Posted by Travis Lambert in Philosophy & Apologetics | 22 Comments
Two Objections to Universalism
This post is a response to Nevin Climenhaga’s well-reasoned argument for universalism.
The Argument for Universalism
Premise 1: God will not take away people’s ability to make the choices necessary to be saved, either when they die or at any time thereafter.
Premise 2: If God does not take away this possibility, then eventually everyone will choose to be saved.
Conclusion: Therefore, everyone will eventually be saved.
Dante and Beatrice chatting it up with saints
Objection to Premise 1
It may be better stated: “people’s ability to make the choices necessary to be saved cannot be lost.” I think the question of agency in this matter unnecessarily complicates the essential issue, which is whether or not people can lose the ability to choose salvation (either in this life or in hell). For it is at least possible (1) that God can revoke a man’s freewill, (2) that God can allow a man’s freewill to be lost, and (3) a man’s freewill can be lost (e.g., through sin). None of these possibilities strike me as patently impossible, although some appear more plausible than others. It will be noted that (2) must be true in order for (3) to be true, so I will offer a defense of it.
God can allow a man’s freewill to be lost. It is not self-evident that this proposition is inconsistent with man’s nature or God’s justice, or omnibenevolence.
Everyone agrees that a man is not a metaphysically necessary being. That is to say, for any given man, it is not necessary that he exist. He could just as easily have never existed. And indeed, at one point he didn’t. The explanation for his existence is to be found in a metaphysically necessary being (i.e. God). But if this is the case, and existence is not a necessary feature of human nature, then it is difficult to see how any other human quality could be said to be (metaphysically) necessary. God could just as easily have made man with four legs. Therefore, being a biped is not a necessary human quality. Freewill seems to me no more necessary than “bidpedalism.” Therefore, at least on an ontological level, it seems just as plausible as its negation that man could lose his freewill—in the same way that God could make him a quadruped. Now, it may be argued that, since God has made mankind with freewill and two legs, any man who lost his freewill and became a quadruped would cease to be a man. To that I answer that that is quite true. But some subhuman existence may indeed be in store for those who ultimately reject God. (Nebuchadnezzar here comes to mind.) Furthermore, and more to the point, immutability is no more a metaphysically necessary human attribute than freewill or bipedalism, so there is no reason to think that God could not change a man into an unfree quadruped.
Likewise, I see no reason to believe that allowing man’s freewill to be lost offends God’s justice or omnibenevolence. If God is just, then it is at least plausible that loss of freewill is one of the just punishments of the inhabitants of hell. Even in this life, we see that there are chances which, once lost, can never be recovered. The chance to refrain from killing a man in any given instance, once lost, can never be recovered. The chance to marry girl X rather than girl Y is, all other things being equal, permanent. Once we have made our choice in these matters, we must be content with the consequences. No one believes that God has an obligation to give us an infinite number of chances to go back in time and make a different choice. It is at least plausible that salvation is one such of these onetime choices.
The fact that God is all-loving has two possible outcomes. Either He will, as the universalist believes, disregard a sinner’s decision to reject Him and save him anyway; or, as I believe, He will dignify his decision and not impose on him. This seems to me more evidently true. God does not force Himself on me. If I err, if I wander in my faith, if I misbehave, I do not find myself forced back to righteousness. Rather, I have to decide whether or not to repent and follow the dictates of the gradually diminishing voice of conscience. If I do, I find Him ready to receive me like the father of the prodigal son. If I do not, there is nothing keeping me from slipping further and further away. Obviously I have never hit rock bottom, and one wonders whether one can reach rock bottom in this life, but my intuition tells me that God is ever and always a gentleman, not the domineering parent who “solves” your sin problem for you by grounding you for life. Therefore, I think God’s letting a man permanently damn himself is just as plausible as God’s forcing him to eventually be saved.
Moreover, Premise 1 begs the question by assuming that God will give men an infinite number of chances to be saved. For even if a man were always able to choose Him, if that man missed his chance, it would do him no good. And I think that a strong case could be made from Scripture that a man’s opportunities to accept God are far from infinite.
Objection to Premise 2
Premise 2: If God does not take away this possibility, then eventually everyone will choose to be saved.
This is true only if you view freewill as a kind of mechanism, like a machine that flips a coin every time a choice needs to be made. This is exactly the opposite of how we normally think of freewill.
Let us say, for example, that I have an intense dislike of strawberries. According to the coin-toss view of freewill, given an infinite number of opportunities to eat strawberries, I will eventually eat one of my own volition. But all other things being equal—i.e., as long as my tastes do not change and I am not starving or deceived into eating one—it is by no means certain that I would do so.
I used the example of strawberries because I think that most people like them to some degree. I would wager that God is a being than which no more desirable can be conceived (to hijack Anselm’s dictum). And yet, through pride and all manner of sin, a great number of people reject Him. There is no reason to believe that hell would change that fact. Indeed, it is just as plausible that it would increase a person’s hatred of God. Therefore, even if he were given an infinite number of chances, it is by no means certain that he would ever freely choose Him.
“Likewise, I see no reason to believe that allowing man’s freewill to be lost offends God’s justice or omnibenevolence. If God is just, then it is at least plausible that loss of freewill is one of the just punishments of the inhabitants of hell.”
