Open Theism's Historical Precedents and Timeline

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produced by Thomas Lukashow, April 2013
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 - To the list above should be added the name of I.A. Dorner -


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Who has affirmed dynamic omniscience and the open future in history?

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http://www.opentheism.info/index.php/john-sanders/who-has-affirmed-dynamic-omniscience-and-the-open-future-in-history/

John Sanders
Updated April 2013

Briefly, the position is that God has exhaustive knowledge of the past and the present and knows as possibilities and probabilities those events which might happen in the future. God could have created a world in which he knew exactly what we would do in the future if God had decided to create a deterministic world. Consequently, God cannot know as definite what we will do unless he destroys the very freedom he granted us. Vincent Brümmer writes: “God knows everything which it is logically possible to know. But God knows all things as they are, and not as they are not. Thus he knows the future as future (and not as present, which it is not). He knows the possible as possible (and not as actual, which it is not).”1 God does not possess exhaustive definite foreknowledge (EDF) of future contingent events.

Aristotle put forth the problem of the truth value of future contingent propositions (De Interprtatione 9), claiming that they could be neither true nor false. There were questions about how to interpret Aristotle’s remarks which led to lively debate among those who discussed this question. The issues involved in divine foreknowledge were much discussed by philosophers after Aristotle.

The dynamic omniscience view was affirmed by several non-Christian writers such as Cicero (first century B.C.E.) Alexander of Aphrodisias (second century C.E.) and Porphyry (third century).2  Cicero  argued that if God has exhaustive definite foreknowledge (EDF) then humans cannot have libertarian freedom so Cicero denied EDF.3

For the reasons used to support belief in an exhaustively definite future in both secular Greco-Roman thought and in Christianity see “Motivations for Ascribing Foreknowledge to God” by Gregory Boyd on this website.

Commenting on the work of Aristotle, Boethius and several medieval theologians held that statements about the future lack truth value yet they also held that God has exhaustive definite foreknowledge (EDF).4 Also, Boethius (see Consolations, 5.4), Augustine (City of God, 5.9.37-9), Bonaventure and Aquinas are familiar with the dynamic omniscience position of Cicero (see W. Craig, Problem of Divine Forekowledge, 59). Boethius also knows about Alexander of Aphrodisias who produced an argument similar to Cicero’s. Boethius and other Christians were more concerned to deflect the charge that Christianity implied fatalism rather than about Aristotle’s question regarding the truth value of future propositions. It was charged that if the God of the Bible predicts some future events, then the future must be determined.

These authors produce an array of solutions to the problem and those after them critique these answers and either modify them or offer new proposals. Most seem aware of the dynamic omniscience view but think that it either (1) fails to explain biblical predictions or (2) would imply that God has changing knowledge which would undermine their understanding of divine immutability. The great Aquinas (thirteen century) argues that if God is temporal (experiences changes of any kind) then the only options are determinism or dynamic omniscience. He says that a temporal God can only have EDF (exhaustive definite foreknowledge) if all is determined from prior causes. This is why he rejects the simple foreknowledge view because he thinks it removes human freedom. Another factor, for Aquinas, is that “the future does not exist and is therefore not knowable in itself” because it lacks being (Summa Theologica 1.89.7.3). For Aquinas, the simple foreknowledge view of the church fathers (the same view what will become dominant in Arminian and Wesleyan circles) is deterministic. He believes that if God is temporal and humans have freedom then one should affirm the dynamic omniscience view. However, Thomas argues that since God is timelessness God can know an exhaustive definite future without it being determined. The important point here is that Aquinas thought the dynamic omniscience view was a legitimate option and he thought it should be affirmed if God is temporal and humans are free.

After Boethius, the mighty river of EDF followed the channel of divine timelessness though there were a few other channels such as divine determinism. However, in recent Christian philosophy the flow in the channel of timelessness has been seriously reduced in favor of dynamic omniscience and middle knowledge.

The earliest Christian proponent thus far found is Calcidius (late fourth century).5 He wrote several books one of which is against fatalism and determinism (this work did not become well known until the middle ages). In it he says that since God knows reality as it is he knows necessary truths necessarily and future contingent truths contingently.6  Some Medieval Christian writers anticipate and seem to affirm an open future: Peter Auriol (thirteenth century) and Peter de Rivo (fifteenth century).

Some Islamic scholars affirmed dynamic omniscience: some in the Qadarite school (eighth century) and Abd al-Jabbar, an important figure of the Mu’tazilite school (tenth century).7 In Judaism the view has been widely held. God’s statement to Abraham “Now I know that you fear me” (Gen 22:12) was much discussed by Medieval Jewish theologians, a number of whom affirmed dynamic omniscience and the open future including the renowned Ibn Ezra in the twelfth century and Gersonides (Levi ben Gerson) in the fourteenth.8

John Miley claims that some of the Remonstrants (Dutch followers of Arminius) advocated it in the sixteenth century.9 The Anabaptist Fausto Socinus affirmed it though he, unfortunately, also denied many traditional Christian beliefs such as the deity of Christ and the trinity.10  If one tries to discredit open theism because a heretic affirmed the same view of omniscience then should the Reformation be discredited because this same heretic affirmed several of the key tenets of Calvin?

In the early eighteenth century, Samuel Fancourt published several works defending the dynamic omniscience view including Liberty, Grace and Prescience and latter, in 1730, What Will Be Must Be. He argues that the issue is not about the scope of God’s knowledge but about the nature of reality: are contingencies real or not? Andrew Ramsay (1748) put forth a variant of this position, claiming that though the future is knowable and so God could know it, God has chosen not to exercise this ability in order to preserve human freedom. John Wesley (1785) reprinted Ramsay’s material on this in Wesley’s Arminian Magazine.11

The position became much discussed in Methodism from the latter eighteenth into the twentieth century.12 In the early nineteenth century the well known Methodist biblical commentator, Adam Clarke (1831), defended it as did the well-known circuit preacher Billy Hibbard (1843).13

Hibbard says that he learned of the view from an article in a Methodist magazine but he develops the position much more than the Methodists before him. In the latter nineteenth century Lorenzo D. McCabe, a Methodist theologian, wrote two large, detailed works covering every biblical text relevant to foreknowledge (for example, Peter’s denial) as well as numerous theological arguments.14 According to McCabe, dynamic omniscience was widely affirmed by British and German theologians of his day and he cites other Methodists who held the view. In America, McCabe’s publications sparked a significant discussion in Methodist circles that lasted several decades.15 John Miley, an influential Methodist and contemporary of McCabe, speaks highly of McCabe’s work in his Systematic Theology (which was widely used well past the middle of the twentieth century). Though Miley affirmed prescience (foreknowledge) he recognizes a key problem that he does not know how to answer: How can God interact with us in reciprocal relationships if God has prescience? He says that if belief in an interactive God is contradictory to prescience then he will give up prescience. He goes on to say that belief in dynamic omniscience would not undermine any vital Methodist doctrines and would, in fact, free Methodism from the perplexity of divine foreknowledge and human freedom.16

Quite a number of articles and books affirming open theism from people in various denominations appeared in the nineteenth century (see the “Open Theism Timeline” chart). These folks affirmed traditional Christian orthodoxy and were generally evangelical in orientation. Edward Pearson (1811). Verax (1818), James Bromley (1820), John Briggs (1825), James Jones (two books 1828, 1829), Onesimus (1828), John Bonsall (1830), Richard Dillon (1834), Robert Bartley (1839), Joseph Barken (1846), William Robinson (1866), James Morison (1867), William Taylor (1868), Hans Martinsen (1874), J. P. LaCroix (1876), J. J. Smith (1885), Thomas Crompton (1879), Isaiah Kephart (1883), B. F. White (1884), J. J. Miles (1885), Joseph Lee (1889), J. S. Brecinridge (1890), W. G. Williams (1891), H. C. Burr (1893), William Major (1894), S. Hubbard (1894), J. Wallace Webb (1896), D. W. Simon (1898), and H. J. Zelley (1900).

