yxboom
June 2nd 2003, 07:40 PM
Originally posted (http://theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?postid=109545&action=showthread) by geebob in the thread Open view vs. closed view & universal atonement (http://theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=4236)
yes, i agree with that. i just don't think open view solves that problem sufficiently.
I can't think you're dealing with the open view then. In the open view, God simply isn't the ultimate reason for why a person is going to hell. the reason: there is no fact of the matter as to who is going to hell until they live there life and perform certain actions that they personally can realistically avoid (in our context, everyone could have responded to God's grace (in whatever form that was available) and there were several points in their life where this was clearly the correct choice).
And of course there is no tragedy that some person did not have a chance to gain heaven (albeit, you have to combine the open view with inclusivism here).
this discussion is about if OV is a sufficient remanding of reprobation at all.
I have something very specific in mind when I speak of reprobation. It is the guarantee that any specific person will be damned before they have lived a life of responding to God in one way or another. That simply is not there in the open view(combined with the greater hope-which is inclusivism and/or post mortem evangelization-from now on I'll omit this and just speak of the open view unless specifically dealing with the issue of the unevagnelized).
it was also pointed out to me that very few people have any emotional objections to demons being sent to hell, without any chance at all of salvation or restoration to their former goodness and glory. now, it's true that the angels and demons aren't our neighbors etc, so the same arguments don't apply to them. but it does show that for them at least, we don't have a problem with God condemning a creature he made.
They had a chance, a very good chance to remain in God's favor. They were created perfect and without flaw. I believe that one reason that they did not have a second chance is that they had far less of an excuse to rebel from God than we did as we were ignorant and more susceptible to deception and they were not as they were created with significantly more innate wisdom, intelligence and power. But they were not reprobate creatures.
we don't know all the options, what we DO know is that Paul obeyed Jesus. it is impossible to say from just this data whether Paul could have done anything else.
That's no different from saying that we don't know if free will theism is true or determinism is true. Yes it's controversial and yet some will hold to one position as he deems it as the best position for various reasons. It is not impossible to insist that Paul could have rejected God because those who hold that everyone has libertarian freedom with respect to this must conclude that Paul could have rejected Christ. Of course I am defending both points of view because although I find the first more coherent, I don't find the notion that some are guaranteed heaven totally unreasonable, though it would mean that they did not have libertarian freedom with regard to that one particular issue.
God would not have done this if He was not assured of success.
But we see God acting radically in the life of others who reject him in the end such as King Saul and Balaam the prophet. And look at Pharaoh. We do not know whether he repented after his incredible encounter with God or that he couldn’t have done so.
And his past zeal was also a part of God's gift to Paul... look at his resume, born a jew, son of a Pharisee, etc. All this came from God in the end. Everything good we have, in the end, comes from God; without Him i can do nothing. That is my belief at least.
I don't see that the zeal there was a necessary outcome of his past. There are many with a similar past that did not go from town to town persecuting Christians for the sake of righteousness. Perhaps Paul could have taken his marvelous resume to the end of becoming a quiet but respected teacher of the law who did not do much with regard to the Christian problem. It could have turned that Paul would have been read today by scholars not because of his contribution to Christianity but because of a contribution toward understanding ancient non-Christian Judaism. Then again, maybe he would have converted to Christianity without ever having the Damascus road experience because all though he wasn't zealous, he still sought the truth.
Reprobation says that God intentionally sends people to hell and torment.
But it could also and equally be written that God intentionally held back from some people the gift of salvation that he gave freely to others.
That God guarantees heaven for some does not indicate that he intentionally held others back from heaven. It only means that he held back a guarantee. A lack of guarantee is not the same as holding one back. You can still respond to God's grace though you weren't guaranteed from birth.
Also, a note on my definition of reprobation: I
Perhaps Paul would not have been saved without this gift.
in the open view, there would be no fact of the matter about what he would've done for certain without the Damascus road experience. He'd still have a chance to be saved without that experience at some point in his life.
Another person who did not come to repentance might say 'well, even I would have, when presented like that! But now I am condemned. Why does God love me less than Paul?'
God choose Paul to increase this other person’s chance of salvation. And though he did not receive what Paul received, he can still look back on his life and truly understand "I am condemned because I rejected God's grace where I truly could have accepted. God did what he could do to bring me salvation but I am the reason it did not take hold. The buck stops with me."
