Open theists would claim that the essence of God is love. Greg Boyd is a leading theologian who takes the stance of Open Theism. Greg has written many books to explain God in the midst of evil. Is God to Blame is a book Boyd wrote to help compress many volume books into a smaller collection, which is filled with questions that open theism tries to answer about the problem of evil. Not all open theists agree completely with Greg Boyd. The reason being is Boyd goes into much more detail about spiritual forces. People would disagree with Boyd on his emphasis on the spiritual realm. Open theist are very oppose to the view of Calvin and Augustine, especially when it comes to the topic of free will. Boyd believes it would be nonsense to believe …show more content…
Although God does not know the future he is still all knowing, which helps keep him more divine than humans. This does not mean God does not intervene. “Taking Jesus Christ as our standpoint, we can’t avoid concluding that God intervenes in the world” (Pg.109). No matter what a person decides to do with their free will God is able to work in every situation. God is so sovereign that he is able to work in the midst of mistakes and use them to relieve him and bring about his purpose. Prayer is an active tool in open theism! Prayer is God’s way of giving us the say- so on evil. We can’t God to respond the way we wish for every situation. It is not that God wishes to see hurt, pain, and suffering on his people. God just can’t always get his way. God is capable of eliminating all evil. The problem of that elimination is that he would also have to eliminate freewill and love. Lastly, something that makes open theism stand out is its view of hell. Boyd believes the depictions of hell as eternal torture is just symbolism. Instead, hell will be only real from the inside. Humans who come to hell will be completely alone and dammed to only themselves. Hell is not a creation of evil by God because people can choose to not go to …show more content…
The first positive aspect of open theism is prayer. “Scripture encourages us to believe that prayer really changes what God does. Indeed, it sometimes changes what God can do in a particular situation” (Pg. 126). Imagine knowing that just by asking God it could have the potential to change an outcome. Although not everything will be answered in prayer like we would like, but it is still a beautiful gift from God. Prayer is a way to build intimacy with God. Some theologies believe prayer is a waste because it doesn’t change anything. The belief that prayer is powerful and God can use it shows a beautiful side of God. Since we don’t know what the outcome will be with our prayers it builds faith. It takes guts to spill out everything to God and then trust that he will do the best thing for that situation. Also knowing that God can make his purpose happen regardless of an outcome is also encouraging in a spiritual practice like prayer. Faith and prayer need to be hand-in-hand and this theology does a good job at encouraging believers to participate in prayer because it is a way we can change the
In order to understand the truth, people must have solid justified beliefs to prevent diminished autonomy. As humans, we are motivated to practice morally good actions since God provides love. His act of caring is compelling and promotes gratitude.
The problem of evil is a difficult objection to contend with for theists. Indeed, major crises of faith can occur after observing or experiencing the wide variety and depths of suffering in the world. It also stands that these “evils” of suffering call into question the existence of an omnibenevolent and omnipotent God of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The “greater good defense” tries to account for some of the issues presented, but still has flaws of its own.
Throughout the world, most people believe in some type of god or gods, and the majority of them understand God as all-good, all-knowing (omniscient), and all-powerful (omnipotent). However, there is a major objection to the latter belief: the “problem of evil” (P.O.E.) argument. According to this theory, God’s existence is unlikely, if not illogical, because a good, omniscient, and omnipotent being would not allow unnecessary suffering, of which there are enormous amounts.
1. What does he mean by calling himself an optimistic skeptic with respect to free will?
The theistic view states that there is in fact a creator of the universe and he does intervene in our lives. It is more logical to assume that there is a “force” that had to start the whole
Gregory Vlastos commented in his book Socrates: The Ironist and Moral Philosopher, “Such is his strangeness that you will search and search among those living now and among men of the past, and never come close to what he is himself and to the things he says.” (Vlastos). Gregory makes an important point; although studying Plato gives us a glimpse of Socrates, it only gives a glimpse of him through Plato’s eyes. We can study this text and others and never understand exactly who this man is. Even if we had writings of Socrates’s own hands it would be difficult to understand this complicated man. On the other hand the writings we do have, including the
Jazz is more than music. It is a way of thinking that has defined literature, philosophy and music. Surrounded by its own unique lifestyle and culture, jazz has been in perpetual evolution. Emerging from the oppression of slavery, Jazz inspired musicians to define and express freedom through music. As jazz evolved it began to inspire freedom just as freedom had inspired it. New anthems written for the civil rights and anti-apartheid protests demonstrated that jazz had the power to inspire change. Coated in a shell of glory, jazz had been hiding its own internal darkness. Discrimination has been rampant throughout the culture of jazz. Racism, addiction, ageism, mental illness and the power of first impressions have limited or ended the careers of many great jazz musicians.
