The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God [Paperback]

Clark H. Pinnock (Author), Richard Rice (Author), John Sanders (Author), William Hasker (Author), David Basinger (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 22, 1994

Voted one of Christianity Today's 1995 Books of the Year! The Openness of God presents a careful and full-orbed argument that the God known through Christ desires "responsive relationship" with his creatures. While it rejects process theology, the book asserts that such classical doctrines as God's immutability, impassibility and foreknowledge demand reconsideration. The authors insist that our understanding of God will be more consistently biblical and more true to the actual devotional lives of Christians if we profess that "God, in grace, grants humans significant freedom" and enters into relationship with a genuine "give-and-take dynamic." The Openness of God is remarkable in its comprehensiveness, drawing from the disciplines of biblical, historical, systematic and philosophical theology. Evangelical and other orthodox Christian philosophers have promoted the "relational" or "personalist" perspective on God in recent decades. Now here is the first major attempt to bring the discussion into the evangelical theological arena.

Product Details

• Paperback: 202 pages
• Publisher: IVP Academic (September 22, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0830818529
• ISBN-13: 978-0830818525
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #259,187 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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51 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A necessary provocation to our understanding of God, October 19, 2000

By 

Alwyn Lau (Petaling Jaya, Selangor Malaysia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God (Paperback)

This book is the work of five authors who set forth a version of theism known as Open Theism, the defining (though not necessarily central) characteristic of which is the proposition that God's omniscience does not include everything that will be actualised in the future.

Richard Rice opens with an exegetical case for the notion that God's immutability is restricted only to His character and ultimate plans; He experiences change in His actions, experiences and knowledge. Both the Old and New Testament are briefly (but carefully) mined to bring out both the pathos and openness of God to His people and the future respectively. Already in Rice's chapter, the pioneering Scriptural defense of open theism, we see a reasonable refutation of the only TWO verses in the OT - 1Sam 15:29 and Num 23:19 - which states that "God does not change His mind" (which Rice convincingly argues when taken in context is synonymous with "God does not LIE"). He contrasts this with the more than THIRTY which make the opposite point (e.g. Jer18, Isa, Hosea, etc.). Rice then discusses the life of Jesus and shows how the intense pathos of God is revealed through the Incarnate Son's ministry, tears, and ultimately His death on the Cross. How the doctrine of immutability can claim to be Scripturally derived in the light of the life of Christ is truly a mystery. Rice's work is passionate, meticulous and unassuming; the very first chapter of the first major work on the movement lays down the arguments in the Scriptural arena, within which the debate needs to take place. I heartily recommend him.

Next, I don't like saying this but I'm afraid I found John Sanders' contribution a little on the boring side at the time. His chapter is a very comprehensive look at what theologians throughout history believed about divine immutability, relationality, etc. Sanders shows the undeniable continuity between Platonic ideals and early Christian thought, and makes a strong case for the non-ability of much theological thinking to break free from the unBiblical notions left by this early influence. A very text-book-like chapter consisting less of an argument than a survey of a remarkably persistent trend to equate 'Perfection' in terms of 'Unchangeability'. Hopefully more people will find it more interesting than I did, but if not, Sanders' chapter of a similar nature in his "God Who Risks" will more than compensate for any disappointment with his work this time around.

Clark Pinnock then whips the storm back up again with his powerful and systematic proposal for a RELATIONAL view of God as the foundation of everything else we understand about Him. His experiences, actions and - most saliently for the book - His knowledge is dynamic and undergoes progress and change by the very nature of the Person He is and the Creation He's brought into existence. Like Sanders' piece, this chapter doesn't so much argue a case for open-theism as much as it elaborates a particular understanding of God, given the authors' assumptions. I've found this approach to be characteristic of Pinnock's work in which, in effect, he seems to be saying, "I'm not going to try hard to prove you wrong and I right; I'm just going to show you the theological beauty and benefits of my view of God and its congruity with Scripture, and you tell me if you prefer this to traditional (mainly Reformed) theology".

