Universalism, Grace and the Bondage of the Will

In the comments to yesterday's post Keith asked me a question about how the Reformed and Arminian traditions view "total depravity." I'd like to share the thoughts I offered Keith and connect those to the doctrine of universal reconciliation.

Do Arminians believe in total depravity?

Yes and no. If by total depravity we mean that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3.23) then Arminians do believe in it. But this isn't really what we mean by total depravity. Romans 3.23 is speaking to universal sinfulness, which is a bit different.

The issue goes to how the Reformed and Arminians view the human will. According to the Reformed humans are totally depraved, even our wills. Our will is broken, non-functional, and sinful. Thus, even if we were "able" to choose God that choice would be a sin, a form of selfishness, wanting/choosing God for the wrong reasons. In short, humans are incapable of "choosing" God. Or at least choosing God in a way that would be holy. The human will is depraved, unholy, stained with sin. Martin Luther called this "the bondage of the will."

Thus the doctrine of election. If we can't choose God then God has to choose us, God's will has to make the choice because we can't do it.

Arminians see this a bit differently. Arminians believe in free will (in contrast to Luther's "bondage of the will") and, thus, see human choice as morally neutral. That's the key difference. The apparatus of choice is morally neutral. More, the apparatus of choice is functional. Consequently, humans have the capacity to freely choose God. And in a way that isn't morally contaminated. Consequently, there is no need for the doctrine of election. With the will functional and morally neutral the initiative can sit on the human side. The point here is that the will isn't "totally depraved" as it is in Reformed thinking.

Now it's at this point where the Reformed counter with a very strong argument. The counterargument from the Reformed is that if human choice is allowed then that choice is a "work" and, thus, cause for boasting. This negates grace.

This argument makes sense. If I can be blamed for my choice to reject God (as Arminians believe) why can't I be praised (and boasting is just self-praise) for my choice to accept God?

That's a strong argument.

So what are our options? The doctrine of election? The belief that God picks some (regenerates the will of the elect) and doesn't pick others (leaving their wills depraved and in bondage)?

Seems like there is no good choice here. Grace gets screwed either way. In the Arminian view grace is screwed because humans have a cause for boasting. In the Reformed view grace is screwed because God limits grace to the few.

It's a real pickle.

That is, unless, you endorse the doctrine of universal reconciliation. Grace actually wins in universalism. On both scores. First, God's love extends to all. Second, because humans are finite and broken creatures God will have to decisively intervene within our biographies to move us toward perfection. God doesn't "regenerate" the will in an instant. Rather, the process is more like parenting. Coaching, punishing, supporting, prompting. In universalism "becoming perfect like our Heavenly Father is perfect" is the goal. But it's a developmental process.

But the key is this. You can't look back at that process and say, "I could have done this on my own." Because you couldn't have. The Divine Initiative is what saves you.

You have to stand in heaven and say, "There is no cause for boasting. I'm here because of grace."

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35 thoughts on “Universalism, Grace and the Bondage of the Will”

  1. "But the key is this. You can't look back at that process and say, "I
    could have done this on my own." Because you couldn't have. The Divine
    Initiative is what saves you.

    You have to stand in heaven and say, "There is no cause for boasting. I'm here because of grace.""

    That would be true on either account of will you mention.

    --guy

  2. One point of the post is that the Reformed deny that the Arminians could say that. It's contested.

  3. I don't think making a dead-simple choice like this is any cause for boasting. Jesus said you didn't get any credit for loving the people that love you, so I don't think choosing His rescue for our lives is a cause for boasting. Some could, just like those that felt all righteous for loving friends and family, but Jesus just said, "No, anybody would do that."

  4. Richard,

    We choose to choose (even when we don't) in a world not of our choosing.  Teasing out the actual causal connections of "we love because he first loved us," is confusing.  

    Blessings!

  5. True, one choice isn't much to "boast" about. But I think that is missing the point of the symmetry. For example, as I mention in the post, do you feel that someone can be blamed (sent to hell) for their choice? And if blame, why not praise?

