Averagefellar (William), I think you are misunderstanding Wesleyan Arminianism and Open Theism. There is a distinction between them and the modified Calvinism I have been describing. The Evangelical Theological Society has dealt with open theism:
“At the 2002 Annual Meeting, charges against Drs. Pinnock and Sanders were brought by Dr. Roger Nicole, and, by a majority vote, the Society referred these to the Executive Committee, initiating an investigation into the specific positions taken by these members.” http://www.etsjets.org
Millard Erickson served as president of ETS in 2002. The executive committee, which included Millard Erickson, in 2003 unanimously agreed on the following about Dr. Sanders, a proponent of open theology:
“Sanders does not understand passages such as Micah 5:2 (see Matt 2:6) or Psalm 22:18 (see John 19:24) to be affirmations of what would actually happen during the life of Christ. Although this view is not affirmed by Dr. Sanders for every prophetic text (such as texts tied to incarnation or judgment), such readings apply to enough texts that the product of Scripture is not inerrant in the commonly understood sense, nor is the Bible true in terms of what the original text affirms. So one is left with a Bible that one cannot affirm teaches anything about the future except for stating probabilities. This approach yields a Bible whose truth affirmations are very different from the one described in the Doctrinal Basis of the ETS as commonly understood by the framers and by a broad array of ETS members. Dr. Sanders does not think that the Bible contains any unconditional prophecies of the future activity of free moral agents (except perhaps for unusual times when God overrides the free will of those agents). He also does not think, within his system of open theism, that it is possible for God to give any unconditional prophecies of the future activity of free moral agents that will certainly (not just probably) come to pass. This means that his understanding of the truthfulness of the prophecies of Scripture is incompatible with inerrancy as understood by the framers or broadly understood by members of the ETS. In addition, Sanders affirmed that when Scripture says what God is going to do in the future, and when there is no explicit or implicit condition attached to that statement in its context, there are still times at which God can change his mind and not do what Scripture said he would do. This seemed to us to be inconsistent with biblical inerrancy. Such a position would mean that we could not affirm that many biblical statements about the future are true (in the ordinary sense of "true," meaning that the events will certainly happen). Therefore, the Executive Committee unanimously affirms that Dr. Sanders' understanding of the Bible's inerrancy is not what the framers meant nor what a broad array of ETS members means.” http://www.etsjets.org/members/challenge/execcomm/A-Sanders-ExecComm-10-23-03.html
Obviously, Millard Erickson is not a proponent of open theism, and neither am I. He is also not a Wesleyan Arminian, and neither am I. Erickson explained his position and mine:
“It might seem that the divine choice we have argued for is in part the same as the Arminian idea of foreknowledge. There is a significant difference, however. In the Arminian understanding, there is a foreknowledge of actual existing entitities. God simply chooses to confirm, as it were, what he foresees real individuals will decide and do. In our scheme, however, God has a foreknowledge of possibilities. God foresees what possible beings will do if placed in a particular situation with all the influences that will be present at that point in time and space. On this basis he chooses which of the possible individuals will become actualities and which circumstances and influences will be present. He foreknows what these individuals will freely do, for he in effect made that decision by choosing them in particular to bring into existence.”
(Millard Erickson, Christian Theology, page 387)
Again, open theologians do not believe that God knows every detail about the future. Erickson and I believe that God does indeed know every detail about the future. I think Erickson would agree with me that the Bible is our ultimate source.
