The Evangelical Universalist Forum

A Question to All: Grace vs. Reward

Some good stuff there, Mel

Thought I might add, if we don’t have “free will” we also don’t have “free won’t.” :mrgreen:

By that definition, I agree, no; only God has that kind of freedom.

By that definition the argument is pointless, for no Christian would think otherwise. However, free will is not limited to the absense of an external constraining agency. This is an abstract idea that has no relevancy to our argument. The Biblical definition of free will is obedience to God. This implies also that we can disobey God (and unless we make God a schizophrenic, God does not disobey Himself). But if our choices are nothing more than God’s determined “choices” through us, then the meaning of many words and concepts are at best illussary and nonsensical (as Jason brought up). There is no such thing as repentance (either of God or us), obedience, sin, or evil. God can not hate evil, and choose it at the same time. Scripture says God can not even be tempted by evil, let alone choose it. Either God is both good and evil, or God is one and not the other. Scripture is clear that God is absolutely good: “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.” Can God choose something that is clearly not part of His essence? Yes, He works all things together for good, and He works all things according to the counsel of His will, but these verses are speaking of the end result, what is accomplished at the end–the beginning, God becoming all in all. This is a promise for the future. But if God is already all in all (as determinism implicitly states), then sin, death and evil are absolute and eternal. Scripture says otherwise. Sin, death, and evil will be destroyed.

I haven’t meant to ignore my side of the conversation, Justin, by the way; I’ve just been very busy. :slight_smile:

I may be wrong, but it seems the main thrust of your concern isn’t about the conceptual issues of grace and reward, but about whether there are rewards that can be finally lost which might be lost by accident or by the intentions of other people or by our own sinful choices or any combination thereof.

From our perspective, it hurts to consider a good we might have been able to have but were denied having for various reasons. God knows, I know this very well; and I have to trust that God was always planning and working around the historical eventualities (which are not potentials but actuals for Him from His perspective) so that (as He promised me once in a mystical vision, after showing me how much I would hurt) everything will turn out all right in the end. But He didn’t say how everything would turn out all right; and what hurts most (aside from my selfishness, which ought to hurt) is that it looks as though God specifically pointed me to faithfully do something, with freakish coincidences continuing to point me in that direction, and yet what I was appointed to do was also apparently intended from the outset to ensure the reward of someone else with the reward that I couldn’t help but want so much. So here I am in pain, and it’s hard to bear that the only ‘reward’ I can clearly hope for is salvation from my sin. I need more reward than that!!–don’t I!? I just want the pain to be over and to be healed and comforted.

Did I lose the good that was given instead to someone else? Was I originally intended to have that good but now have failed? Is it my fault? (I can certainly see some ways in which I was and still am a sinner in regard to this.) I am certainly not receiving any of the goods I wanted now; nor does it look like I can ever hope to have those goods, now or ever. And God is so far in no hurry (apparently) to relieve me by putting me into a healing situation. And it hurts and it hurts and it hurts and it hurts and it hurts and it never stops hurting ever…

(And this time of year is when it tends to hurt the worst.)

St. Paul says that the suffering of the present time does not even compare to the glory of the time to come. Intellectually, I can believe that; emotionally, it’s much more difficult. (Though it helps for me to keep in mind that my meagre suffering is nothing compared to what 4/5 of humanity bears every day. :wink: ) Willfully, I always have the choice from hour to hour and minute to minute, to trust God on this; or, to not. I don’t always succeed in trusting God on this. :neutral_face: :frowning:

But as C. S. Lewis (following teachers through antiquity, including his own beloved teacher George MacDonald) used to write: if there is some good we are not receiving, it is because God intends to give us something better sooner or later, and is making use of our present circumstances (naturally accidental and/or due to various other choices, including sinful ones, whether mine or others’) to prepare us for receiving those better goods.

And that’s a promise of the fulfillment of fair-togetherness. Everything will in fact be all right. Someday.

(Meanwhile, one of my chief responsibilities is to protect and foster the good of other people, especially the one whom I love the most; and to do so self-sacrificially where necessary. Just as God does. It should matter to me more that they have their rightful rewards, from God. Amen. :slight_smile: )

Hey Jason,

In my mind, the two can’t be separated; the one determines the other. Our concept determines our understanding of the flesh and blood reality. I don’t give much thought to how “accidents” or other people’s actions interfere with “my rewards”.
For me, the agument came down to: in a (and it need not even by every; even just one) given situation, I chose A; could I have chosen B or some other choice, or is it all determined by God and His grace?

