quote:

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True, Scripture does not address the issue of whether a salvagable remainder is metaphysically possible or not. But it DOES speak against the REALITY of a salvagable remainder – assuming the traditional interpretation of the dozen "eternal duration" passages.

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Again, all Doc is saying is that Scripture seems to testify that salvagable remainders in hellbound persons, though METAPHYSICALLY possible, don’t seem to be ACTUALLY salvaged. This is just wrapped up in the same TWT4 issue we’ve been dealing with.

Thanks for answering, JET.




"Smile. It could be worse." --from a good friend.

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18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

24Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen.

26Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

28Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

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Do you see?? Do you see??? Paul speaks very clearly here. People, KNOWING GOD, knowing their creaturely status before their Creator, throw themselves into a lie. And what does God do? Give them over to that lie! Denying the obvious knowledge their true selves WOULD ACKNOWLEDGE ,they turn from this and live by a false self…which God, at some time, gives them over to live by. This passage never hints that the knowledge of God is DESTROYED, just ignored and lost.


As you can see, I think that there are REALLY GOOD reasons to believe in this “remainder” idea that I’m proposing.


Next, let’s deal with Springs’ main point. If this “remainder” truly IS there, then this would seem more like post-mortem evangelism or something, not macabre metamorphosis. Let me use a pretty graphic example of what I think it would be like. Let us say that you have an eating disorder patient that refuses to eat. He has not eaten for a long time and has made it such that he doesn’t have hunger pains anymore. When people get to him, he is dangerously malnourished and on the verge of death. So, they “tube” him…meaning that that basically put nourishment directly to his stomach via tube. Now, over time, his stomach that had gotten ACCUSTOMED to not feeling hunger now has that response AWAKENED in it because it now has a more steady supply of food. Though the food had to be FORCE FED to the guy, it had the END RESULT of bringing the normal, natural response of his digestive system to what it was supposed to do.

I would say the SAME THING here. People in hell have self-solidified themselves in hell to the point of negating their true self. God compatibilistically empowers that true self and awakens the FELT need that hadn’t been felt before! This is anything but “macabre” This is truly RESURRECTION of life from death! This would occur at the end of all “probationary periods”

So, in essence I would agree, Springs. This does end up being a kind of ultimate purgatory from whence everyone is eventually released into a universalism.

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Now a VERY important segment.

I want everyone to understand what I’m doing here. All I’m trying to do is show that there is a morally defensible, rationally arguable, and metaphysically possible system such that universalism IS COMPOSSIBLE with Doc’s whole warfare thesis. This deals chiefly with Doc’s take on TWT4…that ultimately leads one to say that love NECESSARILY allows all self-determined, self-destructive cycles to run their course for the duration of all person’s lives. I think EVERYONE HERE knows in their heart of hearts that this is patently false…regardless of any type of abduction attempted. So, we can say that Doc’s interpretation of TWT4 may be wrong…which leads us to say that universalism is logically compossible with the warfare worldview.

Once we have done that, now the true question comes back into focus. If it truly was within God’s FULL ability to create a universalism, why didn’t God do so? The answer to that, I submit, is very simple: Because for some DELIBERATIVE reason that was NOT METAPHYSICALLY BOUND, God just didn’t want to. You can even say that God just wanted things to be such that people would just be stuck with their final choices finally enduring throughout their eternal existences. Cool. But don’t turn around and tell me or anyone else that God HAD to make this choice. We’ve shown that there was no metaphysical reason that makes this a necessity. And don’t tell me or anyone else that God wanted more than ANYTHING ELSE for all people to be saved! If that were true, and God is not metaphysically bound otherwise, that all people WOULD be saved! Neither of these things will work.

All we can say, if we want to hold all points of Scripture intact, is that God allows eternal conscious punishment for reasons of his OWN GOOD PLEASURE AND CHOOSING. If you don’t like it, take that up with God. The paradoxical thing that we must say IN FAITH is that somehow God’s choosing this is an expression of God’s loving character. See, what Doc tried to do was basically find a way to get God off the hook for this. But sorry, Doc, their ain’t no way. Tollett HAS this argument.

I believe that HERE, we must claim “paradox and mystery” What is the mystery and paradox? That infinite divine love for ALL individuals is compatible with a divine deliberative decree instituting the possibility of eternal conscious punishment and separation from God for ANY individual! Tollett and others would rightly say that this is FOOLISHNESS, and they can do that because they probably won’t think Scripture binding. But for people who DO, we have a problem here that surpassed the whole wave/particle thing! But we can do NO LESS than admit the truth!

Whew!




"Smile. It could be worse." --from a good friend.

Edited by - MephEternal on 07/13/2003 08:13:20 AM

Edited by - MephEternal on 07/13/2003 08:49:13 AM