I am confused about the argument here. Are you arguing that God strips people of free will, or that people lose free will as a metaphysical entailment?
If the former, then I disagree. God’s desire that people be sanctified is greater than His desire to punish people. The argument is fairly simple from an annihilationist perspective:
(1) People will either bring about their own annihilation, or they will become sanctified
(2) If people bring about their own annihilation, there is no [metaphysically] greater punishment, so punishment by God is unnecessary
(3) If people become sanctified, punishment by God is unjust
(4) Therefore punishment by God is either unnecessary or unjust
If the latter, than I do agree. It’s when they are annihilated.
“Therefore, even if he were given an infinite number of chances, it is by no means certain that he would ever freely choose Him.”
If there is a non-zero objective probability of him freely choosing God, and each choice to the negative does not then diminish that probability, then you are just contradicting probability theory.
Libertarian free will calls for the non-zero objective probability. The more interesting question is whether or not each choice to the negative diminishes that probability such that it doesn’t sum to one over infinite time (supposing infinite time is even possible. I have argued otherwise elsewhere).
Nevin can probably give a better account of his probability argument than I can, but this objection at least doesn’t defeat it.
In addition to the possibility of a loss of freewill, there is the unarguable presence of humans that seem to have little or no freewill from the time they are born. Does their inability to actually choose for God make them inhuman? Sure, they may learn that there is disapproval for certain behaviors, but if they cannot comprehend the message of the Gospel, can they be “saved”? This is an extreme to illustrate the possibility of lack of freewill. A more cogent example would be the person that through alcohol, drug, or sex addiction have so altered their mind that they are no longer truly in control of their actions, but are controlled by their own cravings, desires or passions. I think we would say that their will, and therefore their freewill, has been significantly compromised. When such corruption leads to what we would consider insanity, is there still enough freewill left to make the necessary decision towards salvation?
Some of the premises that are used in all these discussions hinge on the presence of a full rationality in the individual. You might view this state as the norm for all humanity, but I would argue that full access to an objective rationality is not actually necessary to be human. Thus, we baptise babies and the incompetent in the Orthodox Church, acknowledging that it is more through our relationships with others that we are saved than objective rational decisions.
@ tech.sam
The presumption here is that, after death, rational faculties are restored/granted.
I agree with Travis that using probability to say that someone certainly will choose something seems contrary to the very concept of free will. If free will exists, there’s nothing stopping me from making or refusing the same decision an infinite number of times. I stand by my original objection to Nevin’s post, and I deny that a free will choice has an objective probability (in terms of a number which can then be multiplied, like flipping a coin).
I don’t think the fact that we can predict people as large groups (e.g. in 1000 people, about 800 will do X, give or take) proves that free will is somehow governed by probability as if it were random. It’s one thing to say free will choices are generally distributed in patterns in a cross-section of humanity, it’s quite another to say that those who chose X will inevitably change their mind and choose Y if we wait long enough.
@Daniel
I know this is presumed, which why I am pointing it out. The question is why is it presumed, and is it a valid presumption? If rational facilities are granted or restored to every individual, regardless of their stance towards God at the time of death, does that imply something new about freewill in this discussion? Would that mean that our corrupting decisions are in no way final, and, in fact for many, the first time they will be able to think clearly enough to even make such a choice is in the afterlife?
My point is that the choice, and by proxy freewill, is not strictly necessary for salvation, as I cannot see how a person could become a different person in the afterlife without somehow going through a process of salvation (no matter what logical gymnastics I use).
“Would that mean that our corrupting decisions are in no way final, and, in fact for many, the first time they will be able to think clearly enough to even make such a choice is in the afterlife?”
Yes, it would mean that there are opportunities for corruption and sanctification after death.
“My point is that the choice, and by proxy freewill, is not strictly necessary for salvation, as I cannot see how a person could become a different person in the afterlife without somehow going through a process of salvation”
Your point is question-begging. My position is that salvation=sanctification, and as a soul-making theodicist that sanctification is a result of free morally significant decisions. Including decisions made after death.
@Travis:
Thanks for your response. I think that your first objection in the first section doesn’t really affect my argument. That’s because I didn’t make any claims about necessary truths. What I claim is that actually, God will not keep people from being saved. This commits me to no claims about the metaphysical possibility of people losing their free will or becoming annihilated. (Incidentally, I’m pretty sure that Timothy Williamson argues that humans are metaphysically necessary—so not quite everyone agrees that we’re not.) As such, your discussion of that is irrelevant to my argument.
You argue that the loss of free will may be a just punishment for sin. I find this highly implausible. To begin with, I do not accept a retributive theory of punishment. I think the only purpose divine punishment can serve is restoration (although in the human case, deterrence of others and protection of those who a criminal might hurt if free are also legitimate aims of punishment). I also think this is a thoroughly Biblical view, and that it’s difficult to take Jesus’ teachings about forgiveness seriously while holding to a retributive theory of punishment.
