From Institutes of the Christian Religion (1.13.1):

1. The doctrine of Scripture concerning the immensity and the spirituality of the essence of God, should have the effect not only of dissipating the wild dreams of the vulgar, but also of refuting the subtleties of a profane philosophy. One of the ancients thought he spake shrewdly when he said that everything we see and everything we do not see is God (Senec. Praef. lib. 1 Quaest. Nat.) In this way he fancied that the Divinity was transfused into every separate portion of the world. But although God, in order to keep us within the bounds of soberness, treats sparingly of his essence, still, by the two attributes which I have mentioned, he at once suppresses all gross imaginations, and checks the audacity of the human mind. His immensity surely ought to deter us from measuring him by our sense, while his spiritual nature forbids us to indulge in carnal or earthly speculation concerning him. With the same view he frequently represents heaven as his dwelling-place. It is true, indeed, that as he is incomprehensible, he fills the earth also, but knowing that our minds are heavy and grovel on the earth, he raises us above the worlds that he may shake off our sluggishness and inactivity. And here we have a refutation of the error of the Manichees, who, by adopting two first principles, made the devil almost the equal of God. This, assuredly, was both to destroy his unity and restrict his immensity. Their attempt to pervert certain passages of Scripture proved their shameful ignorance, as the very nature of the error did their monstrous infatuation. The Anthropomorphites also, who dreamed of a corporeal God, because mouth, ears, eyes, hands, and feet, are often ascribed to him in Scripture, are easily refuted. For who is so devoid of intellect as not to understand that God, in so speaking, lisps with us as nurses are wont to do with little children? Such modes of expression, therefore, do not so much express what kind of a being God is, as accommodate the knowledge of him to our feebleness. In doing so, he must, of course, stoop far below his proper height.

RC Sproul attributes it to Romans 9:

The combination was too much for me. Gerstner, Edwards, the New Testament professor, and above all the Apostle Paul, were too formidable a team for me to withstand. The ninth chapter of Romans was the clincher. I simply could find no way to avoid the Apostle’s teaching in that chapter. Reluctantly, I sighed and surrendered, but with my head, not my heart. “OK, I believe this stuff, but I don’t have to like it!”

Calvinist Louis Berkhof explains the difference between incommunicable and communicable attributes:

4. The most common distinction is that between incommunicable and communicable attributes. The former are those to which there is nothing analogous in the creature, as aseity, simplicity, immensity, etc.; the latter those to which the properties of the human spirit bear some analogy, as power, goodness, mercy, righteousness, etc. This distinction found no favor with the Lutherans, but has always been rather popular in Reformed circles, and is found in such representative works as those of the Leyden Professors,[ Synopsis Purioris Theologiae.] Mastricht and Turretin. It was felt from the very beginning, however, that the distinction was untenable without further qualification, since from one point of view every attribute may be called communicable. None of the divine perfections are communicable in the infinite perfection in which they exist in God, and at the same time there are faint traces in man even of the so-called incommunicable attributes of God. Among more recent Reformed theologians there is a tendency to discard this distinction in favor of some other divisions. Dick, Shedd, and Vos retain the old division. Kuyper expresses himself as dissatisfied with it, and yet reproduces it in his virtutes per antithesin and virtutes per synthesin; and Bavinck, after following another order in the first edition of his Dogmatics, returns to it in the second edition. Honig prefers to follow the division given by Bavinck in his first edition. And, finally, the Hodges, H. B. Smith, and Thornwell follow a division suggested by the Westminster Catechism. However, the classification of the attributes under two main heads, as found in the distinction under consideration, is really inherent in all the other divisions, so that they are all subject to the objection that they apparently divide the Being of God into two parts, that first God as He is in Himself, God as the absolute Being, is discussed, and then God as He is related to His creatures, God as a personal Being. It may be said that such a treatment does not result in a unitary and harmonious conception of the divine attributes. This difficulty may be obviated, however, by having it clearly understood that the two classes of attributes named are not strictly co-ordinate, but that the attributes belonging to the first class qualify all those belonging to the second class, so that it can be said that God is one, absolute, unchangeable and infinite in His knowledge and wisdom, His goodness and love, His grace and mercy, His righteousness and holiness. If we bear this in mind, and also remember that none of the attributes of God are incommunicable in the sense that there is no trace of them in man, and that none of them are communicable in the sense that they are found in man as they are found in God, we see no reason why we should depart from the old division which has become so familiar in Reformed theology. For practical reasons it seems more desirable to retain it.

