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theist (or anyone) opts for one member of the pair as providing the true hermeneutic key, the
other set of Scriptures ends up being either distorted or ignored.
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This is demonstrated by
Sanders in his remarkable omission, in a book on providence, of any reference to the book of
Job. There God is revealed as expressly permitting (through the instrumentality of Satan; ch. 1
and 2) and even causing (42:11) the suffering of Job (which somehow included sin: the killing
by the bandits).
As in the other alternative theologies we have examined, the understanding of God put
forth by open theism is truncated by a rigid use of logic unable to do justice to evidence that
appears to contradict its favored set of truths. In the face of the preponderance of scriptural
evidence on both sides of such issues, the opponents of historic Christian theism must do more
than assert that one line of evidence/argument contradicts another line of evidence/argument.
Such an "argument" does nothing more than highlight the concurrence.
At the same time, sometimes those within historic Christianity have also been guilty of
emphasizing one member of a concurrent pair over the other. In fact, all these alternative
theologies do the Christian tradition a service by pointing out when God's sovereignty or
simplicity or impassibility are so emphasized that the "opposite" truths are reinterpreted or
ignored. Nevertheless, a study of the great sermons and writings of the Church down through
the centuries would show that its teachers have affirmed a rich, complex view of God: a
sovereign and relational God who genuinely grieves, sorrows, and delights in his creatures while
ruling over all their affairs.
The Development of Reason
We have seen that a simplistic use of formal logic can get in the way of understanding