Heart of the Living God: Love, Free Will, Foreknowledge, and Heaven / a Theology on the Treasure of Love

Heart of the Living God:

Love, Free Will, Foreknowledge, and Heaven

A Theology on the Treasure of Love A Grasshopper Challenges Classical Theism

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Michael G. Maness ~ ©2004

www.preciousheart.net

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© 2004 by Michael G. Maness.

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 06/10/04

ISBN: 1-4184-0025-4 (e-book)

ISBN: 1-4184-0024-6 (Paperback)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2004094637

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For Kathy Sue

Our Sunshine

Who made us happy when skies were gray *

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Epigraph

I have found the paradox that if

I Love until it hurts,

there is no more hurt, but only Love.

Mother Teresa, Calcutta, India¹

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If you wish to live without struggle, without storm,

Without knowing the bitterness of life, to ripe old age,

Do not seek a friend and do not call yourself anyone’s friend.

You will taste few joys, but also fewer sorrows.

Apollon Maikov, Russian Poet, 1821-97²

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If it is consoling to a desert-dweller to know for sure that

there is a spring and would be a spring no matter how far he traveled,

what spring would nevertheless be so missed, what manner of

death would be so excruciating as would be the case if

Love were not and would not be for all eternity.

Soren Kierkegaard, 1847³

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Special Thanks

This book is for all of the precious people in my life, as well as for any other person interested in God’s living and heartfelt Love. So then, a special thanks goes to my mother J. J. Bush, father Roy Lee, brother Roger; Wiley Cantrell, Steven Hyles, Stacey Hyles, Kathy Sue Brackin, Bessie Smith, Kyle Brackin, Katy Brackin, all of the Smith family, and the rest of my family; Jack Lewellen, Will Duke, David Rust, Ebbie Smith, David Currie, Vance Drum, Rudy Kauntze-Cockburn, Ray Reed, Troy Richardson, Keith Bellamy, Norman Turner, Gertheen Pierce, Willena Moore, Debbie Hodges, Gertha Rogers, Jacqueline Honora, and many other friends over the years; to all of the Gib Lewis State Prison staff, some very special men, William Carr, Billy Heath, Eddie Dotie, George Napier, Rockland Nixon, Andre Scott, Chester Raglin, Michael Duncan, and countless others that I have been honored to serve with for the last decade at the prison.

John Newport—I thank him for the fellowship he gave me; only God knows all of what he came to mean to me; I never felt so honored than when he participated in my ordination, and though I cherish all the names on my ordination certificate, his holds pride of heart. To many other teachers in my past I owe a debt: Russell Dilday, F. B. Huey, Curtis Vaughn, William Estep, Bo Heflin, Paige Patterson, Richard Land, Lamar Cooper, Philip Coyle, Maklyn Hubbell, and many others. Curtis Vaughn was my first experience with a seminary professor shortly after coming to know Christ in 1975 and the first I consulted about beginning school—auditing courses at Southwestern in Forth Worth—I was so fortunate. William Estep seemed to me to be the epitome theological professorship, a genteel soul who truly loved the church and the church’s history; how I wondered what it must have been like to look at a map of the Mediterranean through his eyes.⁴

I stand on the shoulders of so many.

I thank Clark Pinnock for his boldness and Christian spirit; I thank Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Jürgen Moltmann, Millard Erickson, William Lane Craig, John Sanders, and several other titanic theologians who together—though I’ve not met any of them yet—have helped define theology in the 20th century and have given hope for the 21st century. I thank them all for the adventure.

In heaven we shall be able to know one another by our first names on our first meeting—so I believe. What an adventure in relationships God has in store for us in our heavenly home.

