The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Tom's "Heaven & Hell" in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Tom,

Thank you for considering my idea about Gregory of Nyssa and re-clarifying your argument to me. By the way, my favorite and most used take home point from you is “Concerning the Misery of Loved Ones in Hell.”

Hello again, Sonia:

After re-reading your post this morning, I realized that my response written last night did not address your pastor’s concerns as directly as it might have. So on further reflection, I thought I would relate to you three questions that I would love to put to him.

(1) Your pastor states that I make “several assumptions that God’s word doesn’t make.” Whenever I confront a generality of that kind, I typically ask for a specific example. I would therefore ask: “Could you perhaps identify a specific assumption that I make and that God’s Word, as you understand it, does not make?”

(2) Your pastor also states: “What it really comes down to is do you trust what He [God] actually says even if you don’t understand it or it appears to make no ‘human’ sense at all?” Here I would ask, “What does it mean to trust in something that makes no sense at all?” The putative statement that the number seven is in C-sharp minor makes no sense to me at all. So what would it mean for me to trust that we nonetheless have here a true statement?—or even to trust that God actually said something like this? Does the mere opinion that God has said something suffice to show that he actually did say it?

(3) If your church does indeed teach that all three propositions in my inconsistent triad are true, how does this differ from the teaching that although no humans will be lost forever, at least some will indeed be lost forever? From a human perspective that seems impossible to understand. But should we somehow trust that it is true nonetheless?

Okay, I woke up in a feisty mood and couldn’t resist that. Anyway, these remarks are perhaps more relevant than what I wrote last night.

Take care,

-Tom

Tom,

Both sets of comments are helpful and appreciated!

To be fair to Dave, he used to be overly wrapped up in theology, debating, blasting people who disagree, etc. He has since come to understand that Christianity is essentially about loving God and loving people, so now he’s trying to do that and avoid theological controversy – swinging to the opposite extreme, perhaps.

Yeah, I know. :unamused: The thing is, they look at each point individually and say “the Bible teaches that” – therefore they must believe it, even if they can’t make sense of it. In teaching, sometimes it comes out more Arminian sounding, sometimes more Calvinist, depending on the passage and whatever they’re trying to emphasize – security of the believer, assurance, etc.

Thanks again for the comments!
Sonia

I think that’s great, Sonia. I would prefer a pastor to learn that lesson over just about any other. He sounds like a great guy.

-Tom

can I suggest that the almost outright opposition, certainly suspicion, of all things related to ‘‘logic’’ is what has gotten the christian church in her current positions !, logic was rejected a long time ago - thing is I’ve always believed GOD is a GOD of logic :sunglasses:

I agree, Tom! And it seems to me that without the foundational doctrine of love, none of the other doctrines matter.

He is a great guy. Having come to believe that God is saving each person, I find myself appreciating and valuing all people more and more. I begin to catch glimpses beyond the surface – seeing the infant child of God in each one and seeing hints of what they will grow into.

Sonia

Tom,
I was thinking about your 3 propositions:

(1) All humans are equal objects of God’s unconditional love in the sense that God, being no respecter of persons, sincerely wills or desires to reconcile each one of them to himself and thus to prepare each one of them for the bliss of union with him.

(2) Almighty God will triumph in the end and successfully reconcile to himself each person whose reconciliation he sincerely wills or desires.

(3) Some humans will never be reconciled to God and will therefore remain separated from him forever.

It seems to me that an Arminian might take issue with the wording of #1, and find this modification more accurate: “All humans are equal objects of God’s unconditional love in the sense that God, being no respecter of persons, sincerely wills or desires to reconcile each one of them to himself, if they are so willing, and thus to prepare each of those who are willing for the bliss of union with him.”

Thoughts?
Sonia

I think you are right, Sonia, that many Arminians might want to amend proposition (1) in the way you suggest. But I also think these Arminians are confused about the best way to express their own position.

Would not God’s will or desire to save all, as expressed in 1 Timothy 2:4 for example, already include the desire that all sinners willingly (or freely) repent, so that God can prepare them for the bliss of union with him? This is not to say that God would causally override someone’s own reasoning processes or interfere with someone’s freedom in relation to him. For the whole point of the Arminian’s freewill theodicy of hell is to offer an explanation for why God’s own desire in the matter of salvation, although certainly sincere, may never be satisfied in some cases. But even if salvation itself requires a free choice of some kind, or a willingness to be saved, it does not follow that God’s will or desire to save all would itself depend upon anyone’s having the relevant willingness to be saved.

The example of Ted Bundy’s mother, discussed in section 5.1 illustrates the point nicely. Her heartfelt desire for her son’s redemption no doubt included the desire that he willingly repent of his monstrous crimes. But in no way was the existence of this desire itself–the desire that her son willingly repent–conditioned upon her son’s actually being willing to repent. Similarly, even if salvation requires a free choice of some kind, God’s desire to save all already is the desire that all should respond willingly. Whether he will successfully satisfy his own desire in this matter is, of course, a further question, and this further question brings us to proposition (2), which the Arminians reject. It seems to me, therefore, that an Arminian should simply accept proposition (1) as it stands and reject proposition (2).

Put it this way: God certainly desires to save each of us, if we are so willing. But he also desires that we be so willing.

Anyway, those are a few of my own preliminary thoughts. Thanks for a thoughtful response.

