We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
Open Theism Timeline
Open Theism Timeline by Tom Lukashow
An argument that is frequently raised against the open view is that it is a recent innovation. Paul Eddy had discovered Calcidius, a fifth century advocate, and I and others knew of L.D. McCabe and Billy Hibbard, two 19th century advocates. But that was about it – until I met Tom Lukashow.
Tom is a lawyer in Florida who has spent much of his spare time over the last thirty years researching the history of the open view. And what he has discovered is, at least to me, absolutely amazing! In preparation for the Open2013 Conference that will be held at Woodland Hills Church next week, I asked Tom if he could bring all his research together into one single annotated time line, and he has graciously obliged.
And now I share it with you. On this chart you will find that from 1642 up to the 1941, there has been a steady stream of scholars advocating the open view. I have not read all of these works, but those I have read– e.g. Fancourt (1720’s-30’s) Ramsey (1748), Bromley (1820), McCabe (1870’s), Brents (1874) and a few others – defend this view using many of the same arguments that advocates of openness today use. In fact, I’ve found in several of the works Tom has sent me several arguments I’ve not seen before. More importantly, this chart demonstrates that the open view is just about as old as Protestantism is! It can therefore no more be dismissed as an innovation than can Lutheranism, Calvinism or any other expression of the Protestant faith.
We should all tip our hats to Tom Lukashow. His tireless labor has done us all a tremendous service! Thank you Tom!
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Open Theism, Tom Lukashow, Woodland Hills Church
Topics: Open Theism
Related Reading
Free Will: What does Quantum Theory suggest?
Bet you didn’t think we’d be going here. Greg discusses how quantum theory supports the idea of free will.
Response to the September 11th attacks
Was God Punishing Us? Since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11th, many people have asked the question, “Why did God allow this to happen?” In response, some Christian leaders have suggested that God was punishing our country for reaching an all-time low in moral behavior. As one well-known…
Open Theism and the Nature of the Future
In this philosophical essay Alan Rhoda, Tom Belt and I argue that the future cannot be exhaustively described in terms of what will and will not happen, but must also be described in terms of what may and may not happen. The future, in other words, is partly open. The thesis is defended against a…
God’s Moral Immutability
Classical theologians from the fourth and fifth centuries on were very concerned with protecting their understanding of the metaphysical attributes of God—like timelessness, immutability, impassibility—by assessing biblical portraits that conflicted with these attributes to be accommodations. However, once we resolve that all our thinking about God must be anchored in the cross, our primary concern…
An Omni-Resourceful God
It is quite common for us to talk about the attributes of God as omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing) and omni-present (present everywhere), but what about God’s unlimited resourcefulness? Consider the story of Moses’ commission in Exodus 3 and 4. Here the Lord instructs Moses to tell the elders of Israel that the Lord has heard…
A Coming Storm
There is a storm beginning to brew on the horizon. It is a debate among Evangelicals about the violent depictions of God, stirred up largely by Eric Seibert’s Disturbing Divine Behavior. Here is a post that sounds “the clarion call.” The debate is presently around two options. Option #1: Traditionalists argue we must simply embrace…