The Incarnational Cosmic Christ, Part 1

The Incarnational Cosmic Christ

PART 1

by R.E. Slater and ChatGPT

March 31, 2025

Introduction

I am going to begin a concentrated discourse on process philosophy which must necessarily take us into a great many fields of study. I have spent these past fifteen years forging a new path for Christianity which eventuated in discovering "process theology".... Though I had graduate training in theology I had never heard of Whitehead or process except on my own effort very late in life. It was yet another instance of the Spirit of the Lord guiding my searches as I prayed for help. God answered marking the occasion as one those serendipitous, or fortuitous, discoveries in life.

Over the breadth of this website I have consistently challenged faithful Christians to judge whether our traditional faith required "reforming once again" because of it's present glaring failures in thought, behavior, dogma, and outcome (this I epitomized in The Calf Path of an Open, Discerning Faith which I wrote as my signature departure from conservative evangelicalism in November of 2012).

I now believe it's time in my journey to give even greater root to process theology because it must be done if it is to live in all the spaces I have come to envision it living in. Moreover, the kinds of questions the world is asking of people of faith cannot be answered by popular theological thought.

Why the Change?

Traditional Christianity must necessarily be connected to process philosophical thought as its foundation so that a process structure of theology can be built. It can no longer rest on a hodgepodge olio of older, eclectic philosophies which the church as gathered into itself over the millennia; Olios such as NeoPlatonism, Aristotelian thought, Aquinas' Scholasticism, Scientific Enlightenment, or even the many versions of Modernism. Process inquiry into God, the universe, society, and man intends to removes these influences by requiring a theology built upon process philosophy alone.

In my own past I was largely trained in the Greek traditions as a (Regular) Baptist denominationalist using Covenant Reformed theology as its backbone. And as a modernistic churchman by bible, book, history, and practice, the Lord smote my past down to then lift me up to become a more thoroughgoing churched-philosopher. My burden immediately became one of deconstructing my earlier beliefs so that I could reconstruct a better "calf path" to follow. Thus this website here to guide others on similar calf paths.

And like the Apostle Paul my credentials are Spirit ordained as we each have required a deeply radical theological reorientation. Paul's in the Gentile direction in preaching Jesus for the nations; and mine own in winnowing out deeply unhelpful church teachings in the face of present challenges.

Influences

For my inspiration I might cite those recent luminaries before me who developed 19th / 20th Century neo-orthodox theology - Moltmann, Bonhoeffer, and Barth to mention a few as they had acquainted themselves necessarily with arising Continental Philosophies in juxtaposition to their own churched faiths. Similarly began my own journey from Westernized analytical thinking into Continental thinking before stumbling into Whiteheadian Process thought which knew nothing about. Accordingly, I will here be using the process tradition begun by Whitehead, Hartshorne, Griffin, Cobb, Suchocki, etc, who have all gone through the same dialectics as myself in order to extend and expand process theology.

Thus and thus, as the neo-Orthodox faith challenged yesteryear's late-19th and 20th Century Protestant thought - so Process thought must challenge all religious faiths of the 21st Century including that of the Christian faith in particular.

Lastly, I should note that:

1. Process Philosophy will encompass all Western and Continental philosophical expressions and endeavors in their processual structures such as Jungian Archetypes.
2. That it is a holistic philosophical structure which ably replaces all previous structures practiced in societal thought and cultural living such as Platonism and Scholasticism.
3. Process thought is very ancient though of recent expression via Hegel and Whitehead.... that is, parts of ancient cultures can be understood as thinking and living processually.
4. Ancient processual forms can be found in early religious beliefs, histories and narrations or in reading ancient literature including the narrations and literatures of the bible. Zoroastrianism and Buddhism are incipient forms of processual thought along with cultural expressions of early Semitic culture and its derivations.

Introduction to the Incarnational Cosmic Christ, Part 1

John 1.1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

15 (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) 16 Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

- NASB'95

Incarnational

I titled today's post "The Incarnational Christ" which means to me that the God who became man and lived as a man whom we know as Jesus, lived so within the world of His own - or God's own - creation. That God in God's Self was fundamentally transformed by the process of incarnating into creation from a cosmic "what-ness" to cosmic "being-ness" when become as a worldly creature as man.

