Bound Only Once : The Failure of Open Theism

The problems with Open theism lie deeper than most critiques suggest. This book interacts not only with the truth claims of Open theism but also its distorted aesthetic and ethical assumptions that do so much work in their program. Open theists like to picture the God of classical Christian theism as a distant, despotic, micromanaging sovereign. The god of Open theism, on the other hand, is ready to enter into new experiences and to become deeply involved in helping us cope as we, with him, face things we simply did not know would happen. They insist that God has knowledge, but not all knowledge, certainly not knowledge of the future acts of free beings. Such Open theistic inferences reveal a deep-seated devotion to Enlightenment categories and narrow unpoetic imaginations. Ideas have destinations, and one of the consequences of our trying to read the Scriptures without any poetry in our souls will be the eventual destruction of any possibility of ministering to souls. Just imagine the hymn writer trying to lift up the downcast - "I know not what the future holds, but I know Who also doesn¿t know much about it either."