Review of "God of the Possible" by Gregory Boyd

This is the first book I've read by Gregory Boyd and the third one in my personal study of Open Theology (or Openness Theology). Boyd is a local pastor up here in Minnesota, and is the counterpart to Reformed, Classical Theist John Piper. This book goes less into detail of the open view and instead is more pastoral in nature as it is more of a "layman's guide" to OT. 


What I liked:
Gregory Boyd, being a pastor, is able to make the current debate on the openness of God accessible to most any audience. While he still uses some theological jargon, he does explain all of his terminology well. I don't believe his main goal is to convince his audience, but rather to spur them on towards change. Although I don't agree with his conclusions, I love that he realizes the implications of his stance, is willing to embrace them, and show how such a fundamental change in our view of Theology Proper changes everything. I just don't think the root of those changes is true to the biblical portrayal of God.


What I Didn't Like:
I know that he is intentional about building on mainly the relational and practical aspects of Open Theology, but if this was the first book I'd read on OT, I would be a little confused. His attention to practical implications means that he deals less with biblical languages, nuances, and history. This makes his work inspiring at first, but upon further thinking and questioning, it seems to deflate once more of the arguments occurring at the root level of the issue are developed. Furthermore, since many of his arguments are underdeveloped, I think that this volume fails to be an entrance-level, layman's guide to the Open View of God.


A few examples of quotes I found disturbing/did not agree with/sounded good at first:
- "Practically, a God of eternally static certainties is incapable of interacting with humans in a relevant way. The God of the possible, by contrast, is a God who can work with us to truly change what might have been into what should be." 
        - major implications behind this, especially as relates to God's plan of salvation for us.


- Of Peter's denial being prophesied by Jesus, Boyd says, "...it seems evident that we do not need to believe that the future is exhaustively settled in God's mind to make sense of Jesus' prediction of Peter's denial. We need only believe that God possesses a perfect knowledge of the past and present and that he revealed some of it to Jesus." 
         - in this paragraph Boyd claims that Jesus simply knew the character of Peter because of his divine knowledge of the past and present, and therefore could guess properly that in this situation, Peter would deny him. However, he never even mentions that Jesus prophesied specifics about the situation, like a rooster crowing and the number of denials Peter would utter.


- About Moses' response to God's commission for him to represent Israel to Pharaoh in Exodus 4, Boyd says, "The Lord initially tells Moses that the elders will listen to his voice.... Moses apparently doesn't hold to the classical view of divine foreknowledge, however, for he immediately asks, 'suppose they do not believe me or listen to me?' (Ex. 4:1)."
        This argument is misleading for several reasons:
        1) There is a major difference between doubting and deep belief. Many people (myself included) sometimes doubt God when our own humanity fails to trust a holy capable God. Just because Moses has a moment of doubt does not mean that he actually believes God does not know the future conclusively. 
        2) Even if Moses did believe this to be true, God's character/nature is not contained within our individual beliefs.
        3) God giving Moses several things to do so that the people "may believe" does not mean that God in his sovereignty actually wonders if and when the people will listen to Moses' message. To assume that God could have no other reasoning/purposes and in fact doesn't know what's gonna happen is quite presumptuous. 


Favorite Quotation: 
- "Striving to have a plausible theology is necessary because, for many of us, the mind must be thoroughly convinced if the heart is to be thoroughly transformed."


Recommendation: 
- People who want to hear a real pastoral-like application to the implications of the Open View should read this book; however, if you're simply wanting to understand the basics of this theological view, there are better books out there.