Interview RE: Joseph Prince

Chris Rosebrough has recently done a radio interview concerning the errors of Singapore home-grown heretic Joseph Prince, which can be accessed here. Prince's antinomian denial of the third use of the Law can also be read in Lisa Cooper's critique of Prince's book Destined to Reign, here.

Rosebrough's critique is good. However, I think there is an even worse aspect to Prince that Rosebrough overlooked- Prince's anthropology and harmatology. The problem with Man according to Prince is not such much that Man is sinful (although Prince does not deny that), but that Man stands under condemnation. Condemnation itself is what's bad, and therefore Christ came to erase this condemnation. In the Bible however, condemnation is not bad in itself. Condemnation is in fact the good and just verdict of God on wicked sinners. It is bad for us, because that forensic verdict results in damnation in hell. But if God decided not to save anyone, so that all would be condemned, there would be nothing unjust and God would still remain good. The problem with Man is sin, the solution is forgiveness of sin. In Christ's imputation of his righteousness to believers, the verdict has been changed from condemnation to justification. Both however are just, the former of God's justice, the latter of Christ's merits.

Prince's errant doctrine of man and of sin lies at the root of his heresy. It is because he misdiagnosed the problem that his solution is not the Gospel, however similar it is to the real one. He identifies the problem as one of psychological negativity, and thus the solution is positive thinking. Sin, righteousness- these do exist but merely as the backdrop to the overarching narrative of salvation from the [negative] feelings of condemnation.

Consolidated article: God, the Author of Sin and Metaphysical Distanciation: A Brief Rebuttal of Vincent's Cheung Theodicy

The consolidated article refuting Vincent Cheung's errant theodicy has been done and can be found here.

Harold Camping Resource List

Here is a resource list on the false prophet and cultist Harold Camping. That guy has no shame whatsoever. Utterly despicable.

Joseph Prince vs. the Bible

Due to the growing popularity of Singaporean home-grown "pastor" Joseph Prince, I have decided to read his book Destined to Reign, which is proving very difficult to read (difficult as in I feel utterly disgusted by it and am feeling very much like puking because of its unbiblical contents). Anyway, here is a VERY interesting quote:

The bottom line is the Holy Spirit never convicts you of your sins (p. 134. Bold original)

Ugh! According to Prince, this is in the context of believers after they have became Christians, not the world. Here is what the Scriptures teach:

[To the Corinthian Christians who were celebrating sin] For even if I [Paul] made you grieve with my letter [1 Corinthians cf 1 Cor. 5:1-2], I did not regret it, for I see that that letter grieved you, though only for a while. As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. (2 Cor. 7:8-9)

To this, we can add the case of Ananias and Sapphira (believers) who were literally "slain by the Spirit", not to mention the numerous examples in the Old Testament and the Psalms.

This is all for now. As it is, this statement has moved Prince to the arena of preaching not only a false "gospel", but a false "Holy Spirit" and therefore a false "God". Joseph Prince is therefore not a Christian, fulfilling 1 Jn. 2:19 and Jude 1:4 by his teaching.

More on Jonathan Koh the heretic

I was recently asked for some information on my former friend Jonathan Koh over an urgent issue at hand. Besides his heinious embrace of the Hegelian Dialectics, there are two more issues which show just how far this former "Reformed Charismatic" has apostasized from the faith, which I shall reproduce from my prepared letter below.

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2) His sympathy towards universalism

In his own words, according to his “theological pilgrimage”,

However, around the middle of 2003, I read Keith DeRose’s article entitled Universalism and the Bible. This was the first time I read an article laying out biblical arguments for Universalism. I had vague ideas about what Universalism was before reading this site. My first reading of this article did clarify some misconceptions as to what Universalism is and how it could be defended. Yet even that didn’t move me much as the idea of Universalism was too offensive to my mind – even as a Christian who was becoming more open to alternative beliefs. A few more readings of the article gradually convinced me that there was a strong case for Universalism in the Bible. …

I’ve still not come to my conclusion concerning Universalism – and probably never will – but I remain a hopeful Universalist.

In Keith DeRose’ article on the Internet which Jonathan referenced, “Christian” universalism is defined as

As I'll use it, "universalism" refers to the position that eventually all human beings will be saved and will enjoy everlasting life with Christ. This is compatible with the view that God will punish many people after death, and many universalists accept that there will be divine retribution, although some may not. What universalism does commit one to is that such punishment won't last forever. Universalism is also incompatible with various views according to which some will be annihilated (after or without first receiving punishment). These views can agree with universalism in that, according to them, punishment isn't everlasting, but they diverge from universalism in that they believe some will be denied everlasting life. Some universalists intend their position to apply animals, and some to fallen angels or even to Satan himself, but in my hands, it will be intended to apply only to human beings. In short, then, it's the position that every human being will, eventually at least, make it to the party.

3) His abominable take on the sin of homosexuality

Jonathan Koh is pro-homosexual. In his own words,

I [Jonathan] do think they [homosexual acts] are sins and less than God’s ideal for us. However, I am not about to condemn such acts like conservative Christians do. I think homosexual relationships are not what God intended for us. But they exist because the world is fallen or “out of wack” as a result of sin entering the world. Because of this, I’m inclined to think that God is tolerant of such acts. The world is complex, the issue is complex and I’m not about to accept easy answers that both conservative and progressive Christians put forward. Most homosexuals are born with such inclinations and try as they may, they probably won’t change. God can change them, but God hasn’t changed many of them. So I will say homosexual acts are wrong but that because the situation is more complex, I think God loves homosexuals and accepts their relationships - if monogamous and faithful. I think it’s cruel and utterly uncompassionate to condemn all forms of homosexual acts the way conservative Christians do. God is a compassionate God and He knows the struggles of homosexuals. I’m sure He understands how difficult or impossible it is for homosexuals to either change their sexual orientation or be chaste their whole life! For every Christian who says that homosexuals ought to change or ought to be chaste - as if it’s so easy to change or remain sexually inactive one’s whole life - my wish for them is that they could spend some time being a homosexual and being on the receiving end of such cruel admonitions.

It is indeed sad to see someone so blind and deluded by the lies spun by the liberal Academy, and refusing to yield his life and doctrine to the Lordship of Christ. What's left now is to hope that the Singaporean churches will realize the threat within their midst and not allow him to join them, for whether he is sincerely deluded or purposely out to deceive, his embrace of postmodernism on the one hand and liberalism on the other, together with his substantial reading and learning, makes him out to be a very dangerous wolf able to deceive many into the soul-damning heresy called "progressive Christianity", which is certainly neither progressive nor Christianity. May God protect His church from those who seek to destroy her. Amen.

Paper: Biblical Reasons to reject the Lakeland 'Revival'

Douglas over at Contemplations of a Young Calvinist has (finally) released his short, informal and non-academic paper refuting the erroneous and fallacious reasoning behind Dr. Gary Greig's article which attempted to defend the now-discredited Lakeland 'revival'. Although the 'revival' is over, at least it is over as far as Todd Bentley is concerned, the Third Wave Neo-Gnostic and Neo-Apostolic principles behind it still remain. This paper interacts with some of the underlying principles of the Third Wave movement, and bring the Scriptures to bear in a critique written in an informal and interactive style.

Driscoll orthodox?

This article casts legitimate doubts on the growing sentiment of believers about Mark Driscoll's orthodoxy. Not to mention Driscoll's manifestly inappropriate speech in the promotional video for the upcoming sexuality 'Song of Solomon' conferences, which probably sounds more like soft-porn I guess. (Yeah right, striptease dances by wifes to their husbands is biblical... Why hasn't anyone seen this before?...)

Squirmeneutics

squir-me-neu-tics (skwûrm'mə-nōō'tĭks)
n. (used with a sing. or pl. verb)

1. the science of misinterpretation, esp. of the Scriptures, to such a degree that it causes listeners with any common sense to squirm.
2. misinterpretation of the Scriptures so absurd that it causes one to question whether or not it could possibly be for real.

Tominthebox, a popular theological humor/satire site, has written a serious post here, which is very sobering. The rather crass video which is linked in their post goes way beyond any satire that can be currently thought of, and yet it is real. It truly is KJV-Onlyism to its logical conclusion, I guess.

Biblical Dialetics? An expose of the abomination that calls itself 'Progressive Christianity' **Update**

**Update**: It seems that Pastor Rayburn is actually pastor of Faith Tacoma Church (PCA), and that he was giving a series of sermons in Harvest OPC then. Thanks to John for the feedback regarding the error, which is corrected now.

*Update*: I probably have erred on the identity of "Rabbi" Duncan, so I'lll withdraw that part. Thanks to those who feedbacked to me the information.

I have on the Net recently came across a former friend, Jonathan Koh, a former Reformed Charismatic turned visibly apostate, and who mentioned that he is now attending the Word-faith New Creation "Church", though presumably not a member. As he is adamant in promoting his heresies and false ecumenism online, I think it would be instructive to look at one aspect of his heresy for now; that of the embrace of the philosophy of dialectics. Unlike his Emergent friends, Jonathan is not so slippery and thus it is easier to hold him on the statements that he has made.

Just some background so it would be seen where I am coming from. Jonathan was a person seemingly passionate for the cause of Christ and the Reformed truth when he joined my former church, Covenant Presbyterian Church, when I was still rather young (~ 16-18 years old I think) and didn't know much about anything, though newly converted then. He taught my younger brother in their cell group and was a friend of ours. One thing I remembered was when he tried to taught my brother's cell about the topic of predestination, of which I didn't have a view (If pressed, I would answer like an Arminian) then. Needless to say, from the responses, I garner that almost nothing went through to them, due to the topic being 'very profound'. He also organized all night prayer meetings and for some time, it seemed that the youth ministry would be progressing towards greater growth in biblical spirituality.

