how about some focus on the Universalist answers to Arminianism?
there’s been alot of great resources made available to Calvinists who wish to consider Universalism (or at least engage with it), and i feel like i’ve learned alot in that debate…
but honestly i personally feel Arminian theology has some much more challenging arguments to offer against Universalism.
also, there is the hybrid known sometimes Calvminianism lol…this also has some good challenges.
even arguing against free will somewhat misses the point that arminianism raises…it’s fine that we don’t have a huge degree of choice, but the Arminian may still validly hold to the idea that God might give us a tiny bit of choice, and judge us on how we use it. you may not have any choice about walking along the road…but you might have a choice as to if or when you cross to the other side. God could show His love for us by giving us the freedom to cross the road.
but i think even beyond that, some say, quite validly, i feel, that yes God wants to save all and CAN offer salvation to all, but He “will not force us”.
this to me is slightly more challenging to deal with than the awfully weak mistranslations and weak reasoning that results in double predestination etc. that to me is a sitting duck of a doctrine, but Arminianism offers some far more believable alternatives to Universalism.
or, they are harder to argue against because they are quite woolly really. but it’s very hard to engage with someone coming from an Arminian background, particularly if they’re quite happy with eternal hell for those who have had “every chance” to accept and still choose to reject God.
As a (roughly) Arminan (I have heavy Molinist sympathies) who engages other Arminians regularly, my general argument is grounded in foreknowledge. Arminians already believe that God knows who will be saved and has thus “elected” them based on that foreknowledge; I simply argue that God knows that all will ultimately be saved and has thus declared it (in Romans 5, I Corinthians 15, Colossians 1, etc.). Since Arminians see no contradiction between free choice and foreknowledge, there’s no tension with the Arminian system there at all.
Open Theists are a bit touchier, of course, and I’m not convinced that Open Theism is compatible with more than a hopeful Universalism.
I grew up with Arminianism (if I’d known it) – the whole free will thing. Only free will isn’t actually a Biblical concept. It DOES seem to make a great deal of sense, though, from a certain point of view.
There are a number of things that spoke to me.
First, seeing that the concept of death being the final point beyond which we cannot be saved is NOT scriptural made a huge difference to me. I was literally shocked to find that the ONLY scriptural foundation for this belief is “it is appointed to men once to die . . .” I had always assumed there must be more scripture to prove this point – but this was the only one I could remember. Surprise! It’s the only one given because it’s the ONLY one out there. Clearly inadequate to the task! Incredible that this would be so adamantly preached with no more foundation than this. I’m sorry – and I know it isn’t meant this way, but how can that sort of presumption NOT be heretical?
Second, with physical death out of the way as a limiter, what is to stop God from continuing to pursue the sinner? We COULD say that the sinner can run as long as he wishes (and I think he CAN run as long as he wishes), but God has a very, very long time in which to pursue. Eventually, everyone will give in, stop pouting, and join the party. Given an infinite period of time, how can they not? To refuse would be irrational. But an irrational person has NO freedom of will. God must restore such a person’s rationality in order for him to be free to make a choice, and once He does that, what else can this hold-out do but give in and receive the Father’s (and our) love? Pride is a cold companion.
Third, the Arminian tendency to down-play the agonies of hell. We want to make it “not quite so bad.” Yet Jesus says there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, gnawing their tongues in agony. That doesn’t sound like CS Lewis’ “hell” in The Great Divorce, where the damned prefer it to the company of the saints. Yes, they might prefer it . . . for a time.
Fourth, that we are told in Revelation that the ones receiving the mark of the Beast are tormented in the presence of God and the holy messengers for the ages of the ages – or whatever it says. So all that stuff about being separated from God doesn’t work. And then I started thinking, what if it IS the presence of God that causes the torment? Our God is a consuming fire, after all. I had been told the damned would be put away from God, but that’s not what it says here. At least some of the damned will be in His presence – probably all of them.