Even if we did accept a retributive theory of punishment, though, saying that the loss of free will, where this entails eternal damnation and separation from God, could be a just punishment for earthly sin still seems very implausible. Even if we insist (contra the teachings of our Lord) that “an eye for an eye,” that implies that punishment has to be proportional. We can’t then go on to say “eternal conscious suffering for an eye.” Infinite torment could only be a fitting punishment for infinite sin, but any amount of sin humans commit will only be finite.
There are also pretty severe moral luck problems involved with taking the retributivist line. A person born in Nazi Germany would be much less likely to go through the process of soul-making than one born in an Amish colony in the contemporary U.S. (And if you believe in soteriological exclusivism, the problem is multiplied a hundredfold.) Even if one is not determined in either case, it seems patently unfair that the chance of our being eternally rewarded or eternally punished could be so influenced by factors beyond our control.
The fact that God is all-loving has two possible outcomes. Either He will, as the universalist believes, disregard a sinner’s decision to reject Him and save him anyway; or, as I believe, He will dignify his decision and not impose on him. This seems to me more evidently true. God does not force Himself on me.
This is simply a misrepresentation of my position. My position is not that God disregards our free choices and forces us to choose him instead. My position is that God sufficiently influences us that the probability of our making the choices necessary for salvation remains sufficiently high that it is virtually guaranteed that, given enough time, we will make those choices. Now, if it is possible for someone to become so totally depraved that choosing rightly is psychologically impossible for them, that complicates things. I don’t think that is possible, but I think even if it is my view can account for it. See my original post and my discussion with Daniel on his post.
Moreover, Premise 1 begs the question by assuming that God will give men an infinite number of chances to be saved.
I did not assume that God will give people an infinite number of chances; I argued for that. The argument was that an all-loving God would desire for all to be saved, and that God did not have any overriding purposes that would keep him from seeking to realize that desire by giving people as many chances as it takes. You have not addressed that argument. (And if you really want to bring Scripture into it, Matthew 18:21-22 would serve as a nice proof-text here for my position.)
As for your objection to premise 2: what would hurt my argument there if it worked is wrong, and what isn’t wrong actually helps my argument. The wrong part is that we have libertarian free will but that our actions don’t have objective probabilities of being done. I already addressed Justin’s attempt to make this move in the comments on my own post. The problem with it is that it is far more obvious that our actions have objective chances than it is that we have libertarian free will. So if these are incompatible, it’s libertarianism that’s going to have to go, not objective chances. And if libertarianism goes, either compatibilism is true or we don’t have free will. Either way, the case for universalism is made easier, because God can simply determine that we choose salvation.
Why is it so obvious that our actions have objective chances? Because we observe, all the time, that various external factors influence people’s actions. For one thing, we can make very accurate predictions about how many people will behave in a certain way in a given situation. If our actions do not have objective chances, this shouldn’t be possible. If you think that our actions do not have objective chances, you’re welcome to offer me an alternative explanation of the success of psychology. But I doubt any will be forthcoming. Moreover, if people’s actions didn’t have objective chances, moral education would be impossible. I couldn’t make my child less likely to grow up to be a murderer because that would impinge on his free will. I take this to be clearly absurd.
So, if libertarian free will is compatible with objective chances, my probabilistic argument can go through. If it’s not, then libertarianism is false, in which case my task is made even easier.
What (maybe) isn’t wrong is your strawberries example. It sounds to me like a plausible case where you have free will but the chance of your doing what you’re free to do is 0. However, this is simply a counterexample to (a strong form of) libertarianism. If all our free actions are like that (in which case compatibilism is true), then God can determine us to freely choose salvation by simply giving us the appropriate desires. If only some are, and the free actions necessary for salvation are not like that, then my probabilistic argument will work. Either way universalism still follows.
@tech.sam:
As I noted above, a lack of free will makes the argument for universalism a lot easier. In that case, there’s no plausible candidate at all for something that could block God’s desire that all be saved.
@Nevin
“I think the only purpose divine punishment can serve is restoration…”
Satan’s expulsion from heaven was hardly restorative, at least not for him (Cf. Isaiah 14:12-14, Ezekiel 28:12-18). The biblically attested creation of Hell was hardly restorative (Matthew 25:41). Indeed, I think that if you hold to the teachings of Scripture you must revise your statement to, “the only purpose divine punishment of human beings can serve is restoration.” But there seems to be no attestation of that proposition in Scripture either (nor in my stock of rationally self-evident propositions). On the contrary, as we read in the above mentioned passage in Matthew, those whom Christ has rejected are sent to “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” This is but one of many passages that reference the existence and eternality of Hell (See also 2 Thessalonians 1:9 and Revelation 14:11). A very few verses later in Matthew, we read, “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life” (v. 46). Now there is no denying that the parallelism in the use of the modifier “eternal” means that it is used both times in the same respect–that is, with respect to existence. Just as the saved will enjoy eternal existence in Heaven, so the damned will suffer eternal existence in Hell. There is no indication either of second chances or of annihilation in this text, just as there is no indication that the blessed state of the saved is not likewise permanent.
If by “restoration” you mean that of justice, I and the biblical writers agree with you. But I think you mean by “restoration” that all people will one day be restored to perfection and paradise, and that is an interpretation I don’t think the text can bear.
