Bruce A. WareBesprekingen

O teísmo aberto é uma nova teologia que vem fluindo de alguns imponentes corredores acadêmicos e chegando aos bancos das igrejas evangélicas. Essa recente visão sobre Deus nega que ele conheça plenamente o futuro e insiste que ele assume riscos ao conceder ampla liberdade aos seres humanos. As repercussões dessa nova perspectiva sobre a fé cotidiana do cristão comum são muito graves, e não podemos nos dar ao luxo de ignorá-las. Fazendo uso de verdades bíblicas e relatos pessoais, Bruce Ware demonstra como o teísmo aberto solapa nossa confiança em Deus na vida cotidiana, especialmente quando passamos por momentos de sofrimento.

Dr. Bruce Ware is extremely gifted at explaining theology in ways that drive regular Christians to worship. This discussion of the human nature of Christ and its implications to us is absolutely awe-inspiring. Read it and stand in wonder at our Risen Lord!

Have you ever been confused by the description of Jesus as the "God/man"? Most answers to this dilemma emphasize the deity of Christ. And rightly so! Jesus is the second person in the Trinity! Also, many heretical and cultic teachings have over-emphasized the humanity of Christ, creating a revered prophet or a moral example but a man all the same. The denial of Jesus' divinity is heretical! These thoughts must be rejected outright.

Still, the apologetics used to explain Jesus as the God/man often strongly emphasize his deity and minimize his humanity. In The Man Christ Jesus, Bruce Ware takes a biblical look at the implications of Jesus' humanity. The result is a book that is nothing short of earth-shaking! Repeatedly Ware argues points that I had never fully considered before. He backs them up with Scripture and he applies them to the life of the believer. I found this theological book to be quite devotional, stirring my affections for Christ. In fact, I led a men's bible study group through this book. At points, the theological verbiage challenged them, but not to the point of discouragement.

Reading this book has better help me understand what it meant for Jesus to walk in the Spirit, have a truly human experience, grow in wisdom, and learn from suffering.

I think this short read would be beneficial to pastors, lay leaders, and Bible study leaders. They man find that, like myself, they had been ignoring the glorious truth of the humanity of Christ and, in doing so, missing an excellent reason to glorify God!

A very passionate defence of the humanity of Christ. Or to be more precise, how Jesus was both human and deity and how the current evangelical focus on the divinity is both limiting and alienating. Bruce A Ware is clearly very impassioned about this subject and that comes across completely in this book.

Full review here

Great read on the humanity of Jesus Christ.

This book was given to me as a gift, but having read Dr. Ware's book, "God's Lesser Glory," I anticipated that it would feed my soul and engage my mind. I have not been disappointed. This book is a wonderful treatment of the subject of the Trinity. As the title suggests, the books addresses the roles of Father, Son, and Spirit and the relationship that exists between them.

Dr. Ware's main purpose in the book is to demonstrate that the distinction between the persons in the Trinity is not a distinction of essence. That cannot be because they each share the same essence (i.e, they are all three equally God). The distinctions between the three persons of the Trinity are to be found in their roles and relationships.

Finished reading this book and found it a little disappointing. Written for the lay person, it may leave the impression of a subtle Tritheism or a distasteful understanding of functional subordination without emphasis on ontological equality. But, it should be noted that the main purpose of this book is to highlight the differences between the persons and how they work together. So the reader should constantly remind themselves of the divine nature shared by all three persons without being carried away by all the differences. On the side of charity though, the discussion of the Trinity is highly complex and difficult to convey without falling into some trap (read Harold Brown's preface/introduction of "Heresy").

One would have appreciated more discussion on the economics of salvation, to be constantly reminded of the Gospel. Otherwise, I would recommend this book to lay readers heading them the above caution.

Great book! Of what I've read before on the Trinity, I find this one to be thoroughly Bible-saturated, not taking verses out of context but actually quoting them (!) and showing the doctrine of the Trinity laid out in the fabric of the NT, not just established by a couple of "proof texts" here and there.

I do recommend it!

They say the true test of understanding a subject is being able to teach it to others. I’ve discovered through parenting that being able to teach a subject to children is an even greater test. You have to strip concepts down to bare basics in order to build further understanding on top of this foundation. For many topics this is a challenge, perhaps none more important and challenging than theology. We want to instill a knowledge, love and understanding for the things of God in our children, but quite honestly often stumble and search for the right words to teach them.

