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BJS
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Date Joined Dec 2001
Total Posts : 587
| Posted 9/1/2003 4:58 AM (GMT -6) |   | Hey, ya'll. It's been a while for me. Good to be back in the fray. Meph, Springs, Electra, and Modes: It was AWESOME to spend a little time with you a few weeks ago. Can't wait till we get to do that on a regular basis. . .
All right, this is a question that has been discussed many times before. In fact, I think it was the first question that I ever submitted to this website when I first found CVM. I keep coming back to it because I can't seem to find a satisfactory way to deal with it.
Here's the question: If true love requires real freedom (TWT 1), what does that say about heaven? Most people seem to believe that Scripture tells us that eternity will be a time when "every knee shall bow." That doesn't strike me as freedom anymore. And if love requires freedom, then "where's the love?" If we no longer have a choice to choose God, how is it a genuine loving relationship?
For us free-willers, this seems to be a difficult question. We use free will to explain everything: why evil exists, why God isn't more obvious, etc. But if free will isn't necessary in the hereafter, why is it necessary here?
I know this is probably rehashing a lot, but I hope some of you don't mind jumping in again for my sake. . .gracias. 
Brett
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 9/1/2003 5:48 AM (GMT -6) | | Bret, I hope this is on center.
Freedom is with respect to nature. (A tree grows "up" if it can.) What is FREE for us is to love each other and to love God. It is only by "bondage" that we can't. But "unbound" we freely do.
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One Love
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| Posted 9/1/2003 8:50 AM (GMT -6) | | Brett:
quote:
Here's the question: If true love requires real freedom (TWT 1), what does that say about heaven? Most people seem to believe that Scripture tells us that eternity will be a time when "every knee shall bow." That doesn't strike me as freedom anymore. And if love requires freedom, then "where's the love?" If we no longer have a choice to choose God, how is it a genuine loving relationship?
For us free-willers, this seems to be a difficult question. We use free will to explain everything: why evil exists, why God isn't more obvious, etc. But if free will isn't necessary in the hereafter, why is it necessary here?
See, man. THAT’S why I love ya. Missed you, by the way. 
Honestly? I think the only reason that open view theists say this is because they NEED the precious FREE-WILL ARGUMENT for theodicy purposes. To say that love doesn’t always require libertarian freedom to be genuine puts this in serious danger. Or does it???
But this was consistently my argument. You have at least TWO situations were love is NOT freely chosen, but it is nonetheless considered genuine:
1) The intertrinitarian love relationship between Father, Son, and Spirit
2) The COMPATIBILISTIC love that all beings will have with each other and God after the Consummation
In BOTH cases, love is obviously not “chosen”, as far as meaning possessing the ability to NOT choose love. But it it granted that in BOTH cases, the love is real.
How do we deal with this?? Pretty easily, actually.
This question has been discusseed in the field of axiology (ethics), somewhat. What is more praiseworthy? To have someone who either by nature or by HABIT, always does the right thing…OR to have someone who GENUINELY CAN choose against the right thing…but never does because of the act of the will? Depending on whether you favor the VIRTUE OF CHARACTER over the POWER OF THE WILL TO DO GOOD will determine your answer. Many virtue ethicists will take the former rather than the latter. It is better to have a moral hero who just does the good OUT OF THEIR CHARACTERS rather than a volitional giant who actually MAY wrestle with doing the good, but always does it regardless. But this, in many cases, conflicts with freedom. It is often presumed that freedom to choose is an inherent good. I think many people, even the virtue ethicists, would have a problem with hypnotizing a person to always act good because of this. Yes, virtue of character is what we see, but HOW we get that character is important as well.
So, the principle they would put into effect is like this…
To the extent that it is possible for a being to develop a character of virtue from whence good behavior flows, this should be a teleological aim of the good life.
Now, put this with Doc’s idea of necessary and contingent being. If God is a necessary being and loves necessarily, then it is NOT POSSIBLE for God to develop a character of virtue because God already has one. It’s not metaphyically possible. God’s disposition is all-loving and God, being of perfect integrity with Godself by nature, ALWAYS follows that disposition. Thus this exempts God from the principle.
