Of the increase...there shall be no end

[Michael]

Isaiah 9:7 says.

Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end

But 1 Cor. 15 says.

** Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.** (Verses 24 to 28.)

So is that the end of increase?

Is that the end of creation?

No more inhabited planets like this one?

No more erring mortals in need of salvation?

No more children born anywhere, in all the universe?

[Paidion]

It’s the increase of his government (or “kingdom”) which will have no end. You have quoted I Cor. 15, where Paul affirms that Christ will deliver up the kingdom to the Father, that God [the Father] may be all in all.

So Christ’s reign in the kingdom will come to an end. But the kingdom itself will not. It will continue forever under the reign of the Father.

[Michael]

It’s the increase of his government (or “kingdom”) which will have no end. You have quoted I Cor. 15, where Paul affirms that Christ will deliver up the kingdom to the Father, that God [the Father] may be all in all.

So Christ’s reign in the kingdom will come to an end. But the kingdom itself will not. It will continue forever under the reign of the Father.

It will continue forever, but will it increase forever?

If the plan that God is working out has some ultimate consummation, wouldn’t any “increase” or growth cease when it’s all wrapped up?

Of the planets in our solar system, it’s pretty certain the earth is the only one with organic life, but let’s say there are billions of other solar systems, and millions of planets with intelligent life.

The way you read first Corinthians 15, aren’t all the humans, extra-terrestrials, and angels that are ever going to be created, ever going to sin, or ever going to need reconciliation reconciled to God when The Son delivers up The Kingdom to The Father, and isn’t creation, and growth, and increase all over with?

And if it’s not, if more angels or mortals are created (anywhere), wouldn’t there be the possibility of sin, and the need for rule, mediation, and reconciliation (i.e. The need for Christ The Son)?

[Cindy_Skillman]

If the kingdom stopped increasing (developing, becoming more and more) then I think it would be dead or at least declining. Father gave me a picture once (before I became UR) of a planet becoming more and more joyful and beautiful. I don’t know how to describe it further, but the impression I got was that this was an increase that would have no end. I assumed, when I saw the picture, that it would spread to fill all the universe and that the universe would continue to expand.

This wasn’t part of the picture, and it’s just speculation on my part, but what if we get to participate in the lives of the lower creatures as they eventually become conscious and sentient? What if the universe itself at some point becomes sentient? Like I said, speculation – but cool (to me anyhow) to think about.

[ChrisB]

it’s nice to muse. But whatever thoughts go through our heads it will be (or is? ) better than that! Wow! Thank you Lord! Chris

[Michael]

If the kingdom stopped increasing (developing, becoming more and more) then I think it would be dead or at least declining. Father gave me a picture once (before I became UR) of a planet becoming more and more joyful and beautiful. I don’t know how to describe it further, but the impression I got was that this was an increase that would have no end. I assumed, when I saw the picture, that it would spread to fill all the universe and that the universe would continue to expand.

This wasn’t part of the picture, and it’s just speculation on my part, but what if we get to participate in the lives of the lower creatures as they eventually become conscious and sentient? What if the universe itself at some point becomes sentient? Like I said, speculation – but cool (to me anyhow) to think about.

Thank you Cindy.

So after The Son subdues all enemies, and turns the Kingdom over to the Father so that God is all in all, you believe the Kingdom will continue expanding?

If lower creatures become sentient, will they eventually be given freewill?

If they are, mightn’t they sin?

And as soon as they do, aren’t there enemies that need to be subdued and reconciled again?

And isn’t the Son needed in his role as mediator?

Is the consummation spoken of in 1 Cor. 15 just the end of one cycle, and the beginning of another?

[Cindy_Skillman]

I don’t know, Michael. That’s a ways out there. The only thing I felt sure of in the picture was that joy and the occupation of the world(s?) would continue to grow. Other heads weightier than mine will have to take it from there.

[Michael]

I don’t know, Michael. That’s a ways out there. The only thing I felt sure of in the picture was that joy and the occupation of the world(s?) would continue to grow. Other heads weightier than mine will have to take it from there.

