Samuel Balentine on God, Moses, and Openness

In the Torah’s vision of Sinai’s covenant liturgy, this affirmation takes center stage. Moses neither yields to God’s instructions to remain silent nor accepts God’s decision to move into the future without these people. Instead, he dares to believe that at this critical juncture between the judgment announced and its actualization, faith requires that he challenge God with a “loyal opposition.” Moses will not give up on the people God has entrusted to his leadership, even though their sinfulness deserves divine judgement. Instead, he stands before God as an advocate for those who have clearly failed to live up to God’s expectations. He will not simply accept that God’s decision to judge the people is unalterable and impervious to challenge or change. Instead, he questionsGod, believing that in a genuine covenant relationship, even divine decisions can be reimagined, rethought, recalculated. He will not believe that the future of a people called by God is recalculated. He will not believe that the future of a people called by God is determined exclusively by human weakness and incapacity. Instead, he prays in the firm conviction that the future remains ever open to God’s relentless commitment to love the unlovable, to forgive theundeserving, and to create out of human failure new possibilities for realizing ultimate objectives. (146)

Theological articulations such as this have increased since the publication of Terence Fretheim’s Suffering of God, where this model of God was articulated so forcefully and persuasively. This quote is not altogether unique to most modern discussions of Exodus 32, I admit. What was new to me in reading Balentine here was the connection he made between this event in Exodus and that attribution of Psalm 90 to Moses.

At this critical juncture–when the Davidic monarchy seems to have failed, the steadfast love of God to have waned, and the future of Israel to hang in the balance [Book Three of the Psalter; cf. Ps 89.46, 49]–the Psalter’s Book IV (Psalms 90-106) summons the community of faith back to the memory of Moses. The superscription of Psalm 90 is the only one that bears the name of Moses, and seven of the eight references to Moses in the Psalms occur in Book IV. IT is this “Moses-book” that constitutes the “theological heart” of the Psalter. The pivotal memory of Psalm 90 is Moses’ intercession with God at Sinai (Exod. 32:11-14), its nucleus recalled in verse 13: “Turn O LORD! How long? Repent concerning your servants!” This plea–not the expressions of God’s consuming wrath thatpreceded it (Ps. 90:7, 9, 11)–provides the foundation for the petition in verse 14 that the future of this fragile people be secured by God’s relentless love (hesed). In the Psalter’s final ordering of the prayers of Israel, the memory of Moses’ daring petition at Sinai instructs the faithful to believe and to live as if the future does indeed belong to the Lord who “reigns” (cf. Pss. 93, 95-99), even in a sinful and conflicted world. (147)

Good Question!

I enjoy the WordPress feature that allows me to see the top searches that have led people to my blog. Recently someone arrived here by searching “words wts uses that are not in the bible.” What a hoot! I really haven’t spent a lot of time dwelling on what led me to leave WTS, nor do I plan to. The whole mess has been thoroughly blogged and I doubt I could add anything that you couldn’t find anywhere else, particularly at Art Boulet’s blog.

Another recent search asked this very good question: “how does open theism affect traditional systematic theology”? I would like answer this question with a few of my thoughts. Open Theism is merely another system of belief. Like Calvinism and Arminianism, it is a closed system. It has clear boarders and boundaries that are ultimately unable to accommodate all the passages in the Bible. Sometimes Calvinists and Arminians can accommodate these verses and then use them to discredit the system of Open Theism. This type of argument is at best naive because no systematic theology ever has (or ever will?) accommodate every passage of Scripture (much less every aspect of life lived under the sun!).

But Open Theistic thought, thoughts like God can be moved by his creatures and will react to their decisions, is really crucial to the theology of the Bible (and biblical theologians were recognizing this long before systematic theologians were!). So if Open Theism allows for these very biblical thoughts to be brought into systematic studies, then it has affected traditional systematic theology in a very real way, giving voice to scriptures that have thus far been marginalized and explained away by those who have been unable/willing to listen to what they say. While I may not consider myself an Open Theist, I am very open to what Open Theists are saying!

Peter Enns on Does God Change His Mind?

I have quoted from Peter Enns book Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament on a number of occasions. All of the quotations come from one place in his book where he is discussing the question, “Does God change his mind?” I want to reproduce the entirety of the context of what I have quoted for two reasons. First, in future posts, it will be easy to reference his words by linking back to this page . Second, it has shaped so much of my thinking (see also the quotes by Brueggemann here and here). It is brilliant and needs to be read. So read it!

