2 things, Laika:

1) The reason why so many people reject God now is because it's the path of least resistance. Not hard to understand at all. It's hard to explain the problem of evil. It's hard to live according to the golden rule when you have no confidence that God is truly benevolent (given the seemingly inexplicable evils all around us). It's hard to overcome bad habits that are formed early in life due to dysfunctional environments. And so on. But post-mortem, all that changes. Reality comes crashing in at the judgment seat. No outside or self-deception. So the probabilities change drastically.

2) Even if God saves people out of pure mercy, it doesn't mean there is a negation of free-will. Even once we partake of the divine nature we will still have free-will just like God does. We just won't have the same range of possibilities to choose from. We can still choose to create poetry, music, and dance to glorify God, e.g. So to say that God finds it optimally fitting to withhold mercy from the non-elect is to say there is NOTHING that God could appreciate in a divinely enlightened and redeemed sinner. How probable is that? Even if God has to miraculously change their heart (as opposed to their head), is it really probable that God gets greater satisfaction from eternal death than whatever glory and pleasure He could receive from those who at least mentally repent and partake of the divine nature by God's mercy?

As long as you see it as a logical possibility, think about these probabilities some and see if they're not reasonable. The key for me is seeing all the functional bifurcation of God (with respect to LFW) as having to do with the temporal end of Christ's reign and glorification. Beyond that, I don't see why God can't act out of pure mercy with utter non-bifurcation. He would seem to have everything to gain from it and nothing to lose. Whether He does this miraculously or by creating just the right conditions to guarantee a change of mind is irrelevant. God gains either way.

So for me right now, it's a logical possibility, and that's what is important. If it's not a logical possibility, then I want to be corrected, for sure. Like you, I want to know the truth.

Post Edited (jefscott) : 9/25/2006 5:58:51 AM (GMT-5)

OK.  I just want some clarity here.  Given what I’ve read so far, which is only the first five pages (Dudes, you guys move this convo fast, I have to let it sink in!  You probably get to talk about this stuff outside of the boards, so REMEMBER THIS) I can go with the idea that angels can repent for their lack of honoring. I can go with the idea that reconciliation involves the removal of despair.  But…let’s just say that angels cannot love God but all they can do is honor God (which Meph Man is something you really don’t go with [at first]).  That angels can only glorify God from their hearts in an honorific form—I find it hard to comprehend that they can know about the love of God ONLY without having the attendant subjective knowledge of that love like humans have (even dogs “know” love when they experience it).  It seems that they cease to be the sentient beings they are claimed to be—personal (how does one know what love is WITHOUT the subjective know-how?).  Now, this honor is not like your pet’s honoring of you--there is more of an awareness here—thus more personal but as such their lack of honoring God would be something there would be a need for repentance of.

I would think though, along with Corey here, that you can’t have this disjunction between honoring (and thus glorifying God) and love, hence, isn’t there somewhat of a false dichotomy here?  But again, later on you tell Corey he shouldn’t separate these two.

Let’s grant the argument that one can honor something without loving it i.e. your pet’s honoring of you or a servant.  To some large degree, there would be a ceasing of love here (with your pet of course) but not with sentient PERSONAL beings such as angels.  Now, if only humans can glorify God by way of love (which is the highest form of glorification, remember the “Abba Father” thingy?) then it would only make sense to say that angels CAN’T LOVE God, but you Meph Man don’t want to grant that but only for the sake of argument (whereas later on you actually come out and state matter of factly that they can ONLY honor God.  Given that both angel’s and humans CAN despair because of a lack of orienting their existences around God (something that animals cannot do because of a lack of self-awareness) it seems to me that angels CAN love God (and let’s remember that if Satan was someone that had a fundamental intimate relationship with God it’s hard to see why the fall would change THIS aspect of his nature). So what is it?  Mind you, if this is correct, I wonder how this would make the divine/human relationship unique.  See, why it’s sometimes hard to follow your argument?  Again, I’ve only read the first five pages.

OOOOOKeeeeeey.  But it seems that you're not stating anything different here.  You're saying that angels are created for honorific relationships and humans for filial, I’m saying that that doesn’t make sense to me.  If Satan was made for intimate relationship with God and (Tom's) “evil is fundamentally a privation of relational beauty that works itself out through choice, such that it follows that it can only exist in and through sentient beings who have SOME remnant of relational capacity” then it seems that that relational capacity has to be MORE THAN honorific—the “bonus” if you will.

Whether relational or honorific, so far I don’t have a problem with the idea that reconciliation is the removal of despair in their respective categories though. I just struggle with the idea that Satan and his co-horts are NOT within the first category—relational.

Does this help?