Friday, February 26, 2021

The Premise I Didn't Overlook

It seems to me that Fr Aiden Kimel, in his response to my previous post, has misunderstood my purpose in writing that post and the one previous to it. I would have hoped that the titles made my purpose clear. The title of my previous post was "The Source of the Disagreement Between Universalists and Infernalists." The title of my first post was "Where the Chasm Really Lies". Perhaps I should have made my argumentative intention more explicit. In both cases I was attempting to clarify exactly where the disagreement is ("where the chasm really lies"); the central point of contention.

I wanted to show that there is one particular argument for universalism (and against infernalism) that does not work. Here is the faulty argument:

(1) Human beings are intrinsically oriented toward God.

From (1) it follows that

(2) Human beings are unable to definitively reject God.

I understand "definitive rejection of God" to mean a fundamental moral and spiritual stance, in which one totally, obstinately and culpably (this implies: knowingly and voluntarily) rejects the authoritative claim of God's love over oneself.

For clarification on what I mean here by "totally", see the Appendix below. The rejection of God is "total" in that one cleaves (i.e, adheres closely, firmly and unwaveringly) to some idol or set of idols, thereby giving oneself (oneself as a "totality") over to a sin that is directly opposed to divine charity.

My contention was (and still is) this: what follows from (1) is not (2) but rather

(2*) under certain conditions a human being is unable to definitively reject God.

One of the conditions that makes it impossible to definitively reject God is having such a clear vision of one’s spiritual situation and such an overabundance of grace or overwhelming awareness of God’s goodness that it is impossible, in that moment, not to “melt” before God and accept voluntarily His authority and love. (I focused on that condition in my critique. Another condition is: not yet having reached the age of reason.)

Let me add some further context. The faulty argument proceeds from (2) to the conclusion that universalism is true, as follows:

(3) If a human being goes to hell forever, then either (a) he goes there voluntarily (and stays there forever either voluntarily or involuntarily) and/or (b) God condemns him to hell forever.

But from (2),

(4) No human being can choose (voluntarily) to be in everlasting separation from God.

And

(5) It would go against God's character for God to condemn to everlasting torment someone who has not definitively rejected Him.

But

(6) God never acts against His character (which includes infinite love and perfect justice).

Therefore (by reductio ad adsurdum), the antecedent in (3) is false. No human being goes to hell forever.

One might generalise the argument so that it applies to all created persons, including angelic spirits. In that case the conclusion is that no created person goes to hell forever. But in any case the false claim or assumption in the argument is that

(7) If a person has an intrinsic orientation toward God, then just for this reason, he is unable to definitively reject God (i.e., to reject totally, obstinately and culpably the authoritative claim of God's love over himself).

While reading Hart's That All Shall Be Saved, and in reading Fr Kimel's blog post, I noticed that claim (7) was being put forward a number of times. At the very least, it appeared to me that claim (7) was being affirmed by both writers in various places. That is what motivated me to write my original post and the follow up. My intention was to show that (7) is false. My hope was that, with that clarified, some of the confusion would be dispelled, and the real point of contention would come to light. I (and others) could then move on to addressing the point of contention.

Unfortunately, Fr Kimel (and other respondents too) assumed that the purpose of my argument was to refute universalism, or to show that there are no good arguments for universalism. No. My purpose was to show that a particular argument for universalism doesn't work, and why. In the second post I considered the following premises (amongst others):

(T1) Our hearts are restless until they rest in God

(T2) God is able to put each created person into a situation that would non-violently necessitate her acceptance of the love of God and infallibly secure her salvation

(T5) While God can put each created person into a salvation-securing situation, He need not, and in fact, He chooses not to.

I concluded by saying:

"This much should be abundantly clear by now: simply pointing out the truth of [(T1) and (T2)] is no argument in favour of universalism. In order to refute infernalism, the universalist has to refute (T5) by introducing a further premise or set of premises."

One respondent pointed out that you don't "refute" a simple claim; you only refute arguments. Fair enough. The point I was trying to make is that, since the first two premises are compatible with (T5), another premise is required in order to form an argument that would count as a refutation of infernalism (when all the premises are accepted as true).

In his response to me Fr Kimel provides the missing premise:

So let me now provide the missing premise that Dr Triffett has overlooked. It can be formulated in different ways. I offer two versions:

[K1] In his absolute, infinite, and unconditional love, God wills the eternal salvation of every human being.

