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Chucks3371
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 28
| Posted 12/16/2002 6:54 PM (GMT -6) |   | I've just finished SPE, and I'd like to jot down some prelimary impressions while it is fresh. First of all it is the first book I've read by a so-called open theist, so I'm really experiencing the novelty of ideas I've never heard discussed before. I also need to apologize to evangelicals, since I had always assumed they were "air-heads" who had never read a book. Obviously not the case with Dr. Boyd, who has read plenty of books in wide-ranging fields and is able to syntheisze them all with clear and precise ideas.
For me, it's been a roller-coaster ride. The first several chapters were no problem. As has been pointed out, libertarian free will and an open future are neither new nor shocking ideas outside Evangelicalism (although the directions it goes in seem novel to me). I had no emotional attachment to the closed view, so it was like preaching to the choir. Although I was introduced to much new material, I grew a little impatient with the arguments against compatibilism.
The chapters on theodicy started getting to me. I had really no conception of "natural evil"; since evil must arise from a will with intention, for me there could be no such thing as "natural evil". Unless of course there were a willful intention behind natural disasters! Chapter 10 flustered me -- it required a week to get through it. I hae a lot of resistance to the very idea. And it is not merely intellectual disagreement.
For many years, I followed fellows like Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. The desciption of the chaos at the heart of creation -- at least in so far as it is experienced -- struck me as Schopenhauerian, and that is a direction I don't want to go back to. Similary, Schopenhauer was a more convincing determinist than any Calvinist can dream of, and I know his arguments well; that is why Calvinism has no appeal to me. Interestingly enough, Schopenhauer points to the door to take leave of his system, even though he himself never opened it.
The bottom line? I am considering Dr. Boyd's arguments seriously; I suppose that if Norman Mailer and Harold Bloom can believe in the devil, then I must be overlooking something.
I like the use made of Das Nichtige. It actually echos the Greek fathers, and is compatible with metaphyisical thought, which Barth picked up from Hegel, I suppose. Dr. Boyd's speculation on the Last Things expresses ideas that I had held only inchoately. I had felt that the concept of Purgatory, or the period of future probation, if you prefer had scriptural support. Does it make sense, then, to pray for the dead, to help them in their conversion? (Not that neotheists don't have enough problems in their milieu.)
My overall impression? A tour de force, which its understandable style may hide (why do we expect "serious" books to be turgid?)
But I have to wonder ... Is this simply Evagelicalism with a little twist, or is there a real revolution behind it, still yet to be fully thematicized? Isn't that the cause of the fear and reaction against Open Theism? It seems to me that it changes everything, including the nature of salvation.
-- Chuck S.
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honorman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1137
| Posted 12/17/2002 7:19 AM (GMT -6) | | I had the same reaction, and still six months or so down the road I am still digesting...I believe it is a revolution, not so much in thought but in living the life. It makes us responsible, not part of a predetermined plan. Doctor Boyd's take on hell alone is great food for thought...
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GregBoyd
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
| Posted 12/19/2002 10:23 AM (GMT -6) | | Thank you Chucks3371. I consider it the highest compliment to learn my book was a catalyst for your own reflections. Its interesting how an number of intellectuals are beginning to take the idea of the devil seriously (if not literally). They sense there is something fundamental evil -- or at least chaos tending -- near the core of things. Shopenhaur certainly intuited it. The Hindus as well, with their notion of Shiva as creator AND destroyer. Dualists, of course, have always nailed it, unfortunately assuming that the evil near the core SHARED the core. And in recent times its popping up in everything from sociology and psychology works to Hollywood films (Thin Red Line? Matrix?).
As to whether this is a "twist" or a "revolution"... we shall have to wait and see.
Thanks for the feedback.
Doc
"In Christ...the ONLY THING that matters is faith energized by love." Galatians 5:6 | | Back to Top | | |
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