toldailytopic: What is Open Theism? What do you think of it?

[Desert Reign]

Process thought is a form of open theism, though not one typically held by conservative evangelicals. The reason being that process thought holds that the indeterminism of reality is not by choice from God, but rather from metaphysical necessity, and that a new understanding of omnipotence is required in light of this fact. For the process thinker, saying that God makes a sovereign choice when creating an indeterminate world presents a problem down the line, namely that it fails to address the problem of evil in any philosophically satisfactory way, it simply pushes the problem one step back.

Could you explain that? I'm not sure what you mean by process thought. If you mean bi-polar godism, then how does that affect any 'problem of evil'?

In the open view I explained on page 1, openness implies responsibility so I don't see how it could be accused of not dealing with the problem of evil. Indeed one of the principal drivers in my development of openness theology was that moral responsibility is not intuitive in Calvinist theology. Since God has predestined all things, it is a lot harder to then justify that men are responsible for what they do. Openness tackles that issue properly.

 

[Desert Reign]

My understanding is that it means God chooses not to know the outcome of the future. Is that correct?

God knows everything that he needs to know, is as powerful as he needs to be and is wherever he needs to be for the purposes of accomplishing his purpose.

If God were fully aware of all that will be, then he can't have any purpose himself because the very concept of purpose implies that the future is open. If the future is not open, then all that can happen is that God just goes with it, as do we. Purposes and intentions would just be illusions. Purposes and intentions are things that you want the future to look like and which you strive to bring to pass because you value them but if the future is fixed then there is no point in wanting it to be any different to what it will certainly be. In that case, wants and purposes would be pathological.

 

[Selaphiel]

Could you explain that? I'm not sure what you mean by process thought. If you mean bi-polar godism, then how does that affect any 'problem of evil'?

By process thought I mainly refer to the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne and the theology inspired by those systems of thought.
That philosophy addresses the problem of evil by viewing the openess (that is ultimate indeterminacy) of reality as metaphysical, rather than as a decision by divine fiat. According to the process view, God cannot even in principal unilaterally control everything since all other actual occasions (that is the fundamental unit of reality in process thought) has at least a degree of subjectivity, that is self-determination. Evil occurs when an actual occasion does not act according to the ideals of God.

And to be a bit pedantic, it is dipolar theism, not bipolar.

In the open view I explained on page 1, openness implies responsibility so I don't see how it could be accused of not dealing with the problem of evil. Indeed one of the principal drivers in my development of openness theology was that moral responsibility is not intuitive in Calvinist theology. Since God has predestined all things, it is a lot harder to then justify that men are responsible for what they do. Openness tackles that issue properly.

However, process thought goes beyond human evil. It feels that natural evil must be considered as well. Not just the suffering of humans, but the suffering that seems to be a part of fundamental processes such as evolution and natural disasters.

So a process thinker would say that open theism where God by divine fiat makes an indeterminate creation is not sufficient to deal with the problem of evil since the ultimate responsibility for evil, at least natural evil, would rest upon that primordial decision rather than metaphysical necessity.

 

[xAvarice]

Hopefully anyone unaware of open theism won't see it as similar to an open relationship, that may cause some problems.

 

[Doormat]

The appearance of detailed knowledge of the future is seen more clearly in hindsight.

The appearance of detailed knowledge of the future suggests prescience. What I'm hearing from godrulz is that open theism precludes prescience. His idea of foreknowledge is not prescience.

Matthew 2:17-18 Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, "In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not."

How is that the type of foreknowledge that godrulz described in his response to me?

 

[Doormat]

How is any foreknowledge possible if the future is unknown by the observer?

Is. 46 and 48 shows how God can bring things to pass by His ability and thus declare these things in advance.

God brought to pass Matthew 2:18?

God is also intelligent and is able to extrapolate things about the future based on exhaustive past and present knowledge.

Nothing surprises Him? He has no reason to repent?

The mistake is to think that God somehow sees the non-existent future as certain/actual vs anticipatory or that He causes all things and thus knows all things.

The mistake is to think that God is subject to your ideas about time.

God determines/knows some things, while other aspects are indeterminate and left to be settled by contingent choices.

He knows reality as it is, so He correctly distinguishes possible, necessary, actual, certain, probable (modal logic).

Based on scripture, I believe that idea lacks integrity.

 

[genuineoriginal]

The appearance of detailed knowledge of the future suggests prescience. What I'm hearing from godrulz is that open theism precludes prescience. His idea of foreknowledge is not prescience.

