www.preciousheart.net/foreknowledge ~ mgmaness@earthlink.net
Introduction
1. The Larger Context
of This Book
2. The Lopsided
Battleground
3. Persecution
of the Most Moved Mover
4.
Methodology—This Is Personal
While Ware and Frame and Nicole do
not attack the persons of their adversaries directly, they do indirectly in
their sweeping and subtle tones. Much of it is high class snobbishness.
Disgusting. You can read their condescendingly superior attitude on every page,
and that attitude is not present in most Open Theist literature.
I decided to take this to another
level. If it has four legs, a tail, barks and often stinks—it’s a dog. Some of
these people have no shame. They claim respect for their opponents, but slobber
on their manuscripts. And when they are credibly challenged, they scream like
children—cancer, cancer. In the light of so much irrationality and such obvious
ego-driven superiority, sometimes only the lampoon works. Jesus used the ad
hominem with “white-washed sepulcher.” Since some of these people have not
and will not listen, I decided to attack some of these talking sepulchers—who
would make God after their own anemic nature—and attack their weak arguments as
well as their false humility. I attack their sterile depictions of God and
illustrate some of the absurdity.
Some people have not been nice to
me.
One said, “is this the Christian
attitude?” I asked, “Where is the line between the white-washed sepulcher and
wrongly judging?”
Another said, “are you a
self-proclaimed prophet?” I said, “Of course not, you do not need to be a
prophet to see someone rope-a-doping fallacies. But it is sad that I would be
lampooned for the exposure of fallacies. Especially when you have contributing
nothing.”
Another said, “you’re rude and
crude.” I said with grin, “not as rude as ‘cancer, cancer.’ Shall we not defend
honor and expose ugly misrepresentation by naming it. Truly, when someone
seriously misrepresents and even maligns, are we the crude ones for
exposing and then illustrating the exposure with pictures the common Christian
soldier can understand?” And I wanted to add a bit about the use of humor just
to lighten the moment and even offset the bad affects of some lampooning, but I
did not think he would have appreciated that.
Another said, “you are an
opportunist, only taking advantage of a controversy to sell your book.” I shook
my head side to side at yet another slap-stick and snide remark: “what are you
doing to stop the rope-a-doping of fallacies? What have you done to salvage
honor? What have you done to defend the aliveness of God?” And I wanted to add
the importance of the resurrection of Christ to this, that indeed the defense
of God’s aliveness is also a defense of the real time significance of Christ’s
resurrection, but you have to be careful where you cast your pearls.
I wanted to say coward, but I
truly did not know. That comment would have been truly the worst of the ad
hominem when one casts a judgment and does not truly know the fears and
insecurities that drive people to remain silent or to remain lukewarm or
unaffected in the midst of infamy. But I suspect it was cowardly.
Another said, “you
wish to make a name for yourself by butting in where you are not wanted and
attacking the good name of good people.” I wanted to say that that was true,
but not the manner she had intended. So I simply condescended, “shall we lie on
our bellies when some of these ‘good people’ misrepresent and spit with
impunity?”
Another said, “Your ad hominem
attacks have no place in the ETS. Your attacks on my character are out of
place.” I said, “you might be right. Can you be specific … please?” I
wish I had had a camera.
A very close friend of mine said,
“Mike, are you crazy? You’re just going to get some people mad (people who can
affect your future), alienate others, push some into defensive maneuvering and
in the long run defeat the very purpose your book.” I slapped him on the back,
thinking I was too old for someone in these camps to truly affect my future
now. I smiled and said, “you’re probably right. Sometimes you just have to take
a stand, and I don’t see any Classical Theists standing against the infamy, not
even a little. Some mighty powerful Christian leaders are not saying a word.” I
stopped. Blinked and puffed. I could share my pearls and the passions of my
heart with him. I could be truly honest with him. “Dog poop is dog poop, and it
makes me sick that some people are digging up centuries old poop and calling it
their own. And then they have the audacity to use such to say God is so fixed
He cannot be truly touched by the feelings of my infirmities—it’s upsetting. Outrageous.
Sad. This turned into more than I had originally intended, that is for sure.”
He shook his head. I could not discern if he agreed or not.
