Consuming Glory: A Classical Defense of Divine-Human Relationality Against Open Theism

In the late 1990s Open Theism took the theological world by storm. Advocated by several prominent theologians among them Clark H. Pinnock the view argues that human beings cannot have a genuine relationship with God if God possesses what classical theology has affirmed to be exhaustive foreknowledge of future events. Such foreknowledge open theists claim would make human freedom (and salvation itself) meaningless and divine power akin to little more than meaningless cosmic puppeteering. While several works have taken the important step of addressing open theisms scriptural deficiencies in its denial of Gods foreknowledge none have dealt with the vital issue of divine-human relationality and how it can be understood in a classical orthodox framework that maintains such foreknowledge. Consuming Glory remedies that lack by first providing a fresh critique of open theism using Clark Pinnocks version of it as representative but then offering a reconstruction of divine-human relationality centered on the Biblical principle of Christus in nobis (Christ in us). Christus in nobis is coupled with an outworking of meticulous divine providence that serves Gods own self-glorifying orientation. It reverses the relational ordering advocated in open theism by grounding human love of God theologically rather than anthropologically. Love of God and divine-human relationality is established precisely because it is Gods own self-love that is providentially given to us and thus reciprocated as believers are brought into adoptive communion with the Triune Godhead. Drawing on diverse resources throughout the corpus of historical theology Murphy concludes that divine-human relationality can be summarized as God delighting in himself in us. This work is not merely a critique of [open theist] Clark Pinnock and neither is it a re-assertion of traditionalist Evangelical theology in the face of open theism. While convincingly out-flanking Pinnock and offering his own original view of divine-human relationality Murphy displays a degree of argumentative precision and attention to the depths of the tradition which far surpasses Pinnocks work. He provides a fresh contribution to the debate concerning the doctrine of God which will be of interest to a wide constituency. This book is to be very warmly welcomed. Dr. Simon Oliver Associate Professor of Systematic Theology University of Wales Lampeter Gannon Murphy holds a Ph.D. in Theology from the University of Wales Lampeter and an M.A. in Theological Studies from Bethel Theological Seminary. He is the author of Voices of Reason in Christian History: The Great Apologists Their Lives and Legacies.