Thanks for raising a point that others might wonder about as well. You wrote: “I’m wondering how you address wicked angels. If they exist as traditionally conceived, then they once had a face-to-face revelation from God, but nonetheless fell away. How do we deal with that?”
Angels are essentially messengers, whether human or supernatural (see the reference to the angels or messengers of John in Luke 7:24), and the overall biblical picture seems to be that the good angels are messengers from God and the evil ones are messengers from, or agents of, Satan himself. But if, according to I John 3:8, “the devil has been sinning from the beginning,” just when did he enjoy this wonderful beatific vision or experiential knowledge of God and his goodness?
As I see it anyway, the Bible provides precious little information about the origin of the heavenly hosts, and many widespread ideas are the product of popular mythology rather than clear teachings in the Bible. For all we are told there, even the messengers from God may have experienced eons of evolution and moral development before they appear on the human scene, and Ephesians 2:7 at least hints that Christians too are destined to become messengers from God in the context of some future cosmic drama.
Not that I’m necessarily against this idea (it shows up in my fictional novels increasingly more obviously as they go along); but if there is any start to rebellion, any beginning to the rejection of what is perceived to be true–which is certainly considered core rebellion by Jesus in both GosJohn and the Synoptics, and which GosJohn’s author also teaches in commentary–then in principle we have an original fall of at least one individual of a species; and, through that fall, potentially the fall of the species, too, insofar as he (or she) then leads other persons into rebellion.
If we don’t have any responsible start to rebellion, then either God creates persons originally evil (in rebellion) or else there are ‘two powers in heaven’ as the dualists would say. If supernaturalistic theism is true, then the latter cannot be true; and if God is intrinsically good, then the former would not be true either. (Even if the process of creating persons, as considered from within the field of Nature, involves persons being raised above their natural state while not simply abandoning their natural state; thus involves risk of relapse, insofar as the persons are given derivatively real free will, resulting in a now-perverted combination of natural and supernatural operations.)
When exegetes who find the doctrines of God’s supernaturalistic relationship to all reality, and God’s intrinsic goodness, to be testified clearly enough in scripture, then go on and draw conclusions from this about the prior character of Satan, this is not exactly the same as “popular mythology”. Especially when we have hints in the OT and the NT both to subordinate ‘gods’ leaving their place to act in rebellion against God. When an OT prophet lauds and condemns a human king by comparing him with a fallen highest-star of greatest wisdom, it isn’t much of a stretch for interpreters to figure out what is being poetically referred to there. The only question is whether it is only a creative poetic metaphor (only being hyperbole to describe that human ruler), or whether the prophet was inspired to refer to a comparative existent entity. Even if the form per se is popular mythology, does the metaphor mean less or more than it says?
I agree, Jason. We reason abductively backwards from present states of affairs and what we believe about God to positing a best, most explanatory, original state (of angels in this case). If we’re going to reject a metaphysical dualism of good and evil, then we have a ground zero for the entrance of evil into creation. Assuming necessary divine goodness, the question then becomes why does God endow rational creatures with the capacity to become evil if he can have them be unfailingly loving, uniquely creative, embodied explorers of the cosmos, and adventurous truth-seekers (in the case of humans), or unfailingly faithful servants (in the case of angels) all without risking moral evil? The fact that he risks moral evil suggests one of two things: Either (1) it’s not the case that God can instantaneously overwhelm the psyches of finite rational creatures so as to render them unfailingly/compatibilistically loving, or (2) there are desired outcomes God creates in order to achieve which require actual moral evil in a definitive sense (i.e., evil contributes positively to the explication of goodness as humans and/or angels come to instantiate it in the eschaton) and not just in an occasional sense (i.e., evil is a pure privation of the good, has no substance of its own, and contributes nothing positive to God’s goals, but given the span of time and the necessary freedom, hey, eventually we’re gonna screw up). In the former definitive sense evil is a color on the palette that contributes positively to the beauty of what God is composing (stories of redemption, the chance to repair the harm we do, etc.). In the latter sense God’s desires are all achieved “in spite of” evil.
