1. A self-identified open theist calling himself Christopher Fischer responded to my post:
in a rambling two-part series:
It's unclear what his actually position is since he also says:
We only have one life to live. We have one life to make the best sense of the world and figure out what is real.
That's more characteristic of atheism. Perhaps he started out more orthodox and has been drifting ever further until he's now on the brink of atheism.
2. He says texts like Exod 50:20 don't say God does everything. But that's confused since Calvinism doesn't say God does everything. Rather, Calvinism says God predestines everything. But that's not the same as doing everything. Calvinism isn't occasionalism.
3. And Exod 50:20 is the only Reformed prooftext I quoted (with commentary) that he even attempted to address. He acts like attacking that one text in isolation to all the others is a substitute for a general refutation.
4. He's confused about foreknowledge. The word is ambiguous. In reference to a timeless God, it doesn't mean mundane events are future to God, but that God knows the future. They are future in relation to past and present events in the world. In world history, some events are later than others.
In addition, what is future is relative to whatever is taken to be present as a reference point. For instance, everything is future in reference to the first moment of creation. If we use that reference point, then God's knowledge of the future covers the entirety of cosmic history, from the point of inception.
To take a comparison, a novelist or screenwriter knows everything that will happen in the novel or screenplay. Within the plot, some events are past or future in relation to others. But that doesn't mean the sequence is future in relation to the novelist or screenwriter.
5. He acts like only Calvinists or classical theists operate with a category of progressive revelation. In addition, that doesn't mean early revelation is inaccurate or untrue, but incomplete.
6. He complains about "negative theology". He seems to think words like "immutable," and "timeless" reflect negative theology. But that fails to distinguish between words and concepts.
7. He acts like he rejects anthropomorphism in toto. That a vastly more intelligent being will adapt to our level of comprehension is inevitable. Parents do that with children. Although the principle of anthropomorphism can be abused, it isn't inherently a case of special pleading, but necessary given the categorical differences between God and man, as well as his surpassing superiority.
8. Fischer has a crude, arbitrary notion of interaction which he doesn't bother to defend, but just takes for granted. A basic problem is his failure to distinguish between direct and indirect interaction. There are degrees of interaction.
i) Suppose I shake your hand. That's direct interaction. Unmediated physical contact.
ii) Compare that to our knowledge of other minds. That's indirect. Apart from telepathy, we lack direct access to what other people are thinking. So that's mediated by language, body language, tone of voice. But does it follow from this that human minds never interact because there's no direct point of contact?
ii) Take speaking to somebody on the phone. That's mediated by technology. The two speakers don't share the same space. Does their lack of compresence mean the conversation is not interactive?
iii) Take letters. Not only is that spatially separated, but temporally separated. Not only don't they share the same space, they don't share the same timeframe. One person writes to another, followed by a delayed response. Does the lack of compresence and simultaneity mean the exchange is not interactive?
iv) Consider a hypothetical scenario. Suppose a husband impregnates his wife. He then has a premonitory dream in which he will die in an accident before his son is born. Then he has some additional premonitory dreams in which he foresees a series of crises his son will face as a teenager. He therefore writes some letters to his son, before he is born, giving his son advice on how to get through each crisis. He gives these dated letters to his wife, to give to his some on those dates. By the time his son begins reading the letters, his father is long-deceased. Yet this is an example of indirect interaction, where the father responded in advance to what his son was going to experience.
9. He says open theism is about a "love relationship" between God and man. How loving is it for the God of open theism to expose human beings to incalculable harm?
10. He claims that Reformed prooftexts highlight exceptional divine action. That Bible writers would only make a note of it in case it was exceptional rather than universal. But is that a reliable principle?
i) For instance, the Bible contains a handful of heavenly scenes. Does that mean heaven pops in and out of existence? It's only there when Scripture records heavenly scenes. During the long stretches in-between, heaven winks out of existence.
ii) Or take the Apocalypse, with shifting scenes between heaven and earth. From an earthbound vantage-point, all you can observe is persecuted Christians and their persecutors. And the persecutors have the upper hand.
But from a heavenly vantage-point, there's a larger battle going on, undetectable to the five senses, and God has the upper hand. It's not like the heavenly realm only exists when the narrative shifts to scenes of heaven. Rather, that's been there all along. And that's the control room for history. That's what gives persecuted Christians encouragement to persevere.
11. When I say he confuses Calvinism with Reformed Thomism with regard to divine simplicity, he accuses me of ignorance:
i) He cities James Dolezal as a corrective to my alleged ignorance. Since, however, Dolezal is a Reformed Thomist, Fischer's appeal compounds his confusion between Calvinism and Reformed Thomism.
ii) Divine simplicity isn't a single claim, but a package of distinct claims. So when a Reformed theologian affirms simplicity, is he checking all the boxes, some of the boxes, or one of the boxes?
iii) Fischer didn't merely attribute divine simplicity to Calvinism, but simplicity in conjunction with pure actuality. But pure actuality is a Thomistic category, and when used alongside simplicity, simplicity carries a Thomistic connotation as well.
iv) He attributes "theistic mutalism" to me. But that's illiterate. Dolezal classification is "theistic mutualism," not "theistic mutalism".