Now perhaps my overly simplistic ontology can be made a bit fuller in theologic re-statement when observing that God has always been a Cosmic Being in some sense... as evidenced when God acted to "birth" creation. This was no mere act but a transformative act upon God's Self.

For it was in the act of birthing creation that the eternal God was also birthed existentially with creation - thus transforming/baptising God's Self in the actualizing experience of Personal "cosmic incarnation" alongside the universe's creational birth. So that by this incarnating divine act it also placed God into the role of Cosmic Creator, Lover, and Immaculate Presence.

The motif of "Rebirth" can therefore be rethought of as both an evolving incarnating touchstone with reality as well as a deeply experienced incarnating reality for both God and the universe.

But where it concerns humanity, I can easily make the case that God has furthered God's creational Being-ness by God's transformative human incarnation into this world we inhabit - which is summed up nicely then in our title, "The Incarnational Cosmic God who is Christ, the emissary or God or Missional Presence of God or the Becoming God."

Taken together this is what is meant by God's Cosmic Incarnation where God's Being-ness has ever been... and in God's earthly Incarnation is making this fact evident to us human creatures here. Simply said, when God birthed creation God also birthed God's Self in an incarnating role towards-and-with creation as an incarnating (birthing) divine Presence.

I believe this then follows quite readily with the idea of process-based panentheism emphasizing God's with-ness or divine presence with all of creation as opposed to classic Christian theism stating God is immutably unconnected and impassively transcendent above the world; as well different from Asian religious thought of pantheism that God and the world are as One (God = world).

Cosmic

By "Cosmic" I mean to assert that "God as God" and "God as Christ" has always been existent and will always be existent. And as a Trinitarian, God is integrally One whose economic order in the bible is three: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Thus, "Three in One, One in Three." When I say God I refer to God's Tri-unity. Or when I say Son or Spirit I still refer to this same Triune God.

Further, as Creator, Christ must be as cosmic as Christ is Incarnational. Neither diminishes the other but both insertions significantly expand-and-expound on the other. If Christ is not Creator-God (as stated in the Gospel of John's opening chapter) than Christ is less a cosmic Being than has been traditionally understood.

Christ

Lastly, by "Christ" I mean "the Son of God" who is at the right hand of the Father and in fellowship with the Father and the Spirit. Though I prefer for simplicity's sake to think of God as One, the bible and tradition seem to imply their is a tri-partness to God's Being... that of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We describe this relationship as a Trinity or a Tri-Unity. In essence, the Trinity speaks to me of process philosophy's emphasis on relationship, experience, and presence. That is, all the cosmos is panrelational, panexperiential, and panpsychic (presence).

Process

Not inconsequentially then does process philosophy and theology insist on the same qualities of Trinitarian arrangement when describing creation as bearing three kinds of relationship to itself: that of panrelationalism, panexperientialisim and panpsychism - all bound up in one cosmic ontological presence we know as "creation" or "universe" or "cosmos" overseen by it's Creator-God.

Thus my attraction to process thought as it correlates quite nicely with traditional Christianity - and, I might add, other interrelated religious touchstones re interfaith commonalities which cannot be reached in normal Christian jargon. Hence, process theology is inherently rich in missional outreach to other religious modes of experience as well.

Conclusion

In the coming months I am going to settle in and think through how a post-structural, metamodern, radically processual Christian faith might live and breath underneath Christianity's traditional popular verbiage. When I look at a healthy field of grasses and wildflowers swaying together under a small breeze; seeing, smelling, feeling within it its greenery and colours, I assume there resides a healthy, unseen and complex ecosystem of roots. But should I dig those roots up or study it's interconnectedness, I could further explore what makes the field of grasses and wildflowers so beautiful in its expanse and vibrancy.

Here, I intend to look at my process faith root-and-all, small-and-large, heartbeat-and-body, soul-and-spirit, as an expression of the God I love in correlation with process philosophy and theology. Now for those readers who want an expositional bible study they will need to go elsewhere... perhaps in my earlier discussions over the years; but here, in the articles ahead, I intend to use philosophical dialogue in conjunction with theological ideas so that our Christian faith will not wilt under the intemperate suns of human ideologies and non-processual sciences conflicting the faith we bear.

