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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Theological Q&A > Love and Freedom in the Hereafter | Forum Quick Jump
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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 9/27/2003 9:57 PM (GMT -6) |   | Mephi: I believe that Doc and Tom would say the second scenario is genuine, while the first is not. They are going to say that BECAUSE their characters were chosen rather than not, then the love relationship between the two UNCHANGABLY LOVING beings is genuine.
Tom: Wisdom is born, grasshoppa.
Mephi: But this ATTACKS the premise, I believe, that Tom wants to set.
Tom: Wisdom just flew out the winder, grasshopper!
Mephi: Tom wants to say that if one person knows [bold mine] that it is a FOREGONE CONCLUSION that another person will certainly love them…that the love relationship between them cannot be genuine.
Tom: Not really. My objection isn’t about epistemology per se. Epistemology helps my case I think (we CAN believe that our love, or another’s love for us, is genuine and believe that love is risk-free if we believe that we and the person are responsible for having come to such a risk-free state, but we CANNOT believe that our love, or another’s love for us, is genuine if we know that love is risk-free because it is predetermined for us by another), but epistemology isn’t itself what I’m arguing. It’s the reality, the metaphysical reality, that I’m appealing to. Epistemology just reinforces it.
Doc?
Mephi: So, Tom and Doc, are you arguing that completely RISK-FREE interpersonal love relationships among contingent beings are genuine?
Tom: They’re genuine if the contingent persons in question achieved “risk-freeness” through the exercise of their own libertarian free will cooperating with the grace of God. They are not genuine if THAT they love (not only if they know that their love) was unconditionally predetermined for them by another.
On the bathroom analogy, I’d:
…one, argue that choices to engage in what is a self-determined habit of character ARE consciously made. That we know we are unable to avoid making a particular choice doesn’t mean we make it unconsciously (Rom. 7). In fact, we can even be conscious of the fact that we’ve chosen ourselves into a particular slavery, mourn the fact itself, and understand that had we acted differently in the past we wouldn’t be where we now are, all the while VERY consciously engaged in the choice to take that drink, or smoke that cigarette, or rape that woman, or abuse that child, or waste our kids’ food money on that horse race.
…secondly, argue that we ARE responsible for what flows from our freely chosen slaveries. A man freely drinks his way into slavery to alcohol. He gets drunk and drives his car across over your children killing them. He’s not morally responsible? He is. But if a man is made drunk by others (whether by a chip or by a predetermined nature), placed behind the wheel of the car, and subsequently drives over your children killing them, is he responsible? No.
…thirdly, argue that peeing is not morally significant behavior. It’s certainly significant to the man’s job, and the boss may justifiably fire the man, but peeing at 1 PM is not morally significant (unless you’re peeing on somebody). Love is.
Tom: I take it as self-evident that predetermined personal relationships of love is for us a meaningless notion.
Iconoclast: Why is it self-evident that this is a meaningless notion for US when you seem to agree that it is NOT for God? You seem to agree that God is predetermined to have personal relationships of love - so why not us? … The analogy is God's predetermined interpersonal relationship of love for us.
Tom: Oh my. I’d never argue that God is predetermined by another to love. Oh my, oh gosh. Oh my. 
Doc! They're ganging up on me! Help! 
Iconbasher  : Didn't God give us His "is'ness" related to free-will? Or do you argue that God is NOT free-will?
Tom: I don’t think God is libertarianly free not to love. Right.
Iconoclast: But then, how could God give us something that He is NOT? And if God isn't free-will then where does free-will come from?
Tom: God can only reproduce himself? God gave us physical bodies, yet God is immaterial. So God can give what God is not. If God’s existence is not contingent (which is what his being a necessary being means), this doesn’t render him incapable of granting us contingent existence. It rather presumes this is the ONLY form of existence God may grant. Same with morally significant existence. God can’t grant that we are contingently loving while being himself necessarily loving?
Iconoclast: Didn't God give us His "image"? What does this mean?
Tom: I think it means we are personal beings capable of love. We bare this image contingently, do we not? We love contingently. This follows from our BEING contingent. We can and do mar this image. And we can (and do) surrender it ultimately in eternity when we spend a lifetime denying it. God cannot do these things.
Tom
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One Love
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| Posted 9/27/2003 10:18 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
quote:
one, argue that choices to engage in what is a self-determined habit of character ARE consciously made. That we know we are unable to avoid making a particular choice doesn’t mean we make it unconsciously (Rom. 7). In fact, we can even be conscious of the fact that we’ve chosen ourselves into a particular slavery, mourn the fact itself, and understand that had we acted differently in the past we wouldn’t be where we now are, all the while VERY consciously engaged in the choice to take that drink, or smoke that cigarette, or rape that woman, or abuse that child, or waste our kids’ food money on that horse race.
This is not true. The point of habituation unto solidified character is that it becomes SECOND NATURE. It becomes like breathing. These choices are NOT consciously made, Tom. If a behavior was INDEED unchangable, you would not necessarily CONSCIOUSLY do the action. Sure, one may be aware of the action being done, but that is distinct from being consciously aware of MAKING THE DECISION to do something over against AGAINST the consciously understood ability (no matter how small) to refrain. Remember, Tom. We are talking about TOTAL solidification here. Not the type of stuff that you are talking about.
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Tom:
quote:
secondly, argue that we ARE responsible for what flows from our freely chosen slaveries. A man freely drinks his way into slavery to alcohol. He gets drunk and drives his car across over your children killing them. He’s not morally responsible? He is. But if a man is made drunk by others, placed behind the wheel of the car, and subsequently drives over your children killing them, us he responsible? No.
This is not right. There are far too many complexities in this to get to the real issue. A better one would have been this: If a person is UNCHANGABLY conditioned such that EVERY TIME they pass a bar, they WILL attempt to get a drink from said bar…is she morally responsible for buying drinks (and wasting money) at every bar she passes. HECK, NO. She would only be responsible for the character that she developed where this occurs. But no one could hold her MORALLY CULPABLE for something that 1)was not consciously decided and 2) she was not ABLE to do otherwise.
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Tom:
quote:
…thirdly, argue that peeing is not morally significant behavior. It’s certainly significant to the man’s job, and the boss may justifiably fire the man, but peeing at 1 PM is not morally significant (unless you’re peeing on somebody). Love is.
It’s the PRINCIPLE, Tom. Cmon….
"I've been converted three times. The first was to traditional Christianity; the second to honesty and the third was to the Love of God and man (humanity) The third was the real conversion. The first two were preliminary."