What I hear TomT saying is this: Were we to suppose God to place humans and angels in a context sufficiently infused with a knowledge of God that renders us incapable of sinful misrelation (God plays that trump card from the get-go), and the entire history of the world were to transpire in which we steward the earth faithfully and joyfully, explore its wonders, learn new truths about God and the universe, play games and dance, relate healthily, build homes and have families, etc. (this is the scenario Tom ought to imagine in explaining why God does not play the trump card as a matter of policy from the get-go), but do not sinfully misrelate or abuse ourselves, others or the earth, TomT suggests that God would have great regret because (a) God didn’t get to put on display attributes that only go on display as responses to evil, and (b) there are stories we won’t get to tell (stories that can only be told by redeemed sinners). It’s a bit like saying that unless your marriage goes through the pain of an adulterous relationship you can’t REALLY be enjoying everything marriage was designed to be and you’ll always regret not having a story to tell.
Now, I’m willing to concede that if God knows that evil will surely plague creation in the latter, occasional, sense that its eventual occurrence is statistically inevitable, then God also knows that this will redound to his glory as savior, healer, repairer, fixer, etc. I think this is just to say God’s love and wisdom are infinite and that any conceivable evil will in the end become an occasion for the demonstration of divine love and wisdom. But that’s different than saying that the chance to exercise these capacities participates in defining God’s motivation for creating because without exercising them God is, from God’s own perspective, a less than desirable state of affairs. See what I’m saying?
Back to angels. So it seems that whatever their purpose, it included their having the freedom to determine themselves and their being morally accountable for how they determine themselves. That seems strange if their sole purpose is servitude. Surely God can create angels unfailingly faithful and obedient in service. We call that robotics. Reasoning abductively then, it would seem to follow that angels are purposed for SOME manner of aesthetic appreciation, something that requires a developed character that’s achieved through the responsible exercise of will regarding right and wrong. Perhaps the right and wrong in the case of angels is restricted to the right and wrong (and beauty) of service rendered as an act of worship (as opposed to the interpersonal sort of intimacy that humans are designed for). THAT might help explain things a bit.
I also agree with your challenge to the concept that God’s aseity isn’t sufficiently sufficient in itself such that He has to create. God does have to self-generate in order to keep existing (unless privative aseity is true), but God does not have to create non-God entities in order to be complete in His own self-existence.
Or, putting the same matter another way around: even though God has an immanent omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient relationship to not-God creation, God’s own self-reality is God and not not-God. Some reality is God and not not-God.
What gets especially interesting in all this, is how the self-sacrifice of the 2nd Person of God (God self-begotten) within the economy of God’s union of self-existence, is related to the action of God (specifically through and as the Son, per scriptural testimony) in creating not-God realities. Sacrificial death, in love, for the sake of the loved one, turns out to be fundamental both to creation of Nature (and to entities within Nature) and also to the positive aseity of God’s own existence. The Lamb is sacrificed not only from but as the foundation of the world; and resurrection becomes an intrinsic exposition (if I may coin a phrase) of God, Nature, and God’s relationship to Nature, including most especially the begetting of derivative children of God within Nature. (Up to and including, potentially, the bringing to life and to sentience the maximum extent of Nature possible.)
The self-sacrificial death and the resurrection of Christ as a man in natural history thus would be (as Christian theologians have often intuited) an organic relation of what God is always doing, including for all ‘the kosmos’. The Son is the leader in all things, even in death and resurrection.
This would also, however, help explain how it is that non-personal death seems so naturally prevalent, including as a precursor to the death of sentient persons, within Nature. Where the creatures are not personal, it isn’t really a problem. Personal creatures would be expected to participate with God in the higher deaths (to our own degree), but not to engage in the perverted deaths (and perverted lives) of rebellion. Death then becomes a punishment. God willingly shares this with us on the cross–a death of God that would have been very different in an unfallen world, but which still is consonant with all the relationships between God and creation (and between God and God in God’s own self-existence).
(Which I’ve written extensively about elsewhere. And will be writing extensively about again here on the EU.forum eventually, God willing.)
Right, Gotcha. Yes the first post. Thanks for the clarification; I had originally thought that’s what you meant, then realized I might be assuming something incorrectly about your notation.
This will have to be rather quick, but I do want to thank you for a couple excellent and challenging posts, as I would fully expect from you. Right now I am writing from Clear Lake in northern California, where I am enjoying a week long family gathering and vacation at a brother-in-law’s home with 41 members of the larger family from all over the country staying at various rooms and hotels on the lake. I do have my trusty laptop with me, however, and have paid for an internet connection, even though I may not have much time to make use of it before returning home on July 7th.
