Mephi: So, God would get the same amount of aesthetic value from the eternal self-destruction of sentient beings who God loves...as God would from post "rock bottom" lovers? God wouldn't find one state of affairs better than the other?

Tom: These are two different questions. In the first case I’m saying that if you jettison LFW in the case of rock-bottomers, then you jettison what’s metaphysically required for the sort of synergy that makes personal loving relationships at all possible for us. So if rock-bottomers are in heaven, they are by definition neither “personal” nor “loving.” I don’t know what they’d be. I don’t need to know what they WOULD be to know what they WOULDN’T be. In the second case, whether God would find having such beings in heaven a “better” state of affairs than having them irrevocably suffer in hell, well, I don’t know. Do I need to know? I know if I have a severely retarded child who is neither personal nor loving with respect to relating to ME, I don’t toss the child in the can. I bathe her, talk to her, comb her hair and sing her songs. I hold and value her. Do you want to claim that THIS is the state of rock-bottomers in heaven? Maybe God prefers this to frying in hell. Let’s say he does. OK. But it still remains that in the case of rock-bottomers and annihilated or irrevocably suffering people in hell, God’s telos remains unfulfilled. God gets the same amount of telic-value (value resulting from the fulfillment of his telos) from both: 0. But that’s not to say God wouldn’t want to have them be non-persons (or non-personal with respect to relating to God and others) in heaven rather than in hell. I don’t know. What do you think? I guess I'm saying that I have no way of viewing people in heaven as "personally and relationally loving" if they didn't get there through the exercise of libertarian free will. If we can't tolerate the idea of their being a) in hell eternally rejecting God but still free to choose otherwise, b) irrevocably suffering in hell, or c) annihilated, then let's bring them on in to heaven apart from the exercise of libertarian freedom. But in this case they are either non-persons experiencing no mutuality whatsoever, or they're very nearly so. In any case, God's telos is unfulfilled in them. Their existence for all eternity would be analogous to our caring for severly mentally and emotionally retarded persons. If I would prefer caring for such people if they were MY children and in spite of the fact that my telos for them goes on unfulfilled (and I would), then perhaps God would be happy with this less than ideal situation in heaven as well. I don't get the idea that heaven will be this sort of place, but hey, who's to say?

Mephi: In one case, sentient creations eternal experience themselves experiencing the love and joy of God.

Tom: There's mutuality in this, Mephi. What, do these people not know heaven contains persons other than themselves? Do they offer NOTHING in the way of praise or recognition to God? Do they know God knows they know they're experience the love and joy of God? Come on! I think this is where you’re missing it. Such experience can ONLY be gotten to (in our case) via the exercise of LFW. That doesn’t make freedom the goal. It just means freedom is the necessary means to the goal. So, I think you’re imagining something that is in fact metaphysically impossible, namely, our synergistically moving from being God-rejectors to being personal lovers of God APART FROM THE EXERCISE OF LIBERTARIAN FREE WILL. There is no such movement possible.

Help me out. Do rock-bottomers not love God in heaven? Do they only know God loves them but suffering the eternal loss of all 'mutuality'?

Tom

Post Edited (TGB) : 2/17/2005 11:50:22 AM (GMT-6)

Here’s what I’m thinking, Mephi:

P1 God created us for the enjoyment of mutually loving divine-human relationships. That’s God’s telos.

P2 Such love requires libertarian freedom. That is, such relationships cannot be entered into by us without the exercise of our libertarian freedom.

Those are the two propositions that won’t let me embrace your view. Your rock-bottomers do not exercise libertarian freedom and thus cannot be said to have entered into a mutually loving personal relationship with God that fulfills God's telos.

