BOOK REVIEW:
Most Moved Mover: A Theology of God's Openness. By Clark H. Pinnock. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001. 224pp. ISBN 0801022908. 

Evangelicals are not generally known for innovation in matters of theology. We prefer to guard and preserve what we consider to be timeless truths. A fascinating exception to this rule is Clark H. Pinnock’s Most Moved Mover: A Theology of God’s Openness. It is an overview and defense of open theology, a ten-year-old movement in which the basic claim is the need to reform classical theism’s doctrine of God in light of the biblical narrative. Pinnock maintains that early Christian theologians were too much under the spell of Plato, Aristotle and other Greek thinkers whose ideas of perfection shaped a God who is absolute, timeless, unchanging, impassible and in complete control. By contrast, says Pinnock, the God of the Bible is dynamic, vulnerable, sympathetic, accessible and committed to relationships. Classical theology’s attempt to fuse biblical and Greek thought has resulted in a doctrine of God in which the biblical truths about God are subverted to pagan ideas of perfection. The God of classical theology (broadly represented by Thomas Aquinas and Calvin) is closed off to any real interaction with creation. Open theology wishes to posit a more biblically based view of a God who is open to true relationships with others.

Human freedom plays a big part in open theology but it is God’s love and God’s desire for loving relationships that play the central role in Pinnock’s exegesis. Using the parable of the prodigal son as a model of God’s providence, Pinnock points to the father’s love for both his sons and his refusal to force his sons to return his love. The mutual love desired by the father in the parable requires freedom. Without freedom to reject God’s love, human beings are robots incapable of love. But then a true freedom means that God is vulnerable to being rejected. For Pinnock, this shows just how far classical theism, with its impassible, all-controlling God, has strayed from the biblical view. Contra Calvin, the biblical narratives tell stories in which God is not the only actor. God truly reacts to people within the story, pleading with them, arguing with them, and responding to their actions. The Bible’s idea of sovereignty is not the despotism of Calvinism but a “divinely willed two-sidedness” in which God sovereignly gives his creatures the freedom to make real choices. Contra Aquinas, God is affected by us. God does not change with respect to his character. God remains faithful. But God is always changing in relationship to us.

The bone that sticks in the throat of many evangelicals is open theology’s claim that God lacks exhaustive foreknowledge. In order to act in time, says Pinnock, God must somehow be in time. Open theology rejects the Greek idea that God is eternal and prefers to say with the Bible that God is everlasting. God moves with his people through time wondering what they will do next. (Jeremiah 3:7, Jeremiah 3:19-20, Isaiah 5:1-4.) Pinnock maintains that true human freedom to either reject or participate in a loving relationship with the divine means that God truly does not know what human beings will choose. As such, we have what Pinnock calls “a partially settled future.” God has a plan. God will accomplish this plan. But God is always making adjustments based upon the free actions of humanity.

In his desire to achieve a more biblical doctrine of God, Pinnock does not naively believe that he can toss out all philosophical influences upon theology. He is clear about his debt to the process thinkers. While acknowledging his affinity and admiration for Whitehead and Hartshorne, he clearly states what he believes to be the fundamental differences between process and open theologies.

Most Moved Mover is well written and makes a cogent case but there are times when the author paints with rather a broad exegetical brush. It could be wished that he wrestled with some of the biblical passages which seem to point to a more timeless and controlling God than open theology allows for. Romans 9, Ephesians 1, and Psalm 139 spring to mind. But as an introduction to the main themes of open theology this is a wonderful book.

Elliot Scott
Pastor, Heritage Presbyterian Church
Houston, TX

PUBLISHED IN THE BULLETIN OF THE INSTITUTE FOR REFORMED THEOLOGY, WINTER 2004, VOL. 4, #1.