You and I definitely have a lot to discuss, Tom, perhaps enough to fill several volumes. Because we now have so much on our plate, I feel a need to slow down considerably and to take one tiny baby step at a time as we proceed from here. So let’s begin with a point of agreement. As you point out yourself, you and I are in perfect agreement about the important role of human freedom in the process whereby God reconciles the world to himself:
So we clearly agree on the overall picture, so to speak; and though it may surprise you, I also agree that God is “able to achieve the same end [of ultimate reconciliation] without having to depend upon any trump cards.” For having a trump card that could be played, in the event that it should be necessary to do so, is not the same thing as actually playing it. In fact, I seriously doubt that God ever plays a trump card of the kind I described. But having the trump card nonetheless provides a logical guarantee that his mercy will never be defeated in the end.
So where ** do** we disagree? Here is your first suggestion: “I think our ‘squabbles’ are related to metaphysical beliefs about freedom’s role in creaturely becoming with respect to loving relations.” And in your next post you add the following observation:
Accordingly, let’s start by exploring the relationship between belief, on the one hand, and obedience or loving responses, on the other. Could you perhaps say something more about the role of the will, as you see it, in the acquisition of beliefs and in the process whereby one learns to love and to trust another? Also, with respect to the demons who believe and tremble, which is a good example, just what is it that they believe? They believe, you say, that God actually exists. But what do they know or believe about the nature of God? Do they believe all of the truth about God? Or, is their conception of God a mere caricature in the end?
Thanks again for your most recent posts. I have decided to post this current response both here and under a separate topic entitled Open Theism and the Origin of Sin, where we can perhaps cover several points that you, Bob, Pat, and Jason, among others, have raised.
(In the middle of writing this reply , I see you wrote “Open Theism and the Origin of Sin”. In my case, I’m a closed Theist, an Arminian, and an Evangelical Universalist. I’m also a Neo-Pentecostal. And I’m sorry that I cannot simultaneously keep up with the developments with this topic while I try to finish writing this reply on my breaks.)
Perhaps you asked a rhetorical question, but I’ve an answer, as indefinite and brief as it may be.
The phrase “the devil has been sinning from the beginning” (I John 3:8) relates to Jesus saying that the devil was a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44). The phrase “from the beginning” translates from the Greek word arche. And arche is also the first word in the Gospel of John while it refers to the Father and Son preexisting the universe.
Let’s consider what John means when he says that the devil was a murderer from the beginning and has been sinning from the beginning. I’ll consider four possible interpretation while I’m open to additional possibilities: 1) the devil is an original (uncreated) agent who has always sinned; 2) the devil has been sinning literally since the first moment of his origin; 3) the devil has been sinning since soon after his origin; 4) the devil has been sinning since his first appearance in the biblical record, which is Genesis 3.
When we consider these possibilities, we need to consider if the devil is an intelligent agent or nothing but a metaphor for problems in the human soul. I find the latter hard to believe after objectively looking at all the biblical data about the devil and other evil spirits while I understand that some Trinitarians believe that. But unless you have leanings toward the latter, we’ll assume that that the devil and evil spirits are intelligent agents.
Unless we’re a something like a Zoroastrian, I suppose we’ll reject interpretation 1.
Assuming the devil is an intelligent agent, interpretation 2 appears odd to me. I’ve trouble imagining an intelligent agent sinning from its first moment unless God made the devil inherently depraved. I believe that humans born since the fall of humanity begin with a fallen nature while I doubt this happened with the agent called “the devil”.
Interpretation 3 works with Interpretation 4. And historically, the Apostolic Church believed that the devil was a fallen angel while as you noted that precious little was written in the Bible about the origin of the heavenly host. And as far as I know, speculation about Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 had nothing to do with the Apostolic Church church belief in fallen angels. (Obviously, we cannot blame Apostolic Church beliefs on the Vulgate.)
If by chance, interpretation 2 is correct, then we still see the devil in the heavenly realms according to Job, John, Ephesians, and Revelation.
This leads me to believe that the devil has been in the presence of the Lord and temporarily resists the Lord. However, I believe that the Lord will never stop reaching out to the rebellious while nobody will resist the Lord literally forever.
Good heavens Tom (TGB) – no worries man. It is but an onramp for the very sort of conversation that has emerged! (What I must state outright, and openly – since no one else has! – is that such wondering together, in community, is a pretty wonderful definition of worship. Which is to say, the corporate wrestling with the depths of God’s redemptive love.)
Sure, I feel a few steps behind (and God do I wish I had more time to spend reading this site and contemplating this stuff!) but I actually imagine that I know what you guys are talking about here!
Anyway, I’m wondering if you too are imagining that Adam – the literal man Adam – simply represents the literal “individual” mind who must process all of this for himself and who will, eventually, choose God.
