Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 6/16/2007 12:37:36 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (jefscott) : 6/16/2007 1:42:03 PM (GMT-5)

Wow, how do I catch up? Bit by bit…

Jeff: I think what you're saying, D., is much more easy to see in the existing fallen world. Because there is suffering to deal with and minimize. But when there is no suffering, I'm not seeing why it is as obvious.

Tom: Precisely. I argued this months ago with D. In a fallen context in which even the holiest of saints are still not yet glorified, in which our characters are not yet perfected, we can’t always trust our inclinations, impulses, and be confident that we’re doing the most loving thing. In such circumstances God has to adopt a more hands-on approach and so prescribe the right course of action, and we have to adopt a more deferring stance, looking to God for moment-by-moment direction in the tough choices. But to upload this straight into the eternal state is, I think, a mistake, because what constitutes the risk of suffering and evil, including the less-than-perfected characters of believers, will not characterize the eternal state. The point of brining us to glory and the perfection of our characters, I think, is to actualize a risk-free state wherein God can safely “let us go” to freely replicate his love in creative ways not wholly determined by God. This IS the oneness God seeks. It IS the complete alignment with God's will and interests that God desires.

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Unison: Why would willing perfect, complete alignment with God's Will be conditional based upon the existence a fallen situation?

Tom: It’s not. That’s not Jeff’s point. Willing perfect and complete alignment with God’s will isn’t conditional upon a fallen context. Willing complete alignment with God’s will is ALWAYS appropriate and necessary. The question is, as Jeff says, why think that God’s will includes a blueprint-like prescription for all human actions in the final state? Why think God will want to determine all that? In the eternal state (as I’m envisioning it), when we freely replicate love in creative ways not unilaterally determined by God we ARE completely aligned with God’s will because THAT KIND OF FREE, LOVING CREATIVITY is the end state that God wills.

Give me a reason, D, to believe God would at all be interested in determining every step that glorified, perfected saints take. In fact, I’ll go farther. I’ll venture to say that God will prescribe/determine very little about our choices and activities in the eternal state—perhaps nothing at all. We’ll be glorified! Come on. Our characters will be perfected in love. What need will there be for God to define every next step for such people?

Unison: If the single desire of our heart is to find all of our satisfaction in serving God's interests (seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, etc. etc.. ), God will COMPLETELY EMPOWER US to serve those interests and enjoy the beautiful spoils with God.

Tom: Again, why are you assuming that God’s interests preclude his willing not to determine every choice that perfected persons make in the eternal state? Why, oh why? There’s something, D, in the back of your mind, some reason why you see an exclusively God-determined and meticulously managed creation as more desirable a final state, more becoming of God, than a creation purged of sin and selfishness and therefore finally, safely left to freely express its love in creative ways on its own.

I’m not offering an alternative to finding all our satisfaction in willing to serve God’s interests. I’m offering what I think is a more plausible and beautiful way to understand the satisfaction and interests for which God created us and which we will in the end fulfill.

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Unison: 2) This is a matter of CHOICE. If a person CHOOSES to desire for God to define everything for them, what is essentially wrong with that such that God wouldn't grant that for them?

Tom: Which is it, D? Come on. You’ve been saying it’s NOT about our choice, that being perfected means only wanting what GOD wants. Now you’re going to say that God gives us what WE want? That heaven is about God serving US and OUR desires and interests?

I don’t think the scenario will arise in the final state at all. It will not be the case with perfected saints that some will say to God, “Hey, I realize what you really desire is for us to freely create loving worlds without having to be micro-managed, but to be honest God, I don’t want that. I want you to micromanage me. I don’t want to determine anything freely on my own. You tell me every move to make.” Even if in this present context we have to defer to God in this way, we do so because part of the risk of suffering and evil in the world resides IN US, in our unperfected and fallen characters. It’s hard to imagine a risk-free context in which perfected persons could be safely left to freely replicate love in creative ways, but to my mind this way of imagining the final state is more in line with everything else we’ve been arguing about God.

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Jeff: There is nothing wrong with it. If God communicates His will about eating particular things at particular times, then that is what we ought to do. I'm only arguing from what I would infer from reason and scripture alone. And using these grounds, alone, I would say that it seems possible that God can be indifferent to what we eat in some cases. Not saying I can prove that.

Tom: It’s entirely provable. It’s an open and shut case Bro. God IS sometimes indifferent to such choices. There are even examples in Scripture of God’s leaving a choice of to people and not prescribing a particular course of action.

