The Evangelical Universalist Forum

The Quality of Eternal Life/Damnation

Featured Writers Dr Thomas Talbott
#21

TGB and TV,
Forgive me if I seem like I’m trying to drive this thread in one direction (referring to the pickle for literalists). If you have more to say on other aspects such as…

please do.

This is very deep and I’m still hoping to hear more. My question to you is how does this dynamic get you closer. If I follow you correctly you’re saying that the dillema I’ve raised suggests A&E did not have eternal life in the sense of never coming to an end. If they did not have that prior then what is it we call it that they did have?

As I stated, I’m looking more from the negative, what eternal life is not. You seem to be looking from the affirmative, what life is it they did have?

Perhaps I’m not understanding your point.

Aug

#22

Hi Aug. Sorry I’ve been so absent. Been home for a few weeks vacation from Iraq.

Aug: This is very deep and I’m still hoping to hear more. My question to you is how does this dynamic get you closer. If I follow you correctly you’re saying that the dilemma I’ve raised suggests A&E did not have ‘eternal’ life in the sense of never coming to an end. If they did not have that prior then what is it we call it that they did have?

Tom: Right. It can’t be that A&E possessed the fullness of eternal life (or that quality of life we shall ultimately comes to possess) if they subsequently lost it (on the assumption that “not being susceptible to loss” * shall be a property of the fullness of life we shall come to possess).

Aug: As I stated, I’m looking more from the negative, what eternal life is not. You seem to be looking from the affirmative, what life is it they did have?

Tom: I guess we could describe it in terms of properties we ‘did’ possess and/or properties we ‘did not’ possess. I’m just starting (like you did) with the fact of the event of human sinfulness. Whatever might be the truth about an original pristine state of human bliss and life with God, it remains the fact that humankind became corrupted with evil. Thus, it had to be the case in whatever pristine state of bliss one wants to imagine that it was possible for humankind to become corrupted with evil. But that seems to me to mean that our original state was one of mortality and corruptibility and not eternal life. What else could it mean? If you can move from some imagined state of bliss to mortality, then what is that imagined state? It can’t be immortality (incorruptibility), for immortality is freedom from such possibility. I mean, how immortal are you if you can ‘become’ mortal? Definitionally it doesn’t work. So, to be capable of ‘becoming mortal’ is just a circumlocution for being mortal. And our original ‘pristine’ state was also one of being peccable, or susceptible to sin. We were ignorant of enough about ourselves and God to make sinfully misrelating a possibility. So it seems that these had to be properties of the natures we possessed from the get-go by God’s design.

So the question is, Are these properties (mortality, peccability) compatible with that mode of existence we later learn is God’s intention for human being? I think not, for we learn from the NT that immortality, incorruptibility, and impeccability (viz., freedom from the capacity to sin) are the sort of life and existence God intends for us ultimately. That’s where we’re headed. But if that’s where we’re headed, and if we didn’t start there in the Garden, then how DID we start out? I think we had THEN basically what we have NOW, viz., mortal, corruptible, and free (in the libertarian sense I think) natures that have to ‘become’ (freely and responsible in shaping the moral character of the ‘persons’ we become) what God intends. True, we and the world are a lot more jacked up now than we were then, but we’re fundamentally in the same place as finite, corruptible creatures who have to responsibly choose our way via grace toward the life God calls us to.

All this in turn then begs the question: Why would a loving God start us out in a risky environment in which we are mortal, free, and corruptible if God’s intentions in creating us at all included our being immortal, incorruptible and one with him? Why wouldn’t God create us from the get-go as he intends us to ultimately be and avoid all this EVIL?

That’s what TomT and I were discussing. My feeling is that when it comes to ‘finite, created being’ there simply IS NO creating such beings already perfected from the get-go. It’s not a state even God can instantiate. If God wants ‘created beings’ who are ‘persons who relate in love’ then God has to ‘risk’, i.e., he has to create us finite, mortal, somewhat ignorant (that is, we need a measure of epistemic distance), and libertarianly free with respect to that love. We have to ‘choose’ it or ‘become’ (freely self-determine with respect to…) what God is. God obviously took that risk. The theodicy question then becomes: Was the risk worth it? That question is what ultimately motivated me to embrace UR, for I cannot view as perfectly benevolent and competent a God who would risk the eternal loss and suffering of sentient creatures. If creation involved THAT kind of risk, then God would not create. Love would not risk THAT (which is just to say such a world is impossible). But love WOULD risk a great deal of suffering, all the suffering humanity has known thus far I’d say, IF in the end the incomparably and unsurpassably beautiful experience of oneness with God is everybody’s experience. So no actual suffering or evil (with the exception of irrevocable conscious torment in hell which, if I’m right, would be an impossible state of affairs) can ever compare to the glory and beauty that shall be ours.

