In these four lectures, Clark Pinnock sets out to defend open theism from criticism by his fellow evangelicals. They charge Pinnock and his colleagues with nothing less than heresy in denying the conventional view of God as omnipotent, omniscient, and impassible (that is, unaffected by the suffering of this world). Pinnock's defense, covered in the first lecture, centers on examining biblical statements about God. He makes a convincing case that openness is more in keeping with the picture he assembles of a compassionate God who changes his mind due to prayer.
While Pinnock may be correct as far as this goes, there are other traits of God in the Bible—-jealousy, vengeance, and war-making—that he downplays. In addition, the value he places on the biblical witness even leads him to speculate that God possesses corporality in some form. This suggestion reflects Pinnock's uncritical acceptance of scripture as God's direct self-revelation and subordinates the role that tradition, reason, and experience play.
The second lecture aims to demonstrate that the conventional view of God is an unsuccessful synthesis of scripture and ancient Greek philosophy. Once one posits that God is perfect, then Aristotle's ideas of divine perfection were imported into the mainstream Christian view. Aristotle famously conceived of God as the unmoved mover; Pinnock's title is a riff on this. The challenge for the resulting view—with its Thomist stress on omnipotence and its Calvinist stress on absolute foreknowledge, with its corollary, double predestination—is how to accommodate Christ's incarnation and passion.
This description separates these two lectures more precisely than Pinnock does. In the second, he repeats much of what he said in the first. Additionally, he has an annoying tendency to repeat himself several times. This book is the first of his I have read, so I wonder if this is characteristic of his writing or if this is evidence of intellectual decline or insufficient time to prepare.
In the third lecture, Pinnock seeks to distinguish openness from process theology. Evangelicals appear to have already written that project off as heretical. By alleging that open theism is simply a variant of it, they hope to dismiss it as well. As far as I can tell, points of contact between openness and process include the acceptance that God suffers together with his creation and that his perfect knowledge is limited to all that can be known. This includes the future only to the extent of complete understanding of all factors likely to affect that future, but the future is also open, depending on our choices.
The main differences between open theism and process theology seem to be the status of scripture and the universe's necessity or contingency. On both of these points, I'm limited to Pinnock's description of the propositions of process theology since I have yet to read Hartshorne and its other proponents. Concerning scripture, Pinnock appears to accept the general evangelical objection that process originates in philosophical thought rather than the Bible (this is consistent with Pinnock's view of scripture mentioned above). As for necessity or contingency, process theologians, on Pinnock's telling, seem to believe that God's existence necessitates a universe as a counterpart to that existence. In contrast, Pinnock accepts the traditional Aristotelian-Christian view of God as fully sufficient in himself, especially in light of modern trinitarian thought, which emphasizes the relationships within God. Creation, in this understanding, is a free choice on God's part. It is an act that is self-limiting (given the role of chance in the universe, especially the limited freedom humans possess). Paradoxically, this self-limitation enhances the glory of God by expanding the potential for loving relationships. In this way, Pinnock counters the charge of evangelical critics that open theism somehow diminishes God's glory.
In the final lecture, Pinnock describes how our life experience supports the open theist model. One fascinating insight: Open theism, with its assumption of God's involvement in the world and his response to creaturely suffering, helps motivate us each day. In other words, we live "as if" open theism is true. Conversely, Christians who adhere to the conventional view live "as if not," for instance, they pray, which makes no sense if the future is predetermined.
One final quibble, not addressed to the author, but to the book's designer and typesetters: Whenever a raised numeral that refers to a footnote appears under a character that extends below the baseline (such as a "g"), the two touch. This is poor leading (the space between two lines) and should not be.
Usually, I would not have finished reading a book this poorly written, nor would I review it. However, I make an exception here because the main points interest me. The second star is meant to reflect that. ( )