I added, “I believe the
genuineness of God deserves my best effort, and the exposure and lampooning are
just a means, arising as the study unfolded before me. Whether the lampooning
will be ultimately judged as Jesus did (and condoned) or as Jesus condemned, I
cannot say. I only claim that I tried to do as Jesus might have done, as
inferior as I am. Whatever, the majority of the text and even the lampooning—as
I am sure ‘sepulcher’ was used by Jesus—was intended not so much for those I
lampooned as it was for the popular audience, even my friends. Even you. The
degree of infamy and entrenchment of some persons—like Frame, Nicole and
Ware—makes them nearly impermeable to suggestion, much less correction.
“I wrote for the common Christian
soldier. For you.”
I nudged my friend. “What did you personally
think?”
“Mike, I liked it. Audacious at times
… and I would not have said some of the things. But you opened my eyes. And I
have to say the lampooning helped, and entertained, but I am not convinced it
will go far. I know you. Others do not. I agree, though, that the genuineness
of God’s relationship with us should be definitive, primary. We should love God
above all and certainly believe He is loving us, presently loving us—genuinely
loving us today. It seems so obvious that the New Testament says God is loving
us today in a dynamic fashion, and certainly our living relationship is not totally
past tense to God. I do not know of a Christian who denies God’s living
presence. That is how I live.” He paused. “I like how you said that some have
to have special training to deny that. Classical Theists have a problem. And
Open Theism is not the heresy it is so often misrepresented to be. And I will
have to re-read Pinnock’s Most Moved Mover.”
I nodded and smiled.
“That was the purpose, then.”
We went for lunch
and talked about our families, even whether or not we should see one of the new
movies coming out. I felt good.
This book is a continuation of my
larger ethics book, Would You Lie to Save a
Life?: the Quest for God’s Will This Side of Heaven.[1] Therein, I plumbed the manifold depths of biblically based ethical
responsibility from every conceivable angle with
respect to the single horrendous dilemma of Commander Lloyd Bucher.
Commander Lloyd Bucher and a crew of 82 were pirated off
the high seas by the North Koreans in 1968 and held hostage for 11
months. Bucher was forced to lie to save the lives of his men. What is the
absolute will of God in that single dilemma of whether or not to lie to
save a life? I mean, from Bucher’s perspective at the single moment just prior
to decision, what is the will of God? What goes into the biblical solution?
What complicates decision?
Would you lie to save a life?
I demonstrated why we could not
find the absolutely “right” thing to do and the elements of complication in the
process of biblical discernment. The essence of a Christian’s
responsibility in discerning God’s will is to
“lovingly seek first the kingdom of God.” But saying that and doing it is one
thing; doing it perfectly has very many considerations and becomes
complex to the uttermost. Who is truly as competent as Jesus this side of
heaven? Just what are the elements that make some choices complex?
Life is very difficult at times.
How do we make choices when God’s will is not crystal clear? We took
that question and challenge very seriously, and we tried to answer that
question in a thorough manner.
Near the end of that study, in
Chapter 12.C.3, I pulled together the seven ethical “fine lines” that only God
can draw this side of heaven.
1. Between God’s Foreknowledge
& Our Free-Will Participation
2. Between God’s Light & Our
Rebellion
3. Between the Deontological
& the Teleological Concerns of Every Absolute in Every Decision
4. Between When a Person Is or Is
Not Accountable for the Actions of Others
5. Between Where a High or Low
Degree of Accountability Determines Between a More
Teleological or More Deontological Choice
6. Between “Fruitful” &
“Redundant” Hermeneutical Study
7. Between “Valuable Ethical Deliberation” & “Wasting Time”
Obviously, from the above and
especially from #1, there is a clear connection between biblical ethics and the free-will/foreknowledge debate. So I began this book to
complement the first ethical fine line.
Because of the controversy
surrounding the Classical and Open Theism arguments, which in many ways is
theoretically tied to the free-will/foreknowledge debate, the potency of my larger
ethics book, Would You Lie to Save a
Life?, gets a boost with respect to that book’s sub-title,
A Case Against the Radical
Fundamentalism at the Fundamental Level.
Another sub-title to this book
could have been,
Another Case Against Radical Fundamentalism at the Fundamental Level.
