The Evangelical Universalist Forum

On Talbott's three propositions without free will

From Richard Beck’s blog post in defense of universalism: experimentaltheology.blogspot.co … fense.html

"1. Talbott’s Propositions (along with a discussion of moral luck and human volition)
The philosopher Thomas Talbott has us consider the following three propositions:

God’s redemptive love extends to all human sinners equally in the sense that he sincerely wills or desires the redemption of each one of them.
Because no one can finally defeat God’s redemptive love or resist it forever, God will triumph in the end and successfully accomplish the redemption of everyone whose redemption he sincerely wills or desires.
Some human sinners will never be redeemed but will instead be separated from God forever.
All three propositions have ample biblical support. But, as Talbott points out, you cannot, logically, endorse all three. Talbott goes on to show how the various soteriological systems adopt two of the propositions and reject/marginalize the third. Summarizing how this happens:
Calvinism/Augustinianism: Adopt #2 and #3. God will accomplish his plans and some will be separated from God forever. This implies a rejection of #1, that God wills to save all humanity. This conclusion is captured in the doctrine of election and double predestination (i.e., God predestines some to be saved and some to be lost).
Arminianism: Adopt #1 and #3. God loves all people and some people will be separated from God forever. This implies that God’s desires–for example, to save everyone–can be thwarted and unfulfilled. This is usually explained by an appeal to human choice. Due to free will people can resist/reject God. Thus, where a Calvinist puts the “blame” on God for someone going to hell (election) Arminians place the blame on people (free will).
Universalism: Adopt #1 and #2. God loves all people and will accomplish his purposes. This implies a rejection of #3. The implication is that God will continue his salvific work in some postmortem fashion. Note that this postmortem salvific work can, and often does, involve a strong vision of hell and can be Christocentric.

I reject Calvinism because I find the doctrine of election to be loathsome. I don’t find God worthy of worship, praise or service if he created people with the intention of torturing most of them forever. True, such actions would demonstrate his sovereignty and “justice” but it is hard to see those actions as loving and praise-worthy. Also, I don’t see how Calvinism allows for a dynamic and interactive relationship between God and humanity. We end up being mere puppets and playthings.

To be fair, the reason Calvinism and Reformed theology leaves me cold is largely biographical. I grew up in an Arminian tradition. Since college, however,** I’ve grown disillusioned with free will soteriological and theodicy systems. For three interrelated reasons:**

Moral Luck: We begin life in very different places, morally and religiously. Some people get a head start on Christianity. Others are raised in different religious traditions. Further, our life journeys can be highly variable, religiously and morally. A child might be abused by a church leader. A missionary might never show up at your village.

The Timing of Death is Unpredictable: The death event is arbitrary in its timing. Some people live to a ripe old age and get to repent of past sins or find the time to explore Christianity (if they were born into another religion). Other people die young and never get the chance, through no fault of their own, to repent or explore Christianity.

Free Will is a Non-Starter: As a psychologist I’ve come to believe that human volition (will) is very circumscribed and anemic in its powers. Humans have the capacity for choice, and perhaps freedom within a certain range, but at the end of the day human choice is finite and limited. It can only do so much.
Given that our moral and religious journeys are qualitatively different (e.g., moral luck: some people get head starts), that death is random (which can arbitrarily lengthen or shorten your religious and moral journey) and a realistic view of human volitional powers (there is no radical form of free will) it was difficult for me to maintain the Arminian stance of my religious heritage.

So, having rejected both Reformed and Arminian thinking I’ve settled on universalism as the soteriological and eschatological system that best describes my views on salvation and redemption."

Interesting. This is one of the few people I’ve run into online that share my view that universalism rejects both the Reformed and Arminian approaches to free will vs. sovereignty.

That is because it is wrong. Correct me if I’m wrong… Talbott’s theology is the Calvinistic TULIP without the L. :wink:

Revival;
You’re on my ignore list (as you were in your previous “E-incarnations”). I can’t read your responses, so you needn’t bother attempting to derail my posts, which are intended for a more thoughtful audience.

Thank you.