You CAN argue that the relationship rock-bottomers have to God is not mutually loving and mutually personal. You could argue that rock-bottomers, by virtue exhausting their libertarian free will in defiance of God, retard themselves such that the relationship they enter into in heaven is one-sided, analogous to the relationship loving parents have for severely retarded children who are incapable of personal response. It’s a one-sided relationship where God provides and cares for retarded rockbottomers just because God is love, but the one on the receiving end can’t be said to reason through the experience of God’s loving provision so as to enjoy and define it. Those are the processes of mature personhood, the personal dimensions of relational existence that only reasoning through one’s existence can bring about. Rockbottomers forfeit the ability to process in this way when they exhausted the only thing they had which could have gotten them to such an existence—libertarian free will. So if they’re in heaven, they’re willfully retarded so as to make them lame, blind, and dumb receivers of God’s sustaining power. But there can be no reasoned experience of God’s provision and love by the rockbottomers.

It’s not a hellish existence. But it’s not the fulfillment of God’s telos either. What d’ya think?

Now, as far as I can tell, this will suffice even Modes’ view that God’s purpose in creating us is “redeemed love.” The openness of creation would insure an eventual Fall. But the metaphysics of love are the same throughout.

Tom

Post Edited (TGB) : 2/17/2005 3:01:58 PM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (Starkman) : 2/17/2005 3:17:47 PM (GMT-6)

Hey Starkman-

Two things. You ask what fool in his right mind would not give in immediately upon entering soul-suffering. I wanna comment on this because there is some bite to it. I don’t know how much, but maybe some. It seems to me that the exercise of libertarian free will needs some “room” to work and can’t be “overwhelmed” so to speak. The idea that God places souls in unspeakable suffering (as a consequence of their decisions in this life, OK) to get them to repent and accept him seems, well, like pinning someone down until they cry “Uncle!” We often dismiss the choices of people made under duress for the very reason that extreme duress squeezes choices out of people. They choose “to escape” and nothing more. Now I’m sure God would know the difference. But there’s still a point. And that is, universalists I’ve talked to make much of the fact that God’s worth and the sheer blessedness of life with him is the supreme draw of heaven. They point out that using escape from hell as a motivation is a less than perfect, less than appropriate, means for compelling people to turn to God. But now the experience of those in hell is precisely this. What already finite, impaired, sin-solidified (but not 100%) reasoning when placed under the unspeakable horrors of hell will make a choice for God that doesn’t reduce down to PURELY escapism. I don’t mind admitting that escaping hell plays SOME role in our choices. After all, Jesus talked about hell more than anybody and warned people not to go there. But this side of the grave the considerations on both sides (heaven and hell) are less than overwhelming. God is not in the habit of overwhelming. I’m just wondering if the proper exercise of libertarian will requires a context of at least a minimal amount of vagueness. God leaves the unwilling explanation enough for his rejection. But hell removes the vagueness. Maybe this is precisely why a physical creation that is explanatorily vague is even necessary. It makes choice possible for finite creatures. But how is hell explanatorily vague enough to account for sufficiently free decisions?

Not sure I’ve worded any of this right.

Secondly, in fairness to Mephi, Starkman, he’s not arguing that “all will be saved despite their desire for something else.” So long as they consciously desire something else, they’re not choosing God. Mephi would not agree that God saves people in spite of their conscious rejection of him. He’s arguing (I think) that ultimately their ability to desire contrary to God runs out. The ontological resource within us that makes rejecting God possible simply runs out. The tank runs until it empties itself, at which time libertarian free will is completely spent and the person ends up (through the engagement of a predetermined ontological firing-measure that gets “tripped” only when the tank runs dry) desiring God and consequently choose him.

Tom

I'll reread the Hitler thing asap. In the meantime...

One final complaint…slooooowly.

Let’s assume Mephi is right. Persons spend some time in hell either working through their suffering to a libertarian choice for God or spending every last drop of their freedom defying God so that at last they trip the ontological mechanism that brings about a rock-bottom experience of their personal “God-shaped” vacuum and consequently choose God (but not libertarianly of course). Let’s just assume this happens.

Here’s another problem. I think such a scenario de-eschatologizes (I just made that word up) the New Testament picture of the End. Without going into details (because I haven’t; I’m just thinking off the top of my head here), in general the NT presents the final end as a single package of events surrounding the return of Christ, OK? But the important point is that Christ’s return, the resurrection, and the judgment of all constitute the “consummation.” “Then comes the end,” says Paul, when Christ hands over the Kingdom to God. Paul imagines this to occur immediately upon the vanquishing of all of Christ’s enemies, the last one being death (which is destroyed by the eschatological resurrection).

