I don't see how this is necessitated from eternal punishment; e.g., God could revive people. — Bob Ross

Okay, but I don't know of any theists who hold that God artificially extends human existence in that manner.

I think I already know what Banno will say, but what do you three make of this argument:

1. There is a way the world ought to be only if there is a God.
2. There is a way the world ought to be, even though the world is not the way it ought to be.
3. Therefore, there is a God.

Interested in your thoughts.

Doesn't sound plausible given that the God of the bible is anything but kind. — Janus

Why do you say that?

I think there must be a source of kindness. People aren't always kind, so people can't be the source of kindness. Only one who is kind necessarily, God, could be the source of kindness. People are sometimes kind. And so there must be a God who is the source of that kindness.

I don't accept 2, so I cna't say much.

Would it make sense to say that, while an offense may be against one with infinite dignity, if the effects of the sin are only finite, not infinite, a proportional punishment may justly be finite?

Okay, hmm, so we both agree with premise 1. When I say there is a way the world ought to be, I have in mind the sorts of things people say from a rationalistic or emotional frame of mind: "I wish x" or "I want/desire x" "x is wrong." These sorts of statements seem to imply an "ought."

To me, they can only possibly imply a fuller thought of the person. They may use a term like 'ought' but in reality, that cannot be more than a suggestion to placate their discomfort with such and such.

I'm just noting it is at least logically possible.

I am a theist that does not believe in an eternal immaterial mind/soul but that because God is all just God must resurrect at least those that did not get proper reward or punishment during their lifetimes [to reward or punish them].

Yes, I think so.

1. There is a way the world ought to be only if there is a God.
2. There is a way the world ought to be, even though the world is not the way it ought to be.
3. Therefore, there is a God.

Interested in your thoughts. — NotAristotle

We think there is a way the world ought to be because it is far from being the way we would like it to be, so I don't see how God comes into it. If there is a way the world ought to be and if there is a God who could have made it that way, then why didn't he?

2. is kind of a redundant expression: if the world was the way it ought to be, then the world would be as it ought to be, so if there is a way the world ought to be and it is not, then that the world is not as it ought to be is a given.

3. I can't see any way in which "therefore there is a God" follows, unless it is simply stipulated in the first premise, in which case it is a circular argument. Also are we talking about the human world or the natural world or both?

To say there is a way the world ought to be seems, to me, (and whether it were actually that way) to make a transcendent statement.

Classical theism has always distinguished God's antecedent from consequent will (or else has drawn other divisions that amount to the same thing). That said, the body of literature on foreknowledge or predestination and future contingents is very large. — Leontiskos

Ok, I'll try to check.

I think my example of the opium addict contradicted this idea. Empirically speaking, it seems that it is not always possible to reverse direction. Doctrinally speaking, we do not foreclose hope for the living. But here we are talking about the "logical" point, and that is what I was questioning. That is what seems tautological. — Leontiskos

Yes, sometimes it's just seem hard to change direction even in this life. I can agree with that. But sometimes, religious literature itself make some incredible examples of redemption in cases of people that seemed beyond any hope for that (both inside Christian traditions and outside... if you read the case of Angulimala, in the Pali Canon of Buddhist scriptures, you find an incredible case of 'change of mind' of a criminal that occurred during the encounter with the Buddha).
In any case, I believe that experience is indecisive here. Given these extreme cases, I would say, however, that we have good ground to believe that the 'change' can always happen (and that's one reason why I think that, say, death penalty is incompatible with Christian beliefs).