However, his idealism created a dissonance within him as he was naive enough to think that doing such would create revival, and the resistance of the higher leadership to change was not helping matters, leading to disillusionment. And the flaws within himself began to show, as his foundation on the truths of the Reformation began to show itself as being shallow (Mt. 7: 26-27). He was then also interested in sociology and political science, of which he read some of their works then also. His epistemological shallowness began to show as the lies spun by the Liberals and their allies in the media on topics such as Israel and the so-called "Palestinian occupation" began to be imbibed by him without discernment. And of course, those causes are very safe, costing little in terms of personal sacrifice and pain compared to the cross and discouragement of ministry, and the people ARE indeed passionate about what they do. Not to mention that Satan will not be actively working against you if you take up such causes. Anyway, he left the church when he went to study overseas and we lost contact with him soon after.

This is just a brief summary of Jonathan's life as I came to know him then. Since then, he has changed a lot especially in his embrace of postmodern epistemology, or rather called 'Modernism part II'.

Let it be said that I do this not out of anything but love, although Jonathan in our recent exchange was very judgmental in libeling my motives, as if he is God and knows them. I hope this warning and expose would have a three-fold effect. First of all, it is sincerely hoped that the Holy Spirit would convict Jonathan of his heresy and that he would repent of this. Or if he doesn't, then the truth would harden his heart in preparation for future wrath (Rom. 2:5). Secondly, for those who look on, by his example, it is hoped that we be warned of the particular heresy that Jonathan has fallen into, and that we can learn to exercise discernment and learn from his mistakes. Being enthusiastic about the Christian faith, and of the Reformed truths even, means nothing, for in Jonathan's case it could be the case of the seed which sprung up on rocky ground, and were destroyed when the sun of trials come (Mt. 13:5-6). Thus, it pains me to do this, but where the truth of God is concerned, God is above all others, and I will not allow such heresy to remain unchallenged.

With such a long introduction, let us look at the piece written by Jonathan Koh his website/blog here.

In this article, Jonathan promotes the philosophy of dialectics. From his piece, it can be seen that the strain of dialectics he is promoting is a form of the Hegelian dialectic of thesis/antithesis-synthesis in keeping contradictions together as part of the truth. The dialectical method he is promoting is that seen here, in an attempt to "overcome formal dualism" in positing transcendence of the truths of so-called contradictions found within the Bible. This is made very explicit in the various quotes Jonathan placed there in which the very idea of holding contradictions in tension and resolving none of them but instead celebrating both is put forth. As examples, Jonathan quotes:

I would run after nothing and shun nothing… the truth is not in the middle, and not in one extreme, but in both extremes. (Charles Simeon)

Preach the antinomies of truth, and carry each out a far as it is possible to carry it. But don’t attempt to reconcile them. These two lines [/ \] will meet if produced far enough. But if I try to make them meet, I give one or other of them a twist, and so reduce it from being a straight line. ... (Rabbi Duncan)

Christianity got over the difficulty of combining furious opposites by keeping them both, and keeping them both furious. (Chesterton)

There is revelation only as the contradictions are held together. (Jacques Ellul, The subversion of Christianity)

We would look at some of his supposed contradictions later, but suffice it is to say that one such contradiction that he puts forward is the 'contradiction' between faith and works. Does Federal Vision ring a bell here?

First of all, I couldn't care less about the 'reputations' of these people, as Scripture alone is my authority. That does not mean that their reputation does not mean anything, but God's Word reigns supreme. The person that Jonathan mentions upon hearing his sermon is one Pastor Robert Rayburn, a PCA pastor preaching then in an OPC church. I do not know Pastor Rayburn, but I would be charitable to Pastor Rayburn, and until evidence is found, assume that Jonathan misunderstood him. With regards to the other authors, I have no idea since when a Roman Catholic could be termed as an authority in epistemology, especially with regards to the truths of Scripture. That again shows Jonathan's embrace of anybody who seems intellectual, even if the person is teaching heresy; the worship of the Academy.

And with that, let us look into the issue proper. Does Scripture promote the Hegelian dialectic? Of course, examples could be given and will be analyzed later as to whether they truly are contradictory, but for now, let us analyze the issue epistemologically.

It can be easily seen that the Bible does not promote such irrationalism. First of all, the entire thought pattern of the Bible is dualistic, from Genesis to Revelation, without any mixing of the thesis/antithesis pair. God is set in opposition to Satan, good vs evil, obedience vs disobedience, election vs reprobation, love vs hate, saved vs lost, light vs darkness and we could go on and on. Those who truly read the Bible for all its worth will develop a sharply antithecal mindset and see things in thesis/antithesis pairings. An example of such antithecal wording can be found in phrases like 'for the one who is not against you is for you' (Lk. 9:50ff) and 'And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire' (Rev. 20:15). To make it very apparent, to be a Christian is the opposite of being a non-Christian. One cannot be a Christian and a non-Christian at the same time.

This brings us to the fundamental issue — the law of non-contradiction. Jonathan probably did not study logic, but to deny this law is just plainly absurd, for the denial of the law of non-contradiction is definitely not the affirmation of such a law (Reductio ad absurdum). Yet, this is what dialectics seeks to have. We must remember that dialetics does not just deal with seeming contradictions or paradox, since these are solvable. Rather, they deal with flat-out contradictions which are irreconcilable or antinomies. Therefore, to embrace the Hegelian dialectics epistemologically is to commit epistmological suicide, which Jonathan has done. In Jonathan's view therefore, one can deny Christ and yet be a Christian and go to heaven (ie Brian McLaren), since there is no need to be logically coherent. In other words, the only authority for Jonathan's words are himself or the Academy (when his views happen to be the same as theirs), all being totally irrational, unbiblical and unlivable. Debating therefore with Jonathan, like probably with any of the Emergents, is useless, for they are not committed to being rational. They can say anything they want, and affirm and deny the faith in the same breath. And of course those who criticize them would be deemed to be 'Modernistic', which show their either ignorance or denial of what Modernism actually is.

After dispensing of the heresy of the dialectic, let us look at the various examples which are so-called antinomies or logical contradictions. Jonathan listed the doctrine of people being at the same time sinners and yet saints (justified), how the Kingdom of God is here and not yet, how Jesus is wholly Man and wholly God, the doctrine of the Trinity, and how the Bible teaches justification by faith yet judgment about works. It is the biblical position that none of these are antinomies, since if they contradict each other, then the Christian faith is in error, since God is not God and not-not God at the same time, and God states that He is truth (Jn. 14:6) and is logical (Jn. 1:1), not both truth and error, and both logical and illogical at the same time in the same sense

Take the first example given. Christians are sinner yet saints. However, this is not a contradiction because we are not sinners and saints in the same manner. We are sinners by nature, and saints by legal declaration and through adoption, and not both sinners and saints in the same manner. In the same way, an adopted child is not the child biologically but is the child by adoption, thus he/she can be said to be both the child and not the child of a couple. Ditto for the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God has come in the spiritual sense secretly. It is in this sense that the Kingdom of God has come. Yet the Kingdom of God has not come in the sense of Christ coming visibly to all and bringing the entire creation into judgment, and fulfilling all history, and thus it is not yet come. Failure to differentiate between the senses creates a false contradiction where none actually existed.

With regards to the others, that Jonathan mentioned them shows how far from orthodoxy he has strayed. The hypostatic union of Christ (100% human and 100% God) is not illogical. It is a mystery in that we cannot comprehend totally what this means, but it is not a contradiction, unless you add the premise that the class of humans and God is mutually exclusive. But upon what can we maintain that? Just because no human is God does not mean that there can never be one person who is both God and Man. The contradictions will only exist if a faulty premise is maintained about the mutual exclusivity of the natures of God and Man. Such a position is counter-intuitive to be sure, but it is not illogical. With regards to the Trinity, the orthodox position has always been that God is three persons in one essence/nature. A contradiction would only arise if God is three persons in one person, or three nature in one nature., because 3 ≠ 1. But just as there is no contradiction in saying 3x = 1y, but contradiction in saying that 3x = 1x, from whence the contradiction? Jonathan by using such examples only show he does not even understand, or is purposefully ignoring, the formulation of these historic Christian doctrines.

The mention of faith and works is at the core of the Reformation, and if the undermining of the hypostatic union and the Trinity ring hollow in the ears of modern Evanjellifishes, then perhaps they might want to consider the more practical mess you will get when you add works in order to gain salvation. The Bible is explicit that faith and works are mutually incompatible (Rom. 3:28, Rom. 4:4-5, Gal. 2:16). What then about Jonathan's statement? If what is in mind here is the fact that believers will be rewarded for their labors, then there is no contradictions, for such works count after salvation by faith. In other words, works still play no part in salvation. However, Jonathan actually have in mind something deeper. What he has in mind is the Scriptural commands of obedience, which would thus cut directly into the whole Lordship controversy issue. However, that is only a contradiction if one refuses to follow the plain teachings of Scripture. The commands of obedience can only be obeyed by Christians, since they received a new regenerate heart (2 Cor. 5:17) and thus have a new nature that can obey God. To place obedience as a prerequisite for salvation implies that unregenerate unbelievers can somehow strive towards obedience, which the Bible explicitly denies, as no one seeks for God. (Rom. 3:11). I am surprised that Jonathan does not seem to realize this as he claimed to be a Calvinist earlier in his life, and thus should know about the doctrine of Total Depravity.

It is a sad day when a person apostatize from the faith, and especially someone who held a lot of truth and had great passion before. Yet, such people have been prophesied before in Scripture and we are to avoid them like the plaque they really are.

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. (1 Jn. 2:19)

For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned. (Heb. 6:4-8)

For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has spurned the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. (Heb. 10:26-31)

And with regards to the comment that Scripture is obscure, this is what Scripture says:

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Cor. 2:14-16. Bold added)

On Pastor Alexey Ledyaev (part 2)

[continued from here]

And so, we come to Alexey Ledyaer's handling of Scripture to prop up his Neo-Apostolic Dominonism.

Ledyaer wrote:

When Jesus was coming into Jerusalem, the people cried out “Hosanna”, tore off their garments, and spread them on the road before the coming King. But Jesus wept…

Why?

Oh but because the revival “from below” is a temporary and fragile phenomenon.

When people with so little impact on the society cry out “Hosanna” to Jesus, it’s not bad. But for some reason He is sad and even weeping.

Why?

Oh but because in this exultant multitude He couldn’t notice officials, deputies, ministers and representatives of the supreme authority. They have kept aloof. Tomorrow they will drown this revival in blood, because the power is in their hands.

