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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/15/2006 8:57 AM (GMT -6) |   | Jeff:
Aseity can not render impossible the intrinsic value of a creature. Otherwise, by limiting the objects of a divinely BESTOWED value/significance (ruling out animals, e.g.), we undermine our ability to determine conclusively WHO the objects of God's love ARE. Maybe this is why hyper-Calvinists have no problem with their view of God's love--because their view of aseity renders it as plausible as any other.
We need to get straight on this one. Aseity DOESN'T take away intrinsic value of contingent reality. God always aesthetically appreciates all reality that exists. What we say is that
God's aseity means that creation doesn't increase God's INTENSITY of beautiful experience...and therefore doesn't contribute to God's aesthetic satisfaction with respect to beautiful experience. This is distinct from saying that contingent reality has NO intrinsic value.
In other words, even though God is "infinitely high" off of God's own loving sociality, God was WILLING to accept the existence of more. And if God's telos deals with giving and receiving LOVE...and love comes from a seat of PERSONHOOD...then we can say that Being Y must be a person. Even though God is going to restore Creation, it is PERSONS that God wants unbroken, unbreakable loving RELATIONSHIP with.
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2) Whatever is hindering the ultimate good of all objects of God's love, NOW, must NOT be capable of doing so LATER. So we must know with certainty WHAT causes are hindering God now and that THEY (the causes) will cease to do so eventually. Proving these two things conclusively with philosophical argument, alone, seems difficult to me.
The major things holding things up now (according to SATPOE) are 1) The 6 Theses including TWT 1 and 2) the current "probationary period" Neither of these things will be an issue, following the rock-bottom experience. We don't NEED to exhaustively explain all the causes, Jeff.
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Jeff:
Consequently, when folks like Doc say they hope for universalism but say it falls short of knowledge, I assume they mean something like what I'm arguing above.
If we are going to say that ALL theological systems should be considered tentative and "short of knowledge", fine. I can go with that. What I can say is that, given all we've talked about, I feel that eventual universal reconciliation is the MOST PLAUSIBLE eschatological position that reconciles an all-loving, all-powerful, infinitely-intelligent God who really desires the "trinification" of Creation.
Post Edited (MephEternal) : 1/15/2006 8:00:37 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Corey
Five with a Four-wing
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1893
| Posted 1/15/2006 9:06 AM (GMT -6) | |
Meph: It's talking about the PROCESS of truly giving oneself to God without ANY reservation or anxiety. All I wanted to articulate with Steps 8-10 is that, following the leap into trusting God, there is a developmental GROWTH process into becoming a totally loving creature. Moral perfection is NOT instant...and does NOT occur when one takes the leap. There is a process by which the being gives MORE and MORE of itself over to God (and subjectively appropriates more and more of God's love) without any reservation of any type. Solidification INTO God's love operates by choices, experiences of love, and renewed self-understanding in light of those experiences. The post-rock-bottomer is "learning" to love like God loves more and more over time.
Okay. Not wanting to again muddy these waters that have started to clear, but this is one area that I don't have settled yet. Remember a few pages ago when I mentioned that although there is a process of growing in deeper love with God, nonetheless, there ought to be an instantaneous moment when the person has passed from death to life, becomes alive to Christ, born-again.. (insert various other biblical phrases here.)
So let's clarify... what is the constitution of the person who has gone post-rock-bottom? I'll posit that if anything defines him, it's that he's died to self. It's NOT that he knows he needs to do this, it's that he HAS DIED. EVERYTHING false in this person's previous understanding of self has been irrevocably abandoned. I wouldn't want to say that this is because of some limitation on LFW, but rather make a counter-analogy to the phrase "taste and see that the Lord is good"... this person has tasted and seen (proved in an intimate, first-hand, properly basic sort of way) that there is no life to be found in these other avenues.
So whatever model we want to describe to show that he will grow in deeper, ever-expanding love and faith, I really think we ought to account for this moment, this point behind which the person will NEVER retreat.
Put another way, I wonder how much sanctification is left to be done by the post-rock-bottomer. If he's completely DIED (past-tense) to self, then his "becoming alive" process is something different than what we ourselves struggle with in this earthly life.Post Edited (Corey) : 1/15/2006 8:13:53 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/15/2006 9:07 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
I'm trying to get on the Love Train, but it's moving too fast.
