Note: You can view this teaching on our YouTube Channel. Synopsis: Why does openness matter? If God is not open to an unknown future, then we have no true freedom as everything has been predetermined. We are stuck on a ride we didn’t choose and can never get off. People use phrases that are based in predestination to explain things, to bring comfort: when people die it’s their appointed time; when people meet and fall in love it was God’s will that they meet then and there...
Note: You can view this teaching on our YouTube Channel.
Synopsis: Why does openness matter? If God is not open to an unknown future, then we have no true freedom as everything has been predetermined. We are stuck on a ride we didn’t choose and can never get off. People use phrases that are based in predestination to explain things, to bring comfort: when people die it’s their appointed time; when people meet and fall in love it was God’s will that they meet then and there; accidents, bad medical diagnoses, etc. are often met with this type of language. It does bring some level of comfort. When we feel out of control, such words can make us feel secure. “God is in control” brings a sigh of relief in the moment. For many, over the long haul of life, the phrase loses its power, and we don’t really live like it’s true with all our dreaming, planning, deciding, etc. Deconstructing this aspect of faith will allow a new component to be appreciated in the reconstruction processes which can result in a more meaningful, purposeful, impactful life.
Are you a sun worshipper? Not the kind that refers to trying to get a tan, but in a religious sense, where you worship the sun as God. Why or why not? My guess is that you do not worship the sun as God because you are aware that the sun is a star and not a magical being that flies across the sky each day. This is related to the same reason why you don’t worship the moon. Yet sun worship was not uncommon in antiquity, when they simply watched as a massive orb watchfully visited them each day. More information and experience have freed us from such notions, which is a very good thing.
This series on Open and Relational Theology based on Thomas Oord’s book by the same name is meant to introduce you to the life-changing ideas the subtitle suggests. New ideas usually haven’t surfaced because older ideas dominate. An older, conventional idea we will look at now is that of God as a being who does not change, and who also knows the future with great specificity. The two issues are quite related, because only a God who does not change can possibly know a future that is certain. If the future changes, that requires a change on God’s part. If God doesn’t change, neither can the future – it all must be known in advance. Some folks are very comfortable with this, especially when they go through major shifts in their lives like falling in love, having a child, the death of a loved one, etc. These are times when it can really feel like God is in control of every part of creation: all the timing had to work out to meet that someone special; more timing had to be right to get pregnant; and how many times have you heard that when a person dies, it was their time appointed by heaven? There is a certain level of security and comfort with this way of thinking.
I wonder though, especially considering our moving into 2022, do you have any goals for the upcoming year? Notice I didn’t say resolutions – nobody imagines keeping those, right? But how about goals? We all do, whether we can articulate them or not. To wake up another day. To survive. To get ahead. To be healthier. To take care of some things we’ve been putting off. To successfully go to the bathroom every day. To wash your dishes and clothes as needed. Eat. Sleep. Binge some Netflix. Goals.
Note that if everything is already written – a requirement of a future that God already knows – what’s the point of any of our dreams and plans? Some take this to heart and sort of give up on caring about the larger world around them and even some things close to home because they conclude that “what’s going to happen is going to happen.” This is a resignation to a worldview that sometimes feels accurate, and yet might not be as airtight as is popularly taught.
There are verses in the Bible where God appears to be “quoted” as saying that God does not change (such statements coming from the pens of prophets and poets and other biblical writers or groups). A strong and popular modern view of the Bible asks us to believe that the Bible is without error and incapable of being wrong (at least the original copy which no longer exists – so helpful!). This means that if we read in the Bible that God never changes, we should simply take it at face value. But what if that position itself doesn’t tell the whole story?
We don’t have to go very far in the Bible to find an example of God changing. Below is a lift out from the very familiar story of Adam, Eve, and forbidden fruit:
The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” – Genesis 2:15-17 NRSV
But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.
They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.” Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent tricked me, and I ate.”
The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all living. And the LORD God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife, and clothed them.