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Table of Contents

Preface-the Treasure of Love

Introduction to Hiking the Grand Canyon

A. Let’s Go to the Grand Canyon

B. My Grasshopper Story … Cricket, Cricket

1. Grasshopper & the Belly of the Beast

2. To My Chums … More Precious as the Years Go By

3. Living As Though the Future was Open—Not Anymore

C. Heart of the Living God is Love

2. God’s Dynamic Foreknowledge: First Primer

D. This Book—Genuineness Is so Very Special

1. Chum, We’ll Walk with Freedom & Gusto—Whosoever!

2. What Is Not Settled?—the True Question on the Future

3. Wow!—2,300+ Years of Struggle?

4. Book’s Progression & Swirl Inside Ethic’s Tumultuous Waters

E. Love Everlasting … Heaven … the Best is Yet to Come

1. Grand Canyon of God’s Genuine Loving Concern

A. Storm Blowing—Hope It Doesn’t Rain

1. Preparing to Take a Hike

2. Classical Theism—Absolute Divine Sovereignty

3. Open Theism—God’s Ability to be with You Today

4. The Personal is Taboo & Future of Free Love, even Heaven?

B. Darn! Too Late … Look at All of the Rain!

1. Classical Theists Do Not Like Open Theists

2. Spit and the Spawn of Satan—Where … Is … the Beef?

3. If a Grasshopper … heck

4. A Storm Is Blowing—Hear the Rain on Hezekiah & John 3:16

C. Can God Feel Joy and Sadness Today?

D. Love … the Greatest—the Treasury of Our Heart

E. Sunrise at the Grand Canyon—You Have to See it!

2. Foreknowledge and the Future

First View of the Grand Canyon

1. Legend Has It . Two Sides of the Grand Canyon

2. The Big Stink … Classical Theist Avoidance & Genuineness

3. William Lane Craig—the Best Classical Defense

4. Middle Knowledge & Freedom in Christ

5. Middle Knowledge a Great Piece of Backtracking Speculation

6. Three Concerns Between Open & Classical Theism: A-C

A. Omniscient-Omnipresent Attribute of God

1. Omniscient-Omnipresent Attribute—Grand Canyon Strata

2. Omniscient-Omnipresence & Foreknowledge—Dice

3. Omniscient-Omnipresence & Foreknowledge—Limits?

4. Omniscient-Omnipresence & Foreknowledge—Responses

5. Omniscient-Omnipresence & Foreknowledge—Freshness

B. Foreknown Response Quotient (FRQ)

1. Assumed Pillar of Truth

2. Time Travel Possible Only in Classical Theism’s Settled Future!

3. FRQ—God Knows the Next Response

4. FRQ—A Bedrock of Concurrence

5. FRQ—God’s Aliveness and Isaiah 46 and 55

6. What’s Important About the Future—God’s Purposes & Counsel

C. Conjecture: Time a Non-Entity, Non-Substantial

1. Alpha & Omega: Erickson, Tillich, Craig, Padgett, & Hasker

2. Tenseless Sense, Senseless Tense, Tenseless-Senseless Timelessness, or Relational Sense?

3. Time Irrelevant to God—Shot Dead by Eternity’s Golden Arrows

3. Genuineness & Dynamic Foreknowledge

A. God & the Existence of the Future

1. God’s Word & Promises Are More Certain than the Future

2. Heaven’s Banquet—Has God Settled All?—Ephesians 1:3-14

3. Trusting God Now Is More Important than the Future

4. Exhaustive … So What? … What’s the Relevance?

5. Relationship More Important than the Existence of the Future

6. Relationship in Two Dynamic Truths Supercedes FRQ

B. God’s Dynamic Foreknowledge: Second Primer

1. God’s Exhaustive Foreknowledge of the Next 5 Seconds

2. God’s Dynamic Foreknowledge: Second Primer

3. God’s Dynamic Foreknowledge and Inspiration

C. First Doctrine of Genuineness vs. Lordship in Frame & Feinberg

1. Genuine Relationship the First Doctrine in the Theology of God

2. John S. Feinberg’s World-Class No One Like Him

3. John Frame’s World-Class The Doctrine of God

4. Feinberg and Frame—the Tip of the Classical Theist Sword

5. What Happened to Love’s Treasure?

6. God the Father … not Lord King Gong

7. My Daddy’s Bigger than Frame’s Daddy-Author … Waaah!

D. Genuineness—Supreme First Doctrine in Theology of God

1. Image Side of the Image-Maker

2. Genuineness the First Doctrine—No Issue More Important

4. Craig-Pinnock Dilemma & Dynamic Foreknowledge

A. Craig-Pinnock Dilemma & Bridge-Building 101

1. Craig-Pinnock Dilemma

2. Farthest Point of Progress—Which Way Do We Go?

3. Bridge-Building 101 … What Do We Share?

4. Craig-Pinnock Dilemma & God’s Foreknowledge

5. Prayer—The Beginning of Progress

B. Dynamic Foreknowledge a Servant not a Master

1. God’s Dynamic Foreknowledge a Servant to His Loving Heart

2. Dynamic Foreknowledge Entail God’s Own Responses—?

3. Our God Is Alive—Dynamite & the Example of Dynamism

5. Christ-Freedom Dynamic Truth

A. Grand Canyon Village—Oh, Yeah!

1. Village People—Our Nature and Destiny

2. E. Y. Mullims on Freed Village People

3. River Wild and the Christian Life

4. Freedom’s Wild Ride & Bauckham’s Infinitely Desirable

B. Christ-Freedom Dynamic & G. C. Berkouwer

1. Freedom: Freed From and Freed To

2. Freedom Defined by the Child of God’s Submission

3. Freedom: Our True Humanness in Resurrection Service to God

4. Freedom = Dignity of Humanity

D. Freedom and Service in God’s Kingdom

1. Freedom to Serve as Sons & Daughters Here & Hereafter

2. Freedom vs. Sin: Overcome only in Faith

E. Freedom Challenging Classical Theism

F. Freedom and Our Resurrection

1. Freedom Is Divinely Empowered

2. Freedom and Mr. Ed, the Horse’s Horse

3. Freedom by God’s Power & the Classical Theism Burden

6. Shadow of Prayer Dynamic Truth

A. Prayer: the Splendor & Essence of the Christian Life

1. Prayer Explained … the Radiant Color of Life

2. Splendor of Prayer—First Step of Obedience

3. Prayer—Crucial to the Entire Struggle & Civilization

4. Prayer—Master Canyon Guide Richard Foster

C. Prayer Degraded in Classical Theism

1. Classical Theist Effigies—Pushing a Mule Backwards

2. Yuck, Yuck Stuff—Bruce Ware’s Soggy Effigy … and Eeyore

3. Relationship with Our Heavenly Father, Abba

D. Beyond Puppet Theology & Father Time to Father God

1. Onward Christian Soldiers … Not Onward Passive Puppets

2. Craig-Pinnock Dilemma & Prayer Indicate Some Freedom

3. Beyond Information Exchange & Imperial Fatherhood to Abba

7. Imago Dei—God the Source of Our Relationships

Bridge Building 201: We Have a Beginning

A. Our Imago Dei—the Quintessence of Loving Relationships

1. Our Imago Dei—the Spark of God Is Our Ability to Relate

2. Our Imago Dei—a Liberating Image in Middleton

3. Our Imago Dei—Shell of Love’s Labors for All Human Beings

4. Our Imago Dei—Our Ability to Relate to God & Others

5. Our Imago Dei—Our Love the Mere Image of God’s Love

6. Our Imago Dei—Ability to have Awe in Loving Relationships

7. Our Imago Dei—Our Love Transcends Time like God’s Love

8. Our Imago Dei—Treasuring the Moment of Love

B. God’s Love Is Dynamic … Alive

1. What Changes for God? Not Same 1,000 Years Ago as Today

2. Can God’s Perfected Love Grow?

3. Difference between God’s Foreknowledge & Experience?

4. God’s Love Steadfast, Dynamic, Crimson Shades to Infinity

C. Going Home—Free at Last