Ok, ok. Dang.
Could you at least lay out the remaining reservations you are having about this for me in list form? At least I'll know EXACTLY what they are...as I'm thinking through things.
The newest mantra:
God graciously FINDS us meaningful when God doesn't need to do it and we, in ourselves, can't do it.
"Hmm. Why not? What the hell. Let's try it."
--God
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/15/2006 9:20 AM (GMT -6) | | Corey:
Okay. Not wanting to again muddy these waters that have started to clear, but this is one area that I don't have settled yet. Remember a few pages ago when I mentioned that although there is a process of growing in deeper love with God, nonetheless, there ought to be an instantaneous moment when the person has passed from death to life, becomes alive to Christ, born-again.. (insert various other biblical phrases here.)
So let's clarify... what is the constitution of the person who has gone post-rock-bottom? I'll posit that if anything defines him, it's that he's died to self. It's NOT that he knows he needs to do this, it's that he HAS DIED. EVERYTHING false in this person's previous understanding of self has been irrevocably abandoned. I wouldn't want to say that this is because of some limitation on LFW, but rather make a counter-analogy to the phrase "taste and see that the Lord is good"... this person has tasted and seen (proved in an intimate, first-hand, properly basic sort of way that there is no life to be found in these other avenues.)
So whatever model we want to describe to show that he will grow in deeper, ever-expanding love and faith, I really think we ought to account for this moment, this point behind which the person will NEVER retreat.
1) The post-rock-bottomer HAS DIED to self. And is seeking to "come alive" to something else.
2) The existential leap into trusting God leads to more and more experience of love and satisfaction. It is assured that more this person experiences God, they more they will want. After trusting God bears fruit, the only deliberation that the being has is wondering if this experience will be ENDURING.
"Man, something's FINALLY working here. But can I really trust this God to KEEP helping me?
It's just like new believers in Christianity. Just because a person intially trusts Christ for their lives DOESN'T MEAN that they have instant unshakable faith in God in all things. There is an experiential growth process that engenders this. The more a believer experiences God's trustworthiness, the more that belief grows.
Or it's like a man in a desert that has seen so many illusory oases...that when he comes upon an ACTUAL one...he doesn't fully trust things, even though he's actually experiencing things. But the more he exists in the oasis, the more sure he's found what he's been looking for.
The whole "This is too good to be true" idea.
Does all this answer your issue?
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Corey:
Put another way, I wonder how much sanctification is left to be done by the post-rock-bottomer. If he's completely DIED (past-tense) to self, then his "becoming alive" process is something different than what we ourselves struggle with in this earthly life.
The only real difference between the "becoming alive" process and the one we experience now is that the post-rock-bottomer doesn't have to worry about the "dead man" resurrecting again like we do. In other words, on this side of things, human beings NEVER get to a point where they have COMPLETELY died to themselves. The "old man" ALWAYS seems to come back to life, in some form or fashion such that we have to KEEP killing it.
Post-rock-bottom, that "old man" STAYS dead. No coming back.
See the difference?Post Edited (MephEternal) : 1/15/2006 8:27:35 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/15/2006 9:22 AM (GMT -6) | | I tell ya...
When we get ALL these P's about 98% satisfied...I'll be WAY happy!
I LOOOOOOVE y'all!
The newest mantra:
God graciously FINDS us meaningful when God doesn't need to do it and we, in ourselves, can't do it.
"Hmm. Why not? What the hell. Let's try it."
--God
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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 1/15/2006 9:51 AM (GMT -6) | | | Meph: In other words, even though God is "infinitely high" off of God's own loving sociality, God was WILLING to accept the existence of more. And if God's telos deals with giving and receiving LOVE...and love comes from a seat of PERSONHOOD...then we can say that Being Y must be a person. Even though God is going to restore Creation, it is PERSONS that God wants unbroken, unbreakable loving RELATIONSHIP with.
Jeff: But if God is "infinitely high" off of God's own loving sociality, then we're right back to the conclusion that what we contribute to God's satisfaction is relatively meaningless, right? And if this is so, two things seem to follow:
1) God will NOT mourn eternally over the loss of animals or those who defy Him.
