Searching for an Adequate God: A Dialogue Between Process and Free Will Theists

Rating:
Summary: A Right-Sized God
Review: .
Size matters. Many Christians know of J.B. Phillips classic book, Your God is Too Small. But few consider the possibility that their God is too BIG. When believers zealously attach all the "omnis" they can imagine to God, perhaps who emerges is not the God of scripture at all. What seems required is a God neither too small nor too big.

Constructing an adequate vision of God is the principal goal for essayists in Searching for an Adequate God. Of course, as contributor William Hasker remarks, "it is our conceptions of God that must be evaluated as adequate or inadequate, not God himself." Most essayists contend that a concept of God adequate to scripture, tradition, reason, and experience (the Wesleyan quadrilateral) is required or, as Hasker puts it, a conception of God "adequate for the faith and life of the Christian church." Whether explicitly or implicitly stated, both sides consider their own theistic conceptions to be more adequate given these criteria.

Given classical free-will theism's ties to evangelicalism and process theism's ties to liberal Christianity, it may seem unlikely to outsiders that the visions entertained by these camps overlap to any degree. However, even insiders may be surprised to find the large extent to which these visions can be harmonized. In many ways, Searching for an Adequate God serves as a bridge-builder. It reveals to the evangelical community that the process vision is more palatable than many had previously thought. The book also reveals to process theists, who typically run in liberal theological circles, that free-will/openness versions of evangelical theology are more palatable than they had assumed.

Tenets pertaining to divine love sit atop the list of convictions shared by these process and classical free-will/openness theists. Both sides affirm that God is love; God lovingly interacts with the world; God is genuinely affected by give-and-take love with the world; and God's primary, if not exclusive, modus operandi is persuasive love. Free-will/openness theist Richard Rice comments, "Process thought is often described as a metaphysics of love, an attempt to develop a full-fledged metaphysical system from the fundamental insight that God is love. The open view of God [a.k.a. free-will theism] shares this emphasis upon the priority of love."

Consistent with this emphasis upon divine love and love's implications are the emphases by both traditions upon relationality, freedom (e.g., both reject compatiblism and determinism), and the social nature of the God-world relationship. Additionally, both reject the argument that God can have certain knowledge of the entire future. Given these emphases, it is understandable that both theological perspectives sharply criticize notions -- which theists derived from classical metaphysics -- portraying God as aloof, impervious, or all-determining.

Both process and classical free-will theists affirm that God is providentially active in both human and nonhuman life. Both process and classical free-will theists hold that God is personal, purposive, and pantemporal.

It may surprise some to find that the issue of biblical authority does not arise as a major obstacle in this free-will/openness and process dialogue. In this volume, the process theists never chide free-will/openness theists for the latter's insistence upon the primary authority of the Bible. Free-will/openness theists only occasionally scold process theists for failing to appreciate the biblical witness. In fact, both sides appeal to an interpretation of scripture they believe supports their own theological vision.

The leg of the quadrilateral stool on which these theisms seem to differ most is Christian tradition. For instance, essayist David Griffin considers the tradition's doctrine of creatio ex nihilo indirectly damaging to the claim that God is love. A God able unilaterally to create the world is culpable for failing unilaterally to prevent genuine evil. He proposes, instead, a doctrine of creation grounded upon divine persuasion, theistic evolution, and a God-initiated Big Bang cosmology. Free-will/openness theists, however, accept creatio ex nihilo. For free-will/openness theists, the traditional creation doctrine supports a strong eschatology and explains God's miracle-generating activity.

At the heart of their theological differences are the theories of divine power, although each can agree on a formal definition of divine power (e.g., God's power is supreme, and deity possesses all the power it is possible for any being to have). On one hand, free-will/openness theists contend that God possessed, at least at one time, absolutely all power. Furthermore, these theists contend that God can unilaterally determine some events or situations -- should God choose to do so. Free-will/openness essayist Hasker believes that a God who can both unilaterally determine (coerce) and act cooperatively (persuade) is greater, and therefore more adequate, than the God who only acts persuasively. Process theist Griffin, on the other hand, avers that God never possesses a monopoly on power, which means that God never entirely determines an outcome. Griffin contends that the problem of evil, among other problems, remains insoluble for theists who believe God that is able to determine unilaterally.

