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De-Hellenizing God
The overall argument of The Openness of God is that Christian theology has been falsely polarized. For centuries, the doctrine of God (which the authors consider foundational) has been held captive to classical theism, which overemphasizes God's transcendence and neglects God's Trinitarian personhood. The effect has been a theology of meticulous providence in which God is supposed to control all events—including the original Fall and its consequent sin and evil. The authors argue that this is simply inconsistent with the overall picture of God given in revelation: a God who repents, grieves, and suffers.

On the other hand, too many theologians have thought that the only alternative to the God of classical theism is a finite God such as process theology promotes. The authors argue that process theology's God is also inconsistent with the overall picture of God given in revelation. That God intervenes powerfully and will bring history to a conclusion in his kingdom—with or without human help.

Pinnock, professor of theology at McMaster Divinity College, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and his coauthors make a powerful case for their model of God. In the first chapter, "Biblical Support for a New Perspective," Richard Rice, professor of theology at LaSierra University, Riverside, California, demonstrates convincingly that it is not possible simply to dismiss all biblical references to God's "repentance" as anthropomorphisms. Under the rubric of "Historical Considerations," John Sanders, instructor in theology and philosophy at Oak Hills Bible College, Bemidji, Minnesota, argues persuasively that classical theism includes unbiblical and possibly unorthodox concessions to pagan philosophy. The real heart of the book is Pinnock's chapter on systematic theology, which powerfully portrays the personal God of the Bible as self-limiting for our sakes. The chapter entitled "A Philosophical Perspective," by William Hasker, professor of philosophy at Huntington College, Huntington, Indiana, will be the most challenging for many readers; but for those who persevere, it makes a strong case for the rational superiority of the theology of divine openness over competing ways of understanding God and his works. In the concluding chapter, David Basinger, professor of theology at Roberts Wesleyan College, Rochester, New York, shows the practical appeal of free-will theism for ordinary Christian spirituality.

The authors do not hide their philosophical presuppositions. Readers who cannot agree with these foundational assumptions will have trouble accepting free-will theism. Two basic ones are that logical contradictions—including so-called paradoxes or antinomies—are illegitimate in theology as elsewhere and that freedom means being able to do otherwise. While the authors are not rationalists in the strict sense of that word, they clearly place high value on coherence. That is, truth claims about God that involve logical contradictions are literally nonsense and should not be accepted in theology any more than in any area of intellectual endeavor. Therefore, one cannot say both that God knows the whole future in absolute detail with absolute certainty and that part of it is still open and undetermined (such as individuals' decisions regarding salvation).

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May (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45