Actually, John’s comments have cleared the clouds for me in a lot of ways. I had actually been wrestling with the idea of determinism awhile before John entered the conversation. John’s input helped me to realize how ridiculous the idea truly is! If all that ever happens on this earth is simply God’s determined will, and we have no say in the matter–we are nothing more than extensions of the Divine Will (sort of like me driving my car), then the writers of the Bible (both Old and New) were either a bunch of liars, fruitcakes, or I don’t have the capacity to understand a word of it!

Now I believe that despite our choices, in the end, our God of love will reconcile all of us (through our choice) and no one will “miss out” on the *all *of God becoming all in all (our great and everlasting “reward”). But this will be after Christ’s rule of the Kingdom. In the mean time (or at least in this life), God has ordained the adventure of faith; this calls for us to make a choice based on the reality that we already know, and based on a totally other reality that we don’t know. I really don’t look at conversion/becoming born-again as an experience that requires pure faith. Pure faith has to do with things that are not seen/felt/experienced. We get a taste of these things (our future in God) by His grace when he chooses us for redemption, and we simply respond to His love. We experience love, and then respond to it. This is not pure faith, this is the reality of personal relationship. Faith would be more like if someone told me of their experience of God, and I simply trusted and believed their word, with no personal experience outside of their word. I would have faith in this person regarding God.
But we trust and love God primarily out of experience–we trust in His great love and forgiveness precisely because we have experienced just that–love and forgiveness. But where mature faith comes in (and I believe this is what a certain type of reward is about–reward that can be attained or not attained), is when we decide to trust God’s word based solely on His word–His promises–when everything around us (our own minds included!) is contradicting it. Faith is a process of maturation where both God’s grace and our choice are involved. In the end (our complete and total salvation) God’s grace will prevail; in the meantime our faith determines much. At least this is how I see it.

  • How and why does a benevolent God create and utilize evil? There is a reason, it’s called the “mystery of iniquity”, eh.*

                                                       **The Power of Good & Evil **
     The virus was a corkscrew affair, a skinny spiral with a tiny pod at one end. Highly contagious, it fell from an alien world and landed in Eden. Eve was infected first. Succumbing to its poison, a helpless sigh whisped from her throat, a wounded weep of death mingled with sweetness. Then cold her body convulsed, and collapsed to the earth in a fleshy heap.
    
     Deadly, infectious, the virus began to replicate. The contagion spread quickly from Eve to her husband, and then to their children, as the Adamic race was plunged into physical and spiritual death.
    
     Today this same malignant disease is still loose upon the earth. All mankind is infected and the mortality rate is 100%. It multiplies in the mind, then overwhelms the spirit. The infection is swift, lethal, the virus cunning and virulent, a concert of constant mutation ever surviving in ingenious modes of new expression. 
    
     The onset is void of symptoms, each young host feeling self-directed and in control of his destiny. Later indications are confusion, idolatry, immorality, failure, and aging.
    
     The virus secretes a sugary anesthetic, an affection for the things of the world. Advanced cases appear increasingly numbed by the saccharine of temporal accomplishments. Death follows quickly, often accompanied by a sickening sweet delusion of self-satisfaction, and the spirit departs, rarely ever sensing the true purpose of its visit. This disease is Evil, and this is the Mystery of Iniquity.
    
     From ancient times, the purpose of evil has been sought as an urgent serum. Discovery of a benevolent motive, hiding in its folds, might assuage the pain of earthly life, upholstering its rubble with comfort and meaning.
    
     The doctors of divinity, convened in postmortem, have long tried to isolate the cause of Adam’s demise and to explain the epidemic of evil. Superstitions of every sort have been proffered, the most common being to blame the Devil, declaring that his purpose is contrary to his maker. Beyond that, many charge individual men, asserting they are the Devil’s tools.
    
     But these lame excuses are incomplete, and demeaning to an all sovereign God. And still, there is no religious doctrine that has been able to synthesize a cure- because there is no cure for the working of God. And the profusion of theological fables has only further obscured his true purpose, in the Mystery of Iniquity. Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously? Thou hast planted them, yea, they have taken root. 
    

Garrison Russell

There’s a lot to be said in favor of determinism; it emphasizes a good number of ideas that are important to keep in the total theological account. But there are other ideas that are also important to keep in the account, such as the reality of even derivative persons. Without multiple real persons, there cannot be love. (Nor sin either, for that matter.)