In Big Truths for Young Hearts, Bruce A. Ware does a phenomenal job of presenting these truths of Scripture in a manner that is understandable to children. The book, targeted to children ages 9 and up, covers the following topics:

-God’s Word and God’s Own Life as God
-God as Three in One
-Creator and Ruler of All
-Our Human Nature and Our Sin
-Who Jesus Is
-The Work that Jesus Has Done
-The Holy Spirit
-Our Great Salvation
-The Church of Jesus Christ
-What Will Take Place in the End

Each topic is covered in six, bite-size chapters, with a couple of discussion questions and a relevant memory verse at the end of each chapter. While Ware writes from a more Reformed theological perspective, much of what he presents is very basic doctrine and does not go into doctrines such as election, predestination, or various interpretations of eschatology. Because of this, he is able to focus more on the fundamentals of the Christian faith without getting bogged down in what, for the target age group, could be very confusing nuances.

I appreciated the respect that he shows to his young readers and their parents by not watering down each topic with the overuse of illustrations. Too many children’s books oversimplify the truths of Scripture to make the book more appealing. Ware goes straight to the Scriptures in patiently discussing and explaining harder-to-grasp truths. I will say that this book is probably not one that an average 9-year old could sit down to read alone and understand completely. I would recommend, as Ware does in his introduction, that parents and children read it together, allowing time for “discussing these rich truths.” (p.14) It is also good for discussion in group settings such as in a Sunday School class. Our church uses this book for a Wednesday evening children’s class and both teachers have commented to me that the book is an excellent resource.

Big Truths for Young Hearts is an excellent book for teaching the fundamentals of faith not only to children, but for any person seeking to get a better grasp of Biblical doctrine. I would highly recommend this book without reservation.

(Many thanks to Crossway for providing a review copy of this book.)

The doctrinal quality of the titles published by Crossway never fail to amaze me, and Big Truths for Young Hearts has only served to cement my opinion. Theologian Bruce A. Ware has penned a work that attempts to capture the bedtime conversations he had with his own adult daughters (now grown), so that parents can step up to the plate in equipping their own children to understand the great, fundamental truths of the faith.

Ware writes from a distinctly Reformed perspective though classic Calvinistic terms familiar to believers aren’t often seen throughout the text. For our family, this work is a Godsend; new believers are often ill-equipped due to a lack of sound doctrinal instruction in the church as a whole, and Big Truths is just what we needed to guide us through the big questions our children ask us. Ware’s work is essential for any parent, or new believer seeking to beef up on the main tenets upon which Christianity stands.

Broken into nine major topics, Big Truths provides six three-page readings for each major section. At the end of each reading a memory verse and questions for discussion with your children are provided. You can look forward to tackling “God’s Word and God’s Own Life as God”, “God as Three in One”, “Creator and Ruler of All”, “Our Human Nature and Our Sin”, “Who Jesus Is”, “The Work that Jesus Has Done”, “The Holy Spirit”, “Our Great Salvation”, “The Church of Jesus Christ”, “What Will Take Place in the End”.

While written for children age nine and over, Ware can’t entirely break free of the language of theologians. Though he does try to simplify complex subjects for young ones, he still reads like the professor of Christian theology that he is.

Here we’ll consider three key ideas that try to explain why the cross of Christ was needed. Each of these must be a part of explaining the cross, but only as we put these together do we have a full explanation for the cross of Christ. We’re familiar with these ideas, but seeing them together here is important both for understanding the need for the cross and for understanding the gospel.

The above excerpt could just as easily be drawn from a simple book on doctrine for adult believers. As a result, parents may wish to read through the relevant reading several times in order to familiarize themselves with the key points, in order to paraphrase or summarize as necessary.

Ware’s text is filled with scriptural references, and all of the doctrine he puts forth is grounded firmly upon the Word of God. Though the text is Reformed in nature, and Ware teaches at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, he’s careful to hold only to what the scriptures state and avoids extra biblical standards. Ware takes care to point out that varying points of view exist on baptism, though he puts forth a case for baptism by immersion. He also notes that believers differ on matters of spiritual gifts and briefly touches upon both positions without adding value judgments.

A firm foundation based upon the clear teachings of God’s Word prevents confusion and the adoption of fallacious beliefs concerning the nature of God, salvation, the trinity, and the final destinations of those who die. With solid doctrinal understanding of Christian doctrine on the decline, Big Truths is my first recommendation for families in which any member of the family – large or small – is in need of instruction.

Reviewed at quiverfullfamily.com

Definitely the short version of this necessary polemic, but I got everything I needed to face a theological crisis in my bible study.

