I have been interacting with Robert Picirilli’s book, Free Will Revisited, which he wrote as a “respectful response to Luther, Calvin, and Edwards.” Those three representatives of a compatibilist perspective were selected because each of them wrote a book to argue for their position, against a prominent incompatibilist of their time. Martin Luther’s book, On […]
Tag: open theism
Recently, I’ve been doing a lot of reading and thinking about the nature of the freedom God gave to moral creatures, both angelic and human, and how this correlates with the degree of control which God has reserved to himself, within the history of the world. I thought it might be helpful to think of […]
A four-way conversation Among the theological decisions we must make if we are to have a theology and practice which both have an inner coherence, one of the most far reaching is our choice of model regarding God’s work in the world. How we understand the nature of the freedom God has given to his […]
John Johnson wrote a lengthy comment on my post responding to Jerry Walls and my compatibilist proposal. He raises some substantive questions and I think it better to deal with them in another post rather than to reply in a lengthy comment or a number of smaller comments. Because John’s questions are of a sort […]
Dallas Willard and open theism
I was saddened by the death of Dallas Willard at what looks like a relatively young age (77) from my present perspective. But he made a great contribution to the world during his life. I am one of the many who were informed, inspired, and challenged by his writings and by his godly example as a […]
Last November, I linked to a post by Roger Olson in which he accepted Open Theism as an option within Arminianism but rejected Molinism because he viewed it as a form of determinism. Initially, I agreed with Roger about Open Theism, but I disagreed with him about Molinism. After further thought, I proposed a more […]
The questions that expose the incoherence of the neo-Molinist account of divine providence . . . establish that the God of open theism is an ambivalent and arbitrary warrior who cannot be trusted to rule in every situation in a way that minimizes evil and maximizes good for his creatures. (Helseth, 222) Molinism [handles the […]
We come now to the fourth model in Four Views on Divine Providence, as Gregory Boyd puts forward his understanding as an open theist. Gregory A. Boyd’s model of providence Christocentric criteria proposed for assessing models of divine providence Boyd posits that Jesus is the key to understanding the […]
A few days ago, I responded to Roger Olson’s opinion that Open Theism is a form of Arminianism but Molinism is not. I’ll wrap that conversation up with these citations of our further conversation in the comment thread of Roger’s post, particularly regarding Molinism. Roger wrote: Thanks, Terry. I don’t consider Greg Boyd a Molinist. […]
Roger Olson has addressed an interesting question: are open theism and Molinism forms of Arminianism or not? He thinks that open theism is but Molinism is not. I agree with Roger Olson that open theism is a sub-category of Arminian theology but I disagree with his assessment that Molinism does not belong there. Here is […]