Post Edited (jefscott) : 2/9/2007 9:39:32 PM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (jefscott) : 2/9/2007 9:15:49 PM (GMT-6)

Jeff: I'm thinking that when scripture says all things are OUT of the Father it's saying that God is the PURPOSER as well as the beneficiary of creation. Christ, THROUGH whom are all things, is ONLY a beneficiary. I.e., he was not involved in the PURPOSING of creation. This is part of the diveristy (in unity) of the godhead as far as I can tell.

Tom: Can you tell me what passages you have in mind, Jeff? Just interested. The ones that come to my mind are:

Heb 1.2: “God…has in these last days spoken to us by his Son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds.”

Heb 2.10: “For it was fitting for him [God], for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.”

Rm 11.36: “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever!”

The NT nowhere offers us a metaphysical breakdown of this in philosophical terms, so we’re still on our own, but it seems to me that Paul’s point in Romans is to affirm God as the ultimate source, explanation, sustainer, and end of all things, a way of saying everything that is not God gets its existence from God, exists for God, finds its value in God, relates ultimately to God, and cannot escape this relationship (we might say this supports the idea that no continent creature can irrevocably dispose itself out of relationship to God, but that's another debate) and that all of this is mediated through Christ.

Same thing for the Hebrews passages essentially. It’s Christ's mediatory role that’s in mind. If I had to say in trinitarian terms who creation was FOR, then, I’d say it is FOR the Father, not Christ, though I'm not sure even this much breakdown is warranted. Paul doesn't break it down trinitarianly. He does say (1Cor. 15) that in the end Christ hands over the kingdom to the Father so that God [the Father or the triune God as a whole? I’m not sure] may be all in all. This might just mean that Christ's mediatory functions come to and end and the trinitarian God (not just the Father) is all in all. But in any event, Christ is temporarily preeminent in creation as a means to some end not exclusively Christ's. Christ is the ‘head’ of all things for the Church, but this is a temporary arrangement.

Perhaps this is your point. If so, cool. I don’t disagree that creation is temporarily administered by God under the preeminent headship of Christ’s reign. But I don’t think this gets us an ultimate rationale for creating a LFW world over a CFW world. I don’t see where the NT connects this present headship of Christ and his rule/kingdom with uniquely libertarian concerns or any sort of unique satisfaction the Son gets at all. Given 1Cor 15, it looks to me more like Christ’s present reign is just an extension of his mediatory function. In the end the kingdom if given by Chirst to the Father. So if anything, creation is uniquely FOR the Father, not Christ. Christ's temporal rule is just the MEANS by which this is accomplished.

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Tom: …your whole argument is that God risks the pain and suffering of LFW for THIS [Christ’s] unique satisfaction. What is it?

Jeff: It's extrinsic worth in the form of desert (i.e., responsibility/accountability). This can not be with compatibilistic love. E.g., Christ can't DESERVE the Father's appreciation/gratefulness for anything he does compatibilistically. He can BE loved, but not with the relation of desert. LFW desert moves benevolent appreciation into the realm of right-relating as opposed to ONLY the realm of that creativity which is regulated within compatibilistic bounds. It takes a good thing (i.e., the beauty of benevolent, free action) into a realm that is not possible in the godhead. It is unique in that sense. Because the godhead can't experience it amongst themselves. The risk has to do with the fact that WRONG-relating also becomes possible.

Tom: OK, I AM understanding you. This is what I thought you were essentially getting at. I don’t buy it. I think it’s problematic at the very best. But I see what you’re saying. My problems with it are:

(1) Given my conviction that creating compatibilistic loving creatures from the start is impossible, I don’t need to suppose anything more than that God wanted us to be an expression of the same sort of loving relationality he is (as opposed to God wanting to get something from creation he that's lacking in his own experience of loving relationality) but that LFW was the only way he could achieve this. In terms of Ochams’s Rule (OR), this is the simplest explanation. If I were to give up my conviction about creaturely love, I’d have to join you in finding some other explanation for why God goes the LFW route. But as it is, for me your route violates OR. It posits unnecessary explanations.

(2) As an explanation even, your view is problematic to my mind for three reasons:

(a)   I still don’t see what unique pleasure libertarianly determined love for God provides Chirst. Yes, on your view Christ would apprehend the libertarian and morally responsible history our coming to love him (as opposed to our loving him automatically via given compatibilism). Is this apprehension itself the unique satisfaction Christ gets? That’s it? I don’t see what the supposed “pleasure” in this is. I’m unclear on what pleasure my simply KNOWING that somebody’s love of me is libertarianly determined by them as opposed to love of me that’s determined BY ME (and NOT the person AT ALL!) through creating that person with no other option but to love me is supposed to provide. I guess so long as I view as impossible the sort of determined compatibilistic love you think is possible but which God just didn’t go with, I won’t be able to see what unique pleasure Christ gets from libertarianly determined creaturely love. You should focus ALL your attention on convincing me that the description of exclusively divinely-determined compatibilistic creaturely-love italicized in this paragraph just two sentences back is really love at all. I don't think it is.

