Why has Open Theism become popular?

MennoSota

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Open Theism posits:
Though omniscient, God does not know what we will freely do in the future. Though omnipotent, He has chosen to invite us to freely collaborate with Him in governing and developing His creation, thereby also allowing us the freedom to thwart His hopes for us.
https://www.iep.utm.edu/o-theism/
How does denying the Sovereignty and Omniscience of God make Christianity better?
 

MoreCoffee

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Open Theism posits:
Though omniscient, God does not know what we will freely do in the future. Though omnipotent, He has chosen to invite us to freely collaborate with Him in governing and developing His creation, thereby also allowing us the freedom to thwart His hopes for us.
https://www.iep.utm.edu/o-theism/
How does denying the Sovereignty and Omniscience of God make Christianity better?

An Anabaptist friend of mine said that his view was that God knew everything that it was possible to know and that free choices are not possible to know so they are unknown until they happen. The corollary to that idea is that, he says, God accomplishes his purposes by his power meaning that when God says that something will happen it happens because God make it happen by the exercise of his almighty power and not because he foresaw it happening. The idea seems to be that knowing the future is not "fore-seeing" a future that is somehow fixed as unalterable in eternity's map of everything that happens in time. Knowing the future is, instead, making sure that outcomes are accomplished by the use of almighty power to cause them to happen when the time comes. I got the impression that this all means that the future is impossible to know but possible to form and fashion to suit the outcomes that God intends.

I do not accept this approach, but that is the explanation that an Anabaptist gave to me.
 

tango

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Open Theism posits:
Though omniscient, God does not know what we will freely do in the future. Though omnipotent, He has chosen to invite us to freely collaborate with Him in governing and developing His creation, thereby also allowing us the freedom to thwart His hopes for us.
https://www.iep.utm.edu/o-theism/
How does denying the Sovereignty and Omniscience of God make Christianity better?

If God wants us to love him that love is worthless unless it is given freely. How can one love, unless one also has the option to not love? If God not only knew every little thing I would do from before the dawn of time but preordained every single thing I would do, to the point that God preordained the exact make, model and serial number of the tablet I'm using to write this, how can I claim to love God if I'm nothing more than a cog in a machine doing exactly what God preordained I would do? I'd be nothing more than a robot. And if I'm nothing more than a robot, why did God bother giving us regulations to follow, if he already knew in advance (because he preordained it) that many of us wouldn't follow them? What's the point of lines in Scripture like where James describes "pure and undefiled religion", if he might as well have said we should just go ahead and do what we want because we'd only be following God's preordained plans anyway?

We can't go very far down that route before following Scripture and Aleister Crowley's "do what thou will shall be the whole of the law" start to look more or less the same. If I can truly do whatever I want to do because there is no way I can deviate from the exact path preordained by God, what is there to differentiate the teachings of Christ from the teachings of Crowley?
 

MennoSota

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If God wants us to love him that love is worthless unless it is given freely. How can one love, unless one also has the option to not love? If God not only knew every little thing I would do from before the dawn of time but preordained every single thing I would do, to the point that God preordained the exact make, model and serial number of the tablet I'm using to write this, how can I claim to love God if I'm nothing more than a cog in a machine doing exactly what God preordained I would do? I'd be nothing more than a robot. And if I'm nothing more than a robot, why did God bother giving us regulations to follow, if he already knew in advance (because he preordained it) that many of us wouldn't follow them? What's the point of lines in Scripture like where James describes "pure and undefiled religion", if he might as well have said we should just go ahead and do what we want because we'd only be following God's preordained plans anyway?

We can't go very far down that route before following Scripture and Aleister Crowley's "do what thou will shall be the whole of the law" start to look more or less the same. If I can truly do whatever I want to do because there is no way I can deviate from the exact path preordained by God, what is there to differentiate the teachings of Christ from the teachings of Crowley?
Is attitude different from action?
Can a person love God when that person was once dead in their trespasses and sins and then God makes them alive in Christ?
 

tango

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Is attitude different from action?
Can a person love God when that person was once dead in their trespasses and sins and then God makes them alive in Christ?

Can a person love God at all if they never had a choice? If God truly preordained every single aspect of life then our attitudes were also preordained, no? And if that's the case we can't be held responsible for anything, any more than a computer can be responsible for the instructions given to it by a programmer.
 

Josiah

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I think people sometimes think too much and believe too little.
 

MennoSota

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Can a person love God at all if they never had a choice?
Great question.
Since sinners have no ability to save themselves, can a person, who is incapable of saving himself, love God when God chooses to save that specific person?
My answer is, absolutely YES.