BUT…D…don’t mistake this. I (and Jeff as well I’m sure) don’t mean by “indifferent” that God isn’t concerned and invested in everything we do. He is. Paul says, “whatever you do, do it for the Lord, rather than for others, knowing that from the Lord…” and “if we drink, we drink to the Lord, if we eat, we, etc.” What God is indifferent to is not whether or not we orient everything we do as an offering of love and worship to God. God’s very interested in that. But that choice to so orient and offer ourselves to God does not itself necessarily prescribe a particular choice to make (blue socks over white, giving red roses to my wife instead of pink roses, and a million other SOMETIMES equally loving and appropriate choices). It’s more about directing our choices as an act of worship to God.

Tom

Post Edited (MANY) : 6/16/2007 11:28:20 PM (GMT-5)

Jeff: There is nothing wrong with it. If God communicates His will about eating particular things at particular times, then that is what we ought to do. I'm only arguing from what I would infer from reason and scripture alone. And using these grounds, alone, I would say that it seems possible that God can be indifferent to what we eat in some cases. Not saying I can prove that.

Tom: It’s entirely provable. It’s an open and shut case Bro. God IS sometimes indifferent to such choices. There are even examples in Scripture of God’s leaving a choice of to people and not prescribing a particular course of action.

Jeff: I agree. I was not clear. I was meaning that I can't prove that God might not use a person in such a way as D. is describing. But scripture does seem to cleary imply that there are the other kinds of cases too. My main point, as usual, is that private revelation is private. For community, we need consensus on the basic standards in scripture. Until we get that, it's pointless to try to get beyond that, IMO.

That's why I get disturbed when we start calling christian police "demonically arrogant" as if scripture is that clear on the matter. Much of what scripture is strong on, IMO, is the extent to which we can legitimately judge people. When we go too far, we destroy community unnecessarily. And we stall progress. Community requires tolerance and patience.

When the North lost patience with the South on the issue of slavery, the denominations split into northern branches and southern branches. Had this not happened, a war could not have occurred, IMO. People just aren't patient enough. They want their version of perfection NOW. But perfect love entails certain degrees of tolerance. Bearing the infirmities of the weak, etc.

When you look at the list of behaviors that Paul talks about using church discipline over, he also says that "those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." Would Paul say that Philemon or the Colossian slave-holders were not going to inherit the kingdom of God because of having slaves? Certainly not. But he does appeal to the fact that it might be more profitable for Omnesimus to serve him in the gospel than serve Philemon in payment of a debt. Yet Paul would do nothing apart from Philemon's "mind."

That's how love adjudicates. We need to remember that people really are free. We can't make things happen. We can only try to influence. And scripture tells us the bounds and limits of how to do that. We leave it to God to do all the other providential stuff--the "normal kind" and that which He does with those who are faithful.

Post Edited (jefscott) : 6/17/2007 8:48:07 AM (GMT-5)

You too, Jeff.  Let's just keep it movin' for God.  Ya HEARD????

"Party like a rock star..."

Unison: I'd like to say this again. For emphasis. I do not have a problem with your view. I DO NOT. If that is the way it is, then so be it. If we get to the glorified, and God "lets us go" and we can freely choose whether or not we want to be completely defined by God anymore, that's great.

Tom: To describe it as our not being completely defined by God misses the point though. If God essentially says you can choose to express your love in any number of ways, I like ‘em all, and by letting you participate in shaping the future I get the added enjoyment of seeing you freely create the way I do, then how are we LESS defined by God? You still define the “definition” worth holding on to in terms of “determination” and “monergy” instead of free sharing and synergy. But why do that?

Unison: No problem. I really, really don't care. Why? Because we both agree that in this life perfect, continual obedience to the leading of the Spirit is what needs to happen. And this is the way that we can help the world in this life and for the next.

Tom: Right on.

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Unison: YOU, Tom, are the one that seems to intolerant of MY view. It seems to offend your theological senses deeply. YOUR theological sensibilities are being touched off, not mine.

Tom: I don’t at all mean to come across that way. Sorry. It’s just that as I read you I get the sense that YOU were feeling this way. You often describe your insights on this whole issue with “How did we not see it?” and “It’s so obvious” and similar expressions. For people who don’t see it exactly the way you do it suggests that you think there’s something wrong with them. Sorry if I came across like this!

But I will admit to not being indifferent to your view. From where I stand presently, it isn’t the most beautiful, glorifying, God-becoming way to relate that I can imagine. That doesn’t mean that I’m right and might not be perceiving things inaccurately. None of us can process or reason outside the limits of our perceptions. And I know how passionately you feel about wanting to influence perceptions you feel can be approved as well. You go for it. And I wouldn’t jump in like this with somebody I wasn’t as comfortable with as I am with you and who I didn’t feel really wanted nothing more than what God wanted as well.

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Unison: How can God "let us go" when he GROUNDS the very righteousness, love, and peace that we display?

