Originally posted by Brutus:
Baptistbeliever; since you're an open theist let's see if you agree with the following: Open theists often identify themselves specifically as Arminians(although as has been seen,they are more Socinian on this matter).
I do not care for the reference to Socinian theology since they are patently heretical. (Unless I have misunderstood your reference!)
I do not consider myself “Arminian” since I do not hold to many of the core views of Arminianism. If I had to choose between Arminianism and Calvinism, I am much more closely Calvinistic in regard to most of the five points.
Total Depravity: Believe that all persons are sinners and in desperate need of redemption, but the “dead in sins” is overemphasized by Calvinists. Desperately grabbing for a lifeline thrown to you by God who is also speaking to you, giving you directions, and shining a light for you to see the lifeline is hardly working for salvation.
Unconditional Election: Certainly God does not look for virtue when He calls people to decision.
Limited Atonement: I reject this point and embrace general atonement, although no one can come to the Father unless they are drawn. I believe God will extend a call at least once to all people, but there is no guarantee you will be called again if you reject the initial calling.
Irresistible Grace: I also reject this point. While God draws us, we certainly have the ability to resist His drawing. God will not override our freedom of choice (God has given us this freedom, BTW)
Perseverance of the Saints: Those who come to Christ are transformed into a new creature. They will not fall away because they have been changed. Furthermore, God will not let them escape His loving grasp.
But they believe that traditional Arminianism has not been consistent enough with its view of libertarian freedom.
Not sure what point you are making here.
In my understanding, our existence (and our freedom) takes place in a God-given context of choices and societal structures. My freedom is limited by the possible choices within my context. On the other hand, I am completely free to embrace or reject Christ when God gives the opportunity of faith.
In traditional Arminianism,although God does not predetermine man's free choices,He does know them all in advance,for He knows the future exhaustively.
Yes. That’s the way I understand classic Arminianism.
The open theist ask,quite properly,how God can foreknoe human free choices without foreordaining them. If human free choices are knowable in advance,they must somehow be settled in advance.
Not necessarily.
God can know all possible options and the inclinations of His free creatures and therefore can have a fairly accurate view of the future. Furthermore, God is active in human affairs and in creation and is certainly wise enough to create circumstances that motivate His free creatures to make choices according to self-interest/self-survival. Furthermore, God is in full communication and fellowship with many of His followers, and His followers can make choices according to revealed knowledge that influence others in the best possible way for God’s plan.
The way many Calvinist thinkers seem to think, God does not need to be living and active in human affairs since everything is already settled – they seem to understand sovereignty in terms of a dictatorship or a controlled society. Open Theists believe in a God who is extremely active in human affairs and yet is also sovereign over all even though He provides zones of freedom for humankind. Classic Arminians seem to overemphasize freedom at the expense of a biblical understanding of a God who is sovereign over creation. (Certainly these are all caricatures of more nuanced perspectives, but I think they generally hold true.)
And that is what libertarianism denies.
Of course, Open theists see “libertarianism” as the biblical doctrine of free will – not an attack on God’s sovereignty.
Open theists,then,agree with Calvinists that divine foreknowledge entails divine foreordination,and therefore that traditioal Arminianism is inadequate.
Some do and some do not. I do not. (See preceding discussion of this point.)
But rather than accept the Calvinist doctrine of foreordination, they reject both divine foreordination and divine foreknowledge.
I think your assessment is faulty because of the Calvinist terminology you are using.
Regarding “divine foreordination”, I believe God has a broad will for humanity and that will shall be accomplished, with or without my help. I can reject being part of the Kingdom if I desire, but I cannot frustrate the ultimate purposes of the Divine will.
Regarding “divine foreknowledge”, I do not know how much foreknowledge God has or how something like that would work. It is well beyond my finite mind and involves questions regarding the nature of time and the nature of God where we do not have enough information to make the call. On the other hand, God knows everything that can be known and also understanding the meaning, the motivation, and the consequences of everything He knows.
So, the question is not whether open theism is fresh or new or otherwise appealing but rather whether it is Biblical.
YES! Open theism is not “fresh” with me because it is the view that has developed in me front my first days as a believer reading the Bible cover to cover and trying to understand its message. I’ve only discovered formal statements of “Open Theism” within the last couple of years when reading Calvinist polemics against the “dangerous heresy”.
As far as being “appealing” goes, I really don’t find it appealing – I find it biblical. I’ve studied Calvinism on several occasions and can’t get beyond some fundamental flaws, and classic Arminianism has no appeal to me since it (in my opinion of course) is unbiblical in many ways.
The real issue, as you so concisely stated, is whether or not Open Theism (or Calvinism and Arminianism for that matter) is biblical.
And as a Calvinist,I reject both traditional Arminianism and Open theism. Of the two,the former is more Biblical and the latter more logically consistent.
Maybe you should rethink Open Theism since you seems to have some views of Open Theism that are not consistent with views that I and other people who are sympathetic to Open Theism hold.
Regarding being “logically consistent”, I agree that Calvinism is more “logically consistent” since it is a system that is guided by logical consistency. In my opinion, Open Theism is only more logically consistent than Arminianism, but it is not be design but instead by adherence to many of the biblical truths that Calvinists embrace.
Arminianism is better,since it is better to be inconsistently scriptural than to achieve consistency with an error.
If you are inconsistently scriptural, you are also in error. In my experience, Open Theism is consistently scriptural, but tries not to say too much about matters that are not settled by scripture. The Open Theists I know are very careful about systematizing a theological system in an area that is largely a mystery (free will, foreknowledge, election, etc.). In my view, Calvinism is also inconsistently scriptural and also in error.
But it is evident that we can be satisfied with neither position.
What’s this “we” stuff?
I am very satisfied and comfortable with Open Theism. It seems to be consistent with the Bible (that’s where my view developed – not from the flurry of books and articles over the last few years) and with Christian faith and practice. But it is not consistent with Calvinism or classic Arminianism.