Moreover, my traditional theological faith was built on loving ethics and community-building, both of which need a bit more depth as today's maga-tized (neo-Puritan and discriminatory) evangelical dogmas have forsaken love and community for an evil man of Lawlessness and a faith of self-justifying behaviors purporting Christian fidelity but lacking all evidence to the same. As Jesus preached against the Jewish heresies of His day so we will today.

And lastly, I personally need to test process theology by extending and expanding it's borderlands into pragmatic societal thinking and behaviour. This newest project will therefore be my missional project to the world of inter-religious and Christian faith. My request is to pray for the Spirit's continued enlightenment to dissect, discern, direct, discover, and determine a healthier expression of God's announcement in Christ:

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life". - John 3.16

Peace,

R.E. Slater

March 28, 2025

edited April 10, 2025

"For God so loved the world...": This phrase highlights the profound and extensive love God has for humanity.

"...that he gave his only Son...": This emphasizes God's ultimate sacrifice, offering his Son, Jesus, as a means of salvation. 

"...that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life": This outlines the consequence of faith in Jesus: eternal life, not death.

Continue to The Incarnational Cosmic Christ, Part 2

Timelines of Western Philosophy

School of Athens

Wikipedia article link

First Observation

The most famous philosophers of ancient times move within an imposing Renaissance architecture which is inspired by Bramante's project for the renewal of the early Christian basilica of St Peter. Some of these are easily recognizable. In the centre Plato points upwards with a finger and holds his book Timeus in his hand, flanked by Aristotle with Ethics; Pythagoras is shown in the foreground intent on explaining the diatesseron. Diogenes is lying on the stairs with a dish, while the pessimist philosopher, Heracleitus, a portrait of Michelangelo, is leaning against a block of marble, writing on a sheet of paper. Michelangelo was in those years executing the paintings in the nearby Sistine Chapel. On the right we see Euclid, who is teaching geometry to his pupils, Zoroaster holding the heavenly sphere and Ptolemy holding the earthly sphere. The personage on the extreme right with the black beret is a self-portrait of Raphael.

Second Observation

The work above depicts a scene of ancient Greek philosophy. Aristotle walks with his teacher and mentor Plato (whose appearance is modeled on Raphael’s close friend, fellow Renaissance thinker and painter Leonardo da Vinci.) The figure of Plato (center left, in orange and purple) is pointing upwards, symbolizing the Platonic ideology of philosophical idealism. The more youthful Aristotle (center right, in blue and brown) has his hand outstretched in front of him, encapsulating Aristotle’s pragmatic empirical mode of thought. Aristotle examined affairs practically as they are; Plato examined affairs idealistically as he thought they ought to be.

Socratic philosophy is a method of questioning and dialogue that encourages critical thinking and self-examination. It was developed by the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates of Athens (c. 470–399 BC).

Socratic method

• Involves a teacher asking thought-provoking questions to students
• Focuses on understanding the underlying beliefs of participants
• Encourages students to ask questions and think critically
• Creates a classroom environment that's productive and not intimidating

Socratic ideas

• Philosophy should have practical results that improve society
• Knowledge of virtue is necessary to become virtuous
• All evil acts are committed out of ignorance
• Committing an injustice is worse than suffering an injustice
• The only thing one can be certain of is one's ignorance
• The unexamined life is not worth living

Socrates' influence

• Socrates' ideas influenced Western philosophy and Classical antiquity
• He's considered the father of modern education
• His ideas are reflected in the works of Plato, Xenophon, Søren Kierkegaard, and Friedrich Nietzsche
• His ideas are also reflected in modern educational frameworks

Platonic philosophy is a system of thought that originated with the ancient Greek philosopher Plato (c.427-347 BC). It's based on the idea that the physical world is a reflection of unchanging Forms, or Ideas, which are the true reality.

Key concepts

• Forms: Abstract objects that are non-physical, timeless, and unchangeable
• Theory of Forms: The idea that the physical world is not as real as Forms
• Platonic idealism: Another name for the Theory of Forms
• Platonic realism: Another name for the Theory of Forms
• Platonism's influence
• Platonism has had a profound impact on Western thought.

Examples of Forms

• Some examples of Forms include goodness, beauty, equality, bigness, likeness, unity, being, sameness, difference, change, and changelessness.

Platonic love

• The term "platonic love" refers to a relationship between two people based on close intimacy and attraction, but without sexual intimacy.

