Hellenistic or Hebrew? Open theism and reformed theological method

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

Neither God's nature nor his secret plan changes, and this is why believers can be confident that "if we are faithless, he remains faithful; he cannot deny himself" (2 Tim 2:13). So what changes if not his secret plans? It is his revealed plans that change: the judgment that he has warned that he will bring upon the people is averted-precisely as God had predestined before the ages. The dynamic give-and-take so obvious in the history of the covenant must be distinguished from the eternal decree that Scripture also declares as hidden in God's unchanging and inaccessible counsel (Eph 1:4-11).

These are not two contradictory lines of proof-texts, one line pro-openness, the other pro-classical theism. Rather, there are two lines of analogy acting as guardrails to keep us on the right path. There is real change, dynamic interaction, and partnership in this covenant (Deus revelatus pro nos). At the same time, God is not like the human partner in that he does not repent the way the latter repents: God transcends the narrative (Deus absconditus in se). With Scripture, we speak on one hand of our existence after the fall in terms of not being as God intended things and yet recognize that even this is part of God's eternal plan to display his glory. We are not denying the analogy or failing to take it seriously, but we are refusing to take it univocally. Theologians and preachers in the Reformed tradition have not had difficulty with the "repentance" passages the way open theists seem, by their troubling silence, to be burdened by the "non-repentance" passages. That may be due in part to the fact that the tradition does not reduce everything to either the eternal decree of the hidden God or the historical covenant of the revealed God.53

One of the marks of a strong theory is that it is able to make sense of the greatest amount of appropriate data. Open theism has still not provided a serious exegetical account of the passages that clearly indicate that God does not change, does not repent, does not depend on the world for his happiness, and passages that do affirm God's knowledge of and sovereignty over all contingencies of history to the last detail. On the other hand, an analogical account provides a paradigm in which both may be seriously affirmed without resolving the mystery in a false dilemma.

This point comes into sharper focus in open theism's treatment of the classical doctrine of divine impassibility, which it incorrectly defines as the inability to experience or feel emotion. (By the way, passio, in Latin, means "suffering," not "feeling" or "experiencing.") If God were exactly identical to every representation we come across in Scripture, could we not justly conclude that he is, for instance, capricious: "Kiss the Son, lest he become angry and you perish in the way, for his wrath can flare up in an instant" (Ps 2:12, emphasis added)? In this Psalm, God is depicted as mocking his enemies with sardonic laughter. But do we really want to ascribe this univocally to God's being rather than recognizing it as a sober comparison of a great king undisturbed by the pretenses of human power? We have yet to discover among open theists an argument in favor for God's rage being understood in the same univocal terms as his repentance. 54