Note: MacD’s original title for this sermon is “It Shall Not Be Forgiven”, but that phrase didn’t fit very well into the title form I’ve been using when giving excerpts from his sermons. 
Most of GMacD’s preceding sermon (from Unspoken Sermons vol. 1), on “The Higher Faith”, can be found here on the boards. (Along with links for directly accessing all his published material for free from an American publisher, or to buy some nice hardback copies.)
Today’s excerpt:
Today’s excerpt:
I’ve always liked that sermon, and Ifind this particularly interesting
afirstnewssource.net/sermons/Mac … rgiven.htm
The reason I find this interesting is that I tend to agree with Prof. Talbott regarding the incongruity of a fully informed freewill decision to reject God, and I’ve noticed an interesting thing in the Greek text of the New Testament.
When Hebrews 10:26 speaks of the consequences of deliberately sinning after “having come to a knowledge of the truth,” the definite article is used (which in Greek can indicate that a specific truth is in view.)
The proceeding chapters all speak of the superiority of Christ and His sacrifice over the Mosaic Law, it’s priesthood, and it’s sacrificial system–so it seems evident that Our Lord’s Messiahship (and the truth of the Christian Gospel) is the specific truth in view.
The interesting thing is that 2 Tim. 2:4 seems to equate “coming to the knowledge of truth” with salvation, and (in the Greek) no definite article is used.
That could mean that (unlike Heb. 10:26) it’s not talking about the intellectual knowledge of some specific truths of the Christian religion, but a full knowledge of the absolute truth.
And the fully informed freewill decision of a rational being to reject truth (as such, after coming to a full knowledge of all that it means) may be an impossibility (as Prof. Talbott, Gregory MacDonald, and others have suggested.)
I look forward to further installments, and I’d like to add something Saint Athanasius said concerning the blasphemy of The Spirit (as it might be helpful to some, and I believe it’s wholly consistent with everything George MacDonald said in his unspoken sermons.)
He wrote:
Christ does not say, ‘to him that blasphemeth, and repenteth, it shall not be forgiven,’ but ‘to him that blasphemeth;” that is continueth in his blasphemy; for there is no sin unpardonable with God where there is genuine and worthy repentance (St. Athanasius, de cummuni essentiâ trium Personarum.)
Yep, the quote from St. Ath is very much in line (as far as it goes) with GMacD’s understanding of the unforgiveable sin. (Which, as you note, we’ll be getting to not much later in this sermon on the same. 
)
MacD is also, as you said, similar to Profs. Talbott and “MacDonald”, among other theologians (not all of whom are universalists too), in that he tends to discount the actuality, and maybe even the possibility, of sinning in full knowledge of the truth. What’s interesting about this, is that MacD seems to hold (as will be mentioned later) that such a sin would be an “infinite” sin and so would in fact require an “infinite” punishment (which, as MacD will argue elsewhere, would be annihilation. This is why Lewis thought he could reconcile his limited annihilationism with the universalism of his respected ‘Teacher’–along with a little creative finagling of MacD’s actual positions. 
)
Now, here I have to report a distinction between me and the other guest authors on site–including (posthumously) George MacDonald. I do understand why even the smallest ‘sin’ is ‘worthy of death’ (so to speak, by which I would also mean annihilationism). As does MacD, at least, in other places in his sermons; our rationales vary a bit, mostly in technical detail, but we agree that in sinning we are trying to separate ourselves from our source of life and so are, even if inadvertently, seeking annihilation: a result we fail to reach only by the grace of God.
MacD and I also agree, that God will not let us off with keeping even one small sin in ourselves. It all has to go, and He’s going to be persistent about this. (Lewis strongly believed this, too, which is somewhat inconsistent with his attempt at believing elsewhere that God might simply reach an ultimate-fail in this attempt and so give up even trying.)
The difference, I would say, is that I’m more consistent about the corollaries to this than GMacD is (and maybe the other guest authors here on the forum. {cough} 
) When I read the portion you quoted, my response is always: but I am guilty of an “infinite” sin with any sin; and God will keep after me forever (if that’s what it takes), so my punishment may technically be “infinite” if it happens that I never choose to give up and repent and do what is right. Not because God gives up, but because neither He nor (in this scenario) I am giving up.
