Post Edited (Exousia) : 1/28/2007 9:10:36 AM (GMT-6)

In bits and pieces…

Exousia: Now, what I do take issue with is the idea of "holding someone accountable", in the sense of making sure someone receives DESERT...or making sure someone gets their "due"...instead of helping someone LEARN to take responsibility effectively.

Tom: Why the either/or? Why this “instead of” that? Why not both?

You are brilliant, dude. But if there’s anything about your thinking in general that troubles me it’s what seems to me to be your tendency to assume that “X explains Y” means “Only X explains Y” so that nothing else but X may be a part of explaining Y. The idea that “holding someone accountable” has to mean EITHER “making sure someone receives their due” OR “helping them learn to take responsibility” is just false. There’s no reason why BOTH can’t be true. I’d only add that making sure people receive their due doesn’t reflect a mean-spirited vengeful attitude, it simple means what it says—“holding people accountable.” It’s perfectly consistent with God’s helping us learn to take responsibility.

Tom

Exousia: If it is genuinely helpful for you to believe in God's being angry or God exhibiting "unforgiveness" and that helps you towards INCARNATING God's perfect love, then do it up.

Tom: Dude, come on. I was crystal clear on what I thought “forgiveness” and “unforgiveness” were. They didn’t have anything to do with anger. For me, God’s forgiving me means “not holding me accountable” for my sin, that is, “rescuing me from experiencing the painful consequences of my sin.” God’s not forgiving a person would mean God’s “holding her accountable” for her choices, that is, “not rescuing her from experiencing the painful consequences of her sin” but rather bringing her into an experience of those consequences.

Now, since you agree that God rescues those who take responsibility for themselves from having to experience the awful consequences of their sin and God does NOT rescue those who do not take responsibility for themselves from these consequences, in my book you’re simply saying some are forgiven and others are not. You disagree only because you insist on defining forgiveness as an emotional state of being anger-free with respect to offenders. Since you think God is always anger-free in this sense (something I agree with), you have to say God always forgives everybody everything.

Tom

Post Edited (Exousia) : 1/28/2007 10:28:00 AM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (Exousia) : 1/28/2007 10:30:43 AM (GMT-6)

Tom: It seems less than benevolent to you because you believe they agree that God could have created us already compatibilistically free with respect to love, right? And if God could have so created us, then it’s unloving to risk sin and hell if only to get us to love unfailingly, or compatibilistically. I agree with you Jeff. If God could have created us from the get-go in our final, finished, compatibilistically loving state, then to risk sin and hell is unlike any understanding of love I can intuit.

But I disagree that God is capable of creating us in such a compatibilistic state. I find the very notion incoherent. We’ve been all over this through the years and I’m not inviting a new debate. I’m just clarifying the stands.

Jeff: Obviously, I agree that there is a reason why God created LFW. I'm just throwing out why I think He did it. When you get time, tell me why you think He did it. This is what I need to see--another alternative.

Tom: If the metaphysical constrains of creaturely love limit us to having to BECOME loving through the exercise of our wills, then in my view we have a context in which to explain creation as risky and hell as God holding us accountable for the exercise of our will even though in love God has held humanity accountable for all its sin in Christ.

Jeff: This seems problematic to me. If love is the only way to rightly-relate, then for God to create us where we have to BECOME loving means that God created us to start off MISrelating. This is the problem with all evolutionary theories of ethics. If God created us with no original capacity to love, and if loving is relating-aright, then it is inconceivable to me that love is the only way to rightly-relate. Our original capacities, by virtue of having been created by God, MUST not be inherently incapable of right-relation. Otherwise, God is either schizophrenic or incompetent or both.

Tom:

(2) God is necessarily sentiently satisfied in loving relationality. That is, God determines himself with respect to loving relationality. He’s self-existent love. No will or power outside of God determines God’s loving nature.

(3) We are not necessary beings; we’re contingent creatures.

(4) The only way contingent sentient creatures like us can get into the most satisfying state of loving relationality possible for us is if we BECOME our way into that state, and the only way that happens is by our choosing to become loving.

(5) God can’t do what you suppose because what you suppose—determining that another being loves at all—is self-contradictory.

