UNIVERSITY OF WALES

CONTINENTAL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM

A CRITICAL EVALUATION OF THE RELIGIOUS ADEQUACY

OF OPEN THEISM: TOWARD AN OPEN THEISTIC THEOLOGY OF

PETITIONARY PRAYER

A THESIS SUBMITTED TO

DR. JOSEPH DIMITROV

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR

THE MASTER OF THEOLOGY

ADVISOR, DR. GREGORY A. BOYD

BY

THOMAS G. BELT

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA

JANUARY 2007

SUMMARY OF THESISSUMMARY OF THESISSUMMARY OF THESISSUMMARY OF THESIS

TITLE: A Critical Evaluation of the Religious Adequacy of Open Theism: Toward

an Open Theistic Theology of Petitionary Prayer. NAME: Thomas G. Belt INSTITUTION: Continental Theological Seminary, Brussels, Belgium & The University of

Wales. DEGREE: MTh SUMMARY

Open theists have claimed that their views of the God-world relationship provide a religiously adequate basis upon which to live life. It is specifically claimed that the open view makes best sense of petitionary prayer as an act by which believers freely participate in fulfilling God’s purposes through shaping themselves and the world. How ought the unique beliefs of open theism to affect our understanding of petitionary prayer? In this thesis I examine the implications which open theism has for our understanding of prayer as a means by which God accomplishes his purposes in the world and ask whether or not this understanding of prayer is religiously adequate. In focusing on the implications which open theism has for our understanding of prayer, I hope to bring belief to bear upon one of the most practical every-day concerns of religious persons and thus have an opportunity to judge the existential case for open theism.

This thesis examines the nature and difficulties of adequacy claims, summarizes the defining claim and essential convictions of open theism, reviews the contributions to an understanding of petitionary prayer made by open theists, evaluates objections that ground the existential case for the religious inadequacy of open theism, and offers several guiding theses towards an open theist theology of prayer. It concludes that open theists may enjoy at least as vibrant and adequate a prayer life as other Christian believers.

CONTENTSCONTENTSCONTENTSCONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 The arrival of open theism 1.2 The popularity of open theism 1.3 The challenge of open theism 1.4 Proposed thesis

2. METHODOLOGY AND ASSUMPTIONS 2.1 The limits of this study 2.2 The difficulty with adequacy claims 2.3 The relationship between ‘doctrine’ and ‘praxis’ 2.4 Assumptions regarding the usefulness of existential arguments 3. ESSENTIAL CLAIMS OF OPEN THEISM 3.1 The defining claim: divine epistemic openness regarding the future 3.2 Supporting convictions of open theism 3.2.1 Love: the divine purpose for creation 3.2.2 Freedom: the necessary context 3.2.3 Risk: the implication of freedom for the God-world relation 3.3 Various relevant diversities within open theism 4. PROPOSED PROVIDENTIAL CONTOURS OF OPEN THEISM 4.1 Reality of spiritual warfare 4.2 Acceptable risk 4.3 Rules of engagement 4.4 Infinite intelligence and God’s governance of the world 4.5 Consequent ambiguity 4.6 Consequent assurance 5. CONTRIBUTIONS OF OPEN THEISTS 5.1 Open theists on prayer 5.2 Summary of contributions 6. THE EXISTENTIAL CASE AGAINST RELIGIOUS ADEQUACY 6.1 General objections 6.2 Bruce Ware: Their God is Too Small 6.3 Stephen Roy: How Much Does God Foreknow? 6.4 David Ciocchi: “The Religious Adequacy of Free-will Theism” 7. RESPONSES TO EXISTENTIAL OBJECTIONS 7.1 Response to Bruce Ware 7.2 Response to Stephen Roy 7.3 Response to David Ciocchi 8. TOWARD AN OPEN THEISTIC THEOLOGY OF PRAYER 8.1 Eight guiding theses 8.2 Trusting God in a risky and ambiguous creation 9. CONCLUSION

A CRITICAL EVALUATION OF THE RELIGIOUS ADEQUACY OF OPEN THEISM: A CRITICAL EVALUATION OF THE RELIGIOUS ADEQUACY OF OPEN THEISM: A CRITICAL EVALUATION OF THE RELIGIOUS ADEQUACY OF OPEN THEISM: A CRITICAL EVALUATION OF THE RELIGIOUS ADEQUACY OF OPEN THEISM: TOWARD AN OPENTOWARD AN OPENTOWARD AN OPENTOWARD AN OPEN THEISTIC THEOLOGY OF PETITIONARY PRAYERTHEISTIC THEOLOGY OF PETITIONARY PRAYERTHEISTIC THEOLOGY OF PETITIONARY PRAYERTHEISTIC THEOLOGY OF PETITIONARY PRAYER****

§1 INTRODUCTION

§1.1 The arrival of open theism

With the publication in 1994 of The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the

Traditional Understanding of God1, Evangelicals in America began discussing God with increased

interest. In it authors Pinnock, Rice, Sanders, Hasker, and Basinger proposed a re-examination of

how God and humans relate and in so doing ignited a debate which continues unabated today.

The questions addressed by the authors are hardly new. Christians have long been debating God’s

nature and attributes. One specific question raised by these issues is evident in the attempt to

affirm both exhaustively definite foreknowledge and the efficacy of petitionary prayer. It was a

popular issue of debate in Origen’s day and has been addressed by Boethius, Augustine, Aquinas,

Calvin, and others down to the present. The Openness of God reinvigorated this conversation and

cast academic questions in a new and common light.2

Open theism attempts to articulate an understanding of God’s relationship to creation

that is biblically sound, philosophically convincing, and existentially fulfilling. In the simplest

terms, the open view claims that the future is partly settled and partly open and that God, being

omniscient, knows it as such.3 As we shall see, what the future is and how and what God knows

about it, ostensibly ‘open view’ issues, have turned out to be in effect only the specific field of

battle on which competing views of divine providence face off.

§1.2 The popularity of open theism

After the release of The Openness of God, theologians, educational institutions, and whole

denominations became engrossed in the debate over what has come to be known as “open

*Formating and minor changes (typographical and grammatical corrections) to the text of the original thesis

have been made by the author resulting in pagination different than the original. 1 Clark Pinnock, Richard Rice, John Sanders, William Hasker, and David Basinger, The Openness of God: A

Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1994). 2 For select bibliographies see Justin Taylor in John Piper, ed., Beyond the Bounds: Open Theism and the

Undermining of Biblical Christianity (Chicago: Crossway, 2003), 385-400; Dennis Swanson, “Bibliography of Works on Open Theism,” Master’s Seminary Journal 12:2 (Fall 2001): 223-229; and John Sanders “Bibliography on Open Theism,” available from http://www.opentheism.info/pdf/sanders/bibliography_otism.pdf; Internet; accessed 26 November 2006.

3 “Partly open” and “partly closed” were introduced by Gregory Boyd, God of the Possible: A Biblical Introduction

to the Open View of God (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 2000), and have become an established part of open view language. Exactly what is “open” and what is “closed” will be discussed.

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theism.”4 The importance of the view, arguably, was evident in the effect the debate had on a

general lack of interest in doctrinal questions among average believers. People inevitably want to

know what relevance a belief has for their day to day concerns. What difference does it make? is

ultimately the question believers put to theological issues. And where believers fail to see the

practical relevance such questions have for life’s relationships, decisions, and vocations, they fail

to engage those issues for any length of time.

With the publication of The Openness of God, the practical implications of one’s beliefs

about God and the world were being discussed passionately even by those outside the academy.

Where people were reluctant to engage theological questions about God’s nature and attributes

because the language in which the conversation was conducted made the conversation

inaccessible to them, The Openness of God and other early publications related theological

questions to these everyday concerns in terms people could grasp, successfully fusing academic

questions to the everyday issues of Christian believers—prayer, guidance, and suffering. In light

of the increasing popularity of the open view and the intensity of the opposition it faces, I hope to

clarify relevant issues and encourage further discussion and research on the relationship between

‘faith’ and ‘praxis’ in general and the practical implications of open theism in particular.

§1.3 The challenge of open theism

The debate over open theism can be described as carried out in terms of Wesley’s

quadrilateral—the rational/philosophical, the biblical/theological, the traditional, and the

existential/pragmatic, the latter of which shall be the concern of this thesis. It is an approach to life

that open theists argue for. As Paul Sponheim says:

…we have spoken of ‘making a difference’…We have argued that vital lessons for living follow from Christian faith in God. We have claimed that if what Christians say in speaking of the presence, power, and action of God is true, life will be seen differently. It comes down to that: life…to that ‘bottom line’ matter of living…The faith we express in our God-talk makes a difference in how we see life. The question is: does it make a difference in how we live?

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Opponents of open theism have claimed that the effects of the open view are ruinous and

will inevitably shipwreck faith in God for those who embrace it. Open theists have argued that

their views make better sense of our existential intuitions, provide a better existential fit, and that

4 The view is variously referred to as “the openness of God,” “open theism,” and “the open view.”

5 Paul Sponheim, Speaking of God: Relational Theology (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2006), 81.

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of all the available views of providence on the market, that espoused by open theists is already

assumed in practice by the manner in which Christian believers actually live their lives.6

§1.4 Proposed thesis

How ought open theism to affect one’s understanding of prayer? In response to this and

related questions, I propose (a) to examine the implications which open theism has for one’s

understanding of petitionary prayer as a means by which God accomplishes his purposes in the world

and then (b) to ask whether or not this understanding of prayer is religiously adequate. In focusing

on the implications which a belief has for our understanding of prayer, we bring belief to bear

upon one of the most practical every-day concerns of religious persons and thus have an

opportunity to judge the existential argument for open theism.7

The underlying question regards the relationship between ‘faith’ and ‘praxis’, i.e., how we

relate what we believe about God and the God-world relationship to the practical concerns of

daily life. Theology matters, so all theists seem to agree, and open theists have confidently made

‘adequacy claims’ about the practical advantages of their beliefs. At the same time, opponents

equally object to the open view on existential grounds, insisting that the view undermines one’s

confidence and trust in God, God’s word, and God’s ability to achieve his purposes.

The existential matrix (the inter-relating intuitions, a priori beliefs about the world,

experiences, decision-making processes, etc.) by which we evaluate the truth of a claim is a

complex and fallible guide. I hope to explore this matrix, examine the validity of pragmatic,

outcome-based arguments, and make some suggestions regarding how existential concerns and

assumptions might determine the religious adequacy of open theism’s approach to petitionary

prayer. I shall argue that prayer is the primary existential stage upon which any theology may be

examined and judged. Given the open theist’s core claims, how are we to understand the purposes

and place of petitionary prayer? If one cannot divorce the question of what God is like from the

question of how we pray, then open theism’s proffered revision of the traditional view of God is

most relevant and deserves continued and rigorous consideration.

6 David Basinger presents the existential case in The Openness of God with his chapter “Practical Implications.”

We shall consider his and other open theist arguments in due course. 7 In the words of Pope Clement I (5

th century), lex orandi est lex crendendi or “the rule of prayer is the rule of

belief.” This is essentially an existential argument and represents precisely the order for which I shall argue.

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§2 METHODOLOGY AND ASSUMPTIONS

§2.1 The nature of adequacy claims

Let us first clarify what sort of question we are dealing with. When one argues that a belief

is best believed to be true (or not) because of the practical effects of believing it, a particular sort of

claim is being made, one that is notoriously difficult to evaluate. Professor of religion

Christopher Heard has attempted to assess the evidentiary status of the effects that follow from

believing or disbelieving in open theism, a form of argumentation he calls an appeal to outcomes

or argument from affect.8 After reviewing the debate, Heard concludes that God’s defining

attributes are independent of human desires and opinions. Simply put, “God is what God is,

whether humans like it or not.”9 Heard argues that outcome oriented arguments reduce to

arguing one’s “personal preference” and thus are ultimately useless in determining truth. He

writes:

This points to one of the weaknesses of outcomes-oriented argumentation: the

larger debate lacks an objective, consensual framework within which individual outcomes can be assessed as relatively worse or better than other possible outcomes. Because outcome-oriented arguments are inextricably linked to human preferences, and because human preferences differ, outcome-oriented arguments will typically succeed only with those who already agree with the arguer’s implicit value system which allows the arguer to categorize certain outcomes as good or bad, beneficial or harmful, and so on.

Even if such an objective, consensual framework were available, however, outcome-oriented arguments would still suffer from a fatal flaw, in that human preferences do not determine the divine reality.

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Even if it is true that God is responsive in the sense of adapting to us, Heard says, it would

still not be the case that “we can reshape the reality of God simply by proclaiming one theological

alternative ‘better’ than another and assuming that God conforms to what (some!) humans

consider to be ‘better’.”11

Agreement or disagreement on which divine attributes are “better” than

others, Heard argues:

…would not prove that those attributes actually characterize God. If God’s foreknowledge is in fact exhaustive, then it is exhaustive, whether or not we judge that state of affairs to be better, more comforting, more helpful, or more exciting than some other possible state of affairs; and if God’s foreknowledge is in fact limited or

8 R. Christopher Heard, “‘I AM WHAT I AM’: Inputs, Outcomes, and the Open Theism Debate,” Christian

Scholars Conference, Malibu, California, presented July 22, 2005. 9 Heard, “I AM,” 10.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid., 11.

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probabilistic, then it is so, whether or not we judge that state of affairs to better, more comforting, more helpful, or more exciting than some other possible state of affairs. God is who God is, and human beings do not enjoy the privilege of defining what God ‘must’ be and assuming that God lives up to that definition.

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Heard suggests that the principle “God is what God is, regardless of human value

judgments about the quality of the divine nature” undermines the evidentiary force of existential

arguments proposed in the debate over open theism. At best, such arguments can show what

practical implications a particular theological approach on this question may have.

§2.2 The difficulty with adequacy claims

Three observations in response to Heard seem appropriate. First, neither side in the

debate suggests that our views of God actually “shape the divine reality” as Heard argues. Open

theists agree that God’s self-determining existence and nature are logically prior to and

independent of all non-God actualities. Undermining belief in God’s aseity is not what existential

arguments for (or against) open theism are about. What such arguments are believed to do is

offer a kind of argument from design. That is, assuming God has purposed and designed us for

truth, it is at least safe to reason abductively13

from our experience of ourselves and the world to

the plausible truth or falsity of those beliefs responsible for life’s functioning as it does. So

although outcome oriented arguments involve a subjective element that makes them difficult to

assess, they simply cannot be dismissed given our assumptions regarding the unity of truth and

its role in our properly relating to God and the world.

Second, if the best outcome based arguments can legitimately do is establish what the

practical implications of a view are, and if these practical implications have no part in

determining the truth of the view in question, as Heard appears to claim, then one wonders

whether or how the implications matter at all. Surely what is ‘legitimate’ about the implications

of a belief is their contributing something to the determining of the truth of the claim. Heard,

however, appears to affirm the importance of a belief’s implications while denying that the

implications impinge on the truth-value of the belief in question.

Lastly, with Heard we can agree that it is a weak argument which claims simplistically that

since believing some claim seems at the moment to meet a perceived need, the claim is therefore

12

Ibid. 13

Abductive reasoning is the process of reasoning to the best explanation. Adbuction was first introduced into logic by Charles Pierce, see his Harvard “Lectures on Pragmatism” (1903) and “Deduction, Induction, and Hypothesis,” Popular Science Monthly, 13 (1878): 470–482, both reprinted in Charles Hartshorne, Paul Weiss, and Arthur Burks, eds., Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, 8 vols., (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1931-1958).

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true. On the other hand, Christian believers will hardly want to deny the intuition that what is

true about God and the God-world relationship will best explain our experience and best enable

our existing in the world with and for God. Truth is, on a Christian account of things, intended to

enable, enrich, and verify our living for God. This conviction grounds the usefulness of outcome

based arguments or adequacy claims. Doctrine must prove itself by demonstrating its power to

transform life. It is a kind of living that God is after. So the truth about God and the world, I shall

assume, ought to secure belief states that enable our living our lives in the honor and enjoyment

of God.