Bruce Ware, the author of “God’s Lesser Glory” begins section one of his book by examining some of the claims of open theists. Chapter two covers the issues of the view of God held by classical Arminians.

Open theism has risen to prominence in the last twenty years as an another “alternative to the classical Arminian model of divine providence.” Scholars Clark Pinnock, Richard Rice, John Sanders, William Hasker, and David Basinger in 1994 authored the book, “The Openess of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God,” which has moved the issue to the forefront in theological discussions.

Ware identifies open theists as quasi-committed Arminians holding to many Arminian views such as God’s love for all humanity and all to be saved, humans with “genuine” freedom, and genuine freedom for properly relating to God. However, open theists diverge from Arminian theology by believing that God’s divine omniscience does not entail “comprehensive knowledge of the future.” Open theists claim that God can only know what is “logically knowable,” which includes only the past and the present. God’s knowledge of the future does not include knowledge of future free choices of human beings.

Open theists examine the Bible and claim that some passages reveal that God changes and adjusts to events that transpire. He can only know portions of the future, which do not involve free human choices. The future is open and unknown to God as it relates to humanity. God does not demonstrate comprehensive understanding of the future because it involves decisions made by free humans over which he does not exercise control. This paradigm shift in orthodox understanding of God has elicited strong reaction even from Arminian proponents who claim that the views of open theists are “nothing short of heresy.”

Those in support of the open theism view many deficiencies in the doctrine of divine providence as espoused by Arminians. The contention arises for open theists in the impossibility of God to know comprehensively all the free choices humans may possibly make. If “libertarian freedom” of moral beings to make different choices at any given time and given the same situation to still make a different choice is true, then the future is unknowable because God cannot know what future decisions will be made.

Arminians may respond by appealing to the mystery of God to know the outcome of free choices. They may also comment that God is eternal and is not bound by time and therefore He can know things in our future because in essence he is not restricted by time. Arminians would say that God is infinite and must not be limited because one cannot begin to grasp the eternal.

A second argument offered by open theists is that simple foreknowledge and future free choices are incompatible. If genuine freedom in choices is true, then divine foreknowledge cannot be true. If God knows the future decisions one will specifically make, then one is bound to make those specific decision because God knows what one will choose and it must take place that specific way. Therefore, “divine foreknowledge and libertarian freedom are exclusive notions.”

Another objection is to the Arminian view of simple foreknowledge as it relates to God’s providential control. Some Arminians might say that God’s knowledge of past, present, and future, enables Him to oversee the future. The open theist asks that if God has eternally known all the choices that He and humans will ever make then how can he exercise providential control? God can only exercise providential control if He does not know the future and then reacts to future free decisions of humans and then makes His own decisions to move to His desired outcome of the world.

Ware takes an excursus to discuss how openness proponents view a variant aspect of Arminian Theology called “middle knowledge” or “Molinism.” Middle knowledge says that God possesses knowledge of all that could be, will be, and would be. God knows all the possible decisions that humans would make in all possible situations and with meticulous providence exercises influence to reach His desired end without compromising human free choices. Open theists object to this theory because it is overly deterministic. Even though people make free choices God so organizes their circumstances that their freedom is limited to an indirect determinism. Another objection arises to Molinism that reveals the impossibility of God to know what decisions humans will make if they are truly free in a libertarian sense.

Classical Arminians, Molinist Arminians, and open theist hold many congruent theological beliefs. However, the major issue for the open theist is the Arminians view of God’s comprehensive future knowledge. Either the future is open and undetermined by God in the open theist view or the future is more deterministic in the Calvinistic sense. At this point, open theists and Calvinists believe similar things about Arminian theology. God’s complete knowledge of the future is not compatible with libertarian freedom. God’s knowledge of the future gives Him deterministic control of the future.

One is left with three choices. One can embrace Calvinism, which teaches that God is ultimately in control of all things and His meticulous providence and human “combatibilist freedom” are able to exist together. However, open theist and Arminians would reject this notion that one is truly free if God exercises comprehensive sovereignty. Arminians may also choose a second option of Molinism, which makes God’s indirect determinism through middle knowledge able to exist with true libertarian freedom. Many Arminians are hesitant to move into this camp because of the compromise of human freedom through God’s indirect determinism. A third option for Arminians is that of open theism. This model reveals that God’s providential oversight is greatly diminished. Open theist claim that this is the only viable alternative for Arminians, which enables God to providentially regulate the future and give humans true libertarian freedom.