In the mid nineteenth century, the great German theologian, Isaak Dorner, argued that “the classical doctrine of immutability” is inconsistent with Scripture, sound reason, and spiritual living because it rules out reciprocal relations between God and creatures. He argues for dynamic omniscience saying that a consistent view of God working with us in history requires that God knows future free acts of creatures as possibilities, not actualities.17

In 1890 Joel S. Hayes published The Foreknowledge of God, a lengthy volume examining the scriptural evidence and theological arguments for foreknowledge and concluded that dynamic omniscience was a superior explanation.18  In the opening chapter, he writes “The design of this treatise is to deny and disprove the commonly received doctrine that God, from all eternity, foreknew whatsoever has come to pass. This doctrine, it seems to me, is contrary to reason and Scripture, and is in the highest degree dishonoring to the high and holy One that inhabiteth eternity.” T. W. Brents of the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement dedicated a chapter of his “biblical” theology to the defense of dynamic omniscience. His book was influential in the Churches of Christ for many decades.19

In the latter nineteenth century many people defended the view including Rowland G. Hazard and the Catholic writer Jules Lequyer.20 Proponents also include less orthodox thinkers such as Gustave. T. Fechner, Otto Pfleiderer, William James, and Edgar S. Brightman.21

Theologians include Jürgen Moltmann, Paul Fides, and Michael Welker.22 Contemporary Dutch Reformed theologians such as Vincent Brümmer, Hendrikus Berkhof and Adrio König affirm it as do the American Reformed thinkers Nicholas Wolterstorff and Harry Boer.23 Other theologians include Thomas Finger (Mennonite), W. Norris Clarke (Roman Catholic), Brian Hebblethwaite, Robert Ellis, Kenneth Archer (Pentecostal) Barry Callen (Church of God), German theologian Heinzpeter Hempelmann and perhaps Albert Truesdale (Nazarene).24 Major Jones claims that the position is well known in the African-American tradition.25

The dynamic omniscience view is exceedingly popular among analytic philosophers who affirm orthodox Christianity. Quite a number of the luminaries among Christian philosophers assert it: Richard Swinburne (Oxford), William Hasker, David Basinger, Peter Van Inwagen (Notre Dame), J. R. Lucas, Peter Geach, Richard Purtill, A. N. Prior, and Keith Ward.26  It is also affirmed by Nicholas Wolterstorff (formerly of Calvin and Yale) and Vincent Brümmer (Dutch Reformed).27 Several philosophers contributed to a book on open theism and science: Dean Zimmerman, Robin Collins, Alan Rhoda, David Woodruff, and Jeffrey Koperski.28  Timothy O’Connor (Indiana University) also affirms the openness model.29 Though there remain defenders of both theological determinism and simple foreknowledge, it seems that the majority of Christian philosophers who publish on the subject today believe that the main options are middle knowledge and dynamic omniscience.

Acclaimed physicist and theologian, John Polkinghorne, holds it as does mathematician D. J. Barholomew and physicist Arthur Peacocke.30

For those interested in biblical support for the dynamic omniscience view, the most important work is by Hebrew Bible scholar, Terrence Fretheim, who has over a dozen publications that document in detail the biblical support for this view of omniscience.31

John Goldingay, professor of Old Testament at Fuller Seminary, has defended it in his Old Testament Theology.32 The work of Boyd and Sanders also contains biblical support.

A number of theologians, philosophers and writers have affirmed the position. Clark Pinnock, Gregory Boyd, Richard Rice, and John Sanders have produced several volumes on the topic.33

Other notable scholars include Dallas Willard, Gabriel Fackre, William Abraham, Paul Borgman, Henry Knight III, Alan Padgett, Tom Oord, and Peter Wagner.34 Researchers and popular writers include Michael Saia, William Pratney, H. Roy Elseth, Gordon C. Olson, Madelline L’Engle, and Brother Andrew.35

The position is affirmed by many YWAM leaders and leaders of the Ichthus church movement in England. Many Pentecostals are supporting it.36 Some leaders in a couple of denominations have spoken in favor of it: the Evangelical Covenant Church and Independent Christian Churches. The organization, Evangelical Educational Ministries, publishes copies of the works of L. D. McCabe and Gordon Olson: http://www.eeminc.org/prodserv.html.

In sum, the dynamic omniscience view was held by a smattering of people until the nineteenth century when serious scholarship begins to be published on it.37

In the latter twentieth century the number of proponents and the amount of quality works setting forth the position has grown exponentially. In part, the view is increasing in popularity in the freewill tradition due to its ability to better explain the biblical texts and give greater intellectual coherence as to how God relates to us.

Some evangelicals do not embrace the open view of omniscience but do arrive at views that have great similarity to it. Gilbert Bilezekian, professor of theology at Wheaton and theological pastor at Willow Creek (he has been Hybels mentor since college) puts forward a view similar to the open view. He claims that God can know what we will do in the future but decides not to know. See his Christianity 101 (Zondervan). Arminian theologian, John Tal Murphy (Taccoa Falls College), interacts with open theism and suggests that though God knows all that will occur in the future God has the ability to “block out of his consciousness” knowledge of what will happen. God can, in effect, “forget” what he knows is going to happen. God does this in order to enter into genuine dialog and interpersonal relations with us. See his, Divine Paradoxes: A Finite View of an Infinite God (Christian Publications, Camp Hill, PA 1998), pp. 49-56. Though I see problems with the views expressed by Bilezekian and Murphy, I am pleased that they understand the problems with simple foreknowledge and, as evangelical Arminians, attempt to find a plausible solution that arrives, for all practical purposes, at a position quite similar to the open view.

In addition, the evangelical Arminian theologian, Jack Cottrell has recently affirmed a temporal version of incremental simple foreknowledge. This view, in my opinion, arrives at precisely the same practical implications for divine providence as the open view. See John Sanders “Is Open Theism a Radical Revision or Miniscule Modification of Arminianism?” Wesleyan Theological Journal 38.2 (Fall 2003): 69-102.

Footnotes:

1. Brümmer, What Are We Doing When We Pray? A Philosophical Inquiry (London: SCP, 1984), p. 44.

2. Cicero, De Divinatione (On Divination), 2.5-8. See my “Historical Considerations,” p. 68. On Alexander see R. T. Wallis “Divine Omniscience in Plotinus, Proclus, and Aquinas” in H. J. Blumenthal and R. A. Markus eds. Neoplatonism and Early Christian Thought (London: Variorum Pub., 1981), pp. 223-5 and J. Den Boeft, Calcidius On Fate: His Doctrines and Sources (Leiden: Brill, 1970), p. 54. On Porphyry see ibid., p. 56.

3. Amonius came close in that he distinguished between definite and indefinite truths about the future. However, he seems to claim that the indefinite truths are only so for humans. Hence, they are indefinite only in an epistemic sense, not ontologically. Greg Boyd has suggested to me that Proclus emphasized the idea that God’s knowledge must be defined by the nature of divinity rather than by the nature of what is known (this allows God to know future contingents as necessities). Those after him, such as Augustine, presume that divinity must have exhaustive definite foreknowledge. Also, they assume that if one denies exhaustive definite foreknowledge then bivalence is denied. But there are ways to affirm bivalence without affirming exhaustive definite foreknowledge (see my The God Who Risks, revised edition, pages 335-6 note 133).

4. Gregory Boyd argues that both non-Christian and Christian thinkers on this issue were shaped by widely held assumptions about the nature of truth and divination. See his “Two Ancient (and Modern) Motivations for Ascribing Exhaustive Definite Foreknowledge to God: A Historic Overview and Critical Assessment.” Religious Studies 45 (2009): 1-19.