Tom: No differently than he lets us go now to choose freely. God grounds our libertarian wills now. Why can’t he ground us and the exercise of our wills in heaven without also determining everything about their exercise? I’m thinking of a passage in Scripture (I’ll find it) where God tells a king (or prophet, can’t remember) who was inquiring of which path to choose to “Do what you will. Do what is in your heart, for God is with you.” The idea is that because the scope of choices facing good people are all equally pleasing to God (which includes their relative providential value), God is pleased to leave the choice up to us. There’s a fundamental BEAUTY in this that's lost to a God who determines everything, even if he’s only determining love and goodness. IF SUCH BEAUTY IS WHAT GOD WANTS, D, then it’s wrong to say that we are LESS DEFINED BY GOD in such circumstances. Why? Because the creative expression of love REFLECTS GOD. He defines such creativity and love. We just determine its shape and form as individuals. But we’re no less defined by God. When glorified beings libertarianly choose to love in creative ways, D, they’re MORE LIKE GOD (more reflective of God, more aligned with his will, more one with him) not less like God.

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Unison: 1) My question, in essence, asked this: Is there ANYTHING WRONG WITH a person being totally controlled by God in the afterlife, specifically a person asking for that and a God that "doesn't mind" for that to occur. My questions obliquely posed this. Jeff said that there was nothing wrong with this. I think that you, Tom, would differ on God "not minding" a person wanting to ONLY be defined by God.

Tom: (a) A person who libertarianly determines the particular way her compatibilistically loving character expresses itself is not LESS like God, LESS one with God, LESS aligned with God, or LESS reflective of God than a person for whom these expressions are determined exclusively by the divine will. This is the assumption you appear to be making that I’m challenging. The assumption is behind all your questions but never gets addressed.

So (b) yes, I have difficulties imagining God wanting to be the only one who decides what occurs in the God-human relationship throughout eternity. It goes against everything I’ve come to value and affirm about open theism, about Doc’s reconstruction of CH, about the metaphysics of love, about personhood and relationality, and about God as love—I can go on. It’s nearly a 180 degree about face from these things so far as I can see.

Unison: It seems, with your position, that you would have to say that, to maximize God's beauty...God would NEVER allow a fully glorified human being to completely be defined by God's will. No, God would basically tell the person it's all on THEM now. They have the perfect character and have fulfilled their "eschatological essence". Now they can make their OWN decisions without ANY input from God on some of those decisions. Isn't that right, Tom?

Tom: Well, I feel like you’ve described it in slightly pejorative terms. Usually when we tell someone, “It’s all on YOU know. Go make your OWN decisions without ANY input from me,” something’s a bit wrong with the relationship. Sounds like we’re “giving up” in addition to “letting go” and that’s not what I have in mind. The tone bothers me. But in terms of God wanting us to reflect his free and creatively loving ways, yes, you essentially capture it. But that’s not to say we are ontologically independent of God and are no longer sustained by him, indwelt by the Spirit, animated by his presence or aligned with his will. We are all those things. But we remain dispositional creatures who creatively synthesize on some important level, and therein lies the individual diversity God seeks to shine through.

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Unison: 2) I want whatever God wants, Tom. Period. And whatever God wants to do, that's what will be done. I wonder...when I person operates solely according to the Will of Creative Freedom itself, how can a person be anything BUT Creative Freedom expressed?

Tom: Again, you have this idea that God can’t really impart the creative freedom that he is into other dispositional creatures AND NOT DETERMINE ITS EVERY MOVE and be unsurpassably pleased and one with his creation. It sounds like you think that if in heaven I actually determine which loving action I’ll do next that I will have moved AWAY from God somehow, be separated from God just a bit, or be LESS aligned with the will of creative freedom than I would be if God were to determine it all. But none of this follows.

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Unison: Can we at least agree that IN THIS LIFE, it's helpful to be completely obedient and attentive to God's Spirit at all times?

Tom: Of course. But more importantly, D, you need to understand that in my view, how I've described the eternal state isn't something OTHER than complete obedience and attentiveness to the Spirit at all times. I don't think we need to depart from obedience and the Spirit's empowering presence to determine our loving expressions of God and others. You're not granting this and that's a problem between us. So again let me ask--WHY do you think that unity with God, complete glorification, utter abandonment to the Spirit, and perfected human faculties all entail the conclusion that everything about the God-human relationship throughout eternity will be determined by God alone? You are assuming this. I'm interested in knowing why.

I love you D. Would not be who I am today with you in my life. Don’t get discouraged by my slow and incessant hounding you on this. That’s what turtles do!

Tom

Post Edited (MANY) : 6/17/2007 4:02:42 PM (GMT-5)