We Need the Bible! Part 3

We must begin our understanding of God with the premise that “God is God,” and we are not. Sure we can understand many of the mysteries of God but there is a pressing danger among some that espouse the beginning statement that “God is love.” This has led to Open Theism and Process Theology.

Open theism endeavors to revise the traditional doctrine of God to make it more biblical and of greater contemporary relevance. It fleshes out its intuitions by differentiating itself from the classical doctrine of God and process theism. On the one hand, open theism disputes the traditional doctrines of divine immutability, impassibility, omnipotence, omniscience, aseity, and eternity. On the other hand, it declines process theism's invitation to follow it in rejecting the doctrines of God's unlimited nature and creation from nothing. Open theism dissents from the traditional consensus that God controls all things, but it refuses to give up the belief that God could control all things, if he so chose. (Ron Highfield, Journal of Evangelical Theological Society, June 1, 2002)

“Process theology [is a] Christian theological system emphasizing the fluid rather than static nature of the universe, and finding God within the process of becoming, rather than as the transcendent source of being.” (John Bowker, Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions) As church leaders we need to be willing to look at such concepts but we must also take a stand on what and who we believe God is: more importantly what the Bible says. Last part next week…

Creed Branson, Executive Minister