Reflections on the Baptist General Conference Annual Meeting,
St Paul

One of the most significant issues before us as a Conference at
the recent annual meeting was whether we would embrace open theism
as part of our corporate identity. Open theism teaches that God
does not know all that shall come to pass. It says that God's
creatures make free choices which do not exist to be known before
they are made. God does not know with certainty what his free
creatures will choose before they choose. The reason this became an
issue in the Baptist General Conference is that at least one
influential Bethel faculty member teaches and defends this
view.

What position did the Conference take on this issue? We passed
two resolutions that seem contrary to each other. In fact, they are
not necessarily contrary but rather point to a profound mistake in
theological and historical judgment. The first resolution we passed
said:

Be it resolved that we, the delegates of the Baptist General
Conference (who are also the delegates of Bethel College and
Seminary) affirm that God's knowledge of all past, present and
future events is exhaustive; and, we also believe that the
"openness" view of God's foreknowledge is contrary to our
fellowship's historic understanding of God's omniscience.

This is a very strong statement and gives many of us
encouragement that we have not entirely lost our bearings in the
sea of contemporary doctrinal indifference. It affirms the Biblical
truth that God does foreknow with certainty all that shall come to
pass, and that the openness view of foreknowledge is contrary to
our understanding of God's omniscience. This was a good stand to
take and I thank God for it.

Four days before these crucial votes were taken, the Bethel
Board of Trustees passed unanimously (with one subsequent reversal)
a "position statement" which took a very different view of open
theism. This position statement became the content of the second
resolution which we voted on. The resolution said,

Be it resolved that the statement on the doctrine of God in the
1951 Affirmation of Faith is sufficiently stated; and, in regard to
the subject of open theism, as delegates of the Baptist General
Conference (who are also the delegates of Bethel College and
Seminary) we affirm the Position paper unanimously approved by the
Board of Trustees of Bethel College and Seminary on June 24,
2000.

The critical paragraph in this Trustee position paper which the
delegates voted to approve (423-for / 363-against; 54% to 46%)
said,

We affirm the unanimous vote of the Committee for Theological
Clarification and Assessment occurring on May 13, 1998, that [open
theist] Dr. [Greg] Boyd's views did not warrant his termination as
a member of the Bethel College faculty and by inference that his
views fall within the accepted bounds of the evangelical
spectrum.

This statement implies that open theism falls within the
doctrinal bounds established by our Conference Affirmation of
Faith. (Elsewhere the Trustee statement says that Dr. Boyd
"enthusiastically embraces the BGC Affirmation of Faith.") Then the
statement goes farther and says that, "by inference," open theism
may legitimately claim to be "evangelical."

The logic does not hold. It does not follow that every view
which escapes explicit censure from our Affirmation of Faith is "by
inference" evangelical. Our Affirmation of Faith does not
explicitly affirm that God is good or truthful or just or
omnipresent or that he knows the past and present perfectly. Since
open theism is not censured because our Affirmation of Faith does
not affirm God's exhaustive foreknowledge, similarly God's goodness
or truthfulness could be denied without censure. But such a denial
would not be "evangelical." So there is a fundamental flaw in the
Trustee's reasoning (expressed in the words "by inference").

More serious is the profound mistake in theological and
historical judgment by the delegates of the Conference in passing
both of these resolutions. To say that open theism is "contrary to
our fellowship's historic understanding of God's omniscience" and
then to say that it does not warrant termination from Bethel's
faculty and is in fact evangelical, shows that open theism is
viewed as a small doctrinal deviation on a par with charismatic
expressions, for example. (Many of us would say that certain
charismatic expressions are "contrary" to the historic BGC practice
and conviction, yet not important enough to serve as a criterion
for who can teach at Bethel or be called and evangelical).

In order for the two resolutions to cohere, open theism must be
viewed as an insignificant aberration from the Biblical norm. But
this is a profound mistake in theological and historical judgment,
for open theism is a massive re-visioning of God. This is clear
from Dr. Boyd's published works and will become increasingly clear
with those yet to be published. If the Baptist General Conference
does not wake up to the magnitude of the distortion of God being
powerfully promoted in the writings and classrooms of one of
Bethel's most popular teachers, the Conference of fifty years from
now will probably not be the faithful evangelical institution it is
today.

For Christ and his glorious foreknowledge,

Pastor John