Sean does a great job of defining and dispatching open theism in one post. To me this is a great example of what I have been calling neo-liberalism. Remaking God in our own image was never a good idea. I challenge any emergant church or other reader of my blog who holds to that view to try and defend it biblically- I do not believe that you will find it very easy. As philosphically attractive as such an idea may appear at first sight, to my view it is just plain unbiblical and WRONG! So here is Sean on Open Theism:
Open Theism basically claims that God does not know the entire future, and the future is not therefore utterly set and unalterable. This might be because God deliberately chooses to limit his knowledge (e.g. of which human beings will choose to know him and which will reject him) or because it is simply not in God’s nature to know the future exhaustively. Because God doesn’t know everything that will happen, God is not himself limited or definitively committed to any particular course of action (e.g. which human beings he will save). God is open and the future is open……
It does not arise easily or unforcedly out of natural biblical exegesis or classical theism (God = omniscient, omnipotent, transcendent i.e. beyond time and history, and unchanging) but out of a desire to solve certain doctrinal problems which are unpalatable to modern sensibilities. It is also quite helpful in dealing with the problem of evil. It seems therefore to quite clearly be a (post)modernist response of solution and resolution of doctrinal questions rather than simple reflection on Scripture. However, the question must be raised how much God is still God if such attributes are systematically removed or diminished.
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