Category Archives: Theology

December 13, 2008 · 9:48 am

More on damnation v. universal salvation

Since I first wrote this post on the doctrine of damnation, and why it seems to me inescapable, I’ve stumbled upon a number of other conversations on the subject, with many voices from the universal salvation perspective. I have read defenses of that position from both liberal and conservative Christians, but to my mind, they all fall short on either or both of two fronts.  Sometimes the view of Heaven seems not fully thought through. What is the nature of eternal life, and does it admit even the possibility of the admission of the unwilling? I contend that this would be like insisting that a circle be made with more corners.

 

The second error seems more peculiar. I contend that the universalist’s view of humanity is too low. For God to produce what I think He intends in us, it is necessary that we have a free will which is efficacious. God cannot trump it without denying and defeating His own purpose. A think that is a lot of the point of the story of Noah and the flood.  

 

For those interested in the question, I suggest the following two discussions, along with my own post below.

 

-Blessings

http://interspiritualchristian.wordpress.com/2008/10/12/on-the-nature-of-scripture/#comment-3

and

http://chadholtz.wordpress.com/2008/12/10/the-universal-good-news/

 

 

 

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February 24, 2008 · 4:54 am

How can a loving God damn people to hell?: a response

I won’t attribute the source, since I can’t now find it; but in the blog of a friend of mine the question of damnation came up as an example of a religious dogma which cannot be accepted.

I beg to differ. If one accepts at least for the purpose of this discussion certain propositions about God, and heaven (I will reference these propositions as we go along) then some sort of doctrine of damnation is inevitable. The only other alternative is for our independence and autonomy to be an illusion.

 

Orthodox Christians may object that my argument is very short on appeals to the Bible. That is by design. In our current climate, appealing to Holy Scripture is mostly preaching to the choir. Continue reading →

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April 14, 2007 · 4:20 pm

Is Creation Finished?

Mr. D. C. Toedt, who is a friend of mine from my church, writes a blog called The Questioning Christian
In a post entitled “The world isn’t broken, it’s just unfinished”
He suggests

1. Suppose hypothetically that God is still creating the world, using processes we’re only beginning to kinda-sorta understand — processes that entail generating lots of variations and keeping the ones that “work” as the starting point for later variations.

(These processes of the ongoing creation seem to include us as construction workers, incidentally: our powers of imagination let us generate new variations, while our powers of perception and memory let us see and remember — imperfectly — what does or doesn’t work.)

This hypothesis is not totally implausible, not if you take a long view of what we think we know of history. …

Now, D.C. (for whom I have a great deal of respect) and I disagree about much in the church, including what is the very nature of “church” and even what it means to be christian. I would argue that to be a christian means to accept Jesus as Lord, as being God incarnate who died in the flesh and rose again so that we might be released from the bondage of our sin. I will let D.C. speak for himself, which he does quite well, but he would more describe it as following the commandments of Jesus in that we are to love God and our neighbor, and teach others to do the same.

But in this post, I think he has it pretty much right. The main difference is that Continue reading →

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May 3, 2006 · 7:48 am

Pondering the T U L [I] P

(This was actually written about a year ago, in May ’06, before I began these notes. It was previously posted here )

I have been pondering Calvin’s idea of “irresistible grace” (the I in the TULIP mnemonic),  in light of the obvious truth that if I am dead in my sin, I do not become “spontaneously regenerate”, by my own choice, any more than did I become “spontaneously generate” , by my own choice, the first time. And also of the commissioning of the apostles and of us to spread the gospel, of the v. in John about “…as many as received Him, to them He gave power to become children of God.” (I assume the orig. refers to an active reception, rather than passive?)

I have also been thinking in the light of what I understand of God’s ultimate purpose for this creation, limited as that understanding is. That purpose, that God desired to create a being which could give and receive total love, in total submission, and total freedom. As is modeled in the Holy Trinity.

In the original creation, Adam gained life not of his own choice, clay having no power to choose. He was given freedom, and the ability to respond to the love of God by obedience, by the gift of the prohibition. By choosing wrongly, he lost his freedom, we became bound in sin, and dead in our trespass. In once again quickening us by His irresistible grace, does it seem consistent that He would take us from being bound in sin, to being bound in grace, without passing through the stage where the first Adam fell? If “the free gift of God is eternal life” is not one of His gifts to me the ability to make a “free gift to God” of my response to Him?

Admittedly, by choosing to respond “Yes” to God, we are giving Him a gift only because He has empowered us to give it. I was powerless before His calling. I was powerless even to say no. When my daughter was 5, she could buy me a gift only by asking me for the money. But I was more touched so, not less. And “all things come of Thee oh Lord, and of Thine own have we given Thee”

The ability to respond affirmatively, in freedom, to God (which carries with it the possibility of responding negatively) would seem to be very close to the first gift bestowed irresistibly upon us by His grace.

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