Fifth, that God is Love as in 1 Corinthians 13 God’s love isn’t something other than what Paul has said there, nor than what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. THAT is God’s love. He CAN’T torment people forever for no reason other than vengeance. It is absolutely contrary to His nature.
Sixth, that free will isn’t mentioned in scripture. And that there are places where it seems we are told that we have NO free will, but none that tell us we DO have free will. Except that Jesus says, “whom the Son sets free shall be free indeed.” So really, it sounds almost as though we do GET free will, but only as the Son sets us free. And all Arminians agree that we can’t help being sinners, but somehow we miss asking, “and where’s the free will in that?”
Seventh, that Christ will be all in all, and that all things are summed up in Him. How can a burning hell of inequity, hatred, resentment, and all things poisonous be summed up in our pure and holy Lord? Impossible. He is perfect and no unrighteousness is found in Him. Yet if that place is left out, whether in some “other dimension” or the outer darkness, or anywhere, then ALL things are NOT summed up in Him. Maybe it seems like a trivial point, but it did bother me.
Well, that’s seven, and seven is a good number, I suppose. I’ll stop there, though I could go on. I hope this helps.
I also grew up Arminian and might regard myself as a Hopeful Arminian Universalist (just to invent a label to try to put folks in the picture). I believed in absolute foreknowledge.
Hi Cindy
I wish that I could be as confident as you on that one. There are some things that are so intrinsic that they almost go without saying (eg freewill), but even so, I think there are some scriptures that may well indicate that we have a deadline.
[Please understand that the way my sad mind works is by always taking the opposers position and only if I find it untenable can I feel reasonably secure in my own]
I wish I could be so sure their ground is that shaky. I think that ONE scripture cannot be too easily dismissed (though I do so myself when arguing for universalism) but add to it "Now is the appointed time, now is the day of salvation " (ie in the here and now rather than the hereafter) also, like I say perhaps it is not stated any more clearly because it is intrinsically understood that choices (any choices) have to be made before death.
And on this one, I am glad to say that my mind is at ease. I agree fully with your reasoning.
Unfortunately, in my background, hell was frequently referred to in its full dreadful, most gory state. Perhaps that explains why I carry so many fears and insecurities. I was determined (rightly or wrongly) that I would not do likewise with my own children.
I think Talbott makes a good case, in I think a written debate with William lane Craig, that it is logically incoherent for rational creatures to eternally reject love and choose misery.
See, I do see free will in scripture. Not the actual term, but in the same way we see the trinity throughout scripture. When the Israelites are told to choose who they will serve. Are advised to choose life etc. I see it logically in that penalties are issued for disobedience to the Law. Which to me makes no sense given biblical accounts of God’s fairness and justice. To have us born tainted with sin, unable to change that of our own accord, yet to be angry with us anyway.
I tend to think we have free will within reason. Nowhere near the sense that God does of course. But we have limited free will within the paradigm God made us in. Much like our children have a certain extent of freedom within the parameters we as parents allow/their age and capabilities allow. We are His children and in that relational aspect, under His sovereign decision, He allows us limited freedom. As a Father. And as a Father, He can recind freedom and intervene should He wish.
I do think that so much, including things like trinitarian doctrine, are misunderstood unless seen through a relational aspect.
I see Arminian weaknesses, among others, as the trumpeting of the depth of God’s love for all men, whilst saying He will punish someone forever. The first statement seems out of character with the second. It makes no sense.
For me, universalism combines elements of my Calvinism and Arminianism seamlessly. At the end of the ages, God is sovereign over all creation that has been won, freely, by His love.
Ah, Quakers and Arminianism… you’re drawing this lurker out of the shadows.