There are some people that believe in open theism but do not believe God has prescience, others believe that God has some knowledge of events that will not occur until a future time without having Exhaustively Defined Foreknowledge (EDF).

I am in the former group, because I do not see any example in scripture where God needed any prescience in order to give the prophecies and to create the fulfillment.

I believe that God is All Powerful, as it is written.
When I look at what was needed to create the heaven and the earth and everything in it, I see a God that is powerful enough to create everything needed to fulfill of His word.

If you think God needs to have seen the future in order to make detailed predictions, then you are really claiming that God is not All Powerful.

God made a prediction to Moses that Moses found hard to believe.
This is God's response to Moses's disbelief:

Numbers 11:23 23 And the Lord said unto Moses, Is the Lord'S hand waxed short? thou shalt see now whether my word shall come to pass unto thee or not.​

Matthew 2:17-18 Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, "In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not."

How is that the type of foreknowledge that godrulz described in his response to me?

Look at the circumstances around this prophecy.
God had already declared that He would bring the messiah from the tribe of Judah and from the house of David.
The land of Israel was split into two kingdoms after Solomon, and the southern kingdom contained the tribes of Judah and Benjamin.
Benjamin came from Rachel.
David came from the town of Bethlehem in the territory of Judah.
Ramah, in the territory of Benjamin is a hill close enough to Bethlehem to be able to hear people shouting there.
God has given Satan freedom to attempt to stop God's prophecies from coming true, so God could make a prediction that Satan would attempt to kill the Messiah after the Messiah was born and identified.
In order to have the prophecy come true, the only things God would need to do is have the Messiah born in Bethlehem (as written in another prophecy) and have the birth of the Messiah made known.
God relied on Satan to create the fulfillment of the prophecy of the weeping for the slain children being heard in Ramah.

The fulfillment of the prophecy gives the appearance of detailed knowledge of the future, but really only needed present knowledge about Satan's typical reactions and slightly influencing a couple of people at the time of the fulfillment to bring about the rest.

 

[Doormat]

If you think God needs to have seen the future in order to make detailed predictions, then you are really claiming that God is not All Powerful.

What if God has already observed what we call the future?

 

[genuineoriginal]

What if God has already observed what we call the future?

Why would He need to?

 

[Doormat]

Why would He need to?

Do I really need to answer that for you to answer my question? If God has already observed what we call the future, does that necessarily mean the future is not open?

 

[genuineoriginal]

Do I really need to answer that for you to answer my question?

People that believe God has prescience believe it in order to explain something they cannot explain any other way.
My point is that I see no need to use prescience to explain anything God does.

If God has already observed what we call the future, does that necessarily mean the future is not open?

Of course. That should be blatantly obvious.

 

[godrulz]

After reading the first four posts, open theism has no agreed upon meaning.

"open theism" is a useless title. Time to get back to what scriptures teach.

John 17:17 God's word is truth.

I Timothy 2:4 we are to come to the knowledge of the truth

Why so we can have fellowship with God, with His son and with fellow believers. I John

oatmeal

It is a descriptive model of providence in contrast to Calvinism, Arminianism, Molinism, Process Thought.

It is based on God's Word that we all must interpret to formulate a theology.

We can label your views historically, so don't be so smug and simplistic/superspiritual.

 

[godrulz]

Process thought is a form of open theism, though not one typically held by conservative evangelicals. The reason being that process thought holds that the indeterminism of reality is not by choice from God, but rather from metaphysical necessity, and that a new understanding of omnipotence is required in light of this fact. For the process thinker, saying that God makes a sovereign choice when creating an indeterminate world presents a problem down the line, namely that it fails to address the problem of evil in any philosophically satisfactory way, it simply pushes the problem one step back.

Process Thought has a few similarities with Open Theism, but more differences. It is more extreme on the spectrum. Most Open Theists do not accept Process, panentheism, etc. (Thomas Jay Oord is perhaps an exception among others).

This is like Calvinists saying that Arminianism is Pelagianism. This is simply not true (just because both affirm free will does not make the views identical or common on most points).

 

[godrulz]

The appearance of detailed knowledge of the future suggests prescience. What I'm hearing from godrulz is that open theism precludes prescience. His idea of foreknowledge is not prescience.

Matthew 2:17-18 Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, "In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not."

How is that the type of foreknowledge that godrulz described in his response to me?

Fulfill in the NT of OT passages is not usually predictive prophecy, but fulfilled in the sense of illustrative, parallel (this is why the verses seem so out of context at times or a dual fulfillment, historically and future).

 

[godrulz]

What if God has already observed what we call the future?