God’s plan is to bring the revival “from the top”; then it will not be bogged down in couple of years.

Such is a complete misrepresentation of the biblical narrative. Let's look at the reason why Jesus said that he wept:

And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” (Lk. 19:41-44)

As the biblical narrative states, the reason why Jesus wept is because the Jews and specifically Jerusalem did not realize that her King is visiting her. And as judgment against the Jews and Jerusalem in general for rejecting their King, the city was destined for destruction, which was aoomplished by the Romans in 70AD. Nowhere is it stated that the reason why Jesus wept is because the leaders were going to "drown this revival in blood", with the only blood being shed later being that of our Lord Jesus Christ, who was destined to die on the Cross for our sins anyway, not lead some great revival in history!

Ledyaer carries on with a total misrepresentation of the text of Scripture in 1 Ki. 18:1 concerning the command to the prophet Elijah. Far from that being an example of how the "river of prophetic annointing will flow in presidents' offices", the fact of the matter is that Elijah was not employed by King Ahab nor was he his personal prophet such that "the prophetic annointing flow" in Ahab's office palace. Elijah was hated by King Ahab, and although God and Elijah won in the battle at Mount Carmel, the evil queen Jezebel attempted to hunt down Elijah to kill him later. Even more fatal to such a comparison was that the Northern Kingdom of Israel, although a monarchy and have long turned apostate, as the Old Testament Church is analogous only to the New Testament Church. As such, Elijah's dealings with Ahab cannot be transferred over to the Church's dealings with secular leaders, as Israel was under obligation to obey God, or face Covenantal curses.

The Eschaton features quite heavily in this article, and although I would prefer not to comment on it, it seems that Ledyaer has no qualms doing so. He quotes a lot of verses talking about how every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is God, of course conveniently ignoring that such will only be fulfilled when Christ comes back in the Final Judgment.

Ledyaer continues:

The task of church is to divide the light from the darkness, the grain from the tares, the sheep from the goats.

Really? I must have miss this in my Bible. According to the Scriptures, Jesus in His parable of the weeds (Mt. 13:24-30) says that He Himself will do it on the Final Judgment. The Church's job is not to divide the grain from the tares, but only to judge the profession and life of Christians by their fruits (Mt. 7:20), and not for the sole purpose of exposing them, but to correct them, and if not possible, to protect the Church against their perverse influence, which is something very different from dividing the grain from the tares (a heart issue).

Ledyaer then misuses the example of Paul's confrontation with the false Jewish prophet Bar-Jesus in Act 13:4-12, to make it some sort of normative behavior for Christians to advise government leaders. Such is most definitely an eisegesis of the text, for the text made it plain that Paul rebuke and judge Bar-Jesus not because they wanted to convert the proconsul. First of all, Paul and Barnabas did not invite themselves to the proconsul, but were summoned by him (Act. 13:7). Secondly, Paul rebuke and pass judment on Bar-Jesus only after he seek to turn the proconsul from the faith. Therefore, the focus of this encounter was not that we should go around seeking to rebuke and remove the non-Christian advisors and take ther place, or to reunite church with state, as Ledyaer would have us believe. In fact, the fact that Paul and Barnabas did not decide to either stay or send another Christian to relace the now blinded Elymas as his advisor speaks volumes about the eisegetical error of Ledyaer in interpreting this particular passage.

The example of Daniel's three friends in the fiery furnace resulting in Nebuchadnezzar praising God and ordering no one who blasphemed God to be left unpunished (Dan. 3:8-30), and the examples of King Darius and King Ahasuerus (book of Esther) are used by Ledyaer to prove that the "The dialogue between church and state will revive and transfigure the latter beyond recognition". However, this is false. All of such changes are of the Lord's doing, not the Church's doing. What the people did were to remain steadfast and commit their lives to God as a witness to Him, not to have a "dialogue between church and state". Ledyaer would very welll read the texts himself to know that it is God who does the work and that for a specific purpose, and Him alone, not the Church.

And now, I would like to close off with a final remark by Ledyaer.

If Jesus is the head of church, then His dominating position in the world is a legitimate position of church.

Such form of reasoning is utterly ridiculous. Using such a trajectory, can we say that since Jesus is the head of the Church, His position as the Mediator between God and Man in the world is a legitimate position of the Church? That of course would be blasphemy, in setting up other christs like what the Romanists do with their priests being Alter Christus (another Christ).

Thus, in conclusion, we have seen Ledyaer's seeming embrace of the "river" concept, and have refuted his embrace of Instituional Redemption, which resulted in his twisted methodoloy of "revival from the top down". We have also seen how it leads to Dominionism and the likely formation of a Church-state reminiscent of Roman Catholicism during its heyday before the Reformation. Also, Ledyaer has been shown to misinterpret the Scriptures to teach and/or support his own pet doctrines. As such, Ledyaer is not to be trusted spiritually. He is a Neo-Apostolic Domionist and such teaching of his is heresy. May God help us that we would not fall into the heretical positions he advocates.

On Pastor Alexey Ledyaev (part 1)

Recently, a friend of mine asked me with regards to one person Alexey Ledyaer, who is said to lead one New Generation Church. I haven't heard about this person, so I decided to google his name and see what I could garner. What I found was rather interesting. You can read about his church here on Wikipedia. While not authoritative, the information there generally tends to be correct. Furthermore, the Latvian's church website can be seen here and the site for the American church in Sprinfield, Massachusetts can be seen here. (Alexei's own biography can be read here) From there, we can see that Ledyaer believes that his church has an "apostolic mandate" and from the looks of it, Alexey (or Alexei) Ledyaer is the de facto pope of his network of New Generation churches.

Seraching for further data will reveal that Ledyaer have beliefs that are very similar to that held to by the Third-Wave New Apostolic Reformation; people made up of "Apostle" C. Peter Wagner, "Apostle" Ed Silvoso, "Intercessor" Cindy Jacobs, "Apostle" Dutch Sheets etc. In an article posted on his US church's website, which is based on his most famous book New World Order, Ledyaer displays two distinctive Neo-Apostolic doctrines, the notion of a 'river' and 'revival from the top down' with its promotion of the related doctrine of what I call Institutional Redemption, as defined in my review of Ed Silvoso's sermon.

Here is what Ledyaer says about the concept of River:

All rivers flow into the sea. Admit it or not, but that’s the way God created this world. This is the law. The intrusion of Christian outlook into the deep waters of any society’s political, social, economical and spiritual life is however just as natural.

The rivers of living water are a strategic revelation for the intrusion of the Kingdom of God into the territory of our unsettled cursed world.

The usage of the word 'river' here is problematic. Of obvious reason is that its usage in charismatic circles (read Neo-Apostolic and Latter Rain charismatic circles) refers to a river of blessing purportedly symbolizing revival, probably being dervied partly from the prophetic text found in Ez. 47:1-12 , and which can be seen in this song by Andy Park of Vineyard (© 1997 Mercy/Vineyard Publishing):

Down the mountain the river flows
And it brings refreshing wherever it goes
Through the valleys and over the fields
The river is rushing and the river is here

Chorus:

The river of God sets our feet a-dancing
The river of God fills our hearts with cheer
The river of God fills our mouths with laughter
And we rejoice for the river is here

The river of God is teeming with life
And all who touch it can be revived
And those who linger on this river’s shore
Will come back thirsting for more of the Lord

Up to the mountain we love to go
To find the presence of the Lord
Along the banks of the river we run
We dance with laughter giving praise to the Son

As it can be seen, Ledyaer uses it in ways similar to the Neo-Apostolic usage of the phrase. Whereas the charismatics did not use the term to talk explicitly about the instrusion of the Church into matters of the State, the Neo-Apostolic leaders have no qualms talking about such matters openly, what with all the "spiritual mapping", "spiritual warfare", and of course the entire matter of Institutional Redemption, which will be covered soon.

Now, definitely, Christians are not to be uninvolved with the world; we are not to abdicate our responsibility to be salt and light of the world. Yet, the Neo-Apostolic model, and Ledyaer's, seem to twist the sense in which such is to be done. Christians are just to be witnesses of the truth in every area of life, NOT to attempt to impose "Christendom's rule" over others. And that is where the error is. Being salt and light does not mean that the Church as an institution intrudes a Christian outlook into the 'society’s political, social, economical and spiritual life', let alone having so-called "Apostles" governing the city, even spiritually! Haven't they read that Jesus' Kingdom is not of this world? (Jn. 18:36) Yet they behave otherwise.

And an even more disturbing problem with the usage of the word 'river' is its use for the transformtion of the world into a new world order, whether used by New Agers to talk about the Aquarium Age or in this case by networking churches to bring about the 'new-paradigm' churches, as what Ledyaer seems to be doing. As Herescope reports some time back

“The River” is also “emergent” – the birth of a new spiritual creature upon the face of the earth representing unparalleled global ecumenism, cooperation and syncretism. This spiritual anomaly is rapidly gaining strength and volume. It is devouring everything in its sight, reaching into vast uncharted territories beyond the Church body itself. It intends to flood across the culture – changing the tide of economic systems, governments, education, the arts, health care, and much more -- all streams merging into a behemoth Corporate Spiritual State with unprecedented power.

...

Transform World is dominionist, serving as a high-powered catalyst for collaborations between church and state worldwide under the guise of missionary activity. Its leaders include Luis Bush, Ed Silvoso, Graham Power, and a host of other well-known leadership in the mission arena. Its “transformation” agenda, achieved via networking, has to do with changing governments, the workplace, society, culture and ultimately restoring paradise to the planet Earth.

This is definitely very disturbing, as this seems to bring about the one-world religion with syncretic false 'christianity' being 'victorius' over all others (read Mystery Babylon) and then persecuting true Christians.

Anyway, let us look into the topic of Institutional Redemption as stated in Ledyaer's article, where he wrotes:

At the very moment the blood of Jesus was shed on the cross, which meant the price for the redemption of the whole human kind was paid, all the nations of the earth with no exception ceased to be the property of the former owner.

As soon as “It is finished” had sounded, the spiritual seal “paid for” was set on the territory of every country, state and government.

If they are paid for, it means that Satan is legally deprived of power over them.

Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and all Middle East countries are “paid for,” so they are God’s property.

The African peoples from Cape Town up to Cairo are “paid for,” so they are God’s property.

The European countries are “paid for”, so they are God’s property.

China, India, Japan and the entire Eastern Asia region are “paid for,” so they are God’s property.

USA, Russia and all that are with them are “paid for,” so they are God’s property.

And the paid goods are immediately taken from the territory of the pagan market to the address of the Buyer – the territory of the Kingdom of God. It is legal, rightful and well founded.

The understanding of the Redemption is the foundation and driving force of the Great Commission.

Jesus had paid the price and He commissioned church with taking the paid goods to the territory of God’s Kingdom. Therefore, He gave church grace and apostleship to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and for obedience to the faith among all nations.

As with any pervason, the doctrine of Institutional Redemption have enough truth in it to catch the unwary (of which most 'evangelicals' are so gullible that they would probably fall for a heresy much larder than this anway, but I disgress). It is true that the Great Commission is not that the Gospel is not to preach to all except those in power. Also, when Jesus died on the Cross, He has purchased the power to save all His people, however many they may be, even the whole world. And most definitely, He would save people from every nation and tribe and tongue (Rev. 5:9). However, Ledyaer here is talking about the concept of Institutional Redemption, whereby Jesus dies for Countries and Institutions, more than "merely" individuals. Institutional Redemption is unbiblical, since Jesus died for people as a substitute for our sins (Penal Substitionary Atonement) and therefore if He died for countries and Institutes, how could such a substitution ever occur in the first place? Moreover, since all the countries and empires would be demolished and brought to an end by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in His second advent (Dan. 2:44), how can they be said to be redeemed when they are destroyed by Christ?

Later on, Ledyaer presses home one application for this theory of Institutional Redemption; that

In cutting ourselves off from the world, we degenerate into an ugly sectarian organization, just like Pennsylvanian Amishes

The initial response is that it is true that Christians are to be witnesses where we are, not cut off from society. Yet the historic Protestant position has always been to be involved wth society, in seeing all of us as the priesthood of believers shining as lights for Christ everywhere we are; in our families, workplaces, even politics (just look at the Magisterial Reformers Luther, Zwingli and Calvin, and the Scottish Covenantors also). Therefore, we do not need this new doctrine of Institional Redemption in order to be light and salt in this earth. What Ledyaer and the Neo-Apostolic seem to be fighting against is the Dispensational tendency of being pre-occupied with the end-times, which I likewise think is ridiculous (Imagine telling God you didn't have time to do the works of God because you were too busy waiting for His Second Coming).

Anyway, before we analyze Ledyaer's use of the Scriptures, it would be insturctive to show that he advocates for the return back to the Roman Catholic model of the Church-State, with the rule of the Church over the state. Elsewhere in his article, he wrotes,

Heaven has always ruled over the earth, and the priesthood over kings.

And if rulers separate church and state and declare war against church – they are doomed to defeat.

The dialogue between church and state will revive and transfigure the latter beyond recognition.

Church will have the mind of Christ; will think as He does; reason as He does; act as He does; claim, overcome and dominate as He does.

"Priesthood over kings"? "Transfigure the latter (the political sphere) beyond all recognition"? This is the idea of Dominionism, of having "super-Apostles" controlling the city. As stated in the last red, bold statement, what this amounts to is the Church reigning as if she were Christ on earth, controlling and dominating society externally. Instead of the biblical view of people in the nations turning to Christ and submitting to Him in all their dealing, including politics, Dominionism is the heresy which would have us return back to the Roman Church-state. The outcome of such an experiment in turning the Church into a political organization has already been seen in history; the burning of "heretics", real or otherwise, on the stake, Inquisitions, persecution of true Christians and ultimately taking the Bible away from the people because of its "subversive nature", and having to obey our "pastors/ Apostles" as their "ex-cathedra" teachings acheive infallible status. Do we as Christians want to see a return back to the Dark Ages? Why should we support a movement that would ultimately undermine the authority of Scripture, and bring about a totalitarian government who governs and persecutes anyone who disagree with them in the name of Christ; the perfect Antichrist?

And that is precisely the problem with the top-down approach. Will it bring about persecution of all but the particular sect whom the king/president converts to? Instead of focusing evangelism on leaders in the misguided hope that somehow they would change society, why is it that we distrust God who said:

The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will. (Prov. 21:1)

Nothing can happen to us except by God's will and permission. Even if the whole world is against us, as long as the Lord is with us, we shall triumph, so why this pre-occupation with those on top? Yes, we need to reach them, but to regard them as more important than others? Such higher status is not supported by the Scripture and is in fact refuted by the Apostle James (Jas. 2:1-7). How dare we think of them as more important than normal people?

In the next installment, we would analyze several examples of eisegesis which Ledyaer makes, in his quest to push his Dominonist agenda forward.

[to be continued]

Heretical song...

I was looking through various song sheets which I have accumulated, and of which I am trying to compile, when I noticed one song entitled I'm held by Your love. It has a nice tune, and it is featured on Bob Fitt's album I will bow to You. However, as I was trying to find out the author and copyright owner of the song, I found out that it was written by a certain Karen Lim from New Creation Church in Singapore, the largest Word-faith 'non-church' here. That set off alarm bells, and I analyzed the song more closely. Here are the lyrics of the song, and here is the first stanza:

I’m held by Your love,
Upheld by Your strength,
On Your shoulders You bore me,
By Your faith I stand,
Cherished by You, Lord,
Treasured in your sight,
So close to Your heart,
Held firm in Your hands.

Look closely at the text in bold red. Is the song trying to say that the reason why we Christians stand is because God has faith?! What nonsense is this!!?!! This is blatent heresy! Isn't it enough that the 'church' preaches a false gospel of prosperity or 'health-and-wealth', and that they deny that the first chapter of 1 John applies to Christians? Must they continue to add to their iniquity by exporting their poison to the non-discerning churches of Singapore?

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be anathema. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be anathema. (Gal. 1:8-9 - ESV with slight modification)

Open Season on Open Theism

Christian Research Net has declared war on Open Theism ever since it came to Pastor Ken Silva's attention that Emerging Church leader Erwin McManus promotes the heretical theory of Open Theism. Here is Dr. Gary Gilley's series on Open Theism [part 1, 2, 3, 4] and here is Pastor Bob DeWaay's article on the same subject. Coincidentally, I have been doing a series on Open Theism and Process Theology. Here is my review of The Openness of God by Clark H. Pinnock et. al. and my comments relating to my review of the book Deeper than Darwin which is very pertinent to the entire ECM movement also.

Review of book Deeper than Darwin

I have just finished a review of the bok Deeper than Darwin by John F. Haught, a philosophy of religion book which espouses Liberal theology in its particular mode of Process theology. Here it is.

Now, although ths system of Liberal theology is waaaaay out and very much different from anything remotely resembling biblical Christianity, the reason why I think this review is important is because Process theology is very similar to Open Theism, but possess certain qualities that would make it superior to Open Theism. For example, unlike Open Theism, Process theology is much more compatible with Evolution, Mysticism and the Eastern orthodox theory of Theosis with its close companion in Contemplative Spirituality. It is therefore my contention that the Emerging Church Movement (ECM), especially the Emergent wing, would take off in that direction. Although the ECM seems to be currently enamored by Open Theism, it is my prediction that Open Theism is not sufficiently post-modern and ambiguous enough for the ECM and definitely not for its Emergent wing, and therefore I predict that the ECM would move into a form of Process Theology, with its conception of 'surrendering to the depth of mystery'.

Since such is the case, and the ECM is permeating the visible churches, I think it would be a matter of time before we would have to face this in so-called 'evangelical' and post-evangelical churches. I therefore offer this review as a (hopefully) pre-emptive strike against the growing apostasy. May God help us all.

Review of 'The Openness of God'

Here is the compiled review of 'The Openness of God'.

Review of 'The Openness of God' (part 6 - chapter 5 and conclusion)

[continued on from here, here, here, here and here]

Chapter 5

In this final chapter, David Basinger decides to look at the implications the open view of God would have on 5 major areas of Christian living and theology, namely Petitionary prayer, discernment of God's will, appropriate Christian explanation(s) for evil, appropriate Christian response to social problems and the Christian's evangelistic obligations (p. 156). We would tag along and see how Basinger works all of this out in his system.

Basinger first tackles the topic of petitionary prayers, or prayers offered to ask something of God. Basinger acknowledges that proponents of specific sovereignty, which includes most who call themselves Calvinists, do believe that there are certain things God would not do if prayer was not offered, but that if it is God's will that such things be carried out, then such a prayer would definitely be offered (p. 158). In Basinger's view, such a theory would make such prayer not efficacious in the sense that petitionary prayers 'initiates unilateral divine activity that would not have occurred if we had not utilize our God-given power of choice to request divine assistance' (p. 160). In other words, without the exercise of genuine libertarian free will, petitionary prayer cannot be said to efficacious in Basinger's view. Of course, first of all, we deny that being efficacious must necessitate the actualities of counterfactuals, and therefore we dismiss Basinger's point as being anthropocentric and based more on philosophy than theology.

Let us then look then into Basinger's own view of petitionary prayer. As can be expected, since God is supposed to respect the free will of the creature, the problem the open theist view faces concerns petitionary prayers being offered on behalf of another person. As Basinger states, 'most of us affirm the open view of God doubt that He would override the freedom of one individual primarily because He was asked to do so by another' (p. 161). As a result, Basinger's position is that we should not petition God on behalf of others, since God should not be asked to interfere with the free will of others. To allow for more variety of views, Basinger, quoting his compatriots William Hasker and John Sanders, says that some of his fellow Open Theists believe that such prayers offered on behalf of another could result in God using all the noncoercive influence that He can justifiably exert on the person being prayed for (p. 161). Therefore, in other words, even if we allow for Hasker's and Sanders' position, God may still fail in accomplishing what He sets out to do. Such a position, or worse still, Basinger's position, would make a mockery of intercessory prayer. It is a fact that Christian worldwide pray that God will bring their loved ones to salvation, but according to Basinger, that is folly, while Hasker's and Sanders' position make God powerless to ensure an answer to such a prayer, except 'I tried'. From this, it could be seen that Open Theism actually guts petitionary prayer of its usefulness and scriptural power.

