Haven’t read anything on page 5 yet. Wow. Lot to cover. Gosh, it’ll take forever! It’s hard to segregate each issue and deal with it ‘cause they inter-relate and affect each other. But it might be best to try, so I’ll just deal with one issue here: solidification in evil.

It looks like we have really different understandings of sin’s effect upon a person. As I see it there are two categories of effect which sin has. You’ve mentioned one—the irretrievable loss of opportunities we once had to actualize ourselves in love. Those unique pathways are gone. We’ll never be the persons THOSE opportunities could have made us. I tried to argue this two years ago (really, I did) but nobody was interested. I figured I was a nut and walked away from it. Anyhow, the point about THIS category of sin’s effect upon us is that it has nothing to do with the solidification process. To miss an opportunity is a temporal reality. Everybody in heaven will suffer some of this kind of loss. In fact, to be a sinner is to be a person who has missed SOME opportunity to actualize one’s self in love. The only person who actualized very opportunity he had to dispose himself in love is Jesus.

But there’s a second category of sin’s effect upon us, and it’s the solidifying effect upon how we function, upon our dispositions, and it’s this effect that falls through the cracks in the floor of your view. For me, one “chooses” one’s way into solidification in evil and one’s got to “choose” one’s way out of such solidification. This has nothing to do with lost opportunities in the PAST. It has to do with the entrenched effect a lifetime of sin has upon our FUTURE choices. Given the metaphysics of love and freedom, it is a just and fundamental consequence of sin that it’s solidifying effects cannot be wiped away unilaterally by God. One must choose one’s way back from solidification given all the dispositional effects which that solidification has had. It would undermine the integrity of the metaphysics of love which govern personal and loving relationships for God to simply unilaterally wipe away such effects. Your view does this. The rock-bottom encounter “gives” the person a “new” disposition, one which is unchangeably disposed in favor of God. It emerges so to speak from near zero epistemic distance and its new orientation (one which for all intents and purposes determines the choice for God). And underneath this all is a Dewian-like definition of sin as ignorance. If we just right whatever bad cognition is there, the right choices will follow necessarily. Once the 99% solidified in evil agent “sees” the truth, she’ll make the right decision since choice is never divorced from cognition.

This is where we don’t see eye to eye. To say choice and cognition are never divorced is not to say cognition “determines” choice. But even if zero epistemic distance DID render choice determinate (and it just might), we don’t have zero distance here, because you agree to the need for enough epistemic (cognitive) distance to allow for genuine “moral autonomy.” But you’ve arranged things so that in reality the agent is left with no genuine libertarian tools of choice. But if epistemic distance is a tool of such choice, and if such choice must be exercised, then you necessarily must recognize enough distance to allow for the REAL possibility that agents will reject God by reasoning their way to such a rejection. You can't concede the possibility of such a libertarian choice and then deny that one's reasoning and disposition are such that one may actually reject God (if choice and cognition are as linked as you supposed. If libertarian choice is truly possible, so must reason and dispostion be libertarianly open to carrying out such choices. Otherwise, the choice for God would by definition be “overwhelmed," and that's a metaphysically impossible track for movement toward personal and loving relationships.

So, my problem is that in your view the solidifying influence of a chosen disposition oriented against God is unilaterally transformed by God without any libertarian involvement on the part of the agent into an unchangeable disposition in favor of God. But solidification IS dispositional. Or rather, it is the disposition of the self which is solidified IN ITS EXERCISES and FUNCTIONS, and that as a just and fundamental (as opposed to incidental) consequence of a previous life of freely chosen sin. But where an agent spent a lifetime and a few thousand years in hell exhausting every resource of will and intellect in solidifying their dispositions in the rejection of God, you want the consequence of this to be a unilateral gift of a new disposition (poof), and one unchangeably favorable to God. The solidifying effects of sin upon the disposition are simply reversed without the agent having to choose her way out, and THAT I think undermines the metaphysics of love.

More later,

Tom

Post Edited (TGB) : 2/21/2005 1:30:20 PM (GMT-6)

Mephi: Tom, I really don't feel like you have given an accurate representation of what I've said. What I'm hearing you say is that a person's disposition is UNILATERALLY changed. I'm also hearing you say that the agent has NOTHING to do with the unchangable desire for the sustained pursuit of a love relationship with God. I'm also hearing you say that the agent does not end up choosing their way out of their close to completely solidified state against God...choosing towards God. That God just wipes away all the effects of a lifetime of choosing against God.

I don't believe that I've said ANY of these things, Tom. Not a one. I'm asking. Could you please read through my stuff again, and represent it a little more accurately. I need to have this happen, ok? How about you do me a favor and try to restate my understanding of how all this relates to the disposition, what the effects of solidification against God actually are, etc. Thanks.

Tom: Wow, sorry Bro. I really thought I was on target. As I read you, your Step 5 has NO LFW in it going on, no volitional activity registering anywhere on the radar. You clearly admit it's a UNIDIRECTIONAL thing. It’s a unilateral operation performed on the agent that takes place at rock-bottom when she’s exhausted every volitional and dispositional resource she has in defiance of God. It’s Step 5 where the agent hits rock-bottom, receives “unfreely” (your word) an “unchangeable disposition that favors God” (your description). You also say (I refer to it below) that this "deduction" is both undeniable and deniable. It got confusing. You also spent some time, for example, defining ‘solidification’ as “eternally lost past opportunities to act in love" (slight paraphrase). This caught my attention, because such lost opportunities do effect solidification, but the solidification itself is something quite different than "lost opportunities."