Can a human who is, by nature, a rebel criminal against God ever hate God for not choosing to save them?
NO. Their judgment is justly meted out by the Righteous God.
If God truly preordained every single aspect of life then our attitudes were also preordained, no? And if that's the case we can't be held responsible for anything, any more than a computer can be responsible for the instructions given to it by a programmer.
I will let the Apostle Paul answer you.
Romans 9:11-23
[11]But before they were born, before they had done anything good or bad, she received a message from God. (This message shows that God chooses people according to his own purposes;
[12]he calls people, but not according to their good or bad works.) She was told, “Your older son will serve your younger son.”
[13]In the words of the Scriptures, “I loved Jacob, but I rejected Esau.”
[14]Are we saying, then, that God was unfair? Of course not!
[15]For God said to Moses, “I will show mercy to anyone I choose, *** and I will show compassion to anyone I choose.”
[16]So it is God who decides to show mercy. We can neither choose it nor work for it.
[17]For the Scriptures say that God told Pharaoh, “I have appointed you for the very purpose of displaying my power in you and to spread my fame throughout the earth.”
[18]So you see, God chooses to show mercy to some, and he chooses to harden the hearts of others so they refuse to listen.
[19]Well then, you might say, “Why does God blame people for not responding? Haven’t they simply done what he makes them do?”
[20]No, don’t say that. Who are you, a mere human being, to argue with God? Should the thing that was created say to the one who created it, “Why have you made me like this?”
[21]When a potter makes jars out of clay, doesn’t he have a right to use the same lump of clay to make one jar for decoration and another to throw garbage into?
[22]In the same way, even though God has the right to show his anger and his power, he is very patient with those on whom his anger falls, who are destined for destruction.
[23]He does this to make the riches of his glory shine even brighter on those to whom he shows mercy, who were prepared in advance for glory.
 

tango

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If you want to take that the way you do, how then would you interpret 2Pe 3:9? God is longsuffering towards us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. So either the God who preordained everything forgot to preordain it how he wanted it to be, or God doesn't get what he wants, or we get into some variety of universalism where everybody is saved.

There's a difference between God making us do something in every little detail, and God giving us a nature to do something. As a man I have the nature of a hunter-gatherer (we can regard hunting as being either literal or metaphorical here). My nature is to accumulate treasures for myself and my family. As a man my nature is to desire women. As a man my nature is to look to create a better world for myself.

God gave me those natures. I still get to choose whether I act on that nature, whether I express my desires for women in a manner acceptable to God or a manner unacceptable to God. I get to choose whether I express my nature to make my own nest comfortable in a manner that sees me living in opulence while others starve, or in a manner that accepts my nest is actually quite comfortable already and others may need some more feathers.

With this outlook Paul's text makes a lot of sense. It's pointless to complain to God that he gave me a nature that desires women because, after all, he is the potter and I am the clay. But if God preordained and predestined every single thing I would ever do in my life it would be entirely appropriate to deny all responsibility. If I decide that my neighbor's wife is just too irresistable to even try and resist any more, I get a free pass because it was never even my choice. I didn't decide anything, God decided it before the dawn of time and therefore I cannot possibly be held responsible. The whole process of judgment becomes meaningless because those who "did it not unto the least of these" can simply argue that it wasn't predestined for them to do unto the least of these and therefore they can't be held responsible.

In the light of what Paul said about the body of Christ, if God made me to be an eye there's no point me trying to sniff out danger because the eye doesn't work like that. I might complain that I really wanted to be a nose but God gets to decide what he calls me to be. The passage you quote suggests there's no point criticising God because I think he should have made me a nose, not that I get to blame God if I am so angered at not being a nose that I close my eye and refuse to look.
 

MennoSota

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If you want to take that the way you do, how then would you interpret 2Pe 3:9? God is longsuffering towards us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. So either the God who preordained everything forgot to preordain it how he wanted it to be, or God doesn't get what he wants, or we get into some variety of universalism where everybody is saved.

There's a difference between God making us do something in every little detail, and God giving us a nature to do something. As a man I have the nature of a hunter-gatherer (we can regard hunting as being either literal or metaphorical here). My nature is to accumulate treasures for myself and my family. As a man my nature is to desire women. As a man my nature is to look to create a better world for myself.

God gave me those natures. I still get to choose whether I act on that nature, whether I express my desires for women in a manner acceptable to God or a manner unacceptable to God. I get to choose whether I express my nature to make my own nest comfortable in a manner that sees me living in opulence while others starve, or in a manner that accepts my nest is actually quite comfortable already and others may need some more feathers.

