Furthermore, if people have free-will, they can choose to oppose God and abandon His kingdom like Satan and 1/3 of the angels did despite having access to God.

Shake that box full of pennies, some will land heads and some will land tails and you will never get all to land heads at the same time though you shake that sucker to eternity.  Totally improbable.

My suggestion?  Jump on the determinism bandwagon with all the other universalists, it's your only consistent choice.

Tom: Is there something we who choose and fall into sin and then freely choose redemption come to know and experience that babies who die and automatically inherit heaven don’t come to know?

Jeff: Even if this is so, and I think it is (though temporal in nature), it still means that there are truths that are not stated explicitly in scripture.

Tom:  I agree on your point about having to infer truth not explicitly mentioned in the Bible. We all do that.

My point about babies isn’t just there being some incidental difference in the experience of heaven on the part of babies compared to the experience of redeemed persons. It’s about how we fit both of those experiences within God’s fundamental intentions for created persons. That is, God has particular intentions for the divine-human relationship. Heaven IS the fulfillment of those intentions (incidentals aside). Babies who die and go to heaven automatically come into the full experience of God’s fundamental intentions for human beings. That’s the problem—God’s intentions for human being are had apart from human free choice and risk. God just—poof—gives the relationship to the person apart from their choosing it and consequently relates to/with that person in the manner he always intended. If THAT’S possible, then we MUST explain why God chose this world with its risk (certainty really) of evil and suffering because the risk now has nothing to do with God's intentions for the divine-human relationship. Laika's view on infants divorces risk from any relationship to the fulfillment of God's purpose for that relationship since we now have an instance of the risk-free fulfillment of those purposes. See? Now risk is an unnecessary means to God's purposes for the divine-human relationship. That's a HUGE problem.

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Laika: I understand we can infer some things based on the text.  But UR has built a mountain out of NOTHING.

Tom: Forget UR. I’m not talking about that at all now. Let’s just toss it aside. We’re now talking about the idea that:

God’s purposes for human beings can be fulfilled by human beings…(a) apart from risking the sin and evil of this world, and (b) without human beings having to choose AT ALL. God does ALL the choosing.

Dude, you keep attributing (VERY inaccurately by the way, because there’s NO determining of the relevant choices of persons by God in my view) determinism to me! But this view of yours about infants who die is the PUREST form of determinism I can imagine. God simply determines the relationship between himself and dead infants. They never choose. They’re nothing but passive receivers of God’s determinations. It’s YOU my friend, not me, who is the straight up determinist here. I reject such determination as a metaphysical impossibility in all contexts, including hell. But you grant that God can and does sometimes get the relationship of love he wants with human beings through pure determinism. He just doesn’t wanna do so for everybody. He’d rather risk eternal conscious torment for the vast majority even though neither he nor we require it for his purposes, as your view on infants reveals.

Even John Piper refuses to go this route. He believes in post-mortem evangelism for infants because (he says) persons HAVE to choose heaven. That isn’t just the mechanism of choice in some contexts. It’s the metaphysical mechanism as such.

Laika: And any "post-mortem evangelism" would be TOTALLY expedient and COMPLETELY lacking in any kind of faith.

Tom: Two things. (1) That’s not true. It’s quite easy to imagine post-mortem scenarios that do not overwhelm persons with so much truth that rational free choice becomes impossible (or merely expedient), and (2) now you’re agreeing with me and Moreland that perception levels influence/define rationally free choice. You said you disagreed with this idea and that perception levels aren’t related to free choice. Look at Lucifer you said. He still chose evil in spite of all that he knew and the obvious truth he perceived. So his choice, you insisted, cannot on any level be about something he DIDN’T know or perceive. So, how about the other angels who chose to stick with God in the same situation? Was THEIR choice for God totally expedient? It would HAVE to be in your view. Was it less than ‘true’ choice? It wold have to be. Less than ‘free’? Would have to be. Was there NO actual ‘trust’ exercised on their part in God? Couldn’t have been in your view. Faith/trusting God isn’t possible because, as you insist, you “just know.” There’s no room for trust. But that leaves you unable to explain the rebellion of Lucifer (et. al.) and the choice not to rebel on the part of other angelic beings as rational, free, and responsible acts.