Platonic society

• Plato believed that a good society is based on virtue, including friendship, freedom, justice, wisdom, courage, and moderation.

Aristotelian philosophy, a tradition rooted in the work of Aristotle (c.384-322 BC), a polymath, whose works ranged across all philosophical fields emphasizing deductive logic, inductive methods, and the study of natural philosophy and metaphysics, including ethics and political theory, with a focus on virtue and the pursuit of human flourishing.

Here's a more detailed breakdown of key aspects of Aristotelian philosophy:

Core Concepts

• Deductive and Inductive Logic:
• Aristotle is credited with the development of formal logic, using deductive reasoning (syllogisms) and inductive methods to analyze and understand the world.

• Metaphysics:
• Aristotle explored the nature of reality, including the concepts of substance, form, matter, potentiality, and actuality, seeking to understand the fundamental principles of existence.

• Ethics:
• Aristotle's ethics, outlined in his Nicomachean Ethics, emphasizes the importance of developing virtuous character through habit and practice, leading to eudaimonia (flourishing or happiness).

• Politics:
• Aristotle's political philosophy, as explored in Politics, examines different forms of government and the ideal state, focusing on the common good and the importance of citizens' participation in public life.

• Natural Philosophy:
• Aristotle's natural philosophy, encompassing physics, biology, and other natural sciences, sought to understand the natural world through observation and reason, focusing on the causes and purposes of natural phenomena.

• Four Causes:
• Aristotle's theory of causation involves four types of causes: material, formal, efficient, and final, which help explain the nature and development of things.

• Teleology:
• Aristotle believed that everything has a purpose or telos, and that understanding the purpose of something is crucial to understanding its nature.

Key Areas of Influence

• Western Scholasticism:
• Aristotelian philosophy became the intellectual framework of Western Scholasticism during the Middle Ages, influencing theology and philosophy.

• Virtue Ethics:
• Aristotle's ethics has inspired the field of virtue ethics, which emphasizes character development and the pursuit of excellence.

• Contemporary Philosophy:
• Aristotle's ideas continue to influence contemporary philosophy, particularly in areas like metaphysics, political philosophy, and the philosophy of science.

• Renaissance:
• Aristotelian works were the subject of renewed interest in the Renaissance, with many commentaries on Aristotle's works being composed during this period.

• Thomas Aquinas:
• St. Thomas Aquinas, in the 13th century, attempted to reconcile Aristotelian philosophy and science with Christian dogma, influencing the theology and worldview of the Roman Catholic Church.
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Timeline of Western Philosophies

I Ancient Philosophy (Pre-Socratic to Hellenistic)

• Pre-Socratics (6th-5th centuries BCE):
• Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, Zeno of Elea, Anaxagoras, Democritus.

• Classical Greek Philosophy (5th-4th centuries BCE):
• Socrates, Plato, Aristotle.

• Hellenistic Philosophy (3rd century BCE - 1st century CE):
• Epicurus, Zeno of Citium (founder of Stoicism), Pyrrhon of Elis.

• Roman Philosophy (1st century BCE - 5th century CE):
• Cicero, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Plotinus.

II Medieval Philosophy (5th-15th centuries CE)

• Early Medieval (5th-10th centuries):
• Augustine of Hippo.

• High and Late Medieval (11th-15th centuries):
• Boethius, Thomas Aquinas, William of Ockham.

• Islamic Philosophy:
• Al-Kindi, Avicenna, Averroes, Al-Ghazali.

• Jewish Philosophy:
• Maimonides.

III Renaissance and Early Modern Philosophy (15th-18th centuries)

• Renaissance:
• Machiavelli, Pico della Mirandola.

• Early Modern (16th-18th centuries):
• Francis Bacon, René Descartes, John Locke, Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Isaac Newton.

• Enlightenment:
• John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, Voltaire, Montesquieu.

IV Modern and Contemporary Philosophy (19th-21st centuries)

• 19th Century:
• Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Søren Kierkegaard, John Stuart Mill.

• 20th Century:
• Bertrand Russell, G.E. Moore (Analytic Philosophy), Friedrich Waismann, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Martin Heidegger (Continental Philosophy), Hannah Arendt.

