Hello folks!
This is my recent interview with Arminian philosopher Jerry Walls exposing Calvinism.
lotharlorraine.wordpress.com/201 … rry-walls/
My next interview will hopefully be with the great Thomas Talbott 
If you found the time, it would be great if some of you could give additional ressources there or defend alternative views.
Lovely greetings in Christ.
Wow, you’re interviewing some great people at the moment mate! Was just watching Jerry Walls talk about the idea of purgatory just before I saw this thread 
I’ll have a read of this
Ditto, you’re certainly scoring some top-notch interviews!
Yep!
I plan to interview Peter Enns very soon 
TO ALL: I have the following request.
I just wrote a post arguing that the **central role of eternal torment **in modern fundamentalism hinders creativity from unfolding:
lotharlorraine.wordpress.com/201 … unfolding/
I would like to see your own opinion (both positive and negative) there.
If posting comments with wordpress proves cumbersome, I’m ready to create you an account as I did for Sobornost (Dick)
I’m asking this because I HATE monologs and just stating my thoughts without any discussion and criticism.
Lovely greetings.
Resisting the urge to respond to JJ’s comment on the Jerry Walls interview. I’m so fed up of people saying “God is also holy as well as loving.” It suggests that God is not infinite in his attributes and that it would cause a schism in him if he was, which is clearly not true. ‘God is love’ means God cannot be more loving; the description is void if it were possible for him to act in a loving way even the tiniest bit more. Don’t back up your view of God by inadvertently implying that God’s love is restricted!
Also this part of his comment amazed me - “God is love, yes, but can God not have freedom in whom He loves?” He has freedom of choice but he’ll only ever do what is in his character to do (“If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself” ). If he IS love he will follow that characteristic (and of course all of his other characteristics, though not undermining any of them). If he hates every single person that ever exists bar one who he loves, how can we continue calling him love? If a man has five children and neglects/abuses four of them but showers one of them in love, at no point would we classify him as loving person. Whatever we have done, however much we have sinned, God’s love does not run out on us. It’s a complete misunderstanding of love, especially God’s love, to say that he could love us one second and then stop loving us because of something we did. You can say we don’t ‘deserve’ God’s love (I always find the idea of ‘deserving’ love a bit of a misunderstanding of what love is; but if we’re linking the idea of deserving love with our own actions then no we don’t ‘deserve’ God’s love) but that does not/cannot cause God to stop loving us. Why would we dare to restrict the boundaries of his love?
Excellent points, Jonny. I couldn’t agree more!
Oh, and Marc, if you see a post from “riddleywalker12” on your blog, it’s me.
Hey Mark - now fair is fair - I have absolutely no intention of starting my own blog. As I’ve said by PMs it’s not the detractors that would bother me it’s the blog groupies. ‘Yes Dick. Absolutely Dick. Way to go Dick - you’ve knocked it out the ball park there Dick’. And the thought of having some Alpha Male with a big CV citing me as a major influence one day - Eeeeeeeek 
I’d rather stick pins in my eyes and eat my own ear wax 
I prefer to speak to people on the level - I’m basically a teacher (and as a follower of my dear Erasmus I have a certain obligation to always lighten things up, even when, and especially when I am being most serious).
But as for my suppressed post in which I detailed the difference between Retributivist and Deterrence theories of justice and the nuances in both to distinguish these from vengeance - well of course that was easy peasy for me. I’ve taught moral philosophy so I can do it standing on my head through trying to make it accessible over many years. Do you still have the post and could you place it here if you do? Jonny might be interested because it could enable him to focus his excellent ideas on restorative justice.
Btw - I’ve posted critically about tony Blair he’s consider himself a progressive Christian. What cans’t thou say? 
I listened to Blair’s’ ‘spiritual director’ give a sermon once and wasn’t at all impressed by the man - and this was when Blair was still kind of cuddly and before the years condemned him as power opened his tragic harmartia (al kind of Shakespearean).
