Jeff: Either way we have God allowing "un-good" to the helpless for the sake of someone other than the helpless.

Zach: But, I would say, not to the exclusion of the helpless. I would say, "..for the sake of all people." The helpless are still just as morally capable as anyone else. They have this fundamental choice to make as well.

Jeff: Sometimes the helpless are infants who have no volition. In that case, their sentient satisfaction is sacrificed to a solidified thug or a person who only might make an appropriate choice "this time." Either way, one person (the infant) is being used by another. But here's the thing. In your case, the person who has power over the infant might not ultimately increase their own satisfaction because they might choose wrongly--in which case they will presumably be held accountable. And surely God's sentient satisfaction is not increased by abuse of an infant. THIS, then, is the sense in which things can be ultimately and absolutely vain if UR is not true, or if Christ, at least, is not an unconditional beneficiary of extending the creational project. Your view has God risking more--indeed, it seems it has God risking everything since nothing good is truly guaranteed.

Jeff: Instead of having to speculate about post-mortem explanations for those whose sufferings we find hard to explain (while scripture says nary a word about it),

Zach: I'm not so sure. What do you mean specifically?

Jeff: Where does it say or imply that infants will get a chance to live a second volitional, probational life? Or any one else, for that matter?

Zach: I have no problem agreeing that it is all "for the Son." But you are claiming more than that. So am I for that matter. It just seem to me that your way puts love for the Son above love for others.

Jeff: Your view puts the abuser over the abused infant. What's the difference? By your view, it seems that God isn't guaranteeing that even one person (Himself included) will be sentiently better off because of the existence of creation. My view says at least one person's will be. I'm thinking that this is because of God's love. THEREFORE, it is reasonable to hope that God's very nature is such that He will do all He can to make everyone a beneficiary of the existence of creation. If God is love and if He suffers long to ensure that Christ becomes beneficiary of creation, it is reasonable to believe He will do it for everyone. Because God is not risking everyone's sentient satisfaction in the first place, as your view seems to imply. And if the only constraint upon His ability to satisfy Christ is temporal, then maybe the only constraint for everyone else is temporal.

Zach: But Jesus got on his knees to wash these others' feet. And when these others lynched him, he who was almighty submitted. It is not God's character to put himself first. God's character is just the opposite.

Jeff: I agree. I just don't think putting someone first necessarily means non-interference with their choices or their consent. Parents act contrary to their children's consent all the time. I don't see how this can be deemed as unloving for that reason alone. There are many things my mother did contrary to my consent both as a child and a teen-ager. Now that I'm a bit smarter, I'm thankful for much of that interference.

Jeff: 1) The problem of evil is solved

Zach: My view "solves" the problem as much as yours. It explains why God permits evil.

Jeff: I would say that your view, like my old view, renders God completely just and, therefore, immune from human criticism on grounds of justice. But I don't think anything short of UR can satisfy the problem of evil as viewed by most who argue it. Because it seems like most people don't view non-interference and ultimate risk as consistent with benevolence.

Zach: No reason at all, but the Hebrews passage seems to claim that care for humanity is a sufficient reason to forebear, while your view seems to deny this. I'm not so much disagreeing with you on this point. I'm just saying that I don't see how your view is consistent with this passage.

Jeff: What Hebrews passage, again?

Jeff: For if allowing "un-good" is for the purpose of attaining the benefit to Christ of sentient satisfaction from creation, THEN that "un-good" is never ultimately vain and meaningless.

Zach: But try telling that to the victim of abuse. I certainly does endow their suffering with meaning, but that meaning is ugly - it's sadism on the part of God. "Take heart; your suffering brings me pleasure." Are these the words of a sinful oppressor or God?

Jeff: Well, their suffering, PER SE, doesn't bring God pleasure. If God is perfectly sympathetic as I think, their suffering brings Him suffering. I just say that in the same way Christ had to suffer to partake of a future joy, that same constraint compels God to not stop the Fallen part of the creational project yet. Somehow, God's forebearance contributes to Christ's glory. To say that the abused infant contributes to the opportunity of choice for the abuser has the same "sadistic" feel that you are attributing to my view.

