Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Tuesday, January 18, 2022

PROCESSUAL RELATIONAL PANENTHEISM: Creatio Continua vs Creatio Ex Nihilo




PROCESSUAL PANENTHEISM:
Creatio Continua vs Creatio Ex Nihilo

formerly entitled

The Quantum Physics of Creatio Continua
(as opposed to Creation Ex Nihilo)

by R.E. Slater

“Panentheism” is a constructed word composed of the English equivalents of the Greek terms “pan”, meaning all; “en”, meaning in; and “theism”, derived from the Greek ‘theos’ meaning God. Panentheism  (all-in-God) considers God and the world to be inter-related, with the world being in God and God being in the world.
While panentheism offers an increasingly popular alternative to classical theism, both panentheism and classical theistic systems affirm divine transcendence and immanence. But, classical theistic systems, by prioritizing the difference between God and the world, reject any influence by the world upon God while panentheism affirms the world’s influence upon God.
On the other hand, while pantheism emphasizes God’s identity with the world, panentheism maintains the identity and significance of the non-divine.
... A rich diversity of panentheistic understandings has developed in the past two centuries primarily in Christian traditions responding to scientific thought.... Although panentheism generally emphasizes God’s presence in the world without losing the distinct identity of either God or the world, specific forms of panentheism, drawing from different sources, explain the nature of the relationship of God to the world in a variety of ways and come to different conclusions about the nature of the significance of the world for the identity of God.... - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy


* * * 





A PROCESSUAL PICTURE OF
RELATIONAL-PANENTHEISM

(and also one different from Roger Penrose's version at the end of this post)

by R.E. Slater

In this commentary I will try to speak clearly but as well, specifically, building layer upon layer upon the initial idea expressed. Please bear with me. I do not wish this to be a difficult read but an illuminating read without all the philosophical mumbo-jumbo. Thank you. - res

 

When one speaks of Relational Process Theology, the concept of a process-imbued relational panentheism must also be admitted. One where God and the world are (I) together eternally conjoined in relational experience with each other and, (II) where each is processually affecting the other, both in the present processual moment, as in all past and future processual moments which have occurred and will occur. Neither can be unseparated from the other. Both God and the cosmos form a (III) necessary functional link in arrangement even as they each together form (IV) a necessary economic link of vitality as next explained.
V. Importantly, God is the First Process of all succeeding processual processes, even as God is the First Prehender, the First Actuality itself, and the First *Concresence of any-and-all prehending possible actualities (*e.g., concresence is "the coalescence, or condition of, growing together of all originally diverse, or separate, parts to one-another relationally in all aspects: metaphysically, ontologically, existentially, etc.) In a relational cosmology, especially a panentheistic one, there can never be unrelated, unaffected, inconsequential relationships. Implied in the "God-Thou" combine will always be the "Processual-Relational" combine of a relational processual panentheistic continuum of Divine to the cosmos.

 

  • V/aAn Implied Caveat: Many theologians might speak to the cosmos as a "non-divine material/immaterial substance," but this would take away from the implicit idea "wherein all things coming into contact with the divine necessarily partake, absorb, or share in, the essence of the divine nature of that processual experience - such as the resultant relationality of all things to all things - but not ontologically, as to the Person or Being of God, but as to those traits of God so imparted via mere contact, metaphysically.")

 

 

Please view the Tabular Summary here

VI. Next, to say a thing is "created" does syllogistic harm to the "God-Thou combine" where in a creatio continua cosmology, there was never a "created moment" but rather a linking of the (Divine) Relationship-Giver to all "non-relational material/immaterial substances". This cosmological state of unrelatedness might be used to describe the Genesis "Void" of the bible, or to the "primordial universe" itself, which existed before the Planck Era:

 

Stage 0. The Very Early Universe. This is the first picosecond (10−12) of cosmic time. It includes the Planck epoch, during which the currently established laws of physics may not apply. [This era exists before] the emergence [of the quantum] stages of the four known fundamental interactions or forces—first gravitation, and later the electromagnetic, weak and strong interactions. [And it exists before] the expansion of space itself and [the rapid] supercooling of the still immensely hot universe due to cosmic inflation. [Quantumtatively] tiny ripples in the universe at this stage are believed to be the basis [for the formation] of large-scale structures that formed much later [much like a tree or a plant results from a tiny seed]. Different stages of the very early universe are understood to different [temporal] extents [or eras]. The earlier parts are beyond the grasp of practical experiments in particle physics but can be explored through other means. - Wikipedia [all bracketed words are mine, RE Slater]

 

VI/a. This means that before the Planck Era there was an era by which one might describe as a "Spatial Void" (but not a space-time void) wherein there was only liquified, homogeneous space of one dimension where all matter was indistinguishable from one another implying there were no eventful irregularities occurring (sic, until the Lord God set it in motion). Consequently, there would exist an infinity of time (where time = 0, zero), where we might describe as an era "without time" because there were no event-relationships occurring within the primordial mix of this timeless, dimensionless, quantumized soup of primordial matter which would someday form the universe as we would experience it today.


A symbolic graphic which might help
the present visualize discussion


VIIFurther, this Cosmic Primordial Era was so completely unrelated to itself as to lie without cause or effect upon its neighboring force or energy. One which could not affect even a casual spacetime relationship with one another. It was only at the act of God as the First Inviting Relational Processual Causal Casual (words fail here) acting upon all existing non-relational substances/possibilities/entities (again, words fail here) where an "existing but not self-creating cosmos" is processually enacted to form eventful processual relationships. Until this time, there was a matter universe but not a matter-forming universe. Hence, creatio continua but NOT creatio ex nihilo.

 

  • VII/a. God as Creator may more properly be thought of as God the Enactor (or Divine Actor) upon all uncasually-unrelated relationships which were unformed, non-interacting, and essentially, a spatial void to all possible spacetime cosmologies.
  • VII/b. In quantum physics terms, the primordial quantum soup of all elementary objects (quantum strings, quantum gravity loops, etc) are absent any spatial interaction within-or-without themselves. That there can be no "irregularity" as there can be no interactional relationships existing during this phase of a non-relational spatial context. That the concept of "time" may only result from (a cascading of) concrescing inter-relational and intra-relational interactions a) within a substance's interior or, b) without it's exterior to other interacting substances.
  • VII/c. NOT until this happens may the concept of spacetime form from this primordial soup which is a timeless, one-dimensional "void" of unformed space existing "apart from" - or "separated from" - a Relational God. But when coming into contact with this Relational God is energy/force/matter immediately transferred either by a) divine fiat as the "First Cause" or, more likely, b) by coming into relational contact with the "One who imparts Relationality," who LOVINGLY acts upon the "inseparably unrelating" cosmological substance. This "relational processual birth" is usually incorrectly referred to as God "forming, or creating" substance. More correctly, God is "breathing upon, reviving, or imbuing," a material "cosmic void" with eventful life, wellbeing, and value up to which point it had none. Not so much as the cosmos' Creator per se, but more like it's Redeemer upon directionless living matter.