Corpselight, thanks for raising this. Few Universalists seem to be soteriologically Arminian so I think our particular objections get overlooked here generally. It doesn’t surprise me that Calvinists who read the Bible would reject limited atonement and then given their belief of irresistible grace, run to universalism. As I’m wholly unimpressed with all monergism/determinism (not just limited atonement), I find much of necessary/dogmatic universalism to be simply unfounded (not all, but much). I think the Eastern Orthodox are right to consider our UR hope as reasonable and necessary-universalism as heresy (though I’m not into labeling such things as heretical). I’m of the belief that we will mourn, minister and hope with the lost until the fulfillment of all future ages — until everyone returns to God, or until the unrepentant cease to be human, which I will discuss below (point 7).
Cindy, I love you dearly, but I think you’re quite mistaken (though I agree with points 1, 2 and 5) . I hope my brief quote-response below won’t seem too frosty.
I think the emboldened statements are incongruous. If anyone can run as long as he wishes, then there remains no certainty that he must (or even will) cease running (as necessary-universalism demands). But more importantly, I’m not sure whether selfishness is really delusional. It seems to me to be a very logical evasion of vulnerability. For if anyone attempts to live an other-orientated life, they are bound in solidarity with others (that being everyone). They will share in their joy (and thus their joy will be greatly multiplied), but they will also share in their suffering too, becoming subject to the pain and violence of everyone. They will not be free from suffering until everyone else is. I’m not going to sugar-coat this: Love is, in one sense, horrible. It’s full of weeping and misery. Ask Yeshua. It is the very suffering of the Christ. You take on all of the pain that you’re aware of. I cannot stress this enough. If anyone wishes to evade this suffering, the option is available to them, though they will also evade all meaningful joy. C.S. Lewis articulated this idea beautifully in ‘Four Loves’ (1960):
There are people who are fearful of suffering that they resist all risk and avoid others. Whilst I don’t consider it nearly as tragic or a perfect metaphor, it is somewhat like a girl who refuses to respond to the proposal of a man, for fear of the disagreements and embarrassment that will inevitably arise within that relationship. In marriage, she will have to bear her shame and nakedness to him. So instead, she would rather remain content in her safe self-ness, and wholly miserable for it too. I know several people exactly like this. This is basically the reason I was forced to break up with the girl I was expecting to marry. Her divorced parents preferred she remain “safe” from the potential sufferings that relationships can bring. I doubt she will ever be allowed to marry anyone, and she will probably remain miserable for the rest of her life, i.e. in hell.
Vulnerability is the same reason why everyone inherently fears liberty (liberty is, I think, an absolutely necessary component of love) and why God would be prepared to risk rejection, yay, even eternal rejection. Yahweh is foremost a God of Love. A God who perfectly reveals himself by discarding his reputation and due glory and investing his authority in his son and agent Yeshua, a weeping, humble, pacific and servile groom. This is the groom who woos his bride with self-sacrifice. This is the God who makes himself vulnerable to rejection at Golgotha. I think this is the God of the Bible. And I think it’s largely beautiful, even if there isn’t a perfectly happy ending for everyone. Though I do think people will find their happiness. (I hope we will pick up theodicy later; and I do concede that mine is deficient, though I largely believe it to be less deficient than determinist theodicies. I agree that God always persists and that there also must be an “end” so I will also briefly discuss this later in point 7).
I don’t know of too many Arminians who “down-play” the agonies of hell. Suggesting the unrepentant will prefer hell to the company of the saints, as C.S. Lewis did, is not down-playing the agonies of hell. He wholly affirmed that the unrepentant will be radically miserable. Hell/Self-ness could be unfathomably miserable (even infinitely miserable) and yet still be more bearable than Love/Other-ness. I’m not really sure how a tendency could be considered a reason to reject Arminianism either, but each to their own.