With this outlook Paul's text makes a lot of sense. It's pointless to complain to God that he gave me a nature that desires women because, after all, he is the potter and I am the clay. But if God preordained and predestined every single thing I would ever do in my life it would be entirely appropriate to deny all responsibility. If I decide that my neighbor's wife is just too irresistable to even try and resist any more, I get a free pass because it was never even my choice. I didn't decide anything, God decided it before the dawn of time and therefore I cannot possibly be held responsible. The whole process of judgment becomes meaningless because those who "did it not unto the least of these" can simply argue that it wasn't predestined for them to do unto the least of these and therefore they can't be held responsible.

In the light of what Paul said about the body of Christ, if God made me to be an eye there's no point me trying to sniff out danger because the eye doesn't work like that. I might complain that I really wanted to be a nose but God gets to decide what he calls me to be. The passage you quote suggests there's no point criticising God because I think he should have made me a nose, not that I get to blame God if I am so angered at not being a nose that I close my eye and refuse to look.
Let's look at 2 Peter 3 and see that Peter is discussing the Day of the Lord.
2 Peter 3:2-18
[2]I want you to remember what the holy prophets said long ago and what our Lord and Savior commanded through your apostles.
[3]Most importantly, I want to remind you that in the last days scoffers will come, mocking the truth and following their own desires.
[4]They will say, “What happened to the promise that Jesus is coming again? From before the times of our ancestors, everything has remained the same since the world was first created.”
[5]They deliberately forget that God made the heavens long ago by the word of his command, and he brought the earth out from the water and surrounded it with water.
[6]Then he used the water to destroy the ancient world with a mighty flood.
[7]And by the same word, the present heavens and earth have been stored up for fire. They are being kept for the day of judgment, when ungodly people will be destroyed.
[8]But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day.
[9]The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.
[10]But the day of the Lord will come as unexpectedly as a thief. Then the heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the very elements themselves will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be found to deserve judgment.
[11]Since everything around us is going to be destroyed like this, what holy and godly lives you should live,
[12]looking forward to the day of God and hurrying it along. On that day, he will set the heavens on fire, and the elements will melt away in the flames.
[13]But we are looking forward to the new heavens and new earth he has promised, a world filled with God’s righteousness.
[14]And so, dear friends, while you are waiting for these things to happen, make every effort to be found living peaceful lives that are pure and blameless in his sight.
[15]And remember, our Lord’s patience gives people time to be saved. This is what our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom God gave him—
[16]speaking of these things in all of his letters. Some of his comments are hard to understand, and those who are ignorant and unstable have twisted his letters to mean something quite different, just as they do with other parts of Scripture. And this will result in their destruction.
[17]You already know these things, dear friends. So be on guard; then you will not be carried away by the errors of these wicked people and lose your own secure footing.
[18]Rather, you must grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.All glory to him, both now and forever! Amen.
Verses 9 and 15 point to the fact that God is waiting for all the elect to be saved. Not one drop of Jesus blood is wasted on sinners who will not be redeemed. His atonement is full and secure for those whom God has chosen to save.
Just as only Noah and his family were saved by God, so all the elect will be saved by God...then the Day of the Lord will come in full judgment upon all sinners who would not believe.
2 Peter 3:9, in its context, is a wonderful passage that completely agrees with Romans 9.
 

tango

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Let's look at 2 Peter 3 and see that Peter is discussing the Day of the Lord.

Verses 9 and 15 point to the fact that God is waiting for all the elect to be saved. Not one drop of Jesus blood is wasted on sinners who will not be redeemed. His atonement is full and secure for those whom God has chosen to save.
Just as only Noah and his family were saved by God, so all the elect will be saved by God...then the Day of the Lord will come in full judgment upon all sinners who would not believe.
2 Peter 3:9, in its context, is a wonderful passage that completely agrees with Romans 9.

So God wants everyone to repent, but doesn't actually expect everyone to repent?

Here's the problem with that viewpoint. As your previous post says, the potter has every right to make something and immediatly throw it into the fire. The potter can't make something out of clay and then decide to punish it for something it did, or for the way it was.

If God preordained and predestinted every single thing I would ever do (including that typo I left in place to make the point), how can I possibly be held accountable for my actions? Everything Jesus said about judgment would become a complete farce because I had no choice whether or not I would "do unto the least of these". Instead of asking Jesus when we didn't feed him, clothe him, visit him etc we might as well just shrug and say that he was the one who predestined us to ignore his needs and we are therefore blameless. On the other hand, if we accept we have a sin nature but freedom to choose to sin or not sin, everything works out just fine.

