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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Theological Q&A > Meph Has An IMPORTANT Question! | Forum Quick Jump
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Tom
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| Posted 2/18/2005 3:09 PM (GMT -6) |   | Excellent! NOW we're really getting somewhere Bro.
Mephi: One can postulate a view of the "soul" where there is ALWAYS a relationship between rationality and exercise of the will.
Tom: I like the sound of this.
Mephi: I think it's essential that, when we talk about agent causality (a form of LFW) that we are…
Tom: Now see, Mephi. There ya go again. You need to admit with respect to the sort of agent causality that makes love possible and libertarianism (power to the contrary) what you just admitted with respect to willing and rationality. They’re inseparable. Where choosing loving personal relationship is involved, agent causality is not just a “form” of LFW. It IS LFW.
Mephi: Do you feel that all aspects of the loving relationship must have "power to the contrary" in order for the love within the relationship to be genuine? I can understand your wanting to preserve the ACTUAL EVENT of loving as having libertarian freedom until self-solidication. Got that. That's completely understandable. I can also understand you saying that the process of solidification HAS to be based on these freely chosen loving events. I can get that to. But does this HAVE to extend to the DESIRE to PURSUE a loving relationship with God? I don't see why. The most that could negatively about this state of affairs is this: the ULTIMATE REASON it's rendered CERTAIN that all sentient beings who are almost solidified against God 1) will not solidify against God and 2) actually will up being solidified to God is because of the dispositional reality that God created in them.
Tom: This is the rock-bottom of our discussion! As I see it, even if we agree that your DESIRE to PURSUE a loving relationship with God is not itself established by choice, or is not itself a choice (I’ll grant both of these, OK?), it still remains the case that if it is to eventuate into actual loving relationship with God, this innate, rock-bottom desire of which you speak has to be libertarianly acted upon. A choice MUST be made. LFW is the only metaphysically available means by which this desire or disposition can obtain its object. THAT’S what I’m saying.
Mephi: Let's say that you wanted to state the obvious, that sentient beings cannot be morally responsible for their SOLIDIFICATION STATE. That aspect of our freedom was limited by God. In other words, we cannot consider the sheer facticity of being solidified towards God as a morally praiseworthy act on OUR part.
Tom: If you mean we’re not responsible for the fact that free will is finite in that it by definition solidifies, then I’m with ya. OK.
Mephi: Also, post-rock bottoms would not be morally responsible for their unchangable desire for sustained pursuit of relationship with God. We'll go with that, too.
Tom: For the sake of argument, I’ll grant this. OK.
Mephi: But ask yourself, "Does this negate ALL sense of responsibility and personality in the loving relationship ITSELF?" Would this destroy God's telos of wanting personal, loving, mutually influential relationality with sentient creatures?
Tom: Are you sitting down? Sit down, because here it comes! THIS, my friend, is what’s wrong with your view. It’s RIGHT HERE! You are assuming that the unchangeable, rock-bottom, hardwired, innate “DESIRE for a sustained pursuit of relationship with God” is one and the same thing as “the personal and loving relationship with God.” More to the point, you’re assuming that the unchangeable hardwiring can become an actual, personal, loving relationship with God WITHOUT the exercise of libertarian free will. When you ask here, “Does this negate ALL sense of responsibility and personality in the loving relationship ITSELF?” do you see what you’re doing? You’re assuming “the relationship ITSELF” is even there? But it’s not! Only the hardwired disposition or desire for it is there. The “relationship itself” is not itself one and the same thing as “the innate desire.” For this unchangeable desire (which I’m granting for the sake of argument) to resolve into the establishment of an actual relationship (which is the object of desire), the person must exercise libertarian power to the contrary. SHE must cross this gap. The crossing of the gap itself cannot be hardwired into us. You just pass right over this fundamental reality.
There’s more you said I’ll try to respond to later. Gotta run!
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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JEE
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| Posted 2/18/2005 3:15 PM (GMT -6) | | While I would agree that generally speaking rational ability and will are essential to personhood, I am rather uncomfortable with the implication that, say, a person who is comatose or severely mentally handicapped to the point where they exhibit no ability to reason or to choose rationally are somehow non-souls.
John
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One Love
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| Posted 2/18/2005 3:24 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
This is the rock-bottom of our discussion! As I see it, even if we agree that your DESIRE to PURSUE a loving relationship with God is not itself established by choice, or is not itself a choice (I’ll grant both of these, OK?), it still remains the case that if it is to eventuate into actual loving relationship with God, this innate, rock-bottom desire of which you speak has to be libertarianly acted upon. A choice MUST be made. LFW is the only metaphysically available means by which this desire or disposition can obtain its object. THAT’S what I’m saying.
and...
For this unchangeable desire (which I’m granting for the sake of argument) to resolve into the establishment of an actual relationship (which is the object of desire), the person must exercise libertarian power to the contrary. SHE must cross this gap. The crossing of the gap itself cannot be hardwired into us.
YES! YES! YES! YES!
Tom, we are just about there. We are saying the same thing, man! Check it out.
I COMPLETELY AGREE with you that the desire for sustained pursuit of a love relationship with God does NOT equal the love relationship! Yes! It is only the libertarianly free activity of a being's LOVING GOD MOMENT TO MOMENT that constitutes and fills out this relationship. I was never saying that the DESIRE was equal to the RELATIONSHIP ITSELF. What I was saying was that EACH MOMENT OF LOVING is not equal to the relationship itself. It is possible to be in a love relationship with someone WITHOUT ALWAYS ACTING LOVINGLY TO THEM. It is possible to want to be loving to a person with whom you have a love relationship, but for whatever reason FAIL to do so! Sometimes we slip up. For example, I have a love relationship with a significant other. Now, do I cease being in a love relationship with her if at some points in time I choose to be unloving to her? NO! The love relationship still exists, even when that happens. That's all I was saying.
I wanted to make sure that we understood that, with respect to a love relationship with God, one doesn't HAVE to say that a sentient being loves God EVERY POSSIBLE MOMENT of the relationship for it to be a genuine love relationship, for slip ups may occur even with the best of intentions.
Do you see that we are NOT disagreeing with each other...AT ALL...on this point?
We are SOOOO close!!!
"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
Post Edited (MephEternal) : 2/18/2005 2:31:54 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 2/18/2005 3:34 PM (GMT -6) | | Mephi: The choice to DESIRE a sustained pursuit of a love relationship with God is not the same thing as making the choice to love.
Tom: Neither is it the same thing as actually choosing a loving relationship with God. We’re splitting hairs, but we need to. I agree that LFW is not required where one has already freely solidified themselves into loving God. But the entering into of the journey toward this solidification is libertarian from beginning to end and that’s what you’re overlooking. You just posit the hardwiring of desire for a relationship and assume this is enough to guarantee the eventuation of relationship. It’s the latter that amounts to being reconciled to God and which can only be established via the exercise of libertarian free will.
Mephi: Desiring a sustained pursuit of love relationship is NOT incompatible with compatibilistic choice and CAN be conditioned by God.
Tom: I’m granting for the sake of argument that this is true. But the problem is that the DESIRING itself does not constitute the relationship itself and cannot eventuate into such a relationship apart from the agent resolving herself via libertarian choice to this desire.
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One Love
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| Posted 2/18/2005 3:43 PM (GMT -6) | | Ok, Tom. Here's where the notion of DISPOSITIONS comes in. I'll make a long story short here.
Dispositions are like "trajectories" or "drives" that mediate between possiblity and actuality. Our "spiritual natures" are a areas of dispositional reality. There a particular type of dispositions that are ALWAYS strived to be actualized. They are called "definitional" dispositions. They will ALWAYS, ALWAYS be strived for.
Now, what I say is that God has so constituted sentient beings that not only will post-rock bottom experience lead to an unchangable desire for sustained pursuit of a love relationship with God...but in order to actualize their dispositions, they will continually work on those dispositions to the extent they are able, unto their ultimate consummation
In other words, this sentient beings will climb the spiritual development ladder from merely WANTING to WANT a love relationship with God...to consummating their own self-actualization and total realization of their highest possible aesthetic satisfaction IN GOD!
Thus the dispositional realities within sentient beings relatively direct the overally, general trajectory this process , but [b]NOT EXHAUSTIVELY DETERMINE[/b] all aspects of this process. All of this renders this process unidirectional and the end result CERTAIN.
What do you hear me saying here?
"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
Post Edited (MephEternal) : 2/18/2005 2:48:16 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 2/18/2005 3:51 PM (GMT -6) | | Mephi: I COMPLETELY AGREE with you that the desire for sustained pursuit of a love relationship with God does NOT equal the love relationship!
Tom: Good. I feel you coming in!
Mephi: It is only the libertarianly free activity of a being's LOVING GOD MOMENT TO MOMENT that constitutes and fills out this relationship.
Tom: Make sure you realize what you’re saying when you say “constitutes.” I mean to say that the relationship is “entered” upon via LFW, and it’s the relationship that amounts to our being saved and escaping hell (if any of this is true!).
Mephi: I was never saying that the DESIRE was equal to the RELATIONSHIP ITSELF. What I was saying was that EACH MOMENT OF LOVING is not equal to the relationship itself.
Tom: OK, but this doesn’t establish universalism. It only establishes the logical possibility that all may choose God. And that’s the position I HAVE BEEN ARGUING FOR and you’ve been arguing AGAINST. You’ve been arguing that ALL MUST be saved.
Mephi: It is possible to be in a love relationship with someone WITHOUT ALWAYS ACTING LOVINGLY TO THEM. It is possible to want to be loving to a person with whom you have a love relationship, but for whatever reason FAIL to do so!
Tom: But it’s also possible to want to be loving to a person with whom YOU DO NOT HAVE A LOVE RELATIONSHIP, and that’s what people in hell don’t have and what their hardwired DESIRE alone cannot give them or even guarantee them. They must libertarianly choose it. See?
Mephi: Sometimes we slip up. For example, I have a love relationship with a significant other. Now, do I cease being in a love relationship with her if at some points in time I choose to be unloving to her? NO! The love relationship still exists, even when that happens. That's all I was saying.
Tom: Fine. But what you’re ASSUMING (the existence of an actual love relationship) with respect to her CANNOT be assumed with respect to those in hell. They don’t have such a relationship, or any semblance of it. All they have is your hardwiring and that’s NOT a relationship…and it can exist without any such relationship. So you’re still not coming to terms with how that relationship actually comes into existence (which it must if they’re to escape).
Mephi: I wanted to make sure that we understood that, with respect to a love relationship with God, one doesn't HAVE to say that a sentient being loves God EVERY POSSIBLE MOMENT of the relationship for it to be a genuine love relationship, for slip ups may occur even with the best of intentions.
Tom: Yes, but this is irrelevant, for what is assumed here must be denied in the case of those in hell. There IS NO love relationship with God there. It just doesn’t exist, even if the innate desire for it is awakened at rock-bottom. Waking up to this doesn't amount to having a relationship with God. It doens't even guarantee that we'll choose it. Just as it once didn’t exist with you and God, or me and God. We had to CHOOSE our way INTO the CREATING of such a relationship. That’s what you’re missing.
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One Love
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| Posted 2/18/2005 3:56 PM (GMT -6) | | Discussion about "Dispositions"
First of all, let's deal with the notion of "dispositions". Doc brings in this idea to deal with a serious issue that existed in the process metaphysic. In Whiteheadian and Hartshornean process cosmology, there was never really a mediator between possibility and actuality. The concept of "disposition" fills this in. A disposition is a dynamic, incorporeal reality that is neither fully actual or simply possible that mediates the the concretion of possibilities. A good way to think of it is as a "drive," "trajectory" or "directionality"; a way something tends to go. Something interesting. They guide things in a relatively determinate manner that doesn't lead to being exhaustively determined by the disposition. Dispositions don't go away, either. They are ABIDING realities within things that exist...and provide the constancy amid all the change. Moreover, they are the necessary AND sufficient grounds of all causation. In other words, the seat of origination for all things would lie in the dispositions for those things.
Some more info on dispositions. According to Doc's Trinity and Process, (page 113) there are two types of dispositions: definitional and constitutive. Definitional dispositions are those that defines a things "essence", ie. those aspects without which it couldn't be itself. Constitutive dispositions are those that a thing can possess, but not as inherent to what it means to be that thing. In other words, a existent could either possess or not possess a constitutive disposition with no fundamental change to its "essence". Not so with a definitional disposition.
Ok. Now I bet y'all are wondering: What the hell does this have to do with what we are talking about with libertarian freedom and universalism?? Well...a lot. Here's the deal...our "spirits" are dispositions. They are the the "subjective aims" that God sets for us that we relate to internally. The ultimate ground of those dispositions is the creative work of God's primordial disposition. This is VERY important because God sets the parameters under which the creaturely disposition operates. I want to quote Doc a little bit here. From Trinity and Process, pg 395.
The relative autonomy of the non-divine realities is in any sense necessary. The relative autonomy of the non-divine dispositions is manifested in their autonomous--viz. not divinely determined--creativity, though their relative dependence is manifested in their tie to the primordial disposition of God as the ground of their creativity. The divine ground defines the parameters within which the preordained role of the entity within the matrix of being can be played, though exactly how this creativity is in particular actualized is their own doing. The divine ground thus defines the essence of the non-divine creature without thereby undermining the autonomous integrity of the creature: indeed, it is the divine ground of the creature's essence which allows the creature space to be autonomous.
What's essentially being said here is that God ultimately defines the parameters of creatures' existence in relatively determinate, yet NOT EXHAUASTIVELY DETERMINATING, ways. So, God actually define and delimit some of the dispositional aspects of creations via God's subjective aims. What this means for us is simply that all of our spirits (dispositional realities) have at least some elements that are DEFINED and DELIMITED by God. This actually seems like common sense when one thinks of God being Creator. For example, human beings are generally what they are because of our actualization of God's subjective aim. There are certain ways that the disposition towards "being" a human being are defined and delimited by God. This is why we cannot, by any act of our will, cease being human beings.
Now...that I've laid all this groundwork...here's what I've been asserting:
I am going to say that it is possible that God could prescribe creational dispositional realities that do not abridge relative ontological autonomy...and yet ensure that all beings will eventually end up solidified towards God in love
I propose at least 3 possible definitional dispositions that God could have placed in the creaturely dispositional reality:
1) Self-disposition
This is inherent in being a contingent being. The capacity to affect or even operate against some of it's own dispositions. We can operate contrary to God's subjective aims and some of our own.
2) Self-actualization
This means that all sentient beings have the drive to acknowlege and fully "become" themselves and their realize their willings.
3) Maximal aesthetic satisfaction
This is actually tied to #2. All sentient beings seek the highest intensity of aesthetic experience possible. This would be loosely analogous to the quest to happiness, peace, etc.
I've thought that these were cool...especially since God exemplifies 2 and 3. (Because God is a necessary being, he cannot have #1) It's possible that God could have set up these 3 dispositions as being definitional and ESSENTIAL to what it means to be a sentient creature....and thus removed it from those things that can be changed. How these 3 dispositions may interact is like this:
For any sentient being X, X will have the drive to affect, change, or in some cases, deny their disposition towards things that X believes (or wills to believe) will promote the highest levels of self-actualization and aesthetic satisfaction for X.
Given that God (and loving relationality with God) is the ultimate fulfillment of #2 and 3 and the GROUND of #1, this area of dispositional reality forms...the ontological reality that produces the subjective experience called "the God-shared void" in all sentient creatures.
Now, just imagine what would happen if a sentient being came to deeply believe that God was the ONLY THING that can satisfy #2 and 3? How about...
There would be AT LEAST be an unchangeable desire for sustained pursuit of a love relationship with God.
Ok, Tom...how is this hittin ya?
"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
Post Edited (MephEternal) : 2/18/2005 3:00:41 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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JEE
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| Posted 2/18/2005 4:06 PM (GMT -6) | | | Romans 1 reveals that in spite of the obvious revelation all people already possess of God, they all choose to suppress the truth in unrighteousness, and that they do not WANT to retain the knowledge of God in their minds. This would argue strongly against the idea that if they just had ENOUGH revelation in Hell they WOULD certainly choose to love and not hate God.
Romans 8 reveals that there are two basic dispositions that may be found in people--the mind set on the flesh VERSUS the mind set on the Spirit, and the two are utterly opposed to each other, and indeed CANNOT subsist in the same person simulataneously. Galatians 5 says the same thing essentially, that a person is either following God's Spirit up to the light she now has, or she is following her own FLESH/selfish, sinful desires in spite of all the light God has revealed to her. "They that are carnally minded CANNOT please God" (unless and until they repent of their carnality/sinfulness).
It seems to me that this entire argument Meph is trying to advance is based on the "God-shaped vacuum" concept, which, in light of the above, seems dubious at best.
The angels who fell and Adam & Eve who fell all did so with far more direct revelation of God than anyone else today (except those who are now in heaven). This undeniable fact also would argue strongly against the idea that if people just receive more revelation of God's true character, they will finally repent in hell.
God's principle of self-revelation is NOT to give more light to those who reject what light they have:
John 7:17 If anyone chooses to do God's will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.
John 8:31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
John 3:19This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.
JohnE
http://revivaltheology.netPost Edited (JEE) : 2/18/2005 3:09:36 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 2/18/2005 4:07 PM (GMT -6) | | |
Mephi: Dispositions are like "trajectories" or "drives" that mediate between possiblity and actuality.
Tom: Maybe so, but they’re not limited to only one actuality. And if there are dispositions that do so, certainly the disposition necessary to personal and loving relationships cannot be so.
Mephi: Our "spiritual natures" are areas of dispositional reality. There a particular type of dispositions that are ALWAYS strived to be actualized. They are called "definitional" dispositions. They will ALWAYS, ALWAYS be strived for.
Tom: Really? Says who? Give me one definitional disposition involving a specific CHOICE that always obtains.
BUT…let me for the sake of argument grant your point, because it doesn’t matter. OK?
Mephi: Now, what I say is that God has so constituted sentient beings that not only will post-rock bottom experience lead to an unchangable desire for sustained pursuit of a love relationship with God...but in order to actualize their dispositions, they will continually work on those dispositions to the extent they are able, unto their ultimate consummation. In other words, this sentient beings will climb the spiritual development ladder from merely WANTING to WANT a love relationship with God...to consummating their own self-actualization and total realization of their highest possible aesthetic satisfaction IN GOD!
Tom: I see problems on the horizon.
Mephi: Thus the dispositional realities within sentient beings relatively direct the overally, general trajectory this process , but NOT EXHAUSTIVELY DETERMINE all aspects of this process.
Tom: This film just went from documentary to science fiction.  That this hardwired disposition doesn’t determine everything about the process (it leaves open how long we take to eventuate) is irrelevant to the question. It in fact determines the specific outcome, the choice, to be made and THAT, my friend, makes it a compatibilistic first choice for God and a self-contradictory notion. Who gives a rip about our possessing the freedom to decide how long it takes or how much we give up of ourselves in the process? If the hardwiring deterministically eventuates (and it does as far as I can tell) into the choice to turn hardwiring DESIRE into an actual relationship…then the relationship by definition cannot be personal or loving (whatever it might be), for it was not determined by the self acting freely.
Sorry,
Tom Post Edited (TGB) : 2/18/2005 3:18:44 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 2/18/2005 4:14 PM (GMT -6) | | Mephi: Summarizing:
The choice to unchangably desire a sustained pursuit of a love relationship with God is a COMPATIBILISTIC CHOICE brought about by…
Tom: Dude, it’s not even a friggin CHOICE! Why are you calling it a choice? It’s a hardwired DESIRE or DISPOSITION. Dispositions and desires are not “choices.”
Mephi: This decision is NOT freely chosen. It's NOT a "loving" decision.
Tom: It’s not even a decision.
Mephi: However, freely actualized decisions to love come AFTER that. The nature of dispositions (and the actualization by an agent) creates a unidirectionality to the love relationship that renders relatively determinate, but NOT EXHAUSTIVELY DETERMINED, that ensures that post-rock bottomers WILL eventually solidify towards God.
Tom?
Tom: Utter insanity. (Just joshing!). Really, Mephi, this is self-contradiction from beginning to end. You’ve got a hardwired disposition that determines libertarian choice. How can you believe this?
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One Love
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| Posted 2/18/2005 4:15 PM (GMT -6) | | John:
Romans 1 reveals that in spite of the obvious revelation all people already possess of God, they all choose to suppress the truth in unrighteousness, and that they do not WANT to retain the knowledge of God in their minds. This would argue strongly against the idea that if they just had ENOUGH revelation in Hell they WOULD certainly choose to love and not hate God.
Romans 8 reveals that there are two basic dispositions that may be found in people--the mind set on the flesh VERSUS the mind set on the Spirit, and the two are utterly opposed to each other, and indeed CANNOT subsist in the same person simulataneously. Galatians 5 says the same thing essentially, that a person is either follow God's Spirit up to the light she now has, or she is following her own FLESH/selfish, sinful desires in spite of all the light God has revealed to her.
It seems to me that this entire argument Meph is trying to advance is based on the "God-shaped vacuum" concept, which, in light of the above, seems dubious at best.
Actually, I thought YOU'D be able to see this if no one else would...BECAUSE of Romans 1. As you said, it's all about SUPPRESSION/REPRESSION. I'm arguing that, given our dispositional realities, we have AWARENESS of God and we KNOW about our status before God. But we believe the LIE that God is a THREAT, and not the ultimate source and fulfillment of our lives. We don't BELIEVE God. We SUPPRESS the truth that our dispositional realities normally LEAD us to understand. We self-dispose ourselves in ways contrary to the truth of the matter that we innately perceive because we BELIEVE LIES.
In wanting to get away from God, we are ultimately self-deceived into thinking that God is a threat to our existences and to our ultimate fulfillment and satisfaction.
This is why I say that ALL sin is really just suppression or repression of what we know about God and about ourselves. But I also believe that God will only abandon us to our self-deception for SO LONG...before God removes all the falsehood...and help us to make CORRECT choices.
"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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JEE
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| Posted 2/18/2005 4:23 PM (GMT -6) | | |
The point I think you're perhaps overlooking is that God gives such people over to a reprobate/depraved mind (He confirms their choices against Him, further hardening their hearts/solidifying their freely chosen EVIL character, making it harder and harder for them to ever repent/change their mind about God, self, and sin). Therefore, though it is quite true that they have deceived themselves, it is not the case, based on the scriptural principle of God's progressive self-revelation being given only to those who "will to do His will," that such willfully depraved and self-deceived individuals will ever be given MORE light of God than they are presently WILLING to obey.
