Southern prof in middle of growing open theism debate

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)--The debate over open theism has intensified in recent months, and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professor Bruce Ware has emerged as one of its more vocal opponents.

Ware and his position on open theism are the subject of much discussion in the latest journal published by the conservative Evangelical Theological Society, a group of theologians who affirm biblical inerrancy. The journal is basically a spillover from debate at last November's ETS meeting, when Ware presented a paper with spirited arguments against open theism -- the belief that the future is "open" in that God does not and cannot know the future free choices and actions of his creatures. ETS members then overwhelmingly passed a non-binding resolution saying that open theism is unbiblical.

Three open theists took exception to Ware's argument and wrote responses that are published in the June edition of the quarterly "Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society." The entire issue, in fact, is devoted to the debate over open theism. It includes the original paper Ware presented, responses by three open theists -- Clark Pinnock, John Sanders and Gregory Boyd -- and a rejoinder by Ware. It also includes an article by Southern Seminary professor Stephen Wellum on the incompatibility of the open view with a commitment to inerrancy.

Pinnock, Sanders and Boyd all argue that evangelicalism is a big enough tent to include open theism, with Pinnock simply saying, "There is room for us."

But Ware -- whose book "God's Lesser Glory" critiques and opposes open theism -- says evangelicalism must have boundaries.

"[O]pen theism's denial of what Scripture teaches and what all historic views affirm constitutes a departure that is biblically, theologically, and practically so serious in nature, that Christian leaders should declare open theism unacceptable as a viable, legitimate model within evangelicalism," he writes.

Rejecting open theism, he continues, is "not only justified, but, before God and in clear conscience, required."

The Southern Baptist Convention has twice rejected open theism. The revised Baptist Faith and Message, passed in 2000, says that God's "perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures." In 1999 convention messengers passed a resolution with similar language that was presented by Southern Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr.

Debate over open theism has surfaced this summer in Baptist circles. The Baptist Standard, the state newspaper of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, ran a two-page spread about the open theism debate in June.

Also in June, theologian Fisher Humphreys helped lead a breakout session on open theism at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly. He said that while he's not fully persuaded that open theism is biblical, "it should be given serious consideration in our churches and schools."

In the June issue of the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Boyd takes exception to the paper Ware presented last November, saying that he is "saddened and frustrated" by the "political agenda" that lies behind it.

"I enjoy healthy dialogue and robust scholarly debate," Boyd writes. "But try as I might, I cannot imagine this essay fitting into this category. ... Casting a position in its weakest possible form and using alarmist and inflammatory language is not the way to deepen the understanding and to further academic and Christian dialogue."

But Ware rejects any notion that his motivation was political and asserts that such charges serve simply as "diversionary tactics."

"Granted, it is always easier to welcome a new friend than it is to confront and exhort an old one," he writes. "... But are there not times when faithfulness to God, Scripture and divine calling require the harder course of drawing the lines and calling something out of bounds?

"... [W]ithout possible rejection of some views, unavoidable acceptance of any view follows, and this will contribute to our undoing. Before us is a question of enormous theological and practical importance, clearly one of the most critical for our generation and those to follow."

Ware argues that open theism runs counter to what Christians have believed for centuries.

"For countless generations and millions of Christian believers, great strength and hope has been founded on the truth that God knows every detail of what will happen in the future," he writes. "... Christian theology has said that this view is essential to our understanding of God, and Christian faith has leaned on it during dark and stormy days."

Pinnock, Sanders and Boyd all submit detailed defenses of open theism, presenting what they consider biblical evidence and asserting that God does not know the future because there is nothing to know.

Boyd, in fact, argues that Ware's argument denies "God's infinite intelligence" because it limits God to only one outcome for each future event. Boyd says that while God does not know the outcome of specific events, he knows the countless possibilities of future events and is prepared to react to each one.

"God's intelligence is not limited," Boyd writes. "... God can consider and anticipate each of trillion billion possibilities as though each one was the only possibility he had to consider. ... In other words, for a God of infinite intelligence, there is virtually no distinction between knowing a certainty and knowing a possibility."

