I have been working on my Master's Thesis lately and I am quite motivated and excited about my topic. My degree is in contemporary theology and philosophy and I am writing about open theism and its relationship to the Stone-Campbell movement (Church of Christ Churches and Christian Churches). Open theism could be summarized in several statements.
1. God loves the world and desires real reciprocal relationships between himself and his creatures.
2. God sovereignly chose to create a world in which humans experience significant freedom. Since God's goal is real reciprocal relationships with mankind, he grants humans with signficant freedom, and that freedom is a means to an end, namely reciprocal relationships.
3. Exhaustive, divine foreknowledge of the future is inconsistent with significant creaturely freedom. (How can God know what you or I will do tomorrow if we are significantly free?).
4. God faces a future that is partly open (because he cannot know the future free acts of humans) and partly closed (because God knows what he wants to accomplish and can bring it about according to his wisdom and almightyness).
5. God does not tightly control or micro-manage the world but exercises a general sovereignty of the world.
6. Mankind is a significant partner in the realization of God's purpose and dream for the world.
If you ask Xander what Daddy's thesis is about, he will tell you it is about Ojowee which is of course toddler speak for theology.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
He who endeavors to reflect on the totality of the world and existence, that is, to philosophize, sets foot on a path that in this life will never come to an end. Josef Pieper
8 comments:
I'm glad you are getting it done and you are excited about it. I'm interested in your topic and I also think it makes people uneasy...they like to imagine God as a being who has absolutely everything under control and everything falls under his will. These people often also have strange obsessions with Tulips. lol. jk.
Honestly this has always been my uneducated thought about a God who knows the future. People talk about the future in the same way that they talk about the past. The past is easy, it's happened already. It's remembered, recorded, reflected on. The past is actual events that actually happened in space and time. The future is not. The future has not happened yet. It doesn't exist and it cannot be studied or recorded as if it were actual events in space and time. However, people view the future as real events in space and time that have already happened and the present (or God) is just waiting for us to catch up to it. It seems like a logical fallacy that God could know very much about something that has no existance. Ultimate knowledge and understanding of nothing is nothing.
However, that doesn't mean there is no plan for the future. In a simple example, when I wake up in the morning, I have a simple plan of how my day will go even though I have little idea about what COULD happen. Most often, I do what I plan to do without too much delay or interruption. I figure God is much better at making and executing plans than I am.
sorry for the long comment...it's just my lowly opinion.
Tulips, haha. Actually your comments about the nature of the future are not too far different than what many open theists express. They would argue that the future does not have any ontological status, meaning it is not "there" for anyone to know, including an omniscient (all-knowing) being.
You are right in saying that the subject makes people uneasy, even myself, but in the end I hope that when we reflect on the nature of God and his relationship with the world we will all come away with a sense of awe and be brought to our knees in worship.
o jon, how do we love thee... let me count the ways...
bears posts... check
theowojee... check
monsters... check
cute pics of kids... check
blogging again... check
adam listed as my only friend that you purchased yesterday for 20 bucks...che... o wait... no... guess it'll be just like my house on saturday night
love ya
adam
Adam--haha. Your house on Saturday night...I laughed hard at that one.
I much prefer Ojowee to Theology
picture ------->
At the risk of seeming simple-minded because I have not had vast amounts of study in Ojowee, something about this whole argument seems a bit off to me. It seems to me that in the interest of freedom of man we have to pay a very high price in our understanding about God. In my eyes this makes God less God and more a reactor to what man does.
Also, the Bible mentions some things that God cannot do. He cannot lie, sin, be tempted, or tempt anyone etc. I just don't recall the verse that says God cannot know the future or what a man will do in it.
Interesting topic for sure. So glad you are pursuing the degree to the end.
MKH,
First of all, it is good that you have some reservation about this model of God; it is a significant reformulation in our thinking on God.
But at the same time, many of the points raised by openness theologians deserve the real attention of many thinking Christians. That is really going to be the point of my thesis.
Secondly, you made a very curious statement that, "this makes God less God" because he becomes more reactive. I'm not sure what you mean by that. Would you hold that God does respond to us in some way or that he doesn't at all?
If a more responsive God seems unattractive to you, would you say your view of God is more in line with some Calvinists? For them, God's will is never thwarted and he doesn't respond or react to human creation because he has decreed everything that will happen. So for them God is not "conditioned."
Third, I would reemphasize that we are not "giving up a lot" for freedom. Freedom is not the end, it is only a means to an end. Without freedom how can God hold us accountable for our moral decisions? Without freedom, can we talk meaningfully about a relationship with God?
Lastly, no open theist would claim that the Bible explicity states that God can't know the future, but would rather point to the myriad of passages that describe God as changing his mind, or speaking of the future as if its not quite settled.
Just a few things to think about. BTW, I'm working on those pictures of the kids; i'll send em as soon as I can.
Post a Comment