http://christisdeeperstill.blogspot.com/2008/07/reformed-sociology.html

For readers of this blog over the past two years, it is no secret that many of us who are former SDAs hold to a Reformed view of salvation.  We believe that God is totally sovereign and that salvation is the sole work of God.

But, how should we then live?  How should we interact with other Christians who don’t believe the same way we do?

This article certainly made me think.  I believe I have been guilty of some of what this article talks about.

Let me know what you think?

Stan

Resulting from the negativity attached to Calvin’s name, Christians who agree with Calvin’s teachings are sometimes reluctant to admit that they share his convictions. Understanding this phenomenon, the great Baptist preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon identified the problem at the heart of the critics’ arguments: the teachings of Calvin were not simply his creation, but were taught centuries earlier by Augustine and even earlier by the apostle Paul and Jesus Christ.

Speaking of this, Spurgeon said, “We only use the term ‘Calvinism’ for shortness. That doctrine which is called ‘Calvinism’ did not spring from Calvin; we believe that it sprang from the great founder of all truth. Perhaps Calvin himself derived it mainly from the writings of Augustine. Augustine obtained his views, without doubt, through the Holy Spirit of God, from diligent study of the writings of Paul, and Paul received them from the Holy Ghost and from Jesus Christ, the great founder of the Christian Church. We use the term then, not because we impute an extraordinary importance to Calvin’s having taught these doctrines. We would be just as willing to call them by any other name, if we could find one which would be better understood, and which on the whole would be as consistent with the fact. ... The old truths that Calvin and Augustine preached is the truth that I preach today or else I would be false to my conscience and my God. I cannot shape truth; I know of no such thing as paring off the rough edges of a doctrine.”

As the story in John 6 reminds us, those who proclaim the “rough edges” of God’s sovereignty are not popular. The greatest evangelist who ever lived, Jesus Christ, lost most of his listeners when he reminded them that the Holy Spirit must act before anyone can have faith. After claiming that his body and blood gives eternal life, Jesus said, “Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” The apostle John adds, parenthetically, “For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.” Jesus concludes, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” (John 6:61-65 ESV) Notice the response of the crowd: “After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.” (John 6:66 ESV)

It is not surprising to see the doctrines of grace bringing the same reaction throughout the history of the Christian church as they did in Jesus’ day. It is not Calvin whom the critics of Calvinism have a problem with, it is the scandalous nature of God’s sovereign grace.

Greg

At the last FAF weekend, pastor Dale Ratzlaff addressed the problem of Ellen White’s authority. After had quoted the SDA Fundamental Belief No. 18 in which Ellen White’s writings are defined as “authoritative source of truth”, he proceeded to unpack how Ellen’s authority is seen in the church.

For example, let’s say that Paul uses some things in the Old Testament that we don’t see, Galatians, he takes Sarah and Hagar and draws a lesson out of that regarding the two covenants. But when you go to the Old Testament you don’t see it there. We accept Paul’s writings based on his authority as an inspired writer of Scripture and we take it based upon Paul. And so they would argue in the same way, if Ellen White is an authoritative source of truth and if she is an inspired commentator of Scripture, then if she is seeing something in Scripture that we don’t see, then we ought to take her interpretation as we do Paul’s. So for all practical purposes in Adventism the writings of Ellen White are the hermeneutical and interpretive filter for studying the Bible

I agree with Ratzlaff’s assessment of the situation, and trusting Paul’s interpretations based on his authority as an inspired writing is a sign of faith in the inspiration of the entire Bible, including NT writers. At the same time, I’m not fully satisfying in trusting Paul for seeing in OT what we cannot see in the OT because this will justify the Adventist apologetics described by Ratzlaff above, and will open the gates for any interpretation which uses the biblical text as a pretext without being faithful to it. If Paul can do eisegesis, if he can interpret the OT texts in a way which is not consistent with good exegesis, if he’s reading in OT what is not there, Ellen White can do the same, it may be argued by Adventists.

Colleen Tinker, the editor of the Proclamation, aware of the problem, asked Dale Ratzlaff. In May/June 2006 Proclamation! she describes a conversation with the same Dale Ratzlaff about this subject.

“We criticize Ellen White for quoting Bible texts out-of-context to prove her points,” I repeated to Dale, “yet we accept the New Testament writers quoting Old Testament verses, claiming they were fulfilled by events in Jesus’ life and in the fledgling church. Those Old Testament texts seem taken out of context, and no Jew would have seen their fulfillment the way the New Testament explains them. How is our criticism of Ellen White different from other people’s criticisms of the gospel writers?”

Dale’s answer was concise and unequivocal: “God inspired the New Testament writers to show how the Old Testament texts were fulfilled.”

I consider Dale’s answer good for sustaining belief in the inspiration of the Bible. At the same time, this answer leaves a door open for an Adventist to boost his faith in Ellen White’s inspiration. The logic runs in this way: “If Paul was able to see in the OT what I cannot see because a supernatural endowment, why not also Ellen White?” Seeing in Daniel 8:14 what we cannot see by doing exegesis looks from this perspective as justified.

Beside this, we should be able to verify Paul’s interpretation by looking ourselves to the OT text quoted by Paul, and see how his interpretation is in harmony with it, as the Bereans did.

