Customer Reviews

Their God Is Too Small: Open Theism and the Undermining of Confidence in God

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

This fine entry into the debate has much Scripture, theology and plain common sense to sustain the devastating argument against Open Theism.

Too bad "rew-ind" from Alabama hasn't carefully read Ware's documentation here and elsewhere. Apparently he hasn't read Millard Erickson's masterful 'What Does God Know and When Does He Know It'. Or A.B.Caneday's dismantling of Boydian theory in his review of the sadly innocent-of-biblical-reality God of the Possible.

Suffice to say Open Theism has been relegated to the philosophist
section of extreme arminianism/anti-calvinism/quasi-biblicism. No work by Ware or others is necessary to show Openism for what it is: a misreading of ALL of Scripture in context balancing ALL relevant texts.

But Ware here does a fine job of showing why no respectable exegete would embrace or even tolerate this misguided attempt at redefining God's attributes, enhancing human libertarian latitude at the Sovereign Lord's expense and flirting with Process Theory.

Six stars would be more appropriate.

Open Theism, once a doctrine known only to Christian academics, is slowly becoming mainstream among evangelicals. While it continues to be a minority position, it is gaining wider acceptance and several popular Christian authors are teaching it or teaching principles derived from it, even while denying their belief in it. This represents one of the battle-lines of the contemporary church and it is important for Christians to know what this doctrine teaches and be prepared to give a defense of the traditional view of God. This short book, written by Bruce Ware, sets out to teach believers the basics of what they need to know to defend the traditional doctrines.

Put simply, open theism is a doctrine that teaches that God does not fully know the future, for he cannot see what humans will do with the free will He gives them. Therefore, God has taken a great risk in giving us freedom. Of course this contrasts with the biblical teaching of God's omniscience - that He sees and knows everything in the past, present and future - as well as God's omnipotence - that He not only knows these things, but controls them as well. More than just a minor difference in doctrine, open theism threatens some of the beliefs Christians hold most dear. How can we have confidence in a God who does not know what will happen minutes, hours or days from now? How can we trust a God who is constantly making errors in judgment as He guides our lives the best He can, using only the information that He is able to see at the time? Why should we pray to a God who values our opinion as highly as our own? This is not the God of the Bible! As the title of the book tells us, the God of open theism is too small, having been created in the image of man.

Their God Is Too Small introduces the main proponents of open theism, explains the basics of their beliefs and shows the implications of this doctrine. The author concludes that open theism undermines the believer's confidence in God as the One who can be trusted to walk with us through pain and suffering; as the one who gives us a hope for the future. The constant theme is that this God is just far too small to be the God we learn of from the Scriptures.

This book, at only 129 pages, serves merely as an introduction to this doctrine, but it serves that purpose well. It is easy to read and understand, even for those who know little about theology. The reader will be left with an accurate depiction of the arguments for and against this doctrine as well as a strong sense of just what is at stake. I am glad to give it my recommendation.

This was book that did a good job of outlineing some very common preceptions of God. The author also does a good job of outlineing arguments for the Christologocial view. It is light reading and not deeply theological. The underlying message is find out who God is not who we want him to be.

Great starter on the subject on Open Theism, this is the logical outcome if you are an Arminian and is really a view of early Pelagianism.

The open theist to myself makes absolute no sense whatsoever so for me the first chapter was enough to understand that I completely disagree with everything they stand for. If you have yet to study anything on Open Theism this is a great quick read to get you started. Please read if you are an Arminian as this will show you where that thought process should take you...and that is Open Theism with God having to play guessing games with the human "free will"

This is a superb introduction to the open theism debate. Ware does an excellent job in this small volume exposing and refuting the proponents of "open theism." He executes his arguments with flawless logic and thorough Biblical exegesis of relevant passages. At the end of the day, open theism is shown to be both Biblically impoverished and philosphically untenable.

This is an extraordinarily poorly-written book. The writing is flaccid, repetitive, the imagery poorly conceived, the reasoning hopelessly circular and flawed, and the 'conclusions' repeatedly asserted as proven, simply because they've been asserted.

This was my first encounter with Bruce Ware, and honestly, I'm hoping that this hack job was something he threw together over a weekend as a favor to some editor. I had intended to read his longer work against Open Theism, but after this trash, I'm not sure he's capable of making a sustained argument.

