Post Edited (MANY) : 6/18/2007 10:18:42 AM (GMT-5)

I still haven't obtained a copy (a bit short on cash lately). In your opinion, is it worth the bother? Are his arguments again the OV the typical rehashed ones we hear all the time, or a different angle that is worth taking into account? And in what sort of spirit and demeanor does he present his arguments against the OV? Were his arguments such that they actually persuaded you to reconsider, and if not, why?

If and when you have time, how would you respond to his arguments against the OV?

about half the time Calvin uses "glory" in a way that I can read similar to "reputation."

But the other half they fit what Kallistos Ware says is "divine uncreated energies" like the shekinah glory of the OT.

.

But as to monoergism... really? Synergism is more commonly said of Orthodoxy.

But in an attempt to balance, glance at this blog:  "Lutheran Synergism and Orthodox Monergism"

http://pleroma.typepad.com/pleroma/2007/02/lutheran_synerg.html

http://pontifications.wordpress.com/sola-scriptura/

But then we come to the sola fide, and the spirits divide. Are we saved by faith alone? It all depends on how one defines one’s terms. “Faith alone” means one thing in the monergistic framework of Luther and Calvin; it means something very different in the synergistic framework of the Greek and Latin Fathers (or John Wesley).

Ricco-

Gannon is kind and respectful. No blows beneath the belt at all. Pinnock mentions that this is one reason why he agreed to write the forward even though he disagrees with him.

There’s a LOT of the same arguments we’ve heard, especially contra libertarian free will, downplaying (really misunderstanding) the bad influence of Greek philosophy upon Christian doctrine, and arguing for “glory” over “love” and the controlling metaphor for understanding God, and in promoting a monergistic soteriology. All the same stuff there.

What hasn’t been attempted by Reformed folk yet is a model of divine-human relationality that takes the “personal” and intimate nature of such relationships seriously (instead of calling compatibilism ‘really’ personal and then just playing the mystery card) but doing so within a determinist/monergist worldview. To do this Gannon relies on a combination of (a) a glory teleology (D’s old glorification principle, viz., God always acts in the interests of his own glory), which teleology he suggests transforms our theology into (b) a theocentric (God-centered) enterprise. This (c) re-centers or refocuses us theologically in and toward God’s glory as that from and on behalf of which God acts.

What this does, Gannon argues (I’m summarizing now of course ), is give us a theological framework (and justification) for understanding divine-human relationality in top-down fashion in a more Reformed manner. ‘Relationality’ is God’s. It’s his to give. We come to share in it through adoption. It’s here that Gannon uses two more ideas to clinch his approach: (1) the NT idea of “Christ in us” (Christus in nobis; it’s more convincing and suave in Latin!) and with that (2) Theosis, which he argues is best interpreted in Reformed fashion as God unilaterally determining the elect. Since this end state is the highest and most intimate form of divine-human relationality imaginable, and since it essentially means the complete and unilateral determination of the human person by God, there can be no reason to think that the divine-human relationship at any time requires libertarian free will or that compatibilistically determined human action is incompatible with a fully personal relationship between God and us. The God-human relationship is essentially God "in us" relating to Godself. The relationality is all God's. God delights in himself "in us." That's what it means to have a personal relationship with God.

I thought $27.00 on amazon was a bit much. It’s a paperback and not THAT thick. But it you’re really into staying up on the debate, you gotta get it to stay informed. I think the whole attempt to argue that a genuinely personal relationship with God and humans is based on what it will be eternally (theosis) is fine. I’m prepared to argue that the divine-human relationship throughout eternity will be maximally personal and intimate. The question is, Will our end state involve the unilateral determination the human person by God? If so, then Gannon has a point—on what basis are open theists now going to argue that the unilateral determination of human persons by God undermines genuine relationality? If such determination doesn’t undermine such relationality THEN, why should it NOW?

On the question of the reprobate (those unconditionally decreed for hell [by whatever order of decree one wishes to argue]), Gannon plays the mystery card. We finite beings cannot comprehend how such determination is just, good, and best maximizes God’s glory. But since it’s in the Bible we’re bound to embrace it, and that’s that.

I’ll be thinking on it over the summer. I felt very disappointed in his lack of argumentation for moving from a glory teleology to concluding determinism. Why should the fact that God does everything he does for his own glory entail the proposition that God unilaterally determines everything that happens in the world? Why should a theocentric worldview (God’s the center and goal and chief end of all things) entail divine determinism and monergism? That just doesn’t follow. I’m perfectly happy with a glory teleology and God-centered hermeneutic and worldview. Greg actually argues both in his dissertation! But to say it’s all about God and his glory entirely begs the question—What sort of providential management of the universe most glorifies God? Well, THAT question is never asked by Gannon. It’s entirely assumed, “Oh, well, of course unilateral divine determinism MOST glorifies God and BEST places God at the center.” Really? Why think that?

Tom

Post Edited (MANY) : 6/18/2007 7:59:40 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (MANY) : 6/18/2007 7:52:05 PM (GMT-5)

POW-

Gannon gives a total of nine pages only to unpacking his idea of theosis. The only primary ancient sources he quotes are Athanasius, Gregory Palamas, and St. Basil. That’s it.

My hunch is that in preparing his dissertation for the general public, he had to gut a lot of the more technical portions and get the quotes and length down to a minimum. I’m guessing. But I’ve read and reread the crucial portions several times now and am still left with no explanation of how affirming a theocentric glory teleology (something I’ve always affirmed as an open theist!) leads to the conclusion of unilateral determinism and monergism. How does one do that? I think what happens is one hears “God is the center and God’s glory the fundamental goal of creation and the divine-human relationship” and then one tends to attribute to God the sort of management style (providence) and control that a human would exercise if a human were the center and the human’s glory the fundamental goal.

So for a human to be at the center doing everything for his/her own glory WOULD entail (for most) determining everything she could, controlling everything that occurs, and being the only one deciding what happens in the world. But why assume that a truly proper self-centeredness (which only God can have because of his value) and a desire to maximize one’s glory (beauty, reputation, and the universal recognition of it) would so act? Why assume that it would require only deterministic ways of relating? Why believe that the glory of an infinitely valuable and unsurpassably relational being would be best manifested and replicated in and through us through the unilateral determination of us? You’ll search long and hard to find an answer to this in Calvinistic rapprochements of open theism.

Tom

Post Edited (MANY) : 6/18/2007 8:37:57 PM (GMT-5)

This seems like such a frighteningly callous understanding of God. To be honest, it scares me and makes me recoil.

Am I going to far to express that the Calvinistic view of God seems much closer to how I've always understood Satan, rather than how I've come to understand God?

Have any of you ever read the "War of Souls" trilogy in the Dragonlance series by Weis and Hickman? Hickman is a Mormon, and his beliefs usually come through in his fiction. But I bring this up because in this story you find that the deity usually associated with evil has stolen the world and hidden it from the other gods; she does this in order to bring about a deterministic order in which freewill is abolished and all wills are expressions of her own will. However, she finds that freewill is so fundamental to the created order of things (there is an uncreated Creator above her and the other gods) that she must resort to coercion in order to bring about her vision of the world. Once the other gods track her down, the deity primarily associated with goodness makes a Christlike sacrifice of himself in order to overthrow her supremacy. Anyway, it's an entertaining story, and reminded me of the whole debate between calvinism and freewill-theism the entire time I was reading it.