Giving the mind a break…
January 14, 2005
Sleeping in, playing with computers, hanging out with Josh, listening to the iPod, relaxing…life after finals. What a beautiful, beautiful thing. It feels so good to be done with the paper(s). I’ll be blogging more tonight and tomorrow - anyway, for anyone who has any desire to read a bit about open theism and relationality, you can download my paper here. I’m still really enjoying the title: The Open View of God: God and God’s Co-(re)creators Living in the Dynamic Dialectic of Relationality. Beautiful. Well, I’m off to dinner now. Just a note to let everyone know that I’m enjoying life, sad that Dean left, but excited for what the future has in store for him! More later.
Tags: Academics, Open-Theism, Open-View-of-God
Posted in General
Adam Walker Cleaveland: 
January 14th, 2005 at 9:32 pm
I skimmed your paper. Let’s talk about overall structure, concent, and your thesis. I am a little disappointed you did not incorporate Hebrew into your papaer. (just kidding)
Nice job and interesting. Thanks for sharing. Open Theism certainly seems to be more of a a phenomenon in evangelical circles and less in others???
Pinnock wrote Flame of Love, a text on his view of the Holy Spirit. If you like him, you may find that you like this text as well.
Peace,
Rick
January 15th, 2005 at 12:59 am
cleave -
you forgot part of the motto: ecclesia reformata semper reformandum secundum verbum Dei. the church reformed always reforming according to the Word of God…the latter is often misplaced. just a side note.
thought your paper was interesting: there’s much dialogue about the implications of the incarnation going on in missional theology circles as well. they (missionary theologians) posit a dramatic view of God’s relationality which all centers upon (as you may have guessed) God’s self disclosure in Christ (vis. barth CD IV/3.2.). there’s certainly room at the table for discussion.
January 16th, 2005 at 12:49 am
i’ll preface this compliment by letting you in on the fact that my college “education” comprised of three semesters at a community college. with that said, i thought your paper was put together very well. it was informative, easy to follow and very interesting. nicely done.
January 18th, 2005 at 7:10 pm
Adam,
I read your paper with great interest, and I’d encourage you to give the traditional theists a careful reading. As you admit, “It is not the place of the Christian to simply dismiss hundreds of year of deep theological reflection as ‘old’ or ‘out-of-date’” (15). You note that the answers provided by the Reformed theologians are not satisfying (11). But why is this? Is it because people don’t like the answers? Because they don’t fit with their own worldview? Because they don’t really understand the Reformed answers? I’d suggest, based on reading Boyd and Sanders (The Openness of God was already checked out of the library when I was doing my Open Theism reading) and your own paper, that the last option is a partial reason.
For instance, you say ‚ÄúThe picture of God one receives from this interpretation of Calvin and other classical theologians is one of the almighty and powerful King in Heaven, sitting on the King‚Äôs throne, detached from the world and from God‚Äôs creatures, and only half-listening to the cries of God‚Äôs children‚Äù (5). The phrase, ‚Äúand only half-listening to the cries of God‚Äôs children‚Äù particularly struck me. I‚Äôm studying the book of Exodus this month, and recently I noted God‚Äôs reasons for delivering His people from Egypt. In chapter three, as He gives these reasons, He seems to alternate between remembering the covenant and hearing His people‚Äôs cries. Calvin comments on Exodus 3:7, (‚ÄúThen the Lord said, ‚ÄúI have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings‚Äù), ‚ÄúIn these words the Spirit exhorts us to call upon God, and not to be stunned and stupified by our cares and sorrows, but to learn to fly straightway to this sacred anchor; as the Psalmist also says, “The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry,” (Psalm 34:15,) and as he testifies in another place, (Psalm 65:2,) that he is a God that heareth prayer; thus does he anxiously invite us to this remedy whenever we are hard pressed.‚Äù
Here Calvin states that because God hears our prayers, “we should learn to fly straightway” to Him. In light of this, I find Basinger’s statement about traditional theists understanding of prayer difficult to understand: “The difference with open theism is that petitionary prayer can cause God to bring about unilateral action in the world “that would not have occurred if we had not utilized our God-given power of choice to request such divine assistance” (12). Traditional theists don’t deny that our prayers can cause God to act in the world. For instance Charles Hodge states, “[God is] roused into action by prayer, in a way analogous to that in which the energies of a man are called into action by the entreaties of his fellow-men. This is the doctrine of the Bible; it is perfectly consistent with reason, and is confirmed by the whole history of the word, and especially of the Church….Once [we] admit the doctrine of theism, that is of the existence of a personal God, and of His constant control over all things out of Himself, [then] all ground for doubt as to the efficacy of prayer is removed, and it remains to us, as it has been to the people of God in all ages, the great source of spiritual joy and strength, of security for the present and confidence for the future” (Systematic Theology, 3:709 as cited in Talbert, Not By Chance, 213-14).
Too often you simply quoted the Open Theists’ summaries of what traditional theists believe. And too often those summaries were just as much Heffalumps as caricatures that may come from the other side. Examples include the old canard that traditional theists distorted their picture of God because of Greek influences, or the attempt to paint traditional theists as focusing on God‚Äôs sovereignty in contrast to the Open Theists‚Äô focus of God‚Äôs love.
I applaud your goal of “determine[ing] if open theism’s conception of a dynamic two-way relationality is more effective at solving problems than the view provided by classical theism” (2), but I suggest you give the traditional theists a fuller and fairer reading before deciding to lean one way or the other. John Feinberg’s No One Like Him and John Frame’s The Doctrine of God are fresh works by traditional theists that would be worth your time.