I think you could be right regarding torment in the presence of God. I don’t think God actively torments anyone vengefully (as you concur in 5.). This verse (Revelation 14:10) would happily fit within a self-determinist view that God does not delight in the suffering of anyone. You didn’t have to dismiss an Arminian soteriology because of this. The EO (who have a self-determinist theology) argue that the unrepentant feels eternal torment, precisely because they are in the company of saints. Torment is psychologically experienced, just as creatures of the night hate light, so too could the unrepentant detest the Father of Lights. I probably lean towards the idea that this is God’s last and most radical attempt to woo their wills. And I do think that at least many people will risk repenting at this stage (post-mortem salvation seems to be blatantly obvious in Revelation 21).
This is simply wrong. You have to throw out the plain meaning of hundreds of verses to suggest that free will “isn’t mentioned in scripture”. I think there is a more explicit case for free will than the Trinity. You don’t find the presence or an explanation of God as a trinity in the Bible at all (as JaelSister said). It might be inferred, if that. But I don’t see too many Christians rejecting that. I don’t want to drown you in proof-texts that you won’t read. I hate proof-texts myself (there is a great article on proof-texting at Society of Evangelical Arminians at the moment). I’m not really going to defend a Free Will soteriology here (I haven’t got the time right now), but I do want to share some “Resistible Grace” verses with you and would like to hear, if I may, your determinist “Irresistible Grace” interpretations.
“If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself.”
— John 7:17
“But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected God’s purpose for themselves, not having been baptized by John.”
— Luke 7:30
“‘You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the holy spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did.’”
— Acts 7:51
“However, they did not all heed the good news; for Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed our report?’”
— Romans 10:16
How can anyone reject the teaching, purpose, holy spirit or gospel when grace is supposed to be irresistible? I don’t believe that God can irresistibly make people love him because this is, I think, a conceptual absurdity. I think love necessitates two persons freely extending affection towards one another. Love without two persons is narcissism. Love without the extension of affection is completely meaningless. Love by compulsion is a delusional slavery (i.e. stockholm syndrome).
There are also the many famous “free will offering” verses: Exodus 35:29; 36:3; Leviticus 7:16; 22:18, 21, 23; 23:38; Numbers 15:3; 29:39; Deuteronomy 12:6, 17; 16:10; 2 Chronicles 31:14; 35:8; Ezra 1:4, 6; 3:5; 7:16; 8:28; Psalm 119:108; Ezekiel 46:12; Amos 4:5. Make what you will of them.
I agree Cindy. Any conscious torment simply cannot be eternal. Sin and death cannot “reign to all eternity, blasting the intelligent creation, and ravaging the works of God” as Adin Ballou put it. I believe that God, by virtue of his nature, will not cease expressing his love towards sinners and will continue to do everything within his power (the dispensing of prevenient grace) until the fulfillment of the ages. I think that men resisting the source of life will progressively starve themselves of this life (commit a slow suicide, so to speak) rather than live in love and humility with others. Once all have passed from their shadow-life in hell to life in the Kingdom or to an unconsciousness/death then (and only then) will every knee have bowed and God will finally be “all in all”.
I know my tinkerings with this stuff is pretty poor. I noticed a few inconsistencies in there myself. I leave them there to be exploited. And I’m not holding to anything particularly dogmatically (to be honest, my faith and theology is immensely small at the moment). But I think it’s reasonable enough, and currently I think it more reasonable and biblical than the alternative — determinism. But each to their own; I’m convinced you’ve been given that freedom. A few things I would like to talk about later is whether God can still be said to triumph with the triumph of rebels and determinist theodicies (I haven’t heard a particularly good one yet).
Despite Andrew’s objections (which I will try to address later), I would second everything Cindy says. For me, post-mortem repentance is the deal-breaker for Arminianism. The moment you allow that, the Arminian justification for an eternal hell vanishes in a puff of mephistophelean smoke. As Cindy says, Thomas Talbott puts forward a pretty much watertight logical argument for the irrationality of rejecting God forever in The Inescapable Love of God. If you haven’t read it (and how dare you not have??!! ), you can download the relevant chapter, chapter 11, for free from Tom’s website.