5. Erickson, What Does God Know?, pp. 111-2, claims that Celsus, a Greek philosophical critic of Christianity, and the Christian heretic Marcion held to dynamic omniscience. This is not the case, however. Erickson cites Origen’s book, Against Celsus, 2.20, to prove that Celus rejected foreknowledge. In this text Celsus critiques what he considers to be an incoherence in Christian teaching. He argues that Jesus was not able to turn Judas and Peter from their wicked acts by forecasting what they were about to do. Surely, a true God could accomplish that. Elsewhere Celsus asks why God became a human. “Does he want to know what is going on among men? If he does’t know, then he does not know everything. If he does know, why does he not simply correct men by his divine power?” In Celsus on the True Doctrine: A Discourse Against the Christians, R. Joseph Hoffmann trans. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 76. His point is that a true God would both know and be in control. Celsus believes in providence, but not the sort that interacts with creation. Rather, God orders the universe for the good of the whole (Celsus, p. 85). He says (p. 103) that a true God is strongly immutable in all respects (that would include no change in knowledge), impassible (no sorrow or change of mind as the Christians hold), and is anonymous, beyond predication and human knowing. Celsus was a Middle Platonist for whom God was beyond being. For him, the Christian assertions regarding God’s involvement in history are grossly anthropomorphic. He rejects Origen’s notion that God “sees ahead” what we will do and then takes appropriate action not because he rejects foreknowledge, as Erickson claims, but because that way of thinking is beneath the grandeur of God. As for Marcion, Erickson cites Tertullian’s Five Books Against Marcion (2.5). Tertullian says that Marcion raised the traditional problem of evil: Can God be good, omnipotent and omniscient if evil exists? Tertullian then proceeds to argue that God is indeed completely good, prescient, and all powerful even though evil exists due to the freewill of humans. God, prior to creation, saw that humans would sin and so God made preparations in response. In this and the following chapters Tertullian argues against Marcion’s claim that God cannot be involved in the world the way the Old Testament describes. Marcion said that Yahweh (the God of the Jews) was a screwed up deity who was either capricious or lacked foreknowledge (2.23). For Marcion, a true God has prescience but Yahweh lacks it. Tertullian seeks to explain biblical texts where God is said to change his mind in a way that avoids Marcion’s criticism and thus affirm that Yahweh is the true God. Also, note that the Gnostic text, The Testimony of Truth, argues that the God of the Old Testament lacks foreknowledge and so cannot be fully divine. The Nag Hammadi Library, ed. James Robinson (New York: Harper and Row, 1978), p. 412.

6. See Boeft, Calcidius, pp. 52-6. Calcidius’ works did not become well known until the twelfth century.

7. See Michael Lodahl, “The (Brief) Openness Debate in Islamic Theology” in Thomas J. Oord ed., Creation Made Free: Open Theology Engaging Science (Pickwick, 2009), 55, 59.

8. On Ibn Ezra see his Commentary on Genesis 22:1 (I am grateful to Marc Brettler for his translation). On Gersonides see Feldman, Seymour. “The Binding of Isaac: A Test-Case of Divine Foreknowledge.” Ed. Tamar Rudavsky. Divine Omniscience and Omnipotence in Medieval Philosophy: Islamic, Jewish, and Christian Perspectives (Boston: D. Reidel, 1985), p. 114. See also, Richard Purtill, “Foreknowledge and Fatalism” Religious Studies 10 (1974): 319.

9. Miley, Systematic Theology (New York: Eaton & Mains, 1892), vol. 1 p. 181.

10. On Socinus see Charles Hartshorne and William Reese, eds. Philosophers Speak of God (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), 225-227; and Joshua Toulmin, Memoirs of the Life, Character, Sentiments and Writings of Faustus Socinus (London: J. Brown, 1777), pp. 230-1. Some evangelical critics of open theism attempt to smear us by calling our view “Socinianism.” There is no historical linkage between open theists and Socinus. A more likely historical link is with McCabe.

11. Andrew Ramsay, The Philosophical Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion (Glasgow: Robert Foulis, 1748).

12. See Randy Maddox “Seeking a Response-able God: The Wesleyan Tradition and Process Theology” Bryan Stone and Thomas Oord eds., Thy Nature and Thy Name is Love: Wesleyan and Process Theologians in Dialogue (Nashville: Abingdon, 2001), pp. 111-142.

13. Adam Clarke, The Holy Bible with a Commentary and Critical Notes (London: J & T. Clarke, 1810), his comment on Acts 2:47 is in his Christian Theology, Arranged, with A Life of the Author by Samuel Dunn, (New York: Lane and Scott, 1885), 69-74; and “Some Observations on the Being and Providence of God,” in Discourses on Various Subjects Relative to the Being and Attributes of God, and His Works in Creation, Providence, and Grace, (New York:  B. Waugh and T. Mason, 1832), 298. In his survey, Erickson fails to mention any of these passages from Clarke and so erroneously concludes that Clarke did not affirm dynamic omniscience. See Maddox, “Seeking a Respond-able God,” for a discussion of the controversy surrounding Clarke’s views in Methodism. Billy Hibbard, Memoirs of the Life and Travels of B. Hibbard, second edition (New York: Pierchy & Reed, 1843), pp. 373-5. Erickson chides open theists for mentioning little known figures such as Hibbard. Erickson scoffs that he was unable to locate the book. I had no trouble finding it. The point in listing these people is to show that there has been a minority tradition among even orthodox Christians on this topic.

14. McCabe, Divine Nescience of Future Contingencies a Necessity (New York: Phillips and Hunt, 1882) and The Foreknowledge of God (Cincinnati: Cranston and Stowe, 1887). For reprints of these works see http://www.eeminc.org/prodserv.html).  For a summary of McCabe’s arguments see William McGuire King, “God’s Nescience of Future Contingents: A Nineteenth-Century Theory,” Process Studies9 (Fall, 1979): 105-115 and Tiessen, David Alstad. “The Openness of Model of God: An Evangelical Paradigm in Light of Its Nineteenth-Century Wesleyan Precedent.” Didaskalia (Spring, 2000):77-101. The most thorough study of McCabe and the discussion in latter nineteenth Methodism is the, as of yet, unpublished paper by George Porter, “Things That May Be Only? Lorenzo Dow McCabe and Some Neglected Nineteenth Century Roots of Open Theism in North America” (available online: http://www.opentheism.info/index.php/george-m-porter/things-that-may-be-only/. McCabe says that Isaak Dorner wrote him a letter affirming McCabe’s thesis. Divine Nescience, p. 29.

15. See Maddox, “Seeking a Respond-able God.”

16. See his Systematic Theology, vol. 1 pp. 180-193.

17. Dorner, Divine Immutability: A Critical Reconsideration, Robert Williams and Claude Welch trans. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), pp. 149-153. Dorner also set forth this position in several other publications. Lengthy quotes from several of Dorner’s other publications appear in Lornzo McCabe, Divine Nescience of Future Contingencies a Necessity (New York: Phillips and Hunt, 1882), pp. 27-29, 285-7.

18. Joel S. Hayes, The Foreknowledge of God (Nashville: Publishing House of the M[ethodist] E[piscopal] Church, South, 1890).

19. T. W. Brents, The Gospel Plan of Salvation first edition (Cincinnati: Chase & Hall, 1874), pp. 92-108.

20. Rowland G. Hazard, Freedom of Mind in Willing (New York: Appleton, 1865), chapter 12. On Jules Lequyer (name is sometimes spelled differently) see Donald Wayne Viney, “Jules Lequyer and the Openness of God,” Faith and Philosophy 14, no. 2 (April, 1997): 212-235 and Hartshorne and Reese, Philosophers Speak of God, pp. 227-230.

21. See Hartshorne and Reese, Philosophers Speak of God, for Fechner (243-254), Pfleiderer (269-270), James (335-350), and Brightman (358-362). Brightman, The Problem of God (New York: Abingdon, 1930), pp. 101-3. Brightman belonged to the school of thought known as “Boston personalism,” which tended to affirm dynamic omniscience.

22. On these scholars see their chapters in The Work of Love: Creation as Kenosis, John Polkinghorne ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2001). Though most of the contributors in this volume endorse dynamic omniscience I have not listed those from a process theology persuasion. Fiddes’, The Creative Suffering of God (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988) is a first rate work discussing passibility and conditionality in God.

23. Brümmer, What Are We Doing When We Pray?, pp. 43-5; Berkhof, Christian Faith, trans. Sierd Woudstra (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1979); König, Here Am I (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1982); Wolterstorff, “Unqualified Divine Temporality,” Gregory Ganssle ed. God & Time: Four Views (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press), p. 188; and Boer, An Ember Still Glowing (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1990).