 

VIII. In sum, Creatio Continua therefore admits to a necessarily relational-panentheistic creational linkage to the God which is "separate" but "necessarily conjoined" with all which exists apart from God (however we wish to term this primordial process-relationship metaphorically). That Creatio Ex Nihilo from nothing into something is a physical-material-a/temporal impossibility. An older Platonic classical concept which bears no relevance to the discussions of today's processual quantum sciences.
IXMore correctly, creatio ex nihilo is as improbable as creatio continua is the more tenable - the first cannot be, as the latter must be, as respecting a process-based panentheistic relational structure between God and the resultant material/immaterial cosmos.

 

  • IX/a. That they are currently bound metaphysically together as an  essential combine between the Divine as the First Life-Giving Processual Process to all subtending relationally-bonded processual life-giving processes.
  • IX/bA resultant cosmology borne of a concrescent-pantheistic process reflecting God as the Life Source, Giver, and Sustainer.
  • IX/cA God who passes along all past and present processual influences into all future processual possibilities of wellbeing and valuative concresing moments to come.

 

R.E. Slater

* * * 



CLASSICAL CHURCH DEFINITIONS

The term creatio continua refers to God's continuing creative activity throughout the history of the universe. In a sense, most theologians accept creatio continua, since creation is the dependence of the whole of space-time on God. But more traditional views hold that because God is timeless and immutable, there is only one divine creative act, which originates the whole of space-time from first to last. Those who speak of creatio continua think of creation taking place in many successive acts, partly in response to events in time. Thus, at any particular time God's creation has not been completed, and the future is partly open, in some theological views, even for God. - Philosopher Theologian Keith Ward


* * * 


CREATIO CONTINUA DEFINED IN TERMS OF
DIVINE ACTION VS DIVINE ASSOCIATION
Creatio Continua is a concept within the Christian doctrine of creation, specifically within the Eastern Orthodox tradition and some Process Theologies. It refers to speaking of God’s action in relation to the world.

According to this idea, we are to envisage this not as a single act in the past, but as a continuing presence here and now, hence it is legitimate to speak of a continuing creation (sic, evolution of cosmology).
Historically, it is an approach located in the writings of Maximus, Hildegard of Bingen and Gregory Palamas. It is not a past event, but a present relationship, an initial act that constitutes a starting point. In spite of the different ways this phrase is put to use, it need not be seen as in opposition to the classical position of creatio ex nihilo. - CounterBalance


* * *


A SYNTHETIC VERSION OF CREATIO CONTINUA
Creatio ex Capacitas and Creatio Continua: "When having Power just isn't Enough" - article link
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep . . . Then God said, "Let there be light;" and there was light. ~ (Genesis 1:1-2a; 3 NRSV).
The biblical passage above has been the subject of much debate in light of not only how God created, but also as to out of what He created. There are two main camps in this debate: those who affirm creatio ex nihilo and those who affirm panentheism. Both speak of God's omnipotent creativity expressed through the generation of new modes of existence. Creatio ex nihilo advocates claim that God did this 'out of nothing;' creating all things out of absolutely nothing. Panentheists purport that God created by influencing a realm of 'non-divine actualities.' These non-divine actualities are comprised of 'moments of experience,' which have always been, and these actualities present the options from which the next moments are created. Panentheists believe a realm of actualities has always existed alongside God, although the individual actualities themselves are neither eternal nor do possess any divine power in, or of, themselves.
Those on both sides of this debate profess God to be a sovereign, holy, omnipresent, and a personal being who interacts with the loving intent of bringing about the most possible good for all creation. The discrepancy in the debate is found in the different views of how this goal is carried out. As a result, some of the attributes of God are conceived differently: in particular God's love and omnipotence, and free creaturely response to God.
Those professing creation ex nihilo come under fire by those who ask the question "what is nothing?" This question cannot be ignored, because, while it endows God with unlimited power over creation by showing Him to be the sole actor in creating, creatio ex nihilo seems paradoxical. Or as Peter Van Inwgen says,
To say that there is nothing is to say that there isn't anything, not even vast emptiness. If there were a vast emptiness, there would be no material object - no atoms or elementary particles or anything made of them - but there would nevertheless be something: the vast emptiness (Qtd. "Creation Out of Nothing" Lodahl. 2).

* * *


PENROSE'S VERSION OF A CYCLICAL

PROCESSUAL UNI-VERSE

(as vs. a MULTI-VERSE)


(Richard Goerg/Getty Images)

HOW DID THE BIG BANG
ARISE OUT OF NOTHING?

ALASTAIR WILSON, THE CONVERSATION
4 JANUARY 2022

"The last star will slowly cool and fade away. With its passing, the
Universe will become once more a void, without light or life or meaning."

So warned the physicist Brian Cox in the recent BBC series Universe. The fading of that last star will only be the beginning of an infinitely long, dark epoch. All matter will eventually be consumed by monstrous black holes, which in their turn will evaporate away into the dimmest glimmers of light.

Space will expand ever outwards until even that dim light becomes too spread out to interact. Activity will cease.

Or will it? Strangely enough, some cosmologists believe a previous, cold dark empty Universe like the one which lies in our far future could have been the source of our very own Big Bang.

The first matter

But before we get to that, let's take a look at how "material" – physical matter – first came about. If we are aiming to explain the origins of stable matter made of atoms or molecules, there was certainly none of that around at the Big Bang – nor for hundreds of thousands of years afterwards.

We do in fact have a pretty detailed understanding of how the first atoms formed out of simpler particles once conditions cooled down enough for complex matter to be stable, and how these atoms were later fused into heavier elements inside stars. But that understanding doesn't address the question of whether something came from nothing.

So let's think further back. The first long-lived matter particles of any kind were protons and neutrons, which together make up the atomic nucleus. These came into existence around one ten-thousandth of a second after the Big Bang.

Before that point, there was really no material in any familiar sense of the word. But physics lets us keep on tracing the timeline backwards – to physical processes which predate any stable matter.

This takes us to the so-called "grand unified epoch". By now, we are well into the realm of speculative physics, as we can't produce enough energy in our experiments to probe the sort of processes that were going on at the time.

But a plausible hypothesis is that the physical world was made up of a soup of short-lived elementary particles – including quarks, the building blocks of protons and neutrons.

There was both matter and "antimatter" in roughly equal quantities: each type of matter particle, such as the quark, has an antimatter "mirror image" companion, which is near identical to itself, differing only in one aspect.

However, matter and antimatter annihilate in a flash of energy when they meet, meaning these particles were constantly created and destroyed.

But how did these particles come to exist in the first place? Quantum field theory tells us that even a vacuum, supposedly corresponding to empty spacetime, is full of physical activity in the form of energy fluctuations. These fluctuations can give rise to particles popping out, only to be disappear shortly after.

This may sound like a mathematical quirk rather than real physics, but such particles have been spotted in countless experiments.

The spacetime vacuum state is seething with particles constantly being created and destroyed, apparently "out of nothing". But perhaps all this really tells us is that the quantum vacuum is (despite its name) a something rather than a nothing.

The philosopher David Albert has memorably criticized accounts of the Big Bang which promise to get something from nothing in this way.

Suppose we ask: where did spacetime itself arise from? Then we can go on turning the clock yet further back, into the truly ancient "Planck epoch" – a period so early in the Universe's history that our best theories of physics break down.

