There’s a concept you may have heard before called “kenosis.” The concept simply refers to the foregoing of control over others to be or become vulnerable to them out of love.1 Theologians believe Kenosis characterizes the Christ’s assumption of a human nature, his earthly life, and especially his death. But many Open Theists have gone further to say that because Christ displays God’s character, God is a Kenotic God. This thought leads very naturally to a theology where the all-powerful God chooses to partner with others rather control them in shaping the future. In other words, it leads to Open Theism. Let’s hear the voices of some of the first (nominal) Open Theists on the matter:
From the 1994 publication The Openness of God, Richard Rice:
“While any attempt to summarize the ministry of Jesus would be presumptuous, an obvious feature is the fact that his life was characterized by service to and suffering with rather than power over human beings. Jesus was acutely sensitive to people’s needs and feelings, and he devoted himself to uplifting the poor and the sick. ‘The Son of Man,’ as the pivotal text in Mark puts it, ‘came not to be served but to serve’ (MK 10:45 NRSV). In fact, he explicitly rejected the quest for power over others as inappropriate for his followers (Lk 22:25-26). One of the New Testament letters identified Jesus with the suffering servant of Isaiah 53:
Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” When they hurled insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. (1 Pet 2:21-24)
Through this remarkable portrayal we see the sovereign of the universe as one who reaches to the depths of human need with tenderness and compassion, one who appreciates human sorrows to the fullest.” p. 40
From Greg Boyd’s Trinity and Process:
“Neither a static solipsistic God, nor a dynamic but dependent God, can render intelligible the revelatory fact that ‘God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself.’ (2 Cor. 5:19).” p. 3332
From John Sanders’ The God Who Risks:
“In Jesus we see the divine humiliation and vulnerability brought into clear focus. God is not the all-determining power responsible for sending everything, including suffering, on us. The way of God is love…. This love is even willing to humiliate itself in the hope that we may be redeemed. The life of Jesus demonstrated service to and suffering with people rather than domination over them. The Son of God did not “regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave” (Phil 2:6-7).” p. 116
Or again from The Openness of God, the late Clark Pinnock:
“Divine condescension is apparent in the realm of redemption, where God manifests his power paradoxically in the cross of Christ. What an astounding way for God to deploy power, in the form of servanthood and self-sacrifice. This was the mode of power God knew in his wisdom to be appropriate for bringing about reconciliation, and it reveals that love rather than almighty power is the primary perfection of God. When love says that power will not work in a situation, power is allowed to withdraw in favor of powerlessness. God does not overcome his enemies (for example by forcing but by loving them). God works, not in order to subject our wills but to transform our hearts. Love and not sheer power overcomes evil-God does not go in for power tactics.” p. 114
So what do we make of these quotes? For one, they elucidate the fact that the inference from Christ as Kenotic to God as Kenotic is an aspect of the Open Theist movement. To some (if small) extent, the inference defines that movement. Second, as the above quote by Pinnock says, they elucidate the fact that, “love rather than almighty power is the primary perfection of God.” I’ve mentioned this contrast before, and am happy to re-iterate it. To me, it’s one of the most compelling aspects of Open Theism.
But most importantly, there is an invitation beckoning us here. If this theology is correct, and as divine image-bearers we are called to model ourselves after God, then to respond to this invitation is to forego any power we have over others and be vulnerable out of love. To be part of this movement isn’t just to believe some pithy theological propositions, it is to move! It is to get on with (or continue on with!) the hard work of looking for ways in which we might have unearned advantages over others, so that upon finding them we can lay them down for the sake of a more equitable world. It is to listen to the oppressed with empathy, and seek their liberation.3 All this is nothing new. These values have been the way of Jesus ever since there was a Jesus, and plenty of sectors of the historic Christian community have lived them out. But Open Theism can add a new dimension of clarity to this purpose.
1. I would further clarify that the kind of control foregone here is the kind that goes against the will of the other when the other is capable of making informed decisions. This clarification is needed to rule out many cases where controlling others is good, such as when a baby is going to pick up a knife but the parent keeps her from doing so. To my knowledge, it would be no part of Kenosis to forgo this kind of control.
2. “Solipsism” is the belief that nobody exists except one’s self. Boyd is using this word here to describe the Calvinistic God, which he believes is pantheistic. His thought is quite brilliant here, really. He argues that because a Calvinistic God determines everything, nothing would have autonomy and everything “other” than God would be nothing but an extension of God, making God the only thing that exists. And since reconciling the world to God means that the world had some degree of autonomy, such reconciliation couldn’t occur.
The “dynamic but dependent God” he is referring to here is the God of process theism. The idea here is that such a God wouldn’t have the power to guarantee that the world would be reconciled to God.
3. It is also to lay down the tendency to behave paternalistically to the oppressed, a common temptation. Paternalism is, after all, a way of controlling others. Because it is often subconscious, we often need the help of others to point it out to us.