§2.3 The relationship between ‘faith’ and ‘praxis’

Our understanding of the relationship between ‘faith’ and ‘praxis’ is expressed well by

Bruce Epperly:

I believe that good theology integrates: 1) an affirmative, hopeful, and convincing vision of God and the world; 2) a promise that our deepest beliefs can be experienced as we grow spiritually and ethically; and 3) practices that enable us to experience the theological vision that we affirm. The faith we affirm is profoundly concrete and can be a matter of life and death for persons and the planet. Accordingly, our theological visions must always be tested in relationship to the concrete practices and experiences of faithful persons as well as seekers. They must be tested in terms of whether they inspire reverence, gratitude, and a heart-felt ‘yes’ as we contemplate the universe and our role as companions in God’s holy adventure. [italics mine]

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We can agree with Heard, then, that existential arguments are difficult to evaluate. But we

disagree that the lines of influence travel in only one direction—from doctrine to how we live.

Theological truth cannot be determined independently of pragmatic concerns. We simply do not

function this way. The lines of influence move in both directions—from doctrine to how we live

as well as from how we live to verifying what is true.

Heard argues that both sides in the open theism debate should spend less time on

existential arguments and return to the role of Scripture in revealing truths about God. To learn

what God is like, Heard suggests that we “move from biblical statements about God to

theological statements about God” and then undertake the “careful exegetical and theological

studies necessary to elucidate God’s character as revealed in the Bible.”15

In response, I submit

that while Scripture is of primary importance, it is at the same time the case that Scripture’s truth

14

Bruce Epperly, “Surprising God: Prayer, Partnership, and the Divine Adventure,” American Academy of Religion, Washington D.C., presented 18 November, 2006 and available online at http://www.ctr4process.org/events/ort/06%20ORT%20Epperly.pdf; Internet; accessed December 23, 2006.

15 Heard, “I AM,” 12.

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is a truth designed for our living and to which our living best conforms. Thus the practical/existential

dimension informs our interpreting and theological systematizing by limiting the set of possible

interpretations or claims to existentially meaningful ones.

Finally, while outcome based arguments are somewhat subjective, they can be more than

mere arguments from “personal preference.” The ‘praxis’ for and from which open theists argue

is that of shared experience. An individual experience that remains the experience of a single

person can hardly be the grounds upon which a community understands and expresses itself. But

shared human experience cannot but be the basis upon which a community understands and

expresses itself. And it is a shared human experience that open theists offer as the basis of the

existential fit of their views.

§2.4 Assumptions regarding the usefulness of existential arguments

We have good reasons, then, to conclude that outcome based, or existential, arguments,

while limited and fallible by virtue of their individual subjectivity, can be useful in determining

truth by grounding meaningfulness in the shared experience of a community. This is a

fundamental pragmatic insight.16

The point of existential arguments is not to say that whatever I

find ‘convenient’ is therefore ‘true’, but rather to say that (a) whatever are the natural

consequences of a belief, those consequences are that belief’s meaning for us, and that (b)

whatever beliefs are true (theologically in our case), they will make possible a truly livable

existence on the assumption that God has designed us to function best in truth. In the end, all of

us conclude the truth or falsity of claims based on the difference that believing or not believing

makes.

Granted, we are finite and fallible. With Heard we can agree that our experience itself can

neither determine the divine reality (aseity) nor alone establish truth for a community. But these

are not necessary to existential arguments per se. The usefulness of such arguments does not

require an infallible individual subjectivity that makes individual experience an absolute judge of

truth. Rather, as suggested here, we best look to the shared experience of a community to tell us

what a belief ‘means’ and then admit this into whatever other arguments (exegetical,

biblical/theological, traditional) are at play in order to determine theological truth-value.17

We do

16

Charles Pierce is responsible for the pragmatic maxim, which simply states that we are to consider whatever practical effects a particular conception might have to be the whole of our conception of the object in question; see Peirce’s “The Fixation of Belief,” Popular Science Monthly 12 (1877): 1-15 and “How to Make Our Ideas Clear” Popular Science Monthly 12 (1878): 286-302, both reprinted in Hartshorne, et. al., Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce.

17 See Charles Hartshorne, Creative Synthesis and Philosophical Method (LaSalle: Open Court, 1970), 81, and

Gregory Boyd, Trinity and Process: A Critical Evaluation and Reconstruction of Hartshorne’s Di-Polar Theism Towards

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not, with Heard, first establish truth on grounds that admit no influence from shared experience and

then seek to accommodate ourselves to it.18

To conclude our survey of issues related to the nature of adequacy claims, I offer the

following four guidelines for evaluating such claims. First, the pragmatic maxim grounds the

meaning of a belief in the practical effects that belief has and so makes it impossible to determine

the truth-value of claims apart from their practical effects.19

Second, the practical effects must

constitute the shared experience of a community before they can be admitted into the

hermeneutical process by which that community understands and expresses its identity and

mission. No one individual’s experience should be elevated to the status of being the measure by

which the community is defined.20

Third, Scripture possesses a God-given authority that makes it

an ultimate judge of human beliefs and experience, not visa versa, and this conviction must guide

our reading of experience. This is easier said than done, however, for by our first guideline above,

the practical effects a belief has in our life are what that belief can be said to ‘mean’. We are

bound to live in the tension of this dialectic. Lastly, adequacy claims are still subject to the rules

of logic and meaningful argumentation. No ‘experience’ in itself constitutes an ‘argument’. It

remains for us to argue the place that some shared experience has in our larger theological

framework in a logical and coherent manner.

§3 ESSENTIAL CLAIMS OF OPEN THEISM

§3.1 The defining claim: divine epistemic openness regarding future contingents21

Having defined the sort of question we face and briefly outlined four provisional

guidelines for establishing religious adequacy, let us clarify open theism’s defining claims. There

is significant diversity among open theists, something that is often overlooked by opponents. I

a Trinitarian Metaphysics (New York: Peter Lang, 1992), 65-66, for arguments against determinism based on the pragmatic criterion of meaning.

18 William Alston argues for the evidentiary value of experience in religious claims in “Divine-human dialogue

and the nature of God” Faith and Philosophy 2 (1985): 5-20. 19

David Ray Griffin, “Process Theology and the Christian Good News,” in John B. Cobb, Jr. and Clark Pinnock, Searching for an Adequate God: A Dialogue Between Process and Free Will Theists (Grand Rapids: Eerdmands Publishing, 2000), 3, argues for the “acceptance of the inevitable presuppositions of practice…as the primary test of adequacy for any philosophical or theological position.” [italics mine] Griffin calls these “hard core commonsense notions.” But what counts as adequate is a matter of disagreement even among those who agree there ought to be an agreement between faith and practice. In spite of this, not pursuing such existential, commonsense tests seems more problematic.

20 Individual experience, yes, but an individual experience shared by a community as opposed to an individual’s

unique experience. 21

The phrase “epistemic openness” comes from Alan R. Rhoda, Gregory A. Boyd, Thomas G. Belt, “Open Theism, Omniscience, and the Nature of the Future,” Faith and Philosophy 23:4 (October 2006): 432-459.

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shall summarize this diversity in due time, but let us first state what core values and

commitments appear to be common to all open theists.

The defining claim of the open view states that the future is epistemically open for God so

far as it is in fact causally open and epistemically closed for God so far as it is in fact causally closed, a

conviction open theist philosopher Alan Rhoda calls the epistemic thesis (ET).22

To say the future

is causally closed in some respect is to say that what occurs is causally entailed by antecedent states

of affairs. To say the future is causally open in some respect is to say instead that what occurs

obtains indeterministically; that is, it is to deny that what occurs is causally entailed by preceding

states. In either case, God’s knowledge of the future follows accordingly, so that to say the future

is epistemically closed for God in some respect is to say God knows that some event ‘will’ or ‘will

not’ occur, that is, God knows the future as “certainly this will occur” or “certainly that will

occur.”23

Theological determinists maintain that the future is both exhaustively causally closed

(because God determines all things) and correspondingly exhaustively epistemically closed for God

(because God knows his own determining will).

On the other hand, indeterminists argue the future is causally open in some respects.

There is genuine indeterminacy in creation. Indeterminists disagree, however, over what follows

from this for God’s knowledge of future contingents. Traditional Arminians and Molinists agree

that though the future is causally open in some respects, it is nevertheless exhaustively

epistemically closed for God. God eternally knows all that shall ‘freely’ occur in the world. God’s

foreknowledge is, thus, ‘exhaustively definite’.24

Open theists disagree with their fellow

indeterminists and argue with determinists that definite foreknowledge is incompatible with

causal indeterminacy, affirming Rhoda’s epistemic thesis (ET), viz., that the divine mind is

epistemically open with regard to future contingents. In this case God does not know how future

contingencies will turn out, though he does know how they might and might not turn out.25

22

Alan Rhoda, “Four Versions of Open Theism,” available from http://prosblogion.ektopos.com/archives/2006/02/four_versions_o.html; Internet; accessed November 26, 2006, writes: “The core thesis of open theism is that the future is now, in some respects, epistemically open for God. Let’s call this the epistemic thesis (ET). In general, a proposition P is ‘epistemically open’ for subject S at time T iff nothing that S knows at T suffices to guarantee either that P or that not-P. Thus, the future is epistemically open for God at T with respect to possible future state of affairs X iff for some future time T* neither ‘X will obtain at T*’ nor ‘X will not obtain at T*’ is known by God at T. Whatever is not epistemically open for God is epistemically settled.” The “openness” in question, I should note, is a feature of the future and not God’s knowledge. It is the ‘future’ that is open.

23 Again, terms introduced by Boyd, God of the Possible.

24 Ibid., 23f and Trinity and Process, 66, n. 46. Boyd was the first to emphasize the distinction between

‘exhaustively definite foreknowledge’ or EDF (the view that God’s foreknowledge of all that occurs is eternally ‘definite’ or ‘settled’) and ‘exhaustive foreknowledge’ (the view that God’s foreknowledge of the future is exhaustive but not exhaustively definite). Open theists affirm the latter but deny EDF.

25 See Rhoda, Boyd, and Belt, “Open Theism, Omniscience, and the Nature of the Future” for specific semantic

arguments.

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Open theism is thus essentially the conjoining of (i) Christian theism (i.e., Trinitarianism

and creatio ex nihilo, to distinguish it from process theism), (ii) causal indeterminism, and (iii)

divine epistemic openness regarding future contingents. To affirm these three would, so far as I

have been able to research the question, make a person an ‘open theist’.

§3.2 Supporting convictions of open theism

Apart from asserting divine epistemic openness with respect to future contingents, open

theists typically share a number of other supporting convictions which account for the truth of

this central claim. These supporting claims are ‘love with respect to divine purpose’, ‘freedom

with respect to creation’, and ‘risk with respect to providence’. While the defining claim of divine

epistemic openness essentially defines open theism, these three convictions play a crucial role in

shaping how open theists view providence and prayer, in what sense they trust God to engage the

world in response to their prayers, and how they understand what they may and may not

legitimately expect in a fallen and conflicted world.

§3.2.1 Love: the divine purpose for creation

The primary model that maps open theists’ understanding of God and the God-world

relation is ‘love’.26

God is love and freely creates out of the overflow of God’s own loving,

personal, trinitarian self-related actuality. In the words of Jüngel:

To think [of] God as love is the task of theology. And in so doing it must

accomplish two things. It must, on the one hand, do justice to the essence of love, which as a predicate of God may not contradict what people experience as love. And on the other hand, it must do justice to the being of God which remains so distinctive from the event of human love that ‘God’ does not become a superfluous word.

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God has purposed creation for loving, personal, sociality. God loves creation and the

human beings that populate it. John Sanders expresses this core conviction as well:

26

Vincent Brummer explores love as the defining model for understanding God in The Model of Love: A Study in Philosophical Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) and to a lesser extent in Speaking of a Personal God: Essays in Philosophical Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). All open theists make divine love the fundamental starting point, see Pinnock, Most Moved Mover: A Theology of God’s Openness (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 126-127; Pinnock, et al., The Openness of God, chs. 1 and 3; Pinnock and Robert Brow, Unbounded Love (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1994); John Polkinghorne and Michael Welker, The Work of Love: Creation as Kenosis (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001); Barry L. Callen, God as Loving Grace: The Biblically Revealed Nature and Work of God (Nappanee, IN: Evangel Publishing House, 1997); and Sanders, God Who Risks: A Theology of Providence (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1998).

27 Ebehard Jüngel, God as the Mystery of the World, trans. Darrell L. Guder (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 314,

quoted in Paul Sponheim, “‘The art of power lies precisely in making another free’: God’s Suffering-Action in Relational Transcendence,” in “And God Saw That It Was Good” Essays on Creation and God in Honor of Terence E. Fretheim, eds. Frederick Gaiser and Mark Throntveit, (St. Paul: Word and World, 2006), 171, n. 8.

11

According to openness theology, the triune God of love has, in almighty power, created all that is and is sovereign over all. God has freely decided to create beings capable of experiencing his love. In creating us, the divine intention was that we would come to experience the triune God’s love and respond to it with love of our own, freely coming to collaborate with God toward the achievement of his goals.

28

All open theists share the conviction that “God is love” constrains both our

understanding of God’s own nature and self-relatedness on the one hand and our understanding

of the nature of creation and God’s purposes for us on the other.29

Whatever else open theists

might go on to conclude about the God-world relationship, it all proceeds from the fundamental

conviction that God is love and that God’s relationship to creation is defined, motivated, and

directed by divine love, which open theists view as constitutive of the divine essence or nature

itself.30

In the words of Boyd:

Throughout its narrative the Bible shows us that God created the world out of his triune love with the goal of acquiring for himself a people who would participate in and reflect the splendor of his triune love. More specifically, God’s goal from the dawn of history has been to have a church, a bride, who would say yes to his love, who would fully receive this love, embody this love, and beautifully reflect this triune love back to himself.

31

Thus we are created to experience, enjoy, and reflect (or replicate) the love of the

trinity—in relating to God, to others, and to the created order. Once again, Boyd explains, “The

goal…is for the perfect triune love of God to be manifested to people, replicated in people, and

reflected back from people…The whole creation is meant to express and embody the eternal

triune love that God is. It exists to glorify God.”32

§3.2.2 Freedom: the necessary context for contingent love

The next two central convictions shaping the open theist’s worldview follow necessarily

from the primacy of love. Boyd asks:

28

Sanders, “How Do We Decide What God Is Like?” in Gaiser and Throntveit, Essays, 155. 29

For treatments of God’s love from decidedly non-openness points of view, see D. A. Carson, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1999) and Kevin Vanhoozer, ed., Nothing Greater, Nothing Better: Theological Essays on the Love of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005).

30 For a philosophical articulation of the primacy of love as definitive of the divine reality and purpose for

creation, see Boyd, Trinity and Process. 31

Boyd, Satan and the Problem of Evil (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 51. 32

Boyd, Is God to Blame? Moving Beyond Pat Answers to the Problem of Evil (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 63.

12

If love is the goal, what are its conditions? What must creatures be like if they are to be capable of participating in the love of the Trinity?...Agents must possess the capacity and opportunity to reject love if they are to possess the genuine capacity and opportunity to engage in love.

33

It is the metaphysics of creaturely love and moral responsibility which necessitate

libertarian freedom as the context for loving creaturely personhood. Once God determines to

purpose us for loving relations with God and others, endowing us with an appropriate capacity to

determine ourselves is the metaphysical price-tag. God cannot reach his goals apart from such

risk-taking. Creation, Boyd argues, must possess a certain “order” to be a “stable medium” in

which humans can grow responsibly into relationship with others and God.34

We must say something here about the open theist’s view of God’s relationship to time. It

is a complex question but central to the open theist’s view of creation as an appropriately free

context for human choice and true becoming and God’s real relatedness to it. Open theists agree in

three important respects regarding the question of time. First, time and temporal becoming are

genuine and objective features of creation. Thus, open theists are A-theorists with respect to time.