If “the occupation of the world(s?)” continue to grow, wouldn’t that mean that the total number of occupants couldn’t remain static?

Wouldn’t new souls have to be created?

And if they had freewill, couldn’t they sin?

And if they sinned, wouldn’t they still need The Son (Christ, the Savior)?

And in that case, wouldn’t the consummation spoken of by saint Paul just be the end of a phase, or cycle?

[Cindy_Skillman]

Michael, Jesus died once for all and will not die again. I do not personally believe that the Kingdom of God will cease to grow, and the picture I got seems to witness to that. Beyond that I’m afraid I can’t offer you any more light. Maybe if you ask Him, God will clarify for you. I’ve had Him clear up some pretty oblique passages for me, just because I asked Him. It helps me to have a pen and paper handy, though. I don’t always understand what He says at first.

[AllanS]

God made evil by removing himself from a region of reality, the sea of chaos in Genesis 1. He did so to bring us into being. We exist for a time in a bubble within that chaos, but it’s a leaky bubble. Evil drips in and sloshes about. As Jesus said, we’re born both of water and spirit.

God wished to create rational creatures who knew both good and evil, not abstractly, but by direct experience. It’s a bit like chicken pox. Our brief experience with evil in this life will immunize us against it for all eternity.

When we finally leave the sea behind and pass through the cleansing fire, not only will we dry off, we’ll warm up. All the darkness in our lives will be filled with light, and we will emerge positively glowing. Then, with God’s limitless world before us to explore and enjoy (not a little round rock like Earth, but a *proper *world, a flat world, one with no boundaries), together we will grow stronger, wiser, happier… forever.

[Michael]

Michael, Jesus died once for all and will not die again.

I didn’t say He would have to die again, I said that if there are new creatures created (after the consummation Paul has in view in 1 Cor. 15), and they’re given freewill (and they sin), they will need to know Him (who died once, on this little rock called earth, for all creation) as their Savior.

As long as these new creatures sin, they’ll be new enemies who need to be reconciled, and they’ll be need of The Son (as Mediator

I do not personally believe that the Kingdom of God will cease to grow, and the picture I got seems to witness to that. Beyond that I’m afraid I can’t offer you any more light. Maybe if you ask Him, God will clarify for you. I’ve had Him clear up some pretty oblique passages for me, just because I asked Him. It helps me to have a pen and paper handy, though. I don’t always understand what He says at first.

That sounds like the advice I get from Mormons.

[AllanS]

and they’re given freewill (and they sin)

Free creatures don’t sin. True freedom is the will, wit and wherewithal to do what’s right. Because God is absolutely free, he cannot sin. Those who choose to do wrong aren’t free, but enslaved. That’s why Christ has come to set us free.

We don’t freely choose sin. It’s a contradiction in terms. God makes the Apple. God makes the Snake. God sets it loose in Eden. If ever there was a Health and Safety issue, this has to be it. In Christ, God steps forward. Dying, he takes responsibility for the evil in the world. Rising, he reveals the point and purpose of evil, transforming it into glory. “Even the darkness is not dark to him.”

“For God has bound everyone over to disobedience…”

Why? Is he stupid? Malicious? Incompetent? Irresponsible? No. He has bound everyone…

“…so that he may have mercy on them all.”

Our direct experience of evil is actually for our good. How else could we understand it? Again, perhaps it is spiritual vaccination.

[Michael]

and they’re given freewill (and they sin)

Free creatures don’t sin. True freedom is the will, wit and wherewithal to do what’s right. Because God is absolutely free, he cannot sin.

God has the wit and wherewithal to do what’s right because He has absolute knowledge, if this imperfect world with it’s experience of good and evil makes any sense at all, it’s because He’s giving us that knowledge in the only way He can.

I believe that’s what Prof. Talbott was saying in “The Essential Role of Freewill in Universal Reconciliation.”

It’s also what some call a “soul-making theodicy.”

In one of his writings, Proff. Talbott specifically said that it was inevitable that finite creatures with freewill would sin.

