Openness theology posits that love is the most important attribute of God,
and God’s love involves being sensitive and responsive to His creation.[1]
Within this open view of God, love is the primary divine attribute governing
God’s activity in both the Old and New Testament.[2] While the idea of a
benevolent and loving God does not sound inconsistent with the God of the
Bible, openness theology diverges sharply from a biblical God in some of the
beliefs that stem from focusing on love. One such belief is the rejection of
God’s immutability in favor of a limited immutability based on apparent
changes in relationship between God, Israel, and other individuals in the Old
Testament.[3] This view within openness theology seems related to another
openness view, which is the rejection of God’s omniscience. The belief that
God cannot know the unknowable, leads to the idea that God changes in
response to man’s choices and actions as agents of free will.[4]
f f f f f f f f f The author of Malachi wrote, “For I am the Lord, I do not change”
(Mal. 3:6).[5] Likewise, the author of Hebrews wrote, “Jesus Christ is the same
yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8). If I ground my child and upon
seeing genuine regret and repentance in them, reduce their grounding or offer
an alternative punishment; I did not change as a parent, I just acted according
to my purpose as a parent to teach my child right from wrong. God altering
His course of action based on the actions of man, does not mean God
changed or altered His will toward mankind. With that said, I do not agree with
the notion that God cannot know the unknowable. I can change my child’s
punishment even though I already anticipated they would be regretful and
repenting. Likewise, God can change in response to man even knowing what
man was going to do in advance. The idea that biblical prophecy is limited to
things which do not involve the free will of man, or things which are easily
predicted, is completely nonsensical.[6] How could the messianic prophecies
throughout the Old Testament possibly adhere to such rigid limitations upon
biblical prophecy?
f f f f f f f f f David Wells appears to believe God is immutably loving but seems
to attribute God’s continued love and mercy to God’s patience.[7] Wells also
advocates that God is indeed omniscient and omnipotent.[8] While these views
of Wells disagree with openness theology, Feinberg also did not agree with
openness theology. So, for these reasons Wells and Feinberg appear to be
largely in agreement with one another. Another belief of openness theology is
rejection of divine timelessness.[9] Wells argued that God is “everywhere
simultaneously.”[10] The Apostle Peter wrote, “But, beloved, do not forget this
one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand
years as one day” (2 Pet. 3:8). Peter’s description of time for God does not
seem compatible with the openness theology view of God as bound by time.
Bibliography
Feinberg, John S. No One Like Him, The Doctrine of God. Wheaton: Crossway
Books, 2001.
Wells, David F. God in the Whirlwind, How the Holy-Love of God Reorients Our
World. Wheaton: Crossway, 2014.
[1] John S. Feinberg, No One Like Him, The Doctrine of God (Wheaton:
Crossway Books, 2001), 69.
[2] Ibid. 69.
[3] Ibid. 70.
[4] Ibid. 71.
[5] Unless otherwise noted, all biblical passages referenced are in the New
King James Version.
[6] Feinberg, 72.
[7] David F. Wells, God in the Whirlwind, How the Holy-Love of God Reorients
Our World (Wheaton:
Crossway, 2014), 96.
[8] Ibid. 79.
[9] Feinberg, 71.
[10] Wells, 79.
