The Evangelical Universalist Forum

God won't violate human 'free will'

Evangelical Universalism Arguments for Evangelical Universalism
#41

Paidion never said our choices were without influence, just that we have the ability to choose. Just because most people take the path of least resistance, doesn’t mean they always will. That said, I do agree with what most of you say. I have long argued that we are not free in the sense that we can make choices free of influence or restrictions. But we definitely can choose good over evil and we can do it consistently. I am sure we all pretty much are on the same page, just probably have different ways to express it.

But even choosing good over evil is at some level, self-preservation. It isn’t like we are good for the sole purpose of being good. There is intrinsic reward. Think about it, doing good gives one a “clear conscience”, it keeps one from making foolish mistakes. Christ himself appeals to the rewards of being good. So being good is about choosing the rewards that don’t perish, versus the rewards that are short lived and do… That is my take on it anyway. That said, I want to do good for the sake of good, but if I look inward, that is because I hate evil… That in and of itself is incentive. There is something about doing the right thing that is so… satisfying. Jesus knew this.

#42

Doing good for the sake of doing good is called love- the perfect law of liberty. :slight_smile:

“It is God who is in you to will and to work His good pleasure.”

#43

How is this for a twist on things?

A logical conundrum put to me by atheists led to me to a radical position in favor of Free Will, and that in turn became the basis for the doctrine of Universal Restoration, all from the Garden of Eden story. The balance of scripture only confirms this by reading consistently with it. Unlike other proofs, my conclusions do not depend on any other passages from scripture beyond the introduction of Original Sin into the world.

The conundrum put to me by the atheists is typically referred to as “The Problem of Evil” or the “Epicurean Paradox”. They believe it cannot be answered, and that it therefore logically proves the impossibility of the existence of a Creator who is Benevolent and Omniscient and Omnipotent.

If he is Benevolent, then he should not want bad things (Evil) to happen to us, his creation.
If he is Omniscient, he should have known that Adam and Eve would eat the fruit, and that Evil would enter into the world
If he is Omnipotent, he should have the power to prevent the problem in the first place, or to fix it.

Now the church does have an answer to this, and that is that God did not introduce Evil into the world. Man did, by disobeying God’s command in the Garden. It is telling that this is the very first story after the Creation. God thought it important to explain “The Problem” right from the outset.

But it turns out that the church has made a hash of this, because further doctrine undoes this simple explanation. Here is how:

For man to bear ultimate responsibility, God must have given Adam and Eve total Free Will. They had to be completely in control of their choice, for if God gets even 1% credit for it, then he is implicated in the Evil that followed. It should be obvious that Calvinism falls over on this point alone. But even if Calvin believed that Adam and Eve had complete Free Will, this has all changed, and Total Depravity means that today we do NOT have the same choice. So, without such a choice ourselves, how can God possibly hold us accountable by sending us to Hell for eternity? How can a Benevolent God punish us at all for something we have no control over?

It is worth pointing out that Paul starts out his dissertation on Predestination in Romans 9 through 11 with this very objection. And without going into the finer points, it must be noted that he reaches a conclusion of Universal Restoration that seems so contradictory in some ways that he can only declare it to be a “mystery” and beyond his own understanding. Verse after verse of chapter 11 points to Universal Restoration, but his final answer to the apparent contradiction is:

“For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.”

In brief, all the bad things Paul discusses are temporary in nature. And they serve the purpose of bringing about an ultimate redemptive good.

But Paul’s answer does not detract from the logic that only a radical view of Free Will on the part of Adam and Eve keeps God clear of all blame for the Evil they brought into the world. They made a choice that was contrary to God’s will, and God made a choice to leave them completely free to do so, despite the Evil consequences he knew that would entail. God willingly limited his own omnipotence in giving Free Will to man. And due to his Omniscience, we must also conclude that this was the Benevolent thing to do, because he was aware of a greater good that could come from it.

Which then means we must ask, what is that greater good? What was the point of the exercise? The standard church answer is that God wanted a few who would worship him out of their own Free Will, which is true worship, even if it meant sending the vast majority off to eternal damnation (or annihilation). This is a very unsatisfactory answer. As others have pointed out, we can never have completely Free Will in every respect. Just for a start, we don’t get to choose where we are born. Can a Benevolent God have babies born in pagan cultures who will never hear the Gospel, and turn around and condemn them for the fact that they were born in the wrong place? There must be a bigger plan.

And without going into a debate as to how this is to be accomplished for those who die before it is achieved (purgatory, reincarnation, resurrection, etc.), that bigger plan is Universal Restoration. We must all return to that state of perfection enjoyed by Adam and Eve, but this time, armed with the knowledge of the consequences of sin, we will choose of our own Free Will to do God’s will.

But what is “God’s will”? If God is good and he is benevolent, then his will can be understood to be anything and everything that leads to a good (positive) outcome for all. Everything else, everything that has a bad (negative) outcome for anyone is NOT God’s will. It is Sin. It misses the mark.

So Free Will, in a radical yet practical sense, must be complete freedom on our part to choose to obey or disobey God’s will. Which is another way of saying that we freely choose to do what is best for us (collectively) every time. Only such a construct allows us to each have uniquely individual identities (unlike the ideal of Eastern religions) and yet all enjoy a paradise with God, where nothing bad ever happens. We were each made “in the image of God”, and this process makes us more and more like God and “at one” with God, without being indistinguishable from our Creator.

If this is clear, it should then be apparent that this is the most incredible gift that God can give us. We are little gods in training, as it were, just as Jesus answered the Pharisees. “Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?”

And there does not seem to be any other way to accomplish this. “Behold, the man is become as one of us, knowing good and evil.” We cannot be like God without understanding Evil and its consequences. We have to know why Evil IS evil, because then we understand why God’s ways are the only good option for us. We obey God because we want to, because we choose to, and not out of fear.