William Hasker's philosophical perspective (my favourite, next to Rice's) begins by highlighting problems with the notion of divine timelessness and scrutinizing the traditional equation of divine 'perfection' with divine immutability. His essay begs us to reconsider, "What is 'perfection' in a Personal Being, anyway? And why have we traditionally associated it with 'changelessness'?" He, like Sanders, pinpoints Neo-Platonic philosophy as the major influence on classical theologians for their bias against change. He then briefly discusses the major theistic viewpoints of divine providence and omniscience: Calvinism (which makes God logically responsible for all evil), Molinism (which, though removing many problems associated with Calvinistic divine sovereignity, still eventually makes God the 'Arch Manipulator'), Simple Foreknowledge (which sorta 'imprisons' God in His foreknowledge, making Him helpless to intervene), Process Theology (which is panentheism in Biblical packaging), and Open Theism (which Hasker sets forth as showing God to be a loving risk-taker who desires creatures who voluntarily love and befriend Him and has thus actualised a universe with incredible contigencies, beauty and surprise - but also terrible potential).

Finally, we come to David Basinger's spelling out of the explanatory and experiential superiority of open-theism as compared to Calvinism and Process Theology on the following aspects: petitionary prayer, divine guidance, suffering, social responsibility and evangelistic responsibility. Like Hasker, he presents open-theism as the redeeming 'middle ground' between the divine helplessness of process theology and the all-determining Control Deity of Calvinism. Only with open-theism can there be a meaningful notion of human responsibility (contra Calvinism, which leaves one wondering what the point is resisting evil/sin since everything's been foreordained) without the need to state that God has already done 'all that He can' (contra process theology, which gives us a powerless God). Though insightful and honest with regard to existing non-resolved issues, I wouldn't recommend this chapter to anyone not at least open to the possibility that the Bible teaches the openness of God.

Although the book, being a pioneering 'ground-breaker' for open theism, certainly needs more elaboration and work, I'd have to say that I agree with its overall thesis. Critics often fail to note that open theists employ solid Biblical epistemology and evidence to derive the back-bone of the view, particularly the non-exhaustive understanding of God's omniscience (the Sriptural evidence for immutability is pitifully scant; the number of 'divine repentance' passages itself, like I've mentioned, is a staggering 30-plus which was the major factor forcing me to rethink my theology. I can't help but wonder why God would say so often in His very own Word that He experiences genuine changes of mind and thus knowledge, if this is a completely false ontological notion). Unfortunately, academic backlash is usually focused on the philosophical and experiential implications of open theism, all the whilst seemingly ignorant or dismissive of the powerful Scriptural case in favour of it.

With that said, I would propose that this book be read only AFTER one absorbs either John Sanders' "God Who Risks" or Gregory Boyd's more accessible "God of the Possible". All in all, the book IMO represents an inspiring work and a necessary provocation to the Christian (especially the Reformed) community to relook at its Biblical foundations and traditional presuppositions about the nature of God. And in closing, allow me to quote from Pinnock's chapter, which eloquently sums up the picture of God the book puts forth:

"...God is so transcendant that he creates room for others to exist and maintains a relationship with them...God is so powerful as to be able to stoop down and humble Himself...(and) God is so stable and secure as to be able to risk suffering and change."

26 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Relational Theology Defended, August 31, 2004

By 

Thomas J. Oord (Nampa, ID United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God (Paperback)

Pinnock joins four other authors to provide one of the more hotly debated books on the doctrine of God amongst Evangelical Christians. At the root of the vision of deity they designate the "Open God" is their shared conviction that love is God's chief attribute, and all other divine attributes must not undermine the primacy of love.

In order to offer a coherent doctrine of God, essayists address issues of divine transcendence, immanence, power, omniscience, mutability, and passibility. At the core of his proposal is his account of divine loving activity that includes God's responsiveness, generosity, sensitivity, openness, and vulnerability. In fact, Clark Pinnock contends that "love rather than almighty power is the primary perfection of God" (114).