So, if God grants some people a 'guaranteed' ticket so-to-speak, even ONE person, we end up in the same scenario... why was it given to one person (who then escapes Hell and goes to heaven) and not another (who then goes to hell)?
because God often works with select individuals to increase the chance of salvation for others. Salvation is not purely between God and the individual. It's also about building community and that means using people to make it happen.
Can we not say that I obviously was just as unfair by giving one child an advantage other children did not have, as i would by arbitrarily disqualifying some student's tests?
to make this scenario fit the picture I'm painting here, lets say that you gave some children the key so that they could help the others study. Not so that the ones with the key individually could pass. You do this because you want the children not to just depend on you but upon eachother in community. And you give the keys to children that you can depend upon to make a real effort to get the other children to study. When those children reject the offer, it is on their own heads. And that they didn’t reject it is absolutely no indication that they couldn’t have cooperated instead. Any one of them truly could have cooperated. There are no reprobate. There is no guarantee, no certainty that any one should reject cooperation before they do just that, reject the help.
Maybe, but then who do i have to thank for the fact that I grew up in a Christian household, vs. the son of an islamic Imam or in the family of the Politburo?
Give honor where it is due. Of course, primarily, you have God to thank for sending his son to make salvation possible and his spirit to make the spreading of the word possible. And I don’t think it sacrilegious to be grateful to and for the missionaries and evangelists who brought the word to our people through the ages and to our parents for responding.
Not that sometimes those haven't become Christians, but the deck is stacked against them from the moment they are born, whereas for me, it wasn't. This is just a pushback, and in some sense a rationalization.
And of course here I would assert inclusivism. Even though they may never hear the gospel, God’s grace is still evident for them such that should they respond, God will forgive them and not hold their sins against them.
this is EXACTLY the same argument as reprobation, but with a reason this time. SOME people had to go to hell, JUST to prove that we have LFW. For LFW to exist according to this definition, some must not be saved. How is this different from reprobation?
I disagree that anyone ever had to perish. Adam and Eve never had to sin and truly, they may not have fallen. They and their children may have remained pure. There was no sin nature to exponentially increase the probability for sin.
In light of the fall however, it may be a statistical necessity that someone would reject God unto death though no one in particular. Then again, maybe there wasn’t. maybe man would have never sunk to the depths where God would regret creating him.
one question though: LFW seems to be equivalent to saying that we are irrational. i guess that's a view that reflects reality though.
I don’t see the connection. Perhaps libertarian freedom makes it possible for us to act irrationally but people are still perfectly capable of assessing the most reasonable course of action and taking that action in libertarian freedom. Then again, I don’t see that determinism would guarantee that one would act rationally. One may have such a flawed emotional state that they would choose against the most rational course of action. Consider addiction. I don’t believe that all choices made due to addiction are libertarian free, but they are often irrational.
(because LFW necessarily implies that a decision is made based on NO outside influences),
this is one of the most common misconceptions about libertarian freedom. When a decision is libertarian free, there is no influence that guaranteed what one would do. But there can be influences. Maybe the influence shifts the probabilities of what one would do. That still is perfectly consistent with the notion that one can act and refrain from acting as long as the probabilities for either is neither zero or a hundred percent.
it's just 'random' (in a truly random sense!). kinda scary actually, that LFW really consists of the set of decisions where i look back and say 'why did i do that?'
I’d like to mention that I typically reject the term “random” for describing libertarian free decisions as random is typically a term applied to non-rational and unconscious entities. A better term would be “arbitrary”. And is an arbitrary decision irrational? It might be, if it is not driven by any particular reasoning. But I’d still consider it arbitrary if all of the reasoning for all of the options are not very strong and somewhat equal. However, even when reasoning is equal for several different options I would not consider it arbitrary. And of course, reasoning is not always equal though one may still choose the options that are less reasonable than the more reasonable options.
how much better of a chance can you get than sitting in front of God himself?
I think you are thinking of post mortem evangelization, which is significantly different from inclusivism. But they are both part of the greater hope which asserts the possibility for salvation for those who have never heard the gospel.
anyone want to respond to my comments on LFW? it is posited as a 'greater good', but i don't necessarily see it as one, the way it is defined.
yx has mentioned one reason, love, and I think there are at least three other good reasons to motivate God to give us free will in spite of the possibility (not certainty) of evil and I discuss those in my thread on libertarian free will, which is linked to in the third link in my first post in this thread. [/QUOTE]
Just another reason why Geebob has earned my great respect. :thumb:
yes, i agree with that. i just don't think open view solves that problem sufficiently.
