Post Edited (One Love) : 5/2/2010 3:18:40 AM (GMT-5)

...

What is more, God did not share with Satan or any other created being a power equal to his own or even more power than he could generally control.  Hence, though God must genuinely win war against foes in this present age, he is assured of ultimate victory.

Uh...yeppers...

Post Edited (One Love) : 5/2/2010 12:43:20 AM (GMT-5)

Think of God's unfaithful, prostituting people...whom he never failed to love and save. (Hosea)

When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.”

Save me, Lord Jesus. 

Post Edited (One Love) : 5/2/2010 2:37:01 AM (GMT-5)

Let your Kingdom come and your will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.

PS: Wanna see some God?  On the link above, look at the "Highest Rated Comment" for that page.  Yeah.

Post Edited (One Love) : 5/2/2010 2:55:34 AM (GMT-5)

D: Can a finite being (with finite strength of will unto defiance)...who has God Himself as the very ground of his deepest "self"...actively resist receiving the Infinite Love of God every possible moment for the rest of eternity? In other words, is it possible for a defiant finite being--no matter how strong--to OUTLAST the infinite loving will-to-patience of the Infinite God, without whom they cannot fully be "selves" at all?

Tom: I think so, yes. But having said that, I think the way you phrase the question reveals some minunderstandings (of my view) about creaturely freedom and infinity.

I already mentioned the infinity stuff. It doesn’t make sense to conceptualize the powers of creatures in terms of capacities that “outlast” God, or the creature’s rejection of God for “every possible moment for the rest of eternity” having “obtained,” or the creature being able to “successfully reject every attempt” of God to reach it, or in terms of an active rebellion which “is infinite.”

There is no “obtaining” every possible moment of future eternity, and there is no rejecting “every attempt.” Nor can the creature ever “outlast” God’s patience. To “outlast” God’s patience assumes the waiting comes to an end and arrives at some irrevocable rejection. To speak of “every” attempt is to “finish” the unfinishable. That never happens in the future because ANY attempt you consider, there will always be an infinite number of possible attempts yet to come. It’s nonsense to speak of “outlasting” it. To outlast eternity is to complete it, to cross its finish line with none of it in front of you and all of it behind you. But it has no finish line.

Secondly, it’s not about having a strength equal to God. The creature’s freedom to choose is grounded IN God and sustained BY God’s own strength. So it’s as enduring as God so long as God wants to sustain it. And how long he sustains it is determined by a) God’s purposes for us, and b) the metaphysical requirements entailed upon the relationship by those purposes. So if creaturely freedom (operative on some minimal level at least) is a metaphysical requirement of hooking up with God, then how in the world are you going to draw a terminus ad quem for it? It’s potentially everlasting, that’s all. But your arguments against this all assume having actually traversed it.

We’ve used the chess analogy a lot. Think of it in terms of a chess game. First, “checking” your opponent means forcing a decision about the ‘King’ (or the ‘self’, let’s say), right? If you’re “checked,” you can ‘concede’ and give up, or you can choose not to concede and flee (get out of check) instead by moving your king (or bringing some other piece into play to obstruct the path that holds you in check. But to be in “check” allows you to escape and the game continues. “Checkmate” as you know, is different. With “checkmate” you’re done; that’s it. You have no decision. Game over. You can’t move because there’s no possible place to go, no way of escape. You don’t even “concede” at this point, because conceding assumes you have other options that you forego in conceding. Checkmate ends the game unilaterally.

Your argument assumes that God checkmates people. Mine doesn’t, because “checkmate” (for me) entails the denial of something I think is required of the kind of relationship God is interested in—our freely “conceding.” But that requires options. God may place us in “check,” to force a decision, but to “checkmate” us means ending the game unilaterally and constraining a confession. God cannot end the game unilaterally via checkmate and get what he wants—as far as I can see.

Furthermore, in chess you start out with 16 pieces, 15 besides your King. Some games end (by conceding or by losing through being checkmated) quickly. Some last a long time. Sometimes you have most of your pieces left and lose by checkmate or concession. Sometimes you lose all 15 and are left with just your King running for his life.

I view the eschaton as a continuation of the basic game we’re now in but where all our defensive and offensive pieces have been taken. All we have is our ‘King’, our ‘self’, left. But in the eschaton it remains the case that the ‘King’ is only ever placed in “check.” He may move, and move, and move. But he may also “concede.” God allows—and sustains it—as long as it takes because God will ONLY accept a free “concession.” But to checkmake your opponent is to choose FOR him.

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D: If sin lasts into eternity with God such that God is fundamentally unable to do anything further against it, then God has not defeated sin at all.  Period.  God, AT BEST, has an eternal stalemate...but NOT a victory.

Tom: The only way you get a stalemate in chess is if BOTH players lose their ability to place the other in check (and you only get that if both loose all their pieces and are each left with just the ‘King’, ‘cause a King cannot check another King) OR if a King that is not in check has no place to move except INTO being in check. I believe the latter is also called a stalemate. But the point is, God is never in a position of having NO resources to “check” us and he’s certainly competent enough a love and pursuer to avoid backing his own purposes into a corner, essentially stalemating himself. Not gonna happen.

The confidence that God ultimately wins (in the universal sense the way you and I mean) cannot come from the belief that God “checkmates” creation or otherwise draws some terminus ad quem around every creature’s freedom that marks a point in time at which that freedom runs out. The confidence is more elusive and…well, personal. It’s confidence in the power of love and the restlessness of created being. You can’t draw a line and say, “This is when God will win the last wandering heart.” You just know that he will. However long it takes, he will.

Tom

Post Edited (One Love) : 5/2/2010 12:17:04 PM (GMT-5)

If you would say "No" as your most integrous answer...then this whole conversation right here is ACADEMIC hair-splitting, at best.  You see that, right?

Post Edited (One Love) : 5/2/2010 12:38:20 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (One Love) : 5/2/2010 12:32:53 PM (GMT-5)

I know that Greg would agree to this!

Post Edited (One Love) : 5/2/2010 12:33:33 PM (GMT-5)

Hmmm, why is this difficult?

D: All I've been saying is this, Tom: With respect to a finite being's ability to consciously resist receiving God's love ENDLESSLY, the situation IS hopeless.

Tom: At what point is it EVER “hopeless” if I’m always free to choose Godward? So long as I’m free in this respect, there is always hope. Hopelessness means there’s NO possibility of Godward movement. What else can it mean? HopeLESSness means a state of no hope. When is there ever such a state even if a state may move Godward?

D: If you and I watched a chess game where one opponent only had a King and the other opponent had most (if not all) of his pieces still...would you and I sit down to watch the remainder of that game? I really don't think so. Get it?

Tom: But there’s one important difference about relating to God and chess—God refuses to checkmate us. To checkmate the ‘will’ is to remove all possibilities of movement and to leave one with NO choice but to accept God. Do you think God does this? I don’t. So if I was watching a game where one opponent only had his King and the other had most of his pieces AND the one with most of his pieces refused to accept any outcomes other than driving his opponent to “concede” (that is, not to win by checkmating), then yeah, I’d stick around to watch for a while.

D: How is this NOT a "hopeless" situation for a being seeking to resist God's love endlessly for the rest of eternity? Only utter irrationality would keep such behavior going for eternity.

Tom: It can’t be hopeless so long as there is hope. And so long as the person is free to say ‘yes’ to God, there’s hope.

We have to settle this irrationality thing because I know Talbott and others use it. I’ve talked pretty much WITH Talbott about this very point. He just bites the bullet and rejects libertarian freedom to guarantee UR. He sets a terminus ad quem when God says enough is enough. As you know, being responsibly free to say ‘no’ to God requires a certain epistemic distance. That can never be completely removed. Talbott admits it IS removed. That’s what hell is—the eventually removal of ALL ambiguity.

I think that’s a mistake. The only thing that completely removes ambiguity (with respect to the choice for evil) is glorification, and that’s not what hell is. So as irrational as it may seem to us now (considering all we know to be true about God), whatever freedom we have post-mortem will (I think) require a minimum amount of ambiguity. And that means the choice to say no can’t ever be ‘absolutely’ irrational (i.e., having no ground in natural capacities). To lure a concession out of us, we must be free to move away from God, and to move away somewhat rationally.

D: As long as God and the creature exist, the creature has the irrevocable potential to freely choose for or against consciously receiving love from God with all the attending consequences related to each choice. There is NO END to this irrevocable potential.

Tom: Everything you’ve been arguing denies this, D. You’re denying that anyone can go on and on (potentially forever) choosing against God, because you think that means the creature becomes equal to God in strength. So you’re committed to drawing a line at SOME point and saying, “God eventually decides when enough is enough and removes the possibility of saying ‘no’ to God.” If you want to agree that God doesn’t checkmate the ‘will’ and that those in hell remain free to say ‘no’ at EVERY point they’re in hell, then what’s the problem? But conceding this means it’s CONCEIVABLE that the creature go on and on and on renewing that rejection—potentially forever. This doesn’t mean, as you think, that the creature actually ‘accomplishes’ or ‘completes’ an eternal rejection of God, for there is no completing it. All we mean is that at any point a person in hell is free to choose for God they’re also free to choose against God. If you agree with this much then you can’t make the argument that it’s irrational to conceive of the creature rejecting God at ANY actual moment…ever. You can’t admit the possibility of potential rejection but dismiss it as irrational. If it’s possible, it’s possible. No terminus ad quem.

D: In this way, God NEVER "checkmates" the creature. But this is in the face of God's infinite love. Using the chess analogy again, it would be like saying that the King-having opponent has the power to move continuous move her King out of check...but doesn't have to ability to do much more than that.

Tom: Right. But you deny this when you say you’d get up from the game and walk away if one person had just his King and the other had all their pieces. Why would you get up and walk away IF you knew the person with the advantage ALSO was bound to not checkmating his opponent; i.e., the only victory he would accept is a ‘concession’?

D: The King can move and move…

Tom: Right.

D: …but it's practically "hopeless" that the King's movement will actually do anything to give him victory.

Tom: But that’s a different kind of hopeless situation. It may be hopeless that those in hell will be able to succeed at removing their existence from the invitation of God. But that’s not the kind of hopelessness you’re saying attaches to my view. You’re saying the creature is ‘hopelessly lost’ unless there’s a terminus ad quem to their freedom to reject God. That’s what I’m denying. A person’s being in a context (hell) where she’s free to say ‘no’ to God for all eternity (i.e., potentially unending rejection of God) is not a “hopeless” state so long as she’s also free to say ‘yes’ to God.

D: Let me just ask it simply: Do you, Tom, believe that will be true that at least one person will, in fact, experience "endless suffering" (ala endless resistance of recieving God's Love for oneself?

Tom: What you need to see is the meaninglessness, the incoherence, of the question. The question asks whether anybody will ever succeed IN FACT to suffer endlessly. What I’m saying is that there can be no such fact. One can never complete or comprehend future eternity and succeed in ‘having rejected God for all eternity’. “All eternity” is a potential infinity, and no “fact of the matter” (not even God’s own existence) can coherently be said to have comprehended it in any manner. All we can coherently ask is whether a person in his experience of hell will at any actual moment free to say both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to God. If ‘yes’, then there’s no terminus ad quem and no ‘checkmating’ the ‘will’. If ‘no’, then there IS a terminus ad quem and you DO ‘checkmate’ the will.

Does this help?

Tom

D: Given irrevocable creaturely freedom to choose for or against receiving God's love for oneself at any time, it is LOGICALLY POSSIBLE that this potential can be used by at least one person unto "endless" resistance of God's love. (Just like it's logically possible that a person could be on top of the Eiffel Tower with two shoeboxes full of cardboard letters that can spell out Psalm 119, dump them out, and have them actually form a readable Psalm 119 on the ground). But it is REASONABLE TO BELIEVE that it is PRACTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE for the potential for "endless" resistance of God's love to ever be actualized.

Tom: You’re talking about concrete possibilities, i.e., the probability of something happenings, and not ‘logical’ possibility. No biggie.

It’s that last bold/underlined sentence. Technically, it’s not just practically impossible, it’s impossible in every sense of the word for “an endless potential to ever be actualized”—period. There is no actualizing (comprehending, finishing, traversing, completing) a potential (future) infinite.

What have to say is: It’s impossible for anyone ever to vanguish the ‘eros’ for God which is inherent in created being and so snuff out all possibility of Godward movement. The probability that anyone will ever succeed in doing this is 0. All other probabilities are impossible to establish.

I think we’ll take whatever level of character solidification and choice consequence with us into hell. So, say, Hitler I don’t think will even be able to just choose, poof, for God on the spot. Given his level of solidification, it’ll take some time for him to burn through the garbage and come to enough clarity to make responsibly and freely choosing God a psychological possibility. Same with all the radical creeps of the world. How long? We can’t know. What we might be able to say safely is that the probability of anyone persisting longer than their natural corrupted state requires will be small indeed, incalculably small as we press on into the future.

Does that help?

Tom

D: Would you agree with me that if at least one person actively resists receiving God's love moment-by-moment unto "endless suffering", then God has NOT had ultimate victory over sin? I know that Greg would agree to this!

Tom: What’s being proposed (having resisted God endlessly) is incoherent. I don’t know what you’re proposing. I’ll say: Until the last created ‘will’ has freely submitted to God, God’s victor will remain incomplete. How’s that?

D: Delivering checkmate is the ultimate goal in chess: a player who is checkmated loses the game. In normal chess the king is never actually captured – the game ends as soon as the king is checkmated because checkmate leaves the defensive player with no legal moves. In practice, most players resign an inevitably lost game before being checkmated. It is considered to be bad etiquette to not resign in a hopeless situation.

Tom: OK, so (A) delivering checkmate is not the ultimate goal with creation. Obtaining a willing resignation is the goal. It IS considered bad etiquette not to resign when the victim has no hope of winning (that’s his particular hopelessness), but (B) hell we have to say, doesn’t remove all ambiguity and provide such perfect clarity that a person could not within reason go on fighting. So hell doesn’t provide the same level of clarity that, say, a losing chess player would perceive about this prospects of winning. The chess player KNOWS, without doubt, that given the rules (he COULD be checkmated), he’s got zero chance of winning. So it’s irrational to keep playing. But a person in hell has room to question his prospects, as painful as his existence will be, because that epistemic distance, which makes rejecting God minimally rational and so responsible.

Tom

Post Edited (One Love) : 5/2/2010 3:02:11 PM (GMT-5)