My point is that “victory” for God, at least in New Testament eschatological terms (cf. Rev. 20-22), comes with Christ. Christ brings it and establishes it. Christ wins the final victory and establishes the eternal state within that package of events presented in the NT.

But this is blown apart if we posit unredeemed-but-to-be-redeemed souls in hell. Victory is not final. The consummation is not. And it might not be for a million years. It all depends on the free will of those in hell.

One objection I’ve heard repeatedly against an eternal hell is this: How can God be said to be victorious, really victorious if there is this parallel world of suffering in which God is defined day and night? And how can God or anybody else in heaven enjoy themselves knowing this parallel world exists? I’m not conceding that this argument is decisive against eternal torment, but I do want to point out that if it is, it works equally as well against those who argue it so long as there is one unrepentant soul in hell. How can God or anyone else in heaven enjoy themselves or celebrate the victory of God over all defiance so long as there exists defiance of God, which by Mephi’s count may run into the thousands or millions of years? See how this de-eschatologizes the finality and victory which the NT claims is established by Christ when he returns? God’s victory isn’t final until the last soul is in. The consummation (if the word is to mean anything) doesn’t occur until the last soul is in.

I don’t at all get the feeling that Paul or John or any other NT writer believed Christ’s return would be this uneventful. Sure, it raises everybody. The righteous go to heaven and the wicked go to hell until they repent or spend their freedom to the rock-bottom. I can’t but help feel that this empties Christ’s return somewhat of significance. The consummation comes when the last person in hell decides it comes. Is Mephi’s view compatible with the robust Christ-centered nature of the consummation that occur when he returns? I’m struggling with that.

Tom

Meph,

I looked up Talbott's book at amazon.com, and the thing's nearly thirty bucks! Why is it that a universalist like Talbott can charge so much for his book, while an Open Theist like Doc charges less than half that price? Even Sander's The God Who Risks was less than a 20.

I honestly can't justify paying that kind of money for Talbott's book right now. However, if the exegetical problems universalism faces are so easily defeated by universalists such as yourself, please do us all the favor of reproducing their basic responses here, okay?

Tks,

John

Yo Mephi, heads up…

Remember how we open theists use the chess analogy as an illustration of how God foreknows the full range of possible free will choices and is able to prepare adequate responses to them? The analogy is used to show that free will scenarios can account for the belief that God will “win” in the end. OK, forget that use of the analogy for the moment. There may be something else here that relates to our discussion of how one can guarantee future free will choices. Not always, but under certain circumstances and provided the circumstances are also freely chosen.

One point about the chess analogy that we’d often mention in passing is the fact that a grand master like Kasparov would be able to maneuver his play in response to his opponent and over the course of the game and sometimes back his opponent into the position of having only one move to make. You following me? Though he only has one possible choice to make, the opponent is responsible for his move.

I’m not sure this helps you in the end, because in such cases we’d say this is an example of God making compatibilistic use of those who freely limit their options over time and become predictable.

I was just wondering whether this might help me understand your claim. Just as Kasparov backs his opponent into a position in which he must choose and in which he has only one choice, hell is just such a scenario. We choose our way into a torturous loneliness that eventually, over time, leaves us with only one choice.

I think the strongest argument in favor of Talbott’s view is his argument that a freely embraced destiny apart from God is logically impossible. He makes as good a case as can be made for believing to be incoherent the very notion of freely choosing (with eyes wide open and cognizant of the truth about God, the lies about one’s illusions) to embrace irrevocably the torturous realities of hell. Talbott’s two points are: (a) What could it possibly mean to choose irrevocable damnation and misery? and (b) What could possibly qualify as a motive for such a choice? I find this the strongest part of Talbott’s entire argument. I want you to know that I do feel the force of this objection.

