Sorry for the length. Trying to catch up!
Mephi: For contingent creatures, love requires freedom insofar as love requires sentient beings to be the ULTIMATE SOURCE and FINAL REASON of their own moral self-development activity either for or against God.
Tom: Sounds good. Why don’t I feel better?
Mephi: It is METAPHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE for God to render a sentient creature's particular loving actions or inclinations (including the decision to love) certain at any given time…
Tom: I’ve been waiting to hear this. THIS is a “metaphysics” of love (at least a necessary part of one). I hope this doesn’t come out meaning something else later.
Mephi: This, my good sir, is the kernal that both of us are agreeing upon. It is THIS insight that Greg's "Stepford Wife" idea is arguing for. WE AGREE HERE. Genuine loving action and inclination cannot be programmed, forced, cajoled, whatever…
Tom: …or rock-bottomed into inevitability?
Mephi: But we can keep this insight...WHILE affirming universalism.
Tom: I was just joking when I asked, “…or rock-bottomed into inevitability,” but I guess the joke is on me! You agree that it’s metaphysically impossible for God to render an agent’s choice for God certain “at any time” but if you’re also a convinced universalist you also believe that God is able to render it inevitable that people choose him at some time. Right?
Mephi: You [Tom] said: b) “…nothing outside the agent’s ‘free’ choices can totally determine the end result…” I think so, right. The undetermined agent has to play a “necessary” part. The part is necessary (i.e., the choice), but whether or not they play it “for” God is contingent precisely because it’s undetermined. So the end result is a “mutually determined” or synergistic affair. I don’t see that in Talbott’s (or your) scheme. Talbott just admits that the end result (a person’s ‘destiny’) is unilaterally and unconditionally determined by God. We get to determine for ourselves ‘when’ we get to heaven and ‘what sort of shape we’re in’ when we get there (but even that is wiped away because we get to grow in heaven!), but we don’t determine ‘that’ we get there, and it’s this final ‘that’ which I see undermining the metaphysics of love.
In my view, the final 'that' you are mentioning does NOT have to be there, Tom.
Tom: That’s where we’re disagreeing then. I see this “that” as entailed in the metaphysic of love you agreed to.
Mephi: Not if we are the ultimate source of what SPECIFIC loving actions and inclinations that lead us towards enhancing our relationships with God.
Tom: Then we’re NOT saying the same thing when we affirm TWT1 and don’t really have the same metaphysic of love. This is why up above when you agreed that it’s “metaphysically impossible for God to render a sentient creature's particular loving actions or inclinations certain at any given time” I said I hoped this doesn’t come out meaning something else (i.e., something I wouldn’t mean when I posit this impossibility). Your “at any given time” kinda caught my eye. I just don’t know what it means to say the specific choices we make for and against God are libertarian and then also to say “that” we love God at all (i.e., whether or not we get there) is NOT libertarian (i.e., God makes that choice for us). This makes sense to Doc? God determines THAT we ultimately love him (which is what I understand you to mean by saying my final “that” doesn’t have to be part of the metaphysics of love) but we libertarianly determine every choice for God “at its given time”? I’m drawing a complete blank.
Mephi: The "rock-bottom" point is NOT a moral self-development activity, but a UNFREE existential realization of truth. This is why I kept saying that the "rock-bottom" point is NOT love.
Tom: OK, I’m following that. But you ground the inevitability (your “functional inevitability”) of our choosing God in this rock-bottom experience, which means you ground it in our knowledge of the truth.
Mephi: I would argue that LFW is no longer needed when there is NO MORE moral self-development activity for or against God needed. This would be at the point of self-solidification.
Tom: That goes without saying. To self-solidify is to choose our way into compatibilism.
Mephi: The MAIN REASON, as I see it, that Walls doesn't pick up on Talbott's universalism is because Walls says that there MUST be space for TRUST and FAITH, after the "optimum grace" action of God. It cannot just be an instant drive to LOVE God. The only way to TRULY know God is to have a TRUSTING relationship with God...and TRUST requires that there be some epistemic distance that ALLOWS for that trust. One doesn't have FAITH in something that one KNOWS to be the case. This is a BEDROCK argument that Walls has.
