How did “the oracles of God” speak?
Jer 44:4 Howbeit I sent unto you all my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate.

What does God want preachers to do?
2Ti 4:2 preach the word; be urgent in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.
2Ti 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure the sound doctrine; but, having itching ears, will heap to themselves teachers after their own lusts;
2Ti 4:4 and will turn away their ears from the truth, and turn aside unto fables.

I stuck up for Osteen

1.) Open Theism has a god that can be thwarted by satan. If God is stopped in his plan A then he goes with plan B. For those of you who don’t like the word satan substitue some other word but the bottom line is there is a force stronger than God that thwarts his plan.

2.) Open Theism has a god that is bound by time and can not see past today. So all the scriptures that deal with the future events are just hopeful intentions or basically plan A.

There are some more points that are secondary to these but my ultimate conclusion is that Open Theists do not, I repeat Do Not Worship the same God. What they worship is not god at all but some Uber Mench that after creating something came under its authority.

There is a a lot more even some Open Theists have said that God owed us salvation or He owes us certain things.

Let me state my apologies now but after studying them and reading what they say I believe they are on blasphamous and heretical ground with their claims.

Yet with God’s “remembering our sins no more” I would differ. I don’t think in any way that this suggest that God actually forgets our sins, but that it is a gaurantee that He will not bring them to mind. In other words, this is communicating that our sins will never be an issue. It is a matter of the absolute nature of forgiveness.

If he actually forgot them all, then he may ask himself, “What are these scares doing on my hand and feet?”

Yes He is patient but that does not preclude His knowing. If anything, it shows the greatness of His mercy and grace.

But I do not think you would want to affirm that statement as true (you’re a monotheist). What is at issue isn’t whether the two of you bow down to different gods, but whose concept of God is the true one. Pinnock would not deny that what he is offering is a competing understanding of God. Indeed it is his intent to challenge the classical concept. But simply pointing out that his concept is different than yours is no argument that yours is preferable or superior. What is needed are arguments that show his concept of God to be false—and this is no simple task.

I do not doubt that the classical model and open theism model are radically different (even mutually exclusive in some areas). But it seems to me that the two are relatively similar enough to be broadly considered Christian in that both are consonant with essential Christian teachings: (1) The One God that is creator, (2) the consubstantiality of the Father, Son and Spirit, (3) the virgin birth and incarnation, (4) death and resurrection of Christ, (5) the one body that is the Church, (6) the resurrection from the dead, (7) the return of Christ and the final judgment. Whatever Pinnock’s concept of God, if it is consonant with these, then it is certainly orthodox.

I cannot fully embrace Open Theism, but I appear somewhat more familiar with it than some of the others here. For the sake of being irenic, I thought I could add some overview to what I’ve found attractive and unattractive about it and perhaps weaken some straw man ideas of it.

Yes, it limits the attributes of soverignty, omniscience, etc. but is that so terrible? Any definition applied to the attributes of God are limiting. Just the existence of attributes are limiting. The very idea that God cannot act contrary to His character (as described by attributes) is limiting. God cannot be capricious, unjust, unloving, etc. All are limits. The difference is where we understand those to be. Plus, there’s no contradiction in thinking that God could chose to limit Himself. If He designed creation so that the future is unknowable, there’s no reason He couldn’t choose to respect that while still having the power to violate it.

Yes, Open Theism must admit that there is a chance God’s plans in creation are thwarted because of the more restricted definitions of omniscience and soverignty. However, it’s a very small but non-zero chance. God knows the entire history of experiences every person has had, all of their past choices, their brain chemistries, the interactions of every subatomic particle. This set of knowable knowledge is large enough that God knows future events with an extremely good, but not perfect certainty.

Now, what does this gain us? What I find attractive about OT is the focus on relationships. God wants to have a relationship with us. But relationships as we know them always entail an element of risk of rejection. What is a relationship without that element? Complacency. Can we really have the high point of love without the possibility of the low point of rejection? A God who completely knows the future is not a risk, so at best this is a one-way relationship, or a redefinition of what relationship means. The OT view of God restores some of this risk to our relationship with God. He still has the deck stacked in his favor with the set of knowable knowledge, but the element is there.

This view of a relationship to God allows a very plain reading of Moses entreating God not to destroy the Israelites. God truly changed his mind because of his relationship with Moses. What I like about this is how much richer intercessory prayer becomes. It also preserves our natural understanding of freewill.

I read up on Open Theism (and a rebuttal) after a Reformed study of theodicity left me with more questions than I started with. OT has satisfying answers to that.

I don’t find myself fitting any pre-packaged theological model (at least not yet) but I don’t feel like I’m switching religions between entertaining 5-point Calvinism and Open Theism. Michael, I don’t think you and Mr. Pinnock worship a different God. The differences in your understanding are deep, no doubt. But I’m not sure how to tie my conclusion into your 3 categories of understanding.

Again what unites us is the gospel and while we differ on many things where does he stand on the essentials. In my humble opinion is that we don’t agree on the essentials then we don’t worship the same God. All God becomes is a manmade version of Him which has happened since the days of Adam (6,000 years ago, sorry Vance, couldn’t resist!).

That is always my point, within our denominations, without our denominations and even those who claim to worship the one true God as it would appear from Acts 10, Cornelius.

Then where do we stop: McLaren, Ehrman, Boyd, the Pope, and others?

(threw the Pope in there Michael for my old alma mater RCC, one for the gipper)