How? There is no mechanism to imagine that God can see settled choices of free moral agents before they even exist to make indeterminate choices?!

Simple foreknowledge (Arminianism), middle knowledge (Molinism), eternal now, determinism, etc. are proposed mechanisms, but not without problems, not defensible in the end.

To not know a nothing is not a deficiency in omniscience.

 

[godrulz]

Do I really need to answer that for you to answer my question? If God has already observed what we call the future, does that necessarily mean the future is not open?

Does not compute...

 

[glorydaz]

People make more of this term, perhaps, than they should. In short--Open Theism is a term for a living God- a Biblical God that hears your prayers. Not a preprogrammed God with your future set in stone. He is a God that willing that none should end up in hell.
2 Peter 3:9 - The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

He is a God that has given you a free will because He loves you. I believe in a living God. How about you?

I had no idea what Open Theism was, but, yes, I do believe in a living God. :thumb:

 

[glorydaz]

License never leads to morality.

Morality comes from outside fallen men, as a gift of grace from God.

There are no inherent moral values apart from the moral standards of God (Law), and the only access sinners have to those standards is by righteousness being imputed to them from Jesus Christ.

Solus Christus!

Have you forgotten God created us with a conscience which lets us know right from wrong?

 

[Doormat]

People that believe God has prescience believe it in order to explain something they cannot explain any other way.

Rather, I see evidence of prescience so conclude that God has observed what we call the future.

If God has already observed what we call the future, does that necessarily mean the future is not open?

Of course. That should be blatantly obvious.

Couldn't the future be open from the perspective of the human observer and exhaustively known from the perspective of God?

 

[Doormat]

How? There is no mechanism to imagine that God can see settled choices of free moral agents before they even exist to make indeterminate choices?!

Conscious and Anomalous Nonconscious Emotional Processes: A Reversal of the Arrow of Time?

Two previous experiments have been reported that tried to explore physiological indicators of "precognitive information" in which subjects respond prior to presented stimuli. In an elegant experiment in the early seventies, John Hartwell, then at Utrecht University, measured the Contingent Negative Variation (CNV) after a warning signal and before a random selected picture of a face was to be displayed (Hartwell 1978). The CNV is a brain potential that has been associated with anticipatory processes; more precisely the CNV is interpreted as a "readiness for response" preparation. The subjects in Hartwell's studies were asked to respond with one of two buttons depending on the gender of the face on the picture. The warning stimulus was sometimes informative, that is, the subject could infer from the warning stimulus what the gender type of the face on the picture would be. In those trials a mean CNV was observed that clearly differed for the two stimuli categories. In the other case the warning stimulus was uninformative but it was hoped that the CNV still would indicate what type of picture was about to be shown. Such a finding would suggest that in some way or another the subject had nonconscious knowledge of the nearby future. 1

Nearly 20 years elapsed before the idea of precognitive information reflected in the physiology of subjects was picked up again by the second author of this article (Radin 1996). He used the physiological measures Skin Conductance, Heart Rate, and Plethysmography, which reflect behavior of our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. Furthermore, in contrast to Hartwell, he used highly emotional pictures that were presented 5 seconds after the subjects had pressed the button for the next trial. In 3 independent studies Radin found significant differences in physiology, most notably in the skin conductance, preceding the exposure of calm versus extreme pictures. The precognitive response was termed "presponse." Radin discussed a number of possible classical explanations for presponse but concluded that these do not apply.

However one potential "normal" explanation, namely the effect of anticipatory strategies, was not discussed at the time. Subjects who participate in this type of experiment while being aware that once every so often an extreme picture will be displayed may build up (generally incorrect) expectations about the probability that such an extreme picture will be shown in the forthcoming exposure. Indeed, owing to the "gambler's fallacy," their expectation may increase after each calm picture and decrease after an extreme. Superficially it appears that this could result in a mean anticipatory presponse that is smaller for calm stimuli than for extreme stimuli.

This possible explanation of the differences in presponse was later modelled through elaborate computer simulations by the first author and by an independent sceptical outsider. It turned out that the effect as described above only emerges when randomization is done without replacement, and therefore it could not explain Radin's original results (see also discussion section). Thus the experimental results by Radin suggested a true, large and replicable "precognitive" psi effects with a remarkable signal to noise ratio

The first author of this chapter (DJB) was skeptical of these results and therefore decided to replicate the experiments using the same general procedure and the same picture material but completely different software and hardware and also a different randomization procedure. This would, if the effects could be replicated, make an explanation in terms of technical artefacts or inappropriate randomization less likely.​