Black theologians believe the questions about God's principles are futile. Instead they are more focused on how
In John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion he spends a great deal of time expounding his doctrine of God's Divine providence in all of creation. He explains not only how God continually governs the laws of nature, but also how God governs man's actions and intentions to bring about His own Divine Will. Calvin believes that God's providence is so encompassing in creation that even a man's own actions, in many ways, are decreed by God. Because of this belief there arises the question, "Does Calvin leave room for the free will of man?"
Meynell's strategy in his chapter on the relevance of theism, he begins by arguing that belief in God does have specifically moral effects upon those who have. It enables us to act upon our beliefs about what it is right for us to do, and enables us to correct our pressing and depressing tendencies toward self-deception and self-interest. And he then argues that philosophical challenges to this view of the relations between theism and right action fail. The principal challenge he has in mind is the claim that Socrates' question in the Euthyphro-whether the gods love what is good because it is good, or whether what they love is good merely because they love it- cannot be answered. The main point of the chapter is not that theists are better people than atheists. It is concluded that theists do not agree to abandon their belief that theism is relevant to moral beliefs and actions.
The problem of reconciling an omnipotent, perfectly just, perfectly benevolent god with a world full of evil and suffering has plagued believers since the beginning of religious thought. Atheists often site this paradox in order to demonstrate that such a god cannot exist and, therefore, that theism is an invalid position. Theodicy is a branch of philosophy that seeks to defend religion by reconciling the supposed existence of an omnipotent, perfectly just God with the presence of evil and suffering in the world. In fact, the word “theodicy” consists of the Greek words “theos,” or God, and “dike,” or justice (Knox 1981, 1). Thus, theodicy seeks to find a sense of divine justice in a world filled with suffering.
Moreover, classic theology is a doctrine that is most commonly received in the western churches because it describe the fundamental aspect of religious beliefs and doctrine as it relates to Christianity. This theological system is the innovation that secure a believer’s thoughts on the nature of God without having to compromise with religious ideologies that tends to oppose biblical facts in favor of some enticing or deceptive truth that could lead to uncertainty religious conviction. According to Vanhoozer,”Classical theism pictures God, not as a utilitarian or pragmatist who delights in results, but rather as a Kantian, a modern, Stoic, who takes pleasure simply in his good will; Classical theism pictures God as spiritual, personal substance
Here, Taylor envisions a different kind of God, not one who waved his hand, uttered some magic words, and pulled the universe from his Godly top hat (p.151). Taylor’s God is a working God surrounded by wood and iron, soot
Theism is defined as the belief in a God or Gods. The term theism is sometimes used to designate the belief in a particular kind of god the personal God of monotheism but, theism signifies the belief in any god or number of Gods. The prefix a means without, so the term, a-theism literally means without theism, or without belief in a God or Gods. Atheism, therefore, is the absence of theistic belief. One who does not believe in the existence of a God or supernatural being is properly designated as an atheist.
...idualism which will free them and will let them express their individuality and ambiguities in faith. Even though they are inspired from different sources, they believed in the unity of all creatures and the righteousness of humanity. They try to describe the God’s nature in many different vivid figures such as: tragedy and pain that will make us realize the God’s true power. Often we find ourselves away from God because he might take something/someone important from our lives, but when everything returns to normal we always find new fulfillments and pleasures. Even though their ideas originated from different sources and their writings were different from one another, they were quite similar in expressing the love for the God through nature without the need of religious authority. “All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.”(Emerson 3)