With regards to the next topic of God's guidance, Basinger frankly acknowledges the troubles his system would face with regards to this topic, but insists that other systems also have faults and thus The Open Theist system is more liveable, stating that at least Open Theists do not need to continually wonder whether they are following God's will for their lives. However, that is only applicable to those who do not understand how God's will is worked through their lives, and therefore want visible if not audible guidance. For those who are more interested in following the commands and decrees of God, this is a non-issue. When discussing human suffering, Basinger dismisses the Calvinist belief of evil being nongratuitous — that evil must be viewed as a necessary means to a greater good in the sense that it is something that God causes or allows because it is a necessary component in His preordained plan. Basinger, unlike Hasker, merely denies that evil is nongratuitous and is honest enough to state that for him, he rejects such reasoning because of the psychological benefits it gives him.

Basinger then takes on the topic of Social Responsibility. On this topic, he critiques the specific sovereignty system as saying that since God is the primary reason why something is so, then there is less impetus for us to correct social ills, as opposed to the Open theist position whereby whatever we do would make a 'real impact' on the world (p. 172). This is the same argument he advanced against Calvinism with regards to Evangelistic Responsibility, in saying that in Calvinism, it can never be said that 'we [humans] bear direct responsibility for the status of any other person's relationship with God' (p. 174), whereas in the Open Theist system, such a statement could be said. In both of these criticisms, Basinger makes the same error as almost all non-Calvinists in assuming that somehow ability or inability implies responsibility. Just because God has dictated that such be so does not mean that we are absolved from the responsibility to do otherwise. Our responsibility is tied to what God demands of us, and has nothing whatsoever to do with what God has caused to happen. Furthermore, it could be the case whereby God would be using us to correct some social ill or to share the Gospel with someone, and who are we to suggest otherwise? No one knows the secret things of God (Deut. 29:29) and thus we should not try to second-guess whether such a social ill is indeed God's will or whether his will is for us to do something about it. Similarly, in evangelism, we should not EVEN attempt to second-guess God in deciding whether this person or that person is predestined to heaven or hell but to obey God in proclaiming the Gospel and leaving the results to Him. Basinger thus make the same fallacy of confusing ability and responsibility, and thus his arguments are invalid.

Conclusion

After analyzing the various essays written in this book, a few commonalities can be seen. All of them have a humanistic view of the love of God and make all other attributes of God subservient to what they think is the love of God. Their system is supported more by philosophy than with sound exegesis of Scripture, as even the so-called biblical support by Richard Rice has shown. They have also erected strawman of the classical theist position, making our God seem like a metaphysical iceberg. After analyzing all their arguments, it could be safely said that their position is found wanting scripturally, historically, theologically and practically, and philosophically not superior to other systems especially the traditional biblical view. As such, since the topic is of such vital importance and they have been found to be wrong, Open theism is declared to be heresy, and their proponents called to repentance in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

[THE END!!]

Review of 'The Openness of God' (part 5 - chapter 4)

[continued on from here, here, here and here]

Chapter 4

As Hasker's essay is purely philosophical in argumentation, I would touch on the points stated here rather briefly, as with regards to the errors of logical reasoning committed by Hasker, and any issues which conflict with biblical reasoning.

Early on, we can start to see something very pertinent in Hasker's thinking. Hasker was remarking that if God were to be imperfect in some significant way, then we might still worship Him but our worship would be thus tinged with disappointment, 'with regret for what "might have been" had God not suffered from this particular imperfection' (p. 132). He then mentions that we should reject such possibilities and to see in God the sum of all perfections. However, the entire reasoning exercise he undertook reveals something, that Hasker seems to think there is such a thing as perfection apart from God. However, apart from God, how can anyone define what 'perfect' means? If it is done according to philosophical arguments, then that shows the anthropocentricity of Hasker's thought.

The first error made by Hasker is with regards to perfect being theology, or rather the argument advanced by Plato to argue for God being a perfect being. Plato regards change as either for the better or for the worse, so therefore a perfect being, being perfect cannot change, for if he change, it can only be for the worse, and thus he cease to be perfect. Therefore, according to Plato, the perfect being must not be subject to change and is changeless. Hasker objects to Plato's argumentation and provides a counter-example of an extremely accurate watch, which definitely have different readings over time and whose perfection rely on it changing in reflection to the change in time. However, what Hasker has provided is not a good analogy, as a watch is build to reflect a change in a changing quality, i.e. time. However, God is not meant to reflect anything, much less qualities which vary over time, thus Hasker's analogy is erroneous.

On the topic of divine omniscience, Hasker uses a philosophical argument to prove that God's knowledge is somehow limited. He comes up with the following proposition: "Susan was married last Saturday" and states categorically that God knows the proposition for exactly one week: before that, He does not know it because it is not yet true, and afterward He does not know it because it is no longer true (p. 136). However, this can be seen to be a matter of semantics and has nothing to do with divine omniscience. In Hasker's case, divine omniscience means that God knows that on week (i.e. X) , the statement "Susan was married last Saturday" is true, and he know this fact [that the statement would be true on week X] before, during and after the week. To use temporally true statements to disprove that God knows the truth of a particular statement is wrong, as such statements by their very nature have a limited time span.

Hasker continues the rest of his chapter in looking at the various systems of theology concerned with God's knowledge and Man's free will. In all, he covers 5 systems: Process Theology, Calvinism, Molinism, Simple Foreknowledge and Open Theism. I would comment only on the Calvinism and Open Theism sections, since I agree with Hasker on the main criticism he has of Process Theology, Molinism and Simple Foreknowledge. In particular, Hasker makes a masterful job of destroying Simple Foreknowledge as being absurd and leading either to determinism or a denial of foreknowledge, thus showing the inconsistency of Arminianism. Thus, it is true that 'If there are actions that are free in the libertarian sense, it is logically impossible for God to know in advance how such actions will turn out' (p. 148).

Calvinism

The first major objection that Hasker puts forward against Calvinism is that Calvinism undermines the notion of believers enjoying a relationship with God (p. 142). As with several people, Hasker puts the strawman objection that Calvinism makes humans into puppets who are controlled by a puppet-master, or a ventriloquist having a "conversation" with his dummy (p. 142). Hasker acknowledges that the analogies are inadequate and thus came up with the analogy of a robot whose program is designed by a computer wizard who thus can anticipate the robot's responses to an indefinitely large variety of situations (p. 143). As an analogy, this analogy sounds much better. However, it would do for us to look into Scripture rather than think whether we like the analogy being presented. Hasker however does not interact with the Calvinist view except to say that it is unappealing as an account of our personal relationship with God, and he does not go further into why this is so. Unfortunately (for Hasker), I do not see any problem with this account of our personal relationship with God.

The main objection that Hasker puts forward to Calvinism is the 'phenomena of sin and moral evil' He rightly says that it is inconsistent to say that God desires for all to be saved, when he has eternally decreed that some would be lost (p. 143), and I agree with him. That's why I have always denied that God desires that all should be saved; God only desires the salvation of the elect, but God has commanded and 'wants' the repentance of all Man. With regards to moral evil, Rom. 8:28 could be used to show that God is using all these moral evil, in fact all types of evil, for the good of His elect. All evil will in the end function to bring maximum glory to God, and that is our response to Hasker.

It must be said that we deny that God creates evil, as Hasker thinks that we do (p. 143). Evil is not something that has to be created. Evil is the absence of good, and thus it is not created as much as darkness is created. Just as darkness is created by removing light, so evil is 'created' by removing goodness. Therefore, God does not need to create evil, by not giving goodness, evil will result.

Furthermore, we would like to take note that Hasker's objection to Calvinism is purely philosophical at this point, without interaction with the texts of e.g. Rom.9, which is a pity, since Calvinism's strength is seen through the exegesis of Scripture.

Openness of God

As we look at Hasker's defense of his chosen system, we would first note Hasker's first shot at Calvinism, as questioning whether we Calvinists are unable to conceive of an open theist world, and why do we think that God would prefer a world whereby he controls everything (p. 151). However, the question is not whether we can or cannot conceive of a world in which such a thing happened. The question has always been whether that is what the Scriptures say of how God relates to the world, not whether that is 'restrictive' of God.

Hasker, in his attack of Calvinism, states that God deliberately chosen to cause all the horrible evils that afflict our world. This is not exactly true, as it equivocates on the word 'deliberately' to smear Calvinism as saying that God is the 'author of evil', whereas God, though sovereignly allowing evil, does not Himself create evil, as God being good cannot do evil. However, if we embrace the god of Open theism instead, what do we have but a god who is perpetually distressed due to all the evil on the earth, and who will do little to stop it, because otherwise it would 'violate' someone's freedom. Would you call someone who has the power to stop Hitler's Holocaust but didn't do so good? But that is what Open Theism would lead to, all done in the name of 'not violating someone's free will'. The Open theists can try to say that we Calvinists believe that God allowed Hitler to come and create the Holocaust, and that was His will. However, for the Open Theists, their god would see Hitler come into power, got surprised by the atrocities he committed, and yet did not stop him but wait for other people to do so. Therefore, the open theists have not themselves escape the problem they have posed to us. I would submit, of course, that only when we realize that God is using all these evils, no matter how bad they are, for a much greater good and His greater glory can we then resolve this problem.

I would close off with Hasker's interesting and heretical take on conversion. Hasker seems to think that believing in Christ is analogous to a quantum event. Thus, he says that 'even if it is possible, on the open view of God, for all human beings without exception to reject salvation, still this might be overwhelming improbable — so impossible that the risk of such an outcome is negligible' (p. 153). He likens such a scenario to that of all the oxygen in a room concentrating in a small volume, leaving the rest of the room devoid of oxygen and unable to sustain life, which is impossible. In this, Hasker errs as in denying Total Depravity as taught in Rom. 3:12-18 .

In conclusion of this section, Hasker has been shown not to able to prove the superiority of the Open Theism position from a philosophical perspective, only to show that is is possible within a certain paradigm. Also, Hasker's attempted attack on Calvinism has been shown to be not well-founded.