[K2] In, with, and through Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, God the Father has predestined all of humanity to boundless life in his Kingdom.

Both statements deny Triffett’s fifth premise. Every universalist would emphatically reject the assertion that the God of absolute love, although possessing the power and freedom to place any and every person in a salvation-securing situation, has nonetheless chosen not to.

I did not "overlook" that missing premise, actually. Perhaps I could have made my intentions clearer. But it's not as if, after I put my post up, I was sitting there proud of myself, thinking that I had refuted universalism once and for all. It's not as if, when Fr Kimel responded, he showed me an argument for univeralism that I had "missed". On the contrary, his post confirmed my main point (as expressed in the titles of the posts), which is that the point of contention between univeralists and infernalists is (T5) (in a subsequent post I was going to explore T5 further and consider arguments for and against it).

By the way, both of Fr Kimel's claims (the ones I labelled K1 and K2) could do with a bit of tweaking for the sake of clarification. I actually agree with K1; I see it as compatible with T5. But some particular things that God (antecedently) wills do not come to pass, not because God lacks power or wisdom, but because He leaves us free. God does not bring about infallibly every particular thing that he wants to occur. Read in this light, 1 Timothy 2:4 ("God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth ...") does not imply universal salvation. For this reason "wills" need to be qualified in K1 (traditionally, "antecedent will" is used--no doubt Fr Kimel knows this already.) As for K2, if "predestined" means "infallibly brings about" then of course infernalists disagree.

 

***

Above I wrote

<<(7) If a person has an intrinsic orientation toward God, then just for this reason,
he is unable to definitively reject God (i.e., to reject totally, obstinately and culpably the authoritative claim of God's love over himself).

While reading Hart's That All Shall Be Saved, and in reading Fr Kimel's blog post, I noticed that claim (7) was being put forward a number of times. At the very least, it appeared to me that claim (7) was being affirmed by both writers in various places.>>

This post is long enough already. In the next one I will show where claim (7) is put forward as true (or where it certainly appears to be put forward as true) by Hart in his book, and by Fr Kimel in his commentary.

A final note: there is another complication that will have to be addressed later. "Definitive rejection of God" can be understood in a different way compared to how I defined it above. If it is understood in this other way, the argument involving (2) above becomes substantially different.


Appendix

From Section 3 of My First Post

(MST) It is psychologically possible for a person to commit himself totally and super-actually to something other than God (some idol or collection of idols) in such a way as to oppose the charity of God totally and super-actually.

Let this be called the Mortal Sin Thesis or MST. Here “psychologically” is used in the Scholastic sense, referring to the spiritual faculties of the human person. Hence “moral psychology.”

A universalist might object to my use of “totally” in MST (point 12) as follows. In respect to some object or end X, if a person cannot commit himself to X totally and in such a way that his commitment is deeply and objectively good for him—if the person’s total commitment to X would not accord with his fundamental nature (including his natural will) as a person—then it is impossible for him to commit himself to X totally, after all. For his basic nature and orientation will never “go along” with the commitment. The act may still be possible, but the person acting thus will do violence to himself (while second nature is mutable, altering one’s basic nature is out of the question); it will be an act—and then a super-actual stance—of self-contradiction, a certain “contortion” of oneself. But the person is fundamentally oriented toward God (point 8). Therefore it is impossible for a person to commit himself totally to anything other than God.

I agree that there is a sense in which God is the only object to which we can give ourselves “totally”—if “totally” means “self-consistently”, in accordance with one’s natural orientation. To sin, to reject God, is to do violence against oneself and frustrate one’s deepest longings. But that does not make MST false. My point in MST is that the person is a “totality” or “whole” that is structurally able to give itself as a whole. A person is able to give a definitive YES or NO to something, where this stance and “word” of the whole self then becomes super-actual. This “word” of the self might align with one’s deepest nature or it might contradict it—but that is another matter.