…Still… I really do imagine that Paul conceived of “Adam” not as some “representative” of a large cohort of men, but as a real “man” — much like WE view the Christ as a real, single, solitary individual.
Also, I was curious to know Tom T’s feelings about the possibility that one of “our” best Universalist texts hinges on this kind of (apparent) slight of hand. I realize it’s more complicated than that but that’s certainly an obvious way of calling it.
And so I keep taking my little baby steps forward!!!
(and trying not to encroach too much on TGB’s comments – which have been excellent!)
Great essay Tom; and thanks much for sharing it. Lots to think about there. Yet, while I have real sympathies for the solutions you’ve proposed, I’m not at all sure it doesn’t create more problems than it solves: though I really do appreciate your recognitions of the importance of not laying responsibility for sin itself at God’s feet, which is to say God is not the cause of sin and evil.
This recognition might ring a bit hollow however if one construes what you’ve written here to imply that even though God doesn’t cause sin and evil and selfishness (I’m kinda using all those interchangeably) He certainly needs them to perfect “His” creation; a creation the bible insists was “good” from the beginning. That this goodness includes the expectation of making wise and rational choices – from the outset – can fairly be implied (it seems to me) with the statements by Eve which clearly indicate she heard and understood the instructions from God re the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. I mean, it’s just hard for me to know where to fit randomness, ambiguity, irrationality – which you suggest are crucial to early moral development – in that statement. Also, while the idea of Adam and Eve having the moral development equivalent to a two year old is very interesting, it does seem rather harsh – to say nothing of unfair (something neither of us like or accept at all)-- of God to then rush such a moral infant into “battle” with that wily serpent.
So there seems a real tension, which I think you tackle very well, between Eve (whether we see “her” as person, or representative of a process of moral development) the morally responsible (would God even give morally incomprehensible commands in the first place?) mature mind, versus the childish, naive, easily deceived, early stages of moral development individuals you seem to be picturing here. Again, great sympathies with the idea that all learning requires taking what we “know” to get to what we “don’t know”; so how does one simply “arrive” at full knowing, without experiencing all the intervening steps along the way??
I really like then – and am tempted to embrace – the way you lay out the “evolution” of an undetermined individual as being one from being in bondage to our initial irrationalism/randomness/ambiguity to being “set free from the law of sin and death”; except for the knotty problem that the bible seems not to recognize this particular order of things. Which is to say that the irrationality and randomness and ambiguity arrived on the scene only AFTER some initial state of something like the OPPOSITE of that. Which of course merely drops me right back into the dilemma of how a created mind is simply dropped into a state of awareness and knowledge and responsibility in the first place!!!
There’s another angle though from the culture of my upbringing which I’d like to offer and which I still find challenging and hopeful. (though I am yet a long way from working out all the implications of the idea)
Before I do however, I find it astonishingly clear that the trajectory of the learning/growth dynamics you share in this essay lead directly into heaven; which is to say, Universal Reconciliation. That is, since we all are in the condition of sin, (that seems clear enough in scripture; ALL are in need of salvation) it makes no sense that God, given His nature, would simply “skim off” the early responders and leave the late comers to eternal torture or annihilation. That’s incoherent for me. Rather, God is as seen in Luke 15 – waiting-working-searching-teaching till ALL are found/safe in the fold etc. etc.
My denomination claims a prophet (awkward – I know) and she very much believed that the drama of sin on our earth – with the Christ as final resolution – was of intense interest to the entire Universe. (You yourself, as have others, recognize this “cosmic” element to the redemption story…) Here’s a brief sample of what I mean:
and this
I really like this construct because it seems to take very seriously the notions conveyed in Colosians 1:16-20+ which seem to insist that the cross/atonement reconciles the entire universe. (As a PS: For some years I’ve used this as a knock against Penal Substitution models of the Cross; which is to say, unfallen angels, or other unfallen worlds, HAVE no need of payment for their sins; what they need however, is full revelation; which is what the Cross provides. Full Revelation.)
