The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Are you Really Lucky or Really Smart?

(Hi Johnny, good to “hear” from you). So although you criticize Arminians for placing salvation squarely in their own hands, you still affirm an Arminian soteriology and thus, that we freely (and ultimately) decide to accept this salvation anyway. Would you mind expounding that sophistry a bit further? :stuck_out_tongue:

“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it (τουτο) is the gift of God; so that no one can boast.”
—Ephesians 2:8
This is from an article from the Middletown Bible Church via the Society of Evangelical Arminians, entitled: “What is the gift of God?”. It was all Greek to me (ha! :unamused:) but hopefully my super-quick summary is a tad quicker to read (though obviously less forceful):

I understand your point. My point however is that as a former A, and moderate C, boasting has the potential to be a problem.

One doesn’t consciously decide to boast, but it is human nature to ’ boast ’ that you have something ( salvation and that you are maintaining that salvation by remaining faithful ) .

I agree with your point that Paul addresses the law and not to boast in law keeping. I also assume that boasting in the ’ law of Moses ’ is another form of boasting in having attained knowledge of Christ, the Gospel, and having the ’ will ’ to have faith. This is really just another form of boasting in the ’ law '.

No room for boasting, but you need a great deal of ’ luck ’ to be lucky enough to be ’ chosen as the elect of God ’ . Therefore, I think the C model involves a great deal of luckiness. :slight_smile:

WE ARE ALL BROTHERS:
You’re over thinking this way too much. Again, my only point was that given a Calvinist or Arminianist viewpoint, the door was opened for sinful people to boast about their salvation. I understand that theologically we’re not supposed to boast but it happens. As for me, when I came to accept that everyone might be saved, I no longer viewed ‘non-believers’ as being on the outside looking in; we were all part of the same group.

Hullo Andrew

Great to be in town with you, sir. And nice to hear a moderate and reasoned voice from Down Under. :smiley:

Thanks for the information you posted on the correct translation and interpretation of the original Greek in Ephesians 2. The article you quoted does seem pretty convincing to this non-Greek speaking ignoramus. But I do still recall somebody whose opinion I respect – could have sworn it was Tom Talbott – maintaining that the ‘it’ was indeed faith.

But ultimately, it makes no material difference does it? Because the point of that passage, surely, is that the whole shebang – grace, faith, salvation – is a gift of God. And that to me speaks against Arminian soteriology. For to say that salvation is a gift, but that you must do something to attain it – even if it is just accepting that gift – seems nonsensical to me.

Which brings us on to sophistry. Now as I say, I’m no Greek scholar. But I do know that sophos is the Greek for wisdom, so presumably you’re complimenting me for my wise assessment of the facts here? :wink:

But just in case you’re not, I hope you will forgive the rather lengthy quotation from Ravi Holy’s excellent critique of ECT from both an Arminian and Calvinist perspective, Damned Nonsense, by way of reply. Ravi does a superb job of addressing this seeming paradox of Universalism, and the article is well worth reading in full, hence I have attached it if you’re interested.

All the best

Johnny
damnednonsense.doc (233 KB)

true, we in life are not always left with more than one choice…

also, i’ve no control over when i was born, or to whom i was born, or any of those circumstances…and apart from suicide have no real control over my time of death, either.

i do believe there’s something to the idea of being held accountable for how we used the measure of freedom we DO have, but apart from some rewards (a bonus, a company car, stock options) which may or may not be symbolic in nature, if i can’t affect my existential status in meaningful ways by any action i take during my life…how could i affect it in the hereafter?
free will is an important concept, but as nobody exists in a vacuum, many things affect what our choices are and more importantly our likely choices. we tend to imitate or do the opposite of people we are inspired by or in fear of, and that also affects our choices.

so for me to declare with confidence that i have freely chosen Christ of my own volition is really me declaring that i reckon i’m pretty darn wise. anyone that disagrees with me becomes by implication foolish. what does the Bible say about being wise in your own eyes?

calvinism is such an obvious joke as to predestination and limited atonement (although they’re right about one thing: God’s capability to save) that i won’t bother commenting on the “cosmic lottery” implied here. pure, obvious rubbish.

IMO they’re both right (about some things) – the Calvs and the Arms. And there is no ground for boasting. God won’t force us against our will; He will woo us until we relent. And there IS a chosen elect first-fruits who are given the measure of faith in this life (because Father knows they’ll run with it, perhaps?) First fruits imply a full crop to come, and besides the barley harvest, there are also the wheat and the grapes to bring in.