Based on what argument? It seems like you want to assume that the afterlife is no different than earthly life, and I can't think of any reason to assume that. Almost everything we do in earthly life is changed by death. Why think the ability to repent is different? There is nothing else in earthly life to which we would be tempted to say, "I'll save that for after I die," and yet you seem to think that repentance could be saved for after we die. That cuts across the grain of all our earthly experience, and I think Christianity is being deeply rational when it says that repentance too cannot be postponed until after death. The urgency found in Scripture testifies to just the opposite. — Leontiskos

Well, I don't think that if there is a future life, it will be like this one. My point was based in these assumptions:

• God's salvific will is universal (God loves and wills the best for everyone)
• If a sinner sincerely repents, then God will show mercy
• Having committed a mortal sin by itself doesn't imply that sincere repentance is not possible

If one accepts these propositions, the simple logical conclusion (whether or not one thinks that God's salvific will will inevitably be realized) is that repentance will always be possible, unless in the after life some kind of fourth proposition is true. Like, say:

• God decreed a 'time limit' to repent, after which it is not possible to do so
• God decreed that dying in an unrepentant state deserves an unending punishment and this punishment will continue even if the sinner sincerely repents
• After death, at least in some cases, it is not possible to sincerely repent. At this point the sinner is incurable even for God.

I believe that the second propositions here would contradict the second proposition in the first series. In the case of the first here, it certainly would raise the question on why God would place a 'time limit' if He truly wants the salvation for all. The third would remain. Here, one must assume that one can be incurable even for God, so it's logically impossible even for God to save the irremediably obstinate (I believe that St John of Damascus had this view). If I am not misunderstanding you, you would choose the third option here. After all, you do not view this matter in a legalistic way (in which case, you probably would have reasoned like in the second option here).

While this possibility doesn't contradict the three propositions of the first series, it is difficult to me reconcile it with the properties of God that classical theism abscribed. For instance, how can God's ominiscence allow the possibility that God wants the salvation of a persons even if He knows that that person will not be saved? But I'll probably need to do some readings on this topic.

Right, and as I've said, the logical contradiction is more pronounced than that. The universalist can say that Z is inevitable, that Z cannot occur without Y, and that Y cannot occur unless we do X. But this is a contradiction. — Leontiskos

Out of curiosity, do you believe that being evangelized is a necessary requirement for salvation? What about those who never heard the gospel, are they beyond any hope?

Okay, sorry, I must have misread you. — Leontiskos

You're welcome.

Where does the illness come from? It comes from the universe that God set up. So it still looks like the universalist God "sets up the universe in such a way that you will suffer until you finally give in."

If suffering tends to produce a certain outcome, then infinite suffering will necessarily produce that outcome. On this view there are some people who decide to love God freely, and there are others who are forced to love God after an extended period of suffering pushes them into that outcome. Even on Manichean dualism this looks like a problematic view, namely because it is coercive. — Leontiskos

Well, I see it more like an education. That's why I mentioned the substance abuse thing.

Let's say that in order to live in a true communion with God, one must sincerely accept God. For any person, the communion with God is the highest good, so any person will find true satisfaction only in communion with God (something like even St. Augustine would say...I don't think it is controversial for you). However, God let us the possibility of rejection, because if there were not such a possibility, we would not be able to freely accept God's grace. However, if one rejects God, such a person would act against one's own nature, after all, and would experience painful consequences (like, say, deciding to do a substance abuse and experiencing the consequences associated with that). The more one rejects God, the more one deprives himself the highest good for him. The experience of painful consequences of these rejections (whether in the form of remorse, the experience of exclusion and so on) could lead to a 'change of mind', precisely because the sinner here finds no ultimate satisfaction elsewhere and might become aware that his or her rejections were, after all, mistakes and then choose the good (also, if we accept that evil is privation, it would seem that it isn't inexhaustible).

So, in a sense, yes, I would say that it is the assumption that God's salvific will is universal and created people in a way that their heart is restless unless in communion with God that seems to provide an 'apparent determinism'. If you don't think that this is compatible with free will, then, the reasoning above definitely supports the idea that nobody will be beyond hope (unless one can be indeed 'incurable' even for God).

If, however, one assumes that God's salvific will is universal and created people in a way that their heart is restless unless in comunion with God and someone will never be saved, at a certain point God's salvific will is not realized and so one might ask why God allowed that possibility.

