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Pros And Cons Of Classical Theism

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The current debate around the openness of God is one that needs to be addressed as it is a debate that questions the very nature of God. This essay endeavours to look at the two opposing views and outline the main issues that are being debated. I will then look at why the issues being discussed are important for how we approach theology and Christian living.
The two sides of the debate that we will be discussing are made up of those supporting ‘classical’ theism and those supporting ‘free will’ or ‘open’ theism. Classical theism, which has been the chief view held by Christians for many years, states that God is immutable, impassable, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient which includes knowing the future perfectly and all of the decisions that …show more content…
One of the really big questions that open theists ask is ‘Does God actually know exactly what is going to happen in the future?’ The classical theist would say yes, he knows everything that is going to happen and all the decisions that will be made but an open theist would suggest that God is omniscient in that he knows everything that can be conceivably known and this does not include the future free actions of …show more content…
If God has no absolute foreknowledge of events then how can He give infallible prophecies? Open theism has addressed this by defining three different types of prophecy; Conditional prophecy, predictive prophecy and fulfilment prophecy. Conditional prophecy are those prophecies thats purpose is to bring God’s people back to Him. Predictive prophecies are those that are made knowing that the outcome of the prophecy is the most likely for example the hardening of Pharaohs heart and fulfilment prophecies are those that will come true because God has willed it to be fulfilled and He will make sure that it happens i.e. That Jesus would rise after three days occurred not because God foresaw that it would take three days but because the prophecy said three days He then made it happen on the third day. These defences along with the free will defence for evil seem to be too convenient and many of the solutions to problems that arise from open theism seem more to be ways of making light of heavy philosophical issues. It is in my opinion that these issues appear to be more convenient than

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