Jeff: With respect to 2), if God is existing in loving relationality, does this necessarily mean His love is volitional? With respect to 3), does this mean we can never become compatibilistic? With respect to 4), "where little is given, little is required, and where much is given, much is required." This means to me that God is as fully satisfied with "little" as He is with "much"  so long as the "little" proceeds competently from lessor capacities and the "much" proceeds competently from greator capacities. With respect to 5), it is false if God's love is compatibilistic.

Exousia: Self-disposition naturally entails "absorbing" the consquences (positive or negative) of it's actions.

Exousia: This is how I'm living my faith and it's working for me. I could very well be wrong. So...do yer thing.

Jeff: That's what we've been trying to do. But you seem to have difficulty with leaving it at that. You seem to be compelled to say how you think other folks must be blinded by Satan or just generally screwed up. I don't see that as loving. But hey, what do I know, maybe I'm blinded by Satan.

Post Edited (Exousia) : 1/28/2007 10:57:17 AM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (jefscott) : 1/28/2007 1:25:28 PM (GMT-6)

Exousia: If it is genuinely helpful for you to believe in God's being angry or God exhibiting "unforgiveness" and that helps you towards INCARNATING God's perfect love, then do it up.

Tom: Dude, come on. I was crystal clear on what I thought “forgiveness” and “unforgiveness” were. They didn’t have anything to do with anger.

Exousia: Were you taking my statement too PERSONALLY, Tom? As if I were primarily talking to YOU?

Tom: Naw, I was just wondering what place your comments had in this discussion at all. We’ve been talking for a spell (you, Jeff, Stark and I—we’re the only ones here) and then you say “If it is genuinely helpful for you to believe in God's being angry or God exhibiting unforgiveness and that helps you towards INCARNATING God's perfect love, then do it up.” So I’m wondering who you have in mind. It looks to me like you think somebody in this discussion qualifies. But I can’t imagine who it might be. The whole question of God’s perceiving and feeling dysfunctionally or holding grudges isn’t something any of us is arguing FOR. So who DO you have in mind? I mean, what have Jeff or I said to motivate your comment?

Exousia: Yes. I do believe that God unconditionally "forgives" everyone of EVERYTHING, in that I believe that God doesn't RECEIVE OFFENSE from things that we do...nor does God have to seek RECOMPENSE that he feels is "justified" for those offenses.

Tom: I agree entirely. I just wouldn’t use the word “forgiveness” the way you do.

Exousia: I disagree fundamentally with some of the assumptions of Solomon's prayer in 1 Kings 8...and that of the Hebrews 10 passage.

Tom: I understand.

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Jeff: Obviously, I agree that there is a reason why God created LFW. I'm just throwing out why I think He did it. When you get time, tell me why you think He did it. This is what I need to see--another alternative.

Tom: I described it. I said “the metaphysical constrains of creaturely love limit us to having to BECOME loving through the exercise of our will.” You found this problematic.

Jeff: This seems problematic to me. If love is the only way to rightly-relate, then for God to create us where we have to BECOME loving means that God created us to start off MISrelating.

Tom: I don’t’ think so. You only misrelate by CHOOSING to misrelate, by refusing to love. God can’t create us in that either. It’s a choice. Neither choice is GIVEN us by God. That’s just the point. We’re free. I don’t see Adam and Eve relating peacefully with God prior to the Fall apart from choosing to do so. But that doesn’t mean they started out by choosing not to do so.

Jeff: This is the problem with all evolutionary theories of ethics. If God created us with no original capacity to love, and if loving is relating-aright, then it is inconceivable to me that love is the only way to rightly-relate. Our original capacities, by virtue of having been created by God, MUST not be inherently incapable of right-relation.

Tom: I’m not suggesting that God didn’t create us with a capacity to love. I’m insisting he DID. I’m just saying that such a capacity is meaningless in terms of “love” if God designs this capacity to be incapable of not-loving, that is, if God determines us to love unfailingly. I categorically deny that this is possible. That may be just an intuition. But it’s a strong one. I’ve yet to hear a good reason for doubting it.

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Tom: (2) God is necessarily sentiently satisfied in loving relationality. That is, God determines himself with respect to loving relationality. He’s self-existent love. No will or power outside of God determines God’s loving nature.

(3) We are not necessary beings; we’re contingent creatures.