As you can see, the entire emphasis shifts to the consequences of sin itself. It is those consequences that we must learn to want to avoid. Not some fear of eternal punishment. In one sense, this was the failure proven by the Law of Moses. It listed many sins to be avoided, but rather than just leaving the consequences as sufficient punishment, it sought to use the fear of imposed extra punishments as a deterrent. The bulk of the Old Testament is taken up with stories of what a colossal failure this approach was. But when Jesus tried to point this out, he found that the Pharisees believed in this failed approach as strongly as ever. And sparks flew.

The final piece of the puzzle is a correction of the church doctrine of Total Depravity, which even the catholic church subscribes to in a looser form. That doctrine denies us Free Will altogether, and says that this does not change until we die. Yet this is not the picture painted by Paul or Jesus or even Jeremiah in the Old Testament. Jeremiah said that days were coming when the Law would be written on our hearts. Jesus makes clear that this applies to us today when he says, “Ye must be Born Again”. Paul repeats this with, “consider ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Peter says the same thing.

The New Birth must be understood to restore to us that perfect Free Will that Adam and Eve enjoyed. It must be available to us today, not only after we die. It must enable us to literally put into practice Jesus’ admonition to, “Be ye perfect”, and to take seriously the instructions of John: “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not.” If we do not see our way clear to pursue this here and now, then perhaps we have not fully grasped the implications of what it takes to be “Born Again”. I have some ideas in that regard, but will save those for another day.

The point is that this logical construct that follows from the Garden of Eden story, and that we find reflected in one key scripture after another, makes us personally responsible for our own Restoration to that Edenic state of Paradise, and gives us a role here and now in God’s Universal Restoration. Far from warning people about hell-fire and brimstone, we are to be telling them the Good News about how to join in God’s plan for their ultimate Restoration, and indeed, “the Restoration of all things.”

It is this final point that is the most drastic alteration to prevailing theology. Because presently we have churches full of people who accept that they are “all miserable sinners” who can only sit around and wait for Christ to show up again and fix everything. They don’t even have a picture of the Restoration. Just imagine if the real problem is that Jesus has already given complete instructions and is now waiting for them (and us) to put them into practice. Imagine if present theology has the church 180 degrees out of sync with God’s plan. We are all sitting around waiting for God to act, and yet he has done his job and is now waiting for us to act! I do expect sparks to fly.

#44

Thinking about this a bit more, the problem is not with Total Depravity itself. The problem is whether or not we can gain power to be free from sin in this lifetime. Calvinism, and Protestantism in general seems to say, “No”.

The Catholic teaching on Baptism, and especially on “Actual Grace” seems to say, “Yes”. Encouragingly, the catholics are especially clear on the fact that God wants ALL men to be saved. See “The universality of actual grace”, towards the end of this article:

newadvent.org/cathen/06689x.htm

Which means the problem arises when we fail to understand how to access Actual Grace: God’s power to obey his will in this lifetime.

Protestants mostly say it is impossible to be perfect in this life. Catholics mostly assume the same thing, then go to confession.

The missing element in a doctrine of Universal Restoration is the mechanism for purifying ourselves from sin, so that we can consistently do the will of our Father.

Either we can access the mechanism here and now, or it must exist in the afterlife, or in the next life.

But if it exists in the next life, then it is available to us now. The problem is merely one of understanding. Waiting for the next life is the wrong approach, even if belief in reincarnation was correct.

If it happens after death, in a place like purgatory, then we have to ask what the purpose of this life is. The simple fact that the Bible is full of instructions on what we should do in this life and rather quiet on the subject of purgatory should point us to the conclusion that we have simply missed the mechanism that God has made available to us here and now.

To the extent that Protestantism denies the existence of such a mechanism (and denies purgatory as well) it nullifies the broad teaching of scripture, as it absolves us of personal responsibility. Why bother doing anything good at all in this life, if God will simply snap his fingers and “fix” us once we die? Why didn’t he do that at the start? What is the purpose served by 70 or so years of guaranteed sinning?

The catholic church affirms the mechanism, linking it to Baptism, but then leaves things in a mystical state. You are supposed to believe that you simply rise up out of the waters “born again”, a new creature in Christ. “Presto, change-o, God has fixed you. And if he didn’t, the priest is here at 9am every day to hear your confession.”

Add to this the fact that most catholics were baptized as infants, so they were supposed to be perfect from the time they were even conscious. So it is understandable if this good teaching of the church fails to connect with them in a meaningful way. The net effect is the same as with the Protestants, even if the theology diverges widely.

So we find ourselves in need of discovering this mechanism whereby God radically changes us, that we read about in Scripture:

“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”
Romans 8:2

And if this mechanism is available to us, then it is available to all men, and a Universal Restoration becomes possible.

Today, in absence of a clearly understood mechanism for accessing Actual Grace, a Universal Restoration remains just theory, with folks debating about purgatory, and other ways it might happen after they are dead.

Once we know the mechanism, so that we see how we ourselves will be restored in this life, we can then carry on the less important debate of what happens to those who died without discovering the mechanism and accessing Actual Grace while alive.

#45

Today, in absence of a clearly understood mechanism for accessing Actual Grace, a Universal Restoration remains just theory, with folks debating about purgatory, and other ways it might happen after they are dead.

Once we know the mechanism, so that we see how we ourselves will be restored in this life, we can then carry on the less important debate of what happens to those who died without discovering the mechanism and accessing Actual Grace while alive.

Nice to hear your thoughts Gorden. The general UR belief regarding what you may call “purgatory” we would call the Lake of Fire which is a place of restoration through purification. Not all URs see it exactly this way but i think most do. You quoted what i guess you think most Protestants believe but their thoughts and beliefs nowadays are very diversified. Even original sin and even free will are open to examination. I myself think that evil didn’t just accidently make it’s way into human life. I think we mostly learn by contrast therefore to know good we must know evil. They were in the same tree by God’s design and it was God who said “the man knowing good and evil has become like us.” Evil in the hands of man is sinful but in the hands of God may be a learning tool that is a painful but necessary lesson.