The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Acts 17:10,11

We know that Paul pointed people to the OT, showing how OT predictions were fulfilled in the life of Christ, and we know that the four evangelists did this also, especially Matthew. Matthew especially abounds in quoting OT texts, and repeatedly adding explicitly “This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet”. The problem appears when we look at the OT text quoted in Matthew and we have problems in seeing the OT material as prophetic, as pointing to Christ, in a predictive manner.

Just one example:

Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” 14 And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt 15 and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son. ” Matthew 2:13-15

Matthew quotes from Hosea, and when we go to Hosea, we see that there is not a hint that the text is predictive in nature, but is describing what it happened with Israel, “my son”, in exodus.

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols. Hosea 11:1,2

How can we account for a fulfillment by Jesus? Recently, in a White Horse Inn program entitled “What Would Moses Do?” it was mentioned the difficulty of seeing how OT is fulfilled by Jesus.  But if we start to see the narrative expressed in the OT as prefiguring what Jesus will do, the rationality of using the OT in the way NT writers used it. For example, Moses said

“The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen Deuteronomy 18:15

Here is an explicit statement that the Messiah will be like Moses, and the epistle to the Hebrews shows how Jesus is like Moses, a better Moses.

Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house. For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope. Hebrews 3:1-6

Here we have a principle of interpretation, namely that Moses faithfulness, his behavior, had as goal “to testify”, to prefigure, to said something about “the things that were to be spoken later”, about the future, about what Jesus will do. The narrative of Moses deeds, as many other OT narratives were intended to prefigure what Jesus will do. Not only what happened with Moses, but what happened with the people Israel has a significance. Commenting on the Exodus story, one of the co-hosts of White Horse Inn, Kim Riddlebarger, said

The whole point of Moses was that God called him to be the covenant mediator of this people, Israel, that God is going to redeem and rescue from the bondage in Egypt. And their bondage in Egypt works on two levels: one is the historical level of the people of God enslaved in a land were they were forbidden from going out in the desert to worshipping their own God, when they insisted on doing that the Pharaoh persecuted them, and Pharaoh becomes an Antichrist figure in redemptive history, persecuting the people of God, preventing them of worshipping Jahve.

And then on the second level as the New Testament looks back on this, the New Testament tells us that the Exodus from Egypt prefigures Christ victory for us over sin and death. And he went to Egypt, and so as Moses was called and raised up by God to rescue national Israel from an Antichrist figure, Pharaoh, to bring them through the Red Sea on dry ground, to take them through the wilderness, to bring them to the land of Canaan, give them all that was promised, all of that is historical and actually happened, but the New Testament writers look back on that and see two things.

One is: that’s how we got here, God actually did this in history, God brought historical events to this time and this place, but what you see happening there is a picture of what Christ is gonna do. Christ is gonna remove from us a greater bondage that any Pharaoh can do, the bondage and tyranny of sin.

Michael Horton continues and shows how Jesus recapitulates the history of Israel,

He’s called out of Egypt, but before that is the Herod slaughtered of the innocents, trying to get Jesus the way Satan tried to get Moses through Pharaoh’s slaughter, and then you have him called out of Egypt in the same way the Jews were brought out of Egypt through the Read Sea, and then you have Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, 40 days (compare with 40 years in wilderness)

It is interesting to see how Jesus recapitulates Israel’s history, and this shows us that the OT is also predictive even in places where we would not look for prophecies. What is important is that we can see, we are able to see this predictive typology which is fulfilled by Christ by comparing Christ’s life with the OT story. Compare this with Ellen White’s interpretations which can not be seen in the OT. It is reported that Raymond F. Cottrell, in talk given for Association of Adventist Forums, Loma Linda, CA shortly after the Glacier View meetings, had said:

Ellen White reinterprets Daniel for our time. And because I fully believe and am convinced that God spoke to and through Ellen White, I accept her writings 100%. I accept Ellen White’s reinterpretation, her approval of the Adventist interpretation of the heavenly sanctuary, the Investigative Judgment and 1844, because I accept her as an inspired writer

I don’t know If this report is accurate or not, and if Raymond changed or not his views, what I know is that the statement above reflects what many adventists think about Ellen’s rights based on a misunderstanding of the way in which the NT writers interpreted the OT. How these inspired writers did their exegesis is free for exploration, and it can prove a gold mine for spiritual food.

This shows that instead of looking at the way NT writers use OT texts as something which is beyond our understanding, it will be very useful for us to try to understand how these writers look at the OT material, because it will offer us a perspective of Jesus in the entire Scripture which otherwise will elude us. Of course, having faith that the NT writers correctly interpreted the OT texts is vital for us, and I’m not intending to criticize the approach of Dale Ratzlaff in any way. All I want is to encourage people to search for a better understanding of Scripture, especially of the OT, and the way in which the NT is rooted in the OT. Also, it is not less important to refute the Adventist apologist who tries to justify Ellen’s erroneous and weird interpretations of the Bible by pointing to the NT writers.

Any input regarding how the NT is fulfilling the OT, and how the NT writers interpret the OT in harmony with OT message itself is welcomed.