It may be that you do not hold Scripture to be authoritative and prefer rather Perfect Being Theology. But though your argument is valid, your premises, which you claim are self-evident, seem on the contrary quite speculative. If they are self-evident, they cannot be deduced. If they are not self-evident, what arguments from Scripture or Reason support them?
By Reason alone I have only ever been able to ascertain God’s existence and a few other attributes such as omnipotence and omniscience. For everything else, I look to Scripture. It seems far more compelling to me to ascertain what God does from what He has done, rather than what he might do in the speculative realm of Perfect Being Theology.
For instance, I know that God is all-loving by Scripture, not by Reason. Reason tells me that I observe objective moral values. From these I reason to a transcendent foundation for these objective moral values. I know of only two kinds of things that could be this foundation: abstract objects (like numbers or laws of nature) and immaterial minds. Of these two, an immaterial mind seems to me to be the only thing that could ground objective moral values. But from all this I don’t get the slightest impression that this transcendent lawgiver is all-loving or even merciful. It could just as easily be the case that, as the absolute standard of morality, which I most certainly have offended grievously and often, this lawgiver has nothing but judgement and damnation reserved for me.
I’m not convinced by the ontological argument, so arguing that omnibenevolence is a perfection without which God would not be the most perfect being doesn’t hold any water for me. To my knowledge, none of the cosmological arguments (which I do find convincing) has anything to say about God’s love or mercy. For these I invariably turn to Scripture, which is where this whole debate should have begun in the first place.
@ Travis
If your interpretation of scripture contradicts a sound argument, so much the worse for your interpretation. I reject your highly speculative reading of the parallels use of ‘eternal,’ and therefore I find your scriptural argument uncompelling.
Also, even if you don’t accept the logic of the ontological argument (although why you would deny it’s being sound I don’t understand. You may accuse it of begging the question, but P –> P is valid and if true sound. Coincidentally, most PSRs strong enough for Thomas’s arguments are demonstrably false), surely you must accept Anselm’s definition of God (and therefore the basis of Perfect Being Theology).
Rejecting the Anselmian definition leaves you in the following state:
Accept it’s contradiction, “It is not the case that God is a being of maximal perfection,” or deny the Principle of Bivalence for these propositions. Neither seems appealing.
But if we’re really going to play the scripture game, here are a few of my proof-texts:
Matthew 10:28
Proverbs 12:7
James 5:20
2 Peter 2:1-12
I will also point out that 2 Thessalonians 1:9 can be read perfectly cogently by the annihilationist.
@Travis: Although I’m not entirely hostile to it, I’m not nearly as enamored by Perfect Being Theology as Daniel is. Like you, I’m skeptical of ontological arguments, and of attempts to derive really substantive conclusions about God’s nature a priori more generally. However, neither am I a Biblical inerrantist. Moreover, I think that arguments from both Scripture and a priori reasoning about the nature of God tend to be fairly post hoc. Now, if there are very strong a priori arguments that God is X, or if Scripture is completely unanimous in viewing God in a certain way, that definitely means something to me. However, often a priori reasoning is not so clear, and Scripture is more ambiguous, implying one thing at one place, another at a second place, and yet another at a third. (This is not surprising, given the size and scope of the Bible and the huge number of different genres and authors represented.)
Where does this leave us? As I noted in my response to John on my post, I believe that God’s primary revelation is through Christ. This, rather than the Bible more generally, a priori reasoning, or church tradition and the creeds, for that matter, is my primary starting point in understanding who God is. And I don’t think a retributive view of justice is compatible with Jesus’ teachings on forgiveness. I won’t go so far as to claim that a restorative view of justice is self-evident or that there’s a Scripture verse that explicitly states “the only purpose of punishment is restorative” (although, as I noted in my comments on Jon’s post, I don’t think a retributive view of justice is the dominant one in Scripture), but I do think this is the view most in keeping with Jesus’ life and teachings. Jesus explicitly disavowed “an eye for an eye”; he stopped the stoning of the adulterous woman; he told us to forgive others and love our enemies; and he told parables, like the parable of the prodigal son, of great sin apparently deserving of punishment being forgiven.
That said, I think I’m in a position to grant, for the sake of argument, a retributive view of punishment, and nevertheless contend that God would not punish people eternally for their sins; and I argued as much above.
As for my premises, I did not just claim that they were self-evident (although I personally think the first one is pretty obvious); I gave independent arguments for them. My first premise follows from God’s desiring that all be saved and not having any more important purposes that would block him from seeking to realize this desire (and God’s being a rational agent, but I’m assuming you’re granting me that). I don’t find that speculative at all. The main objection that could be raised to it is to say that God in fact does have more important purposes. I’ve attempted to respond to all articulations of possible overriding purposes that I’ve seen (e.g., punishment); if I’ve missed a plausible candidate please inform me. My second premise follows from the definition of free will, the axioms of probability theory, and some claims about the (im)possibility of utter depravity and the extent to which God will work to influence us towards the good. The last two parts of this are probably the most speculative of my argument, and Daniel and I have had a good discussion about them. If you disagree with my premises, I’m open to clarifying anything unclear in my arguments for them, or debating parts of those arguments you wish to deny. But just saying that they’re “speculative” doesn’t advance the discussion in any way.