  6. i think you have to be careful to distinguish kinds of credit.  There's the kind of credit where an M.C. says "great job" and balloons fall from the ceiling.  And there's the kind of credit that simply means something is attributable to you in an important way (initiative perhaps).  While surely my choices can be attributable to me in significant ways, it doesn't follow that all non-sinful choices are creditable in the former sense (and thus praiseworthy).  (i'm also thinking here of Jesus' parable of the unprofitable servant.)

    --guy

  7. I understand. But to clarify, I'm not trying to win the argument between the Arminians and the Reformed. I'm just pointing out that they contest each other's view and that both sides have good arguments. Of course, Ariminians will see their side as "correct" as will the Reformed see their side as "correct." 

    A simple recognition that the issue is contested is all I need, that there is some controversy within Christianity on this score. Agreed? 

  8. It seems that neuroscience is demolishing the notion of "free will." "

    In 2007, Haynes, a neuroscientist at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Berlin, put people into a brain scanner in which a display screen flashed a succession of random letters1. He told them to press a button with either their right or left index fingers whenever they felt the urge, and to remember the letter that was showing on the screen when they made the decision. The experiment used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to reveal brain activity in real time as the volunteers chose to use their right or left hands. The results were quite a surprise.

    "The first thought we had was 'we have to check if this is real'," says Haynes. "We came up with more sanity checks than I've ever seen in any other study before."

    The conscious decision to push the button was made about a second before the actual act, but the team discovered that a pattern of brain activity seemed to predict that decision by as many as seven seconds. Long before the subjects were even aware of making a choice, it seems, their brains had already decided." http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110831/full/477023a.html

    Free will as it is commonly defined by philosophers and theologians is apparently a delusion, a compelling one, but a delusion nevertheless. We may not be merely reductionistic biological machines as suggested here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/8058541/Neuroscience-free-will-and-determinism-Im-just-a-machine.html  but we certainly aren't absolute free agents acting independently of all the constraints and influences imposed on us by laws of physics and biology.

    So you are right Richard in that only Grace can deliver us from this bondage of determinism. The only truly free agent in the universe is YHWH ("I shall be what I shall be.") and He has freely chosen to forgive all and remove the shackles of determinism and the necessities imposed by death from the entire creation. As Moltmann puts it: "The Sunrise of Christ’s liberating justice."  Justice in the biblical sense of sadaq: restorative, creative justice--making things right by making all things new.

  9. Agreed--and interestingly, there are even a variety of positions on the will within each camp.  For instance, Jonathan Edwards was an occasionalist about causation and seems to have been perfectly willing to bite the bullet on all that meant about human will and apparent causation as well as evil in the world, whereas many modern Reformed types are compatibilists and realists about human causation contra Edwards' straightforward determinism.  And also, Wesley seems to have a very different view of the limitations of the will than other Arminian Protestants.  In the CoC we seem to have been much more Pelagian about the will--at least that's how i understood things growing up.  --that the Fall didn't really affect the function of my will, and that in terms of the will's function and capacity, people are more or less born in the same state as Adam in the Garden.

    --guy

  10. Luther is right.  There simply is no freedom apart from God, no neutral place that exists.  God's freedom is God's own, and our freedom is the gift of God.  To quote Barth, "God does not put man into the situation of Hercules at the crossroads.  The opposite is true.  God frees man from this false situation.  He lifts him from appearance to reality.  It is true that man's God-given freedom is choice, decision, act.  But it is genuine choice; it is genuine decision and act in the right direction."

  11. Is it possible that "awareness of making a choice" is just a lagging indicator of the actual choice?  Who said that consciousness and will had to be purely in phase to be linked?

  12. I'll never forget the experience of reading a book by Jamie Buckingham as an undergraduate.   He described his own Christian life in terms of a slow, gradual, painful, fulfilling learning process.  Everything I'd read until then kept banging on about this moment of decision like it was a big deal.  It just didn't fit my experience.  It was such a relief to realise there was an alternative view out there.  Twenty-six years later, and it's all starting to make sense at last.  This blog has been a huge part of that.  If they have beer (and money (and imperial measures)) in heaven, Richard, I'll buy you a pint.