I can't think you're dealing with the open view then. In the open view, God simply isn't the ultimate reason for why a person is going to hell. the reason: there is no fact of the matter as to who is going to hell until they live there life and perform certain actions that they personally can realistically avoid (in our context, everyone could have responded to God's grace (in whatever form that was available) and there were several points in their life where this was clearly the correct choice).
And of course there is no tragedy that some person did not have a chance to gain heaven (albeit, you have to combine the open view with inclusivism here).
this discussion is about if OV is a sufficient remanding of reprobation at all.
I have something very specific in mind when I speak of reprobation. It is the guarantee that any specific person will be damned before they have lived a life of responding to God in one way or another. That simply is not there in the open view(combined with the greater hope-which is inclusivism and/or post mortem evangelization-from now on I'll omit this and just speak of the open view unless specifically dealing with the issue of the unevagnelized).
it was also pointed out to me that very few people have any emotional objections to demons being sent to hell, without any chance at all of salvation or restoration to their former goodness and glory. now, it's true that the angels and demons aren't our neighbors etc, so the same arguments don't apply to them. but it does show that for them at least, we don't have a problem with God condemning a creature he made.
They had a chance, a very good chance to remain in God's favor. They were created perfect and without flaw. I believe that one reason that they did not have a second chance is that they had far less of an excuse to rebel from God than we did as we were ignorant and more susceptible to deception and they were not as they were created with significantly more innate wisdom, intelligence and power. But they were not reprobate creatures.
we don't know all the options, what we DO know is that Paul obeyed Jesus. it is impossible to say from just this data whether Paul could have done anything else.
That's no different from saying that we don't know if free will theism is true or determinism is true. Yes it's controversial and yet some will hold to one position as he deems it as the best position for various reasons. It is not impossible to insist that Paul could have rejected God because those who hold that everyone has libertarian freedom with respect to this must conclude that Paul could have rejected Christ. Of course I am defending both points of view because although I find the first more coherent, I don't find the notion that some are guaranteed heaven totally unreasonable, though it would mean that they did not have libertarian freedom with regard to that one particular issue.
God would not have done this if He was not assured of success.
But we see God acting radically in the life of others who reject him in the end such as King Saul and Balaam the prophet. And look at Pharaoh. We do not know whether he repented after his incredible encounter with God or that he couldn’t have done so.
And his past zeal was also a part of God's gift to Paul... look at his resume, born a jew, son of a Pharisee, etc. All this came from God in the end. Everything good we have, in the end, comes from God; without Him i can do nothing. That is my belief at least.
I don't see that the zeal there was a necessary outcome of his past. There are many with a similar past that did not go from town to town persecuting Christians for the sake of righteousness. Perhaps Paul could have taken his marvelous resume to the end of becoming a quiet but respected teacher of the law who did not do much with regard to the Christian problem. It could have turned that Paul would have been read today by scholars not because of his contribution to Christianity but because of a contribution toward understanding ancient non-Christian Judaism. Then again, maybe he would have converted to Christianity without ever having the Damascus road experience because all though he wasn't zealous, he still sought the truth.
Reprobation says that God intentionally sends people to hell and torment.
But it could also and equally be written that God intentionally held back from some people the gift of salvation that he gave freely to others.
That God guarantees heaven for some does not indicate that he intentionally held others back from heaven. It only means that he held back a guarantee. A lack of guarantee is not the same as holding one back. You can still respond to God's grace though you weren't guaranteed from birth.
Also, a note on my definition of reprobation: I
Perhaps Paul would not have been saved without this gift.
in the open view, there would be no fact of the matter about what he would've done for certain without the Damascus road experience. He'd still have a chance to be saved without that experience at some point in his life.
Another person who did not come to repentance might say 'well, even I would have, when presented like that! But now I am condemned. Why does God love me less than Paul?'
God choose Paul to increase this other person’s chance of salvation. And though he did not receive what Paul received, he can still look back on his life and truly understand "I am condemned because I rejected God's grace where I truly could have accepted. God did what he could do to bring me salvation but I am the reason it did not take hold. The buck stops with me."