The fact is, both GMacD and I do believe that we are punished, per se, for what we do refuse of the light we can see. We refuse the truth knowing that it is true, and knowing as much of its truth as we do know: that is precisely where we deserve punishment instead of only healing (though that, too, where applicable). We may delude ourselves in the process of sinning against the light, so that we no longer know even as much of the truth as we did before, but we still have refused the truth knowing all that we could know of what it was.
Consequently, there is no distinction in principle. It is still charitable, in a way, to think less-worse (so to speak) of another sinner, along the line that, well, they didn’t really know all the truth of the matter, and if they had then…
…then what? There’s the nub. You’re right that Profs. Talbott and “MacD” tend to argue toward (if perhaps not entirely settled on) the line that if only we knew all the truth, and were in full possession of our rational faculties, then we wouldn’t sin: we could be trusted in that case to do ‘the right (and rational) thing’. Obviously the original George MacD had some thoughts along that same line, too.
But I don’t see this as being realistic. I am a very self-critical sinner; and I know very well from my own experience (not counting metaphysical rationales, though I would say they add up the same way in the end), that my knowledge of the right is not sufficient to guarantee that I will not choose to go wrong.
Error, including willing error, may not be logical, but it is still rational in a primary metaphysical sense: computers and rocks and plants and most animals do not make ‘mistakes’, even accidentally, much less willingly. An accidental mistake is not necessarily an ethical sin, but even an accidental mistake can only occur in rational action–not mere reaction and counter-reaction. (We say for convenience that a computer or an unconscious animal makes a mistake, but this is a type of ‘externalist fallacy’. We are treating them as though they are qualitatively like ourselves in our metaphysical capabilities. Of course, we might be making a mistake the other way around as well by treating a conscious animal as though it is not a living soul like us other conscious animals!–or maybe even non-organic ‘processing’ machines. But there are logical corollaries either way.)
Consequently, it is no use to say that a perfectly rational entity in full knowledge of the truth can be trusted not to go wrong. That rational entity may still decide to behave irrationally: paradoxically, this move is itself a rational action–also one that quite concisely exemplifies the principle that to sin is to seek annihilation. To decide and enact as a rational agent against how much ever of the light we can see, thus to act irresponsibly, irrationally, is tantamount to ontological suicide–but for the grace of God Who keeps us in existence, since we are not in fact independently self-existent entities.
At the risk of belaboring the point further: this is the lesson of Lucifer (that myth which some people would rather we reject. I’ll have to get back to that thread later. 
) Consider him fact or fiction, the salient point to his story is that he had all the advantages that any derivative creature could possibly have–but he still chose to fall. Sure, it’s charitable in a way to imagine that if only he could have had a few more advantages, he would have been safe–not that God could have possibly provided those, so no blame to God, and not to excuse Satan for his rebellion, because he still did sin against as much of the truth as he did know, but still…
…but still, he still might have sinned, had he (per impossibility) known even more than he already knew. Salvation or immunity from sin, is not a matter of having enough knowledge, not even a hypothetical amount of knowledge which could not possibly be known by a non-omniscient (i.e. a non-God) entity.
Gnosticism, even hypothetically, is not true.
Thus my dissension (which I could enter into at far more boringly technical length ), respectfully, to GMacD on this point.
(I would dearly love to dialogue with the other forum guest authors on this topic, but I think all of us are rather too busy right now for that project. Hopefully something we can suit up and have a nice fencing duel over later, though. {bowing in their direction!} )
Christ does not say, ‘to him that blasphemeth, and repenteth, it shall not be forgiven,’ but ‘to him that blasphemeth;” that is continueth in his blasphemy; for there is no sin unpardonable with God where there is genuine and worthy repentance (St. Athanasius, de cummuni essentiâ trium Personarum.)
How did you find that quote, Mike?
I don’t remember (except that it was on line), but I included it (a long time ago now) in an article I published on my web site.
(BTW: I would not have included that quote if it hadn’t come from a reliable source, and I’d be extremely grateful to anyone who could help me relocate it .)
I haven’t been able to locate the quote as being from Ath, yet; but I have found some refs from Augustine and other patristics to the same effect.
It should be noted in their case, that they were concerned with addressing the question of whether blasphemy against the Holy Spirit was hopeless to repent of before death (though of course Origen, who also wrote a bit on the topic, was a universalist).