Gabriel

“Who would wish to see the reins of universal empire fall from the hands of infinite wisdom and love, to be seized by chance or fate? Who would not rather be governed by a Father than by a tornado? If God cannot effectually control the acts of free agents there can be no prophecy, no prayer, no thanksgiving, no promises, no security of salvation, no certainty whether in the end God or Satan is to be triumphant, whether heaven or hell is to be the consummation. Give us certainty—the secure conviction that a sparrow cannot fall, or a sinner move a finger, but as God permits and ordains. We must have either God or Satan to rule. And if God has a providence He must be able to render the free acts of his creatures certain; and therefore certainty must be consistent with liberty.” (Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, II:301-302)

Indeed, without a sovereign Father who exerts absolute control over His creation, there can be no prophecy, prayer, thanksgiving, promises, security of salvation or certainty that God will triumph over Satan in the end. These last two points naturally result from the Adventist belief in Ellen White’s Great Controversy theme, where God must be vindicated through man’s efforts to live without sin as Jesus did, in order to silence Satan’s claims that perfect law-keeping is impossible.

When we see the God of Scripture revealed for who He really is—perfectly sovereign, just, wrathful, merciful and loving—there is no “great controversy”. God is righteous, His ways are just, and He needs no vindication.

Greg

“Now if we so desire, as is fitting, to extend our hand to one another and to help one another, there is nothing in which we can benefit our brethren more than in commending them to the providential care of the best of fathers; for if He is kind and favorable, nothing at all else can be desired. Indeed, we owe even this very thing to our Father. Just as one who truly and deeply loves any father of a family at the same time embraces his whole household with love and goodwill, so it becomes us in like measure to show to His people, to His family, and, last, to His inheritance the same zeal and affection that we have toward this heavenly Father. For He so honored these as to call them the fullness of His only begotten Son [Eph. 1:23]. Let the Christian, then, conform his prayers to this rule in order that they may be in common and embrace all who are his brothers in Christ, not only those whom he at present sees and recognizes as such, but all people who dwell on earth. For what God has determined concerning them is beyond our knowing except that it is no less devout than humane to wish and hope the best for them. Yet we ought to be drawn with a special affection to those, above others, of the household of faith, whom the Apostle has particularly commended to us in everything [Gal. 6:10]. To sum up, all prayers ought to be such as to look to that community our Lord has established in His kingdom and His household.” (Source: Institutes of the Christian Religion)

västergötland - 07 February 2008 02:57 PM

FYI, I was not refering to a few sentences of the introduction. Those are claims and had they stood alone they would carry no weight whatsoever with anyone who didnt already believe them to be true. Read a whole chapter and see if that changes the perception somewhat?

Saying it is “a dishonor to Christ” is easy and cheap, showing that it is so is an entierly different issue.

I want to thank västergötland for challenging me to dig deeper into this book, because it has been edifying and has confirmed what I concluded independently—that open theism is fundamentally destructive to the Christian faith and as such, should unquestionably be considered heresy.

To substantiate these claims and in response to västergötland, I will conclude this post with quotes from every part of the book he has challenged me to read. I encourage others to read this book, or at least prayerfully consider the quotes I’ve assembled here.

May we disagree with humility, but be united in devotion to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Greg

Beyond the Bounds : Open Theism and the Undermining of Biblical Christianity
Edited by John Piper, published 2007

Introduction

“Open theism teaches a sub-Christian view of God that is unworthy of a robust biblical faith. I have no sympathy for this view and think it would be a great mistake for evangelicals to welcome it within the bounds of tolerable theological diversity.”

“[Open theism] so redefines the God of the Bible and of theology that we wind up with a different God.”

“[Open theism] ultimately portrays a different God than the God of the Bible.”

Part One

“Openness advocates cannot sustain their claim that the Fathers incorporated Greek philosophy into the church’s theology. Sanders cites no evidence; Boyd furnishes only his estimation. Granted, Sanders and Boyd appeal to a few similarities between Greek philoosophy and Christian theism, but these similarities do not prove that the Fathers synthesized biblical and Greek philosophical ideals into the church. They have not proved and cannot prove their assertions. They simply beg the question. To prop up their faltering claim and to sidestep their obligation to prove their claim, Sanders and Boyd must put the infection of Greek philosophy into the church before the earliest of the Fathers. This neatly and artfully explains everything: why all the Fathers were duped, and why no evidence exists to prove when the infection occurred—everything just happened so early. The claims of Sanders and Boyd are more like a modern conspiracy theory—the lack of evidence only confirms the conspiracy—than actual history.”

“Clearly, Christians must reject the claims of the openness view: its historical claims are misinformed...its theology is misguided...and its exegesis is mistaken.... In the end, the openness view requires too much. It requires us to believe that Christians and Jews have misunderstood history, theology, and exegesis for thousands of years. It requires a new history and a new exegesis to support its new theology. It then requires a new hymnbook, a new prayer book, and a new liturgy. Next it requires a new Bible, and finally, a new God. It requires too much; it supplies too little.”