#46

Gordon, I am sympathetic with much of what you wrote, but I think a part of your theory is dashed against the jagged rocks of historical fact. In Christian history, where are the sinless ones? Even the very greatest of saints looked into their own hearts, and they were appalled by what they saw.

#47

It seems to me from Romans that while Paul is optimistic about our (grace-given) ability to follow the leading of the Spirit to a significant extent, he also sees us as awaiting “the adoption; the redemption of our bodies.” From Ro 7-8, I surmise he sees our physical bodies as at least the major cause of sin in our lives. Our spirits should rule our bodies (including our minds), and our spirits should be subject to the Spirit of God. “All these who are being led by the Spirit of God, these and none but these are the sons (huios=mature/trained) of God.” I think Paul agrees with my own thinking on this (if I didn’t, I’d adjust my thinking!), if I understand him correctly. The source of not a little of the evil inclinations within us–inclinations to do things that ultimately hurt others and ourselves–is our physical bodies; our minds, our instincts, our inherited nature from our forefathers.

And that bleeds into the problem of evil/pain. I won’t talk about that at length here. Huge volumes have been written on that topic. My little contribution is miniscule in comparison, but in case it might be of help to anyone, here are links to my blog posts on this subject:

They’re not terribly long. If anyone is so inclined, please feel free to comment, and don’t pull punches. :slight_smile:

#48

Hi Steve,

I generally agree with what you say about the Lake of Fire, but want to tackle the here and now issues first. Most people want to argue over what happens after we die, while I think we first need a better understanding on what we are supposed to be doing while still alive. Once we know what we should be doing to attain perfection in this life (which I maintain is possible), then we can discuss how God deals with those who failed to do so. In the mean time, we can agree that those who failed are not bound for eternal torment, as God must indeed have a way of teaching them the lessons they were supposed to learn while here.

I agree with you fully on the purpose of Evil. If there were not some good to be achieved by allowing Adam and Eve to eat of the fruit, then God in his omniscience would have made it impossible for them to eat it.

I am aware of the diversity of opinions out there. I tried just to highlight the areas where I thought my views would clash with the majority opinion. I then realized that I have no issue with the usual understanding of Original Sin, but I still think my view on Free Will is well outside the mainstream.

Hi Geoffrey,

Of course you are correct, which then begs the question: Has Christianity gone off course in more ways than merely the teaching on Hell?

I could ask you, where in Christian history are the ones who heal the sick and raise the dead? Where are the ones doing “greater” works than Jesus, as he promised? Is it possible we have missed the boat completely?

It seems that all Christians can identify with Paul’s lament in Romans 7, “Oh wretched man that I am!” What they cannot see clearly is how to be set “free from the law of sin and death” so as to experience “the glorious freedom of the children of God” that Paul speaks about in Romans 8. There is a transition, from the natural man in Romans 7 to the spiritual man who is “born from above” in Romans 8. If we identify with the natural, we must still be living in the natural.

Paul is saying the same thing in Romans 8 as Jesus said when he said, “Be ye perfect” and as John said when he wrote, “Little children, I have written these things to you that ye sin not.” The normal reaction is, “That’s impossible”, and pastors spend lots of sermon time assuring people that Jesus and John and Paul didn’t really mean what these phrases literally say.

I want to propose that the New Testament writers meant exactly what they said, and it is we who are missing a part of the picture. I will continue this by responding to Cindy’s take on Romans 8.

Hi Cindy,

I used to read Romans 8 exactly as you do. Only recently have I seen it in a new, more helpful light.

For a start, the church in general tends to suffer under the Gnostic notion that this world is evil, and that especially our bodies are evil in themselves. The Gnostics taught that the material realm was created by a satanic-like god, and must be escaped from so we can live the life we were meant to live in the purely spiritual realm. This was condemned as heresy, and yet it lurks in the back of most Christians’ thinking precisely because we feel weighed down by sin and unable to control it.

And as with a few statements by Jesus that appear at first glance to support the doctrine of Hell, Paul at the end of Romans 7 does seem to be really down on the body. But the body was made “good” from the moment of Creation, and nothing has changed that. So good, in fact, that it needs to be resurrected even if it dies. Paul is incredibly clear on the importance of bodily resurrection, which gives the lie to the Gnostic notion of living eternally in a merely spiritual form. Again, Heaven is indeed pictured by most Christians as purely spiritual, and yet that stands in complete contradiction to the ancient creeds which end with, “I believe in the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.” Everlasting life is WITH the body!

I am certain that Paul was not saying that there is anything inherently wrong with our bodies. The “redemption of our bodies” that he speaks of is in direct reply to his question, “Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” that he asks in chapter 7. Our bodies are dying, and need to be redeemed from the power of death. That part is future (waiting for). Our ability to follow the Spirit is here and now.

Read Romans 8:1-9 and for the words “flesh” and “carnal” substitute the word “physical” or “material” or “natural”, and for the word “spirit” use the word “spiritual”. Paul is contrasting the difference between a life where decisions are based only on material/natural considerations (physical reality only) vs. a life where decisions (the mind) are made based upon spiritual realities.

Faith is a spiritual reality. Without Faith it is impossible to please God. By Faith we believe such things as, “My God shall supply all my needs, according to his riches …” If this Faith is real, then we can give freely to others without fear of loss. We can “take no thought for tomorrow”. We can give our cloak also to the one who wants our coat. We can make many “unnatural” decisions, in complete Faith that God will accomplish in the spiritual realm what is counter-intuitive in the natural.

In short, only by knowing (in our mind) God’s spiritual truths can we obey God’s will. If we trust only what we see in the physical realm around us, we will often make decisions contrary to his will (sin). This is how Jesus could feed the 5000. You may doubt that this is possible for you to do, but that doubt is not the problem. The problem is, if you have enough food to feed your family today and tomorrow, and are unsure where your meals will come from after that, the natural choice is to keep all that food for yourself. You will choose to feed 5 people today and tomorrow, rather than choose to feed 10 people today.