Tom: Sounds good to me.
Mephi: Here's the thing. I AGREE with that. One doesn't just hit the rock-bottom phase and INSTANTLY love God like Jesus did. I've never said that. Even look at my Hitler example. God asked Hitler basically "DO YOU BELIEVE THIS?" The rock-bottom experience basically gives those people HEAD-KNOWLEDGE that God is the only way for them.
Tom: I guess what confuses me about this (and it’s Walls’ point too) is that the belief that God is the only way for us is, biblically speaking, a belief we “choose” our way into. It’s an informed choice, yes. It involves knowledge. But such “belief” is what’s created when the “will” acts on knowledge. I guess “knowledge” and “volition” aren’t always so easily separated.
Mephi: It's an existential reality check. But it is UP TO THEM to make the first move in ACTUALLY INSTANTIATING a loving action or loving inclination towards God. God can't MAKE them do that...
Tom: But God does make it true THAT they’ll eventually do that. Remember, you took my “that” out of the metaphysics of love and put in into God’s unconditional and unilateral acting.
Mephi: …but God can give them EVERY REASON possible TO do it and EVERY REASON possible not to NOT do it. As the person receives more and more love from God...and actualizes more and more loving activity towards God, the post-rock-bottom person GROWS in their understanding of God.
Tom: I’ve been meaning to ask you, where does this all happen? I mean, the post-rockbottomer, where’s she live? In what “context” does she flesh out these choices? This is the entire point of our present existence. It provides us the necessary social environment in which we determine ourselves. I wouldn’t know how a person could determine themselves in the total absence of such a context (a “world” with situations and circumstances). How’s a person who is utterly alone with nothing but herself (no world, no other sentient creatures making choices that impact them, no sphere of influence in which to engage the world responsibly, etc. and on and on) do all this “growing” and “learning to love God” that you speak of? I would think a social world of circumstance was a necessary condition to moral development.
Mephi: 1) Seven points amended:
--God IS love. Not God is "loving" God IS love.
--God is completely omnipotent. God can accomplish whatever God wants to accomplish that doesn't a) violate the laws of logic (including the metaphysics of love) and b) does not go against God's necessary essential existence.
--God REALLY wants display His glorious nature to beings OTHER THAN God and have it represented back to God by that something.
--God REALLY wants those "others" to participate with self-determination in their OWN moral existence.
--God REALLY wants all sentient beings in Creation to embody and reflect God's glorious nature to God and each other forever...extending the "dance of the Trinity"
--God REALLY DOESN'T WANT any sentient being to experience eternal destruction. Not only because it's bad for the sentient beings...but because that would TAKE AWAY from God's own aesthetic experience of contingent reality.
--If there is ANY POSSIBLE WAY that God can actualize God's own divine disposition and intentions, God will do so.
Tom: I got no problem with these.
Mephi: 2) The actualization and internalization of loving acts and/or loving intentions are metaphysically impossible without self-determining agency, via libertarian free will (Metaphysics of love)
Tom: Then how are WE not the one’s determining “that” or “whether or not” we choose for God? If you take the “that” out of our hands (like you did above), I don’t know how to make sense of the rest. In fact, THIS was the point of the Stepford Wives. The guys were pushing the buttons, which made real love impossible. You agree, BUT you insist on leaving ONE button, one overarching determination, in God’s unilateral hand…and that is the determination of “whether or not” or “that” we at all choose God. It’s like a Stepford TRUMP card.
Mephi: 3) From the perspective of sentient creatures, all loving relationships must be initiated, sustained, and consummated by the actualization of loving acts and/or loving intentions in order to be genuine. (Metaphysics of love)
Tom: How can you believe this and then deny my “we must determine ‘that’ we get there”? I’m in a fog here just trying to imagine Greg agreeing with this.
Mephi: 4) There must be enough epistemic distance to allow for SOME ambiguity on a sentient being's understanding of the God/creature relationship. ("trust" factor)
Tom: Sure.
Mephi: Now, at this point, we have a crucial part! Amid all of this realization, the being has the metaphysical ability to completely negate all of its desires, all rationality, and all reason, and decide to continue its trek into utter eternal self-destruction. This being could choose against God, "even though the person sees absolutely no good reason for doing so, has every reason not to do so, and has absolutely no compelling desire to do so." (Reitan, pg 136) To be sure, this would be an existential leap of drastic proportions. So much so, in fact, it would be hard pressed to call it a "free" choice in any meaningful sense. Nevertheless, it IS logically possible. However, the odds are IMMENSELY against this possibility occuring (odds approaching 0),
Tom: Then you’re disagreeing with Reitan. In your quote of him he’s using these points to argue the impossibility (logical or otherwise) of our decisively rejecting God. But anyhow, I guess I just don’t place as much faith and confidence in “information” and “knowledge” as you do. I’m wondering what statistical probability you would assign to Lucifer’s original choice to rebel. He had every possible reason for not rebelling, was given just enough epistemic distance to make his choice genuinely free and responsible (as you admit we must possess throughout our journey). So shouldn’t Lucifer’s choice be just as improbable as any post-rockbottomer choosing against God? And yet it happened.
Mephi: In line with rationality, the being ends up with an unchangeable desire for a sustained pursuit of a loving relationship with God. This being may not even know HOW to love yet. But it's willing to learn and grow towards that at this point.
Tom: Here’s what I see: The “unchangeable desire” eventuates into an “unchangeable will” to learn and grow. But willing is choosing, and choosing here is libertarian. So how’s it unchangeable?
Greg: Hence, though I would never propose that this conclusion be regarded as anything more than speculation, I argue that those who hold ot the free-will defense should logically consider the possibility that those who were unable responsibly and decisively to choose for or against God's Kingdom before death must somehow be given an opportunity to do so after death.
Tom: Yeah, I’m cool with this. I think.
Mephi: What I'm very interested in is this: When it comes to things like "the age or accountability", explicit statements by Jesus, Paul or whoever else is not necessary at all to validate it as being viable. ONLY logical inductions and deductions from interpreted biblical themes are necessary. Why is this the case for that subject, but when we talk about universalism, it gets criticized for having supposedly "weak" scriptural data backing it?? I truly am utterly confused about that. Talk about universalism...get pounded for EXPLICIT scripture about it. Talk about the "age of accountability"...nuthin'! I smell a BIAS!
Tom: I think I can tell you what the difference is. To affirm post-mortem truth-encounters doesn’t violate and explicit scriptural claim after the afterlife. The Bible nowhere explicitly states “There are no post-mortem encounters of such-and-such a kind.” So positing them is less troublesome than positing universalism, for universalism DOES appear to violate express states in scripture about the final state of the wicked. If the Bible nowhere said sinners would “not inherit the Kingdom of God” or “would burn forever and ever” or that the smoke of their torment would “rise forever,” THEN the situation between post-mortem encounters, or the age of accountability, and universalism would be sufficiently similar to justify being surprised by folks to emote more over that latter than they do the former.
Mephi: At any rate, I just wanted to bring this up to those of you who hold to the free will defense (which I pretty much believe to be MOST of the people reading this right now!) If you believe in TWT 1 and the free will defense...and you want to be consistent...chances are you are going to hold to post-mortem evangelism. And that's cool. But I just want y'all to know that in doing so, you guys are NOT being biblically adequate in the conservative evangelical sense. Basically, I want you guys to treat my argumentation for universalism with the SAME RESPECT AND MANNER that you treat your argumentation for post-mortem evangelism (if you hold it)
Tom: Well, like a said, I think they are a bit different. There is no explicit biblical passage stating “no post-mortem stuff” and thus no counter weight to caution us against believing in such stuff. But there are (apparently) explicit biblical passages that posit eternal torment. So claiming universalism has a far steeper hill to climb than claiming post-mortem truth-encounters.
Mephi: 2) The "rock-bottom experience" is a FORM OF post-mortem evangelism!... I cannot understand why people would have a PHILOSOPHICAL or THEOLOGICAL problem with my view of the "rock bottom experience" that leads to inevitable universal reconciliation.
Tom: The problem isn’t with the rock bottom experience per say. This IS just a form of post-mortem evangelism. That’s how I’ve understood you from the beginning. The problem is in your claim that any kind of post-mortem encounter with God or truth can make universalism “inevitable.” THAT’s the rub.
Mephi: As I see it, these are the things that have to be reconciled in a biblically adequate doctrine of final states:
Eternal existence of sentient beings
Dignity of sentient beings preserved via eternal ramifications for "earthly" decisions.
Conscious suffering in divine punishment
Destruction of the ungodly "person" in hell
Elimination of all wickedness and sin
In the end, all things reconciled under God in Christ
Tom: I’m having a hard time appreciating how you really deal with the second in the list. The only “eternal” consequences for rock-bottomers you’ve admitted to (if I remember rightly) are the eternal loss of “past opportunities.” But this isn’t saying much. Everybody except Christ suffers the eternal loss of specific journeys, experiences, and possibilities that could have been but weren’t because we chose poorly. If the post-rockbottomers get saved, ALL of the person gets saved, and in heaven they grow into the full actualization of their God-intended “selves,” then there really isn’t any “eternal” consequence for “earthly” decisions, unless these consequences are meted out in terms of “rewards” that obtain eternally.
Mephi: In the end, God's love and justice are consummated by God's divine elimination of everything in Creation that is against the nature and being of God...and the purification of everything that can be redeemed to God. God, by his wisdom, in His love, and for His glorious purposes, has made Creation such that there is SOMETHING inherent in ALL sentient beings that can be redeemed.
Tom: I’m gonna say something strange. I don’t think there’s ANYTHING “inherently” redeemable or valuable in human beings. God doesn’t redeem us because we’re inherently redeemable. He redeems us because he loves us. And he loves us because he just frick’n wants to.
OK, Tom, turn the “weird” button off. Off.
Mephi: How MUCH of sentient being that will be redeemed or eliminated...and the duration of the process...is genuinely up to the beings themselves. In other words, God is the SOLE agent of judgment (Judge) and redemption (Savior), while we genuinely affect how this agency will SUBJECTIVELY affect us, though the power of our decisions. In the end, God will be all-in-all.
Tom: Mephi, if you can affirm LFW all the way through the journey and still maintain universalism, perhaps there’s a way one can affirm eternal conscious torment and still maintain that God is all-in-all. The latter can’t be that much more of a stretch than the former. Yes? No?
Jeff: I've known about three conservative Christians who felt the need to believe in the "age of accountability" while they believed in eternal torment. After they converted to a belief in an unconscious second death, they were no longer certain of the "age of accountability." I agree that it is only the belief in eternal torment that makes the "age of accountability" seem so compelling.
Tom: The only reason (read: o-n-l-y) I have ever (read: e-v-e-r) believed in an age of accountability is because of my belief in accountability! Hell’s got nothing to do with it. If we’re accountable to God for our choices (whatever the consequences of that accountability—temporary or eternal), and if we’re not eternal (i.e., we’re created beings) then there simply has to be a time at which we become accountable. To deny that there is a time at which we become accountable while agreeing that we’re temporally finite (i.e., created beings) is to deny that we are at all accountable to God. So I don’t get the problem with such an age of accountability. It doesn’t figure into this debate at all.
Tom
PS Mephi, I might be coming out to St. Paul next month to look for a home, check out school districts, etc., for our move up this Summer. Let’s do Universalist Tango to a good meal and some tight music! (Yes, Selah, you can come. Oooh allllright.) Post Edited (TGB) : 3/17/2005 4:55:38 PM (GMT-6) |