The 1994 book, The Openness of God which included contributions from Clark Pinnock, Richard Rice, John Sanders, William Hasker and David Basinger has appeared to open the door into a different form of evangelical theology. Still evangelical, for sure, but quite markedly different. The main differences are that God is no longer entirely sure about the future since he is never entirely sure what people may decide to do! In this new strain of evangelical thought, God is often not able to make too many plans because He has freely decided never to impinge on human freedom.
Here are the 5 basic tenets of this new system as outlined by David Basinger himself:
1) God not only created the world ex nihilo but can (and at times does) intervene unilaterally in earthly affairs.
2) God chose to create us with incompatibilistic (libertarian) freedom – freedom over which He cannot exercise total control.
3) God so values freedom – the moral integrity of free creatures and a world in which such integrity is possible – that he does not normally override such freedom . . .
4) God always desires our highest good, both individually and corporately, and thus is affected by what happens in our lives.
5) God does not possess exhaustive knowledge of exactly how we will utilize our freedom, although he may well at times be able to predict with great accuracy the choices we will freely make.
Just a glance at the above points should immediately alert evangelicals from a more usual evangelical background that here are major obstacles indeed. Perhaps the major difference here is that a formerly fully omnipotent God has appeared to take a step backwards in order to avoid compromising human freedom! Are there not whiffs here of the influence of modern psychology with its concern for human "rights" and freedoms?
The conclusion appears - to me - pretty inescapable that the 'Openness of God' movement is an attempt to find a meeting point with Process Theology with its concept that God is ever learning, and that much of the future remains undecided. I have a major problem with this and it saddens me that a group of theologians who have promised so much (I have admired John Sanders in particular and found much to celebrate in his No Other Name) seem to have chosen to go down, what appears to me, as a very flawed theological path. Moreover, it is a theological path which seems to seriously lack scriptural support.
I include a link here to the excellent Misgivings About 'Openness of God' Theology which seems to me a very fair critique of the new theology. It is written by Jason Butler. I would not express all points exactly as Jason does but - by and large - this seems to be a fine and scholarly assessment of certain problems with the approach.
Robin A. Brace 2006.
Misgivings About "Openness of God" Theology
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