Were a stranger to come to your door and ask to be fed, together with his family, you would not naturally think, “There is enough food for everyone to eat right now, so this is not a problem.” No, you would naturally see a big problem, because fear sets in, and you would worry about going hungry tomorrow. You would turn the stranger away. Only Faith, and obedience to Jesus’ commands such as “take no thought for tomorrow” could lead you to feed the stranger and his family. Only with a “mind set on the spirit(ual)” could you address the immediate Evil of the moment, which is the hunger of the stranger and his family.

Too often we allow Evil to occur or to continue, not because we are powerless to do anything about it, but because we fear loss if we do. This is the “mind set on the flesh (the physical reality around us)” that Paul speaks against. It takes true Faith in God to confront the immediate Evil, and leave the longer term consequences up to God. Only by believing that the spiritual realm is in fact more powerful than the physical realm can we live this reality day to day. And it is in this way that we overcome sin. At least, that is part of the picture. The part Paul addressed in Romans 8.

I liked your theodicy. Where I would go into more detail is in Part II as to why exactly God had to allow Evil/suffering in order to achieve his purpose in creating man. This is what I try to explain when I say that Free Will is an incredible gift. I don’t think people appreciate the fact that their suffering is ultimately caused by their own choices, and that it is the lessons learned by these wrong choices that are necessary to lead us to a place where we freely choose to do God’s will, and can then do so in a way that maintains our own unique personality. Without this, we all just morph into “the One”, as is taught by the Eastern religions. This is the key distinctive of Christianity (and Judaism of course), but it gets overlooked in discussions on why God allows suffering.

#49

Enjoyable conversation.

I do agree that suffering has always been a way for the Father to chasten His kids, for the good purposes the scripture speaks of.
I do not think that we can call that suffering ‘evil’ - at least as we generally speak of ‘evil’, as in “The Problem of Evil.” I have no argument with the ‘Problem of Pain’ in the context of learning and correction. The POE is a wider consideration.

And as to the POE - I don’t have any answers that are imo satisfactory - yet. :smiley:

#50

Gordon is probably the closest to my current theology… I do think some people can attain perfection in this life. That said, I am not sure if I will ever make it… “To believe you cannot be perfect in this life surely means you never will be, but to believe you can be perfect, well, then at least it is possible if indeed it is possible.” Basically, what I mean is this: We may be creating a self-fulfilling prophecy by believing we cannot live without sin. We expect to sin, and so we sin.

That said, reality sets in for me as a human. I stumble in many ways… Will I ever make it? Based on the odds, I doubt it. I doubt it very much, but that doesn’t mean Christ cannot do what I cannot. I won’t rule out Christ making me perfect in this life, but I am also not going to feel terrible condemnation for being imperfect. I am imperfect, that is the reality. Trying to deny it does no good. Calling something a mistake instead of sin doesn’t really change the end result.

Now, that said, don’t you find the Lord’s prayer interesting? If we don’t ever sin or trespass why bother saying “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”? Why do people say that Job was perfect? He clearly was not perfect, merely upright. A man can be upright and not perfectly upright. You can read through Job and you can clearly see that Job knew he had sin, but the sin was minor in comparison to what others of his days were doing. He still came up short, but was still righteous when compared to God. What if the Bible never considered the concept of ‘perfect’ as we do today? Maybe perfect doesn’t mean what we think it means. Maybe it is a poor word choice for translators. Think about it…

Why did James say “We all stumble in many ways…” James was clearly not made perfect, was he? Else why would he say that? He also said that teachers are judged more strictly, so not all should teach. Doesn’t that indicate some level of wrongness and therefore sin? I mean if Christians (true, whatever THAT means! as if that isn’t ambiguous) don’t sin, why should it matter which ones teach? Strict or loose judgment regarding a perfect person is irrelevant, isn’t it? In either case, the person is free and clear.

Ecclesiastes 7:22 states that there is a not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and NEVER sins.

“Little Children I pray they you may not sin, but if anyone sins” This indicates sin still exists at some level. While it may not be normal to sin for a Christian, it surely happens… “don’t do wrong, but if you do” I mean, I could see saying that as a parent, you know? Would I ever tell my kid “Only do right 90% of the time” No, of course… I would tell my son “Never steal, never cheat, never lie” of course I know he will probably fall short of something at some point…

“If we say we have no sin” this is in the present tense… I have heard arguments for self-righteous people who think they are perfect say “This is before you become a Christian” as if some mystical experience happens and now you no longer sin anymore. If we are to learn obedience, and strive and struggle, then it seems really, really odd to me that some mystical experience perfects the believer. I no longer believe that hogwash. If a believer does cease to sin, if even that is possible to completely cease from all sin, it is because they have been tried by God multiple times through testing and have passed the test. It isn’t because of some mystical experience that takes temptation away and makes us righteous drones.

After all of this, I have come to this basic conclusion and no can convince me of otherwise: We still sin. While I am not going to say God cannot perfect us in this life, I have never met someone who did. Now Gordon, you said something interesting. You said “What happens to those who didn’t learn what they were supposed to learn” - Being that I have never meet a truly perfect person (to my knowledge) and that nearly everyone I know would admit to being a sinner in some way, meaning, they do wrong, I think it is safe to say that “What we were supposed to learn” is a joke. If 99.99999% of the population doesn’t learn what they were supposed to learn, then we have a poor, poor teacher, or a poor planner for a God.

That said, taking this conversation in quite another direction as I have been pondering these things for a while.

  1. If God is lacking nothing. Then why does he want our glory? Surely it isn’t for himself. To suggest he loves our Glory like those goofy misguided Calvinists believe is a complete contradiction of who they say God is. If God needs my glory, then he isn’t God. If God needs people to love him, then he isn’t God. At least, he isn’t the all powerful God I was told about, in fact, this portrays a very needy God.