Here's a simple example. Let's say I've put the TV on and am idly flicking through the channels looking for something to watch. Then I come across a program that's raunchy, maybe outright pornographic. Being a heterosexual man that sort of thing might interest me. Do I have a choice whether or not to watch it a while longer, or quickly move on to the next channel? If we say I have a sin nature it explains the temptation to let my eyes linger but freedom of choice means I am accountable for the decision I make. If we say every single thing was predestined since before the dawn of time then I must be blameless however long I watch that program, and even if I record it so I can watch it again later, because I had no choice in the matter.

With respect, I don't see anything in the 2Pe3 passage that suggests it refers only to the elect. It seems to be the kind of conclusion that can be forced upon the text but not taken from the text.
 

MennoSota

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So God wants everyone to repent, but doesn't actually expect everyone to repent?

Here's the problem with that viewpoint. As your previous post says, the potter has every right to make something and immediatly throw it into the fire. The potter can't make something out of clay and then decide to punish it for something it did, or for the way it was.

If God preordained and predestinted every single thing I would ever do (including that typo I left in place to make the point), how can I possibly be held accountable for my actions? Everything Jesus said about judgment would become a complete farce because I had no choice whether or not I would "do unto the least of these". Instead of asking Jesus when we didn't feed him, clothe him, visit him etc we might as well just shrug and say that he was the one who predestined us to ignore his needs and we are therefore blameless. On the other hand, if we accept we have a sin nature but freedom to choose to sin or not sin, everything works out just fine.

Here's a simple example. Let's say I've put the TV on and am idly flicking through the channels looking for something to watch. Then I come across a program that's raunchy, maybe outright pornographic. Being a heterosexual man that sort of thing might interest me. Do I have a choice whether or not to watch it a while longer, or quickly move on to the next channel? If we say I have a sin nature it explains the temptation to let my eyes linger but freedom of choice means I am accountable for the decision I make. If we say every single thing was predestined since before the dawn of time then I must be blameless however long I watch that program, and even if I record it so I can watch it again later, because I had no choice in the matter.

With respect, I don't see anything in the 2Pe3 passage that suggests it refers only to the elect. It seems to be the kind of conclusion that can be forced upon the text but not taken from the text.
Jesus prayer in John 17 reveals that Jesus never prayed for the unsaved, but only for the elect (those whom the Father has chosen). Note: God does not choose every person.
John 17:6-10,12,20-22,24-26
[6]“I have revealed you to the ones you gave me from this world. They were always yours. You gave them to me, and they have kept your word.
[7]Now they know that everything I have is a gift from you,
[8]for I have passed on to them the message you gave me. They accepted it and know that I came from you, and they believe you sent me.
[9]“My prayer is not for the world, but for those you have given me, because they belong to you.
[10]All who are mine belong to you, and you have given them to me, so they bring me glory.
[12]During my time here, I protected them by the power of the name you gave me. I guarded them so that not one was lost, except the one headed for destruction, as the Scriptures foretold.
[20]“I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message.
[21]I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.
[22]“I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one.
[24]Father, I want these whom you have given me to be with me where I am. Then they can see all the glory you gave me because you loved me even before the world began!
[25]“O*righteous Father, the world doesn’t know you, but I do; and these disciples know you sent me.
[26]I have revealed you to them, and I will continue to do so. Then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them.”
 

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What is Open Theism MennoSota? Do you have a definition?

The link that you gave in the first post starts by saying:
Open Theism is the thesis that, because God loves us and desires that we freely choose to reciprocate His love, He has made His knowledge of, and plans for, the future conditional upon our actions. Though omniscient, God does not know what we will freely do in the future. Though omnipotent, He has chosen to invite us to freely collaborate with Him in governing and developing His creation, thereby also allowing us the freedom to thwart His hopes for us. God desires that each of us freely enter into a loving and dynamic personal relationship with Him, and He has therefore left it open to us to choose for or against His will.

While Open Theists affirm that God knows all the truths that can be known, they claim that there simply are not yet truths about what will occur in the “open,” undetermined future. Alternatively, there are such contingent truths, but these truths cannot be known by anyone, including God.

Even though God is all-powerful, allowing Him to do everything that can be done, He cannot create round squares or make 2 +2 = 5 or do anything that is logically impossible. Omniscience is understood in a similar manner. God is all-knowing and can know all that can be known, but He cannot know the contingent future, since that too, is impossible. God knows all the possible ways the world might go at any point in time, but He does not know the one way the world will go, so long as some part of what will happen in the future is contingent. So, Open Theists oppose the claim of the sixteenth century Jesuit theologian, Luis de Molina, that God has "middle knowledge."

