signs the confessional standards in good faith is necessarily dismissed as a "paleo-Calvinist"--the cranky
grandfather who cannot seem to realize that his number is up. But this is bullying, not arguing.
Pinnock adds, "Openness theology must be opposed more radically because it poses much more of a
threat [than mere free will theism]. ( I actually agree with the paleo-Calvinists about that.) As in politics,
where winning however you do it is the only goal, so in this context the gatekeepers of orthodoxy will
resort to anything," including "scare tactics and lying" (15). "The attacks and hostility never seems to end"
(16). This is theology by pathos and it is beneath theologians of Pinnock's stature.
If it is wrong to dismiss open theism as simply a revival of Socinianism or a lackey of process theism, it
is just as erroneous to conclude that open theism represents a noble stream of Christian thought. No group
generally recognized as "orthodox" or "catholic" (Eastern or Western)--that is, belonging to the
mainstream Christian tradition, has ever denied God's exhaustive foreknowledge, atemporality, aseity,
simplicity or immutability, as those terms have been historically understood. None of this should be treated
by openness theologians as uncharitable, since Pinnock himself recognizes and even frequently revels in
the radical character of his proposal, characterizing his earlier book as a "bombshell on the theological
playground (to recall Barth's expression)" (xi). After all, "it waved a red flag in their faces." "I have to be
sanguine, how could one expect those, who have only recently come to tolerate Arminian thinking, to
stomach a more radical version of it...The fact is that the openness model diverges from historic Protestant
and Catholic thought at several points and inevitably becomes a target for criticism" (ibid.).
hardly have unleashed the energies for dynamic Christian action in missions, social compassion, education
and the arts, vocation, and countless other enterprises. Many of us fail to recognize Reformed theology in
his polemical descriptions of it. Even when he attempts to recognize that Calvinists sometimes affirm the
correct beliefs, he can only credit this to their " trying to work such [open theist] themes into their work."
In fact, they are seeking to "co-opt them," he suggests, "...taking advantage of the rhetoric of the open
view of God, which Bible readers find compelling, and are trying to work it into their own language" (75).
He ignores the criticism within the Reformed tradition of various aspects of traditional formulations and
seems to advocate the astonishing thesis that covenant theology was launched in 1994 with the publication
of The Openness of God.
challenge the conventional thinking head-on" (77). But couldn't it simply reflect the struggle that all
responsible theology must experience when attempting to formulate and systematize the fruit of exegesis?
It is quite possible that this recent debate and similar proposals from mainline theologians have
highlighted certain traditional problems. It is undoubtedly true that conservative theologies in the last two
centuries have often been uncritical of inherited categories and formulations, a fact that stands in sharp
contrast to the Reformation and post-Reformation dogmatic tradition. We do need to always be evaluating
our formulations in the light of God's Word. But Pinnock seems to work in azure isolation. He speaks a
great deal about his personal struggle, but does not seem to appreciate that Christian theologians, especially
since the Reformation, have been struggling with the problems of the medieval synthesis before the advent
of open theism.
Orthodox Christians are bound by their affirmation of the absolute normativity of scripture above
tradition to allow for the possibility of having gotten their doctrine of God wrong--even for a very long
time. Helped by the communion of saints throughout all times and places, we cannot be otherwise than
suspicious of heterodoxy, but "orthodoxy" is defined ultimately by its faithfulness to scripture. On that
much we can certainly agree.