 |
 | 
Alan Rhoda
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 680
| Posted 11/3/2003 7:42 AM (GMT -6) |   | quote:
Do openness genuinely believe their position escapes a classical understanding of God?
That depends on precisely what you mean by a "classical" understanding of God. Insofar as classical theism would affirm that God has exhaustively definite foreknowledge, exercises exhaustively meticulous providence, is absolutely unchanging, or absolutely timeless, I think open theists would reject classical theism. But I don't see that open theists necessarily have any beef with a classical understanding of omnipotence, or with the classical definition of omniscience (what's rejected there is a certain view of the future as exhaustively settled, not that God knows all and only true propositions).
Alan | | Back to Top | | |
|
Newcomb
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 116
| Posted 11/17/2003 9:55 AM (GMT -6) | | I would echo Alan's comments. Much of what we in OV see as problematic in classical theology are things heavily influenced by Greek thought brought in through Augustine, but also others.
We recognize that within what we broadly class as "classical theism" there are huge variations of thought, but the basics of it are based on wrong ideas that often started out as small errors magnified by philosophical and theological justifications and proof texted for support.
We are warned in Col. 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
This warning was not headed, one can see small Greek philosophical errors as early as Ignatius. Small errors over time become large doctrinal errors, however, we end up with a non-functional God that becomes defended by specious arguments that have nothing to do with the Bible, rather they are defending a school of thought, again, proof texted, and rationalized. This is ridiculous, why should we need to go to such lengths to defend simply statements which should be reflective of multiple statements and examples of how God works throughout scripture.
When the simple understanding of scripture makes common sense, don't look for another sense, that equivocates the simplicity of scripture and controverts its true sense leaving one with equivocated beliefs as opposed to truth.
God communicated his truth often to simple people, sheepherders, and fishermen. A few time to more well educated people, Moses (assumed to be educated in Egypt) and Paul. We should expect that if God were intending to communicate his message to the broadest possible constituent base, he would have used true and simple stories and statements to do so. This is what we find in the Word of God, but people complicate it even to the point of the Bible Code people. Oh, please.
It is rich enough without making up stories about it.
It is often that philosophical complexity which builds mountains out of proof texts built around Greek though that we object to.
The OV view of God is often the way common people in churches talk about God in everyday parlance, he hears us and answers prayers, he knows what is best and can be trusted, he loves us and wants relationship. Classical theism often complicates this.
This is not uncommon in other academic areas, medicine is full of this as is almost any science or field of knowledge. Take the most common current theory and I will show you a well defended belief that is most assuredly wrong and will be abandoned within 10 to 50 years, but since God "never changed" the pressure to maintain and support ancient poorly throughout ideas is enormous, the error is that since it is old, it must be right.
"Neuk'em" | | Back to Top | | |
| Forum Information | Currently it is Monday, November 09, 2026 11:51 AM (GMT -6)
There are a total of 97,718 posts in 6,040 threads.
In the last 3 days there were 0 new threads and 0 reply posts. View Active Threads
|
Forum powered by dotNetBB v2.42EC SP3
dotNetBB © 2000-2026 |
|
|