Eyre Lines

Roger Olson blogs “What’s wrong with Panentheism” at Patheos.

He starts with saying that it’s the “kiss of death” to admit to it if you want to teach at an evangelical college, which I might be inclined to think was therefore the most important point.

It does seem to me that exclusion from teaching at an evangelical institution is no justification at all for a theological position being “wrong”; to some, it might be a strong reccomendation!

But then, I don’t subscribe in the slightest to the concept that the be all and end all is conformity with all aspects of received dogma; the be all and end all to me is conformity with my and others experience of God. Does this concept allow me to talk about my experience more easily, to be better understood by others when I do so, and does it give me the ability to expand on that experience and draw conclusions for my future actions and future interpretations of experience? If so, it’s an useful concept. Note, not “right” in opposition to “wrong” but “useful” in opposition to “not useful”. Panentheism in it’s broadest form does that for me.

In contrast, Olson criticises panentheism for denying “creatio ex nihilo”. I struggle to understand how the concept of creatio ex nihilo is spiritually useful to anyone, including evangelical theologians, quite apart from being confident that it’s a derived concept rather than one directly supported by scripture (at least, by Old Testament scripture). It’s useful to physicists, and more specifically cosmologists, in a sense, though the modified sense in which it is currently useful to them is not very like the classical theological concept any more. Whether or not there actually was a creatio ex nihilo, it was a very long time ago, and unless you’re interested in explaining the distribution of matter in the universe, background radiation in space and/or the way in which gravitation and other fundamental forces interact, I can’t see the relevance.

To give him his due, he does distinguish types of panentheist thinking, rightly identifying a few passages which resonate well with panentheists, and his attack is on certain derived philosophical positions, and not on the concept more generally. However, the tenor of his writing seems to me along the lines of the argument “some Muslims are suicide bombers, which is a bad thing: therefore Islam is a bad thing”

It isn’t necessarily part of my particular panentheist stance that “God is dependent on the world”. He might be, he might not be; I’m not clear how the concept is useful. I’ve concluded that the concepts that God is immutable and impassible are wrong in any absolute sense, but this isn’t central to my understanding. I find process theology and open theology useful in stressing that God is changed by his interaction with humanity; a relationship with something which doesn’t and can’t change is a relationship I can’t understand.

But Olson criticises this for denying grace. I don’t see that. Even in the case where certain philosophers have suggested that God is dependent on there being an universe, he is not dependent on there being THIS universe. Except in the sense that, this universe being in existence, he is dependent on it. I do not see how that creates difficulties with grace. We would not exist as we are had we not developed with God being the God he is, and God would not be the God he is had he not been in interaction with us. If that last seems dubious, we may consider that scripture amply attests that God is faithful to his covenants and faithful to his people. I think that this rather negates the idea proposed by Olson that God freely chooses to include the world in his life; if he ceased to do so he would not be faithful to his covenants or to his people. We could say that he freely chose this, perhaps, but having chosen, he is faithful.

But then, Olson is a theologian, and believes that what is needed is “a biblically and theologically sound doctrine”. I disagree. What is needed is a continuing relationship with God, for a Christian mediated by Jesus Christ. We are saved by grace, by faith, possibly even by works, but not by having an intellectually watertight concept of God.