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Open Theism, or Free will Theism, is a theological movement that has arisen within Evangelicalism, which has grown as a public controversy since 1994, when five essays were published by evangelical scholars under the title of "The Openness of God". Open Theism is an alternative to the classical idea of God, stemming from a single crucial point of difference: Open Theism asserts that God does not know everything about the future. Therefore, Open Theism is a consistent repudiation of any doctrine of predestination and any similar philosophy or theology that is based on fatalism or determinism.This is not only a rejection of predestination as it is understood by Calvinism, but also in any alternative version. The writers in favor of Free-will Theism differentiate their views from those of Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, Arminianism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Neo-orthodoxyIn order to understand the term Neo-Orthodoxy we must first look at the term Orthodox. Since the term Orthodox means traditional, hence, Neo-Orthodoxy will mean New Traditional''. Its main purpose is to reform traditional religious beliefs and practices s, and IslamCairo Egypt Islm (In Arabic: , "submission (to God)"; In Persian and Urdu: ) is a monotheistic faith and the world's second-largest religion. Followers of Islam, known as Muslims believe that God (or, in Arabic, Allh revealed His Will to Muhammad (c., all of which—differently from one another, but similarly over against Open Theism—assert that God has a certain knowledge of all aspects of the future.
1 Arguments
Proponents of Open Theism assert the following, with some variation:
- The concepts of omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, and immutability do not stem from Scripture, but from the subsequent fusion of Judaeo-Christianity with the imaginations of the Hellenic Philosophers of PlatonismPlatonic idealism is the theory that the substantive reality around us is only a reflection of a higher truth. That truth, Plato argues, is the abstraction. A particular tree, with a branch or two missing, possibly alive, possibly dead, and initials of tw and StoicismStoicism is a school of philosophy commonly associated with such Greek philosophers as Zeno of Citium, Cleanthes, or Chrysippus and with such later Romans as Cicero, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and Epictetus. Organized at Athens in 310 BC by Zeno of Citium a, which held to any infinite God and a deterministic view of history, and imposed that philosophical framework on ChristianityChristian cross and its many variations are widely recognized as an ancient Christian symbol. Christianity is an Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as described in the New Testament. Although Christians generally chara.
- The God described in Scripture was the most powerful, most knowing, most loving, and most unchanging, but not omni-everything. He was shown to have limits in every degree, although those limits were far beyond us and our understanding. In scripture, he changed his mind and plans, was limited in power, was surprised by events on Earth, was hurt, assumed a definite geographical location, battled against real and powerful opponents, and took the advice of men and angels.
- The Classical OmniGod leads to a number of logical inconsistencies, such as the problem of prayer (of what effect is our prayer if God already knows what will happen before we pray?), the problem of evil (why would a God permit evil to exist when he knows everything, can do anything, and wants only good?), the problem of sin (if God set the universe in motion in such a way that we would inevitably sin, how can we be punished for the sin he planned, and we could not avoid?), as well as other, more trivial inconsistencies (Could God make a stone so big he couldn't lift it?).
- The God of Open Theism resolves those logical inconsistencies. Prayer has meaning, because we can influence God's decisions in an undetermined future. Evil exists because there are other wills and powers in the universe besides God, which wish evil. Sin is punishable because we sometimes make decisions contrary to God's will, and deserving of punishment.
- Open Theists believe that because God is the greatest being, He will ultimately overcome evil, sin, and death and reestablish His reign on Earth. They frame this not in terms of a historical necessity or a predestined fact, but in terms of Faith and Hope that God will rescue this struggling, desperate, and confused world in time.
Open Theism is distict from process theologyProcess theology is a school of thought influenced by the metaphysical process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead ( 1861 1947). The concepts of process theology include: God is not omnipotent in the classical sense of a coercive being. Reality is not ma in that while the latter asserts that God evolves, grows, and learns, Open Theism argues only that God has limits which are so far beyond our understanding as to be unreachable.
Proponents of the Classical OmniTheism argue that Open Theism takes a low view of God's attributes, and is contrary to the beliefs of the bulk of the world religions.