1. Where Time, Free will, Sovereignty, and Foreknowledge will be Swallowed up in Glory, and the Classical Theist Burden

2. Going Home—Seeing God’s Heart Dissipates Sovereignty

8. HEAVEN ~ Part I: Our Everlasting Rest

Outline of Heaven

Introduction to the Heaven of Revelation 21-22

1. Heaven—the Place & Blessed Experience

2. The Glory of Heaven by John MacArthur

3. Heaven’s Supreme Delight—Unbroken Fellowship with God

4. Best Is Yet to Come—Heaven—Personal to the Uttermost

5. Origin of These Three Chapters—Serendipitous, Providential

6. Heaven—Last Chapter in Our Genuine Relationship with God

A. Heaven Is Perfected Everlasting Love—No Eye Has Seen

1. Visual Boundary: What Eye Hath Not Seen

2. Revelation 21-22 & the Holy City—Personal & Dynamic

3. Holy City = the Picture of Perfected Everlasting Love

B. Picture Worth a Thousand Words—Words Can Say More

C. Similarities Between Two Passages: Rev. 21:1-8 & 21:9-22:6

1. Descending Holy City Is the Same City in Both Passages

2. Five Similarities Between the Two Passages

3. Conclusion on the Similarities—God’s Marriage Fresh to Him

4. Open Wedding Feast—RSVP Now, Before It’s too Late!

5. Fresh Wedding Feast—No More Clear Picture of Intimacy

9. HEAVEN ~ Part II: Simple, Elemental Experiences

A. Simple, Elemental Experiences of Heaven

1. Difference Between Earth and Heaven—Dream, Dream, Dream

2. New Freedom: No More Tears, Death or Curse

3. New Economy: Spring and River and Tree of Life

4. New Purity and Peace: No More Evil People

B. Cloudy Dark Side of Living Obscures the True Fullness

1. Between the Clouds of Earth and the Clear Skies of Heaven

2. What We Know Here … a Cloudy Shadow of Heaven

3. Simple Experiences Versus the Greater Experiences of Heaven

10. HEAVEN ~ Part III: Greater Experiences

A. Greater Experiences of Heaven

1. Earth and Heaven Connected—C. H. Spurgeon

2. Holy City as Bride & Wife of the Lamb

3. Great Wall Reveals an Everlasting Security

B. Recap of Heaven

C. Greatest Experience—Sharing in God’s Life & Glory

Epilogue. the Challenge & Larger Context

A. Grasshopper Gauntlet—Two Challenges to Classical Theists

B. Book’s Larger Context—My Would You Lie to Save a Life?

Appendix 1. Master Canyon Guides: Synopsis-Reviews

Craig-Pinnock Dilemma: Literature Review Conclusion.

Little Red Riding Hood, Open Theism, & Hunting Ettiquette

Synopsis-Reviews of 60+ Scholars in Books & Articles

1. Craig, William Lane. The Only Wise God

2. Pinnock, Clark H. Most Moved Mover

3. Sanders, John. The God Who Risks

4. Boyd, Gregory A. God of the Possible

5. Maston, T.B. God’s Will and Your Life

6. Rice, John R. Predestined for HELL? NO!

7. Hunt, David. What Love Is This?

8. Basinger, D., & R. Basinger. Predestination & Free Will

A. Feinberg’s Position & Counters.

B. Geisler’s Position & Counters.

C. Reichenbach’s Position & Counters.

D. Pinnock’s Position & Counters.

9. Beilby, J., & P. Eddy. Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views

10. Zagzebski, Linda. Recent Work on Divine Foreknowlege

11. May, Rollo. Freedom and Destiny

12. Erickson, Millard. What Does God Know

13. Packer, J. I. Evangelism & the Sovereignty of God

14. Geisler, Norman. Chosen But Free

15. Spurgeon, C. H. Sermons on Sovereignty

16. Strong, Augustus H. Systematic Theology

17. White, James R. The Potter’s Freedom

18. Boettner, L. Reformed Doctrine of Predestination

19. Frame, John M. No Other God

20. Ware, Bruce A. God’s Lesser Glory

21. Piper, Taylor, Helseth. Beyond the Bounds

Preface by John Piper

Introduction by Justin Taylor

1. Fuller’s Rabbis & Claims of Openness Advocates

2. Brand’s Genetic Defects or Accidental Similarities

3. Talbot’s True Freedom & Liberty Worth Having

4. Davis’ Why Open Theism Is Flourishing Now

5. Caneday’s God’s Self-Revelation in Human Likeness

6. Horton’s Hellenistic or Hebrew?

7. Wellum’s Inerrancy of Scripture

8. Helseth’s Trustworthiness of God & Foundation of Hope

9. Ware’s The gospel of Christ

10. Grudem’s When, Why, & What … Boundaries?

11. Piper’s Grounds for Dismay

22. Huffman & Johnson. God Under Fire

1. Huffman & Johnson’s Should God be Replaced?

2. Talbot’s Does God Reveal Who He Is?

3. Johnson’s Can God be Grasped by Reason?

4. Bray’s Has the Greek Philosophy Corrupted Christianity?

5. Helm’s Is God Bound by Time?

6. Craig’s What Does God Know?

7. Geivett’s How Do we Answer Theodicy?

8. Spiegel’s Does God Take Risks?

9. Lee’s Does God have Emotions?

10. Gutenson’s Does God Change?

11. Ware’s How so We Think on the Trinity?

12. Carson’s How Can We Reconcile Love & Sovereignty?

23. Wilson, Douglas. Bound Only Once

24. Criswell Theological Review (CTR) on Open Theism

Synopsis-Critique of Spring 2004 CTR’s Three Primary Pieces

1987 1:2 CTR vis-a-vis the 2004 1:2 CTR: Not in the Same League

The SBTC CTR Kick Start and Kick at Open Theism

Literature Overview of Spring 2004 CTR’s Eight Pieces

1. Alan Streett Interview with D. Bock & N. Geisler

>. Ad Hoc Interjection: A Geisler-Specific Challenge

2. Luter & McGowin—Open Theism From Bad to Worse

3. Pinnock’s Response to From Bad to Worse

4. McGowin’s Response to Clark Pinnock

5. Huffman on the Logical Difficulties of Open Theism

6. Ware’s Robots and Human Relations

7. Lemke’s Book Review of Tiessen’s Providence and Prayer

8. Wittig’s Open Theism Annotated Bibliography

25. Dihle, Albrecht. Theory of Will in Classical Antiquity

26. Kierkegaard, Saren. Works of Love

27. Great Classics: Augustine to Wesley and More

Appendix 2. Intro to Appendices 3-6 & Grasshopper Story

1. Grasshopper Hops & Questions His Teachers

2. Grasshopper’s Grass-filled Story

3. Grasshopper Canvases of Ad Hominy & Boundaries

4. Grasshopper & Rice-Bowl Theology

5. Grasshopper’s Critics

Appendix 3. Hezekiah Letter on Roger Nicole vs. Clark Pinnock

Introduction to Hezekiah Letter

My Initial Excitement & Some Misguided Firepower

A. How God RELATED to Hezekiah

1. Why Did God Cater to Hezekiah in 2 Kings 20:1-11?

2. Difference Between Fidelity & Interpolation

3. Nicole’s Violation of the ETS Larger than Pinnock’s

4. Pinnock Closer to the Text

5. Nicole Crushed by His Own Standard

B. Fidelity to the Text Is the Main Issue & Heartfelt Plea

C. ETS Primary Web Sources

Appendix 4. Timothy George’s What God Knows

1. Open Theism a Source of Conflict & Confusion

2. Classical Theism Superior in Theodicy—Are You Sure?

3. Open Theism More Powerfully Exculpates God

4. George’s Seminiscient Deity of Open Theism a Misnomer

5. Ultimate Split Infinitive: Eternal v. Everlasting & Genuineness

6. Missing the Engine of Genuineness Is a Serious Oversight

Appendix 5. L. Russ Bush’s ETS Letters & Book The Advancement

A. L. Russ Bush Dialogue: Integrity vs. Myth-Busting

B. L. Russ Bush’s The Advancement—A New Level of Acrimony

C. Original Maness Counterpoint Challenge & Web Links

Appendix 6. Journal on Open Theism: JETS (June 2002)