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.
JohnE
http://revivaltheology.netPost Edited (JEE) : 2/18/2005 3:42:35 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 2/18/2005 4:32 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
Well, whatever it means (we can get into that, OK) it can’t amount to the denial of TWT1 for goodness sakes, which it does in your case since the influence is innate, hardwired, deterministic and eventuates in the choice for personal and loving relationship.
Ok. Ok. Ok.
Show me EXACTLY HOW what I'm saying is a denial of TWT 1. Be VERY, VERY specific. Give an example too.
I view TWT 1 as saying this:
The MOMENT-TO-MOMENT activity of an agent loving another person must be a libertarianly free act.
"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 2/18/2005 4:36 PM (GMT -6) | | MEPHI: I was editing this and lost it, but am reposting it here...so it's moved from its previous position BEFORE your post.
Mephi: Utterly amazed.
Tom: Stop! I’m rolling on the floor laughing. You’re killin me.
Mepih: Say, this will help me. What does this mean to you?
TWT #6: The power to influence is finite
This basically says that the quality of freedom cannot be REMOVED but it can be CONDITIONED by other factors.
What does this mean to you?
Tom: Well, whatever it means (we can get into that, OK) it can’t amount to the denial of TWT1 for goodness sakes, which it does in your case since the influence you posit is innate, hardwired, deterministic and eventuates in the CHOICE for personal and loving relationship.
So, the quality of freedom that makes it libertarian is entirely compromised by its being entailed dispositionally by predetermined hardwiring.
Typing with one hand while I stand and beat my head against the wall,
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Tom
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| Posted 2/18/2005 4:42 PM (GMT -6) | | Mephi: I view TWT 1 as saying this: The MOMENT-TO-MOMENT activity of an agent loving another person must be a libertarianly free act.
Tom: That’s not at all how I take it. I take it to mean: Loving relationships cannot be TOUCHED in any way, shape, or form by finite humans except through the exercise of libertarian free will (except, of course, in cases where an agent has already through the exercise of libertarian will solidified themselves in love—but we’re not talking about that).
I challenge Doc to disagree. Go get him!
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Starkman
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 2/18/2005 6:29 PM (GMT -6) | | | You're asking, Meph, for compatibilism before the expression of Freewill libertarianism, and this just doesn't work; it's the cart before the horse. We, who believe today, do so and GIVE OUR CONSENT to God to compatibilize our nature into his total desire and satisfaction, ultimately to be our total desire and satisfaction. But for the person who does not give the consent freely, there is no way to cross that gap Tom's talking about in order to become compatiblized.
(Let me note that I, personally, believe there will be a loss of something in my makeup, if you will, when I get to heaven. My solidification will HAVE to mean some sort of protection from my own self that will protect me forever from seeing or knowing and then acting upon what I am I capable of seeing and knowing right now and acting upon. I'm counting on a change. I think it's a little unnerving to know that something must change, but I give my consent to God to make that change.)
Further, if all God needs to do is activate the hardwiring, why have a hell at all? Many people hit rock-bottom while alive and are FREELY then able to choose to serve God. For these people, is it a compatibilistic hardwring being tripped or a recognition of reality? Even Paul didn't HAVE to serve God. He knew the consequences, I'm sure, of not serving God after he had light on the subject, but nevertheless, he could have turned his back on God, as can anyone of us. That is why we are constantly exhorted in scripture to press on until death, to not give way to the flesh, to prove our salvation.
Once in hell however, a person, in your scenario, is eventually forced, unlike prior to death, to believe. Yes, he comes to a realization of reality, but now he is presented with two choices: stay in torment or get the hek out. Which do you think he is going to choose? His choice, however, is not necessarily about freely having chosen to cross into compatibilism—he may still want it his own way, to serve himself, but no one likes pain. How exactly is it that this person is going to arrive at freely being able to cross the gap into compatibilism. I would think that if you're going to posit compatibilisim out of hell, you will have to prove that God does the same with those who are alive on earth (what logical reason would prevent or preclude God from using compatibilism with the living...without, remember, the free choice to give consent to God to do so?). Otherwise, you are merely speculating, and as I said before, we are then more in line with the concept of Purgatory, and many Catholics use Purgatory every day for the opposite reason of loving God; to, once again, serve self, believing full well that they will all be saved anyway.
To conclude here, if a person in hell has his hardwire tripped, his disposition directionalized toward God and the eventual end being compatibilism, there is nothing that person can do about it; he will eventually love God when while on earth he did not want to, and did not do so, knowing full well that there is a God, but that serving self pleases the flesh. This person rationally decided that serving himself was better. Deceived? No way, for serving the flesh is by far more pleasing than serving the Spirit (shock!). Let's face it, if serving God were so pleasing to our beings, we would be far more tempted to please ourselves via the Spirit than via the flesh. The opposite, however, is true. Nothing irrational or illogical about that.
Starkman
Post Edited (Starkman) : 2/18/2005 5:37:02 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 2/18/2005 8:25 PM (GMT -6) | | Let me try to get into your shoes, Tom. You said:
I take it to mean: Loving relationships cannot be TOUCHED in any way, shape, or form by finite humans except through the exercise of libertarian free will (except, of course, in cases where an agent has already through the exercise of libertarian will solidified themselves in love—but we’re not talking about that).
This is how I'm hearing you...
Person Y can only participate in a genuine love relationship if and only if every action or decision by Y (from the the initial desire to will to will for the relationship...to the ultimate consummation of the relationship in self-solidification) are constituted SOLELY of libertarianly free decisions that are in no way conditioned by our created, dispositional natures.
Is this what you are saying, Tom?
What I've been suggesting is this, on the other hand, is this...