Because that's what reason tells us. It's also what Scripture tell us. Death constitutes a finality. That's the reasonable position. It is far less reasonable to hold that things can be postponed until after death than to hold that things must be done before death. The position that repentance can be postponed until after death can be logically possible and highly unreasonable at one and the same time. Perhaps we have been focusing too heavily on logical possibility. On purely philosophical premises, everything apart from a formal contradiction is logically possible, which means that almost everything is logically possible. — Leontiskos

Ok, I see. It is just difficult to me to reconcile there can't be 'other chances' after a life of finite and uncertain duration with the idea that God's salvific will is indeed universal and God created us in a way that our hearts cannot find any ultimate satisfaction outside communion with God, assuming at least that immortality will be given to all.

Yep — Leontiskos

Ok, thanks!

All we need to ask is whether it is more plausible to affirm or deny universalism, given some text. Whether the text pushes us in one direction or another. What someone finds "compelling" is fairly subjective. — Leontiskos

I hope that I clarified thay my difficulty is that I can't seem to able to reconcile the traditional doctrine of unending hopeless torment with other various traditional doctrines (all of them, I suppose can find support in Scripture). It's difficult to me that one can sincerely believe in something that finds incoherent or in a group of ideas that seems difficult to reconcile with each other. So, I don't think that I would be persuaded by an 'exegetical debate' if I am not persuaeded that, indeed, the traditional doctrine of hell is indeed compatible with other traditional doctrines.


Edited for clarity (I hope)

I am a theist that does not believe in an eternal immaterial mind/soul but that because God is all just God must resurrect at least those that did not get proper reward or punishment during their lifetimes [to reward or punish them]. — Bob Ross

Okay, fair enough. I would agree that if humans are not eternal by nature then Hell doesn't make sense, similar to the way that it would not make sense to punish someone for 200 years if they only exist for 100 years (or more generally, to act on a substance for x+y duration if the substance only exists for x duration). And I don't think we need to explore too deeply the idea of God artificially prolonging the existence of a substance.

Yes, sometimes it's just seem hard to change direction even in this life. I can agree with that. But sometimes, religious literature itself make some incredible examples of redemption in cases of people that seemed beyond any hope for that (both inside Christian traditions and outside... if you read the case of Angulimala, in the Pali Canon of Buddhist scriptures, you find an incredible case of 'change of mind' of a criminal that occurred during the encounter with the Buddha). — boundless

Yes, there are definitely those cases, which is part of why we don't give up hope for the living.

In any case, I believe that experience is indecisive here. — boundless

What is decisive, if not experience?

Given these extreme cases, I would say, however, that we have good ground to believe that the 'change' can always happen — boundless

What evidence do we have that change takes place after death?

Well, I don't think that if there is a future life, it will be like this one. — boundless

But don't you think we will be able to repent in the afterlife, as we can in earthly life? Isn't that precisely what you are claiming?

God's salvific will is universal (God loves and wills the best for everyone)
If a sinner sincerely repents, then God will show mercy
Having committed a mortal sin by itself doesn't imply that sincere repentance is not possible

If one accepts these propositions, the simple logical conclusion (whether or not one thinks that God's salvific will will inevitably be realized) is that repentance will always be possible — boundless

No, that's simply not the logical conclusion. Maybe try to write an argument with inference rules if you think that is a valid conclusion.

The additional premise you need is <We can repent in the afterlife just as we can repent in this life>, and I've pointed out how implausible that premise is.

I believe that the second propositions here would contradict the second proposition in the first series. — boundless

But it's a strawman. No one has said that God decreed an arbitrary time limit. What is being said is that every piece of evidence we have shows death to be definitive. The only organic opposition to this conclusion is found in traditions which hold to reincarnation, which nevertheless does not posit progress in a disembodied state.

And there is also Scriptural evidence for such a view. The first example that comes to mind is Luke 16:19-31.

Right, and as I've said, the logical contradiction is more pronounced than that. The universalist can say that Z is inevitable, that Z cannot occur without Y, and that Y cannot occur unless we do X. But this is a contradiction. — Leontiskos

Out of curiosity, do you believe that being evangelized is a necessary requirement for salvation? What about those who never heard the gospel, are they beyond any hope? — boundless

I think you need to face up to this logical contradiction in your view, as I've been pointing to it for quite awhile now. Do you have any answer to this argument about the fact that something cannot be contingent and inevitable at the same time?