Berkhof, Louis (2014-02-23). Systematic Theology (Kindle Locations 1102-1123). . Kindle Edition.

Whereas Calvinists usually quote Psalms 139:16 as evidence that God predestines people’s entire lives, Calvin understood it as a illustration of the development of a fetus in the womb:

Some read ימים, yamim, in the nominative case, when days were made; the sense being, according to them — All my bones were written in thy book, O God! from the beginning of the world, when days were first formed by thee, and when as yet none of them actually existed. The other is the more natural meaning, That the different parts of the human body are formed in a succession of time; for in the first germ there is no arrangement of parts, or proportion of members, but it is developed, and takes its peculiar form progressively.

Excerpted from Does God Change His Mind? Divine Repentance by Calvinist R.C. Sproul:

The biblical narratives in which God appears to repent, or change His mind, are almost always narratives that deal with His threats of judgment and punishment. These threats are then followed by the repentance of the people or by the intercessory petitions of their leaders. God is not talked into “changing His mind.” Out of His gracious heart He only does what He has promised to do all along – not punish sinners who repent and turn from their evil ways. He chooses not to do what He has every right to do.

The point of these narratives is to encourage us to pray. We are to make intercession. The promised threats of divine punishment are given with the condition attached that if we repent, we ~vi1l escape those punishments. Sometimes that condition is spelled out explicitly, while at other times it is merely implied. When we repent, then God removes the threat of punishment. The question is, Who is ultimately repenting here? God never repents in the sense that He turns away from sin or from error.

God is not a man. He does not ultimately or literally have arms or legs. He does not repent as men repent. He listens to our prayers but is never corrected by them. He changes not- neither in the perfection of His being nor in the perfection of His thoughts.

The author argues that impassibility is misunderstood:

The Bible? – What about those passages in the Bible that talk about God’s very strong feelings about things? What do they point to if God is not a passionate God? Are they “merely” anthropomorphisms that don’t “really” mean what they say? The Fathers and the medieval tradition made a distinction between ‘passions’ and ‘affections.’ An affection is a sort of controlled emotion that is subject to the will and mind of the one having it. It is a rational emotion that does not overcome the person, but is in line with the will. God has affections such as kindness, anger, etc. which he can display. The passages in the Bible talking about God’s anger, kindness, grief, and so forth are pointing to something real in God—his affections, the emotional life of the God of Israel. They are not “mere” anthropomorphisms, even though they are anthropomorphic. They are real descriptions, though not to be taken in a literalistic fashion, of God’s emotional life.

John Piper, a Calvinist, posts some book recommendations:

Systematic Theology

Systematic Theology (Grudem)
A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith (Reymond)
Systematic Theology (Berkhof)

The Attributes of God

The Doctrine of God (Bavinck)
Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God (Carson)
The Existence and Attributes of God (Charnock)
God the Father Almighty (Erickson)
Knowing God (Packer)
The Holiness of God (Sproul)
The Pleasures of God (Piper)
The Doctrine of God (Frame)
The Attributes of God (Pink)

Triablogue wonders why Open Theists do not use Ezekiel 16 to show Open Theism:

However, the question at issue isn’t how I interpret Ezk 16, but how we’d expect open theism to handle this passage, if its proponents were consistent. Given their hermeneutical presuppositions, it’s hard to see how open theists can effectively resist the feministic interpretation. Ezk 23 presents the same dilemma.

vi) Given open theist hermeneutics, the God who emerges from Ezk 16 is a terrifying God. And terrifying in a particular respect: he lacks emotional self-control. He loses his cool, lashing out in fury. A God with a short fuse.

It’s like a Mafia Don who adopts the daughter of his late brother. He raises her with great affection and kindness. But if his ward betrays his love, his love turns to hate. He becomes vindictive. He’s wonderful to you as long as you don’t cross him. But if you get on his wrong side, if he feels betrayed, then you will find yourself on the receiving end of omnipotent revenge.

