Saturday, November 23, 2013

Open theism implodes


I'm struck by Greg Boyd "new hermeneutic." To my knowledge, open theism has two pillars: radical commitment to libertarian freedom and a face-value reading of Scripture (esp. narrative theology). The first pillar is philosophical while the second pillar is hermeneutical.

Open theists accuse orthodox Christians of dismissing certain Biblical representations of God as anthropomorphic. They think orthodox Christians are too beholden to Greek philosophy. 

But now open theists like Boyd find themselves caught in a dilemma of their own making. They don't believe the morally offensive actions and statements attributed to God in the OT are true. Suddenly, they can't  stomach the face value reading of some OT commands and narratives. So Boyd is now proposing that God condescended to allow OT writers to falsely depict his true character. But in that event, doesn't open theism jettison its prooftexts–which was based on the surface meaning of the texts:

It’s interesting that Church theologians throughout history have been very willing to reinterpret large portions of Scripture that were considered problematic for one reason or another. For example, consider how much Scripture must be reinterpreted to get Scripture to conform to the classical conception of God as atemporal, immutable and impassible!  While I don’t accept this conception of God, my project is standing in line with this long theological tradition. It’s just that, instead of reinterpreting Scripture to get it to align with the metaphysical attributes of God, I’m reinterpreting it to get it to align with the moral attributes of God. More specifically, I’m attempting to interpret it in a way that allows us to see how even the most horrific portraits of God are not only consistent with, but actually bear witness to, the enemy-loving, non-violent, self-sacrificial character of God revealed in the crucified Christ. - See more at: http://reknew.org/2013/03/a-coming-storm/#sthash.URwnwwIE.dpuf
The criteria for distinguishing the degree to which any passage reflects the true nature of God versus the degree to which it reflects God stooping to identify with our sin and curse is, of course, Jesus. As we read Scripture knowing who God truly is in the crucified Christ, we can accept in a straight-forward way all depictions of God to the degree that the character the passage ascribes to God conforms to what Jesus reveals about God. Seeing these portraits as revelatory still involve us exercising a cruciform faith, for we must yet look through the surface of the text to discern in its depths the humble Creator stooping to accommodate himself to the limitations of our fallen humanity.  Only by faith can we discern anything in Scripture to be “God’s Word.” Yet, like most of the teachings and actions of Jesus, these Christ-like depictions of God require no special faith-interpretation to understand them. The “voice” at the surface of the text may, to this degree, be accepted as a reflection of the ultimate “voice” of the text. To this degree, the “God of the text” can be assessed as accurately reflecting “the actual God,” to use Eric Seibert’s categories.[4]
By contrast, to the degree that any portrait of God in Scripture falls short of the loving character revealed in Christ, the cruciform hermeneutic would lead us to distinguish the “voice” at the surface of the text from the ultimate, revelatory “voice” of the text.  Interpreting violent portraits of God through the lens of the cross would lead us to identify the surface of these portraits as mirroring the sin and cultural conditioning of those whom God is identifying with rather than accurately reflecting the true nature of God. To this degree, we must discern a gulf between the “God of the text” and the “actual God,” who is fully revealed in the crucified Christ. What rather reflects the true nature of God in these portraits is something only a cross-informed faith could discern. Knowing that the God who “breathed” all Scripture is a God who sometimes reveals his love and covenantal faithfulness by identifying with the sin and cursed state of his people, we are empowered to look through the ugly surface of these portraits and discern this same cruciform God stooping out of love in the depths of these texts.
And now -  and (so far as I can see) only now – can we begin to understand how grizzly portraits of God causing parents to eat their babies and commanding his people to slaughter women, children and babies can bear witness to the enemy-embracing, non-violent, self-sacrificial love of God revealed on Calvary. As we interpret the inspired record of God’s faithful covenantal activity from the vantage point of its culmination on the cross, we can discern times when God’s faithfulness is recorded in a straightforward way, but other times when it’s displayed in indirect ways, bearing witness to the truth that God has always been the sin-and-curse-bearing God he reveals himself to be on Calvary.- See more at: http://reknew.org/2013/07/the-cruciform-beauty-of-horrific-divine-portraits/#sthash.1uzXLhfS.dpuf

1 comment:

  1. The scholars/writers of the supposed open-theist movement were never open-theists to begin with. They were always Calvinists looking to cash in on what average pew Christians already believed and never felt they needed any justification for anyway.

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