But Ware disagrees that his view limits God's intelligence.

"[H]istoric models of God have seen God's consideration of this vast realm of possibilities as taking place in eternity past, in relation to the formation of his decision of just what world to create," he writes. "... All the celebration Boyd gives to this notion of infinite intelligence seems a bit overdrawn in light of the fact that even God, with 'virtually certain' knowledge of possibilities, can get it wrong."

Ware argues that the implications of open theism are enormous. One of the bigger implications, he asserts, is the compromise to the doctrine of the atonement -- the belief that Christ died for future sinners.

"Scripture has always been understood very personally here: Christ died for you and he paid for your sins," Ware writes before quoting 1 Peter 2:24, "He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross."

"This [doctrine] is lost in open theism, and more importantly, the open view here is not what the Bible teaches."

Boyd argues that Christ paid the price for "possible" future sins and that he "over-paid" for all the sins of the world.

Sanders and Boyd both argue that Ware's arguments against open theism can be equally applied to Arminianism, a model accepted within evangelicalism that, among other things, holds that God's election of sinners is based on foreknowledge.

Ware, though, asserts that all his arguments against open theism apply to it and it alone. He adds that even Arminianism rejects the open theistic view of God's knowledge.

Ware argues that in open theism God looks back on his past actions and determines that what he "previously decided may not in fact have been the best decision."

"What is unique to open theism ... is God learning now, in this moment as choices are made and actions are performed, that perhaps what he thought would be best turns out, in retrospect, not so to have been," he writes. "... But these are not problems faced in classic Arminianism, where God knows fully and certainly all that the future holds and what consequences follow from any and every action and event."

Both Ware and Wellum assert that open theism undermines the inerrancy of Scripture.

Boyd, though, disagrees, saying that "since open theists hold that God is able to unilaterally settle as much of the future ahead of time as he desires, there is nothing in principle preventing us from affirming any specific decree of God.... Our view simply holds that God leaves open whatever aspects of the future he sovereignly chooses to leave open."

But Wellum asserts that open theism does in fact undermine "any kind of guarantee that either the human authors will freely write precisely what God wanted written, or that what God predicts will in fact come to pass. ... I do not see how any coherent and rational defense of an inerrant Scripture can be made on the foundation of open theism."
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(BP) photos posted in the BP Photo Library at http://www.bpnews.net. Photo titles: BRUCE WARE and JOURNAL OF THE EVANGELICAL THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY.

First, the wages of sin is death. Death is a payment which we pay for sinning. Your twisting of the word wages here does not square with Scripture.

For example, in the Old Testament, you had the atoning sacrifices which were meant to compensate for sins committed. God didn't command animals to be killed just for kicks, nor did he send his Son to die just cause he loved us. The sacrifices had a specific purpose and a role which they fulfilled. They atoned for the sin of the individual. The word used in the OT most often is the word Kaphar, which means to cover. The blood of atonement covered sin and allowed for reconciliation of sinful man and God. This theme is seen all the way in the beginning of the Bible with Adam and Eve and even Cain and Abel, where Abel's blood sacrifice was acceptable to God and Cain's was not. In all cases, God was the one to be appeased. Isaiah says that God would see the sacrifice of Christ and would be satisfied.(Isaiah 53:11). His holiness was that which had been offended. It was to God and His holiness that wages had to be paid. Sin had to be paid for in the name of the justness of God. And, the only way that sin could be covered and paid for was by the blood.

Fast forward to the New Testament and Jesus. Again, we see Jesus's death as that which pays the penalty for the sins of man. He took our sins upon Himself, even became sin for us, and paid the debt. His death was a ransom which would free others from bondage. The Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45; see also 1 Peter 1:18-19). The word for ransom usually means deliverance from bondage in exchange for the payment of compensation or the offering of a substitute.

Going into the Pauline epistles, it is even more clear. Christ did what the law could not do. His blood paid the payment for sin once for all. Romans 5:8 says, for "what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man. "

Romans 8:32 says "He who did not spare his own Son, but GAVE HIM UP FOR US ALL- how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?"

