Open Theism and Youth Work

I believe that it’s really really important as Youth Workers to have some knowledge of Open Theism, or at least some of the tricky theologies associated with it.

Why? – Because as Youth Pastors, we’re probably the worst people in the world for dumbing stuff down! And when we dumb certain things down, we run the risk of saying the same things as Open Theists say and worse, we start teaching people to read their Bible’s like Open Theists do. This builds shaky foundations for our teenagers.

So what do Open Theists believe?
Norman Giesler probably put it best in the title of his book; ‘Making God In The Image Of Man.’  But here’s some more specifics:

– Love is God’s most important quality (as shown in the metaphor of a loving, responsive parent – not an all powerful king)
– God is open and flexible (He takes risks, learns, changes His mind, doesn’t know the future exhaustively, and we His people can exert influence over Him)
– God is in some way dependent on His creation (give and take relationship)
– Humans have libertarian free will (near autonomous free will – i.e. choices are completely undetermined)

How do Open Theists read the Bible?
– The beliefs above (I believe) are not derived from the text, but applied to it. For instance, they decide that ‘God is open’ then interpret passages through that lens. Put another way they read that choice into scripture. This dramatically changing verses which make God out to be all-powerful, or all-knowing.

Why is this important for youth workers?
Well the beliefs seem ‘nearly right‘ don’t they?

I mean, God certainly is love isn’t He? The Bible says so after all! Yes – but does the Bible say that love is more important to God than Grace, Mercy, Wisdom, Joy etc.?

God is revealed as a loving parent too isn’t He? Yes but He is seen as an all-powerful King & Lord far more. We shouldn’t prefer one and ignore the other – we certainly shouldn’t interpret the majority through the minority.

God is open to some degree isn’t He? Yes He hears and responds to our prayers, calls us to repent, and He forgives us – but does that mean He didn’t already know in His infinite power and might the outcomes and processes of our prayers, choices, sin etc.?

Humans are free aren’t they? Yes they are responsible for their actions and make true, active choices. Humans however, are still determined by sin, the world, other people,  time, space, motivations, personality, and most importantly by God Himself who has a plan for each of us, and a grand plan for creation.

Nearly Right
So the beliefs sound nearly right, but by getting them wrong huge holes are punched in the fabric of good theology. This in turn breaks down the foundations needed for faith-growing in developing believers.

We might be really clear in our heads and hearts what we believe, and we might have great theology too. We may think that we’ll never neglect the important clarity of the above beliefs so that we start sounding Open Theist.

Lets face it though, its easy sometimes to drop the one-liners; to just say to our teenagers ‘because God gave us free will‘  or  ‘because God made a mistake‘   or   ‘God had a -plan B-‘  or  ‘because God is Love‘   or  ‘because you can’t understand that verse without knowing A, B, or C – but we’ll look at that another time.‘

There may be nothing wrong with these statements, but in isolation without exploration, and when repeated often enough without clarification they end up building foundations that simply will not do.

So what should we do?
It’s important when we’re teaching that we make every effort to keep tipping our hat to, and making room for some good foundation theology.

Foundation stuff isn’t necessarily just the Gospel, but is key information about God that is so solid it gives young people real boundaries and structure to build their relationship with God on. This will stay with them long after they’ve left our ministries. A well prepared foundation will last a thousand bad Bible studies in the future!

Here are some foundations to keep putting down.
– You gotta know Jesus! That He is God, lived sinlesly, died in your place, and rose from the dead kicking death’s ass.
– God is Big, Huge, In Charge, All-Knowing, All-Powerful, Unstoppable, and never makes mistakes.
– God is also Intimate, Close, All-Loving, Forgiving, Full of Mercy, Grace, and is really Patient.
– God has an unshakable plan for the world, and a really key place for us in His plan
– Only faith in Jesus can save us from sin and Hell. We can’t work our way there, no-one else can do it for us, and no other path gets there.
– We must repent, believe, an be baptized.

The best thing about these is not only do they fit together, but taught properly, they make us (and our teenagers) go wow! Seriously, what’s cooler? That God keeps making mistakes, listens to us fart about and changes his mind to make us feel warm and fuzzy, or that the infinite, huge, all-powerful creator of the universe who has a master plan for this world knows loves you intimately, and has made a specific role for you in His story.

Just a thought.

Further Reading
Its worth reading more on this. Not only will the following two books give you a Biblical critique of Open Theism, but will more importantly build good foundation stuff for you to teach about God, life, us, the world, and God’s plan.

– No Other God by John Frame
– God’s Lesser Glory by Bruce Ware

– & The book of Romans…. over, and over, and over again!

If you want to know who the key advocates of Open Theism in the academic and pastoral world are at the mo then you probably want to check out: Clark Pinnock, Greg Boyd, and John Sanders.  The last two btw, have written some other brilliant, worthwhile stuff on other topics.