Second, God is viewed as temporally eternal and not as absolutely timeless. Here one must

exercise some caution to distinguish between God’s relationship to time sans creation and God’s

relationship to time since creating, for the question of God’s relationship to time sans creation

remains a matter of debate among open theists. However, because creation is believed to be

(temporally) dynamic and not static, God is seen as temporally related to creation and thus as

dynamically omniscient. His knowledge of the universe changes as the universe changes.35

Lastly,

open theists agree that what is at stake in the debate over God’s relationship to time is the

integrity of divine-human relations and God’s knowledge of tensed facts. These require, in the view

of open theists, the abandonment of the timeless view of God in favor of temporal eternity.36

33

Boyd, Satan, 52. See also Boyd, Is God to Blame?, ch. 5, for more on why these creational constraints of freedom and risk are metaphysical and not merely incidental.

34 Boyd, Is God to Blame?, 113-114.

35 Does the belief that God’s knowledge changes with a changing universe entail that God “discovers” or

“learns”? Open theists answer this differently. All agree that God cannot “learn” in the sense of moving from a state of ignorance to a state of knowledge. Applied to God, this would amount to a denial that his knowledge is co-terminus with reality. Hence, open theism does not require the belief that God either ‘discovers’ or ‘learns’, although it does affirm that God’s knowledge changes with a changing universe. Being perfectly omniscient, God knows possibilities for what they are. As these possibilities are resolved into actualities in the course of time, God keeps infallible, unmediated, and co-terminus account of the state of reality.

36 For a philosophical treatment of the questions, see Hasker, God, Time, and Knowledge. Cornell Studies in the

Philosophy of Religion (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989).

13

§3.2.3 Risk: the implications of freedom for the God-world relation

The existence of creaturely freedom has important consequences for the God-world

relation—for the world because freedom constitutes the indeterminacy which open theists argue

is incompatible with exhaustively definite foreknowledge, and for God because such freedom is

also incompatible with it being the case that God can always guarantee that his will is fulfilled.

God, open theists believe, respects our freedom in those situations where our acting freely

constitutes the necessary conditions for our achieving the purposes for which God created us. But

if love requires freedom, what does freedom entail? It entails ‘risk’. And so the reality of ‘risk’

becomes the third in a trinity of convictions that support open theism’s defining claim of divine

epistemic openness regarding future contingents.

Several open theist authors address the question of divine risk-taking and its implications

for our understanding of divine providence and in turn the implications that form the object of

this thesis—the practical effect which such beliefs have upon believers, specifically our

understanding of petitionary prayer.

One open theist who has addressed the question of divine risk from a biblical/theological

point of view is John Sanders, whose chief contribution to this debate is aptly titled The God Who

Risks: A Theology of Providence. Sanders categorizes all views of divine providence under two

models, the “no-risk” view and the “risk” view. Meticulous, or specific, providence, that manner

of relating to the world in exclusively deterministic ways, takes no risks. Sanders responds:

…if God is in some respects conditioned by his creatures, then God takes risks in bringing about this particular type of world. According to the risk model of providence, God has established certain boundaries within which creatures operate. But God sovereignly decides not to control each and every event, and some things go contrary to what God intends and may not turn out completely as God desires. Hence God takes risks in creating this sort of world.

37

Divine conditionality, Sanders argues, is the watershed issue dividing “risk” and “no-risk”

views of divine providence. If God engages in “dynamic given-and-take relationships with us,

God is conditioned by our freedom in some ways, and this implies that he runs the risk that his

intentions are not always fulfilled.”38

Another key contributor to the defense and development of a theology of divine risk-

taking is Gregory Boyd. Boyd figures risk into a biblical worldview, what he calls the trinitarian

warfare theodicy (TWT). It rests upon six theses that form the core of his theodicy. The second of

37

Sanders, God Who Risks, 10f. 38

Ibid., 280.

14

these theses (TWT2) states that ‘freedom implies risk’. Risk is just the metaphysical price-tag God

must pay to get the sort of loving creation he desires.39

As Boyd states, “God could not have

created a world in which creatures possess a measure of self-determining freedom without risking

some loss. His free creatures might not choose as he wants them to choose.”40

Boyd summarizes:

If the case…for a partially open future is accepted, it is possible to ascribe risk to God for the sake of love without concluding that God is not in control of the world. While Scripture assures us that the overall objectives of history are secure…it also teaches us that the fate of any one of his free creatures is unsettled until they themselves choose to enter into the saving covenant with him. This is the ultimate risk the Lord takes in creating a world with the purpose of sharing his triune self with others.

41

Another open theist who discusses the meaning and implications of divine risk-taking is

William Hasker.42

Hasker defines divine risk-taking as follows: “God takes risks if he makes

decisions that depend for their outcomes on the responses of free creatures in which the decisions

themselves are not informed by knowledge of the outcomes.”43

What determines whether God’s

actions are risky or risk-free? Hasker answers, “God is a risk-taker if he endows his creatures with

libertarian freedom; otherwise not.”44

Open theists would agree that what creates risk in the world

is the existence of libertarian freedom. However, an open theist could argue that Hasker has not

captured what is at the heart of risk-taking, the notion of purpose. It is conceivable at least that I

make a decision which depends for its outcome on responses of free creatures but where none of

the possible outcomes constitutes a risk of loss. The point is that loss can only be defined in terms

of purpose. And while every choice is made for a purpose, not all choices that depend for their

outcome upon responses outside my control necessarily entail risk. It might be that none of the

possible responses that lie outside my control presents a risk. One would have to relate possible

outcomes to stated purposes in order to establish risk per se. Still, open theists, Hasker included,

argue that it is often the case that the fulfillment of some purpose of God depends for its

fulfillment upon the free responses of creatures and that this can and does constitute a risk for

God.

39

Boyd, Satan (2001). Boyd’s six thesis are: TWT1: Love requires freedom; TWT2: Freedom implies risk; TWT3: Risk entails moral responsibility; TWT4: Moral responsibility is proportionate to the potential to influence; TWT5: Power to influence is irrevocable; and TWT6: Power to influence is finite.

40 Ibid., 23 and ch. 3.

41 Ibid., 115.

42 William Hasker, “The God Who Takes Risks,” in Michael Peterson, ed., Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of

Religion (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 218-228. 43

Hasker, “The God Who Takes Risks,” 219. 44

Ibid.

15

By definition, then, love must be freely chosen. Creating us with the capacity for saying

“yes” to loving God also meant creating us with the capacity for saying “no” to God. If we can’t

say “no” to God, open theists argue, we can’t love God. Creating a world capable of genuine love

and intimacy, therefore, involved a risk on God’s part that we might choose not to love him. On

the open model, the choice to love or not to love God responsibly and with integrity cannot be

predetermined by God (contra Calvin), nor can it be eternally foreknown as certain by God

(contra Arminius).

§3.3 Various relevant diversities within open theism

Having surveyed the defining claim and supporting convictions of open theism, I shall

now note a few relevant diversities. Not all open theists agree on the best way to argue God’s

knowledge of future indeterminacy. Four versions, or articulations, are presently argued by

various open theists.45

These may each be understood as falling along a two-fold continuum

representing ‘bivalent/non-bivalent omniscience’ on one hand and ‘voluntary/involuntary

nescience’ on the other, as follows:

(1) Voluntary Nescience. The future is epistemically open for God because he voluntarily

chooses not to know truths about future contingents. In this view, there are truths describing

what we shall freely do, but God chooses not to know them. Dallas Willard espouses this

position.46

(2) Involuntary Nescience. The future is epistemically open for God because truths about

future contingents are by definition unknowable. In this view, there are truths describing what we

shall freely do, but no one including God can know them. William Hasker represents this version

of open theism.47

(3) Non-Bivalent Omniscience. The future is epistemically open for God because

propositions about future contingents (or future indeterminacies) are neither true nor false. In

this version there are no truths God does not know (either voluntarily or involuntarily) because

propositions positing future contingents are neither true nor false. Thus, not knowing them

45

This four-fold distinction was noted by the present author and friend and professor Alan R. Rhoda independently of each other and later published online by Rhoda, “Four Versions,” available from http://prosblogion.ektopos.com/archives/2006/02/four_versions_o.html; Internet; accessed November 26, 2006.

46 Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy (New York: HarperCollins, 1998): 244-253. John Sanders, “Be Wary of

Ware: A Reply to Bruce Ware,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 45:2 (2002): 221-231, n. 4, writes that Willard has conveyed this to him in personal correspondence, stating, “[Willard] argues that, just as God has all power but chooses whether to utilize it or not, so God could know our future actions but chooses not to know them. Willard believes that, for God to have truly personal relationships with us, God cannot know what we will do.”

47 Hasker, God, Time, and Knowledge.

16

doesn’t undermine omniscience since there are no truths God does not know. J. R. Lucas argues

this view.48

(4) Bivalent Omniscience. The future is epistemically open for God because propositions

positing future contingents in terms of what “will” or “will not” occur are in fact false.49

What is

true in the case of future contingents is that they “might and might not” occur. Greg Boyd, Alan

Rhoda, and the present author espouse this position.50

In this view, bivalence is believed to hold

universally (or at least for propositions describing future contingents), omniscience is held to

mean “knowledge of all truths,” and God is believed to be omniscient. However, the scope of

future-tense propositions is enlarged from exclusively “will” and “will not” type propositions to

include “might and might not” type propositions, so that the three together are the jointly

exhaustive and mutually exclusive ways of describing the future.51

§4 THE PROPOSED PROVIDENTIAL CONTROURS OF OPEN THEISM

§4.1 The reality of spiritual warfare

We now have firmly in hand open theism’s defining claim of divine epistemic openness

and the essential convictions that ground this claim. According to openness, the triune God of

love has freely created the world and purposed it for personal, loving relationships wherein God

is most glorified as creatures freely choose to replicate that love throughout the cosmos. To this

end God endowed humans with libertarian free will, a commitment which entailed a certain risk

for God and creation, but a risk God deemed worth taking given his purposes.

Before directly considering the implications these convictions have for our understanding

of petitionary prayer, I shall sketch the general providential contours of open theism, for these

determine the game and rules that define the field of play upon which open theists believe us to

be engaged when we pray. Boyd asserts:

48

J. R. Lucas, The Freedom of the Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970) and The Future: An Essay on God, Temporality, and Truth (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1990). Also arguing this position are philosophers Trenton Merricks, Truth and Ontology (Clarendon Press, forthcoming), and Dale Tuggy, “Three Roads to Open Theism,” forthcoming in Faith and Philosophy.

49 Rhoda, “Four Versions,” summarizes, “Positions (3) and (4) are wholly compatible with a traditional

definition of omniscience (i.e., essentially knowing all and only truths). Positions (1) and (2) require some revision of omniscience as traditionally defined (viz., being capable of knowing all truths; knowing all truths that can be known).”

50 See Rhoda, Boyd, and Belt, “Open Theism, Omniscience, and the Nature of the Future,” and my “Open

Theism and the Assemblies of God: A Personal Account of My Views on Open Theism” available at http://www.opentheism.info/pdf/belt/summary_aog.pdf; Internet; accessed November 26 2006. A bivalent version of divine epistemic openness regarding future contingents is anticipated by Charles Hartshorne in “Real Possibility,” The Journal of Philosophy, 60:21 (1963): 593-605.

51 See Rhoda, Boyd, and Belt, “Open Theism, Omniscience, and the Nature of the Future.”

17

Scripture certainly encourages the believer to find consolation in the fact that Christ suffers with us when we suffer…It admonishes us to trust that God is always working to bring good out of whatever circumstances we find ourselves, however tragic…It encourages us to be steadfast when we are persecuted for our faith and when

the Lord uses trials to build our character…Finally, as we just argued, the Bible certainly teaches that we can derive a peace that passes all understanding from the fact that our eternal fellowship with God in his kingdom will more than make up for our sufferings in this present age…But I do not believe that Scripture teaches us to find consolation in trusting that everything that occurs has a divine reason behind it.

52

Boyd expresses the fundamental difference between Calvinistic and Arminian versions of

providence on the one hand and process and open theistic versions of providence on the other.

That difference is whether or not we assign to everything that occurs in the world a specific divine

‘reason’ or ‘purpose’. As we shall see, whether or not we make this assignment transforms our

understanding of prayer.

Sanders has argued that the entire open view debate is essentially not about divine

foreknowledge at all, but rather about competing views of divine providence:

Our rejection of divine timelessness and our affirmation of dynamic omniscience are the most controversial elements in our proposal and the view of foreknowledge receives the most attention. However, the watershed issue in the debate is not whether God has exhaustive definite foreknowledge (EDF) but whether God is ever affected by and responds to what we do.

53

Indeed, it is far easier to lose sight of foreknowledge when discussing love, freedom, and

risk than it is to avoid the question of providence when discussing these. Open theism is a belief

about divine risk-taking before it is about divine foreknowledge. Since one’s beliefs about what

sort of relationship God has with the world and what sort of actions God may or may not take in

pursuing the fulfillment of his purposes determine whether, why, and how we prayer, the

foundation of any theology of prayer begins with one’s understanding of the nature and scope of

God’s providential actions.54

52

Boyd, Satan, 162. 53

Sanders, “Summary of Open Theism,” available from http://www.opentheism.info; Internet; accessed November 26 2006. Providential models are also discussed by Sanders in “Historical Considerations,” in Pinnock, et. al. The Openness of God.

54 See Terrance Tiessen, Providence and Prayer: How Does God Work in the World? (Downers Grove: InterVarsity

Press, 2000), who has a fine summary of the options, and Peter Baelz, Prayer and Providence (New York: SCM Press, 1968).

18

Among open theists, Boyd has most thoroughly argued the reality and nature of spiritual

warfare, constructing what he calls a “warfare worldview.”55

The reality of warfare conditions

everything about our lives, including the open theist’s understanding of the nature of providence

and its relationship to prayer. We are engaged in a genuine war facing real risks, not a mock

exercise which is either the inevitable consequence of an unconditional divine decree involving

secondary causation or specifically permitted in its minutia based on definite foreknowledge.

§4.2 Acceptable risk

We have seen that open theists all believe that God has purposed the world for loving

relationship and endowed it with the requisite freedom. This freedom in turn, argue open theists,

entailed the risk that agents would choose contrary to God’s will. This belief shapes the open

theist’s understanding of providence. If God takes certain risks, then some of his purposes may

not be fulfilled, in which case we cannot assume that all that occurs in the world happens as it

does because God is purposefully behind it either by decree (Calvinism) or specific permission

(Arminianism). Boyd characterizes both these understandings as sharing a ‘blueprint’ worldview,

for they both understand God’s governance of the world to mean the world is always precisely

what God decided it should be (either be decree or specific permission).56

The belief that divine providence is compatible with both a warfare worldview and divine

risk-taking has serious consequences for our approach to prayer. There may be occasions when

we pray as we ought in which God responds favorably, but the desired outcome will fail to

actualize because of factors outside the immediate control of God and those praying. As Basinger

explains, “it is always possible that even that which God in his unparalleled wisdom believes to be

the best course of action at any given time may not produce the anticipated results in the long

run.”57

In examining the models of divine providence, John Sanders focuses on what he calls the

major traditionalist models that affirm omnipotence and divine involvement in the world. He

names and compares six such models: Augustinian-Calvinism, Thomism, Molinism, Calvinistic-

55

Boyd, God at War: The Bible and Spiritual Conflict (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1996). Walter Wink has also argued a warfare worldview in Engaging the Power: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 1992).

56 Boyd coins the phrase “blueprint worldview” to describe the traditional understanding of foreknowledge

throughout God at War. See also Is God to Blame?, ch. 2. 57

Basinger, “The Practical Implications,” in Openness, 165.

19

Molinism, Mystery/Antinomy, and Freewill Theism. The latter in turn is divided into traditional

and open view versions.58

Sanders comments:

Openness agrees with traditional freewill theism regarding libertarian freedom,

the rejection of meticulous providence, that some of God’s decisions are conditioned by what the creatures decide (e. g. conditional election), and that, at times, God’s will is thwarted. Proponents of openness emphasize that God has chosen to establish reciprocal relationships with us based upon the eternal love shared by the Holy Trinity. There is genuine give-and-take with God. In love God takes risks that we will not respond appropriately to the divine love.

59

The three supporting convictions earlier mentioned—love with regard to purpose,

freedom with regard to creation, and risk with regard to providence—together lay the foundation

for the open theist’s understanding of divine agency in the world. While some non-openness

models embrace the first two, open theists are unique in positing diving risk-taking. This means

that prayer will not always issue in the desired outcome even when God wishes to favor us by

acting in response to our request. On such occasions, for God to grant our request means God

agrees to act on our behalf with a view to bringing about the desired state of affairs. It does not

guarantee that the desired state will obtain.