Considering that Athanasius is on record many times stating that the profession of Arianism is a way of sinning and blaspheming against the Holy Spirit, I suspect he is addressing the question of whether those who have done so are hopelessly lost or may be truly saved at a later time (but before death). I know in one place he inveighs against those who, verbally professing the Nicean agreement, in their hearts are still being Arian, thus still are blaspheming against the Holy Spirit (in Ath’s estimation).
A search through a Catholic translation of the patristics, for uses of ‘blaspheme’ (and cognates), turned up no verification of this quote being from Athanasius, unfortunately. I suspect it is actually from Augustine.
The principle of course is agreed to by George MacDonald: it isn’t a one-strike-you’re-out fault, and can be forgiven upon true (not merely verbal) repentance. MacD extends it in principle to any sin, and would not consider doctrinal faults per se (except where the truth is recognized but pushed against for spite or something of that sort) to be specially indicative of the sin.
More excerpts from this sermon coming soon! (I think… yep, I certainly forgot to do today’s, Saturday’s, while I was in the office editing. I’ll post two entries tomorrow–in convergence with the saying, “…and twice on Sunday!” The rabbinic origin of which, by the way, is quite amusing. )
I agree, but I think a fully informed decision involves a knowledge of the consequences–so a creature who “inadvertently” seeks annihilation isn’t makings a fully informed choice.
He’s even further from making a fully informed freewill choice if annihilation isn’t one of his options, which is why I think it’s safe to say that no rational being could make the fully informed freewill choice of rejecting God (and their own happiness) forever.
Put another way:
It might be possible for one to bare the doors of hell from the inside for awhile, but not once one fully realized what they were doing (and particularly not if hell were eternal, conscious, torment.)
P.S. Let me know if you are able to determine anything definite about that quote (and thank you.)
Since I spent quite a bit of time in my comment affirming that we are not, and never will be, omniscient (thus never “fully informed” to the maximum extent), I do certainly agree with both those statements as a technical matter.
Nevertheless, when we sin, we sin against however much of the truth we are seeing (or even which we think we are seeing, though we may be mistaken!–St. Paul makes this point when calling for charity from those, like himself, who understand that eating sacrificed meat is religiously safe, so long as it isn’t eaten in the context of a non-Christian religious ceremony; compared to those who wrongly believed that eating it even after it was put on the general market was a sin. Consequently, it would be a sin for them to eat it, so long as they believed they were sinning against God to be doing so!–therefore, Paul would not use his authority to simply proclaim that they ought to eat it, as then he would be seducing them into sin. On the contrary, he would rather give up eating meat at all than do that.)
We are as “fully informed” in any sin per se as we need to be to understand that what we are doing is wrong. My little niece Lydia knows she ought not to be doing some things, and even knows that she wil be punished if she is caught, and knows she is upsetting her parents if she does them–but she still goes ahead and does them, and we can even tell she knows when she does them that these things are true. She hasn’t simply forgotten them.
Now, I don’t sin spitefully against God, or anyone else, in such a fashion; not since I was very young anyway, I think. But it isn’t only because I know that doing so is ‘wrong’ and what I will deserve to happen to me as a result if I do. And when I otherwise sin, I have to confess that I willfully finagle my mind away and around my fuller knowledge of what I am doing. Would I necessarily not do that if I knew even more about the sin than I already do? No, not necessarily–I can’t say that I would. I am obliged to admit this, because I already sin knowing as much as I do about my sin as I already do.
There are people, who out of spite, make decisions to reject God forever, even if they think they will suffer forever as a consequence; and I am not talking about people who have (rationally, as far as they can see) decided that God must be evil or otherwise ethically rightly worth opposing. But just because a person may do the ethically wrong version of that, does not mean God will reject them forever–for a time, perhaps, but only in order to accomplish the higher goal of not rejecting them forever. (The Old Testament is crammed with statements to this effect regarding Israel, for example.)