2) It is questionable that the difference in aesthetic pleasure derived from the "probation period" vs. the eventual "ultimate good" could be significant enough to justify the current suffering. Once we start trying to justify the suffering of the objects of God's love in terms of the DEGREE of God's satisfaction, we need to START with a scale of God's satisfaction that isn't relatively meaningless in the first place. Otherwise, that suffering seems unnecessary and, hence, contrary to perfect love.
Meph: We don't NEED to exhaustively explain all the causes, Jeff.
...If we are going to say that ALL theological systems should be considered tentative and "short of knowledge", fine. I can go with that. What I can say is that, given all we've talked about, I feel that eventual universal reconciliation is the MOST PLAUSIBLE eschatological position that reconciles an all-loving, all-powerful, infinitely-intelligent God who really desires the "trinification" of Creation.
Jeff: Two things:
1) The suffering issue I brought up above is directly related to most folks' view of love. So the plausibility of perfect love being reconciled with suffering that is profoundly significant to the human, while being relatively meaningless to God, is problematic to them. I can relate to this objection. So I can see why any other philosopher might.
2) Some people think it's safer to start with scripture and work out a theology, therefrom. Again, this is probably rooted in their belief that truth is somehow conducive to community, and they have no idea how a uniquely christian community would work with philosophy, alone. So a lack of an exhaustive philosophical explanation is relevant for them given that it is ANOTHER problem for universalism.
If we abandon scripture as a constraint on our hypotheses, I would say that your arguments seem as plausible as some other philosophical arguments I've heard. But I doubt that Doc or the others you mentioned feel free to judge it's plausibility ONLY in terms of philosophical coherence. They probably feel a need to relate ANY trinitarian theory to scripture in SOME WAY. So this fact inevitably weighs in their evaluation of plausibility. I think this is not entirely unphilosophical. For you have not provided your own explanation of how a christian community could work apart from scripture.
But I would also say that there is at least one other way to keep glory from subordinating love. Maybe God creates to GLORIFY Christ. This glorification is an act of God's love towards Christ. Thus, whatever glorifies Christ is necessarily love for him. But God cannot do unnecessary evil to His creatures for this would not glorify Christ. But in this scenario, there may be instances where Christ's maximal glory trumps the greatest good of the creature. This is a different TELOS, but it is still about love for a PERSON. Our value, then, would be contingent upon our contribution to THAT TELOS. It also seems to escape the problematic implications of reconciling unconditional love for the creature with the sufferings they undergo.
Post Edited (jefscott) : 1/15/2006 9:08:09 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/15/2006 10:12 AM (GMT -6) | | Meph: In other words, even though God is "infinitely high" off of God's own loving sociality, God was WILLING to accept the existence of more. And if God's telos deals with giving and receiving LOVE...and love comes from a seat of PERSONHOOD...then we can say that Being Y must be a person. Even though God is going to restore Creation, it is PERSONS that God wants unbroken, unbreakable loving RELATIONSHIP with.
Jeff: But if God is "infinitely high" off of God's own loving sociality, then we're right back to the conclusion that what we contribute to God's satisfaction is relatively meaningless, right? And if this is so, two things seem to follow:
1) God will NOT mourn eternally over the loss of animals or those who defy Him.
2) It is questionable that the difference in aesthetic pleasure derived from the "probation period" vs. the eventual "ultimate good" could be significant enough to justify the current suffering. Once we start trying to justify the suffering of the objects of God's love in terms of the DEGREE of God's satisfaction, we need to START with a scale of God's satisfaction that isn't relatively meaningless in the first place. Otherwise, that suffering seems unnecessary and, hence, contrary to perfect love.
Ok...ok...
I think I've said this before. When God makes the choice to create, it was a free choice. God was JUST FINE without Creation. However, when He chose to create, that decision also implies God's willingness to have a contingent expression, where more beautiful experience (complexity wise) could be experience. God was cool with this. Also, the choice to create is coterminous with the choice to relate to all Creation from God's unsurpassably intense love.
If you go back and read all that stuff we talked about with this, you'll see that God's does receive "more" or "less" beautiful experience from Creation that genuinely adds to the TOTAL amount of beautiful experience God has. So there WOULD be a meaningful difference between the "probationary period" state and the "ultimate good" state...where the ultimate good state contributes MORE beautiful experience via loving sociality than any other previous state.
God works through a TWT 1-conducive world to bring about a state of affairs where all person who then exist are in unbroken and unbreakable loving sociality with God.
Please tell me that we are NOT going backwards here.