As for your appeals to Scripture: I do not think that those OT verses mean what you think they mean. They were referring to historical events in the Near East at the time at which they were written, not to the Christian conception of Satan. I’m also skeptical of literalist interpretations of verses that (actually) refer to Satan. But I’m willing to restrict my statements to human beings if you like. Indeed, there may be Scriptural support for a contrast between Satan and human beings here—I think the most plausible interpretation of the “unforgivable sin” passage in Matthew 12:30-33 is that it refers to Satan’s sin, and that as for human sin, as the passage says, “every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people.”
As for the verses you think claim that punishment in hell has an infinitely long duration, much turns on how we understand certain Greek words that are translated as “eternal” in most English Bibles. For example, anionios, which I believe is the word used in the verses you cited, literally means “of the ages.” While in some contexts this and other words are most plausibly understood as referring to an infinite duration of time, in other contexts they is not. For example, Jude 1:6 refers to angels being kept in “eternal chains” until the Judgment Day; obviously they can’t be eternal in the temporal sense if they were only up until a certain point.
What about the parallelism you point to? There are several responses available to me here. If anionios means something like “in the age to come” (as some have argued) then these constructions could refer to a finite age for both righteous and unrighteous, at the end of which the unrighteous will have themselves been made righteous so that in the age after the age to come, all are saved. (The Scriptural passages don’t say the latter part of this, of course, but I’ve been arguing that we have good philosophical reasons to be universalists, not that it’s unequivocally taught in Scripture.) Or, if it means something like “fulfilling God’s purposes” (as others have argued), then the duration of people in each of these places will depend on God’s purposes, and this just gets us back to the debate about what God’s purposes are.
This might look like a bunch of fancy footwork to avoid straightforward interpretations. But it goes the other way to. While the universalist has to contend with the translation of anionios and similar words, the anti-universalist has to somehow account for I Corinthians 15:22, Colossians 1:20, Romans 5:18-19, and Romans 11:32, to name a few. Usually the strategy is arguing that “all” doesn’t really mean “all,” which tends also to look like some fancy footwork. And then there’s all the apparently annihilationist passages. For my part, I call the Scriptural case a three-way draw. (Although, I have to say, Daniel—Proverbs 12:7? Really?) Thankfully, I think that starting from a conception of God that we get from his revelation in Jesus Christ, a philosophical case for universalism is not hard to make. That’s how I break the stalemate.
@Nevin
aioonios, aioonion,
1. without beginning or end, that which always has been and always will be: Theos, Ro 16:26
2. without beginning Ro 16:25
3. without end, never to cease, everlasting: 2 Co 4:18
(from Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 2000 by Biblesoft)
aionios (ahee-o’-nee-os); from NT:165; perpetual (also used of past time, or past and future as well):
KJV – eternal, for ever, everlasting, world (began).
(Biblesoft’s New Exhaustive Strong’s Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright (c) 1994, Biblesoft and International Bible Translators, Inc.)
As for the passages which seem to imply salvation for all in an unqualified sense, there are a great many other passages which do make qualifications. Most notably, the frequently quoted John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (emphasis mine). And later, in John 6:40: “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day” (emphasis mine). I could go on, but I think it’s clear that the great majority of passages show that, though Christ’s sacrificial work is sufficient for all, all other things are not equal, as you said in your article. In fact, Scripture teaches that God wills that the effects of that saving work be limited by people’s freely-made refusal to accept it. Christ Himself says, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing” (Matthew 23:37; Luke 13:34; emphasis mine).
I think it is obvious, therefore, that those few passages which seem to speak of universal salvation are merely shorthand for these passages which limit it to those who accept Christ. And taken with the passages already quoted, which clearly indicate both the existence and eternality of both states of the afterlife (Heaven and Hell), it is little wonder why the orthodox “Hellist” position (as Dan puts it) is the established position in the Christian Church.
By the way, I do not consider myself an inerrantist, although I (sadly) find that to be the ad hominem most frequently on lips of those with whom I debate Christian theology whenever I attempt bring Scripture into it. Why Divine Revelation, the very words of Christ and his immediate disciples, the textual foundation of our entire religion–why this is thought to be highly suspect as the last word on Christian doctrine, and why speculative philosophy is held to be the gold standard, I’ve never been able to understand. This accusation is perhaps more directed at Dan than Nevin.
But if we truly hold the Bible to be the word of God, shouldn’t that be our starting point for Christian doctrine? If we do not hold it to be so, either by virtue of its errors or its incomprehensibility, then however correct our a priori arguments for God’s nature, the result cannot be called Christianity. You can call it Perfect Being Theology or whatever you like, but I think it would be a misnomer to call anything Christianity which is not doctrinally grounded in the teaches of Jesus Christ and His immediate followers.
In the same way, one might, by means of the reasoning process uninformed by the writings of Karl Marx, arrive at somewhat similar conclusions as Marx did. But if the two views ultimately have different origins, conclusions, and standards of judgment, you cannot honestly call it Marxism.