24. Finger, Christian Theology: An Eschatological Approach, 2 vols. (Scottsdale, PA: Herald, 1989), 2.481-508; Hebblethwaite, “Some Reflections on Predestination, Providence and Divine Foreknowledge,” Religious Studies 15.4 (Dec. 1979): 433-448; Clarke, God Knowable and Unknowable, p. 65; Ellis, Answering God: Towards a Theology of Intercession (Waynesboro, Ga.: Paternoster, 2005), pp. 187-9; Archer, “Open Theism View: Prayer Changes Things,” The Pneuma Review 5.2 (Spring 2002): 32-53; Callen, Discerning the Divine :God in Christian Theology, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2004). Though Callen does not fully endorse the view in his book, he has informed in me in a letter that he does affirm it. Heinzpeter Hempelmann, Wir haben den Horizont weggewischt Die Herausforderung: Postmoderner Wahrheitspluralismus und christliches Wahrheitszeugnis (Wuppertal 2008).  Albert Truesdale speaks approvingly of the view though it is not clear if he himself affirms it. See his “The Eternal, Personal, Creative God,” Charles Carter ed., A Contemporary Wesleyan Theology: Biblical, Systematic and Practical (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1983), 1.126.

25. Jones, The Color of God: The Concept of God in Afro‑American Thought, (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1987), p. 95.

26. Swinburne, The Coherence of Theism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977); Hasker has published an enormous amount on the subject, see Providence, Evil and the Openness of God (New York: Routledge, 2004) and God, Time, and Knowledge (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989); Hasker and Basinger have chapters in The Openness of God; Basinger has collected a number of his essays in The Case for Freewill Theism: A Philosophical Assessment (Downers Grove, Ill.: 1996); Van Inwagen, “The Place of Chance in a World Sustained by God.” Ed. Thomas Morris. Divine and Human Action: Essays in the Metaphysics of Theism. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988); A. N. Prior (“The Formalities of Omniscience,” Philosophy 32 (1962), pp. 119-29); J. R. Lucas (The Freedom of the Will, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970, and The Future:  An Essay on God, Temporality, and Truth, London:  Basil Blackwell, 1989); Peter Geach (Providence and Evil, Cam­bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977); Richard Purtill (“Fatalism and the Omnitemporality of Truth,” Faith and Philosophy 5 (1988), pp. 185-192); and Keith Ward Divine Action (San Francisco: Torch, 1991). Frederick Sontag also affirms the view though he is significantly less orthodox than the other philosophers in this list. See his “Does Omnipotence Necessarily Entail Omniscience? Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 34 (1991): 505-8.

27. Wolterstorff, see his essay in God & Time: Four Views, p. 188 and his “God Everlasting.” Brümmer see Speaking of a Personal God  (Cambridge University Press, 1992) and What are We Doing When We Pray? A Philosophical Inquiry (London: SCM, 1984).

28. Each of these persons has an essay in God In an Open Universe: Science, Metaphysics, and Open Theism, eds. William Hasker, Thomas Jay Oord, and Dean Zimmerman (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2011).

29. Timothy O’Connor, Theism and Ultimate Explanation: The Necessary Shape of Contingency (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012).

30. Polkinghorne, Science and the Trinity: The Christian Encounter with Realilty (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), pp. 108-9; Barholomew, God of Chance (London: SCM, 1984), chap. 7.

31. Fretheim, God and World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation. (Abindon, 2005), The Suffering of God: An Old Testament Perspective (Fortress, 1984), The Book of Genesis in The New Interpreter’s Bible (Abingdon, 1994), Exodus (John Knox, 1991), “Divine Foreknowledge, Divine Constancy, and the Rejection of Saul’s Kingship.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly. 47, no. 4 (Oct. 1985): 595-602, “The Repentance of God: A Key to Evaluating Old Testament God-Talk.” Horizons in Biblical Theology 10, no. 1 (June 1988): 47-70, and “The Repentance of God: A Study of Jeremiah 18:7-10. Hebrew Annual Review  11 (1987): 81-92.

32. See vol. 1 pages 136-8, 60-4, 168 and 98.

33. Their key works are: Pinnock, Most Moved Mover: A Theology of God’s Openness (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2001); The Openness of God; Boyd, God of the Possible (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2000) and God at War: The Bible & Spiritual Conflict (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1997), Rice, God’s Foreknowledge and Man’s Freewill (Eugene, Ore.: WipfandStock, 2005), Sanders, The God Who Risks: A Theology of Divine Providence, revised ed. (IVP, 2007).

34. Willard, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering our Hidden Life in God (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998), pp. 244-253. Willard does not elaborate on whether he means (1) that God could have determined all future events (no libertarian freedom) and thus had exhaustive foreknowledge of them (what proponents of dynamic omniscience believe) or (2) that God could know the future actions of creatures with libertarian freedom but somehow chooses not to.  Fackre, The Christian Story, rev. ed. in three volumes (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1984), 1.257-8; Abraham, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1985); Borgman, Genesis the Story We’ve Never Heard (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2001); Knight, A Future for Truth: Evangelical Theology in a Postmodern World (Nashville: Abingdon, 1997), pp. 168-179; Padget, God, Eternity and the Nature of Time, (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), and Tom Oord, The Nature of Love (chalice, 2010) .

35. Saia, Does God Know the Future? A Biblical Investigation of Foreknowledge and Free Will (Fairfax, Virginia: Xulon Press, 2002); Pratney,The Nature and Character of God (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1998); Elseth, Did God Know?: A Study of the Nature of God (St. Paul, Calvary United Church, 1977); Gordon Olson, The Foreknowledge of God and The Omniscience of the Godhead  (Arlington Heights, IL: The Bible Research Corporation); L’Engle, Bright Evening Star: Mystery of the Incarnation (28-30). and Brother Andrew And God Changed His Mind (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Chosen Books, 1999).

36. See the Pentecostal, Kenneth J. Archer, “Open Theism View: ‘Prayer Changes Things’,” The Pneuma Review vol. 5 no. 2 (Spring 2002), 32-53).

37. Millard Erickson (What Does God Know? p. 131) claims that the dynamic omniscience view stems from “the tradition of Celsus, Marcion and Socinus” (a non Christian and two heretics) rather than from the “orthodox” tradition. However, Erickson misreads Celsus and Marcion since they did not affirm dynamic omniscience. Even if they did, however, the position could just as well stem from the tradition of Cicero, Calcidius, and McCabe (a respected non Christian and two orthodox Christians). Several articles have been written giving evidence that McCabe is the main historical source for the contemporary openness movement (see the paper by George Porter on this website’s Information page). The dynamic omniscience view is a minority tradition among orthodox Christians and is widely accepted today. It is disappointing that Erickson fails to mention the contemporary theologians and philosophers cited above and that in his chapters on the biblical material fails to engage the detailed biblical studies of Terence Fretheim. Instead of dealing with the evidence Fretheim amasses Erickson simply casts aspersions on Fretheim’s credibility. He casts proponents of dynamic omniscience alongside “heretics” and “liberals” in order to claim they are outside “the mainstream of orthodox Christian thought” (131). Does he really want to say this about people such as Dallas Willard, Jürgen Moltmann, John Polkinghorne, Peter Van Inwagen and Barry Callen? Why does he not mention these and other proponents of dynamic omniscience? Does he want to make it seem that only a few people, from a suspect heritage, affirm it? Erickson ignores the connections between open theism and the freewill tradition. For him, “the God of traditional theism” is the Calvinist God who exercises meticulous control. Hence, “traditional Christian theism” means the no risk tradition of Augustine and Calvin. That is indeed a tradition in Christian thought but so is the older freewill tradition.

for further info -

Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_theism

The Erasure of Self & De-Privileging of MetaPhysics (or, "Life After the Death of God")

Darth Vader's Erasure of Self to the Dark Side

I began not long ago with the stated interested to explore what Radical Theology might mean to conservative Christianity as a positive, renewing exploration of the life of faith. Wading in I can see that I am about 20 years too late to this discussion - which is a good thing because by now all the warts and wrinkles should have been ironed out. Personally, labels and words like new atheism, the death of god (little g), the death of self, is not upsetting. In fact it makes me want to explore more the reasons, why's, and wherefore's that today's existential philosopher-theologians wish to think in these terms.

In no small part are we responsible for the quenching of the Holy Spirit in this world when we do not obey and submit to all the many ways and avenues of God's love, mercy, forgiveness, and redemption - what it can mean to our communities, our relationships, our caretake of this earth, our passions, etc. So, in a sense, I think I might understand why existentialists (of whatever variety) believe God has died within the realms of mankind, our religions, our churches-and-charters when witnessing our acts and activities.

But on the other hand, even so do we erase ourselves when we erase God's presence in our lives. That is, we erase any possibility of God's Spirit moving in our midsts while contenting ourselves in going to heaven rather than realizing that heaven has come here to earth within our midsts through the presence of Christ by His Spirit. As a consequence, our faithless faith brings to our Christian faith this post-secular sense of new atheism that we dare not admit but practice daily.

