Posted on 01/03/2005 8:18:33 AM PST by kiriath_jearim
Open or Closed Case? Controversial theologian John Sanders on way out at Huntington. By Stan Guthrie | posted 12/22/2004
While John Sanders and the Board of Trustees at Huntington College in Indiana disagree on whether God exhaustively knows the future, they agree that his days as a theology professor at the evangelical school are running out. The issue, according to both Sanders and G. Blair Dowden, the college's president, is not Sanders' belief in open theology, but his notoriety in advocating the doctrine. Both acknowledged that others on the faculty hold the same open theology views.
"You can be an open theist," Sanders told CT. "You just can't be a well-known one. That makes this a very interesting case."
After an executive session of the board was held in October, Dowden told members of the faculty that there "was very little support for John's continued employment at Huntington." Neither Sanders nor Dowden expect him back for the 2005-2006 academic year, which begins next fall. Dowden told ct that while the controversy is "directly related" to open theism, there is no requirement for professors on the issue.
"Not at all," Dowden said. "We have some other faculty who are open theists, but they're not teaching theology or Bible. It's not a litmus test."
Sanders, who has taught at the school of about 1,000 students for seven years, has been a focus of controversy over open theism for the past four years, he said. In November 2003, Sanders narrowly avoided being expelled from the Evangelical Theological Society over his beliefs. Some society members believe open theology violates the society's commitment to scriptural inerrancy.
Huntington removed Sanders from the tenure track over the controversy, but school officials attempted to give him some financial security by signing him to three-year rolling contracts, automatically renewable annually, unless the administration or board says No. In the event Sanders were to be dismissed, he would receive payment for the balance of the contract.
Sanders told ct he expects to be relieved of his position shortly, and that Dowden has "made it clear that my contract will not be renewed after the 2004-5 academic year." Sanders said that he is looking into other teaching positions and research grants, but that he has no other options waiting in the wings right now.
Earlier reports in ct and the Chronicle of Higher Education that Sanders had been "fired" were inaccurate. Dowden, who called Sanders a "brilliant scholar" and "excellent teacher," has been a defender of Sanders.
"John has done everything we have asked of him," Dowden said. But Dowden said that the United Brethren in Christ, which sponsors the school, "finds open theism troubling—some [leaders find it] very troubling."
Dowden added that academic freedom, while important, is not absolute. "For all Christian colleges, academic freedom is bounded in some way."
Sanders said the school is not following its own guidelines. "I do believe that the right to publish and academic freedom statements that the professors actually are working under are being violated," Sanders said. "They are being trodden upon."
Some students at the school are upset. Joni Michaud, a senior history major who is a leader in a student group supporting Sanders, said the controversy is "a case study in academic freedom." The group meets weekly to discuss strategy, has sent letters supporting Sanders to the board, and is seeking to raise awareness among other students. Michaud said the treatment of Sanders violates the school's statements lauding the "benefits of controversy" in an academic setting.
"If Dr. Sanders is indeed fired, I will graduate with a much lowered opinion of the institution," said Michaud, a pre-law major. "I will probably not make any financial contribution, and I will discourage people from attending."
Such talk is no doubt troubling to administrators, who have announced a freeze in tuition rates for the 2005-2006 academic year. Huntington College, to be renamed Huntington University in mid-2005, says the annual U.S.News & World Report survey of colleges consistently ranks it as one of the top comprehensive colleges in the Midwest.
Dowden said the board will next meet January 19-23, and the fate of Sanders could be formally decided then.
[Stan Guthrie is senior associate news editor for Christianity Today]
I'll have to think that over really carefully for at least a second .... Yeah, you're right, land masses are heavier.
Seriously, you know that Plato thought a moral law was more real and more absolute than a land mass -- after all, land masses keep on changing, at least around the edges ... Can you say "tsunami"? He would say that just as soon as you got to know Australia the tide would go out and some of it would be washed to sea, so it would be all different.
I mention that really only as a comment on the term "absolute".
Could you please rephrase the line:
...,there is nothing in itself that does show a moral law either.
I don't want to waste my dazzling brilliance (not to mention my great and impressive humility) on a misunderstanding.
It seems the human default positioin is that there really IS such a thing as justice. Are you suggesting that that is an unexamined notion and that there are only sort of local opinions about right or wrong?
I know it's hackneyed, but then you wouldn't REALLY have a beef if I found your agnostic position so terrible that I took a contract out on your life (Bring me my ring and my sealing wax -- Are you ready to FATWA?) -- I mean, it's just a matter of opinion either way, we can't really judge it to be wrong ... (Damn, just like an inquisitor; they're never around when you need 'em!)
You said...' That Spartans taught their sons to steal does not in itself show that there is no moral law about stealing.'...I tried to say, that there there was nothing in itself that does show a moral law, either, other than teachings. Unfortunately, I sometimes do not express myself as well as I would like.
