I am in no way saying that Open Theism is Process Theology, but demonstrating where the philosophical ideas of it came from: namely, that
(1) libertarian free will is essential to any being that can be considered "personal"
(2) libertarian free will cannot be true if any person (e.g. God) knows with 100% certainty what any other being (e.g. man) would do
(3) God's "highest attribute" is "love" (not an effectual love, but an ineffectual love that tries to persuade)
(4) God's eternal essence changes (i.e. evolving perfection) as He legitimately takes in new information from His creation, and He and His creatures participate in a "genuine give-and-take" relationship.
The truth is that today's prominent teachers of Open Theism were influenced by the philosophy of process thought. The fact that they reject the unorthodox elements of process teaching is good, but that was not the point I was trying to get across.
Open Theists hammer hard that the "open view" is founded solely on Scripture, whereas the so-called "closed view" or "settled view" is based on Greek philosophy. The truth is that Greek philosophy was by no means monolithic. This is why the stoics, Epicureans, gnostics, and others debated daily in the streets. Just because there is similarity between "Augustinianism" and Platonic arguments about the nature of deity does not mean that it must be wrong and "pagan." Correlation does not prove causation; otherwise, we would have to reject the laws of logic and mathematics.
In fact, open theists make the same arguments that Aristotle (a Greek philosopher) did concerning his Sea Battle scenario. Aristotle asked if a sea battle will happen tomorrow. He argued that we cannot know if a sea battle would happen tomorrow, then statements about the future cannot have "truth values" until the events actually happen. He argued that "the gods" cannot know the future with 100% certainty no matter how powerful they are. Open theists make the same arguments that Greek philosopher Aristotle did about the "truth values" of statements about the future and about the nature about the knowledge of "god." Should we conclude that open theism is paganism? I will not make the same claims of "pagan philosophy" to open theism as open theists make against "closed theism" because I realize that "Greek philosophy" essentially covered all known views about the nature of God's knowledge and of the future.
Greg Boyd entrenched himself in Open Theism by trying to argue a philosophy of God to his agnostic father. It was philosophy that motivated Boyd, and he tried to evangelize his father through a philosophy that would seem to be acceptable or appealing to an agnostic.
John Sanders embraced Open Theism because of his philosophical attempts to understand the nature and purpose of prayer and how it can "affect" God if God knows what we will pray. He also embraced it emotionally because his older brother died in a motorcycle accident and he questioned why God would "kill" his brother. His bachelor's degree is in philosophy and was a professor of philosophy.
I would not "admire" open theists for trying to hold to philosophical elements of something with which I disagree. I respect them for holding on to orthodox elements of Christianity. That doesn't have to mean that I have to like their "open view" ideas or accept that process thought is correct in this area. Nevertheless, my point with the post above was to trace the influence of process thought on Open Theism and demonstrate that Open Theism is highly motivated by philosophy, not just Scripture.
Everyone has a philosophical reasoning for their hermeneutic of Scripture. I would appreciate it if open theists would tone down their charges of "paganism" on most of Christianity up until their recent rise and realize that there is correlation from Greek philosophy to both views.