Then the LORD God said, “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life. – Genesis 3:4-13, 20-24 NRSV
Do you see how God changed? In the instruction to Adam, God says that if he eats the forbidden fruit he shall die. Pretty straight forward. The tempter/test-your-mettle-antagonist suggests otherwise, Adam and Eve take a bite, and... nothing. They are still very much alive, and very much aware that they are naked and for some reason feel ashamed about it. Their innocence died, for sure, but they still had a pulse. When God shows up to talk about it, God does not kill them on sight, but walks them through what it will mean for their future. Life in the garden is dead and gone, but their lives will continue. God changed God’s mind in favor of grace.
This pattern shows up throughout the entirety of scripture: God threatening doom if people don’t change their ways, followed by God being merciful when they do. This clearly provides an important truth: God is not fixed, but rather flexible depending on what we do.
As Oord notes in his book, in describing how our relationship with God works, we may be better served with the metaphor of jazz than a fully written musical composition. Especially for a jazz combo with just a few artists, the music is fluid as the artists respond back and forth to each other. The chord structure and melody line is fully present, but is being expressed in the moment, never to be repeated exactly the same way. Human relationships are like this, and it appears that this is how God is with us. God moves with us responsively. We respond and/or react to God’s influence in our lives (wittingly and unwittingly), and God is affected by what we do as is clearly the case throughout the Bible.
This raises an unsettling question: if God is responsive, changing based on what’s happening in creation, can we trust God? What if God changes God’s mind about being loving or graceful? Doesn’t introducing an open framework destroy the foundation for God’s faithfulness?
Process philosophers and theologians helped solve this problem by distinguishing essence from experience. Essence refers to core character, while experience refers to how that character is expressed. With this in mind, we can see that God’s character of holiness, love, grace, etc. – God’s essence – remains unshakable. For example, we don’t see any major themes in the Bible where God chooses to go off on a weekend bender causing major messes for our lives. How God’s essence plays out experientially is always in response to creation.
Oord uses an analogy from parent-coaching his daughters about soccer. In their earlier years, he interacted with them on the most basic levels of soccer skills because that’s the most they could handle. Over time, as they grew in skill, Oord interacted with them at higher levels of play based on their capacity. Oord’s love for his girls never changed, but his experience with them did, based on their capacity and responsiveness to him.
So it is with God and creation. God’s character remains solid and trustworthy, yet God’s expression of character is quite fluid, improvising along with the other members of the combo who are responding in like manner. We can count on God’s character, and we can count on God’s response to be related to our own (but always based on who God is more than who we are).
This is why we can feel comfortable saying that God does not know the future with great specificity without taking anything away from God. This also takes God off the hook for a lot of things we blame God for. This also makes a lot of sense in our human experience. The primary thing holding us back may be fear of violating some long held conventional ideas that should have been taken out of circulation a long time ago, but their “holy cow” status kept them intact. If you feel anxious about dropping the conventional view of God as unchanging and therefore foreknowing, where is the angst coming from? Intellectual argument? Or fear? Personally, as I have shifted, fear has been a primary force keeping me tied to ideas that need to die. As a pastor, I can say the same for many others – we are afraid to let go of the conventional because of the threats levied by those who maintain the conventional structures. The threats are very real. The fear is justified. But the threat is not coming from God.
God’s essence is reflected in the fruits of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, generosity, and self-control. This is God’s core, God’s heart, God’s ultimate foundation, God’s goal, God’s way of being in the world. Shalom is a single word-basket that incorporates and holds all the fruits of the Spirit. God is represented by shalom, is necessarily driven to create and foster more shalom in the world and does so reflecting shalom. Founded in shalom, toward shalom, with shalom.
All of this has implications for our lives. We’re not chess pieces on a game board. We’re not robots. Nothing is predetermined except that God’s essence and MO will not change. What we do with our lives and with God is our choice, and our choices have consequences. What we do with our lives matters more than just to us. Creation matters. God influences and responds to creation, which includes us.
When we pray, when we choose to deepen our understanding, when we serve others, when we advocate for shalom, when we walk deeply with others in joy, grief, and the mundane, we have an effect. Would you like to see more shalom in your life and in your world? You can affect that. You can trust that the qualities of shalom are rooted in God and that when you pursue shalom, God is with you, responding in ways we cannot fully comprehend and making the most of it.