Almost without exception, the most
radical of Christian fundamentalists can be found to be within the Classical
Theist camps. That should be
noteworthy, instructive in itself. Even so, we also know that there are many
non-radical Christ-like persons who are also Classical Theists. I used to be one, myself, and did not know it full well.
One of the weaknesses of my book Would
You Lie to Save a Life? with respect to “the case” against radical fundamentalism is that Robert Rakestraw and Norman Geisler are not official
representatives of radical fundamentalism (as though there could be any at
all). Regardless, that was where their ethic lead as we made profuse and
provocative evidence.[2]
In Would You Lie to Save a
Life?, we noted that Rakestraw and Geisler did what few have done in
actually attempting to articulate “how” difficult choices are made; at a
minimum, they attempted to given an accountability to “how” decisions are made
in the elite circles beyond mere categorical
passes, or claims to esoteric divine guidance or mere proof-texting. Their
efforts were praise-worthy for their attempts, and we repeatedly noted their
courage for their efforts.
Fortunately, even serendipitously,
I came to see the debate between Classical and Open Theists as a kind of lopsided
battleground. You may disagree, at the moment, but there is irrefutable proof.
You may not know the fine differences between “classical” and “open” theism at
the moment, but you should know that a good number potent defenders of
Classical Theism share the tendencies of radical
fundamentalists that I leveled against Rakestraw and Geisler in Would You Lie to Save a
Life?. Both the characterizations and rhetorical caricaturizations I made of
Rakestraw’s and Geisler’s ethic are found in many of the writings on Classical
Theism. The most prominent characteristic of all inside of Christian radical
fundamentalism is the ability of the author to be able to discern the perfect
pathway and the absolutely right choice all of the time; as with Rakestraw and
Geisler, they became as competent as Jesus (though in two very different ways).
Very good examples and clear
“proofs” of the lopsided battleground can be seen in Ware, Frame and even White[3]—veritable chieftains in their own right. How is the battleground
lopsided? Read the works of Ware, Frame and White; they all make claims to
objectivity and heart humbleness. Then read a true
scholar’s work that actually does what the three claim: William Lane Craig’s and Clark Pinnock’s works are the examples of raw objectivity and
powerful academic force without a hint of ad
hominem attacks. Contrary to Craig and Pinnock, Ware and Frame lift an academic
problem of Open Theism to the status of near heresy and try to place the
problem in the trappings of academic debate. When one actually compares, Ware
and Frame in subtle ad hominem ways are not even close to the academic
expertise of Craig and Pinnock. See the literature reviews in Appendix 1, and
the clarifications of Nicole in Appendix 2 where refute Ware and Frame, their
method and use some ad hominem attacks of my own.
In the light of Ware and Frame, in addition to Rakestraw and Geisler, there is now a decent cross-sectional representation of “radical
fundamentalism elite” in these persons (and others) who
have “made war” upon the Open Theists. War? Isn’t that harsh? No. In academic debate, there is proof and
interchange (as in Craig and Pinnock); most especially there is a build up of unique contributions and
analyses. Instead, as in the cases that are building against Open Theism, there
is a jumble of rather independent critiques—sometimes sloppy to the uttermost,
as in the Roger Nicole’s documents—that at times build and attack straw men in the pretense of having taken
down a strong man. In a war, you tear down and warn and even attempt to keep
the ideas of opponents from circulation. In theological warfare, there are also
treatises that rely upon rhetoric and upon the audience’s ignorance to make
cases, and Ware, Frame and Geisler are examples of those who use their
audience’s ignorance in that kind of fashion.
When you read the Open Theists, for the most part, you read articulations of biblical insights and
themes—people exploring to understand the true meaning of the biblical text as
the biblical texts read. Pinnock, a grand champion of Open Theism, includes the comments of his own critics in his Most Moved Mover—what a marvelous piece of
integrity that is. The Open Theists are questioning whether the Bible actually says that “God’s
knowledge is absolutely fixed,” and the Classical Theists do not seem to be able to counter
fully or persuasively—not to those outside of their own camp. Sadly, as
we have said, many of the Classical Theists’ arguments are mere regurgitations
of old and very old defenses of God’s sovereignty. (We cannot overstate how tired we are of this, especially when they
regurgitate without making reference as though a good portion of their
work originated with themselves.)