It’s like a throwback to Greek mythology. Think of the ingenious punishments which the Greek gods devise for those who fall out of favor.

Piper, a Calvinist, discusses God’s two wills in his review of God’s Strategy in Human History:

D. F&M cite many texts in which “not all men do God’s will” (31.4). They conclude from these verses (e.g. Luke 7:30; Matthew 23:37; 12:50; 7:21; John 7:17; 1 John 2:17; 1 Thessalonians 4:3, 5:17-19; Acts 7:51) that a man can thwart the will of God for him. If Jesus says that only those who do the will of his Father in heaven will enter into the Kingdom then there are many who do not do the will of God. F&M conclude: “Nothing in Scripture suggests that there is some kind of will or plan of God which is inviolable” (32.3, see “E” below for Scriptures which do indeed suggest this!). They reject any attempt to distinguish between two ways that the will or counsel of God is conceived (32.33). But in doing this they reject a theological construction which in my opinion handles the data of Scripture more coherently than the theological construction of free will and the thwartable God.

A careful reflection upon the Scriptures compels us to distinguish between different senses in which the will of God is spoken of. Calvin uses the terms “signified will” and “effectual will” (32). Jonathan Edwards refers to God’s “secret will” and his “revealed will” or, which is perhaps most apt, God’s “will of decree” and his “will of command.” The stumbling block for the Arminians has always been that Calvinists assert that God can command one thing and decree that another thing come to pass; he can say that one thing is his will and yet foreordain a contrary thing. But is this not in fact so?

Let’s take the example of Pharaoh’s hardening of heart. It is irrelevant for the present point whether F&M are right to translate “harden” as “strengthen.” What is important is simply this: to F&M after the fifth plague God gave Pharaoh “supernatural strength to continue with his evil path of rebellion” (73.9). In other words, it was God’s will that for five more plagues Pharaoh not let the people of Israel go. Nevertheless even after God had willed not to let Israel go for five more plagues, “The Lord said to Moses ‘Go to Pharaoh and say to him, “Thus says the Lord, Let my people go!””‘ (Exodus 8:1). Here is a clear example of where God’s “will of decree” and “will of command” have to be distinguished.

Piper gives a brief overview of the Open Theist friendly book, God’s Strategy in Human History:

Now we have arrived at the root of F&M’s book. Now we can say what generated these 296 pages. I think God’s Strategy in Human History was written to prove this one sentence: “Human beings, of course, could not thwart God’s ultimate plan for the world, but they both can and do thwart his plan that they, as individuals, should have a part in it” (27.8, 30.4). To put it another way, “God ordains that the new heaven and new earth will come. He does not ordain which particular individuals will accept his plan for them to have a part in it” (28.2).

From Calvin’s commentary on Genesis:

6. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth The repentance which is here ascribed to God does not properly belong to him, but has reference to our understanding of him. For since we cannot comprehend him as he is, it is necessary that, for our sakes he should, in a certain sense, transform himself. That repentance cannot take place in God, easily appears from this single considerations that nothing happens which is by him unexpected or unforeseen. The same reasoning, and remark, applies to what follows, that God was affected with grief. Certainly God is not sorrowful or sad; but remains forever like himself in his celestial and happy repose: yet, because it could not otherwise be known how great is God’s hatred and detestation of sin, therefore the Spirit accommodates himself to our capacity. Wherefore, there is no need for us to involve ourselves in thorny and difficult questions, when it is obvious to what end these words of repentance and grief are applied; namely, to teach us, that from the time when man was so greatly corrupted, God would not reckon him among his creatures; as if he would say, ‘This is not my workmanship; this is not that man who was formed in my image, and whom I had adorned with such excellent gifts: I do not deign now to acknowledge this degenerate and defiled creature as mine.’ Similar to this is what he says, in the second place, concerning grief; that God was so offended by the atrocious wickedness of men, as if they had wounded his heart with mortal grief: There is here, therefore, an unexpressed antithesis between that upright nature which had been created by God, and that corruption which sprung from sin. Meanwhile, unless we wish to provoke God, and to put him to grief, let us learn to abhor and to flee from sin. Moreover, this paternal goodness and tenderness ought, in no slight degree, to subdue in us the love of sin; since God, in order more effectually to pierce our hearts, clothes himself with our affections. This figure, which represents God as transferring to himself what is peculiar to human nature, is called ἀνθρωποπάθεια