The newest mantra:
God graciously FINDS us meaningful when God doesn't need to do it and we, in ourselves, can't do it.
"Hmm. Why not? What the hell. Let's try it."
--God
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/15/2006 10:17 AM (GMT -6) | | Jeff: (emphasis mine)
But I would also say that there is at least one other way to keep glory from subordinating love. Maybe God creates to GLORIFY Christ. This glorification is an act of God's love towards Christ. Thus, whatever glorifies Christ is necessarily love for him. But God cannot do unnecessary evil to His creatures for this would not glorify Christ. But in this scenario, there may be instances where Christ's maximal glory trumps the greatest good of the creature. This is a different TELOS, but it is still about love for a PERSON. Our value, then, would be contingent upon our contribution to THAT TELOS. It also seems to escape the problematic implications of reconciling unconditional love for the creature with the sufferings they undergo/.
Dang. I wish you were here when we did all the talk on the "glorification idea". I think this would help this part! But I don't want to get back into all of that right now.
For the sake of simplicity, just GO with what you are talking about. Is there a problem now?
The newest mantra:
God graciously FINDS us meaningful when God doesn't need to do it and we, in ourselves, can't do it.
"Hmm. Why not? What the hell. Let's try it."
--God
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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 1/15/2006 10:19 AM (GMT -6) | | | Meph: If you go back and read all that stuff we talked about with this, you'll see that God's does receive "more" or "less" beautiful experience from Creation that genuinely adds to the TOTAL amount of beautiful experience God has. So there WOULD be a meaningful difference between the "probationary period" state and the "ultimate good" state...where the ultimate good state contributes MORE beautiful experience via loving sociality than any other previous state.
Jeff: I could of swore you used the phrase "relatively meaningless" just a few days ago. Maybe I'm wrong. But what I hear you saying NOW is that we contribute MEANINGFUL pleasure to God. This, then, brings me back to what that whole aseity issue was about . I was thinking you had argued there that if God finds MEANINGFUL significance/pleasure in His creatures, then God is bound to some necessary God-world relationship. Am I remembering that wrong?
Meph: For the sake of simplicity, just GO with what you are talking about. Is there a problem now?
Jeff: I've never had a problem with the possibility of universalism. It's proving it that I have problem with. So help me with what I said above.
Post Edited (jefscott) : 1/15/2006 9:22:02 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/15/2006 10:28 AM (GMT -6) | | Meph: If you go back and read all that stuff we talked about with this, you'll see that God's does receive "more" or "less" beautiful experience from Creation that genuinely adds to the TOTAL amount of beautiful experience God has. So there WOULD be a meaningful difference between the "probationary period" state and the "ultimate good" state...where the ultimate good state contributes MORE beautiful experience via loving sociality than any other previous state.
Jeff: I could of swore you used the phrase "relatively meaningless" just a few days ago. Maybe I'm wrong. But what I hear you saying NOW is that we contribute MEANINGFUL pleasure to God. This, then, brings me back to what that whole aseity issue was about. I was thinking you had argued there that if God finds MEANINGFUL significance/pleasure in His creatures, then God is bound to some necessary God-world relationship. Am I remembering that wrong?
The whole reason I use the term "relatively meaningless, is because the point of reference from whence we are speak is the God's aesthetic satisifaction with respect to beautiful experience becuase of God's unsurpassably INTENSE experience of Godself. We cannot increase God's depth of beautiful experience. We CAN and DO increase the breadth or variety of God's beautiful experience. This is how Creation forms God's contingent expression. When God creates Creation, God has made the choice to accept and appreciate a "more than sufficient" amount of beautiful experience.
So we are not absolutely meaningless. We are relatively meaningless. | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 1/15/2006 12:04 PM (GMT -6) | | | Meph: We cannot increase God's depth of beautiful experience. We CAN and DO increase the breadth or variety of God's beautiful experience. This is how Creation forms God's contingent expression. When God creates Creation, God has made the choice to accept and appreciate a "more than sufficient" amount of beautiful experience.
Jeff: I would say, then, that we DO have a kind of absolute significance in that novel mode whereby we contribute to God's satisfaction. But let's address the following point before we proceed:
I understood you to say that God's creation was a result of His disposition. Now if God is eternal and has some disposition to increase beautiful experience, then how do we get around the necessary God-world relationship? It would seem that God either continuously creates to experience novel beauty OR, He sits around for an eternity with an omniscience about all possible modes of beautiful experience WITHOUT acting on that knowledge. But to restrain from acting on knowledge about how to INCREASE beautiful experience seems to contradict the fact that God HAS such a disposition.