More examples could be discussed. In fact, from one perspective, the entire narrative structure of the Old Testament is fuled by the back and forth, give and take between God and Israel. The Old Testament portrays God as a being who can be acted upon, a being whose actions are in a meaningful sense of the word contingent upon what his people do: if they obey, then God will bless; if they disobey, then God will curse. I am well aware that from a philosophical point of view, one man can answer this quite simply by saying that God may act as if his actions are contingent, but in reality they are not. My concern, however, is with  the Bible and what it says, with how God acts in Scripture. I am not at all comfortable with describing God in a way that leads me to dismiss this dimension of how Go himself wishes to be known.

I am taking some time to lay out this issue, because, as I write this, a current theological debate in evangelical Christianity concerns the so-called openness of God. Much of that debate centers on whether God controls future events, whether there are possible future events of which God has no knowledge, and even whether God himself is open to change. A focus of that discussion invariably turns to some of the Old Testament passages we have looked at above, passages where God changes his mind.

Despite appreances, what I am addressing here is not immediately relevant to that debate. I am not interested in asking whether God can or cannot change his mind as some abstract discussion. The issue I am addressing is how the Old Testament describes God. To ask in the abstract what God can or cannot do is interesting–sort of like “Can God make a rock so big that even he can’t lift it?”–but beyond the scope of this book and maybe even beyond the scope of the Bible. It is not the God behind the scenes that I want to look at, but the God  of the scenes, the God of the Bible, how he is portrayed there.

I realize this raises some questions. Does not God, as he is portrayed in the Bible, correspond to the God “behind the scenes”? In other words, does not the Bible, because it is the word of God, give us an accurate presentation of what God is really like? After all, if you drive a wedge between what the Old Testament says about God and what God is really like, how can we speak meaningfully of the Bible as God’s authoritative word?

This is a very good cluster of questions. I am not trying to drive a wedge between the Bible and God. Actually, and somewhat ironically, this is what I see others doing. I feel bound to talk about God in the way(s) the Bible does, even if I am not comfortable with it. The Bible really does have authority if we let it speak, and not when we–intentionally or unintentionally–suspend what the Bible says about God in some places while we work out our speculations about what God is in “really” like, perhaps by accenting other portions of the Bible so we could read it, not so we can ferret our way behind it to see how things really are.

God reveals himself throughout the Old Testament. There is no part that gets it “more right”than others. Rather, they get at different sides of God. Or, to use the well-worn analogy, the different descriptions of God in the Old Testament are like the different colors and textures that together combine to make a portrait. In keeping with the incarnational analaogy, we can appreciate that the entire Bible, through and through, has that human dimension. So, for the Old Testament to speak of God as changing his mind means that this is  his choice for how he wants us to know him. He speaks about himself in ways that reflect our ability to understand. I might add at this juncture that Christian prayer, which is often expressed as pleading before God, operates on the assumption that our words will have some effect on God. But do they really? That is for God to know, not us. But many of us have seen enough examples of answers to prayer in the face of a life-threatening illness and dire financial problems to admit that there is a ring of truth to all this.

There are diverse portrayals of God in the Old Testament. He is, on the one hand, powerful, one who knows things before they happen and who causes things to happen, one who is in complete control. On the other hand, he finds things out, he can feel grieved about things that happen, he changes his mind. If we allow either of these dimensions to override the other, we set aside part of God’s word in an effort to defend him, which is somewhat of a self-contradiction. But as we think about God, as we learn of him more and more, as we enter deeper into relationship with him through Christ, we will see that there is much of the full-orbed biblical portrait of God that we need to know. And of course, this is no surprise, for this is what he intended. As Paul says, “All scripture is . . . profitable”(2 Tim. 3:16 RSV)–even parts that don’t fit easily into our molds. (105-7)

References

Enns, Peter. Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005.

On No Going behind the Witnesses – Again

Slaveophone has made numerous comments on a few of my posts (here, here, and here). I do not have the time, energy, or the desire to respond to every issue he has raised, much less to get into an ongoing discussion. Their was a time in my life where I ruthlessly responded to every statement made to or about me. I have since learned that the balance of the universe does not hang on me responding to everything that is said on the internet.  Read Slaveophone’s comments and judge them for yourselves; he has a few insightful thoughts.

That having been said, I do not want to ignore his comments. I would like to provide some clarification which may or may not alleviate some of his concerns, particularly as they pertain to the pursuit of the reality “behind” the text and Brueggemann’s methodology/exhortation to avoid this pursuit. To do this, I want to enlist the aid of Peter Enns and Jon Levenson. I will start with Enns, referencing once again from his book Incarnation and Inspiration: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament.