If the immaterial world can be a place where rationally free choice with respect to relating to God rightly or wrongly is possible (and it is), there’s no way to reject ALL forms of post-mortem evangelism out of hand, even if we suppose that the person would see a good deal of the obvious truth about God and other things (and I think he would NOT perceive as much truth as you suppose, but never mind that).

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Tom: The whole free will defense rests upon the necessity of libertarian choice to the becoming of finite creatures and not just to the redemption of sinful creatures.

Laika: Becoming what?  Four year olds?  Eleven year olds?  Thirty year olds? 

Tom: Becoming “lovingly related to God.”

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Tom: That infants are ‘innocent’ is beside the point. They’re finite, created beings, and the entire “love requires freedom” that I know you are big on (as am I) applies here as well. It’s not “love requires freedom for sinners but not for others.” It’s “love requires freedom for creatures—period.”

Laika: Again, redemption for sins is the first step and you cannot start any journey until you solve that issue.

Tom: The problem is (a) there’s no “journey” for infants in your view. They’re determined by God—poof. They inherit heaven entirely passively. And (b) you’re posting the need for redemption before the question at hand. The question is: If it’s possible to get human beings into the loving relationship with God that God desires (and you now claim it IS possible, infants are the proof), then it follows that God could have avoided the risk of sin and evil (and hence the need for ‘redemption’) altogether had he just decided to determine us into the love he desired (JUST as you believe he can and does do with infants).

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Tom: Furthermore, if you’re right that innocent babies who die wake up in heaven—poof—without having to determine themselves freely with respect to God, then we have serious problems as free will theists, because then we have no rationale for why it is not the case that God did not simply create us—poof—to begin with in such a state, that is, in heaven, already arrived and without the necessity for having to freely determine ourselves. If babies who die wake up in heaven and come into the full enjoyment of all God created them for, then what the he** is this world about at all?

Laika: UR has the same problem. What's the point of this world if UR is true?

Tom: I’d disagree that they’re the same, but that doesn’t matter. YOU think so. Therefore, you’re agreeing that your view on infants is as defensible as any version of UR on this score? Fine. So WHY do you believe it in the case of infants?

Do you have ANY idea why God chose to risk the eternal conscious torment of the vast majority of human beings when it was nevertheless possible for God to simply create people already determined in the relationship he desires (in the same manner he determines infant in that relationship)? Does the question even cross your mind?

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Laika: My suggestion? Jump on the determinism bandwagon with all the other universalists, it's your only consistent choice.

Tom: And if I slip trying to jump on you’ll extend a helping hand since you’re already on that wagon my friend. You’re a undiluted determinist when it comes to infants. So you think God can and does SOMETIMES determine us into the relationship he created us for. And you have no opinion on why—if God can do this—God chooses instead to risk the eternal suffering of the majority? Why the risk Laika?

Having said that, I absolutely reject determinism, even in the case of UR. You can’t pin that on me bro. If you’ve paid attention to all that I’ve said about what I believe, you’d know how violently I’ve insisted on real LFW choice.

T

Post Edited (Tom) : 11/9/2008 1:22:05 AM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (Similtude) : 11/9/2008 4:31:21 AM (GMT-6)

Rachel: Another question I struggled with—What is the meaning of this life, if hell is a continuation of this life? (With the same opportunities to accept Christ etc.)

Tom: Great question. This life and the next life have to be ‘similar’ enough if those in hell have some opportunity to repent and believe. But they also have to be ‘dissimilar’ enough to explain why there’s two epochs at all and what’s unique about each.