  13. Amen, brother.  I think the term "confusing" don't hardly say it (apologies to Cormac McCarthy).  Our seminal "choice" was to be placed here (with this DNA) to begin with.  I feel fairly certain that Richard is aware that most Christians do not think very much about the concept of human free will when it comes to the afterlife or their salvation.  Many give it lip service in passing, but assume that it's more a matter of "letting go and letting God".  At least that has been my (admittedly limited) impression.
     
    The discussion here is not about choosing which socks to wear.  It is fundamental to all that we are as human beings.  Beyond clothing (etc.), I do not "believe" in human free will simply because I have never seen any empirical evidence that such a thing exists.
     
    I was an English major yet I find the Bible to be almost unintelligible.  It is without doubt the most obscure tome I have ever picked up.  At the moment I am willing to study other's interpretations of what it is saying (Mike Gantt -- who, btw, uses more actual quotes every day than does Richard -- as well as Richard and others), because it is of interest to me as I approach my own demise.  So I take the stance of an illiterate medieval peasant who listens to his local priest interpret the Scriptures simply because he understands Latin.  But that's about the limit to my "free will", as far as I can tell.
     

  14. There is another view in the mix called neo-orthodoxy that is "reformed" and holds to "election", but defined differently. It is "universal" in its effect without being "universalism". (ref. Karl Barth, Thomas Torrance, etc.)

  15. Hi Michael,
    I need to educate myself about Barth's view of election. If you have the time (or if any other Barth scholars/students want to help me out) would you sketch the idea for me?

    My understanding, which could be wrong, is that the crux of the idea is that we are all elected through Jesus Christ. That is, God elects Jesus, the representative of humanity. Thus, when God elects Jesus God elects us. Is that about right?

    If that summary is in the ballpark my question, then, has to do with the "getting in Jesus" part. God elects us in Jesus but, somehow, I have to get into Jesus. That's the part I have questions about.

    So my question is: How does Barth see us getting into Jesus? Because just saying that God elects everyone in Christ really just backs up the problem as to how anyone gets to be "in Christ."

    Thoughts about that? Perhaps I have Barth's doctrine wrong?

  16. Andrew, Richard,

    As the Germans sing in "Im Himmel gibt's kein Bier," there ain't no beer in Heaven.  The song further says: that's why we drink it here.  Luther didn't wait either. 

    Prosit!

  17. "Thus, even if we were "able" to choose God . . ."

    Something about the phrase "choose God" is troubling. As Adam's progeny, we all sin because we are sinners by nature, thanks to Adam. We are not sinners by nature because we choose to sin. Nevertheless, Romans 3:23 and 6:23 are, of course, correct. The way out of this problem is not to 'choose God.'

    The way out is to believe God. Belief is not an act or deed or work or choice. You say "Our will is broken, non-functional, and sinful." Well, certainly sinful, in alignment with our nature. But, it appears our wills are functional (I am willing to type this right now). What we won't do is will what is pleasing to God. In that sense, our wills are 'broken' and we can be considered 'depraved.'

    But, again, I don't see God waiting for us to choose Him or to do what is pleasing to Him. He knows that that won't happen given our sin nature. He gives us revelation and simply tells us to believe Him. He takes care of the rest.



    What we do is willfully suppress this revelation or truth. But, belief does not require an act of the will. If we were not able to believe then indeed we would have an evil God who punishes for something which He created us incapable of doing. That is not God. Whether this aligns with Arminian or Reformed views I have no idea; just some thoughts that rattled around in my consciousness.

  18. About where we all are or so it seems to me.  And just when I thought I understand a passage, it somehow morphs or escapes me.  The other night a Rabbi told me that the Hebrew word for "repent" can be translated as "think it over."  The KJV speaks of God repenting and man repenting.  I need to think that over, again and again.