And that, in my simplistic mind-and-heart, is what I think Radical Existentialists are trying to say to us as they write in their non-biblical ( a misnomer if ever there was one, maybe non-churchy), academic manner using earth tones and phrases. Hence, my interest in capturing their epistemic ideology and bringing it over into my own more conservative (but progressive) thought-forms of Christianity as it sits now within the pews-and-aisles of Emergent expressions and Postmodern cultural acceptance.

 

For me, I wish to describe this form of Radical Christianity as an existential expression of the apocalyptic elements of our here-and-now faith seeking radical transformation and resurrection in the name of Jesus as held within His upside/down present-day Kingdom. To embrace this Savior of mankind not in terms of an Almighty, Conquering, Transcendent God of the Universe - which is the Aristotelian/Hellenistic side of Christianity's Medieval faith-elements that have carried forward into today's 20th century modernistic creeds and confessions. But in the terms of the divine weakness of a God who was willing to lay aside His Otherness, to suffer and died to our sin by creation's own hands. Even as He bowed to our own sinful wills that we might become identified with His death, and raised by His divine weakness, to mysteriously find faith's paradox of divine strength set amidst the renewal of His all-present, all-pervasive Spirit which works to redeem this world from its roots up.

Thus, I wish to think through the articles of Tony Jones and Barry Taylor who do not decry this faith of Jesus, nor the power of the Spirit, so much as to decry the institutionalization of Christianity... wishing that it might become a religionless Christian faith marked and filled with God's divine weakness, Almighty Presence, and Kingdom resolve of renewal and blessing. See what you think....

R.E. Slater

September 10, 2013

Barry Taylor’s Faith (after the death of God)

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tonyjones/2013/09/07/barry-taylors-faith-after-the-death-of-god/

by Tony Jones

September 7, 2013

Comments

Barry Taylor is someone I respect very much. He’s written a wonderful post about where he thinks the Christian faith is going after the death of God and the death of the self (what I would call the death of metaphysics). Here’s a taste:

It would seem that the consciousness of the world has changed. Mark I. Wallace, in his book, Fragments of the Spirit, names both the ‘de-priviledging of metaphysics’ and the ‘erasure of the self’ as two significant challenges to Christianity in the third millennium. What does this mean? Well to me, it heralds a shift in human self-understanding away from the subjective and static view of the self, bequeathed to us by the Greeks and others that has driven our understanding of the self for centuries. I believe this is being eclipsed by a more mobile and fluid understanding of the self, where inwardness is not of prime focus. Two things going on for me–we can reference ourselves without a working hypothesis of God (Vattimo) and we can now consider ourselves without the anthropocentric impulse of the Enlightenment. 

What are the implications of this? Well, they are immense. It throws into question how we engage with life, ourselves, each other. It challenges assumptions about what is prioritized in religion–’spiritual disciplines’ for instance, in that I believe that most disciplines are rooted in ideas of the self that no longer hold true (at least for me) and therefore must be revisited. I also think we are liberated to pray as Jesus invited us to pray, i.e. communally–’our father’–it is a form of prayer not anchored to a technology of inwardness.

* * * * * * * * *

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Wallace, a professor of religion at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, suggests that a new understanding of the Holy Spirit as a being that dwells within the world to transform the world may be the solution to problems of human violence and ecological catastrophe. In his first section, Wallace examines the characteristics of postmodern culture, including the loss of self and the death of metaphysics, as well as the ways in which traditional Christian readings of the Holy Spirit as a metaphysical, transcendent being fall short in the contemporary world. In his second section, Wallace explores the issues of nature, violence and evil as he builds his own model of the Holy Spirit as the being that restores wholeness to the natural world, heals the brokenness of humanity and fosters unity between humanity and nature. Wallace's provocative ideas are cast in beautiful lyric prose, and his brilliant readings of the Bible in concert with the theologies of Paul Ricoeur, Rene Girard and Sallie McFague render his book utterly convincing.

From Library Journal

In a brilliant tour de force of post-modern theory, traditional Christian theology, and contemporary metaphysics, Wallace (religion, Swarthmore Coll.) ponders the role of the Holy Spirit in a late modern culture characterized by the loss of God and fragmented by violence. Using the philosophies of Kierkegaard, Levinas, and others, Wallace first demonstrates the inadequacies of the conventional models of the Holy Spirit. He then goes on to construct his own model of the Spirit as a life-giving force dwelling within nature, which seeks to mend the brokenness of the human spirit and to foster partnership and healing between humankind and nature. An elegant meditation on ecology and the Spirit, Wallace's book is highly recommended for all libraries.

* * * * * * * * *

Theology After the Death of Self

http://superflat.typepad.com/nevermindthebricolage/2013/09/theology-after-the-death-of-self.html

by Barry Taylor

September 4, 2013

Last night I did a podcast with my friends Bo and Tripp for their Homebrewed Christianity event with Reza Aslan--I was the 'opening act' if you will. We had a pretty wide-ranging discussion about what it means to be human in the 21st century and how that affects the ways in which we think about faith/belief etc. We talked a little about my own theological trajectory in the past few years which I outlined as taking in a couple of different factors. I think about theology chiefly after two significant 'events.' Theology after the 'death of god' and theology after the death of the self.

There is lots of talk about death of god theology these days. There have been a few less than friendly social-media exchanges over certain interpretations of that project, principally around radical theology and various interpretations of what that means. It highlights the problem with labels and naming things--the minute you do, someone usually takes issue with your particular interpretation of the contours, or appeals to some kind of assumed legitimate criteria for speaking about this or that, that one supposedly violates, misses or doesn't understand. I find most of it petty and not worth the effort of addressing, it is the kind of stuff that makes people walk away from institutions and groups of all kinds, but that's another conversation.

So I have been working through ideas around the post-metaphysical world and death of god theology, but I am also interested in the shifting world of the self and what that heralds for faith. I have never been that 'god-fixated' that may sound funny from someone who has spent more than thirty years in public dialogue about faith and religion, but god has always been a difficult issue for me, but it is only in the past few years that I have faced that fully and freed myself of other people's obligations for what constitutes faith (my rather general and dismissive dictum about this is that dogma is the noise of other peoples thinking and sometimes I have to tune it out). Where I have come to with some of this is captured in a perspective drawn from Altizer and others, that I cannot dismiss the present world for a transcendent one and that a continual reflection/obsession/focus on 'god,' particularly the metaphysical view of god, keeps lifting us out of this world, and I am interested in fully living in the present, in the here and now.

I have been living for a while with a few ideas drawn from here and there that I have been returning to over and over in an effort to harness and focus my own thinking on what all this means. Of particular importance has been a section of Bonhoeffer's letter about religionless christianity. I've written about this before so forgive repetition, but I am in a cycle of thinking and I tend to view and review until my thinking comes clear.

"How do we speak of god without religion i.e. without the temporally conditioned presuppositions of metaphysics, inwardness and so on...How do we speak in a secular way about god?"

Bonhoeffer's little comment has fueled a long journey of thinking for me. And I have taken that two-pronged comment, along with similar ideas from others and myself, as a starting point. The one side--the 'temporally conditioned presuppositions of metaphysics' has gained a lot of traction and there is plenty of thinking in that arena , its the 'inwardness' comment that has had me wrestling lately. I think he is talking about the inwardness of subjectivity. Elsewhere and earlier Bonhoeffer writes that,

"we must finally rid ourselves of the notion that the issue...is the personal salvation of the individual soul...in such religious methodology human beings themselves remain the central focus."

(you could do yourself a real favour and read Jeffrey Pugh's, Religionless Christianity, for a much clearer and expanded perspective on these ideas).

It would seem that the consciousness of the world has changed. Mark I. Wallace, in his book, Fragments of the Spirit, names both the 'de-priviledging of metaphysics' and the 'erasure of the self' as two significant challenges to Christianity in the third millennium. What does this mean? Well to me, it heralds a shift in human self-understanding away from the subjective and static view of the self, bequeathed to us by the Greeks and others that has driven our understanding of the self for centuries. I believe this is being eclipsed by a more mobile and fluid understanding of the self, where inwardness is not of prime focus. Two things going on for me--we can reference ourselves without a working hypothesis of God (Vattimo) and we can now consider ourselves without the anthropocentric impulse of the Enlightenment.