  2. I see an ant, an insignificant little insect - why would I care what it thought of me? Would I think of myself any greater if it worshiped me? Would I even be upset if it called me a filthy name? At some level, a God is so far above his creatures that what they think of him are completely irrelevant. Is God’s honor that fragile that he needs someone to defend him? That he needs someone to think highly for him? Does our opinion of him influence his self worth?

Both of my two objections here indicate to me that if God were this monster that Cole thinks he is, he is hardly greater than the worst self-seeking human. The only difference between the worst human and him, is apparently the power to create and destroy. Can’t wrap my head around such a childish deity, even so, I don’t think such a deity could even exist, because he wouldn’t have the self control to control himself from destroying everyone in a fit of rage.

#51

Hey, Gordon

Thanks for the suggestion for my blog. It’s a good one, and I think I’ll do that. My goal was to keep the posts short enough and simple enough for the average reader, since I usually write them in response to questions I frequently encounter (and I suspect that quite a few of the people posting those questions are pretty young.) But you’re absolutely right. It could use more detail regarding the reasons God might have HAD to create in the way He did in order to develop true persons as opposed to mere automatons.

Good post above, and I actually agree with you. I was thinking you might take my post the way you did, but was tired and didn’t go back to edit it. I’m kind of glad I didn’t, since it stimulated you to write the comprehensive post you did. My view on the human body is not that it’s evil, but that it’s immature (in a long-term developmental way) and does NEED that adoption; to fall into the ground and die that it might produce the body of life from the body of death. I just think that a lot of the fearful feelings and selfish desires we experience are the natural outcome of our (imo) evolutionary origination. These things were necessary for our development, but they get in the way of our progress at this point. It’s time (in view of the ages) for the human race to move on, and our physical bodies with their wants and fears need to progress to spiritual bodies as per St Paul:

By spiritual bodies, I don’t think Paul meant immaterial bodies. Jesus presumably had a spiritual body (if He’s our example), and he could eat, touch and be touched by others, be perceived as a solid human being rather than a spirit. Whatever a “spiritual body” is, it is clearly a real, tangible body.

I don’t see the natural, material world as evil, but I do see it as under construction. I don’t think we return to the garden of Adam and Eve, nor do I think they were there in a perfect state. Good; very good, yes. Perfect and mature, no. To me, it would be a shame for us to go through all this and not be matured by it. I think that even if A&E had obeyed God, they would still have had a maturing process ahead of them. What that would look like I don’t know, but I think they were then in a state of innocence. They may have been newly awakened into sentience, and were given the opportunity to move directly into the teaching and training of God, to receive the mind of Christ (symbolized by eating from the Tree of Life). Instead they chose their own intellectual development–cleverness–to do things and figure things out for themselves. We’re still eating from that tree, imo, worshiping at the shrine of our own intellect. That (and other obvious considerations) is why I said that our bodies are supposed to be the tools of our spirits. They make GREAT servants and they are indeed “very good,” but they make horrible masters.

It is in THIS way and this way only that the flesh is “bad:” in the sense that it makes a very bad master. It’s even bad for itself if it’s allowed to rule. We end up hurting our bodies when we obey our bodies rather than our spirits.

Please don’t get the idea that I think we’re sort of segregated beings. The spirit has always been integrated with the body and doesn’t belong “unclothed.” It just doesn’t belong in the subordinate position. That’s a significant aspect, and maybe THE aspect of our struggle. We came up in the world (as a race) by obeying our flesh. Now it’s time to switch over and obey our spirits as informed by the Spirit of Christ. It’s a tough switch. Luckily we don’t have to do it. All we have to do is hold still. :wink:

#52

Thanks Gabe and Cindy,

Your comments have triggered some more thoughts:

  1. What happens when we start with the wrong presumption? Case in point: The Doctrine of Hell. The moment we assume that even one person will be tormented eternally in Hell, this colors our discussion of related topics. For Protestants, this led to the split between Calvinists and Arminians. The followers of Jacobus Arminius laid out five points that sought to correct errors they perceived in the 5 points of Calvinisim (TULIP).

When we lay both 5 point propositions side by side, and leave out any presumption about Hell, we find something remarkable:

It is solely due to the Doctrine of Hell that Calvinism goes off the rails between Unconditional Election and Limited Atonement. “All have sinned” places all men into the condition of Total Depravity, which both camps basically agree on. In this state, there can be nothing to distinguish between one man and another. So only God’s Unconditional Election, laid out by Paul in Romans 9, can explain why some choose to obey God while others do not.

Then the Calvinists imported their assumptions about Hell. They assumed that those who died in unbelief must necessarily go to Hell. Thus, their next logical conclusion, based on this wrong presumption, was Limited Atonement. With the logical train derailed it is not ever worth discussing the remaining points, for they all flow from this one mistake based on an unspoken presumption.

Even though the Calvinists tried to keep Free Will in its proper place in the discussion, these 5 points had the inescapable effect of elevating Predestination above Free Will throughout their theology, to the point the Free Will was eclipsed at the practical level even while being acknowledged in theory.

The Armenians smelled a rat. Something didn’t sit right with them, so they tried to lay out the process of Salvation in different terms. Not questioning the Doctrine of Hell, that nefarious presumption lurking between the U and the L, they concluded that the error was with the U. So they rejected Unconditional Election and made Point #1 that:

“Salvation (and condemnation on the day of judgment) was conditioned by the graciously-enabled faith (or unbelief) of man”

They then said that God’s Grace was available to all, but that some men could/would resist the Holy Spirit. Thus, in came their distinction between men, caused not by God’s choice (predestination) but by man’s choice (Free Will). Once again, they presumed that some men go to Hell, and thus there must be something to distinguish between two classes of men.

It is the Doctrine of Hell that creates the necessity of the two classes. And yet nothing in the Bible points to this. Paul is clear that the choice is up to God, and yet we find man continually being held accountable for choices he makes of his own Free Will. So which is it? Remove the presumption of Hell, and we can reach the same conclusion as Paul in Romans 11: Both!