Those who choose to do wrong aren’t free, but enslaved. That’s why Christ has come to set us free.

We don’t freely choose sin. It’s a contradiction in terms. God makes the Apple. God makes the Snake. God sets it loose in Eden. If ever there was a Health and Safety issue, this has to be it. In Christ, God steps forward. Dying, he takes responsibility for the evil in the world. Rising, he reveals the point and purpose of evil, transforming it into glory. “Even the darkness is not dark to him.”

“For God has bound everyone over to disobedience…”

Why? Is he stupid? Malicious? Incompetent? Irresponsible? No. He has bound everyone…

“…so that he may have mercy on them all.”

Our direct experience of evil is actually for our good. How else could we understand it? Again, perhaps it is spiritual vaccination.

And if it weren’t inevitable that finite creatures given freewill would sin, this experience of evil would be unnecessary, and would accomplish nothing that couldn’t have been accomplished by fiat, and how then would our direct experience of evil be “for our good”?

Anyway, none of this really has anything to do with my question here.

My question is whether this soul making stops forever at the consummation Paul had in view in 1 Cor. 15.

[Paidion]

Wouldn’t new souls have to be created?

And if they had freewill, couldn’t they sin?

Perhaps they could, but perhaps they won’t.

God has free will, and He never does does anything that is morally wrong. Perhaps, being omnipotent, He has the power to do wrong, but because of His CHARACTER, He never does.

Won’t that be the case also with all of God’s children who spend eternity with God?

Is it possible that those people who will be born in those days could, like Christ, always choose to do right, and, like Christ, be “in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15)

[AllanS]

Anyway, none of this really has anything to do with my question here.

My question is whether this soul making stops forever at the consummation Paul had in view in 1 Cor. 15.

If soul making stops (and I don’t see why it should), there’s an infinite number of equally interesting and incomprehensible things for God to do.

[Michael]

Is it possible that those people who will be born in those days could, like Christ, always choose to do right, and, like Christ, be “in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15)

If Prof. Talbott was right here (and I think he was), I don’t think that would be possible.

Accordingly, as a contrast to the Augustinian explanation already discussed, let us now consider the radically different hypothesis that God had no choice, provided he wanted to create any persons at all, but to create them in much the way he in fact created us—that is, he had nochoice but to permit their embryonic minds to emerge and to begin functioning on their own in a context of ambiguity, ignorance, and indeterminism.

The supposition here is that in creating independent rational agents, or in bringing them into being from the abyss, so to speak, God had to satisfy certain metaphysically necessary conditions of their coming into being, and these include what I shall call, for want of a better expression, an initial separation from God. By this admittedly vague expression, I mean to imply, among other things, a severance from Gods direct causal control on the metaphysical level and an experience of frustrated desire and frustrated will—the sort of thing that naturally leads to a sense of estrangement and alienation—on the psychological level. If these should be metaphysically necessary conditions of our creation,then our very creation would virtually guarantee the occurrence of error and misguided choices.

So whereas the Augustinians hold that we would never have inherited our sinful dispositions and moral weaknesses, had Adam not failed his test in the Garden of Eden, our alternative hypothesis implies that these are, from a practical perspective, unavoidable consequence of conditions essential to our creation—that is, conditions essential to our emergence as individual centers of consciousness with an ability to make rational judgments and to learn for ourselves important lessons from experience and from the consequences of our own actions. What some Christians will no doubt find controversial here, perhaps even heretical, is the further implication that our first parents came into being with the same sinful dispositions and moral weaknesses common to the rest of us. Before addressing that issue, however, I want first to clarify a point and then to suggest some definite theological advantages, as I view them, in our alternative hypothesis. The point to be clarified is this: If creatures such as ourselves could never have emerged in a fully deterministic context, then neither could human consciousness, human rationality, or human freedom have so emerged. But even if one were to grant all of this, a possible position would nonetheless be that our genuinely free actions, or perhaps the freest of all our actions, are fully determined by our immediate desires, beliefs, and reasonable judgments concerning the best course of action. So in no way does our alternative non-Augustinian hypothesis entail the standard libertarian conception of freewill. We are considering, after all, two different ways of explaining the near universality and seeming inevitability of human sin, both of which reject the idea that we start out as free moral agents. Whereas the Augustinians try to explain this by appealing to the unavoidable effects of original sin in our lives, our alternative explanation appeals to the unavoidable consequences of conditions essential to our creation…

