| Laika: since I wrote that comment about distancing myself from open theism and you inquired, I have been thinking about the whole subject and decided to jot down some of my thoughts on the subject.
A couple of years ago I had been dialoging on and off with a variety of people on different subjects and one theme kept cropping up. Who is Jesus exactly? Who is God exactly? Many of the people I was corresponding with believed in Jesus and God, yet I kept being reminded of the verse in James where he says, you believe? Good, the demons beleive and tremble. I did not think of this in a way to criticise others, but rather it got me thinking who exactly is God? Who do I believe Jesus to be?
So for the last couple of years I have been studying about the Trinity, which lead me to Barth and (which, for better, I say, others may say worse) this lead me to realize that I simply believe many things that are dialectical about God. Perhaps even contradictory.
Barth, my wife says, has become an obsession with me, but I find his writings completely fantastic. One of the things I like about him is his emphasis on the sovereignty and freedom of God. And how he lets opposing views he believes the Bible teaches to stand together. As such I have come to believe in both free will and the complete determination of us by God. I would say yes to both. And leave it alone.
To fully embrace either view (open theism or calvinism) would be, for me, to deny what I (total emphasis on the "I") believe scripture teaches. To me, it teaches both. However, I hasten to add this: I think we all bring to the table our own bias (another strong Barth belief) and I cannot help see that the Bible is not very clear on this issue. I have found lately that I wish everyone the view that draws them closer to God, in the spirit of love, since i do not believe there is a right or wrong to the issue of providence.
Finally, frankly, while I still study the issue, it is more in the context of learning who God is, and therefore, more of a side thing for me. I clearly hope no one takes this wrong, or thinks I am saying anyone is right or wrong. I simply wish each to study scripture and find what they see in there.
What has been esprecially liberating to me as of late has been Barth's view of scripture. Since he believed it to be testimony to revelation yet human testimony, the problem of whether or not it was right in every little way of irrelevant to him. Yet, he, in a great sense had a higher view of scripture than most fundamentalists.
Anyway, thanks to everyone for taking the time to read this post. God bless, take time to pray and be nice to someone near you. Harold Oh and everyone the new Albums by Eilsey and Wilco are wonderful |