Person Y can participate in a genuine love relationship if and only if every moment by moment decision to love or not love in the love relationship is constituted SOLELY of libertarianly free decisions. This love relationship is subject to be conditioned by things like our divinely created natures, as long as the conditioning does NOT eliminate the libertarianly free aspect within the loving activity.
What can this look like? We'll go in steps.
Step 1: A sentient being is almost solidified against God
Step 2: God decreases epistemic distance
Step 3: God reveals Godself to be the TRUE means and end of all sentient being dispositional desire and longing.
Step 4: At the "rock bottom" experience, the sentient being has a deep understanding and belief of what God reveals about Godself...and God's relation to the dispositional desires and longing within itself. The sentient being also realizes the utter futility of what it's already done up to now.
Step 5: A unchangeable desire for sustained pursuit of a loving relationship with God emerges from a RATIONAL, yet UNFREE understanding of God. This is because the sentient being realizes that actualization of it's own dispositional desires CANNOT be fulfilled without a love relationship with God. Unidirectionality is set, because of the empowered rationality of the sentient being. (Remember, true moral freedom ASSUMES rationality)
Step 6: God increases epistemic distance as to not determine all movement of the sentient being.
Step 7: The sentient being FREELY lives out it's new DEEP, rational understanding about God, itself, and their relation by beginning to actualize the sustained pursuit of loving relationship with God that is being unchangably desired. Consistent love of God may NOT be instantaneous.
Step 8: Over time, as the sentient being experiences more and more loving moments, it moves from solely consciously pursuing the love relationship with God because of one's OWN dispositional actualization...to also consciously pursuing the love relationship for it's own sake
Step 9: Over more time, as the sentient being experiences more and more loving moments, moves from Step 7 to consciously pursuing the love relationship with God for God's sake. (You can see the movement toward self-transcendence here.)
Step 10: Over Steps 8 through 9, solidification towards God is taking place, as the character gets more and more developed towards God. Finally, completely solidification in God takes place.
None of this seems logically contradictory to me.
**************************
It's like this, Tom. If you do believe this:
Person Y can only participate in a genuine love relationship if and only if every action or decision by Y, from the the beginning desire to ultimate consummation, are constituted SOLELY of libertarianly free decisions that are in no way conditioned by our created natures.
...then that's pretty much the conversation. This would necessitate that God couldn't create sentient beings such that the quality of freedom with respect to love could be conditioned to allow for universalism. Consequently, this would necessitate some the possibility of eternal self-destruction...not merely some eternally chosen unsolidified place.
I'd like for you to explain your position. I don't understand why the entire process of the love relationship, particularly the very INCLINATION to want to want a love relationship, MUST all be libertarianly free actions, in order for TWT 1 to be preserved. I've read over the "Free Fall" chapter of SATPOE over and over again about TWT 1. And I'm not seeing it. I do see this on page 194:
"The quality of freedom is conditioned by our original constitution.
Agents' quality of freedom is signficantly conditioned by the nature they were created with and the parameters of possible roles that the Creator designed for them when they were created."
In other words, it is possible for God to unilaterally set parameters on sentient beings by way of the way he creates them.
Please explain your view to 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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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 2/19/2005 3:39 AM (GMT -6) | | |
Mephi-
It’s 3 AM and I just finished writing this post. I finished watching Alien vs Predator with my older boy at 12 AM, so I’m not sure how clearly I’m able to think about hell right now! But after the movie I’m wound too tight to go to bed, so here I am.
I’m loving this man. I think we’ll find the right combination of questions and answers that’ll make our positions crystal clear to each other. It’ll come. In the meantime, you stupid Son of a #@!*$% why don’t you get what I’m saying!
I’m not even gonna try to review for typos.
Mephi: This is how I'm hearing you...Person Y can only participate in a genuine love relationship if and only if every action or decision by Y (from the the initial desire to will to will for the relationship...to the ultimate consummation of the relationship in self-solidification) are constituted SOLELY of libertarianly free decisions that are in no way conditioned by our created, dispositional natures.
Is this what you are saying, Tom?
Tom: Not entirely. Let me try again.
(1) I’m sure there are dispositional aspects of our hardwiring that are necessary conditions to our relating personally and loving. I think God did hardwire us for him, for love, for relating, etc. Seems to me that this cries out to us from every corner of our existence, like a homing device pointing us to God. We couldn’t make the choice to respond responsibly to God’s invitation were it not for this. And there’s nothing about this hardwiring which in itself constitutes choice at all. So I don’t see it ALL having to do SOLEY with LFW.
(2) I’m agreeing with the hardwiring. It’s a necessary condition for relating to God. But necessary conditions aren’t the same as sufficient conditions. To choose to relate to God, a necessary condition might be ‘recognition of the need to relate’ or ‘a desire to be in relationship’ or 'an inclination to relate'. This all goes without saying. But these in themselves aren’t sufficient conditions for constituing or being in a relationship. They’re necessary, but there’s another necessary condition which together with all these others constitute the combined sufficient conditions for standing in a personal andn loving relationship, and that condition is choice--libertarian choice.
(3) I don’t know what “desiring to will to will for relationship” means that simply “desiring relationship” doesn’t also mean. But maybe this is what’s tripping us up. You see the shattering experience of hitting rock-bottom as resulting in an active desiring of relationship. That may be too strong for me depending on what other ‘investments’ are entailed in ‘desiring’ something. “Desiring” a relationship might suggest to some that a choice to actually relate has or will be made, or that a clear "intention" has been adopted. I’m more comfortable agreeing that this rock-bottom experience results in our merely acknowledging that we are made for God or recognizing that God is what we need. But you seem to see in zero epistemic distance something more than just knowledge, recognition, or acknowledgment of the plain truth that we’re made for God. You want to say this acknowledgment is active desiring. I’m not a psychologist or anything, but I'm OK with “desiring” so long as it isn't understood to entail "intention" or involve an investment of choice, some commitment to follow through on the truth. And that’s where I’m drawing the line, because "choice" and "intention to act" are not entailed in merely "desiring." I don’t mind God hardwiring a bottoming out of our illusions and deceptions so that we come face to face with the truth and acknowledge it. But, Mephi, this is just informational. It’s education, not relationship (even if its necessary education). You can hardwire the acknowledgment of information into a person. You can’t hardwire a person into relationship.
