Article & Book Reviews -- By: Anonymous

Journal: Conservative Theological Journal
Volume: CTJ 01:2 (Aug 1997)
Article: Article & Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous


Article & Book Reviews

By the faculty of Tyndale Biblical Institute & Theological Seminary and others
Mal Couch, Editor

Creating God in the Image of Man? by Norman L. Geisler, Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 1997, 191 pp., paper-back, $11.99

This could be one of the most important books to be published this year. Geisler exposes a dangerous new trend whereby evangelical writers are rethinking God, His attributes, and His personality. One would think this shift would be coming from the liberal camp but instead it is taking place within conservative circles.

The title of the book is poignant because it reveals a “scholarly” complex that has long been developing among evangelicals, that being, that we must be academic and please the world to a certain degree. We don’t want to be simple or even biblical, but instead we want to appear philosophical and intelligent. This attitude of elitism is behind a paradigm shift in our camp that has affected the teaching of Bible prophecy and now, the area of Theology Proper.

Geisler well explains that the classic view of God is now being challenged and the new dangerous beliefs coming forth he labels Neotheism. Some of the advocates are men such as Clark Pinnock. Geisler notes: “If the logical consequences of neotheists’ unorthodox beliefs about God are drawn out, they will be pushed more and more in the direction of process theology and the liberal beliefs entailed therein. …the distance from the orthodox view of God they have already traveled will have serious consequences for evangelicalism. This is true of any belief that creates God in man’s image” (p. 12). Below is an abbreviated list of what neotheism is teaching:

(1) God is not eternal in that He acts in time and thus possesses a non-temporality. (2) God is neither simple nor indivisible; He has mutability and can change. Using Genesis 6:6, neotheists claim that God can change His mind and that He may repent in a variety of circumstances. Sometimes God rejects something that He has already done. (3) God can learn things He did not know. There are things He is not aware of! An unchangeable God cannot relate to a changing world. (4) Since God is a loving God, and can show sympathy, He must be able to change.

(5) If God knows all things future, then He has a form of foreknowledge that entails determinism. (6) God cannot have unlimited omniscience. Or, “God can know only what is possible. It is not possible for him to know the future” (p. 110).

The heart of Geisler’s book then is to answer and counter the many com...

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