• 21st Century:
• Contemporary analytic and continental philosophy, feminist philosophy, postcolonial philosophy, philosophy of science, ethics, and political philosophy.

click to enlarge

A Timeline of Western Philosophers

600 B.C.E. Thales Anaximander Anaximenes Pythagoras Xenophanes 500 B.C.E. Heraclitus Parmenides Protagoras Zeno of Elea Hippias Empedocles Leucippus Anaxagoras Democritus Socrates 400 B.C.E. Aristippus Antisthenes Xenophon Plato Diogenes Euclid Aristotle Xenocrates Pyrrho 300 B.C.E. Epicurus Zeno of Citium Timon Archimedes Chrysippus Eratosthenes 200 B.C.E. Carneades 100 B.C.E. Lucretius Cicero C.E. Philo Seneca 100 Epictetus Marcus Aurelius 200 Sextus Empiricus Plotinus Porphyry 300 400 Hypatia Augustine 500 Boethius 600 700 800 al-Kindi Erigena 900 al-Faràbi Saadiah 1000 Ibn Sina Ibn Gabirol Anselm al-Ghazàlì 1100 Abelard Ibn Daud Peter Lombard Ibn Rushd Maimonides 1200 Fibonacci Grosseteste Albert the Great Roger Bacon Aquinas Bonaventure Siger Boetius of Dacia 1300 Scotus Eckhart Marsilius of Padua Ockham Gersonides Buridan Crescas 1400 Cusa Valla Pico della Mirandola Ficino 1500 Erasmus Machiavelli Thomas More Paracelsus Copernicus Ramus 1550 Teresa of Avila Montaigne Bruno Suarez 1600 Kepler Charron Mersenne Francis Bacon Grotius Galileo Herbert of Cherbury Gassendi Princess Elizabeth Fermat Queen KristinaDescartes HobbesFilmer 1650 Glanvill Geulincx Pascal Henry More Cordemoy Nicole Cudworth Cavendish Arnauld Cumberland Rohault Foucher Boyle Malebranche Pufendorf Spinoza Newton Conway Régis Locke Masham Toland Bayle Souvré 1700 Clarke Shaftesbury Norris Leibniz Berkeley Cockburn Vico Mandeville Hutcheson Butler Wolff Gay Hume La Mettrie HartleyMontesquieu 1750 Euler Condillac Price d'Alembert Voltaire Diderot Rousseau Bayes d'Holbach Helvétius Smith Jefferson Reid Paine Lessing Burke Kant Wollstonecraft Bentham Mendelssohn Stewart Godwin Schiller Malthus Paley Fichte 1800 Gaussde StaëlSchelling Schleiermacher LaplaceHegel LamarckSaint-Simon FourierSchopenhauer Whately Babbage LobachevskyJohn AustinComte WhewellJames MillProudhon BolzanoEmersonFeuerbach De MorganFullerKierkegaard BooleThoreau 1850 RiemannSojourner TruthMarx DarwinTaylorEngels Hamilton MendelJ. S. MillLotze Spencer VennAnthonyBakunin CantorBrentano 1875 Sidgwick DedekindClifford PeirceCaird MachGreen FregeDiltheyNietzsche CarrollBosanquet PeanoStantonRitchie DurkheimJamesRoyce GilmanBradley ParetoVeblen 1900 PlanckFreudWeberBergson PoincareMeinongDuboisCook Wilson DuhemHusserlAddamsSeth ZermeloMooreCroce EinsteinJungGoldmanVaihinger BohrWatsonLuxemburgOtto HilbertUnamuno AdlerLeninSaussure LukasciewiczDeweyTrotskyBuber RussellWhitehead MeadAlexanderMcTaggart KeynesBroadLukácsSantayana 1925 ReichenbachLovejoyRossBerdyaev HeisenbergSchlickKelsenHeidegger NeurathRamseyHartmannCassirer GödelPerryGramsciCollingwood SchrödingerC. I. LewisIngarden AyerBachelardMao ZedongMaritain WaismannDayOrtega y Gasset TarskiCarnapBlanshard E. NagelPopperGandhi HorneySartre RyleH.H. PriceLangerCamus StevensonHayekJaspers Wittgenstein Adorno TuringPrichardMarcelBeauvoir 1950 von NeumannLorenzWisdomTillich HopperArrowHareMerleau-Ponty PolyaSkinnerBerlinWeil ChurchAnscombeRandHorkheimer FeiglAustinHampshireArendt HempelStrawsonKurt BaierGadamer QuineGriceHartLacan GoodmanSellarsHabermas KuhnSmartMarcuse FeynmanBergmannRicoeur GettierArmstrongKingAlthusser ChomskyChisholmDerrida SearleLakatosRawlsFoucault KripkeE.O. WilsonDeleuze 1975 FeyerabendThomsonSingerEco DummettPutnamDworkinLyotard DavidsonT. NagelMidgleyDaly HofstadterRortyNozickCixous MandelbrotKimReganLe Dœuff HarawayGilliganKristeva MinskyAppiahNoddingsIrigaray Lehrer Annette Baier Held HardingRuddickHoagland KemerlingMacKinnon DennettNussbaumBordo Westhooks 2000