1. Ware’s Defining Evangelicalism’s Boundaries

2. Pinnock’s There is Room For Us

3. Sanders’ Be Wary of Ware

4. Boyd’s Christian Love and Academic Dialogue

5. Ware’s Rejoinder to Pinnock, Sanders, & Boyd

6. Wellum’s Divine Sovereignty-Omniscience

7. Highfield’s Divine Self-Limitation in Open Theism

8. Grenze’s Boundaried People and Evangelical Theology

9. Horton Hellenistic or Hebrew?

Appendix 7. Paige Patterson—A Challenge

A. My History with Paige Patterson

1. Patterson’s Rejection of Me & Question of ETS Integrity

2. Patterson a Commander in the Theological Trade Winds

3. Why This Challenge to Patterson

4. Patterson a Legend in His Own Time

5. Patterson a Father-figure & My Transference

6. Patterson, Open Theism, Love, and My Conscience

7. Patterson’s Letter vis-a-vis the ETS Documents

B. I Challenge Paige Patterson—Gulp!

1. Heave To & Come About

2. Patterson and ETS Confusion

3. Patterson’s Troubled Triumphant Church & Other Deficits

4. Clay Feet and Leadership … Yet Honor Demands Something

5. The Challenge—Gulp!—Heave To & Come About on Genuineness

C. Final Grasshopper Cricket

Appendix 8. Wayne Grudem on the Gift of Prophecy

Appendix 9. C. H. Spurgeon on Love—Two Fine Sermons

A. Love at Its Utmost on John 15:9 … September 11th, 1887 (edited down)

B. Love’s Climax on 1 John 4:10 … January 6th, 1895 (edited down)

Appendix 10. Grand Canyon Map of Where You & I Hiked

Abysmal Bibliography

1. Love Bibliography

2. Free will, Foreknowledge, Some Prayer & Theology Bibliography

3. Time Bibliography

4. Dissertations on Free Will, Foreknowledge, Time

5. Articles: Free Will, Foreknowledge, Determinism, Etc.

Other Books by Author

Preface-the Treasure of Love

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Hello there … My name is Mike.

I like the Grand Canyon, and we’re going there.

The treasure of Love is in our ability to share Love.⁵ 43490.png

Nothing in life means anything at all without Love.

Our heavenly Father—our Abba—wants our true and somewhat⁶ free Love, or there is no Love worth the name. I’m gonna defend my Daddy.

God’s heart is Love. God is a person, and the quintessential element in God’s personhood is Love. God’s dynamic foreknowledge serves His loving heart—is not His master—and adjusts to God’s living work each day.⁷ Therein, God experiences some freshness in His Love to us and from us each day, just as an earthly mother and father do, only in a manner far more genuine, rich, and profound.

I toss a few boulders into this brisk, babbling brook on foreknowledge, and I give you a feeling for my Daddy’s splendid heaven as a bonus.

The Grand Canyon is wild territory, full of craggy places difficult to navigate. Reading appendices 1-9 will help with the craggy places in the first seven chapters, and those journeys will make our feeling for heaven in chapters 8-10 richer. So as you walk with me, remember that we have heaven in view each step of the way. The best is yet to come.

Michael G. Maness, 2004

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Whosoever means whosoever.⁸ No person is beyond hope today, and no victim’s plight is so settled today that God cannot intervene to save to the uttermost today . If God will so choose;

The future is not too large a stone for God to move; Father Time is not larger than Father God;

No matter what God knew yesterday of today or tomorrow, God’s knowledge of the future is His servant, not His master; Though some of the future is settled by God’s own promise, The future that God’s knows today adjusts to God’s living activity in ex nihilo creativity and in omnipotent resurrection power, As God acts today out of His own hidden counsel and in loving consideration of the prayers of His children;

for God’s foreknowledge is dynamic, serving Him and His loving purposes in view of our heavenly home to come—

All in Love.

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Introduction to Hiking the Grand Canyon

Tie up your sneakers.

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Yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe—the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God. John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Speech, 01-20-1961⁹

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A. Let’s Go to the Grand Canyon

B. My Grasshopper Story … Cricket, Cricket

1. Grasshopper & Belly of the Beast

2. To My Chums … More Precious as the Years Go By

3. Living As Though the Future was Open—Not Anymore

C. Heart of the Living God is Love

1. Love, the Heart of God

2. God’s Dynamic Foreknowledge: First Primer

D. This Book—Genuineness Is so Very Special

1. Chum, We’ll Walk with Freedom & Gusto—Whosoever!

2. Classical Theism—Absolute Divine Sovereignty

3. Wow!—a 2,300+ Year Struggle?

4. Book’s Progression & Swirl Inside the Ethic’s Tumultuous Waters

E. Love Everlasting … Heaven … the Best is Yet to Come

A. Let’s Go to the Grand Canyon

In 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt set aside 1,008 acres of the Grand Canyon territory in northwestern Arizona as a National Park. The park was established by an act of the United States Congress on February 26, 1919. Today the National Park covers over 1,217,403 acres. John Burroughs said the Grand Canyon was the world’s most wonderful spectacle, ever changing, alive with a million moods.¹⁰

It’s about 0400 or 4:00 AM in the morning. Let’s grab some coffee and get moving. The sun has not come up yet, and it is about a two-hour drive from Flagstaff, Arizona, to the South Rim of the majestic Grand Canyon. We’re heading out before sunrise so we can see the sun rise on the canyon cliffs. Hope we get there in time. You will know when we arrive. There are plenty of signs all along the way, thanks to the national park foresters.

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B. My Grasshopper Story … Cricket, Cricket

1. Grasshopper & the Belly of the Beast

I am just a knuckle-headed grasshopper, and I hail from the belly of a woeful beast—a Texas state prison. Much theology is refined inside of the fire of life’s circumstances. That’s the history of the church. Let me explain how the beast relates to the Grand Canyon of genuine Love, free will, foreknowledge, and heaven (and hell).

One measure of civilization can be calculated from a country’s prisons and how that country handles justice, metes out punishment, and treats its prisoners. As God’s agent in time, a good nation will not tolerate evil, and public safety is the raison d’etre for prison, for a first-class military apparatus, and for an ongoing foreign policy. Most Texas prisoners would rather be where they are than in a Russian Gulag or in a dirt-floor prison in Mexico—that’s for sure. Perhaps that says something good about America.¹¹ Yet why does America and Texas incarcerate more per capita and Texas execute more by far than any other country in the world?¹² A paradox?—that’s an understatement that needs attention!

