Dang!

I finally got through this thread. Sat here and read some eight pages. I am NEVER getting this far behind again.

Some of my thoughts.

If universalism is true, and God has known this, then all people have been predestined to be saved. What seems to be going on in Meph's (and perhaps Corey's) thinking is presenting a manner in which LFW is preserved while arriving at predestination: leave the option of deliberation (for trying or not trying God) open infinitely. So, on the left side of the ledger, God has known all will be saved; in the middle of the ledger, the deliberation wrestles in an infinite (or bottomless pit) arena; and on the right side of the ledger, all are saved.

I posted much earlier that I felt it was possible that in the end, when all is said and done, ultimately none of us has the choice to opt for an eternity apart from God. It seemed evident that this was the case when God first spoke with Adam about eating of the fruit of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God never left the option for "life" to Adam were he to eat of the tree. We just assume, however, that death for Adam, since he did choose to eat of the tree, is everlasting and accompanied with suffering. Indeed elsewhere scripture seems to suggest this. But it is absurd, as most would agree here, to hang someone over burning coals of fire for eternity merely because they didn't accept Christ or had committed sins. I think, too, it is absurd to expect all people, everywhere, of all times to be able to think through and conclude the existence of only one God, this God's holiness, that we are all sinners, that there must be a sacrifice and all those things that are argued for in Romans 1. (Romans 1, however, is not in context of the generic, but the specific: those who sin AND KNOW THEY ARE DOING WRONG. It is not Paul's point that all men do, in fact, know but repress the truth. As if it were really that simple and clear.)

Further, I feel that it is possible that biblical and extra-biblical talk about ECP has a broader culturally contextualized understanding than "by golly, in a million, billion years, you'll still be on fire." I think there is room to interpret ECP by the same manner and method many interpret the seven days of creation, Adam and Eve, the flood or many other accounts in scripture: not literal but theological. In essence, ECP may very well turn out to mean nothing more than people will get their just desserts, and never ultimately meaning eternal suffering. (It is, absurd, as I noted in earlier posts, to adhere to the extra-biblical renditions of hell as literal. It is ridiculous, in my opinion, to think that the descriptions we are given of hell is really, really, the way it will be. Rather, point of these teachings and settings seems to be that one will get his or her, just desserts.

While in hell...

What state of spirit and mind options are there possible for deliberation. What is the reality of a metaphysic that must, in my opinion, offer more than mental deliberation? It isn't enough to suggest that all deliberation can be wrought about by only the mind. Like putting flesh and blood on something, putting spirit and mind on a post-mortem life must mean that deliberations and options must be capable of being tested. One must be able to deliberate, choose AND execute the choice, just as we do today. Just because one is only spirit and mind in the underworld can not do away with the need of trial-by-error if a true choice is to be both made and discovered for it is or is not worth.

Say I'm in hell. I'm spirit and mind (one in the same, if you please). I'm aware that things are not what they were (I am dead). Can I see? Can I touch? Do I have only the ability to sit ethereally and think, not being mobile? If I think of having things or being somewhere that I believe makes me feel better (like Saul asking for David to play the harp), am I only allowed to imagine these things and then deduce their worth from that context? What about sex? If I "know" that sex is what makes me fulfilled, can I only imagine it or do I get to test it? Whatever, there must be more than just mental deliberation in the post-mortem state if LFW is to have much value.

Dying to self:

Biblically, the "self" never literally dies, anymore than one's spirit is not literally "born again," as if we could watch the spirit being reborn or washed up and made all nice and tighty when one accepts Christ as Savior. To die to self is to recon ones' self FREE, by faith, from the stranglehold of sin, the mental control under sin, the death that results from living in sin, AND THEN TO ACT UPON the new found freedom. When Christ died, at some point He departed from His body, forever free from its stronghold under the human element. Though not a sinner, He was still subject to the atmosphere of sin and confines under which sin places the human being. Once Christ died, that confinement ended forever. Even though He resurrected His body, it is no longer subject to the human element. And along with His resurrction comes the opportunity for us to walk in a newnewss of life in His freedom. As He went, so we went. As He died, so we died. As He rose from the dead, so we walk in newness of life (Rom 6). This is the essence of dying to self: walking in the above (the new-found freedom) instead of walking in the below.

Question: What, then, is dying to self in the post-mortem existence? Is gone the "old nature"? Is there a new freedom that is found (None of these are what have been described in the final analysis for an understanding of the rock-bottom experience as I've understood it in these threads)? Are the post-mortem still under the bondage of sin—slaves to death? A post-mortem "dying to self"cannot mean the same as it means for the Christian. We should at least ensure this clarification.

Over all, I think Meph and Corey's work here is extremely valuable. It should be written up formally in some point in time and offered as a contribution. I think, though, there are still real metaphysical issues that need to be wrestled with in order to flush out difficulties with the deliberation process. We put flesh and blood on our analogies to drive home the reality of a point, and we should put on the same (though we'll call it spirit and mind) do drive home the reality of post-mortem experience. We should walk through the literality of a metaphysic that will satisfy the need for spirit and mind to deliberate if we are to find more acceptance in the process.

I'm just glad I FINALLY finished this thread. That was the longest it has ever taken me to read a thread to the end!

Starkman