This book, written by Gregory A. Boyd, is an biblical introduction to the view that the future is partly open aswell as partly determined. There are four chapters aswell as an appendix and each chapter considers one aspect of this view. The first one considers such biblical examples which are used to support the classical view of divine foreknowledge. Examples are Isaiah48:3-5

I have declared the former things from the beginning; and they went forth out of my mouth, ...

Ezekiel 26: 7-21

For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon,…

And yes, God did foreknow these events. But the question is asked, does the fact that God foreknows some things mean that He foreknows all things? The evidence in chapter two suggests that this is not the case. Boyd writes, ”For example, I am at the present time deliberating about whether or not I should travel to San Diego next month. In deliberating about this matter, I asume that it is up to me to decide,when, where, and how I will travel. How could I honestly deliberate about this decision if I didn’t believe this? But notice, I also assume that much of the future is already settled and not up to me to decide. To deliberate about whether I should travel to San Diego or not, I have to assume that (among many other things) San Diego will exist next month, that the laws of physics will operate as they do today, and that I will be basically the same person then as I am now. I cannot deliberate about issues that are up to me to decide without presupposing the settledness of many other issues that are not up to me to decide.

This example illustrates that we cannot consider choices without presupposing that the future is partly open and partly settled-- the very position that the open view advocates. If we believe that all of the futre was open, we could not decide between options. If we believed that none of the futre was open, we could not decide between options. Hence, the fact that we obviously do decide between option s suggests that at some level we all assume that the future is partly open and partly closed.”

In the second chapter, Boyd presents such biblical examples which support the future being partly open. Among the examples are Genesis 6:6 and 1 Sam 13:13 where God regrets making mankind and Saul king respectively. Boyd asks, ”We must wonder how the Lord could truly experience regret for making Saul king if he was absolutely certain that Saul would act the way he did.”

Another example is found in Isaiah 5 where the Lord expresses suprise in an analogy of a wineyard he planted. The Lord asks ”4 What more could have been done to My vineyard That I have not done in it? Why then, when I expected it to bring forth good grapes, Did it bring forth wild grapes? ”

The appendix chapter contains many other examples, aswell as the rest of chapter two.

The third chapter explores the practical differences made by espousing the open view rather than the classical one. Boyd argues that it is more rationally coherent, increases the clarity of Gods Word aswell as positively affect our core view of who God. Boyd also argues that it places the urgency back in prayer. This because if the future is exhaustively settled, one may wonder what difference prayer does make. But if God can yet change his mind in answere to prayer, as he indeed is recorded as doing on many occations in the bible (several of the conversations between God and Moses come to mind), then prayer does make a difference. Boyd also argues that the open view brings some resolution to the problem of evil.

The fourth and last chapter gives answers to 18 common questions regarding the open view. Here, questions such as ”Why do you think God can’t foreknow future free actions?”, ” Isn’t Gods wisdom diminished by claiming he can’t foreknow everything about the future?” and ”How can you claim that the future is partly open and partly settled? It seems like you’re trying to have your cake and eat it too”.

In conclusion, I found this book easy to read and well written. All may not agree with the conclusions made but that should not be a reason to avoid reading it if the questions it works with are interesting to you. And as Boyd points out in the foreword, this theology is peripherical and should not be allowed to come in the way of our unity in Christ.

Gregory A. Boyd
ISBN 0-8010-6290-X
Baker Book House
http://www.amazon.com/God-Possible-Biblical-Introduction-Open/dp/080106290X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201109288&sr=8-1

Open Theism has its roots in the pagan theology of Alfred North Whitehead, who was clearly not a Christian. An SDA scholar named Richard Rice was one of the pioneeers along with Clark Pinnock in trying to Christianize this heresy. Richard Rice admits his dependence on Whitehead for this theology.. Boyd’s view of God is troubling, in that it tries to bring God down to a human way of thinking.. God’s ways are beyond any human philosophy that tries to make God any less than totally sovereign over creation.

But thanks västergötland, for taking the time to review this book. I have read excerpts from Rice, but have not read this book.

Stan

And yet another book I read on the subject could write on how it is not rooted in Mr Whiteheads theology, how it indeed is different from Mr Whiteheads ideas by clearly affirming Gods sovereignty and capability to do whatever He wants to in the world. Where it differs from reformed thought is of course by saying that what God wanted to do with the creation of man was to create a being in the likeness of Himself where one aspect of that likeness was the capability to chose each his own future. So man has a say in his own future, not because that is how it must be as Mr Whitehead would have it but because that is how God sovreignly decided to make men. And God thus limmited His controll of humans, again not because He would be weak and have no choise in the matter as Mr Whitehead would say, but because that was Gods allmighty and unilateral choise in how to make humans. God wanted humans who chould stand in the face of selfishness and still chose to love Him rather than humans who would either love or not love HIm based on what He wanted them to do. A puppeteers doll can act very much in love towards the pupeteer, but if the puppeteer would feel loved by the doll, our usual responce would be to enquire wether he/she could get proffessional help…

This does not mean that man is freely able to choose to do rightly in his/her own strenght as Pelagius would have it. No, God still has to interveene for us to be able to have any kind of relationship with Him. Where this view differs from reformed thought is rather that God intervened for every human ever to be born and all thus have a chance to salvation, though yet only because of the grace of God. Why this does not become universalism is again because God is not overruling human choise in His dealings with us. God desires that every human live, but He will non the less accept the choise of any individual who would rather do evil and live in sin, thus earning sins wages. God will not refrain from paying those death who have chosen sin over Him.

I would beg to differ in your analysis of Boyd’s aim. I think that he is rather trying to find the view of God which most closely is in agreement with the biblical testimony concerning Him. I think what he has done is to refuse let Plato and Aristotle tell us what God is like and then read the bible using this definition. Rather the goal is to read the bible to find its own definition of God and then reject Platos theory of deity where the two are in conflict. Not very different to how you would urge every adventist to deal with Ellen.