“...open theism has some characteristics which, in my opinion, make it more susceptible to synthesis and infection from alien thought forms. One problem lies in its tendency to seek the more bizarre interpretations of Scripture and to prefer them above other options. This is repeatedly seen in Boyd’s warfare volumes, and is the reason why his theology has a modified Manichaean flavor. Here is another difficulty—the rear-guard action which Boyd (especially) employs to make his hermeneutics work. As I noted earlier, he has to switch gears repeatedly between the times when God does know tomorrow and the times when he does not. These manifold hermeneutical adjustments eventually make his proposal less and less believable, and make it seem more and more as if he is constantly repairing the roof over his theological work shed. But perhaps the most insidious problem with open theism, the one which makes it the most susceptible to dogmatic infection by alien theological viruses, is its commitment to contemporary culture as a source for theological knowledge. It is this which infuses feminism, relationalism, processism, and even Marcionism into the mix.”

Part Two

“Compatibalists believe that when God elects to change a human heart, he acts irresistibly—’For we know, brothers loved by God, that [God] has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction’ (1 Thess. 1:4-5). Such irresistible grace is anathema to Sanders. Irresistible grace, he concedes, ‘may be thought of positively as divine liberation from an invincible prison.’ Yet it ‘may also be seen negatively as divine rape because it involves nonconsensual control....Of course, the desire God forces on the elect is a beneficent one—for their own good—but it is rape nonetheless.‘ Libertarians [open theists], in contrast, hold that ‘God does not rape us, even for our own good.’”

“When, by God’s grace, [the author realized the problems with open theism], then libertarian claims about love and fellowship and freedom began to sound a bit thin. I realized that sometimes real love must act without the beloved’s consent. Sometimes nonconsensual, unilateral action is necessary if there is to be ay possibility of interpersonal love and personal freedom. Suppose I find my wife unconscious and in cardiac arrest. In that condition, she will never love or exercise any kind of personal freedom if I do not work to revive her without her consent. Indeed, my love drives me to act without obtaining her consent. Whether love must act without the beloved’s consent depends on the condition that the beloved is in. Compatibilists believe the Scripture asserts—and deeper Christian experience corroborates—that, until God regenerates us, all human beings are not merely spiritually sick but actually spiritually dead in our sin (Eph. 2:1).”

“...sincere Christians appreciate honest efforts to take God’s words seriously. Christians who have been living off a meager diet of sermons only tangentially related to the text of Scripture will find in the writings of Greg Boyd or John Sanders an attitude about Scripture that is refreshing. Malnourished believers are extremely unlikely to see the role that openness presuppositions about love and freedom are playing. What they’ll see and feel is an invitation to take the Bible seriously. Since careful attention to Scripture is crucial to leading people away from openness thinking, any rejection of the movement must not squelch this legitimate desire.”

“The interest open theists take in [history] isn’t the problem. Rather it is their inconsistent approach to it. They insist that the ancient church was easily carried off by Greek thought. Yet they confidently assume that they are not being unduly influenced by twentieth-century thinking about freedom, love, and power. This confidence leads them to cast aside two millennia of Christian consensus too easily. Like jurors who overturn the presumption of innocence on the basis of a strong hunch, they overturn the presumption of the Holy Spirit’s past guidance on the basis of their strong intuitions about love and freedom.”

“Lamentably, [open theism’s] answers come only at the cost of God’s majesty. While the proponents of openness are aware that their solutions involve whittling away at God’s traditional attributes, to most people such costs are too subtle and abstract to matter. Open theists believe that the gains, however, are gripping and concrete. Critics of the openness view may believe that this is a higher price than God’s Word allows us to pay for intellectual satisfaction and psychological solace, but we must not overlook the reality of the intellectual and psychological needs that make open theism attractive. Even though the openness solutions are false and ultimately injurious, these questions are real and deserve attention that is accessible and sensitive. Even when their work injures the church, open theists should not be faulted for addressing these troubling questions.”

“Cultural trends and evolving thinking about church identity have provided fertile soil for the growth of open theism. But the speed of its move into the mainstream has also depended on the failure of efforts to impede it. Critics of openness have been sounding an alarm, but in general the God-ordained means for protecting God’s flock are malfunctioning. While many strategies could effectively arrest the spread of openness influence, the only authority that can legitimately command obedience is the collective judgment of overseers set apart by ordination. Conservative scholars may be able most clearly to explain the dangers posed by open theism’s understanding of God and his dealings with his people, but only ordained overseers have the biblical authority to condemn the error. Open theists have enjoyed the absence of effective resistance because the link that should exist between academics and ordained overseers is broken.”

“While defenders of open theism insist that they are only attempting to correct the defects in the traditional understanding of God, the God open theism is conveniently consistent with the kind of deity that American evangelicals will find comfortable. ...I am...struck by the way the open God fits current American expectations about power, freedom, mystery, and community. Even if proponents of openness were motivated by zeal to rescue the God of the Bible from Greek distortions, what they have produced is a God of American distortions. In the place of a static tyrant, they have erected the ultimate American parent. The God of open theism is soothingly free from mystery and gratifyingly zealous to affirm our autonomy.”