I don't think one can logically hold that evangelization is necessary unless they reject universalism. Regarding evangelization and sacramentality, <here> is a conversation about a helpful historical study, hosted by a Balthsarian.

However, God let us the possibility of rejection, because if there were not such a possibility, we would not be able to freely accept God's grace. — boundless

That's right, and I've explained why your view rejects that possibility. To say that one can reject God for a finite amount of time but not forever is to say that one can never ultimately reject God.

However, if one rejects God, such a person would act against one's own nature, after all, and would experience painful consequences (like, say, deciding to do a substance abuse and experiencing the consequences associated with that). The more one rejects God, the more one deprives himself the highest good for him. The experience of painful consequences of these rejections (whether in the form of remorse, the experience of exclusion and so on) could lead to a 'change of mind', precisely because the sinner here finds no ultimate satisfaction elsewhere and might become aware that his or her rejections were, after all, mistakes and then choose the good (also, if we accept that evil is privation, it would seem that it isn't inexhaustible). — boundless

Ergo: coercion, as I've explained. On this view the makeup of creation coerces humans to eventually accept God. They literally have no other option.

If you don't think that this is compatible with free will — boundless

The idea that no one can ultimately reject God contradicts the idea that God can be rejected in a meaningful sense.

I hope that I clarified thay my difficulty is that I can't seem to able to reconcile the traditional doctrine of unending hopeless torment with other various traditional doctrines (all of them, I suppose can find support in Scripture). It's difficult to me that one can sincerely believe in something that finds incoherent or in a group of ideas that seems difficult to reconcile with each other. So, I don't think that I would be persuaded by an 'exegetical debate' if I am not persuaeded that, indeed, the traditional doctrine of hell is indeed compatible with other traditional doctrines. — boundless

That's fair, but it's worth noting that Christianity has found Hell to be more compatible with Christianity than universalism to be compatible with Christianity, for 2,000 years, to such an extent that the universalist position has been extremely historically rare. The literal logical contradiction with the urgency of evangelization is a great example of why universalism is incompatible with Christianity.

Like so many issues, if one approaches this objectively then I think universalism loses by a long shot. Suppose we take an agnostic who has no "horse in the race" and give them the Bible, or Christian tradition, or arguments from experience, or philosophical deductions. Would they come to the conclusion of universalism if they have no predetermined desire for it to be true or false? I don't think so. I don't think they will come to the conclusion that any of these sources support universalism. Another way to see this is to note how much of Christian tradition and Scripture universalists end up shrugging off. For example, Hart is forced to translate Matthew 25:46 as, "And these will go to the chastening of that Age, but the just to the life of that Age." This is completely nuts, as the text is clearly paralleling two eternal destinies: punishment and life. If Hart wants "the chastening" to be temporary, then he has to admit a temporary Heaven. :grin: I am just not capable of that level of mental gymnastics.

Note too that when I wanted to attend to methodology, presenting one verse at a time and seeing whether the set of pro-universalist or anti-universalist verses looks to possess more force, I was prepared to present a large number of verses that are strongly anti-universalist. You ignored my question about Luke 13:23-28, which was the next piece of evidence I had planned to present. The point is that I have been acting merely defensively in this thread. If I were to go on the "offensive" and start providing all of the Christian evidence for Hell then I believe the scales would tip even further.

Sorry - I am getting tired of this conversation. I feel like I've answered the points you've raised and now I'm just repeating myself. For example, I have explained multiple times the contradiction between a contingent means and a necessary end, and you keep offering long considerations that do not actually help you in avoiding that contradiction.

We could have another 30,000 word exchange on the interview with Lusvardi, but I don't want to do that. As I said, I don't want to spend so much of my free time discussing Hell. I think we've had an interesting and fruitful conversation, but I don't want it to go on forever. Maybe this is a good place to stop. Or at the very least, let's draw it to a close in the next few posts.