Despite appearances, what I am addressing here is not immediately relevant to that [Open Theism] debate. I am not interested in asking whether God can or cannot change his mind as some abstract discussion. The issue I am addressing is how the Old Testament describes God. To ask in abstract what God can or cannot do is interesting–sort of like “Can God make a rock so big that even he can’t lift it?”–but beyond the scope of this book and maybe even beyond the scope of the Bible. It is not the God behind the scenes that I want to look at, but the God of the scenes, the God of the Bible, how he is portrayed there.  (106)

When Enns chooses to look at the God of the scenes rather than the God behind the scenes, he is choosing to focus on the way in which God is portrayed in the particular passages of the Old Testament. For Enns, it is “not immediately relevant” to pursue a discussion about this God “in abstract.” How would we go about confidently asserting anything about the God of the text if the discussion were to occur outside of the text? Enns then goes on to subtly suggest that for such discussions, the Bible is possibly irrelevant; they are “maybe even beyond the scope of the Bible.” I think I see where he is going with this, and (at least for now) I agree with him. If there is a reality behind the text that does not conform to the text, then the text is not there for us to arrive at that reality, it has a different purpose.

This is where I appeal to Jon Levenson in his stimulating book Sinai & Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible.

The distinction between apodictic and casuistic law is an important insight into literary form, one that bears upon the origin and the function of the laws of ancient Israel. It is a major achievement of form-critical method which Alt utilized with such brilliance. It tells us much about the history and setting of the material that it analyzes. But I submit that it does not have theological significance. It has not been sufficiently noticed that all law-codes in the Torah were ascribed to the revelation to Moses on Mount Sinai. That is to say, all law in Israel, whether casuistic or apodictic in form, has been embedded within the context of covenant. In so doing, the tradition has endowed laws with the status of covenant stipulations, whether the individual ordinances show a formal connection to stipulations or not. Thus, the artless meshing of apodictic and casuistic norms throughout the Pentateuch, a process which Alt’s method seeks to reverse, is a theologically important fact which his form criticism must not be allowed to obscure. In the canonical scripture, Moses mediates both types of law as if they are one. He writes down the Book of the Covenant (24:4), just as he writes down the apodictic norms through which YHWH “made a covenant with you and with all Israel” (34:27). Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, therefore, although not literally true, does serve to convey a theological truth. Biblical critics have allowed their well-founded disbelief in the literal assertion of post-biblical tradition to blind them to the religious significance of the Mosaic attribution of the law. (49-50)

Levenson is not naive or ignorant about what stands behind the Pentateuchial texts. He knows of a reality that exists behind the texts that does not conform to what the texts themselves record. (Of course, we are speaking here of 21st century Western standards of conformity.) Levenson, however, chooses not to choose between the witness of the text and the reality behind the text. In spite of the fact that “Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch . . . [is] not literally true,” it “does serve to convey a theological truth (something which he goes on to discuss in the text but is not quoted above). What I see Levenson doing here with Moses and the Law, I believe Enns and Brueggemann are attempting to do with God. As Enns says, “I feel bound to talk about God in the way(s) the Bible does, even if I am not comfortable with it” (106). Perhaps it is uncomfortable to speak of Moses delivering the Law from Mount Sinai when we “know” that Moses did no such thing. Even if he didn’t, Scripture speaks of him as having done so, and there is theological significance to this attribution.

With Levenson’s example of Moses, it is much easier to get “behind” the text because the issue is more accessible. The Pentateuch can be subjected to historical and literary criticism that can shed light on what “really happened.” But as Levenson observes, this does not have theological significance. And insofar as our subject is Old Testament theology, we are bound to what the text is actually saying, not what we can intuitively uncover behind the text. With God, I don’t think that one can get behind the text nearly as easily as can be done with the ancient history of Israel. There are disciplines like philosophy that attempt to do so, but I am not convinced that philosophy has much of a place in Old Testament theology. Although Nicholas Wolterstorff takes a “no going behind the witnesses” approach in the book God & Time: Four Views edited by Gregory Ganssle which I might blog about in the near future. He will let biblical theology affect his philosophy! But then, he regards the Bible as divine revelation.

And this is where going behind the witnesses in regard to God is problematic. If Scripture is divine revelation, why go behind what is revealed? On the assumption that Scripture intends to (and to some degree of success does) reveal God, we need to pursue not merely what is being revealed, but how it is being revealed. Perhaps the “what” is different than the “how;” that does not change the fact that the “how” exists and that the “what” has chosen to reveal himself by/in/through the “how.”