[to be continued]

Review of 'The Openness of God' (part 4 - chapter 3)

[continued on from here, here and here]

Chapter 3

In this chapter, Clark Pinnock attempts to build up on the efforts of Richard Rice in chapter 1 and John Sanders in chapter 2 by looking at how various doctrines in systematic theology is to relate in an open theist view. Thus, Pinnock covers various doctrines such as the Trinity, the Creation, God's Transcendence and Immanence, the Power of God, the immutability and impassibility of God, God's eternity and divine knowledge. We would just look at a few of them here, skipping the immutability and impassibility of God section since they have been thoroughly discussed before.

First of all, we can observe that Pinnock, as with other open theists, places unbiblical emphasis on love and also misrepresent the classical theist position as being that of an aloof monarch. It seems also that he equates having a God who interacts with His people = experiencing the openness of God, which goes to show he doesn't understand traditional theism. Nevertheless, let's move on to the doctrines in relation to Open Theism.

The first doctrine to be discussed is the doctrine of the Trinity. Pinnock made the statement that the 'Trinity points to a relational ontology in which God is more like a dynamic event than a simple substance' (p. 108). This is indeed a strange statement, unless of course you define relationship as of necessity being susceptible to changes. The orthodox position is that the three person in the Godhead are bound in a relation of perfect love towards each other, which is not 'dynamic'. In other words, we deny that having a relation necessitates the relation being dynamic and subject to changes. I doubt that Pinnock is saying that God the Father can suddenly have a 'mood swing' and decided not to love God the Son, but this is what being dynamic mean; possessing a capacity to change in your feelings. Pinnock confounds matters by saying that God as a social Trinity is 'the perfection of love and communion, the very antithesis of self-sufficiency' (p. 108), and that God would invite us creatures to 'share the richness of the divine fellowship as His friends' (p. 108). From this, it can be seen that Pinnock has erred in his doctrine of the Trinity. First of all, it is true that each person in the Trinity is not self-sufficient as there is no communion in one person. However, what orthodox theism has always proclaimed is that God consists of three persons who is self-sufficient in and of Himself, having perfect and unchanging love and communion within the three different persons in the Trinity. Therefore, just because love and communion exist within the Trinity does not imply that God is not self-sufficient in and of Himself, since God is three persons in one God.

Pinnock's second statement above is also wrong, in fact very wrong. First of all, he confuses between Jesus as the Son of God & Son of Man and Jesus as the Second person of the Trinity. Jesus as the Son of God has taken up a human nature at his incarnation, and it is this human nature which invites us to be his friends and enable us to have fellowship with God. Thus, it is not true that God invite us to share the riches of the divine fellowship, as we can never as finite time-bound creatures participate in the eternal relationship between the members of the Godhead. What Jesus offers is that through him as the mediator, we have fellowship with God, but never to intrude into what we cannot enter into in the first place (the intra-Trinity relationship). By confusing between Jesus as the Son of God and Jesus as the second person of the Trinity, Pinnock has made a serious error. Without this confusion on his part, traditional theism has no problems with the doctrine of the Trinity and the loving relationship within the Trinity.

Pinnock's next take on Creation is consistent with his semi-Pelagianism. If one were to reject semi-Pelagianism and Arminianism, then Pinnock's point regarding the Creation is of no consequence, as we deny that there is such a thing as 'free will', especially as defined by philosophers as 'libertarian free will'.

Closely related to this is Pinnock's take on God's transcendence and immanence. The Open theist view emphasizes more on the Immanence portion and in fact have a strange definition of immanence. As opposed to God's immanence being defined as God is everywhere is all creation, as in there is no place whereby God is not around, Pinnock offers a definition of God's immanence that is panentheistic! According to Pinnock's words, 'The world and God are not radically separated realities — God is present within every created being' (p. 111), citing Acts 17:28 to the effect. Of course, Acts 17:28 is meant to prove God's immanence, but not Pinnock's definition of 'immanence', but that God sustains all things and thus every action we take is sustain by Him. Pinnock next tell us that we need to recover the 'immanence' of God, which 'helps us to relate to the new creation story being supplied by modern science' (p. 113).

Of course, Pinnock's suggestion is noting short of blasphemy! The world is not somehow part of God, as panentheism teaches! If that is what open theism leads to, we are to avoid it like the plague. With regards to science, Pinnock seems too enamored by it, but for those who know the truth, we do not have to kowtow to the idol of what is falsely called science, which is just pure secular humanistic naturalism in disguise. Science can never be used to prove truth, especially when it concerns events whereby no one could confirm the exact circumstances surrounding it^[5].

Pinnock next talks about the power of God. In his system, of course, God cannot be omnipotent, as he himself admits^[6]. He uses the 'love' of God as the 'primary perfection of God' to de-emphasize the almighty power of God (p. 114). Other places, Pinnock seems to just impose his emotions to dismiss a view, calling the idea of total control 'an alarming concept and contrary to the Scriptures' (p. 114), of course without showing why this is so, unless we admit his definition of God's love which we reject as being humanistic. When discussing the system known as biblical compatibilism, which reconciles freedom and determinism at the same time, Pinnock calls it 'sleight of hand and does not work' (p. 114-115), again without showing why this is so. What Pinnock does is to pull out the 'problem' of the Fall and of the fact of evil, as these somehow discounts compatibilism. Pinnock then pulls out a few example of apparent contradictions from compatibilism and then denounce them as nonsense, without showing why this is so. Probably this is so alien to his thought process. Anyway, Pinnock then postulates a god who has a 'paradox of strength and vulnerability' (p. 115). It is somehow interesting that for Pinnock, his god can have paradoxes, while other groups' paradoxes are nonsense. I think his double standardness speaks for itself.

With regards to God's eternity, Pinnock raises the philosophical question of whether God is temporally everlasting or timelessly eternal, and then argue against the theory that God is timeless. Regardless of which is correct, God is controller of time, as He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.(Rev. 1:8; 22:13), therefore Pinnock's contention that God 'enters into the experience of time' (p. 121), with the exception of Jesus during His Incarnation,. is unscriptural.

When talking about God's divine knowledge, the term omniscience is redefined by Pinnock as he rampages through systematic theology. According to Pinnock, 'omniscience need not mean exhaustive foreknowledge of all fixed events' (p. 121), which is a radical redefinition of the term. Of course, to support his stand on omniscience, Pinnock tell us that if the future is fixed, then we are not held responsible. However, this is a philosophical concept and is contradicted by Scripture, which tell us that we are responsible even if we cannot do otherwise, with the simplest example being that all Man would go to hell unless they repent, but no one can do so of their own accord, not to mention about those who did not even have an opportunity to hear the Gospel^[7]. Pinnock supports his limited knowledge theory with evidence from the narrative accounts of Scripture, conveniently dismissing the didactic ones. In an attempt to put down the biblical position of God being omniscience, Pinnock post the question to us as to whether God 'could create a world where He would not be total control of everything, where He would experience risk and where He would not foreknow all decisions of His creature in advance', as God is all-powerful (p. 123). However, this question is just as stupid as the question as to whether God could make Himself don't exist. God cannot do anything that will compromise any of His attributes, and thus Pinnock's question is utterly nonsensical, on the same level as to whether God can make a round square.

Pinnock then make the remarkable statement that under the open theist system, 'more power and wisdom are required for God to bring His will to pass in a world that He does not control than in one that He did control' (p. 124). Problems of how to define which is harder for God to make aside (I personally think that it is harder for God to make a world whereby He can exercise total control and yet people operate as if there is little control over their lives), the question is not which is harder, but which is consistent with God's character and attributes, and on this Open Theism fails as shown in the analysis of chapter 1 above.

And with this, it is time to enter the lion's den of philosophy, the basis upon which Open Theism originates, with William Hasker, in the next post.

[to be continued]

---

References:

[5] This is especially in the field called historical sciences, which evolution is part of. A major presupposition for the theory of evolution is the philosophy of uniformitarianism, which is itself not provable. If this philosophy is wrong, then the entire evolution 'story' falls apart.

[6] In a world reflecting a triune community, God does not monopolize the power. (p. 113)

[7] It is fact that some open theists, because of their embrace of Open Theism, consistently reject the exclusivity of Christ's gospel and thus grow deeper into heresy.

Review of 'The Openness of God' (part 3 - chapter 2)

[continued on from here and here]

Chapter 2

This chapter is written by John Sanders on historical considerations attempts to 'document the manner in which I [Sanders] believe the Greek metaphysical system "boxed up" the God described in the Bible and the tremendous impact this has had in shaping the Christian understandings ... ' (p. 60). It thus traces the beliefs of various philosophers and theologians throughout Western history. Sander's main point of contention is that the traditional understanding of God as being immutable and impassable derives from Greek philosophy rather than the Scriptures. We have already seen that in the review of the previous chapter that Open Theism is not tenable in the light of Scripture. It would thus be interesting to interact with Sanders' thesis to see whether what he postulates is really true.

Sanders first starts off by suggesting that 'many of us do read the Bible initially as saying that God responds to us and may change His mind' (p. 59). However, I find such a claim questionable. Is he really so sure of that as being normative for most Christian, or only among the Christians he interacts with? As for this reviewer, I disagree with Sanders on this. Certainly, as a young Christian, our knowledge of God is very shallow. However, I never thought of my prayer changing God's mind. God responding to my prayer, Yes, but my prayer does not changes His mind. When I pray, I believe that God would respond by giving me the best, which I secretly hope is what I want of course. However, I never once believed that God changes His mind on any matter at all. Sanders in this statement thus attempt to drive a wedge against the doctrine of foreknowledge using the perspicuity of Scripture, but it is invalid as his statement is not true at least for me and can never be proven to be true of Christians in general.

One major problem with Sanders' thesis is that to postulate that the concept (not just the language) of immutability and impassibility as applied to God as being Greek concepts and not Christian concepts, it must be the case that in Greek thought there must be only one concept of God in these aspects. In other words, there cannot exist in Greek thought concurrently the concept of God being immutable and that of being mutable, or being passable and impassable. If that were to be the case, then either way Christianity can be said to imbibe on Greek thought either way, since both logically contradictory positions are covered by Greek thought. And this is what we will see to the case in Greek culture. The gods present in the popular Greek religion are mutable and passable, whereas the philosopher's Ideal or idea of God is immutable and impassable. Since this is the case, how then can Sanders prove his position? We could say that the Open Theists view is actually the Christianization of Greek popular religion, and that would be even more accurate, since the worldviews of both the modern age and during the times of the Greeks are very similar.