This era occurred only one ten-millionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. At this point, space and time themselves became subject to quantum fluctuations.

Physicists ordinarily work separately with quantum mechanics, which rules the microworld of particles, and with general relativity, which applies on large, cosmic scales. But to truly understand the Planck epoch, we need a complete theory of quantum gravity, merging the two.

We still don't have a perfect theory of quantum gravity, but there are attempts – like string theory and loop quantum gravity. In these attempts, ordinary space and time are typically seen as emergent, like the waves on the surface of a deep ocean.

What we experience as space and time are the product of quantum processes operating at a deeper, microscopic level – processes that don't make much sense to us as creatures rooted in the macroscopic world.

In the Planck epoch, our ordinary understanding of space and time breaks down, so we can't any longer rely on our ordinary understanding of cause and effect either.

Despite this, all candidate theories of quantum gravity describe something physical that was going on in the Planck epoch – some quantum precursor of ordinary space and time. But where did that come from?

Even if causality no longer applies in any ordinary fashion, it might still be possible to explain one component of the Planck-epoch Universe in terms of another. Unfortunately, by now even our best physics fails completely to provide answers. Until we make further progress towards a "theory of everything", we won't be able to give any definitive answer.

The most we can say with confidence at this stage is that physics has so far found no confirmed instances of something arising from nothing.

Cycles from almost nothing

To truly answer the question of how something could arise from nothing, we would need to explain the quantum state of the entire Universe at the beginning of the Planck epoch.

All attempts to do this remain highly speculative. Some of them appeal to supernatural forces like a designer. But other candidate explanations remain within the realm of physics – such as a multiverse, which contains an infinite number of parallel universes, or cyclical models of the Universe, being born and reborn again.

The 2020 Nobel Prize-winning physicist Roger Penrose has proposed one intriguing but controversial model for a cyclical Universe dubbed "conformal cyclic cosmology".

Penrose was inspired by an interesting mathematical connection between a very hot, dense, small state of the Universe – as it was at the Big Bang – and an extremely cold, empty, expanded state of the Universe – as it will be in the far future.

His radical theory to explain this correspondence is that those states become mathematically identical when taken to their limits. Paradoxical though it might seem, a total absence of matter might have managed to give rise to all the matter we see around us in our Universe.


Nobel Lecture: Roger Penrose
Nobel Prize in Physics 2020
Jan 29, 2021

Black Holes, Cosmology, and Space-Time Singularities
Roger Penrose, University of Oxford, UK



Cosmic Conformal Rescaling

In this view, the Big Bang arises from an almost nothing. That's what's left over when all the matter in a universe has been consumed into black holes, which have in turn boiled away into photons – lost in a void.

The whole universe thus arises from something that – viewed from another physical perspective – is as close as one can get to nothing at all. But that nothing is still a kind of something. It is still a physical universe, however empty.

How can the very same state be a cold, empty universe from one perspective and a hot dense universe from another? The answer lies in a complex mathematical procedure called "conformal rescaling", a geometrical transformation which in effect alters the size of an object but leaves its shape unchanged.

Penrose showed how the cold dense state and the hot dense state could be related by such rescaling so that they match with respect to the shapes of their spacetimes – although not to their sizes.

It is, admittedly, difficult to grasp how two objects can be identical in this way when they have different sizes – but Penrose argues size as a concept ceases to make sense in such extreme physical environments.

In conformal cyclic cosmology, the direction of explanation goes from old and cold to young and hot: the hot dense state exists because of the cold empty state. But this "because" is not the familiar one – of a cause followed in time by its effect. It is not only size that ceases to be relevant in these extreme states: time does too.

The cold dense state and the hot dense state are in effect located on different timelines. The cold empty state would continue on forever from the perspective of an observer in its own temporal geometry, but the hot dense state it gives rise to effectively inhabits a new timeline all its own.

It may help to understand the hot dense state as produced from the cold empty state in some non-causal way. Perhaps we should say that the hot dense state emerges from, or is grounded in, or realized by the cold, empty state.

These are distinctively metaphysical ideas which have been explored by philosophers of science extensively, especially in the context of quantum gravity where ordinary cause and effect seem to break down. At the limits of our knowledge, physics and philosophy become hard to disentangle.

Experimental evidence?

Conformal cyclic cosmology offers some detailed, albeit speculative, answers to the question of where our Big Bang came from. But even if Penrose's vision is vindicated by the future progress of cosmology, we might think that we still wouldn't have answered a deeper philosophical question – a question about where physical reality itself came from.

How did the whole system of cycles come about? Then we finally end up with the pure question of why there is something rather than nothing – one of the biggest questions of metaphysics.

But our focus here is on explanations which remain within the realm of physics. There are three broad options to the deeper question of how the cycles began.

It could have no physical explanation at all. Or there could be endlessly repeating cycles, each a universe in its own right, with the initial quantum state of each universe explained by some feature of the universe before. Or there could be one single cycle, and one single repeating universe, with the beginning of that cycle explained by some feature of its own end.

The latter two approaches avoid the need for any uncaused events – and this gives them a distinctive appeal. Nothing would be left unexplained by physics.

Penrose envisages a sequence of endless new cycles for reasons partly linked to his own preferred interpretation of quantum theory. In quantum mechanics, a physical system exists in a superposition of many different states at the same time, and only "picks one" randomly, when we measure it.

For Penrose, each cycle involves random quantum events turning out a different way – meaning each cycle will differ from those before and after it. This is actually good news for experimental physicists, because it might allow us to glimpse the old universe that gave rise to ours through faint traces, or anomalies, in the leftover radiation from the Big Bang seen by the Planck satellite.

Penrose and his collaborators believe they may have spotted these traces already, attributing patterns in the Planck data to radiation from supermassive black holes in the previous universe. However, their claimed observations have been challenged by other physicists and the jury remains out.

Endless new cycles are key to Penrose's own vision. But there is a natural way to convert conformal cyclic cosmology from a multi-cycle to a one-cycle form. Then physical reality consists in a single cycling around through the Big Bang to a maximally empty state in the far future – and then around again to the very same Big Bang, giving rise to the very same universe all over again.

This latter possibility is consistent with another interpretation of quantum mechanics, dubbed the many-worlds interpretation. The many-worlds interpretation tells us that each time we measure a system that is in superposition, this measurement doesn't randomly select a state. Instead, the measurement result we see is just one possibility – the one that plays out in our own Universe.

The other measurement results all play out in other universes in a multiverse, effectively cut off from our own. So no matter how small the chance of something occurring, if it has a non-zero chance then it occurs in some quantum parallel world.

There are people just like you out there in other worlds who have won the lottery, or have been swept up into the clouds by a freak typhoon, or have spontaneously ignited, or have done all three simultaneously.

Some people believe such parallel universes may also be observable in cosmological data, as imprints caused by another universe colliding with ours.

Many-worlds quantum theory gives a new twist on conformal cyclic cosmology, though not one that Penrose agrees with. Our Big Bang might be the rebirth of one single quantum multiverse, containing infinitely many different universes all occurring together. Everything possible happens – then it happens again and again and again.