As Iranaeus understood it, Adam’s initial sin arose in the first place for just this reason: Like every other child, he first emerged and began making choices in a morally immature state.

willamette.edu/~ttalbott/Determinism.pdf

God has free will, and He never does does anything that is morally wrong.

And Christ was God incarnate.

But if (as Prof. Talbott says here) a sinful disposition is “an unavoidable consequence of…conditions essential to our emergence as individual centers of consciousness with an ability to make rational judgments and to learn for ourselves important lessons from experience and from the consequences of our own actions,” it would seem that what you suggest would be impossible.

If soul making stops (and I don’t see why it should)

Then Christ’s role as mediator would only be temporarily suspended at the consummation Paul had in view, and would be picked up again as soon as there were other worlds with new erring souls?

[AllanS]

If Prof. Talbott was right here

Can God create a free creature that finds evil so innately repulsive it will never choose it? I dare say he can (but how would I know?)

By analogy, I’m quite able to eat dog droppings, but I never will. My instinctive revulsion at the thought doesn’t make me feel any the less free. On the contrary. If I suddenly felt a powerful desire to spoon down a bowlful, I’d seriously worry I was losing my mind. The desire would make me feel less free, not more.

[AllanS]

Then Christ’s role as mediator would only be temporarily suspended at the consummation Paul had in view, and would be picked up again as soon as there were other worlds with new erring souls?

It could well be that our creation, our experience of good and evil, our redemption etc is quite unique, something between God and us, never to be repeated. Like I said, God has an infinite number of other (equally interesting) things to do.

[Michael]

If Prof. Talbott was right here

Can God create a free creature that finds evil so innately repulsive it will never choose it? I dare say he can (but how would I know?)

By analogy, I’m quite able to eat dog droppings, but I dare say I never will. My instinctive revulsion at the thought doesn’t make me feel any the less free. On the contrary. If I suddenly felt a powerful desire to spoon down a bowlful, I’d seriously worry I was losing my mind. The desire would make me feel less free, not more.
**
Did you bother to read what Proff. Talbot wrote?**

Here’s part you may have missed.

"whereas the Augustinians hold that we would never have inherited our sinful dispositions and moral weaknesses, had Adam not failed his test in the Garden of Eden, our alternative hypothesis implies that these are, from a practical perspective, unavoidable consequence of conditions essential to our creation—that is, conditions essential to our emergence as individual centers of consciousness with an ability to make rational judgments and to learn for ourselves important lessons from experience and from the consequences of our own actions."

In mentioning your revulsion of dog droppings, you used the word “instinctive.”

Are you suggesting that God could create morally perfect beings by programing them with an instinctive revulsion for evil (and hasn’t it occurred to you that that’s an oxymoron)?

Then Christ’s role as mediator would only be temporarily suspended at the consummation Paul had in view, and would be picked up again as soon as there were other worlds with new erring souls?

It could well be that our creation, our experience of good and evil, our redemption etc is quite unique, something between God and us, never to be repeated. Like I said, God has an infinite number of other (equally interesting) things to do.

Then all the consequences of the fall–Calvary, the holocaust, and all the human suffering you said was ultimately for our own good–would ultimately be unnecessary, wouldn’t it?

[AllanS]

I find certain things instinctively repulsive, and I willingly choose to follow those instincts. I don’t have to. I could choose differently if I wanted to. But I don’t want to, and I never will.

Unless externally compelled, we all choose to do what we most deeply desire. How could we do otherwise? If you choose to do differently just to prove me wrong, that merely reveals an even deeper desire.

These desires are not something we choose, but something we are given. “A man plans his course, but the Lord directs his steps.”