Granted, in giving oneself to an idol, there is not the “true freedom” of abiding in the truth and living as a child of God. But from that it does not follow that nobody is personally responsible when they commit an act of idolatry (or any sin). I am not “truly free” when I sin, because radical attachment to anything other than God is spiritual slavery. Nonetheless, I can still be responsible, with libertarian freedom (free will as the concurrent ability to will X or not will X) for my sin. Sin contradicts the objective moral order, and one’s God-given structure as a human person—but that does not mean that the sinner qua sinner loses libertarian freedom, personal responsibility. A sinner is still in possession of himself; on the day of judgement he will be unable to plead insanity. In every morally significant act, and therefore in every sin, there is an “enactment of self”. The sinner gives himself over to some loved object; he is able to do so because he is in possession of himself (to repeat: he has not lost his mind in such a way that in his defence he could plead insanity). So yes: sin is slavery and violence to self, and “true freedom” can only be found in loving obedience to God. Indeed, Augustine is right to say that the most perfect freedom is the freedom of the saints in heaven, who are unable to sin. But none of that contradicts the fact that sinners on earth are responsible for their sin in that (1) they are in possession of themselves as persons (while self-possession can be lost in moments of insanity or while one’s brain isn’t functioning as it should, it is false to say that a sinner qua sinner loses possession of himself), (2) they are therefore able as intelligent beings to give themselves over to an object that is taken to be good and (3) they are not, as a rule, determined by circumstances to will as they do in the moment.

The following should also be noted. It is possible to commit oneself in an attitude and course of action that is mortally sinful, and for that super-actual attitude to abide in the soul as unrepented mortal sin, without that meaning that every single aspect and moment of one’s life is consistent with that attitude. In order to be in mortal sin, it is not necessary to have “narrowed” or “simplified” one’s life, with a certain perverse “perfection”, into the single-minded pursuit of sin. It is one thing to consent fully—to deliver oneself over—to a sinful attitude in the act of (mortal) sin. It is another for this consenting “word” of sin to become incarnate in every detail of one’s life. This is an inverted mirror image of how it is with our salvation. It is one thing to consent fully—to deliver oneself over—to Jesus in a sincere act of repentance and conversion. It is another for this consenting “word” of repentance and conversion to become incarnate in every detail of one’s life.

Finally, does “total” rejection of God (in MST) mean that God is hated under every aspect? That would mean that God is seen by the person under every aspect—under every divine perfection, and under every relation to creatures (e.g., as Creator and as Lord)—and hated by that person under each of those aspects. Or does it mean that God is hated under every known aspect? That would mean that the person in question hates God under all the aspects under which he knows God. In both cases the answer is no. The “totality” referred to here is the totality of the person who rejects God. In mortal sin a person withdraws himself-as-a-whole away from the love of God, in the act of delivering himself-as-a-whole over to some illicitly desired object.

 

Image from https://graphicriver.net/binoculars-and-cartoon-graphics 

 

 (C) Brendan Triffett 2021

2 comments:

  1. Hey Brendan,

    In your T5 you say that God *need not* put people into a salvation-securing situation. You also say that *in fact, he chooses not to*.

    Aren't these actually two separate claims and wouldn't you need to pair the first claim of the premise with some other evidence in order to make the second?

    I say that because it seems to me that were your T5 only a "God need not" thing then a universalist will simply accept the premise and then say, "Yeah, but he will". And then I think that arguments from God's goodness can't help but make you conclude that, accepting the shortened T5, although God *need not* save everyone he's definitely gonna.

    However, your longer T5 seems like a very bold assertion. How could you know that God has *in fact* willed not to save everyone? I can see how you might argue from philosophy that it is compatible or incompatible for God to not will to save everyone but even if you conclude that it is compatible you'd still need to depend on revelation to know that he has *in fact chosen not to*.

    If I'm right there then it seems to me that your previous attempts to show where the chasm really lies has missed the mark. That's because the chasm lies not in T5 or in a matter of philosophy but is actually in revelation/interpretation of revelation. The infernalist needs to prove definitively to someone that it's an absolutely sure thing that it is revealed that God has *in fact* chosen not to save everyone. But really, good luck with that goal! The text of the NT is at most ambiguous in its universalist/infernalist claims (a la von Balthasar) and at best/worst for universalits/infernalists it's overwhelmingly universalist (a la Hart). That later option is especially so once the conditioned hell interpretations that we carry around with us have been ironed out by re-examining the assumptions we bring to various texts like Lazarus and the richman etc. Not to mention that using revelation to secure the longer T5 like this can only possibly convince people who share your conviction about the source of revelation.

    So what do you think? Is the chasm really in revelation and not in philosophy? (That is, with the question of whether revelation justifies your longer form of T5).

    I could also see the chasm being in the more intimate end of revelation, that of personal faith. The universalist and infernalist may disagree based on their faith convictions about God that are brought about through their prayer life. In which case, again with the shorter T5 premise the universalist is sure that God while *need not* nevertheless will save everyone because they trust God to. That's a matter of religious faith to them.

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