free if it is truly free; there can be no outside forces influencing the decision-maker – including the self. Only when an action can be changed by the actor up until the moment of the act, is there truly a free choice being made. Apart from the ability to do so, we cannot have freewill.

This understanding of freewill is critical to open theism. If G-d comprehensively knows the future, the future must be fixed. If so, open theism purports, then man cannot really be free to make his own decisions.[2] This becomes a cyclical dependence on libertarian freedom: G-d cannot have foreknowledge of the future to protect our free choices and we must be completely free to vindicate G-d’s lack of future freewill actions.

The open view sees G-d’s emotions displayed in Scripture as exhibiting his openness. Open theists believe that instances where G-d appears to change his mind, get angry, or show regret, indicates he was unaware of the impacts of human interactions and is now responding to freewill human choices. Because G-d waits for us to act, he is sometimes upset by how events unfold. G-d can even be disappointed when choices he makes do not develop the way he anticipated. This emotion – be it disappointment, regret, or sorrow – is often used to support the open view.


A presentation of G-d’s regret from the openness perspective is found in Pinnock, et al, as addressed by Richard Rice. Rice outlines G-d’s intentions as we understand human intentions: desires, goals, objectives.[3] G-d’s plans are just that – plans; he can adapt, respond, change, etc., to human influence. He is not bound by a determined set of events and enjoys interacting with his creation to work out his plans. In the open view, the story of Saul in the Old Testament illustrates this point. G-d hoped Saul would be a good king (I Sam 15:35). He planned for Saul to be a good, faithful king. Saul, however, in his freewill, rejected G-d’s plan, causing G-d to regret making him king.

One common objection to open theism is that it is dangerously close to suggesting that G-d that lies. Rice argues against two passages, often used by opponents of open theism, that say G-d will not lie (Num 23:19 & I Sam 15:29). First, he equates lie with repent. [4] Ware agrees the two terms are related, but goes on to expound that since G-d never lies (2 Tim 2:13, Titus 1:2, Heb 6:18), it is more accurate to understand this as parallelism and not a substitution of terminology.[5] Next, Rice states that by saying G-d will not repent, it implies he can if he so chooses.[6] For Rice, this gets back to how G-d intentionally designed the world. G-d purposefully cannot see future free choices, protecting our libertarian freedom, so that he can engage with us in a genuine, meaningful manner.

It’s important to understand why regret indicates that G-d has no foreknowledge of the future in open theism. Greg Boyd argues, “We must wonder how the Lord could truly experience regret for making Saul king if he was absolutely certain that Saul would act the way he did. Could G-d genuinely confess, “I regret that I made Saul king” if he could in the same breath also proclaim, “I was certain of what Saul would do when I made him king”? I do not see how… Common sense tells us that we can only regret a decision we made if the decision resulted in an outcome other than what we expected or hoped for when the decision was made.”[7] And Boyd’s argument does make sense – if we are to understand this in terms of human feelings and emotions. We certainly make poor decisions, with imperfect information, in a fallen and sinful world. But we are speaking of the G-d of the universe here, and as Ware points out, I Samuel 15:29 plainly states that G-d is not like man.[8]

[1] Ware outlines the tenants of open theism in ten distinct points on p. 67-68 (2003).
[2] Frame, 486
[3] Rice, 26
[4] Rice, 33
[5] Ware, 33 (2003); Ware, 88 (2000). Ware also challenges the open theist use of Hosea 11:8-9.
[6] Rice, 32
[7] Ware, 26 (2003); Ware, 52 (2000)
[8] Ware, 33 (2003)