TomB*

#23

But to get back to your original point too, Auggie, the dilemma you present is a dilemma for those who view preFall human nature as possessing all the properties of incorruptibility and immortality that we shall ultimately possess–whether they’re Calvinists or not. There may be a unique application to Calvinists who want to say preFall humans possessed the same ‘eternal life’ that believers in Christ come to possess and which cannot be lost of forfeited. If Adam and Eve possessed that, they clearly lost it. So that won’t work. But non-Calvinists who view is ‘original’ state and the ‘utlimate’ eternal state the same, that is, who want to view the utlimate/eternal state as a RETURN to what was lost in the Garden–these also face a problem in the fact that these two states (the original and eternal states) are quite dissimilar.

Tom

#24

Are we talking here ‘as if’ the Genesis account was literal or ‘really literal’. Are we ignoring any evidence that man evolved and that A&E were just allegorical types of early humans?

#25

Jeffa,
I don’t read anything here that should persuade a literal A&E. For the literalist the question raises the pickle. For the non-literalist, it raises question as to meaning of the allegory.

#26

Hi Auggy:

I’m just not sure one of your starting assumptions is correct; that Adam and Eve either did or didn’t have eternal life at point X. If they had it – they couldn’t die; if they didn’t, death must have already been in play. Also, I’m not able to say with confidence that A & E were able to distinguish between spiritual death and “mere” physical death. As I see it, death had to be a valid destination or consequence (else God would not have warned about it) but this does not mean they necessarily knew what it was. They certainly didn’t act too afraid of it because even the warning of death didn’t serve as deterrent from eating of the tree. So God knew of death – via the same ways He knows how life exists and comes to be and the things which threaten it; He IS the creator.

However, and this is where the rub enters, He is also the sustainer of that life – which is to say that life cannot continue indefinitely without connection to God. Hence the proper insistence on relationship with God as being absolutely central to life. Not so much that God “takes” it away as that when we eschew relationship we also cast aside life. Or said another way, choose death.

Whether the story is literal or allegory, the same truth can be seen unfolding; life is not possible without God (whether we emerged from the slime of eons past or were formed de novo from dust and breath) and life cannot continue indefinitely apart from God. So technically, life for A & E was in fact eternal – that is access to it will exist forever and is freely available – but in another sense is contingent on choosing the ongoing “connection” with the life-giver. Thus I think that message is true whether one sees literal Adam and Eve or sees figurative A & E.

As I read you, you have said as much – just said a bit differently. The quality of both eternal life and death can be said to be “eternal” in the sense that connection with the source of life will always be accessible just as separation from the source of life will forever be a valid option (death) – it’s just that eventually, no one will make that choice… Of course maybe that is just getting too cute with words…

Now where it gets ambiguous, seemingly, for us is that as a kind of temporary, or maybe “emergency” measure, God does allow life to persist even in those who believe they have freely and willingly rejected Him. I recall watching Andy Rooney (of 60 Minutes) mock briefly the title of Ravi Zacharias’ book “Can Man Live Without God” as if to suggest of course man can live without God! So Christians do live with the frustration that they can’t “prove” scientifically that, separate from God, we die. So as emergency measure, during this time till the rebellion is forever resolved in every mind, God keeps all on “life support” so-to-speak. Which seems clearly His right given He is life’s cause.

But why would the non-God choice at the tree have such power to draw A & E?? Not an easy question to be sure but maybe in part because the warning of “death” had so little context – so little meaning – that it was shrugged aside as irrelevant. Perhaps the connection of God with life was just as hard to discern then, as it seems to be now. :question: :question: But God, knowing it’s factual basis, has the problem of teaching a concept of which they had little comprehension. (How could they?)

