Friday, September 3, 2010

The hermeneutic of Open Theism.

That the scripture passages that speak of God being "ignorant" of certain future events, or of God "changing his mind" are revelatory in themselves. They are not mere anthropomorphisms that should be taken figuratively. They speak to who God actually is apart from all human perception.

Open theism is taken very seriously in America (which, according to my humble Canadian opinion, has a theological texture that is about as far-reaching and successful as their manifest destiny). Ironically, open theism is often times taken seriously by those who also believe that we ought never to speak of God in the masculine gender. Fine sounding! I imagine they would say that all of the plenitude of scriptures which do this very thing are anthropomorphisms rather than revelations. But why, might I ask, are we compelled to dole out revelational quality to the few and far between scriptures that present God as being nescient or willing to change his mind, and simultaneously forbidden to do this for all of the references to God's masculinity?

What could this be, other than a clear example of hermeneutical hypocrisy? On exegetical grounds, you cannot be an Open theist and dare to speak only of "Godself, It," or other neutered forms of the divine being....you cannot do this and be consistent with your own system.

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