I’m fried, and I got bills to pay! Arghgh. So I’ll have a look at it all again when I’m able. But I’ll post here some replies that I already wrote before downloading your comment that I’ve missed your point. Let me post this for now and see if it helps at all. Then we’ll have a better idea of where I’m missing your essential point, and maybe you’ll be able to see what it is about your explanations that's making me think the way I am.

Love!

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POST

Mephi: As far as the "actual relating", I AGREE with you that that is a product of libertarian freedom. But here's the thing, Tom. The exercise of our will is NOT DIVORCED from our thoughts and beliefs.

Tom: Then we either need to abandon the claim that the ‘choice’ is libertarian or concede that ‘thoughts’ and ‘reason’ are swimming in enough epistemic distance for the agent to ‘think’ herself through to the very libertarian choice we’re wanting to admit IS possible.

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Mephi: There is a mutually influential interaction between our thoughts, beliefs, and will such that our will CANNOT just work AGAINST our deeply held thoughts and beliefs on a fundamental level. To posit this is to posit IRRATIONALITY.

Tom: Maybe so. But we don’t help the situation by positing an equally irrational state of affairs, namely, the will’s freedom to choose libertarianly but fundamental thoughts and beliefs which would in effect make such an exercise of the will impossible.

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Mephi: We only want ENOUGH epistemic distance not to remove all sense of relative ontological autonomy.

Tom: You need more distance than that. You need enough distance to create room for the metaphysics of love to work, and that means all the necessary tools (whatever they might be: ontological, dispositional, cognitive, emotional, contextual, relational, etc.) for the exercise of libertarian free will. You seem to want to concede to me that LFW is actually there, but then you have all the other aspects locked up in a unilaterally infused disposition and reason that is unchangeably favorable to God.

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Mephi: I'm postulating that there is a state where epistemic distance <> 0 where the "reality alignment" takes place WITHOUT completely eliminating EVERY sense of autonomy from God. In other words, there can be a state where epistemic distance is small enough were some decisions are free, but NOT all.

Tom: But as far as I can tell the one that NEEDS to be free isn’t, nor is the cognitive ambiguity required to make such an exercise of the will possible present. There’s epistemic distance in rock-bottom encounter, but it’s incidental if in fact the disposition and reason are sufficiently unilaterally empowered by God so as to render choosing against God a practical impossibility. It needs to be a practical possibility where relationships of a personal and loving nature are concerned.

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Mephi: I have no problem saying that the "rock bottom" experience lies at a range were the truth of the God/creature relationship, with respect to the creature's dispositional yearnings is UNDENIABLE by the being. And directly after that understanding is internalized, the epistemic distance is enlarged such that that understanding is feasibly DENIABLE again.

Tom: If it’s “internalized” in terms of an unchangeable disposition, then in which sense is it “feasibly” deniable? I mean, what’s to keep the post-rock-bottomer from freely choosing their way right back into a 99% solidified denial of the truth? Or is the epistemic distance not opened THAT much? This whole “rock-bottom” encounter is appearing more and more dubious to me. It looks like a huge deterministic tare right across the fabric of a libertarian garment.

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Mephi: The post-"rock bottom" emergent choice to unchangably desire a sustained pursuit of a love relationship with God is NOT FREE...but subsequent libertarianly free decisions which are based upon and interacting with that being's changed conceptions of reality are INDEED free.

Tom: But you just said that the emerging “understanding” was itself DENIABLE. Is it or isn’t it?

---------------------------------

Mephi: What I thought I said was that the free-willed decision that formally INITIATES the love relationship with God cannot be 100% certain to occur...if we are going to philosophically maintain LFW. Even though it would be HIGHLY, HIGHLY, HIGHLY unlikely that the continued resistence would occur, given all the stipulations (as you noted with my analogy, Tom) we still must admit that logical possibility that it COULD happen...and therefore it's not 100% certain and not completely predictable.

Tom: Right. But…

Mephi: I DO think that it would be wrong to call the unchangable desire for a sustained pursuit of a love relationship with God a "choice" though. You are right on that score. It would be more of an UNDENIABLE DEDUCTION FROM THE FACTS. Simply put, the being would have an undeniable understanding that [my italics] it is completely in it's best interest as a self-actualizing, aesthetic value maximizing, relational being to pursue a love relationship with God.

Tom: Here this understanding is “undeniable.” But above, regarding this same understanding, you say, “…after that understanding is internalized, the epistemic distance is enlarged such that that understanding is feasibly DENIABLE again.” Which is it?

Now, the other problem with this that I’m trying to hit upon in the previous post is its inconsistency with what I think are the just and fundamental consequences of sin, namely, solidification. I really do think that since one must “choose” one’s way into such solidification, one’s got to “choose” one’s way out. But you deny this. The rock-bottom encounter simply erases whatever dispositional entrenchment (which is what solidification is after all) and plops a clean dispositional slate (so to speak) in the agent, such that where the previously solidified disposition was 99% oriented in defiance of God leaving 1% open for LFW to find its way back to God, it is now 99% oriented in favor of God leaving 1% open (probably a much smaller percentage by your count) for LFW to reject God.