Part Three

“There are two things to observe concerning Boyd’s comments. First, Boyd is correct when he says that God does not know the future by pre-observation; he knows the future because he has planned it. In this regard, we are like God. We do not anticipate future events by clairvoyance. Anticipation of our relationship to tomorrow or next month derives from our plans, ineffective as they are. Second, Boyd commits the referential fallacy; he inverts the analogy implicit throughout Isaiah 46:8-11, by taking the analogue’s knowledge as the measure of God’s knowledge. He has the analogy upside down. Instead, our knowledge of the future is like God’s knowledge. Of course, the dissimilarities between our knowing and God’s knowing are astronomical. His knowledge is sure, because his purpose is effective; our knowledge is uncertain because our plans are ineffective. Therefore, to imagine God to have knowledge of the future with human-like restrictions, when he speaks of ‘my purpose’ and ‘what I have planed,’ as Boyd contends, is to turn on its head the Lord’s words, ‘I am God, and there is none like me.’ Isaiah seeks to shatter this icon. God’s knowledge of the future is a distinctive attribute of deity that sets him apart from gods carved out in the likeness of God’s image, namely humans.”

“Despite his claims to the contrary, Boyd’s reasoning brings the Creator down to the creature’s level, for he reasons, what is true for the creature must be true for the Creator. Strange as it may seem, open theists believe that classic Christian beliefs about God’s knowledge of the future ‘bring the Lord down to our level.’ At the same time, they chastise and mock belief that God accommodate himself to his creatures when he reveals himself.”

“...open theism claims to be biblical. But where Reformed theology recognizes Scripture alone as the source of theology, while experience, reason, and tradition are treated as significant influences, open theists adopt the so-called Wesleyan Quadrilateral, with Scripture as the first but not sole normative source. In a pervious work Pinnock reasoned, ‘Just as Augustine came to terms with ancient Greek thinking, so we are making peace with the culture of modernity.’ Yet one would be hard-pressed to find Augustine sharing Pinnock’s assessment of such direct dependence. Pinnock writes, ‘As an open theist, I am interested in such authors as Hegel, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Whitehead because they make room in their thinking for ideas like change, incarnation and divine suffering...’”

“If it is wrong to dismiss open theism as simply a revival of Socinianism or a lackey of process theism, it is just as erroneous to conclude that open theism represents a noble stream of Christian thought. No group generally recognized as ‘orthodox’ or ‘catholic’ (Eastern or Western)—that is, belonging to the mainstream Christian tradition—has ever denied God’s exhaustive foreknowledge, atemporality, aseity, simplicity, or immutability, as those terms have been historically understood.”

“If Calvinism represented even in broad terms the description given to it especially by Pinnock, it could hardly have unleashed the energies for dynamic Christian action in missions, social compassion, education and the arts, vocation, and countless other enterprises which it has in fact unleashed. Many of us fail to recognize Reformed theology in his polemical descriptions of it.”

Part Four

“[In open theism] God must respond and adapt to surprises and to the unexpected. As Pinnock states, ‘God sets goals for creation and redemption and realizes them ad hoc in history. If Plan A fails, God is ready with Plan B.’ Thus, says Pinnock, because of God’s creation of human beings with libertarian freedom, the sovereign God delegates power to the creature, making himself vulnerable. Sovereignty does not mean that nothing can go contrary to God’s will, but that God is able to deal with any circumstances that may arise.”

“As has already been stated, the God of open theism is a risk taker. Accordingly, the implication is not only that God lacks exact and infallible knowledge of the contingent future but also that, as David Basinger argues, ‘It can no longer be said that God is working out his ideal, preordained plan. Rather, God may well find himself disappointed in the sense that this world may fall short of the ideal world God wishes were coming about.’”

“...even after all the caveats have been factored in, open theists must affirm that a God with only present knowledge must take risks. For if God makes decisions that depend for their outcomes on the responses of free creatures in which the decisions themselves are not informed by knowledge of the outcomes, then creating and governing such a world is, in the words of William Hasker, ‘a risky business.’”

“...given the fact that prophecies have taken place, then, given the claims of Scripture, they must necessarily come to pass and thus be true. But, once again, if one denies that God is able to know future contingents, then how does one explain how God can know that these prophecies will truly come to pass? Would it not be more consistent to affirm that God possibly has erred or might err on these matters? But if one were to admit that, then how would one also affirm that Scripture is an infallible and inerrant revelation on all areas that it touches, including the prophetic realm? It seems that the openness proposal faces a serious dilemma. Either reject the inerrancy of Scripture and admit that God can only give us probabilities about the future, or reject the openness proposal regarding divine omniscience for the traditional view of God’s exhaustive knowledge of the future and retain the doctrine of inerrancy. At least on the surface, there seems to be no other option.”

“What, then, should we conclude about the relationship between the openness proposal regarding divine omniscience and the doctrine of Scripture? Does the proposal uphold or undermine a high view of Scripture, or does it have very little impact? It would seem that the openness proposal does have some very significant implications for one’s doctrine of Scripture. Two points need to be made in this regard. First, even though it is logically possible for someone to affirm simultaneously an openness view of divine foreknowledge and the doctrine of inerrancy by believing that God, as well as the biblical authors, ‘just happened’ to get everything right, it is certainly highly improbable. In fact, I see no explanation forthcoming as to show how open theists are able to affirm that God can guarantee that what he predicts will in fact come true.