Many of the essayists share fascinating autobiographical material. Nancy Howell, Wheeler, and Rice disclose how, in their own journeys, they embraced or rejected various aspects of process and evangelical traditions. For Wheeler, to cite one, the evangelical faith of his youth and the process theism he discovered in graduate school are not mutually exclusive. To varying degrees, these scholars live inside, outside, and/or between theological traditions. To use Howell's image, these authors maneuver among theological boundaries.

Conceiving of a "right-sized" God truly matters. The risks and fears that Pinnock describes indicate just how politically-charged the task of formulating theology can be. This book provides a valuable resource for adventurers undertaking this all-important quest.

Thomas Jay Oord

Rating:
Summary: A Right-Sized God
Review: .
Size matters. Many Christians know of J.B. Phillips classic book, Your God is Too Small. But few consider the possibility that their God is too BIG. When believers zealously attach all the "omnis" they can imagine to God, perhaps who emerges is not the God of scripture at all. What seems required is a God neither too small nor too big.

Constructing an adequate vision of God is the principal goal for essayists in Searching for an Adequate God. Of course, as contributor William Hasker remarks, "it is our conceptions of God that must be evaluated as adequate or inadequate, not God himself." Most essayists contend that a concept of God adequate to scripture, tradition, reason, and experience (the Wesleyan quadrilateral) is required or, as Hasker puts it, a conception of God "adequate for the faith and life of the Christian church." Whether explicitly or implicitly stated, both sides consider their own theistic conceptions to be more adequate given these criteria.

Given classical free-will theism's ties to evangelicalism and process theism's ties to liberal Christianity, it may seem unlikely to outsiders that the visions entertained by these camps overlap to any degree. However, even insiders may be surprised to find the large extent to which these visions can be harmonized. In many ways, Searching for an Adequate God serves as a bridge-builder. It reveals to the evangelical community that the process vision is more palatable than many had previously thought. The book also reveals to process theists, who typically run in liberal theological circles, that free-will/openness versions of evangelical theology are more palatable than they had assumed.

Tenets pertaining to divine love sit atop the list of convictions shared by these process and classical free-will/openness theists. Both sides affirm that God is love; God lovingly interacts with the world; God is genuinely affected by give-and-take love with the world; and God's primary, if not exclusive, modus operandi is persuasive love. Free-will/openness theist Richard Rice comments, "Process thought is often described as a metaphysics of love, an attempt to develop a full-fledged metaphysical system from the fundamental insight that God is love. The open view of God [a.k.a. free-will theism] shares this emphasis upon the priority of love."

Consistent with this emphasis upon divine love and love's implications are the emphases by both traditions upon relationality, freedom (e.g., both reject compatiblism and determinism), and the social nature of the God-world relationship. Additionally, both reject the argument that God can have certain knowledge of the entire future. Given these emphases, it is understandable that both theological perspectives sharply criticize notions -- which theists derived from classical metaphysics -- portraying God as aloof, impervious, or all-determining.

Both process and classical free-will theists affirm that God is providentially active in both human and nonhuman life. Both process and classical free-will theists hold that God is personal, purposive, and pantemporal.

It may surprise some to find that the issue of biblical authority does not arise as a major obstacle in this free-will/openness and process dialogue. In this volume, the process theists never chide free-will/openness theists for the latter's insistence upon the primary authority of the Bible. Free-will/openness theists only occasionally scold process theists for failing to appreciate the biblical witness. In fact, both sides appeal to an interpretation of scripture they believe supports their own theological vision.

The leg of the quadrilateral stool on which these theisms seem to differ most is Christian tradition. For instance, essayist David Griffin considers the tradition's doctrine of creatio ex nihilo indirectly damaging to the claim that God is love. A God able unilaterally to create the world is culpable for failing unilaterally to prevent genuine evil. He proposes, instead, a doctrine of creation grounded upon divine persuasion, theistic evolution, and a God-initiated Big Bang cosmology. Free-will/openness theists, however, accept creatio ex nihilo. For free-will/openness theists, the traditional creation doctrine supports a strong eschatology and explains God's miracle-generating activity.