I have just a few more loosely connected comments. Old Testament theology (or biblical theology for that matter) is not the only discipline in biblical studies. There is a long and enduring debate about what the nature of the discipline is. I am by no means claiming to have the only or even most accepted view on this matter. I recognize that it is in discussion of which I am one small voice. Some good resources for getting involved in the discussion would be Leo Purdue’s Reconstructing OT Theology: After the Collapse of History in the Overtures to Biblical Theology series. Ben Ollenburger also has an excellent volume, Old Testament Theology: Flowering and Future in the Sources for Biblical and Theological Study series.

Just as “What is Old Testament theology?” is a big question, so also is “How does one go about doing Old Testament theology?” Brueggeman, in advocating a “no going behind the witnesses” approach, is not advocating that this is how Scripture tells us to do theology. James Barr writes:

What if the theological structure ought to be and must be one brought from without and inserted into the material? What if the ideal of a theological structure derived purely from within the material is a will-of-the-wisp, perhaps a fundamentally biblicistic dream that the Bible will supply, generate and control its own theology? After all, it has been a common judgment of Old Testament scholars who stand outside Old Testament theology that any theology it ‘finds’ has in fact been read into the text or imposed upon it. What if this is the truth, and if so, would it not be better to accept that the theology is a scheme, a model, applied to the text, rather than one derived from it by some explicit authority? (40)

Would Brueggemann take issue with Barr here? I don’t know, but I suspect not. Brueggemann is advocating for a model which he believes will help us access the theology of the Old Testament. Even a model which discourages going behind the witnesses does not have to be embedded within the witnesses to be valid or even normative. I think for people like Enns, Levenson, and Brueggemann, what is really shaping their approach to the text is the theological nature of the discipline and their commitment to their respective texts of Scripture. If I want to understand the theology of the Old Testament/Jewish Bible, I am not going to ignore what these theological texts are saying.

Are there any other opinions out there?

References

Barr, James. The Concept of Biblical Theology: An Old Testament Perspective. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999.

Enns, Peter. Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005.

Levenson, Jon. Sinai & Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible. New York: HarperOne, 1985.

On the Abuse of a Literary Device

In my previous series of posts (here, here, and here), I set forth what I see to be a distinction between various scholars articulating what could easily be lumped under a single label, “Open Theism.”  I made the distinction between Open Theists, with their systematic and philosophically driven concerns, and what I am labeling Openness Theologians, with their biblical theological concerns. Though no formal distinction has yet been made between these two camps (with the exception of those scholars who sound like Open Theists but deny the title), I believe such a distinction to be emerging. What unites both of them is their willingness to read particular texts in Scripture where something about the future is depicted as outside of God’s purview as accurate reflections of the God of whom Scripture speaks. Insofar as they agree about this, they share a common criticism, one that I would like to address.

Of the three anti-Open Theism books on my library shelf, all of them address the term “anthropomorphism” at least two of them on more than one occasion. This term has been used historically and continues to be used to explain the interesting dilemma created by texts which ascribe repentance or the assimilation of new knowledge to God. Of course, on some occasions, anthropopathism would be a more appropriate term. By labeling traditional open theistic passages as employing anthropomorphic/pathic language, classical theists claim to redeem these texts for their own use.

I am highly skeptical of their claims for many reasons which I will try to explain below. If an interpreter approaches a passage with an a priori commitment to classical divine attributes like omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence, is it perfectly understandable that he should explain away those passages which portray a very different image of God. To say that a passage that locates God in space-time is anthropomorphic makes perfect sense in light of the a priori commitments to God’s omnipresence and his eternality (conceived of as timelessness). But it must be understood that what makes these passages anthropomorphic is this a priori commitment to classical divine attributes; there is nothing intrinsic to the text which requires that we label it anthropomorphic. No amount of Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek study will make make an interpreter any more or less adept at identifying such figurative language. This is a theological observation he makes based on theological criteria which he brings to the text.

This presents the first interesting dilemma. Because of the interpreters own assumptions, such texts are not given the same weight that other passages are given to explicate who this God of Scripture is. The fact that he is the God of Scripture should make us rethink how easily we dismiss those texts of Scripture that disagree or challenge our own view of God.