What Is Open Theism

A personal note.

Any recent articles on Relevancy22 between myself and ChatGPT from January to March of 2025 will feel distinctly different from the strictly theological discussion held below. That is because I have applied Whitehead's process philosophy and theology to the conceptual idea of creational freedom and freewill within a panpsychic panentheistic universe. However, there may be some value for readers in the article below which I here cite with my own personal reservations.

R.E. Slater

March 27, 2025

ps... in "The Spectrum Map of Open Theism" illustrated near the end of the article I would have to place Whiteheadian views of freewill to the radical far left as creation cannot be absent freewill. It is what fuels process thought. As example, from God comes agency; without God agency is simply causal affect without purposeful formation (process teleology). In creation the subject of love informs freewill which influences generative behavior or degenerative dissonance and disruption to Divine precedence and persuasion. - re slater

Suggested References:

Index - Process PanPsychic Panentheism  <-- primary source

Index - Process Teleology  <-- another excellent source

Index - Chatbot and I Discuss Everything  <-- a tertiary source

pss... Since beginning Relevancy22, the subject of Open Theism has shifted and morphed from the 1990s. More recently, during the first quarter of 2025, I have written more directionally about this subject from any number of significant perspectives. But to the unobservant, pew-taught Christian, the subject of agency is conflicted with the theology of sin. And yet, in (open and relational) process theology, human failure is not the driver of God's Story. Rather, cosmic/creational/human thriving becomes the centerpoint to all Christological themes bespeaking atoning resurrection. That love is the motif upon which all else flows and not the imbalanced Christianized ideations of sin and evil which sociological themes we see driving the maga-Christian and evangelical churches today. In a word, these modern-day cultic institutions have taken their eyes off Jesus and have placed their own wicked hearts upon the Cross making idols of themselves and their manmade religion focused solely on legalistic living. Consequently, the beauty and love of God is forgotten whenever the snake of man's soul is lifted up into the desert place of our landscapes. And unlike Moses' cruciform image lifted in the Wilderness to allay the toxins of the deadly desert serpent, maga cultists cannot save themselves nor the societies around their ungracious churches by fleshly efforts of self-atonement whether by dogma, apologetic or missional assimilation that all be like their miserable, errant religions. - res

What is Open Theism?

article link

What is Open Theism?

Open Theism has been called many things by many people. A leading critical webpage defines Open Theism as: “the teaching that God has granted to humanity free will and that in order for the free will to be truly free, the future free will choices of individuals cannot be known ahead of time by God.” Although this describes some philosophical conclusions of some Open Theists, it does not serve as a very good defining characteristic.

Another critical website claims Open Theism is: “the belief that God does not exercise meticulous control of the universe but leaves it “open” for humans to make significant choices (free will) that impact their relationships with God and others.” Although this definition is better, it still just breaks the surface of what the Open Theist movement entails.

The same site also lists the definition by a leading Open Theist, Pastor Bob Enyart of Denver Bible Church. Enyart states: “The future is open because God is free and God is creative. The settled view of God denies God’s own freedom and the ability to create, do something new, etc. God was, is and always will be free. God was, is and always will be a creative God.” This is really the heart of the matter. God is free to do as God pleases. God can write new songs, create new relationships, and even change the future. This is the God that the Bible depicts; a God eternally interacting with His creation, reacting and moving, living and creating, planning and accomplishing all His goals.

Open Theism is the Christian doctrine that the future is not closed but open because God is alive, eternally free, and inexhaustibly creative.

