Socinus redivivus

Martin Downes has an insightful post on the methodological heritage that open theists derive from Socinianism.  He quotes from Clark Pinnock denying that there can be such a thing as true freedom of will if there is a “fixity of future” known in concrete terms by God, and then points us to Charles Hodge and Herman Bavinck.

Hodge:

The Socinians, however, and some of the Remonstrants, unable to reconcile this foreknowledge with human liberty, deny that free acts can be foreknown. As the omnipotence of God is his ability to do whatever is possible, so his omniscience is his knowledge of everything knowable. But as free acts are in their nature uncertain, as they may or may not be, they cannot be known before they occur. Such is the argument of Socinus. This whole difficulty arises out of the assumption that contingency is essential to free agency. (Systematic Theology Vol. 1, p. 400-1)

Bavinck:

In a later period the Socinians taught the same thing. God knows all things, they said, but all things according to their nature. Hence, he knows future contingent (accidental) events, not with absolute certainty (for then they would cease to be accidental), but as contingent and accidental; that is, he knows what the future holds insofar as it depends on humans, but not with infallible foreknowledge. If that were the case, the freedom of the will would be lost, God would become the author of sin, and he himself would be subject to necessity. (Reformed Dogmatics Volume 2: God and Creation, p. 197. Emphasis added)

Martin’s helpfully lucid conclusion is as follows:

The connection between open theism and Socinianism is not literary but methodological. They share the same convictions and have arrived at the same conclusions concerning the relationship between human freedom and divine foreknowledge.

Sound reasoning, a sombre conclusion, and a sober warning.  All are needed in days when the old errors once more stalk the land.

(More on this from Martin here.)