We could get around this by denying the temporality of God, but this is counter-intuitive to me. The other way is to deny that God is eternally omniscient, but that would contradict the Anselmian or ontological approach to philosophical speculation about God's attributes--including those about His love. Another way to get around it is to assume that God creates eternally, but assume that He does so INDEPENDENT of any satisfaction He derives from it. But that negates the TELOS in question. I see philosophical problems no matter which way we go.
And because of the fuzziness involved in reconciling the above, I think it's fair to remain cautious about being dogmatic concerning claims like this one:
Conscious SUFFERING in the present is significantly less important to God than cessation of consciousness.
This may be true, but given the above problems, I don't see how we can be that sure about it.
Post Edited (jefscott) : 1/15/2006 11:21:28 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/15/2006 12:22 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff:
I would say, then, that we DO have a kind of absolute significance in that novel mode whereby we contribute to God's satisfaction.
Novel modes of beautiful experience doesn't contribute to God's aesthetic satisfaction for beautiful experience. THAT is satisfied in Godself. What it does to is increase the amount of total beautiful experience in God's contingent expression. This is very important to distinguish.
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Jeff:
I understood you to say that God's creation was a result of His disposition. Now if God is eternal and has some disposition to increase beautiful experience, then how do we get around the necessary God-world relationship? It would seem that God either continuously creates to experience novel beauty OR, He sits around for an eternity with an omniscience about all possible modes of beautiful experience WITHOUT acting on that knowledge. But to restrain from acting on knowledge about how to INCREASE beautiful experience seems to contradict the fact that God HAS such a disposition.
Slowly...
God's disposition for increasing and appreciating beautiful experience is SATISFIED in Godself. The unsurpassably intense experience of beauty within Godself does this...hence the term aesthetic satisfaction. This is what makes Creation a FREE ACT. God didn't need to do it. (This is what stops the necessary God/world relationship.)
However...
God FREELY CHOSE to actualize Creation as a mode of God's contingent expression of God's essential existence. In so doing, he interacts with Creation from that essential existence. So, God's dispositional aim to maximize beauty via loving sociality plays out in Creation as an EXPRESSION of God's inner life. So even though Creation is not necessary, now that it exists, God wants to maximize beautiful experience via loving sociality in it BECAUSE that is an expression of God's essential existence.
I believe we discussed all of this in that other thread.
The newest mantra:
God graciously FINDS us meaningful when God doesn't need to do it and we, in ourselves, can't do it.
"Hmm. Why not? What the hell. Let's try it."
--God
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/15/2006 12:30 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff:
And because of the fuzziness involved in reconciling the above, I think it's fair to remain cautious about being dogmatic concerning claims like this one:
Conscious SUFFERING in the present is significantly less important to God than cessation of consciousness.
This may be true, but given the above problems, I don't see how we can be that sure about it.
So THIS is what this is about?
If we can say that God, in God's contingent expression, gets beautiful experience via loving sociality from sapient, sentient creatures who choose to love him, it makes sense to me that OVERALL it would better for these beings to continue to exist in a system of eventual universal reconciliation...than it would be to annihilate them outright at some point. If God annihilates them, that DECREASES the overall amount of beautiful experience via loving sociality in the long run.
The newest mantra:
God graciously FINDS us meaningful when God doesn't need to do it and we, in ourselves, can't do it.
"Hmm. Why not? What the hell. Let's try it."
--God
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/15/2006 12:35 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff:
You probably did, but once those arguments turn into a Meph vs. Tom debate, I lose interest. Because typically, Tom argues points that I would not argue and the sheer volume of those volleys is too hard to keep up with. Anyway, I don't have time right now as I'm fixing to have to leave the house. I'll check your last post later and get back with you.
Yeah. See, this happens a lot with me. POW is right. For some reason, I remember pretty much EVERYTHING I've discussed before on other threads...and those insights contextualize all of my thinking from that time forward. So it's like this. Whenever I start a new thread, that new thread assumes ALL the core insights gleaned from other important threads. My thought has a web-like structure like that. So if someone hasn't read those posts or at least don't know the major outcomes of those and then asks about them, I feel like "Man, didn't we already DEAL with that??"
