Tom,
Thanks so much for entertaining me in this thread. I very much look forward to your new book. By the way, is it totally complete, or are you still adding some finishing touches?
It seems we agree on quite a bit, particularly regarding the necessary ambiguity involved in coming into our own consciousness as separate from God. I think we disagree in this: I believe this ambiguity was given because without it we could not be good, ourselves. This is why I don’t think our choices can ever be “compelled” by God in such a way that totally closes this epistemic gap. We and God both close it more and more the more we come into perfection, but until such a process is complete, there must always be “room” there for free will. This is also why I think sin was only a possibility, not a necessity.
My understanding of your view is that God can indeed compel us, through a trump card or a shattering of our own notions of self. In fact, it seems this is the case every time we refrain from sin or do something good. I must admit I’ve felt many times that such a thing has happened to me - “I have not overcome this temptation myself. Indeed, I’ve given in to it most every time it’s arisen in my mind. The reason I don’t anymore is simply because it no longer tempts me.” Or “the only reason I didn’t cheat is because it really seemed the best idea not to in the first place.” In these cases it seems it’s “all grace” and our knowledge that such and such really is an irrational choice guards us against committing it. As Lewis said, “I say ‘I chose’, but it really did not seem possible to do the opposite.”
But as I see it, the consequences of this are that we must posit a different reason than the one I’ve given for the initial ambiguity which made sin inevitable. I hold the possibility of sin is necessary in order for the possibility of good. But this will not hold if God can overwhelm our minds such that we necessarily do good (e.g. the loving mother and honest banker). Here are my reflections on other possible reasons for the initial ambiguity, if your view is correct.
Maybe sin is necessary in order to gain awareness of self over and against God. Perhaps we be “alienated” as it were, before we can be “bonded together”. Perhaps self-awareness implicitly excludes awareness of God. After all, the more I am thinking of myself, the less I can be thinking about anything else. May pride, therefore, be a necessary prerequisite of self consciousness? As I have said before, there must indeed be a “me” and a “God” before there is an “us”. But I question - and perhaps it is a meaningless question if I could see the metaphysical ramifications clearly enough - whether or not sin must actually occur (rather than just the temptation to sin) for this realization to take place. (I suppose you could say that even being tempted to evil is itself a necessary evil in finite being - and perhaps win the argument!)
Some positives of this, if it is your view, are:
a) it explains the absolute ubiquity of sin (all must experience pride in order to come into self-consciousness and experience the subsequent union of God)
b) it can guarantee, rather than hope for, universalism (trump card)
c) it squares nicely with (some) aspects of personal experience
d) it clears up the difficulty, at least in theory though not actual experience, of explaining how we can do something wrong which we know is wrong (on your view, at that particular moment we would be experiencing an ignorance which actually clouded or removed such knowledge)
Some negatives
a) does it implicate God in all the monstrous horrors that have occurred - i.e. does he, since his will is the ultimate reason and ground for everything that happens and all the laws of reality, cause evil?
b) does it mean that every evil act is something necessary for a greater good - i.e., did the Holocaust have to happen?
But there may be ways to avoid some of these negatives. For one, we may be able to appeal to part of the Leibnizian response to the problem of evil the following way (and I admit the only reason I abandoned the “sin is a necessary part of creaturely becoming” theory is because of the problem of evil.)
The word “evil” is simply a colloquialism describing states of affairs that we find imminently undesirable. On the metaphysical plane though - that is, on the plane of being as such - “evil” cannot exist. All that we call evil is simply the lack in more or less degrees of perfect good. Hence to create, God would necessary have to bring about a less than perfect state of affairs (since it is logically impossible for God to create another metaphysically perfect thing because by definition such a thing would be “created” and therefore not self-existent). Any extent to which this creation was “lacking” could be called by us evil (and by one speaking in more metaphysical terms “lacking in goodness”.) Pure evil as such cannot in itself be. Therefore, strictly speaking it cannot be an “it” that is caused by God. Perhaps such “less than metaphysically perfect” states of affairs manifest themselves in our experience of ambiguity and ignorance? God therefore doesn’t cause “evil” but he does cause “less than perfect states of affairs”. But his intention is never less than perfect in so causing them. As far as things being “necessary” or “having” to happen - perhaps asking such things is ultimately meaningless. Again, to quote Lewis,
“With every advance in our thought the unity of the creative act, and the impossibility of tinkering with the creation as though this or that element of it could have been removed, will become more apparent. Perhaps this is not the ‘best of all possible’ universes, but the only possible one. Possible worlds can mean only ‘worlds that God could have made, but didn’t’. The idea of that which God ‘could have’ done involves a too anthropomorphic conception of God’s freedom. Whatever human freedom means, Divine freedom cannot mean indeterminacy between alternatives and choice of one of them. Perfect goodness can never debate about the end to be attained, and perfect wisdom cannot debate about the means most suited to achieve it.”
Once more,
“It must always be remembered that when we talk of what might have happened, of contingencies outside the whole actuality, we do not really know what we are talking about. There are no times or places outside the existing universe in which all this ‘could happen’ or ‘could have happened’.”
Just some speculations, anyway. I feel we both have very strong and important intuitions on this issue. I do feel that by discussing it we gain clarity. Have you ever encountered Leibniz’s answer to the problem of evil? I had not until a few months ago. RC Sproul thinks it the most compelling answer he’s come across in the last 30 years, but ultimately finds it unconvincing because, ironically, it entails an initial ignorance of Adam and Eve and gives them what he calls an “excuse”! (It seems he is set on having some people eternally damned.) Odd how close his conclusion lines up with your view.
Thanks again
I suppose I should cite Lewis when I formally put this together.