Chapter three presented the Arminian theological viewpoint as perceptively insufficient and leaves the door wide open for an open theistic perspective. Chapter four proposes some of the “perceived benefits of open theism.” “Presentism” is a term used by open theist to explain the concept that God and free creatures work together in the present to determine the future. God does not know the future, but God reacts to the present and changes to adapt to the future as He and humans unfold history together in genuine relationship.

There are five tenants of presentism, the first of which will be discussed here. Classical theism presents a God who is too deterministic and controlling to allow true human freedom. In fact, an open theist has claimed the Calvinistic model of God’s irresistible grace makes God guilty of “divine rape” because God’s control is exerted over human freedom. Open theism believes their view presents the viability of a real relationship between God and man. Compared to Classical Arminianism, open theists still believe that through God’s divine foreknowledge true freedom is not present for humans and they will always do what God knows they will do. No real learning and relationship are developed in this Arminian view.

Open theists see God as the supreme “historical player” working together with humans to unfold history that has not yet been written. His complete knowledge of the past and the present enable Him to make the best decisions in the moment and He continually learns in relationship with humans throughout history. Genesis 22:10-12 is one passage of scripture that open theists site where God learns. This story reveals that God did not know that Abraham feared God enough to take the life of his own son until the moment Abraham lifted his knife to slay Isaac. The text says, “for now I know that you fear God.” This text is seen by open theists to reveal that God does not know how free creatures will respond until they decide and after they act God then learns something about that person that He did not know before.

Not only does God not know what will happen in the future, but also the unexpected may occur. The setting in the original Garden of Eden presents a case where human beings were placed to flourish and they unexpectedly sin. God knew they had the potential to sin but did not think they would turn and sin against Him. God learns from this experience and interacts with humans from this point forward.

According to open theism God did not know in advance that Jesus would die on the cross for the sins of humanity. Jesus’ prayer in the garden, “If you are willing, let this cup pass from me,” illustrates that the future was undetermined at that point in time as the reconciling work of the cross. The Father and Son learn together in history that the cross is the appropriate way to deal with humanities sin at that point in time.

Critique:

Ware deals incisively with open theism from a solidly biblical perspective. Considering some of the passages that open theists pose as representative of their view makes one critically think about one’s perception of God’s omniscience and foreknowledge. It appears that open theists present some key questions concerning the validity of Arminianism as it has classically been presented, which leads one to seriously consider Calvinism. He interacts well with the writings of open theists. Perhaps the most disturbing open theist position is the fact that God and Jesus did not know it would take the cross to satisfy the wrath of God for the sins of humanity until the moment in the garden when Jesus prayed about the cup passing from him. Open theists emphasize human freedom over the deterministic will of God. Logic tells this author to prefer the deterministic will of God over and above one’s own determined destiny. One has to make a choice to elevate God or man. Open theism elevates man and diminishes God.

Discussion Questions:

What are the theological undercurrents that have given rise to a view like open theism?

What are some communication principles to consider when discussing the Arminian/Calvinism debate?

How does open theism benefit or harm the position of classical Arminianists?

Do we all have to go through a similar test as Abraham for God to discover our faith?

If God wasn’t sure about the cross until the moment in the garden, then how can I place much confidence in a God who has no control in an unknown future?

Practical Implications to Christian leadership, ministry and Christian life:

Open theism elevates humans to a higher plane and diminishes God. A theology that is true to the Bible will elevate God and place man in his proper place. Therefore, it is imperative to understand the consequences of one’s theological system of beliefs.

If God and me are the determiners of my future, then I’m skeptical of the outcome because of my sinful input. Decision-making and the future are dependent upon a God who can keep His promises by having complete knowledge and control of the future.

Even if Calvinism is more deterministic, then I still have more trust in God than in myself. Where will I put my trust? I must put my trust in God and keep Him the center of all things not myself.

What can be more foundational to the Christian Faith than the essence of our God? The author begins with chapters on the importance of the topic and a historical overview before spending one chapter on each person of the Godhead, and then sums up everything in a sixth chapter. The chapters on the Father, Son, and Spirit discuss how the person focused on in that chapter relates/interacts with the other two members of the Godhead.

There are at least two commendable things about the book. One is its "readability". The author takes such a complex topic and writes very simply. The information is also arranged so systematically that it is easy to follow and outline. Secondly, the book is full of practical application. He sees the relationship between the three members of the Godhead as the basis for understanding human relationships. He points to examples of love, humility, and submission found in the Trinity.