§4.3 Rules of engagement

What sort of conditions must there be if the world is the sort of place where God can wish

to bring about a state of affairs and act with a view to bringing about that state but the desired

state fail to obtain? And does this not decimate any hope that prayer is efficacious? Boyd answers

these concerns by appealing to the multifaceted nature of the conditions or “creational variables”

under which we live and pray. We might say these constitute the “rules of engagement”

sovereignly designed by God to govern the God-world relationship. Boyd argues that whereas

traditionally the church has claimed it understood creation well and posited the mystery of evil in

God, it is rather in the complexities of creation where we ought to locate the fundamental mystery

(about evil, pain, suffering) and God’s character and loving intentions which we ought never to

doubt.

What interfaces between a predictably loving God and the complexities of an

unpredictable and fallen world that might account for the failure of an omnipotent God’s will on

occasion? Boyd suggests that we understand God’s relationship to creation to be guided by

58

Sanders “Mapping the Terrain of Divine Providence,” 2-8, available from http://www.opentheism.info/pdf/sanders/mapping_providence.pdf; Internet; accessed November 26 2006.

59 Ibid., 6-7.

20

conditions God freely set in place when God created but which God covenants to honor for the

sake of his purposes. The entire project of creation is held together and governed from beginning

to end by overarching purposes and a correspondingly appropriate creaturely context (our

capacities and the capacities of the physical universe to behave freely). This context is required for

the fulfillment of God’s purposes.

We understand that the material universe is an ordered system governed by laws that

apply to material entities (motion and gravity for example). Similarly, Boyd suggests, there are

metaphysical laws that govern the God-world relationship. Several of these can be known by us,

but we can never comprehend the whole of it. One creational variable, Boyd argues, is prayer.

Prayer (or the lack of it) is one of the influencing factors which constitute the totality of relations

that determine outcomes on any specific occasion, but it is not the only factor. This is at the heart

of what makes faith and prayer both comforting and frustrating.

§4.4 God’s infinite intelligence and the governance of the world

One last contribution of Boyd’s is necessary to fill out our understanding of the

providential contours of open theism. Boyd has offered what he calls the Infinite Intelligence

Argument to explain how foreknowledge under the open model provides God a providential

advantage in governing the world. It is argued against the open view that if God does not

foreknow that some particular evil will occur at a particular time, God cannot act providentially

to prevent it. He must wait until things occur to discover anything about them. Hence God is

caught off guard, as it were. Providence then becomes a matter of damage control as opposed to

wise preparation.

Open theists have made two responses to this, one relative to determinism and one

relative to traditional simple-foreknowledge. To the former it is admitted that a God who

unconditionally decrees all that occurs exercises the greatest possible level of control and takes no

risks. Indeterminists, including open theists, have objected that viewing God as exhaustively

determining all things is unacceptable on biblical/theological, philosophical, and existential

grounds. I shall not here present these arguments. I shall only comment that open theists concede

that theological determinism offers us a view in which God exercises the greatest possible control.

However, for such a God, the notion of ‘preparing’ for the future would be precluded on the

basis of the fact that all that occurs is equally unconditionally decreed by the one divine will.

21

To those indeterminists who embrace either timeless knowledge or simple-

foreknowledge, it has been shown that these would be providentially useless to God.60

There is

nothing a God who possesses such knowledge can do that a God who does not possess such

knowledge cannot also do. The challenge is to understand what sort of foreknowledge would

provide God a basis upon which to act providentially in ways not equally foreknown. This Boyd

does with his Infinite Intelligence Argument.

God’s ability to deal with what happens, the argument goes, is not in the least affected by

the fact that God faces a future comprised of “possibilities” and “certainties” as opposed to one

comprised exclusively of “certainties.” The answer lies in appreciating the infinite intelligence of

God. As an infinitely intelligent person, God would eternally foreknow all possibilities, all the

possible story lines, including all the possible responses he might give and all the possible

counter-responses of people. Being infinitely intelligent, God is able to attend to any number of

such possibilities as if each was the only thing that could happen. When any possible event becomes

actual, Boyd insists that God was perfectly and eternally aware that things might happen this way

and so was perfectly and eternally prepared, no less so than if this was the only thing God had to

contemplate from all eternity.61

We humans possess finite intelligence. This means that our ability to think, plan, and

prepare for the future is limited the more we have to consider. Suppose we have ten, fifty, or a

hundred possibilities to contemplate. We are necessarily less prepared for them the greater their

number, for our intelligence is divided among them. But God is infinitely intelligent. His

intelligence is not “spread thin” or “divided” among the possibilities. God can bring all his

attention and preparation to bear on each of any number of possibilities and thus not be any less

60

For a presentation of the simple-foreknowledge view of the future, see David Hunt, “Divine Providence and Simple Foreknowledge,” Faith and Philosophy 10:3 (July 1993): 394-414 and Hunt’s chapter “The Simple-Foreknowledge View” in Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001). The objection that such knowledge is providentially useless has been offered by David Basinger, “Middle Knowledge and Classical Christian Thought,” Religious Studies 22 (1986): 407-422, “Simple Foreknowledge and Providential Control,” Faith and Philosophy 10:3 (July 1993): 421-427; Hasker, God, Time, and Knowledge, ch. 3; and Sanders, “Why Simple Foreknowledge Offers No More Providential Control than the Openness of God,” Faith and Philosophy 14:1 (January 1997): 26-40. Hunt offers replies in, “Prescience and Providence: A Reply to My Critics,” Faith and Philosophy 10:3 (July 1993): 428-438.

61 See Boyd, “Neo-Molinism and the Infinite Intelligence of God,” Philosophi Christi 5:1 (2003): 187-204;

“Unbounded Love and the Openness of the Future: An Exploration and Critique of Pinnock’s Theological Pilgrimage,” in S. Porter and T. Cross, eds., Semper Reformandum: Studies in Honour of Clark H. Pinnock (Cumbria, U.K.: Paternoster, 2003), 38-58; and most recently “Two Ancient (and Modern) Motivations For Ascribing Exhaustive Definite Foreknowledge to God: A Historic Overview and Critical Assessment,” American Academy of Religion, Washington D.C., present November 27, 2006, and available from http://www.ctr4process.org/events/ort/06%20ORT%20Boyd.pdf; Internet; accessed 22 December 2006. A Middle Knowledge response to Boyd’s Infinite Intelligence Argument is offered by David Werther, “Open Theism and Middle Knowledge: An Appraisal of Gregory Boyd’s Neo-Molinism,” Philosophi Christi 5:1 (2003): 205-215.

22

prepared than if he were to anticipate one certain story-line. In the open view, then, God does

not under-know the future, he over-knows it.

Consider the game of chess as an analogy.62

Suppose I challenge Kasparov to a match.

Kasparov doesn’t possess definite foreknowledge of my moves, but he does possess knowledge of

the possible moves I may make (and in certain circumstances throughout the match he will be

able to predict with certainty some of my moves). Because he is far more intelligent than I,

Kasparov is able to anticipate and prepare adequate responses to any move I may make. Is there

any question who is in control of the game? Is there any question who will win? None

whatsoever. Kasparov is not put at any disadvantage by having to consider possibilities as

opposed to certainties.

Let us grant for the sake of argument, however, that Kasparov does possess a printout of

the entire match, including all of my and his moves, in a manner analogous to traditional

indeterminist notions of divine foreknowledge.63

Would this knowledge give Kasparov any

advantage? Would he be able to make use of this knowledge in order to determine his moves

ahead of time? The answer, of course, is no. There is no advantage to be gained (and some

problems created) by Kasparov’s having definite foreknowledge of every move in the game. On

the contrary, such knowledge could not at all explain how it is that Kasparov is able to prepare for

the game or how he is able to interact during the game.

One might argue that the simple-foreknowledge model is nothing more than pre-recorded

open theism. Consider, the simple foreknowledge model believes that we live in a world where

God responds to us in dynamic mutual relations, where we are libertarianly free to choose, where

our prayers make the required difference to God, and where things might sometimes genuinely

be different than they are. Open theists also believe we live in this kind of world. The only

difference is that advocates of simple foreknowledge believe that everything about this world

exists eternally in God’s mind. And, it is argued, our trust in God’s providential care rests in this

being the case. But open theists ask, What difference would such knowledge make? What

providential advantage would God gain by possessing this kind of foreknowledge as opposed to

knowledge of all possible story lines? None whatsoever. But if such knowledge is of no practical

value to God, believing that he possesses such knowledge can be of no practical value to us.

62

Peter Geach devised the chess analogy, Providence and Evil: The Stanton Lectures, 1971-1972 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 58.

63 Excluding Middle Knowledge, which is problematic on other grounds; see Hasker, ed., Middle Knowledge:

Theory and Applications (New York: Peter Lang Publishers Inc., 2000).

23

§4.5 Consequent ambiguity

Once we posit a universe of intersecting and sometimes competing divine, angelic, and

human wills, together with genuine risk and warfare under a myriad of creational factors we

cannot comprehend, we have an entirely different approach to the problem of evil. We can know

that for any given evil, God, being perfectly loving, always does all God can do to maximize good

and minimize evil, but we also know that given the metaphysics of freedom and risk, how much

good God is able to actualize on any given occasion is conditioned by these creational factors.

Thus, we can never know enough about the complexities of creation and the contributing factors

that determine specific outcomes to judge precisely which variables played which determining

roles. Consequently the world presents us with a good deal of ambiguity, not with respect to the

divine character or intention (which open theists insist is loving and good), but with respect to

the intersecting creational variables.

Open theists generally admit that God can and does on occasion guarantee outcomes.

They also admit that God can and does on occasion make compatibilistic use of evil.

Consequently, given our ignorance of the complexities and the hidden variables, we are consigned

to ambiguity regarding specifics. We can never know whether some specific evil was opposed by

God as such, given all the variables that are part of any event in the world, or whether God was

specifically permitting or making use of agents in their evil intentions in a larger attempt to

minimize evil and maximize good in the world. We must, open theists urge, wean ourselves of

the need to know and therefore of our tendency to judge.64

§4.6 Consequent assurance

This ambiguity just considered relates to creation, however, and not to God’s character or

his loving purposes. We can never comprehend the totality of divine and creational influences

under the rules of engagement established by God, but we may enjoy profound assurances. First,

we may know that God always does all God can do given his purposes and the context in which God

finds himself, to maximize good and minimize evil in the world.65

Here “all God can do” does not

equal something like “flex all the muscle God has” or “exercise all the power God possesses.” It

rather means God always exhausts all the available avenues for achieving his highest glory and the

good and perfection of creation within the constraints he freely put in place to achieve the desired

64

Boyd, Is God to Blame?, ch. 6, explores the ambiguity of life in relationship to prayer. Given the vast complexities of creation, we cannot judge the specifics of any evil that occurs, why our prayers were unanswered, or why circumstances do not always turn out as expected.

65 Boyd, Satan, 210-212; see also §8.1.

24

relationship with creation. Within this context, God does all he can to maximize good and

minimize evil. That is his nature.

A second assurance is that however grave may be our suffering, we can rest in the

confidence that God is resourceful enough to redeem our circumstances when we cooperate with

him (Rm. 8.28-29). There is no horror so great that God cannot redeem good and beauty from it.

God is always redemptively engaged in every occasion seeking to bring about the highest good

and most loving state of affairs.

A third assurance we have in a risk-filled world is in the entrusting of our souls to God.

With respect to our final state and our eternal enjoyment of God’s presence, we have an

unconditional divine guarantee that those who trust God cannot possibly be disappointed66

whatever else may occur in this life.

§5 CONTRIBUTIONS OF OPEN THEISTS

§5.1 Open theists on prayer

Having laid an adequate foundation for an open theistic theology of prayer by noting the

nature and limits of existential arguments, the defining claims and convictions of open theism,

and the general contours of God’s providential actions in the world, we are now ready to examine

specific open theist contributions to an understanding of petitionary prayer.

Let us begin with David Basinger’s contribution in The Openness of God67

since it marks

the beginning of a debate that has continued unabated for over ten years now. Basinger sketches

the practical implications which follow from this view of God and the world. He notes that most

Christians believe that whether God directly intervenes in our world depends at times on whether

we petition God to do so.68

In other words, many times it is the case that “we have not because we

ask not” in the sense that “certain states of affairs that God can and would like to bring about do

not occur because we have chosen not to request that he intervene.”69

God, in the open model,

intends us to become morally mature persons, and our shaping the world in partnership with

God through prayer is part of that process.

Basinger points out the crucial difference between petitionary prayer as viewed by

theological determinists and process theists on the one hand and open theists on the other:

66

Ibid., 239. 67

Basinger, “Practical Implications,” in Pinnock, et. al., Openness, 155-176. 68

Ibid., 156. 69

Ibid., 158.

25

…it is also possible for proponents of the open model to conceive of petitionary prayer as efficacious in the crucial sense in which it is not possible for proponents of either specific sovereignty or process theism to maintain that it is. Since proponents of specific sovereignty believe that God always ensures that we freely make the exact decision that he would have us make, and since process theists deny that God can ever unilaterally intervene in earthly affairs, those in neither camp can justifiably maintain that petitionary prayer initiates unilateral divine activity that would not have occurred if we had not utilized our God-given power of choice to request such divine assistance. However, since we who affirm the open view deny that God can unilaterally control human decision-making that is truly voluntary but affirm that God can unilaterally intervene in earthly affairs, it does become possible for us to maintain justifiably that petitionary prayer is efficacious in this sense—that is, to maintain justifiably that divine activity is at time dependent on our freely offered petitions.

70

Not all open theists agree on just how God ought to be viewed as “intervening” into the

lives of those for whom they pray. All open theists would agree that God as a general rule does

not override a person’s freedom to determine that she perform some action. But what if we

assume, Basinger asks, that what is being asked when we prayer that God intervene on behalf of

someone in a troubled marriage, for example, is that God only “influence their lives in such a way

that it will be more likely that things will work out for the best”? Basinger answers:

The answer depends on what we who affirm the open model mean when we say that God loves all individuals in the sense that he is always seeking the highest good for each. For some of us this means that God would never refrain from intervening beneficially in one person’s life simply because someone else has failed to request that he do so. And, accordingly, we naturally find prayers requesting even non-coercive divine influence in the lives of others to be very problematic. Other proponents of the open model, though, see no necessary incompatibility in affirming that God always seeks what is best for each of us and that God may at times wait to exert all the non-coercive influence that he can justifiably exert on a given person until requested to do so by another person. And thus they readily acknowledge the potential efficacy of prayers of this type.

71

Another open theist who treats prayer is Boyd. In the second of his trilogy on evil, Boyd

develops his view of prayer within an open-warfare worldview, beginning with the affirmation

that “God miraculously intervenes in world history and responds to the prayers of his people.”72

70

Ibid., 160. 71

Ibid., 161. Basinger would classify himself among those open theists who find prayers requesting even non-coercive divine influence in the lives of others to be very problematic. He counts Hasker and Sanders as examples of the latter group who do not find such prayers problematic. Among open theists that I have researched, Basinger is alone is his view. All other open theists agree that there are times that God fails to bestow some good he is otherwise willing to bestow because humans fail to request it of him.

72 Boyd, Satan, 210.

26

Given this conviction, and the thesis that God’s exercise of power to direct events as he wishes is

restricted by free agency,73

what can petitionary prayer contribute? Boyd explains:

One could argue that [petitionary prayer] is pointless, for if what a person prays for is something that is best for God to do, it seems God would already by trying to do it whether or not that person prayed. On the other hand, if one naively prays for something that is not best for God to do, then it seems that a God who always does the most good he can would not do it, regardless of the prayer. In other words, if what one is praying for is best, praying for it seems either unnecessary if God can carry it out or pointless if he cannot. Moreover, if what one is praying for is not best, God would not carry it out even if he could. So what is the point of petitionary prayer?