One argument I have heard explaining the presence of anthrpomporphic/pathic language in the bible is that such language was/is necessary for God to communicate his own transcendence, even if in a partial way (c.f. 1 Cor 13:12). In other words, anthropomorphic language was/is God’s way of communicating his transcendence in a way that we creatures could understand. A serious flaw I see with this argument is that those who use it claim to comprehend the very transcendence they argue necessitated the anthropomorphic language. They go on to teach and instruct others about God in a way that is “closer” to the transcendent nature of God than God’s own self-revelation. It is as though they say, “God tried his best to get the idea across, but we can do better!” Of course, an argument like might appeal to various stages in salvation history (like arguing Israel had to understand God in terms of Deuteronomy 6:4 before he could reveal himself as Father, Son, and Spirit; the latter revelation, Father, Son, and Spirit, now qualifies how we understand Deut 6:4). But this I believe is simply wrong; why couldn’t Israel have understood the immutable, impassible, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God of classical systematic theologies (or some variation thereof)? Moreover, the verses these people appeal to when they want to argue for their enlightened understanding are verses that were first given to the ancients (i.e. Num 23:19; Mal 3:16). Furthermore, if God believed it was so necessary to reveal himself to certain people during a certain stage in history in this “less enlightened” way, why not allow those of us who do not “see the light” to think of God as he first revealed himself?

One of the greatest flaws in the arguments of those who explain away the anthropomorphic/pathic language of scripture concerns their inability to assign any significance to such language. If the anthropomorphic/pathic language of God in Scripture directly contradicts who God is “in reality,” then what do these anthropomorphic/pathic passages teach anyway? If anthropomophric/pathic language communicates the very opposite of what God is, the language communicates a lie. It is one thing to assume God is incorporeal and to interpret a passage about God’s mighty hand as conveying his power; it is an entirely different issue to argue that God possesses an innate knowledge of all things past, present, and future and then say that God needed to condescend (for whatever reason) and reveal himself as empiracally arriving at knowledge. That is, according to these people, the very thing that God need not do, the very thing that “diminishes” God. And yet that is how Scripture speaks about God. Anthropomorphic/pathic language does not redeem such passages, it makes Scripture out to be a farce. Scripture lies, distorts, mis-communicates, or diminishes God if anthropomorphic language in Scripture teaches the very opposite of what we are to believe about him.

Perhaps one of the greatest fallacies of classical theists is in failing to wrestle with a second, more theologically significant and grounded concept can equally explain this language which until now has almost always been assumed bo be anthropomorphic/pathic language. I first arrived at this concept while reading1 John 4:19; it serves as a great demonstration of this concept. When Scripture says, “We love because he first loved us,” it is arguing that this love originates in God, though it is acted out and felt humans. Though I may first experience this love in an encounter with a human and associate this action with humanity, it’s ultimate reference point is divine. Thus, for me to act in love of which 1 John speaks is “theomorphic.” If we can speak of this love also as an emotion, for me to experience this emotion is “theopathic.” This is rooted in the very first chapter of Scripture.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26-27)

The imago dei is a theologically rich concept that may explain what we perceive to be the “humanness” of God in Scripture. I am not saying that God is a man, but that man is fashioned after God. So many of the things we encounter on a daily basis and associate with humanity are ultmiately pointing us to the God in whose image we were formed. Thus to say, “Men repent but God doesn’t” may undermine the very foundation of man’s own repentance (c.f. Matt 3:13-17). Why doesn’t God repent? The overwhelming testimony of Scripture says he does!

I would say more about this, but none of the opponents of Open Theism/Openness Theology I have encountered ever deal with the concept of theomorphic/pathic language.  I am unsure how such people would go about discerning what language they label “anthropomorphic/pathic” and what language the recognize as “theomorphic/pathic.”

I was pleased to find that I was not alone with these thoughts. Terence Fretheim, had already recognized and discussed this concept in The Suffering of God before I was ever born! When I had the opportunity to meet him recently and discuss this with him, he never mentioned his book, but rather pointed me back to Gerhard von Rad’s Genesis commentary.  I would point you to these resources as well for more on this subject.

In my next post, I want to reflect the incarnation, what I believe to be the great scandal of classical theism, and why I believe kenotic christology to do little (if anything) to remove this scandal.

Biblical Theology and Openness – 3

In my last post, I pointed out the distinction that I observe between the systematic doctrine of Open Theism, championed by men like John Sandars and Clark Pinnock, and what I would like to call the biblical theological paradigm of “Openness Theology” (or just “Openness”), what I believe I am seeing in the works of John Goldingay, Terence Fretheim, and Peter Enns.

It may be unfair to distinguish Open Theism and Openness by labeling one “systematic theology” and the other “biblical theology.” (I am sure that many would say it is superficial to distinguish them at all!) I do so because I am learning of more and more people who are no more persuaded by Open Theism than of traditional Arminianism or Calvinism. From my observations, these people see in Open Theism similar absolute claims or presupposed assumptions that are equally dismissive of certain biblical images of God as Arminianism and Calvinism tend to be.