(b)   Why should this unique satisfaction be CHRIST’S alone?

(c)   I personally don’t think it justifies the risk. The triune God is perfectly contented. I’m supposed to conclude that all the pain and suffering of creation are justified by Christ’s experiencing the supposed satisfaction of apprehending a libertarianly determined love that he didn’t get trinitarianly? I’m uncomfortable with that. In my view, creation can’t be about God adding something to his experience that’s lacking in God in terms of loving relationality, and your view appears to me to assume this. And if it's not to supply what is in some sense lacking, then there's no reason I can see to posit it as the motivation for going the LFW route.

Tom

Post Edited (TGB) : 2/10/2007 3:56:53 PM (GMT-6)

Tom: OK, I AM understanding you. This is what I thought you were essentially getting at. I don’t buy it. I think it’s problematic at the very best. But I see what you’re saying. My problems with it are:

(1) Given my conviction that creating compatibilistic loving creatures from the start is impossible, I don’t need to suppose anything more than that God wanted us to be an expression of the same sort of loving relationality he is (as opposed to God wanting to get something from creation he that's lacking in his own experience of loving relationality) but that LFW was the only way he could achieve this.

Jeff: Wait a minute Tom. You've already admitted that we will end up being compatibilistic with only that LFW freedom entailed in loving creativity. Isn't this what God already has? Clearly God is getting something from our LFW relationality (directly OR indirectly) that He can't experience without creation. I'm just positing the possibility that the MOTIVATION for creation was the sentient satisfaction it occasions for the Son. There are obviously all kinds of pleasures He receives from creation just like we do. I'm just not sure they were the motivation for creation. Maybe only the Son's sentient satisfaction was that motivation.

Tom: In terms of Ochams’s Rule (OR), this is the simplest explanation. If I were to give up my conviction about creaturely love, I’d have to join you in finding some other explanation for why God goes the LFW route. But as it is, for me your route violates OR. It posits unnecessary explanations.

Jeff: I don't see how. You already assume that God created for the sentient satisfaction of the Son ALSO. That's all we need to make it all work. It doesn't matter if the Father benefits from LFW directly or INdirectly. Cleary He benefits from LFW whether or not LFW is the motivation for creation.

Tom: (a)   I still don’t see what unique pleasure libertarianly determined love for God provides Chirst.

Jeff: I don't remember saying Christ gets pleasure from libertarianly determined love for the Father. I'm saying the Son gets pleasure from libertarianly determined love FOR HIMSELF. This occurs in two forms.

1) All libertarianly determined gratitude to, glorification of, adoration of, etc of the CREATOR automatically applies to the Son insomuch as he is him THROUGH whom and FOR whom are all things. He IS, in some sense, the very creator of all things. Not in the same way as the Father, but in some way he is.

2) Ultimately, ALL will bow and confess to the crown rights of the SON. In the meanwhile, many of us already do.

Tom: Yes, on your view Christ would apprehend the libertarian and morally responsible history our coming to love him (as opposed to our loving him automatically via given compatibilism). Is this apprehension itself the unique satisfaction Christ gets? That’s it? I don’t see what the supposed “pleasure” in this is.

Jeff: When you apprehend that your wife or friend loves you libertarianly, do you get satisfaction from it? If not, I find that bizarre.

Tom: I guess so long as I view as impossible the sort of determined compatibilistic love you think is possible but which God just didn’t go with, I won’t be able to see what unique pleasure Christ gets from libertarianly determined creaturely love.

Jeff: If neither God nor Christ get any "unique pleasure" from "libertarianly determined creaturely love," why did God create such a capacity in the first place. I'm really confused, here.

Tom: You should focus ALL your attention on convincing me that the description of exclusively divinely-determined compatibilistic creaturely-love italicized in this paragraph just two sentences back is really love at all. I don't think it is.

Jeff: OK. You're defining love to BE libertarian necessarily. Fine. I can relate to that. Then let's break it down like this. The Father and Son can NOT occasion negative sentient states in each other. It is impossible for them. They can, however, create diverse, positive sentient states in each other by LFW creativity. This is what we will be like one day, right?

So what is unique about the kind of LFW creatures we are is this: We CAN occasion negative sentient states in the godhead. We have to volitionally CHOOSE to avoid occasioning such states in the godhead. This is unique. The godhead has no such experiential capacity.

Tom: Why should this unique satisfaction be CHRIST’S alone?

Jeff: I'm not saying it is. I'm talking ONLY about motivation for creation. That's what I think it means to say that all things exist FOR someone else. That's a creational motivation. Granted, Christ is not the only one to receive satisfaction from LFW once it exists. It just is not necesssary to say that God created FOR THIS REASON.