74

We shall consider how others have addressed the problem of petitioning a perfectly good

God. For now we can summarize Boyd’s own answer:

I submit that the problem is solved if we understand prayer to be part of the

morally responsible potential, the spiritual say-so that God gives free agents in his desire to have a creation in which love is possible. I have argued that God is restricted in terms of what he can unilaterally carry out by the domain of irrevocable freedom he has given to agents. I have further argued that this entails that the short- and long-term implications of agents’ behavior for all other agents must be allowed to unfold, for better or for worse. We may understand prayer as a central aspect of this moral responsibility. By God’s own design, it functions as a crucial constituent in the ‘givens’ of any situation that makes it possible for God more intensely to steer a situation toward his desired end.

75

Thus Boyd defines prayer as “creaturely empowerment” and sets it within those

“variables” that define the “givens”76

of any particular situation, givens that just are that situation

to which God relates and within which he must work. That is, among all the variables God

respects in relating to the world (God’s loving purposes, the irrevocable freedom they require and

God endows, the laws of nature, the specifics of any actual situation, and many other variables we

can’t possibly fathom), prayer is fundamental. It is a variable that, along with other variables,

defines the contexts in which God sometimes gets what he desires and other times does not. And

this arrangement is God’s own sovereign design. It is how we help shape ourselves and the world

we live in.

73

Ibid., 226. 74

Ibid. 75

Ibid., 231. 76

The “givens” of any particular situation are those metaphysical and creaturely constraints with which God must deal. Metaphysical constraints are definitional and are grounded in the existence and nature of God. Creaturely constraints are contingent features of world God freely decides to create but which, once created, God covenants to honor and respect. Boyd’s Six Warfare Theses are the fundamental “givens” that define the God-world relationship. Boyd follows Francis Tupper, Scandalous Providence: The Jesus Story of the Compassionate God (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1995), is designating these constraints as “givens.”

27

This, Boyd argues, makes sense of prayer as we see it in Scripture, as an activity that

influences God and contributes to outcomes that might otherwise not have been. In Boyd’s

words, “the effectiveness and urgency of petitionary prayer as it is commanded and illustrated

throughout Scripture only makes sense if we are asking God to do something he would not

otherwise do and if God at least sometimes does this.”77

But why should God design the world this way? What is the divine rationale for such an

arrangement? In Satan and the Problem of Evil, Boyd suggests three reasons. First, such prayer

“preserves our personhood.” Interpersonal relationships require that the persons involved be

empowered over and against one another. Where one party exhaustively determines the other,

the dominated party is depersonalized.78

Thus, we must possess the capacity to determine and

shape ourselves and the world we live in if our relationship to God is to possess personal

integrity. Second, mutual interdependent relationships are maintained and encouraged through

personal communication. By making much of the good God truly desires for us and the world

dependent in part upon our petitioning God, God weaves into the fabric of the cosmos the sort of

interdependent communication necessary to the thriving of divine-human relationships. Third,

Boyd suggests that prayer is an essential part of our learning to reign with God. God wants us to

share in his universal reign by being vice-regents through whom his loving jurisdiction is

mediated throughout the universe. Thus, this life is a kind of probationary training grounds, as it

were, where we learn to employ those gifts and authorities by which we will forever rule with

God. God could not have the desired result without endowing us with the required capacities and

leaving us free to mature into their proper use. Petitionary prayer, freely offered, is an exercise of

creaturely power fundamental to our growing into God’s eschatological aims for us.79

Lastly, Boyd discusses variables related to prayer. These variables are always present. They

define the context in which we pray and influence outcomes, though as noted, we are often

confined to ambiguity regarding specifics. Boyd lists nine such variables: God’s will, the faith of

those prayed for, the faith of those praying, the persistence of prayer, the number of those

praying, human and angelic free will, the number and strength of spirit agents, and the presence

of sin. These, Boyd explains, are only some of the variables we are aware of which influence

prayer’s effectiveness.

In describing his understanding of prayer within a “risk” (open) model of providence,

John Sanders emphasizes the sense in which God acts in the world “because” we request him to

77

Boyd, Satan, 228. See also Boyd’s Is God to Blame?, ch. 6, which further develops his views on prayer. 78

Ibid., 233. 79

Boyd further develops these arguments in Is God to Blame? chs. 6 and 9.

28

do so. “Does it make sense,” asks Sanders, “for proponents of specific sovereignty to claim that

God grants something because of or in response to the request made?”80

He notes Paul Helms’

understanding of prayer within a deterministic worldview. Helm comments that in a “no-risk”

model of providence “intercessory prayer is not one means of settling God’s mind on a course of

action, but one of the ways in which the already settled mind of God effects what he has

decreed.”81

Thus, though God has unconditionally determined outcomes and the means (prayer)

by which they are to come about, Helm claims we can still agree that God answers ‘because’ we

pray. Petitionary prayers are efficacious in the sense that God wills them as the means by which

determined ends are to be actualized. Sanders argues that this sense of ‘because’ is clearly

different than the sense of ‘because’ which attributes contingency to our requests and God’s

responses. Sanders argues:

…the God of specific sovereignty is not actually prevailed on by prayer. God never responds to us or does anything because of our prayers because this would imply contingency in God. In this model it is difficult to make sense of James’s statement that ‘you have not because you ask not’ (Jas 4:2) because if the God of specific sovereignty wanted you to have it, then he would ensure that you asked for it. If God’s will is never thwarted in any detail, then we can never fail to receive something from God because we failed to ask for it.

82

Sanders goes on to summarize the “risk” model of prayer:

Our prayers make a difference to God because of the personal relationship God enters into with us. God chooses to make himself dependent on us for certain things. It is God’s sovereign choice to establish this sort of relationship; it is not forced on God by

us….Our failure to practice impetratory prayer means that certain things that God wishes to do for us may not be possible because we do not ask.

83

Sanders also addresses the debate among open theists over the objection that God, being

omnibenevolent, must always act to bring about the best possible state of affairs in any given

situation whether or not he is requested to do so. Sanders makes two points in reply to this

objection. First, he points out that it is not clear that the notion of a “most valuable state of

affairs” is coherent.84

God, Sanders suggests, would have any of several alternative actions to

pursue. Second, if what God holds to be “most valuable” is the personal relationship with other

80

Sanders, God Who Risks, 269. 81

Paul Helm, The Providence and God. Contours of Christian Theology (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 55, quoted in Sanders, God Who Risks, 269.

82 Sanders, God Who Risks, 271.

83 Ibid., 271, 273.

84 Ibid., 273.

29

persons, then his actualizing all possible goods independently of our asking him to do so (at least

on occasion) would undermine the integrity of the sort of relationship God wishes to have with

us.85

The first of these two seems less than convincing. Surely it is coherent to suppose that on

occasion there is one best, most loving option to pursue even if there is no one best possible

world to create. So the question remains, what are we to expect of perfect love in such instances?

Sanders’ second point, however, provides what I think is a most fruitful way to understand why

God would sometimes make his actions in realizing good in the world contingent upon our

petitioning him.

The open view approach to prayer is further argued by Clark Pinnock who holds

petitionary prayer “to be a good indicator of the interactive nature of our relationship to God.”86

In his words:

In prayer the practicality of the open view of God shines. In prayer God treats us as subjects not objects and real dialogue takes place. God could act alone in ruling the world but wants to work in consultation. It is not his way unilaterally to decide everything. He treats us as partners in a two-way conversation and wants our input….

87

Thus prayer validates the open view of God because it so adequately reveals the

interactive nature of the God-world relationship. Pinnock argues this is crucial to providing a

proper sort of motivation for prayer. “People pray passionately,” he says, “when they see purpose

in it, when they think prayer can make a difference and that God may act because of it.”88

Terrence Fretheim has had an enormous effect on open theism.89

He describes prayer as

“creating openings (relational space) for God in the world.”90

In his review of prayer in the Old

Testament, Fretheim notes that “silence on the part of the people means that God is not able to

be God for them in a way that God would like to be.”91

Likewise, “what is possible for God in

responding to prayer in a way that is in the interests of all concerned may vary from one situation

to the next.”92

With Boyd, who describes prayer as “creaturely empowerment,” Fretheim notes

that “prayer has to do with that which brings the human and the divine factors into the fullest

possible power-sharing effectiveness.”93

85

Ibid. 86

Pinnock, Most Moved Mover: A Theology of Openness (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic Press, 2001), 171. 87

Ibid. 88

Ibid. 89

Chiefly through his The Suffering of God. An Old Testament Perspective (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984). 90

Terrence E. Fretheim, “Prayer in the Old Testament: Creating Space in the World for God,” in A Primer on Prayer, ed. Paul R. Sponheim (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988): 51-62.

91 Ibid., 54.

92 Ibid., 55.

93 Ibid., 57.

30

The tabernacle provides an example in physical terms of creating space in the world for

God. Likewise, the prayer that is offered in this house of prayer creates space wherein God dwells

and acts in the world. J. Gerald Jenzen, agreeing with Fretheim’s approach, comments:

It is of the utmost significance for both theological reflection and the practice of prayer that this mystery of unity [between God and humankind] as mutual indwelling is embodied in an act of prayer, the prayer of Jesus as high priest bearing on his shoulders and his heart the names of his followers and, ultimately, of his whole creation. To pray as a Christian, then, is to enter with Jesus into that space, as the space God has freely opened up for the world to be, a space within which it is safe to invite God, and the company of God, into the space of one’s own internal freedom.

94

Fretheim’s fundamental insight into prayer as our “creating space for God in the world”

expresses well what is at the heart of open theism’s approach to prayer. Prayer is that “relational

space” we create in response to God’s invitation and in so doing create an opportunity, a space,

for God to move in the world.

Samuel E. Balentine has offered a most thorough review and commentary on prayer in

the Old Testament,95

and his work deserves more review than we can here give. Balentine argues

that prayer in the Old Testament is a means of delineating divine character. He points to prayers

that appear in the text not merely as an individual’s prayer on this or that occasion (insignificant

in terms of the theology that motivates it), but as prayers “put into the mouths of certain pray-ers

for the purpose of conveying the ideological and theological concerns of the editors.”96

Balentine

further shows how prayer reveals the dialogical nature of the divine-human relationship. God

chooses to engage humanity in a relationship of reciprocity. “The texts I have examined,”

concludes Balentine, “repeatedly present God with reality-depicting metaphors as speaking and

acting toward humanity, and as listening for, hence inviting, human response.”97

Balentine

further concludes:

The central point here is that covenant relationship is fundamentally dialogical. Two parties are mutually bound to one another in a relationship that is desirable and important to both. Both parties have a voice and a role to play; neither can disregard the appeals of the other and maintain the relationship as it is intended to be. If either God or Israel does not participate in the dialogue, then communication fails and the relationship is impoverished by silence.

94

J. Gerald Janzen, “Praying in the Space God Creates for the World,” in Gaiser and Throntveit, Essays, 117. 95

Samuel Balentine, Prayer in the Hebrew Bible: The Drama of Divine-Human Dialogue (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993).

96 Ibid., 89. Balentine follows M. Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1972), 32-45, who describes such prayers as “liturgical orations” and “literary programmatic creations” intended to confirm the community’s view of God.

97 Ibid., 262.

31

To sharpen this point with respect to the discourse of prayer, covenant partnership means that God cannot and does not use the divine prerogatives of power to reduce Israel’s response to monotones of praise, submission, or silence. Such limitations on human response effectively eviscerate genuine covenant relationship, substituting instead enforced obedience and passive devotion.

98

Thus, for Balentine, prayer is a constitutive act of faith that creates the potential for

newness in both God and humanity.99

Neither party in the relationship can remain unaffected

after prayer is offered. The view of God that emerges from the Old Testament is of a God who is

personal, accessible, loving, powerful, and compassionate.

Let us further consider the work of Robert Ellis.100

After summarizing both the Old and

New Testament evidence regarding prayer, Ellis has a helpful review of the history of

interpretation on relevant texts and issues. It is when he discusses prayer and the doctrine of God,

however, that Ellis makes very fruitful contributions, arguing the link between our doctrine of

God and our understanding of prayer. Ellis also focuses on Christ as the definitive word on what

God is like. Thus, a Christocentric theology of prayer views God as “Christlike.”101

In drawing

together the evidence from both the Old and New Testaments and the contributions of history,

Ellis concludes that prayer is fundamentally a “participation in the action of the Trinity in the

world.”102

The Trinity is crucial for Ellis because it suggests that prayer is not so much something

we offer to God as it is something that takes place within God. God draws us into himself, into an

experience of his triune love and purposes. Furthermore, God’s being complex (triune) suggests

that God values synergy and sociality (both crucial elements in an open view theology of prayer).

For prayer to reflect these trinitarian values God and humans must mutually engage one another;

humans must be sufficiently autonomous persons in their own right.103

Consider one last contribution to open theism’s understanding of prayer, that of Vincent

Brummer.104

Our concerns take us to three issues taken up by Brummer: the nature of

impetratory prayer as constitutive of personal relations; issues involved in praying to an

omniscient God, and problems faced by claiming a perfectly good God would make his

performance of some good dependent upon the prayers of less than perfectly knowledgeable and

perfectly good agents.

98

Ibid., 262-263. 99

Ibid., 268. 100

Robert Ellis, Answering God: Towards a Theology of Intercession (Waybnesboro, GA: Paternoster, 2005). 101

Ibid., 94. 102

Ibid., 178. 103

Ibid., 180. 104

Vincent Brummer, What Are We Doing When We Pray? A Philosophical Inquiry (London: SCM Press, 1984).

32

Regarding the first of these, Brummer argues a two-way contingency that characterizes

the relationship between us and God. Petitionary prayer makes sense as a free engagement

occurring between personal agents. Brummer places petitionary prayer’s efficacy in the space

between those actions impossible for God to perform (because they are logically impossible or

incompatible with God’s holy character) and those which God performs inevitably by virtue of

his nature and character.105

Constitutive of impetratory (petitionary) prayer is the presupposition

that:

God does what is asked because he is asked. In this sense the petition itself is a condition for God’s doing what he is requested. On the one hand, however, it is not a sufficient condition making it inevitable for God to comply with the request. In that case prayer would become a kind of magical technique by which God could be manipulated by us…On the other hand, although the petition is not a cause which makes God’s response inevitable, it is the reason for his response.

106

Thus we must reject divine immutability as understood by Aquinas, for:

…not only would all events in the world be inevitable and therefore not the sort of things that could meaningfully be objects of petition, but God would not be the sort of being to whom petitions could meaningfully be addressed. If his intentions are immutably fixed from all eternity, he would not be able to react to what we do or feel, nor to the petitions we address to him. He could not be said to do things because we ask him to do them.

107

Second, Brummer considers the problem of petitioning a God who is believed to know

precisely how future contingents will obtain. Were God to infallibly foreknow every event and

human choice, “no event could take place differently from the way it in fact does, and no human

agent could act differently from the way he in fact does, for that would falsify God’s infallible

foreknowledge.”108

So far as we know, Origen was the first Christian to take up this question.109

And his answers were not novel. He adopts standard Stoic explanations.110

Boethius also urged,

“If God foresees all things and cannot in anything be mistaken, that which his Providence sees

will happen, must result.”111

Brummer declines Boethius’ own solution to this problem (divine

timelessness) and instead concludes:

105

Ibid., 34. 106

Ibid. 107

Ibid., 35. 108

Brummer, What Are We Doing When We Pray?, 41. 109

See §9, n. 167. 110

Boyd, “Two Ancient (and Modern) Motivations,” n. p. 111

Boethius V, quoted in Brummer, What Are We Doing When We Pray?, 41.

33

God…could of course have created a deterministic universe, in which case there would have been only one possible course future events could take. In that case it would have been coherent to claim that he knows with absolute certainty what course all events will take—since there would be only one. However, we all know from personal experience that this is not the sort of universe which he has in fact created. He has rather created a world with an open future in which various possibilities could be actualized.

112

Prayer cannot, then, be approached with the understanding that God is somehow

informed by his knowledge of future contingents in determining how best to answer our prayers.

That is quite impossible on a presentist, indeterminist cosmology. This does not contradict the

claim that God knows all things, however. Brummer contends that God knows all things as they

are, not as they are not.