Another highly persuasive argument for the impossibility of some people continuing to reject God forever can be found in the anthology Universal Salvation, the Current Debate, edited by Robin Parry .It’s an essay by, I think, Eric Reitan, and it shows how, given enough, time (which is something God has infinite resources of) He will eventually draw all of us to him.
The quote from Madeleine L’Engle which opens Talbott’s chapter 11 of TILOG says it all:
“No matter how many eons it takes, he will not rest until all of creation, including Satan, is reconciled to him, until there is no creature who cannot return his love with a joyful response of love.”
Now I understand Pilgrim’s reluctance to accept that the Bible nowhere teaches the impossibility of post-mortem repentance. It’s a big stumbling block for most non EUs, I would argue. But on that subject I would just make a couple of quick points:
The verse always cited to support the notion of repentance before death or else, is Hebrews 9:27:
“Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.” (NIV)]
“And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” (KJV)
But this is a shoddy, misleading translation, for it ought to read “it is appointed unto the (or those) men once to die” – the word for ‘those’ is there in the Greek (Strong’s number G3588), but is omitted by our ECT loving translators!
And if you read the whole chapter, it becomes obvious that the writer isn’t talking about all men, all people, at all. They are talking about certain, specific men, “those men” who all the way through the chapter and the next are compared to Christ – and those men are priests, or the successors of the high priests under the law. So this isn’t some general proclamation of doom on mankind!
But even more damningly (to coin a phrase), even if you accept that Heb 9:27 does apply to all mankind, where on earth does it say that after death there is no opportunity for repentance? All it says is “after death comes judgement”. I don’t think most of us EUs would dispute that! Sure, we get judged, but we still have opportunities to repent – whether before or after the judgement I don’t know, doesn’t matter really.
So Hebrews 9:27 has little or no real bearing on the issue of post-mortem repentance. And once you pull that card out, the whole house collapses!
Then, of course, you have the whole weight of scriptural and philosophical argument that God’s mercies and lovingkindness are infinite and everlasting. Put these two things together, and what do you get – a God who NEVER shuts the door on the possibility of repentance.
thanks everyone!
lots to think about. will be posting again, of course, but this is largely for me to selfishly leech your collective knowledge and observations
Johnny, I’ve read both Inescapable Love and Universal Salvation: The Current Debate, and whilst I found them very challenging, I did not find anything so compelling and water-tight that I should abandon these particular objections I’ve raised
I confess I had forgotten the 2 Corinthians verse, and you’re right. That is an important one. I’ve looked it up in a large number of translations (I love e-sword!), and it seems the more literal ones have “an acceptable time” and “a day of salvation.” Just because I found it interesting, here’s the Jonathan Mitchel translation:
Which would say to me, “Do it NOW! Why on earth would you wait?” But here’s the CLV, which is easier to follow, and with much less linguistic expostulation:
All of which goes to show me yet once again that one can never trust a human-made translation. People, it seems, simply cannot help reading their own biases back into scripture. It MUST mean it this way, because I KNOW that people have only until the last breath leaves their bodies. After that, it’s too late. I have been taught this all my life. Besides, it makes this verse that much better as a sales pitch.
An interesting story: I used to go out “witnessing” on Friday nights with a team from my church back in Florida. A couple of us took some time to share with one of the bouncers at a bar. (They wouldn’t let us in, so we just talked to THEM! I’ll bet they would’ve preferred to get rid of us by ushering us in, instead.) He was polite, but very much not interested. A couple of weeks later we came back around and I asked after him. He had died suddenly of lung cancer. (It happens occasionally.) Big healthy guy. He hadn’t even known he was sick, except he wasn’t feeling tip-top when I first met him. I felt so bad, that I hadn’t pushed harder. Now, he was in hell, and of course it was my fault. I didn’t close the deal. Yeah . . . . condemnation. Yum!
