God's Lesser Glory

By Bruce A. Ware
Crossway Books

Reviewed by Louis F. DeBoer

This is a fascinating book, especially for Calvinists. Open Theism, the view that God does not know the future because it is unknowable because the free will choices of individuals upon which future events are contingent have not been as yet been made, is essentially an exercise in extreme, and rigorous Arminianism. It is the doctrine of libertarian free will taken to its logical conclusions. It is Arminianism with a vengeance. 

In this book Bruce Ware does an excellent job of demonstrating how radically unbiblical this heresy is, as well as outlining the destructive practical results of this type of thinking about God. This is a great book. If you only read book about Open Theism this is the one to read. Even if you are not concerned about the issue of Open Theism the book's exposition and defense of the majesty, sovereignty, and glory of God are so edifying, uplifting, and comforting that that alone makes it worth reading.  

Before I read the book I was a little concerned about how effective it might be. After all Ware is a professor in a Southern Baptist seminary, a denomination noted for representing the typical evangelical, Arminian, dispensationalist brand of American fundamentalism. Yet whatever he is Ware is no Arminian. At one point he makes it clear that he holds to irresistible grace, and as most Arminians hold to the fifth point of Calvinist soteriology, the perseverance of the saints (they call it eternal security), he is at least a two point Calvinist. However it is in his uncompromising defense of the sovereignty of God, and God's total and complete control over all things, that he frequently speaks as a Calvinist. In fact no Calvinist could state it any more forcefully than he does at times and his treatment of the relevant texts would make any Calvinist rejoice. Ware has noticed, and as Calvinists have often said of the god of the Arminians, that the god of Open Theism is no god at all and is not worthy of either our trust and confidence or of our unstinted praise and devotion. Ware demolishes the sophistry of the Open Theists as he paints a picture of the majestic, glorious, sovereign, almighty, omnipotent, omniscient, all wise God of Scripture. Reading his presentation of the glory of the true God will edify and encourage you.