I just read a very interesting book by Clark H. Pinnock, author/editor/contributor to a number of great texts, such as The Most Moved Mover and Grace Unlimited. As one who holds to Open Theism, I am in debt to his great theological insights (and those of others, such as Gregory Boyd and John Sanders). Pinnock was a former Calvinist who rejected such an anti-biblical theology, eventually stating (rather accurately) that "[Calvinism makes] God some kind of a terrorist who goes around handing out torture or disaster and even is willing people to do things the Bible says God hates" (Predestination and Freewill: Four Views of Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom, p. 58) It was for these reasons, among others, that I picked up Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit (IVP Academic, 1996). Here are some excerpts(among many) that I found to be enlightening:
Atheism is partly the result of bad theology, an unpaid bill resulting from failures in depicting God. How often have people been given the impression of God as a being exalting himself at our expense! One might be afraid of such a God, but no one would be attracted to love him. O often lacking has been the vision of the triune God as an event of open, dynamic, loving relations. It is not surprising that may have rejected God when there has been so little to attract them to him. Perhaps they would not reject as readily the God disclosed in Jesus Christ, who is an event of loving relationality and relates readily to the temporal world. (p. 42)
Pentecost happened when it did—and could only have happened then—because Jesus had by that time completed the journey of atonement, worked out the recapitulation and become firstfruits of a new humanity. The concentration of the Spirit on Jesus alone during his earthly life would be followed by a movement to the nations. He came first only to Israel but now goes on to the world in the Spirit . . . We have placed such emphasis on the legal dimension of atonement that the resurrection, which does not address that issue as framed, drops away as a saving event. The error of this is plain from the New Testament, which makes resurrection central and ties the cross to it. We say that Christ’s work was “finished” on the cross, but it was not. Had Christ not been raised, we would be still in our sins and subject to death (1 Cor 15:17). It is incredible how in systematic theologies dozens of pages are given to theories of atonement (meaning the death of Christ) and hardly any to the soteriological significance of the resurrection. The fact is that in certain juridical models of the atonement, resurrection has no significance for salvation. Its significance is apologetic, not soteric. It is not a saving event, only the vindication of Jesus’ pre-Easter claims, in which case we cannot speak of being saved by his life . . . [as a result of the resurrection[ Humanity was transformed by Christ through the power of the Spirit and can share in his representative journey through death to life. God revealed the goal of creation in Christ and offers it as a gift to us. His longing is for the divine likeness to be formed in us. Paul speaks of his fellow believers as “y little children, for whom I am again in the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you” (Gal 4:19. We were created in the image of God with a new to growing in the likeness to God. Through lost in Adam, the likeness is restored in Christ. Though still unfinished in us, the likeness if not unfinished in him. The incarnation anticipates the fulfilment of God’s purposes for us because the new humanity has appeared in Jesus. The incarnation represents the true divine likeness, and the resurrection signifies what humans are called to become. (pp. 98, 99, 100)
What does it mean, then, that sinners are dead in sins? It does not mean they are corpses. For Paul goes on to say elsewhere that sinners are walking according to the prince of darkness(Eph 2:2) and can exercise faith and be made live by Christ (Eph 2:8). Their deadness is not an inability to believe but an inability to merit God’s favour. Paul makes this explicit: “You were . . . raised with him through faith in the power of God” (Col 2:12). The Colossians’ faith, expressed in baptism, was the vehicle of receiving the new life. Paul does not say to the Philippian jailer, “Be saved and then believe”; he says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31). Scripture everywhere assumes our ability to call on God and everywhere holds up responsible on account of it. We are influenced by God, by environment, by nature and more. May factors affect our culpability but in the last analysis we are accountable. (p. 160)