-Tom

After all, none of us are originally willing to be saved from all our sins! – consequently, God doesn’t wait for us to be willing to saved from our sins before acting toward doing so.

(A point Calvinists often stress, and which Arminians usually agree with when they sit down to think it out.)

Hi Tom, I thought of a way to build on your argument that confronts Arminians who reject the possibility of postmortem conversions. Sadly, the following reasoning might not challenge various Calvinists, but we cannot always address everybody in one swoop. Here is my challenge to Arminians:

Tom, I would appreciate any thoughts that you have on this.

Tom,

Thank you, I think you are correct.

Sonia

Tom,
Bob once counseled me to respond to the illogical affirmation as mentioned above like this:

Ok so I believe God will save every single person, not one will be lost.
And I believe many will be eternally damned to hell, seperated from God with no hope of redemption.

When they respond, well how can they both be true, you say “That’s what I’m asking you!!!”

LOL!!! At some point you just have to laugh.

:slight_smile:

If, in fact, the Bible is an incoherent mess of contradictions, the sooner we walk away, the better. I’m suspicious of people who talk about “maintaining tensions”. ie. “Ignore cognitive dissonance.” Makes me think they’re either dull or devious.

“God really wants to save everyone. He really can, but he actually won’t.” Talk about tension till you’re blue in the face. Fact is, this simply makes no sense, and if this is what I’m asked to swallow, I may as well become a Mormon or a Druid.

Well, I thought of an answer to my own question: Could one say that God always loves the damned in hell but lacks the power and wisdom to offer salvation to the damned in hell?

This forces me to my revise challenge to Arminians:

Tom, I would appreciate any thoughts that you have on this.

My sister argues that many people are pretty-much zombies, “sons of the devil”, hated by God, actors made to create challenges etc for the sanctification of real people, the “children of God”.

I can see her point. As an author, I have created many characters for whom I have no love, characters I intended from the outset to destroy. What’s more, I can command my good characters to love the bad characters, without contradiction. If, by some technological magic, I manage to meet my good characters in the real world, and they lament the loss of their loved (but bad) companions, I can comfort them by saying those bad characters never really existed. It’s hard to mourn a figment of someone’s imagination.

Creating bad characters (and destroying them forever) doesn’t make me a bad person. Nor would doing the same reflect badly on God.

Just some thoughts.

I guarantee you that the bad characters are indeed real people. I know and love too many of them, but I suppose you could argue that at some point perhaps they’ll turn out to be elect, and so they can’t be counted as non-people. :unamused: Nah – not buying it. (Not that I think for a moment that YOU’RE buying it either.) :wink:

I know someone who last I heard from her was going this route, too, as a newly converted Calvinist (from Arminianism), although she swore she didn’t believe it: the non-elect are only cigarette people (as she called them). Philosophers would call them zombies: soulless machines, biological or otherwise, which only appear by all possible external human tests to be real persons. (Not to be confused with horror undead zombies, who typically couldn’t possibly be mistaken for real people. :wink: )

Of course in that case, Christian universalism is technically true, not Calvinism! :sunglasses: The non-elect don’t really exist and there’s no reason to punish them, they can just be annihilated like any other particles, or have their particles completely shuffled around for other purposes, no big deal, except insofar as we may have mistakenly loved them ourselves (like loving an irascable teddy bear).

This makes a total hash of everything in the scriptures about impenitent sinners being punished; but then again one could suggest that most of those references are to real people who will be saved from their sins after all (per Christian universalism), with the occasional references to apparent annihilation referring to the zombie non-persons who are filling in the narrative gaps of the story.

As an author I would never have the stomach to suggest such a thing myself about my own characters (in case anyone wonders if I’m going that way with my novels), but I suppose it’s technically possible from a metaphysical standpoint. I rather strongly doubt the scriptural testimony adds up that way overall, though.

I have to agree. Such a thought is too, too horrifying, and abominable beyond measure.

Well it would be horrifying in regard to the ‘real’ people in my story who came to love ‘fictional’ characters even though they were wholly impenitent sinners.

I suppose it wouldn’t be horrifying to have fictional pseudo-people who were so evil nobody ever loved them, and so who were never dismayed to find out they weren’t real people and so wouldn’t be saved from their sins into righteousness. People would only be relieved such monsters were finally removed from play.

Although then their depredations against real people become fully my responsibility, not as systemic accidents which might happen in a neutral system of reality to affect fallen creatures (like asteroids or tornadoes), but as entities behaving ‘rationally’ because I myself am the rational entity intentionally driving them around.

So yeah, horrifying even then. Never mind. :slight_smile:

In order to defend a certain theology, my sister’s willing to sacrifice most people’s existence… :confused:

The problem with all the “brain in a vat” theories is that they’re unprovable either way. Given this, the only sensible thing to do is to laugh, and get on with life.

But maybe we can do better…

Suppose I accept (like a skeptical philosopher) that Frank might be a zombie. My love for Frank will be influenced by this uncertainty, and have a certain quality.

Suppose I accept (like a child) that Frank is most certainly real. My love for Frank will be influenced by this certainty, and have a certain quality.

Who can doubt that the quality of the naive child’s love would be very much better than the skeptical philosopher’s?

Since God wants us to learn to love well, populating the world with zombies (and allowing us to suspect this) would work against this goal, even making it impossible. Therefore, the world is not populated with zombies.