Open and Shut

I agree with Helm's initial evaluation of the God of open theism, but not as regards Biblical inspiration.  I'm not an apologist for open theism by any means, but one thing I do know is that they do not hold that God is necessarily perpetually and at all times bound to a "risking" relationship with all men. Firstly, they believe that to the extent that He is, He is such by His own will, and 2nd, that God is free to and often does exert his power over Creation to accomplish various ends.  My understanding is that they only reject that this aspect of His power is always switched on.

One other thing I remember from visiting ETS back in '01 was that a lot of Reformed guys were trying to attach all manner of heretical tags to the open theists through so-called "implication."  "If you believe A, then you'd have to believe B, which leads to C, which leads to D, which eventually leads to Z, which is the denial of the deity of Christ,"  Or the same formula leading to the denial that Scripture was Divinely inspired or what have you.  Open theists have consistently denied that they affirm all these heresies.

If I could make a reformed comparison...  Non-reformed people like myself reject some of Calvin's teachings about how God's sovereignty works because we see it necessarily making God culpable for the existence of evil generally and individual sins specifically.  Though I see that as a logical consequence of Calvin's teaching, most Calvinists do not, in actuality, affirm that correlation in their own theology.  That's why I think R.C. Sproul Sr. is alright, but his son is a raving heretic. :-P

I don't exactly know how Open Theists view the process of inspiration, but it seems that Helms has a point when it comes to God's overall superintending providence over the giving, receiving, and writing down of his revelation.  There is a reciprocal relationship wherein in order to have a doctrine of Scripture one must believe in the providence of God in preservation of the Scriptures, but when asking where the teaching comes from, we say it comes from Scripture itself.  

I know that open theists have tended to side against the traditional doctrine of inerrancy (they and others) saying it is a recent teaching and has its basis in Enlightenment rationalism. This has been documented to be without grounds in several places, namely works such as "Right Reason and the Princeton Mind."  I believe inerrancy, infallibility, and inspiration are tied together. 

I'm not quite sure how to answer the issue of God's power over creation being at all times "switched on." I know that he would have to exert such power in order to bring about the fulfillment of any covenant promise he makes. That is in line with his own character.  But an answer that has been formulated in my head is that God has been and has never ceased to be King or the Ruler over all, whether before or after creation.  He does not stop ruling over creation or his church in any way. 

An article I've found helpful is by Richard Pratt:  http://thirdmill.org/newfiles/ric_pratt/th.pratt.historical_contingencies.pdf

I was not at ETS 2001 nor have I read the JETS articles on it. I don't know if either Sproul Sr. or Junior were there. I know you've stated there was some open theist who said Sproul prayed for his death, but I don't know which Sproul is in question or whether that has been documented.  Even if that was the case, the credibility of open theism is, of course, in no way strengthened if Sproul (Sr, Jr) did so. The merits are found in exegesis and the systemization of Scripture. 

Most people who call themselves Reformed differentiate in ecclesiology and sacramentology, in addition to soteriology, from other Christian bodies.  There are some 5-pointers who are not Reformed (see John MacArthur).  It is an all-encompassing system.  If people are Calvinists or Reformed, it is because of the Canons of Dordt and other confessions that followed, rather than Calvin alone. 

So at this point I don't have much of a thought related to Helm's (or your) comments on Open Theism specifically. I do have a couple thoughts about the question of inspiration, though.

Helm says the following: 

"Perhaps by a series of flukes the original autographs were penned exactly as God intended. Yet how can we be sure that they were kept intact down through the years?" 

Helm is touching on an ecclesiastical issue there, but due to a Protestant ecclesiology, is not following that problem to a logical conclusion that should be available to him. It's the question of canonicity. The Orthodox would shrug at the question and say, "Of course the Scriptures have been preserved sufficiently because they were intrusted to the Church which was established and continues to be led by Christ and is imbued with the Spirit." There's no need to flesh out a certain logic of sovereignty as relates to disparate bodies and people preserving the Scriptures, because God's manifestation of sovereignty w/r/t the Scriptures is to have entrusted them to His instituted Body. 

And you also make a related comment:

"...it seems that Helms has a point when it comes to God's overall superintending providence over the giving, receiving, and writing down of his revelation."

 You mention "giving, receiving, and writing down," but not "canonization." It seems Helm (and you by extension) would contend that God coerced the canonization and preservation into happening, irrespective of the ecclesial body in question. In other words, the ecclesial question is glossed over.

Where Protestants would look at the canonization process and conclude that God accomplished his will in spite of the men who presided over that process, rendering the ecclesial question unnecessary (a rhetorical extension of monergism), the Orthodox would of course reject that formulation and say that Christ's visible Church was a necessary participant, and one that was uniquely imbued with authority to execute that canonization. Really, the avoidance of the ecclesial question by Helm is a false pretense that is counterintuitively required if one has already committed to the diminished ecclesiology of the Reformation.

One last comment of Helm's I want to react to:

"If the upshot of such a theological work is a God who is limited in power and knowledge because of his need to interact with human beings who possess free will, and if he can never ensure the outcome of any such relationship (just as one human being can never noncoercively ensure the outcome of a relationship with another human being), then the whole basis of scriptural authority dissolves." 

One can blanch at this in one of two directions. Either they can say, as I did previously, that God exerts 'coersion' on mankind at critical junctures in order to accomplish his will (but doesn't necessarily have to operate by coersion at all times), or one can just reject the presupposition that God is bound to the sorts of cause/effect laws that we are. Perhaps God can accomplish his will w/o coersion? Why is that a mystery so unwillingly considered by people like Helm? Why is that mystery so unwillingly embraced but the manifold theological enigmas resulting from an absolutely deterministic assumption about God so readily accepted? It boggles the mind.

Well, it doesn't boggle the mind. I think it is thus with western Christian academics because of who they are: intellectuals. They are simply more bothered by logical questions than by theological ones. This is my opinion. The logical problem of the relationship between God's foreknowledge and history is a much more interesting *intellectual* dilemma than the problem of how human culpability for sin can truly exist in relationship to Divine determinism. And so it seems these academics have endeavored to solve the logical dilemma above all, and tolerate the theological dilemmas that result. It would seem a perfectly acceptable--and drastically easier--enterprise to entrust the logical dilemma to Mystery, and in so doing maintain a more consistent theological tapestry. After all, when we preach the Gospel, the question before the hearer is ever "Why must I be saved?", and rarely if ever "Why didn't God stop me from sinning?"

Hopefully this makes some rhetorical sense, whether or not you agree. :-)