MR: Dr. Pinnock, you were once a Calvinist theologian. Today, you are at the vanguard of a movement among evangelical scholars away from Augustinian or Reformational theology. Do you believe your odyssey is illustrative of our moment? And if so, why?
CP: People move in different directions over a lifetime. Some move to Calvinism, others away from it, according to their consciences, God being their judge. My pilgrimage may not have any wider significance than it has for me personally. I am God's unworthy servant. He leads me and I try to follow-like you do yourselves.
Setting up this exchange (though) suggests that you think it worth discussing. From my standpoint, what my pilgrimage may signify is that I along with others have sensed the need for a better theological articulation of our dynamic relationship with God. Theological determinism makes it difficult to view that relationship as real and it is (I think) existentially repugnant in robbing human life of its God-given significance. If God has already decided everything, it is hard to make sense of the give-and-take relationships of love and it suggests that we add nothing to what God has already decided. Unless Calvinism can help with this dilemma more effectively, something like the "openness" model of God will have an appeal.
I encourage you to make a better case for your model in order to help people overcome the paralyzing implications of what you seem to be saying. I suppose my pilgrimage is a challenge in that I don't think you can do it. That is not to say Reformed theologians as such cannot help-such as Karl Barth, Hendrikus Berkhof, Vincent Brummer, Donald Bloesch, and Adrio Konig-only that paleo-Calvinism probably cannot.
MR: Could you explain to us what the "new model" is, and what it offers that the "old model" does not?
CP: The "openness" model of God is not new in most respects. Like your own position, it is founded upon a confession of the triune God. It also holds to God's ontological otherness and the creation of the world out of nothing. But it has novel features, too. Most notably, according to the model (which has Wesleyan/Arminian roots), God sovereignly grants human beings significant freedom, because he wants relationships of love with them. In such relationships, at least in the human realm, either party may welcome or refuse them. We may choose to cooperate with God or work against his will for our lives. God has chosen to enter into dynamic give-and-take relationships with us which allow God to affect us and also let us affect God. As co-laborers with God, we are invited to bring the future into being together along with him. The openness model of God is a variation of what is often called "free will theism," and I think it makes better sense both of the Bible and of our walk with God.
The problem with the "old" model in its Thomist or Calvinist versions has to do with the fact that it emerged out of a synthesis of the Bible and Greek philosophy. Several (but not all) of its features are unscriptural and inappropriately dependent on Hellenistic thinking. Categories like God's impassibility, timelessness, immutability, exhaustive omniscience are badly skewed. They give the impression that God is immobile and reminds one uncomfortably of Aristotle's unmoved mover. It makes God look a lot like a metaphysical iceberg. I am not alone in pointing this out-many Thomists like Norris Clarke and Calvinists like Karl Barth have made the point.
What needs to be corrected (and it is not hard to do) is a certain one-sidedness in favour of God's otherness to the detriment of God's nearness and self-sacrificing. We need to reflect more the awesome tenderness of God in bending down to us and making himself vulnerable within the relationship with us (Hos. 11:1-9). Hendrikus (not Louis) Berkhof shows how it can be done in Christian faith (chapters 18-22). I hope we will not be too stubborn to make reforms in our thinking according to God's Word.
MR: How do you respond to the charge that the new model's rejection of some basic elements of classical theism, and your criticisms of classical understandings of sin and redemption, simply reflect the same Pelagian assumptions of old liberalism? Distinguish new model evangelicalism and old liberalism for us. And in this connection, could you help us understand what you meant when you wrote that "we have finally made our peace with the culture of modernity"?
CP: The openness model of God views salvation in relational, not in causal terms. That is an important difference between us, no doubt. God desires relationships of love and to this end has taken strong initiatives. God has said an unequivocal "yes" to sinners in Jesus Christ and offers them reconciled relationships through the atoning death and glorious resurrection of Christ. (Please, I am not an old liberal or a new one either.) But offering a relationship is not the same as having it. Love being mutual and reciprocal cannot be forced. Human assent, therefore, is essential for these relationships. Yes, God takes the initiative (am I not Reformed?), but he is also a lover who wants people to love him freely in return. He is not satisfied with puppets or automata. Therefore, God woos but does not coerce our response. My view could fairly be called semi-Augustinian (I suppose) but it is certainly not Pelagian or liberal. I agree with G. C. Berkouwer that it is easier to spot the error of Pelagius than it is to supply the ideal alternative truth.