Walking even further down the path of speculation one wonders (well I do anyway! :blush: ) about a time when perhaps Lucifer, the deceiver himself, pondered the source of his own existence, compared it to that of the other covering cherub (that One revealed on earth as The Christ) who was NOT created but was self-existent, and thought it unfair. Why can HE have life uncaused, while I must have a cause and beginning in time? :imp: (ie sought to be as God) Thus was born the devious accusation that you will NOT die – along with the corollary that IF you do, it must be because God has killed you. :smiling_imp: (raising fear of God as a never before entertained idea) Ignoring conveniently the possibility that death simply is, as part of the order of reality, the natural consequence of leaving relationship with God.

I realize this might seem incoherent for those who don’t accept certain things; but the idea contained, that central fact that life IS union with God, death IS separation from God, was very likely the idea being contested at the tree in Eden. Did A & E have the tools required to make that decision? For that matter, do WE? How is OUR position improved over Adam and Eve’s? And the problem for God is, how to take what one knows, and gently guide him to what he does not know. Is what we NOW know only possible thanks to the “wrong” decision of A & E?? (That’s a very intriguing possibility – and troubling too…) I’m warming to the possibility that the story of A & E’s fall is perhaps less about immature minds making wrong or rebellious choices and more about the difficulties of finding the unambiguous God (as well as the unambiguous God revealing Himself) amidst the ambiguities which seem almost unavoidable in the context of any new creation and newly sentient minds. (ie what Tom B and T are talking about…)

All very interesting…

TotalVictory
Bobx3

#27

Here is a thought: if marriage (and reproduction within) was always a temporal institution, ordained before any disobedience by A or E, then doesn’t it follow that physical death was always a reality? It seems to me that God set up the physical reality as part of a process that would lead to a totally other existence through death (both physical and spiritual).

#28

Justin: Here is a thought: if marriage (and reproduction within) was always a temporal institution, ordained before any disobedience by A or E, then doesn’t it follow that physical death was always a reality? It seems to me that God set up the physical reality as part of a process that would lead to a totally other existence through death (both physical and spiritual).

TomB: Interesting. Similar to this, there’s Paul’s comment that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom” (in 1Co 15 I think, relative to the resurrection). This is an interesting point to make and it might seem contradictory, for on the one hand Paul says our bodies can’t inherit the Kingdom, and on the other hand he insists on the necessity of the embodied nature of the eternal state. So there’s a ‘body’ (which he calls ‘mortal’) which can’t inherit the Kingdom and a ‘body’ (which he calls ‘glorious’, having put on immortality) that can inherit the Kingdom. These can be utterly different or there’s no continuity to make sense of calling it a ‘resurrection’. But some transformation has to occur to make our bodies fit for the kingdom.

The question I guess we’re asking is, What was the nature of pre-Fall human bodies? Were they ‘immortal’ and ‘glorified’ in the sense Paul teaches they shall yet be? Or were they ‘mortal’ in some sense, i.e., destined to participate in the glorifying transformation of God’s presence not already a feature of the givens of creaturely existence? In other words, is Paul describing a ‘glorification’ (‘immortalizing of our embodied state’) that just takes us back to the beginning (the same state we once knew and from which we fell), OR is he describing a glorification which is the fulfillment of what we were originally set to journey toward naturally, in relation with God, a journey sin corrupted and detoured?

I’m inclined to go with the latter option. I don’t believe the immortalized/glorified state we shall come to know will be revocable, i.e., remain eternally open to corruption through an irrevocable capacity within us to fall into sin, as if we never get beyond such risk. I think we shall get beyond such risk, and beyond impervious or immune to such risk is just what I take ‘immortal’ to mean. So it follows for me that since Adam and Eve did die, they were never ‘immortal’ in this sense. What ‘can’ die is ‘mortal’. So the ‘life’ humankind enjoyed before whatever corruption it is A&E’s sin represents was NOT in fact that immortalized glorious embodied state we shall yet know.

Having said that, one can argue that though humans were strictly speaking ‘mortal’ (i.e.’ ‘able to die’), their dying was nevertheless contingent upon their sinning. This isn’t inconsistent. It could be that so long as they remained in fellowship with God, they would not have ‘died’, though SOME form of transformation would have remained necessary before they could inherit the Kingdom. Perhaps this is what we have with Enoch. Was Enoch sinless? Who knows? I have to say that I would not be upset to discover this was the case and that Enoch was “taken” and ‘immortalized’ by God apart from death as we know it. I’m open. My point is just that one is ‘mortal’ just in case one ‘may die’ even if one also ‘may not die’ provided one remains in fellowship with God.