--Nels Ferre, a theologian speaking of his spiritual journey with the Triune God
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Tom
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| Posted 9/27/2003 10:44 PM (GMT -6) | | Iconoclast: …since we now realize that "love must be chosen" is NOT a necessary truth it can no longer function as a valid reason for why God created this particular world. Because of this we should drop it and search for other more plausible reasons. It seems to me that our options are:
2. To try and understand why it is that God cannot just replicate His loving nature into other beings. This is difficult because the fundamental reason why I would say that He cannot is that love by its very nature (metaphysical nature) must be chosen. If this is not true then it is very hard to see how it is that God could not just replicate this aspect of Himself in other beings. We know that He can create beings "in His image" so there are certainly aspects of God that He does replicate in us. So, why didn't He simply replicate His loving nature?
Tom: I’m lost. It looks to me, Icon, as though you’re affirming and denying the same thing. You begin by denying that “love must be chosen” is one of the reasons why God created this particular sort of world and then proceed to offer as an alternative reason why God created this particular sort of world the fact that the fundamental reason why God cannot simply replicate his loving nature into other beings is because love by its very nature must be chosen. Your #2 is precisely what I argue FOR. God cannot simply replicate what is true about him necessarily (God is love) into other beings who are not in themselves necessary beings of love. [I’m having a very difficult time even grasping what it is you’re saying about God; but it seems to me that you’re arguing that God does not love necessarily; love must be libertarianly chosen for us, so it must therefore also be so chosen by God.]
I’m baffled as to why Mephi is saying “Amen” to the bold portion of your #2. I was going to offer an “Amen” to it myself.
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One Love
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| Posted 9/27/2003 11:03 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
quote:
My objection isn’t about epistemology per se. Epistemology helps my case I think (we CAN believe that our love, or another’s love for us, is genuine and believe that love is risk-free if we believe that we and the person are responsible for having come to such a risk-free state, but we CANNOT believe that our love, or another’s love for us, is genuine if we know that love is risk-free because it is predetermined for us by another), but epistemology isn’t itself what I’m arguing. It’s the reality, the metaphysical reality, that I’m appealing to. Epistemology just reinforces it.
It seems here that you are saying this:
The idea of “risk-free” love between persons is not the issue. Choice is the issue. Unless love can be said to come PRIMARILY from the contingent being ON ALL LEVEL, then the love can’t said to be genuinely coming from THAT being. In other words, unless the contingent being had the FINAL SAY (via free choice) on whether or not it was going to reflect God’s love, it’s love cannot said to be genuine.
Basically, all you seem to do, Tom, is just REASSERT the “love must be chosen” idea. But you don’t seem to grasp what I’ve been saying about the problem. You (for some reason) seem to think that the “God is love, we are not” argument works. For the life of me, I don’t see how…
God is love and that by his essential existence. In other words, God’s love emerges from who God IS. Cool. But that is DISTINCT from God’s being a necessary being. Yes, God’s being a necessary being ENHANCES the argument, because it shows that if God is who we say that God is, then God MUST be love NECESSARILY. But this is NOT necessary to make our point. These are ALL the ingredients you need to posit an UNCHANGABLY loving God…
1)omniscience (Which leads to a exhaustive knowledge of any possessed dispositions within Godself)
2)omnipotence (Which means that God has NO LIMITATIONS on the actualization of the disposition)
3) triunity (Which means that God is necessarily relational, and constantly in harmony with Godself, perfectly integrous with Godself)
4) loving disposition (Which means that God’s tendency deals with love)
The interplay of all these factors in the actualization process of the divine disposition brings about God’s ESSENTIAL EXISTENCE. And this essential existence is such that God would be UNCHANGABLY loving. This has NOTHING to do with God’s necessary being, per se. God’s being the necessary being just says that, with respect to any aspect of God’s essential existence, is MUST be so necessarily. So, all this says is that IF God’s essential existence is such that God is unchangably loving, then it MUST be so necessarily. See what I’m saying?
So, bottom line: “God IS love” just means that God has an loving disposition INHERENT to God that God NEVER FAILS to actualize because of God’s omniscience, omnipotence, and triunity.
Now, what would be a major difference between God and all-loving sentient creatures who were created such that they would inherently appropriate the loving subjective aim of God without fail? Hmm. Simply this: Whereas the loving disposition that God never fails to actualize is INHERENT to God, that same ideal of love is NOT inherent to sentient creatures. Unlike God, created sentient beings must look OUTSIDE OF THEMSELVES in order to actualize love. This takes place by them appropriating the subjective aim of God with respect to loving. Sure, sentient beings can be created such that this appropriating process will be AUTOMATIC, but the main issue is still the same. The appropriation is still getting something from OUTSIDE of the self in order to love. This is why I would be able to say that God IS love while sentient beings can be created unchangably loving but cannot BE love.
So, both God AND sentient creatures would work by the following same principle: All loving choices come from an all-loving “nature”, which emerges from the essential existence of a being. Understand that this principle applies to God too!
The DISTINCTION between Creator and creation would be found in this principle: God is the ONLY BEING about whom we can say that the loving disposition is INHERENT to it’s essential existence. All other beings get their loving dispositions from God via continual appropriation of the divine subjective aim.
Now, this is important, Tom, because the “love requires freedom/love must be chosen” idea works against the FIRST principle that deals with ANY and ALL beings whose loving decisions come ultimately from some “nature” which is grounded in the essential existence of a being. And because that category fits both sentient creatures AND God, the love requires freedom idea should have the SAME impact (whatever that impact may be) on the God/world relationship as it does with sentient beings’ relationships to each other! Do you NOW see why the Creator/creature distinction doesn’t work, Tom? Is it clear? The distinction of creator/creature doesn’t touch the central PROBLEM. God’s loving disposition being inherent to God doesn’t take him OUT of the class of beings whose loving choices comes from nature…and if THAT doesn’t happen, the issue remains the same.
"I've been converted three times. The first was to traditional Christianity; the second to honesty and the third was to the Love of God and man (humanity) The third was the real conversion. The first two were preliminary."
--Nels Ferre, a theologian speaking of his spiritual journey with the Triune God
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Tom
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| Posted 9/27/2003 11:40 PM (GMT -6) | | 4 AM? Dude, go to SLEEP!
Mephi: Remember, Tom. We are talking about TOTAL solidification here. Not the type of stuff that you are talking about.
Tom: You offered “peeing” (not a moral act at all) as an example of the sort of solidification you wanted to discuss. I offered other equally self-determined habits but simply ones that were moral in nature. You disqualified my examples as not being solidified enough?
Mephi: If a behavior was INDEED unchangable, you would not necessarily CONSCIOUSLY do the action.
Tom: We breathe unconsciously. I tie my shoes without consciously determining each step of the way. Fine. But tying my shoes remains MY act by virtue of the fact that I learned how to tie my shoes. I determined myself in this respect. I acquired this solidification. We’re talking, of course, about that which defines our being persons, that is, relating interpersonally in love to others. What happens to the “personal” nature of our relating lovingly to others if our choice to love and relate to others is rendered unchangeable by God’s predetermination? For that matter, what happens to the “personal” nature of ANY habit if that habit is not determined by our persons? A perfect description of robotic behavior. Second-party determination renders us by definition objects, and not personal subjects.
Mephi: A better one would have been this: If a person is UNCHANGABLY conditioned such that EVERY TIME they pass a bar, they WILL attempt to get a drink from said bar…is she morally responsible for buying drinks (and wasting money) at every bar she passes. HECK, NO.
Tom: Heck YES.
Mephi: She would only be responsible for the character that she developed where this occurs.
Tom: But not for the behavior that flows from that developed character? To say we’re responsible for “character” apart from any consideration of the behavior that flows from that character is pretty pointless. There IS no holding “character” responsible apart from that character’s "behavior." We’re morally responsible for behavior, period. If there’s any morality to be attributed at all, it’s to “acts” alone. A "character" is only morally responsible for what it does.
Mephi: But no one could hold her MORALLY CULPABLE for something that 1) was not consciously decided and 2) she was not ABLE to do otherwise.
Tom: But she was able to do otherwise. Don’t isolate an act so much that you divorce it from the lifetime of choices that influenced the act and NO continuity exists.
A man who freely chooses himself into slavery to alcoholism is responsible for what he does when drunk. On one of his drunken stupors he drives over your children and kills them. Is he morally responsible? Hell yes! He was able to become other than an alcoholic. This freedom accounts for the culpability of what he does when drunk, but only because HE owns the process that led to THIS act on THIS particular drunken stupor. That he was incapable at THIS time of doing other than he did is irrelevant.
Mephi: It’s the PRINCIPLE, Tom. Cmon….
Tom: For sure it’s the principle. But what’s the principle? You offered solidified peeing as an example and said the employ was therefore NOT responsible for being unable to fulfill the requirements of his job. I offered EQUALLY solidified drunkenness or sexual assault as an example and said the perpetrator IS responsible. So what’s the principle? For you it seems to be that “unchangeable behavior” by definition, apart from any reference to HOW the behavior was rendered unchangeable, is not morally accountable behavior. That seems to be your principle. I say no. We MUST qualify “unchangeable” before we can render a verdict on whether or not such behavior is morally accountable. If the unchangeableness of the behavior is determined by wills OTHER than the will of the agent, there’s no morality attached. But if the unchangeableness of the act is determined by the will of the agent, then they’re responsible for their behavior.
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Tom
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| Posted 9/28/2003 2:22 AM (GMT -6) | | Icon: If God does not have libertarian choice and yet we consider Him to be morally responsible then why do we think that it entails choice for us?
Tom: I don’t think God is morally responsible. Who or what would God be morally responsible to? God is the measure.
Mephi: It seems here that you are saying this: The idea of “risk-free” love between persons is not the issue.
Tom: Not in itself, no. We one day shall love without risk.
Mephi: Choice is the issue.
Tom: Not even choice. The issue is rather ownership.
Mephi: These are ALL the ingredients you need to posit an UNCHANGABLY loving God: 1) omniscience (Which leads to a exhaustive knowledge of any possessed dispositions within Godself); 2)omnipotence (Which means that God has NO LIMITATIONS on the actualization of the disposition); 3) triunity (Which means that God is necessarily relational, and constantly in harmony with Godself, perfectly integrous with Godself); 4) loving disposition (Which means that God’s tendency deals with love). The interplay of all these factors in the actualization process of the divine disposition brings about God’s ESSENTIAL EXISTENCE.
Tom: I’m treading more and more softly lately when it comes to declaring how God IS essentially related, what’s necessary and what’s contingent, and what is responsible for what in the reality that is God. So, I’m just not inclined to dissect God this much. Maybe that’s just where I am these days. For instance, you say, “The interplay of all these factors in the actualization process of the divine disposition brings about God’s ESSENTIAL EXISTENCE.” Wow. I just can’t stand that close to God and say with this degree of certainty HOW God is God.
I certainly don’t see how omniscience implies omnibenevolence. We can know the right and still not do it. You can know and not love. Nor do I see how omnipotence implies omnibenevolence. We can be able to love and choose not to. Knowledge and ability, even if it’s omni-knowledge and omni-ability, don’t necessarily combine to produce love. I'd probably argue in the opposite direction. Omnibenevolence is logically prior and implies omniscience. You can't love what you do not know. If God is love, he must know (not if God knows, he must love).
God is “necessarily” relational? I think so, though I prefer constitutionally relational. But how is it if God is “necessarily” relational that God only “tends” to love? Why not “necessarily loves”? In fact, how not so?
Mehpi: Unlike God, created sentient beings must look OUTSIDE OF THEMSELVES in order to actualize love.
Tom: But if we are predetermined to love, we’re not “looking outside of ourselves in order to” actualize anything. We are rather actualized by God. We are objects, not subjects.
Mephi: Now, this is important, Tom, because the “love requires freedom/love must be chosen” idea works against the FIRST principle that deals with ANY and ALL beings whose loving decisions come ultimately from some “nature” which is grounded in the essential existence of a being. And because that category fits both sentient creatures AND God…
Tom: I don’t see that we would fit this category if God were to predetermine our characters for us. His character is not predetermined for him by another. We’re he to predetermine ours we would not be MORE like him. We would in this point be unlike him. To love as God loves is to determine one’s own love. To own the choice to love. And to get creatures who determine themselves in love as does God, God must run the risk of our not loving. He is not predetermined by another to love. He cannot predetermine others to love. Whereas God is a necessary being of love means there’s no risk in his failing to love, our being contingent beings who are not love means having to face this risk.
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Semeia
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| Posted 9/28/2003 5:28 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom said:
Tom: I’m lost. It looks to me, Icon, as though you’re affirming and denying the same thing.
Semeia:
Tom, I think you missed a couple of pages back where Iconoclast said he was going to argue Mephi’s point of view for a while:
Iconoclast’s previous post – page 15:
Come on, let’s be creative with this. If we can’t find a way to clearly conceive of how will is the ground of its own being then the MephMeister has TWT-1 on the ropes. Meph has found what I think is a deterministic presupposition within this notion of TWT-1 and he is exploiting it.
In fact, I think I will switch to arguing FOR Meph’s case for a while just to highlight what I think he has found.
Semeia:
Iconoclast DOES NOT ultimately agree with Mephi that love need NOT be chosen – but he DOES agree that Mephi has found an inconsistency with TWT-1 that needs to be addressed. The way Iconoclast has been addressing it on most of this thread is to show that EVEN FOR GOD love MUST BE CHOSEN. You and Doc seem to agree with Mephi that God’s love need not be chosen, and yet then try to show how this is NOT a problem for TWT-1. So Iconoclast is now trying to show that Mephi’s challenge is a legitimate big problem for a theodicy based on a claim that love must be chosen. I am rather confused about why you and Doc don’t see it as a big problem and thus you aren’t very interested in Iconoclast’s solution.
Tom said:
[I’m having a very difficult time even grasping what it is you’re saying about God; but it seems to me that you’re arguing that God does not love necessarily; love must be libertarianly chosen for us, so it must therefore also be so chosen by God.]
Semeia:
Yes, that is what Iconoclast has been arguing over the course of this thread. At the moment, however, he is arguing Mephi’s point in order to show WHY this is important. Because if indeed one agrees with Mephi that God’s love need NOT be chosen (which is the position that you and Doc have taken) then Mephi is ABSOLUTELY CORRECT in pointing out a serious flaw in TWT-1. If love does NOT need to be chosen by God, then there is NO METAPHYSICAL REASON why love would NEED TO BE CHOSEN by humans to be “genuine.” You can point out the difference between necessary and contingent all day long, and it still won’t help your case. Because there is NO REASON, if God’s “UNCHOSEN” love is genuine, for God to be UNABLE to create a world in which humans BY NATURE have this same “unchosen” love. God made us in his own image. If God himself does not need to choose love for it to be genuine, then there is no reason AT ALL for why humans would NEED to be WITHOUT this “loving nature” to begin with. If there is nothing about eternal, Godlike love that requires choice – and in fact someday everyone will have this eternal Godlike love in heaven – then there is no reason at all that God couldn’t have made people that way to begin with. And if God’s UNCHOSEN LOVE is genuine, then there is no reason to say that if people were given this same unchosen, loving disposition that it wouldn’t be genuine.
Now, to say that the reason it needs to be chosen by us but not by God is because we are not God and therefore we are not love is to me a very weak argument – because it sidesteps the fact that God could have created us out of the same “automatic love stuff” that HE is supposedly made up of – or imago dei – and so WHY DIDN’T HE? Surely omnipotence allows for such a thing! The ONLY reason he couldn’t would be if there is something about love itself which REQUIRES choice. But you and Doc are arguing AGAINST such a thing when you argue that God’s love is unchosen – for if God’s love need not be chosen then there is nothing about LOVE ITSELF which requires choice. You seem not to recognize the corner you have painted yourself into – and Mephi is right there with his paintbrush ready to finish the job!
If this “automatic love stuff” that God is made up of is genuine love, and we experience it as genuine love, then why didn’t he just use some of the same stuff to make us? Tom and Doc have argued throughout that human love entails choice because we are contingent, and God’s love doesn’t entail choice because he is necessary, and because he IS love – but they have not shown WHY contingent creatures would have needed to be made without this “automatic love stuff” in the first place. Mephi’s argument stands: if God’s love is unchosen AND genuine, why couldn’t people be made the same way? And if we were made BY God WITH this same love “nature” – why is it genuine for God and not for us?
So, to sum up:
Doc and Tom agree with Mephi that God’s love is not chosen, but they seem not to acknowledge the implications of that belief – that it blows apart the foundational idea that LOVE MUST BE CHOSEN. I suppose TWT-1 could be rewritten to say: contingent, human, temporal love must be chosen; necessary, Godlike, eternal love need not be chosen. But of course that leaves the whole basis of the theodicy in shambles, because it posits no reason for God not giving people eternal, Godlike love in their natures to begin with. It loses all its force as an explanation for evil. It leaves one with Mephi’s explanation: that all we can say is that it is for the glorification of God, which is to us a mystery.
Iconoclast’s answer to this is to show (brilliantly, to my eyes, though I might be a little biased) that in fact all love must be chosen, and how that might be conceived of in God as eternal choice. This preserves the logic of the theodicy by preserving the notion that love must be chosen.
Doc and Tom, it seems to me that if you are going to agree with Mephi that God’s love need not be chosen that at some point you are going to need to concede all the problems that accompany that thought. Mephi is right – if God’s love need not be chosen and yet it is genuine, then there is no metaphysical reason that God would have HAD TO create people WITHOUT this “love stuff” in them to begin with – because he could just as easily have gotten people to love by creating them to be like himself, which, according to you guys IS genuine love.
Love either requires choice or it doesn’t. If God’s loving nature doesn’t require choice, then the whole idea of “solidification of character” really becomes meaningless, because God could have just gone ahead and given us his own character to begin with and skipped the millions of people dying torturous deaths.
Mephi and Iconoclast are being consistent in their arguments. The in-between position that Doc and Tom have taken is not a consistent argument.
So, pick your poison: does God choose – or do we throw up our hands and say it’s all a mystery having to do with His glory? I know what a good Calvinist would do… 
Thanks,
Semeia
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Iconoclast
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| Posted 9/28/2003 5:46 AM (GMT -6) | | Here is what is REALLY confusing to me:
If it is true that God loves necessarily then for God the definition of love is that it comes out of His nature in such a way that it cannot be otherwise. So, for God, His love is compelled from a loving nature that is itself unchosen. AND this is all a necessary metaphysical reality – it COULD NOT be otherwise.
So, why wouldn’t we say that the TRUE metaphysical principle is that love MUST be compelled from a loving nature that is itself unchosen or it is NOT love?
So, how can love be God’s love, which is true love, if it does not come out of an unchosen nature that compels one to love?
And isn’t it obvious that only God could create this in another being? To fit this definition God would HAVE to create said being with an unchosen nature that compels love for the being to actually love.
thanks,
Iconoclast
"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 9/28/2003 8:29 AM (GMT -6) | | Thanks Semeia! I didn't catch that Icon was arguing Mephi's point and so was totally thrown off and confused. What you explained to be Icon's real position is what I thought was his view.
Icon, you asked me, let's see, 28 questions I think! I'll need two weeks per question. So I'll get back to you next year some time!
I understand what both Mephi and Icon are arguing. I guess I still am unable to see the problem or inconsistency in what Doc and I are arguing. Over time perhaps I'll come to appreciate what you guys see as problematic about this. Of course, eating good food with fine libations always loosens up the cobwebs for me. We'll see!
In the meantime (gotta finish some jobs for a couple of days), ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to step aside and make room for my twin brother, known to me in several previous lives...
...the Doctor! Take it away bro!
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One Love
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| Posted 9/28/2003 11:19 AM (GMT -6) | | Semeia:
quote:
Doc and Tom agree with Mephi that God’s love is not chosen, but they seem not to acknowledge the implications of that belief – that it blows apart the foundational idea that LOVE MUST BE CHOSEN. I suppose TWT-1 could be rewritten to say: contingent, human, temporal love must be chosen; necessary, Godlike, eternal love need not be chosen. But of course that leaves the whole basis of the theodicy in shambles, because it posits no reason for God not giving people eternal, Godlike love in their natures to begin with. It loses all its force as an explanation for evil. It leaves one with Mephi’s explanation: that all we can say is that it is for the glorification of God, which is to us a mystery.
Iconoclast’s answer to this is to show (brilliantly, to my eyes, though I might be a little biased) that in fact all love must be chosen, and how that might be conceived of in God as eternal choice. This preserves the logic of the theodicy by preserving the notion that love must be chosen.
Doc and Tom, it seems to me that if you are going to agree with Mephi that God’s love need not be chosen that at some point you are going to need to concede all the problems that accompany that thought. Mephi is right – if God’s love need not be chosen and yet it is genuine, then there is no metaphysical reason that God would have HAD TO create people WITHOUT this “love stuff” in them to begin with – because he could just as easily have gotten people to love by creating them to be like himself, which, according to you guys IS genuine love.
Love either requires choice or it doesn’t. If God’s loving nature doesn’t require choice, then the whole idea of “solidification of character” really becomes meaningless, because God could have just gone ahead and given us his own character to begin with and skipped the millions of people dying torturous deaths.
Mephi and Iconoclast are being consistent in their arguments. The in-between position that Doc and Tom have taken is not a consistent argument.
Very interesting. TIGHT STUFF, Semeia! Wonderful way to lay stuff out! You have my view down PAT! 
I’m glad that some OTHER people than me are seeing this. And I can definitely see WHY Iconoclast is coming with his creative approach to maintain saying that even GOD’S love must be chosen. This is the ONLY way that “love must be chosen” can truly be a METAPHYSICAL NECESSITY…because all metaphysical necessities have to be applicable, within the domains that they apply, to ALL things that be. In order for “love must be chosen” to truly be a METAPHYSICAL NECESSITY that God has to work with, it must be the case that it applies to ALL beings who love…INCLUDING GOD!
Good stuff, Iconoclast and Semeia. Wow. We’re actually on the same page!
**************************************
Tom:
quote:
I’m treading more and more softly lately when it comes to declaring how God IS essentially related, what’s necessary and what’s contingent, and what is responsible for what in the reality that is God. So, I’m just not inclined to dissect God this much. Maybe that’s just where I am these days. For instance, you say, “The interplay of all these factors in the actualization process of the divine disposition brings about God’s ESSENTIAL EXISTENCE.” Wow. I just can’t stand that close to God and say with this degree of certainty HOW God is God.
I certainly don’t see how omniscience implies omnibenevolence. We can know the right and still not do it. You can know and not love. Nor do I see how omnipotence implies omnibenevolence. We can be able to love and choose not to. Knowledge and ability, even if it’s omni-knowledge and omni-ability, don’t necessarily combine to produce love. I'd probably argue in the opposite direction. Omnibenevolence is logically prior and implies omniscience. You can't love what you do not know. If God is love, he must know (not if God knows, he must love).
God is “necessarily” relational? I think so, though I prefer constitutionally relational. But how is it if God is “necessarily” relational that God only “tends” to love? Why not “necessarily loves”? In fact, how not so?
Some things:
1) This is not a dissection of God. This is evaluation of a theological system for it’s coherency and consistency. Here, I definitely make a distinction between the “map” and the “territory”. We try to get our maps as close as we can to the terrain, but there is ALWAYS a separation. Our theologies are NOT God, neither is it appropriate to deify our theologies. I know enough to significantly distinguish this endeavor from my personal faith in and worship of God. This is why ultimately I couldn’t care LESS whether open view theism is true or not. Feel me?
2) You left out TRIUNITY, the implication of which is that God always seeks PERFECT INTERGRITY with Godself. If a person KNOWS themselves well enough to know they possess a certain disposition of ALWAYS loving…AND…there is absolutely nothing that can withhold them from actualizing that disposition…AND…that person always seeks to have perfect integrity with self, then there would be NO REASON for the person to not always love. As a matter of fact, it would DENY one of those traits to say that the person WOULD do something other than love!
"I've been converted three times. The first was to traditional Christianity; the second to honesty and the third was to the Love of God and man (humanity) The third was the real conversion. The first two were preliminary."
--Nels Ferre, a theologian speaking of his spiritual journey with the Triune God
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John Earp
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| Posted 9/29/2003 4:04 AM (GMT -6) | | Meph continues to simply assert that God's essential being/nature is love, and from this basic assumption his argument is certainly airtight. Meph continues to ignore my points, and assert his as THE view. This all seems so familiar. I've personally never seen a determinist who didn't argue like this. The hubris denoted by assuming one's presuppositions and then arguing from them, refusing to even acknowledge the possibility that others may have a point, is quite troubling to say the least.
Okay, since we're all just making assertions and reasserting them, I'll add my two bits:
Love must be chosen. Moral character/holiness/love in God is the same thing in humans - unselfish benevolence. This God has always and WILL always choose. Our faith in the faithfulness of God is not blind, but is testified to by the universal experience of all mankind of his steadfast love.
God is forever worthy of all praise for choosing to love from all eternity. If, on the other hand, God simply acts out of necessity, then it does not follow that his actions can be either praiseworthy or blameworthy.
"The Discovery of new truth will modify old views and opinions, and there is perhaps no end to this process with finite minds in any world." Charles G. Finney, Systematic Theology.
revivaltheology.net
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One Love
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| Posted 9/29/2003 5:42 AM (GMT -6) | | Sheesh, John.
I dealt with your conception some time ago on this thread. Your conception, in my mind, basically says that God’s moral capacity was VOID of moral content before God’s choice. Such that God really CHOSE to be loving. And God constantly makes the choice to love rather than not love. (This is distinct from Neville's view) But as I said before, this doesn’t give us the robust sense of God BEING love. The general tendency of historical church testimony is that God IS love, not just that God continuously chooses to love or that God is lovING. Your conception doesn’t effectively deal with this. All you can do (and have done) is argue that we are taking “God is love” in the wrong sense. We are overextending the meaning of the Scripture's statement. Cool. Whatever.
So, AGAIN, I will grant that if you are cool with separating love from God’s essential existence , then you have no problem. BUT if aren't cool with that, which many people ain't, then you have to do something else.
Feel me?
"I've been converted three times. The first was to traditional Christianity; the second to honesty and the third was to the Love of God and man (humanity) The third was the real conversion. The first two were preliminary."
--Nels Ferre, a theologian speaking of his spiritual journey with the Triune God
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One Love
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| Posted 9/29/2003 5:59 AM (GMT -6) | | For Doc: LISTEN UP!
Let’s do this blow by blow…
From your vantage point, I think that you believe that Neville’s idea is the only coherent way to talk about what Iconoclast is saying. (Actually, I would agree with this.) But, you know that Neville’s idea of God being indeterminate before God’s choice is COMPLETELY imcompatible with the idea of God ETERNALLY being in loving TRIUNE relationship with Godself. You spent a whole section on this in Trinity and Process. Moreover, you clearly lay out that God is UNCHANGABLY loving…and that necessarily. At base, you have no conceptual framework to think of God’s love fundamentally emerging from choice. For God, love does NOT have to be chosen in order for it to be considered genuine love to us and Godself. This basically means that it is NOT a metaphysical truth that genuine love MUST be chosen! We both agree here.
I think that you would also agree that God is the ONLY source of genuine love. In other words, you believe that, as the Bible attests, ALL love is of God and from God. In terms of YOUR trinitarian process view, the way the sentient creatures love is by appropriating the loving subjective aim of God…and actualizing that in their lives. Again, with this, I would agree.
Now, where we disagree is this: Against me, you want to say that love doesn’t genuinely come “from us” if it is not the case that we are have the LAST SAY whether or not we appropriate God’s loving subjective aim. In other words, if sentient creatures aren’t able to SELF-DISPOSE with respect to this loving subjective aim (as you state in Trinity and Process), then the love isn’t genuine. But hopefully, by the end of this letter you will truly see that you have NO LEGITIMATE REASON to say this.
First off, I’ve dealt with the metaphysical angle, in attacking the “necessary/contingent” argument championed by Tatian. I’ve demonstrated that if a sentient, contingent being has an unchangable, constant appropriation of God’s loving subjective aim that it does not prevent said being from…
--being a contingent being before God
--developing rationally
--developing physically
--developing emotionally
--being utterly dependent on God
Tatian was WRONG, Doc. He just was. A being can be fully contingent…and still have an unchangably loving character. Your trinitarian process theological framework allows for it. And what this does is mean that there is no METAPHYSICAL reason why contingent, sentient beings MUST have the ability to “self-dispose” with respect to their appropriation of God’s loving subjective aim.
But there’s a more powerful argument that both you AND Tom share. Let’s deal with that!
The most powerful argument for your position I’ve been hearing thus far is this: We cannot conceptualize of a being (A)’s loving nature being unconditionally (but not EXHAUSTIVELY) determined by ANOTHER BEING B (by whatever means)…and that love being “genuinely” FROM being A. And you continuously validate this claim by our EXPERIENCE. You constantly use the “microchip” analogy to this end. And since we cannot make sense of this, it seem like you believe that it must be reasonable to condsider this a METAPHYSICAL truth that is just true of the universe…even to God. In other words, it must be true to God that “genuine” actions by sentient, created beings MUST be grounded in libertarian freedom. This is you and Tom’s last bastion. It doesn’t take much to say that this is just the general libertarian free willer argument against compatibilism contextualized to the current discussion of loving behavior.
This is what I would argue: At base, you are using a logical fallacy for your argument and as such, your argument is invalid. You cannot argue from our experience as sentient, created beings DIRECTLY and UNAMBIGUOUSLY to God’s perceptions of reality…or to, even more audaciously, reality itself. Basically, you argue from our experience to TWT 1 as a metaphysical principle. But this ain’t right. The furthest that you can go is to say that obviously God created a world where libertarian freedom and moral deliberation exist. If you stretched it, you could say that God WANTED to created us with libertarian free will and the ability to morally deliberate. (Which is where I would agree) But, on what grounds can you or anyone else say that God HAD to feel that unconditionally determined loving action in others is not genuine? You are using OUR perspective to argue FOR our perspective being God’s perspective! You are somehow arguing that you KNOW that God is a libertarian free willer at heart BECAUSE he created libertarian free will and moral deliberation. Surely you understand that this does not follow! Check it…
If God believes that genuinely loving sentient, contingent beings can ONLY be created with the ability for moral deliberation (for whatever reason), then any sentient, contingent beings that God creates will have the ability for moral delibaration.
God created sentient, contingent beings with the ability for moral deliberation.
Therefore, God obviously believes that genuinely loving sentient, contingent beings can ONLY be created with the ability for moral deliberation.
Any logicians in the house will see the fallacy.
If P, then Q
Q
Thus, P
Affirming the consequent fallacy with respect to the modus ponens argument.
There is no IF AND ONLY IF P, then Q. That would change everything!
Bottom line, Doc. It just doesn’t FOLLOW that BECAUSE God created us with libertarian freedom and moral deliberation that it HAS to be so. In theodicy, we do speculate as to what possible P could bring Q about…but it’s purely the case that one cannot argue from Q being the case to P DEFINITELY being the case. But that’s in essence what you do! You take our experiences of libertarian free will and moral deliberation and ABDUCT (I suppose) that God can ONLY create sentient, contingent beings with libertarian freedom and moral deliberation to get genuine love. You are AFFIRMING THE CONSEQUENT of our EXPERIENCE!!
I could just as easily give another P that would be sufficient to bring about Q…like so…
If God believes that it serves God’s purposes that sentient, contingent beings be created with libertarian free will (for whatever reason), then any sentient, contingent beings that God creates will have libertarian free will.
See what I’m saying? Now, I cannot definitively say that this is the case anymore than YOU can say that YOURS is the case. But that’s not the point. The point is that NEITHER of us can argue for the TRUTH that our Ps just from our mutually accepted Q alone. I don’t do this. YOU DO in that you look at our EXPERIENCES of moral deliberation and argue from THAT to the NECESSITY of the condition.
