No Other God: A Response to Open Theism
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No Other

God

A Response to Open Theism

John M. Frame

P.O. BOX 817 • PHILLIPSBURG • NEW JERSEY 08865-0817

© 2001 by John M. Frame

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—except for brief quotations for the purpose of review or comment, without the prior permission of the publisher, P&R Publishing Company, P.O. Box 817, Phillipsburg, New Jersey 08865-0817.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Page design by Lakeside Design Plus

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Frame, John M., 1939—

No other God : a response to open theism / John M. Frame

p.   cm.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

1. God. 2. Theology, Doctrinal. I. Title

BT102.F755  2001

To the board, faculty,

administration, students, and staff of

Reformed Theological Seminary

Contents

Preface

1. What Is Open Theism?

The Rhetoric and the Reality

The Openness of the Sovereign God

Sovereign Vulnerability

The Ambiguities of Open Theism

The Open-Theist View of Traditional Theism

The Main Contentions of Open Theism

2. Where Does Open Theism Come From?

The Antiquity of Open Theism

God and the Greeks

Socinianism: the Missing Link in Open Theism’s Genealogy

More Recent Influences

What Is New About Open Theism?

3. How Do Open Theists Read the Bible?

Logic

Models

Straightforward Exegesis and Anthropomorphism

4. Is Love God’s Most Important Attribute?

Love, Sensitivity, Responsiveness, and Vulnerability

5. Is God’s Will the Ultimate Explanation of Everything?

The Natural World

Human History

Individual Human Lives

Human Decisions

Sins

Faith and Salvation

Summary Passages

6. How Do Open Theists Reply?

Universalizing Particulars?

Divine Foreordination Versus Human Responsibility?

What Kind of Election?

How Can God Act “Now” If He Acts “Always”?

Other Open-Theist Objections

7. Is God’s Will Irresistible?

Antecedent and Consequent Wills

Decretive and Preceptive Wills

Sanders’s Distinction

The Efficacy of God’s Will

8. Do We Have Genuine Freedom?

A Critique of Libertarianism

Other Kinds of Freedom

The Problem of Evil

9. Is God in Time?

Arguments Against Divine Atemporality

Philosophical Arguments for Divine Supratemporality

Scripture on God and Time

God’s Temporal Omnipresence

10. Does God Change?

A God Who Relents

How Is God Unchanging?

Unchangeability and Temporal Omnipresence

11. Does God Suffer?

Aseity

Does God Have Feelings?

Is God Ever Weak?

Does God Suffer Death in Christ?

12. Does God Know Everything in Advance?

Divine Ignorance in Scripture?

God’s Exhaustive Knowledge of the Future

13. Is Open Theism Consistent with Other Biblical Doctrines?

Biblical Inspiration

Sin

Redemption

Assurance

Heaven and ...

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NOG:ROT

About No Other God: A Response to Open Theism

Using ideas developed in The Doctrine of God as a theological basis, Frame provides a biblical analysis and critique of the “open theist” movement, which is shaking the church today by challenging the Reformed doctrines of God’s sovereignty, foreknowledge, and providence. In this timely work, Frame clearly describes open theism and evaluates it biblically. He addresses questions such as How do open theists read the Bible? Is love God’s most important attribute? Is God’s will the ultimate explanation of everything? Do we have genuine freedom? Is God ever weak or changeable? Does God know everything in advance? Frame not only answers the objections of open theists, he also sharpens our understanding of the relationship between God’s eternal plan and the decisions and events of our lives.

“Open theism is bad news. The appearance of this book is good news. Precisely because God is closed and not open to the nullification of his purposes (Job 42:2), he has opened a future for believers that is utterly secure no matter what we suffer. The key that would open the defeat of God is eternally closed within the praiseworthy vault of His precious sovereignty. John Frame delights to show when it is good to be closed and when it is good to be open. And the Bible is his criterion.”
John Piper, pastor, Bethlehem Baptist Church

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