[Kinda the way Tom feels when someone new comes to the board and says something like "Excuse me, but could you explain why open view theism denies God's omniscience?" Ain't that right, Tom?  But that's MY perception because of the way my mind works. That's why I'm beginning to think it's futile to me to try to argue for universalism. There's SO MUCH that goes into it...you'd barely get into it before SOMEONE gets tired out and understandbly so. I don't know. I think it'll probably help to get this skeleton down...and THEN condense it all to flesh everything out. Like a FAQ kinda thing. "Well, what about ...and what about ...?" This "stream-of-consciousness" approach is exciting but tiring too. Well, it's at least helpful for me to know what I believe and why. And these things are GREAT for honing my own thoughts. Post Edited (MephEternal) : 1/15/2006 11:47:31 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Corey
Five with a Four-wing
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1893
| Posted 1/15/2006 2:36 PM (GMT -6) | |
MephEternal said...
The whole "This is too good to be true" idea.
Does all this answer your issue?
Yep. You may be surprised that in my own way I'm actually pushing for some closure here... doin' a J thing. (By the way, it's pretty cool that Greg preached on this "too good to be true" thing today!)
I've been processing this and considering other people's comments. Like Tom, for example, said:
I'm still trying to figure out this rock-bottom thing. It looks to me like what you've described right here, Corey, is often times the actual experience of people in this life. People DO sometimes hit rock-bottom so hard that they really DO 'know' intimately that their own resources are absolutely futile. There's no reason to suppose such knowledge is impossible in this life and overwhelming reason to think people every day around the world make this discovery. They really do abandon all hope of finding WITHIN THEMSELVES the answer to the gnawing sense of futitlity that haunts them. So what's the difference between people who make this discovery in this life and those who make it in the life to come (assuming the post-mortem rock-bottom expeirence is some 'unique' last-ditch effort of God to reach people)?
There's an intuition here that I share: symmetry is beautiful. I believe there's a beauty to be found if we continue to refine this model to have clearer defined symmetry. The way that one comes to relate rightly with God in both this present age and in the one we're positing should share the same basic features: (1) dying to sin/self, (2) seeking righteousness (deliberating, in our terms here) and (3) becoming alive to/through Christ.
I'm having trouble getting this intuition into words, so please bear with me a bit. I'm feeling that some aspects of this model MAY be perceived as God having different salvation plans at different times. I have an urge to oppose that. And the converse... I want to the beauty of God's "stuff" to be shine clearly. Light on a hill stuff.
Again, just intuition, but I feel that there may yet be a bit of "retrograde motion" (alluding to ptolemeic astronomy) in our model that we can explain more elegantly. Unfortunately, I'm not even clear what the specific items are that Occham would have us trim down. (I know that will drive you nuts, Meph!) Ughh.. I'm frustrated with my own inarticulateness here!
Let's look for similarities between coming to Christ in this life vs. coming to Christ in the next. Maybe the comparison will yield something fruitful by way of analogy. I'm hoping the similarities are profound, and the differences are few and non-essential.
For one thing, I intuit that if this symmetry can be shown, it will help us in the discussion of scripture and universalism. It will be easier if we can show that this is the same basic plan of salvation that scripture describes now. Post Edited (Corey) : 1/15/2006 1:56:20 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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| Posted 1/15/2006 5:17 PM (GMT -6) | | |
Meph: Well, it's at least helpful for me to know what I believe and why. And these things are GREAT for honing my own thoughts.
Jeff: Right. By the time you're done articulating it on this forum, you'll be able to write the quintessential "Universalism for Dummies" book!!
Meph: If we can say that God, in God's contingent expression, gets beautiful experience via loving sociality from sapient, sentient creatures who choose to love him, it makes sense to me that OVERALL it would better for these beings to continue to exist in a system of eventual universal reconciliation...than it would be to annihilate them outright at some point. If God annihilates them, that DECREASES the overall amount of beautiful experience via loving sociality in the long run.
Jeff: Right. IF experience of beauty is the TELOS, then we're done, I would say. In fact, I would say that we're done independent of the LFW factor that Tom is so concerned about. If God just gave everyone the Spirit and regenerated their heart, THAT would be beautiful wouldn't it? So I'm definitely with you there IF the true TELOS is the one your positing. But...