Though far from the criminal
tendencies of some radicals, the exclusivity and avoidance of true development
is the hallmark of radical fundamentalism, especially the elite. Much of the time, the Christian radical fundamentalists are “fixed” in their own minds,
unable to “relate” in true genuineness (just as their God is). That is
precisely what is happening in “how” the
Classical Theists have “made war” against the Open Theists. And so, I detailed in my book Would You Lie to Save a Life? (the Quest for
God’s Will This Side of Heaven), and I also made a case against the radical fundamentalist as the fundamental level. While Rakestraw and Geisler are not “official”
representatives of radical fundamentalism, when you add them to Ware, Frame and other Classical Theists, you
now have a good cross section of radical fundamentalism’s elite.
Ironically, the Classical Theists’ “war” is coming on the heals of the
radical fundamentalist’s recent “war” to defend the literal interpretation of the Bible. Now I believe in the Bible’s divinely inspired integrity, full and
veracious inspiration—truth without any mixture of error—the rule of faith and source of doctrine. So do the
Open Theists. Yet how very ironic it is that the Open Theists are wanting to follow
the simple Bible readings, and now the Classical Theists want to find ways
around the simple readings to convolute a defense against the simple reading of
the Bible. As I indicated, I shall choose to stay with the Bible.
It is not that simple, of course.
That is why this work is before you, a kind of 21st century up-date to the
essence of Would You Lie to Save a Life? that began in 1989. This work on foreknowledge is a kind of primer to
my ethics book, in a way priming the reader to be able to see the complexity of
ethics in general.
So much more could be added about the “war” that would further distract, that
will never be told.
Let me add this. There is a subtle
persecution of Open Theism. I tried to come up to speed. In Pinnock’s Most Moved Mover (and in the other works in the
Literature Review in Appendix 1), in some Theological Society tapes, I came to
see some extraordinary denial. In Luther’s day, the elite fought Luther in much the same
manner they fight Pinnock (et al) today; only today the religious power base is
so much more solid and more able to control than back then. Though Frame and
Ware are an example, no better example exists than in Nicole’s super-strained
and prejudicial attempt to segregate Open Theism from the Evangelical
Theological Soceity.
Personally, I am not yet an Open
Theist, and maybe I am after this book. I do want to hang onto exhaustive
foreknowledge, yet I shall not give it prominence or importance over
God’s ability to genuinely relate to me in the present. Whatever shall come of
the definitions and degrees of foreknowledge, I shall not relinguish or let go
or loosen my grasp and belief in God’s ability to experience some matter of
freshness today in a real relationship with me. From the standpoint of God’s ability to experience me in some manner of
freshness each day, I am so much more an Open Theist than anything close to the
kind of Classical Theist outlined in Ware and Frame. Ware and Frame become offensive, and some of their ice cold words about
God hurt my soul.
The Classical Theist avoidance or
inability to deal with the most substantive issue is disheartening—so very disheartening.
That avoidance was another reason for this small-large book.[4] The most substantive issue of Open Theism is the “genuineness” of our relationship with God.
Personally, I was a happy
Classical Theist when I began Would You Lie to
Save a Life? in 1989, would have certainly moved to accept David Hunt’s corrections if I had had that work back then. I knew nothing else, not
even reading any nascent Open Theist material. After rejections back
then by several fundamentalist mentors, I was confused, at first
thinking my own insights inferior. I just struggled forward to clarify what I
myself believed and hammered at the nature of determining God’s will in Would
You Lie to Save a Life? Thank God for those who were there.
Later last year, the proverbial
light from heaven shined. Miraculously, as I finished
the last edit to Would You Lie to Save a Life? in 2002, I began to read about the openness of God. The thunder crashed
and heaven opened. The entire volume of Would You Lie to Save a Life? dovetails
with Open Theism far more than with
Classical Theism (and I did not even know that
till recently). Then by God’s grace, I read Pinnock’s Most Moved Mover. See Appendix 1, above, please.
There are some extraordinary insights in Open Theism, and so I pursued to
document some of my struggles as Appendix 1 unfolded. This book is the result,
as well as an addition to my larger ethics book, Would You Lie to Save a
Life?.
Today a new insight into God’s
true nature is unfolding, and Classical Theists are becoming the kings of denial,
some of them almost infantile in their behavior. I hope I made that clear , and I
hope this piece helped.
