Misrepresentations of the
Views of Dr. John Sanders

Dr. Sanders has addressed some of the ways his views on the destiny of the lost and open theology are being misrepresented.

The Destiny of the Lost

Regarding my work on the unevangelized, some of the errors being said are:

1. "Sanders is a universalist, teaching that everyone will finally be saved."

Chapter three of my book No Other Name is an explanation and critique of universalism. The chapter rejects universalism in favor of a position which does present some hope for persons who have never heard about Christ.

2. "Sanders rejects the necessity of Christ's atonement."

No, my position is that without the work of Jesus, absolutely nobody is saved--including Abraham. However, I don't believe that people have to know about the work of Christ in order to benefit from it. After all, we typically believe infants are saved by the work of Christ, and they certainly have never heard of him. The Trinity works to redeem even those who have never heard.

My position is known as "inclusivism." In this view, Christ died for everyone and desires everyone to be saved. The Holy Spirit is working to convict everyone of sin and bring us to repentance. God will save those unevangelized who respond in faith to the natural revelation of God available to them.

3. "Sanders' views undermine the motivation for evangelism."

Some people believe that there is only one motivation for evangelism--those dying unevangelized have no possibility of salvation. In my view, the main reasons for evangelism are:

a. Our Lord Jesus instructed us to do so.

b. We should want to share the blessings we have received in Christ.

c. Even though God may approve of those exercising faith in the limited light they have, God wants them to experience the fullness of salvation that comes from knowing what God has done in Jesus.

d. According to my position, there are a great many unevangelized who are not responding in faith to the light they have, and are headed in the path of damnation. Hence, we need to challenge them to turn around.

Some things to ask people who question this are:

• Do you believe God genuinely wants to save everyone who has never lived on this planet?
• Does God only love those who hear about Jesus?
• Did Jesus die for everyone? If so, the how might God make salvation available to them?
• If you believe that God extends grace to infants who have never heard, why cannot God extend that grace to unevangelized adults?

The Openness of God

Although the openness of God view agrees with much of evangelical piety, there is one lightning rod issue that gets most of the attention. That is our view of divine omniscience: God knows all the past and present exhaustively, as well as that part of the future which is determined (either by God or by nature). However, though God may have very good ideas about what humans with freewill will do in the future--God definitely knows what is possible for us to do--God does not know for certain what we will do.

Some misunderstandings of this view are:

1. "Openness rejects divine omniscience."

No, we affirm that God is omniscient. The debate is over the content of that omniscience. That is, what sorts of knowledge are included in it? Are the future decisions of free beings knowable or not?

2. "Openness says that God does not know the future."

Since we do not believe that the future exists, there is nothing there to be known. What is the status of the "future" now? The conventional view says that the future is fully definite and God knows it as such. The openness views says that the future is definite and partially indefinite, and God knows it as such. God knows all the future there is to know.

3. "Openness rejects scripture."

No, we do not. The God Who Risks contains about 100 pages that examine biblical texts. We are trying to develop a theory that explains two types of texts in scripture: those that indicate God knows some things that will happen in the future, and those that indicate that God does not know some things that will happen in the future. The conventional view explains away these latter texts as "anthropomorphisms" that do not describe God as he really is. Hence, all the passages that say that God changed his mind, was grieved, or relented cannot mean what they say. Openness says they do mean what they say, and we need a view that does not rule them out. Openness is, therefore, attempting to take these passages more literally than has been the norm.

4. "Openness limits God."

We believe that God restrains the full exercise of his powers in order to give us some degree of freedom, but this does not limit God any more than when I restrain the full use of my strength when I wrestle with my children.

5. "The denial of exhaustive definite foreknowledge is heresy."

How can something be heresy that has never been a statement of faith in any of the seven ecumenical church councils? Remember, almost every new idea put forth by the Protestant Reformers was called a heresy in its day. Also, the Reformed called the Anabaptists heretics. As Protestants, we believe that the church and our theology is always in need of ongoing reformation. We are finite and never have the total truth.

6. "Openness is simply process theology."

Process theology denies that God can exist without a world, rejects the deity of Christ, rejects the trinity as well as other major Christian teachings. Openness affirms all of these. Our critics are using the familiar tactic of labeling your opponent as part of a group everyone knows is wrong (e. g. democrats) so that their ideas can simply be dismissed. The Calvinists practice the same tactic with the Arminians by labeling them "semi-Pelagian" (Pelagius was condemned as a heretic for teaching we could "save ourselves").

7. "God is not sovereign."

No, the issue is the kind of sovereignty that God has decided to practice. We believe that God has granted humans free will. This allows us to love one another, but it also entails the possibility of great evils. Proponents of openness reject the belief that it is God's will for little girls to be sexually abused. We reject the theory of "blueprint." God does not have our lives planned out. We work together.

8. "God changes in all respects--the very being of God changes."

No, the nature of God does not change, but God can change in his emotions, thoughts, and decisions.

Some questions to ask the questioners:

• Do you believe our prayers ever affect God?
• Do you believe that some of what God does is ever dependent upon what you do or don't do?
• Does God specifically desire the evil we do?

Openness is an attempt to construct a theory that answers the questions in a way that is faithful to scripture, logically coherent, and helps us better lives the Christian life.