I suppose I’d say that this life is a probationary period while the next is just working out the consequences of this life. I think the core is that we have to freely choose or determine ourselves with respect to God. I don’t have any reason to suppose this is ever NOT the case. This life is fundamentally about making that determination. But that doesn’t mean the opportunity to do so can’t continue in the next life. But if it does continue, it continues in a different context. So it’s not the case that is hell is just “a continuation of this life” with “the same opportunities to accept Christ.” It’s not “just” a continuation of this life with “the same” opportunities.

We sin now and though we suffer for it somewhat, we’re still not paying the ultimate price or experiencing the ultimate consequences of our sin. However evil we might become in this life, we’re still within the general good graces of God who wants us to turn to him and avoid the outhouse. Think of Peter’s comment about God being patient and longsuffering in this present era “so that” we repent and turn to him and avoid judgment. We can repent and avoid suffering the consequences of our choices in terms of ultimate judgment.

So I get the sense that this life is set up with enough pain for doing wrong to warn us, and enough enjoyment for doing right to encourage us—so that over time we determine ourselves and develop our characters. But neither the pain nor the pleasure is the full consequence of doing either the wrong or right thing in the ultimate sense. We’re on probation. God wants us to develop freely by choice into lovers of God. It’s possible to do that in a safe environment where we never have to really face the hard-core consequences of our sin. That’s this life.

Hell is different. And what I and others want to say is that there’s no reason to think that it’s impossible (and some good biblical/theological/philosophical reasons to suppose it IS possible) to still make the right choice for God in a context like hell. It’s not a safe environment where we can learn to make the right choices over time without having to face the just consequences for our failures. In this life God spares us that in love. We can develop safely and securely, making some right and some wrong choices, and still avoid the ‘outhouse’ as it were. But in hell, that deal is off and we’re brought into an experience of the full and ultimate consequence of our sin. That’s ‘judgment’. It’s remedial judgment because it’s designed to bring us to our senses, but it’s still full/eschatological judgment, and that’s something no one experiences in this life. Probation as such is over, and now we are saved, to borrow a phrase from Jude, “as through fire.” No telling how long it’ll take or what horrors our minds and bodies will have to endure. But eventually we’ll suffer our way through to the truth about ourselves and God.

I hope it’s true. I think it is. I don’t KNOW that it is. My confidence is growing. It makes sense to believe it’s true, but I can’t be dogmatic.

Tom

Post Edited (Tom) : 11/10/2008 11:21:27 AM (GMT-6)

Tom, you're building everything on a boundary condition.

In induction, an algorithm is devised for i and i + 1.

Boundary conditions are usually handled separately AND they don't affect the algorithm for the normal case.

I could do the same thing, look at just one boundary case, Jesus, and build a theology that all men are sinless and don't need redemption. 

But the boundary case of Jesus doesn't negate the algorithm "for all have sinned" despite it's appearing to negate the "all" of the algorithm.

Laika: If there's freedom to choose for God post death, there's freedom to choose against God post death.

Tom: Well, I’d certainly disagree with that.

You think God can choose to sin, so for you there just is no possibility of getting to the place where sin is no longer possible. For you, heaven has the possibility of becoming hell.

But your criticism here doesn’t apply TO ME or to any UR advocate who disagrees with you that libertarian freedom with respect to evil is immutable. I don’t think that those in hell who finally resolve themselves to God remain in hell. I think they’re redeemed and enter eternal life with the rest of us. If these are continually free to reject God as you say, then so are WE (but you believe that too). And if that’s the case, fine, I’ll take what I can get. I’m happy to say that those who are redeemed from hell remain forever free, just like those who are redeemed while on earth will remain free, to sin and reject God on into eternity. If that’s the best we who are redeemed on earth can hope for, then fine, that’s the best those who are redeemed from hell can hope for. So what?

UR would STILL true in the sense that all are eventually redeemed. You’d just be correct in claiming that redemption isn’t a sure thing FOR ANY OF US. Making it to heaven is no guarantee that you won’t end up in hell. That’s you’re belief. For you, even being GOD is no guarantee that you won’t end up in hell. If freedom from the possibility of sinning (non posse pecare) is metaphysically impossible, then fine. That doesn't disprove UR. It just means any actual state of UR will always be tentative. But you believe heaven is tentative anyhow.