v) He says I think God can change, but I never said God can change. Although simplicity entails immutability, immutability doesn't entail simplicity. I can deny Thomistic simplicity without denying divine immutability. But Fischer is too maladroit to appreciate that distinction. If he imagines that immutability entails simplicity, then the onus is on him to provide an argument.
vi) Likewise, he says I reject "pure aseity", which is a made-up expression of his own coinage. But I never said I reject divine aseity. Thomistic simplicity and divine aseity are separable. If he supposes they necessarily go together, the onus is on him to provide an argument.
vii) He says "welcome to open theism," as if rejecting Thomistic simplicity ipso facto makes one an open theist. But that's hopelessly inept.
vii) He suffers from an inability to distinguish between Reformed essentials, Reformed distinctives, and Reformed traditions
12. When I say "God assumes contingent relations," he exclaims that that makes me an open theist. To the contrary, that's classic theism–even Thomistic! Consider what Aquinas said in his gloss on Jn 1:14:
The statement, the Word was made flesh, does not indicate any change in the Word, but only in the nature newly assumed into the oneness of a divine person. And the Word was made flesh through a union to flesh. Now a union is a relation. And relations newly said of God with respect to creatures do not imply a change on the side of God, but on the side of the creature relating in a new way to God.
13. Fischer says we should interpret the Bible just like we interpret another book, but that's overstated:
i) There are some general hermeneutical principles that apply to inspired and uninspired writing alike.
ii) However, inspiration makes a difference. Divine authorship of Scripture makes a difference. It's like filming a script. The director knows how the story ends before he shoots the first scene. So the Bible isn't groping in the darkness, destination unknown. In that respect it is different from historical writing that's blind to future developments.
iii) Fischer prioritizes narrative theology, but Scripture contains multiple genres. What makes narrative theology trump the letters of Paul?
14. He says Joseph's dream didn't come true because the moon represents his mother, yet his mother died before Joseph became prime minister of Egypt. But Fischer's objection would only make sense if she died after the dream but before he became prime minister, when in fact she was already dead at the time of the dream. So there is in fact no reason to think the dream makes a prediction about Joseph's mother. She was out of the picture at that point.
15. He fails to distinguish between threats and prophecies. Prophecies are predictive in a way that threats are not. Threats often have a different function: the purpose is to give people an opportunity to turn aside before the threatened judgment becomes inevitable. The conditional nature of divine threats is consistent with a settled future.
16. He says the story of Joseph is ludicrous if Calvinism is true. What take such a circuitous route to fulfillment?
i) That's like saying Tolkien wasn't in control, for if he was in control, why didn't he just make Gandalf teleport Frodo directly to Mount Doom, eliminating a 1000-page journey. That's like saying Lewis wasn't in control, for if he was in control, he'd make the eldil of Venus zap Weston's spacecraft before it reached Venus, thereby preempting the temptation and mooting Ransom's trip to Venus. That's like saying if Handel was in control of the score, he'd cut straight to the final chorus ("Worship is the Lamb that was slain"), skipping over all the advent, Christmas, and Passiontide material in Messiah.
ii) One reason the fulfillment of Joseph's dreams is so convoluted is to encourage the reader. Joseph suffers many setbacks before the dream comes true. Many Jewish and Christian readers suffer many setbacks in their own lives. But God's providential orchestration of events shows that despite setbacks, you will still cross the finish line.
17. I said the actions of Joseph's brothers don't work counter to God's plan–any more than the actions of a storybook villain work counter to the intentions of the storyteller. Fischer doesn't refute that. Indeed, it seems to fly right over his head.
18. He brought up cancer in relation to Calvinism, then when I turn tables on him, he accuses me of waxing "emotional". He's so immature. I didn't introduce cancer into the discussion, and there was nothing emotional about my response to Fischer.
Moreover, he acts like open theism doesn't need a theodicy. Just label events like cancer "random". Cancer is a "fact of reality" that open theists don't have to justify.
That's so lame. Even if you say cancer is a random variable–given cancer, given randomness, that does nothing to explain or justify what makes it a given in the first place. It only pushes the question back a step. Certainly open theist philosophers like William Hasker and Peter van Inwagen don't think you waive aside the problem of evil by appealing to "facts of reality".
19. He think makes the remarkable claim that "God can shirk his duties." But if that's the case, how can you trust a God who may shirk his duties? If God has duties, which he shirks, what's the difference between a good God and an evil God in open theism?
20. That goes to another basic problem in open theism. God wipes out the human race except for eight survivors, then belatedly concludes that his action was a rash mistake. How can you trust a God like that?
Moses has to talk God out of neutralizing the Israelites. But if there's no Israel, there's no messiah, no Savior, no salvation–for anyone.
How can you trust a God who's such a hothead that fallible human beings like Moses and Abraham are wiser than he is and have to get him to simmer down? What's the difference between the Yahweh of open theist hermeneutics and Zeus or Odin? A short-sighted, short-tempered deity? Like sharing a bedroom with a pet reticulating python 35 feet long. You never know, when you go to sleep, which night it will revert.
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