Calvinist John Piper interviews John Knight:

Piper: I said a minute ago that if you knew your boy was going to be healed at, say, age 20 or 30, you just might say 30 years of blindness would be worth seeing God do that. You’re probably not looking forward to that happening in five years. So how does John 9:3 work for you? How does the contextual reality or the wider biblical context sustain you, give you hope? You seem like a remarkably hope-filled person.

Knight: Well, it comes in the context of the entire Word of God, so that we can look at John 9:3 and see some of the characteristics of God that are hope giving. God looked through time and space and creation before anything was made and said about that man born blind, “He will be born blind so the works of

Michael Hansen of Brief Inquisition was gracious enough to write a response to last week’s post Apologetics Thursday – God Does Not Let Eli’s Sons Repent:

My Response to Christopher Fisher (A Critique of Open Theism)

The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law. (Deuteronomy 29:29)

Last month I wrote a post title “An Example of Where I See Calvinism in the Bible“. In this post I looked at a passage in 1 Samuel where a particular Calvinistic point of doctrine seemed clearly laid out in narrative form.

In the passage Phinehas & Hophni (sons of the high priest Eli) were abdicating their roles as priests and committing many sinful acts in Israel. Eli admonishes his sons to repentance but he sons refuse to heed their fathers admonition. In the passage we are given the reason for the sons disobedience: “it was the will of the LORD to put them to death.”

I took this example in scripture as an opportunity to show a particular Calvinistic doctrine. The doctrine is that of God’s sovereignty over human volition (the will). I explained that in this passage we see two things happening: 1) the willing disobedience of Phinehas and Hophni & 2) the reason for that disobedience, the will of God.

The ultimate conclusion is that the will of man is subservient to the will of God. I believe this is Biblical as it is clearly stated not only in this passage of scripture but in many others (Proverbs 21:1, Exodus 9:12, John 12:40, Genesis 50:20, and many more).

After I published the post ContemporaryCalvinist.com linked to it as a good example of seeing Calvinism in the Old Testament. If I remember correctly this brought my post under the criticism of GodisOpen.com, a cite committed to promoting the theology of “Open Theism”.

I am a layman so I do not pretend to be a strong voice for Calvinism (although I am for Calvinism) nor to I claim to be a voice to contend with in criticism of Open Theism (although I am definitely against it).

That being said Christopher Fisher suggested that I offer a fuller rebuttal of Open Theism and offered to repost it over at GodisOpen.com. Consider this post my response!

Considering Deuteronomy 29:29 is the verse I have chosen to place as a banner over this post it will heavily shape my argument against Open Theism.

Before I set out to refute Open Theism I shall first set the ground work and parameters for argumentation. In my argumentation I am assuming scripture to be the ultimate authority. Secondly I am assuming that the following of Open Theism: 1) God is absolutely free and powerful to do anything and everything he desires. 2) God’s absolute commitment to relationship and human autonomy predicates that all his actions be based on relation cause and effect (aka human actions of willing), & 3) Because of this relational commitment, the future is open; God does not know what the future holds because he is awaiting the actions and reactions of free humans. In hopes that I have accurately described Open Theism I will now attempt to show why each of these premises falls short of the Biblical definitions of God, Man, and God’s relationship to human actions and willing. If you are concerned that I have created a “Straw man” of Open Theism then please refer to the definition set forth by my detractor (here).

For the sake of argument I will name the three assumptions above 1) The Freedom of God, 2) God’s Relational Commitment, & 3) An Open Future.

Premise 1: The Freedom of God

When it comes to the first premise of Open Theism (that God is absolutely free and powerful to do anything and everything he desires) I really have no qualms. In fact, as a Calvinist, this is one of the main doctrines that I hold so clearly. When I read Psalm 115:3 “Our God is in the heavens; He does all that he pleases.” I find myself saying “AMEN”. God is absolutely free. This is a claim of open theism and insofar as an open theist truly embraces this reality I have no argument to offer in rebuttal.