The terminological distinction between Open Theism and Openness Theology is a calculated move on my part and attempts to capture the move from a systematically driven paradigm to a biblical theologically driven paradigm. Open Theism, both in name and in theory, makes a connection between the open view of the future with the God of theism. If God is to be God, then the future is to be open. While Openness is not without its own presuppositions and assumptions, these do not require that the God of theism be inseparably linked to the type of ontological future promoted by Open Theists.

That there are biblical occasions where God is portrayed as not knowing how the future will play out is simply without question. Do these unequivocally define our theism? Or rather, do occassions where God is portrayed as not knowing how the future will play out when the actions of freewill creatures are involved unequivocally define our theism? This seems to me to be one crucial distinction between Open Theism and Openness. Both are more than willing to say that there are times where God does not know how things will play out. (Calvinists and Arminians alike must recognized that this is how God is portrayed a great deal of the time.) For Openness, however, this does not indicate something about the nature of the future or of what God will or will not do in his dynamic relationship man.

In other words, Openness does not hang on the future always being open, not even when the future of freewill creatures in involved. It simply makes the observation that the biblical portrait is often that this is true for God. It shares many of the same convictions about God’s foreknowledge and prophecy that is held by Open Theism. But it does not arrive at the same philosophical conclusions that Open Theism does. Goldingay, in his article “Does the God of the Bible Have Surprises” (available here) makes this clear:

God sometimes knows how things will turn out on the basis of making the decisions about them, or because of possessing in spades the kind of great insight a human being can possess in extrapolating into the future.  Open theism stresses both these aspects of God’s capacity to know the future.  But attempting to explain all examples of foreknowledge in these ways seems to be forced.  It is a theory driven by the philosophical conviction of open theism that by its nature the future cannot be known until it happens.  As scripture sees it, God sometimes knows how things will turn out, simply on the basis of some supernatural capacity to do so.

Notice here that Goldingay believes there to be occasions where God can tap into a “supernatural capacity” to see the future, occasions where the biblical text simply cannot be explained any other way. What I find all the more intriguing, though, is how Goldingay, by taking this approach, manages to overcome one of the frequent criticisms directed at Open Thesim. If we take God literally in verse A, where God does not know the future, do we take him literally in verse B, where God does not know the present? The quintessential example is that of Gen 18:20-21.

Then the LORD said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.”

There is nothing about the system of Open Theism so far as I have been able to detect that requires this verse to be understood literally. Goldingay points out that according to some Open Theists, this type of statement does not reflect the reality of God’s knowledge, since, according to the system of Open Theism, God knows all things that can be known, including the past and the present. For them, a God who does not know the future is a reality, but a God who ascertains knowledge of the present by empirical means is inconceivable.  Goldingay challenges this assumption and accepts the plain meaning of the verse as an accurate portrayal of God. This is the same approach that Fretheim took of passages related to God’s knowledge of the future back when he wrote The Suffering of God, and though he has not in my experience addressed the issue of the past and present as Goldingay has, I have my suspicions that he would applaud such a treatment of the text.

What I see happening with Openness proponents that distinguishes them from Open Theists is the consistency of their approach to the biblical text. They take the text at face value, not because they can construct a superior philosophical understanding of God, freewill, and the future, but because it is the theology being articulated in the Bible. This should explain why I understand Openness to be a biblical theological paradigm distinguished from the systematic paradigm of Open Theism.

But what does this mean about systematic theology? Is there a way of systematizing the biblical theological paradigm of Openness? One of my friends would say, “Is there really even a need?” This type of response could be understood as a rejection of systematic theology all together, but it also could be an admission that, “for now, we see in a mirror dimly” (1 Cor 13:12). The latter admission has been that of Arminians and Calvinists when their philosophical system ultimately gives way to contradiction “mystery.” Perhaps the willingness of Openness to tolerate mystery coupled with the consistent approach to the biblical text (not to mention the willingness to allow unpredtermined foreknowledge back into the picture) will win it more support than Open Theism has. As for me, I am still trying to work all of this stuff out myself.

This brings me to an end of my “Biblical Theology and Openness” series.” In my next post, I will return to Fretheim and discuss the oft cited anthropomorphic/pathic argument against Open Theism, which is likely to be used against Openness as well.  I also plan to address some of my own thoughts about  Openness and kenotic Christology in the near future. (BTW, I don’t intend for this to be an “Openness” blog, it just happens to be at the moment.)

