Why doesn't God save anyone after they die? Isn't death an arbitrary cuff-off point? No second chance just because you're dead?
The answer depends on unspoken assumptions behind the question. In the case of Calvinism, the traditional position isn't based, in the first instance, on starting with a theological principle, then drawing an inference. Rather, it's based on what Scripture indicates about the fate of the dead. In many places, Scripture indicates that at the moment of death, the dying individual is either heavenbound or hellbound, and the trajectory they were already on at the moment of death continues in the same direction into the afterlife. Calvinism simply accepts that revelation.
However, another way of viewing the issue is the point at which a person's salvation or damnation is settled. From a Reformed standpoint, one reason there's no postmortem salvation is because their eternal destiny was never unsettled. It's not as if their eternal destiny was unsettled during their lifetime, while the moment of locks in a particular outcome. Rather, there's a sense in which that was settled before they ever existed. It's not as if their ultimate fate is still indeterminate after they die, so that the final outcome remains open-ended. Rather, the plot was written ahead of time.
If God intends to save someone, he can save them before they die. He can save everyone he intends to save prior to death. There's no logjam at the moment of death, that must be broken after death. That was all sorted out in advance.
In freewill theism, by contrast, the problem is the opposite. Why is their destined ever settled, once and for all time? According to inclusivism, you're not necessarily heavenbound or hellbound at the moment of death. Even if you die an unbeliever, you weren't on one pathway or the other at the moment of death. You had no set direction in this life. You had no set direction at the time of death. It was open-ended heading into death.
But that presents a dilemma for freewill theism. Even if God can save you in the afterlife, what makes that stick? Why can't you lose your salvation in the afterlife?
Sophisticated freewill theists allow for will-setting, where prior libertarian choices in the past may fix the direction of our future choices. But that means your damnation may already be cemented well before you die rather than when you die–much less after you die.
Postmortem salvation is a debate that springs up much more easily when we forget the importance of the physical world and physical history in God's plans. But in Scripture, there's a divine author who's written a plot, and the stage is this creation, during time. If important parts of the action actually happen to the actors after they've left the stage, that'd mean the playwright was incompetent to arrange all that needed to happen in the play itself.
ReplyDeleteEditing the screenplay during performance. Open theism.
DeleteIf there is freewill in heaven or in the new earth, the events are uncontrollable and unpredictable. The situation will hardly be paradisiacal.
Delete"Sophisticated freewill theists allow for will-setting, where prior libertarian choices in the past may fix the direction of our future choices. But that means your damnation may already be cemented well before you die rather than when you die–much less after you die."
ReplyDeleteThat's fair. I actually have no problem with that. But I suppose it could be that some people's damnation is cemented before they die while others' is cemented only after they die. God would presumably know the heart and therefore know when and whether that occurred. So if the will was set prior to death, God wouldn't cast pearls before swine and give a second chance.
--But that presents a dilemma for freewill theism. Even if God can save you in the afterlife, what makes that stick? Why can't you lose your salvation in the afterlife?--
ReplyDeleteI lean to the notion that those who rejected God in life, will continue to reject God in death - regardless of what their afterlife is like.
After all, what would REALLY be hellish to a militant atheist like Dawkins? It would be to spend eternity in the presence of the Being he spent a lifetime mocking, denying and hating!
CS Lewis portrayed it thusly with the Dwarves after the end of the world:
http://sunandshield.blogspot.com/2008/12/dwarves-of-last-battle-and-unbelief-in.html
In The Last Battle, by C. S. Lewis, some dwarves have an interesting role. They refuse to believe in a false Aslan, and also refuse to believe in a real one. When the Calormenes throw them into a dark stable, they refuse to see anything but what you would expect to find in such a building, even though other characters in the book can see that the stable, in reality, is not dark, and has no walls — just a door.
Lucy Pevensie, who has a soft heart, tries to get the Lion, Aslan, to make things better for the dwarves, Aslan produces a banquet for them. They eat, but they think they are eating old cattle food, or drinking from a trough for animals. When a dwarf is picked up and carried toward the outside, he experiences being slammed into the wall, even though there is no wall. Aslan says that they have chosen not to believe, and there is nothing he can do for them.