After reading the posts I am even more sure that I have no idea about open theism… but I will say one or two things that come to mind.
The first, is what I first thought when I heard “time bound” – which is that, how can God possibly be bound by something he created? It is my understanding that time and space are part of the same construction by which humans are bound. If God is not bound by space then he also isn’t bound by time.

The second thing I thought, while reading these posts, is that caricaturing the belief as a “time bound” God, may be a little over the top. I don’t know, but it seems as if in the OT view God is not completely shackled by time, but rather that he is partially limited by his own volition. Is this correct? Because that is actually quite a different view and not, in my opinion, incompatible with more orthodox Christianity.
Something I have learnt from switching around a few different churches in my time is that evangelicals (of which I used to consider myself one, now I don’t know) put greater emphasis on some parts of the bible just as other denominations do. As my good friend Jess says, we all pick and choose from the bible. Evangelicals conveniently brush aside the parts that talk about, as some have mentioned, God regretting, or human prayers meaning something.
At the same time, more liberal Christians brush asice and ignore parts that talk about God’s absolute sovereignty, like “you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good” and the numerous passages attesting to predestination.
I think if we really want to look at the bible in its entirety, we are going to have to learn to grapple with some great mysteries and apparently insoluble contradictions. But this is no more than the early church did when they grappled with the humanity/deity of Christ and the three-in-one nature of God.
Mystery is one of the essential things about our Christian faith, and whenever we try to pin these things down into 100 percent of one, zero percent the other, I really believe we do a grave disservice to the scriptures, and more importantly to the majest, mystery and transendence of God.
Saskia

@ALAN: If that is what you think, then your (and Pinnock’s) god is not, indeed, Michael’s God. But, also, your god is NOT the God of the Bible, my God, the orthodox Christianity’s God, the apostles’ God, Jesus’ Father and the Jehovah of the Old Testament. Your god is nowhere in the Bible, and it is nothing more than a semi-exalted man. Your god is more like the god of Mormonism! So do not be so arrogant when commenting, because you and Pinnok’s followers are a microbial minority around Christianity. You are NOT in any shape or form a valid representative of true, orthodox, Christianity!!!

Hi Michael,

Two points. I thought that Clark Pinnock holds that God does not know the future exhaustively, rather than that God does not know the future. God knows what he will do but because of the free willed actions of human beings, he does not know exactly what they will do because the future is partly open. Have I misinterpreted him at this point?

Clark is a Christian theist and I believe he worships the same God as you: namely the God revealed supremely in Jesus even though he interprets some aspects of God’ character and being differently from you.

Shalom,

John Arthur

First, many theologians considered orthodox do not accept the “eternal now” concept. They believe, rather, that God lives in the same “now” we live in. There’s only one now–and it’s now. The past no longer exists, and the future doesn’t exist yet. So it is not unorthodox to say that God experiences an unending succession of moments. Second, Pinnock does not claim God doesn’t know the future. He says that the future is partly settled and partly open. “Open theism” is not a good name for this view. It’s most decidedly not about the nature of God; it’s about the nature of the world God made. I don’t think I throw myself into the heretic category by suggesting that God is fully capable of creating a world with a partly open and partly settled future. (Do you believe He’s incapable of doing this?) Third, if classic theism is correct, then no sweet little baby lying in her crib is a POTENTIAL citizen of God’s eternal family. The matter is already settled one way or the other. God already knows the child’s future choice to accept or reject His love–and what God knows, according to classic theism, WILL come to pass. So if classic theism is correct, don’t ever look on other human beings as potential members of God’s family. God chose to create a world wherein certain individuals would freely make the wrong choices and wind up in eternal hell. Their choices were “free,” but God’s choice to make this world assured that they would make those bad “free” choices. Come to think of it, maybe Pinnock’s God (and mine) IS different from yours.

Establishing that you worship a different God than Pinnock does nothing to establish what is actually the right view of God. I think Pinnock explains himself very well here: http://revivaltheology.gharvest.com/1_cal_arm/pilgrim.html .

Sounds like a brother in Christ to me.

this is all unconstructive and ridiculous. Look at fruit. I know an open theist who love jesus and does everything he does to imitate jesus’ life. Jesus is the mediator and our imputed righteousness. How arrogant you all are to think your view of God is so greatly different from any open theist. When we’re all soooo far away from the full knowledge of what God is. God only sees us through Christ and so if you’ve got that right, who are any of you to judge someone else.

That they’re plank is bad theology and you are to pluck it out?

Bunch of pharisees talking about jesus loving kingdom living christians in any way but loving.

Sad.

dt, once again thanks for your criticism, but it remains very unconstructive considering it has no substance. Please be more specific so that I can know what you are talking about.

Mr. Patton, I am afraid you have taken your logical construct from comment #21 on the J.O. post and created an even larger confusion. Clearly #3 is in question and should be reconsidered. In regards to Pinnock, he clearly falls outside of orthodoxy because of his issues with your #1. This is an acceptable practice. Your use of #3 still stands suspect. dt

Lover, I fail to find the relavance of such verses. Please don’t just post verses. We need to stay on track and coherent.

Maybe Osteen’s, “Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate.” would be people having “poor self esteem/image”.