The Calvinists were right about Predestination, and if anything were guilty of UNDERstating the case as they stumbled over Free Will. The Arminians were right about Free Will, and if anything were guilty of UNDERstating the case in their confusion about Predestination! While it is a paradox, they are both fully true in the absolute sense. Neither one impinges on the other in the least. And here is why:

God in fact draws ALL men to himself. That is his irrevocable choice. It cannot be resisted, by anyone. How and when and why men respond to it is up to them. They will be drawn, but not all at the same time or in the same way. They have complete Free Will to choose their own way for a time.

On another thread I agreed with C. S. Lewis’ notion that the doors of Hell are locked from the inside, and my conclusion was that even if someone did find themselves resisting God to the point of having chosen Hell of their own Free Will, upon discovering the complete horror of a place absolutely devoid of God (all Good), they would choose to leave there just as soon as they could. And they would make that choice of their own Free Will. There is no one who would choose Hell of their own Free Will. And perhaps there are some who will have to experience it before they will be convinced of the goodness of God. Hell is like a firewall, and exists philosophically for that purpose. There is no going past this point.

At the extreme of “no God”, everyone will freely choose God. Which is to say that God will irresistibly draw all men to himself. Savvy?

Predestination is a crucial doctrine, because it equalizes all men. As Paul says, it shuts us all up under sin. We all deserve Hell, since we have already chosen a form of it. When we choose to do anything our way rather than God’s we choose Hell over Heaven. Predestination says that we cannot help making the wrong choice unless God intervenes. So logically, if you truly accept predestination, and radically so, then the moment you admit that one man will make it to Heaven you have to admit that every man will make it. There is simply no basis anywhere to separate men into two distinct classes. Should you appeal to Paul in Romans 9, then you must ignore all that he says in Romans 11, which is the conclusion of the same train of thought.

Free Will is an equally crucial doctrine. Without it, God is the author of Evil. He is God and “not God” at the same time. An impossibility. We MUST have Free Will, or we are here on earth suffering for no good reason. This life becomes a form of Hell, because we are powerless to change it. To stand on anything but the most radical affirmation of man’s Free Will is to deny God’s Benevolence. He can have no part in our choice to sin, and the negative consequences that naturally afflict us as a result.

So I find myself more Calvinist than the Calvinists and more Arminian than the Arminians. They are both hesitant to fully embrace the truth because they cannot give up the notion of Hell being the eternal destination for some men. The moment you accept Universal Restoration, this problem is solved and scripture no longer appears to contradict itself.

  1. Now for a presumption that I only questioned this morning, after reading your post Cindy. I believe I am safe in saying that we ALL presume that God did NOT want Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. But does the story actually say this?

God told them not to eat of it, and he told them what the consequences would be. But look at God’s reaction when they do. Sure, it seems bad. But if becoming “like God” was such a bad thing, why did he not simply destroy them? What is the point of looking after a planet full of people who have irreversibly changed themselves into something they are not supposed to be?

So what if we lay aside the presumption, and consider the possibility that God actually knew they were going to eat the fruit (of course he knew) AND that he actually expected it to happen and even wanted it to happen. After all, from the story it does appear that this was the only way for man to “become like God”. What if that was God’s objective all along?

As I see things, the only way to know why Good is good (no, I did not mistype that), is to experience Evil. And the only way for us to have a personality distinct from our Creator is to have the Free Will to choose differently to him. If God is all that is Good, then we must have the ability to choose Evil, to choose “not God/not Good”.

So, as a creation of God, the only way to relate to him at a level approaching equality is to leave the nursery of Good and experience the harsh world of Evil. We get to play in that realm for as long as is necessary for us to decide that Good really is a good idea after all. When we come back to God of our own Free Will, now we are mature. We know who we are and why we believe what we believe. And we especially know why we are not missing out on anything by not doing everything God’s way. Finally we can think like God and act like God without actually being God himself.

The implication is that this is no “second best” path that we are on. The objective of life in this world is about so much more than simply living peacefully in a place where nothing ever goes wrong. That would be boring, and we seem to know this. Eve knew it. Thus the reason the serpent proved so persuasive. Far from sitting on a cloud and playing a harp, the life we are destined for is more thrilling than we can possibly imagine. Because we will have the ability to do almost anything, and without the fear of getting it wrong. But to get there God had to take us through this training ground of worldly existence. He had no other option.

He may not have been happy when they ate the fruit, but his thought might have been, “Finally! Now we can get on with the main agenda.”

  1. In digging through church doctrine and trying to understand where the biggest misunderstanding is, I ended up focusing on the Second Birth. I could read the promo material. Sound doctrine, based on the Bible that says that we are supposed to be radically changed, even to the point that we should be able to be perfect and avoid sinning in this life. These are just the words I read, both in the Bible and in the doctrines of most churches.

But it is fairly universal that this is not what we experience. Cindy has some interesting thoughts on what Paul says about the Body and the Spirit, but what stood out to me was the part that was missing, especially because thoughts about it were already swirling about in my head.

What I found inadequately explained by most churches is the doctrine of Repentance. The scriptural admonition is, “Repent and Believe the Gospel”. In modern language this is: Change your thinking, and believe the good news. My conclusion is that we have been fed a truncated version of all three elements.

Specifically, we are taught Penance, not Repentance. We are told we must be sorry for our sin.

Next we are taught to “believe in Jesus”. We must believe that we cannot fix our sin problem, and so Jesus must pay for our sins. The words “Faith” and “Belief”, when read in Bible verses, are understood to mean these limited things and almost nothing else.

This makes the Gospel only the good news that Jesus has already paid for all your sins. These cover the past. They give us NO guidance for going forward.

Absent from the teaching on how our thinking must change, and what we should believe, is HOW we can stop sinning. We are supposed to have “died to sin”, so why is that not real to us? The church simply has nothing to say in this regard. It is left to the mystical realm, where due to your acceptance of a very limited list of correct beliefs, you are now supposed to no longer sin.