It is my contention, then, that any discussion of Christian doctrine be firmly grounded in the Bible. If, on the other hand, we agree that we are not speaking of Christianity at all but about positions which may nevertheless be true, I am willing to talk about those. But again, since I hold that only a few things can be known about God a priori (i.e., without the aid of Scripture), the premises of these arguments will have to be either actually self-evident or the conclusions of much more compelling arguments than I have heard, and these arguments, where they depart from Scripture, had better be more compelling than the historical facts which established the authority of Christ (i.e., the empty tomb, Christ’s post-mortem appearances, and the origin of the disciples’ belief in His resurrection).
@Dan
The previous response was made to you as well, but on a special note, I find it sad that my first attempt to bring the Christian Bible into this debate of purportedly Christian doctrine is met with your snide remarks. You speak as if to consult Scripture at all is to, in your words, “play the scripture game.” I take it that you hold the Bible to be either ambiguous in even the most important doctrinal matters or unauthoritative in itself (i.e., its authority is contingent upon the authority of the Catholic church), as you seem not even to be convinced that the verses you cited confirm your own position. You seem to have merely cited them in an attempt to show that Scripture is ambiguous, so that we can put the pesky book aside and get on with business of Perfect Being Theology.
If this is so, you can be sure that this discussion cannot progress until we establish what the proper standards of Christian doctrine are. If you have an argument against the historicity of the New Testament or its transmission, please share it. But if your only standards of judgment are your own intellect and the teachings of the Catholic church, I think you will have to come to terms with the fact that your despairingly low confidence in Scripture to determine the articles of the faith almost certainly takes you outside the sphere of Catholic orthodoxy. You may want to consider coming up with a name for your new religion in order to avoid further confusion.
@Travis: Citing a couple lexicons that give the meanings that those words are commonly taken to have (and that sometimes, indeed, do have, in certain contexts) doesn’t make the controversy over how to properly translate those go away. I’m not a Greek scholar, but I’ve researched this issue a decent bit and the translation of that word is much more complicated than that. A good defense of not translating aion and its derivatives as meaning “eternal” in the relevant verses is given at http://www.tentmaker.org/books/Aion_lim.html. There are probably over a hundred examples given there of the words being used in both Biblical and non-Biblical passages in contexts in which they cannot possibly mean “unlimited duration.” I won’t bore you by trotting them all out here, and I don’t mean to settle the matter of how to properly translate the word by this appeal; rather, I’m merely observing that the translation of the verses you are using to support your position is not straightforward.
As for the other passages you cite, I think you are similarly letting your prior beliefs about the matter colour your interpretation of them. Neither of the verses in John you cite say that some people will never believe in Jesus, and so never be saved. “Whoever believes in him” could, eventually, refer to everyone. Jerusalem may not have been willing when Jesus wept over it, but it may be willing in the future. Et cetera. So it is far from obvious that one can simply dismiss apparently universalist passages as “merely shorthand.” I also think that doing so will do consider violence to the text in some cases. Consider Colossians 1:16-20: “For by [Christ] all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (my emphasis). There seems a pretty intentional parallel there—just as all things were created through Christ, so all things will be reconciled to God through Christ. To treat that as “merely shorthand” for “all things except some that won’t be” seems quite implausible to me.
Again, I don’t mean for any of this to be conclusive evidence that Scripture teaches universalism. I find the universalist interpretation of apparently Hellist passages less strained than the Hellist interpretation of apparently universalist passages myself, but I’ll freely grant that that may be because of my background beliefs on the matter. What I object to is the attitude that it’s somehow “obvious” that Scripture teaches eternal damnation. It’s not. And since it’s not, we can start with what we are taught—much more clearly—about who God is, and figure out what that kind of a being would do. That’s what my philosophical argument is meant to do.
As for the status of the Bible: as I said above, I do not hold the Bible to be revelation. Jesus Christ is revelation. The Bible is an interpretation of and record of that revelation, written by fallible human beings. Now, I think that if the early church or the New Testament writers uniformly taught and agreed upon something, that’s a strong presumption that that thing is true (although it’s still possible that they could be wrong). But I don’t think that’s the case here, and it’s not the case with many (perhaps most) of the propositions that Christians today think are part of the Christian faith.
My primary starting point, as I said, is the life and teachings of Jesus, and I really don’t think Jesus taught anything conclusively one way or the other on the afterlife. However, I think from his teachings on morality and on the character of God, as well as from the kind of life he modeled, we are given a picture that implies universal salvation, for the reasons I’ve already stated. This doesn’t mean I think that universalism is Christian doctrine in the sense that it’s something one must believe to be a Christian or something that it was part of Jesus’ message to teach. I simply think that it’s true. If you disagree, you’re welcome to show me where my arguments for my premises go wrong. But it’s still somewhat unclear to me where you find fault with my arguments (aside from your criticism of my second premise, which I think I’ve answered). I think(?) that you deny the claim that God has no more important purposes that might override his seeking to realize his desire that all be saved. If you do deny that claim, then please tell me what you think those purposes might be, and we can see whether they are plausible.
I’m not sure how deep I want to get into a discussion of Biblical authority, but I must say that I found this odd:
…and these arguments, where they depart from Scripture, had better be more compelling than the historical facts which established the authority of Christ (i.e., the empty tomb, Christ’s post-mortem appearances, and the origin of the disciples’ belief in His resurrection).