Part of my joy and communion in sorrow comes from what appears to be a lack of pretense—the best words I have right now—inside of the raw prison environment shot through and through with manipulation and pretense as integral to the prisoner code. Prison can scrub you the wrong way, and at times the deceit is sickening. Yet at times the simplistic blatancy is a true joy, as some staff and prisoners have truly nothing to fear and just lay it out like it is (to their own minds anyway). It takes guts, and it is good that I cannot lay it out just like they would. The real experts on pretense are the prison senior staff; they face it raw often. I deal mostly with the tragedy of it all, at times offering a few preemptive strikes at pretense and hopelessness on Sundays if I can.

In the prison fishbowl, all of the fish know all the other fish, but no one outside the fishbowl can truly know the fish. What makes matters worse is that a good number of fish scarcely know themselves. Toss in 1/5 measure of asocial habits, 1/5 measure of sex problems, 1/7 measure of racial prejudice, 1/9 measure of loneliness, 1/12 measure of inadequate self-control, and a few dashes of hope. What do you get? It should be obvious (and opaque): you get a mixed up bowl of fish that don’t like being together inside of a bowl that is very hard to see into from the outside. And the fishbowl is even hard to navigate as a staffer on the inside.

Like most places, but doubly so in prison, supervisors and the prisoners do not like the run-around. As a chaplain, I view everyone as my supervisors, all of the staff, the prisoners, the volunteers, and the families of all—I am their servant. Prison is a harsh place, an interpersonal jungle incarcerating some of the world’s most troubled and dangerous persons. Hear ye. Each one of them, staff or prisoner, like to be taken seriously—even the lowliest one—and none like to be ignored or disrespected with fluff or patronizing dribble.

I associate with some fine Christians inside the prison. But several of the persons are not Christians, and some of the prisoners are among the most vile and dangerous persons on the planet.

If ever there was a place where one might find those God had truly forsaken because of evil deeds or a vile or a wicked heart, the prison is one place. If ever there was such a thing as God predestining some to hell, prison would have to have the majority of the ones so predestined, or so reason would lead us. I cannot bear that some men were born to hell—even as satanic as some of them act or have been (even worshiping Satan as some of them do).¹³ And I do not see anyone born to hell in the Bible.

Please, I have come from the belly of the beast.¹⁴

For that reason alone, allow me some openness to the future, some real confidence that no man is truly beyond hope and that some of the future is not settled. Without that, then somewhere we will face a hopeless man. That is not the Love of Christ we are called to share with all. On that, I suppose that Jesus’ words in Matthew 25 could apply to the doctrine of predestination, "Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I

was in prison, and ye came unto me." Jesus was willing to be identified as a prisoner, as one person among the worst in the world; surely Jesus used that identification to motivate us to visit him as well as others, even those most deserving of hell. Why should we visit if not to give real hope to all we visit? Surely, God did not predestine anyone to hell.

Let me excuse myself too, and flip this coin over and show you my human, selfish side. After these prison years, I feel more grief for the victims of this world and their families, even in the circle of my own family and friends. Oh the victims … no poet or song can express the sorrow.

I’ve come from the belly of the beast. On the muddy road God has taken me down I have known the work of Satan. It’s ugly, it’s nasty, it’s cruel, and God has nothing to do with Satan—except choking him every now and then, choking at times with one mighty finger pointed down the concourse of time toward a fiery pit to come.

So excuse me, for sometimes I stand with Jonah. I truly do not want God to have mercy on some people. When it comes to my family and friends, I do believe I would rather be swallowed by a whale. That’s just me. I do not want to see Adolf Hitler, Adi Amin, or Pol Pot in heaven: I believe they deserve hell. Truly. I think God made a mistake in not killing them earlier, but I do not believe that God actually makes mistakes. I just think God was wrong for not killing them earlier. Did you hear that?—that is what I think! In spite of me and what I think, the Bible reveals a God that chose to save Nineveh. I don’t like it, but that is what the Bible said.

Even so, I do have hope and faith, for I know that in heaven we will see God’s justice. In the end, I shall know that I did not deserve heaven either. So God can save to the uttermost—today. Nothing is more simple or sure. No person today is without out hope. That is good news.

Just how that works out … here is my deposit and one-two challenge.

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2. To My Chums … More Precious as the Years Go By

I dedicated this to my deceased Kathy Sue, my sweetheart and fiancée. She was the example of a caring Christian heart. She was my best friend, my chum, and so much more. I write to my family and friends. My mom and brother. Wiley Cantrell is a good friend and like a son, a long-haul trucker who has driven over a million miles from coast to coast alone and while training others for Tyson Foods. Steven Hyles is a good friend and like a son. Stacey Hyles is like a daughter too, a sweet-spirited woman. I’m proud of them and I pray for them. For them I must include humor. So I lay some of this out on the table with a slap on the back . at times with an underneath-the-table kick on the shin, even with a rather mischievous grin. We’re going to the Grand Canyon as friends. This is a kind of knuckle-headed grasshopper translation … for my chums around the barbeque.

Pass the sauce!

There are times when you have to take off your tie, and even roll up your sleeves. Heck, there are times when you have to take off your shirt and get a little dirty. Hope you do not mind getting a little dirty. This is a defense of Love and a defense of my Daddy’s good and genuine Love—dog gone it!—as well as an exposé of foul play. I have seen some rusty work. I am going to pull on the wrench with all my might, because I have discerned some nuts that truly need to be loosened up. I have gotten a little dirty in this too, as some have come back at me like I was a fruitcake or worse, as though nothing was wrong or that misrepresentation and theological cussing should not be exposed.

I got dirty in asking questions about Love and my Daddy!

Not to worry, though, I always have a jar of Go-Jo around the house.¹⁵ I know how to clean up, bandage my scrapes, and keep going. When you bust your knuckle, you do not stop the work, you just work harder. That’s me, just a blue-collar knuckle-headed grasshopper who’s been hiking and digging in the Grand Canyon. I am going to show you some poor work besides some examples of extraordinary Christian charity.¹⁶ I wish there was such a thing as theological Go-Jo.

In some of this challenge and lampoon, oh surely, I am old enough to know better; and in other portions, I am still young enough not to care. In many ways, I shall ask you: what in the world were they thinking?

I am going to defend Love and my Daddy with gusto.