So, again, to the extent that this argument is based upon a more sophisticated version of a logical fallacy, it falls like so much timber!
Of course, you could just say that God chose to NOT accept any other love from sentient, contingent beings than “self-disposed” love. But this would undermine the theodicy immediately because the ultimate reasoning would be found in God’s will and not in metaphysical necessity!
After all this, all I can see happening here is you saying is that what you propose is a BETTER EXPLANATION of why God would create sentient, contingent beings with libertarian freedom and moral deliberation. But I would ask on what grounds is your explanation better. It’s NOT on metaphysical grounds. We see that. And it’s surely not LOGICAL grounds. So what? Heh. How about IDEOLOGICAL grounds. It just FEELS better to those with libertarian free will sensibilities. It would cause them WAY too much existential angst to think that MAYBE that God could factor in God’s own all-wise purposes into God's decision to create and allow for such a risky world! Hmph. "Well, Meph, I can't come up with any possible reason WHY God would do this otherwise!" Well, I can. But so friggin WHAT? Isn't it possible that God's infinite intelligence surpasses OURS? Uh huh. So, ultimately, shouldn't we be able to say "God, YOU know...and that's all that matters. I have MORE than enough evidence that you ARE love." Sometime, it SHOULD matter that God is the Mysterious One. Unless you would bank your entire faith on a theodicy. (And if that is you, may God extend mercy upon your tortured soul.)
Sorry, but this ain’t enough to make your theodicy fly. Nope. Existential angst does not a theodicy make.
Now, given all this…I don’t see any way that you, Doc, can CONSISTANTLY hold on to your current theological framework and still say that your theodicy works. TWT 1 is severely compromised…and that completely grounds your theodicy. All joking aside. You know that I know your view pretty darn good. Probably better than most. And at this point I wouldn’t play around about it. This is a SERIOUS hole. I can definitely see why Iconoclast would advocate creative theologizing at this point. There is NO OTHER WAY OUT, Doc. Trust me on this. If there is no coherent way to conceive of God’s loving nature being the process of SELF-CREATED DISPOSITION, then you are stuck!
I’m asking you to SERIOUSLY consider what’s being said here. Sure, a lot of people who don’t have an interest or ability to delve into these issues more thoroughly would probably NEVER see these issues. But THAT doesn’t matter. Some interested and invested people here HAVE. We gotta deal with this.
Holla back
"I've been converted three times. The first was to traditional Christianity; the second to honesty and the third was to the Love of God and man (humanity) The third was the real conversion. The first two were preliminary."
--Nels Ferre, a theologian speaking of his spiritual journey with the Triune God
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John Earp
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| Posted 9/29/2003 7:49 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by MephEternal
Sheesh, John.
I dealt with your conception some time ago on this thread.
No, you misstated it (as you have again in this last post) and then simply dismissed it.
quote:
Your conception, in my mind, basically says that God’s moral capacity was VOID of moral content before God’s choice.
And, for the umpteenth time, you again are trying to place God's choice into your own conception of a "before." In my view, God's choice to be holy, loving, etc., (in other words, to have moral character) has always been constant. There was no "moral blank state" ever, with regard to God's character, any more than there has ever been a state of non-existence for God. So long as he has existed (which is from all time), God has always chosen righteously.
To base such a huge degree of one's understanding of God's nature on a single passage of Scripture (1 John 4) should give pause to any dogmatism with regard God's ontological status. All throughout the Bible God is represented as ACTING righteously.
"Whatever" right back atcha, dawg.
At least we agree that Doc and Tom are logically inconsistent on this issue.
"The Discovery of new truth will modify old views and opinions, and there is perhaps no end to this process with finite minds in any world." Charles G. Finney, Systematic Theology.
revivaltheology.net
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 9/29/2003 11:17 AM (GMT -6) | | James 1:13-18
When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
Don't be deceived, my dear brothers. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.
YOU HAVE TO DO SOME "MINING," BUT IT IS ALL THERE.
It parallels the facts that God is both loving, and can be described as having wrath. It's a matter of perspective for the one receiving correction. But God is both immutable, and personally loving.
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Iconoclast
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| Posted 9/29/2003 3:19 PM (GMT -6) | | MephEternal
But, you know that Neville’s idea of God being indeterminate before God’s choice is COMPLETELY imcompatible with the idea of God ETERNALLY being in loving TRIUNE relationship with Godself.
Iconoclast
Notice your key presupposition to this statement: it is that choice entails temporality.
John Earp
And, for the umpteenth time, you again are trying to place God's choice into your own conception of a "before."
Iconoclast
Meph – notice that John here is pushing on this same issue.
But we are strictly talking about choice in the infinite past – AT infinity. It is an obvious fact that the domain of finite (temporal) and infinite (eternal) are radically different domains. Our normal intuitional rules that come from our own finite, temporal experience do not necessarily apply AT infinity.
You are arguing fallaciously that AT infinity we also have temporality and therefore our temporal notion of choice MUST also apply.
Our normal intuition which comes from our experience says that when we take away an object from a finite set that the set becomes smaller. You are basically saying that when we take away an object from an infinite set that the infinite set ALSO gets smaller. However, this has been proven to be false. When one takes away an object from an infinite set the set does NOT get smaller.
It seems to me that you have the same kind of fallacious thinking going on that you suggest that Doc has. You are both using an induction from a sample of ONE to build a universal rule. (Your induction is that since choice requires a before state within a finite framework that it must require a before state within an infinite framework).
My push back to you is that you must first prove that choice AT infinity REQUIRES a temporal “before” state. Of course, you will first have to come up with a meaningful notion of “before” AT infinity. Good luck.
I believe it is justified that you should have to do this because there are just too many examples (an induction here based on a healthy sample size) of our temporal notions being invalid within an infinite framework.
Moreover, there is no evidence of choice emerging from a CAS, nor is there any conceptual structure that could allow choice to emerge from anything.
In essence I think the evidence is overwhelming that it is much more likely that choice is a metaphysical surd (an absolutely irreducible metaphysical truth) and that it is the lack of our ability to clearly conceptualize a notion of choice within an infinite framework that is the fundamental problem here.
To restate:
1. Your whole argument is based on a finite, temporal notion of choice.
2. There is tons of evidence that our notions within a finite framework are not valid within an infinite framework.
3. There is no evidence that choice is an emergent property of a deterministic system.
4. Choice exists.
5. It is exceedingly more likely that your assumption that our notion of choice is invariant in finite and infinite sets is the problem rather than that choice emerges from determinacy.
We have BOTH an expectation that choice within an infinite framework would be different than in a finite framework AS WELL AS zero evidence that choice can emerge from any determinate system. Choice cannot exist without indeterminacy. Choice, by definition, is what brings determinacy to indeterminacy. Without indeterminacy there can be no choice.
Actually, I think I can make this even stronger:
1. Determinacy cannot produce indeterminacy.
2. Choice, by definition, IS to determine something from indeterminacy.
3. Our finite notion of choice requires a “before” state.
4. AT infinity, by definition, there is NO “before” state.
5. Thus, either choice has no meaning AT infinity or we need a new conceptualization of what it means AT infinity.
6. Choice has no meaning AT infinity.
7. If choice has no meaning AT infinity then it does not exist at infinity and thus it must come from SOMETHING (S).
8. By 1 and 2 we know that S must be indeterminate.
9. But if S is indeterminate and choice is determinate the only way to bring about choice is make the indeterminate determinate which is, by definition, choice.
10. Since 9 contradicts 6 then we know that choice MUST have meaning AT infinity.
The meaning of choice is that it makes the indeterminate determinate. AT infinity then it simply means that it makes the eternally indeterminate eternally determinate.
I would guess that you would disagree with #1. If so, please demonstrate how determinacy can produce indeterminacy.
thanks,
Iconoclast
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 9/29/2003 5:18 PM (GMT -6) | | Meph,
Re-read: Vladimir Lossky, "God in Trinity" Chapter 3 of The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (SVS Press, Crestwood, NY: 1976), pp. 44-67.
www.jbburnett.com/auctor/lossky/lossky_myst1-trinity.pdf
- Check out was Lossky says on page 47 (page three of the fifteen page portion in pdf.). What do you think?
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Iconoclast
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| Posted 9/29/2003 7:04 PM (GMT -6) | | From Trinity and Process:
>>>>>>>>>>
As we shall see, Hartshorne believes that metaphysics, in analyzing the a priori features of rationality, can only arrive at the abstract features of God. The relatively abstract truth that a necessary being exists, that this being is both necessary and contingent (di-polar), and that this being has unsurpassable power, knowledge, goodness and beauty, can be known a priori.
But as to how concretely God exists, how these abstract attributes are instantiated at any given moment, this cannot be known a priori, for it is a contingent mattter. How God exists concretely can only be known from contingent experience (viz. by revelation).
<<<<<<<<<<<
It seems to me that process theology is like quantum mechanics. The whole thing presupposes that there must be an "observer" who is "outside" the system, by definition, who actually makes CHOICES that bring about the instantiation of actuality.
The whole thing presupposes CHOICE and it cannot, by its own accord, get behind the HOW of how choice "comes to be" BECAUSE choice IS THE HOW.
Will is all there is. Will is all there is. Will is all there is. Will is all there is. There is no spoon. Will is all there is. Will is all there is. Will is all there is. There is no spoon. Will is all there is. Will is all there is. Will is all there is. Will is all there is. There is no spoon!
Oh...and...study...Calculus. SERIOUSLY! 
thanks,
Iconoclast
"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 9/29/2003 9:25 PM (GMT -6) | | For those of you who are struggling to keep up with our very fine CVM resident theologians Mephi and Icon, I suggest the following article. It’s long, but it’ll help.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/divine-freedom/
One objection to God’s necessary goodness is that if God were essentially good his goodness could not be praiseworthy. If it does not lie in God’s ability, for example, to lie, to be false to a promise, or to torture the innocent, then we cannot meaningfully praise him for not doing these things. Just as we do not condemn a person for, say, taking the life of another unless such an act was a libertarian choice (or the choice of a compatibilistic character libertarianly achieved), so it seems we do not praise persons for performing good deeds which they did not libertarianly choose (or choose by virtue of a compatibilisitic character libertarianly achieved).
But before conceding the argument let’s note that we do praise God in other respects for being what we admit he is essentially and could not otherwise be, namely, omnipotent and infinitely intelligent. God’s knowledge is not libertarianly chosen (it’s not chosen at all!) and yet Christians certainly praise God for being infinitely intelligent. We find such knowledge laudable and praiseworthy. So there does not seem to be a reason why we must believe that only that which is chosen, that which could have been other than it is, is worthy of praise.
Moving on…
If I have to abandon my present position then I believe I’d be more likely to move in Icon’s direction, but I’d go all the way and maintain simply that God is libertarianly free and capable of performing evil, period. Icon wants to affirm God freely chooses to love but doesn’t seem to want to admit that this entails (or ever actually entailed) the possibility that God sin (as it does for us). If Icon does affirm this, then I missed it. I understood the whole .99 is 1 at eternity thing to be an attempt to jettison this portion of “love requires freedom” for God. I mean, if you guys are gonna accuse Doc and me of inconsistency, be consistent too. If, Icon, our being free to choose love entails the real possibility of not loving (that is, of sinning), and if God is also free to love, then bite the bullet and just fess up that God can sin, really sin (or at least that this was the case at some point). The argument about eternal choice in a nontemporal framework doesn’t do anything for me because it’s logical relations (not temporal ones) that entail the ability to sin for freedom to love (assuming you go this route in God's case).
What would happen if God sinned? I don’t know. I suppose God, and all creation with him, would cease to exist (poof). More likely, evil would rule creation for all eternity. Saron would win and the evil shadow of Mordor would forever cover Middle Earth, forever.
I’m not sure which is easier to believe if I have to choose, that God can perform evil and bring an absolute end to goodness in the universe, or that God could have created an unfailingly loving creation, could have gotten all he wanted in terms of loving interpersonal relations with us, but chose to create a contingently loving creation instead, knowing that evil would overcome it.
If God could have created an unfailingly loving creation but chose not to, then I’d like Mephi to venture some reason why God did not do so. What? Just trust that this reason is consistent with the goodness we believe God is and which is revealed in the Cross and leave it at that? Why? Why assume that? Why assume that the goodness which gave us the Cross is consistent with a goodness that would choose to create a contingently loving world when a necessarily lovingly world was possible? Fraid not, Mephi. What you’re proposing (in my view) challenges the goodness revealed in the Cross. So unless you can come up with some reason for why God would go this route, it presents just as yucky a picture of God (perhaps more so) as does the belief that God is libertarianly free and able to perform evil. The glorification principle? OK, so what’s glorious in choosing to create a contingently loving creation (one in which you know will be overcome with evil and populate hell to the brim) over creating one that loves unfailingly?
Just thinking out loud.
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