The good news of a life free from sin is found throughout the New Testament, and even finds its way into a lot of church doctrine. And yet the church is silent on how to get there. There is no list of wrong thinking that we need to Repent of, and no list of right thinking that we are supposed to Believe. “Love your neighbor” and the like is all fairly vague stuff. It doesn’t tell us HOW to do so. It just gives us the general principle. Merely the end result of some unspecified action.

As I see it, “Repent and Believe the Gospel” is supposed to be a “How to” manual. It should be far more detailed. We should in fact find our thinking radically changed. We should be “transformed by the renewing of your minds”. This is the missing piece, without which the discussion on the Body and the Spirit cannot be completed. It is the Mind that gives effect to all that Paul is speaking about.

The picture this paints for me is one leading to a New Heaven and a New Earth. If our bodies are to be renewed, and if this earth is to be renewed ultimately, that must start somewhere. Most Christians are waiting around for God to snap his fingers and make it happen “in the twinkling of an eye”, but this is not what I read in scripture. This is a progressive thing that we have a part in, and the renewal is to start right away, with the renewing of our minds.

It is supposed to start the moment we Repent. When we misunderstand that doctrine and its full implications we sit around waiting for the finger snapping, and our debates revolve around what will happen AFTER “the last trumpet”. We love to speculate and argue about such stuff, as it requires nothing of us in the here and now. But to make a case for the impossibility of perfection in this life, one would have to first show that Repentance is not an integral part of God’s plan of Redemption.

When I look around and see that most Christians are indistinguishable in their daily lives from their non-believing colleagues - that their thinking is essentially the same, and their decisions are largely the same - I am reminded of a famous quote from G. K. Chesterton:

“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”

#53

Gordon, it is my contention that they have complete free will to choose their own way as long as they wish to do so. God never compels man to do something against his free will. But God always CARES for people, wanting the very best for them, and so He will never give up on anyone. That is why, ultimately, everyone will choose to submit to God, and become his servants of their own free will. Jesus draws all men to Himself, but man CAN resist that drawing. That’s why not all men have come under God’s authority. they can resist the drawing now, and they may resist it for millions of years. They will aways have complete free will to do so. But God’s drawing, God’s urging, cannot be resisted FOREVER.

#54

Yes Paidion,

We are saying basically the same thing.

What people seem to miss is that this world is a mixture of good and evil, with no obvious connection between your beliefs and how much good and how much evil you experience.

So someone “accepts Christ” and bad stuff continues to happen to them. The atheist boldly rejects Christ, and good stuff continues to happen to them. And if you compared two people, you might objectively conclude that a particular atheist’s life was better than that of some believer.

In these circumstances, resisting the call of God is not that hard. It is easy to maintain a belief that you do not need to choose God’s way (the highest good) in order to experience good. But the fact is that the atheist still wishes to experience Good. He is not deliberately choosing what he perceives as bad for himself.

The concept of Hell takes us right to the extreme. Hell (philosophically) is a place with NO Good and ALL Evil. Purgatory would logically fit somewhere in between the balance of Good and Evil in this world and the complete absence of Good in Hell. Viewed as a sliding scale you would have to conclude that everyone would choose God’s way as they found Evil increasing around them the further away they got from God’s will.

The problem is, we don’t really know what happens after death. So most of this is just speculation. But it is very logical to say that no one would choose to remain in Hell of their own Free Will. And it is hard to picture how anyone would hold out long enough to even reach that logical extreme.

Goodness, by its very nature, draws us to itself. No one deliberately chooses Evil, ever. Others may call their choice Evil, or may warn them of negative consequences, but when they make the choice, they believe it to be the choice that is best for them. Even when they consider that it is a very bad choice, such as suicide, they still believe that it is better than any other options they have considered.

Lacking omniscience, we simply cannot tell the ultimate outcome of many of our choices. As we live and make good and bad choices, we learn. We also learn to trust others, we learn to trust God, and we learn to trust our intuition. If we take this task seriously, we learn how to make better and better choices the longer we live. Better for us. And better for others, once we reach that point in learning where we discover that what is best for others is in fact what is also best for ourselves.

This progress of learning more and more consistently to choose the Good is the same thing as being drawn closer to God, since God is the highest Good.

#55

I think this is the crux of the matter, that Eaglesway touched on. The purpose of all is Love, but the only way for someone to really participate in Love as a person is for them to voluntarily choose it. Involuntary ‘love’ is not true Love at all.

Whatever other circumstances surround any given person, they always have the call, the tug on their heart to choose Love – to dethrone Self and its ambitions in service of others, with a genuine desire for their well-being. Whether they know all the details of this path of Love, when they set foot on it in even the smallest way, they have taken a footstep into the Way of Christ.

How could a heart that has not grown to willingly participate in Love be suddenly transformed at death into one that is a participant? How could a heart that still has not forgiven another person – even their worst enemy – that does not want reconciliation with some other people – how could that heart be suddenly free of such issues? If a magic wand is waved and the heart is changed involuntarily, that is not genuine Love, voluntarily chosen.

Where there is Love there is indeed liberty – there can be no Love without it, and no reconciliation of all things without all persons choosing Love in liberty.

#56

Aint it wonnerful? :smiley:

#57

I believe God is Omniscient and Omnipresent

Its actually simple not complicated.
He knows my choices before I make them, but they are free will choices which I would make or have made regardless.

In other words if I make a choice right now, it’s my choice of free will. Whether or not God knew 1st or didn’t know my choices 1st is irrelevant to my free will.

God pre-knowing my choices before my choices were made, doesn’t change the free will that God gave to us. His foreknowledge doesn’t cancel out the free will I used to make the choices.

I don’t view His Omniscience of choices and of their out comes as “destiny.” God did not cause or destined or purpose my choices. He only knew my choices.

As for the outcomes of our choices, God predestined some outcomes and altered some outcomes, but does not alter all or outcomes.
God alters consequence for 1 - His own will, and 2 - at times for us because of His kindness toward us. But even those interjections of God in time where also foreknown by God.