See, this is why I say that Doc needs to REFRAME his whole supposition! The “love requires freedom” thing gets too hectic when you try to work it out. He needs to say this…
Genuine love DOES NOT NECESSARILY require freedom.
But…
The PURSUIT OF A LOVING CHARACTER requires freedom.
This would cohere much more easily with not only his thesis, but also what virtue ethicists have been saying for YEARS. If part of our human vocation, Christianly speaking, truly is to be conformed to the image of Christ more and more…then this makes sense.
What do you think, BJS?
"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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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 9/1/2003 10:24 AM (GMT -6) | | Brandon:
quote:
When you say, The PURSUIT OF A LOVING CHARACTER requires freedom, I always understood you to mean that you cannot choose in the libertarian sense.
The PURSUIT of the loving character involves choice. We are talking about the process of habituation with respect to character development. If a being is naturally loving (meaning solidified in a loving character), then there is no habituation possible with respect to the character itself. It IS where it WILL BE. But it a being is CONTINGENTLY loving (implying significant libertarian freedom to NOT love), then habituation of character development is possible.
And the end goal is that habituation towards a loving character terminates at a FULLY SOLIDIFIED loving character. And this entails that it any being with this loving character will not be ABLE to NOT love.
Get it?
Now, here’s where the compatibilists will have something to say? Why say, with the virtue ethicists, that freedom is an inherent good? Do we REALLY have the grounds to say that? Most will say that we do because of how we live. (They will use the whole “hypnotism” argument for it) But it is possible for compatibilists to challenge this on the grounds of who GOD is. Think about it. What if you DON’T have this incessant need for the free-will defense?? Then it would be absolutely nothing to say this:
Bump what the virtue ethicists say about freedom. They are doing so from an utterly HUMAN CONTEXT. Let’s deal with a THEOLOGICAL context. Bottom line: Love DOESN’T REQUIRE freedom to be genuine. That’s the main thing. If it can be so for God, than it can be so for us!
And they would have that argument. The contingent/necessary argument won’t work if somone doesn’t grant that libertarian freedom is an INHERENT GOOD. The WORST that someone could say against it is that it goes against our supposedly normal ways of thinking morally (as evidenced by the whole discussion in ethics) That WE value freedom and the ability to ACTIVELY create our OWN characters. To which the compatibilist could say…so friggin what? The fact STILL remains that the principle is STILL intact. Love does NOT need freedom to be genuine!
But this gets really deep! Because now we have to wonder…
If love doesn’t NECESSARILY require freedom and love doesn’t NECESSARILY have to be chosen, then WHY would God create such a world where love IS chosen and love DOES sometimes require freedom??
The answer? God just WANTED IT this way, for whatever reason. God WANTED a reality where love would be freely chosen and required freedom. God wanted us to be contingent in our ability to love and develop in love. We can speculate on WHY (I do so slightly in the glorification principle), but ultimately we can no longer say that it was a METAPHYSICAL limitation based on the CONTENT OF WHAT LOVE IS.
It’s not that love REQUIRES freedom. It’s that God, by God’s OWN good will and pleasure, desired a creation where there is a PURSUIT of the solidified, loving character that God possesses naturally. It all goes back to God’s will.
"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 9/1/2003 11:44 AM (GMT -6) | | Dealing with Tatian’s Argument: Deconstructing TWT #1
I want to deal with this as I think it grounds at least some of Doc’s thinking about TWT1.
This dude named Tatian argues thusly…
Moral virtue (basically a solidified good, loving character) cannot be built into contingent beings as a matter of necessity. God is the only being that possesses goodness as an INHERENT quality.