Second, even if one desired to affirm the doctrine of inerrancy and open theism at this point of predictive prophecy, how would one attempt to do so? Inductively, one could not now make the affirmation that Scripture is inerrant since there would be no way to know until the eschaton whether God and the biblical authors just happened to get it right. Deductively, one could not now make the affirmation either since not one of us could say with assurance that God is able to guarantee that all of his promises and predictions will come to pass given the openness view of divine foreknowledge. Thus, even though it is logically possible to affirm open theism and inerrancy in regard to predictive prophecy, similar to its implications with the doctrine of inspiration, it is highly improbable that such a view will yield an inerrant set of passages that predict future events.”

“...open theists must seriously reconsider their proposal on the relationship between divine sovereignty-omniscience and human freedom because it leads to insurmountable problems for a high view of Scripture, particularly the doctrine of inerrancy. ...the openness proposal undermines: (1) any kind of guarantee that either the human authors will freely write precisely what God wanted written, or that what God predicts will in fact come to pass; and (2) a strong epistemological grounding to our belief in and defense of the inerrancy of Scripture.”

“...open theists should not be surprised that other evangelicals find their views unacceptable and outside the limits of biblical orthodoxy. Evangelicals are willing to think through theological matters time and time again in light of Scripture. But when proposals arise that have implications that undermine the very basis for an authoritative and inerrant Bible, it should come as no surprise that many of us will find these proposals problematic, unwarranted, and unbiblical. The price is too great. Open theism must be rejected, at least on this count: it undercuts that which is foundational to Christian theology—the sovereign, self-attesting triune God who speaks with all authority, knowledge, and wisdom, through human authors, in a true, faithful, and inerrant manner.”

“Much of the gospel, for open theism, is God’s contingency plan for the human race, not his set plan, determined in eternity past, by which the future sin of humans, and the future redemption from sin in Christ, are eternally set verities.”

“[In open theism] it is certainly the case that it is impossible, before creation, for God to know the future salvation of sinners, contrary to what orthodoxy has claimed.”

“If sin is a mere possibility, perhaps even an implausibility before Genesis 3 [as taught in open theism], then no set plan would already be in place. The gospel, however, announces God’s eternal and set purpose to save, which means he knows the sin that will occur and he has already planned for our rescue before he even creates.”

“Consider your own existence. Could God have known from eternity past that you would exist? On openness grounds, absolutely not. Consider the contingencies. Your parents decide to marry—yes, that particular man and woman, not another pair (which God could not have known in advance). And, they decide whether to have children, whether to use birth control or not, how many children to have, and in all this the genetic combinations vary for each possible conception. None of this God can know ahead of time. What is true of you is, of course, true also for each of your parents, and their parents, and so on all the way back to the garden. The fact is, God can no more know now who will be born a year from right now than you or I can.”

“It is evident that the eternal plan and design of the gospel, if open theism is accepted, must be strictly a contingency plan. Consider the difficulty God faces: If sin occurs, then I’ll know that I’ll need to save, God must reason. Further, when people (beyond the initial pair) come into existence, then I’ll know whether these particular individuals might possibly be subjects of my salvation. Of course, since I don’t know how long they will live, or what choices they will make, I will only “choose” to save them at the moment that they trust in My Son, for only then will I know they exist and believe.”

“How much of God’s plans must now be seen not as certain, wise, and dependable, but as contingent, probabilistic (at best), and subject to massive revision and possible failure. If God cannot know future free choices and actions, there is virtually nothing about the future of humankind he could know prior to creation. This implication is staggering, and is contrary to Scriptures teaching of God’s set purpose and plan, in eternity past, to choose and save fallen people through his Son’s future definite act of redemption.”

“The problem [of contingencies] does not end with Abraham, however. Many generations separate Abraham from the ultimate fulfillment in the seed who would come as the blessing to the nations, Jesus the Christ. What are we to say of this succession of seed-bearers, as we might call them, who are conceived and born, generation by generation, in the line of Abraham? Given God’s total inability to know, for any time future, just who would be conceived and born, how long they would live, what actions and choices might make up their lives—how remarkable that God could predict in Genesis 12 that Abraham’s seed would remain, and that the Messiah would come in his very line. Given the variables over roughly 2,000 years of human history that stand between Abraham and Christ, given God’s total ignorance of the totality of future free choices and actions in human history at any time and every time future, and given God’s inability to control or regulate the free choices and actions of his human creatures, one can only marvel at the promise of God in Genesis 12 and stand incredulous before the question of how God could have pulled this off. Is the openness interpretation of this (and so many more!) promise satisfying? Does it account for the theology and history of Scripture? Surely this promise is a witness, not to God’s ignorance of so much of the future as demanded by the open view, but to his full knowledge and accurate predictions of all that would take place.”

“What is clear, then, is that both the plan and promise of God to bring about salvation through the seed of Abraham, and the actual saving actions of God in his justification of sinners and through the sacrificial system’s atoning efficacy, are undercut and shown to be strictly impossible if the open view is accepted. What massive gospel harm is done in the Old Testament period itself when it is denied of God that he can know the future free choices and actions of moral beings. Neither those free choices and actions of Abraham, Sarah, Abraham’s line over 2,000 years, nor of Christ himself, could be known; and hence, no promise of salvation or any saving activity itself could be grounded and secured. Only when God knows the full future of human action and choice can God secure these realities in ways that accord clearly with Old Testament theology and history, as Scripture would have us believe and affirm.”