Essayists in The Openness of God argue that no doctrine is more central to the Christian faith than the doctrine of God. Laying out a coherent, livable, biblical doctrine is crucial for the practical and theoretical aspects of theology. Many Christians, however, observe an inconsistency between their beliefs about the nature of God and their religious practice. For example, Christians ask God to act in a certain way when they pray, although their formal theology may suppose that God has predetermined all things. A major factor in assessing the viability of a theological scheme, then, is the piety question: How well does this "live?"

"How can we expect Christians to delight in God or outsiders to seek God if we portray God in biblically flawed, rationally suspect, and existentially repugnant ways?" asks Pinnock (104). In his attempt to avoid rationally suspect hypotheses, Pinnock seeks to offer a coherent doctrine of God, i.e., each divine attribute "should be compatible with one another and with the vision of God as a whole" (101).

The Openness of God authors share the basic conviction that love is the principal theme in Christian theology. Pinnock insists, for instance, that love is the primary perfection of God. Richard Rice, who assumes the task of offering biblical support for the open view advanced in the book, claims that the open view expresses two basic convictions Scripture supports. First, love is the most important quality humans attribute to God. Second, love is more than care and commitment; it also involves sensitivity and responsiveness. Rice further notes that, from a Christian perspective, love is the first and last word in the biblical portrait of God. When one enumerates God's qualities, one must not only include love on the list, but, to be faithful to the Bible, one must put love at the head of that list. A doctrine of God faithful to the Bible must show that all God's characteristics derive from love. Rice concludes: "Love, therefore, is the very essence of the divine nature. Love is what it means to be God" (19).

Pinnock embraces the notion that God is like a loving parent when affirming these hypotheses. In this parental model, God possesses "qualities of love and responsiveness, generosity and sensitivity, openness and vulnerability" (103). God is a person who experiences the world, responds to what happens, relates to humans, and interacts dynamically with creatures.

Essayists reject the classic conception of God described as "an aloof monarch" removed from the world's contingencies, i.e., the entirely transcendent God. They reject the deity who is completely unchangeable, all-determining, irresistible, and does not risk. "The Christian life involves a genuine interaction between God and human beings," Pinnock contends. "We respond to God's gracious initiatives and God responds to our responses . . . and on it goes" (7).

Essayists also deny divine foreordination, divine foreknowledge of free creaturely actions, and the hypothesis that either divine foreknowledge or unilateral determination are compatible with creaturely freedom. God knows all things that can be known, but divine omniscience does not mean that God possesses exhaustive foreknowledge of all future events. Total knowledge of the future would imply that future events are fixed. "If choices are real and freedom significant, future decisions cannot be exhaustively known," Pinnock explains (123).

Thomas Jay Oord

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A worthy defense of a fascinating position, September 27, 2005

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Free Thinker "Amazon made me remove my blog s... (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God (Paperback)

As a college student in his late 30s who is majoring in philosophy, I can testify to the accuracy of this book's historical section. As the authors ably point out, much of the modern Christian conception of God comes not from the Bible but from the writings of Plato and Aristotle. And the God of Greek philosophy is far more remote and inhuman than the one portrayed in both the Old and New Testaments. This has created a tension in the field of theology proper which has left many perplexed and confused.

The Openness of God offers a remedy to this ages-old mixture of divine revelation and pagan thinking. It challenges us to accept God as the Bible portrays Him, emotions, ambivalence and all. Readers will discover a deity who is just as powerful as the one described in classical theism, but who is also far easier for humans to relate to.

This book and ones like it have been unfairly and maliciously attacked by narrow-minded critics, who call it everything from anti-Calvinist to an apologetic for Mormonism. Nonsense. What the open minded seeker will find in these pages is a cogent yet humble case for a view of the Creator which is both refreshingly new and yet millenia old. Very highly recommended for everyone interested in theology, philosophy or apologetics.