Here is Ratzinger (later Benedict XVI) speaking to the doctrine more directly than he does in Spe Salvi:

No quibbling helps here: the idea of eternal damnation, which had taken ever clearer shape in the Judaism of the century or two before Christ, has a firm place in the teaching of Jesus, as well as in the apostolic writings. Dogma takes its stand on solid ground when it speaks of the existence of Hell and of the eternity of its punishments. — Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life

I believe that the problem with this discussion is that its scope is becoming too large. Originally, it was a discussion about a question of how to reconcile the idea of the traditional view of hell as (some form of) unending torment with the notion of justice. From this, we then talked about St. Thomas Aquinas' argument that the orientation of the will has a central role. But then our discussion touched different issues like evangelization (in particular how to view it in an universalist context), God's salvific will and so on.

As I said some time ago, I am an agnostic and I wanted to make this discussion philosophical/theological but not exegetical or mainly exegetical. Not because I don't believe that exegesis is unimportant, but because I simply I do not have the education to make a serious exegetical discussion. Also, I don't know all the Christian universalists' answer to the verses and passages you cite (which might vary BTW among the universalists). Finally, I don't think that I am going to be persuaded about these kind of arguments, unless I find a convincing philosophical defence of the traditional doctrine of hell. To me none of the defences that I read have been convincing, mostly due to the fact that, in my opinion, they are difficult to reconcile with other, in fact, traditional doctrines.
If you are right about your claims regarding Scriptures and/or Tradition either these two things are true: (1) the traditional doctrine of hell is true or (2) Scriptures and/or Tradition are wrong in this respect.

Having made this premise, let's consider again what we said before and the things about which we agreed upon.

First, about repentance. It seemed to me that we did agree that the possibility to commit mortal sins, orienting the will to sin, alone is not enough to explain the thesis that it is at a certain point it's simply impossible to repent.
(Incidentally, I believe that the dogma that during this life it's assumed that it's always possible to repent lends support for this conclusion. it's interesting that you seem to say that experience here suggests to us that in some cases even during this life repentance is not possible... to me this would contradict the dogma.)

So, either the future life will be quite different from this life and the orientation of the will, will be inalterable for the sinners or not. If it will be, then, the thing remains unexplained. You mention that change of the will is not possible while disembodied, but at the same time you also believe in the resurrection (why, however, change is not possible while disembodied is something not obvious to me). But, anyway, the orientation of the will alone isn't enough to explain that the damned are beyond any hope. I believed we did agree with this.

This leads, in my opinion, to the conclusion that something else is needed to explain the hopelessness about the fate of the damned, especially if one believes that God, indeed, has a universal salvific will. It would appear to me that if God's desire/will is to save everybody, then creating the conditions that someone might be beyond any hope of salvation at a given point is problematic. The only possibility here is to claim that the sinner can become incurable even for God.

A problem with classical theism, however, is that God is assumed to be omniscent and, if I recall correctly, God already knows how everything will end. So, in this case, it is weird to me to think that God would desire that everybody if He already knows that some will never be saved*. So, probably, this means that what God wants is just to offer salvation to everybody, rather than to save everybody (which however is difficult to reconcile with the view of a God that desires and actively acts for the best of the creatures He loves... also it is quite strange to say that God offers salvation of everybody but He doesn't want that those who He is offering salvation will accept it). Or, maybe, the classical conception of Omniscence has to be modified. Or maybe I did misunderstood the concept.

Regarding the 'cohercion' part, well, I am not sure that this is coercion. After all, if one believes that the human highest Good is communion with God, then, it simply part of the human nature to have some kind of inclination for that Good, which maybe at some point would orient the will to that Good. Anyway, even if you were correct, it would not exclude the hope in universal salvation.

FInally, regarding the evangelization, you continue to think that the traditional view of hell is essential for it. It might be. I don't know. But to me the traditional view of hell is necessary for evangelization if either (1) one believes that all the unevangelized will go to the traditional hell or (2) believing in the traditional view of hell is necessary to evangelize or (3) if a Christian doesn't evangelize will go to the traditional hell. Perhaps, there are other possible reasons that I am not understading right now.
I said that universalists generally allude to other possible motivation for evangelization, which you don't find convincing.