So, if God grants some people a 'guaranteed' ticket so-to-speak, even ONE person, we end up in the same scenario... why was it given to one person (who then escapes Hell and goes to heaven) and not another (who then goes to hell)?
because God often works with select individuals to increase the chance of salvation for others. Salvation is not purely between God and the individual. It's also about building community and that means using people to make it happen.
Can we not say that I obviously was just as unfair by giving one child an advantage other children did not have, as i would by arbitrarily disqualifying some student's tests?
to make this scenario fit the picture I'm painting here, lets say that you gave some children the key so that they could help the others study. Not so that the ones with the key individually could pass. You do this because you want the children not to just depend on you but upon eachother in community. And you give the keys to children that you can depend upon to make a real effort to get the other children to study. When those children reject the offer, it is on their own heads. And that they didn’t reject it is absolutely no indication that they couldn’t have cooperated instead. Any one of them truly could have cooperated. There are no reprobate. There is no guarantee, no certainty that any one should reject cooperation before they do just that, reject the help.
Maybe, but then who do i have to thank for the fact that I grew up in a Christian household, vs. the son of an islamic Imam or in the family of the Politburo?
Give honor where it is due. Of course, primarily, you have God to thank for sending his son to make salvation possible and his spirit to make the spreading of the word possible. And I don’t think it sacrilegious to be grateful to and for the missionaries and evangelists who brought the word to our people through the ages and to our parents for responding.
Not that sometimes those haven't become Christians, but the deck is stacked against them from the moment they are born, whereas for me, it wasn't. This is just a pushback, and in some sense a rationalization.
And of course here I would assert inclusivism. Even though they may never hear the gospel, God’s grace is still evident for them such that should they respond, God will forgive them and not hold their sins against them.
this is EXACTLY the same argument as reprobation, but with a reason this time. SOME people had to go to hell, JUST to prove that we have LFW. For LFW to exist according to this definition, some must not be saved. How is this different from reprobation?
I disagree that anyone ever had to perish. Adam and Eve never had to sin and truly, they may not have fallen. They and their children may have remained pure. There was no sin nature to exponentially increase the probability for sin.
In light of the fall however, it may be a statistical necessity that someone would reject God unto death though no one in particular. Then again, maybe there wasn’t. maybe man would have never sunk to the depths where God would regret creating him.
one question though: LFW seems to be equivalent to saying that we are irrational. i guess that's a view that reflects reality though.
I don’t see the connection. Perhaps libertarian freedom makes it possible for us to act irrationally but people are still perfectly capable of assessing the most reasonable course of action and taking that action in libertarian freedom. Then again, I don’t see that determinism would guarantee that one would act rationally. One may have such a flawed emotional state that they would choose against the most rational course of action. Consider addiction. I don’t believe that all choices made due to addiction are libertarian free, but they are often irrational.
(because LFW necessarily implies that a decision is made based on NO outside influences),
this is one of the most common misconceptions about libertarian freedom. When a decision is libertarian free, there is no influence that guaranteed what one would do. But there can be influences. Maybe the influence shifts the probabilities of what one would do. That still is perfectly consistent with the notion that one can act and refrain from acting as long as the probabilities for either is neither zero or a hundred percent.
it's just 'random' (in a truly random sense!). kinda scary actually, that LFW really consists of the set of decisions where i look back and say 'why did i do that?'
I’d like to mention that I typically reject the term “random” for describing libertarian free decisions as random is typically a term applied to non-rational and unconscious entities. A better term would be “arbitrary”. And is an arbitrary decision irrational? It might be, if it is not driven by any particular reasoning. But I’d still consider it arbitrary if all of the reasoning for all of the options are not very strong and somewhat equal. However, even when reasoning is equal for several different options I would not consider it arbitrary. And of course, reasoning is not always equal though one may still choose the options that are less reasonable than the more reasonable options.
how much better of a chance can you get than sitting in front of God himself?
I think you are thinking of post mortem evangelization, which is significantly different from inclusivism. But they are both part of the greater hope which asserts the possibility for salvation for those who have never heard the gospel.
anyone want to respond to my comments on LFW? it is posited as a 'greater good', but i don't necessarily see it as one, the way it is defined.
yx has mentioned one reason, love, and I think there are at least three other good reasons to motivate God to give us free will in spite of the possibility (not certainty) of evil and I discuss those in my thread on libertarian free will, which is linked to in the third link in my first post in this thread. [/QUOTE]
Just another reason why Geebob has earned my great respect. :thumb: