Week 3 DIscussion Post 14 | THEO 626 - Doctrine of God

Dr Feinberg shows how the openness view undermines a number of essential attributes of God. Feinberg offers a fair critique of openness, pointing out where they improve upon classical and process models of God by offering a God who is near (compared to the classical view’s distant God) and powerful (compared to the process view’s impotent God). I agree with the heart of Feinberg’s criticism of openness. He asserts that this view renders God, in theory, less than God. This God is not omniscient, knowing what%could%happen, but not what%will%happen. Biblically, this is false as YHWH is the God who says, “I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning” (Isaiah 46:9-10 ESV). This God is not exactly immutable as His interactions with people lead Him to change, as they do. Again, this is false, as “Jesus Christ is%the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8 ESV). This God is also not impassible, since His emotional state can be affected by the “free will” choices of people. Feinberg says, “Central to the open view is a belief that humans have libertarian free will.”[1]%I agree with Feinberg’s concern with how this view of free will functionally negates the omnipotence of God. Feinberg says, “they grant that God has all the power the traditional view attributes to him. It is just that he usually chooses not to exercise it so as to make room for human libertarian free will.”[2] I may object to the assertion that human free will%must%negate God’s omnipotence. I would present free will as a necessary means by which God gets what He most desires from us, love (exchange here worship or glory). I would also argue that God’s timelessness alleviates any apparent conflict with His foreknowledge (exchange sovereignty or even election here). As for whether Wells and Feinberg agree, that is difficult to say, having read only a few chapters of each of their work. What I am comfortable offering is this, While I’m sure that they disagree at some points, Wells’ view of God is congruent with Feinberg’s when he says, “God’s kind of love comes from above, not from below... it goes against our deepest instincts.”[3]%Feinberg offers, to that same end, “to say that God is infinite or unlimited in love... means that his attributes are qualitatively unlimited and thus make him a qualitatively different kind of being than anything else in the universe.”[4]%What is that, if not a God who is in some sense incomprehensible? % [1]%John S. Feinberg,%No One like Him: the Doctrine of God. (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 2006), 71 [2]%Ibid, 69 [3]%David F. Wells,%God in the Whirlwind: How the Holy-Love of God Reorients Our World. (Nottingham: Intervarsity Press, 2014), 81