Anyway, my point is to deny, first, that any of us are ever going to be as “fully informed” as any entity (namely God) could possibly be (because we will never be God); and second, to deny the concept that if only we were more informed than we are, then we certainly would not sin. Data is a resource, and if we have more data we might make ethically better choices using that data, just as with any other resource. Or, we might not. (I even deny that God’s righteousness follows as a necessity from His omniscience. Gnosticism is false, even for God. )
Consequently, I certainly do not deny that we never make (in the absolute sense) a “fully informed” decision to sin. Or to do righteousness, either! (We don’t, because we are not and never will be omniscient.) Nor do I deny that a sinner, given more knowledge, might make use of that knowledge in a rational, ethical way and repent of his sins, choosing to do righteousness instead. (One of the key actions of the Holy Spirit is along this line, in the soul of every man, leading to the fruit of the Spirit and to the inheritance of our son-and-daughtership.) Nor do I deny that, although like pretty much anything else it can be perverted, the giving of knowledge is an intrinsically good thing, and that (other things being equal) we should increase in our knowledge. And I certainly do not deny, but rather affirm, that one of the natural results of sinning is delusion about truth.
But then, delusion about truth involves a delusion about something we already know (or think we know) to be true. Adam and Eve received the knowledge of good and evil the wrong way, by rebelling against God; but their rebellion against God involved sinning against whatever of the light they already could see. (And moreso Satan. More knowledge does not innoculate Lucifer against falling.)
Yesterday’s excerpt! (Since I forgot to post it up yesterday… )
And now today’s excerpt:
In fairness to C.S. Lewis, have you ever read “The Great Divorce”?
Not only does Lewis portray MacDonald (who had long been dead) as an enlightened spirit, but (when asked about his earthly belief in universal salvation) MacDonald doesn’t disavow the teaching.
He actually equates it with the Calvinist doctrine of God’s Sovereignty, (which he says is true–but dangerous for finite being who must live in the present, and make choices now.)
As I think it would be impossible for a non-universalist to put such words in the mouth of a deceased believer (that he presents almost as a departed saint), I suspect that Lewis himself was a universalist (of the existentialist, A. T. Robinson variety.)
You’re thoughts on (the impossibility of) creaturely omniscience are interesting, but I’m not sure I agree with you.
Jesus did say:
Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. (Matt. 11:21.)
And even of those who had more knowledge than the people of Tyre and Sidon, He was able to say:
Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do. (Luke 23:34.)
So perhaps there is a level of enlightenment that would make willful make sin virtually impossible.
Omniscience?
Maybe not.
Absolute omniscience is “all knowledge” (not only of this world, but all possible worlds.)
I think you and I both believe that God has that knowledge, and we both find it difficult to believe that creatures ever will.
But to make a fully informed choice between good and evil, maybe a creature only needs a relative omniscience–of this world, himself, his fellow creatures, the quality of his actions, and the true consequences of those actions (both to himself and others.)
Given a fullness of that knowledge, I find it difficult to believe that anyone would choose evil.
BTW: I once read that Heinrick Himmler only went on one concentration camp inspection, and threw up constantly.
If he wasn’t able to insulate himself from the consequences of his actions, perhaps he wouldn’t have been capable of all his crimes (and while that doesn’t excuse his insulating himself, I think it might say something about the purpose of hell.)
These are just some of my thoughts on the subject, and I thank you for yours.
G-d Bless.
Numerous times. Also, I’ve dictated it to tape. Which I’ve then heard read numerous times (while on trips).
I use my Sean Connery accent for MacD’s part. 
(Though not when I dictated UnSerms and HopeGosp to tape.)
True; but Lewis focuses more on MacD’s admission that if God did ever give up, then He’d have to annihilate. Which of course fits Lewis’ limited inclusive annihilationism. (With souls in hell given chances to repent, but after a certain point–permazorch.)
That focus wouldn’t itself count as finagling (since, after all, MacD did state that much), if Lewis had presented his position in what amounts to corrective contradistinction to MacD. Instead, Lewis presents MacD as though he is only hopeful that all may be saved, kind of–that things could go finally go either way. i.e., he presents MacD as a hopefully inclusive limited annihilationist.
The real MacD, however, had a very much stronger hope and expectation than that; and denied that annihilation would be true.
Thus:
] actually equates it with the Calvinist doctrine of God’s Sovereignty, (which he says is true–but dangerous for finite being who must live in the present, and make choices now.)