Open Theists believe that Scripture teaches that God wanted to give us the freedom to choose to love or reject Him. In order for each of us to genuinely have a choice for which we are morally responsible, we must have the ability to do otherwise than we do. This is the distinctive necessary condition of what has come to be called libertarian freedom. God may intervene in the created world at any time, and He may determine that we act in ways of His choosing. But He cannot both respect our libertarian freedom and guarantee that we will do specific things freely. Thus, Open Theists believe that God has created a world in which He takes the risk that many of us will reject Him and act in ways opposed to Him, in order to give us the opportunity to freely choose to love and obey Him.​
 

MennoSota

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What is Open Theism MennoSota? Do you have a definition?

The link that you gave in the first post starts by saying:
Open Theism is the thesis that, because God loves us and desires that we freely choose to reciprocate His love, He has made His knowledge of, and plans for, the future conditional upon our actions. Though omniscient, God does not know what we will freely do in the future. Though omnipotent, He has chosen to invite us to freely collaborate with Him in governing and developing His creation, thereby also allowing us the freedom to thwart His hopes for us. God desires that each of us freely enter into a loving and dynamic personal relationship with Him, and He has therefore left it open to us to choose for or against His will.

While Open Theists affirm that God knows all the truths that can be known, they claim that there simply are not yet truths about what will occur in the “open,” undetermined future. Alternatively, there are such contingent truths, but these truths cannot be known by anyone, including God.

Even though God is all-powerful, allowing Him to do everything that can be done, He cannot create round squares or make 2 +2 = 5 or do anything that is logically impossible. Omniscience is understood in a similar manner. God is all-knowing and can know all that can be known, but He cannot know the contingent future, since that too, is impossible. God knows all the possible ways the world might go at any point in time, but He does not know the one way the world will go, so long as some part of what will happen in the future is contingent. So, Open Theists oppose the claim of the sixteenth century Jesuit theologian, Luis de Molina, that God has "middle knowledge."

Open Theists believe that Scripture teaches that God wanted to give us the freedom to choose to love or reject Him. In order for each of us to genuinely have a choice for which we are morally responsible, we must have the ability to do otherwise than we do. This is the distinctive necessary condition of what has come to be called libertarian freedom. God may intervene in the created world at any time, and He may determine that we act in ways of His choosing. But He cannot both respect our libertarian freedom and guarantee that we will do specific things freely. Thus, Open Theists believe that God has created a world in which He takes the risk that many of us will reject Him and act in ways opposed to Him, in order to give us the opportunity to freely choose to love and obey Him.​
In summary: God is our genie and we make our own future by telling God what to do.
 

MoreCoffee

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In summary: God is our genie and we make our own future by telling God what to do.

I think that every Christian would reject that.

The web page you cited does not say anything like what you say. There's no mention of "God is our genie and we make our own future by telling God what to do."
 

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I think that every Christian would reject that.

The web page you cited does not say anything like what you say. There's no mention of "God is our genie and we make our own future by telling God what to do."
They would reject my summary, because they want to imagine they haven't made God their genie. However, in their theology God doesn't know the future because God is waiting on them to direct Him as to what He should do. (That, by the way, is what genies do.) Such a radical concept of free-will makes God subservient to man.
I suppose, sin man is naturally prideful and desires to rule over God, it would be an attractive belief system to those who want control over everything.
 

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They would reject my summary, because they want to imagine they haven't made God their genie. However, in their theology God doesn't know the future because God is waiting on them to direct Him as to what He should do. (That, by the way, is what genies do.) Such a radical concept of free-will makes God subservient to man.
I reject open theism and I reject your summary too. But your summary is a caricature of what the article says about open theism. If free-will is supposed (for the sake of argument) to be truly unpredictable then knowing the future is impossible in the same way that having a 4 angled triangle is impossible.
I suppose, sin man is naturally prideful and desires to rule over God, it would be an attractive belief system to those who want control over everything.
 

MennoSota

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I reject open theism and I reject your summary too. But your summary is a caricature of what the article says about open theism. If free-will is supposed (for the sake of argument) to be truly unpredictable then knowing the future is impossible in the same way that having a 4 angled triangle is impossible.
Open theism seems to be a natural progression of thought, if you accept the premise of free-will.
 

MoreCoffee

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Open theism seems to be a natural progression of thought, if you accept the premise of free-will.

The premise appears to be God's absolute freedom.
 

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Or, equally stated, man's freedom to dictate the future while God watches.

Human freedom, if it truly exists, is a gift from God. A grace given by which free choices could be made. Does it exist?
 
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