What follows is an excerpt from my book The Evangelical and The Open Theist.   PHILOSOPHY AND SYSTEMATICS  For the typical evangelical, steeped in traditional Reform-era theology, accepting open theism requires a tremendous philosophical and theological paradigm shift in thinking, for it is here that the differences between the open and traditional positions are the most […]

What follows is an excerpt from my book The Evangelical and The Open Theist. This is the last of three posts addressing Romans 9–11.  Yet, while reading Paul’s argument, the necessity of Israel’s being cast off is not immediately clear. Could not the Gentiles have come into the covenant without the Jews being temporarily thrown out? Paul’s […]

What follows is an excerpt from my book The Evangelical and The Open Theist. This is the second of three posts addressing Romans 9–11.  At the heart of the debate is faith, for faith has always been the standard by which God has judged his people. The Jews refused to put their faith in Christ, choosing […]

What follows is an excerpt from my book The Evangelical and The Open Theist. This is the first of three posts addressing Romans 9–11.  Many New Testament passages refer to God’s predestining and foreknowing the church (e.g., Eph 1:4; 2 Tim 1:9). These passages most likely refer to the predestining of the existence of the church […]

What follows is an excerpt from my book The Evangelical and The Open Theist.   The seemingly greatest obstacle to the open model of God is prophecy, for it is prophecy that most strongly suggests exhaustive divine foreknowledge. In light of the strong biblical evidence in support of the open model of God, however, the classical […]

What follows is an excerpt from my book The Evangelical and The Open Theist.   Psalm 139 This passage seems to stand in direct contradiction to open theology, particularly verse 4. “Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Yahweh.” This psalm, however, simply suggests that Yahweh is so acquainted with the […]

What follows is an excerpt from my book The Evangelical and The Open Theist.   God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill? (Numbers 23:19) In the surrounding context of this […]

What follows is an excerpt from my book The Evangelical and The Open Theist.   While an overabundance of biblical evidence exists to support the open model of God, there are passages that seem to stand in tension with its teachings. To determine the compatibility of openness with evangelicalism, we must determine whether or not open […]

What follows is an excerpt from my book The Evangelical and The Open Theist. This is the fourth of four posts addressing hermeneutical fallacies.  Another dangerous byproduct of this methodology is its creation of a “canon within a canon.” Theologians assign authority to texts that seem to support their own preconceived notions of God as describing God […]