Hellenistic or Hebrew? Open theism and reformed theological method

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Jun 2002 by Horton, Michael S

The goal of this paper is to contrast Reformed theological method with that of open theism, in an effort to demonstrate that it is here, at the beginning, where the two theologies diverge. We will attempt this by briefly analyzing the assumption that classical theology is "Hellenistic" rather than biblical, marking out the key features of Reformed method, and comparing and contrasting this method with open theism. We will limit our scope to John Sanders's The God Who Risks and Clark Pinnock's Most Moved Mover. 1

I. HELLENISTIC OR HEBREW?

The late nineteenth-century historical theologian Adolf von Harnack advanced his thesis that nearly everything we regard as Christian "orthodoxy"-"the Catholic element"-is in fact the result of "the acute Hellenization of the church."2 Harnack could apparently relativize every period but his own, as the earliest and therefore most authentic elements of Christianity were curiously well-suited to the dynamic, Hegelian worldview of fin-de-siecle intellectual life in Germany.

But long before Harnack, the Socinians, according to Genevan theologian Francis Turretin, reproached classical theism on the same basis, namely, that "the whole doctrine is metaphysical" rather than biblical.3 In response, Turretin writes, "The necessity of the immutability we ascribe to God does not infer Stoic fate," since it neither imposes an internal necessity upon God nor interferes "with the liberty and contingency of things."4 With Hegel's ghost looking over his shoulder, Harnack argued that traditional theism represented a static Stoic worldview, while the apocalyptic religion of the early Jewish and Christian believers reflected values strikingly familiar in modern society: individualism, enthusiasm, and a direct, unmediated experience with God.5

This thesis has underwritten a century of modern theology, not only in neo-Protestantism, but in neo-orthodoxy and in the version of the "biblical theology" movement identified especially with G. E. Wright. According to Wright, the God of systematic theology was the deity of static order, while the God of biblical theology was always on the moves But the twentieth century, especially through the work of Barth and Brunner, also witnessed the rehabilitation of the Reformers in this respect, shifting the blame for "Hellenistic" theology to their systematizing successors instead.7

More recently, however, this thesis has been unraveling. On the biblicaltheological side, James Barr led the way to its demise,8 and subsequent research has raised serious questions about its viability: in relation to Jesus (Hebrew) vs. Paul (Greek? and the Reformers vs. the Protestant scholastics. 10

In his chapter, "Overcoming a Pagan Influence," Clark Pinnock takes this well-traveled road, but with the entire classical tradition from the Church fathers to current orthodoxy dismissed in one stroke as hopelessly trapped in ancient paganism. 11 This does not keep Pinnock, any more than Harnack, from reading Scripture through the lens of modern thought, especially Hegel, in addition to Teilhard and Whitehead, a debt that Pinnock readily identifies. But in this case the philosophical debt is evidently justified, since "modern culture ... is closer to the biblical view than classical theism." 12 Pinnock gives the impression in this book and elsewhere that the detection of unintended philosophical influence from the quarter of ancient philosophy disqualifies a theological model, while his own explicit dependence on modern philosophical trends is greeted practically as praeparatio evangelica. But Pinnock, Sanders, and their colleagues have yet to produce new evidence that might reopen this now widely discredited thesis.

II. SPEAKING OF GOD: REFORMED THEOLOGICAL METHOD

Heinrich Heppe started the rumor that predestination was the central thesis of Calvin and Calvinism. 13 However, this has been refuted by close attention to the primary sources, both Calvin and the Reformed scholastics." From the beginning, with Melanchthon and Bullinger leading the way, covenant theology emerged as the very warp and woof of Reformed theology. 15 As we will see below, Calvin warned against speculating concerning eternal predestination, and the Reformed tradition reflects this caution, emphasizing the dynamic relationship and even partnership that obtains in the history of redemption through God's covenantal dealings. Unlike Barth's overemphasis on divine transcendence, Reformed orthodoxy understood the Creator-creature relationship in covenantal terms even at the ontological level, which implied similarity as well as dissimilarity. 16 As a result, it advocated its own version of the doctrine of analogy. But before we describe that position, let us briefly explain the biblical assumptions upon which it rests.

1. The Creator-creature relationship. Contrary to popular caricature, Reformed scholasticism championed an anti-speculative and anti-rationalistic theological method based on the Creator-creature distinction. Turretin, for example, speaks for the whole tradition when he states,