What are the implications of this? Well, they are immense. It throws into question how we engage with life, ourselves, each other. It challenges assumptions about what is prioritized in religion--'spiritual disciplines' for instance, in that I believe that most disiciplines are rooted in ideas of the self that no longer hold true (at least for me) and therefore must be revisited. I also think we are liberated to pray as Jesus invited us to pray, i.e. communally--'our father'--it is a form of prayer not anchored to a technology of inwardness. I think I'll stop there because I have things to do but I'll return to flesh this out at a later date. But then I'll talk about prayer, and why I don't.

* * * * * * * * * *

Amazon.com

This book is an interpretation of Bonhoeffer in the contemporary context. Jeffrey Pugh puts Bonhoeffer's theology in perspective by revisiting some of the themes of his life that have found abiding significance in Christian theology. Starting with a chapter on why Bonhoeffer is still important for us today, this book moves to chapters that bring Bonhoeffer into conversation with our present situation. In each of these chapters Pugh takes one of the central ideas of Bonhoeffer and gives them a fresh perspective.

Many of Bonhoeffer books today are written from an exegetical perspective, they try and get at exactly what Bonhoeffer meant. Others are written from a hermeneutical perspective, they try and interpret Bonhoeffer's abiding significance. This book seeks to combine both these approaches to offer interpretations of Bonhoeffer that are germane to our situation today.

Index - Science & Religion

 Index to Science & Religion

Science and Human Consciousness

A Theory of Consciousness - Network Theory Sheds New Light

Discussions in Science and Religion - Week 5: "A Theory of Consciousness"

Evolutionary Theory and Moral Development

(res) Discussions in Science and Religion - Week 5: "A Theology of Wholeness"

Evolution and the Separate Problems of Teleology and Human Consciousness

(res, base article) How God Created by Evolution: A Proposed Theory of Man's Evolutionary Development


Other Discussions on Science and Religion

How Not to Confuse Christian Evolution with a Naturalistic Worldview

Why a Christian Evolutionist Cannot be a Naturalist (or, the False Divide between Science and Religion)

Ken Ham & Bill Nye's Misleading Arguments between Science and Religion

Ian Barbour - The Godfather of Science and Religion Dies

(res) Eusociality and the Bible, Part 1 of 2

(res) Eusociality and the Bible, Part 2 of 2

A Christian Perspective of Evolution, Human Survival, and the Bible

* * * * * * * *

Philip Clayton Introduction

Discussions in Science and Religion - Initial Questions

(res) Discussions in Science and Religion - An Introduction

(res) Thinking About the Quantum Mysteries of Life

Philip Clayton Part 1

(res) Discussions in Science and Religion - Week 1: "Faith and Trust"

Discussions in Science and Religion - Week 1: Recap - "Unequal Playing Fields"

Philip Clayton Part 2

(res) Discussions in Science and Religion - Week 2: "A Tale of Two Cities"

(res) Discussions in Science and Religion - Week 2: Recap - "Physics and Cosmology"

Philip Clayton Part 3 and Related Discussions

(res - unposted) Discussions in Science and Religion - Week 3: "Evolution and Christianity"

(biologos) Evolution and The Problem of Sin and Death: A Look at Evolutionary Theodicy

(biologos) Teleology Then and Now: The Place of Open Theism within Evolutionary Teleology

Wired Magazine: "Self-Assembling Molecules Like These May Have Sparked Life on Earth"

(res) Why All the Fuss over Earth's Remarkable Cambrian Explosion?

"What is Evolutionary Creationism?" A PowerPoint Presentation by Denis Lamoureux

Discussions in Science and Religion - Week 3: Recap - "The Problem of Evil"

Philip Clayton Part 4 and Related Discussions

(jmd) Network Thinking: Process Theology and the Intuitive Mind

(res) Evolution and the Separate Problems of Teleology and Human Consciousness

(res) Eusociality and the Bible, Part 2 of 2

(res) Eusociality and the Bible, Part 1 of 2

(res) How God Created by Evolution: A Proposed Theory of Man's Evolutionary Development

Discussions in Science and Religion - Week 5: "A Theory of Consciousness"

(res) Discussions in Science and Religion - Week 5: "A Theology of Wholeness"

Discussions in Science and Religion - Week 4: Recap - "Imago Reductio or Imago Dei?"

Philip Clayton Part 5

Evolutionary Theory and Moral Development

Discussions in Science and Religion - Initial Questions

 

 

High Gravity Religion and Science Rundown Round-Up

 

by Jonnie Russell

September 3, 2013

Comments

 

The Rundown:

 

The next iteration of High Gravity is nearly upon us. The recipe has been altered a bit and a few new ingredients are being added in our last boil and fermentation process before we do the first tasting–week one begins Monday Sept. 9th @ 10am PST.  Sign up via missionsoulutions.com HBX Store.

 

First, as Tripp and Philip Clayton are both local in southern California, they will be engaging in person in a smart classroom in Claremont, which means 1.) hopefully a bit of the technical difficulty and occasional communication ‘lag’ that happens when people are dialoguing at a distance will be avoided, and 2.) They have nowhere to hide from each other and the tough questions that will inevitably arise.

 

Second, Tripp asked me to be a High Gravity specialist, which basically means I’ll be doing weekly posts after the initial meeting on Mondays (probably Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday) which will serve to do a bit of recap of the info covered that week, and more proactively, seek to prod us into further reflection on the week’s material.  The goal then, will be to post the info and what it stimulates in me, for the sake of stimulating response in you, the participants and general blog followers interested in the proceedings.  In this way, I’m hoping to start some comment dialogue and new questions/thoughts throughout the week after participants have had a bit of time to soak in the session.  It’ll be a time to react and Tripp will in-turn put these questions and reactions to Philip in the next session. The hope is to intensify the ability for you as respondents and processors to be heard and get true back-and-forth going.

 

Round-Up:

 

By way of trying to stir the pot a bit and get the Religion and Science conversation going here, Tripp asked me to post what I’ve found to be some of the common points of tension discussed relating to Religion and Science in my time at Fuller Theological Seminary. We’re interested to see how they relate to his context over at Claremont. It will be interesting to see where’s there’s coherence and difference. I’ve listed them as ‘themes’ because they each cover a host of questions, some of which I mention under each heading.

 

Given my context, the majority of these will pertain particularly (though I hope not exclusively) to the Christian religion. Also, these are not necessarily my tensions (some certainly are), but my best attempt to clarify some generalizable biggies.

And your job is to reply with yours…hence the “round-up!”
 
Five Recurring Themes in Religion and Science Discussions

1- Divine Action:  Scientists often speak of ”the causal closure of the physical”–physical effects are only caused, or rather, quite easily completely explained by physical processes.

• How can we have a robust conception of divine action in a world that scientists often argue is causally closed?
• Yes the complexity of levels change, perhaps new emergent causes develop, but doesn’t this challenge the idea of miracles at least on some level, or God acting in any way beyond perhaps the most fundamental levels of quantum physics?
• Is a God that can only set in motion (act on) slight variations through what scientists call quantum indeterminacy enough of a God, or one enough like the biblical one (for the Christian religion) to be likened to the narrative of the Judeo-Christian tradition?

 

2- Can Science be Postmodern?: Few progressive evangelicals (even fewer progressives) are still wary of letting science have any say or import into theological or hermeneutical questions related in theology or religion. Yes, the bible has its own outmoded scientific world that we can accept as right to be done away with, but these scientists seem to be way less postmodern and humble in their hermeneutic than we are!

• Is there a way to let science in, for lack of a better phrase, without giving it the de facto upper hand in all matters as if it’s the new queen of the disciplines? This relates to the previous divine action question but in generalized form.
• Can science be postmodern too?
• And can it be a conversation partner without being foisted upon us as the arbiter of what stays and goes in religion?

 

3- The Question of the Soul: I recently went to present a paper at a conference at Oxford University in the UK where the whole conference (a three-day affair) was devoted to the question of the soul in conversation with contemporary philosophy, theology, and science. It’s a hugely hot topic. There’s five conferences worth of questions that this raises, but here are a few:

• Are human beings composed of souls and bodies, mysteriously intertwined, or merely physical bodies–truly dust to dust? Can what appears to be a cold world of chemical and micro-physical determinations explain all the amazing features of consciousness and our dynamic experiential lives?
• If we’re just bodies, how do we persist (continue to exist) before the fervently testified to bodily resurrection in the NT? What do we do with the bevy of distinctions between body, soul, and spirit in the bible and other religious texts?
• Are these becoming passé terms suitable for Plato and the ancients but not us?