Tom: I personally don’t think it justifies the risk. The triune God is perfectly contented. I’m supposed to conclude that all the pain and suffering of creation are justified by Christ’s experiencing the supposed satisfaction of apprehending a libertarianly determined love that he didn’t get trinitarianly? I’m uncomfortable with that. In my view, creation can’t be about God adding something to his experience that’s lacking in God in terms of loving relationality, and your view appears to me to assume this. And if it's not to supply what is in some sense lacking, then there's no reason I can see to posit it as the motivation for going the LFW route.

Jeff: I'm at a real loss at how saying God is perfectly contented explains the risk. That makes no sense to me at all. It's like God saying: I'm just fine, but just for grins, let's risk sheer misery and suffering JUST BECAUSE. I can't even get my mind around that.

I think it's easier to say that somehow, out of that realm of LFW creative relationality in the godhead, purposes arise. These purposes are intended unto GOOD ONLY. But there can be risks involved that God will assure, in His competence, are not so great that the project is not WORTH IT to all concerned. I don't see any other way to explain risk at all in terms of perfect love. 

I'm almost hearing you say God didn't create FOR His own sentient satisfaction. This is inconceivable to me. Is this what you're saying? Aren't we both saying that God risks FOR His own sentient satisfaction? I'm just saying He will ASSURE the sentient satisfaction OF ALL.

Post Edited (jefscott) : 2/10/2007 6:20:09 PM (GMT-6)

Another thing about risk, Tom. You say that LFW solidification for each and every individual is necessary for the attainment of the TELOS of creation. And you say that infants who die deaths of miserable suffering will go through post-mortem solidification of a sort. Don't we need to posit what the nature of such post-mortem solidification will be? If it doesn't entail the unnecessary abuse of other LFW creatures in a uniform world order involving the same risks as the first world, then why does anyone have to go through such suffering just to have the opportunity of LFW choice? Either the end of solidification requires such a risk or it doesn't. Are we really going to posit another world just to condition the infant's LFW solidification process? If not, why do we need THIS world for ANY of the process? With all its RISK?

Questions of justice and what is necessary for the attainment of the TELOS arise from such speculation. If, on the other hand, we don't assume that the solidification of each and every individual is, or ever has been, necessary for the attainment of the TELOS of creation, then we don't have to answer those questions (which, frankly, seem too complex for me). And if we're talking about perfect love, such questions of justice or seemingly unnecessary risk need to be answered, don't they?

But we don't need to go there. We can still know that God preferred things to play out differently in a FALL-less world that wouldn't have entailed much of the suffering we experience. We can still know that He created as an act of love. We can still know that something about the uniformity and interdependence of the world order was necessary to attain the TELOS.  We can still know that once the TELOS is attained and all its side-effects have run their course, we need not posit extrinsic value of any kind. We can still know that God will STILL BE LOVE at this time. In short, we still have everything we need to account for perfect love without any of the perplexing difficulties entailed in the assumption that LFW solidification of each and every individual is the TELOS of creation.

I guess I'm wondering if you even agree that my approach is logically coherent. If so, I'm sticking with it until you can answer the kinds of questions I have about your view. I have the same problems with it that I have always had about God minimizing evil. I have no idea how to explain such a scenario to my fellow man since I can't see how it can possibly work myself. So I don't see what good it does to posit it. We're all stuck with something trumping something else in terms of final cause metaphysics. I just want to avoid explaining such trumping in terms of unnecessary risk and discriminatory requirements for suffering. SO, is my view even coherent, to your mind?

Just saw your last post as I came on to post this. Haven't read it yet. Gotta post and run!

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Tom: (1) Given my conviction that creating compatibilistic loving creatures from the start is impossible, I don’t need to suppose anything more than that God wanted us to be an expression of the same sort of loving relationality he is…but that LFW was the only way he could achieve this.

Jeff: Wait a minute Tom. You've already admitted that we will end up being compatibilistic with only that LFW freedom entailed in loving creativity. Isn't this what God already has?

Tom: How am I not saying this clear enough?...

a) God is compatibilistically free with regard to love. We agree on this.

b) We shall be compatibilistically free with regard to love. We are on this.

But where you assume (from (a) and (b) perhaps) that the following is true:

c) God COULD HAVE created us compatibilistically free with regard to love from the start, naturally, by constitution, from the get-go, but that he decided to go the LFW route instead (for the reasons you’re now attempting to explain)…

I believe (c) is impossible. God cannot so create us. There are two metaphysical routes open to account for compatibilistic love:

d) One may be self-existent, necessary love by definition. That’s God.

or

e) One may libertarianly become compatibilistically loving. That’s us.

Let’s call the combination of (d) and (e) (that is, the rejection of (c)) the rule of creaturely becoming (CB).

What is out of the question for me is you (c) above—person A determining, by creative fiat, person B in love without person B playing her own necessary, libertarianly self-determining, role via choice.

It does not follow from God’s being necessarily compatibilsitically free with regard to love that (c) above is true.

The implications of this difference between us, of CB, for this conversation is huge. You HAVE to find some motivation for God’s creating us with LFW that has nothing to do with us as end/purpose. I don’t have to do that.