(4) Where you hear me saying “Person Y can only participate in a genuine love relationship if and only if every action or decision by Y (from the initial desire to will to will for the relationship...to the…” I’d say of course not everything necessary to relating personally and loving has to be a libertarian choice. That wouldn’t make sense. It’s not solely a libertarian affair, and yes our freedom is conditioned by our hardwiring. I’m sorry if I communicated that I thought this wasn’t the case. BUT…libertarian choice is ONE of the necessary conditions for such relationships. Whatever other non-libertarian hardwiring, conditioning, or awakening to truth a thousand years in hell might be necessary for such relationships, I don’t know. I’m not that smart. I’ll concede any such hardwiring and conditioning and encounters you wanna throw in for the time being. All I’m saying is, posit whatever non-volitional hardwiring you want and even whatever limits on volition you want; but when you’re through, if you don’t have free, libertarian choice where the relationship is concerned, the chain is one link short of a relationship. Libertarian choice isn’t everything, but it’s necessary: This what I take TWT1 to mean. Perhaps my “can’t be TOUCHED” was too strong. I didn’t mean LFW is ALL that’s needed to get to love. I only meant that whatever else is needed besides LFW, love can’t be touched by us without also exercising libertarian free will. Problem is, I don’t see such free will ANYWHERE at work in your rock-bottom encounter.
(5) Again, “wanting relationship” doesn’t seem to me to be the same thing as “choosing to relate” or actually “relating.” There’s no relationship without relating. And there’s no relating personally in love without choice. It’s not enough to want to or to acknowledge that relating is one’s destined purpose, though these are necessary conditions and I’m happy to concede for the sake of argument that God can hardwire them into us. But they do not a “relationship” make. To make that, you have to add to these others “libertarian choice.”
A single guy can “want” to have a relationship with a girl. But he has to choose to pick up the phone and call her (assuming for the sake of divine-human relations that the guy is responding to her invitation, which doesn’t happen too often!). Yes, he must want to. Yes he must have a phone. Yes she must be available. And other conditions that inform and limit the exercise of his will. And yeah, let’s concede also that he has existentially bottomed out and realizes he was created for her and will exist in misery without her. He still has to pick up the cotton-pickin phone and do what no hardwiring can do for him, what she can’t do for him, what no amount of knowledge or truth can do for him. He has to choose. I don’t know what else to say.
Since this choice isn’t anywhere in your rock-bottom experience, I have no choice but to regard it as an impossible explanation of how rock-bottomers end up relating to God.
Mephi: What I've been suggesting is this, on the other hand, is this: Person Y can participate in a genuine love relationship if and only if every moment by moment decision to love or not love in the love relationship is constituted SOLELY of libertarianly free decisions.
Tom: What about the FIRST moment of agent decision that’s a necessary condition for creating the relationship? Is that libertarian? If so, then how can you guarantee that it’ll even be made? I don’t see that you can, no matter how much truth you pump into the agent’s brain or how utterly stripped of illusion the agent becomes. See, by “moment by moment decision” you seem to mean “within an already established relationship.” I’m asking, who brought that relationship about?
Mephi: What can this look like? We'll go in steps… None of this seems logically contradictory to me. [Steps 1-10]
Tom: Step 5 screams out to me: I’m contradictory! Don’t accept me. Step 5: “An unchangeable desire for sustained pursuit of a loving relationship with God emerges from a RATIONAL, yet UNFREE understanding of God. This is because the sentient being realizes that actualization of its own dispositional desires CANNOT be fulfilled without a love relationship with God. Unidirectionality is set, because of the empowered rationality of the sentient being.”
I sitting here thinking to myself: How can Mephi think Step 5 is anything other than pure, unconditional, unilateral, determinism? That’s all I see. An “unchangeable desire for God emerges from an unfree understanding of God”? The question mark is not meant to indicate an absence of understanding. It’s meant to express astonishment. OK. I’ll concede for the sake of argument that the “understanding” is unfree or hardwired. Fine. When we bottom out, we trip the mechanism, and then the “lights” turn on and we wake up to no epistemic distance and understand the truth about ourselves and God. But what makes you think an “unchanging desire for a loving relationship with God” would necessarily emerge from such understanding? Why believe that? Is that just what you’d like to see happen or do you have grounds (empirical or analytic) for believing that understanding the truth about ourselves and God necessarily results in wanting to relate to God? How do you know such desire would emerge from such knowledge? Yes, I see that you immediately follow with “…because the sentient being realizes that actualization of its own dispositional desires CANNOT be fulfilled without a love relationship with God,” and I’m thinking, “So what? Why should this realization eventuate necessarily in the emergence of a desire for God?” But, Mephi, moreover; even if such understanding eventuates in such a “desire” to date God, desiring a relationship doesn’t amount to being in a relationship. Actually relating requires the fulfillment of another necessary condition in addition to desiring: Choice.
Step 5 is to be rejected because it posits a metaphysically impossible state of affairs—not the hardwiring of understanding about God, nor the emergence of desire (though I’m skeptical of this for reasons I mentioned above), nor that God empowers rationality (though I’m not sure about this either, I’m granting it). It’s the total absence of a free volition, or libertarian free will, IN STEP 5 that renders the relationship established therein incoherent. You remove LFW from the one step that absolutely requires it.
