Discerning God by what we DON’T know about Him…

[TotalVictory]

For a Christian, it should be axiomatic (self evident) that our knowledge of God is incomplete and partial. There is much we don’t know – we actually don’t know how much we don’t know! – about God. This however doesn’t mean we don’t know anything about God. Hebrews speaks of God, in many and various ways speaking to us through His prophets; but in the last days through His Son. So we do have access to knowledge of God.

Further, we attribute to God lots of things (abilities, qualities, characteristics) that we actually can’t know for sure, or can’t measure. God as creator for example. Or God who sees all, is everywhere at once, and knows all; the “omni” categories. We say, I don’t know how He does/did this, but I’m certain enough that He did and can do it.

And this is one of the noble tasks of faith to be sure. Things not seen, yet “known” as it were. Believing the reality of a risen God into whose pierced side our hands have not plunged.

But it seems to me that this ability – and willingness – to believe the “unknowable” can have a nasty backlash if practiced too indiscriminately. I mean here that in all likelihood, many have given God benefit of the doubt for abilities He actually does not – and cannot logically possess.

And of course the one ability that a myriad of Christians insist God possess is a love which also condemns many to ECT (or annihilation). For many of these, in their candid and perhaps unguarded moments, they will admit that they don’t know how this is actually possible; but they know that it is. In roughly the same sort of way that they “know” of God’s omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence. That no earthly conception of morality allows such a leap is little considered; God is allowed this move because He is, well, God. And as such He is greater and more mysterious than we can possibly conceive of and so… and so… He can do it. It’s a mystery that He does it; but He does.

None of the mystery or omni categories of God threaten us much of course – except for this one. For the Universalist, this stark disconnect between God’s love and His act of ECT is utterly irrational and incomprehensible. For ECT believers though, it’s just another mystery; don’t know how, but we know.

Besides, we Universalists also embrace some serious unknowns of our own. For example, we cannot know exactly how God convinces even the most recalcitrant and rebellious sinner to abandon his ways, but we believe that God does just this. But of course this act appears to be freely compatible with love and God’s intent for His erring child.

So the point I’m wondering about it this; yes, lets all allow God the mystery He is due. And allow that there is much we simply do no comprehend about God. Things that we hope shall become clear in the next age.

In the meantime however, why not discern God via paths we do understand and comprehend? Such as God, our Father, who both wishes and wills for us only what is good; a vision of love which only and always acts for what is best for it’s object; a God whose wrath always serves a redemptive purpose and, when attained, abates.

God does call us to Himself – and it only makes sense that He calls us in terms we can comprehend. Thus we do not need to entertain hypothetical and mysterious attributes of God that either frighten us or that we cannot comprehend. Love which tortures forever (or annihilates) has footings only in some presumed incomprehensible mystery of the unknown, so it’s safe to leave it there. Turn instead to the God whose love foretells the grand day when all His creation stands redeemed and saved and reconciled.

…Thoughts??

Bobx3

[Matt_Wiley]

Just that what you said is well-said.

And maybe there’s another way of approaching this, or looking at this…
Maybe it’s just better to believe in something that makes more sense to us, and gives us hope too, then to believe in something that doesn’t make any sense, and leads us to despair as well…
I mean, if we don’t even know absolutely for sure about who God really is and what God is really like and what life is really all about, if this is all a matter of faith and not sight, then why not place our bets on something that rings beautifully and truly in our heart of hearts, instead of something that leaves us in fear and doubt?

It’s like a modified Pascal’s wager, like Michael Thompson mentioned elsewhere on the forum:

I kind of have a modified pascals wager.
I choose to believe in a good God.
If God is good then I gain everything!
If there is no good God, then I still gain, by imitating my concept of a good god, I become a better person, live at peace with others and not fear death!
If there is a god who is not good, then it is not worthy of my faith and worship anyways!

Or perhaps another way of saying this would be in Puddleglum’s classic, and justly famous, answer to the Emerald Witch, in C.S. Lewis’ The Silver Chair:

“One word, Ma’am,” he said, coming back from the fire; limping because of the pain. “One word. All you’ve been saying is quite right, I shouldn’t wonder. I’m a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won’t deny any of what you said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things – trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world that licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play-world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we’re leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for the Overland."