Doc says on this in SATPOE, page 42, emphasis mine
quote:
For Tatian, the tragic nature of the world in its present condition is the result of angels and humans misusing their free will. The reason God gave them free will was because they, being contingent beings, could not possess “the nature of good” as a matter of necessity. If moral virtue was the goal, freedom had to be the means. Hence, evil as a possibility is built into the possibility of moral virtue
Now, here’s my problem with this…
Beings are CONTINGENT by them NOT being necessary. Simple as that. Any being CREATED by a necessary being would be a contingent being by definition. It wouldn’t matter if the created being were COMPLETELY DETERMINED by the necessary being or not. It would still be contingent, in fact. So, there does seem to be a disjunct between what we understand about contingency and what Tatian’s trying to say. I think there is. What Tatian seems to be saying however is the following:
The NATURE of contingency is inextricably linked with PROCESS and DEVELOPMENT of one’s nature. In other words, to be a contingent being is to be able to DEVELOP some contingent aspect of itself in some real sense. A necessary being is what it IS necessarily and therefore cannot change those aspects of itself which are composites of its essential existence.
In other words, with respect to “moral virture”, Tatian isn’t talking so much about contingency and necessity AS BEINGS as he is about contingency and necessity of ONE’S MORAL BEHAVIOR AND DISPOSITION. God’s moral virtue flows NECESSARILY from God’s essential existence, because ALL ASPECTS of that essential existence are unchangeable. Whereas he wants to say that it must flow contingently from our essential existence because NOT ALL of our aspects are unchangable. Particularly, our moral virtue level is changeable.
But hopefully, you see the problem already. There is no reason to say that we CEASE being contingent beings meaningfully just because ONE aspect of ourselves is unchangable. If that were the case then, we would have to say that we are not contingent because was we cannot change the fact that we are human beings! It is possible for us to be unchanging in SOME aspects of our selves and still be contingent beings both in an ontological sense and in a developmental sense. And guess what. If this is possible, then on what grounds does it HAVE to be that our moral virtue MUST be changeable???
Tatian smuggles in this presupposition:
Moral virtue is the one aspect that must be changeable in order for human beings to be “contingent” in a developmental sense.
This is just patently false! And a simple thought experiement proves it. Let’s take Doc’s view as it stands. After the consummation, when only COMPATIBILISTIC freedom to love would exist, would we cease being contingent beings?? Heck, No! Moreover, there would be no reason to say that there would be NO further DEVELOPMENT of human capability in heaven, even after all freedom to love was compatibilistic. Contingency would still exist on both ontological and developmental levels…even AFTER moral virtue had become unchangeable!
So, what does all this mean? Simply that Tatian’s argument DOESN’T REALLY WORK to back the “Love requires freedom” thesis! There’s no good reason to maintain with Tatian (and Doc) that contingent beings CANNOT have moral virtue as a created inherent characteristic! If we can be unconditional created with HUMAN DNA as a created inherent characteristic and still call ourselves meaningfully contingent on both levels, then the same applies for moral virtue.
****************************
Hopefully, this backs my main point. Other than the context of human experience taken as THE STANDARD of what love is, there are no good grounds for saying that love MUST PRESUPPOSE freedom.
The consistency-addict ,
"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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Iconoclast
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| Posted 9/1/2003 5:30 PM (GMT -6) | | MephEternal
The PURSUIT of the loving character involves choice. We are talking about the process of habituation with respect to character development. If a being is naturally loving (meaning solidified in a loving character), then there is no habituation possible with respect to the character itself. It IS where it WILL BE. But it a being is CONTINGENTLY loving (implying significant libertarian freedom to NOT love), then habituation of character development is possible.
And the end goal is that habituation towards a loving character terminates at a FULLY SOLIDIFIED loving character. And this entails that it any being with this loving character will not be ABLE to NOT love.
Iconoclast
I don't see the problem here with "love must be chosen."
Meph - you seem to assume that because a fully solidified person who has a loving character MUST love that therefore it is not true that "love must be chosen."
What it seems like you are missing is that the person with the fully loving solidified character did, in fact, CHOOSE to gain that fully solidified character and thus he is AT CHOICE with that character. It WAS chosen and CONTINUES to be chosen. In fact, we can understand "solidified character" as nothing more than the ability for a choice to STICK - to become eternal.