Further, there is the implication that the cross has meaning – profound and “saving” meaning – to those created intelligences that have not “fallen”. If one allows for a category of “created but unfallen” beings, some interesting (well, to me at least!!) things emerge. First off however, I have no trouble with the idea that we humans are NOT the only created beings; this seems consistent with a God who creates by virtue of and through and because of love. Put simply, love creates (and builds and shares and reaches out etc etc) – think humans parents who come together, in love, and “create” (wow – what an awesome privilege God thus shares with us…) and so on. So we don’t necessarily need biblical evidence of other worlds and other created intelligences; it flows naturally from the essence and character of God. (of course well confirmed by the bible)
If one then accepts unfallen intelligences in the Universe who also benefit – to their eternal security – by the Cross/Atonement, interesting things follow, which are pertinent to this discussion. One can now wonder how free and intelligent minds developed to the point where they are mature, remain “unfallen” and yet retain the need for something more; a something which will seal them forever against sin; (recalling the promise that sin will BE no more) which is to postulate minds, while still loyal to God, who remain not quite “settled” – until the Cross; that grand resolution of the sin problem…
Should such minds exist (I’m convinced they do) many questions follow; did they arrive at this noble state (yet not FULLY convinced) through indeterminate means? If not, is their “choice” to remain loyal to God somehow invalid or neutered? Is there a certain, “final” kind of knowledge which can only be arrived at (even though communion with creator God before this IS entirely fulfilling and satisfying) through the horrific revelations of sin and the extent to which the Godhead goes to resolve it? (I don’t know)
Further, given it is in God’s nature to create new beings, what then of future created beings? Surely they don’t need to go through the entire process all over again do they? Why the need to reinvent the wheel (so to speak)?? Is it entirely out the realm of reasonableness to expect some degree of ability to learn from OTHERS mistakes? But does not this imply a trust that the history related is honest and fair? – Which means the newly created learns to trust the truthfulness of who is “feeding” them the information? Is it not reasonable for one to learn via the use of conceptual and “hypothetical possibility” constructs? ie MUST one literally feel the jolt of electricity in his limbs – as opposed to accepting it on theory alone-- to accept that sticking a paperclip in an electric socket produces a painful shock??
What I am afraid of in your (Tom T’s) construct is the notion that the ONLY valid form of learning IS actual experience of the negative (by which I mean departure from God’s plan of love etc); which simply would be rendered untrue should unfallen intelligences be actual and real.
Except that my very quotes (above) of the unfallen’s full and complete conviction occurring ONLY after the witness of sin and its effects (ie the Cross) seems to indicate THEY somehow “need” sin too!!! Oh my!! Ouch…
So it really does appear that ultimate “salvation” (ie that state wherein we are assured sin will never again appear; promised in scripture) revolves around the witness of THE central event of history; the death of the very Son of God in self sacrificing love – along with the ressurection to new life again. And THAT death – certainly anticipated and planned for by God from the beginning! – seals the deal in ENTIRELY non-deterministic ways…
Or something like that…
Only yet still in the infant stages of putting this all together… Thanks Tom for sharing this journey with us!
“But now try to imagine a world in which God creates billions upon billions of people over time, not one of whom has a real live story to tell, except this: Once a distinct center of consciousness emerges, it is immediately brought into a mystical union with God where it remains forevermore, sort of like someone experiencing an eternal high, perhaps even quivering forever with intense pleasure, but without anything further to do. In such a static world (without meaningful progress) there would be no adventure, no quest for truth, no new discoveries to be made about the wonders of God’s creation, no moral struggles of any kind to be won, and no need for God to repair or to cancel out the harm we have done either to others or to ourselves. Such a world would not only be very different from the actual world, but would also be, in my opinion, altogether inferior to it as well. For it is simply a mistake, as I see it, to view the bliss of union with God as if it were logically separable from the things we do in this earthly life, the things that happen either to us or to our loved ones, and the grace imparted to us over time and in many different contexts. It is no less a mistake to view such bliss as logically separable from the tasks we shall continue to perform as God reveals the riches of his grace through us in future ages (see Ephesians 2:7).”
I don’t see being born into a forever blissful union with God as meaning the necessary absence of adventure, truth searching, discoveries concerning the creation, or any other similar forms of progress. Yes, the moral struggle would be a non-issue, and faith and hope would be unknowable. But experiencing the fulness of God in relationship doesn’t negate other types of growth. If this were so, then wouldn’t we be “God” in the sense of being all-knowing? Do you think that when God becomes “all in all”, this means that we won’t have any room for further growth? I sure hope not! If so, the “last chapter” would indeed be the worst of all! What started out dynamic would become static. So I don’t see it as an issue of static vs. dynamic, but as an issue of God wanting to give us the experience of faith and hope (via His promise) by not revealing Himself to us in full. It is odd though, to think of faith and hope as coming to an end, isn’t it?
What are your thoughts?