That Jesus was a substitute, is clear too. "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (2 Cor. 5:21)

He bore the penalty for our sin So CHrist was sacrificed once to take awy the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him."(Hebrews 9:28)

Hank, your heretical attack here is soundly rebuked by the Word of God. I would suggest you go back and read the Bible. Start with the book of Romans. Then try Hebrews. Both deal heavily with the mechanics of what transpired on the cross and what the death of Christ actually meant. Christ was not someone who died just to show us self-sacrifice or love. Christ came with a purpose in mind, to redeem, ransom, pay the penalty for the sins of, and reconcile to God, sinful man. In His last moments on the cross, His cry "IT IS FINISHED" actually meant something. The price had been paid. God's Holiness and justice were appeased. He paid the penalty for our sins through His death on Calvary and was our Substitute. One needn't have John Calvin's word to see that this is clearly taught in Scripture.

Are you a modalist?

No!

I've been called worse. I notice you picked up on the slander but didn't bother to consider the question that really matters. Christians world-wide use the expression, "Christ paid for sins ...," which is found nowhere in Scripture. This is so basic, it is almost impossbile to believe that so many could blithely accept this without question. Surely the power of Satan to deceive is greater than most imagine.

The whole question of whether Christ "paid" for the sins of all mankind or only "paid" for the sins of the elect is meaningless, because Christ never "paid" for the sin of a single person, ever, because, SIN CANNOT BE PAID FOR." There is no payment that cancels or allows the evil of sin.

The penalty of sin is not debt, but punishment or wages, something that must be "received" and "born." Jesus bore the penalty of sin for us, for all men. The penalty was death. There is no measurement of death. That death was the substitute God accepted in the place of all who will repent and receive by faith the forgiveness that atoning (covering) death provides.

As for the modalist question, see post #22

Hank

Pinnock, Sanders and Boyd all argue that evangelicalism is a big enough tent to include open theism, with Pinnock simply saying, "There is room for us."

I fully agree.

The Southern Baptist Convention has twice rejected open theism. The revised Baptist Faith and Message, passed in 2000, says that God's "perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures." In 1999 convention messengers passed a resolution with similar language that was presented by Southern Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr.

The soundness of Southern Baptists emerges. I suppose we're just not imaginative enough to believe that God inspired books of prophecy to be written prior to their fulfillment if God did not know and plan the very precise and unusual details of their fulfillment from the foundations of the world.

It's actually difficult for me to imagine how the open theists can even read the Bible. Entire portions would simply disappear in the confusion. I suspect these people are theologians of the same variety as the Jesus Seminar blasphemers.

If you supply one verse of Scripture that says the atonement was a "payment" I will agree with your.

If you supply one verse of Scripture that says there is any such thing as a sin "debt," I will agree with you. Here is what I said in post #27:

I know you have always heard and used the expression, Jesus paid for our sins," and it seems incredible that it is not in the Bible, but it is not. There is a huge difference in the meaning of paying for sin, or receiving wages. It is not some minor thing. Suppose next payday your boss says, "your wages this week are $400.00," then expects you to pay him $400.00. You'll be the first to point out, wages are something you get, not somehting you pay.

Hank

Pinnock, Sanders and Boyd all submit detailed defenses of open theism, presenting what they consider biblical evidence and asserting that God does not know the future because there is nothing to know.

Boyd, in fact, argues that Ware's argument denies "God's infinite intelligence" because it limits God to only one outcome for each future event. Boyd says that while God does not know the outcome of specific events, he knows the countless possibilities of future events and is prepared to react to each one.

"God's intelligence is not limited," Boyd writes. "... God can consider and anticipate each of trillion billion possibilities as though each one was the only possibility he had to consider. ... In other words, for a God of infinite intelligence, there is virtually no distinction between knowing a certainty and knowing a possibility."

I thought I'd ask OPie if he has any thoughts on this. It the tendency, shown in this argument, which seems to lead almost inexorably toward this line of thinking that makes me so leary of the idea of God as a theoretical thinker and planner.

