Freedom and Openness:Part One
My past year in seminary was a great learning experience. I was immediately opened up to a world of thought that differed in many ways from my past experiences in church and in my undergrad years. I did not agree with all of the ideas that I heard, but some changed me in important ways. The biggest change came in the way I thought about God. More specifically, my ideas of who God is began to change as I came to the realization of just how large and complex God is. I have always in some way believed this about God, but it was not until this past year that I really began to believe and see that about God in a new way. Through this process I came to change a very important understanding I had about God. I read a book in my theology class called Most Moved Mover written by Clark H. Pinnock. This book introduced me to the idea of God's openness, an idea I had not really heard before. In this blog I hope to introduce this idea to those of you that are interested and hopefully have a discussion about what the rest of you think about it. I have come to grasp hold of this idea and am beginning to sort out all that this entails about God and my relationship to God.
In order to get to a place where we can understand God's openness I find it very important to discuss freedom. Not the freedom that we often talk about in the U.S. or democratic governments, but God's freedom. That is, the freedom that God has given us. In order to believe in the openness of God you must believe that God has given us total freedom in our lives. In the Adam and Eve creation story that most of us have heard in our lives we see this play out. In this story God creates everything including humanity. Whether or not you believe that Adam and Eve were actual people or simply represent humanity in general I think most Christians believe this simple idea that God created all that exists. (even if that creation came about through evolution as some believe)
The next part of the story is where our ideas about God can become twisted. We read about the Garden of Eden and all the wonderful trees and fruit except for that one tree that God forbids the humans to eat from. This is the part of the story where we often feel that God sets us up to fail. I have heard from others, "If he didn't want us to eat from it, he wouldn't have put it in front of us to tempt us". This, however, is not the purpose of the tree. This portion of the story was confusing to me for most of my life until I read C.S. Lewis' book, Perelandra. In this book he shows an Adam and Eve story as it takes place on a different planet. It is this story that helped me to understand the temptation in the Garden of Eden. If God provided for all of Adam and Eve's needs to the point where they didn't even need clothing then how would they ever have a situation where they would need to choose God over anything else. The purpose of our freedom is that we would choose to be followers and lovers of God. God did not create us to be robots, we were created to be in relationships with him. It is for this reason that God gave us freedom. Love is only present when it is given and received freely. If I force my wife to love me, she doesn't truly love me. It is then for this reason that God creates a forbidden tree. Without a choice humanity can never choose to follow and be in relationship with God. Without a tree, there is no way to choose other than God's will. God willed for Adam and Eve to choose him and avoid the tree, but it had to be their choice for the relationship to be genuine.
As we know Adam and Eve eventually choose the tree over God, thus sin enters the world. Sin is a tricky word and has a lot of things attached to it, but for me sin is essentially choosing self over God. Sin is about a broken relationship with God and if we believe God to be perfect and loving then any choice we make outside of God's will is sin. The story of Adam and Eve contains a snake, but it is often too easy to push the blame onto others or to a darker power that tempted us to do something. For this reason I think that sin has to be those things that are contrary to God's will for our life. Selfishness is the root of sin. If I were thinking of God and others above myself I wouldn't murder, lie, steal, gossip, commit acts of adultery, hurt others, etc. Sin entered the world at that moment when humanity chose selfishly to ignore God's will. From this point on sin shows its ugly head throughout our history. The Bible then is the story of God's relationship with his creation and how sin continually messes this relationship up. What is interesting about this story however, is that God never gives up on us. Even more interesting is how God continually tries new ways to get us back to a place where his will is carried out on earth. This then brings us to openness theology.
Part two of this post will lay out the basics of openness theology and some of its implications. I have a lot to write so rather than one enormous post I wanted to do two shorter ones. Hopefully this will spark some discussion easier than a larger one would. In a day or two I will post the second part of this discussion. Until next time...
peace
In order to get to a place where we can understand God's openness I find it very important to discuss freedom. Not the freedom that we often talk about in the U.S. or democratic governments, but God's freedom. That is, the freedom that God has given us. In order to believe in the openness of God you must believe that God has given us total freedom in our lives. In the Adam and Eve creation story that most of us have heard in our lives we see this play out. In this story God creates everything including humanity. Whether or not you believe that Adam and Eve were actual people or simply represent humanity in general I think most Christians believe this simple idea that God created all that exists. (even if that creation came about through evolution as some believe)
The next part of the story is where our ideas about God can become twisted. We read about the Garden of Eden and all the wonderful trees and fruit except for that one tree that God forbids the humans to eat from. This is the part of the story where we often feel that God sets us up to fail. I have heard from others, "If he didn't want us to eat from it, he wouldn't have put it in front of us to tempt us". This, however, is not the purpose of the tree. This portion of the story was confusing to me for most of my life until I read C.S. Lewis' book, Perelandra. In this book he shows an Adam and Eve story as it takes place on a different planet. It is this story that helped me to understand the temptation in the Garden of Eden. If God provided for all of Adam and Eve's needs to the point where they didn't even need clothing then how would they ever have a situation where they would need to choose God over anything else. The purpose of our freedom is that we would choose to be followers and lovers of God. God did not create us to be robots, we were created to be in relationships with him. It is for this reason that God gave us freedom. Love is only present when it is given and received freely. If I force my wife to love me, she doesn't truly love me. It is then for this reason that God creates a forbidden tree. Without a choice humanity can never choose to follow and be in relationship with God. Without a tree, there is no way to choose other than God's will. God willed for Adam and Eve to choose him and avoid the tree, but it had to be their choice for the relationship to be genuine.
As we know Adam and Eve eventually choose the tree over God, thus sin enters the world. Sin is a tricky word and has a lot of things attached to it, but for me sin is essentially choosing self over God. Sin is about a broken relationship with God and if we believe God to be perfect and loving then any choice we make outside of God's will is sin. The story of Adam and Eve contains a snake, but it is often too easy to push the blame onto others or to a darker power that tempted us to do something. For this reason I think that sin has to be those things that are contrary to God's will for our life. Selfishness is the root of sin. If I were thinking of God and others above myself I wouldn't murder, lie, steal, gossip, commit acts of adultery, hurt others, etc. Sin entered the world at that moment when humanity chose selfishly to ignore God's will. From this point on sin shows its ugly head throughout our history. The Bible then is the story of God's relationship with his creation and how sin continually messes this relationship up. What is interesting about this story however, is that God never gives up on us. Even more interesting is how God continually tries new ways to get us back to a place where his will is carried out on earth. This then brings us to openness theology.
Part two of this post will lay out the basics of openness theology and some of its implications. I have a lot to write so rather than one enormous post I wanted to do two shorter ones. Hopefully this will spark some discussion easier than a larger one would. In a day or two I will post the second part of this discussion. Until next time...
peace
Comments
That would be why we need Jesus. Sometimes I feel as though our society has downplayed our need for His sacrifice. Had it not been for His death on the cross, we would not be able to ever overcome our sinful nature; we cannot do it alone.
Thanks for posting this, my friend. I appreciate your depth.