Small Group & Reading Theology

I went to my first meeting on Wednesday night for my Journey Church small group. Everybody there, except for me, was from a small town, hence there was much antipathy towards 'conservative' Christians. Two of the people there, had much animosity towards Southern Baptists, but in general, there was much disdain and looking down upon the foolishness of 'conservative' Christians. I think they meant 'conservative' as Christians who don't want to change and want to continue doing the same thing, because that's what they've always done. On the other hand, change for change's sake isnt' any good either. There is a balance between maintaining the traditional orthodox Christian faith, and contextualizing it for today's culture and setting. I think that most of these folks though are so anti-souther baptist/conservative Christian that they almost lose sight of some of the important essential features in American Christian life the past 100 years.

This brings me to my main point, our small group will consist of reading a theology book together, then during our meeting time we will discuss what we have read. The leader was interested in openness theology, becaus The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has rejected openness theology as a viable position for orthodox Christians to believe. I agree with the Southern Baptists on this matter, whole heartedly. So what is openness theology (or open theism), it's the idea that God doesn't know the future, i.e. the future is 'open' to God. An openness advocate would claim that God knows everything that's possible to know, but it's not possible for Him to know any propositions about the future. This is absolutely ridiculous, but I'll get to that below. One of the main proponents of open theism is Greg Boyd, who is a pastor, and he uses open theism as a theodicy (theodicies are reasons that God would allow evil). So if we were to ask Greg Boyd why the holocaust occurred, he would respond with God didn't know it would occur. Yet, this seems silly, because surely God knows everyone's heart, and He would know Hitler's heart, hence He would know what Hitler will do if given the opportunity. God is often described as the "Great Chess Player" countering Satan's moves on a chess board, God knows all the possibilities and probabilities, but just doesn't know what will happen. So when Satan makes a move, God responds with the best possible move that He can make given all that He knows. So, openness theology reduces God to a reactive God, instead of a proactive God. All in all, I think it's an utter disaster for orthodox theology.

So why is it ridiculous that God not know any future propositions? Because I know some future propositions. I've been writing this post for 14 minutes, and right now it's 2:11PM, after I finish writing this post I'll go get a drink of water. That's a future proposition. Or what about somebody who's a parent of a newborn, she knows that at a certain time everyday her child will have to eat. Obviously God's knowledge of future propositions would be more complex than this, but, nevertheless, the idea of not having any knowledge about the future is silly.