Brummer’s third concern is the problem generated by supposing both that God is

perfectly loving and that God makes the provision of our good dependent upon our petitioning

him. This problem has been addressed by both Boyd and Sanders and will be consider again

under §7.2 in response to Stephen Roy’s criticism and David Basinger’s concern. I shall only

mention here that Brummer’s reply is similar to that which I give in §7.2. The problem with

many of the proposed solutions to the problem, claims Brummer, is that these aim petitionary

prayer at stimulating either God or the petitioner himself to action. This is misleading in that it

does not take into account the “relational character of prayer” or the “mediate nature of divine

agency.”113

God acts through the actions we perform.

As will be seen, I am in fundamental agreement with Brummer on this last issue. Both the

relational and mediate nature of divine agency is where we must find a solution to the problem

posed by praying to a perfectly good God. What is needed, moreover, is a sufficient rationale for

justifying a perfectly loving God’s making his loving provision dependent upon our prayers. I

address this in §7.2 and again in the eight concluding theses of §8.1.

§5.2 Summary of contributions

There are other contributions we could include, but the foregoing will have to suffice in

representing what open theists generally perceive to be the nature of divine action in the world

and the role of petitionary prayer.114

To temporarily summarize these contributions, then, we can

say that open theists:

112

Ibid., 44. 113

Ibid., 57. 114

See also Peter Baelz, Does God Answer Prayer? (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1982); Kara E. Verhage, “Prayer and a Partially Unsettled Future: A Theological Framework for Prayer From the Perspective of Open Theism Emphasizing Prayers of Supplication,” M.A. thesis, Luther Seminary, 2004; Frank W. Robinson, “Adversity, Crisis

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● view the God-world relationship as a covenant in which God pledges to achieve his loving

purposes for creation in partnership with human beings.

● understand that our shaping the world with God through prayer is constitutive of the

order and synergy required by the sort of loving relationship for which we were created.

● define prayer as God-given “creaturely empowerment” by which we “create space” in the

world for God to act.

● see prayer as one of many variables that determines what we and the world become, part

of the morally responsible potential God grants us in making possible the sort of free and

responsible world that reflects God’s own triune loving personhood and that is required

for us to develop the capacities necessary to reigning with God throughout eternity.

● acknowledge the necessary ambiguity that characterizes the world and limits our ability to

judge why things happen as they do or why they do not always happen as they might

have.

§6 THE EXISTENTIAL CASE AGAINST RELIGIOUS ADEQUACY

We have now discussed the nature and difficulty of adequacy claims (2.1-2) and suggested

that open theists ground such claims in the pragmatic maxim, the light of Scripture, and the

shared experience of a community (2.3-4). We have noted divine epistemic openness regarding

future contingents as the defining claim of open theism (3.1), reviewed love, freedom, and risk as

the three essential supporting convictions shared by open theists (3.2), and noted various relevant

diversities within open theism (3.3). We then surveyed the main providential contours of open

theism relevant to a theology of petitionary prayer (4.1-6) and surveyed the representative

contributions open theists have made to an understanding of prayer. It remains only to engage

specific objections (§6 and §7) and in response lay out what appear to be the building blocks of

an open view theology of petitionary prayer (§8) that is religiously adequate.

§6.1 General objections

Objections to open theism cover a wide range of issues, including biblical/theological

questions, philosophical objections, the question of church tradition, and of course the practical

Counseling, and the Openness of God: An Evaluation of Open Theism for Pastoral Response to Victims of Violence,” D.Min. thesis, Azusa Pacific University, 2002; and Tiessen’s treatment of prayer within the open view, Providence and Prayer, chs. 4 and 5.

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effects.115

Objections to the practical effects of believing open theism to be true generally claim

that the view results in a loss of trust and therefore of hope in God and his word. Consequently

our confidence in God with respect to guidance, prayer, and suffering is undermined and faith is

eventually shipwrecked.116

John Piper has been unambiguous in his opposition to open theism, listing fifteen

grounds for dismay, which include claims that open theism undermines the Church’s “common

vision of…God,” holds that God “makes mistakes,” attributes ignorance to God, is pastorally

harmful, and undermines the believer’s hope.117

Thomas Ascol has similarly criticized the pastoral

implications of open theism, urging that open theism undermines confidence in Scripture, God,

faith in Christ, the efficacy of prayer, and confident living.118

If God does not know what the

future holds in every respect, and if God’s will is not always triumphant, then prayer at best is

only accidentally efficacious, nothing like a robust biblical portrait of prayer.

Bruce Ware has argued similarly that open theism’s God is unworthy of worship and

unable to answer prayer.119

The open view undermines one’s confidence and hope in God and

adds despair to human suffering.120

Ware urges evangelicals to beware of open theism because

“the very greatness, goodness, and glory of God” and “the strength, well-being, faith, hope, and

confidence of Christian people in and through their God” are at stake.121

Anit-openness rhetoric like the above constitutes a competing contrary existential

argument that makes essentially the same claim. Much of it lacks any logical sophistication in the

way of formal argumentation, but three authors have offered more sophisticated arguments

115

The literature against open theism is growing quickly. See n. 2 for fuller bibliographies. The following together cover the essential arguments against open theism: John Frame, No Other God: A Response to Open Theism (Philipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2001); Norman Geisler, Creating God in the Image of Man? (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 1997); Norman Geisler, Wayne House, eds., The Battle for God (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2001); Douglass Huffman, Eric Johnson, eds., God Under Fire (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing Company, 2002); John Piper, Justin Taylor, and Paul K. Helseth, eds., Beyond the Bounds: Open Theism and the Undermining of Biblical Christianity (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2003); John Piper, ed. Still Sovereign: Contemporary Perspectives on Election, Knowledge and Grace (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 2000); Michael Robinson, The Storms of Providence: Navigating the Waters of Calvinism, Arminianism, and Open Theism (New York: University Press of American, 2003); Steve Roy, How Much Does God Foreknow? A Comprehensive Biblical Study (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2006); Bruce Ware, God’s Lesser Glory (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2000); Douglas Wilson, ed. Bound Only Once: The Failure of Open Theism (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2001); R. K. McGregor Wright, No Place for Sovereignty (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1996).

116 For a brief summary of the existential arguments against open theism, see Heard, “I AM,” 5-7.

117 John Piper, “Grounds for Dismay: The Error and Injury of Open Theism,” 371–384 in John Piper, Justin

Taylor, and Paul Kjoss Helseth eds., Beyond the Bounds (2003). 118

Thomas K. Ascol, “Pastoral Implications of Open Theism,” in Douglas Wilson, ed., Bound Only Once (2001), 173-190.

119 Ware, God’s Lesser Glory (2000).

120 Ibid., chs. 7-9.

121 Ware, Their God Is Too Small: Open Theism and the Undermining of Confidence in God (Wheaton: Crossway

Books, 2003), 17, 19, quoted in Heard, “I AM,” 5.

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against open theism based on the perceived adverse effects it has upon petitionary prayer, and to

these I shall now turn.

§6.2 Bruce Ware: Their God is Too Small

Bruce Ware’s most recent response to open theism is concerned entirely with the practical

implications of the view.122

Previous of his works engage this question, but we shall here engage

his most recent arguments.

Ware lists three difficulties with open theism and its view of prayer.123

First, it issues from

a modern psychologized culture which encourages an inordinate estimate of personal self-

importance. Modern culture caters to what we want and places the “customer” first. Open theism

is infected with this consumerism which in turn distorts prayer’s purpose and role. The view has

only managed to grow in popularity, Ware insists, because of the immensely low view of God and

the unrealistically high view of self that characterizes Christian culture in the West. Second,

because God knows the past and all my present thoughts and desires that go into the formation

of my petitions, there is no sense in which God can interact with me in them. They cannot

represent the sort of reciprocal relationship open theists claim they do. And third, since in open

theism God does not know how future contingents will actualize, God lacks the knowledge he

needs to know best how to answer our prayers. Ware is here responding to Basinger’s explanation

of the general providential contours of open theism. Basinger explained in The Openness of God

that divine guidance from an open view perspective cannot mean discovering “exactly what will

be best in the long run” but rather a means of determining what is “best for us now,” because

within the providential contours of open theism “it is always possible that even that which God in

his unparalleled wisdom believes to be the best course of action at any given time may not

produce the anticipated results in the long run.”124

This is intolerable for Ware, who responds:

On the one hand, because God knows the past and present exhaustively and accurately, he is simply too knowledgeable and wise to learn anything from our prayers. But on the other hand, because he lacks exhaustive definite knowledge of the future, he is not knowledgeable and wise enough to answer our most urgent and pressing prayer in the ways that are, in fact, best.

125

122

Ibid. 123

Ibid., 101-105. 124

Basinger, “The Practical Implications,” in Openness, 165. For Ware “best” equals “that which guarantees the ends God desires,” where for the open theists “best” equals “that which makes most probable the ends God desires.” In some cases of prayer in the open view, guaranteed ends are assured us. The prayer of repentance for salvation, for example, and others. But contexts exist in which we are not guaranteed outcomes.

125 Ware, Their God is too Small, 105.

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Ware also offers four points toward understanding prayer more biblically. First, he

considers the Lord’s prayer (Mat. 6.9-13). Ware believes this prayer assumes God’s mind is

“made up” regarding God’s will. We are not asked to pray “Your will be formed,” Ware

interprets, but rather “your will be done.”126

The assumption is that the God-world relationship

assumed by Christ here precludes our prayers affecting God in the sense open theists claim they

do. God’s will predates our prayers. Thus, “we must never approach prayer,” urges Ware, “or

think of God in terms of what we contribute to God.”127

Second, Jesus teaches us that “your

heavenly Father knows what you need before you ask him” (vv. 7-8). Before we bring our

requests to God, Jesus says, God knows what we need. It follows that we can never tell God

something God does not already know and did not anticipate. Ware believes this contradicts

open theists’ claims. Third, Ware argues from Exodus 32.11-14 (a favorite open theist text used

to show that God “changes his mind” regarding destroying Israel in response to Moses’ petitions)

that God need not be thought of as having changed his mind. Could Moses have brought God

some new insight or perspective that caused God to change his mind? Ware shows that all the

points Moses offers to God as reasons for not destroying Israel are believed by open theists to be

known by God independently of Moses’ petitions. Ware then inquires:

On which of these points would God have responded to Moses and said, “Say, Moses,

good point. I just didn’t understand it that way. Thanks for the insight—and for the reminder! I can hardly believe that I almost forgot about the covenant!”? But isn’t it clear that, to understand this text in a way in which God literally changes his mind, something like this must be envisions?

128

Lastly, Ware inquires into what sense our prayers might “make a difference” to God. It

cannot be that God ever changes his mind in response to human actions or that we “contribute”

to God. In what sense then do our prayers make a difference? Ware answers:

Simply put…God has designed that his good and perfect will be accomplished, in some respects, only as his people pray and first ask for God so to work. The role of prayer, then, becomes necessary to the accomplishing of these certain purposes, and our involvement in prayer, then, actually functions to assist in bringing these purposes to their fulfillment.

129

126

Ibid., 89. 127

Ibid., 90. 128

Ibid., 95-96. 129

Ibid., 98.

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§6.3 Stephen Roy: How Much Does God Foreknow?

Stephen Roy has recently offered a comprehensive engagement of the open view that

makes a substantive attempt to establish the religious inadequacy of the view based on four

problems that result from an open view approach to prayer.130

The first regards how the God of

open theism decides whether he should answer my prayer in the way I ask.131

Various crucial

events in the future that would, Roy supposes, make a particular answer to my prayer wise and

loving are unknown to God. Roy cannot see how, given divine epistemic openness regarding

future contingents, God can know how best to answer our prayers. Second, Roy objects that since

there is nothing we can tell God in prayer that he does not already know, our prayers contribute

no new information to God, in which case it is difficult to see how our prayers make a genuine

contribution to God.132

More specifically, it is difficult to see how prayer contributes to a

“genuine and mutually responsive relationship between God and his children as open theists

claim.”133

The point is that God knows too much about us for his relationship with us to be

genuine and real (presumably in the open theist’s sense of ‘genuine’ or ‘real’).134

Since what we

contribute in prayer is the present product of our past experience and present understanding,

and since God knows these infallibly, the sort of “mutually interactive, mutually instructing

relationship with God in prayer that is often promoted by open theists would seem to demand

not only that God not have exhaustive foreknowledge but also that his knowledge of the present

and past be limited as well.”135

Third, God’s commitment to respect our libertarian freedom means that with respect to

prayers whose answer depends on the free exercise of wills other than God’s, God has limited

himself to whether and how he will answer those prayers. This is unacceptable to Roy.136

Lastly,

Roy suggests that open theists who insist God’s love is universal and impartial (admittedly a core

value for open theists) have a hard time squaring this with their belief in the efficacy of

petitionary prayer. Roy wonders how a God of such love is justified in withholding any good gift

simply because he has not been asked to bestow it. If open theists place a high value on the

efficacy of petitionary prayer so that God’s actions in maximizing good in the world are

sometimes dependent upon our prayers, it becomes difficult, insists Roy, to consistently claim

that God’s love is genuinely universal and impartial. On the other hand, if open theists do justice

130

Roy, How Much Does God Foreknow? (2006). 131

This point is the same as Ware’s third criticism. 132

Roy, How Much Does God Foreknow?, 246. This point is the same as Ware’s second criticism. 133

Ibid. 134

Ibid. Ware concurs, Their God is too Small, 102, and God’s Lesser Glory, 166. 135

Roy, How Much Does God Foreknow?, 246. 136

Ibid., 247.

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to the universality and impartiality of divine love by insisting that God always actualizes the

greatest possible good, then it becomes difficult to consistently maintain an efficacy to petitionary

prayer.137

§6.4 David Ciocchi: “The Religious Adequacy of Free-will Theism”

A more logically formal argument for the religious inadequacy of open theism is offered

by David Ciocchi.138

Ciocchi challenges the claim that open theism supports a rich religious life.

He advances an understanding of ‘religious adequacy’ and then argues that open theism fails to

be religiously adequate with regard to petitionary prayer because it fails to honor beliefs implicit

in the way ordinary Christian believers pray. Ciocchi first defines religious adequacy. A position

is ‘religiously adequate’, Ciocchi suggests, “to the degree that it comports with the common

beliefs and practices of ordinary believers.”139

Religious adequacy is thus, in Ciocchi’s view, a

measure of the “intellectual fit” of a position vis à vie “the actual lived faith of most believers.”

[emphasis mine] Ciocchi then makes two central assumptions. First, the implicit belief of

common believers that Ciocchi believes open theism fails to honor is the presumption of divine

intervention in response to petitionary prayer (PDI). Furthermore, Ciocchi argues, prayers must be

‘appropriate’.140

Thus PDI is the presumption of divine intervention in response to the petitions of

appropriate prayer.141

In Ciocchi’s view, a position’s religious adequacy requires accommodating

PDI. Second, Ciocchi defines “petitioning God” as “mak[ing] a request of an agent who may say

‘no’ but who cannot be blocked from granting the petition if His answer is ‘yes’.”142

William

Hasker, whose response to Ciocchi will be noted shortly, terms this second assumption of

Ciocchi’s the supplementary requirement, or SR, and formulates it as follows: “(SR) It is

impossible for God to be prevented from granting a petition he wants to grant.”143

Given PDI and SR, then, Ciocchi’s basic argument follows rather simply: Many (most)

‘appropriate’ petitions depend for their fulfillment upon the free actions of persons other than

the pray-er. And since libertarian free will is such a value to open theists, and since open theists

allow for the possibility that God may act in view of granting a petition only to have his will

frustrated by free agents, open theists cannot affirm PDI, in which case their view fails Ciocchi’s

test for religious adequacy. Open theists should acknowledge that their views on prayer diverge

137

Ibid. 138

David Ciocchi, “The religious inadequacy of free-will theism,” Religious Studies 38 (2002): 45-61. 139

Ibid., 47. 140

The petition must be consistent with God’s purposes and values and the petitioner must please God (i.e., have faith and personally be in submission to God).

141 Ciocchi, “The religious inadequacy of free-will theism,” 48.

142 Ibid., 56.

143 Hasker, Providence, Evil, and the Openness of God (New York: Routledge, 2004), 220.

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dramatically from the beliefs and practices of ordinary believers and that open theism is in fact

religiously inadequate.