Before moving on I will press Open Theism in their commitment to this Biblical truth. Along with the passage in 1 Samuel that started this discussion are a host of other Biblical stories and teachings that seem to indicate God’s absolute freedom in areas that would make an open theist uncomfortable. One example would be that of Pharaoh in the Exodus story. There seems to be numerous passages where God is said to Harden Pharaoh’s heart in order that His determined purpose might come about (Exodus 9:12 in particular). The freedom of God also seems to be placed over the granting or withholding of repentance (a human action) in the Bible (see 2 Timothy 2:25)

While in principle I do agree with this claim of open theism (that God is totally free) I do wonder whether or not a true open theist will hold to if truly pressed on the areas where the Bible (remember this is our authority) seems to show God’s freedom even reigning over areas of human volition.

Premise 2: God’s Relational Commitment

In my opinion this truly is the heart of Open Theism. An open theist desires to place God’s gracious commitment to mankind at the forefront of their Biblical hermeneutic. An open theist will see passages like Genesis 6:6 which states that “God regretted making man and was grieved in his heart.” and see a God who is first and foremost an emotional God with very strong commitments to His creation and mankind the pinnacle of that creation.

This is the point in the argument where the rubber really meats the road between an open theist and someone who holds and orthodox view of God’s relation to the future.

My main critique of Open Theism is that it limits the emotional qualities of God to that of Man.

I believe that the argument of Open Theism argues from a belief that God’s emotions are limited to that of man’s emotions. Open Theism believes that if God reacts or responds to the actions of man (repentance, faith, sin, etc) then that is all there is to it. It is a bit cliche to say but I feel that it must be employed in this argument: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.” (Isaiah 55:8).

Throughout the Bible we do indeed see that God acts relationally with mankind. Many times God determines to wipe out a people yet ceases to do so when someone intervenes (Abram, Moses, Jonah [albeit reluctantly]). Yet we are also told that God is always acting behind, beneath, and above all these very personal workings in his sovereignty.

The most blatant Biblical example of this come from Acts 4 after Peter and John have been chastised by the Jewish leaders for preaching in the name of Jesus. Peter and John return to the Christians and they all offer up a prayer in response to the beginning machinations of Jewish persecution. Here’s what they say:

“Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. 25You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David:

“ ‘Why do the nations rage

and the peoples plot in vain?

26The kings of the earth rise up

and the rulers band together

against the Lord

and against his anointed one.^b ’^c

27Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. 28They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.29Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. 30Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” (Emboldening & Italics mine).

When one reads this section of scripture we see many layers of story taking place at one time. The first is that Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles, and the people of Israel conspire against Jesus. More emphatically we see that they all did what God had decided to take place beforehand.

How all this works is impossible to tell. That is why I chose Deuteronomy 29:29 to be a banner over this post. Does the Bible make it clear that God cares deeply for the actions of mankind? Yes! Does the Bible make it clear that God sovereignly ordains the actions of people and events? Yes! Moreover, does the Bible teach us how this works? No, it does not. But to neglect God’s authoritative working over history and humanity, even human volition, is to neglect what the Bible teaches.

This finally leads me to the final premise.

Premise 3: An Open Future

This final premise may be my shortest rebuttal because I find it the weakest premise of Open Theism. The idea is that God does not know what the future holds because it is dependent on both human actions and his response to those actions.

The reason this last premise is so easily argued against is due to the sheer amount of straightforward claims by God in scripture to the contrary. I have already mentioned the example in Acts 4 above so I will leave that were it is and simply quote a few verses by way of summation:

Isaiah 46: 8-11

8“Remember this and stand firm,
recall it to mind, you transgressors,
9 remember the former things of old;
for I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like me,
10declaring the end from the beginning
and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,
and I will accomplish all my purpose,’
11calling a bird of prey from the east,
the man of my counsel from a far country.
I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass;
I have purposed, and I will do it.

Proverbs 19:21

Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.

Isaiah 25:1

LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done wonderful things, things planned long ago.