Biblical Theology and Openness – 2

In my last post, I introduced some striking quotes which argue that we should take seriously those passages in the Bible which present God as one who changes his mind, finds things out, and reacts to and bargains with man. What is all the more interesting is that these arguments come from those who do not themselves profess to be open theists. John Goldingay distances himself from the label “open theist” and the system of belief typically associated with that label in his Old Testament Theology Seminar material “Does the God of the Bible Have Surprises?” preferring instead to call himself a “renegade English Episcopalian professor of Old Testament.” (The reader can establish their own opinions by accessing his material here.) I heard Terrence Fretheim reject the label “open theist” in the question and answer session following the lectures mentioned in my previous post. That session was not available online when I last checked. As for Enns, he says in his book,

I am taking some time to lay out this issue, because, as I write this, a current theological debate in evangelical Christianity concerns the so-called openness of God. . . . Despite appearances, what I am addressing is not immediately relevant to that debate. (Inspiration and Incarnation,105-06).

I introduce all of this because I find it incredibly stimulating and worthy of discussion. Though Fretheim has been expressing what might be considered an open view of God long before there even was an Open Theism, Enns and Goldingay enter this discussion rather late in the game. Their works follow the vote that threatened to expel open theists from participating in the Evangelical Theological Society. (Both Enns and Goldingay profess to be evangelicals.) Knowing that Open Theism has not received a great amount of respect in the academic community (my own observations), these men take passages that often appear to belong to open theists and use them in remarkably similar ways, without adopting or espousing an open theistic system of belief.

I do not think it is helpful to assume these men are deluded and call them closet open theists; rather, I believe that we must pursue their own understanding about how their statements about God are intelligible in light of their own theological paradigms.  Labels are easy to throw around; judgments even easier. Understanding others is very difficult and demonstrates a quality of scholarship and character worthy of the label Christian. It may be that we finally conclude these men delude themselves and hold self contradictory positions. However, without a great deal of reflection and dialogue, we could not fairly arrive at such a conclusion.

It should be recognized that up till this point, all the major works produced on Open Theism are largely works of systematic theology. For example, John Sanders book,  now in its second edition, is subtitled “A Theology of Divine Providence , ” and Clark Pinnock’s book is subtitled “A Theology of God’s Openness. ” (Fretheim’’s recent Old Testament Theology could be considered the exception, but this would conflict with the fact already stated, Fretheim himself rejects being labeled an open theist.) Though I may be speaking too soon, seeing that Open Theism is relatively new in the academic world of theology, my own observations lead me to conclude that these attempts to make Open Theism a competing systematic theology with Arminianism and Calvinism are not succeeding.

But what Fretheim, Goldingay, and Enns seem to be doing is something other than an exercise in systematic theology. Their academic interests lie within the field of biblical theology, and their work appears to be shaped largely by the contours and concerns of biblical theology. What I struggle to understand (and what it seems like some of these guys may also struggle with) is how to keep from divorcing the God of biblical theology from the God of systematic theology. As they say, “If it walks like a duck, and if it quacks like a duck, it must be a duck.” I don’t think that these men are necessarily ignoring this. Take for example Enns when he writes:

I feel bound to talk about God in the way(s) the Bible does, even if I am not comfortable with it. The Bible really does have authority if we let it speak, and not when we–intentionally or unintentionally–suspend what the Bible says about God in some places while we work out our speculations about what God is “really” like, perhaps by accenting other portions of the Bible that are more amenable to our thinking. God gave us the Bible so we could read it, not so we can ferret our way behind it to see how things really are. (Inspiration and Incarnation, 106)

I like Enns quote here, but I admit to having the most difficult time with making sense of what Enns says in light of what he signs. I was raised in what I have said is a militantly non-creedal tradition, so I simply cannot speak to the nature of creedal Christianity. I am not creed-less, nor is my tradition, but unwritten creeds are of an entirely different nature.

I think Fretheim and Goldingay are perhaps more accessible to me in understanding how all of this works for them. In my next post, I plan to flesh out what I see them doing in the biblical theological arena and my own concerns for what this means for systematic theology.

To be continued…

References

Enns, Peter. Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005.

Biblical Theology and Openness

My year at Westminster Theological Seminary was interesting and enjoyable, in part because I was raised according to a traditional Arminian theology in a tradition that is militantly non-creedal. A reformed, confessional seminary was truly a different experience for me!

I can still remember how some of the students would light up when they found out I wasn’t reformed. They would school me in the finer points of reformed theology, waiting for me to acquiesce to their superior system of belief. I might have been compelled if I had still been holding on to the traditional Arminian system with which I was raised, but I had abandoned that before I ever left for WTS and faced the reformed challenges to Arminian theology.