§7 RESPONSES TO EXISTENTIAL OBJECTIONS

§7.1 Response to Bruce Ware

Ware’s three criticisms of open theism’s effect upon one’s prayer life were: (1) It issues

from our modern western consumerist’s mentality that fosters an unrealistically high view of self;

(2) it cannot represent the kind of mutually reciprocal and interpersonal relationship open theists

claim since our petitions offer nothing to God in the way of new ‘information’; and (3) not

knowing how future contingents will turn out, God cannot now know how to best answer our

petitions. He also offers comments on the Lord’s prayer and Moses’ appeal to God in Exodus 32.

It is difficult to know how to respond to Ware’s first charge. Undoubtedly western

consumerism exerts its influence on us all. But has Ware actually argued his point or has he

simply claimed that it is so? Establishing a causal link between consumerism’s emphasis upon the

priority of the customer and open theism’s insistence upon the value of the individual would

require much more than Ware offers. One could argue that open theism’s insistence upon

individual responsibility and the value of a person are rooted in biblical concerns—Ezekiel’s

emphasis upon the ‘individual’ (Ez. 18.13, 18, 20) and Jesus’ overwhelming declarations of God’s

love for humanity (Jn. 3.16). One could also reply that much of non-openness Evangelicalism,

including Ware’s articulation of the gospel, is the result of western consumerism’s influence as

well. After all, Ware does not deny that believers enjoy a ‘personal’ relationship with God, and his

emphasis upon the ‘individual’ can be as easily attributed to western consumerism as Ware insists

is the case with open theism’s emphasis upon the individual. How does Ware distance the

personal dimensions of his own faith from such consumerism while implicating open theism’s

personal dimensions? Ware doesn’t say. And then lastly, Ware’s criticism could apply to his own

theology in another sense. One could argue that Ware, unable to live with the truth that God’s

will is sometimes not accomplished, has embraced a theology that feeds the consumer’s craving

for personal security and hence offers as a ‘product’ a risk-free creation and the all-controlling

God.

Regarding Ware’s second criticism, it seems to misconstrue what open theists believe to

be at the heart of mutually reciprocal personal relations. Ware makes such relationships entirely

about ‘information’ and assumes that two persons cannot transact personal loving relationality

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unless one is ‘educating’ the other by introducing information previously unknown to the other.

But in fact open theists have agreed that petitioning God cannot be about ‘informing’ God.144

Ware’s assumption about information’s relevancy to personal relationships is entirely unfounded

and without analogy. Even human-human relations can be mutually reciprocal in a fully personal

sense without one party having to ‘educate’ the other.

One line of thought that sheds light on this point is speech act theory.145

The fundamental

insight of speech act theory is that the paradigmatic function of language is to do things, not to

say things. We all intend our speech to do something, to accomplish something. Likewise with

prayer. To petition is to perform some ‘act’, an act that is not reducible to a transfer of

information from the petitioner to another party. Information doubtless counts for something.

We are, after all, communicating with language. But we perform a linguistic “act” in terms of

speech act theory. Thus Ware’s objection that since we are not ‘educating’ God of our needs, our

petitioning God cannot amount to the kind of personal act wherein we engage God and God in

turn responds, is ill-conceived.

For open theists, the “act” of petitioning another creates its own reality. It transcends

information per se. Open theists thus do not suppose God responds to our prayers because they

believe they have brought to God some new bit of information about the world which they

believe God did not already know. On the contrary, it is the “act” of engaging another through

petition that creates a personal, social dynamic (or disposition) wherein an exchange of life (the

mutual sharing of thoughts, feelings, and desires) occurs. Consequently, outcomes are defined in

terms of this personal exchange. Take some specific good G. God may provide G independently of

our requesting it or God may act to provide G in response to our undetermined prayers. I submit

that G is not identical in both cases. God’s acting ‘in response to’ our undetermined request gives

definition to G. Thus G achieved synergistically is more complex and so a more beautiful (more

‘good’) or more lovingly relational state of affairs. If the beauty of such loving relationality is at

144

Sanders, The God Who Risks, 272, and Boyd, Satan, 230. 145

See J. L. Austin and J. O. Urmson, eds., How to Do Things With Words, 2nd

ed. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975); John Searle and Daniel Vanderveken, Foundations of Illocutionary Logic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); and John Searle, Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979). Speech act theory is being applied to various interpretive and doctrinal questions by Evangelicals; see David Clark, “Beyond Inerrancy: Speech Acts and an Evangelical View of Scripture,” in James Beilby, ed., For Faith and Clarity: Philosophical Contributions to Christian Theology, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006); Kevin Vanhoozer, “From Speech Acts to Scripture Acts: The Covenant of Discourse and the Discourse of Covenant,” in Craig Bartholomew, Colin Greene, and Karl Moler, After Pentecost: Language and Biblical Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing Company, 2001); and Nancey Murphy, “Textual Relativism, Philosophy of Language, and the Baptist Vision,” in Stanley Hauerwas, Nancey Murphy, and Mark Nation, eds., Theology Without Foundations, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994).

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least part of what God is after in creating, then it is simply not available to God via unilateral

action.

Lastly, Ware’s claim that if God were not to know future contingents he would not know

how “best” to answer our petitions begs the question. Ware is doubtlessly assuming a notion of

“best” that entails his own beliefs about the meticulous sort of providence he believes God

exercises. “Best” for Ware just is his way of viewing God’s relationship to the world. But where

there are real indeterminacy and risk in the world, “best” is to be understood in probabilistic

terms. Does this mean God’s will is sometimes thwarted? Yes. Does this mean, as Basinger

explains, that sometimes even God’s attempts to secure our petitions may fail to produce the

desired outcomes? Yes. But it is no argument against this that it fails to satisfy a definition of

“best” on some other construal of providence. That is rather to be expected.

Before moving on, let us consider the two biblical passages Ware introduces, the Lord’s

prayer (Mat. 6.9-13) and Moses’ petition of God (Ex. 32.11-4). Ware argues from the Lord’s

prayer that (a) God’s will predates our petitions and that this therefore precludes our

“contributing to God” in the sense argued by open theists, and that (b) since God knows what we

need “before” we ask, our prayers do not inform God and so cannot be the means of the sort of

mutually influential relationship open theists believe prayer represents.146

Given what we have seen thus far, an open theist response to Ware here is not difficult to

imagine. Open theists do not suggest that God’s mind and will are entirely undecided until we

settle them through prayer. On the contrary, open theists assume God has desires for every

occasion and that he pursues them regardless of human contribution. The question is whether or

not the fulfillment of the aims God pursues are ever at risk because their fulfillment depends

upon the free prayers of believers. Far from precluding such a view, Jesus’ admonition, open

theists argue, expressly makes fulfillment of the will of God contingent upon our requesting it. It

is not the determining of God’s will that open theists here suggest is our contribution to God. It is

rather the accomplishing of his will. And open theists argue (Basinger excluded) that some

purposes of God for us are of metaphysical necessity dependent upon our free cooperation.

There is then Ware’s suggestion that since God knows our needs before we petition God,

prayer cannot be about informing God of our needs. But no open theist argues that we ‘inform’

or ‘educate’ God when we present our needs to him. The efficacy of petitionary prayer for God is

not information driven, and to construe exhaustively definite foreknowledge from God’s

knowing what we need before we pray is to misread the passage. All that is implied by Jesus is

146

Roy, How Much Does God Foreknow?, 86-91, argues the same essential points.

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God’s perfect knowledge of our present needs. He knows our needs “before we ask,” not “before

we need them.”147

Lastly, what of Ware’s comments regarding Moses’ prayer to God in Ex. 32? He objects to

open theists’ use of this passage to argue a genuine response on God’s part to Moses’ appeal.

Again, Ware grounds any possibility of response in Moses’ informing God of something God did

not previously know. Ware cannot imagine any other basis upon which personal responses to

requests can be made. But we every day respond to requests that introduce no new information

to us simply because the request presents us with an opportunity to value others and realize states

through cooperative agreement rather than unilateral action. Consequently we adjust a course of

action in response to requests in order to pursue a future that yields more relational complexity

and love, and so more beauty, by virtue of being achieved interdependently. We do so because we

value the aesthetic satisfaction of relating and working synergistically. I shall say more of the

value God places upon the beauty of jointly achieved aims in §7.2.

§7.2 Response to Stephen Roy

Roy presented four problems facing the open theist’s understanding of prayer, the first

two of which are identical to Ware’s second and third criticisms which I have already addressed.

Let us then consider Roy’s third and fourth objections, which are: (3) God’s commitment to

respect our libertarian freedom means that with regard to prayers whose answer depends on the

free exercise of wills other than God’s, God has limited himself to whether and how he will

answer those prayers; and (4) open theists cannot affirm both God’s universal and impartial love

(by which Roy believes God would not make his provision for some good dependent upon our

petitioning him) and the efficacy of petitionary prayer (by which God’s actions in maximizing

good in the world are sometimes dependent upon our prayers).

In response it should be obvious that open theists plead guilty to (3). Roy has simply

accurately stated the open view position, not argued against it. Given the providential contours of

open theism (genuine indeterminacy with its consequent epistemic openness, risk, and

ambiguity), it is indeed the case that God has limited himself to whether and how he will answer

some of our prayers. But for open theists this arrangement is just the metaphysical price-tag for

the sort of loving, personal, and morally responsible world God wishes to achieve.

147

Ibid. Roy attempts to argue a future orientation for God’s knowledge here. The point is moot, for open theists would not deny that God knows a great deal about what we ‘shall’ need as well, even if this is not immediately in view in Jesus’ statement. What open theists deny is that God can know, for example, that in 2010 I will need help fixing a punctured tire on such and such a day at such and such a time (assuming the causal indeterminacy of the event). God surely knows this is one possible future and he is more than prepared for it should it obtain, but it is not, on an open construal, the only possible future God is able to anticipate.

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Roy’s fourth objection is more serious and deserves attention. As noted earlier by

Basinger, placing divine love at the center of our understanding of God and his actions in the

world leads to one of the basic tenets of open theism: “God always desires our highest good, both

individually and corporately.”148

Elsewhere Basinger restates this conviction as follows, “an

omnibenevolent God is obligated to maximize the quality of life for those beings he chooses to

create.”149

Consequently, Basinger argues, “God would never refrain from intervening beneficially

in one person’s life simply because someone else has failed to request that he do so.”150

This leads

to the problem Roy notes.151

For Basinger, then, the belief that an omnibenevolent God always seeks to maximize good

and minimize evil (something on which all open theists appear to be in agreement) entails the

notion that God would never refrain from intervening beneficially in one’s life simply because

someone else failed to request that God do so. But is the latter entailed in the former?152

One

might respond to this as Keith Ward does:

It is not sensible to complain, that, if I fail to pull my neighbor out of a ditch when I could easily do so, God is responsible for leaving him there. It is no more sensible to complain that, if I fail to pray for my neighbor when I could easily do so, God is responsible for not doing what my prayer might have effected.

153

But Ward is too quick. Suppose a second neighbor is aware of my first neighbor’s plight

in the ditch and has the ability to help but refrains from doing so unless I ask him. Who would

excuse this second neighbor for refraining from helping simply because I had not asked him to

do so? What possible constraints could my requesting him to help place upon my second

neighbor that would excuse him while implicating me? An articulation of a rationale for such

constraints, freely entered into by my second neighbor, is what Basinger is after.

148

Basinger, “Practical Implications,” 156. 149

Basinger, “In What Sense Must God be Omnibenevolent?” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 14 (1983), 3. This need not be described in terms of God’s being “obliged.”

150 Basinger, “Practical Implications,” 161.

151 The problem has been around at least since Origen, who writes of some who refused prayer, claiming “What

need is there to send up prayer to him who knows what we need even before we pray?...And it is fitting that he…who

loves all…should order in safety all that has to do with each one, even without prayer,” Origen, On Prayer, trans. Eric George Jay, (London: SPCK, 1954), 94.

152 This debate goes back to Eleanor Stump’s “Petitionary Prayer,” American Philosophical Quarterly 16 (1979):

81-91. It is developed in Basinger, “Why Petition an Omnipotent, Omniscient, Wholly Good God?” Religious Studies 19 (1983): 25-41; Joshua Hoffman, “On Petitionary Prayer,” Faith and Philosophy 2 (1985): 21-29; Michael Murray and Kurt Meyers, “Ask and It Will Be Given to You,” Religious Studies 30 (1994): 311-330; and Basinger, “Petitionary Prayer: A Response to Murray and Meyers,” Religious Studies 31 (1995): 475-484. See also Keith Ward, Divine Action (San Francisco: Torch Publications, 1991), 156-158.

153 Ward, Divine Action, quoted in Sanders, The God Who Risks, 274.

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I have noted responses to this supposed impasse by both Sanders and Boyd. Boyd affirms

that God as love entails God’s always doing all God can do—given the creational variables he

sovereignly established—to maximize good. Limiting certain outcomes to the petitions of

believers is part of the morally responsible “say-so” believers must possess and exercise if they are

to grow into their eschatological ends. Sanders adds to this that if the good we suppose God

pursues as a matter of character includes a personal relationship with us, then God is properly

speaking incapable of unilaterally achieving every possible good. Basinger fails to take the

metaphysical nature of the constraints seriously enough.

Basinger is unconvinced. He does “not believe that a perfectly good God could justifiably

refrain from granting any believer’s essential needs, even if she has consciously decided not to

request God’s help.”154

But in his response, Michael Murray exposes this as problematic. Murray

responds:

If Basinger means to adopt this as a general principal which follows from the conceptions of God’s obligations he endorses, then serious trouble looms. And the reason is simply that if (a) God exists, and (b) the principal is true, it would follow that (c) no believers would ever die from starvation, exposure, or, presumably, death on a cross. Since they do, we have an argument against not only efficacious petitionary prayer, but theism itself!

155

Basinger’s claim seems excessive. It makes it difficult to affirm with James that believers

“have not because they ask not” or any number of other essential goods we know God is desirous

to grant but for which we are told to petition God.156

Basinger objects that none of the rationales

offered thus far are the sort of goods that would justify a divine policy of making provision of

essential needs sometimes dependent on our petitioning God for them.

I submit that Basinger’s essential concern expresses a sound conviction but that he has

misconstrued the matter a bit. That is, God ought to be viewed as ‘maximally involved’ at all

times, in all circumstances, seeking to bring about the most good possible given the variables that

define each circumstance. Thus, it is never the case that God “refrains” from performing goods

simply because he was not petitioned. Where I believe Basinger is mistaken is in limiting the

“good” that an omnibenevolent creator would pursue to the good of “the individual” understood

independently of other considerations. Along these lines I suggest that there is a “good” to be had

in synergistically achieved aims that cannot be achieved by unilateral divine action, that such

154

Basinger, “God Does Not Necessarily Respond to Prayer,” in Michael Peterson, ed., Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 264.

155 Michael Murray, “Reply to Basinger,” in Peterson, ed., Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion, 265.

Basinger never replies to this. 156

See Hasker’s quote as footnoted in n. 162.

46

good is that for which the cosmos has been designed, and that our individual “goods” are

implicated in the interdependence necessary to achieving this larger “good,” which is simply the

consequent beauty of loving relationality, the relational (divine-human and human-human)

synergy reflected in outcomes cooperatively achieved. As noted above, some good G achieved

synergistically is essentially different than G achieved unilaterally. The contingent cooperation of

freely offered petitions shapes the identity of outcomes and makes them more aesthetically pleasing

or beautiful to God. This is what loving relationships produce.

Consider the accomplishing of any task a person may want to undertake and introduce

personal relations into the context, so that the task is transcended by the relations, that is, the

greater task becomes the enjoyment of relational intimacy. An example from my personal

experience will suffice. Some years ago I moved with my wife and children into a new home, and

my daughter’s room needed painting. My daughter (then 12 years old) loved art and wanted to

paint the room, or at least be a part of painting the room. But I was pressed for time and

preferred to do the job myself. I knew I could get the room done quicker, more efficiently, and

more neatly if I did not have to accommodate my daughter. I knew involving her would mean

greater risk of spillage and a less professionally looking job. But I also loved my daughter and

valued our relationship more. Painting the room with her and not just for her or through her,

allowing her to hold the brush in her hand and not determine its every movement to insure a

neater job, would (a) accomplish something between us that could not be gotten were I to paint

the room in any other way, and (b) give definition to the room that reflects this relational

intimacy.