“Is there any hint in Scripture that the resurrection of Christ, when as yet a future reality, was uncertain? Are we led to think that God’s ultimate victory over sin and death is really a risky venture in which God might possibly fail? And yet how many (!) free moral choices and actions are connected to the events leading up to the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ? But God pronounced with certainty and full authority hundreds of years in advance that his Son would not suffer decay. A certain resurrection requires a certain crucifixion, which requires God’s foreknowledge of all those human choices and actions affecting these central events. The open view simply cannot account for what Scripture demands: the absolute and fixed plan and prediction of God regarding his Son’s future and certain death and resurrection.”

“Because God cannot know in advance just who will be living at any and every point of human history, therefore, when Christ died on the cross, he simply could not, in any real sense, have substituted for ‘you’ or for ‘me’ in his death and payment for sin. While his death could have been quite literally in the place of, or as a substitute for, those living up to the point of his death, this could not be the case with those to be conceived and born yet future. While advocates of limited and unlimited atonement differ over those for whom Christ died, all agree that when he died, he died in the place of sinners, i.e., actual sinful people whose deaths and payments for sin he took upon himself. Hence, the substitutionary nature of the atonement can obtain only if God knows not only those prior to Christ’s death but also those yet future for whom Christ died.”

“Finally, the Christian church has ever rejoiced in the hope of the certain victory of God over all that stands against him. And this hope has been understood not only to include God one day bringing an end to the world as we know it, but centrally that when he does consummate history, he will have accomplished what he purposed and designed for this world. But of this, we simply cannot be sure, if the open view is accepted. After all, to the extent that one holds that God took a significant risk in his creation of the world, one must admit that it may turn out that God gets less than he wanted. How much less? The fact is, we simply cannot know. The gospel—that announces to those in Christ the surety of our lives in God’s hands and the confidence of knowing that God’s purposes will succeed—becomes less than good news if the open view is accepted. Consider the implications for life now and beyond when one denies of God his exhaustive knowledge of the future.

1. Open theism’s denial of God’s exhaustive definite foreknowledge undermines the Christian’s hope that affliction, suffering, and trials in life are permitted by God for what he knows will turn out to be ultimately good purposes (e.g. Rom. 8:28; c.f. Rom. 5:1-5; James 1:2-4).

2. Open theism’s denial of God’s exhaustive definite foreknowledge calls into question the church’s ultimate eschatological hope that God will surely accomplish all his plans and purposes, exactly as he has told us in Scripture that he will; and openness assurances that he will succeed ring hollow, in that not even God knows (i.e., can know) what unexpected turns lay ahead and how severely these may thwart his purposes or cause him to change his plans.”

“Openness advocates want it both ways. They want high risk, and they also want high assurance of God’s success. They cannot have it both ways. Clearly, what wins in the open view is risk; what loses is assurance of God’s success.”

“Four areas central to the certainty and reality of the gospel are deeply compromised by the open view. The surety and specificity of God’s plan, in eternity past, to save sinners; the saving acts of justification and sacrificial atonement for sin in the life of Old Testament Israel; the certainty and nature of the very substitutionary death and resurrection of Christ our Saviour; and our confident and expectant hope for life now and for eternity—all require massive reformulation, given open theism’s central commitments. In the end, when seen through the lens of the open view, this reformulated gospel is no longer the same gospel cherished by the church and taught by the Scriptures. As such, it ought not be commended by Christians or accepted as a viable evangelical understanding. When a theological proposal has compromised the very gospel itself, it has moved beyond the bounds.”

Part Five

“...as a pastor who longs to be biblical and God-centered and Christ-exalting and eternally helpful to my people, I see open theism as theologically ruinous, dishonoring to God, belittling to Christ, and pastorally hurtful. My prayer is that Christian leaders will come to see it this way, and thus love the church by counting open theism beyond the bounds of orthodox Christian teaching.”

Also, as you read through this, consider the contrast between the Adventist “Great Controversy theme"–where God is engaged in a cosmic battle with Satan and must prove Himself–and the doctrines of the Reformed faith that affirm God’s total control over His creation.

Greg

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The purpose of this article is to set forth, in plain language and in terms easily understood, the basic differences between the Calvinistic and the Arminian system to theology, and to show what the Bible teaches concerning these subjects. The harmony that exists between the various doctrines of the Christian faith is such that error in regard to any one of them produces more or less distortion in all of the others.

There are in reality only two types of religious thought. There is the religion of faith, and there is the religion of works. We believe that what has been known in Church History as Calvinism is the purest and most consistent embodiment of the religion of faith, while that which has been known as Arminianism has been diluted to a dangerous degree by the religion of works and that it is therefore an inconsistent and unstable form of Christianity. In other words, we believe that Christianity comes to its fullest and purest expression in Reformed Faith.

In the early part of the fifth century these two types of religious thought came into direct conflict in a remarkably clear contrast as embodied in two fifth-century theologians, Augustine and Pelagius. Augustine pointed men to God as the source of all true spiritual wisdom and strength, while Pelagius threw men back on themselves and said that they were able in their own strength to do all that God commanded, otherwise God would not command it. We believe that Arminianism represents a compromise between these two systems, but that while in its more evangelical form, as in early Wesleyanism, it approaches the religion of faith, it nevertheless does contain serious elements of error.

We are living in a day in which practically all of the historic churches are being attacked from within by unbelief. Many of them have already succumbed. And almost invariably the line of descent has been from Calvinism to Arminianism, from Arminianism to Liberalism, and then to Unitarianism. And the history of Liberalism and Unitarianism shows that they deteriorate into a social gospel that is too weak to sustain itself. We are convinced that the future of Christianity is bound up with that system of theology historically called “Calvinism.” Where the God centered principles of Calvinism have been abandoned, there has been a strong tendency downward into the depths of man centered naturalism or secularism. Some have declared - rightly, we believe - that there is no consistent stopping place between Calvinism and atheism.

The basic principle of Calvinism is the sovereignty of God. This represents the purpose of the Triune God as absolute and unconditional, independent of the whole finite creation, and originating solely in the eternal counsel of His will. He appoints the course of nature and directs the course of history down to the minutest details. His decrees therefore are eternal, unchangeable, holy, wise and sovereign. They are represented in the Bible as being the basis of the divine foreknowledge of all future events, and not conditioned by that foreknowledge or by anything originating in the events themselves.

Every thinking person readily sees that some sovereignty rules his life. He was not asked whether or not he would have existence, when or what or where he would be born, whether in the twentieth century or before the Flood, whether male or female, whether white or black, whether in the United States, or China, or Africa. All of those things were sovereignly decided for him before he had any existence. It has been recognized by Christians in all ages that God is the Creator and Ruler of the world, and that as such He is the ultimate source of all power that is found in the world. Hence nothing can come to pass apart from His sovereign will. Otherwise He would not be truly GOD. And when we dwell on this truth we find that it involves considerations which establish the Calvinistic and disprove the Arminian position.

By virtue of the fact that God has created everything that exists, He is the absolute Owner and final Disposer of all that He has made. He exerts not merely a general influence, but actually rules in the affairs of men (Acts 4:24-28). Even the nations are as the small dust of the balance when compared with His greatness (Is. 40:12-17). Amid all the apparent defeats and inconsistencies of our human lives, God is actually controlling all things in undisturbed majesty. Even the sinful actions of men can occur only by His permission and with the strength that he gives the creature. And since He permits not unwillingly but willingly, then all that comes to pass - including even the sinful actions and ultimate destiny of men - must be, in some sense, in accordance with what He has eternally purposed and decreed. Just in proportion as this is denied, God is excluded from the government of the world, and we have only a finite God. Naturally, some problems arise which in our present state of knowledge we are not able fully to explain. But that is not a sufficient reason for rejecting what the Scriptures and the plain dictates of reason affirm to be true.

And shall we not believe that God can convert a sinner when He pleases? Cannot the Almighty, the omnipotent Ruler of heaven and earth, change the character of the creatures He has made? He changed the water into wine at Cana and converted Saul on the road to Damascus. The leper said, “Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean” (Matt. 8:2). And at a word his leprosy was cleansed. Let us not believe, as do the Arminians, that God cannot control the human will, or that He cannot regenerate a soul when He pleases. He is as able to cleanse the soul as the body. If He chose He could raise up such a flood of Christian ministers, missionaries and workers of various kinds, and could so work through His Holy Spirit, that the entire world would be converted in a very short time. If He had purposed to save all men He could have sent hosts of angels to instruct them and to do supernatural works on the earth. He could have worked marvelously in the heart of every person so that no one would have been lost.

Since evil exists only by His permission, He could, if He chose, blot it out of existence. His power in this respect was shown, for instance, in the work of the destroying angel who in one night slew all of the first-born of the Egyptians (Ex. 12:29), and in another night slew 185,000 of the Assyrian army (II Kings 19:35). It was shown when the earth opened and swallowed Korah and his rebellious allies (Nu. 16.31-35). King Herod was smitten and died a horrible death (Acts 12:23). In Daniel 4:34-35 we read that the Most High God’s “dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom from generation to generation; and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; and he doeth according to his will in the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and no one can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?”

All of this brings out the basic principle of the Reformed Faith - the sovereignty of God. God created this world in which we find ourselves, He owns it, and He is running it according to His own sovereign good pleasure. God has lost none of His power, and it is highly dishonoring to Him to suppose that He is struggling along with the human race, doing the best He can to persuade men to do right, but unable to accomplish His eternal, unchangeable, holy, wise, and sovereign purpose.

Any system which teaches that the serious intentions of God can in some cases be defeated, and that man, who is not only a creature but a sinful creature, can exercise veto power over the plans of Almighty God, is in striking contrast to the biblical idea of his immeasurable exaltation by which He is removed from all weaknesses of humanity. That the plans of men are not always executed is due to a lack of power, or a lack of wisdom, or both. But since God is unlimited in these and in all other resources, no unforeseen emergencies can arise. To Him the causes for change have no existence. To assume that His plan fails and that he strives to no effect is to reduce Him to the level of His creatures and make Him no God at all.

Source: The Reformed Faith, pp. 1-4