Fair enough. Pretty much nothing any of us believe is so self-evidently true that everybody is 100% convinced by it. And when it comes to questions of religious belief, of theology and doctrine, all bets are off - as is evident in the huge spectrum of belief and unbelief in the world.
And I did say that Talbott’s argument was only “pretty much” watertight …
So, to your objections. I would say that if the legendary Thomas Talbott cannot convince you that you can be an Arminian Universalist, then what chance does little old me have ? But I’ll have a go anyway!
If I read you right, your main objections to Arminian Universalism seem to be:
Because we do have genuine freedom, we cannot be certain that God will one day ‘win us all over to His point of view’, and hence bring us to freely repent and embrace our salvation.
It is not ‘irrational’ for us to act selfishly, hence even if God removes all our philosophical blinkers, as it were, we could still end up being able to make a rational, fully informed decision to reject Him.
I would agree with almost *all *you say here, Andrew. *Almost *all.
You say: “If anyone can run as long as he wishes, then there remains no certainty that he must (or even will) cease running (as necessary-universalism demands).”
There is a prima facie ring of truth to this statement. It may even be logically correct. (I don’t know, I’m not a logician.) And indeed, it is the very objection I felt most mitigated *against *Universalism when I was on the verge of converting to UR myself. I cannot give you that fabled watertight argument to counter the objection. But I can at least tell you what I now believe. Which is this:
The ‘anyone can run as long as he wishes’ argument fails, in my mind, because ultimately it puts the human will above the will of God. In effect, it says that we are more powerful than God. And I cannot accept that. Yes, God cedes freedom to us - a great deal of freedom. But He never cedes his ultimate *sovereignty *to us. As God, He desires our salvation. And as God, He always gets what He wants.
With Jurgen Moltmann, I would say that the Arminian idea that we can freely and rationally reject God forever resonates with us today because it chimes in with the modern culture of the individual. We are now so used to the concept of ‘human rights’, of our democratic right to do as we wish, to determine our own destiny, that we find it hard to accept that we are not fully self-determining agents. It just ‘seems’ wrong to us that we ultimately have to bend to the will of a higher power.
But surely it isn’t hard to accept that God, whose goodness and mind are infinite, will have at His disposal strategies that will ultimately bring us freely and lovingly into harmony with Him? No matter how many times I play chess with Garry Kasparov, moving my pieces however I wish, He will always beat me. My freedom is preserved, I am just always outflanked by a superior strategic mind.
Not watertight, I know. But for now, it’s the best I can offer.
Your second objection is a *real *toughie. Again, I agree with you pretty much all the way. When I read The Great Divorce, which I have done a number of times - brilliant book - I say to myself, “yes, if the damned really want to go on being selfish, what *can *God do, without compromising their genuine freedom, to save them?”
I think, perhaps, you answer this question yourself. I agree we can only experience joy by opening ourselves up to the possibility of pain and rejection, by making ourselves vulnerable. But if our joy is to be finally consummated in the eschaton, somehow that pain must be fully and irrevocably assuaged. It must be transformed into joy. And I can see no way in which this can happen if people that we love remain in hell, or are annihilated. Our happiness is inextricably linked with the happiness of those we love. And, I humbly, submit, the same is true of God.
This seems like a reasonable statement. But I think there is a fallacy buried within it, which is the statement that “God, by virtue of his nature, will not cease expressing his love towards sinners and will continue to do everything within his power (the dispensing of prevenient grace) until the fulfillment of the ages”.
I ask you, what is the point of God doing “everything within his power” to save sinners, when He knows full well that in the end some of them will simply *not *be saved? Lewis uses the analogy of a teacher knowing when it finally becomes pointless to put a boy in for an exam, him having failed it so many times before that it is now certain he will flunk it again. But I have two problems with this analogy:
God is the teacher who knows the first time the boy sits the exam that he will fail it, and continue to fail it eternally! So putting him in for it multiple times is an act of pointless cruelty.