The second major problem in Sanders' argument lies in the fact that he commits the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc (or reading causality from sequential turn of events). For example, when talking the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria, Sanders entitled the section 'Philo the Bridge from the Greeks to the Christians'. Sanders said that for Philo, 'the Greek metaphysical understanding of divinity ruled his interpretation of the biblical texts that describe God as genuinely responsive' (p. 71). Sanders then carried on walking down the corridors of time to the early church fathers like Ignatius and Justin Martyr (p. 73), Tertullian, Origen (p. 74-75), Athanasius and the Cappodocian fathers (p. 77-80), and of course through Augustine (p. 80-85), the Reformers (p. 87-91), and down through the modern age (p. 91-98). However, by so doing, Sanders has only proven that the Hellenic thought of God being immutable and impassable was similar to that of the early Christians, and that the early church fathers struggled with the topic, all of which does not prove causality at all. As it has been said in the previous paragraph, that one aspect of Greek thought seems to win out over the other in being preserved in Christianity means nothing, for there are no other options between A and ~A (the law of the excluded middle). Sanders' essay, while interesting, does not prove his case at all.

From Sander's essay, it can be seen that Sanders is either not above enacting strawman or is ignorant of what the other position actually teaches. In numerous places, he states that classic theism teaches that 'we are like donkeys who go where the rider bids but cannot choose the rider' (p. 88), which is an expression of hard determinism or fatalism, that we conjoin the 'loving, interactive God of the Bible' with 'the static, independent God of Greek metaphysics' (p. 95-96). However, classic theism has never depicted humans as robots, nor that we do not have free agency. Sanders furthermore states that in classical theism, 'it became commonplace to deny any real suffering of the Son and it was difficult to speak of relationally within the Godhead' (p. 100), an assertion blatantly false within evangelicalism. Sanders has also used the underhand tactic of poisoning the well, as he said that the Reformers 'did not turn their backs on the entire Christian tradition to go directly to the Bible for their theologies' (p. 87), and that John Calvin denied 'the obvious meaning of the text' (p. 90), as if Sanders could very well read the motives of the Reformers, and of course of the early church fathers whom he accused of synthesizing 'biblical and philosophical God concepts' (p. 72).

As we survey the historical landscape, Sanders seems to distrust the providence of God in preserving true doctrine. Since the nature of God and of God's activity is so vital to Christianity, why it is that God cannot preserve His Truth from influence by Hellenic thought, as Sander insinuates? Why is it that such a vital topic has been corrupted so early in church history (~100AD) according to Sanders, and only rediscovered by theologians and philosophers in the late 20th century who have been influenced by liberal theologians and neo-orthodox theologians?

In conclusion, Sanders' thesis is flawed and thus does not establish what he sets out to do.

[to be continued]

Review of 'The Openness of God' (part 2 - chapter 1)

[continued on from here]

Chapter 1

Richard Rice starts by defining both the traditional view of God and then the open view of God, followed by trying to muster support for the open view from Scripture. We would look at the definitions of the open view of God first before examining the passages Rice uses to attempt to support his position.

Humanistic pre-occupation with love

When one looks at the open view as set forth by Rice, it could be seen that the love of God is the central characteristic that is being focused on in this system. According to Rice, 'love is the first and last word in the biblical portrait of God' (p. 18), quoting 1 Jn. 4:8 to that effect. He further states that the 'statement that God is love is as close as the Bible comes to giving us a definition of the divine reality' and that 'Christian theology has always given this expression pride of place among the many descriptions of God' (p. 18). He claims also that 'there is widespread theological support for the idea that love is central to both the revelation and the reality of God' (p. 19). Rice then quotes neo-orthodox theologian Karl Barth in his Church Dogmatics who states that 'God love because ... this act is His being, His essence and His nature' (p. 20). Rice further quotes the neo-orthodox theologian Emil Brunner who says that 'love is not a mere quality or attribute that God happens to have in common with other beings; it is the very nature of God Himself' (p. 20). Rice also quotes Walter Kasper and Wolfhart Pannenberg who both emphasized the importance of God's attribute of love. Pannenberg is also quoted as saying that 'Only in the love of God does the concrete form of his (God) essence come to expression.' (p. 20). With all this stated, Rice made the following statements, that 'Consequently, when we enumerate God's qualities, we must put love at the head of the list' and that 'Love is the concrete reality that unifies all of the attributes of God. A doctrine of God that is faithful to the Bible must show that all of God's characteristics derive from love' (p. 21).

From what has been seen so far, Rice has decided to place God's love as being of primary importance and thus the lens upon which all Scripture is to be interpreted, and this is the lens whereby he reads all of Scripture in order to support his open theism. However, does the Bible warrants such an emphasis placed upon the love of God, or is that something Rice has just decided to embrace without any biblical support?

Now, when looking at this topic, it must be said that Scripture definitely emphasizes God's love. What is being discussed is not whether God's love is important, but whether it is of primary significance, or more significantly, whether it only is of primary significance. My contention is that the attribute of God as love is not the only attribute of primary significance and therefore Rice has already erred in the first instance.

What does it mean for an attribute of God to be of primary significance? This means that that is definitional of God and is not derived from some other attribute of God. For example, God's mercy cannot be said to be of primary significance, as mercy is an attribute that is derived from God's sovereignty and God's love. The verse used to proof-text Rice's contention that God's love is THE only primary attribute of God, 1 Jn. 4:8, does not supports this thesis of his. Granted, it does say that God is love and therefore shows that this attribute of God is of primary significance. However, it is one thing to say that the love of God is of primary significance and another thing to say that ONLY the love of God is of primary significance. Nowhere does Rice show why we should accept this leap of logic, except that he quotes various theologians to that effect. However, in the absence of Scriptural support, this constitutes a false appeal to authority. Furthermore, of the theologians he quoted, of least two (Karl Barth and Emil Brunner) are neo-orthodox theologians who are unorthodox at best. Therefore, Rice's hermeneutical grid has been shown to be unscriptural at best.

However, even if we accept Rice's hermeneutical matrix, the question is to be asked as to what God being love means. As it has been said, the fact that God is love is actually bad news for us sinners. Because God is love, He must hate us sinners, since He is good while we are evil. Therefore, the only way that Rice's hermeneutical matrix can make sense is that the love of God is being redefined to a modern humanistic understanding of love. The verse Ps. 50:21 comes to mind:

These things you have done, and I have been silent;
you thought that I was one like yourself.
But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you. (Ps. 50:21)

With that stated, let us look at the biblical evidence.

The biblical evidence: Old Testament

Under Old Testament evidences for the Openness of God, Rice uses the narrative portion of Scripture to show forth God's feelings, as the 'inner life of God' (p. 24). He also quotes the Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel as saying that 'Hosea ... came to see that the anguish his troubled marriage brought him was "a mirror of the divine pathos, that his sorrow echoed the sorrow of God" ' (p. 26), and that 'Whatever man does affects not only his own life, but also the life of God ... He is a consort, a partner, a factor in the life of God' (p. 26). Rice also used the narrative portions of the Old Testament to show that God changes His mind; His intentions, which we shall hereby look into detail now

First of all, with regards to the 'feelings of God', Rice has made a valid point that God does have feelings. However, the fact is that traditional theism does not dispute that God has feelings. What traditional theism has always believe regarding the attribute of God being impassable is that God's emotions are not involuntary and are controlled by God. In other words, God does not have mood swings^[1]. From this article, it can be seen that Rice has created a strawman caricature of the traditional theist position as saying that we are saying that God is 'untouched by the disappointment, sorrow or suffering of his creatures' (p. 12), or that 'the real God of the Bible is made of sterner stuff. ... so the tender feelings we read of in the prophets are merely examples of poetic license' (p. 25). This is not true of the traditional theist position at all, and to caricature our position as saying that God is a metaphysical iceberg which have no true feelings is plainly wrong.

With regards as to how we can reconcile the facts that God has feelings without compromising his impassibility, we will say that His feelings are fixed reactions to circumstances that happen in time. Therefore, God will always have that feeling towards a particular circumstance and that feeling would be manifested when the circumstance presents itself. God therefore has control over His emotions which are an expressions of His many attributes. As an example, God would show anger over rebellion against Him because of His attribute of holiness which manifests in a hatred of sin. Therefore, it never be said that God changes in His feelings, just that they are manifested depending on what the situation is, which changes over time. To put it simply, God's feelings are eternally demarcated, but they are manifested only when the scenario demands it.

With regards to God's intention, the easiest response to Rice is to point out that the fact that he is gleaning theology from narrative rather than didactic accounts. This is definitely an illegitimate tactic in biblical interpretation, especially since the didactic account (i.e. Num. 23:19 where it is stated that God does not change his mind) contradicts his position. In opposition to Stephan Charnock's position that when the Bible says that 'when God "turns" from love to wrath, or from wrath to love, this describes a change in the way people relate to God, not in the way he relates to them', Rice points out the fact that in the case of Moses' intercession, God relents in direct response to Moses' plea, not as a consequence of the people's repentance of their apostasy (p. 28). Rice goes further in saying that all these incidents whereby God seems to change his plans indicates that human intercession can influence God's actions (p. 29). In response to this assertion by Rice, we would say that just because a narrative seems to say that God relents and changes his mind doesn't mean that God ever intended to do that action anyway. As Rice has noticed, Moses' appeal in his intercession before God presupposes that God's ultimate purposes must be carried out, which would not be able to be carried out if God had destroyed the Israelites as He has threatened to do (Ex. 32:10). Rice, however, uses this episode to say that God's ultimate objectives required Him to change His intermediate intentions (p. 28). To this, however, we respond and ask Rice where is it stated in Scripture that God has such an immediate intention to wipe out the Israelites. Of course, none can be found, for although God threatened to wipe them out, this does not imply that it is God's intention to do so. Rice has here confused between command/preference and intention^[2], as if God expressing a hypothetical wish to wipe out the Israelites means that He will in actuality wants to do so. This is similarly the case with Jonah and Nineveh (p. 31) and the sayings of Jeremiah in Jer. 18:7-10 (p. 31-32).