…that part is probably close enough to the nuances of MacD’s actual belief, but it doesn’t fit with the position MacD (as a character) ends up on in TGD. Otherwise, MacD as a character would end up teaching Lewis to be a universalist!–which Lewis was not, before or after writing TGD. Instead, the appeal to God’s Sovereignty ends up being applied to the ‘final fate’ of sinners either way. A result consonant with Lewis’ actual position, not MacD’s.
I’ll post up all the relevant excerpts from TGD tomorrow (or maybe Tuesday) in a separate thread.
Speaking from many years of experience as a Lewisicist theologian and apologist, debating his work in-depth with others pro-and-con: no, he was not a universalist. And as much as he revered and loved his Teacher (as he called MacD), he never did bring himself to agree with the extent of George MacDonald’s hope. (I can sympathize: I love and revere Lewis and MacD both almost at the level of being the 15th and 16th Apostles. But still, while I would go with Lewis’ logic on most matters over MacD, I have to logically go with MacD on this one. )
Well, first (and perhaps most trivially), neither the woes to Chorazin and Bethsaida, nor the relative praise of Tyre and Sidon, nor the forgiveness of the crucifying Roman soldiers (possibly extended to others as well in that event), establish that any of those groups of people, corporately or individually, did or could attain omniscience.
So that part of my point still stands.
Second, the condemnation of Chorazin and Bethsaida was avowedly not based on them having incomplete knowledge which they would have certainly done better by if only they had had more. The point of the condemnation is almost the opposite: that Chorazin and Bethsaida had far more experiential knowledge than Tyre and Sidon, and still failed.
Second-and-a-half , I didn’t say that having more knowledge was necessarily useless. On the contrary, I specifically said: “Nor do I deny that a sinner, given more knowledge, might make use of that knowledge in a rational, ethical way and repent of his sins, choosing to do righteousness instead.” I will however grant that the language of the denunciation can look on the face of it as though Christ is saying that if only the pagan towns had more mere knowledge they would have certainly repented. The general tenor of scripture, however, runs against this idea; and really, the explanation of the statement need not go beyond ironic hyperbole: you ultra-Jewish cities think you’re so awesome, but you’ve done nothing with what your ancient enemy cities would have done great with, had they the opportunity! It’s the same hyperbolic point as the story of Jonah: the prophet knows vastly more than the pagan Ninevites do, which is precisely why he knows God wants to save them which the prophet doesn’t want to happen. By contrast, the pagan king leads his people in repentance at just about the barest and most worthless ‘preaching’ Jonah could do: tromp halfway into the city, announce once in minimal verbage that in 40 days Ninevah would be overthrown, then hike out again to watch for the fireworks.
(The hyperbole of Jesus’ statement can also be detected from the fact that by this time in His ministry, plenty of people had come from Tyre and Sidon to witness His teaching and miracles–yet those cities, generally speaking, hadn’t repented, in sackcloth and ashes or otherwise. This is probably a substantial ground for the initial rebuke of Jesus to the Syro-Phoenician mother who hounds Him with the flattering militant title “Son of David”–not a safe thing to be calling someone in a public street of the homeland of the ancient Canaanites whose established trading post colonies had been in constant warfare with Israeli ‘invaders’ for centuries before finally being wiped out and conquered by King David and his sons! The woman clearly knew a number of things about Jesus already; but this was all she had managed to come away with: that maybe she could flatter him into helping her in her desperation. Had she dismissed Him before, on the grounds that the Messiah was only meant for the house of Israel, thus an enemy of her people (laying claim, as the Israelites had done, to the territories of Tyre and Sidon)? That would be the natural first inclination of any pagan living there who knew any of their side of the story…)
Third, the forgiveness vouchsafed to the Roman soldiers, whatever else it may be, is not an indication that they would have certainly done better had they simply known enough more. Jesus is charitably excusing them, on the ground that they didn’t know better. Had they known more, they would have been culpable! This is not the same thing as saying that had they known more, they would certainly not have done it at all. (The rebel on the cross, meanwhile, gives little evidence of knowing much about Jesus at all!–but he does the best he can with the two cents he has.)