And, by the way, I would take this stance as much with a fundamentalist who firmly supports eternal conscious torment, as I would with any hard-nosed atheist.

And that’s where I’m at. There’s a lot of people out there that think they need to answer every question, and need to have everything airtight, or else they can’t believe, or defend what they believe…

Yes, evidence is helpful, even necessary in some cases, but I believe we must all give up on this silly quest for ‘proof’ or ‘absolute proof’, at some time or another… yes, searching for answers is good, but if we had absolute proof, of God’s existence, and of God’s goodness, and all of that, then there would be no need for faith…

I believe, like you do, that God reveals Himself in some ways, but it’s obvious that He hides Himself in others, for reasons that we don’t totally understand, at least not now…

This may be an annoying fact to some, but that’s how things are right now… there may come a day when our faith will become sight, but that day isn’t here, at least not yet…

But when it comes to what we believe, and what we don’t believe, there may be times when we can just simply follow the evidence, and whatever is supported by the most evidence (or in the case of not believing, lack thereof) we can stand by… but there are other times when maybe we just need to go with our gut…

A lot of conservatives would disagree with that stance, but that’s at least how I feel about it.

Anyways, that’s my two cents.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts bro, and blessings to you.

Matt

[james.goetz]

Hi Bob, I appreciate your main point. The concept of God’s unlimited love and ECT is a mystery. And when I consider mysteries, I try decide if the mystery is necessary. For example, Immanuel Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason detailed four antinomies, which he saw were necessary paradoxes. And many Christians look at the Bible and say that God’s unlimited love and ECT is a necessary paradox. But others like us see the same Bible and say that God’s unlimited love and ECT is not a necessary paradox; we do not need to believe that. That is a good point to consider in philosophical and even biblical debate.

[Melchizedek]

Yes, I see the illogical assumptions of God used all the time in defense of ECT and other un-biblical (as opposed to non-biblical) ideas as a sort of deus ex machina, which takes the very form you’ve described: “It doesn’t make any logical sense, but this is God we’re talking about”, as if God is illogical (or perhaps, unreasonable is a better word here). His ways may not be our ways, nor his thought our thoughts, but that doesn’t need to mean they don’t ultimately make sense or are logically inconsistent with things we do understand of him. I somehow don’t think that truth simply arises by fiat completely outside of the image of God we are created in. At the end of the day, God created us to ultimately be part of himself, all and in all.

[Matt_Wiley]

Yes, I see the illogical assumptions of God used all the time in defense of ECT and other un-biblical (as opposed to non-biblical) ideas as a sort of deus ex machina, which takes the very form you’ve described: “It doesn’t make any logical sense, but this is God we’re talking about”, as if God is illogical (or perhaps, unreasonable is a better word here). His ways may not be our ways, nor his thought our thoughts, but that doesn’t need to mean they don’t ultimately make sense or are logically inconsistent with things we do understand of him. I somehow don’t think that truth simply arises by fiat completely outside of the image of God we are created in. At the end of the day, God created us to ultimately be part of himself, all and in all.

Amen, brother

[TotalVictory]

Or perhaps another way of saying this would be in Puddleglum’s classic, and justly famous, answer to the Emerald Witch, in C.S. Lewis’ The Silver Chair:

“One word, Ma’am,” he said, coming back from the fire; limping because of the pain. “One word. All you’ve been saying is quite right, I shouldn’t wonder. I’m a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won’t deny any of what you said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things – trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world that licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play-world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we’re leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for the Overland."

Wow Matt!
Thanks for reminding me of that stunning passage from The Silver Chair!! Read it ages ago as I was reading through the entire series with my eldest daughter who was 7 or 8 at the time. This was in the infancy of my rebirth as a Christian and I was still struggling with my doubts and with the pull of the “dark side” which is to say my suspicion that perhaps God was nothing but an illusion created by fearful humans… So this idea helped enormously!

Yesterday, at church in Bible Class I was unexpectedly called on to teach the lesson which was on “God as Artist” and this quote, still ringing in my ears (thanks to you!) played an important part in building the idea that WE are works of “art” which God is creating even now inside of us! And that while we freely and humbly admit we’re not perfect, the work continues!

Anyway, good stuff Matt!
Thanks

Bobx3

[AllanS]

In a letter written shortly before his death, Lewis said:

“…the chapter in which Puddleglum puts out the fire with his foot. He must thank Anselm and Descartes for it, not me. I have simply put the ‘Ontological Proof’ in a form suitable for children.”

Philosopher Steve Lovell (Breaking the Spell of Skepticism: Puddleglum vs. the Green Witch" in The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy) wrote:

It is only ontological in that it begins with the idea of God or the idea of perfection. In structure it has more in common with the cosmological argument or teleological argument. From memory it runs roughly as follows:

(1) I have the idea of perfection
(2) The perfection cannot have derived from me an imperfect being.
(3) The idea must have it’s origin in a perfect mind.
(4) Therefore a perfect mind exists.

I found this helpful. Another commentator added a further point:

(5) If, however, the perfect mind does not exist, it would not be a great waste to still have spent one’s life in pursuit of it.

To put it a bit differently, I think Lewis is saying that even if Jesus/God did not exist, pursuing the world envisaged by the Bible (one in which grace, forgiveness, fair dealing, honesty and love were firm reality) would still be worth trying to make a reality.

Tom, Dick and Harry are aboard the Titanic. Soon enough the icy water will be up to their necks. They face the threat of absolute loss. Tom despairs of all hope, laments his cruel fate and does nothing. Dick creates his own meaning (ie. he despairs of objective hope). He decides to enjoy what’s left of life to the full and has another scotch. (Drinks are on the house.) Harry hopes for rescue and does everything in his power to cobble a raft together.

Tom curses Harry for being unrealistic, saying rescue is about as likely as a visit from the Tooth Fairy. “Where is the evidence?” he demands. “There’s not a ship in sight!”

Dick mocks Harry for hoping in fantasies, and says he is a coward driven by the fear of death. “Be a man,” he says, “and look reality square in the eye! Death is inevitable, so enjoy what’s left of life to the full. This is very fine scotch!”

Harry is strapping wine casks to a table top. “If you are right,” he says, “we’ll all be dead by morning. If I am right, I will be alive. What have you got to lose? Why not help me make this raft and join me? As for evidence, who can say what ship lies just beyond the horizon? As for the scotch, I’m sure it is very fine but you’ll have to enjoy it for both of us. I’ll save mine for tomorrow. Right now, I’m busy.”

[TotalVictory]

Fabulous Allan! Just fabulous…
Helps me, in my own mind, place ever a sharper focus on what I’m trying to convey here…

Our imaginations play such an important role in how God saves and heals us I think. And how we envision the real world of God’s making. Directing our imaginations towards accepting that which denies what we experience in our own lives (ie it is inconceivable to imagine a “love” which commits ECT, or annihilation) is a rather inappropriate waste of that resource…
Much better to direct it towards magnifying what we DO know about God. ie a love with never gives up; a love which is endlessly creative; a love which eventually wins it’s object and goals; a love which only will accept the best for His creation. (and no definitions of “best” which incorporate punitive hell)

I really do think that a huge part of the task of evangelizing to the truth of Universalism is to empower folks to break away from the presumed necessary assumption that God kills/tortures/annihilates – our task is to explain how/why this makes sense.
It’s OK to shout “***it doesn’t make sense!***” and instead build on a more coherent vision of love.

Bobx3

[Cindy_Skillman]

What we DO know about God is that He is good. People can find isolated scriptures which they then misinterpret to say that God’s wrath requires ECT or at the least, annihilation, but they cannot distill this message from the ENTIRE WITNESS OF SCRIPTURE. We need to start reading the bible as the whole that it is, rather than a disjointed collection of “proof texts” which an be used to create any doctrine we deem appropriate.

People who do this are the first to shout “CONTEXT!!!” and they shout it the loudest. But the context is not ten verses before and after as Muslims I’ve discussed other subjects with have demanded of me. The context is not even the whole chapter or the whole book. The context is the entire witness of scripture, and that witness says that God is GOOD all the time.

We know what is good; we cannot deny this. Aside from having been created in His image to begin with, we have also been eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil all our lives. The tree is not a cheat – it delivers as advertized (though with it comes death). We know what is good and what is evil unless we work very hard to deceive ourselves. We know that ECT is evil. But in fact, some of us HAVE worked THAT hard at self-deception, and we have told ourselves the story that what is clearly evil if done by a man, is good when done by God. And even worse in some cases . . . that we should rejoice in it!

While God does have certain duties toward His creation which would be evil if men did them for/to one another (for example, deciding the time of our deaths), God does not do evil, and we are very wrong to say or think that He does. To say that it is good merely because it is He who does it is the babbling of a fool. We KNOW it isn’t good, and if we were to read the entire bible as a single testimony, we would also know that He IS good and will never cease in His mercy and His pity and His love toward those He has created.

I’m convinced that this is the reason so many of God’s children spend so much time making excuses for Him regarding hell. “It’s locked on the inside.” “God doesn’t send anyone to hell; people send themselves to hell.” “Hell is really the total absence of God – people want to be shut of Him and He gives them what they want.” “In the end there are only two kinds of people; those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘Thy will be done.’” And so on and so on. People trying to make it okay for God to do what they know in their heart of hearts, is absolutely wrong; to annihilate most of His created children (at best) or to torture them forever and ever (at worst.)

My last excuse for God was that He couldn’t help it. His very presence is fire and torment to the evil. And I still think that’s not far off, but now I believe that once the wickedness in them (and us) is burned away, what will be left is a shining, redeemed daughter or son of the Most High. Not only does this make me very, very happy, but it is a good deal more scriptural than the dross I’ve been trying to justify for most of the rest of my life.

Blessings and love,
Cindy

[revdrew61]

Amen Cindy! If you want to come and preach that sermon at SGB you’d be very welcome

[Matt_Wiley]

What we DO know about God is that He is good. People can find isolated scriptures which they then misinterpret to say that God’s wrath requires ECT or at the least, annihilation, but they cannot distill this message from the ENTIRE WITNESS OF SCRIPTURE. We need to start reading the bible as the whole that it is, rather than a disjointed collection of “proof texts” which an be used to create any doctrine we deem appropriate.

People who do this are the first to shout “CONTEXT!!!” and they shout it the loudest. But the context is not ten verses before and after as Muslims I’ve discussed other subjects with have demanded of me. The context is not even the whole chapter or the whole book. The context is the entire witness of scripture, and that witness says that God is GOOD all the time.

We know what is good; we cannot deny this. Aside from having been created in His image to begin with, we have also been eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil all our lives. The tree is not a cheat – it delivers as advertized (though with it comes death). We know what is good and what is evil unless we work very hard to deceive ourselves. We know that ECT is evil. But in fact, some of us HAVE worked THAT hard at self-deception, and we have told ourselves the story that what is clearly evil if done by a man, is good when done by God. And even worse in some cases . . . that we should rejoice in it!

While God does have certain duties toward His creation which would be evil if men did them for/to one another (for example, deciding the time of our deaths), God does not do evil, and we are very wrong to say or think that He does. To say that it is good merely because it is He who does it is the babbling of a fool. We KNOW it isn’t good, and if we were to read the entire bible as a single testimony, we would also know that He IS good and will never cease in His mercy and His pity and His love toward those He has created.

I’m convinced that this is the reason so many of God’s children spend so much time making excuses for Him regarding hell. “It’s locked on the inside.” “God doesn’t send anyone to hell; people send themselves to hell.” “Hell is really the total absence of God – people want to be shut of Him and He gives them what they want.” “In the end there are only two kinds of people; those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘Thy will be done.’” And so on and so on. People trying to make it okay for God to do what they know in their heart of hearts, is absolutely wrong; to annihilate most of His created children (at best) or to torture them forever and ever (at worst.)

My last excuse for God was that He couldn’t help it. His very presence is fire and torment to the evil. And I still think that’s not far off, but now I believe that once the wickedness in them (and us) is burned away, what will be left is a shining, redeemed daughter or son of the Most High. Not only does this make me very, very happy, but it is a good deal more scriptural than the dross I’ve been trying to justify for most of the rest of my life.

Blessings and love,
Cindy

Amen! Preach it, sister!

[Cindy_Skillman]

Matthew and Drew, you will make my head swell. Thanks – and thanks to God, who is good!