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Tom: In terms of Ochams’s Rule (OR), this is the simplest explanation. If I were to give up my conviction about creaturely love, I’d have to join you in finding some other explanation for why God goes the LFW route. But as it is, for me your route violates OR. It posits unnecessary explanations.

Jeff: I don't see how. You already assume that God created for the sentient satisfaction of the Son ALSO.

Tom: But the sense in which I think God created in order to please Christ is (I wanna be careful how I say this) incidental to the specific motivation for creating. In other words, it’s not a sufficient cause of creation, since it defines God necessarily. God gets pleasure out of everything God does, and this pleasure is at the same time source and goal of all God does. I think everything God is and does constitutes the joy of his satisfaction. But that’s just a necessary attribute of God. And I think God is unsurpassably fulfilled, contented, joyous, and complete with regard to the actualization and value of loving relationality. Let’s call this the rule of divine aseity (DA).

Whatever reason motivates God’s choice to create, it cannot be to supply some fundamentally new (new “in kind”) experience of loving relationality. That’s a denial of DA. It smacks of God’s creating to meet some “need” or “lack,” and I can’t say that.

So, getting back to OR, since I affirm CB (the rule of creaturely becoming) and DA (divine aseity), OR suggests to me that God’s purpose in creation is simply to express what God is, to bring contingent creatures into the experience of what God already is, not to add to God’s experience of love that which he was lacking and which lack motivates him to supply by means of creating. I can’t say that. It denies DA.

Having said that, I’m not denying that God creates with himself in mind or that in creating the Father is motivated by a desire to please the Son. But like I said, this is just who God is definitionally. It’s nothing new. God always acts out of and with regard to the unsurpassable satisfaction that essentially defines him. That’s going to characterizes EVERYTHING.

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Jeff: I'm saying the Son gets pleasure from libertarianly determined love FOR HIMSELF. This occurs in two forms…

Tom: (I have the two forms in mind.) This is the sufficient motivation for the risks involved in creating? I don’t’ see that the two forms of pleasure are sufficiently unique. Christ already perfectly apprehends his own value. I’m not seeing it. And I especially don’t see it when one figures in the risks. How can a person who perfectly apprehends their value and worth and who is perfectly contented and unsurpassably satisfied risk the pain and suffering of creation in order to feel/experience an affirmation of worth and value he’s never felt before?

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Tom: Yes, on your view Christ would apprehend the libertarian and morally responsible history our coming to love him (as opposed to our loving him automatically via given compatibilism). Is this apprehension itself the unique satisfaction Christ gets? That’s it? I don’t see what the supposed “pleasure” in this is.

Jeff: When you apprehend that your wife or friend loves you libertarianly, do you get satisfaction from it?

Tom: I do. Let’s say I have a child too. That is, let’s say there’s more than just TWO, let’s say there’s THREE to my experience of loving relationality within the confines of my family.

So what sense would it make for me to say that I’m creating a second, third, or fourth child in order for me or my wife to experience a love we’ve never experienced? What love, what pleasure, would that be? I don’t know. We don’t keep creating children to experience something we’ve never experience before. We create them to magnify and express the love that’s ours. We do it FOR THEM, to bring them into an experience of our love. We risk it because we believe our love is worth the experience.

In terms of the loving relationality that obtains between husband and wife and offspring, this obtains in God necessarily. The recognition of identity, the apprehension of personal value, the unity of will and purpose, the affirmation of the other’s independence, the celebration of loving relationality, all this defines God necessarily. God can’t create to add something to this that completes God’s understanding of “loving relationality,” that adds a new dimension of God’s appreciation and satisfaction of love. I don’t see how that’s possible.

So, yes, I’m satisfied when my wife loves me. So the God (Father, Son, and Spirit) is satisfied by the necessary loving triune relations.

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Tom: I guess so long as I view as impossible the sort of determined compatibilistic love you think is possible but which God just didn’t go with, I won’t be able to see what unique pleasure Christ gets from libertarianly determined creaturely love.

Jeff: If neither God nor Christ get any "unique pleasure" from "libertarianly determined creaturely love," why did God create such a capacity in the first place.

Tom: So that WE could experience the pleasure and love that God essentially is.

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Tom: You should focus ALL your attention on convincing me that the description of exclusively divinely-determined compatibilistic creaturely-love italicized in this paragraph just two sentences back is really love at all. I don't think it is.

Jeff: OK. You're defining love to BE libertarian necessarily. Fine.

Tom: No, I’m defining creaturely love as entailing two things: a) libertarian becoming, and b) eventual solidification. Take either away and you have problems.

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Jeff: The Father and Son can NOT occasion negative sentient states in each other. It is impossible for them. They can, however, create diverse, positive sentient states in each other by LFW creativity. This is what we will be like one day, right?

Tom: Right.

Jeff: So what is unique about the kind of LFW creatures we are is this: We CAN occasion negative sentient states in the godhead. We have to volitionally CHOOSE to avoid occasioning such states in the godhead. This is unique. The godhead has no such experiential capacity.