He also holds back some consequences like He holds back the sea. And that’s God’s Love and Mercy and His Patience.

If destiny is “predestined” then that would mean God made my choices, making my choices also predetermined as destiny. Then it wouldn’t be free will.

God HAS predestined prophesies!

He predestined some events and consequences according to His own free will to accomplish His purposes as foretold in prophesies.

Prophesies are in many cased orchestrated and predestined by God. And Prophesy can also simply be a recorded acct of future events.

Because God is Omniscient, He looked through time and decided where His prophesies accomplished His determined outcomes, throughout all the unfolding of events, down to the smallest fraction of a second.

Any alterations of events through times of prophesy fulfillment were also fully known, all things were foreknown.
Like the Crucifixion.

He chose that time to come, it was the right time, so God did it.

He predestined Judas’ betrayal. Not because God made Judas’ choice for him, but because he knew… Judas would be offered 30 pieces of silver and he would agree to betray.

So then God predestined that choice as prophesy, to occur in the day and hour according to His prophesy.

Most prophesy is God’s response to every choice ever made and every consequence that ever unfolded, past, present and future.
And He already had complete foreknowledge of all choices and events ever to be made.

Prophesy is His free will. He predestined prophesies at a designated time. And sometimes prophesies of God are simply just foreknowledge of events known from all the known choices and every action and reaction.

Prophesy is destiny.

Foreknown always! And predestined often!
Our choices, and the consequences and the events that follow are used by God.

God acts on His free will using our known choices and consequences. God’s acts on our behalf knowing His action beforehand doesn’t change God or His intervention.

Whether happy or sad consequences, He uses them all, to fulfill His will in our lives and His prophesies, and for His willed purposes throughout time.

His purposes could be as simple as feeding birds, confirming our faith, disciplining us to obedience, blessing us, and even in judgement. But Him knowing ahead of time doesn’t change anything.
Just like not knowing or knowing a movie doesn’t change the movie. The movie already happened in its entirety, but the movie is still acting out every act and scene predestined and pre-known by the producer.
The only difference is it isn’t entirely scripted because the actors are acting by ad lib choices creating the framework of every scene.

He doesnt change our choices because free will makes choices our own.

#58

I try to look at the free will and determinism as a both/and matter. In theology, this is usually called providence, as opposed to either arbitrary and intruding fate or blind chance. A couple days ago, I saw a podcast where someone was asking on a catholic talk show about God sending people to hell. This host used the analogy of people who do not seek help, or reject help offered to them. Frankly, this is the only way that Hell has ever made sense to me. What I find on this argument is this stubborness in Christedom to admit that the popular way of having seen things is wrong. Because I had read many works of good theology, like the C.S. Lewis style, and everything seems like this Universalism should be accepted. The belief in Providence is well accepted, and have affirmed that God predestines all things, while also affirming man has a free will. But according to the arguments God is too much of a gentleman to save some obstinant from making change. But many theologians tell of their stories about how God never leaves someone alone, and pursues them until they join. That was C.S. Lewis story. I have heard the references about how Jesus was rejected in the New Testament as proof that God is helpless to save those stubborn sinners from their supposed choice to bondage to sin. But the reason as I best understand it is Jesus is not going to violate anothers freedom to be healed, like the nanny state would do. So naturally we can assume that Jesus can heal the stubborn without violating their free will. The best example I can think of Jesus healing the stubborn pharisee Paul. Yet the more I try to understand the reason people assume that sinners choose sin over God are silly. The biggest reason I have found is that many have idea’s of God as nothing more than a projection of their own religious upbringing, like a church that tries to make its members conform to their ideologies. This is not to say that transformation is unnecessary, but transformation is often seen as throwing away everything you ever knew about yourself, and change in accord to the religious system. I have wondered if this is also a refusal for Christians to accept that they dont know everything, and if someone cant see things their way, it does not mean they’re wrong.

#59

It is true that God’s knowledge doesn’t affect our free will.
However, no one can know in advance what a free-will agent will choose.
Suppose you knew (in the absolute sense of “know”) that I would eat a mince tart at 4 P.M. tomorrow.
If it were possible for you to know that, then it would be a fact right now that I will eat a mince tart at 4 P.M. tomorrow. So is there any way that I will be able to refrain from eating a mince tart at 4 P.M. tomorrow? I don’t see how, since it is already a fact. Where is my free will?

Rather than say that I am not free to refrain from eating a mince tart at 4 P.M. tomorrow, I would prefer to state the obvious. I do have the free will to refrain, but you (or anyone else) cannot know that I will eat a mince tart at 4 P.M. tomorrow. No one, not even God knows in advance what a free will agent will choose! Oh, you can predict what I will choose to do based on your past observation of my actions, but you cannot KNOW. When my oldest son was 3 years old, I would have said, "I know that if I say to James, “Jamie, come here,” he will come. I would have said that based on the fact that he had always come in the past when I said those words. But actually I didn’t know he would come the next time. He might have chosen not to do so.

Please don’t jump to the conclusion that I don’t believe that God is omniscient. He IS omniscient.
He knows everything that is possible to know! But knowing in advance what a free-will agent will choose is not possible.

To say that I don’t believe God is omniscient, is analogous to my saying that you don’t believe that He is omnipotent because you don’t believe He can create a stone so large that He can’t lift it! For if He could create such a stone, there would be something He can’t do, namely lift such a stone.

So yes, God is omniscient! But He can’t know in advance what a free-will agent will choose.

Here is a Biblical example of God thinking His people would do a certain thing but they didn’t do it!

The LORD said to me in the days of King Josiah: "Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the whore?
And I thought, ‘After she has done all this she will return to me,’ but she did not return…(Jeremiah 3:6,7)

If God had known in advance that Israel would not return to Him, He would not have thought that she would return.

#60

Our Father in heaven is welcomed to 'violate; my free will at any time. He only acts for the good, so any way he can seduce my will, draw it on, coerce it even - it’s fine with me. I’ll end up happier because of it.

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