Andrew wrote

My guess would be that although open theism has not really been adopted explicitly as an emerging ‘doctrine’, most emerging types would instinctively gravitate in this direction.  

It was my guess too. You gave no reasons but here are mine:

Openness as a fundamental worldview

does not give rise to dogmatic theology,

does not give rise to moral absolute ethical systems,

does not give rise to dispensational views of history and

does not give rise to context independent interpretations of scripture.

I have assumed also that emergent thinking is not a step towards anarchy but that rather it is simply a step in a different direction to orthodox thinking. It may be unclear and it may be a mass movement, without leadership, but it is still a directed movement, still a purposeful movement.

I am perhaps wrong about this and that emergent thinkers prefer to be less purposeful and directed and would rather say less than more, believe less than more and indeed do less than more. And not because there is simply less out there to be said, but because it is in their personalities and culture to seek obscurity rather than clarity and because they believe that what really happens matters less. If this is the case, then I would be preaching the openness worldview to you. But I guess it is rather that it is just a different direction, in which case I believe that openness gives a perfect underpinning to all emergent theology.

As regards to dispensationalism, that was why I found Virgil’s view difficult to understand since I assumed the members of this site already had an instinctive anti-dispensational view of history. I would classify dispensational views of history alongside predestination, since although there are many differences, they have this similarity, that dispensational views of history fundamentally assume that history is determined by things other than the very actors in that history. But let me not digress too much on that specific subject.

Just briefly to begin with, I want to say that openness is not about history or theology or about the future or about prophecy or about God but about the nature of thought itself.

Openness begins with the assumption that the universe as a logical category is self-determined. Thus, by ‘universe’ I don’t mean the physical universe but everything that is real, including thoughts, dreams, matter, concepts, God, people, actions, attitudes (such as love or beauty) everything that is real. And by logical I mean to do with thought. 

This new definition of ‘universe’ is necessary to avoid dualist thinking: the first premise of logic is that the universe is self-consistent. Dualist conceptions of the universe break down, because they are by their own admission inconsistent. Therefore, as a category of pure thought, all that is real must be conceived as a universe, subject to logically consistent rules.

That doesn’t mean that the universe only consists of matter and doesn’t consist of spirit or that there is necessarily only one physical universe. It just means that everything that is real can be viewed as a solitary category of thought.

I’ll carry on in another post.

 Desert