Tom: Right. So….? This was supposed to be an argument that exclusively divinely-determined compatibilistic creaturely-love (viz., God creating us compatibilistically loving from the start) is really be love at all. But where’s the argument? I mean, that God loves compatibilistically and that we love libertarianly aren’t an argument for your claim that God could have created us compatibilistically loving from the start and so by-passed the risk of evil and suffering from evil.

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Tom: I personally don’t think it justifies the risk. The triune God is perfectly contented. I’m supposed to conclude that all the pain and suffering of creation are justified by Christ’s experiencing the supposed satisfaction of apprehending a libertarianly determined love that he didn’t get trinitarianly? I’m uncomfortable with that. In my view, creation can’t be about God adding something to his experience that’s lacking in God in terms of loving relationality, and your view appears to me to assume this. And if it's not to supply what is in some sense lacking, then there's no reason I can see to posit it as the motivation for going the LFW route.

Jeff: I'm at a real loss at how saying God is perfectly contented explains the risk.

Tom: I wasn’t suggesting it explained the risk. It doesn’t. What explains the risk is the worthwhile value of OUR experiencing a loving relationship with God. In other words, God’s being unsurpassably and perfectly contented RULES OUT “God’s getting pleasure from creation” as a sufficient explanation of the risk. A perfectly contented loving being would not risk for his own sake. Would you agree with this Exousia?

Posit a couple who perfectly love each other, in whose love there is not the slightest lack of anything essential to loving relationality. Now, suppose they decide to have a child. And suppose having a child involves great risk. What explains the risk? You suppose that what explains the risk is some “new” dimension of loving relationality previously unknown by this perfectly loving and contented couple. They lack what only being loved by a child can give them and so they have a child to add to their repertoire of love. I say that implicates the couple’s love in some real lack or imperfection. I prefer to say that what explains the risk is the couple’s belief that their love is so incredibly wonderful that whatever pain they have to risk in order to bring others into an enjoyment of it are worthwhile risks. I’d further add that there’s NO WAY they can produce creatures (children) that experience love and give love perfectly from birth. So they HAVE to risk if they want any child to experience loving relationality at all. The couple doesn’t need it. They’re content. But they’d like others to experience it. It’s grace. It’s FOR THEM.

Jeff: That makes no sense to me at all. It's like God saying: I'm just fine, but just for grins, let's risk sheer misery and suffering JUST BECAUSE. I can't even get my mind around that.

Tom: It’s not JUST BECAUSE. It’s SO THAT OTHERS CAN ENJOY THIS TOO. But it’s necessarily risky because it can only be attained through our libertarian becoming.

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Jeff: I'm almost hearing you say God didn't create FOR His own sentient satisfaction. This is inconceivable to me. Is this what you're saying?

Tom: Close. See my blue comments above. God does everything from and with a view toward his own sentient satisfaction. God does get pleasure from us. God can’t NOT get pleasure from ANYTHING God does. That’s part of what BEING unsurpassably satisfied with yourself entails.

But you have something else in mind. You’re thinking that God created to achieve a satisfaction fundamentally missing from his own experience of himself, something lacking, something we supply. That’s a sense of “for” that I can’t agree to.

Jeff: Aren't we both saying that God risks FOR His own sentient satisfaction?

Tom: No. I’m saying God risks for OUR sentient satisfaction. God is satisfied by this. That is, God gets pleasure from acting FOR us.

Tom

Post Edited (jefscott) : 2/11/2007 9:12:01 PM (GMT-6)

Jeff: Another thing about risk, Tom. You say that LFW solidification for each and every individual is necessary for the attainment of the TELOS of creation. And you say that infants who die deaths of miserable suffering will go through post-mortem solidification of a sort. Don't we need to posit what the nature of such post-mortem solidification will be?

Tom: All that’s needed I think is to say that it’s a sufficiently free context in which such agents determine themselves. I don’t know how to go any farther than that.

Jeff: If it doesn't entail the unnecessary abuse of other LFW creatures in a uniform world order involving the same risks as the first world, then why does anyone have to go through such suffering just to have the opportunity of LFW choice?

Tom: Excellent Q bro. Excellent Q. I don’t have an answer off-hand, except to suppose that it entails whatever necessary risks DEFINE a sufficiently free context in which the agent determines herself.

Jeff: Either the end of solidification requires such a risk or it doesn't.

Tom: True.

Jeff: Are we really going to posit another world just to condition the infant's LFW solidification process?

Tom: As you said, either the end of solidification requires such a risk or it doesn't. I’m inclined to say it does. So to be consistent, I’ll posit the required postmortem context.

I’m just trying to be as consistent as I can with what I’m able to understand. If there is a way infants who never experience a sufficiently informed and free this-worldly context in which to determine themselves pass directly into the security of divine life in the next world and THERE work out some minimal level of self-determination, my guess is that it will be for reasons that leave in tact the meaningfulness of this-worldly requirements without also entailing the possibility that God could have (as you say) created us compatibilistically free from the start.

