THE DUDE SAID:
"Is God glorified equally if he just created one soul for damnation/salvation as opposed to a billion?”
It’s shocking to realize that, in the 21C, there are still some Neanderthals out there who can entertain the merciless idea that a loving God would send just one person to hell!
How barbaric! How medieval!
Why, that would amount to everlasting solitary confinement. Think how lonely that isolated soul would be.
As a five-point, supralapsarian Calvinist, I’m far too soft-hearted to entertain such a sadistic spectacle.
No, a kinder and gentler God would obviously have to damn more than one person to hell. A few old friends or family members—perhaps the pet dog, for good measure—to keep him company.
Does man get no "credit" for desiring to be better than he is, even if he is, in fact, helpless to be anything but what it is his nature to be?
ReplyDeleteOne of my confessed failures is my tendency to take people for granted after becoming comfortable with them. It recently resulted in the end of a friendship. I'm not sure I was aware of this during the time, but in retrospect, I can see that these faults rose to the surface. I don't WANT this to be the case. If I had the capacity to remove this, I would.
Now, would it be just to mandate that I remain with this weakness when I myself do not want it? I'm not making excuses for my behavior, but I'm suggesting that I feel somewhat burdened by my own incapacity at times.
Perhaps you see where I'm going with this: I can't see a Hell for those who DESIRE to be good when their flaws were, in a sense, thrust upon them and where those flaws are not pleasures but burdens to them.
Ok,
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if I missed something but I will expand on my question. Is the world and reality God chose to create and that has been cruising along created in such a way as to maximize His glorification? The fall, incarnation, sin/redemption, everything all work for His glorification yes? So I'm asking if the number of souls with their eternal destiny created throughout history up until the eschaton correlates to the achievement of maximal glory; if He had created one less for salvation/damnation or one more for salvation/damnation, somehow this would detract from glorification and be "imperfect". Or, if God did not choose to create and govern the world in such a way as to maximize His glorification, then for what other purposes? Could God have created a "better" (in the sense of God being glorified to a greater degree, or where the other purposes in the above question are better achieved) world? So, if I drink a coke instead of a sprite today, presumably if I had taken a sprite, that would have been a "worse" world since God did not create that world. Not trying to make a silly example, any mundane action we take can have countless unforeseen chain reaction consequences.
THE DUDE SAID:
ReplyDelete"Ok, I'm not sure if I missed something."
Yes, you missed something: namely, my previous answer:
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/10/justification-sanctification.html#2095392723929724715
As a result, your expanded question is built on a false premise.
james said...
ReplyDelete“Does man get no ‘credit’ for desiring to be better than he is, even if he is, in fact, helpless to be anything but what it is his nature to be?”
Fallen man gets no credit for his embers of virtue since he’s not responsible for his embers of virtue. That’s the result of common grace.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteWhy does God create, and why did he create this specific world/reality/history as opposed to any other instantiation? An appeal that "His ultimate purposes are unknowable in this life" is fine.
THE DUDE SAID:
ReplyDelete“Steve,_Why does God create.”
Generosity. To make a subset of rational creatures who can share in his beatitude.
“And why did he create this specific world/reality/history as opposed to any other instantiation?”
One can speculate on why God would create a certain *type* of possible world. I don’t think one can speculate on why God chose to create a specific possible world *within* a certain class of possible worlds. And the question is somewhat ill-conceived since any specific possible world of the right type would suffice. Some kinds of possible worlds exhibit divine virtues while others do not.
As a supralapsarian Calvinist, I do think that God foreordained and providentially brings about a world that will bring about maximal glory to Himself. I also think most would agree that there's some truth to the Butterfly Effect when it comes to the accumulating effects of even the most minor decisions.
ReplyDeleteHowever, besides God's maximal Self glorification (in the eyes of both elect men and angels in the eternal state; as well as in God's own eyes); God probably also does things out of mere creativity and the pleasure that it can bring. For example, one can create the "perfect" book marker. Yet, that doesn't necessitate what colors, pictures, drawings etc that are on it.
Also, we don't know (and might not ever fully know) all the purposes/designs and goals of God. Some things might even be things thaT only God in His omniscience and omnisapience could appreciate. But even then, God could create worlds that potentially other sentient creatures might appreciate, yet God reserves their beauty for Himself. If human couples can keep intimate things to themselves and from their children (say a picnic they shared 2 months ago); how much more could the Triune God keep things to Himself. Since "the secret things belong to the LORD."
Though, God in His graciousness reveals and gives (and will give) so much to us out of His Creatorly and Fatherly love for His children. In fact, in principle, and in a sense, God gives believers "all things" (1Cor 3:1; Ps. 84:11; Rom. 8:32; Rev. 21:7; John 16:15).
Speaking of supralapsarianism, Steve, what's your take on Reymond's "Modified Supralapsarianism"? Did Gordon Clark (who has influenced Reymond) have his own verison of modified supralapsarianism? I ask about "MS" because I'm finding more and more Calvinists holding to "MS". Even Calvinists as diverse as James White and Vincent Cheung. Would you agree with some that it's implicitly infralapsarian? I don't see why it needs to be since it seems to me that God's natural/necessary knowledge can account for How God can decree the election of sinful men even prior to the decree of the fall.
ANNOYED PINOY SAID:
ReplyDelete“As a supralapsarian Calvinist, I do think that God foreordained and providentially brings about a world that will bring about maximal glory to Himself.”
I think that some Christians are confused about the true nature of divine self-glorification. Here I agree with the distinctions drawn by Brakel in The Christian’s Reasonable Service, 1:193-94; 214,219-20.
“I also think most would agree that there's some truth to the Butterfly Effect when it comes to the accumulating effects of even the most minor decisions.”
Agreed.
“I don't see why it needs to be since it seems to me that God's natural/necessary knowledge can account for How God can decree the election of sinful men even prior to the decree of the fall.”
If you’re alluding to the charge, raised by Turretin, that in supralapsarianism the degree lacks an object since creation is not the first item in the order of the decrees, then I think this objection is confused. The supralapsarian order is a teleological order, not a linear order.