Recently I overheard part of a phone conversation between a friend and his daughter. It was a conversation that I have heard hundreds of times in one form or another. It was a conversation that I have had with myself in the past. It was a conversation that everyone has had at some point in life. But for the Christian, I would argue it is a conversation that is far more acute. For the Christian the question goes something like this, “I am really trying to do the right thing and make the right choices. I love God, I pray for others, I give to the needy, I am a good person, why me? Why has my life turned upside down? Where is the good, good Father we sing about in church? God, are you faithful in keeping your end of the deal?”
Some retort in response, that is the problem, there is no deal. God owes us nothing. If we are recipients of God’s favor in any way, it is a gift. Others explain “be patient God has a plan, a higher purpose.” Or “God’s ways are not our ways.” Or “God will never let us suffer more than we can endure.” Or “everything has a reason.” Or “pray harder and remove the thing that is blocking God’s help.” Of course, none of these responses are of any comfort for the person dealing with cancer, sexual assault, loss of a job, or a family crisis. And the last two responses only throw the suffering back on the sufferer.
In my days as a pastor, I remember on more than one occasion a parishioner sharing their trauma with me hoping, and praying for a response to make everything right, and I usually sat in silence because I had no answer. My classical evangelical theology would likely have brought more harm than healing. In college we learned God knows the future. God is in control because God is omniscient, (all knowing). We were taught “the Bible clearly teaches that God has com-plete, accurate, and infallible knowledge of all events past, present, and future, including all future decisions and actions of free moral agents.”[1]And when or if we asked how do we reconcile such divine determinism with the claim we are free agents responsible for our moral behavior and decisions we were offered a number of tortured explanations that make me wonder if my teachers really believed what they were saying.
In recent times, several theologians, and pastors have broken with this script and are pushing back against such divine determinism. Thomas Jay Oord, Tripp Fuller, the late Clark Pinnock, John Sanders, Gregory Boyd, Monica Coleman and others have been rethinking specifically the question of God’s foreknowledge. Theologian Thomas Oord suggests that we should rather talk about God’s influencing ability. He coined the word amipotent (the combination of two Latin words for love and influence) “to describe God’s uncontrolling love for all creatures and all creation. It’s an amipotent God’s nature to love everyone and everything without forcing anyone or anything. An amipotent Spirit will be neither overriding nor absent, neither inactive nor the sole cause of everything, neither utter mystery nor an impersonal force. Like a good mother who neither manipulates nor neglects her children. God can be seen like a universal Mother always influencing for good.”[2]
For those schooled in classical evangelicalism, such talk can seem traumatizing (notwithstanding Oord's use of the metaphor mother over father - without doubt another gentle poke at classical views of God). Does Oord and others mean to suggest God is not in complete control of events? Are there things outside of God’s control? And in a word Oord would respond, yes.[3]
It may surprise many that this perspective is not new. For his part pastor and author Gregory Boyd rejects divine determinism and describes God as the God of the possible. Insomuch that not only can God influence the future, change his mind[4], or regret a decision he has made, but we as free agents in an open relationship with God can influence God.[5]
Talk like this should not be a shock for those who are open to the ways of the Spirit of God. We believe in prayer not simply as a point of personal self-therapy but because we believe God hears our prayers and God can be moved with compassion. God may not respond in a way of our choosing any more than an earthly parent will respond positively to every desire of their children. But God will never abandon God’s people. The good news is that it is God’s nature to love, and love can only exist in a give and take relationship.
I am generally not a fan of superhero comics. Armed with special fighting skills these heroes’ have few if any vulnerabilities. In the end, with few exceptions I find them boring. However, several years ago, one antihero character that caught my attention was Jessica Jones, a noir detective drama. After a freak accident Jones is left with abundant strength, durability, and the quirky ability to jump really high. But unlike most superheroes she hates these abilities and the pressures they put on her. She is the classic antihero and frequently loses herself in depression, booze and sex. There are probably many reasons not to get involved in this story but what caught my attention in the first season (I have only seen one season) was her arch villain Kilgrave.
The villainous Kilgrave has power over the mind. He is pure evil and can manipulate the minds of people to do whatever he wants including killing themselves. In many ways he is the antithesis of God. He is not good and uses his power to get whatever he wants sometimes just for kicks. He has but one weakness, he is enamored with Jessica Jones, yet his powers of manipulation cannot oblige Jones to love him back. Love cannot be coerced. If it is coerced it is not love.