 

4- Moral Responsibility and Freedom: Science seems to be doing a pretty good job (at least they claim) at explaining a lot of actions and experiences we used to ascribe to “the mind” or “the soul” in terms of automatic actions in the body or chemical transactions between the brain and our nervous systems.  Some of these have even been shown to predate our conscious decisions to act in this or that way.

• If the world is really governed by this kind of physical determinism, how can we rightly ascribe to ourselves freedom and moral responsibility?
• Heck, can we even say we did this or that action or actually chose to act in the normal way we talk about our feelings, reasons, etc. guiding our actions?
• Ugh, are reformed people right to a degree that they wouldn’t even want to be (i.e. severe determinism)?

 

5- The Image of God: Given the theory of evolution and its evidence for our deep and close kinship with the rest of the animal kingdom:

• In what sense should this effect our understanding of the image of God humankind is said to bear according to the Judeo-Christian tradition?
• If our rationality, perhaps the most oft-invoked locus of the image of God, is a slowly developing evolutionary quality that our close ancestors have to a lesser degree as well, is the image of God something we can still claim exclusively as human beings? Homo sapiens but not Homo erectus or other hominins have it?
• How can we really take the human being to be so utterly distinct (and supremely important?) with a strong thorough going evolution? The Bible seems to make humans too distinct in this regard.
• What would a non-anthropocentric gospel look like?

 

Index to past discussions -

 

Index to past articles on "Science & Religion"

 

 

 

 

 

 

Discussion in Arminianism's Grundmotif: God's Goodness and Man's Free Will vs. God's Sovereignty and Middle Knowledge

Are Arminian Theology and Middle Knowledge (Molinism) Compatible?
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2013/09/are-arminian-theology-and-middle-knowledge-compatible/

 

by Roger Olson

September 4, 2013

Comments

 

One of the most basic impulses of Arminianism is that God is not the author of sin and evil—even indirectly. On this virtually everyone knowledgeable about Arminian theology agrees. Divine determinism, the belief that God directly or indirectly determines all that happens according to a predetermined plan, was rejected by Arminius and has been rejected by all Arminians since him. I have demonstrated that in Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities and Against Calvinism. Arminian theology and divine determinism are like oil and water; they cannot mix. And the reason they cannot mix is because of the Arminian Grundmotif which is God’s goodness. If divine determinism is true, the fall and all its consequences, including eternal hell, are part of God’s plan and made necessary by God even if only indirectly.

* * * * * * * *

Side Note

What is Middle Knowledge? That God knows not only what will happen but what would happen, along with all the permutations and instances of those possibilities ad naseum and ad naseum.

What is Molinism? Molinists hold that in addition to God knowing everything that does or will happen, God also knows what His creatures would freely choose if placed in any given circumstance including any resulting events and actions.

Importantly, Open Theism says this is not so and that the future of an indeterminate cosmos, and free will humanity, is always open, changeable and independent, or irrespective, of God's foreknowledge. That God and His creation react to one another based upon relationship to one another rather than upon His foreknowledge of events. That this arrangement is based upon God's divine decree when He created. That openness and freedom are the inherent structures upon which God created.

Assertion: Was Arminius a Molinist or not? If yes, did he rely on middle knowledge to reconcile God's foreknowledge with man's free will?

- R.E. Slater 

* * * * * * * *

In a now famous and much discussed article in Sixteenth Century Journal (XXVII:2 [1996]: 337-352) Dutch theologian Eef Dekker asked “Was Arminius a Molinist?” and answered in the affirmative. (Molinism is, of course, synonymous with belief in middle knowledge.) Several leading Arminius scholars have agreed. Reformed theologian Richard Muller agreed in God, Creation, and Providence in the Thought of Jacob Arminius (Baker, 1991). (He came to the same conclusion as Dekker before him.) Dutch theologian William den Boer agrees in God’s Twofold Love: The Theology of Jacob Arminius (1559-1609) (Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2010). Now, in two recent studies of Arminius’s theology three American theologians agree. (I will be responding to their two books at a professional conference in November, so I’m going to decline to name them or address their arguments directly for now.)

 

So it would seem a consensus is developing that Arminius himself was a “Protestant Molinist” and may have actually introduced Molinism, middle knowledge, into Protestant theology. (Molina was himself a Catholic contemporary of Arminius.)

However, other Arminius scholars are not so sure. One of the most scholarly and exhaustive studies of Arminius’s theology is William G. Witt’s Notre Dame doctoral dissertation which I used extensively in Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities. Witt argued that Arminius mentioned but did not use middle knowledge. Another Arminius scholar who agrees with Witt is F. Stuart Clarke, author of The Ground of Election: Jacob Arminius’ Doctrine of the Work and Person of Christ (Paternoster, 2006).

 

Without doubt one can find references to middle knowledge in Arminius’s writings. The question is whether he relied on middle knowledge to reconcile God’s foreknowledge with free will (and there is no doubt he believed in libertarian free will) and, whether he used middle knowledge to explain God’s sovereignty in providentially governing the whole universe including creatures’ free decisions and actions.

 

Dekker argues that, in using middle knowledge, Arminius unwittingly fell into determinism. Den Boer admits that even if Arminius’s use of middle knowledge did not imply determinism, it raised some serious questions for Arminius’s consistency—especially in the practical realm. That is, even if middle knowledge does not imply determinism, it does convey the impression, at least to the untutored, that their lives are predetermined.

 

I have argued here before that believing in God’s middle knowledge, that knowledge whereby God knows not only what will happen but would happen, not only what free creatures will do but what they would do freely in any possible situation, set of circumstances, is not in-and-of itself inconsistent with Arminianism’s basic impulses which have to do with God’s goodness (his “twofold love”). However, I have argued, and continue to maintain, once one believes that God uses middle knowledge to render certain that every creature does what they do by creating them and placing them in circumstances where he knows they will “freely” do something, then determinism is at the door (if not in the living room) and that it is inconsistent with Arminianism’s basic impulses. Hence, it makes God the author of sin and evil even if only inadvertently.

 

In order to test this we must go back to the first disobedience—Adam’s and Eve’s fall. The question is not whether God knew they would disobey but whether God rendered their act of disobedience certain.

 

Advocates of middle knowledge usually rely on a distinction between “certain” or “infallible” and “necessary,” with only the latter making God the author of sin and evil. The argument is that God’s use of middle knowledge to render the fall certain, even infallibly (it could not have not happened given God’s foreknowledge of what Adam and Eve would do and his creation of them and placing them in that situation) does not render the fall necessary.

 

I tend to think that’s a distinction without a difference.

 

That use of middle knowledge, providentially to render the fall certain, necessarily implies a plan in the mind of God that makes the fall not only part of God’s consequential will but also part of his antecedent will. And, as everyone knows and agrees, the distinction between God’s consequential will and God’s antecedent will is crucial to Arminianism’s argument that God is not the author of sin and evil.

 

Why else would God use his middle knowledge providentially? And why would he use it at all if not for the purpose of meticulous providence?

 

Many Calvinists have used Molinism, middle knowledge, to “explain” predestination and reprobation in order to get God “off the hook,” so to speak, as not the author of sin and evil. I think, for example, of Millard Erickson and Bruce Ware—two evangelical Calvinists who use middle knowledge as the “key” to reconciling God’s sovereignty and human free will. However, they at least admit that their view of free will is compatibilism—that free will is compatible with determinism. In other words, if my argument is correct, they “get it”—middle knowledge used by God for providential advantage requires a compatibilist view of free will.

 

To the best of my knowledge no Arminian claims to believe in compatibilist; all embrace libertarian free will.

 

But, to me, at least, libertarian free will means “ability to do otherwise than one does.”

 

Now, admittedly, Arminian believers in middle knowledge, including those who believe God uses middle knowledge to render creatures’ decisions and actions certain according to a plan, claim to believe that creatures who sin do so with libertarian freedom. In other words, they could do otherwise. Well, at least Adam and Eve could have done otherwise than disobey God. (The picture gets more complicated for their posterity under the effects of the fall.) But could they have?