So your criticisms are no real threat to me. At the very worst, redeemed human beings in heaven face the same possibility of going to hell that God does. We’d alllllll be free to walk out of heaven and jump back in the flames if we wanted to.

If that’s all the UR that’s possible, I’ll take it.

Laika: If there's character solidification towards God, there's character solidification away from God.

Tom: That doesn’t follow logically, in form. There’s no contradiction generated by the claim that libertarian free will is finite and that ‘glorification’ seals our Godwardness (while hell cannot seal it negatively). Nothing impossible about that per se.

Laika: At any moment, anyone could be choosing either direction, hence the analogy is you shake that box an infinite number of times and each time some will fall heads up, some will fall tails up.  The probability that a trillion pennies fall heads up on one any one shake are astronomically tiny.

Tom: I don’t much care for the analogy myself, but since you’re using it, I don’t need a trillion to turn face up at once. Once one turns face up, it enters eternal life. It’s gone. Eventually, each penny will at some point turn up and escape. Eventually all we be gone. Your belief that all will eternally remain free to reject God doesn’t affect me since I don’t share it. BUT if it turns out to be true, it’s true for ALL of us. Hey, if that’s the best God can do, fine.

Laika: Glue == God's determination to lock some in, violating their freewill…

Tom: You’re joking right? I’m laughing. Ha! I person who is free to love only and free from the possibility of hating is MORE, not LESS, free than the person who is free both to love and hate. We're just gonna disagree on this Laika. There's no reconciling our differences here, and our differences influence how we handle the UR question.

Laika: Could some choose to rebel after partaking of the divine nature?  Hebrews 6 Satan and 1/3 of the angels are proof of that.

Tom: Hebrews is written to believers who either have or are contemplating abandoning their faith. That’s all a ‘this worldly’ affair. But after ‘glorification’? I personally don’t think so, no. Do I think Satan and his minions were partakers of the divine nature, already ‘glorified’? Actually no, I don’t think so. There’s nothing about being an ‘immaterial spiritual being’ (say, and angel) that entails being fully ‘arrived’, having no room to develop or grow toward your created telos. Why think that? Immaterial beings can have a telos toward which they must grow by choice. That seems to me to explain Lucifer’s rebellion in the first place. But none of this means the telos can’t ever be reached, or that when it’s reached we’re not secure in it.

I think all created beings have a telos—with respect to their orientation in goodness/love and service—that can and shall be fulfilled. But Laika, if you think human beings even have a telos, you deny any of us EVER reaches it, since we’ll always be free to abandon it.

By the way, you never answered my question about the angels who chose NOT to rebell but to remain faithful to God. Was their choice not a choice involving any trust whatsoever? That is, was it pure expediency? You're saying any post-mortem choice would be pure expediency becaues they can't have "faith." They simply "know." Well, how about it? What of the choice of angels to remain faithful?

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Laika: Jeff, what do innocents need to be saved from?

Tom: This has NEVER been the point behind why LFW had to be defended against Calvinists. We always argued that it's what we are saved TO (not from) which requires LFW. Both innocent infants who die and hardened criminals are created FOR and invited TO the same relationship of love with God. You keep skirting this issue and throwing determinism back at me (or us). But it ain't us Laika. It's YOU. I insist that the KIND OF RELATIONSHIP GOD WANTS TO HAVE WITH US (that's it), TO WHICH we are called, can ONLY be entered into via free choice. It must be chosen. What do you think Greg's "Love requires freedom" (that you defend) means. It's metaphysical. But you now deny it in the case of infants, whom you believe are utterly determined by God into that state of loving relationality that God creates them for. That's pure determinism.

Will you agree with me that this represents determinism? Will you admit that much?

T

Post Edited (Tom) : 11/11/2008 10:00:16 AM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (Tom) : 11/11/2008 10:24:36 AM (GMT-6)