I cannot pretend that the open view of God is very appealing at this point [namely its doctrine of perseverance]. It may make sense of the biblical exhortations and it may follow from a personal model of salvation[,] but it does not appeal to our self-interest. From a biblical and theological point of view, eternal security is the first petal of Calvinism’s TULIP that should fall; from the point of view of self-interest it is surely the last. Cheap grace has appeal. There is in the flesh a desire for security apart from reciprocity born of a lack of trust in God. On the other hand, our experience of the struggles of the life of faith mesh with the open view of perseverance.[1] It is not the experience of a done deal. We who have the Spirit groan inwardly as we wait for the redemption of God (Rom. 8:23). […] (p. 170)
For some, it is inconceivable that a believer may fail to be saved in the end. How could God’s purpose for a person be thwarted in this a way? They reason that if the Spirit awakened them to faith, why would they be allowed to perish? The answer is that God respects his covenant partners and does not override their freedom. Believers can be confident about persevering – perseverance in being faithful to the divine Lover who upholds us by his unwavering faithfulness [
sic] – but must not ignore obstacles to their persevering. Apostasy is not a hypothetical danger: the risk is a real one, even though God does not want it and works against it. Our desire for security can be a carnal thing, the wanting of an ironclad guarantee apart from the proper source of security, Jesus Christ. (p. 171)
Clark H. Pinnock, Most Moved Mover: A Theology of God’s Openness, Didsbury Lectures, 2000 (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster Press / Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001)
Copyright © Clark H. Pinnock, 2001. All rights reserved.
In order to purchase Pinnock’s
Most Moved Mover (2001; repr., Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2019),* see the links to the following websites:
Note
1. What Pinnock (1937–2010) refers to as ‘the open view of perseverance’ is virtually synonymous with any Arminian or non-Calvinistic doctrine of conditional security. The only significant difference lies in openness theology’s understanding of God’s foreknowledge (or lack thereof).
Open theists typically maintain that human libertarian choices, by their very nature, are unknowable – even to God. Proponents of the open view agree with Arminians in that they believe God has granted humans a limited amount of freedom that is libertarian or contra-causal in nature (at least for the present age). Yet, contrary to any traditional or classical understanding of Arminianism, a distinctive mark of openness theology lies in its rejection of the notion that God possesses exhaustive knowledge of the future.† From a practical standpoint this means that, according to the open view, God presently does not (and cannot) know with certainty who will comprise the full company of the saved and condemned before the day of judgement.
It is often maintained by open theists that, in order for God to possess an absolute, infallible, or certain knowledge of all future events, he would have to have foreordained all things exhaustively. Oddly, in maintaining this sentiment, openness advocates find themselves in agreement with theological determinists such as Calvinists, who altogether deny human libertarian freedom and uphold exhaustive divine determinism instead.
† For example, one leading theologian of the open view of God, namely Gregory A. Boyd, has argued that the future itself is non-existent and, apart from any future actions God has unilaterally determined to bring about, not knowable in any definite sense. See idem, ‘The Open-theism View’, in James K. Beilby and Paul R. Eddy (eds), Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views, Spectrum Multiview Books (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2001), pp. 13–47.
J. D. Gallรฉ
2015–2022
Note copyright © J. D. Gallรฉ, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2021, 2022. All rights reserved.
Addendum (21 Sept. 2022). Clark H. Pinnock (1937–2010) died on Sunday, 15 August 2010, aged seventy-three.
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A Word on The Neo-Remonstrance Blog’.
Latest revisions: 19 November 2015 (note revised in a few places); 30 April 2016 (minor emendations made to title and note); 4 October 2016 (minor note emendations); 10 January 2017 (added hyphenation to one term); 19 February 2018 (minor emendations); 26 February 2018 (removed broken link); revised and updated website links (22 Jun. 2021); added one word and initial to par. 4 [as from 29 Jun. 2022; formerly par. 3] of note (20 Nov. 2021); slightly modified par. 4 [as from 29 Jun. 2022; formerly par. 3] of note (11 Feb. 2022); added a comma in par. 2 (formerly a part of par. 1); added a paragraph break (29 Jun. 2022).