Also much as I love and respect you I’m still astounded that with your very flexible interpretation of the Biblical texts that you still hand no to one bit of quasi fundamentalism - namely a de-contextualised and very literal interpretation of Jesus destruction sayings. It always seems to me that your interpretation is a way of having angry fantasies about the people that attack you on your blog being zorched - whatever side the attack is coming from (some of these people might have just had a bad day at the office. You know that I think your exegesis is arbitrary and off bema here nonsense and I have to be plain with you about that - and I will say so on your blog if and when you make these statements (fair is fair). But I’m happy to post no your blog when you ask me.
Your friend Dick (in Christ our Hen)
Hello Dick.
I NEVER expected you to start a blog, I was merely joking. I just created this Wordpress account so that it’ll be a lot easier for you to comment on my blog henceforth Otherwise you have to write a code every time, right?
**I greatly appreciate the incredible depth of your scholarly opinions. **
I did not erase your comment about the two sorts of justice normally.
As for being progressive and not being an universalist:
first of all, we have to be HONEST with the text and ask ourselves what it truly conveys. A true progressive would recognize that there are psalms who really teach dashing the head of one’s foe’s children, and recognize the authors got God wrong on this.
Likewise, it is extremely unlikely that Jesus was an universalist, because he would not have spoken of the ultimate demise of religious bigots WITHOUT having also spoken about their restoration, since it is an important information UTTERLY changing the nature of his threats.
Now if philosophically universalism HAS to be true,** this entails that Jesus was wrong** and was just one great prophet among others.
But I don’t think that universal reconciliation has to be true.
For me, there is nothing wrong with God NOT granting immortality to persons having cultivated a hateful and heinous personality over their whole life.
Best wishes from the gloomily rainy Lancashire.
And of course, I don’t assume that people yelling at me (or criticizing my blog) won’t inherit eternal life
This would be extraordinarily self-righteous, arrogant, silly and crazy.
But if day in and day out an individual keep hating other persons who have always been nice towards him or her, this raises some suspicion.
Though of course repentance is always possible, and only God knows the deep causes of such a behavior.
And if everything is psychologically determined, there is no moral responsibility and I expect everyone to be saved.
P.S> sorry I might have unwittingly sounded rude in the last days.
I’m getting through a dark depressive phase and am facing tremendous anxieties accompanied by a constant restlessness.
Still, it’s always my policy to remain kind towards kind persons, so sorry if I failed in that respect.
All power to your arm - I haven’t been offended (you know I don’t get offended too easily). It’s often good to clam down a bit when you are wearing yourself out.
I think the interviews you have done are really great - I think you are a very skilled questioner. Perhaps you are packing in too many at once and it’s wearing you out.
I really like your blog - but I would say that you are often offending the extremes rather than building the middle (but if it floats your boat. enjoy… ). And I think the label progressive is a sort of badge of innocence - progressives are the good guys and new atheists and fundamentalists the bad guys (at least most of the time). But I can think of progressive Christians who are very smug and aggressive (not you - but others - and I’m not talking about any people that post here. I’m talking Tony Blair for example. ) and are also constricting a meta narrative of their claim to be the only good force in society today and throughout history. And I wonder about the terms fundamentalism too. There was a thread here recently about the term and a bit of thinking it through showed exactly how nebulous the term is. It’s best to be specific.
Regarding Universalisms versus Annihilationism - well I still disagree, and we’ve had the argument’s now.
In Christ Our Hen
Dick
I’m in a right old punch and judy with a new atheist at your blog currently Marc. I’m getting a bit tired of it now - think I’ll give it a rest.
No problem, old friend!
I find it pretty tiresome to deal with him too
But there are lots of respectful and nice “old” atheists out there, fortunately.
Would you say that this new post of mine is polemical as well?
lotharlorraine.wordpress.com/201 … s-be-true/
It just seems I can’t help but be provocative, then