Whether one takes an evolutionary or traditional-creational approach to human origins matters. One can’t posit evolutionary origins and then also say physical death is only introduced into human experience once we evolved to such a state as to become morally conscious and/or bear the image of God. Death was already there. So if one feels constrained to read the NT (Paul) as teaching a literal couple (Adam and Eve) whose choice to sin introduced physical death into the stream of human experience, THEN evolution is precluded. So if one goes with evolution, then physical death cannot be the result of sin, in which case one will have to deal with Paul accordingly.

I though Auggie’s original point was just to say that on the basis of Adam/Eve’s dying (for whatever reason), Calvinist’s who argue that A&E possessed the eternal life that cannot be lost or forfeited cannot be correct. They’re either wrong about A&E’s possessing such life prior to the Fall OR they’re wrong about believing it impossible to lose such life once you possess it. With THAT criticism of the Calvinist position I agree. But Auggie wants to say that A&E possessed ‘eternal life’ contingently, right? I think that’s fine too so long as they possessed it in a less-than-fully-realized sense, they way Arminians say we have eternal life now. But that’s not to say A&E possessed ‘eternal life’ in the sense we shall enjoy it in resurrected/glorified bodies.

TomB

#29

Tom, just a comment on this portion of your post (just to throw a wrench/ spanner in :mrgreen: )

I personally see a distinct difference between the Kingdom and the Eternal State, per se. That they may overlap for believers is not the issue, but rather that they are distinct entities. I see the Kingdom specifically as the Reign of Christ and his saints, which we know will come to an end once Christ has put down all rule, authority, etc. and turns everything over to the Father, who will then be all in all; over and against the eternal state, as such, in which all will finally have the immortal life of God.
So since flesh and blood (our physical/ carnal selves) cannot inherit the Kingdom, yet all will be resurrected and at least eventually put on incorruption, I think we can say that it is not necessarily our glorified spiritual resurrection bodies that cannot inherit the kingdom as such; perhaps it is rather that our physical bodies and carnal natures cannot inherit the Kingdom. The Kingdom is not something that comes with observation, but rather is within you (In your midst). Inheritance of the Kingdom seems to be something that is reserved for the elect firstfruits. All will be saved, yes, but not all will reign with Christ and have the privilege of assisting in bringing in the rest of the harvest.

#30

Thanks Melki-

Let’s grant the distinction between the Kingdom and the eternal state. My point would then be that whatever this difference might be, it’s not a difference in the nature of human embodiment after it’s resurrected or immortalized. Paul’s comment that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom” is made in 1Co 15 regarding the ‘unglorified’ or ‘unimmortalized’ body’s inability to take its place in the life of heaven. Unless we want to posit a fundamental difference between ‘the body’ in the post-resurrection Kingdom and the eternal state, then the distinction between the two is inconsequential, right? My point to Auggie is that A & E’s bodies were not the glorified immortalized bodies God intended they eventually receive; thus, Eden (whatever it was) wasn’t the end. It was just the beginning of a journey. Eschatology is inherent to God’s plan regardless of sin’s interference. That’s what I’m saying–Eden wasn’t an end state. It was a beginning state appropriate for our journey toward a particular end state.

Pax,
TomB

#31

I agree; and another thought: if Jesus didn’t have a “sin nature” (in the Calvinist sense) and he never sinned either, then shouldn’t he have been immortal? Physical death should have been impossible for him, no?

#32

Yes, I agree with that.

#33

TGB,
sorry for the 5 month delay. I did want to stay on this topic and hope to have more time to discuss.

you stated.
"My point to Auggie is that A & E’s bodies were not the glorified immortalized bodies God intended they eventually receive; thus, Eden (whatever it was) wasn’t the end. It was just the beginning of a journey. Eschatology is inherent to God’s plan regardless of sin’s interference. That’s what I’m saying–Eden wasn’t an end state. It was a beginning state appropriate for our journey toward a particular end state."

Perhaps, but for me this is far too literal an approach to the story. In some ways my question is sort of nudging people AWAY from such literal questions. I don’t think God intended the creation story to be scientific map nor a historical record for man’s library.

In my opinion the story is set up less the details and focuses more on other issues such as relationships. The fact that they had something (eternal life) because they were not dying seems to me more of a statement of their relationship with God; that is, they we in perfect harmony with God which they later lose.