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3. Living As Though the Future was Open—Not Anymore

I am no longer a closet classical thinker living as though I believe the future is somewhat open. I will move beyond the pretense of the division between a closed and an open future. No matter what my classical heritage has left me, owing it my life, there is hope for all and hell for some.

There is a Grand Canyon between the evil God allowed to happen today and the belief that today was settled yesterday in God’s mind. There is a Grand Canyon between a somewhat open future and a completely closed future. If the future is settled, it is settled. On the contrary, our God is alive and still working today. No man is hopeless, and more importantly no victim’s tragedy is settled today beyond God’s ability to intervene today.

I do not like living as though I have some true responsibility and living as though I can say effectual prayers this side of heaven. That’s just not true. I live and pray—period—and not in pretense (most of the time). Excepting my own sin, I do not believe I am living a lie with God. I really appreciated Clark Pinnock’s utter clarity and practical sense here.¹⁷

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C. Heart of the Living God is Love

1. Love, the Heart of God

The heart of our living God is Love; God is a person, and Love is the quintessential element in God’s personhood. We shall prove that as we go. First, let’s look at Love itself. Who does not treasure Love?

Everyone knows something about Love. At the same time, Love is valued by us, beyond us, and much misused by us. We Love our families and we Love a clean house. Therein, the word becomes a synonym for affection in the former and a synonym for preference in the latter. What a paradox then, as we all universally esteem Love, yet we all seem to be at war with Love from birth, as Charles H. Spurgeon says,

No sooner is Love born than she finds herself at war.. As the lily among thorns, so is Love among the sons of men. As the hind among the dogs, so is charity among the selfish multitude.¹⁸

1 Corinthians 13 complicates our life more, for we are told that anything not done in Love is useless. Later, we develop our understanding of how we were made in God’s Image, and the essence of our image is in our very ability to Love. Oh yes, Love’s treasure is in our ability to share Love.

One of the most important names for God in the Old Testament was Yahweh, the name that God gave to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus 3:14. Nelson’s says the word YHWH is

from the verb to be, meaning simply but profoundly, I am who I am, and I will be who I will be.. This bush was a vivid symbol of the inexhaustible dynamism of God who burns like a fire with Love and righteousness, yet remains the same and never diminishes.. His I am expresses the fact that He is the infinite and original personal God who is behind everything and to whom everything must finally be traced [and] signals the truth that nothing else defines who God is but God Himself. What He says and does is who He is.¹⁹

Indeed, our God is an inexhaustible dynamism of Love and righteousness, the original personal God whose heart is Love. The Encylopwdia Judaica indicated that the verb YHWH was a future-present causative and must therefore mean ‘He causes to be, He brings into existence.’²⁰ This supports our view of God’s dynamic Love and dynamic foreknowledge so well.

How great is Love? God is Love, and we believe that Love and Jesus’ coming in the flesh go hand in hand. Our resurrection in Christ grants us spiritual blessings in heavenly places, and that certainly grants us a spiritual connection to God’s own Love. We are one body, and Christ is the head. God is spirit and trustworthy, and in many ways God’s Love is manifested through His Spirit and in His trustworthiness. God is eternal, and certainly that bears witness to God’s eternal Love as we are in Christ. All that makes Love great, and we have just begun our look into the Grand Canyon of God’s loving concern.

No eye has seen what God has prepared for us, and Jesus has gone on ahead to make preparations. Though we cannot see yet, God has revealed the best part, the invisible part of what heavenly Love will feel like in the pictures of the Holy City in Revelation 20-21 (chapters 8-10). Heaven will be personal to the uttermost in Christ, the perfect fulfillment of the two great commandments to Love God and others. The best is yet to come.

What is the heart of God? We talk about it, sometimes, like God’s heart is evangelism or missions. We know these are utmost in His heart.

What is the heart of God?

The heart of God is Love: from God’s heart comes a genuine real-time loving concern for you and me, as well as for every human soul. The heart of our living God is Love; God is a person, and Love is the quintessential element in God’s personhood. God could not have been more clear. Christ came because God loved the world from deep within His own personhood; only through Christ shall a person come to the Father; indeed, Christ is the way, the truth, and the life—all in Love. We know in a small measure what this Love of God is like and what the heart of God feels—just a small measure: the heart of God is like the Love of an earthly mother and father, yet more profoundly genuine, rich, and pervasive. This is not making God into our image, not at all and quite the opposite. We know this is the heart of God, because we have been made in His Image and because He was the one who revealed He was the Father, our Abba.²¹ God could not have been clearer, and we build on the genuineness of God’s loving heart throughout, building Love up all along the way and touching heaven in the end.

Without such clarity, leave simple faith alone. I cannot express this strong enough. As with Zig Ziglar in motivation and with Billy Graham and Bill Bright in evangelism, three theological Titans are among the brightest stars today with respect to Love and real-time relationships with God: Charles R. Swindoll, Max Lucado, and Tony Campolo. Their strength is in their utter practicality and common-sense ability to communicate great relational truths from the Bible, and their popularity crosses denominations.

Chuck Swindoll was president of Dallas Theological Seminary (19942001, a Classical Theist Christian stronghold of the first order), and so very much of Swindoll’s fascinating books could be footnoted as evidence of a somewhat open future indicated in the somewhat free-will responsibility that Swindoll indicates, motivates, and inspires. Swindoll, Lucado, and Campolo are master communicators of God’s Word that God is using today—no one disputes (at least publicly). Every one of their books teach us about Love and genuine relationships in some manner of free-will responsibility this side of heaven, that indeed God blesses when we come and trust Him in Love; indeed, and God blesses in spite of us as well. We get excited just reading the titles of their books, pregnant as these books are with free-will directions and assumptions. In many respects just the mere collection of titles in the single footnote below say more about our free-will responsibility in service to God than do the entire volumes of Bruce Ware’s God’s Lesser Glory and John Frame’s No Other God.²²

What is God’s nature if not Love? Surely the view that stays closest to the Bible with the least amount of extra-biblical babble is the most credible. When we look at the relational treasure troves inside of master Christian teachers like Swindoll, Lucado, Campolo, and Ziglar—Oh, my God in heaven!—our relationship with God is a real-time affair and God is Love.²³ We will toss a few boulders into the babbling brook of foreknowledge, and we will challenge those who have merely fly-fished that brook.

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2. God’s Dynamic Foreknowledge: First Primer

I came to see that no matter what God knew 1,000 years ago, God has the living ability to intervene today, and that does not indicate errors on God’s part. God has dynamic foreknowledge that adjusts moment to moment as God lives and works with His children. God’s foreknowledge is the servant of His loving heart and not His master.