Anyway, I want to thank you for this discussion. It is has been an interesting discussion for me. Possibly, you are right that it's time to stop the conversation for now at least.


*Edit: or even if God expects that some will not be saved without 'truly' knowing it.

I believe that the problem with this discussion is that its scope is becoming too large... — boundless

Let me give my diagnosis, which is more general.

When we draw a conclusion we require premises. In this conversation we have to be mindful of where the premises are coming from. So if someone says, "Eternal punishment is unjust," we need to ask about where their premises about justice are coming from. And if someone says, "Eternal punishment is incompatible with God," then we have to ask where their premises about God are coming from. And if someone says, "Eternal punishment is incompatible with Christianity," then we need to ask where their premises about Christianity are coming from.

The difficult thing in this conversation is that you keep claiming to make arguments from "logical possibility." The problem is that there simply is no such thing as an inference to an empirical state of affairs from logical possibility. We cannot infer a particular fact about reality from "logical possibility." Granted, one can say, "Hopeful universalism is justified on logical possibility," but this is merely to claim that hopeful universalism does not contain within itself a logical contradiction, and as I've said, most things do not contain within themselves logical contradictions.

So as soon as the conversation moves from, "My position is not logically impossible," to some stronger and more substantive claim, the discussion naturally becomes enormously more complicated. At the beginning of the thread I was the one claiming that eternal punishment is not logically impossible, or else that it is not impossible given certain minimal premises, and it is obviously very hard for opponents to argue that eternal punishment is impossible. In order to do that, they have to supply premises, but since there is some unfamiliarity with philosophical argumentation, therefore many have no clear sense of what sort of premises they are drawing upon to try to justify their claim that eternal punishment is impossible. Strictly speaking what is needed is a formal argument for the conclusion.

First, about repentance. It seemed to me that we did agree that the possibility to commit mortal sins, orienting the will to sin, alone is not enough to explain the thesis that it is at a certain point it's simply impossible to repent. — boundless

Right: if we hold to the single premise about the possibility of mortal sin, then we have excluded hopeful universalism. Note though that "mortal sin" may not be the best term for this, given its orientation towards death (as a definite reality and state).

(Incidentally, I believe that the dogma that during this life it's assumed that it's always possible to repent lends support for this conclusion. it's interesting that you seem to say that experience here suggests to us that in some cases even during this life repentance is not possible... to me this would contradict the dogma.) — boundless

This is a matter of two different premises, which I tried to explain earlier. The idea is that the dogma does not bear on metaphysics, but rather on hope. We are not to give up hope while someone is still alive.

Whether that is a true dogma would be interesting to investigate. At the very least it is a strong doctrine.

This leads, in my opinion, to the conclusion that something else is needed to explain the hopelessness about the fate of the damned, — boundless

Sure, but this pertains to the burden of proof. I don't see that I have the burden of proof regarding the idea that death presents an endpoint for human activities, particularly activities of change. When you phrase it in such a way one is led to believe that the a priori or assumptive position is hopeful universalism, and anyone who wants to challenge that position has the burden of proof.

Or in other words, you want to draw the conclusion of hopeful universalism, and yet that conclusion is not in any way secured by the claim, <If we assume the mere premise of the possibility of mortal sin, then hopeful universalism is not excluded>. This is very similar to what you did with Augustine and Chrysostom. The argument would look like this:

1. If we assume the mere premise of the possibility of mortal sin, then hopeful universalism is not excluded
2. We assume and agree to the premise of the possibility of mortal sin
3. Therefore, hopeful universalism is not yet excluded
4. Therefore, hopeful universalism is true

(4) does not follow. Put differently, no one has claimed that the hopelessness of the damned follows from the mere premise of "mortal sin" (or the ability to place one's end in something other than God).