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Mephi: But as far as the epistemic distance question. If we are talking about the "undeniable deduction from the facts" being realized by the sentient creature, I don't see why THIS has to involve LFW with respect to being able to rationally COUNTERACT the deduction. I can understand the initial love CHOICE being free...as well as the initial movement TOWARDS the relationship being free, but not the "new perspective" accepted by the sentient being as being true. Using the chocolate shop analogy, my changing your perspective about the chocolate shop was NOT free. I pretty much MADE that happen, giving you an UNDENIABLE deduction from the facts. Then when I made sure you had the "new perspective", I let you do whatever you want. THAT was analogous to the enlarging of the epistemic distance. And your unimpeded choice from THAT point was the FREE choice to initiate the relationship.

Tom: Isn’t the new “deduction” made unilaterally by near zero epistemic distance? Yes. Then it would seem to me that this “deduction” is put at peril if what was needed to create it (near zero distance) is removed and epistemic distance is increased. You earlier said this “understanding” was feasibly deniable once epistemic distance is increased. Well, if it’s deniable, then what happens if it’s denied and denied and denied? What solidifying effect would such a denial have upon the disposition? Metaphysically it would have to have SOME such effect. But you’ve now posited an “unchangeable” disposition.

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Mephi: you may wonder, in hell, where does all this 99% solidification go right before or during the "rock bottom" event. This, I think, is the BEST description of hell I can think of. God CANNOT get all the wasted years, opportunities and possibities back. They are all lost ETERNALLY.

Tom: But “wasted years and opportunities” do NOT equate to solidification. Waster opportunities are just that, paths we could have chosen but chose not to. Solidification is an entirely different animal. It has to do with what those choices have MADE us, how they’ve cemented in our dispositions against God. I comment on this in the previous post. Solidification in evil cannot be simply equated to lost opportunities. It has to amount to present-tense tendencies, volitional and dispositional entrenchment affecting the FUTURE.   

Mephi: What's left of that person. Pretty much just THEMSELVES. Their desire and will not to do that stuff again. This person would have to LEARN what it's like to love, to give, to share, to empathize...ALL that. Heaven would be REMEDIAL ENGLISH for this person...while people like Mother Teresa would be in the Honors literature classes! Mother Teresa's had PLENTY of experience loving others, giving of herself, and all that. But both the remedial person AND the moral expert are CONSONANT with the Kingdom...though their expressions of the Kingdom of vastly different. Yes, I believe that growth is possible in heaven!

Tom: If growth is possible in heaven (and I’m not debating it, I’m just relating it to your own claims), then the remedial rock-bottomer may grow into a Mother Teresa. If so, then what's left of the claim that rock-bottomers suffer eternal loss? If the loss just means irrecoverable missed opportunities, then EVERYBODY in heaven suffers that.

Let’s leave the eschatological lopsidedness for now. That’ll come later.

Tom

Post Edited (TGB) : 2/21/2005 2:53:43 PM (GMT-6)

Meph said:

1) It would be interesting to know if the author of this passage of Chronicles had a belief in the afterlife...and if so, what that belief was. You do know that there was an evolution of theological thought surrounding existence after death, yes?

John replies:

Yes, I am aware of the progressive development in the scriptures of the concept of an afterlife. That makes no difference with regard to this issue, however, as your position denies that anyone will be cast off forever in any case. I only quoted the Chronicler as a good representative of a pervasive biblical theme, in both Old and New Covenants. I could post all the "warning passages" concerning apostasy in the NT, but I'm sure you are aware of those. They all say essentially the same thing as Chronicles is saying in this instance, which, by the way, is really the same destination at which all who reject God's truth will finally arrive.

2) It seems to me that you don't seem to really grasp the fact that my view AGREES with what you say. There is eternal LOSSES endured by people who deny and reject God. Those who seek and serve God are REWARDED. You seem to be saying this...

If everyone ends up in "heaven" then 1) no one is "cut off" like scripture claims and 2) there is no real distinction between losses and rewards because all are in "heaven".

More precisely, what I am saying is that your view requires one to believe that no one is cut off forever. I hear what you're saying about hell being in some sense purgative and rehabilitative and not just simply punitive, but that still doesn't extricate your view from the sticky wicket of "forever," "unpardonable," "hath never forgiveness, neither in this age nor in the age to come," "it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance," and so forth.

John, can you see the implicit view of PERSONHOOD that you have in your belief? Please tell me that you can see it. It's there, I assure you. If you don't see it, you pretty much have an SUBSTANTIALIST view of human existence. Just like much of the bibical authors did, early Greeks, etc. What if you were to CHANGE your view of personhood? Think about it.

How about this? HOw about you TELL me what is your view of the constitution of the immaterial aspect of human existence? Spell it out for me.

Another question: Are you an annihilationist? If so, why?

Those who follow Adam (and Satan) all die, those who follow Christ all live.

Post Edited (JEE) : 2/21/2005 9:40:00 PM (GMT-6)

Rats! I printed out your last post and was sitting in bed studying it when my wife leaned over to kiss me and knocked over my drink and pillow, broke the glass my drink was in, spilled it all over the place, including your post! I dried it out and am back to work!