    Blessings!

  19. What exactly is consciousness is one of the great unanswered questions of science. The neuroscientists will assert that consciousness is a function of processes in the brain. It therefore can be observed, measured, and be subjected to predictive modeling. In fact, such technology has already been developed and will soon be deployed. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/31/60minutes
    /main4694713_page2.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentBody   Philosophers and spiritualists have a dualistic view of the mind that in some sense transcends the brain. The reductionists see our "consciousness" deterministically and the dualists as transcendent which allows for the possibility of free will.

    I think the concern and debate about whether or not there is free will is a red herring. The real issue is freedom. I think freedom is to often confused with free will which is about the ability to make alternate choices or decisions. Even animals have the ability to make choices. A dog can choose between eating kibbles or a piece of sirloin steak placed before it or choose to run from a threat or attack. Is that free will?

    Freedom is something altogether different. God is free because He has no constraints or necessities that He must operate under. God is free from self-concern and free to be absolutely other-concerned. This is the essence of agape. The decisive moment for Jesus in Gethsemane was when he broke through the "freedom barrier," not by asserting his "freewill" but by doing the will of the Father. And that will is to give his life, his all, to all others--the whole creation.

    To be free is as Jurgen Moltmann said: "It is not the right to choose that defines the reality of human freedom. It is the doing of the good." Just as Jesus did.

  20. I see grace as something like Wesley's idea of prevenient grace, going before us and preparing the way. We can choose to turn to God or not, and I wouldn't see that choice as tainted - total depravity is an invention of the Western Church, and I don't see that we need it - but God needs to make it possible to break from selfishness, and make the choice.

  21. Come to that, I'm not comfortable with the works/grace dichotomy. I don't think that's what Paul's really saying - he's talking about Torah, not human actions in general, and he spends enough time lecturing churches about how they should behave towards one another, which is surely a 'work' - and I'm quite sure it's not what James is getting at.

  22. Libertarian free will is a myth. The Bible claims that our hearts are in bondage to sin. Left to ourselves we reject Christ simply because we don't WANT Him. God is thererfore just in punishing sinners who don't WANT to have anything to do with Him.

    In salvation God takes out the heart of stone and puts in a heart of flesh. That is, God plants the desire for Himself within the heart and then we WANT to come. He opens the eyes of our hearts by performing a miracle (by grace) and Christ in all His manifold perfections become lovely and beautiful to us.

    He raises us up from the dead. When we are in heaven all desire for sin will be removed from our hearts and we will be unable to sin. We will be slaves to righteousness. We will still choose what we WANT but because all desire for sin is removed we will always choose the right thing.


    For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. (Romans 8:7)

    No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. (John 6:44)

    God will circumcise your heart to love the Lord your God (Deu. 30:6)

    I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted. (Job 42:2)

    Blessed is the man You choose and cause to approach You. (Ps. 65:4)

    The lot is cast into the lap, but it's every decision is from the Lord. (Pr. 16:33)

    There are many plans in a man's heart, nevertheless the Lord's counsel - that will stand (Pr. 19:21)

    A man's steps are of the Lord; How then can a man understand his own way? (Pr. 20:24)

    I will do all my pleasure...indeed... I will bring it pass. I have purposed it; I will do it (Is. 46:10-11)

    You did not choose Me but I chose you (Jn. 15:16)

    It does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs but on God who has mercy (Ro. 9:16)

    You will say to me then "Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will? (Ro. 9:19)

    God has put it into their hearts to fulfil His purpose, to be of one mind (Re. 17:17)

  23. I'm afraid that my soteriological view has been heavily tainted by the hymnology of my youth: "Oh, how I love Jesus / because He first loved me."

    It leads me to believe that I have a choice, and that God had a choice, and that He chose first. He chose to love, and chose to display that love at the cost of His Son -- but also with the blessing of His Son's resurrection.

    I should choose to return that love by giving up my life as Jesus did, so that He can give it back to me and give it back abundantly, eternally.

