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]
i i i i i i i i i i 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?
i i i i i i i i i 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.