Oh my, it seems like everyone but the elite have a rock-solid belief that prayer can affect things tomorrow that would not have been changed had we not prayed. Our genuine loving relationship with God is the bedrock—the First Doctrine in the theology of God. The Classical Theism elite have a great burden to clarify—with clarity an 8-year-old child can understand—how we have responsibility and can say prayers in a settled future.

I come like a child to God the Father in an open manner, believing that some of the future is still open to my heavenly Abba’s sovereign ability. Without such clarity—whatever—I live and pray confident (not as though) the future is somewhat open. I pray to my living and loving God, my heavenly Father, confident (not as though) His mighty hand is truly present with me on my journey. For my Daddy’s sake, I shall tie that up into a very big and tight knot in the following pages.²⁴

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D. This Book—Genuineness Is so Very Special

1. Chum, We’ll Walk with Freedom & Gusto—Whosoever!

As this book developed, I sought out others. Truly, whosoever means whosoever, doesn’t it? Whosoever indicates a broad and spacious land of freedom. I was really more free than many to truly speak my mind. Freedom is a good feeling.²⁵ Who does not value freedom? Anyone? Give me liberty or give me death did not originate on a New England shore just 200 years ago. Why is freedom valuable? Richard Bauckham poignantly said,

Freedom is one of the most potent words in the modem age. Perhaps it is the most potent word of all—or rivaled only by Love. Other words used to be more powerful: truth, goodness, beauty. . they can still move hearts . inspire dedication and sacrifice. But freedom has stolen much of their magic. Like them, [freedom] is one of the big words that refuse to be tied down to a definition. Too many human aspirations have gathered around it. Too many and various evils have been resisted with its aid. At its most potent it is a word that seems to open a limitless prospect. It beckons humanity into a better future, the better for being undefined. Its meaning is always yet to be fully discovered.²⁶

We live for freedom. On September 11, 2001, our world changed, and freedom got a new face and received mightier defenses. In the simplest of terms, 9-11-1 was an exploitation by terrorists who used our freedom to attack our freedom. After 9-11-1, we saw how fragile freedom was with our country’s airports shut down. Yet we also saw how much freedom was valued, for that very attack on freedom caused patriotism to blossom like roadside wild flowers from coast to coast. U. S. flags and bumper stickers sprouted everywhere. A mighty international resolve also bloomed bright and freed many more at a great cost in Afghanistan and in Iraq.

Why is freedom valuable? I do not really know. What I do know is that everyone I know values freedom. Likewise, anyone who does not value freedom seems strange or—as they say in prison—throwed off (sic). Maybe one reason freedom is so valuable is because we hate injustice and crime, where crime is an attempt to control and force its will on an unwilling free person. We do not liked to be forced—period—especially we do not like to be forced to do things we do not want to do or give up things we cherish (like property, virtue, and life). Crime is certainly a disrespect of the freedom of a victim. Why freedom is valuable is less important than the universal reality of freedom’s value; as Bauckham observed, Freedom is truly an infinitely desirable value.²⁷

Our theology should not be at loggerheads with life, but help us interpret life. Our theology ought to help us understand the freedom we all Love and protect and foster in life and throughout the world. Many in the appendices run from freedom, and we will be chasing them all across the theological play ground—as pesky as a grasshopper, forcing them to give up the ghost of free will or concede their error.

It is not just patriotic to support freedom, it is biblical. Whosoever will has a long arm; John 3:16’s whosoever means whosoever and the world, and that small word pushes us to grapple mightily with freedom and genuineness.²⁸ On Revelation 22:17, whosoever will, let him take the water of the life freely, Charles H. Spurgeon beautifully observed three vast doors to heaven:

through which the hugest and most elephantine sinner that ever made the earth shake beneath the weight of his guilt may go. Here are the three doors:

"Whosoever’—Will—"Freely."

Whosoever, there is the first door. Whosoever—then what man dare have the impudence to say that he is shut out? If you say that you cannot come in under whosoever, I ask you how you dare narrow a word which is in itself so broad, so infinite. Whosoever—that must mean every man that ever lived, or ever shall live..

[Second door.] the word will. There is nothing about past character, nor present character; nothing about knowledge, or feeling, nor anything else but the will: Whosoever will. Speak of the gate standing ajar! This looks to me like taking the door right off the hinges and carrying it away, Whosoever Will, There is no hindrance whatever in your way. And then.

[Third door.] freely. God’s gifts are given without any expectation or recompense, or any requirements and conditions—Let him take the water of life freely. Thou hast not to bring thy good feelings, or good desires, or good works, but come and take freely what God gives you for nothing. You are not even to bring repentance and faith in order to obtain grace, but you are to come and accept repentance and faith as the gifts of God, and the work of the Holy Spirit. What broad gates of mercy these are! How wide the entrance which Love has prepared for coming souls! "Whosoever!"—"Will!—Freely!"²⁹

Billy Graham said John 3 teaches that the,

new birth is something that God does for man when man is willing to yield to God. We have seen that the Bible teaches that man is dead in trespasses and sins, and his great need is life. We do not have within ourselves the seed of the new life; this must come from God Himself.

One of the great Christian writers of this century, Oswald Chambers, said, Our part as workers for God is to open men’s eyes that they may turn themselves from darkness to light; but that is not salvation, this is conversion—the effort of a roused human being.. When a man is born again, he knows that it is because he has received something as a gift from Almighty God and not because of his own decision.³⁰

Billy Graham knows about the conflict, and yet he weighs in on the side of free will. With that respectful acknowledgement to God’s initiative above, and without muddling the waters or attempting to clarify the contradiction inherent in a work totally of God that actually respects free will, Graham deftly moves from God’s side to our perspective this side of heaven and the free will implied:

Any person who is willing to trust Jesus Christ as his personal Savior and Lord can receive the new birth now. It’s not something to be received at death or after death; it is for now. Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Cor. 6:2, KJV).³¹

Whosoever means whosoever to Billy Graham. Clearly, though God does the saving, there is given to us a responsibility to share and a responsibility for the sinner to respond—a clear indication of some freedom.³²

There is no cleaning or clearing of that up this side of heaven. What is clear this side of heaven is that we have some element of freedom. On salvation, God does the saving, certainly, as He plants the seed. Does God plant the seed in everyone? God surely does, or whosoever means nothing. The actual line between God’s mighty work on the seed planted and the person’s ability to respond, well, that is a fine line only God can draw. What we have is that God does work, and that some of that work is God’s own inscrutable business. What we have is a degree of freedom of choice that is our business and business that is not an illusion, for whosoever does mean whosoever.

Billy Graham, Bill Bright, and all evangelists appeal to the heart of every person with a prayer for God to work, thanking God for whatever harvest may come, but nevertheless with brimming freedom-of-choice appeals that practically place the salvation of the individual squarely upon the listener as though that listener’s choice that minute made the difference between heaven and hell: if you died today, do you know where you would go? is a serious affair. So is God guilty when someone says no? No, and there will be no cleaning that up this side of heaven either, for that is in part God’s very business. What we do certainly know is that freedom is here, that we do have some kind of freedom, and that this freedom is real.

In a manner, we could say that the watering of the seed by God is done in accord with permission by the seed. But can the seed refuse to grow? There will be no cleaning that up either, this side of heaven. Salvation belongs to God, and we know that God respects our choices and will not coerce any. For salvation is as much an answer to whosoever will as salvation is the watering of the seed and the sunshine that grants new growth. In many ways, salvation is a miracle of grace inside the human heart, freed just enough to accept or reject, then empowered to follow the course of acceptance; yet also raised from the dead to a new life as though one was truly lost and had no ability to sprout.

Is there a contingency upon the sprouting placed upon the seed that needs to be preached to, as though the seed must and necessarily be given the message first—whosoever—before the resurrection can take place? Oh yes, but then God guides too. There will be no cleaning that up either, this side of heaven. Without the ability to read God’s mind this side of heaven, we have been given whosoever will, and that means whosoever will with a broad stroke of free will cast upon the tumultuous waters of life. Though there will be no cleaning up of the precise fine line between God’s work and God’s respecting free will in salvation, we have been given a clearer understanding of our genuine relationship with God in Christ, and that relationship is one of freedom and Love.

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So in many ways, whosoever does mean whosoever. And this book takes up with the resurrection freedom given to us in Christ. In Christ we have more freedom than when we were mere slaves to sin (even dead). Whatever the mystery and miracle of salvation, what is most important in the free will / foreknowledge struggles is that we have been freed in Christ. The long reach of whosoever continues inside of the Christian’s heart who has now freely accepted the gift of salvation. The Christian has more freedom in the new birth, in the liberation from bondage, and in a divinely appointed and empowered sonship and daughtership, and this new life will extend into heaven.

Hear the message of freedom and genuineness in Christ from the Christian song, Trust and Obey.

When we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word, What a glory He sheds on our way! While we do His good will He abides with us still, And with all who will trust and obey. refrain: Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

Not a burden we can bear, not a sorrow we share, But our toil He doth richly repay; Not a grief nor a loss, not a frown nor a cross, But is blest if we trust and obey.

But we never can prove the delights of His Love Until all on the altar we lay; For the favor He shows and the joy He bestows Are for them who will trust and obey.

Then in fellowship sweet we will sit at His feet, Or we’ll walk by His side in the way; What He says we will do, where He sends we will go, Never fear, only trust and obey.³³

There are a thousand songs like this, brimming with freedom and genuineness in every line. Even that sweet testimony to God’s sovereign grace in Amazing Grace has that tender line that acknowledges, How precious did that grace appear, The hour I first believed.

How now shall we live? is an important question brimming with freewill responsibility.³⁴ Before that question looms the larger question: how now are we currently living in Christ? We must need look in the mirror of who we are first, of how we are actually relating to God in a genuine realtime loving relationship, before we can truly see how to chart the course of what we ought to be and how we should go about changing the course of our lives. We live now with a degree of significant freedom to obey and not to obey, tempered by Love that asks each day, do you Love me? We Love God because He first loved us.

So the freedom in Christ moves us past mere ethical obedience into a higher level of significant freedom to Love or not to Love that assumes under that Love an obedience for Love’s sake. 1 John 4:7 says, Beloved, let us Love one another. Soren Kierkegaard said of this precious verse that we do not hear the command to Love or even the poet-passion of Love.

There is something … blessed in these words.. It is as if the apostle said, "Dear me, what is all this which would hinder you from loving.: the commandment is that you shall Love, but when you understand life and yourself, then it is as if you should not need to be commanded, because to Love human beings is still the only thing worth living for; without this Love you really do not live;. to Love human beings is the only true sign that you are a Christian"—truly, a profession of faith is not enough.. [between the Old and New Testaments] The only change can be then, that the lover becomes more and more intimate with the commandment, becomes more and more of one with the commandment, which he Loves: therefore he is able to speak so mildly, almost as if it had been forgotten that Love is the commandment.³⁵

How is our Love to and from God pictured? Like this: a vassal in a kingdom gives obedience because he or she is forced to by the power of the kingdom lord, but the child of a loving father gives obedience to the father because of Love for the father and the desire to please the Father (often in a return of the Love to the father). In Christ, we have a genuine loving relationship with our heavenly Father, our Abba, and this indicates a somewhat open future if Love means anything at all.

In addition to Love, there are other examples of the use of "whosoever means whosoever" and the use of free-will responsibility.³⁶ Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, put together a beautifully appointed book, The Purpose-Driven Life. The title itself is all about free-will responsibility. Warren said that all of life starts with God, as we "were born by his purpose and for his purpose.³⁷ He proceeds to guide us through 40 days of lessons about purpose in the Christian life. The first seven days indicate the reason we are on earth in the first place: it started with God, we are not an accident, and the ultimate goal of the universe is to show the glory of God."³⁸ Warren gives us five purposes to live by:

#1, you were planned for God’s pleasure;

#2, you were formed for God’s family;

#3, you were created to become like Christ;

#4, you were shaped for serving God;

#5, you were made for a mission.

Each of the lessons for the 40 days ends with a three-fold summary of encouragers in a small box: a point to ponder, a verse to remember, and a question to consider all under the headline Day 1 [to 40] Thinking About My Purpose. In other words, at the end of each day’s lesson, the Christian is to think on the purpose of God with a goal of making God’s purposes first in life. The spiritual life and Christian fellowship are affirmed throughout in a delicate balance. But it is clear from beginning to end that the Purpose-Driven Life is driven by the free-will submission of the Christian to the purposes of God.

The entirety of this fine and novel book on discipleship helps the Christian recognize, instill, and focus their life upon God’s purposes for their lives—all predicated upon the Christian’s somewhat genuine free-will responsibility and genuine real-time relationship with God. A somewhat open future and the give-and-take relationships that Christians have with God are understood throughout—on every page—and Christians have a responsibility to give to God his or her all each day. The Christian is responsible to submit, to think, and to move into the purposes of God. Warren closes day 40 with a section titled, "God Wants to Use