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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 516
| Posted 6/28/2001 12:14 PM (GMT -6) |   |
pneumatika
03/16/01 12:03 PM
Short defintion of the Open View
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I am the editor of a little journal for church leaders. We have a department in every issue called, "Increase Your Theological Vocabulary."
I would like to do a paragraph (1-5 sentences) describing the Open View. How can the OV be briefly defined that does justice to someone who believes it?
Please offer a brief (1-5 sentence) definition in your own words. All entries will be considered.
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
mn777saint
03/16/01 2:14 PM
RE: Short defintion of the Open View
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This is not "THE" stance that OV takes but a Very Open stance. so here is what I belive because of what God Said...
God can & will do what He wills, for with God, ALL things are possible even the possibility of Him choosing not to know something.
For it’s not a matter of whether God knows of what is to be, or whether he knows not of what is to be. It’s what he chooses to know or chooses not to know.
We see in scripture over again where God chose to know certain events, and we also see over again where God chose not to know certain events, It’s a choice he makes.
God has written the book of our lives from the beginning to all its possible endings. And in giving us His breath, the Breath of Life, took the book out of His own hands gave it to us and by making us in His image gave us the same ability He has, The ability to choose.
(five sentences)
...and now a word from our sponsor...
“I am the Lord thy God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, God of Moses, Joshua, and Jacob. I am the Alpha and Omega, The Beginning and the End. And I am the God who loves you; it was in that love that I created you. For Love is a choice and it was with that choice I so chose to create you. And in that creation I chose to give you part of myself. It was with that Breath of life I gave you. That was my Breath, a part of me, it carried with it the ability to love and make choices as I. For it was in the image of me that I created you” thus saith the Lord.
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
ModesofThought
03/16/01 3:48 PM
RE: Short defintion of the Open View
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Open theism is a biblical recovery of pantemporalism that considers itself an extension of the Arminian tradition. God is understood to be the God of history rather than the ahistorical and often apophatic deity of classical theism. It considers itself an improvement on Arminianism insofar as it resolves the contradiction in the Arminian claim that “God foreknows the future free actions of moral agents as definite.” Rather, God is understood to have infinite, exhaustive, and definite knowledge of the past and present--and knows the future as partly composed of possibilities and partly composed of inevitabilities.
And one sentence to spare!
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
ModesofThought
03/17/01 11:29 AM
RE: RE: Short defintion of the Open View
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I posted this in another place, but I will copy it here as a hesitation with regard to my definition above.
NOT all openness thinkers hold to libertarian freedom. In other words, some are BIBLICAL pantemporalists but not synergists.
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
Todie4
03/19/01 3:08 PM
RE: Short defintion of the Open View
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If I have read Boyd's explanation correctly, it would seem that God has limitations regarding time. According to his view God can not know the future and give us a free will at the same time. His point seems to be that God could not do this even if he wanted to. He has concluded that it is a logical impossibility.
Scriptural assertions aside, it does seem presumptuous to conclude by our logic that God does not have the ability to do this or that. God does not possess the ability to move through time freely, because he would screw up man's free will? This assumes a great knowledge of God's ability, or lack thereof.
Forgive me Pneumatika, I know this was not the intent of your thread.
--Mike
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
ModesofThought
03/19/01 3:20 PM
RE: RE: Short defintion of the Open View
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It what sense is it glorious to assert that God can do logical impossibilities? Is a God who can make round squares better than one who cannot? How about if we ask whether God can make a rock so big that he can't lift it? Your criticism of Dr. Boyd here misses the point it seems. We simply seek to think clearly and then make meaningful claims about God which glorify God in truth. We do not claim to know the mind of God, only some of the limits of language and meaningfulness.
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
mn777saint
03/20/01 8:31 AM
RE: Short defintion of the Open View
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With God ALL THINGS are posible...God Transends Time...God is limetless, unless he limets Himself. For God can & will do, what He wills... For HE IS GOD.
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
pneumatika
03/22/01 10:59 AM
RE: RE: Short defintion of the Open View
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Thanks, Modes for your succinct summary. However, my readership is not at your level intellectually. Could you help me whittle it down a bit to give them something they can grasp?
Thanks for everyone's input.