That's why I'm hoping UR can make the suffering of Christ analogous at some level to everyone's suffering, in the sense that none of it is absolutely vain. Obviously, it is analogous in different senses for different people. For those who suffer with him and reign with him, it is analogous differently than for those who don't suffer with him.

Jeff: It is always, regardless of human choice, endured for the inevitable sentient satisfaction of the Son.

Zach: If the consequence is inevitable, then the means are meaningless. You cannot endure something "for" the inevitable. That's tautological. That would be like firing a gun at an incoming meteor "for" the inevitable impact. It empties the "for" of any meaning. There is no sense in which anything is done "for" an inevitable goal. This is truly meaninglessness. Suffering is then vain; it is empty of any higher purpose. The proposed higher purpose will happen either way, so how is suffering meaningful?

Jeff: It is not inevitable in the sense that God is not volitional. It is inevitable in the sense that God will volitionally bring it about consistent with the constraints required for Him to be faithful to His promise that sinners can't live forever. IOW, God can't bring about Christ's greatest satisfaction from creation if He terminated the creational project at the first sin of a volitional being. By enduring and suffering long, He increases that satisfaction. But suffering long is volitional. It is only inevitable in the sense that God is faithful.

It is no more irrational to say that God, by His nature, chooses faithfully than it is for you to say God, by His nature, He puts others first. Both are claims about what God is necessarily like, by His nature. This doesn't rule out volition. It's just that God's knowledge and power are such that He always exercises His power consistent with His knowledge and sympathetic nature. We, on the other hand, have the ability to deceive ourselves and justify doing less than is optimal. God can't be deceived. But His knowledge of His own sympathetic nature and of the causal nexus He providentially works in is such that He can't be confused into being tempted to choose unfaithfully or irrationally like we can.

But His choice to suffer is truly volitional. This means He has two contrary impulses or motivations simultaneously when He can only act off of one of them. One impulse/motivation is to avoid (right NOW) the suffering of forebearance (all sentient beings are motivated to avoid displeasure). The other is to attain (in the FUTURE) the additional satisfaction/pleasure that He, as a sympathetic being, will experience by increasing the satisfaction of the Son and others. This latter increase in satisfaction can only be attained by forebearing the creational project in suffering.

Zach: That's not what I'm saying at all. If you want to use the language of test, then I'd say it is the infant who requires God to pass the test (but that just invites more confusion, so I'd prefer no test language at all.) It's not that God requires that the infant be tested. It is that God refuses to force himself on unconsenting recipients of love. That would be the spiritual equivalent of rape.

Jeff: I don't think most people think like that. I think if you could actually convince people that you could eternally change their sentient nature such that their sentient satisfaction would be as great as it could possibly be forever, they would jump at that chance. Because I believe sentient beings are sentiently motivated in their choices. I don't know what else could possibly ground their choices. But people don't believe certain things. And false beliefs result in bad choices.

If you tell me that you wouldn't make that choice, I'll take your word for it. But I would. It seems like a no-brainer to me.

Jeff: When the "un-good" is allowed merely for human choice, it is ultimately vain and meaningless much of the time.

Zach: We must mean two very different things by vanity and meaninglessness. Either that, or I have not made it clear that I believe God allows ungood not merely for human choice, but for the higher purpose of making bilateral love possible.

Jeff: Choice is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for a sympathetic being to experience sentient satisfaction. If the choice causes suffering for another, a sympathetic being experiences sentient DISsatisfaction. So for every choice that causes suffering to another and that doesn't provide sentient satisfaction for at least one person, that suffering was absolutely vain. This is what I mean when I say that God doesn't take pleasure in choice, PER SE. God takes pleasure in only some choices. Therefore, God isn't loving by occasioning choice, PER SE.

God is loving, to my mind, if He occasions choices that He knows will occasion at least some increase in sentient satisfaction. And even then, His love is only for those whose sentient satisfaction is increased by the choice. It makes no sense to me to say He loves the victim of abuse merely because He gave the capacity of choice to the abuser. If God is not increasing the sentient satisfaction of the victim, He is not loving them.

Granted, He may not be hating them either. But He is definitely not loving them, in the active verb sense of that word, merely by giving someone else the capacity to choose. To say God loves merely by giving the capacity of choice, irrespective of the kind of choices that will be made, is a very non-intuitive meaning of the word "love."