Similarly, in GosJohn, Pilate has less sin than those who delivered Jesus up to him. Or, in the Synoptics again, the chief slave who knows the master’s will (namely to care for the other servants) and does not do it, is cut to pieces; the ones who did not know the master’s will and did deeds worthy of a flogging, receive only a few lashes when He comes. Greater knowledge brings greater culpability, too, as well as greater resources to be doing something good with. Jesus’ harshest judgments are leveled against those who have all the advantages and still choose to fail–including the spitefully self-contradictory Pharisees in the Gospel scene from which MacD’s current sermon takes its cue. (Synching back up with the topic there… ) Or again in the OT, Israel is eventually denounced in terms exceeding that of Sodom and Gommorah, beyond any of her pagan neighbors.
The whole point in these examples, which stretch across the Bible, OT and NT both, is that the condemned ones did in fact know better enough already. They already knew enough to do the right thing instead of the wrong thing. And they didn’t.
No dissent from me here–except that I don’t consider this threshold of culpable knowledge to be very high (which is another reason why I wouldn’t call it any kind of “omniscience” at all.)
I do dissent from the notion that if only that fully informed choice (enough for culpability when gone against) was more fully informed enough, there would no longer be a risk of culpability.
I would almost (though not quite) put it as Chesterton once famously critiqued the popular political notion that rich men can be trusted because they can’t be bribed. Among other things Chesterton retorted that the rich men had already been bribed, which is why they are rich. That’s going too far; but his more general point was salient: any man may fall. No man is safe. (Except for Christ; but there is a special reason for that. And not because God is omniscient. ) It may even be said that the more powerful a man is, the more tempted he is to fall. The rich are in more danger of damnation than the poor, not less: the rich in wealth, the rich in worldly power, the rich in knowledge, the rich in any resource.
Why? Because so long as fair-togetherness between persons is not put first, it must be put subordinately to the causing of mere power effects, the causing of reactions by power. Righteousness becomes something that can be set aside or done away with or ceased–especially in order to keep whatever power that one has accrued!
This observation has unspeakably massive relevance, by the way, both to the truth of universalism vs. non-universalist salvation theories, and to the truth of orthodox trinitarian theism vs. any other kind of theism (much less any kind of atheism). But I’ve written extensively (trying to speak about that massive relevance ) elsewhere.
He knew enough before he went to know that he was doing wrong, but did it anyway. He clearly knew vastly more with that one trip (philosophically speaking multiple trips wouldn’t really have added anything except emotional punch–if they didn’t deaden emotions through desensitization), or he wouldn’t have been throwing up constantly.
Nevertheless, he kept right on doing it anyway.
Knowing more, didn’t save him. (And, just as importantly, didn’t automatically save his victims, either.)
I do, however, agree that one of the purposes of hell is to dis-insulate ourselves from the consequences of our actions. Nevertheless, Himmler was clearly not overly insulated when he was touring the hell he himself had created for other people.
And he kept right on going.
All that having been said: I reiterate that I do not consider more knowledge to be worthless as an aid to repentance and salvation. As horrid as the Holocaust was, the title-name “Holocaust” is quite appropriate: the innocent were sacrificed for the sake of the guilty–because God loved Himmler (among other perpetrators), too. Which of course is why some people (and I can understand why, though I cannot strictly speaking agree with them) want us to change our habit of reference to that event, to the Shoah for example. They cannot see why it should be called by a term that, to them, has meant something good (at least for themselves, if not for the animals they sacrificed for millennia) all their religious life.
Well, no, I can understand why they wouldn’t want to call it “the Holocaust”. It must be terribly affrontive (though on the other hand, unless I am not recalling correctly, which is possible, Jewish authorities were the ones to start calling it that!) It would mean that they were sacrificed by God for the sake of the Nazis! What freaking rubbish! What about the “virtue of hate” (as one well-spoken rabbi put it, a few years ago in First Things)? God sacrificing the innocent, the righteous, for the sake of the guilty? What rot!
But… that’s what God set they themselves up to do, for all those centuries.
And most Christians (orthodox and otherwise) think God sacrificed the Most Innocent of all (whether Himself or some other lesser most-innocent ) for the sake of at least some of the guilty. And calls us (and was calling the Jews, all that time), to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of the guilty, too, if necessary to save them.
And universalistic Christians recognize that that hope is given to everyone, never to be rescinded.
