The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Does God Conceal the Truth from Christians?

Featured Writers Dr Thomas Talbott
#21

Hello Tom:

I used to read WLC a lot; he played an important role in helping me build a coherent and reasonable faith early on in my journey. However, when I read his replies to your Universalism ideas, my eyes just skipped on to something else; for everybody knows Universalism ain’t true. Fast forward some years when Universalism finally made sense to me… By the time I read your book and got to the part where you deal with Dr Craigs contention that God messes with our memories in order to spare us the pain of seeing loved ones in hell (or anihilated for that matter) I instantly saw through the weakness in his arguements and agreed with yours.

My reasons are that when God says sin will be no more (albeit sometimes in the future) it seems it is not because God has simply killed off the opposition; for that would lead to worship from fear. Which is precisely the idea that Christ came to dispell it seems to me. Rather, it seems to me that the reason sin will be no more is because no one will choose it anymore. And the reason they won’t is because of memories; the redeemed (all of us) will know – as personal witnessess – what sin does to people and so we will reject it. Our choice for God will be a fully informed one. Informed in the positive sense ie how good and wonderful God is, as well as informed in the negative sense; we know from experience (experience which memories remind us of) how bad the alternative to God really is.

So, given our human history, we really did come to experience the knowledge of good and evil. Taking away pertinent memories is to take away the very thing which makes us “safe” for eternity. Further, all that memory plays a crucial role in our very identities. Our restored and bebuilt and redeemed identities.

thanks,
TotalVictory

#22

Isaiah 66:24 looks like it teaches that the redeemed are aware of the sufferings of the damned in hell:

“Then they will go forth and look
On the corpses of the men
Who have transgressed against Me
For their worm will not die
And their fire will not be quenched;
And they will be an abhorrence to all mankind.”
(Isaiah 66:24 NASB)

#23

f it is true that a forced revelation unto humility is defective (due to the lack of a free choice) then how is the glory not defective if the confession of the arrogant is forced (not being confession from the heart)?

It seems to me that if the love of a person who has received an irresistable revelation is meaningless then a forced confession, from a irresistable revelation (namely God kicks in their heads) should be equally meaningless. For the person did not confess out of their own free will but due to the irresistable power of God.

(taken from my argument of humility thread)
Aug

#24

One wonders , if God were in the business of directly altering minds against an individual’s will, why he wouldn’t just alter the minds of the damned to accept his gift of salvation. Seems like a superior method of dealing with the issue.

#25

The question itself begs another question: “If God is concealing the Truth from Christians - then how could that concealment be known?” The short answer is that it cannot be known. Is Universalism concealed? No, it can be known from scripture and from knowing God. Is ‘knowing God’ then a special revelation? Not if you consider that not one of the OT believers addressed him as “Father” and that we, through the Gospel, now know Him to be so. “Nothing is concealed that cannot be known.”