Jerry Walls takes Talbott’s point on in his Hell: The Logic of Damnation and doesn’t do a shabby job, but it doesn’t really leave one satisfied. By the way, Walls uses Kierkegaard’s Sickness Unto Death in his critique of Talbott. Interesting. Check it out. But both Talbott and Walls agree that this question cannot be settled on empirical evidence, by appealing to our own experience as grounds for insisting on that evil can (or cannot) be chosen decisively and irrevocably. We have to turn to conceptual analysis. In the end, though I admit there is bite to Talbott’s objection regarding the meaning and motive of irrevocably choosing evil, I have equal problems accounting for the meaning of salvation (its personal and loving nature) and the freedom necessary to embrace it on the supposition that our embracing it is really “determined” by circumstances outside ourselves, so that we essentially no longer possess power to the contrary. That’s sort of where I am.

But I should point our that Talbott and Walls are a lot closer than some think. Walls is a “hopeful” universalist. He allows for post-mortem encounters, which itself is a huge thing to do as an evangelical. (Some evangelicals discuss hell as if they’re likely to invite one another over to celebrate the misery of the damned by roasting marshmallows over their flames.) But Walls stops short of insisting dogmatically (as does Talbott) that all “will” choose God. I would be happy if optimistic agnosticism (like Walls’ position) was freely allowed by evangelicalism. Is it? I know my own denomination makes believing the damned fry forever and ever a fundamental truth. I’d like to see us open up on this, but you know wine-skins, Bro. They just get harder and harder as time goes by.

Gotta run.

Tom

Just thinking out loud here-

Satan might indeed provide an example of just the sort of decisive choice for evil that Talbott claims is logically impossible, or at least an example of an equally incoherent choice. Talbot will add, of course, that Satan’s choice of evil was only very nearly irrevocable and decisive. I haven’t read him yet, but I’m guessing that Talbott interprets Col. 1.20, in positing the “reconciliation of all things, whether on earth or things in heaven,” to mean that even Satan and all fallen angels will eventually be redeemed.

But even if this is held out to be a possibility, that doesn’t prove Talbot’s claim that nobody can meaningfully choose evil decisively. I mean, who can make any meaningful sense of Satan’s original choice of evil, a choice made with his eyes wide open, with no prior sinful influence, with no solidification in sin whatsoever, and fully exposed to the glorious realities of God and heaven? In such a context, self-deception and illusion were created by the exercise of will and not by a fallen creation or sinful nature of some sort. I think we ought to have just as much a problem in making sense of how and why Lucifer would do this as Talbott claims we actually do have in making sense of how and why a sinner would decisively choose hell.

Let’s say Satan’s choice was in reality not irrevocable, that his willful energies would expire eventually as well. Satan’s choice is still equally difficult to account for meaningfully and in terms of motivation in either case. I mean, if Satan chose evil in the full light of truth, no self-deception and illusion from presolidified choices working, knowing that eventually, billions of billions of years into the future at some unknown time he would come around, what meaningful sense can one make of his choice and motive to rebel at all? Whence his illusion that he could actually ascend to God’s throne at all if not “created” by free will itself? On the other hand, if Satan didn’t realize that such a choice was not in fact irrevocable, if he didn't make it in the full light of the truth about himself and God, then his eyes weren’t in fact “wide open.” He only thought he was making a decisive irrevocable choice against God. But even here Tablott’s objection applies doesn't it? What coherence or logical consistency can attach to the choice for evil in such a case? If his eyes were truly open and he knew there was nothing to gain, how is his choice for evil (even if a temporary one) “logically coherent” in Talbott’s terms? I mean really, does anyone really comprehend a “logic” in Satan’s choice that makes it meaningful? Yet we believe such a choice was made.

Hmmmm.

Tom

Post Edited (Laika) : 2/18/2005 12:55:27 PM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (MephEternal) : 2/18/2005 1:04:58 PM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (TGB) : 2/18/2005 1:37:47 PM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (MephEternal) : 2/18/2005 1:47:41 PM (GMT-6)