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iwbh1124
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 1
| Posted 1/10/2003 5:19 PM (GMT -6) |   | I am new to Open Theism and already have swallowed the doctrine but recently I was told by a friend that Christians doctrines should be based on NT didactic passages and not on narratives.
In my readings of Greg Boyd's book, "God of the Possible" and of some Openness articles available in the Internet, I observe that the Open View acquires its biblical support from the Old Testament narratives and Old Testament passages. My question is, shouldn't we build doctrines based on the New Testament especially in the didactic passages and not on narratives? Or is there any hermeneutical justification in forming a doctine based on OT narratives?
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Starkman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 1/12/2003 5:25 AM (GMT -6) | | Hey there, iwbh1124,
Welcome to the board!
First, I think it's worth remembering that when we talk about the open view, we're talking about the God of the open view, not doctrine, per se. In otherwords, we who have come to hold the open view are doing such because we feel that God as a PERSON has revealed Himself from the open view perspective. (You won't find in the Bible, "Today's didactic topic is the Open View of God; Doctrine 101 Open Theism." But what we do find in Scripture is the personal one-on-one that God has with His creation; and that is so often times revealed in an open view perspective. Indirectly, then, this creates a teaching of its own, but is not in and of itself "taught" as if it were one of many doctrines listed on the agenda of Old and New Testament writers.
The Book of Romans teaches about the wonderful work of salvation afforded to both Jew and Gentile; not the open view. The book of Hebrews discusses the "how" God fulfilled the Law of old; not the open view. The Gospels demonstrate the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ, not the open view. The book of Acts is something of the history of the Holy Spirit's work within the early church; not the open view. The Old Testament, of course, being a whole other ball game.
In all of these works of God, given to us for our edification, it isn't the open view that's "taught" in any of them. Yet, in all of the Word, there is the constant flow of the personalness of the Creator revealing Himself within the open view perspective.
Hope that helps,
Starkman
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Newcomb
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 116
| Posted 1/12/2003 5:56 AM (GMT -6) | | Let me respond with a few thoughts, I will suppose that, by ‘didactic’ you mean those passages that are intended to teach, specifically those instructional passages where we are given specific instructions such as “rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing. . .” etc.
If the Bible is the Word of God (I presume we all think it is without reservation), why would anyone limit their doctrine to those of 1/3 of the Word of God? Disallowing 2/3 of what God tells us eliminates 2/3 of his teaching us and these are the basic things we need to know, since we are to base things, as Isaiah tells us, “For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little.”
The idea that only the New Testament holds the truths we should follow throws out 2/3 of what God tells us. Personally, I prefer the entire Word of God verses taking someone’s advice such as this.
Second, I don’t know any group that does this, and for the good reasons I have outlined above. Name a doctrine that is not supported by referring to the Old Testament. Jesus constantly referred to the Old Testament, and we are to be like him. No?
Third, much of the descriptions all theological systems are built on are based in the Old Testament because of the way God moved through history and revealed himself line upon line. . . So your friend is trying to win an argument based on false pretense, one that is a bit like pulling a rabbit out of a hat, it’s magic: “Believe the old system because this new system doesn’t conform to this rule I pulled out of my hat.” But neither does his system, so I becomes self defeating. If we apply his rule to his belief system you would soon find it based on the whole Bible, not part of it.
This is a typical response of a dispensationalist person who likes (for some strange reason) to think that they are “New Testament Christians” and have thrown out the Old Testament that God spent so much time developing and quoting while he was here. Strange.
But there is a more sinister aspect also. Since at least Ignatius, we have used Greek thought mixed in with Jewish and Christian thought to form a teaching system that is upheld by certain ideas about God. For instance, yesterday our Sunday School group went to an octogenarian’s house to help him with some much needed gardening and he was expressing angst about his medical conditions and age. A Godly man, he was not griping, but expressing his acceptance of his condition because “God has our days numbered and we are in his hands. He determines how long we live and how we fair. I just don’t know why we have to suffer so, but I will understand when I get to heaven.”
In this view, God is responsible for his cancer, his sister’s cancer, my dad’s death by cancer, my sister’s rape, my niece’s illegitimate baby, ad infinitum.
The problem is, he, like me, believes God created, then man sinned and caused an abnormal relationship between man and the world he lives in and that sin causes cascades of events that cause all of our problems. This current situation is not what God created, it is something else. All is not as God designed it to be.
Entrained into our theologies are protection mechanisms that attempt to explain away real problems within the systems of thought. Systems of thought first explain to you how things are then why there are this way. When confronted with a question such as: “When Moses was on the mountain and God looked down at what the Children of Israel were doing he became angry. Moses talked him out of killing them all and handled it himself. Doesn’t this show God changes his mind?” The answer to the question is: God appears to change his mind but we presuppose that he cannot do so, therefore he didn’t, so it must be something else like an analogy.”
We should as: “What would God be like if he did act the way his word tells us he acts?”
This is what caused me to question what I was taught. The Word of God stated differently that the teaching I had received. I asked that question and came up with a different way of looking at God. 15 years later I ran into Boyd and found there are others with the same view.
So the question is, are we correctly attributing to God the characteristics that he reveals to us through his word or do we contort that information to conform to a system of teaching.
