Letters
posted 7/09/2001 12:00AM
CT 5/21/01 Issue
Back to the Future
The debate between Christopher Hall and John Sanders over openness theology ["Does God Know Your Next Move?" May 21] properly focuses on Scripture, but as a scientist, I am troubled that some of Sanders's statements are incompatible with modern science.
He says that God's knowledge of the future is not really limited because "the 'future' does not yet exist so there is nothing 'there' to be known. … God knows all that can be known, and to say that it is a limitation for God not to know 'nothing' is ridiculous."
The actual existence of past, present, and future is required by Einstein's theory of relativity. All space and time form a four-dimensional continuum that simply exists; the theory does not permit time to be treated as a dimension in which the future is open or incomplete. The theory of relativity has measurable consequences and has been validated by rigorous experimental tests. It is only with great trepidation that one should abandon it.
From a Christian point of view, it is reasonable to conclude that the temporal and the spatial extent of our universe were created together, and thus the entire four-dimensional structure resides before its Creator in an eternal present. Thus our modern scientific understanding of the nature of time fits quite well with the Christian tradition that God has knowledge of all time, past, present, and future: "Before Abraham was, I am."
Michael G. Kane, Ph.D.
Skillman, New Jersey
A.W. Tozer (The Knowledge of the Holy) is surely spinning in his grave. He wrote that "the essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of him," and that "so necessary to the church is a lofty concept of God that when that concept in any measure declines, the church with her worship and her moral standards declines along with it."
I think this very debate can be traced back to the Garden of Eden. In effect, the first humans pridefully said, "Is God really that much bigger than us? Can't we figure things out on our own?" This so-called openness theology reduces God to a level where we, his creatures, can manage him. We must not allow this temptation to gain any foothold in our lives or our theology.
It was Voltaire who said, "If God has made us in his image, we have certainly returned the compliment."
Michael Thune
Rowland Heights, California
Did God know I would come to prison? I don't know. I think so. After reading about openness, I read "Death Row Chaplain" [May 21], which was so cool. My wife of eight years, my 2-1/2-year-old son, my momma—they love me and long for my return, and because I had a good chaplain, I can say with total confidence that I'm a new creation because of Christ and the message of love that goes beyond understanding—not because of a debate on whether God knew it beforehand.
Charles Robson
Arizona State Prison
Florence, Arizona
Debt-Relief Wrath
I am always amazed by the holier-than-thou arrogance with which those who have done nothing condemn those who have done something for not having done enough. Have the Jubilee players ["How To Spell Debt Relief," May 21] sacrificed any of their own assets to alleviate world poverty or repay debts of the poor?
It must take a great deal of chutzpah for Jubilee's Dan Driscoll-Shaw to haughtily blame the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for poverty in undeveloped nations, when those institutions have already advanced $207 billion to those countries and forgiven $71 billion of their debt.
One wonders how the Jubilee know-nothings suppose the current infrastructure for education, health care, and basic human services came to exist in those nations, such as it is, were it not for IMF and World Bank loans. One wonders how they naïvely assert that forgiven funds will be spent on human services—rather than Swiss bank accounts—if not for the IMF-imposed poverty-reduction conditions.
Henry Nuss
Corpus Christi, Texas
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