Jason: The short version, though, is: depends on what is meant by “libertarian choice.” Saul was free to say “Okay” or free to choose to remain blind; just as he was free to kick the goads up to that point. He wasn’t free to avoid being blinded and goaded. And he wouldn’t have been free from any unwanted consequences to remaining blind; just like he wasn’t free from any unwanted consequences to cooperating instead of rebelling. He was however free to cooperate or to rebel.
Tom: That’s my take on it too Jason. It’s not that the definition of LFW (libertarian free will) is up in the air, it’s just whether or not Paul’s choice to surrender to God was libertarian or not.
Melchi: However, under the circumstances of Paul’s Damascus road experience, I would say that the only “free” choice (ala Prof. Talbott) he had was to do what he did! Which I don’t think is what we typically think of at all when we think of libertarian choice!
Tom: If the word “free” is tripping us up and you want to reserve “free” to describe ONLY what the redeemed and overwhelmingly enlightened do, that’s OK. You can find a different word, ‘ability’ or ‘capacity’ or ‘capability’ or whatever, to describe what it is about us (or about Paul for that matter) that accounts for the responsible disposing of ourselves with respect to God. Obviously we’re responsible for what we do BEFORE we’re so overwhelmed by God we can’t do anything BUT the ‘good’. Whatever that capacity is, it’s volitional, and we’re held accountable for it. Call it whatever I guess. I’m OK calling it libertarian freedom.
Melchi: If the only way we can be free is to know the truth, then we cannot ‘freely’ choose to remain in ignorance/blindness once we know the truth in a way that is not compromised by illusions.
Tom: I’d agree that sin and misrelating (as responsible choice) require some measure of epistemic distance (some measure of ignorance). But they also require some measure of sufficient knowledge. To act responsibly we have to know enough to make the right choice, but not perceive so much that we can explain our way into the wrong choice. This is just what you’ve got with Eve’s choice. God gives us enough light to find him if we want to and enough room to reject him if we want to. Both moves require the right epistemic distance (not so close as to overwhelm and not so far away as to render incapable of the right choice).
God can be convincing, like we said. And I don’t doubt that like a good chess player he can get us in a corner that leaves us with just a single move. But given my own convictions about what love and salvation are, about the nature of loving relationships per se, I simply can’t believe that the choice to relate rightly (savingly), i.e., ultimately (in love) is the sort of choice that can be squeezed out of us back backing us into a corner and leaving us no option but to love God.
God can get Pharaoh to release the Jews, or Jonah to turn around, or (even) Paul to stop persecuting Christians or even wait for one called Barnabas to come and talk to him, or take a few days to ponder things, but the choice to surrender one’s ‘self’ in obedient submission, relationally speaking, to come to terms with grace and reconcile one’s ‘self’ to God’s offer—that’s different. And given the sort of relationship I think this is, I just don’t think it’s possible to coerce or otherwise trap people into such a relationship (or into choosing ‘for’ such a relationship). Whatever coercion Christ might have used to convince Paul to stop his terrorist activities and take a break to think things through for a few days, I don’t equate those choices with Paul’s freely choosing to relate in grace and surrender to God. No doubt sometime between falling off his horse and receiving the Spirit (and his sight), Paul took that step. But I don’t see why we should suppose that step happened—boom—instantly as Paul’s head hit the desert floor or even that it’s the only step Paul could have taken after that point. The Bible’s full of stories of people who enjoyed a revelation as great or greater than Paul’s but who turned willfully away.
Mechi: Be that as it may, my point is still resting on the definition of free. The situations you’ve [Jason] described here (both biblical and personal) would still not put one in a place to make fully free choice, by Talbott’s definition.
Tom: Sure, there’s a sense in which human beings will know the truest form of freedom in the eschaton as freedom from the possibility of sin. That’s a far more free form of existence—period—than is our present form. I don’t think libertarian freedom is the end goal or the highest form of being. Heck, it’s not even valuable in and of itself. It’s only valuable as the necessary means to a good end. But someday we’ll have so much light and revelation of God and immediate access to his presence (etc. etc.) that the only thing we’ll be FREE to do and be is do and be for God and his pleasure. I’m looking forward to the day.
But that doesn’t mean there’s no sense in which the word “free” can be employed to describe what it is, or HOW it is, that we exist in this journey and have to grow into our destinies by grace. If you want to chuck the word “free” to describe what we are when we’re capable of saying ‘yes’ AND ‘no’ to God about something, if you want to call that ‘bondage’, that’s cool. Just so you know, for understanding’s sake, that’s not how I’m using the term. The Eastern Fathers had no problem using “freedom” to describe what we’re calling libertarian freedom. So I’m in good company.
RanRan: First off, ‘redeemability’ is beside the point - if one defines redemption from death and that ‘All will be made alive in Christ’ as having anything to do with the point. Everyone is still going to be resurrected the last time I checked.
Tom: Right. I was just talking about SOME annihilationists. Whether human beings are ‘redeemable’ or not does matter to these, because these (like Greg) who are annihilationists refuse to accept the idea of the annihilation of anything that’s redeemable. God would never foreclose on ANY possibility. That’s what love does. So if someone has a future, if there’s ANY hope at all (and only God would know), then God’s gonna pursue that person. No annihilation just because they’re name is Hitler or Stalin. But should it be possible (just saying), that a person can irrevocably solidify into her rejection of God, and should there be actual cases of such solidification, then Greg would say, yeah, at THAT point the loving thing to do would be to annihilate the person. This is different from OTHER annihilationists who think God annihilates all the wicked with no thought or consideration for the question of redeemability. Sure, he could save them, but he dudn’t want to. They screwed up and didn’t get right before they died, so now justice demands that they fry into annihilation.
RanRan: Secondly, as James (our James) reminded us, the one irrevocable promise of what the future holds is that EVERY knee shall bow to Christ as their Lord.
Tom: Well, annihilationists have their explanations of this passage too. It’s not like they don’t believe it’s Scripture.
I’m not an annihilationist, RanRan. I’m just trying to describe Greg’s view (and that of other annihilationists) for whom ‘redeemability’ matters a great deal.
RanRan: There is no such thing as an irrevocably evil human being.
Tom: I agree. But it’s a difficult thing to PROVE. Greg and others aren’t convinced that it’s impossible, so they leave open the possibility of annihilation. Some people can’t live with the options open and just be uncommitted. They have to settled into a firm opinion. I can’t live not knowing all the answers on this stuff…except for eternal conscious torment! That’s #*%(#^!
Do you think it’s impossible for ANY sentient being to become irrevocably hardened/solidified into evil? What about angelic beings? What about Satan? Just curious.
RanRan: But you’re talking about evil as though it were a thing - like a hard little nugget.
Tom: μη γενοιτο! Not me! Perish the thought! I’m totally sold on the Orthodox, early patristic, view on evil as ‘privation’ or ‘non-being’. Evil has no substantial existence whatsoever. This is ONE reason why I think irrevocable solidification into evil is metaphysically impossible.
RanRan: But of this, I am certain, the inclusion of the annihilation of people in any brand of universalism is a contradiction in terms. A baffling pretense made to look like the Gospel.
Tom: It works for some, and I don’t see any obvious contradiction generated by it. God pursues all so long as there’s a possibility of their turning, and he wins them. Those who (assuming it’s possible) solidify into irrevocable rejection of God are annihilated. In the end all that exists is God and those in union with him. It’s not my view, but I don’t find it a baffling pretense.
Peace,
Tom