Thoughts?
Fixed your link a bit, Pog, so we can watch it directly.
Although I want to get back to [tag]Alex Smith[/tag] about why the final few inches of a YT video seem cut off when posted here. Is that just me, or is it a global forum issue? (And if it’s just me, why only here on the forum, and how do I fix it? Usually it isn’t a practical problem, but I don’t like spending 45 minutes watching something feeling like I’m looking at it with blindness creeping into my right eye! 
)
I watched the video. I don’t think any free will theology can get off the ground without an account of God’s knowledge of free actions. Does he know “before” (logically or temporally or both) creatures freely choose that they will reject him? If so, why create them, knowing they will go to Hell? I suppose on this softened version of Hell it is because it is better to exist in such a place - where there is some happiness - than not to exist at all. And if Hell is really such that it is not so bad as to cause people the trouble of acting differently, can we really say it is “Hell” after all? But, if God does not know, how can he ever give up in trying to save them? For all he knows, more time and more “pain” could cause the free being to choose otherwise than they have been.
Happy now 
^^ Well, the banner on the opening page now warps back around to the EU sometimes, but the video in the opening post still cuts off (visually not audibly) right before the 39 minute mark, just like it did before.
Far from being a gamebreaker (there’s rarely anything important over on the far right of the screen anyway), it just looks slightly weird. 
Returning this thread back to topic :
Thanks POG for posting this. I enjoyed the video overall as it gives me the impression that I am understanding the discussion thus far. Of course I have read Jonathan Edward’s Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (who hasn’t) and am somewhat familiar with John Gerstner, having read his angry diatribe (to put it mildly) against dispensationalism, Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth.
It is the theology of Edwards, Gerstner & Co that almost made an atheist out of me.
From the second position discussed, I recently enjoyed reading through The Great Divorce by CS Lewis and have recently listened to a recording of Timothy Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church (PCA) as he proposes a similar view. I find this second view much more palatable than the first. If one allows for post-mortem salvation (as implied in The Great Divorce. Of course, I don’t believe that Keller would be willing to touch this with a 10-foot poll as the PCA would snuff the conversation rather abruptly), then I would find this view compatible with the position of universal restoration that I am leaning greatly toward (okay, maybe I am convinced).
Although I enjoyed his discussion of the first two views, I was disappointed to find that the speaker did not give Universal Restoration a fair hearing. He should have spent more time discussing both historical and modern proponents of this position and explaining why he disagrees, rather than passing it off as he did.
WooHoo!!!
I knew you’d get to this point from the beginning
I find the libertarian free-will argument that Chuck makes to be illogical due to the fact that we are born into this world, this present evil age, through no choice of our own. We did not “choose” to be born into sin, surrounded by sin, conditioned by our culture to sin, and even influenced by demonic evil (spiritual and cultural) to sin. As Paul says, we are “dead” in our sins and transgressions, “slaves” of unrighteousness. Neither the “dead” or “slaves” have “free-will”. To be raised to life or saved from evil is not by our choice, but is solely by the will of the savior, the giver of life.
Sherman, what if we did choose it? What if some of us actually choose to be objects of God’s wrath? All for His Glory of course.
The problem is that the scripture would seem to indicate just the opposite: Some are chosen to be vessels of dishonor (and honor), but the language seems to make it clear that the choice is made for them.
That choice ‘for them’ makes more sense if Paul is talking about people chosen to POUR mercy and others to POUR wrath. Which is what vessels are for, and how they are metaphorically used (including in judgment statements) elsewhere in the scriptures.
Interesting. I hadn’t thought of that angle before…
It also fits with Paul’s attempts to not only get the Jews and Gentiles in the Roman congregation (and elsewhere) to play nice with one another, but also to not regard themselves as inherently superior to pagan Gentiles or non-Christian Jews.
Compare with chp 11: everyone had a part to play in bringing the gospel of Christ to fruition, and those parts weren’t pretty for anyone, so don’t be resentful toward those-guys-over-there about it.
Well, that would certainly make sense with the thematic thrust of Paul’s letters in general, as well…