Jeff: If not, why do we need THIS world for ANY of the process?

Tom: I remember Greg once arguing that if LFW is the metaphysical price tag for creaturely becoming into love, then it applies in all worlds. It’s metaphysical. So he supposed that infants that die (forget dying of miserable suffering; just plain dying, period) must determine themselves with respect to God in some sense postmortem. That’s as far as he got with it as far as I know. I don’t know that I can take it any farther. I’m inclined to agree with him, though.

My numbered-picture is far from fully painted in. I can’t see all the unfinished parts and don’t know what colors might be required to finish. I just know that nothing I’ve ever experienced can make meaningful the notion of God’s creating us compatibilistically loving straight off the assembly line. Have you been able to thin of an analogy that would help us concede creaturely behavior under such circumstances as genuinely loving?

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Jeff: Questions of justice and what is necessary for the attainment of the TELOS arise from such speculation. If, on the other hand, we don't assume that the solidification of each and every individual is, or ever has been, necessary for the attainment of the TELOS of creation…

Tom: All we need to suppose is that loving relationality is each and every person’s individual telos (whatever other ends God might have determined for creation as a whole or for non-sentient creatures). If that much is true, AND if God is unable to create us compatibilistically loving straight off the assembly line, then something like what I’m suggesting would be true.

Jeff: In short, we still have everything we need to account for perfect love without any of the perplexing difficulties entailed in the assumption that LFW solidification of each and every individual is the TELOS of creation.

Tom: I wouldn’t describe my position this way. Saying “LFW solidification” is a telos makes the MEANS of a telos the telos itself. I’m not suggesting that “LFW solidification” is anyone’s telos. I’m suggesting that loving relationship with God and others—period—is every individual’s telos. LFW solidification is only important because it’s the only MEANS for achieving this end.

Jeff: I guess I'm wondering if you even agree that my approach is logically coherent.

Tom: To the extent that your approach begins by assuming that God was able to create us compatibilistically loving by nature from the start (but decided instead to go the LFW route), I find your view incoherent, yeah. As far as I can tell, this assumption is crucial to your approach.

Jeff: If so, I'm sticking with it until you can answer the kinds of questions I have about your view. I have the same problems with it that I have always had about God minimizing evil. I have no idea how to explain such a scenario to my fellow man since I can't see how it can possibly work myself.

Tom: I wonder if you have MY view of God’s always attempting to minimize evil in mind. All I say is that God always seeks to minimize evil and maximize good in creation given his loving and good purposes and all the contextual variables he set in place to guide creation toward those purposes. The idea that God’s preventing some evil would be achievable given all the relevant variables and considerations but that God would just decide for no reason not to prevent it is inconceivable to me. In other words, Jeff, all I’m saying is that God is always maximally engaged in creation under the rules of the game he established in an attempt to fulfill his purposes for every event and circumstance. You don’t think God does this?

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Tom: No. I’m saying God risks for OUR sentient satisfaction. God is satisfied by this. That is, God gets pleasure from acting FOR us.

Jeff: Don't have time to reply to the rest. But for now, let me respond to this one. You have agreed that some people we partake of the divine nature BEFORE complete solidification by their LFW choosing. You have to explain WHY this is so in terms of LFW solidification being the TELOS of our existence. Can you?

Tom: Well, like I clarified above, I don’t think LFW solidification is the telos of our existence. I think experiencing and replicating the love of God is our telos. LFW is just the necessary MEANS to getting into such a relationship. But once entered, I don’t have an opinion on just what metaphysical rules govern the solidification process. If the libertarian choice of the thief on the cross can be his first and last choice with respect to responding to God and that secures his future union with God in love, then I wouldn’t argue that there’s some additional minimum amount of solidification we’ve got to go through. So it’s not “solidification” that’s THE telos. It’s just loving relationships. If one choice for God is enough to satisfy the minimal metaphycial requirements, fine. The beatific vision makes up the rest. When we see him we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is. The assumption is that NOBODY finishes the WHOLE journey to full Christlikeness on their own through LFW choice. But if that’s true, it’s also true that nobody even gets into the journey without LFW choice. That’s the more important point. Perhaps all that's necessary is that we are IN THE JOURNEY, period. Whether we’re 2 minutes into the journey through one choice made while hanging next to Jesus, or we’re 50 years into the journey through a lifetime of struggling and suffering, the one thing common to us all is that we choose to be on the journey.

Jeff: Why the difference between individuals as to the degree of solidification required…

Tom: I don’t think there’s a degree of solidification required before we’re are perfected by the beatific vision.

Jeff: I just don't know how to explain this in terms of perfect love. This gets back to my last point. Try to help me understand your view better. I'm not convinced my (C) is true either. I just don't know that it's not true.

Tom: If you cannot provide an analogy that makes (C) a meaningful notion of “love” at all, then you’re duty bound to reject it as meaningless. You can still say, “Well, I might somebody find an analogy to make it meaningful.” But until then you have to reject it as untrue.

