An Overview of Openness Theology

When I was a new Christian, I was taught that our prayers of petition could influence what God decided to do. Not that God has to do what we ask, but that God graciously decides to take our concerns into account in formulating his responses (just as he did with Moses and others). However, while in Bible College I read some standard evangelical theology books that described the nature of God as "impassible" (could not be affected by creatures in any way) and "immutable" (could not change in any respect). My spiritual life was thrown into a quandary: either I had been incorrectly taught that my prayers could affect God, or the theology books were wrong on these points.

After 25 years of digging into scripture, researching theology and philosophy, and reflecting on our spiritual lives, especially prayer, I've concluded that we can actually affect God. Hence, what most evangelicals live out in piety is correct, and our textbooks need modification on this issue. My writings are an attempt to make the needed corrections in Arminian theology in order to develop a more biblically faithful, logically consistent, and spiritually helpful view of who God is and the nature of God's relationship with us. I believe evangelicals are correct in emphasizing a "personal relationship with God." What is needed is a theology that can consistently account for this.

According to openness theology, the triune God of love has, in almighty power, created all that is and is sovereign over all. In freedom, God decided to create beings capable of experiencing his love. God loves us and desires for us to enter into reciprocal relations of love with God as well as with our fellow creatures. In creating us, God's divine intention was that we would come to experience the triune love and respond to it with love of our own and freely come to collaborate with God toward the achievement of his goals.

Second, God has, in sovereign freedom, decided to make some of his actions contingent upon our requests and actions. God elicits our free collaboration in his plans. Hence, God can be influenced by what we do and God truly responds to what we do. God genuinely interacts and enters into dynamic give-and-take relationships with us.

Third, the only wise God has chosen to exercise general rather than meticulous providence, allowing space for us to operate and for God to be creative and resourceful in working with us. God has chosen not to control every detail that happens in our lives. Moreover, God has flexible strategies. Though the divine nature does not change, God reacts to contingencies, even adjusting his plans, if necessary, to take into account the decisions of his free creatures. God is endlessly resourceful and wise in working toward the fulfillment of his ultimate goals. Sometimes God alone decides how to accomplish these goals. Usually, however, God elicits human cooperation such that it is both God and humanity who decide what the future shall be.

God's plan is not a detailed script or blueprint, but a broad intention that allows for a variety of options regarding precisely how his goals may be reached. What God and people do in history matters. If the Hebrew midwives had feared Pharoah rather than God and killed the baby boys, then God would have responded accordingly and a different story would have emerged. Moses' refusal to return to Egypt prompted God to resort to plan B, allowing Aaron to do the public speaking instead of Moses. What people do and whether they come to trust God makes a difference concerning what God doesÑGod does not fake the story of human history.

Fourth, God has granted us the freedom necessary for a truly personal relationship of love to develop. Despite the fact that we have abused our freedom by turning away from the divine love, God remains faithful to his intentions for creation.

Finally, the omniscient God knows all that is logically possible to know. God knows the past and present with exhaustive definite knowledge and knows the future as part definite (closed) and partly indefinite (open). God's knowledge of the future contains knowledge of what God has decided to bring about unilaterally (that which is definite), knowledge of possibilities (that which is indefinite), and those events that are determined to occur (e. g. an asteroid hitting a planet). Hence, the future is partly open or indefinite and partly closed or definite. It is not the case that just anything may happen, for God has acted in history to bring about events in order to achieve his unchanging purposes. Graciously, however, God invites us to collaborate with him to bring the open part of the future into being.