Furthermore, the Biblical Open Theism belief is that the Bible depicts God as God truly is. The God of the Bible is truly loving, powerful, righteous, faithful, vengeful, relational, and desperately beautiful. God raises up nations and destroys them (Isaiah 40:23). God is heartbroken by rebellion and exacts retribution (Genesis 6:6-7). God pleads with His people to return to Him and attempts everything He possibly can to make them love Him (Isaiah 5:4). God is nauseated by heinous sin (Jeremiah 19:5). God forgets His people’s sin for God’s own sake (Isaiah 43:25). God feels scorned and rejected when we abandon Him (Hosea 1:2).

But most of all, God is love (1 John 4:8). God so loved mankind that God made us in His image (Genesis 1:26). Imagine the God of the universe making lowly man into God’s own image! The picture is beautifully breathtaking. God created man for a love relationship! All God’s actions point to God’s love, even His vengeance. God desperately wants man to love Him and will go through extreme lengths to make it happen.

God describes Himself as relational and powerful. God can do everything; God can test people and learn that people love Him (Genesis 22:12), God can listen to new songs (songs WE(!) write for Him) (Psalms 33:3), and God can perform new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17). God even explains His relationship to mankind in the most loving way; God states that He will stop judgment against a nation if they repent (a judgment God “thought to bring upon” the nation)( Jeremiah 18:8). Amazing and righteous! God thinks He is going to destroy a nation, but repents based on human repentance. We see this wonderfully illustrated in Jonah, where the most wicked people on Earth repent and then God does not bring upon them “what He said He would bring upon them” (Jonah 3:10).

God so loved sinners that time and time again He laments about our unbelief. In fact God states that He tried so hard to save us that He expected(!) us to turn to God, but we did not (Jeremiah 3:7). In God’s infinite love, God has given us the ability to interact with Him, and the freedom to reject Him despite His best efforts! The God of the Bible responds to His creation.

Because God is righteous, God answers criticism. God answers the pagan king Abimelech when the king questions God (Genesis 20:4). God responds to critics. He does not ignore them as if their reasoning did not matter.

This is the God of the Bible. Open Theism claims that the Bible should not be ignored when it speaks about who God is and what God is like. The God of the Bible is truly loving, powerful, dangerous, faithful, vengeful, relational, and desperately beautiful. God is a complex, free, and wonderful person. God is hopelessly personal. That is the position of Open Theism.

Spectrum of Open Theism

It is important to distinguish between Christian open theists and non-Christian open theists. While open theism can refer to Muslims and other religions, it is primarily associated with Christianity. The most straightforward written method of distinguishing between the two is by capitalizing Open Theism when referring to the Christian subset. I am proposing that this standard is adopted as a norm.

Open Theism, then, would be the subgroup of all open theists that adhere to Christianity. This would not include Jewish, Muslim, Agnostic or even Process open theists.

Open Theism can be rightly understood as a spectrum of beliefs ranging from Philosophical Open Theism (Open Theism as derived from metaphysics) to Biblical Open Theism (Open Theism derived from Biblical descriptions of God’s acts and nature). Between these two poles range a wide variety of belief. To the extent that people use metaphysics (such as Perfect Being or Dignum Deo theology) as their metric to understanding the Bible, they move down the spectrum towards the Philosophical pole. To the extent that people use authorial intent (figuring out the concepts that the author was trying to communicate to his audience) as their metric, they move down the spectrum towards the Biblical pole.

Each pole has characteristic (but not absolute) attributes. Understanding the spectrum of thought will help Open Theists interact and critics to build accurate depictions of Open Theism.

A few items of note: Not all Open Theists embrace Omniscience and Perfect Being theology. Also, not all Open Theists embrace Biblical Inerrancy. Not all traditions of Open Theism flow from the same influences, and some influences for Open Theism are not compatible with certain Open Theists views. When critics cite Whitehead and Hartshorne as influences on Christianity, the entire Biblical side of the chart is more likely to have never heard these names before. It is a mistake to view Open Theism as a monolithic and strictly defined movement. Instead, it is better seen as a loose confederacy of divergent traditions and beliefs. Understanding this will allow Open Theists to better communicate and collaborate at common goals, the primary of which is to accurately describe the nature and character of God.