    If I am incapable of making this choice, it doesn't make a lot of sense for God to offer it first.

    If I am unwilling to make this choice, it doesn't necessarily mean that I am incapable.

    If I am willing to make this choice, I soon come to realize how completely incapable I am of returning that love, and so God offers His very own Holy Spirit to apply that love to my life. From that point on (perhaps before!) whatever good I do, God does through me by my choice.

    I can choose to accept the Holy Spirit, or reject Him; quench Him or put out His fire.

    But it's not like I haven't been given every advantage available -- including my own will -- to be able to make a wise choice.

    So I like the phrasing "Divine Initiative." I don't think it's accurate to say "Divine Mandate" (as in God's will without regard to anyone else's).

    Yet I'm not convinced that grace is screwed because God made us capable of choice, equipped us to make a wise choice, puts the choice before us and offers us the empowerment to live out that choice during the life He has given us within the bodies He knitted together for us in the womb using the blessings and gifts and tools He has showered on us in the time and circumstance in which He has placed us. He does this because He loves us and wants what is best for us, which includes our ability to choose for ourselves -- an enormously great gift and blessing.

    Ultimately, the choice He offers is astoundingly simple: Love Him and others -- or love self more.

  24. "Think it over".  Now THAT'S funny!  I'll have to run that one by my OT professor, Dr. Marvin Wilson at Gordon College.  Blessings to you as well.

  25. Hi Richard,
    I struggle with the doctrine of predestination and election. The idea of irresistible grace extended to only a few, and once extended it's impossible to say no, just doesn't seem to fit the tone of the majority of scripture for me, it doesn't seem to incorporate the idea given in scripture of a God wooing a people and reconciling all creation to him etc.. However, having said that I can't just discard the idea of election and predestination because of scriptures like Romans 8:28-30. How do you deal with those? I don't mean to imply a means of explaining them away, but how do you incorporate those into a theology that doesn't include the election/predestination as described above? I don't like just deciding to ignore the bits of scripture that I can't explain. (that would leave me ignoring frighteningly large bits of the bible.)

  26. Hi Linton,
    I'm not sure I have any knock-down arguments for you. To be honest, I'm puzzled by those passages as I'm puzzled by many things in Paul.

    A couple of thoughts. First, there is some interpretive ambiguity in the text. Verse 28 could be interpreted as "that in all things God works together with those who love him to bring about what is good." If we go with that reading we have something that suggests that God calls out a "remnant" which he works "together with" God to "bring about what is good." Such an understanding seems to have a high view of human agency. What is "predestined" is God calling out a remnant to work with to "bless the nations." Abraham is the prototypical example of this, as is Israel.

    But Paul quickly turns in chapter 9 to turn what he just said in chapter 8 on its head. Israel seemed to be called, predestined as God's choice, but now we find them rejected by God. What happened to God's election? Paul goes on to wrestle with this question all through chapters 9-11. In the middle of it he goes into the whole "objects of wrath destined for destruction." But then, at the end of it all, he says these "objects of wrath destined for destruction" will eventually be saved. He calls it a mystery. And mysterious it is.

    I'm not sure what you do with all that. These texts have puzzled people for centuries, and scholars are still scratching their heads. But for my part I see two themes: 1) the passages about God's election and predestination seem to be tied up with Paul's remnant theology, and the key here is that the remnant always exists for the salvation of others ("to bring about what is good") and 2) Whatever is going on with God's choosing and hardening, these acts of God are not forever--the objects of wrath destined for destruction are saved by the end of chapter 11.