A land mass' physical existence can be easily verified without any qualifiers, (for lack of a better term), it is a land mass, regardless of what any individual or group, may say...bottom line, it does not require an acceptance or an interpretation. Granted, a law can exist, but one can choose to obey it or not, and it can be good or bad....it can be interpreted differently by anyone, and by itself, is useless...it is the interpretation/acceptance that gives it it's value. These qualifiers, are where I make the distinction between an absolute, or a relative.
I realise that if one wants to mess around with words, semantics, grammar, whatever, you could say all sorts of things about my above, and twist my words around...but I think you know what I mean, and if not, then there is no sense in continuing this discussion.
I believe that in most people, there is a default position of justice, but in some, it appears to be lacking.
It is hackneyed, and of course I would have a beef. As we well know, there are those that are prone to murder, just as there are those that find it abhorrent. There is societal justice, and we must obey the laws that are in place, or pay the consequence...I just happen to believe that what we do here on earth, is of no consequence to God. I believe He made us as we are, good, bad, and in between.
Think about the fact he also felt pain and died on a cross... do we then extrapolate that God feels pain and will one day die?
Depends on what the word all means .
The problem is you have God reacting to men and not men to god. Who is god in that situation?
Could you please show us the scripture that says God gave men free will?
How free is the will of men from your perspective? Can a man born without legs simply choose to walk ?
Is your "free will" in anyway restricted?
So it is your position that God the father has chosen to be a victim of the will of men,
Does God have free will? Do you claim something for yourself that He does not have?
I am not trying to play games with your words. I've been a theist most of my life. I've been interested in what you might call Philosophical Theology most of my adult life. I'm VERY interested in what people who disagree with me (and the RC Church, of which I am a member) think.
Your assertion that the subject matter of the Natural Sciences is the only area where we may find absolutes is not brand new, but it has always intrigued me, precisely because Baconian empiricism seems to me to be very practical but based on a lot of assumptions -- many of which, I think, Bacon understood, but which the present devotees of empiricism think so obvious that they get all irritable when the assumptions are not questioned but merely brought to the surface. Then they start saying people are twisting their words. It reminds me of the way people got irritated with Socrates.
Anyway, to proceed:
The value of your complaint (or your heirs' complaint) if I have you murdered is that a lot of people accept the notion that murder is a bad thing? So back before people had opinions about murder it would have been okay? Or back when tribal warfare was considered noble, it WAS noble? But now it's not?
So the only thing wrong with my murdering you for your opinion is my timing?
... we must obey the laws that are in place, or pay the consequence. The police ARE better armed than we are, so we MUST (probably) pay the consequence, but it sounds like you think the question whether we SHOULD pay the consequence is meaningless -- or is insignificantly different from asking what the majority thinks.
A land mass' physical existence can be easily verified without any qualifiers.
But isn't the notion that Australia existed before any humans ran across it relative to some suppositions about matter and causality generally? Your absolutes are VERY relative, and they are relative to assumptions (which I happen to share) which have not always been held by even a minority of humans. (And in a few bazillion years when the sun goes Nova, or in somewhat fewer years when Christ comes again and heaven and earth pass away, Australia will be, at most, a memory. Your absolute then will be that once there was a planet with such and such a land mass.)
Have you ever read Kant's Critique of Pure Reason? Any Aristotle? The Timaeus of Plato? You seem to have an admirable commitment to articulating the Truth. I'd like to think that that commitment led you to interact with the great people who agree and disagree with you.
Have you read any C.S. Lewis? I'm thinking here especially of Mere Christianity. The reason I think of it is that Lewis's opening argument is about the relationship between the concept of moral law and the existence of God.
But if you think that God doesn't care about right and wrong, then, while we petty humans may be upset by it, it doesn't really matter in the final analysis. It's not verifiable, it's not of ultimate concern, (and, of course, I -- MOI! -- am above mundane concerns) so who cares? I shall do whatever I want, if I think I can get away with it. Yee Hah - Just as soon as I get me some Ben Gay and some Viagra, I'm headed for the Hootchie-Kootchie joint!
The Talmud, with its characteristic brevity, expresses this in four Hebrew words: hakol tzafuy v'hareshut nitana, "everything is forseen, but permission is given." (Avot 3:19).
Is it time to start asking about the meaning of "is"? ;)
Golly it bugged me that that louse CLinton got to raise such a cool quesiton merely to avoid taking the rap for something he did!
It's also elegantly expressed in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, in "The Nun's Priest's Tale." Chaunticleer the rooster has a dream in which he foresees that he will be eaten by a red beast (a fox). He tells his dream to his wife Pertelote, and they discuss whether this was a natural dream or a divine prophetic dream. If the latter, can Chauntecleer escape his fate? They work it out by going through a number of examples that God sometimes warns people through dreams, but leaves the dreamer free to choose how he will respond to the warning.