Rice next attempts to utilize God's promises to David, as they seemed to be an unconditional one as opposed to that made to Saul (2 Sam. 7:15-16) and make a case that they are actually conditional as in the end, the physical Kingdom also ended. He then states that evidently God attached conditions to His promise, even they were not spelled out at first (p. 30). However, this only goes to show Rice's either ignorance or purposely ignoring the true nature of the Davidic Covenant, which is fulfilled in Jesus, who is an eternal King over His people.

Rice finally got down to addressing the passages in Num. 23:19 and 1 Sam. 15:29 which state that God does not change His mind. To get around these verses, he states that 'the word repent in both instance is used synonymously with the word lie. ... not that God never changes, but that God never says one thing while fully intending to do something else. Only in this limited sense of the word does God not "repent" ' (p. 33). However, is that the correct way to interpret the verses? Is the word repent really the same as the word lie? Yes, there seems to be some sort of parallelism in Num. 23:19 between the phrases 'man, that He should lie' and 'son of man, that He should change His mind', but parallelism does not necessarily mean that the terms are synonymous; they only mean that there is some close relations between the terms. In this case, the close relation could be that both are things which are characteristic of Man. In any case, even if I were to grant the case for Num. 23:19, this would not hold true for 1 Sam. 15:29, where a different word for lie was used compared to that used in Num. 23:19 (Shaqar in 1 Sam. 15:29 instead of kazab in Num. 23:19). Therefore, Rice's contention that the verses actually mean that God does not 'repent' in the sense of saying one thing while fully intending to do another thing is wrong. Anyway, this is indeed a novel (re)definition of the word 'repent', which makes it definitely unlikely that the verses actually mean.

Rice next make a logical fallacy by saying that the sentence that 'God will not repent presupposes the general possibility that God can repent when he chooses' (p. 33). Using basic Aristotelian logic, it can be seen that just because there are elements from a set G (God) having elements outside the set R (those who can repent) does not mean that there are elements from G in the set R [G ⊃ ~R does not imply that G ⊃R].

The final part in this argument (which had been more philosophical than exegetical so far) is with regards to God's actions.Rice correctly stated that in a passage supposed to discuss biblical evidences, this was not the place to develop a philosophy of action (p. 36). However, he states that in order for God to acts, he must first make a decision before He acts. This has no bearing in the discussion, however, as God could be said to make all the decisions before the foundation of the world. Only if you postulate a God who changes His intentions could such a thing be a problem for the traditional position.

The biblical evidence: New Testament

Rice's main evidence for open theism in the New Testament centered on the life, ministry and death of Jesus. From what he has written, it seems that his main thought is that if he establishes the fact that Jesus has emotions and that he changes his emotions while on earth, then Open Theism is established. This can be seen in the statement he made towards the end of this segment where he states that "Identifying God with Jesus leads us ultimately to the conclusion that what Jesus experienced in the depths of his anguish was experienced by God Himself' (p. 46). However, is that a valid argument?

Now, it is irrefutable that Jesus experienced change while he was on earth. That is a given, as well as the fact that Jesus experience a wide range of emotions. However, to say that because Jesus experienced change means that God experience change is questionable. Jesus is indeed God, but God is not Jesus, as Rice insisted (p. 39). God is a Trinity; 3 person in 1 God, and therefore the statement that God is Jesus is erroneous^[3]. Furthermore, in historic orthodox Christology, we do know that Jesus 'picked up' a human nature at the Incarnation, thus He who was formerly only God as the Second Person of the Trinity is now 100% God and 100% Man. Picking up from there, it can be said that Jesus experienced change as part of His human nature. If such were the case, which it is, then Rice's entire argument would be rendered invalid.

As a side note, it would ne interesting to note that Rice's beliefs regarding the doctrine of the Atonement seems rather strange. First, he misinterprets Jn. 12:32-33 cf. 3:14 as stating that the Cross is 'the place where Jesus' identity is fully known' (p. 44), which is wrong as a look at the context would show. Jesus is saying that the Cross is where He would draw people to Himself, in other words He would save His people from their sins by dying on the Cross, using an analogy to the status of the serpent which Moses made and raised up during his time. Further down, it could be seen that Rice regarded the Atonement as a place whereby God suffered to provide an offer of salvation to all. Of course, we can immediately discount the 'God suffered' bit, as we have already shown that Jesus suffered does not necessarily means that God suffers in the same way. From the statement, we can also see Rice believes in the theory of Universal Atonement and seems to play down the propitiatory portion of the Atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Problem passages: Interactions

In this section, Rice attempts to interact with the main passages that would pose a problem for the Open view. The first group of Num. 23:19 and 1 Sam. 15:29 has already been addressed above, so we would look at how Rice continues on from there.

Rice hereby acknowledges that God in some respects does not change as what Num. 23:19 and 1 Sam. 15:29 has said and in which he has limited to the expression to. Therefore, he states that 'both change and changelessness [can be attributed] to God if we apply them to different aspects of His being' (p. 48). He then states that aspects of divinity are completely unaffected by anything else whereas God's concrete relation to the world is where God is dynamic with respect to his experience of it (p. 48). This sounds all very nice, until you start questioning who determines which aspect of God get placed into which category. Which aspect of God are aspects of divinity? The list made by Rice seems rather arbitrary. After all, why must God's character be a 'divine attribute' since God would be affected by the things which would happen while on earth? It can be seen therefore that Rice has opened a Pandora's Box which has the potential to lead one back to Process Theology and Liberal Theology.

The next text which Rice interacts with is that in Ex. 3:14a, where God reveals Himself as the great I AM. Rice appeals falsely to authority of 'biblical and systematic theologians today' (p. 49), to say that our traditional interpretation of this text as being a statement revealing the ontological being of God is false, favorably quoting the neo-orthodox theologian Emil Brunner to that effect^[4]. However, besides making appeals to authority, Rice has never tell us why the traditional view is wrong, and therefore the traditional view stands.

Rice next take on the topic of prophecy, primarily focusing on the genre of "conditional prophecies", or those whose fulfillment depended on certain human responses coming true. As an example, Jonah and the city of Nineveh was used. However, the fact of the matter is that God did not tell Jonah whether Nineveh was to be destroyed or saved in the end, only to warn and speak against them (Jon. 1:2; 3:2), thus the point is invalid. Rice next focuses on promises of blessings and destructions as stated in Jer. 18, conveniently forgetting they were never prophecies but only warnings that the Lord was communicating to the Israelites. Next, Rice made the astonishing claim that God intended Saul to permanently be the king of Israel (in other words David was an afterthought). This is of course not found in Scripture, unless you claim that when God expressed regret over choosing Saul, God is truly surprised by the events that have unfolded. Of course, since the kings and the ultimate King of Kings were to have come from the tribe of Judah (Gen. 49:10) and not Benjamin anyway, it could be seen that God's intentions have always been for David to be the king of Israel. not Saul (Saul was just an object lesson).

Rice's preoccupation with "conditional prophecies", however, blinds him to the more important fact of most prophecies which are not conditional at all, like the prophecies regarding the coming of Christ, or that of the end times, or even something as simple as the destruction of Jerusalem (Mk. 13:1-2). If the open view was truly correct, how could it allow for the possibility of the fulfillment of prophecies, especially those that are next to impossible to fulfil (like those of the life of Christ). Prophecy is thus a very problematic topic for the Open theists, unless they were to embrace at least a form of Molinism at this point.

Foreknowledge and predestination

The last major biblical theme which Rice addresses is that of foreknowledge and predestination. Consistent with his Arminianism, Rice attempts to use the Arminian prooftexts 2 Pet. 3:9 and 1 Tim. 2:4 cf. Tit. 2:11 to say that God desires the salvation of all man, with 'all' here referring to every single person, in order to make the point that not everything that God desires will be accomplished. Putting it broadly, the 'fact that God foreknows or predestines something does not guarantee that it will happen, the fact that God determines part of history does not mean that he determines all of history, ... ' (p. 56). Rice also uses the usual Arminian explanation of predestination in for example Rom. 9 as being a 'corporate call to service' (p. 56). In this area, Rice does not interact with the biblical texts unlike his opponents on this very topic and therefore his 'explanation' seems to be more along the lines of how open theism can fit into the Arminian system rather than engaging the Calvinist position. In fact, Rice calls Arminians to task on their interpretation of 2 Pet. 3:9 and 1 Tim. 2:4 as being inconsistent with the classic Arminian doctrine of foreknowledge and more in line with open theism. I would leave the Arminians to attempt to defend their position from open theists like Rice, while agreeing with Rice that Arminianism is inconsistent at this point. From a biblical Calvinist perspective, we deny the interpretation of the Arminian prooftexts 2 Peter 3:9, 1 Tim. 2:4 etc, and also the Arminian understanding of predestination. A look at Rom. 9 for example in context would demonstrate the error of the Arminian position, as they can for example never account for the analogy of the vessels of mercy and the vessels of wrath which are clearly referring to individuals in Rom. 9: 21-23.

Conclusion

After analyzing the Scriptures, it can be seen that Rice's contention falls short of what he sets out to do. The Scriptures can be seen not to support Open Theism, and in fact actually pose a lot of problems for it, especially on the topics of prophecy and God's foreknowledge and predestination.

[to be continued]

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References

[1] God without Mood Swings (http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/articles/impassib.htm) by Phil R. Johnson

[2] This is the same confusion made by many of the 'common grace'/ 'well-meant offer of the Gospel' crowd. Just because God expresses a preference and even pleads for sinner to repent does not mean that he desire their [actual] repentance.

[3] Oneness Pentecostals are a group which do make that claim, but they are not orthodox in their Christology.

[4] According to Emil Brunner, it is a "disastrous misunderstanding" to treat this expression as an ontological definition of God (Christian Doctrine of God, pp. 120, 128-129). As quoted in Pinnock et. al, The Openness of God, Chapter 1 endnote 71