 

If middle knowledge is true and God uses it for providential advantage, as Richard Muller says, offering inducements to creatures that God knows they will follow given their dispositions and inclinations, then God is not only “in control” but “actually controlling” everything including Adam’s and Eve’s disobedience. They could not have done otherwise even if they did it “freely.” That is the very essence of compatibilism!

 

Let’s use an illustration. Suppose I know one of my students so well that I know (beyond any possibility of being wrong) that if I suggest he read a certain book he will misunderstand the subject of our course and go on to fail it. Without the book, he would pass the course. I suggest he read the book. Why? Well, perhaps because I need someone to fail the course. I don’t grade on a curve and the dean is worried that I am not upholding academic standards. All my students pass with flying colors. My career is in jeopardy as is the academic credibility of the school. So I use my middle knowledge of the student’s dispositions and inclinations to bring it about infallibly that he fails the course. Nothing I did took away his free will. He read the book voluntarily (no external coercion was used, only inducement). (Note: None of that would happen; it’s purely hypothetical.)

 

Now, who is really responsible for - or, the “author of” - the student failing the course?

 

And can it fairly be said that by rendering his failure certain, using my middle knowledge, I did not make it necessary?

 

Now, there’s no point in appealing to God’s freedom to do whatever he wants to do. This is a debate among Arminians - and Arminians, following Arminius, are not nominalists:

[Nomianlism - (in medieval philosophy) the doctrine that general or abstract words do not stand for objectively existing entities and that universals are no more than names assigned to them. Compare conceptualism, realism (def 5a).]

We all agree that God is essentially good by nature and cannot simply do anything capable of being put into words. No informed Arminian would say “Whatever God does is automatically good, just because God does it, period.” So that objection to my scenario isn’t relevant to this context—a debate among Arminians.

I tend to agree with Eef Dekker, against several leading Arminius scholars, that if Arminius used middle knowledge to explain God’s sovereignty, then he unwittingly contradicted himself. He contradicted his own most basic principle which is that God is by no means the author of sin and evil. He unwittingly fell into determinism at that point and should not have relied on middle knowledge. Why he did, if he did, is a separate question. I think reasonable answers can be imagined (having to do with his desire to build bridges between himself and his critics).

 

So what does this mean for Arminians? I’m certainly not going to say that one cannot be an Arminian and a Molinist [(a seemingly contradictory expression - R.E. Slater)]. What I will say is that, in my opinion, Molinism is a foreign body in Arminianism even if Arminius himself used it! If he did, it was a foreign body in his own theology in the sense that it conflicted with his own basic belief commitments about God’s goodness, God not being in any sense the author of sin and evil, and creatures’ free wills (especially in disobedience).

 

No one should be surprised if a theologian falls into contradiction with himself at times—especially if he (or she) writes much over a very long period of time. I’m a historical theologian and have studied the theologies of virtually every major Christian theologian from Irenaeus to Pannenberg (and beyond). In every case I find some tension, some element of conflict within the theologian’s own system.

 

Besides, being Arminian does not require absolute agreement with Arminius. If that were the case, he would have been the only Arminian (and maybe not even he would be!).

- Roger

 

[My personal take: If Arminius were alive today he would be an Open Theist and in complete agreement with today's discussion by Dr. Olson. - R.E. Slater]

 

 

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He Said It Better Than I Did: A Guest’s Comment about Molinism

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2013/09/he-said-it-better-than-i-did-a-guests-comment-about-molinism/

 

by Roger Olson

September 6, 2013

Comments

 

Very nice essay, Roger. You’ve put your finger on a key internal tension within Molinism.

 

While Molinism is *officially* committed to a libertarian view of creaturely freedom (and thus soft determinists like Ware are *not* Molinists, even if they co-opt the label), such a view of freedom requires that middle knowledge counterfactuals of actual creatures be explanatorily *posterior* to actual creaturely free choices.

Thus, if Adam and Eve are free (in the libertarian sense) to eat or not eat the forbidden fruit, then it must not be fixed *independently* of their actual choices that IF they were to be placed in such-and-such circumstances that they would eat the forbidden fruit. For if the truth of that conditional were independently fixed, then they would have no say about whether it is true, and thus couldn’t act as to bring about its falsity.

This means that they couldn’t do otherwise than eat the fruit in those circumstances, which in turn means that they weren’t free in a libertarian sense, contrary to hypothesis. Hence, the truth values of middle knowledge counterfactuals must be explanatorily *posterior* to actual creaturely free choices.

But this is a huge problem for Molinism because the providential usefulness of middle knowledge is predicated on its being explanatorily *prior* to actual creaturely choices. That’s the only way it can inform God’s creative decree. So Molinism is internally inconsistent. Its alleged reconciliation of creaturely libertarian freedom with meticulous divine providence depends on both affirming and denying that the truth values of middle knowledge counterfactuals are explanatorily *posterior* to actual creaturely free choices.

 

 

Amazon link here

 

In this book, Roger Olson sets forth classical Arminian theology and addresses the myriad misunderstandings and misrepresentations of it through the ages. Irenic yet incisive, Olson argues that classical Arminian theology has a rightful place in the evangelical church because it maintains deep roots within Reformational theology, even though it maintains important differences from Calvinism.

 

Myths addressed include:

 

Myth 1: Arminian Theology Is the Opposite of Calvinist/Reformed Theology

 

Myth 2: A Hybrid of Calvinism and Arminianism Is Possible

 

Myth 3: Arminianism Is Not an Orthodox Evangelical Option

 

Myth 4: The Heart of Arminianism Is Belief in Free Will

 

Myth 5: Arminian Theology Denies the Sovereignty of God

 

Myth 6: Arminianism Is a Human-Centered Theology

 

Myth 7: Arminianism Is Not a Theology of Grace

 

Myth 8: Arminians Do Not Believe in Predestination

 

Myth 9: Arminian Theology Denies Justification by Grace Alone Through Faith

 

Alone Myth 10: All Arminians Believe in the Governmental Theory of the Atonement

 

 

 

continue to -

 

Index to past articles on "Calvinism v. Arminianism"

 

 




 

2014 Wesleyan Philosophical Societal Conference Information

 

 

Catherine Keller is the keynote speaker at the

Wesleyan Philosophical Society meeting

in March of 2014, Nampa, Idaho.

 

Paper proposals are due October 1, 2013.

 

Wiki Info - here

 

Net Info - here 

 

 

* * * * * *

 

 

Call for Papers, Wesleyan Philosophical Society
Annual Meeting: March 6, 2014,
Northwest Nazarene University, Nampa, ID
Keynote Speaker: Catherine Keller, Drew University

 

 

Historically speaking, Western philosophy has focused intently upon the mind. Consistently if not absolutely, philosophy from Plato onward has spent its time dwelling upon ideation, perception, cognition, and recollection, and has pursued, again de facto if not de jure, a duality of mind and body that continues to this day.

Likewise, if perhaps more ironically, some branches of Christianity have understood faith to be a mental assent to certain propositional statements, a mind-oriented decision that involves ideas and beliefs. Even in the Holiness movements of the 19th and 20th century, which emphasize the emotional as well as the rational, the seat of the emotions is still the mind. In spite of the body of Jesus Christ, we have managed oftentimes to advocate for disembodied faith centered upon the soul.

Some orienting questions to consider exploring include:

- What would a philosophy of the body look like from a Christian, and/or Wesleyan context?

- How do we privilege or disenfranchise our bodies as we engage God and the church?

- What do Christian ethics tell us -- via subtext -- about sin and the body?

- How do we account for the body of Christ Jesus in our thinking?

- What can we learn about God, faith, sin, and suffering via the body?

- Do both philosophy and theology need a corrective with regard to mind/body dualism?

- How does contemporary philosophy deal with the legacy of Descartes’s mind/body dualism?

- How does philosophy of mind help identify and explore the relationship between body & mind?

- Do ancient or eastern philosophical traditions offer insight to the issues surrounding bodies?

- In what way does John Wesley appropriate or challenge the Western tradition on these matters?

- How do contemporary neurological studies inform philosophy regarding the mind and body?

Papers that examine the role of the body in philosophy, Christianity, and ethics are welcomed; papers exploring other themes will also be considered.