In Step 6 you increase epistemic distance so as not to determine all movement. What is this but an admission that Step 5 is all about determining the movement? But since (5) is where the relationship with God is born, that’s precisely where LFW has got to be exercised. What you now have is that among the movement that Step 5 determines is the movement from no relationship to the establishing of a personal relationship with God. This is as incoherent to me when claimed by a univeralist as it is when claimed by a Calvinist.
Mephi: It's like this, Tom. If you do believe this: Person Y can only participate in a genuine love relationship if and only if every action or decision by Y, from the the beginning desire to ultimate consummation, are constituted SOLELY of libertarianly free decisions that are in no way conditioned by our created natures…
Tom: I don’t claim it’s constituted SOLEY through LFW. I’m claiming that AMONG ALL THE NECESSARY FACTORS that contribute to establishing and enjoying personal loving relationships, LFW IS ONE OF THOSE FACTORS. This is not to deny that God can and does limit our freedom in many ways. It’s just to say that determining its exercise with respect to love and personal relationships is not one of those ways.
Mephi: ...then that's pretty much the conversation. This would necessitate that God couldn't create sentient beings such that the quality of freedom with respect to love could be conditioned to allow for universalism.
Tom: And you can’t be wrong about Universalism?
I’m trying Bro. But when did you decide that human beings in any state of mind can enter loving relationships apart from the libertarian exercise of their will, and can in fact enter such relationships through predetermined hardwiring which, though rational, strips the agent of freedom in addition to stripping her of illusions and deceptions? If your Step 5 doesn't amount essentially to pure determinism, then show me LFW in Step 5.
Mephi: Consequently, this would necessitate some the possibility of eternal self-destruction...not merely some eternally chosen unsolidified place.
Tom: Right. If that’s where the argument leads, then shouldn’t that be where we follow it?
Mephi: I'd like for you to explain your position. I don't understand why the entire process of the love relationship, particularly the very INCLINATION to want to want a love relationship, MUST all be libertarianly free actions, in order for TWT 1 to be preserved.
Tom: I’m not claiming that the “inclination” is libertarianly chosen. I hope I’ve made it clear that hardwired inclination is fine. And inclination can do just that—INCLINE us to relationship. Cool. But you don’t want it to stop at inclining us. You want it to determine us in relationship, to resolve us into relating to God. Inclination is fine. Hey, I believe we’re born with a basic hardwired inclination in THIS world without believing we have to choose it. The point is that this inclination cannot guarantee what you want it to guarantee: eventual choice in a particular direction. It doesn’t necessarily eventuate into loving relationships. Inclinations can be denied. And though inclination is ONE necessary condition among others, CHOICE is another. That’s what I’m saying. Inclination isn’t choice. It is necessary even to making choice possible, but it can’t make it inevitable, even for hardened sinners in the total absence of epistemic distance. Think about it. Such epistemic closure can't also strip us of the necessary conditions for love, can it? Why would God do that? So whatever “stuff” happens when epistemic distance crashes to 0, do you want it to amount to our being unable to fulfill one of the metaphysically necessary conditions for love? Obviously not. So the question is: What are the metaphysical requirements for our being (entering, enjoying, growing, and frolicking) in personal loving relationship? I think FLW is among those requirements. This doesn’t mean God can’t limit the exercise of LFW so that we are unable to choose self-destruction (though I’m unsure on this too, I’m conceding it all to focus on the ONE point that renders your view incoherent to me), it only means God can’t limit the exercise of LFW so that we are unable to refuse to relate to him. Refusing to relate to him isn’t logically equivalent to choosing irrevocable self-destruction. It may just mean having to circle the block again and again. I don’t know.
(Just had a startling idea. Might not zero epistemic distance be the consequence of total solidification in love? In this case, zero epistemic distance is what defines "heaven." It's what makes heaven heaven! Another word for "zero epistemic distance" is...PERFECT INTIMACY! "You shall know even as you are known." That's zero epistemic distance. Dude, that's a REWARD. That's the GOAL. My goodness. Perhaps the whole idea that sinners who willfully defy God can be brought to zero epistemic distance to kickstart solidification towards love is itself an impossible state of affairs. But don't let me scare ya here. Let's not get off on this. I'm just wandering off track.)
Mephi: I've read over the "Free Fall" chapter of SATPOE over and over again about TWT 1. And I'm not seeing it. I do see this on page 194: "The quality of freedom is conditioned by our original constitution.” Agents' quality of freedom is significantly conditioned by the nature they were created with and the parameters of possible roles that the Creator designed for them when they were created." In other words, it is possible for God to unilaterally set parameters on sentient beings by way of the way he creates them.
Tom: Well yeah it’s possible for God to unilaterally set parameters on us and the exercise of our freedom. No problem. But that’s not a blank check. That God can and does limit the exercise of our freedom in SOME ways doesn’t mean God can limit it in the way your Step 5 needs it to be limited in order to make Universalism not just possible (Walls and perhaps I) but necessary (Talbott and you). Do you think that because God can and does limit the exercise of our will in SOME ways that there are no metaphysical conditions our freedom must meet if entering personal loving relationships is to be possible? Of course not. So then, there are some limitations to the exercise of our will God cannot make and still hope for personal loving relationships with us, right? Well there ya are. I think there are some metaphysical requirements for our “entering” (not “inclining to," that can be hardwired) such relationships, that is, our actually relating, which is the ‘stuff’ of relationships. I don’t know what all the requirements are, but I’m relatively convinced that LFW is one of them. If that goes, then whatever else of the requirements be met, not all the necessary requirements are met. Hence, no LFW, no love.
With more love and appreciation than I had for you yesterday,
Tom Post Edited (TGB) : 2/19/2005 3:21:08 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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