See my books at
www.preciousheart.net. Have a great day.
I wanted my buddies to laugh, get
mad and feel indignant, and be persuaded that the genuineness of our
relationship with God is the most important foundation stone of biblical
theology. Jesus is the cornerstone.
I made it personal from the
outset, and I intended to communicate humor and even to lampoon on occasion.
While appealing to the academic, I say up front I want to touch the heart of
the common Christian soldier. There are some really absurd statements and
conclusions that Classical Theism think are serious—you have to laugh at some
of their persistence in avoidance.
You cannot touch the common
Christian soldier without humor, without analogies and drama, without some kind
of black and white contrast. If a complexity cannot be made clear with a story
or a contrast, then it is too complex. That was why Jesus used parables, to
help the common people understand.[5] Dale Carnegie in his How to Win Friends and Influence People (NY:
Pocket, 1964) said we should talk in terms of the other person’s interest and
that we dramatize our ideas. See the classical works on rhetoric by Aristotle
and Cicero.
Furthermore, and the purpose of
this book as well as the purpose of my ethics book was to delineate the
boundaries of what we do know from what we do not know, as well as what we
cannot know. Very unlike the radical fundamentalist, I admit I do not have all
the answers, prove such, and then I furthermore expose the complexity and
absurdity of some of Classical Theism’s simplistic settlement in God’s fixity.
In other words, the lampooning was
carefully crafted, and I knew the difference between the lampooning and the
vapid condescensions of some radical fundamentalists.
The difference between academic
debate and ad hominem attacks is clear for some, foggy for others. Academia is
loath to use ad hominem attacks, loath to appeal to feelings or to attack the
character of the person. And rightly so much of the time, but that has not been
the case with Open Theism. Open Theism has brought out the humanity in even the
most fixated Classical Theists. Even so, much good academic work is devoid of
ad hominem arguments, and the philosophy and psychology schools are experts in
debating abstract theories and principles devoid of the ad hominem.
I did not avoid the ad hominem.
Up front, I admit and try to be personal, very personal, and I dearly wanted
to appeal to the feelings and not just the mind. I am so much more
straightforward than the repressed anger and disgust that obviously brims over
in Nicole, Frame and Ware. I wanted passion to flow, and I certainly question
the integrity of some of the persons. For me, that is where we live and true
argument about our relationship with God must include the very precious stones
of life itself. How can we discuss merits of love, indicate its deficit or
point out its degradation without the ad hominem?
I determined from beginning to end
to the appeal to both the mind and the heart. Lampoon and lament, joy and
sorrow, go hand in hand with square arguments. That is closer to life and
closer to the Bible. I determined to make some of this fun, for my friends
where my chief audience.
Part of the issue of Open Theism
is precisely “the relationship that we have with God,” precisely the
intimate and personal nature of that relationship. Very much in accord with
many Open Theists believe, I am passionate that God feels joy and
sadness in real time. God takes pleasure and gets angry. I read the Bible, and
there are a number of appeals to our own feelings and passions; there are
appeals to our character. Many times, Jesus and Paul appealed to feelings and
called into question the integrity of a person’s character.
I reject the error of those who
believe God cannot be touched by the feelings of our infirmities. I reject as
blasphemous those who deny God sorrow and joy. I those theologians far more
liberal and cancerous than Pinncok and Sanders who champion God’s genuineness.
I am a offended that those persons would dare to pass their views of an
unaffectable God to the public as serious biblical theology, seeking as they do
to impute error in to God’s revelation, interpreting God’s feelings as mere and
erroneous human interpolation. Anthropomorphisms—go ahead and cuss God
and blaspheme the Holy Spirit. And dare to say Pinnock and Sanders are not
faithful to the Bible? With such terms, Classical Theists cuss and kill the
living God. I sneer at them with disgust. I hate them with a perfect hatred,
them that use God’s name in vain and them that take the very life out of the
living God of the Bible. I feel a sneer at that use of God’s name in vain; they
take the very life out of the living God of the Bible. At this very moment, a
Classical Theist would deny any such thing, forwarding that God is alive; and
then the next breathe, as in a schizophrenic shift, that same person would say God
is just above time, timeless, tenseless, meticulously sovereign with exhaustive
foreknowledge (which all have a ring a truth)—then add the death sentence to
God that He is so fixed that there is no freshness or true pleasure or true
sadness with God. The denial of God’s aliveness cannot get any plainer. They
forget that we were made in God’s image, not God made in Plato’s image. God is
touched by our feelings, and to deny such is to kill God and make vain the very
name of God—make vain the God who is “I am.” They have taken the “I am” of God
and made a graven image out of stone—granite—and christened their new God “the
Eyeball above Blinking” who is so far above time that this new/old God is truly
of no use in real time.
