Gregory Boyd Open Theistic Perspective: A Critical Analysis

Abstract

Gregory Boyd was a major proponent of open theism. He made outstanding and significant contributions to the openness model. Boyd was a pastor and claimed that his view of open theism does not contradict his vocation as a pastor. He rather maintains that the open view has practical theological relevance and agrees more with many Christian practices. The open view came to be known as a challenge to the traditional view of God. The traditional and classical notion of God presupposes a God who has exhaustive, complete and comprehensive knowledge of the future. God in the classical sense is all knowing. But open theism insists that God is omniscient but such omniscient knowledge does not include knowledge of the contingent future. For the open theists, divine foreknowledge is incompatible with human freewill. Boyd claims that he holds the notion of omniscience tenaciously but depending on the type of omniscience that is referred to. But do we have different types of omniscience? From the Biblical texts and from our practical and lived experiences, do we think that the open view is more a plausible model than the traditional view? Does the open view agree with Biblical texts? What is the philosophical implication of the open view? Does the open view actually unburden God with the problem of evil? If the future is open, can God be said to be in control? Gregory Boyd and E. Boyd enunciate their open view which we have analyzed in this study. But their view seems to contradict the basic perspective of the open modelanchored on the freedom of human action. This isdue to their position that God sometimes overrides the freedom of man to achieve his purpose. Also, their claim that they believe in Omniscience while they deny God's knowledge of the contingent future is implausible because to be omniscient is to know all things.