This breaking off of relationship is thus the catalyst for the rest of scripture that God and man are at emnity due to his taking on the image of the beast (serpent) and marked with 666 (mans number).

So I’m not sypmathizing with your analysis of the story in regards to what kind of bodies they had or if Adam had a belly button. The story to me is directing us to journey into the stories recorded to find a truth about the relationship of God and his Son (Adam); Man. The NT thus moves to God’s reconcilliation of the world and I would say takes us all back to the Garden of Eden (tree of Life) at the end of the story (revelation 22).

Aug

#34

I appreciated your message Aug and I concur with our return to the Garden.

#35

Thanks John,

I do want to say that it seems traditionalists would embrace a conditional immortality type of argument for the OP question.

It might sort of sound a bit like this:
Adam and Eve did live forever however their life was not eternal because eternal cannot end. However it was conditionl in that if they obeyed God they would not die. Thus in heaven it is un-conditional immortality which means YOU CANNOT EVER LOSE IT.

But perhaps this statement gets to the real root of my question. How can Eternal be conditional? If I had a battery which would never die providing it’s take care of and maintained then is the battery eternal?

This leads me to the answer I believe ECT subscribers would employ which is where the eternal life of Adam and Eve was conditional, hell is unconditional and cannot be escaped.

Aug

#36

Aug, I think death is a temporary condition as are all things found in space and time. Yet even death, as with all things, carries a bit of Eternity because all things find their being, beginning and end in Him.

What is Eternity … something that surely bruises and baffles our brains.

Behold, God is great, and we know him not, neither can the number of his years be searched out. Job 36:26

#37

I’ve been reflecting on this for a few weeks and TGB stated something here that rings true to me.

I sort of resolved the issue of the picks (or at least I thought I had) by concluding that ECT/ANH would argue that conditional immortality was what Adam and Eve inherited upon their creation. That is they had eternal life (immortality) but it was contingent on obedience.

I then began to wonder how in the world God could have neglected the protection (1 Cor 13 - love always protects) of his children if he loved them. Thus the question arises did he love them? I believe the story reveals he had to since they had done nothing wrong and were in total obedience (the image of God). Thus the pickle does not seem to be alleviated.

For the literalist, God has to have loved them perfectly: (1 cor 13) protect them, UN-conditionally and eternally. And all 3 of these seem to be in tension in the story.

#38

I’ve been reflecting on this for a few weeks and TGB stated something here that rings true to me.

I thought I had resolved the issue of the pickel by concluding that ECT/ANH would argue that conditional immortality was what Adam and Eve inherited upon their creation. That is they had eternal life (immortality) but it was contigent on obedience.

I then began to wonder how in the world God could have neglected the protection (1 Cor 13 - love always protects) of his children if he loved them. Thus the question arises did he love them? I believe the story reveals he had to since they had done nothing wrong and were in total obedience (the image of God). Thus the pickle does not seem to be alleviated.

** Edited for clarity **
For the literalist, God has to have loved them perfectly: (1 cor 13) protect them, UN-conditionally and eternally. And all 3 of these seem to be in tension in the story.

I’d like to clarify my point a bit here:
If Adam and Eve had done nothing wrong and therefore lived forever (had eternal life) then why is the love of 1 cor not exhibited towards Adam and Eve.
Protection (always protects) is the first conundrum
Perfection (never fails) is the second.
Uncondionality (keeps no records of wrongs or rights) is the third.

So in this question I’ve raised on the eternal life of Adam and Eve, I’ve raised another interesting point:

  1. Did God love them perfectly while they were in the image of God and is this perfect love synonmous with the love of 1 Cor 13?

Aug

#39

Aug,
Some of the issues that you raise are part of why I have maintained for awhile now that the “fall” had to have been planned.
It seems we run into some relatively problematic issues if this was not the case. For example; If A&E had eternal life and then lost it due to sin, then that potentially flies in the face of the later definition we have of eternal life which is to know the Father and Son. (Except they didn’t have the son yet, at least not explicitly). But they were in as perfect communion with God as they could be in their physical state, yet they still fell. What are the implications of this for universalism if the fall was not planned?

Rom. 8:20
For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who has subjected the same in hope…

#40

Mel,
I believe you are correct, I don’t know any other explaination, that works, in the complete view of scripture. Somehow this flawed life that we have as we run our course, will prepare us to understand the love and the holiness of the Almighty when we are all finally made one with Him.