Donald Bloesche what kind of theist is he?

[Blake Reas]

This does have to do with theology. I am not reviewing the book, I would like to ask Jaltus, Graypilgrim and Perenyol if they have read the book and what they think of his theology. I have noticed that he definetely relies on Karl Barth and Brunner a whole lot. He is not an OVer but he basically dogs in the Classical view of God the Whole time. I was wondering what those of you who have read the book think of it.

In Christ,
Blake Reas

[Blake Reas]

I am referring to Bloesche's book in the Christian Foundations series (which is his) called "God the Almighty". Sorry I seemed to delete it in the last post.

In Christ,
Blake

[geebob]

Sounds like something I ought to add to my "to get" list. ;)

[Jaltus]

Bloesche is a strange breed of Calvinist. He has a reformulated concept of God (not the classical God of Gesiler, but a passible, mutable God, or he would say an unmutable unpassible God if you define those terms correctly).

He is following in the wake of people such as Ronald Nash (The Concept of God) and Bruce Ware ("An Evangelical Reformulation of the Immutablity of God," JETS, 1985).

[Blake Reas]

Jaltus:
Bloesche is a strange breed of Calvinist. He has a reformulated concept of God (not the classical God of Gesiler, but a passible, mutable God, or he would say an unmutable unpassible God if you define those terms correctly).

He is following in the wake of people such as Ronald Nash (The Concept of God) and Bruce Ware ("An Evangelical Reformulation of the Immutablity of God," JETS, 1985).

I have John S. Feinberg's Theology Proper "No One Like Him" I think he holds to the same view. I for one have had trouble with some aspects of the Classical conception of God. I do not agree with open Theism but they do make good points about Greek philosophy etc. I do think that greek philosophy is useful though in formulating certain aspects of God's existence. Would you agree? Thanks for the reply!

In Christ,
Blake :cheers:

[Jaltus]

I am not a classical theist, and I think the OV critique of the classical conception of God is good. However, I think Greek thought gives us a basis for even talking about these things, without which we would flounder.

[geebob]

However, I think Greek thought gives us a basis for even talking about these things, without which we would flounder.

Yes! Open theists agree with you.



I don’t wish to create the impression that it was simply a mistake for the early church fathers to utilize the resources of Greek philosophy in formulating the Christian conception of God. On the contrary, I regard the availability of philosophy for this purpose as a manifestation of divine providence, allowing the church to make progress in clear and rigorous thinking about God that might otherwise have been impossible to achieve. But it is clear that great discernment was required in applying philosophical conceptions to the biblical God, and we need not assume that the church fathers made the correct decision in every case.

-William Hasker in The Openness of God pg 194

and

The fathers had several noble reasons for making use of Greek thought. In seeking to overthrow the gods of paganism, they found in philosophy some helpful critiques of the polytheistic gods. Moreover, they desired to show that the God of the Bible was the universal God, that this God was compatible with the best thinking of their day, and that the Christian God was the fulfillment of the God sought by the philosophers.

-John Sanders in The Openness of God pg 72

[Blake Reas]

geebob:


Yes! Open theists agree with you.



I don’t wish to create the impression that it was simply a mistake for the early church fathers to utilize the resources of Greek philosophy in formulating the Christian conception of God. On the contrary, I regard the availability of philosophy for this purpose as a manifestation of divine providence, allowing the church to make progress in clear and rigorous thinking about God that might otherwise have been impossible to achieve. But it is clear that great discernment was required in applying philosophical conceptions to the biblical God, and we need not assume that the church fathers made the correct decision in every case.

-William Hasker in The Openness of God pg 194

and

The fathers had several noble reasons for making use of Greek thought. In seeking to overthrow the gods of paganism, they found in philosophy some helpful critiques of the polytheistic gods. Moreover, they desired to show that the God of the Bible was the universal God, that this God was compatible with the best thinking of their day, and that the Christian God was the fulfillment of the God sought by the philosophers.

Thanks GeeBob and Jaltus you guys have been a lot of help. It helps to move on in my faith and understand God a little than before.

In Christ,
Blake Reas

-John Sanders in The Openness of God pg 72

[geebob]

why thank you. they say imitation is the highest form of compliment.:joy:

[geebob]

oops, nevermind, I see your comments inside the quote.

[Jaltus]

Should we have a new thread on critiquing the classical view of God?

[geebob]

nah, too broad. Any aspect is worth it's own thread.

[geebob]

on second thought, a thread exploring the close connections between the aspects of the classical view wouldn't be bad.

[GrayPilgrim]

For clarification's sake:

In an overly simplified sense
Immutable, Immpassable = Classical view

Correct?

[geebob]

I think so, at least it seems to me that the immutability of God may be the most fundamental part with everything else, timelessness, exhaustive soverignty, simplicity, etc, extending from that.

[Jaltus]

Exhaustive sovereignty is not in fact part of the classical model. Most of the ECFs totally denied it.


Err, maybe your exhaustive sovereignty does not mean determinism, but that is what I took it as. How about they argued for general sovereignty instead of specific, does that work?

[geebob]

Exhaustive sovereignty is not in fact part of the classical model. Most of the ECFs totally denied it.

your open theists and process theists (who coined the term classical theism to mark out the view) would consider it an essential part.

The reason for saying this albeit what you say of the early church fathers is because we do not consider the church fathers to be wholly classical in the sense of the term that we use it. There is a reason why the term classical is used and not traditional or orthodox and that is because of the desire to show that though classical theism has dominated amongst many of the greatest minds of the church, it is not in any way to be considered the consensus. After all, in open theism, there is a desire to remain faithful to the tradition. Many of your open theists do hold to the Weslyan Quadrilateral of tradition, scripture, reason, and *experience.

By our reckoning, Augustine was considered the first fully classical Christian theist (Philo being the first classical theist)

*Some like John Sanders want to replace experience with adequacy for living life because experience needs to be interpreted. I think this is a mistake though (not that the replacement is bad) because that is the case with tradition and scripture as well. After all, the point of the point of the Weslyan quadrilateral is use these four areas in unison as any one considered apart from the rest can support all sorts of wrong conclusions, yes no?

[Sasha Fierce]

Found out he lives up the street from me.
And I'm trying to set the record for a bump.