Let me start with what you hear me saying:

Mephi: Libertarian free will must be kept intact such that a person's final destinations lie fundamentally in their OWN CHOICES. And since personal, loving relationships REQUIRE libertarian free will, this means there must never be ANY movement (ie intention, desire, etc) towards a relationship with God that can be 100% certain to occur. There must always be enough existential ambiguity about reality (including the nature of oneself and one's relationship to God) that there is a REAL, LIVE option that a rational person could (albeit using extremely faulty ways of thinking) choose against God. There can be nothing that relativizes the sentient being's genuine ability to choose against God at any time, not even an "undeniable deduction" that leads to a clarified "new perspective." If self-disposition via free choice got them in the fix, then self-disposition via free choice HAS to get them out. And if they are too deep in self-delusion to choose their way out, then that's just the price they pay...and they have to accept those ramifications, even if that's eternal self-destruction.

In pieces:

(1) “…a person's final destination lies fundamentally in their OWN CHOICES.”

I don’t believe a person’s final destination lies in their own choices any more fundamentally than it lies fundamentally in God’s choices. That would deny mutuality. Our destiny lies in the interplay of fundamental mutuality, which means God has a necessary part to play I can’t play and I have a necessary part to play God can’t play.

(2) “…since personal, loving relationships REQUIRE libertarian free will, this means there must never be ANY movement (ie intention, desire, etc) towards a relationship with God that can be 100% certain to occur.”

I’m not really into the statistics of it all. See, “…must never be ANY movement…that can be 100% certain to occur” makes it sound like what motivates me, my goal, is the sheer denial of such certainty. But the probabilities just follow what is in fact the real point for me: How is it possible to guarantee universal exercise of libertarian free will?

(3) “There must always be enough existential ambiguity about reality (including the nature of oneself and one's relationship to God) that there is a REAL, LIVE option that a rational person could (albeit using extremely faulty ways of thinking) choose against God.”

If we remove “albeit using extremely faulty ways of thinking” would you agree? See, ambiguity doesn’t have to mean faulty reasoning. We reason rightly in spite of our ambiguity. But you earlier conceded (with Hick) that a minimum amount of ambiguity was necessary for the responsible exercise of the will. So what’s the problem here?

If you want to posit a unilateral clearing of the head, a divine downloading of truth into the mind, fine. But this is sheer “information download.” The person spends as long as it takes reviewing the truth about herself, her actions, what could have been, etc. I guess I’m cool with that. You just place a lot more confidence in such knowledge than I do I guess. My other problem is, where’s the epistemic distance, the cognitive distance? You’re agreeing it's there even in Step 5. Can you describe for me what “cognitive distance” regards? What is it the rock-bottomer is ambiguous about?

(4) “There can be nothing that relativizes the sentient being's genuine ability to choose against God at any time, not even an "undeniable deduction" that leads to a clarified "new perspective."

You tell me. If the divine unilateral operation “relativizes” the genuine ability to choose against God, then how are the metaphysics of love not overturned? They’re either the “metaphysics” of love or not. If they are, how do you “relativize” them? I mean, what does it mean to “relativize” a metaphysical law? Can we relativize the law of non-contradiction? The fundamental laws of logic? I think you agree we can’t. You admit God can’t do anything that violates the laws of logic. They're "laws." God can't “relativize” them. What would that mean anyway? Same goes for the metaphysics of love. How does one relativize them?

But in fairness to you, I’m prepared to agree that a unilateral divine revelation of the truth about God and one’s self, an unavoidable display of truth, God’s light shinning on the facts of the case, are all entirely appropriate and not incompatible with libertarian free will. I just don’t think they “relativize” free will.

(5) “If self-disposition via free choice got them in the fix, then self-disposition via free choice HAS to get them out.”

Free choice doesn’t have to be the ONLY thing that gets us out. In fact, I’d absolutely deny that free choice ALONE has to get us out. God has necessary contributions to make which, if not made, leave any exercise of our will high and dry. I’m prepared to admit that a case can be made for some kind of post-mortem provision of “optimal grace” (to use Jerry Walls’ phrase). And I think this would have to include empowering the person’s intellect and providing enough of the “facts” to make responsibly responding to this grace possible. But inevitable?

(6) “And if they are too deep in self-delusion to choose their way out, then…”

Aren’t we working on the assumption that no person can be in “too deep,” that God has hardwired us to be incapable of self-solidifying 100% in evil?

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Tom: OK, let me try to clarify, because I wouldn’t necessarily say this captures my concerns:

(1) “…for the sake of preventing qualitative and/or quantitative ultimate harm…”

This is big, and I hope I can explain myself well enough. (But first let me say, why the words “functionally” and “domain”? What do they add? I hope I’m not missing something. But why not just say “Removing a person’s libertarian free will for the sake….”?) OK, never mind that. To the point! I would NOT say that disregarding a person’s free will, or overriding it, for the sake of preventing their ultimate harm is never justified. I’d in fact agree that it is justified for the sake of preventing their ultimate harm. But we’re not talking about preventing ultimate harm. We’re talking about guaranteeing ultimate joy, and that’s a different thing altogether.

If I save a person who is intent on committing suicide by wrestling the gun out of their hand, I’ve disregarded the exercise of their will completely and overridden it. But I’d consider this a good thing. But this disregard for free will is limited to preventing their harm and can’t possibly ALSO be how I get the person to engage in responsible personal choices of a loving nature. Now, if God really has hardwired us to be incapable of self-destructing, then THAT IS the removal of free will for the sake of preventing our ultimate harm. Now, how much MORE of our free will can God remove and still leave in tact within us the necessary metaphysical tools that make love possible, I honestly don’t know. That is why I may be incapable in the end of ever being as dogmatic as you are about this question and why I’m much more comfortable just laying some general principles out there and then trusting God. I hope that’s not a copout. I don’t mean it to be. It does make counseling more difficult. But if all the evidence really prohibits dogmatic assurances, then let’s just tell the suffering Mom whose teenage daughter of 13 just committed suicide the truth: "We don’t have absolute answers about a lot of things having to do with the afterlife. But the Cross gives us every reason to believe that God will provide every individual optimal grace for making a free and responsible choice about their destiny. We can trust that God to do everything in his power to see that people who didn't have that choice in this life have it in the next." I think I can affirm that. Can that be enough?

(2) “…love itself implies allowing a person the freedom to experience the complete ends of their own decisions, positive or negative, without intervention.”

Love certainly implies not exhaustively determining a person’s moral choices, like the choice to love. But I don’t think it implies NEVER intervening in the consequences of a person’s moral choices. I’ve already admitted that overriding a person’s will to wrestle a gun from their hand and so prevent them from committing suicide is implied in love. I think in certain, maybe most, circumstances that locking an alcoholic or drug addict I love very much in a room to dry out and “get free” from the immediate influence of the drug so they can at least consider their plight with a clear mind and make a responsible choice is a loving intervention. I COULD leave the drug addict to just self-destruct. So that’s an intervention I’d gladly take part in. You mentioned mental hospitals and detox clinics too. Right on. If your rock-bottom experience is the metaphysical equivalent of my tossing my alcoholic son into a detox clinic and locking him in dry-out in order to a) prevent him ultimate hard, and b) restore his mind so that he can think clearly about his plight and make responsible choices, then sure, go for it. I’d do this for somebody I love. But, Mephi, I can’t live my son’s life for him. I can override his freedom to prevent him from harming himself (God did that in hardwiring us to be incapable of self-destruction—done deal) and in order to provide the optimal grace necessary for a responsible choice regarding one’s destiny. Let’s say I’m  cool with this. But I cannot use this same tactic of overriding free will to actually guarantee his choice to engage in relationships of a personal and loving nature. Can’t do it. Not metaphysically possible.

(3) “In short, to effectively restrict a person's libertarian ability for power to the contrary by ANY means for ANY reason denies the metaphysics of love.”

I hope you see that this is not what I’m saying. I can imagine SOME means and SOME reasons why restricting a person’s free will would not deny the metaphysics of love. I just don’t agree that where the means are deterministic and the reason is to obtain the person’s choice to engage in loving relationship, the end result can be obtained.

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Mephi: If it is obvious that a person is making choices out of a dysfunctional, compulsive frame of mind such that…. It is morally justifiable to try to assertively INTERVENE on that person's behalf, even to the point of heavily restricting their freedom, in order to help them discover their dysfunction for themselves, to help them discover their TRUE motivations, and to empower them to replace their old life-denying thoughts/interpreations with life-affirming mental frameworks that help them make better choices.

Tom: I’m with ya. But what if the dysfunction or compulsion is the effect of freely chosen solidification? Sure, I can toss my son in detox against his will. That’ll work for a while, and it’s a loving thing to do. But I can’t do for him what only he can do for himself. At some point, HE will have to choose. I can’t by any means possible restrict his will and get THAT choice out of him.

Love ya Mephi. Hope I’m not misunderstanding you too badly!

Peace,

Tom

Post Edited (TGB) : 2/21/2005 10:20:00 PM (GMT-6)

Mephi: This is what I've generally understood your issue to be as of the day before yesterday. If only a decision involving LFW can initiate a sustained pursuit of a love relationship with God, then no matter how highly probable it may be that it will occur, it cannot be CERTAIN to occur, by definition of LFW. I think the issue that we came to, though, is one of HOW PROBABLE it would be for a person in that situation to actually choose against God. If the chances are so remote that it's functionally impossible to choose against God at that point, is it truly a "free choice" in the terms having a live aspect of power to the contrary. Isn't this what you been saying, too, Tom?

Tom: Yeah. This is why I like Walls. He focuses on God’s provision of optimal grace, which is tailor made for each individual and which meets all the necessary demands for making an intelligent, informed, free and decisive choice. Walls doesn’t spend too much time arguing about the details of those demands and what sort of probabilities they yield. But it can be unconcerned about probabilities since he doesn’t insist on eventual universal salvation. I can see how being confident about the probabilities is important to you though.

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Mephi: I place a lot of confidence in that [knowledge], yes. Unless one argues for genuine morally significant LFW being possible in the complete absence of rational, self-interested behavior (which Craig does), morally significant volitional activity necessitate some intergral interaction with core rationality. This means that we making decisions primarily on what we believe about things. To the extent that we deeply believe certain things, it's very, very probable that we will have volitional action based on those decisions...and not vary from that.

Tom: We’re close on this, but not exactly. Cool. We may just disagree about how confident this gives us a right to be about the choice.

Mephi: On the "information download." The reason I don't believe that this is sheer information download is because this of the epistemic distance that remains. There is enough epistemic distance for the sentient creature to realize that there IS a separation between the absolute truth it's discovering and it's own current set of beliefs. This discovery process itself is not programmed into the "rock bottom" experience, but emerges from the experience.

Tom: But it emerges somehow necessarily from what is programmed, so it seems that the discovery is as determined as the download, since it follows necessarily. Its emergence doesn’t depend upon the agent’s choosing to affirm, a truth at a time so to speak, what God reveals. This is part what I meant by having to choose one’s way back. If truth has to be “interacted” with on a personal volitional level, then there’s less guarantee. Perhaps God reveals a bit, something entirely within the agent’s grasps given its level of solidification at that point. If it’s embraced, more truth comes. If not, they fry a little longer!

Mephi: This assumes some level of relative ontological autonomy from God. If you remember Doc's oft used analogy about the "stepford wife", the wife has no idea that it has been reprogrammed to be the perfect wife. The "information download" consisted of fooling the wife into believing that it was the programming actually were HER beliefs. There was not sense of "over against-ness" to the information download via the programming. The best that the Stepford Wife man could have done is mimic this "over against-ness" by programming his wife to THINK that she was experiencing some cognitive dissonance with her husband's programming, but the dissonance experience itself would have to be programmed by the husband. No real sense of autonomy. See what I'm saying?

Tom: This helps.

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Mephi: So, the epistemic distance within the "rock-bottom" experience lies in the actual (not merely programmed) sense of "over-againstness" felt by the sentient creature when confronted with the truth of reality.

Tom: Musn’t the over-againstness extend to more than merely the agent’s knowledge that it “exists” over-and-against God to include the agent’s “choices” over-and-against God’s choices, i.e., a freely functioning existence over-and-against God?

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Mephi: What I meant by the "relativization" of LFW, I meant granting LFW to the initial volitional activity in the love relationship with God logically while for all intents and purposes making it, at best, IMMENSELY improbable (historically speaking) that the power to the contrary will actually be used to choose against God. Even though the metaphysics of love are not negated PER SE, they are functionally limited unto practical non-existence. I do this unashamedly.

Wasn't this part of your concern?

Tom: Yeah, big time. It’s the free FUNCTION of LFW that’s metaphysically required, not some logical or analytical examination of it. See, to me, functionality is ontology. To be ontologically distinct from God is to be functionally distinct from God, and where functionality concerns personal relationships and love, the functionality has to be volitional. So to functionally limit LFW into practical non-existence is to functionally limit relationship and personhood into practical non-existence. The greater you limit the exercise of LFW in the hope of securing a choice for love, the more remote that love becomes.

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Mephi: Mr. Walls view of "optimal grace" is cool, but I'd ask him what this means. It seems like what he'd have to say is something like this: God provides enough facts to make God's claims about reality PLAUSIBLE enough to the self-solidifying sentient being that said being must at least take notice of the claim...but NOT overwhelming enough to demand solid acknowledgement and adherence to it being undeniably true. This would open things up enough where the person can still go..."NAAAH! I don't believe that." And go on about it's business. (Walls probably calls it optimal grace because it operates like PREVENIENT grace. Perhaps?)

Tom: I think for him optimal grace involves a real acknowledgement of truth. Here’s a bit of Jerry Walls, Hell: The Logic of Damnation (Nortre Dame Press: 1992), pp. 88ff:

“Let us move in this direction by probing the implications of Wesley’s claim that God is willing to do everything he can, short of destroying freedom, to save all persons. If this is entailed by God’s perfect goodness, and I think it is, then it seems reasonable to suppose that God might somehow eliminate the disadvantages some have because of unfavorable circumstances. To eliminate the disadvantages would give all persons an equal opportunity to receive salvation…

“Suppose that for each created person there is some measure of grace N which represents the optimal amount of influence toward good which God can exercise on that person’s will without destroying his freedom. What I am suggesting is that if God desires to save all persons, he will give to each person whatever is the optimal measure of grace for that person.

“This measure of grace should not be conceived as a static, uniform given. Rather, if will differ in some respects from one individual person to another. What represents measure N for Jones may completely overwhelm Smith in such a way that his freedom is destroyed. Moreover, what is effective in influencing Smith toward good may only make Jones more resistant. So the even distribution of grace does not in any way entail treating persons in just the same way. It means doing what is best for each individual to elicit, if possible, a positive response from him…

“…I would say grace is distributed equally if grace of optimal measure is given to all persons and all are given full opportunity to make a decisive response to it, either positively or negatively…

“…Given God’s desire to save all persons, a decisive negative response makes sense only in light of the idea of optimal grace. That is to say, a negative response to God is decisive only if one persists in rejecting God in the most favorable circumstances.

“…I would argue that my assumption that God could make up for any previous deprivation is a reasonable one, given God’s perfect love and insight into human nature. It may take considerable time for God to restore an embittered person to a condition in which he would accept grace, so this could not always, if ever, be achieved at the drop of a hat. But given God’s unlimited resources of love and understanding, I think it is plausible to assume he could eventually accomplish this.”

You and Walls are SO close. You just believe (for reasons I don’t yet understand) that optimal grace in the most favorable of circumstances somehow guarantees the choice for God (which to me, logically entails the absence of LFW and rules love). Of course, Talbott would argue that such a “decisive choice to reject God” is simply incoherent and so logically impossible and meaningless. In fact, Talbott explicitly rejects the very idea that agents “choose their destinies.” And ALL universalism in my view ultimately reduces to this. Now, you do something different than Talbott. You have God hardwiring us to be incapable of decisively choosing against God, which seems to say that you agree such a decisive rejection of God is at least a meaningful notion (or else God wouldn't have to hardwire us against such a possibility). I just wanna point out that if you agree with Talbott that decisively rejecting God is logically incoherent, you don’t need the hardwiring argument. Just drop that. God doesn’t need to hardwire us to be incapable of actualizing logical impossibilities.

Whether or not such a decisive choice to reject God in the most favorable of post-mortem circumstances is a meaningful idea is a BIG issue. If it can be shown to be incoherent, then we gotta go with universalism or the annihilationist position. If we can make sense of it, then we can only rule out such a choice on grounds that a loving God simply would not permit it. It would amount to a violation of his essential nature. This is what you’re doing I think, right?

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Mephi: I wouldn't be able to deny that such a possibility exists. There there is SOME LEVEL of epistemic distance combined with sentient creaturely dispositional reality where this "optimal grace" takes place. And I could see someone holding this view. But I would see a place beyond this threshhold where God's claims about reality become UNDENIABLE to the self-solidifying sentient being...but not overwhelming enough to negate the sense of REAL internal over-againstness (and genuine acceptance) concerning God's claims.

Tom: I think we’re zeroing in on the issue: exactly what about the FUNCTION of the agent’s will is implied in the her existing (and knowing she exists) over-and-against God.

Mephi: I'd like you to notice that following Mr. Walls idea there's NO ASSURANCE that "ultimate harm" will be prevented. The optimal grace still allows for people to fall into eternal self-destruction. If we say that God genuine didn't want ANYONE to be lost, and this last thing we just said IS possible, then I could see God doing it.

Tom: That may be what keeps me in the traditional camp (in J. Walls’ sort of view), unless TWT6 fails and an agent in hell can just keep banging her head against the wall of 99% solidification in evil as long as she friggin wants to. God will spend as long as it takes. That may be a long shot.

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Mephi: Aha! The "hardwired" aspect that renders it impossible for sentient creatures to completely self-solidify in evil is the EXACT SAME THING that renders it practically inevitable that said creature will end up having an unchangable desire for sustained pursuit of a love relationship with God. Yes! The "rock-bottom" experience! The idea of "optimal grace" is not enough to ENSURE that ultimate harm is avoided...as I'm sure, Mr. Wells himself has already stated.

Tom: This is like saying my throwing somebody into detox is a guarantee they’ll become a loving husband and father. It’s certainly (empirically) evident that we can and do prevent personal harm without also guaranteeing that the person will follow a personal and loving path afterwards. And there’s NO empirical evidence whatsoever to ground the claim that we can by one and the same disregard for free will both prevent harm AND secure a subsequent choice to live personally and lovingly. We really don’t have any analogous experience to ground this meaningfully. That’s where I’m struggling too.

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Mephi: What if to prevent one thing is to ensure the other, dear friend? Think about it, Tom. In hell, moving AWAY from the ultimate harm is the same thing as moving TOWARD the ultimate joy! Moving away from death is moving towards life. There's no middle ground.

My contention is that the ONLY way for God to prevent ultimate harm of any sentient creatures is to provide some means whereby they CANNOT completely self-solidify against God. But when we try to think of some way this must happen that is consistent with TWT 6: The power to influence is finite, it can ONLY be by assuring that, through some means, all being will inevitably self-solidify towards God. Why? Because self-solidification WILL occur. It's how God designed things. And if it doesn't occur in one direction, it will occur in the other. It's a FORCED choice ala William James. To refuse to actualize one way is to effectively choose for the other.

Tom: Voila! This is why the outcome is deterministic for rock-bottomers. Let me try an analogy that describes how I’m seeing your view.

Let’s say God gives a person 100 cents. A cent is the smallest expendable monetary unit, right? You can’t spend any less. In our little analogy a cent represents the smallest expendable unit of morally significant volition, or LFW. Each cent, in other words, is a “choice.” OK?

God gives us 100 cents and then says, “I really want you to invest your cents in a personal relationship with me. And a personal relationship will just cost you 1 cent.” The agent says, “So I have 100 chances!” God in effect says, “No, you only have 99 chances. I’ve hardwired you to be incapable of spending every last cent in rejecting me. You can only spend 99 cents in rejecting me. But you CANNOT spend the 100^th cent in rejecting me.”

Enter another condition God creates: The person MUST spend all their pennies. Free will is finite and MUST be spent. An agent cannot NOT choose when provided with a choice to make. When a person’s money (LFW) is all spent, that person is solidified. Solidification in evil is impossible because God’s hardwired that last penny. It can’t be spent in rejection of God.

To me this reduces personal loving relationship down to being determined unilaterally by our hardwiring. A relationship of love with God demands that I spend a libertarian penny (choice). I have 100 pennies to spend. God hardwires me a) to spend those pennies (I have a limited number of cents and cannot avoid spending one cent with each choice I’m confronted with), and b) to be incapable of spending my last penny in rejecting him. So I MUST spend the last penny and MUST spend it in a choice FOR God. If this doesn’t equal “God hardwires personal relationships into rock-bottomers” I don’t know what it is. Whatever other explanations you’ve got going, Mephi, they just don’t dislodge from my mind that it all boils down to determinism. Freedom implies risk.

a) We are hardwired with a limited amount of LFW, say, 100 cents.

+ b) We are hardwired to exhaust our limited amount of LFW. We MUST spend all 100 cents.

+ c) We are hardwired with the ability to exhaust 99 cents in rejecting God. We cannot spend the last cent in rejecting him. (This logically contradicts (a)'s claim that we have 100 libertarian units to spend; the last unit is NOT libertarian.)

= d) In the event we spend 99 cents rejecting God, we MUST still spend the remaining cent AND we are INCAPABLE of spending it in rejecting God. Thus, we must spend it in choosing God. Hence, we are ultimately hardwired to choose God in the event we exhaust all the resources God gives us in rejecting him.

The necessity of our hardwiring logically transfers to the our choosing God in the event we reject him with every libertarian volitional resource we have. We must spend the 100^th cent in favor of God. In spite of trying to work LFW into the scenario post-99th cent, that is into our spending that 100^th cent in favor of God, LFW is just not there. The hardwiring rules it out.

I stink at analogies, eh?

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Mephi: God forbid this happens. Your son's a crack addict and an alcoholic. He hurts himself and everyone he loves around him...including you. Two choices...let's see which one you would prefer.

1) Doctor A has a initializing method by which he brings your son to a level of reality awareness (ie his issues, his desires, etc) such that it is ambiguous enough that he acknowledges the true circumstances of his life, yet may still believe that his way of doing things is the right way. There is enough reality brought in to provide him serious, coherent consideration to his current state of affairs, but not enough to make it overwhelmingly obvious. After the method, your son will be have lots of illuminating things to consider, but can still choose pretty freely whether he wants to continue proceeding living his twisted, hurtful life to you and the rest of your family or begin mending the hurt relationships. There's a decent chance that he may decide to act towards the latter.

2) Doctor B has a initializing method by which he brings your son to a level of reality awareness such that he unabiguously acknowledges the true circumstances of his life, and comes to undeniable conclusions about the state of his life, including the utter falsity of his pitiful reality. He sees very acutely all the hurt and pain he's caused everyone...including you. There is enough reality brought in to virtually COMPEL him to act according to that reality. After the method, your son will realize WHOLEHEARTEDLY that he wants and needs to mend his relationships with you and your family right now and commit to the process of doing so. It's very highly likely that he will make some sort of effort in this direction.

Tom: Smooth. Hey, backed into a THAT corner any loving parent would go with (2), Doctor B. But is what (2) claims really possible? That’s the question. If it were, I’d go with that doctor. But I don’t see that Doctor B can actually follow through. See, you and I agree pretty much that "God is love" means God will do everything within his power to win every person to his love with the exception of doing a) the logically impossible, and b) violating his own character and nature. We agree this means God will provide every person an optimal measure of grace including making up for any previous disadvantages that make a decisive response to God's gracious offer impossibile. You and I seem to disagree about just what's entailed in this meaure of grance and the removal of disadvantages, but we agree that it's what a loving God would do, even in post mortem-circumstances. Now, the pastoral question I have is this: Is it not enough, pastorally speaking, to know that a loving God would do this? Does the adequate provision of pastoral care require more than this?

Lastly, I wanna just say how muc I'm enjoying this. I wish my own movement would permit itself to discuss such things openly with a fresh commitment to follow the arguments wherever they lead.

Tom

Post Edited (TGB) : 2/22/2005 2:41:55 PM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (JEE) : 2/22/2005 11:13:02 AM (GMT-6)

Hey Mephi-

I just got in the mail:

What Does the Bible Really Say about Hell? by Randy Klassen (Mennonite pastor I think), and Universal Salvation? The Current Debate, ed. Robin Parry & Chris Partridge. Are these any good?

I’m jumping into the latter one first.

Tom

Meph: If it is obvious that a person is making choices out of a dysfunctional, compulsive frame of mind such that

1) sound, reality-based rational and moral deliberation is not present,
2) their own qualitative ultimate harm is an imminent risk, and
3) non-forceful persuasion is not working...

Starkman: We are not created to ONLY function in God; we are created to function either in God or in ourselves. We are quite capable of functioning well on our own. Everyday people do very well and live a full, happy and complete life with little, if any, thought for God. I think we make too much of the idea that we can only have a fulfilled life in God, that life can only have meaning in Him (well, THAT sounds real Christian, doesn't it!). This may be true for some people, but not all.

The Genesis account of creation doesn't state that man can't live a full life without God. It simply states that there will be ramifications for doing so: "You shall die." That death is not immediately apparent as physical death (if it ever was part of the curse), but it is in regard to separation from fellowship with God, not, however, seperation from meaningsness of life. It is therefore not irrational for a being to experience the shortening of epistemic distance between God and himself (either while alive or in after physical death) yet still desire to fully serve self. People have been just fine and content without God while living on earth. Many would could continue to do so in death if the "other side" held a world similar to ours.

The idea, therefore, that one could not avoid coming to God once the scales fall off the person’s eyes is yet proven. The person may say, "No, thank you. I’ll take another world like the last one, but with a bit more money in my pocket, please." This is, in essence, what Adam chose, and this is the issue of self autonomy that I was addresssing in my earlier questions for you.

What do you think?

Starkman

Be honest.  Do you even THINK you'd have to tell a person who truly BELIEVED in this to praise and worship God???  Heh.  I'd dare ANYONE to live in this as a internal reality just ONE day.  Seriously.  Just one day.  See if your prayers to God wouldn't burst forth with heartfelt admiration and praise for God's unsurpassable glory, mind-boggling wisdom, and inescapable love.  I dare ya.  Just try it for one day.

Nothing else quite comes close, yo.





PS: Tom, you've started checking out the right book first. I think it's got some good elements with respect to the biblical and philosophical part.

Post Edited (MephEternal) : 2/23/2005 1:25:38 AM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (Selah) : 2/23/2005 8:10:06 AM (GMT-6)

Selah,

Post Edited (JEE) : 2/23/2005 10:02:09 AM (GMT-6)