Proponents of Open Theism say it is a challenge or even a denial to the sovereignty of God.
Can you provide a quote? I don't think Greg Boyd has said these words. From what I've heard from Boyd, at least within his understanding of OT, God's soverignty is not violated. He claims that He is still soverign.
Clark Pinnock was one of the first if not the first proponent of this teaching and he states that God doesn’t always control all that happens and that He is open to human input before deciding on matters.
Many Arminians believe that God does not control all that happens... It sounds like you are arguing from the perspective of an exhaustive determinism. Would you mind explaining how an arminian that believes in Libertarian Free Will would differ from an OT supporter regarding how much God 'controls'?
The proponents of this teaching say God can make mistakes, and is limited in His knowledge.
Can you link to an OT proponent that states that God can make mistakes? (I'm not saying that there's not one, I'm just asking in a genuine manner for my own education.) Regarding God being limited in His knowledge, would you say that exhaustively knowing all that was knowable is limited?
Open Theism answers the age old question presented by Calvinists and Arminians of God being sovereign over all. The Arminian believes that God looks down the corridor of time and sees how man will respond to the gospel and therefore chooses or elects man.
While there may be a number of Arminians that understand election as you have stated, I think that there are many Arminians that understand election differently and in a way that would be congruent with an OT view. Again, it seems that you are presuming a calvinist viewpoint when addressing this, which is fine if that is the case, I would just like to clarify that.
I would say that all three veiws answer the age old question of God being sovereign over all. It doesn't seem like God's soverignty is in question but rather to what degree of sovereignty He has employed. That God is sovereign over all doesn't seem to be in question either but rather what God has chosen to be soverign over and when.
God’s sovereignty is still held in this view and the Open Theist doesn’t like this. He will say that God must be limited in His foreknowledge to allow for man’s free will. Some Open Theists even go as far as stating God cannot know any future event. Guy’s like Greg Boyd aren’t in that camp but he does hold to God being limited to some future events. He says the future is unknowable and this does damage to God’s Omniscience.
I think he would say that we would not declare God as impotent for not being able to make 'square circles' and in the same way God's omniscience would not be faulted for having an inductive knowledge of some events in the future.
Since their God cannot know all then He can make mistakes and therefore changes His mind depending on what He discovers man doing in time and space. This is why it’s called “open”.
This seems like you are demonstrating a misunderstanding of the OT view (or at least Boyd's view), and/or, you have a misunderstanding of the view and are voicing a conclusion which you find necessary but to which they would not agree. I don't see why it would necessarily follow that since there are things that God may not know with a deductive certainty, that He must then be able to make a 'mistake'. Boyd states that God knows all of the past, and the present and knows all possibilities of the future. If this is the case, then IMO it necessarily follows that He would not be able to be mistaken about anything.
There are two ways of knowing something, one is deductively and the other is inductively. Deductive knowledge is scored a '1'. Inductive never reaches a '1' but is never '0'. It seems to me that the OT perspective proposes that there are things known to God where His knowledge is a '1' (this would include things that He has determined). While the OT would say that to allow for man's free will, God has a foreknowledge of some things that may not reach '1' for that specific thing but that we can be assured that there cannot be anything for which God's knowledge would score a '0'. This would mean that it is not the case that there are things that God does not know.
Can God create a reality in which there are some things that He does not know for a certainty?
A lot of the difficulty Open Theists have is the concept of time. Time was created by God and therefore it isn’t beyond God or above Him. He controls it. The Open Theist almost makes God subject to time. Another problem Open Theists have is there reading of scripture, they have difficulties in reading passages that state God changed His mind or repented. They read such verses in a wooden literal sense, and this appears to make God unsure or to actually make mistakes.
Would you propose that God cannot change his mind, even when the Bible declares such? One might say that He is always speaking
anthropomorphically but the OT view seems to do less 'damage' to the text (I was surprised to see how many passages would have to be chalked up to anthropomorphic interpretation when the text could have spoken much more clearly by simply stating what was actually meant.) How does it make sense that God would be sad or sorry, as the text states, when He had previously determined that that very action would occur? If that were the case then why wouldn't the text show the deterministic reality of the matter?
Boyd states that God is more loving and kind when He doesn’t know our future and is surprised by what happens to us. He says it’s easier to Sheppard people when God is surprised to our difficulties in life.
Can you provide a quote where Boyd states that God is surprised in the sense that He didn't have knowledge of what may happen? I think it is the case that Boyd would say that there is never a time when God would be surprised in this sense but that, actually, God would have anticipated the event (every event for that matter).
Open Theists have difficulty in the death of Jesus on the cross, they state that God was unsure if Jesus would actually go through with it. This is to deny His divinity. They also state that if it wasn’t for the Jews and Roman soldiers carrying out the crucifixion that Jesus may not have been put to death. They say God wasn’t sure if it would actually happen. This is a possible denial of the atonement. John MacArthur says that Open Theists deny the Biblical doctrine of Atonement in that they make God to be all-loving and not the God of wrath and judgment as found in the bible. They say the crucifixion was just a public display of the awful consequences of sin and not a payment for our sins, this would make God into a monster (sounds like Brian McLaren).Basically the God of Open Theism is one made to be easier to understand and more like us. Open Theism has many dangerous possibilities if thought through fully.
Maybe it does have many dangers... I'm just trying to recognize the paper tigers from the real tigers. Some of the above seems like paper tigers to me. I find myself sometimes creating paper tigers... sometimes it's just easier and quicker to get across the meaning I want to convey by using them... straw-men too ;-)
Thanks for your response SolaSaint. At this point, and I think at most times, I'm trying to understand an issue more than proving or defending a point.