When I say that "mortal sin" does not exclude universalism (or hopeful universalism), this is a very minimal claim (because I do not actually limit myself to the premise of "mortal sin"). This part of the discussion goes back to Aquinas' response to the first objection. What he is doing there is responding to an objection; not giving a sufficient argument for Hell.

(Incidentally, I think Hart's conclusion is disproportionately reliant on the premise of Platonic metaphysics, namely the ineluctability of the Good. I've covered this in my exchange with @Count Timothy von Icarus. Similarly, I think the intuitions of the West now oppose Hell, for all sorts of reasons. So I am not surprised that Westerners are intuitively opposed to Hell and thus believe the burden of proof lies elsewhere.)

A problem with classical theism, however, is that God is assumed to be omniscent and, if I recall correctly, God already knows how everything will end. So, in this case, it is weird to me to think that God would desire that everybody if He already knows that some will never be saved*. So, probably, this means that what God wants is just to offer salvation to everybody, rather than to save everybody — boundless

Again, this is either the topic of foreknowledge and future contingents or else the topic of predestination and future contingents, both of which are very large topics with lots of different ideas, solutions, objections, etc. It's actually a much larger topic than universalism.

But the general idea of a free will defense is quite simple: God is free and humans are free, and whenever one free being desires or wills that something happen for another free being, as long as that effect is contingent upon the patient's freedom it is not necessary or inevitable. The idea of willing something contingent is a basic notion between free beings. So on Christianity God wants all free beings to be saved but he does not force them, and their fate is not necessary/inevitable.

Regarding the 'cohercion' part, well, I am not sure that this is coercion. — boundless

We have a situation where everyone will do something no matter what. There is no possibility for them to do anything else. If that isn't coercion then I'm not sure what is. As far as I know, the only theologians who would not see that as coercion are, ironically, Calvinists. Most theologians would say that if an agent necessitates an outcome vis-a-vis agents, then the agents are being coerced. Only Calvinists explicitly reject the idea that necessitation is sufficient for coercion.

Anyway, even if you were correct, it would not exclude the hope in universal salvation. — boundless

If God coerces everyone to be saved then universalism is true. No need to hope.

FInally, regarding the evangelization, you continue to think that the traditional view of hell is essential for it. It might be. I don't know. — boundless

Rather, I've pointed out that universalism is incompatible with rational motivation towards evangelization, not that Hell is the only possibility. The problem is that on universalism the end is inevitable, and it is irrational to deploy contingent means in order to achieve an inevitable end. Evangelization is only rationally motivated if the end is contingent.

Anyway, I want to thank you for this discussion. It is has been an interesting discussion for me. Possibly, you are right that it's time to stop the conversation for now at least. — boundless

Sounds good. I'm glad it has been helpful. I think it was fruitful and I appreciate your candor and thoughtfulness. I think this was a good summary post that you wrote. I am happy to give you the last word unless you actually want me to respond to something further.

Thanks for the words and for the answer. I'll actually leave you the last word for now, as I would repaeat myself in my answer and I doubt that it will be useful. Maybe in the future the discussion will restart. Before that, however, I want to study more about some topics that have been discussed here.

Or to Flannery's point: why does anyone choose anything other than God at all?

This is essentially the old question of: "why was man not created perfect, such that he did not fall?"

I agree, it's a difficult one—one theologians have grappled with from the begining. One obvious point to bring up is that, if God's essence is unknowable, then man never had full access to the Good that would attract the will—that Good "on which the ranks of angels dare not gaze."

But for historical man, the answer is easier. Man is born into sin: "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me (Psalm 51:5). St. Gregory Palamas describes the truly relevant death that entered through Adam as separation from God, sin. But sin is also slavery, the opposite of freedom.

As I pointed out to boundless, there are basic empirical problems here. If humans rest in things other than God in this life, then why couldn't they rest in things other than God in the afterlife? I don't think you are appreciating the acuity of Flannery's point.