This in turn is based many on Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy," which draws the distinction between Divine Providence and pagan fate.
Here is a major problem with your perception that God was surprised or taken unaware by Sauls disobedience . And so he was grieved and changed his mind.
We know that God had foreordained the plan of salvation from BEFORE the foundation of the world. Jesus had agreed and the plan developed even before Adam fell
That plan Had Jesus as prophesied ad the Lion of Judah and the SON OF DAVID
Saul and his line were never the ordained ROYAL line for the Messiah . The Kings of Israel were never ordained to come from the tribe of Benjamin
Saul sinned, God is never pleased with sin, but God was not surprised by the sin . God had made Saul, it was god that had formed the character of Saul. God that knew exactly how Saul would react in a given set of circumstances , if His hand did not restrain him.
If the Lord had not revealed to Saumel a change toward Saul because of his disobedience (1samuel15:1-10) then Samuel would have had grounds for thinking that the Lord's character had truly changed. The biblical narrative of 1 Samuel 15 does not bring into question Gods eternal purpose to raise up Israel's king from the tribe of Judah and not from the tribe of Benjamin (Gen 49:8-12), instead it shows how he brought about his prophetic word that the Messiah would descend from Judah!
Good point. It seems like a simple concept. I suppose I was always a Calvinist and never knew it. Here's an article on this from Dr. Piper whom I’m growing to admire more and more. (I’ll have to send him some money.)
He donates all the profit from his book to the church .
That was what I was thinking as I typed it. I should have put a smile on it
But in this case it really does depend on how we define all. Is all everything except mans free will?
My fave professor said "all-powerful" could be construed "All the power that is, is God's". Then such power as anything else might have, if any, would have been delegated or handed over. Our Calvinist brethren seem to be doing an pretty exhaustive job of looking at that.
Similarly with "all-knowing". And this leaves the questions about the future and making a rock so big He can't life it to other parts of the conversation.
So God is ALL powerful, and if he ceded his power to another He has stopped being ALL powerful.
Similarly with "all-knowing".
You have God violating His nature all over the place . When God knows no more than man, he ceases to be omniscient and becomes as limited as his creatures. Prophecy becomes a lottery guess.
And this leaves the questions about the future and making a rock so big He can't life it to other parts of the conversation.
That is only a conversation if one believes God can stop being God. If God could not life the rock he would stop being God.
Does God have free will?
But making predications about God is always tricky. All we know is created stuff, so our language and our thoughts are always going to have to be tricvky when talking about God.
It seems to me I heard God wanted us to be "sons, and if sons then heirs". And all I know about being a parent is that I want my kid to choose the Good and to do so Freely.
In my case that means acknowledging that my power over her chossing is limited. If God has given free will (to humans or angels)(and I know that's vexed) I'm just suggesting that that would seem to imply that He gave up, in some way or another, some of His power.
Even in that sense, though, time helps us understnad it. If I give my kid the responsibility of feeding the sheep, and she skips it, then there is a consequence. The sheep are hungry. But then I go out and feed them and punish my kid. When a deputy misuses his power, he's fired and the Sheriff sets things to rights. But the sheriff does have to fix what the deputy messed up.
I don't think it's entirely off the wall.
Don't be silly.
How nice you allow him to know more than man, but how do you know that ? How do you know how much he gave up? How much does he have to give up to stop being God?
What if he gave up enough that man could change the future? Could Satan win?
It seems to me I heard God wanted us to be "sons, and if sons then heirs". And all I know about being a parent is that I want my kid to choose the Good and to do so Freely.
Did your son have the choice of you as a parent? His sex or look? His IQ? Your socioeconomic /financial state ( that would impact his education)? Did he choose the country of his birth or the church that you would raise him in?
As you see your son had almost no choice in anything that makes him what he is . That was decided BY GOD , as was his personality and preferences.
Your honored free will is not quite as "free" as you propose .
God has given men free will, but they will never seek him or desire him , unless God acts on Him
It is rather like you placed your son on an island and then expected him to love you when you finally met . For you to divorce your relationship with your son from his desire or ability to love you is foolishness.
YOU acted first. You drew him to you, introduced your self to him and graced him with your love . He made a choice to love you ...but only because YOU LOVED HIM FIRST
1Jo 4:19 We love him, because he first loved us.
In my case that means acknowledging that my power over her chossing is limited. If God has given free will (to humans or angels)(and I know that's vexed) I'm just suggesting that that would seem to imply that He gave up, in some way or another, some of His power.
I await your scripture that says God gave you or the angels "free will"
Does God have free will? Do you want for yourself what God does not have ?
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