Regarding the comment you cite on modern culture (which does not sound like me), I am simply saying that evangelicals are called to preach the Gospel in the modern setting in which God has placed us. This means that our message should be intelligible and have appeal to modern people if possible. Just as classical theists used Greek categories (too enthusiastically, I'd say) to communicate the Gospel in the early centuries, so we are free-even obliged-to make use of modern philosophical resources to get the Word out. In my opinion, the openness model is less influenced by modern philosophy than classical theism was influenced by ancient metaphysics. Some critics, when they criticize me on being influenced by modernity, do not seem to be conscious of the problem which they have with philosophy.
MR: The old model talks in terms of the imputation of Adam's guilt and the imputation of Christ's righteousness. Does the new model regard sin and justification in terms of imputation? Or is this all part of the "legal" model that has, in your view, received too much emphasis?
CP: Western theology since Tertullian has (I think) been too fixated on legal categories. It is not incidental that Calvin, like him, was a lawyer, too. This gave them a certain bias toward jurisprudence in relation to the meaning of salvation. It put the emphasis (for example) on the sinner's change of status with God the judge rather than on the goal of union with God in Christ who is our lover. I think we need a more relational model with the judicial dimension as part of that. Notice, it is not a question of dropping the judicial but of placing everything in a better all-over framework, which (I think) the theology of recapitulation in the early Greek church may provide. Anselm and Calvin are too modern for me-we have to go further back to get a better balance and orthodoxy.
On the matter of the imputation of Adam's sin, you and I know that there is a diversity of opinion in Christian theology, and even in Reformed theology. The Old Testament takes no position and the New Testament addresses it only once, in Romans 5, to which everyone is forced to appeal. Along with certain Calvinists, I understand the imputation of Adam's sin, not in the sense that we are held guilty for what another person did (Ezek. 18:2-4 makes that problematic), but in the sense that Adam's act placed us all in a morally vitiated condition at birth as members of a fallen race. This would explain the universality of sin among us but not make us guilty. To cite Reformed theologian Donald Bloesch: "Original sin does not become rooted in man until he assents to it and allows it to dominate his whole being." (1) Federal Calvinism, with its more precise doctrine of the imputation of Adam's guilt, was (I think) going beyond what Scripture requires and creating unnecessary burdens. In the case of the imputation of Christ's righteousness, Paul says it is not automatically applied but is something which has to be received (Rom. 5:17).
MR: How would your model account for the biblical treatment of election and predestination?
CP: What do I do with texts on predestination and election? First, I do what everyone does-I read them in relation to an overall model. Texts on election point to God's choice of a person or a people to serve him. Abram was called to be a vehicle for God's blessing of every nation. Israel as a people were chosen to be a light to the Gentiles (Is. 49:6). Election is never a question of God electing or reprobating individuals to heaven or hell for mysterious divine reasons. It points to the calling of a person like Moses or a people like Israel to bear the name of God. God's purpose in blessing them is always in order to have mercy on others, too. Is not Romans 11:32 clear on that point? Election is corporate and potentially inclusive of outsiders. I think Augustine erred greatly (and Calvin, by following him) when he gave election an individualistic slant. It does not refer to the arbitrary choice of a restricted number of individuals to be saved but to the corporate body which, in Christ God is saving and using to bless the world. William Klein has written on the corporate view of election in The New Chosen People (1992).
Texts on predestination are also read in a context. Some read them to teach that God is an absolute and all-controlling monarch and "lo and behold" they discover what they want. I read them in relation to the loving, reciprocal relationships which God desires to establish with people in his dynamic creation project. In this context, God's power is not abstract but the power of love that sustains relationships. It is the kind of power revealed in the cross where God loves us self-sacrificially and refuses to bully us. Predestination does not refer to manipulative, divine behavior but is the divine power at work bringing humankind into the image of Christ (Eph. 1:5). God wants his bride to love him but even God cannot control his wife, as Jeremiah notes. He can only woo her because this is the way of genuine relationships. In Acts 4:28, it says that Jesus' enemies in killing him did what God's plan had predestined to take place. This does not mean that God ordained the murder and then used these people like pawns to carry it through. Rather it indicates that their foul actions were redirected by God's own plan to save humankind through suffering. Had they known it, Paul adds, they would not have crucified him (1 Cor. 2:8). Like a master chess player, God outfoxed them.
MR: What are your personal hopes for the direction of evangelicalism?
CP: I hope that we will all continue to grow in the knowledge of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. Part of sanctification is maturing as hearers of the Word of God, so let us not call a halt to it. Theology is an unfinished conversation that did not stop with (say) the Westminster Confession or any other sectarian standard. Can we not all admit, whatever our position, that there is more to be known than we presently know? Is it not true that our best insights are seeing as though in a mirror dimly? Let us view our theology as preliminary and anticipatory of the full disclosure at God's coming and, in the meantime, try to enrich each other's thinking rather than writing one another off.