In a dramatic scene near the end of the first season, Kilgrave is holding a police department at bay. He has told the officers to point their guns at their own heads to which they oblige against their wills. Jones the only one other than Kilgrave who is left with free agency confronts Kilgrave,
JESSICA: Do whatever you’re going to do to me but let them go.
KILGRAVE: Well, I have to protect myself so…
JESSICA: Then control me, not them.
KILGRAVE: I have absolutely no intention of controlling you, I want you to act on your own accord.
JESSICA: Act how? Suicide? Is that why you’ve been torturing me?
KILGRAVE: (laughs) Oh my god, Jessica I knew you were insecure…that’s just sad! I’m not torturing you, why would I? I love you.
Unlike the fictional evil Kilgrave God is good, but even God cannot coerce love. Love involves give and take. If God coerces, it is not love. And if God knows the outcome of our relationship in such a way that it is not reciprocal are we in a relationship? If as a parent, you have access to your child’s every inner thought could you claim to be in a relationship?
The reaction to this wave of thinking from classical evangelical circles has been loud and uncompromising.
Theologian Bruce Ware has argued Open Theism (or its many alternative versions) undermines the gospel itself since God could not have kept with certainty the prophetic promises of the Old Testament, up to and including the crucifixion of Jesus. Theologian Roger Nicole declared “Open theism is a cancer on the Evangelicalism … It challenges the truthfulness of the Bible. John Feinberg, accused Open theists of believing in a “gambler God” who restricts the use of his power “to cater to the whims of our freedom. Since God has “little, if any” knowledge of what people will do in the more distant future, like us, he too must wait to see what happens. Hence, this God may have to “scrap” some of his plans and work toward his goals in ways other than originally intended.[6]
In a forum such as this I cannot go into all the arguments used to dissuade Christians from Open Theism. But a casual search on the internet will pull up many such sites. As for me I made the shift some time ago to an open relational theology. I believe in a vulnerable and open God. In fact I have found most rank and file Christians’ practice open theology even though they though they believe they adhere to classical versions of God’s omniscience. Imagine, people pray and believe God might even respond not because it was predetermined but because they and others prayed. Again, some might argue the Bible is clear on this subject. Does not Malachi 3:6 say, “I the Lord, I change not. or in Numbers 23:19 we read, “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind.” or in ” Psalm 110:, “The LORD has sworn and will not change.
To which I respond, we also have many passages that say God does change God’s mind or that God on occasion relents. Open theologians argue references to God’s unchanging character are just that, references to God’s character not to God’s actions. God’s character does not change. God is a God of love. And if God is true to God’s identity as love God is open in God’s relationship with all his creation.
Open theology argues as created beings we have freedom to make real decisions that will impact our lives and the lives of others for better or worse. “We may suffer unnecessarily when free creatures choose badly, natural systems go awry, or random and chance events occur. God empowers and calls all toward positive consequences, but we and creation can do other than what God wants.”[7]
My next blog will look at the redeeming implications for this kind of thinking especially when things go wrong, when we seek to make a way out of no way forward.
[1] Bruce Ware as quoted by Russell Moore https://banneroftruth.org/uk/resources/articles/2001/the-openness-of-god-rejected-by-the-ets/
[2] Thomas Jay Oord, Tripp Fuller. God After Deconstruction ( Sacra Sage:2024):47.
[3] See Thomas Oord, God Can’t: How to Believe in God, and Love after Tragedy , Abuse and Other Evils (SacraSage Press, 2019).
[4] I generally avoid using any gender pronoun to describe God, but for the sake of simplicity I have used in this case the traditional masculine pronoun, knowing I could legitimately use “her” instead. s
[5] Classical understandings of God’s unchanging ways argue that God is impassible. God is not subject to emotions or the pleads of his creatures. God acts with preordained perfect judgment and is not vulnerable to human cries for help. Open theists on the other hand, say the perfect vision of God is found in Jesus Christ who was openly vulnerable and at times moved with compassion to intervene in the affairs of humanity. A good read on objectives to this view with responses from an open theist see Gregory Boyd, God of the Possible. A Biblical Introduction to the Open View of God (Baker Books, 2000).
[6] In 2001 The Evangelical Theological Society in their annual convention voted that Open Theology was outside the boundaries of evangelical conviction and they affirmed overwhelmingly that God knows everything, including the future decisions of his creatures. In the subsequent drama the society attempted to excise members from the society who promote Open Theism.
[7] Oord, God after Deconstruction 67.
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