Greg Boyd Explain’s His Open Theism
28 08 2006
Many of us who deeply care about sound teaching and biblical theology have been concerned about the teachings of “Open Theism” where certain Evangelical scholars like Clark Pinnock and others seem to be suggesting that God is not truly omniscient. I have heard that Greg Boyd is also an Open Theist, and this troubled me because I really like Greg and feel that a lot of his teaching is is a good counter balance to the idolatry and the unbridled nationalism of the Christian Right. So I was not too happy when I learned that he espoused Open Theism. So I decided to email him and ask him just where he was coming from. To my surprise, Greg took time out of his busy schedule to email me his thoughts. I have to say, after reading Greg’s unfiltered views on Open Theism, I now can see how thoroughly biblical his views are. But don’t listen to me or his critics, read him for yourself. The link below is the email in its entirety and it was posted with Greg’s knowledge and permission.
Thanks for this letter. I disagree with Boyd on some things but his letter is a wonderful concise articulation of my perspective as well.
Thanks for dropping by Mike. Yeah, I kind of agree with Bob’s critique of Boyd on his blog, but on the whole, I think Boyd is a necessary counterbalance to our friends of the Christian Right.
I think a lot of the heat over Open View Theism is due to church politics, where in the past distinctives of Calvinism/Arminianism held an importance above and beyond their missiological importance, meaning the extent they mattered for us being salt and light in this world.
I think a lot of it has to do with how we deal with anxiety about past and present sufferings/choices and a future we do not know. The way to deal with this is through Matthew 6, not extra-biblical theologies about God having an Exhaustive-Definite Foreknowledge and misinterpretations of the elect as used by the apostle Paul as referring to specific individuals rather than communities/groups of individuals.
dlw
That’s pretty insightful dlw, I think you need to expand on it a little bit more. It is probably worth a blog article or two.
I haven’t read the letter yet, but I would like to add that I have found Greg very open to sharing his views as well. I have also emailed him in the past and he as proved very personable and willing to help people, who he has never even seen or heard of, through tough issues of faith.
I had the same questions of him, and just finished reading the document. Thanks for posting!
Yeah, if you are a hardcore Calvinist, his comments will not satisfy you, but I don’t think that you can really see Greg as being unbiblical or a heretic after reading his letter.
OK Boyd’s explanation is clear ,,,,the God of possibilities is indeed biblical see
1Sam 10:12 ,, however God is still knowing of the eventual course of events and therefore knows all things in their finite path ,,,
My thoughts therefore are more in terms of ,,,what purpose can come of pretending an infinite set of choices when only one will take place? ,,,it seems that no matter how open one wishes to be it eventually ends up being quite closed.
sorry the reference is 1 Sam 23 :10-13
10Then said David, O LORD God of Israel, thy servant hath certainly heard that Saul seeketh to come to Keilah, to destroy the city for my sake.
11Will the men of Keilah deliver me up into his hand? will Saul come down, as thy servant hath heard? O LORD God of Israel, I beseech thee, tell thy servant. And the LORD said, He will come down.
12Then said David, Will the men of Keilah deliver me and my men into the hand of Saul? And the LORD said, They will deliver thee up.
13Then David and his men, which were about six hundred, arose and departed out of Keilah, and went whithersoever they could go. And it was told Saul that David was escaped from Keilah; and he forbare to go forth.
More from me just to clear up further ,,, I read Greg Boyd’s letter and have a simple question ,, Does God know anything in its certainty ??? Does He know for certain what will happen,,, if He does then this closes the system ( from his standpoint) and all the possibilities are rendered as theoretical,, if on the other hand He does not,,, then He knows only possibilities and therefore omniscience takes on a different meaning .
I think that there may still be a fundamental problem with Pastor Boyd’s position. If God knows the future only as “possibility” until it actually happens, then that implies that God has to learn from the creation what actually happens in it. God’s knowledge of history (what has actually happened) seems, in this view, to be radically dependent on something outside Himself (that is, God’s knowledge of the world is dependent on the world). This seems a worrisome limitation on God and an excessive imputation of autonomy to the world.
A view that seems better to me is that God’s knowledge of the created world is rooted in His knowledge of His own will for what the creation is to be. This concept is encapsulated in the Reformed doctrine of God’s decree.
This disagreement is closely parallel to the disagreement between the Arminian and Calvinist understandings of soteriology.