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Jeff: And I DO believe God's intensity of satisfaction can be diminished in the short run since He AND His OWN Son SUFFER because of creation. But never mind this latter for now.

Tom (tearing his robes and throwing dust into the air): Arghghghghghghgh!  

Jeff: I think your view is easier to grasp if complete solidification is required of everyone under the SAME kinds of conditions. You seem to deny both of these since 1) you don't posit all people solidifying to the same degree before assimilation and 2) you seem to allow for post-mortem solidification for some under conditions you have not yet explained.

Tom: I hope the above clarifies things a bit more. I don’t think complete solidification is required of everyone before assimilation (what would assimilation then accomplish?!). All I think need be the case is that a person libertarianly set themselves on the journey. Secondly, I don’t see why a full description of the postmortem context is required. It seems enough to say that creaturely love be sufficiently determined by free choice. How much more than that is required in pre- as opposed to postmortem contexts? I don’t know. I don’t see what problem my view faces which requires knowing this.

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Tom: What explains the risk is the worthwhile value of OUR experiencing a loving relationship with God. In other words, God’s being unsurpassably and perfectly contented RULES OUT “God’s getting pleasure from creation” as a sufficient explanation of the risk. A perfectly contented loving being would not risk for his own sake. Would you agree with this Exousia?

Jeff: We are at an impasse if you think a person would risk suffering for others when it buys that person NOTHING to do the risk.

Tom: (1) Bro, I’m not saying God gets NOTHING from it. I was clear: God gets pleasure from EVERYTHING God does. And all that God does he does from, for, and with respect to the joyous, loving satisfaction that God is. God’s hilariously happy with himself over the choice to create. (2) It makes perfect sense to me to imagine us taking risks to bring others into an experience we already know and value.

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Jeff: To me, this is clearly NOT a person who loves perfectly. You have to PROVE that God can't create compatibilistic beings to even get started in such an approach. Let's focus on just that. HOW do you KNOW that God can't create compatibilistic creatures that can experience the same sentient satisfaction we will, one day--WITHOUT all the suffering? HOW do you KNOW?

Tom: That’s easy. I’ll just ask you to provide ONE analogy that makes the notion meaningful. Remember, it’s not the meaningfulness of compatibilistic love per se that you need to demonstrate. You need an analogy of person A determining that person B always loves perfectly constitutionally, without person B ever having anything to contribute to whether or not she loves at all. Now, the burden of proof is clearly on you here. Most people will deny that B truly loves. The whole Stepford Wives scenario, you know. In fact, I’ve never met a Calvinist who didn’t agree that this made zero sense to our finite reason. They just ignored intuition and affirmed it anyhow. But if you have an analogy that renders Stepford Wife love genuine love, I’m all ears. I can provide LOTS of analogies that demonstrate that such determination objectifies persons and renders so-called loving actions less than genuine love. Give me ONE counter example (and mind ya, the trintarian relations don’t constitute an example of the sort of A determining B’s love that you want to demonstrate).

Tom

Post Edited (TGB) : 2/12/2007 12:56:10 AM (GMT-6)

Tom: Having said that, I’m not denying that God creates with himself in mind or that in creating the Father is motivated by a desire to please the Son. But like I said, this is just who God is definitionally. It’s nothing new. God always acts out of and with regard to the unsurpassable satisfaction that essentially defines him. That’s going to characterizes EVERYTHING.

AND...

Jeff: Aren't we both saying that God risks FOR His own sentient satisfaction?

Tom: No. I’m saying God risks for OUR sentient satisfaction. God is satisfied by this. That is, God gets pleasure from acting FOR us.

Jeff: I'm not seeing how these comments by you can both be true. If God is sentiently motivated (which you seem to concede in part 1), and God risks by creating, then how is it that He doesn't create/risk because of His own sentient motivation? What am I missing?

As for needing an analogy for the creation of compatibilism, that's pretty much what animals are--sentient beings with no LFW. And scripture seems to depict God as being interested in their sentient satisfaction. I consider this interest a benevolent/loving interest. I just think He is constrained with respect to them just like He is with us.

Second, I don't see why I need an analogy. Unless we want to assume that God has a necessary god-world relationship, there might very well have been a first creation of LFW creatures (indeed, our world may be the first). If this is so, by your reasoning, I would have to assume that the Son had an analogy of such a creation before one ever existed so that God could actually create one. Since you seem to be saying that God is limited by what other beings have analogies for. I don't see that as a valid way to limit God.

Post Edited (jefscott) : 2/12/2007 5:59:55 AM (GMT-6)

Hi Jeff-

Just so we both know, we left the unpardonable sin behind us a long time ago. None of this has anything to do with that!

OK, you don’t see how two statements of mine can both be true:

(1) I’m not denying that God creates with himself in mind or that in creating the Father is motivated by a desire to please the Son. But like I said, this is just who God is definitionally. It’s nothing new. God always acts out of and with regard to the unsurpassable satisfaction that essentially defines him.

and

(2) I’m saying God risks for OUR sentient satisfaction. God is satisfied by this. That is, God gets pleasure from acting FOR us.