I am a little concerned that this is actually a loaded question from an non-open view person (you) who is attempting to use a psychological trick that goes like this: “I am on your side, however, don’t we have this problem?”
It’s a little like being a spy and trying to engender favor so people snuggle in before setting of a bomb.
We accept other people asking questions, this is an open forum. Just be genuine and honest (assuming you are not).
I say this because you left no profile information and (at this writing) you have only one post, so you started a new subject with the question above, it is loaded and begs the question.
Begging the question is building a premise into the conclusion. You stated:
quote:
My question is, shouldn't we build doctrines based on the New Testament especially in the didactic passages and not on narratives? Or is there any hermeneutical justification in forming a doctine based on OT narratives?
Break out the assumption, which you stated earlier and it goes like this: “1) The OV is based on OT narrative passages, 2) the correct way to develop doctrine is from NT didactic passages, 3) therefore, the OV is in error.”
No one here that I have heard does this. Like all theologies, the OV is based on the totality of scripture, not just the first 2/3. Is yours really based on just the last 1/3? Check your doctrine of immutability and develop it from the NT. It can’t be done.
Am I right?
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 1/12/2003 8:34 AM (GMT -6) | | iwbh1124-
That's difficult to type, so I'm gonna use BH. Hope you don't mind.
With others, let me welcome you aboard. Hope you enjoy hanging out here!
I'd like to hear others on this more, and I want to think on it a bit more myself. The hermeneutical principle your friend is talking about is a familiar one. As a Pentecostal, I'm familiar with it from Luke/Acts discussions regarding the normativeness of particular behaviors in the early church. Can we argue on the basis of historical narrative (Acts) that because the early church did something repeatedly that believers today "ought" to do it? The principle states that what is merely "described" historically in a narrative can never function normatively for us today unless one can show it was the author's 'intent' to make THIS particular point. Gordon Fee championed this principle against classical Pentecostals (though he is a Pentecostal himself) a while ago. There was a long discussion about it between him, Roger Stronstad, Bob Menzies, and others.
Are you asleep yet?  I certainly think authorial intent is important, but I gotta be honest, I'm not entirely comfortable limiting doctrine to didactic passages. For example, where does Paul go to prove his doctrine of justification by faith? He bases it on Old Testament historical narratives. One could argue that we don't have the right to do what Paul did, but it's not quite as cut and dry as that.
Asleep now? 
I think drawing conclusions about God and God's relationship to the world from all of Scripture, even the narrative portions, is unavoidable. I do agree that narratives get abused more easily than didactic portions, but there have been a number of good books written addressing how to approach narratives (wouldn't you know I can't think of one right now! Sheeesh), but suffice it to say that the standard "You can't get theology or doctrine from narrative" has been reworked and qualified quite a bit.
Fortunately, there are didactic portions that point to a partly open future. Even so, I think if we're careful narratives can speak to us about God.
Tom
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Newcomb
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 116
| Posted 1/15/2003 8:26 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom wrote:
quote:
(snip)
I think drawing conclusions about God and God's relationship to the world from all of Scripture, even the narrative portions, is unavoidable. I do agree that narratives get abused more easily than didactic portions, but there have been a number of good books written addressing how to approach narratives (wouldn't you know I can't think of one right now! Sheeesh), but suffice it to say that the standard "You can't get theology or doctrine from narrative" has been reworked and qualified quite a bit.
Fortunately, there are didactic portions that point to a partly open future. Even so, I think if we're careful narratives can speak to us about God.
Theology is the study of God. Of course, Biblical theology limits this to the study of what the Bible says about God, which is a good place to base everything. From there we move to extra biblical ideas, theories, and speculation about God.
Now it seem to me that the most accurate theology would be the one that best describes God as he reveals himself through words and deeds through the Biblical text and uses speculation the least, theories only to explain things that are vague, and ideas based on his actions as stated in the text. Some of these require observation of how God works and these are found in narratives. God doesn’t respond to us by instructively informing us of what characteristics he has, he merely acts, we describe him through his actions, instructions to us, etc. etc.
When God was on the mountain and got made enough to kill all of the children of Israel, we can describe him as having a temper (though he is patient) without him saying, “sorry, Moses, I have a temper and get mad sometime.”
Now if you question the narrative, you have an issue with the text (textual criticism if you don’t believe the book or a passage should be there, for instance, I question Esther), or if you believe the text is true (the Word of God), then you need to explain why you don’t hold the obvious implications to be true.
Of the laws of logic we seem most ready to throw out Rational Inference when faced with narratives showing God acting in ways that don’t fit our theology. We supplant this rule with a story that makes the action an analogy. But analogy is also a logical and direct way of looking at things. They are ways to show why things are the way they are, not to show things are different than the way they are.
So, God becomes angry and we explain it away as if he cannot become angry. Why? Because it doesn’t fit the theology we are trying to defend. So we explain away the Biblical text and bring in Plato to defend our view of immutability. The text is discredited so we don’t have to rethink anything. Why? Because the cost is too high, it takes too much effort and, what would the people in the church think of me?
If we are attempting to describe God, how could you avoid the passages that show us how he behaves? We call these “narratives.”
Tom is correct above when he states that there are sufficient didactic texts that can be used to describe the OV.
Me thinks this was a Red Herring.
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