We are the body of Christ, if we are among those first fruits, and the privilege of laboring (and suffering) with Him in the harvest falls to us – not because we’re better than the potential workmen who have been waiting all day to be hired at the last hour, but because Father just wanted to do it this way. I’m sure it is the best way, or else He would have done it differently.

i think that’s a good take on it.
when i was being dismissive, it was more the concept of people being predestined to salvation OR hell, no in between. no firstfruits vs full harvest, etc…which is the line most Calvs (unless they are Universalists, which i can respect) take.

:smiley:

Talbott did demonstrate that the destruction in Second Thessalonians (1:9) will be in the presence of Yahweh. Perhaps that was what you were thinking of?

The point of the passage is that salvation is a gift. I think if Ephesians 2:8 speaks against an Arminian soteriology, then we probably need to reject an Arminian soteriology. But, as (hopefully) demonstrated, Ephesians 2:8 simply speaks of salvation as the gift. Nowhere in the scriptures does it reasonably suggest that faith itself is a gift from God (we can further discuss any supposedly contrary texts, if need be). Rather, faith is consistently “our faith”, “her faith”, “their faith”, and “you of (little) faith. If faith is truly a gift, the demand for people to “believe” seems greatly diminished, if not entirely misplaced. Why would the prophets (including Yeshua) mention it at all (John 1:12-13; 3:16, 36; 5:24; 6:47; Acts 16:31, 34)? It really should have been preached to Yahweh instead (who is taking an unacceptably, insufferable time to “believe” for everyone). And why would anyone claim we are saved through faith, if we are really saved unto faith? But my biggest concern with the claim that faith is a gift and a thus a fruit of regeneration, is that furthermore, it greatly diminishes the many biblical exhortations to obey the Royal Law (exhortations already diminished by sola fide). If faith is irresistibly infused, God also necessarily sanctifies apart from any cooperation we might offer. Victory over sin is then guaranteed, even though the scriptures insist that believers, having partaken of the divine spirit, can still radically succumb to their sin. The subjective, salvific process is greatly unbalanced, and what is otherwise simple becomes an unnecessarily tangled mess. One cannot truly claim there is a semblance of free will and that God also gives us faith (the Lutherans kind of do this however).

Salvation however, is truly a gift. And a gift, universally understood, can be rejected. The word “attain” admittedly makes me nervous, but I suppose that’s an accurate word if we use it very carefully. So yes, it could be said that one attains [acquires, applies] salvation through faith; though they did not merit or add to that gift. If a beggar is stirred from his slumber and handed a slice of bread, he can hardly claim to have merited or added to that generosity. That would be absurd. If he does not want the bread, for whatever reason he deems best, he can clearly decline. If our altruist proceeds to shove it down his throat irresistibly, I can’t honestly say that his generosity would be appreciated. I think a more practical perspective (with regards to effective social justice) might be helpful, but I don’t have the time to develop it here.

Personally, irresistible grace comes with a bevy of irresolvable philosophical and biblical problems. Namely, that God isn’t the only “sovereign” will working in the world. And to be unfairly honest, monergism often bears particular fruits. I don’t wish to offend anyone, but as I said, irresistible grace diminishes the salvific process. I don’t personally see particularly inspirational works from “God Almighty” Reformed Christians. I do personally see them from “Yeshua the Least” vulnerable-to-rejection Christians. Not sure if that’s harsh or unfair, so I sincerely apologise for any offence.

I’m not claiming that universalism is or isn’t true here. But we have to be clear and admit that evangelical universalism doesn’t provide a new answer to soteriology. And so it doesn’t address boasting at all. Universalism necessitates some soteriologically convictions (namely, unlimited atonement, judgement is remedial and so forth), but foremost it’s an eschatological vision. Either God acts monergistically to secure our salvation. Or we act in synergy; drawn and embraced resistibly. (Note that the differences can be slight in that a Lutheran insists God acts monergistically, yet also insists we can resist him. I honestly have difficulty discerning the difference with Arminianism. Though the latter seems to emphasizes our capacity to yield and accept (have faith), rather than our capacity to resist. Both Luther (and Melancthon) and Arminius thoroughly believed that in our lapsed and sinful state, we are not capable, of and by ourselves, either to think, to will, or to do that which is really good. Would be great if our resident Lutherans chipped in — I know we have one). So whether a non-universalist subscribes to an Arminian or Calvinist soteriology, there is no more room for boasting than if a universalist subscribed to either view.

