Why I Am Still an Open Theist.

I already wrote on this one many years ago on my Open Theism blog and not much has changed other than I have more of a resolve that Open Theism is true. I reprint it only because what I have to say is the same:

"For Years, I had an ever growing frustration with the main two options presented to Protestants -- Calvinism and Arminianism. The main frustration came with the fact on the one hand there were Scriptures that talk about the predeterminism of God in certain situations and on the other there were passages that spoke of God being well -- open to what happened and not determining anything. Of the two I quickly dismissed Calvinism as being completely Unscriptural in regard to God's Nature as a just God and there are many passages indicating the free choice of salvation by human beings. Arminianism became a better camp for myself, but it often frustrated me with the sometimes Scriptural twisting to get past the deterministic passages.

The problem I began to wrestle with was foreknowledge. What exactly does God know about the future? This question seems on the surface to deny traditional views of God's knowledge based on simple foreknowledge where God knows all of the course of time from beginning to end. But the question is actually aimed not at God but his creation. Better stated I began to ask: What is the nature of the future that God has created? Has God chosen to create a future where contingencies or choices are real to him as well as to us?

I want to stress the fact that Open Theists do not deny the omniscience of God -- what we deny is that God has created a world in which He can know exactly the future . He rather has created a world where possibilities are real to Him as well. Only in this way can God have a genuine relationship with his creation.

As I searched the Scriptures, I began to see the fact that in some case God does not seem to know what people will do. He knows all the possible things they could do but what they actually will do seemed out of His knowledge. There are other times that God actually expresses emotion over choices that were made in a negative way. 'Why?' became my question. If he already knew what was going to happen -- why get upset about it -- your God; you have a plan to deal with this -- why get upset?

Since that time I have been on a search to see if there is a way to reconcile this dilemma. Open Theism seems to offer the best answer. Contingencies are genuine to God as well as us are the open theists claim. The also did something refreshing -- the engaged the Scriptures. Contrary to popular Christian blogs out there -- Open theism is very much grounded in Scripture and that is why the only counter seems to be -- 'Open Theists are heretics". When you ask why they think so -- 'they deny God's foreknowledge." These things indicate to me that the anti-open theists have not looked deeply at the arguments presented for open theism and engaged them honestly. They are engaged in a knee jerk analysis of this subject and I find this irresponsible."

I originally posted that on March 10, 2006. Nothing much has changed other than I am even more convinced of two things:
1. Open Theism is Biblically True
2. The Opposition even more than before is engaged in knee jerk reactions and bases their criticism on false information on what Open Theists believe.

The battle continues