incarnation and divine suffering..." (142).
It is no secret that there are strong similarities between process thought and open
theism: both process and open theists have repeatedly acknowledged these. However,
they have also acknowledged important differences even in these two works that we are
citing (Pinnock, 142-150; Sanders, 161, 190, 207, 113).
up speaking of transcendence and immanence in quite abstract, static and general terms.
They appear to be timeless ideas, drawn from the familiar antitheses of ancient and
modern dualism (and dualistic monism) and this often leads to false dilemmas. Either we
worship a God who does not want to "control everything, but to give the creature room to
exist and freedom to love," or "...an all-controlling despot who can tolerate no resistance
(Calvin)" (4), giving the false impression that Calvin actually held this position attributed
to him. Further, we must choose between a God who is "immobile" (a "solitary monad")
and the "Living God" who is dependent on the creation for his happiness (6). But who
really believes the former? That is important, since the very title of Pinnock's book
suggests that the position he is criticizing is little more than a religious gloss on
Aristotle's "Unmoved Mover." He calls it "the immobility package" (78). But if there is
no such thing, it would seem that the options are not as extreme as some would have us
believe. Since Pinnock repeats this charge, a brief response will illustrate my larger
point.
Clark Pinnock and his colleagues conflate immutability and immobility. But this
misses a crucial step; namely, that of determining whether the tradition did in fact adopt
Aristotle's doctrine. As Richard Muller points out, "The scholastic notion of God as
immobile does not translate into English as `immobile'--as one of the many cases of
cognates not being fully convertible--but as `unmoved.'"
differences are greater. Since Old Princeton is often targeted as the bastion of classical
Pinnock even refers to Whitehead as a Christian, although this would have been questioned as much by
Whitehead, at most a Unitarian, as by anyone. These writers treated the Incarnation as an idea--an abstract,
general concept. This is far, it seems to me, from the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation, which is hardly
an instance of a general type. It cannot be made into a general philosophical concept, whether of a
Parmenidean-Kierkegaardian or Heraclitean-Hegelian form. Hegel, Teilhard and Whitehead were as
indebted to Greek thought (the Heraclitean type) as their Stoic friends were devoted to Parmenides. In fact,
elsewhere Pinnock draws on Justin Martyr's formulation of the logos concept in his search for a universal
natural theology, even though the Stoic influence is well known.
something he wants" (29). There is no panentheism in his remark, "God enjoys the world; it means
something to him as an expression, but it is not an essential element of his self" (30).