I’m not sure how the historical evidence of Christ’s authority, a matter about which we are in agreement, establishes the Bible’s authority. I think going the historical route, as I do, leads one to my Christocentric position, rather than to a Bibliocentric one.
@ Nevin
Proverbs 12:7 was mostly there because of it’s somewhat dramatic pronouncement about the wicked ‘being no more,’ and as a point about the dangers of proof-texting.
@ Travis
I take the Bible to be ambiguous in many places, including on the view of the afterlife. Both Nevin and I have stated as much, so I find it disingenuous to simply slap together a few verses and call an argument refuted.
If the Biblical teaching is true, there are no sound arguments to the contrary. If such is the case, you should be able to find the problem in the argument, rather than quoting your verses and begging the question. It is eminently annoying to see a thought-through and carefully argued position dismissed with a wave of the hand and a few verses.
If you find a sound argument contrary to Biblical teaching, the rational response is to either alter your hermeneutic or concede Biblical error. I tend to favor the first move.
Now, discussing the authority of scripture on its own is another conversation, but yes I find the status of the books we consider scripture to only be coherent on the Catholic view. The gospels have a strong historical testimony, and as a narrative I find their truth to be explanatorily prior to the authority of the Church. However, I find the rest of the NT’s status as a higher authority than other contemporary writings to be explanatorily posterior, because indeed the filter of orthodoxy itself was (is) the Church.
Finally, I see reason as epistemically prior to both scripture and tradition, since my acceptance of either is based on it. Abandoning that same reason when it conflicts with one of those two would then be irrational. Fortunately, true propositions don’t contradict, so if a high view of scripture is proper, it won’t conflict with a rationalist approach. If it does, so much the worse for it.
@Nevin
Sorry if I was unclear. I agree with your premise that, all other things being equal, God would realize his desire to save everyone. But I object to your statement that all other things are equal, that there are no overriding considerations for God. My evidence for that was Christ’s statement that, though he longed to gather the people in, their refusal thwarted this desire. It goes without saying that Christ would have to have let their refusal thwart His desire, of course. But this shows pretty clearly, I think, that Christ is not going to force anyone to accept Him. And taken with my strawberries example and the irrelevance of probability theory with respect to matters of freewill, I think the case is strong that at least some people will never freely choose God, even if He did given them an infinite number of opportunities, which also seems to me contrary to scripture.
I apologize in advance for the brevity and incompleteness of my arguments; finals deter me from giving this my full attention. Maybe we can talk about this at the end of the semester.
@Dan
I have nothing further to say to you except that I pray that you will one day see the pretension and the absurdity of having more confidence in your own speculative a priori intuitions than in the words of the Incarnate God.
@Travis: My first premise was meant to establish that God would seek to realize his desire that all be saved, by continually giving people the chance to be saved. It was not meant to establish that he would override someone’s free will in order to save them. (We are agreed that God will not force people to accept him; this is not my position.)
Unless I’ve missed something, the only criticism you’ve made of my first premise that’s applicable to the claim that God will not take away people’s chance to be saved is that it seems to you to be contrary to Scripture. I’ve tried to respond to any legitimate Biblical challenges I’ve seen, but the deeper point here is that an appeal to the Bible in this case does not identify why God would not give someone every opportunity to be saved. If he is rational, he must have some reason. I can see no plausible reasons God could have for taking away people’s ability to be saved (and I’ve tried to show why some candidates, e.g. punishment, are implausible), but if you have suggestions I’ll try to respond to them.
As for your objection to my second premise, I’ve already said why I don’t think it works. It is a matter of both common sense and empirical fact that our actions have objective chances. If this is compatible with libertarian free will, then my probabilistic argument goes through. If it is not, so much the worse for libertarian free will. Your strawberry example does not disprove this. It simply gives a case where you appear to be free and yet the objective chance of your doing what you are free to do appears to be 0. But 0 is still a probability.
Incidentally, you implicitly recognize yourself that our actions have objective chances in your statement that “the case is strong that at least some people will never freely choose God.” If people’s actions really do not have objective chances, then the case is not strong that they’ll do anything. Rather, we can make no predictions at all about their actions.
I understand if you don’t have too much time to pour into this; it’s a busy time of the semester for me too, and I have stuff I should be doing more than this too. But I still don’t think you’ve significantly damaged my argument, and so when you get a chance I’d be genuinely interested in what you’d have to say to my rebuttals.
“Ihave nothing further to say to you except that I pray that you will one day see the pretension and the absurdity of having more confidence in your own speculative a priori intuitions than in the words of the Incarnate God.”
At this point I’m forced to conclude that you are being intentionally obtuse, but in case there’s been a misunderstanding:
My argument is that the scriptural case is a stalemate and that therefore we should turn to reason to adjudicate, and furthermore a scriptural interpretation should not be able to overturn a sound argument without pointing out where that argument goes awry. So far you have not addressed that.
@Travis
“more confidence in your own speculative a priori intuitions than in the words of the Incarnate God.”
Low blow. Where did Dan say Jesus was wrong?
