The whole problem about universalism and free will requires the assumption that God gave us free will because exercising it in a certain way while we’re on earth is necessary for our ultimate happiness. I do not believe this is the case. I do think that exercising free will is a necessary requirement for our ultimate happiness – i.e. heaven. But not that we must exercise it in a certain way (while we’re on earth or before we reach beatitude). I want to maintain that LFW (libertarian free will) doesn’t give one heaven so much as a particularheaven.
In short my argument is this: I think all evil comes from free wills other than Gods. But I think that free will was given so that the concept of “I” could emerge. Without that concept, the salvation of all rational creatures would be useless since they would have no idea of themselves as separate from God or other beings. Let me explain.
Our choices are what give our lives and relation to God and the universe their own special, self-authenticated and “authored” or “owned” context. They do not, of themselves, “get us into heaven". That, aside from other problems, would be a works theology anyway. As I said, I think all evil comes from wills other than God; but it is necessary for these wills to exist in order for true “persons” or “independent selves” to be. That is the great good that is brought about by free will – that we have “faces” as Lewis said. Surely, this great good carries with it, accidentally as it were, othergoods – such as self-sacrifice – which would otherwise be impossible. But the mistake is thinking that unless one’s free will is such that it makes *certain *choices or does *certain *things it cannot be eternally happy.
This is why those who believe in LFW don’t think a universalism can be guaranteed. They think more along the lines of “person A must do B to get to C. Only person A can do B – God cannot. Therefore, person A may never in fact get to point C.” I believe the whole manner in which this problem is expressed is wrong. I think it is more along the lines of “person A shall do B, and this will eventually get him to C.* However, B can be more than one thing. He can do B1 or B2 (i.e. he can sin or not sin.) And by doing B1 or B2, it will affect the experience or “appearance” of C. For example, a man who sinned will see C as a place of forgiveness and self-deliverance. The man who did not will see C as a place of praise and enjoyment of his act (without spilling over into pride, of course) and the undeserved opportunity of being able to do it.
The way I am speaking now makes it sound as if there is only 1 act and 1 experience of C; but the reality would be that there are numerous B’s, all which serve to make up our experience of C – our unique and “personal” perspective, otherwise impossible without LFW. I do not think free will is required for things like “repentence” or “love” to occur. I think these are feelings that God can and often does simply “give” us (you could call them irresistible graces.) God can compel acts in us – though of course this means that we are not doing them by our own free will. These acts are also possible to us when we are given the opportunity of exercising our LFW. But their exercise – that is, repenting or loving – is not the ESSENTIAL reason free will was given us. Again, I think God could infuse us all with a clear enough understanding to master all our desires perfectly (presumably this is the state we’ll be in in heaven), so that we were always repenting and loving. But this would destroy our personhood and the notion of “we” and “I” would be destroyed also if he had always been made to do this. In fact, I think the whole notion of “us” would be impossible unless we were given some sort of independent causation. How could I perceive myself over against another or over against God unless I had experienced freedom; unless I had known that that thing that is doing such and such is me?
So, I think that LFW was given so that we could develop an independent personality, a self-causation or relation to God, or again, a face that is our own. The problem then between free willed beings “getting” into heaven never comes up. God will grant us heaven; but first an “us” must exist. Therefore, we are given momentary freedom. Each choice we make has certain consequences. But none of those consequences are ever – ultimately speaking – “irrevocably bad” for us from the standpoint of eternity. That doesn’t mean certain actions are not bad, or that, were we to act differently, we could have had a “better” experience in the afterlife (although it may be non-sensical to compare different states of affairs, each of which are “perfectly” fulfilling.) It is only to say that free will as such does not pose a problem to universalism when understood in this way. If God can turn good out of every evil, then every free willed action can be turned good. That doesn’t make them “necessary” any more than you must necessarily spill the milk and mop the floor in order to have a clean floor. It could have been clean in the first place. Our free choices do something which irrevocably shapes our future experience and perception of God and the universe. We put ourselves “out there” by our acts, and God comes and works his grace, which intermingles with our acts and makes something otherwise impossible without our own input. It is a continual change of perspective, if you like. We are constantly thrown into our own free willed perspective, in which we contribute to the creation, and then, as God sees fit, we are given glimpses of God’s perspective which is infused into us, as his grace holds captive ourselves and removes our free will. It is a sort of divinely inspired self-reflection. Perhaps this is what heaven in fact is – a mind, filled with the irresistible truth of God, which looks back over its own self as a free willed being, now thanking God for forgiving what it did there, now enjoying his mercy for saving him from this hardship here, etc? One could even imagine a man who never did one freely good deed all his life being convicted of his sin and shown how wicked he was and then forgiven having an eternally grateful existence in heaven. Of course, all this would mean that such thoughts are things “happening to” rather than “being done by” the self-conscious agent. But I see no problem here and do not think it destroys personality. Indeed, the necessary distinction necessary has already been established: “happening to” and “being done by” are both come after the word “me”; they are built on it. Therefore I see no danger in thinking this destroys personhood.
Again, free will is only necessary for the concept of “I” to emerge. Without it one could not distinguish between things simply happening and things happening to “oneself”. But once an I has emerged, it is not necessary for LFW to remain to attain the good inherent (i.e. self-consciousness) in its being given. I was once given a piece of leather that fit into my pocket called a wallet. I suppose if I was given this at an extremely young age I would have no conception that it belonged to “me”. Much like if a fish is given a fish-bowl it would not think the bowl belonged to it any more than the water or anything else. But once I become aware that this wallet is “mine”, there is no more need to go on giving me more and more wallets. It needs only to be filled or emptied. S this, I’m holding, is the main reason LFW was given: so that we could have the ideas of “myself” and “other selves”.
Of course, it is not given once and for all like the wallet analogy. But we are creatures who exist in time. The very “giving” of it may, therefore, be spread over a much greater period. What, after all, is a moment? The receiving of a wallet and the realization that it belongs to me may occur in a matter of seconds. But what, indeed, is a second? It is as infinitely divisible as an entire lifetime of seconds. There is no absurdity in supposing our experience of God giving us freedom may last a hundred years, or even a thousand. The relative amount of an infinitely divisible thing like time – what a mystery that there can be “amounts” of things “infinite”! – does nothing to destroy the analogy of the wallet as it relates to me being given libertarian free will. Both things occur across certain distances of time. It is, then, a continual process, an inextricably linked connection of events, a dancing interaction that produces a sort of “hill-valley” relationship – our free choices and God’s continual complementing of them. I do, however, think that our free will will come to an end, when our face is fully formed, unqiue with our own features, yet all lit up by the glorious grace of God.
*This argument can be put forth another way as it is by Reitan, and, if I have understood him right, Talbott, by saying that heaven itself is never something we are actually given a free choice about. How we get there, and perhaps what it’s like, we are. Reitan calls this level of freedom “significant freedom” (as opposed to some traditional notions of freedom which may be thought of as “infinite” since they allow for the eternal destruction of one’s soul. This latter notion both philosophers I believe hold is something a good God would never give (curse?) his creation with. Far better even to override such a free will in the end than allow for eternal damnation.)
Not to mention it makes it easier for me to go through it again.
