What did you believe before Open Theism?

Lon

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"How we got here" is helpful especially for those of us not Open Theists (me and the rest of Christianity). What did you believe before you became an Open Theist? How did you jump the hurdles? How big were they at the time? How resistant or ready were you upon hearing about Open Theism?
 

JudgeRightly

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Growing up my family went to a Christ's Church and another that I don't recall the denomination of, and I attended a Lutheran school.

Then we moved after I finished 4th grade, and we started going to a Baptist church, and attending the school that they hosted. 5th grade to 9th grade.

Then we moved again, and started going to an offshoot of one of Mark Gungor's churches in the town we lived in. 10th grade to graduation.

Then we moved again, and started attending Mark Gungor's church. Got my first job living there in Green Bay.

Then we moved again, to the town I currently live in, and started attending another of that type of praise and worship churches with a full band and singers, dancing, and "speaking in tongues." Started work as a truck driver in 2014.

Started listening to Bob Enyart in 2015, and been listening ever since, and got hooked on what he taught.

Then I moved out into my own place around 2017/2018, and tried attending a Bible church just outside of town, but it just wasn't the same as Denver Bible Church, and I pretty much stopped going. Lovely people, and do want to attend again at some point.

As far as what I personally believed, however, I didn't really hold to any particular belief, other than that God did exist, and, having asked Christ to come into my heart in fifth grade (while attending the school at the Baptist church), I guess you could call me a typical run-of-the-mill Baptist, but I wasn't particularly beholden to any of my beliefs, and until 2015, I definitely wasn't living a Christian life. But Bob's ministry helped me turn my life around, and I've been an open theist/mid-acts dispensationalist ever since I listened to his Plot seminar.
 

Derf

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"How we got here" is helpful especially for those of us not Open Theists (me and the rest of Christianity). What did you believe before you became an Open Theist? How did you jump the hurdles? How big were they at the time? How resistant or ready were you upon hearing about Open Theism?
My dad was a Southern Baptist pastor, before we all went to the mission field for a few years when I was a child. I moved away from the SBC as an adult, trying to figure out homeschooling our kids. We ended up in a Calvinistic Presbyterian church. I can't say I was ever totally on board, but it was an interesting study for several years, talking about things we rarely discussed in the SBC churches. Southern Baptists (and other non-Calvinistic Baptists) are Arminian in terms of the decision source and the scope of the atonement, but they are staunchly against the ability to lose one's salvation.

So, I was pretty firm that God knew all things past and future, without believing that God caused it all. But it didn't make sense to me when I thought through it. I remember counseling a friend about her imminent divorce that she wanted, when she asked if it would cause her to lose her salvation. I told her that God already knew everything she would ever do, and those sins were paid for at the cross already (but that she shouldn't go forward with the divorce).

I stumbled (when looking for refutations of TULIP) on a refutation of the L in TULIP by a guy that claimed that all of the other letters fall if the L falls. I didn't really agree with that, but I was curious about how he described God as not needing to know the future exhaustively to be God, nor to fit the Bible's description of God. It was a turning point in my thinking. Not a hurdle, but a welcome relief, since the Calvinism was clearly wrong (due to what it does to God's nature), and the Arminian position (including the Baptists) wasn't much better. I spent a lot of time researching Open Theism after that, including coming here to TOL and seeing if I could defend it (yes, I know...TOL is friendly to OT, but the other places I went didn't even want to discuss it). It's an easy doctrine to defend, where the others aren't, imo, at least in terms of what God knows or doesn't know and when.

What is funny, though, is that I don't really like Greg Boyd. I ran into his name a few times as referenced by others. The other big names, too, I read sparingly, at most. The view defends itself, once you let go of preconceived notions of God and let the Bible reveal Him. I wasn't too big on picking a label for myself ("Calvinist", "Arminian", "Baptist", etc.), but I jumped on the Open Theism label, even though the label might not be the most accurate--it was the most obvious position.

I've toyed with other traditional doctrines, like the Trinity, and found myself embracing them more fully with the study, but not so with Open Theism. I couldn't go back to the other options these last 10 years. (The one other traditional view I've toyed with and not gone back to is the definition of "death", which I've touched on in a few threads.)
 
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Nick M

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I've toyed with other traditional doctrines, like the Trinity, and found myself embracing them more fully with the study, but not so with Open Theism.
Toyed with? What does the scripture say? I think that is what matters. Can you expound on what you think is in line, and out of step?

I never heard the term before coming here. The advocates ask a question. Can God write a new song? Is he relational? The descriptions given by the advocates line up with what he says about himself in the Bible. As far as I can tell.
 

Derf

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Toyed with? What does the scripture say?
Nobody in Christian doctrinal circles doesn't believe their doctrine comes from scripture. Nobody. That includes trinitarians and non-trinitarians alike.
I think that is what matters. Can you expound on what you think is in line, and out of step?
In line with scripture? And are you talking about my side questions? I'm happy to talk about them, but it's definitely rabbit trail territory for this thread.
I never heard the term before coming here.
The term "Open Theism"? I had a few times. Once or twice (in a negative light) from the pulpit of a Calvinist church I was attending.
The advocates ask a question. Can God write a new song? Is he relational? The descriptions given by the advocates line up with what he says about himself in the Bible. As far as I can tell.
I agree. Disagreers would say we've misunderstood some of those scriptures, but I think it is the most consistent view, while some of those views have to explain away much more by appealing to devices such as anthropomorphisms to keep from saying God is the author of evil or a liar.
 
