Christian love and academic dialogue: A reply to Bruce Ware

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Jun 2002 by Boyd, Gregory A

I want to begin by expressing my utmost respect for the high value placed on academic fairness and integrity by the editor of JETS. This is clearly evidenced in his invitation to John Sanders, Clark Pinnock, and myself to offer substantive responses to Ware's essay, "Defining Evangelicalism's Boundaries Theologically: Is Open Theism Evangelical?" I applaud this attitude and hope that it continues to permeate the Evangelical Theological Society.

I shall first offer three preliminary comments in response to Ware's essay and shall then proceed to offer brief responses to seven arguments Ware raises against the openness position.

1. Exhaustive divine foreknowledge? Throughout his paper Ware consistently depicts open theists as denying "exhaustive divine foreknowledge." Open theists have usually contrasted their view with the classical view of "exhaustively definite foreknowledge," not "exhaustively divine foreknowledge."' Indeed, the phrase "exhaustively divine foreknowledge" seems quite redundant. Is there a non-divine form of exhaustive foreknowledge Ware is concerned about?

The difference between "exhaustive divine foreknowledge" and "exhaustively definite foreknowledge" is significant. If one is willing to understand the open view in terms of its own understanding of reality, open theists do not deny that God possesses exhaustive knowledge of the future. In our view, as in the classical view, God's knowledge is co-extensive with reality.

What we deny is that the future is exhaustively definite. In our view, the future is rather partly composed of possibilities. Hence, precisely because we affirm that God's knowledge is perfect, we hold that God knows the future as partly definite and partly indefinite. He possesses exhaustive foreknowledge, for he knows everything about the future there is to know.

But he does not possess exhaustively definite foreknowledge, for the future he perfectly knows is not exhaustively definite. As we have consistently maintained, the disagreement between open theists and classical theists is not over the scope of God's knowledge, but over the content of reality that God perfectly knows.

By contrasting the open view with exhaustively divine foreknowledge, however, Ware makes it look like we are denying the exhaustiveness of God's knowledge. This sounds more alarming and perhaps helps his cause, but it does not engage open theists on their own terms and in their strongest possible light-which is one of the ethical norms academic societies live by.

2. Should we break fellowship on the basis of perceived implications? Ware argues that the Evangelical Theological Society should break fellowship with open theists on the grounds that the open view has "seriously unacceptable theological and practical implications." Among other things, in his view, open theism implies that God cannot do what the Bible says God does, hold false beliefs and possess imperfect wisdom, that God cannot be trusted to guide believers, and that the Bible is not inerrant. Of course, open theists within the Evangelical Theological Society have always denied these accusations. We have reiterated our commitments and responded to these sorts of charges numerous times before in writing-though, unfortunately, one would never surmise this from Ware's essay.

Two things need to be said about this. First, Ware may not find our responses convincing, but it would be nice-to say nothing of displaying more academic integrity-if he had at least interacted somewhat with our responses rather than proceeding as though we had no response. One almost gets the impression from Ware's essay that he is catching open theists totally off guard with new criticisms.

Second, one must be very careful about dismissing a position-to say nothing of breaking fellowship with a group of believers-on the basis of the implications they think follow from that position. After all, to many Arminians and open theists, the Calvinism Ware defends seems to deny the glory of God, the universal love of God, the wisdom of God, the urgency of prayer, the realness of God's interactions with us, human moral responsibility, the need for missions, and many other things. Yet, since Calvinists themselves do not deny these things, they are accepted as sisters and brothers in Christ. Arminians and open theists may judge them to be (fortunately) logically inconsistent, but we should not ascribe to them conclusions which we think follow from their position but which they themselves deny.

Open theists would simply like this Christian and academic courtesy to be extended to us. Ware obviously cannot understand how we avoid the implications he ascribes to us. Fine, perhaps we are simply logical nincompoops. Or perhaps (as I believe) Ware has difficulty getting inside a system of thought that is radically different from his own. But in either case, it seems misguided and unchristian to move to brand a position as nonevangelical because some cannot understand how they avoid certain negative implications they think their theology implies. Our explicit confessions of faith, not what others think logically follows from our confessions of faith, should be the basis of our fellowship.