Regarding Ravi, I don’t necessarily disagree with him. I think there are problems with the insistence that everyone will repent, but not that everyone could repent. Chess, after all, is a game that accommodates stalemates. But I’m not particularly critical of universalism (universalist determinism? Yes). It just takes a faith I don’t yet have.

Anyway Johnny, thanks so much for your thoughts. I do apologise for my delayed response — I’ve been overly busy (in a weird sort of way) but you and Arminianism in general have certainly been on the back of my mind these last couple of weeks. Hopefully I’ll respond to some more of Ravi’s thoughts, regarding God’s “generally impotent, non-sovereign” will. I also intend to finish a big personal refutation of Universalism (mostly for Devil’s advocacy purposes) one day in the eschaton; it obviously won’t be that convincing for many (any?) but I’m sure you’d like to gently butt heads with me all the same.

Peace, and all of those other wonderful Christian valedictions.

Dbbpatu, thanks for your continued thoughts here. Maybe I’m just thick (please bear with me!), but I’m still struggling to see how universalism offers a new soteriological viewpoint. At the very least, the world is not subjectively saved at present. Not all have repented from their sins. So even if one believes that there are no (fore-decreed, eternal) reprobates, one must still believe there are a group of people who are not presently saved. All arminians believe this too (though it’s a tad more settled with foresight; I lean towards Open Theism myself). There is absolutely no more room for boasting in arminianism than universalism, because evangelical universalism doesn’t offer a particularly new soteriology. You might have a different take on universalism however, which I would be happy to hear. God bless you, brother.

Not all gifts. A drowning man who is rescued and resuscitated can be said to have received a gift.

Arminianism has always been a burden to me. It asks I prove myself by achieving an intangible thing: faith. And for an introvert, the command to believe can be a terrible burden. Is my faith real? Is it sincere? Or is it “spurious”? It sure looks like under Arminianism that one’s faith must be in good part upon one’s faith itself, making sure that it is true and real. How can one have assurance otherwise? Arminianism presents Christ as a potential savior, and that by believing in him, salvation is activated. One makes a thing real that wasn’t real before.

I don’t see how you can get away from accepting that the one who does choose rightly has a place to boast. He has done something that someone else “chooses” not to do, and that being a failure of wisdom or virtue. One has a certain something that another does not.

Okay, I can probably concede that :wink: But I don’t think the metaphor of a drowned man who needs resuscitation describes salvation and our spiritual condition fairly. We are drowned in our sins, but this really means being separated from Yahweh. I don’t think the scriptures describe us as being totally unresponsive and impervious to divine influence, i.e. entirely dead. Otherwise we would be obliged to believe that being dead to our sins, means we are totally impervious to its influence also. And this clearly isn’t the case.

By realizing that faith is an act of humility, sufficiently enabled by prevenient grace. If it begins to boast, it ceases to be humility and it ceases to be faith.

I agree with the O.P. that both positions leave room for boasting.
We can boast that we have been chosen by God, or we can boast that we have chosen God.
We can boast that we are lucky or we can boast that we are smart. Prince William can boast that he was chosen and Kate can boast that she chose him - no one escapes the opportunity to boast and Calvinists who say otherwise are blind to the problem.

likewise, we can humbly accept that we are chosen or we can humbly accept the free gift of grace - no real difference.

When I believed in ECT I could not accept Calvinism because that makes God out to be a capricious and cruel monster which contradicts the scriptures which clearly portray His universal Love. But now I am a universalist, I have no problem in accepting that God chooses some for the role of ‘first-fruits’ and others for the role of ‘second-fruits’.

God bless

So one can instead boast that they are lucky enough to be the fore-decreed, hand-picked first-fruits? I don’t understand how this addresses the boasting problem (over and beyond a synergist soteriology)… :confused:

I don’t think the boasting problem is doctrinal but personal. The falsified, imperfect mind automatically boasts when it fixes on a reason for doing so, just as the eye–if the mind isn’t set to sustain a morally aware mode to prevent it–when it sets upon an attractive person of the opposite sex can automatically engender lust. Seems to me a category error to associate a defective emotion or evil (i.e., pride) with a doctrinal position.

I thought I made it absolutely clear in my post that anyone can boast if they wish to regardless of their doctrinal position.
Buzz: Spot on! Thank you.
Boasting is no more or less a problem than any other sin and is a temptation to everyone.

Hullo Andrew

Thanks for your latest post about the nature of salvation and faith as gifts. (And no need at all to apologise for taking your time, we’re all busy people.) You make some very telling points, and I must confess this is a soteriological ‘issue’ with which I struggle a bit as a Universalist. For as you know, I subscribe to a strongly Arminian ‘brand’ of Universalism, inasmuch as I don’t believe God really ever ‘overrides’ our freedom to force us into faith, or into salvation.

The reason I don’t believe this is one of theodicy. If God can and does ‘force’ us to faith and salvation, then why on earth doesn’t he ‘force’ us to behave well, and prevent all the obvious moral evil in the world? It seems to me that if irresistible grace is true, then God can and does ‘control’ our lives – but He’s doing a pretty rotten job of it! Which I just can’t accept.

So for me, faith and salvation are gifts, in the sense that we cannot buy or earn them through our own efforts. But we must take them, accept them. And God will not force us to do that. So far, so Arminian, you might say. But surely it’s not too big a leap from here to Universalism, for all one need do is accept that God will eventually engineer a situation in which we do indeed come to freely accept those gifts?

We have been at this place before. Your position, if I recall it correctly, is that God gives us the freedom to resist Him eternally. This is the Lewisian position also, ie that freely chosen sin will eventually render us incapable of ever accepting the gifts of faith and salvation. But as you may recall, my position, along with philosophers such as Talbott and Eric Reitan, is that it is impossible for somebody to resist eternally. God never gives up on us, and because He has an infinite arsenal of strategies at His disposal, and He is infinitely better, cleverer, more loving, whatever, than us, He will win in the end. Love wins, basically.

You say that chess is a game that accommodates stalemates. That is true. But of course, the chess game is only a weak human analogy for the divine strategy. And I would contend that if we are the chess ‘novices’, God is such a good player that he would make Bobby Fischer and Gary Kasparov look like rank amateurs. And I don’t think any chess grandmaster would ever be manoeuvred into a stalemate by a novice.

Peace and love to you too brother. Always great to debate with such a fine and open mind.

Cheers

Johnny

I come from a predominantly sovereign grace viewpoint–after many years as a card carrying Arminian. No offense is intended, but I’ve come to the conclusion that the free will view is sustained by pride more than reason. As an example, I’m working on a rebuttal of Larry Dixon’s recent critique of universalism. In it he states,

““Love never fails,”” says Ferré. To imply that God’’s love fails to reach some sinners insults God! But, wait a minute. Parents who love a teenaged son with all their hearts, who practice a godly ““tough”” love toward him, who would willingly give their very lives for that son, cannot be held responsible if that son rebels and insists on drug-induced self-destruction! To say that their love failed (because their son chose to reject that love) is accurate (because their son died), but not an insult to parents who must sometimes submit to wrong decisions by their offspring.

The problem with the free will view is subtle, but can be seen in even one’s choice of analogy. The argument above sounds reasonable to traditional free will ears, that a child at the age of responsibility may eventually choose his own destruction by the power of his own will despite his parents’ will for him. The problem is, this view is not at all analogous to God’s relationship with us. It’s very subtle, but examples like Dixon’s place us on a much higher plane in our intellectual relationship to God than truth justifies. A more suitable analogy would be something like this:

The parent who warns his three year old son to not cross the fence in the back yard to play on the freeway beyond, after considerable cajolery to get the boy to submit to his will, helplessly shrugs his shoulders in sorrow as the lad drops gleefully over the fence and heads enthusiastically to the the six lane full of five o’clock traffic.

God’s ways and thoughts are higher than ours, but freewillism places us on a much higher intellectual plane than is justified. This is one reason my theology has no problem with distinguishing between the offer in time (temporal mode of salvation) from the ‘forcing’ salvation upon or after physical death (eternal mode) in the purifying fires of the great lake. We place far too much stock in our own sovereignty. God doesn’t need our permission to do what’s best for us, but He wants us to conform freely if we will. Should the responsible parent “force” his three year old to remain safe in his own yard?

Hi Lightbuzz

I don’t think we’re very far apart on this one at all. I agree that God’s will is higher and stonger than ours, that He will always ‘win’ in the end, even that He may exert control over us in the way a father exerts control over a three-year-old who persists in trying to run onto the freeway. So I guess as well as being an Arminian Universalist I am also a Calvinist Universalist, in some senses! :smiley:

‘Pure’ Arminianism fails for me because no loving parent would ever let a child kill itself, and God is infinitely more loving than any earthly parent. ‘Pure’ Calvinism fails because no loving parent would only rescue some of his children when he could rescue all of them.

Arminians are, in my view, mistaken. Calvinists are, in my view, either deluded or wicked. Calvinism STINKS! It’s stupid, immoral, nonsensical, non-Biblical, blasphemous rubbish. And the sooner it is swept into the rubbish bin where it belongs the better. That’s all she wrote.

Peace and love to you, buzz

Cheers

Johnny

My apologies Pilgrim, when you said you agreed with the OP, I presumed you thought that only “the traditional model of salvation [presumably, Calvinism and Arminianism] … allow some room for a certain amount of boasting” and that, as implicit in the OP, universalism (a non-traditional? model) does not. Much too much presuming on my part. I shall try to read more carefully next time.

I won’t bash the point too much further because I sense my insistence is already tedious and I’m not sure I’m saying anything new anymore. But I do think that ortho-synergism explicitly forbids any meaningful boasting over and beyond monergism. Ortho-synergism claims we must necessarily admit that we need salvation, and cannot source this from within ourselves. Any boasting of ourselves, necessarily precludes us from genuine faith, and thus salvation. Therefore to have faith and salvation is necessarily to not boast. Monergism however, believes that faith (“not-boasting”) is a fruit of salvific regeneration. Therefore “not-boasting” is not a condition of one’s salvation at all. Though a monergist would not divide salvation from this first-fruit of faith, strictly speaking, one’s salvation is not dependent on our God-enabled humility, but whether God hand-picked us to be in a class above others, before the beginning of the world. Within monergism, you don’t have to not boast, you merely won’t when you get that fruit. If I can find any grounds for boasting amongst the different soteriologies, in my mind, it can only be within the monergist variants (and also, semi-Pelagianism). Hope that makes sense.

Johnny, I very much agree with your view on Arminianism and theodicy, and I partner this with what I hope is a cruciform, Christ-centered view of God — grace that suffers, whilst we resist (and indeed, actively crucify).

Yes, we most certainly have been at this place before :wink: I agree that it’s not too big a leap to Universalism (if we maintain that God pursues us deep into the eschaton). I don’t know enough about this particular topic, which is why I avoid discussing it :smiley: Other than universalism, the only view I can offer is that we will inevitably lose libertarian free-will. Although we cannot choose Yahweh without a dispensation of his prevenient grace (and in that sense, the choice is eternally secure), it is possible that our free-will, our intrinsic capacity and means by which we choose God, could be irreparably hardened to resist that prevenient grace (or resist apostasy within the saints). As someone who holds to a generally traditional angelic fall, I do find it intriguing that angelic beings seem to be “eternally resolved” in their choices. There seems to be no evidence of penitence amongst devils, nor any new falls amongst angels. Though I think this view is quite problematic, so I will have to think it through some more. The more I think/read about this stuff, the more answers I get, but the more problems I also have to face with maintaining non-universalism. :laughing:

Peace brother. You’re a pleasure to speak with.

Andrew

Hi Andrew

Gosh, this is a bit like unpacking an endless series of Russian dolls, don’t you think? Open up one, answer one question in our discussion, and there’s always another one inside! :smiley: (Of course, were there an obvious and definitive view, I guess most sensible people would hold to it. So it appears there is, for reasons God has not revealed to us - or at least not to me :smiley: - a deliberate ambiguity about this, as with so many other things.)

I must say I have been troubled by the idea of the saints eventually becoming utterly incapable of sinning in the eschaton, as this to me seems to undermine the human freedom God has so obviously given us. And while I’m on the subject, those who deny that we have free will (albeit often severely compromised by genetics, upbringing, environment etc) must, surely, ultimately ascribe all evil actions to God? I can’t accept that, which is one main reason why I reject Calvinism out of hand, and embrace Arminianism.

I see what you’re saying about the angelic fall. Personally I’m agnostic about the existence of angels and demons, in a literal Biblical sense, so it’s not a big issue for me.

All the best

Johnny