  27. God does have to decisively intervene in my biography... and the clencher is that I want Him to do so (depend on Him to do so) inspite of myself sometimes. I don't trust my motivations or my reason all that much because it is so skewed with past hurts, sin, neuroses, and a whole host of situational, religious malfunction, and emotional factors. When I was totally in the Arminian camp, I had a hard time because I wanted to want God, but because of my neurotic response to relationships, I simultaneously didn't want God. As I began to believe He would intervene out of love for me (despite my feelings to the contrary) I moved into more of the Reformed camp. Your past writings about humanity's lack of psychological freedom of volition has helped me rely on God's grace and power even when my feelings and desires are not where I want them to be. My experience isn't universal, but you speak loudly to my heart when you say that "God doesn't regenerate the will in an instant. Rather, the process is more like parenting." It's this Divine Initiative that gives me hope and where I part totally with Reformed theology is the concept of limited atonement. In fact, the notion of limited atonement can give rise to an almost priveleged class within the church - and given humanity's capacity to create in and out groups to feel superior, this can be a terrible thing.

  28. Dear Richard,

    While no means a Barth scholar, I am working under two prominent Barth scholars at the U of Aberdeen and hopefully can offer some further comments on what you've sketched above.

    In general, you have the broad brush strokes of Barth's approach correct. He believed that the act of election was God's act of choosing to be for humanity, choosing to "love in his freedom" as God his creatures, before the act of creation. In this act of election, Jesus Christ is the electing God and the elected man. Subsequently, Christ is the only one who is ultimately reprobate and thus Barth held to a modified form of double predestination, but with Christ as the one who is "doubly" predestined to death and life.

    All of humanity is found to be "ontologically" and 'salvifically" in Christ as the elected man, the one who has shared our "fallen" (not sinful) human nature (this is an important distinction). This means that our being as humans is already found in Christ before creation on the most cogent readings of Barth (see my comment above of Crisp's contra intepretation). It is fairly explicit for most Barth scholars how we are in Christ: from the foundation of the world our being is found in Christ. 

    What is less clear is how the Spirit relates to Barth's theology. Some such as Suzanne McDonald believe that Barth has neglected a huge swath of New Testament text that speak of the Spirit's work related to placing us in Christ. This may be what you are hinting towards above. She believes that he is inconsistent in his theology and fails to properly follow through his belief of Christ's electing work with a corollary work of the Spirit because all are already "in Christ." 

    Others such as Tom Greggs, see in Barth's work a pneumatology that offers a way to cut through the issue of universal salvation in Christ and answer the questions of particularity such as you've asked above. If all are in Christ, what is different about the believer? The Spirit's work instead of bring someone "into Christ" brings them to a new intensity of experience or as Greggs puts it in Johannine language, to a "fullness of life.' Further the Spirit brings knowledge of revelation to humanity in a subjective way. Being found in Christ, all humans could be called "Christians," but not all are "believers" who have faith in their election and the work of Christ. The differentiation is not between Christians and non-Christians, but between those who believe and do not believe in the work of Christ.

    I hope this doesn't muddy the waters too much and answers you question. Feel free to ask for clarifications, etc..    

  29. "This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." - Deuteronomy 30:19-20

    "But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” - Joshua 24:15

    "Go and tell David, 'This is what the LORD says: I am giving you three options. Choose one of them for me to carry out against you.'" - 2 Samuel 24:12; 1 Chronicles 21:10

    "Who, then, are those who fear the LORD? He will instruct them in the ways they should choose." - Psalm 25:12

    "Then they will call to me but I will not answer; they will look for me but will not find me, since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the LORD." - Proverbs 1:28-29

    "Do not envy the violent or choose any of their ways." - Proverbs 3:31

    "Choose my instruction instead of silver, knowledge rather than choice gold ..." - Proverbs 8:10

    "He will be eating curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, for before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste." - Isaiah 7:15-16

    "For this is what the LORD says: 'To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant— to them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will endure forever." - Isaiah 56:4-5

    "Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own." - John 7:17

    "Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them ...." - Acts 6:3

    "You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God." - James 4:4

    "For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry." - 1 Peter 4:3

    Okay; you quoted thirteen passages and I quoted thirteen passages, Cole. Mine do not say that only men choose, but strongly imply that God gives them choice and respects their choices. Yours do not say that only God chooses, but strongly imply that God's choices are superior and He has sovereignty to impose them. They do not say that He always does so, but that He can. They do not say that man cannot choose wisely for himself, but as a rule, he does not.