I remember finding two quotes from two different professors at WTS and putting them side by side, and then sharing them with some of my friends at WTS in an effort to legitimize my own theological leanings. The first quote comes from Peter Enns’ book Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament:

…the entire narrative structure of the Old Testament is fueled by the back and forth, give and take between God and Israel.  The Old Testament portrays God as a being who can be acted upon, a being whose actions are in a meaningful sense of the word contingent upon what his people do: if they obey, then God will bless; if they disobey, then God will curse. [...] So, for the Old Testament to speak of God as changing his mind means that this is his choice for how he wants us to know him. (Inspiration and Incarnation, 105-06)

The second quote comes from Vern Poythress’ book God-Centered Biblical Interpretation:

Since God is our standard and his word is our standard, there is nothing more ultimate than this revelation of himself.  We believe that God is true.  He truly reveals himself, not a substitute or a mirage.  We believe it because God says so.  Hence, we believe that God is in conformity with what he reveals. (God-Centered Biblical Interpretation, 43)

I was told that I was misconstruing what these professors were saying by placing their quotes alongside each other and that neither of these professors would agree with how I was using their quotes. I can’t speak for how Poythress would respond (though I can surmise he would take exception to what together they imply), but Enns has recently addressed this very issue in an exchange over his book I&I with Bruce Waltke  in the Westminster Theological Journal. Both articles can be accessed at Enns’ blog. He writes:

All of Scripture is covenantal, all of it is a condescension by God to stoop down to speak to his people. There are no parts of Scripture that get ‘‘closer’’ to what God is ‘‘really’’ like than others. What we get in Scripture is the ‘‘God of the Covenant,’’ what he is really like, brought to its fullest expression in Christ. As I say in I&I, in Scripture we have the God of the scenes, not behind the scenes. But Waltke seems uncomfortable with how God is presented in Scripture. He says that there are statements in the Bible that only ‘‘seem to entail that God’s knowledge is restricted or that he changes his mind’’ (my emphasis). But these biblical statements do not ‘‘seem to entail’’ anything; they directly state that God’s knowledge is indeed limited and that he changes his mind in those narratives (such as the Flood story, the binding of Isaac, etc.). This is how the wise God has chosen to make himself known, time and time again, in Scripture. These sorts of statements are not there to test how skilled we can be to glance past them to get at the ‘‘real’’ God. Scripture, all of it (in its redemptive historical, Christotelic coherence), gives us the real God on a silver platter. The question is whether we will accept this gift. (“Interaction with Bruce Waltke,” 108)

From this quote, it seems as though Enns would agree with the pairing I made of his quote from I&I with Poythress’ from GCBI.

It is interesting, then, that while Open Theism continues to receive significant theological criticism, some of what open theists have been keen to point out is being taken seriously by scholars who are not themselves open theists. Of course, it would be unfair not to recognize that before open theists pointed these things out, people like Terence Fretheim was in books like The Suffering of God (see esp. chapter 4). I recently had the privilege of listening to Dr. Fretheim speak (his Feb 21st lectures can be accessed here), and he confessed that he himself was not an Open Theist. He kept referring to John Sandars, author of The God Who Risks: A Theology of Providence who was present at the lectures as the “systematician” who dealt with these issues.

Like Fretheim, Enns is highly interested in matters of biblical theology. Another biblical theologian, John Goldingay, has attempted to address some of these very same concerns in his own theology which I look forward to reading this summer. Chris Tilling posted this quote from the first volume of Goldingay’s OTT wherein he addresses this controversial topic:

Sometimes God manifests supernatural knowledge, and no doubt God could know everything, including everything about us, whether we are willing for this or not (cf. 1 Chron 28:9; 1 Jn 3:20). But even God’s supernatural knowledge of us comes about through discovery, through “searching out”, rather than because God possesses this knowledge automatically (e.g., Ps 33:15; 139:1-6). Stories about Babel and about Abraham (Gen 11; 18; 22) will concretely show God taking steps to come to know things. They will again show that God has extraordinary knowledge, but will incorporate no declaration that Yhwh is omniscient, and preclude that by the way they portray God acting so as to discover things: “I will go down to see whether they have acted altogether in accordance with the cry that came to me. If not, I will know” (Gen 18:21). “Now I know that you are one who reveals God” (Gen 22:12) … Talk of God acting to find something out is anthropomorphism, but like talk of God having a change of mind or loving or speaking, such anthropomorphisms presumably tell us something true about God’s relationship with the world. (137)

In my next post, I plan to address some of my own observations and reflections regarding these quotes and biblical theological scholarship.

To be continued…

References

Enns, Peter. Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005.

______ “Interaction with Bruce Waltke.” Westminster Theological Journal 71 (Spring 2009): 97-114.

Goldingay, John. Israel’s Gospel. Old Testament Theology vol. 1. Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 2003.

Poythress, Vern. God-Centered Biblical Interpretation. Philipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1999.