Dan: “if a high view of scripture is proper, it won’t conflict with a rationalist approach. If it does, so much the worse for it.”
In other words, if Scripture contradicts our intellectual presuppositions, Scripture, not our presuppositions, is to be discarded.
On the contrary, I think Chaucer said it best:
“God sholde have lordschipe over reson, and reson over sensualite, and sensualite over the body of man.”
If we come up against a difficult passage in Scripture, one which seems counterintuitive to us, and if our first impulse is to assume that Scripture (rather than our own understanding) is in error, not only will we not remain Christians very long, but we will never do justice to the text, never investigate the matter fully.
Sorry if I seem obtuse; it just irks me whenever Christians show such disdain towards the Bible and such reluctance to allow it into a debate of the tenets of our religion, preferring rather whatever their pet philosophy happens to be. I think that if Scripture had been given its proper place in this debate, all the arguments would have been grounded in it from the beginning, not permitted (grudgingly, by some) as an afterthought.
Sorry, also, if I am up in arms about this. If we were arguing about something trivial like church music, it wouldn’t matter. But if a Christian is going to publicly argue against the orthodox view of the afterlife, he had better be right; otherwise he is spreading false doctrine.
To be honest, I am also aware that I have not had the time to fully develop my own position (in light of more pressing considerations) and give my full attention to all the nuances of Dan and Nevin’s arguments. I am a little ashamed of my anger, as in our day expressions of emotion do not befit a philosopher and quickly call into doubt his objectivity. However, I am not just a philosopher but also a Christian, and Christians ought to be indignant when they perceive their fellow believers to be spreading false teaching. But motives are rarely pure, and so I apologize for my anger and hope that it will not prevent further discussion(s).
I very much appreciate the honesty I have seen in Nevin’s arguments and want him to know that I don’t think him disingenuous in the least. He seems to earnestly seek the truth. I also apologize if I have been rude to Dan; it is easier to be rude to friends. While I think that he is wrong on many counts, I don’t think he has arrived at his conclusions dishonestly. I apologize if I haven’t been equally as honest.
@ Travis
“In other words, if Scripture contradicts our intellectual presuppositions, Scripture, not our presuppositions, is to be discarded.”
Not exactly – the statement I made is more along the lines of ‘if it is irrational to hold a high view of scripture, we shouldn’t hold one.” Now I don’t happen to think that’s the case, but that does mean that we cannot discard sound arguments because of a particular reading of scripture.
“If we come up against a difficult passage in Scripture, one which seems counterintuitive to us, and if our first impulse is to assume that Scripture (rather than our own understanding) is in error, not only will we not remain Christians very long, but we will never do justice to the text, never investigate the matter fully.”
Again I think this is extreme. Since I am not an inerrantist, I don’t think scripture needs to be inerrant. That does not mean the “first impulse” should be to discard a passage, but if there is no way to defend a passage, concluding that there is an error should be an option.
“Sorry if I seem obtuse; it just irks me whenever Christians show such disdain towards the Bible and such reluctance to allow it into a debate of the tenets of our religion, preferring rather whatever their pet philosophy happens to be. I think that if Scripture had been given its proper place in this debate, all the arguments would have been grounded in it from the beginning, not permitted (grudgingly, by some) as an afterthought.”
The complaint here seems to be more methodological/attitudinal, along the notion that scripture hasn’t been ‘given it’s due.’ Now. it is true that both Nevin and myself set out to explore the issue philosophical, but we both declared already that we thought the scriptural situation was a stalemate. You may disagree with that, but presumably (if both evidentialism and a high view of scripture are true) the deliverances of scripture and of reason shouldn’t contradict each other, in which case the Hellist ought to be able to state his case thoroughly and rationally. If he can’t, then that seems prima facie evidence that the ultimate scriptural resolution will not be in his favor.
“But if a Christian is going to publicly argue against the orthodox view of the afterlife, he had better be right; otherwise he is spreading false doctrine.”
I think much of my exchange with John was demonstrating that I don’t think annihilation is outside the ‘orthodox’ view. Minimally, it does not contradict the creeds, and if anything is the standard of orthodoxy, the creeds are. Same for universalism, although a stronger case for universalism’s heterodoxy can be made based on the reaction to Origen [although I'm not sure how one can make that argument without some appeal to conciliar authority].
To use myself as an example(and not intending to start a firefight here – it’s just an example): As a Catholic, I am committed to saying that all protestants are grievously mistaken about the very nature of the Church. However, it doesn’t follow that I should consider them ‘false teachers’ or evil or non-christian or something like that. I’ll debate the issue vigorously when it emerges, but I don’t think I should become indignant about it, and I doubt my doing so would change any minds.
“However, I am not just a philosopher but also a Christian, and Christians ought to be indignant when they perceive their fellow believers to be spreading false teaching.”
I think you’re stating your case too strongly here. Were we to become indignant anytime someone was wrong about theology, meaningful dialogue would break down.
I think there’s a marked difference between holding a position with conviction and becoming indignant. Charity dictates that an honest interlocutor receive a fair hearing. Now, if someone is being disingenuous or dishonest, that may alter things, although indignance is a dialectically weak position to be in.
Lastly:
Apology accepted; no harm no foul.
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