An ancient myth

For a philosopher of science, Penrose's vision is fascinating. It opens up new possibilities for explaining the Big Bang, taking our explanations beyond ordinary cause and effect. It is therefore a great test case for exploring the different ways physics can explain our world. It deserves more attention from philosophers.

For a lover of myth, Penrose's vision is beautiful. In Penrose's preferred multi-cycle form, it promises endless new worlds born from the ashes of their ancestors. In its one-cycle form, it is a striking modern re-invocation of the ancient idea of the ouroboros, or world-serpent.

In Norse mythology, the serpent Jörmungandr is a child of Loki, a clever trickster, and the giant Angrboda. Jörmungandr consumes its own tail, and the circle created sustains the balance of the world. But the ouroboros myth has been documented all over the world – including as far back as ancient Egypt.

The ouroboros of the one cyclic universe is majestic indeed. It contains within its belly our own Universe, as well as every one of the weird and wonderful alternative possible universes allowed by quantum physics – and at the point where its head meets its tail, it is completely empty yet also coursing with energy at temperatures of a hundred thousand million billion trillion degrees Celsius.

Even Loki, the shapeshifter, would be impressed.


Alastair Wilson, Professor of Philosophy, University of Birmingham.



Jörmungandr consumes its own tail




Sunday, January 16, 2022

Key Ideas of Open Theology - Part 2/5: "Rice, Oord & Wikipedia"



Key Ideas of Open Theology - Part 2


What is Open Theism? with Richard Rice
Apr 6, 2020

Since IVP's publication of The Openness of God in 1994, evangelical theology has grappled with the alternative vision of the doctrine of God that open theism offers. Responding to critics who claim that it proposes a truncated version of God that fails to account for Scripture and denies many of the traditional attributes of God, open theism's proponents contend that its view of God is not only biblically warranted but also more accurate—with a portrayal of God that emphasizes divine love for humanity and responsiveness to human free will. No matter what one's assessment, open theism inarguably has made a significant impact on recent theological discourse.

Now, twenty-five years later, Richard Rice recounts in this volume the history of open theism from its antecedents and early developments to its more recent and varied expressions. He then considers different directions that open theism might continue to develop in relation to several primary doctrines of the Christian faith.


The ALTER: Episode 52
Open and Relational Theology, w/ Thomas Jay Oord
August 25, 2021
[Interview starts at 28.31]


To quote Oord, "Most theologies suck. They’re too technical or they describe a God nobody understands." Since The ALTER is all about sacrificing bad ideas for the sake of transformation, it sounds like theologian/philosopher Thomas Jay Oord and I will get along just nicely. Thomas is joining the show to talk about his latest book, "Open and Relational Theology" (https://amzn.to/3y8T4EQ), and I'm hoping you enjoy this theologically-bent episode of The Alter! Learn more about Oord and his work at: http://thomasjayoord.com



Open theism

Open theism, also known as openness theology and free will theism,[1][self-published source?] is a theological movement that has developed within Christianity as a rejection of the synthesis of Greek philosophy and Christian theology. Open theism arises out of the freewill theistic tradition of the church which goes back to the early church fathers.[2] Open theism is typically advanced as a biblically motivated and logically consistent theology of human and divine freedom (in the libertarian sense), with an emphasis on what this means for the content of God's foreknowledge and exercise of God's power.[3]

Noted open theist theologian Thomas Jay Oord identifies four paths to open and relational theology:[4]

  1. following the biblical witness,
  2. following themes in some Christian theological traditions,
  3. following the philosophy of free will, and
  4. following the path of reconciling faith and science.

Roger E. Olson said that open theism triggered the "most significant controversy about the doctrine of God in evangelical thought" in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.[5]

Exposition of open theism

In short, open theism says that since God and humans are free, God's knowledge is dynamic and God's providence flexible. While several versions of traditional theism picture God's knowledge of the future as a singular, fixed trajectory, open theism sees it as a plurality of branching possibilities, with some possibilities becoming settled as time moves forward.[6][7] Thus, the future as well as God's knowledge of it is open (hence "open" theism). Other versions of classical theism hold that God fully determines the future, entailing that there is no free choice (the future is closed). Yet other versions of classical theism hold that even though there is freedom of choice, God's omniscience necessitates God foreknowing what free choices are made (God's foreknowledge is closed). Open theists hold that these versions of classical theism do not agree with:

  1. the biblical concept of God
  2. the biblical understanding of divine and creaturely freedom

and/or result in incoherence. Open Theists tend to emphasize that God's most fundamental character trait is love, and that this trait is unchangeable. They also (in contrast to traditional theism) tend to hold that the biblical portrait is of a God deeply moved by creation, experiencing a variety of feelings in response to it.[8]

Comparison of open and Reformed theism

The following chart compares beliefs about key doctrines as stated by open theists and Calvinists after "the period of controversy" between adherents of the two theisms began in 1994.[9] During this period the "theology of open theism… rocked the evangelical world".[10]

DoctrineOpen TheismCalvinism
Scripture (the Bible). "In the Christian tradition, the Old and the New Testaments are considered Holy Scripture in that they are, or convey, the self-revelation of God."[11]"Committed to affirming the infallibility of Scripture"[12]Scripture is "the infallible Word of God".[13]
God's Power. "God's power is limited only by God's own nature and not by any external force."[14]"God is all-powerful."[15]"God is all-powerful."[16]
God's Sovereignty. "God's ultimate Lordship and rule over the universe".[14]Portraying God as ordaining whatever happens reduces "humans to robots".[17]"Nothing that exists or occurs falls outside God's ordaining will. Nothing, including no evil person or thing or event or deed."[18]
God's Perfection. "God as lacking nothing and free of all moral imperfection".[14]Believes in "(because Scripture teaches) the absolute perfection of God."[19]Believes that, because "Scripture says" it, God "will always do what is right".[20]
God's Foreknowledge. "God's knowing things and events before they happen in history".[21]"God is omniscient" about "settled" reality, but the future that God "leaves open" can be known only as open "possibility" without specific foreknowledge.[22]Classically Augustinian-Calvinist view: "God knows the future because he preordains it."[23]
The Fall. "The disobedience and sin of Adam and Eve that caused them to lose the state of innocence in which they had been created. This event plunged them and all mankind into a state of sin and corruption."[24]God "does not unilaterally and irrevocably decide what to do". God's decisions are influenced by "human attitudes and responses".[25]"Ultimate reason" for the Fall was "God's ordaining will".[18]
Free Will. "The term seeks to describe the free choice of the will which all persons possess. Theological debates have arisen over the ways and to the extent to which sin has affected the power to choose good over evil, and hence one's 'free will'."[26]Promotes incompatibilism, the doctrine that "the agent's power to do otherwise" is "a necessary condition for acting freely".[27]Promotes compatibilism, the doctrine that "freedom" of the will requires only "the power or ability to do what one will (desire or choose) to do" without constraint or impediment, even if what one wills is determined.[28]
Free Will and God's Sovereignty. A "caustic debate" began about 1990 over "God's sovereignty and human free will".[29]Saying that God governs human choices reduces "angels or humans to robots in order to attain his objectives."[30]God governs "the choices of human beings", but without "cancelling [their] freedom and responsibility".[31]
Theodicy issue. "The justification of a deity's justice and goodness in light of suffering and evil".[32]To meet the "conditions of love", God exercises "general rather than specific sovereignty, which explains why God does not prevent all evil".[33] Also, God "does not completely control or in any sense will evil" because the world is "held hostage to a cosmic evil force".[34]Because "Scripture says" it, God "will always do what is right".[35]

Historical development

Contemporary open theists have named precursors among philosophers to document their assertion that "the open view of the future is not a recent concept," but has a long history.[36]

The first known post-biblical Christian writings advocating concepts similar to open theism with regard to the issue of foreknowledge are found in the writings of Calcidius, a 4th-century interpreter of Plato. It was affirmed in the 16th century by Socinus, and in the early 18th century by Samuel Fancourt and by Andrew Ramsay (an important figure in Methodism). In the 19th century several theologians wrote in defense of this idea, including Isaak August DornerGustav FechnerOtto PfleidererJules LequierAdam Clarke, Billy Hibbard, Joel Hayes, T.W. Brents, and Lorenzo D. McCabe. Contributions to this defense increased as the century drew to a close.[a]

The dynamic omniscience view has been affirmed by a number of non Christians as well: Cicero (1st century BC) Alexander of Aphrodisias (2nd century) and Porphyry (3rd century). God's statement to Abraham “Now I know that you fear me” (Gen 22:12) was much discussed by Medieval Jewish theologians. Two significant Jewish thinkers who affirmed dynamic omniscience as the proper interpretation of the passage were Ibn Ezra (12th century) and Gersonides (14th century).[citation needed]

Sergei Bulgakov, an early-20th-century Russian Orthodox priest and theologian advocated the use of the term panentheism, which articulated a necessary link between God and creation as consequence of God's free love and not as a natural necessity. His sophiology has sometimes been seen as a precursor to 'open theism'.

Millard Erickson belittles such precursors to open theism as "virtually unknown or unnoticed."[40]

After 1980

The term "open theism" was introduced in 1980 with theologian Richard Rice's book The Openness of God: The Relationship of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Free Will. The broader articulation of open theism was given in 1994, when five essays were published by evangelical scholars (including Rice) under the title The Openness of God. Recent theologians of note expressing this view include: Clark Pinnock (deceased as of 2010), Greg BoydThomas Jay OordJohn E. SandersDallas WillardJürgen MoltmannRichard RiceC. Peter WagnerJohn PolkinghorneHendrikus Berkhof, Adrio Konig, Harry Boer, Bethany Sollereder, Matt Parkins, Thomas Finger (Mennonite), W. Norris Clarke (Roman Catholic), Brian Hebblethwaite, Robert Ellis, Kenneth Archer (Pentecostal) Barry Callen (Church of God), Henry Knight III, Gordon Olson, and Winkie Pratney. A significant, growing number of philosophers of religion affirm it: Peter Van InwagenRichard Swinburne (Eastern Orthodox), William HaskerDavid BasingerNicholas WolterstorffDean Zimmerman, Timothy O'Connor, James D. Rissler, Keith DeRose, Richard E. Creel, Robin Collins (philosopher/theologian/physicist), J. R. LucasVincent Brümmer, (Roman Catholic), Richard Purtill, Alan Rhoda, Jeffrey Koperski, Dale Tuggy, and Keith Ward. Biblical scholars Terence E. Fretheim, Karen Winslow, and John Goldingay affirm it. Others include writers Madeleine L'Engle and Paul C. Borgman, mathematician D.J. Bartholomew and biochemist/theologian Arthur Peacocke.[41]

Philosophical arguments

Open theists maintain that traditional classical theists hold the classical attributes of God together in an incoherent way. The main classical attributes are as follows:[42]

  • All-good: God is the standard of moral perfection, all-benevolent, and perfectly loving.
  • Simplicity: God has no parts, cannot be differentiated, and possesses no attribute as distinct from His being.
  • Immutability: God cannot change in any respect.
  • Impassibility: God cannot be affected by outside forces.[43]
  • Omnipresence: God is present everywhere, or more precisely, all things find their location in God.[44]
  • Omniscience: God knows absolutely everything: believes all truths and disbelieves all falsehoods. God's knowledge is perfect.
  • Omnipotence: God can do anything because he is all-powerful and not limited by external forces.

Contradictions in the traditional attributes are pointed out by open theists and atheists alike. Atheist author and educator George H. Smith writes in his book Atheism: The Case Against God that if God is omniscient, God cannot be omnipotent because: "If God knew the future with infallible certainty, he cannot change it – in which case he cannot be omnipotent. If God can change the future, however, he cannot have infallible knowledge of it".[45]

Open theism also answers the question of how God can be blameless and omnipotent even though evil exists in the world. H. Roy Elseth gives an example of a parent that knows with certainty that his child would go out and murder someone if he was given a gun. Elseth argues that if the parent did give the gun to the child then the parent would be responsible for that crime.[46] However, if God was unsure about the outcome then God would not be culpable for that act; only the one who committed the act would be guilty. This position is, however, dubious, as a parent who knows his child was probable, or likely, or even possibly going to shoot someone would be culpable; and God knew that it was likely that man would sin,[citation needed] and thus God is still culpable. An orthodox Christian might try, on the contrary, seek to ground a theodicy in the resurrection, both of Christ and the general resurrection to come,[47] though this is not the traditional answer to evil.

Varieties of open theists

Philosopher Alan Rhoda has described several different approaches several open theists have taken with regard to the future and God's knowledge of it.

  • Voluntary Nescience: The future is alethically settled but nevertheless epistemically open for God because he has voluntarily chosen not to know truths about future contingents. It is thought Dallas Willard held this position.
  • Involuntary Nescience: The future is alethically settled but nevertheless epistemically open for God because truths about future contingents are in principle unknowable. William Hasker, Peter Van Inwagen,[48] and Richard Swinburne espouse this position.
  • Non-Bivalentist Omniscience: The future is alethically open and therefore epistemically open for God because propositions about future contingents are neither true nor false. J. R. Lucas and Dale Tuggy espouse this position.
  • Bivalentist Omniscience: The future is alethically open and therefore epistemically open for God because propositions asserting of future contingents that they 'will' obtain or that they 'will not' obtain are both false. Instead, what is true is that they 'might and might not' obtain. Greg Boyd holds this position."[49]

Criticism

Norman Geisler, a critic of open theism, addresses the claims that the Classical attributes were derived from the Greeks with three observations:[50]

  1. The quest for something unchanging is not bad.
  2. The Greeks did not have the same concept of God.
  3. Philosophical influences are not wrong in themselves.

An open theist might respond that all such criticisms are misplaced. As to observation (1), it is not characteristic of open theists to say that the quest for something unchanging is bad. Indeed, open theists believe God's character is unchanging.[51] As to observation (2), open theists do not characteristically say traditional forms of classical theism have exactly the same concept of God as the Greeks. Rather, they argue that they imported only some unbiblical assumptions from the Greeks.[52] They also point to theologians of the Christian tradition who, throughout history, did not succumb so strongly to Hellenistic influences.[53] As to observation (3), open theists do not argue that philosophical influences are bad in themselves. Rather, they argue that some philosophical influences on Christian theology are unbiblical and theologically groundless. Consider John Sanders' statement in The Openness of God (1980):

Christian theology, I am arguing, needs to reevaluate classical theism in light of a more relational metaphysic (not all philosophy is bad!) so that the living, personal, responsive and loving God of the Bible may be spoken of more consistently in our theological reflection ...[54]:  100 

Opponents of open theism, both Arminians, and Calvinists, such as John Piper,[55] claim that the verses commonly used by open theists are anthropopathisms. They suggest that when God seems to change from action A to action B in response to prayer, action B was the inevitable event all along, and God divinely ordained human prayer as the means by which God actualized that course of events.

They also point to verses that suggest God is immutable, such as:

  • Malachi 3:6: For I, the Lord, have not changed; and you, the sons of Jacob, have not reached the end.[b]
  • Numbers 23:19: God is not a man that He should lie, nor is He a mortal that He should repent. Would He say and not do, speak and not fulfill?[c][56][57]
  • 1 Samuel 15:29: And also, the Strength of Israel will neither lie nor repent, for He is not a man to repent."
  • Isaiah 46:10: [I] tell the end from the beginning, and from before, what was not done; [I] say, "My counsel shall stand, and all My desire I will do."

Those advocating the traditional view[who?] see these as the verses that form God's character, and they interpret other verses that say God repents as anthropomorphistic. Authors who claim this can be traced back through CalvinLutherAquinasAmbrose, and Augustine. Open theists note that there seems to be an arbitrary distinction here between those verses which are merely anthropopathic and others which form God's character. They also note that the immediate sense of the passages addressing God's inalterability ought to be understood in the Hebrew sense of his faithfulness and justice. In other words, God's love and character is unchanging; this, however, demands that His approach to people (especially in the context of personal relationship) be flexible.[58]

Literary debate

In the early 18th century, an extended public correspondence flourished around the topic of open theism. The debate was incited by Samuel Fancourt's 1727 publication, The Greatness of Divine Love Vindicated. Over the next decade, four other English writers published polemical works in response. This led Fancourt to defend his views in six other publications. In his 1747 autobiography, in response to some who thought that this controversy had affected his career, Fancourt wrote, "Should it be suggested, that my religious principles were a prejudice unto me—I answer: so are those of every Dissenting Protestant in the [United] Kingdom with some, if he dares to think and to speak what he thinks." Fancourt also names other writers who had supported his views.

In 2005, a "raging debate" among evangelicals about "open or free-will theism" was in place.[59] This period of controversy began in 1994 with the publication of The Openness of God.[60][61]:  3  The debate between open and classical theists is illustrated by their books as in the following chart.[62]

YearOpen theism books and commentsClassical theism books and comments
1980Rice, Richard (1980). The Openness of God: The relationship of divine foreknowledge and human free will. Nashville, Tennessee: Review & Herald. – Rice was the "pioneer of contemporary evangelical open theism."[61]:  5 Critical acclaim, but public mostly unaware of open theism; the controversy had not yet begun.[61]:  5 
1989Hasker, William (1989). God, Time, and Knowledge. Cornell Studies in the Philosophy of Religion. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.
1994Pinnock, Clark; Rice, Richard; Sanders, John; Hasker, William; Bassinger, David (1994). The Openness of God. InterVarsity. – "ignited a firestorm of controversy".[61]:  5 "Provoked numerous hostile articles in academic and popular publications."[61]:  5  The "conservative backlash" was "quick and fierce".[63]
1996Basinger, David (1996). The Case for Freewill Theism: A philosophical assessment. InterVarsity. – Considers divine omniscience, theodicy, and petitionary prayer in freewill perspective.[64]McGregor Wright, R. K. (1996). No Place for Sovereignty: What’s wrong with freewill theism. InterVarsity. – Sees open theism as wrong biblically, theologically, and philosophically.[64]
1997Boyd, Gregory (1997). God at War: The Bible & spiritual conflict. InterVarsity. – Made open theism the centerpiece of a theodicy.[61]:  6 Geisler, Norman (1997). Creating God in the Image of Man?. Bethany. – Asserts that open theism should be called new theism or neotheism because it is so different from classical theism.:  78 
1998Sanders, John (1998). The God who Risks: A theology of providence. InterVarsity. – "The most thorough standard presentation and defense of the openness view of God."[65]Erickson, Millard (1998). God the Father Almighty: A contemporary exploration of the Divine attributes. Baker. – Accuses open theists of selective use of Scripture and caricaturing classical theism.[66]
2000Pinnock, Clark (2000). Most Moved Mover: A theology of God’s openness. Baker and Paternoster. – "The most passionate and articulate defense of openness theology to date."[67]
Boyd, Gregory (2000). God of the Possible: A Biblical introduction to the open view of God. Baker. – "A genuinely evangelical portrayal of the biblical God."[68]
Ware, Bruce (2000). God's Lesser Glory: The diminished God of open theism. Crossway. – "The most influential critique of open theism."[61]:  6 
2001Boyd, Gregory A. (2001). Satan and the Problem of Evil: Constructing a trinitarian warfare theodicy. InterVarsity. – "A renewed defense of open theism" and a theodicy grounded in it.[69]Frame, John (2001). No Other God: A response to open theism. P & R.
Geisler, Norman; House, Wayne; Herrera, Max (2001). The Battle for God: Responding to the challenge of neotheism. Kregel. – "Debate seemed to turn somewhat in favor of classical theism."[61]:  6 
2002–2003Boyd, Gregory A. (2003). Is God to Blame? Beyond pat answers to the problem of evil. InterVarsity. – Attacked classical theists as "blueprint theologians" espousing a "blueprint world view".:  47, 200 Huffman, Douglas; Johnson, Eric, eds. (2002). God under Fire: Modern scholarship reinvents God. Zondervan.
Erickson, Millard (2003). What does God Know and When does He know it?: The current controversy over divine foreknowledge. Zondervan. – Attacked "open theism as theologically ruinous, dishonoring to God, belittling to Christ, and pastorally hurtful".:  371 
Piper, John; Taylor, Justin; Helseth, Paul, eds. (2003). Beyond the Bounds: Open theism and the undermining of Biblical Christianity. Crossway.
2004–2012Hasker, William (2004). Providence, Evil, and the Openness of God. Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Religion. Routledge. – Contains appendix titled "Replies to my critics".:  187–230 Branch, Craig, ed. (2012). "Open Theism: Making God like us". The Areopagus Journal. The Apologetics Resource Center. 4 (1). – Book's stated purpose is to "demonstrate the errors of open theism".
2013–2014Ham, Garrett (2014). The Evangelical and the Open Theist: Can open theism find its place within the evangelical community?. Kindle. – Argues that proponents of open theism have a right to be called "evangelical".Scott, Luis (2013). Frustrating God: How open theism gets God all wrong. Westbow. – Declares that "open theists get God all wrong".:  xviii 
presentThe Internet brought open theists and their debate with classical theists into public view.[70] – An internet site supporting open theism is "Open theism – a basic introduction"reknew.org. May 2014.The Internet brought classical theists and their debate with open theists into public view.[70] Two internet sites supporting classical theism (from the Calvinist perspective) are: "The foreknowledge of God"desiringgod.org. and
"Open theism and divine-foreknowledge"frame-poythress.org.

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ Retrospective lists of (approximately) open theists:
    Jowers (2005)
    names Audius and Socinus.[37]
    Sanders (2007)
    names the following as “proponents” of “dynamic omniscience”: Edgar S. Brightman, Adam Clarke, Isaak Dorner, Samuel Fancourt, Gustave T. Fechner, Billy Hibbert, William James, Lorenzo D. McCabe, Otto Pfleiderer, and Andrew Ramsay.[38]
    Boyd (2008, 2014)
    names the following as “open theists”: 4th century Calcidius, 18th–19th century T.W. Brents, Adam Clarke, Isaac Dorner, Samuel Fancourt, G.T. Fechner, J. Greenrup, Joel Hayes, Billy Hibbard, J. Jones, Jules Lequier, Lorenzo McCabe, Otto Pfleiderer, D.U. Simon, and W. Taylor.[39]
  2. ^ "For I, the Lord, have not changed": Although I keep back My anger for a long time, My mind has not changed from the way it was originally, to love evil and to hate good. — Rashi[full citation needed]
  3. ^ "God is not a man that He should lie": He has already promised them to bring them to and give them possession of the land of the seven nations, and you expect to kill them in the desert? — Rashi[full citation needed] – [See Mid. Tanchuma Mass'ei 7, Num. Rabbah 23:8] – "Would He say ...": Heb. הַהוּא. This is in the form of a question. And the Targum (Onkelos) renders, "who later relent". They reconsider and change their minds.

References

  1. ^ "Open Theism"opentheism.info. Archived from the original on July 6, 2016. Retrieved August 1, 2014.
  2. ^ Sanders, John (July 30, 2007). "An introduction to open theism"Reformed Review60 (2). Retrieved August 13, 2021.
  3. ^ "A brief outline and defense of the open view"ReKnew.
  4. ^ "Paths to open and relational theologies"thomasjayoord.com. For the Love of Wisdom and the Wisdom of Love. May 13, 2014. Retrieved March 7, 2020.
  5. ^ Olson, Roger E. (2004). The Westminster Handbook to Evangelical Theology. Westminster John Knox Press. p. 190.
  6. ^ Tuggy, Dale (2007). "Three Roads to Open Theism" (PDF)Faith and Philosophy24 (1): 28–51. doi:10.5840/faithphil200724135ISSN 0739-7046.
  7. ^ Rhoda, Alan R.; Boyd, Gregory A.; Belt, Thomas G. (2006). "Open Theism, Omniscience, and the Nature of the Future" (PDF)Faith and Philosophy23 (4): 432–459. doi:10.5840/faithphil200623436ISSN 0739-7046.
  8. ^ "chapter 1". The Openness of God.[full citation needed]
  9. ^ WRS Journal 12:1 (Feb 2005), 5.
  10. ^ WRS Journal 12:1 (Feb 2005), Editor's notes, inside cover.
  11. ^ Donald K. McKimWestminster Dictionary of Theological Terms (Westminster John Knox, 1996), 251.
  12. ^ Gregory A. BoydGod at War: the Bible and Spiritual Conflict (InterVarsity, 1997) 106.
  13. ^ John Piper, "Why I Trust the Scriptures", http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/ConferenceMessages/ByDate/2008/2629_Why_I_Trust_the_Scriptures/ (accessed October 9, 2009).
  14. Jump up to:a b c Donald K. McKim, Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms (Westminster John Knox, 1996), 117.
  15. ^ Gregory A. Boyd, Is God to Blame? Moving Beyond Pat Answers to the Problem of Evil. (InterVarsity, 2003) 42.
  16. ^ Carl F. Ellis, Jr., "The Sovereignty of God and Ethnic-Based Suffering" in Suffering and the Sovereignty of God, ed. John Piper and Justin Taylor, 124. (Crossway, 2006).
  17. ^ Greg Boyd, "How do you respond to Isaiah 48:3-5?", http://reknew.org/2008/01/how-do-you-respond-to-isaiah-483-5/
  18. Jump up to:a b Talbot, "All the Good That Is Ours in Christ", in Suffering and the Sovereignty of God, ed. John Piper and Justin Taylor, 43-44 (Crossway, 2006).
  19. ^ Greg Boyd, "A Brief Outline and Defense of the Open View", http://www.gregboyd.org/essays/essays-open-theism/response-to-critics/ (accessed October 11, 2009).
  20. ^ Mark R. Talbot, "All the Good That Is Ours in Christ", in Suffering and the Sovereignty of God, ed. John Piper and Justin Taylor, 41 (Crossway, 2006).
  21. ^ Donald K. McKim, Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms (Westminster John Knox, 1996), 115.
  22. ^ Gregory A. Boyd, "The Open Theism View", in Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views, ed. James K. Beilby, Paul R. Eddy, 14 (InterVarsity, 2001).
  23. ^ James K. Beilby, Paul R. Eddy, eds., Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views, 11 (InterVarsity, 2001).
  24. ^ Ronald F. Youngblood, F. F. Bruce, R. K. Harrison, eds., Nelson's Student Bible Dictionary: A Complete Guide to Understanding the World of the Bible (Thomas Nelson, 2005), s.v. "FALL, THE".
  25. ^ Rice, Richard (1994). "Biblical support for a new perspective". In Pinnock, Clark H.; et al. (eds.). The Openness of God: A biblical challenge to the traditional understanding of God. InterVarsity.
  26. ^ Donald K. McKim, Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms (Westminster John Knox, 1996), 109.
  27. ^ Robert Kane, "The Contours of Contemporary Free Will Debates", in The Oxford Handbook of Free Will, ed. Robert Kane, 10-11 (Oxford USA, 2005).
  28. ^ Robert Kane, "The Contours of Contemporary Free Will Debates", in The Oxford Handbook of Free Will, ed. Robert Kane, 12, 13 (Oxford USA, 2005).
  29. ^ Roger E. Olson, The Westminster Handbook to Evangelical Theology (Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 186-187.
  30. ^ Greg Boyd, "How do you respond to Isaiah 48:3-5?", http://reknew.org/2008/01/how-do-you-respond-to-isaiah-483-5/.
  31. ^ Mark R. Talbot, "All the Good That Is Ours in Christ" in Suffering and the Sovereignty of God, ed. John Piper and Justin Taylor, 69 (Crossway, 2006).
  32. ^ Donald K. McKim, Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms (Westminster John Knox, 1996), 279.
  33. ^ John Sanders, The God Who Risks: A Theology of Providence (InterVarsity, 1998), 268.
  34. ^ Gregory A. Boyd, God at War: the Bible and Spiritual Conflict (InterVarsity Press, 1997), 20, 291.
  35. ^ Mark R. Talbot, "All the Good That Is Ours in Christ", Suffering and the Sovereignty of God, ed. John Piper and Justin Taylor, 41 (Crossway Books, 2006).
  36. ^ Gregory A. Boyd, Satan and the Problem of Evil (InterVarsity, 2001), 91, n.11.
  37. ^ Jowers, Dennis W. (February 2005). "Open theism: Its nature, history, and limitations"WRS Journal12 (1): 4. (in print and online)
  38. ^ Sanders, John (2007). The God Who Risks: A theology of providence. InterVarsity. pp. 167, 323 note 135.
  39. ^ Boyd, Gregory A. (August 2008). "Newly discovered open theists in church history"reknew.org. Retrieved August 1, 2014. and Satan and the Problem of Evil. InterVarsity. 2001. page 91, note 11.
  40. ^ Millard J. Erickson, What Does God Know and When Does He Know It?: The Current Controversy over Divine Foreknowledge (Zondervan, 2006), 248.
  41. ^ To see documentation to verify most of the people on this list see John Sanders, The God Who Risks: A Theology of Divine Providence, revised edition (InterVarsity press, 2007) 166-169.
  42. ^ Classical theism
  43. ^ Creel, Richard. Divine Impassibility. p. 11.
  44. ^ St. AugustineConfessions. Church Fathers. Book I – via newadvent.org.
  45. ^ Smith, George H. (1974). Atheism: the case against GodNew York City: Nash. p. 74ISBN 0-8402-1115-5OCLC 991343.
  46. ^ Elseth, Howard R.; Elseth, Elden J. (1977). Did God Know? A Study of the Nature of GodSaint Paul, Minnesota: Calvary United Church. p. 23. OCLC 11208194.
  47. ^ N. T. Wright Evil and the Justice of God
  48. ^ http://andrewmbailey.com/pvi/Omniscient_Being.pdf
  49. ^ Rhoda, Alan (February 21, 2006). "Alanyzer: Four Versions of Open Theism". Retrieved January 30, 2014.
  50. ^ Geisler, Norman L. (1997). Creating God in the Image of ManMinneapolis, Minnesota: Bethany House. p. 96. ISBN 1-55661-935-9OCLC 35886058.
  51. ^ Bouma, Jeremy. "Open Theism and 'Most Moved Mover': Changeability".
  52. ^ "The Early Church Fathers on Hellenism and Impassibility"Open Theism.
  53. ^ "God as Most Moved Mover"Open Theism.
  54. Jump up to:a b Rice, Richard (1980). The Openness of God: The relationship of divine foreknowledge and human free will. Nashville, Tennessee: Review and Herald Pub. Association. ISBN 978-0812703030. ISBN 0812703030 – Note that the first part of this book's title was repeated by Pinnock, Rice, & Sanders (1994).
  55. ^ Piper, John (January 1, 1976). "The Sovereignty of God and Prayer". Retrieved January 30, 2014.
  56. ^ Singer, Tovia. "Monotheism". Retrieved August 19, 2013.
  57. ^ Spiro, Ken. "Jewish followers of Jesus"Seeds of Christianity. Simple to Remember. Retrieved August 19, 2013 – via simpletoremember.com.
  58. ^ Boyd, Gregory A. (2000). God of the Possible: A Biblical Introduction to the Open View of God. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books. ISBN 080106290XOCLC 43589372.
  59. ^ Inbody, Tyron (2005). The Faith of the Christian Church: An introduction to theology. Eerdmans. page 98, note 31.
  60. ^ Pinnock, Clark H.; Rice, Richard; Sanders, John (September 22, 1994). The Openness of God: A Biblical challenge to the traditional understanding of God. Inter Varsity Press, Academic. ISBN 978-0830818525. Note that this later book has the same short title as Rice (1980).[54]
  61. Jump up to:a b c d e f g h i Jowers, Dennis W. "Open Theism: Its nature, history, and limitations"WRS Journal12 (1).
  62. ^ Cited by Jowers:[61]:  5  Risler, James. "Open Theism"The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. University of Tennessee at Martin. ISSN 2161-0002 – via www.iep.utm.edu.
  63. ^ Larsen, Timothy; Treier, Daniel J., eds. (2007). The Cambridge Companion to Evangelical Theology. Cambridge University Press. p. 25.
  64. Jump up to:a b Back cover of cited book.
  65. ^ "Review of The God who Risks". WRS Journal12 (1): 31–33. February 2005.
  66. ^ Stallard, Mike (Fall 2001). "The open view of God: Does he change?". The Journal of Ministry & Theology5 (2): 5–25.
  67. ^ "Publisher's description". Baker Academic. Archived from the original on June 29, 2017.
  68. ^ On back cover of Brueggemann
  69. ^ "Gregory A. Boyd and the problem of evil"dts.edu (review).
  70. Jump up to:a b Coffman, Elesha. "Open debate in the openness debate"Christianity Today.