Excellent thanks Mel.

Looks like I won another one on Casino theology :slight_smile: lol. Indeed, this notion that some people get better odds than others only shows that LWF ECT and DET ECT are hardly different.

:laughing: “Casino Theology”…

Mel, I’ve read Talbott’s book, and recall the three positions. Talbott makes a strong case for universal reconciliation. But I can’t agree with Richard Beck’s position that human beings have only a limited free will. I would rather say that the carrying out of our free wills is limited by our situation and by our powers.

  1. I may have the will to flap my arms and fly like a bird, but I cannot, because of the construction of my body.

  2. Some smokers have the will to stop. But their desire to enjoy the effects outweigh the desire to stop and so they don’t succeed. Yet for other smokers, the desire to stop is weightier, and some of them stop cold turkey.

  3. Suppose a thief holds a gun to the head of a man and demands his wallet. Does the man have the free will to refuse? I say he still has the choice to either hand over the wallet or refuse. It’s just that most likely he values his life more than his wallet, and will therefore make the choice to hand over his wallet.

I see no reason to deny libertarian free will.

I think it all comes down to the definition of free will one subscribes to, particularly with regard to the meaning of the word “free”.
I think even all of the examples you have given demonstrate that our freedom even of choice is quite limited, let alone how the many hidden factors underlying the circumstances influence things.
I am curious as to why you don’t think that we have a limited “free” will. We are limited by many things.

At any rate, my main point is that Richard seems to agree with my view that universalism as a system of thought generally works against the notion of free will, whatever his other reasons for disbelieving it might be.

Mel, I agree. I fall more on Talbott’s side of the fence.

Paidion,
In what sense is it “non-limited”, does that mean each individual can will anything? I think Talbott denies that a person can FREELY will their own destruction. As soon as we say they can will their own destruction, Talbott says then they’re no longer free - they’re under the delusion of sin. Similarly, if someone rejects God he cannot do so freely. If I understant Tom on these matters, he’s arguing that our will is subsuquent or dependent on our epestemic knoweldge.

Thanks for the OP Mel.
Count me with you and Beck.
I pray that Christmas brings you some joy after a difficult time recently.

When I used the phrase “libertarian free will”, I mean we have the ability to choose any of the options which are available to us. Yes, we are “limited by many things”. There are things we cannot do. But if it is possible to do them, then we have the ability to choose them. There are many influences upon us to act in particular ways, but we are free to go against these influences. For example, some people who have been taught from childhood to make good choices have made bad. Another example, statistically children whose parents smoke, are more likely to smoke themselves. But many such children never do smoke. Influences are not causes. Causation, on the other hand can prevent us from choosing.

A lot depends upon what we mean by “free will”. The believer in compatibilist “free will”, such as William Craig, would say that essence of free choice is the absence of causal constraint. Is that what you believe? My concept of libertarian free will, is the ability to choose between options. Perhaps Greg Boyd says it best: "“An agent is said to possess libertarian freedom if it lies within his or her power to do otherwise, given the exact same set of antecedent conditions.”

Here is a very interesting thought experiment. Your answer would probably say a lot about your concept of free will:

Imagine that a mad scientist has secretly wired Joe Bloe's brain with electrodes so that he can control Joe's choices. Suppose that in the last Presidential election, he wanted Joe to vote for Obama and had determined that if Joe were going to vote for McCain the scientist would activate the electrodes and make Joe cast his vote for Obama. Now as it turns out, Joe had wanted to vote for Obama anyway, and so when he went into the polling booth he marked his ballot for Obama, and therefore the scientist didn't activate the electrodes.  Did Joe Bloe freely choose to vote for Obama? Why or why not? I look forward to your answer.

Yes, he can will anything. That doesn’t mean that he can carry out his will.

I don’t recall reading that from Talbott. But in any case, a person obviously has the ability to choose to sin. This occurs frequently. The person through repetition of his wrongdoing can become a slave to sin. Our Lord Jesus taught that. But even a physical slave has the ability to disobey his master!

What! A person cannot reject God freely? Does that mean those millions of living people who have rejected God were forced to do so?

This statement appears to be meaningless. Of course, our will is dependent on knowledge. If we knew absolutely nothing at all, we would be unable to choose. We wouldn’t be aware that we had any choice. How does it support either libertarian free will or compatibilist “free will”?

For me, one essential question is whether we can choose to believe. I used to think that belief was a choice. I now think that, whilst one might wish to believe A or B, and whilst one might act as IF one believed A or B, this does not make it so.
I now consider that we do not have freewill to believe something is true, or to trust someone just by the power of our own will.

Any thoughts?

Padion,
I’m not certain “Forced” and “Free” are in opposition. One does not have to be forced even if it’s impossible to freely reject God. Deception is a means which can bring a person to choose without it being forced. But it’s not free.

Suppose I give you two gifts for Christmas, and tell you to open only one. And suppose you open one and it’s a bomb. Would you say you FREELY chose to blow yourself up. No. We would say he freely chose to open a box. You’re knowing is the key to whether you can freely choose or not.

So if someone can reject God freely and simultaneously accept their own destruction then their out of their mind or what we call delusional. Meaning it’s not a “free choice” for condemnation as libertarians would have us think.

The person rejected God and thus goes to hell.

Perhaps, but not freely.

Again, my thoughts are based on understanding Talbott and I may be wrong. When one person sees God for who he is, and that person sees sin for what it is, that person will ALWAY accept God and that would be a free choice.

The freedom involved in choosing otherwise or deliberation is always far more complex than A or B. At least that’s how it seems to me.

Mel,
I agree as well that we don’t “choose” to believe anything and yet our choices are based on what we believe.

This for me was the first red flat in my emanicipation from ECT. The destruction of LFW in an ECT contruct came apart.
There’s still hope for LFW, I believe as Paidion or TGB have argued. But not under ECT.

Auggy, I agree that our choices are greatly influenced by our knowledge, but they are not caused by our knowledge. Two different persons often have identical knowledge of a situation, and yet do not make the same choice in that situation.

In some cases, one might lack knowledge, and still make a choice. For example, you are travelling to a particular city; you come to a fork in the road. You do know know which fork takes you to the city. So you decide to stop and consult your map. However, you are unable to find your map! You must make a choice. Left fork or right fork. You freely choose the left fork. You could have chosen the right fork. You have no inner propensity for choosing left over right, and so I suppose this could be called “a random choice”. Let it be so. But it’s a libertarian free choice nonetheless. For it’s not random in the sense that flipping a coin would be random. You didn’t flip a coin concerning the matter. You CHOSE to take the left fork.

:laughing: I would ask God which fork to take, and He would tell me, and that’s my path, freely chosen.

I do believe that we have the freedom to choose, and that we, having not seen and yet believing, have taken the fork in the road simply because Jesus said to us, “That’s the way. Walk in it.” We are blessed.

But for those who haven’t seen and don’t believe, there will come a day when they DO see. It would have been a blessing to them if they had been willing and able to believe without seeing, but having seen, they WILL believe – eventually at least.

They way I understood Talbott (and he presented a number of scenarios), a person, having truly seen and understood that Jesus is perfectly lovely, and is the way to joy, cannot rationally choose to refuse to receive the gift of eternal life. If he continues to resist, it only shows that he is not rational and that, not being rational, he is not capable of exercising free will. His ability to choose freely has been impaired by delusion. He must therefore be healed of his irrationality, and once healed, he will freely choose life – because it is the only rational thing to do.

Makes sense to me.

Paidion, I can respect that but I would think that if the left road taken leads to an acid pit where all your flesh falls off, to say that the person freely chose is just an assertion. For had the person known what the left fork entails that person would have chosen otherwise. So I tend to agree with Talbott, the more correct information a person has (less delusion) the more free one is to make a rational choice. If one is under a delusion, then how can they be said to make a “rational” choice. If the choice is not rational, then I hardly think they “freely” choose it. Again, I think people believe if it’s not free then it’s forced. But I don’t see why that has to be.

I don’t have a problem with your version of FW because you don’t believe God’s going around looking to chop up people. But If a mans destiny of being chopped to pieces lies in their epestemic resources, and those resources are limited in their understanding, I would hardly say they’re free to make a true or free choice.

Thanks pilgrim. I am doing much better, and I appreciate your support, and the support of this community greatly.

How are things over there in Yorkshire? In my travels to the UK, I’d have to say that Yorkshire, Scotland, and Jeff A’s bit of Wales (Brecon) are my favourites.

Ah, Ok; I see where our fundamental disagreement is. The definition of libertarian free will does not equate to what most people mean by free will. I agree that we have choices, but that those choices are heavily influenced by a great many factors many of which are beyond our control, some of which would cause us to make choices that we may not make if we were influenced by a different set of factors. I understand Boyd’s point, but I think the reality of the situation is far less black and white than Boyd (and we) would like it to be!

And here’s the rub; I don’t think this adequately adresses the issue. Joe’s desire to vote for Obama was unhindered in this case by the mechanism in place designed to keep him from voting for McCain. However, we don’t address at all in this example the other factors that actually motivated Joe to vote for Obama, with or without the other mechanism in place. In this example, he clearly wanted to vote for Obama anyway. I still wouldn’t maintain that he necessarily freely chose it though, due to whatever it actually was that caused him to want to vote that way in the first place, since it is obvious that the other scheme had no actual bearing on his choice in this example. This is a fairly simple example, for illustration purposes. The realities of this get far fuzzier far more quickly.

Now, let me try on an example here. Voting is probably a good general backdrop to use, because our voting decisions are often based on a variety of factors. Let’s say that Joe initially wanted to vote for Obama, based on the knowledge that he had at the time. Then let’s say that Joe had access to a crystal ball in which he could see the future repercussions of his choice in detail, and this caused him to change his mind.
Now, let’s say that he made his first choice. Was that a free will choice? By the libertarian definition, it probably was; it was based on the knowledge he had before the crystal ball, but we can see that his choice was based on incomplete information; so I would argue that it was not a free choice (uninfluenced), because he based it on faulty (in this example, incomplete) information.
Now, let’s look at the second half. Joe sees the future repercussions of his initial choice, based on the new information, and changes his mind. Was that a free choice? Perhaps freer than the first, because it was based on more complete/ better information, but the choice was still influenced by outside factors (the new information), so I would again say that ultimately that was not a completely free choice either. To me, the definition of free will is the ability to make choices that are completely unhindered and uninfluenced, which is one of the valid definitions of the term. I don’t believe that free will simply means “uncoerced” choice.

(This was a fairly simple example as well, given for the same reasons. I don’t think this example really touches on the complexities of the issue much either).

Hi Mel:

This topic really is the main reason – by far! – for Arminians rejecting UR. I’ve heard it from the pulpit in various ways at least once a week now for several months which makes me wonder if our pastors are directing their quotes at me!! (Yes, they know I’m UR and we get along great!) My son and I discuss this issue all the time as it’s by far the main argument he hears against UR also…

Allow me to quote Talbott fairly extensively here…
…these quotes are taken from The Inescapable Love of God by Thomas Talbott, p.184-189

Sorry for such a long quote Mel, but there are a few issues that are crucial here it seems to me…

1)–Irrationality: a choice is irrational, really, if it is self destructive. So one would need to be informed, at least minimally so, to be considered “free”.

2)–Self hatred: But further, it seems that to be free, one will not be motivated by self hatred. That is, his choices will be best for himself and he will understand them that way.
I’m suggesting that at some level, it is simply axiomatic that FREE CHOICES ARE GOOD CHOICES. Which I realize is quite backwards from how we usually think of freedom! We see people making bad choices as a measure of their freedom when in fact, all they are doing is demonstrating their bondage.

So to resist God is, in crucial and central ways, to demonstrate irrationality and self hatred; neither of which are compatible with freedom.

To insist, as so many of my Arminian brothers do, that “people are lost because they want to be lost” is to assert something that is terribly incoherent then…

Bobx3

Thanks Bob,
Good stuff there.