Surely if you accept that we can continue to rationally reject God forever, then why can the reverse not be true? Why must God ring down the curtain on us after a suitable number of ages? As long as we retain the capacity to accept Him, He must keep the door open for our repentance. In which case we’re back to my previous argument. And if you believe that we can become so fixed in our rebellion that we are *utterly *beyond redemption, ie that there is not an infinite regress of reversible rebellion, why can you not also believe that the same isn’t true of our *acceptance * of God - ie that we cannot simply go on rejecting Him forever. There must a ‘vanishing point’, to coin a not particularly accurate phase, at which our rejection evaporates.
Again, not watertight, but the best I can do for now .
Great to debate with you Andrew. I hope we can have further fruitful discussion on this supremely interesting and important subject.
Shalom
Johnny
Of course, you could counter this by denying God foreknowledge. But I don’t think many theist philosophers would subscribe to that view.
WAAB, thanks for your input here. it’s giving me a chance to think of some counterarguments to Arminian theology with an especially high view of free will and low view of Sovereignty, which is appreciated.
as to love being equal to horrible suffering in many cases like, as you say rightly, Christ Himself, and if i’ve read you right, that our suffering on behalf of those not with God will not end til they’re either permanently dead (so we can grieve and get over it, as Atheists who dont believe in resurrection in the future have to now), or God has saved them…
well there’s something to that.
however, God whipes away all tears in the new Kingdom. all suffering must end by that point. the comfort we are promised if we mourn would be empty if the one being in the whole universe who could assuage it meaningfully, that is restore what we lost, just gave us a cuppa and a hug and said “there there.”
if, for example, my dad, who went into a coma for 2 weeks before he died, and had not confessed Christ before, was lost to me on an eternal basis, that loss would never be assuaged. God could say “there there” and bring me cups of tea for all eternity, and i’d still ask why He didn’t do what would’ve made it alright.
also, this sort of half-bottomed (to avoid being censored) approach is exactly what Christ spoke against when He said about those who turned away those in need with no practical help, and merely said “God bless you” (i wish i could remember the passage). i can’t imagine God doing that…not when He has it in His ability to reconcile us all.
now i know you don’t buy God’s sovereignty over free will, if i remember correctly. i don’t fully understand such a high view of free will, if i’m honest. i don’t think it holds water scientifically (see Richard Beck’s thread on Neuroscience on this forum). however, even holding firmly to free will, and the ability to run as far as humanly possible.
let’s say i run from God. someday, i will get tired of running. God won’t.
let’s say i fight God. someday, i will get tired of fighting. God won’t.
one day i will reach the end of me, and God will be there with arms wide open. there is a point for everyone where they will see that love and the fight will go out of them, and they will know they are loved and accepted.
also, there is no rational refusal, given all the facts.
fact one:
God loves you
fact two:
everything you want to be deep down, but can’t be…He can bring it about
these facts are not countered by facts, but myths, such as the myth that to belong to God, one must give up anything fun. that isn’t true, but God will help you judge rightly when certain actions are hurtful or beneficial, if you listen. that isn’t a rule, or a law, but wisdom.
myths about losing individuality or undergoing some kind of lobotomy…why would God make you one way and then change the core of you? He might help you avoid destructiveness and pride, but that’s totally different.
given that full disclosure of information, which i’ve only touched on superficially, there is no rational refusal, only madness. and madness ought to be treated, not punished. and the Great Physician can cure even the worst madness.
(which I will try to address later), I would second everything Cindy says. For me, post-mortem repentance is the deal-breaker for Arminianism. The moment you allow that, the Arminian justification for an eternal hell vanishes in a puff of mephistophelean smoke. As Cindy says, Thomas Talbott puts forward a pretty much watertight logical argument for the irrationality of rejecting God forever in The Inescapable Love of God. If you haven’t read it (and how dare you not have??!! 