Sources

Pro
  • Trinity and Process, G.Boyd, 1992
  • "Satan & the Problem of Evil: Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy", Greg Boyd (2001) ISBN 0-8308-1550-3
  • The Case for Freewill Theism: a Philosophical Assessment, David Basinger, 1996, InterVarsity Press, ISBN 0-8308-1876-6
  • The Openness of God: The Relationship of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Free Will, Richard Rice, 1980, Review and Herald Pub. Association, ISBN 0-8127-0303-0
  • The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God, Clark Pinnock editor, et al., 1994, InterVarsity Press ISBN 0-8308-1852-9, Paternoster Press (UK), ISBN 0-85364-635-X (followup to Rice book includes contribution from him)
  • The God Who Risks: A Theology of Providence, John Sanders, revised edition, 2007. InterVarsity Press, ISBN 978-0-8308-2837-1
  • The Nature of Love: A Theology, Thomas Jay Oord, 2010. Chalice Press, ISBN 978-0-8272-0828-5
  • God, Time, and Knowledge, William Hasker, 1998, Cornell University Press, ISBN 0-8014-8545-2
  • God of the Possible, Gregory A. Boyd, 2000 reprint, Baker Books, ISBN 0-8010-6290-X
  • Most Moved Mover: A Theology of God's Openness (The Didsbury Lectures), Clark Pinnock, 2001, Baker Academic, ISBN 0-8010-2290-8
  • Providence, Evil, and the Openness of God, William Hasker, 2004, Routledge, ISBN 0-415-32949-3
  • Creation Made Free: Open Theology Engaging Science, Thomas Jay Oord ed., 2009, Pickwick, ISBN 978-1-60608-488-5
Con
Multiple views
  • The Sovereignty of God Debate, D. Steven Long and George Kalantizis editors, 2009 Cascade Books, ISBN 978-1-55635-217-1
  • Perspectives on the Doctrine of God: 4 Views, Bruce Ware editor, 2008, Broadman and Holman Academic, ISBN 978-0-8054-3060-8
  • Divine Foreknowledge: 4 Views, James Beilby and Paul Eddy (editors), et al., 2001, InterVarsity Press, ISBN 0-8308-2652-1
  • God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature, Gregory E. Ganssle and David M. Woodruff (editors), 2002, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-512965-2
  • God & Time: Four Views, Gregory E. Ganssle (editor), et al., 2001, InterVarsity Press, ISBN 0-8308-1551-1
  • Predestination & Free Will, David and Randall Basinger (editors), et al., 1985, Intervarsity Press, ISBN 0-87784-567-0
  • Searching for an Adequate God, John Cobb and Clark Pinnock (Editors), et al., 2000, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, ISBN 0-8028-4739-0

Further reading

External links