Blessed are thou, O child of God, who sufferest,
And canst not understand
The reason for thy pain, yet gladly leavest
Thy life in His blest Hand.

  Yea, blessed art thou whose faith is "not offended"
  By trials unexplained,
  By mysteries unsolved, past understanding, 
  Until the goal is gained. 

  Freda Hanbury Allen 

You say,

I MUST DISAGREE

“I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.” Isa 45:7

My friend I won’t even ask what you do with this scripture, as most that espouse free moral agency have the problem of not wanting to acknowledge that God creates and utilizes evil. Instead let me begin by tackling the concept of “God All in All.”

From a practical and relative point of view, which makes up the realm we now reside in, we do not see all things under His feet thus our vision of God All in All is lacking. But from a positional perspective(eternal) God is, was and always will be All in All. Let us understand, that we are living in one set of dimensions of time and space and in God there are many dimensions of both time and space and even beyond. Thus the physicist and cosmologist scratch there heads, as they realize there are multiple dimensions, beyond that which we observe on earth. Their formulas tell these scientist of worlds unseen but frustration sets in when empirical evidence is found to be impossible to garner. Such are the ways of an infinite God whose ways are past finding out.

He breaketh in pieces mighty men in ways past finding out, And setteth others in their stead. Job 34:24

O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! Rom 11:33

If we are to walk deep in Christ our eye must become single and we must learn to see His goodness in all that He brings into our lives. God becoming All in All, first begins in our understanding. The more we see HIM, the less space there is for “self” to occupy.

My free will friends, one day God will expand your vision so that you will have eyes to see that not only do all things begin and end with Him, but all that transpires in the middle, serves His purposes … purposes, which are always for GOOD

Please note, I certainly don’t understand why God allows all that He does. I only know that when I turn left He is there and when I turn right He is there. I cannot escape Him and He has truly shown me how helpless I am without Him.

Who of us has ever given to God, that God should repay us? Whatever is under the whole heaven is His. "If you are righteous, what do you give to Him, or what does He receive from your hand? The Omnipotent One ever humbles us when He asks,"who has given to Me that I should repay him?

Brethren, for a surety He is before all things, and by Him all things consist. For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom be glory forever. To Him be dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Dear loved ones, if He hasn’t already, may He one day bid you, come up hither to His throne that you might hear every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, sing in chorus, “To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.”

Tis such a glorious and holy thing, this Hitherworld, of which we are bid to come.*****

MY STORY

“The Lord works out everything for His own ends." Prov 16:4a

Yes He does and because God is Love, all that He does, is purposed in Love. I have buried a baby, faced cancer, had all my earthly possessions stolen, and now live at the end of an oxygen hose and I know, all has been done in Love to lift me to Him and His Kingdom where there is never loss nor corruption. If things on this earth were always well with me, I should never have desired Christ, a Heavenly City nor His Kingdom come. It is sometimes so very hard to see, through the tears of sorrow, but I know all He does worketh for good.

Allow me to close with this message I found this morning in a old file. I don’t know the author, but it beautifully and succinctly echos my thoughts above.

“Spiritual death belongs only to those who suffer calamity, and then cannot see God in control of it. By faith you must face apparent failure, and in tears declare that the incident is God’s love for you. This is the supernatural strength of a warrior Son.”

Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above. Jn. 19:11

His blessings and peace to you,

John

****** (Rom 11:35, Job 44:11, Job 35:7,Col 1:17, Rom 11:36, 1Pet 5:11 & Rev 5:13)

( These free will/sovereignty debates can stretch on, seemingly forever, so I hope to beg off with this being my last post. Thanks for all you have shared and please note I once held to a belief in free will. Then I suffered a terrible crime against me, by another man. I was about my way, to shoot this terrible fellow, when God told me He was responsible. I put the gun away and it was then, I began to really know Him and His children. )*

Do you believe God is/are multiple real persons? If not, then love can still exist without multiple real persons; for God is love and eternal in the unity of Father, Son, and Spirit. However, sin can only exist with multiple real persons.

But orthodox trinitarianism does involve God being multiple real persons; just not multiple substantial entities. (Neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance, as the old creed goes.)

If God was not an interpersonal unity in God’s own fundamental self-existence, there could still be some kind of interpersonal fair-togetherness (or actions against fulfilling fair-togetherness between persons) once God created other persons substantially different from Himself; but God could not essentially be love, and God would have nothing to do intrinsically with love and righteousness and positive justice. Nor would there be any ultimately moral ground for morality between persons.

In that case (perhaps not-incidentally to some recent discussions), it would also be correct to say that God is ‘beyond good or evil’, since God would be ultimately amoral and yet ontologically ‘beyond’ us and our interpersonal relationships with each other. The same would be true of an atheistic ground of our existence being similarly ‘beyond good or evil’.

On the other hand, if there are multiple Gods, then we aren’t talking about the final ground of existence anymore, and so either atheism is true or, if theism is true after all, we’re inadvertently engaging in idolatry by worshiping created entities and not yet recognizing the real God.

Ortho-trin isn’t either of those positions. (Thank goodness. :slight_smile: A phrase which, btw, would have less of a meaning, unless at least binitarian theism is true; not bi-theism, not atheism, not mere monotheism, not subordinate polytheism, etc.)

Speaking as one of your free will friends, I really do not have any problem understanding that all things begin and end with Him, and all that transpires in the middle serves His purposes which are always for good. Including our free will. Nor do I have to deny God’s omnipresence or omniscience (nor His omnipotence either). Without Him, we would not be merely helpless, we would not even exist at all, period.

I don’t have to deny the personal responsibility (much less the existence) of other people in order to affirm all these things; just as I do not deny the personal responsibility of God in even the tragedies that happen. Which God voluntarily pays for, because He truly is good and not evil.

(Notably, the verse of eschatological triumph that you quoted from RevJohn does not testify that all things are in fact only the Father either. But rather that creatures are creatures, and God is God. We are warned in RevJohn not to worship even angels, but only God alone. Christ may in some sense share His throne with us in RevJohn, but it is the Father and the Son Who are worshiped on the throne, not those around the throne.)

I don’t have any trouble believing that at all. :slight_smile:

But neither do I have any trouble believing that you and that other man (and I) are children of the Father who are not the Father Himself. Nor do I have any trouble believing that that other man, as a child of God, has some responsibility for what he did, too.

Jason I was earlier reading a message where you spoke of suffering much pain and I was touched deeply. I know such pain myself and yes I too would rather God just take me. I love this excerpt from a poem by San Juan de la Cruz as it speaks to my state. If I remember correctly I have rearranged a few lines of this poem to more clearly get to the crux of this painful position.

I Live Yet Do Not Live in Me

I live yet do not live in me,
am waiting as my life goes by,
and die because I do not die.

A thousand deaths my agony
waiting as my life goes by,
dying because I do not die.

This life I live alone I view
as robbery of life, and so
it is a constant death – with no
way out until I live with you.
God, hear me, what I say is true:
I do not want this life of mine,
and die because I do not die.

O Father God, when will it be
that I can say without a lie:
I live because I do not die?

Any way I digress from the subject at hand of which I would like to share one thought. Jason, you said:

Please allow me to share the story of my introduction to God’s sovereignty and my futility. I will make it short.

Some years ago I was praying and I was cut to the very core of my soul. I was beside myself with grief for the way I had raised my children. I just knew I had done them irreparable damage by my sins, more sins of omission than commission (IE. neglect). I was a complete puddle and when my pain became almost unbearable, God spoke to me, as clear and as tenderly, as I have ever heard Him. He said, “you could have done nothing differently.” Whoa, did that change my tune and yes my theology, also.

A few weeks later I would be led to call my son, whom I always felt an estrangement and I believe he with me. I told him I had come to see him in a new light and I was proud of him and in his corner no matter what. I spoke to him about my previous negativity and asked his forgiveness. The asking of forgiveness was for his sake. A few weeks later Tyler wrote a wonderful letter reminiscing different events we had shared and how he always thought of me as the best father a child could have. By the way I raised him most of his life as a single parent. Any way today we have a most wonderful relationship as I impute no sin against him. Such is the way of love for me.

I just had to add that and know I shall be praying for your pain,

John

Then let’s just call it what it is: choice. The bible has no definition of free will, that’s something that man added in. I would also argue that we do have choice (within certain parameters), but this does not approximate true free will, and I’ve found more than one definition of free will that encompasses the concepts in that definition. Even we cannot choose God on our own, he must choose us.

Just seeing this small thread as a microcosm of the world at large - how much more deeply are we being changed in our humanity by our responses to each other’s pain than we would be by each other’s happiness?

That is not to say that we don’t wish each other’s happiness - but personally I always feel more deeply affected when I realise how another has suffered than to be told of their happiest moments (I hope that doesn’t sound as bad as it seems to me as I type it).

Is this the good that comes out of the evil - the opportunity to feel towards the other almost as if we are the other?

Is this what God feels?