Meph: God's disposition for increasing and appreciating beautiful experience is SATISFIED in Godself. The unsurpassably intense experience of beauty within Godself does this...hence the term aesthetic satisfaction. This is what makes Creation a FREE ACT. God didn't need to do it. (This is what stops the necessary God/world relationship.)
Jeff: I hear you saying that God's disposition for beautiful experience is not, after all, the motivation for God's creative activity. If not, then how can we know that beautiful experience IS the TELOS of creation? The TELOS is the contemplated PURPOSE of the creation, is it not?
Meph: God FREELY CHOSE to actualize Creation as a mode of God's contingent expression of God's essential existence. In so doing, he interacts with Creation from that essential existence. So, God's dispositional aim to maximize beauty via loving sociality plays out in Creation as an EXPRESSION of God's inner life. So even though Creation is not necessary, now that it exists, God wants to maximize beautiful experience via loving sociality in it BECAUSE that is an expression of God's essential existence.
Jeff: Back to the necessary God-world relationship. As I understand a free choice, such a choice is intelligent; i.e., it is cognizant and contemplative of the pleasure the action will bring. And this pleasure constitutes the motive. But if God is eternally omniscient, He ALWAYS knew of the pleasure it would bring. So the question becomes, why did He postpone that pleasure? This is what seems inexplicable to me if God is eternally omniscient. Why would God choose to forego pleasure? Was there something else to be gained, thereby?
The only way I know how to make intuitive sense of God's creative choice is to suppose that God thought of something NEW from His dynamic interaction with the other person(s) of the godhead. THEN, God could say, "why not, let's try it." But this rules out eternal omniscience, and with it, the Anselmian approach. Hence, the philosophical problem I spoke of.
And this is why I hold to a kind of process theology, pre-creation. The process or becoming is what occurs INTRA-godhead in their loving interaction with one another. Then, creation is imagined and realized BECAUSE of that INTRA-godhead dynamic interaction. Creation, then, is not necessary. It results from free, spontaneous interaction.
Post Edited (jefscott) : 1/15/2006 5:31:20 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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JEE
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| Posted 1/16/2006 3:36 PM (GMT -6) | |
Corey said...
Here's a quote from Clark Pinnock:
Everlasting torture is intolerable from a moral point of view because it pictures God acting like a bloodthirsty monster who maintains an everlasting Auschwitz for his enemies whom he does not allow to die. How can one love a God like that? I suppose one might be afraid of him, but could we love and respect him? Would we want to strive to be like him in such mercilessness?
The view of ECP that I hold to keeps in mind that in RIGHTEOUSLY condemning rebels/sinners against His Rule to Hell, God is definitely NOT acting as a "bloodthirsty monster" such as Hitler was. Rebels against God's holy, righteous BENEVOLENCE could NEVER be happy in heaven, for they could not have their own way there. Hell is the absolute BEST God can do for them, given their wicked, hard hearts.
Painting God's consigning of eternal criminals against His LOVE, as a "bloodthirsty monster" is an extremely biased caricaturization, which only serves to prejudice the issue.
John
Post Edited (JEE) : 1/17/2006 2:16:54 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 1/16/2006 4:16 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom: (emphasis mine)
Yeah, the idea that ECP is morally intolerable because it pictures God as a bloodthirsty monster is off the mark, since one can always (as John) does suggest that hell is chosen. I'd agree that the version of hell which pictures God as holding people in hell eternally against their will is monstrous. There's no fulfillment of justice in such a thing. BUT...if it's possible that a person can rationally and irrevocably choose hell, then EPC could survive without God's being a monster. John's arguing (with Jerry Walls) that such an irrevocable and rational choice IS possible, that's all. I don't know if such a choice is possible. I'm almost certain it's not.
Exactly, Tom.
*****************************
Corey:
believe there's a beauty to be found if we continue to refine this model to have clearer defined symmetry. The way that one comes to relate rightly with God in both this present age and in the one we're positing should share the same basic features: (1) dying to sin/self, (2) seeking righteousness (deliberating, in our terms here) and (3) becoming alive to/through Christ.
I'm having trouble getting this intuition into words, so please bear with me a bit. I'm feeling that some aspects of this model MAY be perceived as God having different salvation plans at different times. I have an urge to oppose that. And the converse... I want to the beauty of God's "stuff" to be shine clearly. Light on a hill stuff.
Again, just intuition, but I feel that there may yet be a bit of "retrograde motion" (alluding to ptolemeic astronomy) in our model that we can explain more elegantly. Unfortunately, I'm not even clear what the specific items are that Occham would have us trim down. (I know that will drive you nuts, Meph!) Ughh.. I'm frustrated with my own inarticulateness here!
Let's look for similarities between coming to Christ in this life vs. coming to Christ in the next. Maybe the comparison will yield something fruitful by way of analogy. I'm hoping the similarities are profound, and the differences are few and non-essential.
For one thing, I intuit that if this symmetry can be shown, it will help us in the discussion of scripture and universalism. It will be easier if we can show that this is the same basic plan of salvation that scripture describes now.
Sounds cool to me. Let's start with how people come to Christ in this life. What's the process as you see it, Corey?
The newest mantra:
God graciously FINDS us meaningful when God doesn't need to do it and we, in ourselves, can't do it.
"Hmm. Why not? What the hell. Let's try it."
--God
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JEE
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| Posted 1/17/2006 3:25 AM (GMT -6) | | I wouldn't say HELL is chosen, but that REJECTION of God's love certainly is.
I also don't see why the general perspective of freewill theism is any less optimistic than what I'm hearing being for the most part argued for on this board--"hopefulness" that God will do all He can to save all he can.
Affirming that ALL can ultimately and finally choose God or self (as freewill theism emphatically affirms) is precisely the same thing. Back when I first starting visiting this board in 2002, I remember where Doc raised the objection to my view (and that of the scriptures) that "without holiness no one would see God," that if true, it would mean very FEW would be saved. That was simply Doc's assumption, and a rather pessimistic one at that if you think about it. Saying that all people have the ability to choose God's benevolent rulership in their lives (or not) is neither optimistic nor pessimistic necessarily, though obviously it is a very hard word for the sinner to hear--it lays the blame for sin precisely upon the sinner. It is simply recognizing and affirming freedom to choose morally one way or the other (libertarianism). Arminianism and basically every other freewillism out there has always affirmed potential universalism, that all COULD be saved if they WOULD be saved.
It seems to me that implicit within all attempts to posit the possibility of POSTMORTEM repentance and faith is the idea that God somehow hasn't given each person ENOUGH CHANCE in this life to know Him. Romans chs. 1 & 2 as well as Acts 10 and Acts 17, among others, seem to clearly argue just the opposite. Man's problem is not that he doesn't KNOW enough, it is that He "suppresses the truth in unrighteousness" (Rom. 1) because He DOES NOT WANT to acknowledge God, as clear as God's revelation to man has always been. As Paul says in Romans 1:20, all men are without excuse.
The Bible nowhere indicates that ignorance sends anyone to hell; SIN (a willful transgression of a known law) is what brings God's righteous condemnation upon a soul. (Rom. 1, 2, & 3; Ezek. 18, 1 John 3:4-9)
Acts 17:23 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. 24 God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; 25 Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; 26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; 27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: 28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. 29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. 30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: 31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.
Acts 10:34 Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: 35 But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.
Romans 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
John
Post Edited (JEE) : 1/17/2006 2:40:25 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 1/20/2006 7:01 AM (GMT -6) | | Corey:
I'm still chewing over this... contemplating the language used in Rom 6:11 as it pertains to our discussion here: "... count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus."
We've been talking about the double movement being about first dying to SELF. Maybe our usage is conceptually different than Paul's usage? Is dying to SIN a broader category?
Our current way of speaking about inward vs. outward categories seems imprecise. Not sure exactly what language to use instead... maybe we should just use the categories that Paul did: dead to sin / alive to God.
It would help me to know where you think the imprecision is. But maybe this will help...
Our concepts:
(1) dying to sin/self, (2) seeking righteousness/life (deliberating, in our terms here) and (3) becoming alive to/through Christ.
I think that our concepts describe the main intutions of two biblical ideas:
1) Death to sin is necessary for being alive to Christ.
2) In order to truly gain one's life, one must be willing to lose their lives.
Thoughts?
The newest mantra:
God graciously FINDS us meaningful when God doesn't need to do it and we, in ourselves, can't do it.
"Hmm. Why not? What the hell. Let's try it."
--God
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