Those things which God has planned of old he brings about regardless of the actions of man. Does he bring them about in and through the free actions of man? Yes!Even a greater mystery is the truth that God truly hates the free actions of man that he uses to bring about his purposes and would that they would not do them. This is beyond our ways and thoughts but we are not God.

Conclusion

In conclusion I would like to turn in a direction that might bring a little more enjoyment to any open theist who are reading this. I have stated a few times in this piece that the relationship between the absolute sovereignty of God and the reality of man’s freedom is a mystery. Moreover, I have stated that Deuteronomy 29:29 is the banner over this post.

I would like to concede to any open theist out there their criticism of Calvinism in so much as many Calvinists attempt to search out the secret things of God. Too often Calvinist are trying to find out who is and is not “elect”. Moreover, we are attempting to figure out if some people’s sin is a part of God’s plan or not. These are ridiculous questions if you ask me. These are things that belong to God and not to man. We are to live and occupy the world of revealed truth. That means that we are to regard all sin as heinous and all repentance as genuine. This does not mean that we ignore the fruit of someone’s life but it does mean we are careful to not damage true wheat in attempts to remove the tares.

Again I am thankful for Christopher Fisher for his interaction with this blog and again apologize if I have misrepresented any position that I myself do not hold. I am no theologian, I am simply a student of God’s word who wants to grow in my understanding of it.

Food for thought.

Michael

For original post, click here.

Calvinist John Piper talks about John 9:

But that is what Jesus is saying here in verse 3: “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents.” In other words, this blindness—this specific suffering—is not owing to the specific sins of the parents or the man. Don’t look there for the explanation.

Then he tells them where to look. Look for an explanation of this blindness in the purposes of God. Verse 3: “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.” The explanation of the blindness lies not in the past causes but the future purposes.

…

One of the ways they try to escape the teaching of this text is to say that Jesus is pointing to the result of the blindness, not the purpose of the blindness. When Jesus says in verse 3, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him,” he means, the result of the blindness is that God was able to use the blindness to show his work, not that he planned the blindness in order to show his work.

But there are at least three reasons why that won’t work.

1. One is that the disciples are asking for an explanation of the blindness, and Jesus’ answer is given as an explanation of the blindness. But if you say God had no purpose, no plan, no design in the blindness but simply finds the blindness later and uses it, that is not an explanation of the blindness. It doesn’t answer the disciples’ question. They want to know: Why is he blind? And Jesus really does give an answer. This is why he’s blind—there is purpose in it. There is a divine design. There’s a plan. God means for his work to be displayed in him.

2. Here’s another reason why that suggestion doesn’t work. God knows all things. He knows exactly what is happening in the moment of conception. When there is a defective chromosome or some genetic irregularity in the sperm that is about to fertilize an egg, God can simply say no. He commands the winds. He commands the waves. He commands the sperm and the genetic makeup of the egg. If God foresees and permits a conception that he knows will produce blindness, he has reasons for this permission. And those reasons are his purposes. His designs. His plans. God never has met a child from whom he had no plan. There are no accidents in God’s mind or hands.

3. And third, any attempt to deny God’s sovereign, wise, purposeful control over conception and birth has a head-on collision with Exodus 4:11 and Psalm 139:13. “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?’” “You formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.”

In Four Views: Divine Providence, William Lane Craig lists why fatalism makes God responsible for evil:

If it is evil to make another person do wrong, then in this view God not only is the cause of sin and evil, but he becomes evil himself, which is absurd. By the same token, all human responsibility for sin has been removed, for our choices are not really up to us: God causes us to make them.

In Four Views: Divine Providence, William Lane Craig ponders reality under fatalism:

Universal, divine determinism makes reality into a farce. The whole world becomes a vain and empty spectacle. There are no free agents in rebellion against God, whom God seeks to win through love, and no one who freely responds to that love and freely gives his love and praise to God in return. The whole spectacle is a charade whose only real actor is God Himself. Far from glorifying God, Helseth’s view, I am convinced, denigrates God for engaging in such a farcical charade. It is deeply insulting to God to think that he would create beings that are in every respect causally determined by him and then treat them as though they were free agents, punishing them for the wrong actions he made them do or lving them as though they were freely responding agents. God would be like a child who sets up his toy soldiers and moves them about his play world, pretending that they merit praise of blame.