Therefore, as we enter 2022, be filled with great hope! The foundation of God’s shalom is unshakable and can be trusted. God’s desire to bring more shalom is well attested throughout history. God’s responsiveness means that when we choose to embrace shalom in our prayers, learning, service, advocacy, and intimacy with others, we can count on more impact than we might expect. Despite the gloom of COVID’s Omicron strain, have hope and get going. There is no time to waste. You, for your own life’s sake, would be greastly served by leaning into shalom as it comes with all the fruit of the Spirit! And the world needs you to lean into shalom, trusting God’s responsiveness, because hope is bigger than despair. We are not alone, and we can make a difference. The music is playing, and we have our lives as instruments to join in. Let’s make some beautiful music together.
“God who began a good work in you will bring it to completion...”
Quotes and Thoughts from Chapter 2, Open:
Making a difference: meditation and prayer, study, service, advocating for the Kingdom, and genuine friendship bring their effect on ourselves, God, and creation. Your life and your decisions matter, and not just for you. We have agency. While we can be victimized by others’ choices, we are not victims because we can make decisions.
Oord asks, “is life more like a vinyl record, each groove cut, and all songs prerecorded? Or an extemporaneous jazz session whose musicians improvise, exploring uncharted motifs?...
“To explain ‘open’ well is to talk about the flow of time and the openness of the future. Open and relational theology says life is more like the jazz session. Nothing and no one – not even God – prerecords history. The future is open and yet to be determined. We’re all in process.”
“Over forty times, biblical writers say God ‘repents.’ This doesn’t mean God turns from sin; it means God has a change of mind. The Lover of us All planned to do one thing but alters course to do something else in response to creation. A timeless God can’t alter course, but a Living Go can. Scripture passages saying God chooses mercy, responds to needs, and liberates the oppressed make little sense if God is timeless...
“Conventional theologies portray God as timeless, so they can’t portray God as a relational actor. These theologies don’t fit the way God is portrayed in sacred scriptures. They don’t fit our experiences as living beings. And they don’t fit the reality and ways of love.”
On Foreknowledge: “God can only be certain about some future even if that future has already been settled, fixed, or complete. It doesn’t matter how it was settled. Maybe it was the atoms, [cultural conditioning], evolution, or fate. Or some combination of these. What matters is that the matter was somehow settle beforehand... If God foreknows all with certainty, what we think is an open future must be closed. Instead of a realm of live options, the future must be complete, decided, and settled. Instead of being able to make free decisions about life and love, we’re merely experiencing a simulation, like the Matrix. A settle future is inconsistent with our freely choosing... Knowing doesn’t force anyone. Instead, God can only be certain about some future event if that future has already been settled, fixed, or complete. It doesn’t matter how it was settled. The point: God can only be certain about a future event if it has already been determined.”
If God changes, doesn’t that impact our confidence and require us to limit our faith? “The solution [to this problem] distinguishes God’s essence from God’s experience. God’s essence is eternally unchanging; it’s stable and steadfast. But God’s experience changes moment by moment; it’s flexible and forming. The divine experience is like the growing universe. It changes. God is unchanging in one respect but changes in another.”
“Although the steadfast love of God never ceases, Lamentations also says it’s ‘new every morning.’”
“In sum: conventional theologies portray God as timeless, so they can’t portray God as a relational actor. These theologies don’t fit the way God is portrayed in sacred scriptures. They don’t fit our experiences as living beings. And they don’t fit the reality and ways of love. By contrast, an open and relational God experiences time’s flow.”
What do we do with this? Does the fact that God changes make God unreliable and untrustworthy? No. “The solution distinguishes God’s essence from God’s experience. God’s essence is eternally unchanging; it’s stable and steadfast. But God’s experience changes moment by moment; it’s flexible and forming. The divine experience is like the growing universe. It changes. God is unchanging in one respect but changes in another... God has an everlastingly unchanging essence and an everlastingly changing experience.”
Prayer. If the future is essentially fixed, there is no point in praying. Yet most people believe prayer has some effect on God and circumstances. An open view believes that what we pray makes a difference to God and creation. Unanswered prayer: Go dis always influencing and influential but never controlling. Note: most people already pray as if God is open and relational – why not make it official and name it as such?