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
ModesofThought
03/22/01 5:40 PM
RE: RE: RE: Short defintion of the Open View
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Open Theism is a biblical recovery of the God of History as distinct from the nonhistorical perspective of God often associated with Classical Theism. It finds that this perspective resolves some important problems with regard to human freedom and God's activity in the world. God is understood to be infinite, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, etc. along with the Classical thinkers. In distinction, Openness asserts that Classical Theism went wrong in excluding passions, novelty, sponteneity, and dynamic interactions between God and his creation from God's experience. In response, Open Theists emphasize that the Love of God requires us to speak of God in more relational categories than has traditionally been done.
Any better?
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
GregBoyd
03/22/01 7:55 PM
RE: RE: RE: RE: Short defintion of the Open View
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I'll take a stab at this, but I'll leave it to you to reword it for a church publication.
* Open Theism believes that possibilities are real. Only because possibilities are real can free agents genuinely choose between them. God knows all reality perfectly, and thus knows possibilities as real. In contrast to classical theism, Open Theism accepts as factual all the Bible's talk about God thinking and speaking in terms of possibilities (not future certainties: e.g. Ex 4:1-7; Ex 13:17; Ezek 12:3; Jer 26:3); God regretting how decisions he made turn out (e.g. Gen 6:6; I Sam 15:12, 35); God experiencing frustration trying to accomplish something involving free agents that didn't turn out as he'd hoped (Ezek 22:29-31); God experiencing disappointment and surprise (e.g. Jer. 3:7-9, 19; Isa 5:1-5), God testing people "to know" what they shall do (e.g. Gen 22:12; Ex 16:14); and God changing his mind in response to new developments which free agents bring about (e.g. Ex 32:10; Jon 3:10). According to Open Theism, these facts help us see God as genuinely relational with us; help us understand why the world is so full of evil, even though God is all God; and helps us see the unsurpassable beauty of a God who has gloriously chosen to grant agents the power of being truly persons in relation to him.
Hope this helps
check the scriptural references: I wrote them off the top of my head.
Doc
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
pneumatika
03/23/01 5:53 AM
Open View distinctions
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Dr. Boyd,
How does your view differ from Robert Brow and Clark Pinnock?
Also, in your opinion, what are the distinctions you make between Process Philosophy and the OV?
--that Pneumatika guy
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
GregBoyd
03/23/01 9:30 AM
RE: Open View distinctions
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On the relationship (actually, LACK of relationship) between Process thought and Open Theism, check out an earlier thread that was posted on this very topic.
In a word, OT affirms God as creator ex nihilo, God as omnipotent, God as triune and self-sufficiently actual (he doesn't need the world), the incarnation, miracles, answering prayer, securing future victory over evil, salvation by grace, the Bible as God's Word, etc... Process thought knows none of this.
Hence, the association of Process thought with OV is either a grotesque piece of misinformation, or intentional propoganda fostered to push alarmist buttons in evangelicals. In evangelical publications, its mostly the latter.
Doc
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
GregBoyd
03/23/01 9:43 AM
RE: RE: Open View distinctions
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For perhaps the most outlandishly grotesque caricature of OT to date, done in relationship to Process thought, check out Royce Gruenler's recent article (titled "a 30% God" -- or something like that) in last months edition of Christianity today. Absolutely horrendous. Open Theism don't believe in prophecy, or assurance of the future, or salvation by grace, or the substitution atonement (he says we believe Christ only "lures" us through the cross). To call this nonsense is to be complimentary. The whole article would be comical if not for the fact that some people will read it and believe it.
Want to know what I thought about the article? (:
Doc
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
pneumatika
03/23/01 11:43 AM
What about Pinnock?
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Doc, what about Pinnock and Brow?
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
Mephi2K
03/23/01 11:51 AM
Possible Aid
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Pneumatika,
Hello, friend. On the relationship between process thelogy and openness theology, I think that a great resource is the book "Searching for An Adequate God: A Dialogue Between Process and Free Will Theists" edited by John B. Cobb Jr. and Clark Pinnock. I think it's very helpful to get the essential commonalities and differences between process theology and openness. It's pretty much guaranteed NOT to be an evangelical or Classical theism caricature, because you basically hear the views "from the horse's mouth", as it were. Judge for yourself how similar the two are.
Peace, friend
Meph
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
pneumatika
04/05/01 3:44 PM
RE: Open View distinctions
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Dr. Boyd,
How does your view differ from Robert Brow and Clark Pinnock?
--that Pneumatika guy
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
pneumatika
04/09/01 10:24 AM
RE: RE: Open View distinctions
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Dr. Boyd,
Did you already answer my question about this somewhere?
I would really like to know what differences or similarities you have to Pinnock and Brow.
--that Pneumatika guy
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