A Few Thoughts on Open Theism: Another Brief Thought
There is a certain irony that is contained in the Open Theist position (which, mutatis mutandis, also applies to Moltmann, and others), which I neglected to mention in my last post. It consists in the fact that a major impetus of the idea of an Open or mutable/passible God is to enable a picture which reveals God to be more related, more personal, indeed more responsive and interconnected with creation.
This is represented often (especially in Moltmann, though Boyd, Pinnock, and Sanders share in this) as a fundamental correction or rebellion to the deficiencies which accrued in the tradition, viz a viz the doctrine that God is fundamentally impassible (i.e. the concept of apatheia is read as more or less convertible with "God is inert," or "God is apathetic,").
Yet the irony comes (and this is spelled out in fascinating detail in Weinandy's book Does God Suffer?) when in order to present a theology of a fundamentally "Open" and "related" God, one of the essential moves must be to (in contradistinction to the tradition of apatheia and later the Thomistic concept of God as actus purus) place God as an agent outside of me as something that I can thus fundamentally relate to as exterior. If God reacts and so literally changes because of me, He can no longer be the source or upholder of my very being. I rather would per necessity constitute a more autonomous source of existence outside of God. We are merely related as two (univocal) agents--one large, one small. For if my being was itself (despite sin and through finitude) the expression of God, then God could not "change" because of me, because any novelty I brought would be an intrication and improvisation using the "tools" (i.e. Being) that God has given and continues to give. IF God does change in accordance to me, however, He is finite, and thus "outside" of my own existence. There is thus another injustice when Open Theism accuses the tradition of a distant God, when in fact their own thought in essence takes apart what the tradition more or less successful held very closely related.
This is represented often (especially in Moltmann, though Boyd, Pinnock, and Sanders share in this) as a fundamental correction or rebellion to the deficiencies which accrued in the tradition, viz a viz the doctrine that God is fundamentally impassible (i.e. the concept of apatheia is read as more or less convertible with "God is inert," or "God is apathetic,").
Yet the irony comes (and this is spelled out in fascinating detail in Weinandy's book Does God Suffer?) when in order to present a theology of a fundamentally "Open" and "related" God, one of the essential moves must be to (in contradistinction to the tradition of apatheia and later the Thomistic concept of God as actus purus) place God as an agent outside of me as something that I can thus fundamentally relate to as exterior. If God reacts and so literally changes because of me, He can no longer be the source or upholder of my very being. I rather would per necessity constitute a more autonomous source of existence outside of God. We are merely related as two (univocal) agents--one large, one small. For if my being was itself (despite sin and through finitude) the expression of God, then God could not "change" because of me, because any novelty I brought would be an intrication and improvisation using the "tools" (i.e. Being) that God has given and continues to give. IF God does change in accordance to me, however, He is finite, and thus "outside" of my own existence. There is thus another injustice when Open Theism accuses the tradition of a distant God, when in fact their own thought in essence takes apart what the tradition more or less successful held very closely related.
Comments
I don't believe this follows. Most Christian traditions believe that to some extent at least we are seperate creatures, and that we have a measure of responsibility. Surely you are not taking a position that God is everything and everyone in totality? Hence, God is 'other' and we are 'other' outside even an Open Theist position.
The other aspect is the idea of change. It speaks of no lack in God to say that God changes. But you might say, why would he have to change if he was perfect. But change isn't only from imperfection to perfection or vice versa. Change can be to understanding, perpection, experience. None of which denoted imperfection prior to the change happening. Is a happy person who becomes sad after seeing a starving person imperfect because they changed their current feelings? No, in fact if they didn't change their feelings we would see it as an inadequacy.
I certainly needed to clarify my position more and I think I caused some misunderstanding. Yes God is "other" than us; my position certainly sounded panentheistic (or even pantheistic if pushed to the extreme) but I didnt necessarily mean it in this sense.
And your analogy on change and imperfection I think is wholly valid IF we keep it in the realm of finite agents. Things become different when speaking about God however. Change for contingent, finite agents can be for the better (though I would hesitate to say any finite agent can change from perfection to perfection) but if God is a self-existent being (i.e. he doesnt rely an some other for his existence) then He contains the total possibility and actuality of his own existence in Himself in the Triune life (I am drawing heavily on a Thomistic understanding here). Saying then that God doesnt change in relation to us is not a denial of his relation to us but an affirmation of his total infinite activity and consistency toward us. (If you are interested I rely on Thomas Weinandy's "Does God Suffer," Paul Gavrilyuk's "The Suffering of the IMpassible God" and David Bentley Hart's "The Beauty of the Infinite" for a lot of this)
I dont have time to go into a full outline of my views on the topic, but if God is the wellspring of all being, the Creator, then there is no existence or agent that is not a reflection of the being that God has given it. This means that God does not "change" because no agent can introduce novelty into God in that sense, since any action or event would be something that is "borrowing" the Being God has given to it and continues to uphold. That said I do not deny the independent existence of creatures; this is the point of that which is truly infinite. Namely that the true infinite does not overwhelm but contains creatures precisely in their independence because that which is infinite both contains and transcends the difference between the creature and Himself.