In Four Views: Divine Providence, Calvinist Paul Helseth objects to Free Will because that would make man the initiator of salvation. From the book:

The “power to do otherwise” that is essential to these theories of providence not only “assaults the doctrine of salvation by grace” by regarding human beings with libertarian freedom as “the first and effective agent[s] in salvation/” More importantly, it challenges “the assumption that God alone is original, self-existent, and necessary and that the entire contingent order depends on God for its existence,” for it presumes – without so much as a shred of explicit biblical support – that finite agents have the capacity to bring themselves and other things “from potency to actuality without the divine concurrence.”

In Four Views: Divine Providence, Calvinist Paul Helseth counters what he believes to be the Open Theist view of Peter’s denials:

But if the God of open theism in fact is willing – as he was in the case of Peter’s denial of Jesus – to
revoke the gift of self-determining freedom in order to bring about states of affairs that he really wants to bring about, then what becomes of this defense? In other words, what becomes of the attempt to get God “off the hook” for the problem of evil if he in fact is willing to violate the gift of self-determining freedom that he has given to moral agents, the gift that openness theologians insist is not just “irrevocable” but “the key to morally responsible personhood?”

In Four Views: Divine Providence, William Lane Craig asks why we should believe fatalism:

Now, certainly God has the power to create a world characterized by universal, causal determinism. He could have created a world operating according to deterministic natural laws and containing no sentient creatures at all. Perhaps he could have even created a world containing sentient, self-conscious beings who have the illusion of indeterministic freedom of the will, just as he could have created vats containing brains that have the illusion of bodies acting in some external world. But why should we think that he has done so? Why should we think that our experience of indeterministic freedom is illusory?

From Rhoblogy:

Appealing to an eschaton that comes sooner rather than later does the Open Theist no good here, for it only pushes the problem back one step. Further, the god of Open Theism cannot guarantee that the eschaton will arrive when He is planning. Perhaps something will happen that takes the issue out of His hands. God can’t know whether He will lose His power. He can’t know that someone else won’t beat Him. He can’t know that He can keep His promises. He couldn’t know that He’d be able to pull off the resurrection of Jesus. He can’t know whether the laws of physics will be the same in 10 seconds from now. He can’t know whether He’ll indeed be able to preserve His people from falling away. Can’t know whether He will win in the end. Those prophecies in the Bible are just educated guesses.

Critical of people who believe God is Open, Bruce Ware argues that Open Theism is not Evangelical:

My conclusion is this. The cost to doctrine and faith by open theism’s denial of exhaustive divine foreknowledge is too great to be accepted within evangelicalism. It would be easier to say, let the discussion continue (which it will regardless, to be sure) and allow difference of opinion here as we do in other matters. After all, drawing the lines will no doubt be perceived by some as narrow, perhaps “fundamentalistic,” and unloving, though these perceptions will be unfounded. Yet, to fail to challenge a proposal as massive in its harmful implications for theology and for the church as found in the openness proposal would be utterly irresponsible, and by its neglect, our failure would constitute complicity in the harmful effects these doctrinal innovations have for our evangelical theology and for the life of the church. So, with deep and abiding longings to honor God and his Word, to see the church strengthened, and to retain whatever integrity evangelicalism has through its core commitments, I would urge this conclusion: open theism, by its denial of exhaustive divine foreknowledge, has shown itself to be unacceptable as a viable, legitimate model within evangelicalism.

For full paper, click here.

A round-up of popular literature against the God being open:

Creating God in the Image of Man? by Norman L. Geisler [All Open Theists should read this book to understand how Calvinist theologians think]

God’s Lesser Glory: The Diminished God of Open Theism by Bruce A. Ware

No Other God: A Response to Open Theism by John M. Frame

Their God Is Too Small: Open Theism and the Undermining of Confidence in God by Bruce A. Ware

Beyond the Bounds: Open Theism and the Undermining of Biblical Christianity by John Piper

The Battle for God: Responding to the Challenge of Neotheism by H. Wayne House [Neotheism is a term coined with intent to try to hijack the term “Open Theism”. Calvinists do not like arguing against “Open” Theism.]