You ask: “If God is sentiently motivated (which you seem to concede in part 1), and God risks by creating, then how is it that He doesn't create/risk because of His own sentient motivation?”

Both Exousia and I addressed this a while ago. There’s no contradiction between (1) and (2) that I see. It’s a question of primary motivation or the relationship between God’s satisfaction and our satisfaction. To my mind the question of God being motivated to risk in order to experience a kind of love he’s never experienced before is out of the question. It implicates God is imperfection or lack and undermines divine aseity (as far as I understand it). Therefore the motivation to create is fundamental an act of grace whose purposes is to include as many other sentient creatures in the love that God is. That’s the motivation. Does God get pleasure from this? Sure. God gets pleasure from everything God does. Were God not to have created he’d get pleasure from THAT too. God pleases God. We can just bank on that. But that doesn’t mean everything else is secondary. And if the pleasure God derives from Godself constitutes an unsurpassable actualization of loving relationality per se which in turn is God’s necessary existence, then it can’t be the case that God may or may not create to actualize some aspect of loving relationality unknown to him.

It’s simple Jeff. Do I get pleasure from my fourth child? Yes. Does this mean I now have to concede that my primary motivation for having a fourth child was to add some otherwise unknown dimension of love to my experience? Of course not! I had a fourth child out of the overflow of the love between my wife and me. Daniel is a contingent expression of our love, not an attempt to add something we knew was missing. We created Daniel for Daniels’s sake. We risked the pain and suffering he might experience (or worse yet, perpetrate) because of the supreme value of love TO HIM. We already know that supreme value.

Jeff: As for needing an analogy for the creation of compatibilism, that's pretty much what animals are--sentient beings with no LFW.

Tom: Not sentience and compatibilism from the get-go. Determinism and compatibilistic love from the get-go. Animals aren’t “persons” who engage in loving relationships. Give me an example of a personal sentient being determining the LOVE of another personal sentient being.

Jeff: And scripture seems to depict God as being interested in their [animals] sentient satisfaction. I consider this interest a benevolent/loving interest. I just think He is constrained with respect to them just like He is with us.

Tom: Animals aren’t persons who love God at all. We are. Give me an example of persons being determined to love perfectly by some will or force entirely outside the libertarian exercise of their own will.

Jeff: Second, I don't see why I need an analogy.

Tom: Can you or can you not produce an example of persons being determined to love perfectly by some will or force entirely outside the libertarian exercise of their own will? If you can’t, then HOW do you find the notion meaningful?

Jeff: Unless we want to assume that God has a necessary god-world relationship, there might very well have been a first creation of LFW creatures (indeed, our world may be the first). If this is so, by your reasoning, I would have to assume that the Son had an analogy of such a creation before one ever existed so that God could actually create one.

Tom: Well, there’s a first creation of ALL ‘creatures’ regardless of their nature. That goes without saying. But if, as I’ve thought, all meaning is analogical, then the meaning of possible but non-actual worlds God considers creating has to be grounded in God’s own experience. I’ll admit that. It seems to follow from my arguments. If this means God can’t imagine a “free” and “unnecessary” choice without having to exercise such choice as a necessary feature of his experience, then so be it. It doesn’t require a necessary God-world relationship. It may just require (as I believe I suggested a LONG time ago) a necessary, creative, but ever-changing reposturing of trinitarian stances vis-à-vis one another. That’s NOT to say God is forever discovering new dimensions of love. It means one necessary feature of unsurpassable beauty is creative expression. That would be fun to start a thread on!

Jeff: Since you seem to be saying that God is limited by what other beings have analogies for.

Tom: Actually I’m must saying the WE are limited to our experience for making meaningful claims (meaningful to us). I don’t see how you can disagree with the notion that all meaning for us is analogical.

Jeff: I'm saying that if God created for Christ, then we can say that the uniformity of the world order somehow contributes to Christ's sentient satisfaction. If this is so, while there may be an explanation of how God minimizes suffering, we don't need to depend on it to account for God's loving nature in the face of suffering. And in that sense, we don't need to even assume that there is a zone of providential minimizing of suffering. Maybe uniformity trumps such intervention like John Sanders argues, except for those exceptions that maximize the glory of the Son.

Tom: I wouldn’t say uniformity trumps intervention. I’d say uniformity, generally specaking, is one of the contextual variables required for creaturely becoming and that the concern for uniformity always defines what God’s maximal engagement of creation is and how much it’s able to accomplish in this or that circumstance.

Jeff: So, with respect to OR, you need to explain why I need an analogy to rule out C-worlds.

Tom: I need an analogy because I find C-worlds MEANINGLESS, as meaningless as worlds with square circles and married bachelors in them. I'd just like to know what meaning they have for you.

Tom

Post Edited (TGB) : 2/13/2007 4:15:29 PM (GMT-6)