  30. Dear Richard,

    Your spatial summary sounds pretty spot on! I spent some time before I went out last night looking for an article length overview on Barth and election and came up empty; my colleagues here seem to agree that there is no article on election that doesn't bring into play perhaps the most contentious issue in Barth scholarship at the moment and thus become overly convoluted. I think I would just dip into volume II/2 if I were you. If you have an overview of Barth's theology to hand, such as John Webster's "Karl Barth" intro you'd be fine just digging into that section. It is only around 200 pages and well worth the read.

    As for Tom Greggs work, he has some articles on Barth, but none that relate specifically to the issue here. His published dissertation, "Barth, Origen, and Universal Salvation: Restoring Particularity" is where most of his views are sketched. Beyond just the Barth material in this work, he offers a fairly compelling account of how universalism maintains a type of particularity for individual Christians and the Christian faith as a whole. Its quite expensive, but if you can find it at a library or get it on inter-libray loan its not too technical.

    My own work is focusing on the doctrine of reprobation and what that looks like in a universalist scheme. The whole project came to life because of the discussion you've raised above in the original post, along with some misgivings I had about my classic Reformed views at the time. Thanks for the discussion.

  31. God has no choice. He has to "choose" us. We are his children. Would any of us not choose to help our children even if they were totally depraved?  We may want to, but we might not be able to. Thank God that God is God in that He can and does help us. He can't change the past, can he? He can recreate the heavens and the earth and He can wipe away tears (does that mean He will be there when we still are in pain, or that there will be no sadness?)  Jesus cured the blind man, but he didn't cure blindness. The new heaven and the new earth implies that there will be no more suffering, but it doesn't say that there will not be suffering, just that we will abide in Him to the extent that He will be there (as if He's not here right now already?), to console and comfort us. For those who are not in heaven? Well, not to sound to much of a univeralist, but just because the account, rather, the glimpse of the new creation is given doesn't mean the story doesn't end. I mean, happily ever after isn't the end of any story, is it? It just means that the story's been told for whatever the point the writer was making. God doesn't end, does He?

  32. "Seems like there is no good choice here.... In the Arminian view grace is screwed because humans have a cause for boasting. In the Reformed view grace is screwed because God limits grace to the few."I consider myself an evangelical universalist, so I don't offer another perspective to this point on that basis. But it occurs to me that the Calvinist argument that free will creates "a cause for boasting" forgets our condition as created beings — a living reality that we are wont to forget in an existential myopia and, upon remembering, have a tendency to take for granted.I was made by another. My physical and mental propensities were gifted to me by another. I walk and talk and process thought as a direct result of another's graces. The instinctual, neurological, environmental, circumstantial, and educational precursors to my decisions, and any right perception of those precursors, are both directly and indirectly graced upon me. Therefore, even if I hold to free will, I can boast of nothing if I refuse to imagine myself in a fictionalized world where I "make myself".The pride we are at risk of here is to think that if humans had free will, we would be correct in boasting in ourselves. To say that human free will enables us to boasting is to perpetuate the self-made delusion: if God has given me free will, then I don't have to credit anyone for who I am.On the contrary, I believe I have free will; I believe I freely choose Him, but the things I have learned that bring me to this, the faculties that allow me to come to this, and the very freedom wherein I have the opportunity to will His will, are all granted by Him. He chooses me, and I choose Him in return, but this choice comes by a lifetime of God's endless free contributions. To boast in this is to pretend that I have come in my own power to a state of character and reason whereby I may choose Him — that I "pulled myself up by my own bootstraps".That simply isn't true. Every good thing I am I was made. Every good thing I have I was given. Every good choice I make, therefore, I make by His innovation, education, and equipment.Every Olympian is what God, his family, his coach, his team, his friends, his school, and his culture has made him: to claim the glory for himself is delusion. This is how, I think, the theory of free will withstands Calvinism's "strong argument."

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