They don't though. Who, upon laying hold of finite goods, says "I am complete, I want for nothing," and then goes catatonic because they have reached absolute rest? Absolute no one. That's an empirical fact pointing in the other direction. Man is constantly striving in pursuit of finite goods. The vice-addled man doesn't "get enough" and then desist from his vices. The junkie doesn't shoot up and then say, "I am now complete, I will no longer strive after junk," just as the billionaire isn't content with their first hundred billion, nor the conquerer with just half of Europe. People attain fleeting satisfaction from worldly goods, that's it.

Humans have an intrinsic appetite for an infinite goodness. This is what defines the rational soul, its orientation towards Goodness and Truth themselves. This is one of the phenomenological arguments for the existence of such an infinite good (at least as an intentional object) that is rolled fairly often. Even atheists like Leopardi acknowledge "the insufficiency of every pleasure to satisfy the spirit within us." Likewise, it's often a facet of human life that is commonly rolled out to refute materialism. If materialism were true, we should be absolutely satisfied by finite goods, but we aren't.

To choose something is not to find rest in it.

My view is that this life and our choices in this life really matter. Your view seems to entail that this life and our choices in this life don't really matter. That someone can choose ends other than God for their entire earthly life, and then everything will just be reversed after they die. That the nature and shape of this life is entirely incommensurate and unconnected to our eternal destiny.

I don't think that's the case though. Were it so, it would mean that human life and history is only given meaning by a final reward or punishment that is extrinsic to history (and really, it would be the punishment that matters, since you're saying universal reward would render life meaningless). History would have no telos outside the extrinsic eschatological horizon. I would imagine that even many defenders of a hell of infinite duration would not want to argue that human life and history is only given meaning by the threat of damnation. That would be to elevate damnation to the force that gives human existence meaning.

I think you are probably aware that Thomists do not think man chooses evil as evil. The damned have chosen a lesser good.

Right, Aristotle and Thomas both say man cannot choose to be oriented towards the Good or not, only the means of pursuing goodness. That's why I don't get why you are calling this specifically a "Platonic" view of the will. It's all over the patristics and scholastics.

Now many of the patristics hold to perpetual punishment, but they do so in quite extrinsic terms. John Chrysostom, for instance, describes an end to sin, but continued punishment for the damned. St. Maximus is less clear, but there it also seems that any punishment would have to be an extrinsic limit on the damned. My point was that the wholly intrinsic punishment makes no sense outside a theory of the will as ultimately not oriented towards the Good, but rather as an arbitrary power. Otherwise, the soul would always be oriented towards repentance as its natural end (and presumably could be motivated towards this end).

This also jives better with Scripture in many ways than something like "people choosing lesser goods in a sort of false contentment for eternity" (e.g. Lewis' vision). The terms used for Hell are positive, "chastisement/punishment." The images are of an outer darkness filled with wailing and a lake of fire. I do not get the impression that Hell is something people will positively choose in any respect, which is another reason why the idea of a wholly intrinsic punishment has never sat well with me.

The second question is whether an extrinsic punishment of infinite temporal duration is just, discussed earlier.

Note first that I strengthened the argument by avoiding "rational nature." I don't think we just automatically seek God because of our rational nature, as if Pantheism were true or as if salvific faith were the result of a logical syllogism.

The end of all things is God, so it's true that it is not the rational soul that uniquely specifies this end. However, the rational soul includes our attraction to Goodness and Truth. A human being without these would be a human being without a will and intellect, which is, IMO, no longer a human being.

That point seems ancillary to the discussion though.

God is a third party, of which is the source of goodness, which was and cannot be the offended nor offender. — Bob Ross

Let's start from here. "It is good because God loves it," points out that good is derived from God. There is an equivalence proposed by Alston..... "We ought to love one another because God commands us to do so." So, loving your neighbors is morally good because God commands us to do so. It should follow then that doing anything bad is to go against God's commands.

Now, going against God's commands..... that should be real offensive to God.

As an extra, the Christian God can forgive any amount of sins that you may commit.... unless you blaspheme the holy spirit. That is when you're beyond saving.

Matthew 12:30–32: "Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. Therefore I tell you, people will be forgiven for every sin and blasphemy, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.