Boyd argues that Christ paid the price for "possible" future sins and that he "over-paid" for all the sins of the world.

It's difficult to conceive how Christ atoned for any sins of those but His own flock. In the end, in eternity, Christ has paid for the sins of each member of His flock (the Elect) and for no other. If He paid for your sin, you are His and will be with Him in eternity. If He didn't pay for your sins, you will be in hell for all eternity.

This is more of the possible-grace, possible-atonement nonsense we've heard from the Arminian faction before.

Do you object to the word or the concept or both?

What are you asking?

The word is a fine word, when it applies to things that have modes, like music, or literature.

I do not know what "concept" the modalists mean to identify by the word "mode" which is one of the reasons I object to the word in this case. The other is, it is not Scriptural, and all we need to know about God, God's nature, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Soirit are clearly taught in Scripture, and we don't need any words with vague meanings added by men to understand what God expects us to understand.

(Long sentence, huh?)

Listen, I can count, I know God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit add up to three, and I know these three are also the one God. I know God the Son is eternally God the Son, and that He became a man. I know that as a man on earth God the Son prayed to God the Father, and that another time God the Father made himself audibly heard with the words, "this is my Beloved Son, hear ye Him." How could these things be? I do not know, but I know the addition of a bunch of words invented by men to explain it do not make it any easier to understand.

I reject only the words and teachings of men and tradition. For this I am called a heretic. (To that I have no objection. Puts me in very good company.) Go read what Jesus had to say about man's teachings and traditions.

Hank

If you supply one verse of Scripture that says the atonement was a "payment" I will agree with your.

“...And He Himself is the Propitiation for our sins; And not for ours only, But also for those of the whole world.” ~~ 1 Jn 2:2

I suppose you know there is no way you can twist the meaning of the word, "propitiation," to mean "payment." Certainly His shed blood and death are the complete satisfaction (what propitiation means) for the demands of a Holy and Just God that there be a just recompense of reward for all sin. (Heb 2:2 For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward.) Notice, a reward is something you get, not something you pay.

Hank

I thought I'd ask OPie if he has any thoughts on this. It the tendency, shown in this argument, which seems to lead almost inexorably toward this line of thinking that makes me so leary of the idea of God as a theoretical thinker and planner.

I'd say that the essential difference between my syllogism on Matthew 11:20-27, and the probability-argumentation of the Open Theists, is that I am arguing that prior to Creation, God in His omnipotence enjoys an infinite number of Creative Potentialities comprehensive, precisely and absolutely Foreknown to Him from Beginning to End, and He has the Divine Freedom to Elect to Actualize (create) that Foreknown Potentiality which He elects to actualize.**

The Open Theist essentially denies God's comprehensive foreknowledge, for He denies that God precisely foreknows exactly what a Free Agent WILL choose; He "only" knows all that a Free Agent can choose, and "plans around" those "posibilities". In other words, to use Open Theist terminology, He is "a god who takes risks".

enjoyed infinte Creative alternatives

God cannot Foreknow the Possibility of Actioning a Course of Action which He cannot do. Example -- God cannot Lie (i.e., it is impossible that His Word should conflict with Reality, for His Word creates Reality in its wake). Ergo, God cannot Foreknow the Possibility of God Lying.
God Foreknew the Possibility of performing Miracles which would bring Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom to Repentace.
Ergo, this Creative Possibility was available to His Omnipotence, else He could not Foreknow it.
However, this Possibility, though Freely Available to His Omnipotence, is not the Potentiality which He Elected to Actualize. He elected to permit Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom to remain in Non-Repentance, instead.

Certainly His shed blood and death are the complete satisfaction (what propitiation means) for the demands of a Holy and Just God that there be a just recompense of reward for all sin. (Heb 2:2 For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward.) Notice, a reward is something you get, not something you pay.

A "recompense", OTOH, is something paid. If you do not want a Creditor to Reward a Debtor with Debtor's Prison, you must recompense the Creditor for the Debt which He is owed.

That is, you must PAY him.

Flip the equation, HK. The bone of contention is not "reward", but "recompense".

A Recompense is a Payment.

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