Burn it all down

As I read Clark Pinnock’s Flame of Love, I came across this sentence:

I hope the reader will sense how in love with God I am.

and I couldn’t help but chuckle. In reality, a discerning reader will sense how in love Clark Pinnock is with his theology. Clark Pinnock does not love God, at least not the God revealed in scripture. Pinnock loves the God that he has created. Behold the scorecard of The Grace of God and the Will of Man[1]:

Chapter 1: Pinnock’s religious autobiography, or how he changed his mind from unpleasant scriptural truth that he didn't understand to anti scriptural pleasant doctrines that made sense.

Chapters 2-4: God’s salvation is universal.

Some of the chapters are written by theologically suspect Seventh Day Adventists, by the way.[2]

Chapter 5: God sovereignly limits his sovereignty. Also, God knows everything that will be, and because of this, he can allow humans their wonderful freedom by responding to them as they freely live their free lives of freedom.

Chapter 6: God doesn’t know everything because if he did, that knowledge would limit humanity’s freely living free lives of freedom. We prefer our freedom over God’s. If the future doesn’t exist, how can God know it, all claims of divine prophecy not withstanding?

Chapter 7: But God does know everything, just differently. If God knows all possible outcomes, then we can still be free and God can still be omniscient, because he doesn’t know exactly what free choices we will freely make.

Chapters 5-7 are all speculation.[3]

Chapters 8-10: God is not sovereign (part the second). Arminians are better Christians unless you consider the faith teachers, the legalists, or the Catholics.

Chapter 11-13: God doesn’t choose arbitrarily. In other words, he doesn’t do what he wants. God doesn’t choose individuals, but he has chosen Jesus, and this is not a weird or redundant thing to say at all. Election is corporate with regards to us. Also, let’s take a break from speculation and talk about experience.

Chapters 14-15: God is not sovereign (part the third) because we don't understand how he possibly can be and still be just. God is also not sovereign because we can't possibly understand how he can be sovereign and men be responsible simultaneously. Also God is subject to moral law.

We don't claim to have the last word but we do know that God absolutely does not.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Grace of God and the Will of Man.

[1] Clark Pinnock, General Editor, The Grace of God and the Will of Man, (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Bethany House Publishers, 1989).
[2] Pinnock’s own admission. Page xi.
[3] “The debate about foreknowledge is speculative.” (page xiii)