(4) The only way contingent sentient creatures like us can get into the most satisfying state of loving relationality possible for us is if we BECOME our way into that state, and the only way that happens is by our choosing to become loving.

(5) God can’t do what you suppose because what you suppose—determining that another being loves at all—is self-contradictory.

Jeff: With respect to 2), if God is existing in loving relationality, does this necessarily mean His love is volitional?

Tom: I don’t know what love is apart from the exercise of the will. But what do you mean by “volitional”? Do you mean “libertarian”? If so, then no, I don’t think God is libertarianly free to be unloving, unholy, evil, etc. But that’s not to say that when God loves he’s not exercising his volition. He is. He’s just exercising it compatibilistically.

Jeff: With respect to 3), does this mean we can never become compatibilistic?

Tom: Not at all. Libertarian free will gives way to compatibilistic free will. We see this all the time. It’s what makes habituation possible. More extreme forms of the transformation are full character solidification. We “become.”

Jeff: With respect to 4), "where little is given, little is required, and where much is given, much is required." This means to me that God is as fully satisfied with "little" as He is with "much"  so long as the "little" proceeds competently from lessor capacities and the "much" proceeds competently from greator capacities.

Tom: I don’t understand what this has to do with my (4). All my (4) means is that contingent beings cannot BE loving without BECOMING loving. That’s all. God can’t create us compatibilistically loving. He cannot create loving creatures. He can only create free creatures who can choose to be loving.

Jeff: With respect to 5), it is false if God's love is compatibilistic.

Tom: Not so. What Greg (and I) have said is that no being can determine another being’s love. God’s being compatibilistically loving by nature is no falsification of this. It would be if some being OTHER than God were responsible for God’s being loving. But this is not the case.

Tom

Jeff: According to moral accountability, it is never wise or rational to misrelate. Because it is never worth it.

Tom: Yes.

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Exousia: If I kill someone in a death penalty state, I have to be willing to take the ramifications of my actions IN THAT STATE because of my being in THAT STATE...and I have to be willing for the authorities to HOLD ME ACCOUNTABLE (forcibly, if necessary) to the laws of that state…

Tom: And if the State said, “We’re going to forgive you” wouldn’t you equate that with “no hold you accountable for your behavior”? And wouldn’t that mean “not bring you into an experience of the negative consequences of your behavior”? Of course, there’s the question of whether and how such an offer would be possible on the part of a State. That’s not important right now. I’m just trying to get you to see forgiveness/unforgiveness as a course of action that addresses whether or not I experience the consequences of my wrong actions as opposed to an existential valuation of my worth. God can (and does) value us, love us, unfailingly and constantly. I don’t equate THAT with forgiveness. I equate forgiveness with God’s not holding me accountable for my actions in the sense of his actually rescuing me from the suffering that is the consequence of my wrong doing. God obviously does leave people to experience this suffering in spite of valuing and loving them. In this sense they are not forgiven.

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Jeff: What I mean by ill-desert is moral accountability that entails proportional negative consequences for misrelation. As I understand Tom, he is saying the same thing. In fact, as I understand you, you are saying the same thing. You seem to think by changing the words, you've changed the reality.

Tom: Yes, yes, yes.

Tom

Post Edited (jefscott) : 1/28/2007 7:48:26 PM (GMT-6)

Jeff: Tom, your response was very helpful to me, if I hear you right. I hear you saying that God is volitional insomuch as He is a final cause. But He does not have LFW insomuch as His perspective is so perfect and His power is so competent that He can never be MOTIVATED to do anything other than maximize His own sentient satisfaction. Is this right?

Tom: I think that sounds right, yeah.

Jeff: If so, then I'm still not seeing how we can deduce from those facts WHY He would create LFW creatures.

Tom: Do you mean why God could create LFW creatures at all? Or why LFW is necessary for creatures created for those reasons for which God created us?

If the first, then I’m sure I don’t know. I have no sure knowledge of why God decided to created at all. That’s not to say I don’t think I know what God purposed this creation for. I’ll say God created us to know, share, and reflect divine love. But why God did this at all? I don’t know.