When God chooses His choice sticks. I absolutely believe that God CHOSE to love. Now you want to say that this by definition means that there was A POINT IN TIME where God COULD choose to NOT love. The problem with this is that God is eternal. God DID choose to love, but this does not mean that there was necessarily A POINT IN TIME where He chose to love and therefore a POINT IN TIME where He wasn't loving. We can simply say that this choice is an eternal choice of God's and is therefore part of His essential nature. To say that God is necessary is simply to say that He is eternal and thus we invoke eternal infinite regress sort of logic when it come to Him choosing something. But this does not negate the meaning of choice.
MephEternal
If someone were to be COMPLETELY consistent with love requiring the freedom to NOT choose to love as a metaphysical non-negotiable, then…
1) With respect to the Trinity, they would have to say that there was some LOGICAL point in God’s existence where the three members of the Trinity had the ABILITY to choose NOT to love one another (Note: it doesn’t MATTER if they always choose to or not. We are talking about the ABILITY to be non-loving!)
Iconoclast
Yes, but we just say that the LOGICAL point is the one just before eternity past.
MephEternal
2) With respect to the God/world relationship, they would have to say that God has the ability to choose NOT to love Creation.
Iconoclast
Yes. But we could just as well say that God has solidified His mind in His choice to love creation. Thus, He HAS CHOSEN and CONTINUES TO CHOOSE to love creation. He is AT CHOICE.
MephEternal
3) With respect to the eschaton, they would have to say that libertarian free will STILL EXISTS in heaven. Meaning there would still be a chance for sin to emerge.
Iconoclast
But we can just as well say that our choice to love God allows us the ability to "be in Him" and have "Him in us" and thus gain the ability to be AT ETERNAL CHOICE with loving one another.
Perhaps a better way of saying "love must be chosen" is "love requires being AT CHOICE". In order for "love to be at choice" love MUST be chosen to begin with but it also allows for the notion of this sense of continuing choice with zero probability of changing our choice.
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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John Earp
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| Posted 9/1/2003 5:31 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by BJS
Here's the question: If true love requires real freedom (TWT 1), what does that say about heaven? Most people seem to believe that Scripture tells us that eternity will be a time when "every knee shall bow." That doesn't strike me as freedom anymore. And if love requires freedom, then "where's the love?" If we no longer have a choice to choose God, how is it a genuine loving relationship?
Hi BJS,
When we reach heaven, the exponentially superlative degree of revelation of God's love that we will receive, in conjunction with the fact that we will no longer have depraved bodies to hinder us from worshipping and loving God as his love deserves, along with the clear biblical witness that "they will reign forever and ever," * leads me to conclude that after one passes the probationary period that this earthly life is, one's character from that point on is perfectly formed either for God or against God.
*Rev 22:5 And there will no longer be {any} night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them; and they will reign forever and ever.
Rev 20:6 Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years.
The second death will have no power over those who have a part in the first resurrection (the resurrection of the just). This seems to strongly imply that sin will no longer be even a remote possibility to the saints in heaven, for an eternally true principle of Scripture is "the wages of sin is death."
The people of God will be so perfectly made holy in heaven that their freedom is simply within the realm of the holy. However, I am uncomfortable with the term "compatibilistic" (I am also uncomfortable with the term, "libertarian"), because to my mind this seems to rule out free, uncoerced choice.
They will not be subject to even temptation (Satan and his followers will be forever bound and imprisoned), and even if their past memories of sin pose a temptation to them (which I doubt, in view of the totally sanctified mind they will then have), they will have, as Christ did, perfectly "learned obedience" at that point, and will have far too much wisdom from experience and revelation of the truth of God's love to ever be tempted to sin again.
Rev 22:11 "Let the one who does wrong, still do wrong; and the one who is filthy, still be filthy; and let the one who is righteous, still practice righteousness; and the one who is holy, still keep himself holy."
Jude 1:20 But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit,
21 keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.
22 And have mercy on some, who are doubting;
23 save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.
24 ¶ Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy,
25 to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, {be} glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.
"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 9/1/2003 5:54 PM (GMT -6) | | Iconoclast:
quote:
To say that God is necessary is simply to say that He is eternal and thus we invoke eternal infinite regress sort of logic when it come to Him choosing something. But this does not negate the meaning of choice.
Your thought makes sense if you are talking about the choice to create. But we are talking about the choice to LOVE rather than the choice to NOT love…and that makes a huge difference. How can a NECESSARY being whose essential existence is love have the genuine ability to CHOOSE to do something other than love? This is like saying that a human being, whose essential existence includes having human DNA, can have the genuine ability to, by sheer will, suddenly transform its own DNA into that of a frog or something.
It’s important to understand what we mean when we talk about the essential existence of a necessary being. We are talking about something that CANNOT metaphysically be altered for any reason. A necessary being cannot be anything OTHER than what it is. So to say that the necessary being (God) has an essential existence such that it is COMPLETELY loving, it is a metaphysical impossibility that the necessary being even has the genuine ability to do anything, volitional or otherwise, that is NOT loving.
Explain this.
PS: Perhaps this is the way to deal with this. To say what you are saying, Iconoclast, you'd have to say that God's loving character is NOT a part of God's unchangeable essential existence. You could say that moral capability is in God's essential existence, but God's constant choice of love is a not. It is volitional.
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One Love
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| Posted 9/1/2003 10:58 PM (GMT -6) | | Why is this any type of Big Deal?
What’s the point of this stuff? Why all this stuff from BJS's simple question? Well, it's because the answer to BJS's question is loaded with implications (as DrSnug would say) The ultimate power behind the free will argument is the notion that in order for a loving God to have a GENUINE love relationship with contingent, sentient beings, God had to introduce free will because the nature of love itself required such. It was a complete necessity. In other words, if you were to ask the question: “Why did God create free will, knowing all the problems that it would bring about?”, the free will arguer person would say:
“God had NO CHOICE in the matter, given the decision to create sentient life. For God to create beings who loved naturally would NOT allow for genuine love. The only way that a genuine love relationship could exist between God and created, sentient beings is for libertarian freedom to exist.”
But this whole line of argument falls to the floor, if it can be shown that love in and of itself DOES NOT require libertarian freedom. Now, we have to find a whole other reason why God created free will beings. The metaphysical reason has been taken away. The only option left that I see is to say that God’s decision to allow free will was completely VOLITIONAL. God just wanted a reality with free willed beings for some reason according to God’s divine wisdom and purpose.
What this all does is set the free will argument back a bit. Like what BJS’s question indicates (emphasis mine)…
quote:
For us free-willers, this seems to be a difficult question. We use free will to explain everything: why evil exists, why God isn't more obvious, etc. But if free will isn't necessary in the hereafter, why is it necessary here?
Saying that love doesn’t NEED freedom in order to be genuine brings up a serious issue. Given God’s infinite intelligence, and knowledge that the scope of the “risky” venture would make sin pretty much inevitable, God choosing to create free will when God truly didn’t have to causes the problem of evil all over again. Wouldn’t God have been much more responsible to have just create sentient beings who BY NATURE were loving and good? Why would God create a reality where it was an acceptable risk that at least ONE person could be separated from God forever?
In short, to actually posit that love doesn’t necessarily need libertarian freedom is to DEPOWER the free will argument at the root. Doc said this on the “Romans 9 Revisited” thread on 08/28/2003 , 11:44:11 AM (emphasis mine):
quote:
Certainly if God can save anyone unilaterally – compatibilistically – then one has to let go of the "free will defense" for the problem of evil. And for many of us, this would be a tremendous loss. Indeed, as TGB points out, it is for many of us one of the chief selling points of the Open View.
In other words, if it was actually possible for God to UNILATERALLY, by any means, make it such that sentient beings could exist SIN-FREE for eternity...and at the same time, have God's desire for genuinely loving intereaction with those sentient beings..., then POOF…there goes the “free will defense.” Kaput. Fini. Adios, amigo.
Because of the seriousness of this, I ground this whole thing on GOD. (Actually, this is what started my whole “What is Love” thing where I described it) We see that the whole “necessary/contingent” argument doesn’t work…which means that the “love requires freedom” dictum would HAVE to apply to God as well, if we are going to keep it, because God loves. Now, it appears that Iconoclast and John Earp are willing to say that God, at some logical point in God’s existence in the absence of Creation, was NOT solidified in loving character, but made the conscious choice to be loving…and just stuck with that primal choice. Iconoclast is even willing to go so far as to say that there was the actual possibility as that logical point in God’s existence in the absence of Creation, that the Father REALLY COULD HAVE chosen NOT to love the Son and the Son could have really chosen NOT to love the Father. This is monumental,for it means that love was was not, nor could ever be, considered a part of God’s necessary essential existence. God’s choice to love was a CONTINGENT choice. Therefore, to say “God is love” merely means that God always chooses to be loving, though at any given time, God COULD choose otherwise. God’s “solidification” is not character solidification in the true sense, but a resolved intention consistently and faithfully carried out…even to the present time. Needless to say, this would appear to go against MUCH church tradition about the nature of God as being INHERENTLY good and loving. And it would absolutely change what we mean when we say “God IS love”
So, the implications seem pretty clear. If one truly wishes to hang on to their “love requires freedom” idea to preserve the free will argument, then they’d better prepare to completely RECONSIDER the nature of God. And be willing to say that God is NOT inherently loving by nature. No way out of that.
Doc, will YOU do that? 
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Iconoclast
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| Posted 9/2/2003 2:15 AM (GMT -6) | | The fundamental problem with the "God is an ideal object" metaphor or God is a "necessary being" idea is that this presupposes that God was somehow determined by something else. It presupposes that God is NOT self-determining.
But wouldn't we all agree that God IS self-determining? If God WASN'T self-determined then WHO determined God? Or WHAT determined God?
What does "God IS love" mean for a self-determining eternal being?
It simply means that God has self-determined Himself eternally with being loving. And by "eternal" I mean in the "eternal past" and in the "eternal future".
What does INHERENTLY mean for an eternal self-determined being? It is either a meaningless concept altogether or it means an "eternal choice" - an "eternal self-determination".
Mephi - the problem is that you want to take CHOICE out of the equation as far as God's essential being is concerned but I want to assert that CHOICE is fundamental to God's essence as a self-determined living being.
God CHOSE and continues to CHOOSE life. Life is an eternal choice of God's. This is what "God is love" means. If Life is NOT a choice of God's then WHO or WHAT is compelling God to live?
God is NOT some ideal object. God is a LIVING, CHOOSING self-determined eternal being. Life and choice go hand in hand. There is no life without choice. The two are inextricable bound together. To say that God was determined in some way is to say that He isn't alive. To say that God's life itself was determined and not chosen or to say that God's love was determined and not chosen is to say that God is not ALIVE. Love and life are also inextricable bound together. God is love simply means that God chooses life. There is no "life" without choosing love. Eternal Life is CHOSEN life which is no different than CHOOSING to love.
Without CHOICE there is NO Life.
thanks,
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Electra
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| Posted 9/2/2003 3:00 AM (GMT -6) | | Iconoclast
We need to let go of this "God is an ideal object" metaphor that we all seem to be so fond of and try to come to terms with a new understanding of "God is an eternal LIVING, CHOOSING entity."
Electra
Please note that you are reading a supposed fondness for the metaphor of “God is an ideal object” into this. Whether we believe God is love by nature (the “realist” position, articulated by Plato; taken up by Reformed and Catholic traditions; representatives include Calvin, Barth) or God is love by will (the “nominalist” position; articulated by Aristotle; taken up by medieval scholastics; representative includes Luther), the metaphor “God is an entity”—or I prefer, “God is a person”—works for both.
Iconoclast
Once we do this I don't see any problem with saying that:
God is INHERENTLY loving by CHOICE.
Electra
You seem to be firmly in the nominalist camp: God wills to be love. You also affirm that God loves unconditionally. If this is the case, then the question of nature vs. will—Could God choose anything other than love?—becomes moot, because by faith we confess that God is love. In other words, whether or not God could choose anything other than love, the fact is, God doesn’t. When it comes to this conclusion (not necessarily the question about whether or not God could do otherwise), you and Mephi are on the same page.
This is what I find problematic: Doc is firmly in the realist camp: God is love by nature. Yet he denies that God loves unconditionally. How is this coherent?
So here is how I understand the positions:
Question 1: Could God choose anything other than love?
Iconoclast: Yes.
Mephi: No.
Doc: No.
Question 2: Does God choose anything other than love?
Iconoclast: No.
Mephi: No.
Doc: Yes.
Electra
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John Earp
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| Posted 9/2/2003 4:36 AM (GMT -6) | | Meph said:
quote:
Now, it appears that Iconoclast and John Earp are willing to say that God, at some logical point in God’s existence in the absence of Creation, was NOT solidified in loving character, but made the conscious choice to be loving…and just stuck with that primal choice.
No, I am not willing to say that, because to my mind God's character has never needed solidification or development of any kind. He has always absolutely chosen to be loving, and will always do so, for it is clearly the most wise choice to make. This is especially so, given His infinite knowledge of all possibilities.
"God is love," is spoken in the context of 1 John 4 to inspire loving action in God's children. It is not a definition of his metaphysical substance, but is rather His fundamental MORAL attribute. In other words, I don't agree with the idea that God's fundamental metaphysical essence is love. His fundamental morality is love (benevolence), and we can rest assured based on Scripture that He will always choose benevolence over sin, for God cannot be tempted by that which he sees right through.
"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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BBBCanada
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 2763
| Posted 9/2/2003 4:57 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
The PURSUIT of the loving character involves choice. We are talking about the process of habituation with respect to character development. If a being is naturally loving (meaning solidified in a loving character), then there is no habituation possible with respect to the character itself. It IS where it WILL BE. But it a being is CONTINGENTLY loving (implying significant libertarian freedom to NOT love), then habituation of character development is possible.
And the end goal is that habituation towards a loving character terminates at a FULLY SOLIDIFIED loving character. And this entails that it any being with this loving character will not be ABLE to NOT love.
Get it?
Got it. But this is PRECISELY why I asked the question in the first place. Iconoclast brings up a good point.
quote:
Meph - you seem to assume that because a fully solidified person who has a loving character MUST love that therefore it is not true that "love must be chosen."
What it seems like you are missing is that the person with the fully loving solidified character did, in fact, CHOOSE to gain that fully solidified character and thus he is AT CHOICE with that character. It WAS chosen and CONTINUES to be chosen. In fact, we can understand "solidified character" as nothing more than the ability for a choice to STICK - to become eternal.
At some point (at least for us humans) [continuous] choices had to be made in order for the person to get to that point of where their character was FULLY SOLIDIFIED where they will NOT be able to NOT love. In other words, they CAN’T HELP BUT LOVE. At this point there is no freedom. To me, it seems like you are assuming a priori libertarian freedom to say “The PURSUIT OF A LOVING CHARACTER requires freedom” which is what you seem to deny which is why I asked the question. In other words, you have the ability to choose (at some beginning point) to pursue a loving character or not to pursue it (or to choose otherwise). Frankly, it seems to me that a there is no “one point in time” (some beginning point) where we pursue a loving character but many points in time which makes me wonder if it is not so much a SOLIDFIED CHARACTER that is the issue but the ABILITY TO ALWAYS CHOOSE PERFECTLY. In other words, you (always) have the ability to choose otherwise in your solidified state, however...you don't. And you NEVER do.
Second, I agree with Iconoclast that you see God as an ideal object. Electra doesn’t seem to see much that matters with that because in the end it is all the same. If God is love by nature or by will, why does the terminology matter? The problem seems to me is that the terminology should be used within its proper contexts. I really don’t think of an “entity” as being loving. However, I do think of persons as being loving. Nicholas Lash says that “We have relationships; God IS the relations that he has…God, we might say, is relationship without remainder, which we, most certainly, are not.”
Brandon
"Corporations are simply the kind of structure that rises when hordes of people need to be managed, and after spending some time in a large church, I've found that our spirituality does not exempt us from these inefficient and dehumanizing practices."--Steve Lansingh's review of "The Office" at The Film Form | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 9/2/2003 7:02 AM (GMT -6) | | I would agree with Electra that the difference comes down to a realist vs nominalist position. I also agree that Doc, being a realist, is not being very consistent with that belief.
This is the problem that I have with the nominalist position. There is no way to say that God loving people is INHERENT to God. This may not mean much, practically speaking, if God acts by an eternal resolved intention that God operates by at every subsequent moment. What we can say is that God is immeasurably faithful to God’s decision to love.
But this is a far cry from saying that God BY NATURE is love, which really goes along with the majority of church tradition. Again, I use the example about human beings. We are human beings BY NATURE. We cannot change this about ourselves. Our possession of human DNA is part of our esssential existence. We are NOT piano players by nature. We can make the CHOICE either to or not to learn the piano. Now, let’s say that you have a human being who, at age 5, says “I want to be a piano player” And by some incredible resolution of will, that child works SOLELY towards that goal throughout its life and becomes a piano virtuoso. Now, don’t think about character solidification. Just think about the RESOLVED INTENTION of the child. She kept it. But was that resolution hers BY NATURE. Of course not. So she is NOT a piano player in the same manner that she IS human. In like manner, to say that God is of such eternal resolved intention that God always chooses love is NOT the same things as saying that God IS love.
Iconoclast said:
quote:
What does INHERENTLY mean for an eternal self-determined being? It is either a meaningless concept altogether or it means an "eternal choice" - an "eternal self-determination".
Nope. It means a DISPOSITION that is integrally built into a being’s essential existence such that all self-determining choices are conditioned by that disposition. That disposition conditions what choices we can make. WITHOUT THE ACTUALIZATION of said disposition, the being would be other than what it is.
The main distinction that I see between realists and nominalists is this: Whereas realists want to say that God’s loving is a part of God’s essential existence, nominalist want to say MORAL CAPACITY is part of God’s essential existence, and God, by choice, always mobilizes that moral capacity towards loving.
Here’s the thing at the end of the day, though:
In order to FULLY POWER the free will argument, one MUST have a nominalistic take on God’s love. Sure, you can just assert the free will argument ad hoc, but it would not have any “bite” that would deal with the main theodicy problem at hand. Only by positing the nominalist view can one truly say UNQUALIFIABLY that love must be chosen and that love requires freedom?
Realists cannot do this…not consistently, anyway.
"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
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1715
| Posted 9/2/2003 7:26 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by MephEternal
But this is a far cry from saying that God BY NATURE is love, which really goes along with the majority of church tradition. Again, I use the example about human beings. We are human beings BY NATURE. We cannot change this about ourselves.
Hi Meph,
If God by nature is love, how is it that he tells, indeed, COMMANDS us to love? How is it that God tells us to "be holy, for I am holy" if holiness/love is an expression of his NATURE and not of his volition? This is one of the most compelling reasons why I believe it is most reasonable to view God as loving by choice. If God is by nature holy, loving, good, etc., and we are definitely not, then God is the most impossible BULLY imaginable, commanding mere humans to ascend to divine moral attributes such as holiness and love.
"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
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 9/2/2003 7:34 AM (GMT -6) | | John:
quote:
If God by nature is love, how is it that he tells, indeed, COMMANDS us to love? How is it that God tells us to "be holy, for I am holy" if holiness/love is an expression of his NATURE and not of his volition? This is one of the most compelling reasons why I believe it is most reasonable to view God as loving by choice. If God is by nature holy, loving, good, etc., and we are definitely not, then God is the most impossible BULLY imaginable, commanding mere humans to ascend to divine moral attributes such as holiness and love.
Good question.
God has granted us the ability to pursue a loving character, that is the ability to BECOME like god IS by nature. Human beings can make choices that form HABITS that become CHARACTER…and God commands us to do this in the direction of love. God wouldn’t need to do this, if you assert that God’s loving character is part of God’s essential existence. This is why I would say that love does not necessarily require freedom…but the pursuit of a loving character (which is our God-given vocation) DOES require freedom. If we already had God’s character by nature, there would be no pursuit of God’s character.
God is not a bully in this. God is just saying “Yo. You are in My Image. Rest and work in BECOMING what I already AM.” I think this is what sanctification is all about.
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