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Nick M

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I agree. Disagreers would say we've misunderstood some of those scriptures, but I think it is the most consistent view
That is all I asked and all you had to say. (y)
 

Bright Raven

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gotquestions.org

Omniscience is defined as “the state of having total knowledge, the quality of knowing everything.” For God to be sovereign over His creation of all things, whether visible or invisible, He has to be all-knowing. His omniscience is not restricted to any one person in the Godhead—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all by nature omniscient.

God knows everything (1 John 3:20). He knows not only the minutest details of our lives but those of everything around us, for He mentions even knowing when a sparrow falls or when we lose a single hair (Matthew 10:29-30). Not only does God know everything that will occur until the end of history itself (Isaiah 46:9-10), but He also knows our very thoughts, even before we speak forth (Psalm 139:4). He knows our hearts from afar; He even saw us in the womb (Psalm 139:1-3, 15-16). Solomon expresses this truth perfectly when he says, “For you, you only, know the hearts of all the children of mankind” (1 Kings 8:39).

Despite the condescension of the Son of God to empty Himself and make Himself nothing (Philippians 2:7), His omniscience is clearly seen in the New Testament writings. The first prayer of the apostles in Acts 1:24, “Lord, you know everyone’s heart,” implies Jesus’ omniscience, which is necessary if He is to be able to receive petitions and intercede at God’s right hand. On earth, Jesus’ omniscience is just as clear. In many Gospel accounts, He knew the thoughts of his audience (Matthew 9:4; 12:25; Mark 2:6-8; Luke 6:8). He knew about people’s lives before He had even met them. When He met the woman collecting water at the well at Sychar, He said to her, “The fact is you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband” (John 4:18). He also tells His disciples that their friend Lazarus was dead, although He was over 25 miles away from Lazarus’s home (John 11:11-15). He advised the disciples to go and make preparation for the Lord’s Supper, describing the person they were to meet and follow (Mark 14:13-15). Perhaps best of all, He knew Nathanael before ever meeting him, for He knew his heart (John 1:47-48).

Clearly, we observe Jesus’ omniscience on earth, but this is where the paradox begins as well. Jesus asks questions, which imply the absence of knowledge, although the Lord asks questions more for the benefit of His audience than for Himself. However, there is another facet regarding His omniscience that comes from the limitations of the human nature which He, as Son of God, assumed. We read that as a man He “grew in wisdom and stature” (Luke 2:52) and that He learned “obedience through suffering” (Hebrews 5:8). We also read that He did not know when the world would be brought to an end (Matthew 24:34-36). We, therefore, have to ask, why would the Son not know this, if He knew everything else? Rather than regarding this as just a human limitation, we should regard it as a controlled lack of knowledge. This was a self-willed act of humility in order to share fully in our nature (Philippians 2:6-11; Hebrews 2:17) and to be the Second Adam.

Finally, there is nothing too hard for an omniscient God, and it is on the basis of our faith in such a God that we can rest secure in Him, knowing that He promises never to fail us as long as we continue in Him. He has known us from eternity, even before creation. God knew you and me, where we would appear in the course of time, and whom we would interact with. He even foresaw our sin in all its ugliness and depravity, yet, in love, He set his seal upon us and drew us to that love in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:3-6). We shall see Him face to face, but our knowledge of Him will never be complete. Our wonder, love and praise of Him shall go on for all millennia as we bask in the rays of His heavenly love, learning and appreciating more and more of our omniscient God.
 

Yorzhik

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"How we got here" is helpful especially for those of us not Open Theists (me and the rest of Christianity). What did you believe before you became an Open Theist? How did you jump the hurdles? How big were they at the time? How resistant or ready were you upon hearing about Open Theism?
I grew up as Lutheran, attending the Lutheran schools and going to Michigan Lutheran Seminary. While there I heard about a problem back in my local church where a bible teacher I had learned from was being expelled from the congregation because he was teaching in an unsanctioned bible study. I had attended that unsanctioned bible study from time to time whenever I was home. It was very in-depth but was more than what the church was scheduling. And this teacher, employed by the church as his day job, was gracious enough to lead it. That he was being disfellowshipped was a shock was an understatement. It taught me the leadership of the church could be fallible since he wasn't an enemy but one of their greatest assets. So my tether to the Lutheran Church was broken and I felt more comfortable in a Baptist church even though I also understood their leadership was no better than the Lutheran's.

Also about that time I saw a John Ankerberg show where he brought in some bible scholar translators for the NIV for an interview. He also had a Hebrew scholar who was a Jew on the panel. And as John hoped to achieve by adding that Jew to make the show "more exciting", those bible scholars quickly got uneasy with that Jew's questions, one of which was about God saying, "Now I know" to Abraham. It showed that in the hard core Hebrew, "Now I know" is known as a passage that is not consistent with the Settled View *at all*. And that always stuck with me and the idea that something was fundamentally wrong with what I'd been taught by my elders kept rolling around in the back of my head for years but I couldn't resolve it.

Then I watched Bob Enyart Live for a while and liked the show. So I went to The Plot seminar when it got close enough for me to go. At that seminar all my nagging questions were answered. Everything fit. And as I've studied the bible in light of the Open View, the fact that God has a real relationship with us, the kind of relationship we can understand, is a whole new universe of love and understanding and makes a stronger faith the longer one studies God's word.
 
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