How they got away with this, only
God knows. But the reality of the literature is this: they affirm Gods
aliveness in one sentence, then kill God in the next with tenseless. Anyone who
does not understand that is just too small, does not have enough education, is
not wanting to see the true meaning of the Bible—and on and on. You have
to have special education to talk like that, and the rank and file are just
supposed to “understand.”
Dare to take the personal and
affectionate out of my Abba, my heavenly Father, and you curse God in my
book. The New Testament is plainer, Jesus and John 3:16 does not need Ware,
Frame and Nicole to appeal to the heart of a poverty stricken mother or the
anger of prisoner or ugly-nasty pain of a victim.
God is not so fixed. Though God
could have foreknown 1,000 years ago that your little boy or girl was going to
be raped and mutilated at 4:00 PM this afternoon, nothing on earth can prevent
or limit or distract God from answering your prayer today at 12:00 noon and
allowing a Baldwin full grand piano to drop out of the sky and land on that
nasty predator at precisely 3:50 PM. Not just your prayer, either, but God
could answer the child’s prayer too—just case you were bogged down in fixity.
If you have the faith the size of a mustard seed, you can move mountains (without
the approval or circumlocutions of Classical Theists), or that passage on faith
means nothing.
Take the personal away from God
and God is dead.
This book is a
personal dialogue first of all, with some trappings of the academic. I admit up
front.
As in some of the work of Geisler
and Rakestraw, their conclusions attack the coherence of God and even usurp the
place of God. Ware and Frame make effigy and fail deal straight forwardly with
genuineness of God’s relationship and are so paternal and patronizing—I find
their superior attitudes immoral and denial of God’s genuineness in Open Theism
stupefying. I certainly question the integrity of Roger Nicole who forced the
use of prejudice and inferior arguments without clear lines of reasoning.
Contrary to a purely academic
strain, and most especially for the common Christian soldier, I make use of
some fancy rhetoric, stories, analogies, caricatures and some clearly ad
hominem attacks.
And I have some fun in doing so. I
want my buddies to be impressed and laugh and join me more than I want to
persuade Ware, Frame, Nicole or Geisler. Perhaps even they shall churn out
something truly worthy, but I suspect not.
Introduction
1. The Larger Context
of This Book
2. The Lopsided
Battleground
3. Persecution
of the Most Moved Mover
4. Methodology—This
Is Personal
Top ~ www.preciousheart.net/foreknowledge ~ mgmaness@earthlink.net
[1] M.G. Maness, Would You Lie to Save a Life? (Bloomington, IN: 1st Books, 2003), and you can see the full table of contents and more at www.preciousheart.net/ethics.
[2]
Norman Geisler and Robert Rakestraw were two of the four biblical ethical theorists that we used to
discern a “right” choice in Commander Bucher’s horrendous dilemma in Would
You Lie to Save a Life?.
[3] Especially Bruce A. Ware‘s God’s Lesser Glory: The Diminished God of Open Theism (Crossway, 2000) and John M. Frame’s No Other God: a Response to Open Theism (NJ: P & R, 2001), certainly James R. White’s The Potter’s Freedom: A Defense of the Reformation and a Rebuttal of Norman Geisler’s Chosen But Free. (Amityville, NY: Calvary Press, 2000) to the degree of its fire against Geisler—an individual with his own institution—but White is typical of the same radical fundamentalist defender of Classical Theism. All three and many more a modern day defenders of Classical Theism with a vengeance, using for the most ancient arguments (except Ware, who does contribute with some fresh and some credible insights against Open Theism).
[4] The body of this book being just 100+ pages with 200+ of extra resources in the appendices and Abysmal Bibliography.
[5] As it says in Matt. 13:34: “without a parable spake he not unto them.”