If you mean the second question, then it seems obvious to me that “being loving” is not something any being can determine for, or just give to, another being. It wouldn’t be love. It’s just that simple. I can’t imagine a scenario in which some being A’s loving or not loving is determined for it by some other being B for which anybody (other than Calvinists) would agree that A’s love is really A’s love. Can you offer me some analogy? You say God could just zap, create creatures who love unfailingly from the get-go. Why do you think that? Because God loves from the get-go? That’s not enough. God doesn’t count as an example of the sort of creatures you’re supposing God could create since God’s loving compatibilistically would be dissimilar from the compatibilistic love of the creatures we’re supposing God could create. The difference here is that it is NOT the case that a being other than God determines that God loves while it IS the case that some being other than the creature determines that the creature loves.

I don’t know what else to say. And I’m no longer sure we’re trying to solve the same problem! For me the question is not “Why did God create LFW beings at all?” but “Why is LFW necessary for beings created to love?” Whatever might be the answer to the first question, it seems clear to me that we were purposed by God for loving relationality. And that’s all I need, because it’s now very easy to say “Why LFW?” The reason is—because creaturely loving relationality requires LFW. There’s no other way for US to get there (even if God is there by nature).

Why would God decide to purpose us for loving relationality as opposed to purposing us for some other end? That's a different question. I think the answer is something like, "What would you expect a perfectly loving person to do with its creativity? It's perfectly loving. Of course it's going to establish perfectly loving purposes for whatever it creates. What else can that be but the increase and enjoyment of perfectly loving sociality.

Tom

Jeff: Thus, a loving, competent God would exercise power to make us satisfying to Himself rather than annihilate us. Because He can and wants to since we exist. There can be no desire in Him to exercise power to annihilate us since His disinterested nature can not even experience such a desire. But He can experience a desire to motivate sentient beings with consequences if such motivations serve as the most fitting means to God's disinterested end of His creational project (Christ's glory) until that end is attained.

Tom: I agree 100%, except I would not say the disinterested end of the creational project is Christ’s glory. I think everything you’ve said here can work just as well if the end is something like the Orthodox notion of theosis, creation’s complete and final becoming into the divine life. Does this glorify Christ? I’m sure it does! But just saying “the glory of Christ” doesn’t for me at all explain the necessity of LFW. But our becoming loving beings, eventually assumed into the divine life and experience, perfectly explains it.

Jeff: Accountability, then, is correlative with the means necessary to attain the end of creation--the maximal glory of Christ.

Tom: Put “theosis” or “the glorification of all creation” or “the becoming of all sentient existence into divine loving sociality” in the place of “the maximal glory of Christ,” and I’m with you 100%.

Jeff: Accountability, then, has no role once the end of creation is attained. I can not emphasize enough the importance of finality to creation's purpose.

Tom: I agree.

Tom

Post Edited (TGB) : 1/28/2007 8:28:57 PM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (Exousia) : 1/28/2007 8:45:45 PM (GMT-6)

Exousia: It seems possible to me that, sometimes, not bringing people into an experience of the negative consequences of their behavior has the potential to moves things TOWARD right-relatedness.

Tom: That’s called forbearance. Yes. But it can be put off indefinitely. I don’t understand what combination of factors combine to make it so, but accountability can’t be put off forever.

Exousia: In other words, there are some occasions where the consequences of their actions would be too much for them to bear...and would actually move them into more solidification unto misrelation.

Tom: I can see that, sure. But we’re talking about hell, right?

Exousia: If this is the case, does this mean that God "not forgiving" us can actually be a good thing for us, in some cases? If so, does that mean that sometimes the most helpful thing we can ask for is for God NOT to forgive some people for some things?

Tom: Nice try. Dude, I love you. I would say we be led by the Spirit, that there’s no formula for how to pray for people who are not reconciled to God.

Consider Peter’s letter. Peter says God has been patiently forbearing the world’s evil in kindness, giving people an opportunity to repent. But Peter also knows that eventually the day will come when forbearance will come to an end and people will have to be held accountable for whatever their state.

Apparently God sometimes determines that forbearance is no longer in the best interest of maximizing good and minimizing evil. Sodom comes to mind.

I’ll also add this. It’s something I’m still thinking on. Because we can never be in the place of knowing enough to judge, we can only forgive. God however can judge all the relevant factors and know whether forbearance or judgment is best. We can never know this.

Tom