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All of this happened without serious critical reflection, say some theologians, and thus an honored, noble tradition became a suspect traditionalism. Evangelical philosophers have paid great attention in recent years to the appropriate verbalizing of our concept of God. It is now up to the theologians to work equally hard at checking and, if need be, adjusting the conceptual formulations of yesteryear, without sacrificing what mainstream orthodox Christians, Catholic and Protestant, Calvinist and Arminian alike, have held about God's omniscience.

This debate will not be settled by one editorial, and we hope to explore the issues raised by the openness theologians more fully in future issues of Christianity Today. But for the time being, we'd like to ask both sides to do some homework:

1. Openness theologians, please take as full an account of the biblical language about God's foreknowledge and immutability as of the Greek philosophical influences that shaped classical theism. Such research can only strengthen your argument.
2. Classical theists, please return to a more robustly biblical approach to talking about God. Of course, using biblical language is no guarantee of orthodoxy. (The church's greatest heretics, including Arius, have employed biblical language.) But the biblical revelation, and not a suspect theological traditionalism, must be the starting point for fresh theological reflection in every generation. If classical theists fail to be biblical, they will surely lose the debate where it counts: in the churches.
3. Classical theists, again, please make a full account of the meaning embedded in the Bible's anthropomorphisms—not to explain them away but to unpack them, and not to treat them dismissively, as though they were a rude noise at a formal dinner, better ignored than acknowledged. God doesn't waste words.
4. Both sides, do not attempt to read the words of Scripture outside the context of twenty centuries of interpretation. The Holy Spirit has not been snoozing since he inspired the New Testament. Please read the Scriptures with the help of those who have gone before.

Now, let's go do our homework.

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February 7 2000, Vol. 44, No. 2