At the heart of their theological differences are the theories of divine power, although each can agree on a formal definition of divine power (e.g., God's power is supreme, and deity possesses all the power it is possible for any being to have). On one hand, free-will/openness theists contend that God possessed, at least at one time, absolutely all power. Furthermore, these theists contend that God can unilaterally determine some events or situations -- should God choose to do so. Free-will/openness essayist Hasker believes that a God who can both unilaterally determine (coerce) and act cooperatively (persuade) is greater, and therefore more adequate, than the God who only acts persuasively. Process theist Griffin, on the other hand, avers that God never possesses a monopoly on power, which means that God never entirely determines an outcome. Griffin contends that the problem of evil, among other problems, remains insoluble for theists who believe God that is able to determine unilaterally.

Many of the essayists share fascinating autobiographical material. Nancy Howell, Wheeler, and Rice disclose how, in their own journeys, they embraced or rejected various aspects of process and evangelical traditions. For Wheeler, to cite one, the evangelical faith of his youth and the process theism he discovered in graduate school are not mutually exclusive. To varying degrees, these scholars live inside, outside, and/or between theological traditions. To use Howell's image, these authors maneuver among theological boundaries.

Conceiving of a "right-sized" God truly matters. The risks and fears that Pinnock describes indicate just how politically-charged the task of formulating theology can be. This book provides a valuable resource for adventurers undertaking this all-important quest.

Thomas Jay Oord

Rating:
Summary: untraditional bipolar neo-process contra-biblical inadequacy
Review: Mr. Pinnock does genuine Evangelicals a favor with this book and his more recent Most Moved Mover (the most Mormon of his writings to date, where he espouses an embodied deity not necessarily pure spirit-being, rejects a biblical hell, waxes processismically poetic about God 'actualizing his temporal pole', claiming Jesus misprophesied and a Bible full of errors).

With this book, Pinnock proves that he and his followers like Gregory Boyd and John Sanders are neither evangelical nor pure Processers, but a dysfunctional hybrid of both/neither: in a class all their own, but not in the Biblical category in the areas where they depart from Historic Christianity.

His writings in this book should be taken at face value: facing away from an Inerrant Bible and faced with a stinging rebuke from the True God,

"I am angry with you because you have not spoken of Me what is right." (Job 42)

The main problem with this book and all Pinnock, Boyd & Co pontificate and fabricate is: they have drunk deeply of Process Theory (see Boyd's TRINITY & PROCESS for definitive proof), assuming much of Charles Hartshorne's philosophic framework is correct. But this bi-polar beverage has blurred their vision when it comes to reading Scripture and formulating theology. Instead, they have contrived a 'Neo-logy' which is less Biblical and more mormonistic, processismic, liberalistic, evolutionistic with every new book.

Credit is given (thus the one lone star!) for being a master of Eisegesis (reading faulty presuppositions into the Bible that are distortive figments of fertile, vain imagination). But without mastery of Exegesis (author-intended drawing out of the supernatural textual meaning via Holy Spirit's inerrant revelation without presuppositional legerdemain), Pinnock gives the reader untraditional bi-polar neo-process contra-biblical false teaching, aberrancy, heterodoxy, heretical inadequacy.

Rating:
Summary: Open Theism is definitely NOT traditional Process Theism
Review: This book is crucial for sorting out whether Open Theists are really evangelical Process Theists. This book's spirited, yet surprisingly irenic, dialogue demonstrates that while the two perspectives share a few commonalities, they are undoubtedly very different from one another. The 'Crucial Difference', as Open Theist William Hasker puts it, is that Process Theism dismisses Divine Intervention in human affairs, while Open Theism wholeheartedly affirms this treasured evangelical truth. While I do not adhere to either system, I cannot in good conscience label Open Theists as closet Process Theists, heretics or non-inerrantists for that matter. This book proved to me that the writings of Open Theists need and deserve to be taken at face value. There has been far too much eisegesis of their claims and not enough exegesis of them, particularly from the Baptist General Conference, the Evangelical Theological Society and the overall Reformed hegemony. While I believe Open Theism is wrong on many counts, I certainly wouldn't call it heresy. I highly recommend that those who wish to engage in fair, even-handed investigation on Open Theism's relationship and deviation from Process Theism read this book. It has proven to be the most profitable book on Open Theism I've read to date. I'm certain it will put many allegations levied against Open Theists to rest. So lay your presuppositions concerning Open Theism aside and allow its proponents to be heard on their own terms. You'll be glad you did.