It would take hours to count all the cheerleading phrases, condescending dismissals, and breathless pseudo-praise that passes for rational pleading in this book. Ware's very personal, very emotional disgust at the very existence of these "Open Theist" people is so pervasive that it renders the all-too-rare passages of genuine thoughtful exegesis clouded by the stench of wild-eyed, furious denouncement swirling about them.

Now I should hasten to add that if you already think that "Open Theism" is the work of The Forked-Tail Red Dude, you might like this book. This is preaching-to-the-choir pablum, red meat for the frothing pack of like-thinkers, at its best. But it's laughably bad at its stated task of trying to "show" why open theism is "wrong". All it shows is that Bruce Ware, personally, really, Really, REALLY hates that "Open Theism" stuff, and he thinks that you should too, and he REALLY REALLY means it.

Sadly, I have to keep searching for a calm and rational treatment of Open Theism that measures up in structure and strength of argumentation, as well as (and maybe especially) in gentleness of spirit, to Saunders' "The God Who Risks" (which, along with Greg Boyd, is Bogeyman #1 to Ware in this little diatribe).

Last, I can only conclude that the other reviewer (there's only one review at this writing) was either (1) Ware's mother, and therefore excusably indulgent to this terribly poor book, or (2) hadn't actually bothered to READ the book, just thought that it didn't matter, as Open Theism needs some good SMACKING DOWN, you betcha.

Sad, just like this book.

Fair, balanced, readable, persuasive refutation of Open Theory of Bible interpretation that an 'open minority' of uninformed thinkers are flirting with to their spiritual/intellectual detriment.

This is a great follow-up to Openism rebuttals defending their indefensible position.

One issue is 'Does God Entertain Wrong Ideas about Free Futures?' Openists cannot bring themselves to admit their theoreology leaves a faultless-thinking deity getting much of the future wrong,being manifestly mistaken about his beliefs re: what will/will not or may/may not happen contrary to divine expectations.

But logic says: 'God believed/was fairly sure (x) would occur as not false. Yet (x) did not occur: (x) proved false. Thus God believed false. He was sincerely, surely wrong.'

Logic also says: 'God expected perfectly yet uncertainly (x) would occur as not false. Yet (x) did not occur:(x) proved certainly false. Thus God had false expectation. He believed something not in fact the case.'

Or as 'risk-takers' would say: 'God plays the odds and wagers on optimum probabilities, but He lost anyway. He wagered wrong.'

The openist rejoinder is: God cannot be said to hold false beliefs unless there was erroneous CERTAINTY (x) would occur which didn't. But it's o.k. if the expectation (faith,hope, wager, belief, appraisal, judgment, assessment, projection, forecast) was anything less than 100% CERTAIN.

But this is patently BOGUS! It grounds True/Falseness of propositions in the level of confidence(faith-index) of a person, not in the OBJECT of faith per se. Whether someone is 0% or 100% sure of something is beside the point! Only the fact of 'what is to be' counts as to the Truth Value of a held belief. Not the sincerity/certainty of the believer or even the belief itself, but WHAT IS THE FACT OF THE MATTER!

We would never think this way of people. If they believe or expect (x) to happen and it doesn't, they're WRONG, no matter how sincere or certain/uncertain. Why would it be any different for God? Because He CAN'T ever be WRONG? Then we're back to Classical, Historic, Biblical-Evangelical position by default!

Thank you, Dr. Ware for another excellent expose' of Openism's patent deficiencies. Many can be compared as follows:

EVANGELICAL-BIBLICAL:
OMNI-CERTAIN in toto 100% re free future
NO Surprising Outcomes
NO Mysteries
NO errors, mistaken notions, false beliefs, wrong expectancy
Uninformable
Uncorrectible

NEO-MOLINIST OPENISM:
Mostly UNCERTAIN re free futures
Many Surprising, improbable outcomes
Many mysteries to the divine mind
Many errors, mistaken notions, false beliefs, wrong expectations
Needs to be constantly informed and brought up to speed

Joshua gives all thoughtful, Biblical Christians a choice:
"Choose this day WHOM you will serve..As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."

So does this outstanding refutation of neo-processistic theory.