The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Cor 13 - - The incompatibility of Adam's free will and God's

Evangelical Universalism Arguments for Evangelical Universalism
#1

I posted this note on Facebook. I’m wondering if anyone might have any feedback or thoughts.
Remember that outside of this forum, most people don’t believe in EU. So please recognize, this is not to say that all libertarians are inconsistent. I’m referring to Libertarians who believe in ECT.

[size=150]Cor 13 - - The incompatibility of Adam’s free will and God’s Perfect Love[/size]

Over the last 2 years I’ve held this idea but never really put it to pen. I’d like to throw it out there because I think there is weight to it. However, like so many other things, I may very well wrong.

This idea tells me that the love of Corinthians 13 is incompatibile with the idea that God eternally damns people due to their free choices.

In Cor 13, I take the understanding that Paul is describing the love of God. I see no apparent reason, directly or indirectly, to accept that this love he describes is anything but God’s love. I think most Christians (except 1- SHMUEL!) accept this premise.

Love is patient.
Love is kind.
Love does not envy.
Love does not boast.
Love is not proud.
love does not dishonor others.
love is not self seeking.
Love is not easily angered.
love keeps no record of wrongs.*
Love does not delight in evil.
Love rejoices in the truth.
Love always protect.*
Love always trusts.
Love always hopes.
Love always perseveres.*

There are three compononents marked that show an incompatibility with Adam (pre-fall).

Here is my question:

Do you believe God loved Adam, before the fall, with the love Paul describes? If so then how do you account for the three components marked.

If God loved Adam (pre-fall) and his love for him keeps no records of wrongs, then why eternal damnation?
If God loved Adam (pre-fall) and his love was always protecting him then why let a crocodile into the childrens bedroom?
If God loved Adam (pre-fall) and his love always perseveres, they why does it at some point give up?

If God breaks any of those components then he did not love Adam pre-fall with the love of Cor 13. But why would that be for Adam was without sin, in the image of God, and was not dying.

Calvinists are immune to this because of their view on election. But I’d like to hear what libertarians make of it.

#2

I would have maintained all of your premises and your three components.

(1) One is in hell because he eternally rejects Yahweh. This is torment (and self-imposed punishment) in the most profoundest sense. (2) Tyrannical protection is simply not genuine Love – being vulnerable to suffering is. Yahweh would be glorified in extending love to the resistant for eternity. (3) He never gives up on calling humanity to repent.

#3

Brothers,
Thanks for the help with this. I appreciate it.

I’ll try to deal with the 3 points you raise and if I’m wrong then I’ll need help seeing it.

If I get the gist of this response, you’re saying that God’s love of Corinthians 13 is true for Adam even if he is in hell eternally. The punishment is Adam’s doing due to his free-will choice.

You’re probably right about that. Libertarians are all over the map regarding theodicy. While some hold that it’s God’s wrath that’s upon them they also hold that God doesn’t damn anyone to hell.

(2) Tyrannical protection is simply not genuine Love – being vulnerable to suffering is. Yahweh would be glorified in extending love to the resistant for eternity.

This one I think fails. Tyrannical protection has nothing to do with placing your children in the bedroom with a dragon - and the craftiest of them. If love protects then it protects. This manuever seems to require an interpretation as if paul meant - “Love always protects, in a weak sense”. There’s nothing clear to indicate that it does. Likewise, it always perseveres seems to indicate that it NEVER gives up. Of course if protection can be interpreted into “non-tyrcannical protection” then anything else can be deluded with such alterations as well. Thus love almost never fails, loves is hardly ever rude, love is sometime violent. I would reject this one.

(3) He never gives up on calling humanity to repent.

A strange response indeed and one I’m familiar with. I do see that people like C.S. Lewis reasoned that the door was locked from the inside and that God does indeed want them to repent but they simply refuse to leave, even desiring it over heaven.

I find that this argument may be helpful in helping most Arminains understand that the scriptures are more complex then they may think. They too will find that they have to alter their understanding and adopt a more sophisticated (philosophical) approach in order to maintain their eschatology. For if God’s love perseveres all thing then the question is does it persevere an eternal hell? Does it always hope? I see Lewis saying yes, but he has to import a notion which seems highly unbiblical - that is the rich man likes where he’s at in comparison to lazarus.

Again, any help with this would be appreciated.

Aug

#4

I’ve given it a bit more thought and want to say a bit more on these responses:

(1) One is in hell because he eternally rejects Yahweh. This is torment (and self-imposed punishment) in the most profoundest sense.
Brothers, would you have said then that if they did repent, God would save them out of hell?

(2) Tyrannical protection is simply not genuine Love – being vulnerable to suffering is. Yahweh would be glorified in extending love to the resistant for eternity.

Here I’m a bit confused. For God to restrict access to the children hardly qualifies as not allowing suffering. They already had the law placed infront of them (don’t eat or touch this tree). Is that not enough? Why is it that a crafty creature as a Dragon is required in order for love to exist?

(3) He never gives up on calling humanity to repent.
Even those in hell? Does is call reach into the depths of hell and can they hear it?

I’m afriad my favor towards Calvinism blocks me from really having anything constructive to say regarding this idea. I’m one who endorses that the only reason we repent or accept God’s call to repentance is because God causes us to accept it via whatever means he deems necessary. Some people object because they see hard determinism, but for me, I feel that even if God uses any means to cause something, it will happen without fail. So if God chooses to humble King Nebuchadnezzar (yea I had to look that up to spell it right) then there is no chance of Neg. to resist God’s hand - IT WILL BE DONE. So I see as God having mercy on us which brings about repentance, not the other way around where we cause God to have mercy.
But I realize this is a more calvinistic methodology and does not allow for serious dialogue between libertarians.

Aug

#5

Except if Hebrews 9:27 happens to you or after Rev 20:11-15. Anyway…Why did John say not to pray for people who have committed the sin unto death? (1John 5:16) Is this not an example of God saying this person has gone too far to repent and seared their conscience?

#6

Firstly, I can’t stress enough how much of a pleb I am. Though I grew up with “Christian” teaching, I consider myself a follower of Yeshua of only five or six years. I might not be able help you on what orthodox Arminians believe on eschatology – though I think I have a sufficient understanding of their general soteriology. My eschatology has an obvious “Lewisian” flavour. I do believe that God’s wrath is upon those in hell and that God doesn’t “send” (in one sense) them to hell – I don’t believe maintaining both is incoherent. I must also note that with some of these things, I am primarily arguing as a Devil’s Advocate. I would largely consider myself a universalist these days. That the purifying of Adam in the Lake of Fire is his own destruction, so that He may repent of his own God-graced will.

In my earlier view, Adam is tormented eternally and subjectively for two reasons. Firstly, for his own perverse desires of sovereignty and darkness which can offer no meaningful joy. For we can only find joy in servitude – Yahweh too (God is not obsessed with His own sovereignty – this is a Roman and Islamic influence. God is not Caesar, nor is He Allah. The God of the Bible triumphs through humility). Those that actively resist the Holy Spirit’s call to change their mind from their own sovereignty to one of humility, and refuse to partake of the divine joy, do so by their own choice. As Yahweh’s wrath is almost always permitted and mediated through His enemies in both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures alike, so can the eternal and freely willed vexing of Adam express Yahweh’s eternal wrath upon himself. Secondly, Adam is tormented because he must endure the very presence of the Lamb (Revelation 14:10), who’s duty has always been to call and reconcile him to Yahweh, and will continue for eternity (indeed love does persevere! Yahweh will be glorified in this eternal offer). Creatures that hate the light are always tormented in light. This is Adam’s chosen torment, and he is ultimately responsible for both.

Hahaha… okay. I will get to this later, because it’s a huge point. There are responses to this though! :slight_smile:

I’m not convinced either way – whether the door is locked from the inside or the outside. But I don’t think it is wrong to believe that Yahweh locks them inside to keep their darkness from the open-gated Kingdom. Darkness is rightly not welcome in the Kingdom. Either way, I think the unrepentant will want relief from their own torment, as they will find no joy and no perverse pleasure in their condition. But they may still prefer it over servitude. Their “joy” is in this preference, not the torment that it inevitably creates. I think this is what Lewis meant. I’m not sure if I have explained that clearly enough.

#7

Brothers,
I’m totally sympathetic. The last quote you posted of mine was to say this argument of the incompatibility of Adam’s free will and God’s ever persuing love is what I was referring to.

I only meant that this argument I posted is not proof for Universalism but is possibly helpful to introduce to arminians that their eschatology will have to be reshaped in order to sustatin some form of coherency. Lewis seems to have done that; and I won’t say he’s wrong. Though I don’t agree, I do leave that door open and appreciate your point of view. It’s very possible, I may be misunderstanding God and his “curse” on us. There are so many things like this in scripture - like an angry God who’s appeased by a sacrifice - that I’m open to your stance.

However, somoene like Aaron hasn’t really commented and I’m hoping he might tell us how as an ECT free will believer, what it means for God’s love (which perseveres all things) to abandon Adom without hope? Perhaps he’s like Lewis and thinks God would save them but then never want to leave.

Aug

#8

No desire to do this, Aug. Sorry to disappoint you. I do have a couple of questions for you that concern me. 1. Why are you so infatuated with the concept of ECT free will believers? “Libertarian Gamblers” as you call it. 2. Also why are you so caught up in man made labeling the body of Christ that only causes division?

#9

Well so much for that. :astonished:

Brothers,
It seems for liberatarians, who subscribe to ECT and hold a literal view of Corinthains 13, they will be pushed into becoming more like Calvinists.

God’s love as defined by Paul in Corinthains 13 is for the overcomer (in Calvinist terms: The Elect). But God does not love those who fail with this high-end, top of the line, creme-de-la-creme type of love. Instead God has a “weaker” form of love for those who burn in hell.

But if Adam had no sin before the fall then why did God not love Adam with this premier love? Why does this love not endure all things?

It’s an interesting question I think for the ECT literalists. I realize Olson and other learned men probably don’t subscribe to the Garden story in a literal fashion. But my family does, and I’ve been reading and listening to Christians who debate that it in fact was literal (young earth creationists).

Aug

#10

I do have a couple of questions for you that concern me. 1. Why are you so infatuated with the concept of ECT free will believers? “Libertarian Gamblers” as you call it. 2. Also why are you so caught up in man made labeling the body of Christ that only causes division?

#11

I don’t think it’s good of you to go about reminding people the importance of staying on the OP when it’s you started the thread. But when other’s do you you’re fast to abandon ship.

#12

Why are you avoiding my questions, Gene?