Rating:
Summary: More than an adequate entre into the debate!
Review: This book joins a growing number using peculiar adjectives to portray God: 'Adequate','Open','Possible','Vulnerable','In Process','Progressing',etc. It's enough to make one wonder what the True God in Heaven has to say about the matter of His Glorious Person! The one strength of this book - exposing many of process thought's incoherences and unbiblical concepts (which can't help but make 'free-will theism' more palatable by comparison!) - is overshadowed by multiple deficiences of exegesis, theology, philosophy, logic, Control Beliefs(epistemology), Biblical adherence. The main problem seems to be an almost 'theistic evolution' concept: but the novelty is that instead of applying to creation, it here applies to no less than the Creator Himself! He too is evolving, progressing, in transition (changing as it becomes virtuous to do so), growing to be all He can be along with His evolving,in process creatures. This innovative conclusion arises from authors'Control Beliefs. These constitute interpretive grids, faith filters,believability indices, possibility parameters, internal discriminators, thought templates that are instinctively, involuntarily activated in the mind which generate values, paradigms, a priori presuppositions that adjudicate and arbitrate data gathering, processing, assimilation. They act as 'contact lenses' through which life is viewed and interpreted. Of course while wearing them, we don't see them; it's much easier to see what we perceive others are wearing. These non-objective (or partially at best) lenses inform us as to what is tenable or untenable; welcome or unwelcome; acceptable or not; tolerable, intolerable; logical/Biblical or not; friend or foe; true(as perceived) or untrue. With theological interpretation and formulation, Control Beliefs - our lenses - not only shape/shade what theories and beliefs we want to hold, but what evidence we will even be 'open' to in the first place; how much weight we attach to data; how we define terms and formulate conclusions; how we compare/contrast and analyze what is perceived to be Biblical,factual, logical, valid. (The old saying: 'We are entitled to our opinions, but no one has the right to be wrong with the facts.') All too often our Control Beliefs orbit around a few selective concepts integrated into our thinking patterns/grid from experiences, education,intellectual exposures, personality, influences (Holy Spirit, evil spirits, self-deceptive inner spirit).The authors' Control Beliefs are not documented,discussed, evaluated,compared for plausibility or correspondence with Biblical facts. It is tacitly assumed that their lenses are clear,20/20,unwarped, unfogged,uncolored,objective,correct universal prescription vis a vis opponents' lenses. Until this is addressed, no genuine dialogue seems possible with historically evangelical positions, since all the 'proof texting' or citation of witnesses or evidence will be automatically skewed or distorted by the sincere,but sincerely wrong undisclosed and unrecognized Control Beliefs, lenses 'seen through without being seen'. Neither 'process' nor 'openness' Control Beliefs align with the inspired divinely corrected lenses of the Biblical authors when all Scriptural data are considered in a balanced,plenary way. As long as process or openness Control Beliefs continue to control Biblical Control Beliefs (inaccurately and selectively drawn or eisegeted from 'friendly' texts), philosophy - whether Aristotle or Whitehead or Hartshorne or Hasker,et al; logic and extra-biblical lensing will retain a controlling and magisterial role viz.Scripture's controlled, ministerial role. 'Adequate' in, Inadequate out.

Rating:
Summary: Pinnock the Quasi-Processist
Review: This book proves Mr. Pinnock, rather than dialoguing with Conservative, Evangelical Providence-Theists, is himself an extreme libertarian ultra-arminian attempting a synthesis & amalgamation with Processism in reaction to his perceived brand of hyper-calvinism (which few embrace and none of the authors who devastate free-willism like Millard Erickson).

This is Quasi-Processism plain and simple.

CHAFF OUTWEIGHS THE WHEAT
MORE STEAK SAUCE THAN MEAT

Rating:
Summary: untraditional bipolar neo-process contra-biblical inadequacy
Review: While attempting to build a case for Open Theory of Bible Interpretation,which selectively/artificially literalizes much of Bible's God-analogous-to-man language (conveniently excluding physical form texts or Divine Unknown Question texts like "Saul,Saul,why do you persecute Me?" "Cain, why is your face downcast?" "Moses, why do you cry out to Me?" and dozens more)all the author has demonstrated is the debt Openness owes to Charles Hartshorne,Bi-Polar Processist (see separate review of Hartshorne's 'Omnipotence&Other Theological Mistakes',so seminal/paradigmatic for Open Theory).He tries to distance Open deity from Process deity, and many points are valid [God is not identified with the world pantheistically or unable to use His power from time-to-time to intervene and make adjustments to the course of history, or of necessity dependent on Creation(merely by free loving choice),Trinity,Creation Ex Nihilo,etc.]Openness is not equivalent to Process, but the commonalities and co-presuppositions are striking and ramifications on how they do theology are often unwitting, yet like Greg Boyd,he acknowledges philosophical/metaphysical/rational/paradigmatic indebtedness to Hartshorne,without whom Open Theory would most likely not have come to be.Some excerpts from Pinnock's recent Evangelical Society essay highlight how far he has trespassed over the borderline separating Orthodox Christianity from Process and Free-Will theories:SELF-EMPTYING DIVINE ATTRIBUTES -We could think of Open view as a theology of kenosis,i.e. 'Self-Emptying'.God freely chose self-limitation for the sake of covenant with humankind,just as the Son of God,surrendering the divine glory to become human,chose to enter fully into the human condition and share in human suffering. It is characteristic of love to be Self-Emptying and the Incarnation reveals how God likes to use His power,not to dominate,but to love. In creating,there was Self-Emptying of Omnipotence (see Hartshorne's book above). There is also Self-Emptying of Eternity. By bringing into being a Temporal creation whose nature is expressed sequentially as unfolding history,the Creator granted reality to Time and ACTUALIZED IN HIS DIVINE NATURE A TEMPORAL POLE such that He knows things as they really are temporally in succession. There must be in God BOTH THAT WHICH IS WHOLLY FREE FROM VARIATION BUT ALSO THAT WHICH CORRESPONDS TO VARYING CIRCUMSTANCES OF A TEMPORAL universe. INCARNATION INVOLVES SO DRASTIC AN INVOLVEMENT WITH TEMPORAL reality we conclude Time is not foreign to Divine Self-Emptying Nature.

This is enough of an idea from Pinnock's recent public teaching to conclude:1)It is unashamedly BI-POLAR as a theology,jettisoning the Biblical concept of MONO-POLAR Theism. Pinnock even used the processistic buzzwords of'actualized in his divine nature a Temporal Pole', and God is 'both free from variation and varies with varying circumstances',i.e.poles of changing and non-changing. The free-will deity is Bi-Polar in regards to divine attributes,thus double/dual/binary poles/terminals/loci/foci/cores of reality/nature/being/existence/relationality - straight from the Process Playbook as this book abundantly shows him in dialog with Process Theists.2)It's fine to emphasize the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity,since that's the core of Scripture/Christianity.However,to violate Paul's dictum of "Do not go beyond what is written!" is to transgress Evangelical Boundaries into illegitimate territory:neo-Processistic Bi-Polarism. For Pinnock to conclude that since Christ became incarnate (remember this was a miraculous 33-year manifestation of Son of God on earth in human flesh to accomplish the sin bearing mission) means a continual/permanent norm of Trinitarian Revelation or change in God the Father and God the Holy Spirit or 'Self-Emptying of the Trinity to accomodate to mortal/temporal reality' is heterodoxy of the First Order.As the Bible actually teaches, the Son of God added a human nature to His Divine Nature without compromising/reducing/evacuating His Deity -FOR A SEASON ONLY (Pre-Glorification).To assert that the Father and the Holy Spirit also are Incarnatized,Finitized,Self-Emptying,Temporally Limited,Bi-Polar is to encroach WAY BEYOND what is written! Scripture knows of no such aberrant/overboard novel heterodoxy.3)If according to Pinnock God's Divine Attributes are all Self-Emptying (Omnipotence,Eternity, Omnipresence,Changelessness,etc.)then too must Omniscience be Self-Emptying/Temporalized/Limited/Finite. That's why he arrives at God not having any DEFINITE EXHAUSTIVE awareness of self-determining free-agent futures since they don't exist in God's 'present reality' to be known.The Future is NOT REAL!

In summary, Pinnock here and elsewhere with his conditional solidarity with Processistic thought as evidenced by his dialogue with Process/Bi-Polar theorists to shape his theology ends up to no surprise with a deity quite different from the Bible as held by Jews/Rabbis,Church Fathers,Prot.Reformers,Roman Catholic,Eastern Orthodox,Evangelical Historical interpretation of Scripture.The Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity for a specific,33-year miracle of Redemptive Revelation now becomes normative for the First and Third Persons of God as well who also share in the Incarnatization on an ongoing basis to properly,lovingly relate to us,distorting clear Bible teaching and making a mockery of the true doctrine/purpose of Christmas (it wasn't after all 'Patrimas'-Father's sending; or'Pneumas' -Spirit's sending; or 'Trinimas' -Trinity's sending,but CHRIST-mas:Christ's,Jesus',Son of God's mission.There is profound Mystery in the Incarnation and Triune Godhead, but to twist and tweak Cardinal Biblical Truth into Mystical/Mythical speculation/conjecture about the Father and Spirit being also in a sense Incarnatized similar to Christ,and even the Risen,Ascended,Glorified,Enthroned,Yet-to-Come Son of God being 'Self-Emptying'beyond His Resurrection/Glorification/Exaltation is Aberrant Heterodoxy of the First Magnitude on Cardinal Doctrinal levels.(See separate review of Pinnock's more recent 'Most Moved Mover' detailing its almost LDS/Mormon conception of an embodied/not-necessarily-
pure-spirit-being-sort of deity and an errant Bible as well as a
misprophesying Christ and other contra-biblical speculation).

This is what John MacArthur in 'Bound Only Once' has to conclude about Pinnock's brand of 'Self-Emptying Theism'-

In C.S.Lewis' Narnia Chronicles,Aslan,the fierce but loving lion,represents Christ the 'wild,not tame lion,both good and fearsome.People who have not been to Narnia sometimes think a thing can't be good and terrible at the same time.'

That same basic false assumption was the starting point for the heresy of Open Theism. New-model theologians assume God could not be good and terrible at the same time,so they set out to divest Him of whatever attributes they didn't like ('empty' him of them)and pad the ones they like (Love,Relational,Vulnerable,Intimate,Risk,Learn,Share,etc.)Like Socinians and liberals(processists)before them,they are on the misguided quest to make God 'good' according to humanistic/rationalistic definition of what they consider 'good',devising a deity of their own making (see Norm Geisler's book BATTLE FOR GOD refuting Open Theism).In the final book of Narnia,a wicked ape drapes a lion skin over a witless donkey and pretends it to be Aslan,a sinister,dangerous pretense leading countless Narnians astray. The Open deity is like the donkey in an ill-fitting lion's skin,leading many sincere seekers away from the glorious Son of God of Scripture.Aslan(Christ) is both good and fearsome,loving and wrathful,benevolent and terrifying,deliverer and destroyer,rewarder and punisher,blesser and curser. His wrath is just as real as His love,His fangs are just as real as His fur,His claws are every bit as real as His cuddliness.

If only Pinnock would have read more C.S.Lewis and Scripture and less of Hartshorne,Cobb,Whitehead and non-evangelical,liberal theorists,books like SEARCHING FOR AN ADEQUATE GOD would never have been written or need to be exposed as an artificial lion skin covering revisionist fantasy.