This analogy suggests a way of understanding how nurturing the divine-human

relationship is the ultimate task at hand and that this relationship transcends the specific

creational contexts in which those relationships reside. Basinger objects that a loving parent

would never make her provision of a child’s essential needs (food, shelter, clothing) contingent

upon the child’s petitioning for such needs. Considered purely in terms of this-worldly individual

needs, Basinger may be right. But this begs the question. God’s purposes and agency in the world

are best conceived cosmically and eschatologically, and no individual’s ‘good’ can be conceived of

or realized independently of ‘the whole’. Since God always seeks on every occasion to maximize

good (i.e., the relational beauty ‘of the whole’), synergy must be sought. This just is the good

which open theists ought to insist God necessarily pursues. Basinger misses this point I believe. It

is not as if God “refrains from intervening beneficially” when we fail to petition God. God is

doing all God can do given the failure of prayer, so there is no “refraining” from doing what

perfect love by definition does, viz., seek the highest possible good in every circumstance. Nor is

47

“intervention” an appropriate description of God’s part of the divine-human venture we call

prayer. That assumes that God is sometimes not fully engaged until we petition him. On the

contrary, however, God doesn’t ‘intervene’ in this sense. God ‘supervenes’ as it were. He actively

‘inhabits’ every occasion and is thus always maximally involved, seeking to bring about the most

beautiful state possible given what he has to work with.157

As noted earlier, Boyd’s and Sanders’ essential point is that our petitions create avenues,

“space” (to use Fretheim’s word), wherein “all that God does” in that instance is able to achieve

more, not less, good. But this means that on occasion “the most that God can do” fails to achieve

what it might have had we prayed. But this is not to say God “refrained” from anything.

In conclusion then, Roy’s claim that open theism provides an inadequate basis upon

which to engage meaningfully in petitionary prayer because open theists affirm a notion of divine

love that is incompatible with God’s making the provision of a person’s ‘good’ depend upon the

prayers of others proves to be false. We have noted that there are conceivable circumstances and

conceivable goods that justify God’s making his involvement in securing these goods sometimes

dependent upon his being petitioned to act.

§7.3 Response to David Ciocchi

William Hasker has responded to Ciocchi’s argument158

for the religious inadequacy of

open theism based on PDI and SR.159

It is clear that SR must be true if PDI is to be satisfied. “If

there is any significant class of requests that are ‘appropriate’ in terms of PDI, but that God could

be prevented from granting,” notes Hasker, “then the satisfaction of PDI cannot be

guaranteed.”160

Hasker has only to demonstrate that relatively few believers upon reflection would

affirm anything like SR, and this he does by showing how equally problematic SR is for other

views of providence (simple-foreknowledge, timeless knowledge, Molinism, and determinism).

Ciocchi’s argument is equally problematic for understanding petitionary prayer within these

views on the assumption of SR. PDI and SR are, in Hasker’s words, “excessively strong claims,”161

not at all implicit in the practice of ordinary believers.

157

Tiessen, Providence and Prayer, 90, more accurately describes God in the open view as “continuously and impartially active in the world for good.”

158 Hasker, “Is Free-Will Theism Religiously Inadequate: A Reply to Ciocchi,” Religious Studies 39 (2003): 431-

440. 159

Again, PDI is the ‘presumption of divine intervention in response to appropriate petitionary prayer’ while SR, or ‘supplementary requirement’, is the assumption that ‘it is impossible for God to be prevented from granting a petition he wants to grant’.

160 Hasker, Providence, Evil, and Openness, 220.

161 Ibid.

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Moreover, Hasker notes biblical examples of cases in which God’s desired outcomes are

both pursued by God and yet fail to obtain. Jesus prays regarding Jerusalem, “How often I have

longed to gather your children together…but you were not willing.” (Mat. 23.37) Other

presumably “appropriate” prayers go unanswered. What of the petitions for “peace on earth” in

the Gloria or that “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” in the Lord’s prayer? Hasker

concludes:

…while some of those who pray the Gloria and the Our Father may for various reasons be insufficiently pleasing to God, this can hardly be true of all. On the contrary, some of the most devout believers have also been most assiduous in the use of these prayers. And given the very extensive use of both the Gloria and the Lord’s Prayer, petitions of this sort probably constitute a significant fraction of al the prayers that are offered; they are by no means exceptional. Yet we must confess that peace of earth—especially the spiritual peace

that is primarily intended—and the doing of God’s will are rather the exception than the general rule. The reason, of course, lies squarely in the wills of creatures such as ourselves, who in very many cases are far from desiring what God desires and from willing to do God’s will. Examples such as these constitute compelling evidence that PDI as stated [by Ciocchi] is overly strong….

162

Without SR, Ciocchi’s argument fails. Open theists can agree with Ciocchi, of course, that

religious adequacy requires a certain existential “fit” between belief and practice and that this

practice ought to be the shared experience of a community and not of an isolated individual (as I

earlier argued). Indeed, this is urged by open theists themselves. Whether or not the required

shared experience must constitute the ‘majority’ of believers before it can be considered

‘religiously adequate’ for a community is doubtful. Open theists will gladly admit, though, that

open theism cannot meet the requirements set out by PDI and SR. But this is hardly fatal to the

religious adequacy of open theism for those who reject SR, as Hasker argues, and these may in

fact constitute a great many, perhaps the majority, of ordinary believers.

§8 TOWARD AN OPEN THEISTIC THEOLOGY OF PRAYER

§8.1 Eight guiding theses

We are now at a position to state some essential theses arising from our study which guide

open theism’s understanding of prayer within the larger providential framework already noted in

this paper.163

I state these in terms of eight guiding theses:

162

Ibid., 223. 163

I happened upon David Crump’s excellent Knocking On Heaven’s Door: A New Testament Theology of Petitionary Prayer (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006) too late to include an adequate review of his contribution.

49

(1) Prayer is simply that personal, interdependent, mutually influential communication

necessary to the establishing and flourishing of loving relationships. This grounds all else open

theists might say about prayer.

(2) God is always doing all God can do given his purposes and the contextual variables of

every given circumstance to maximize good and minimize evil. That is, God always and everywhere

‘supervenes’ upon/through/in creation, bringing all the influence that God can bring to bear in

each circumstance within the creational constraints he sovereignly established (and discussed in

this thesis) in order to achieve the most aesthetically satisfying, lovingly relational state of affairs

possible.

(3) The ‘good’ God seeks in creation is the beauty of freely determined loving synergy. The

fundamental conviction here is that an outcome brought about unilaterally by God is less good

or beautiful than the same outcome achieved as a result of the synergy created by our petitioning

God. Outcomes shaped synergistically represent a greater good than outcomes unilaterally

achieved. Consequently, the outcome achieved in each of these two manners is not essentially the

same ‘good’ after all. They are essentially different. This provides us with a divine rationale for

God’s making his meeting essential needs on occasion contingent upon our petitioning him.

Why pray to an omnipotent, omniscient, all good God? Because the beauty and love for which we

and others were created is achievable at least sometimes through an interdependence of both

divine-human and human-human relations, and that interdependence is free and risky. This is

not to say that when the greater good of cooperatively achieved outcomes fails on account of a

lack of prayer that God as a matter of policy settles for the next best thing, viz., bringing about the

same outcomes unilaterally and thus somewhat less beautifully. It is to say the good of

cooperatively achieved outcomes is only possible if there is a certain integrity to the conditions

for such relationality, and this in turn involves a real commitment to risk and precludes God’s

being able to guarantee the same outcomes minus the cooperative component.

After a first and very brief reading, however, it appeared that Crump’s arguments and conclusions are decidedly favorable of open theism. For instance, he writes, “The Father’s unfolding plans for the world, and our part in those plans, may develop in more than one direction depending, in part, on how we prayer…The future has options,” 290. But in footnoting this very comment, Crump qualifies, “Affirming that God’s plan makes room for different future possibilities depending on human responsiveness (or lack thereof) says nothing, in and of itself, about one’s relationship to the theology of God’s ‘openness’. Views of flexible providence have a lengthy history that antedate and develop quite independently of the current openness controversy. What I am affirming is different from the position typically affirmed by open theists who are distinguished by their commitment to three fundamental tenets—(1) presentism (God lacks foreknowledge), (2) libertarian human freedom, and (3) divine temporality—none of which is essential to my argument.” Crump’s definition of presentism, however, is inaccurate; and I should very much like to hear him defend his core theses on a compatibilist view of freedom and assuming divine atemporality. Whether he can do so successfully is doubtful.

50

Given (2), God is always maximally involved in seeking to redeem every occasion in the

cosmos and to maximize its potential for loving relationality. But given (3), the nature of loving

relationality limits both God and humans to a fundamental interdependence that links the ‘good’

of individuals to the larger ‘good’ of creation. Petitionary prayer is fundamentally an affirmation

of this interdependence.

(4) The efficacy of petitionary prayer is grounded in the interdependence of God’s purposes for

us and the metaphysical constraints those purposes place on the God-world relationship. God is

‘functionally’ finite in some respects with regard to achieving desired outcomes, and the God-

world relationship possesses an integrity that cannot be undermined by unilateral divine (or

human) action without destroying the very synergy by which God’s aims are to be achieved.

(5) The urgency and motivation for petitionary prayer are grounded in the worth and beauty

of God which God created us to reflect.164

As argued, synergistically achieved outcomes are more

beautiful than unilaterally determined ones and worth the constraints of interdependence.

(6) The religious adequacy of open theism is grounded in (a) the shared experience of a

community that testifies to the existential viability of believing open theism’s defining claim and core

convictions, and (b) the confirmation this experience receives from biblical and theological

considerations. In a word, open theists constitute a growing community of people who experience

life and prayer as fulfilling in the biblical sense of the word.

(7) Prayer involves offering ourselves in answer to our prayers by committing actively to

engage the fallen and conflicted structures in which we live.165

(8) Lastly, what open theists may justifiably petition God for is limited (as it would be in any

approach) by the constraints of their view of God, his purposes, and the nature of divine providence.

In open theism God is believed incapable of unconditionally determining the morally responsible

behavior of agents, including whatever choices persons make that establish and develop their

character relative to the sort of loving relationality they were created for. Thus, a request for God

to “Save Uncle Frank’s soul!” motivated by a belief that Uncle Frank’s choice for God is

something God can entirely determine, is incompatible with the open view, as would be any

request that God determine a person with respect to loving relationality. This does not rule out

our asking God to act in ways that provide Uncle Frank with greater opportunity, understanding,

motivation, and awareness of God. But would not a perfectly loving God already be doing “all he

could do” in this sense without having to be asked? Our answer to this (chiefly in §7.2) was “yes,”

164

See Boyd’s contribution in §5.1 where he describes God’s creating us to “reflect” God’s triune love. 165

Tiessen, Providence and Prayer, 108 (following Polkinghorne) credits open theism with holding that “prayer is assigning value to thing,” see John Polkinghorne, “Can a Scientist Pray?” Colloquium 26:1 (1994), 9, who suggests that when we pray for something we commit ourselves to what we really want and so “assign value to it.”

51

but we argued that what God’s “all” is able to accomplish is at least sometimes constrained by the

contributions (actions and prayers) of believers because the fundamental accomplishment God

seeks is the beauty of outcomes synergistically or cooperatively achieved. This is the love for

which we were created. This consideration would figure into an open view missiology as well. The

fact that a loving God is always maximally involved in every situation seeking the most

relationally (loving) beautiful state possible does not rule out the belief that contingent, human

involvement makes greater beauty achievable.

§8.2 Trusting God in a risky and ambiguous creation

What can “trust” mean in such a risky world? What may we confidently expect of God

when we offer our petitions to him in faith? Can a God who ever faces possible futures, whose

expectations sometimes do not come to pass, whose will is sometimes thwarted, be trusted? We

have here considered the place and urgency of petitionary prayer within open theism and have

argued for the adequacy of viewing prayer as God’s invitation to us to participate with him in

accomplishing his purposes. For such prayer to have integrity to it, open theists argue, it must be

the case that we genuinely influence the outcome of events in self-determined ways. Many times

the future God intends to actualize through us fails to come about as desired because we fail to

respond as we might. The point is that things might genuinely have been different from God’s

point of view had people made different choices. But if the potential difference which prayer

makes is as real for God as we believe it is for us, then God faces a future that is in some respects

open and unresolved and has freely decided to allow us a part in resolving it. Open theists simply

point out that it is not resolved until we resolve it and hence cannot be eternally foreknown in its

resolved state. Our lives make a difference to God and the world, and this difference possesses

integrity for both God and us.

I submit that trusting God within open theism amounts to five things: (1) Resting in the

confidence of God’s character and intentions. We can know that God’s intentions for us are

unchangeably loving and good if we understand God to be, in Ellis’ words, “Christ-like.”166

(2)

Resting in the confidence that God always does all God can do, given the limitations inherent in

his own freely determined purposes, to maximize good and minimize evil in the world. (3)

Relying upon the supervening presence and resources of God. If God is everywhere present and

actively seeking to maximize loving beauty and goodness in the world, then we trust that he is

working to bring good out of every evil. (4) Knowing that our prayers participate in shaping the

166

Ellis, Answering God: Towards a Theology of Intercession (2005), see n. 100. Or in the words of Boyd, Is God to Blame?, 16, “God looks like Jesus.”

52

world though we may not always perceive the difference we have made. And then (5) rejoicing in

the confidence of knowing that in the end God will win and his rule will be realized throughout

all creation. Open theists need not agree that ultimate victory is something God cannot guarantee

even if they agree that much about the journey is open.

Together these five express a robust understanding of what it means to ‘trust’ within the

open view and to engage in petitionary prayer with hope and confidence. Much hangs in the

balance of our praying or not praying, and our prayers make a material difference.

§9 CONCLUSION

Prayer and divine foreknowledge have together constituted a problem that has kept

Christian thinkers busy from at least the early 3rd century CE. Origen reports on those who gave

up on prayer for failure to reconcile it to predestination and foreknowledge. Origen’s On Prayer

was in fact composed in response to controversies of his day over the efficacy of prayer on the

assumption that God either predestines or foreknows all to come. He describes the objection to

prayer as follows: “First, if God foresees everything that will happen, and these things must

happen, prayer is useless. Second, if everything happens according to the will of God, and His

decisions are firm, and nothing that He wills can be changed, prayer is useless.”167

Origen

concludes that divine determination of all things would render prayer meaningless and so the

former is to be rejected. But he concluded that divine foreknowledge does not equally affect

prayer and is to be received. Later, in the classical philosophical tradition, prayer was seen as a

means of effecting change in us, not God, or the decreed means by which God brings about

decreed ends.168

This classical tradition has been rejected by a great many today, open theists

included, who seek a more coherent exercise of a faith that better reflects Scripture’s portrayal of

the difference that praying makes to God and the world.

I have set myself in this thesis (a) to examine the implications which open theism has for

one’s understanding of petitionary prayer as a means by which God accomplishes his purposes in the

world and (b) to ask whether or not this understanding of prayer is religiously adequate in the hope

of judging the existential argument for open theism. We have examined the open theist’s defining

belief and essential supporting convictions. We have suggested eight guiding theses that define

167

Origen, On Prayer, trans. J. J. O’Meara (New York: Newman, 1954), 30. 168

Aquinas put it, “We do not pray in order to change the decree of divine providence, rather we pray in order to impetrate those things which God has determined would be obtained only through our prayers,” Summa Theologica, trans. T. Cornall (New York: McGraw Hill, 1964), 2a2ae Q. 83.2, and John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Fred L Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 215, 851-53.

53

petitionary prayer within open theism. And we have suggested what trusting God in a risky and

ambiguous world entails. Is this vision religiously adequate? May open theists engage

meaningfully in petitionary prayer given their core beliefs? I have attempted to show that open

theists can enjoy at least as vibrant and passionate a prayer life as other believers, and perhaps a

more religiously adequate one in terms of the intellectual fit between faith and practice.

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