(Even for Himmler. )
Thanks muchly for the discussion so far! {bow!}
God’s grace to you as well,
JRP
Today’s entry (which gets back, not incidentally, to the whole “Practices”/“Christian Living” topic of this category. )
I’ve always like Sean Connery (and my dad’s a big James Bond fan), so I’d like to hear that.
“If” is a pretty big little word, and I believe Lewis once said (in a letter written shortly before his death) that he never meant to defend hell as anything more than a possibility.
I could probably find that quote again, but it was from a web site that I myself found highly offensive (since it was highly critical of Lewis, and would be even more critical of the rest of us here.)
Anyway, I know that some of his critics regard Lewis as a universalist (and if he believed in a never-ending hell only as an existentialist “possibility,” I would regard him as one of us too.)
Or teaching Lewis to be less vocal than he was in his life (which would justify his not being more overtly universalist.)
I still don’t think we’re necessarily talking about omniscience.
True.
But that doesn’t exclude the possibility that Chorazin and Bethsaida “would have certainly done better” given a higher level of experiential knowledge (and it is explicitly stated that Tyre and Sidon would have done better given the level that Chorazin and Bethsaida had.)
Paul seems to say that Pilate, Herod, Judas, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the centurions (and the spiritual beings behind them) would have all done better had they “known enough more”:
…we speak the hidden wisdom of God in a secret, that God foreordained before the ages to our glory, which no one of the rulers of this age did know, for if they had known, the Lord of the glory they would not have crucified (1 Cor. 2:7.)
I don’t consider the threshold of culpable knowledge to be very high either.
If it were:
…how could God judge the world? (Romans 3:6.)
And he’s culpable for that!
Agreed.
But there are many things he didn’t know
1.) He didn’t really know the Jews in that camp (personally.)
2.) He didn’t know that Germany would certainly lose the war.
3.) He didn’t know that there’d be war crimes trials at Nuremberg, and that he’d have to take cyanide to avoid facing the consequences of his actions here on earth.
4.) He didn’t know that he’d still have to face those consequences after death.
5.) He didn’t know that he was a true monster, that it was only right that he suffer, and that he could never hope for any happiness as he was.
I don’t believe he could have been the same man had he known all this, and that’s not to say that he wasn’t culpable.
He became Reichsfuhrer of the SS by being ambitious, oportunistic, and ruthless, and he’s morally responsible for all the crimes he commited in that position.
But I don’t believe any rational free agent would have freely chosen to be Heinrich Himmler if he were fully aware of all that that meant.
That’s the big one, and I’m glad we can agree on it.
He could leave, and he insulated himself by never coming back (or visiting any other camp.)
Yes.
As long as he didn’t have to see, smell, and hear the results he could continue signing papers and giving orders.
He closed his eyes to the evil, and for that he is culpable!
But I still believe there are things he needs to learn (and that once learned, this knowledge will make a difference.)
To borrow a case study from another topic heading:
When the morning was come, all the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death: And when they had bound him, they led him away, and delivered him to Pontius Pilate the governor. Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself. (Matt.27:1-5.)
If Judas had it all to do over again (knowing what he knew when he hanged himself), do you think he would choose to be the man he was?
(Again, this is not to suggest that he didn’t have enough knowledge to reach what you call “the threshold of culpability”–I believe he was as fully culpable as you do.)
Let me quote Prof. Talbott here:
willamette.edu/~ttalbott/freewill.html
As Gregory MacDonald says:
It is somewhat ironic that if one grants Talbott’s arguments about freedom, then a sinner in hell experiencing the real consequences of rejecting God will become better informed of the true significance of his or her life-choices, making continuing to resist God increasingly difficult and, at some point, psychologically impossible. The only way for God to keep the damned continually choosing to resist Him forever is by shielding them from the real consequences of their actions, thus denying them the possibility of making a fully informed decision.
(The Evangelical Universalist, pg. 30.)
I personally find this logic irresistible - which is why I don’t think an idea C.S. Lewis once offered (of a hell whose gates are barred from the inside) works very well.
Do you see some flaw in this logic that I missed?
Thank you Jason. {bow!}
Today’s excerpt (discussion commentary to follow later today, hopefully … or tomorrow, maybe…):
And The Way, The Truth, and The Life.
Amen (and blessings to all.)
Yesterday’s excerpt (which I forgot to post up):
Today’s excerpt: