So what.
the punishment is proportional
— Richard B
An eternal punishment for a transient sin is proportional? Not seeing it. — Banno

I know for a non-believer, yep.

But for a believer, there is a rule given by the creator, and the creator decrees there is one eternal sin that cannot be forgiven.

This is accepted or not. Sort of like accepting Euclid’s axioms and seeing what follows. For example, “A point is that of which there is no part.” What hell is that? O.k. I will accept it and see where this goes.

One commits an eternal sin according to God not a transient sin according to Lewis.

And Lewis' argument shows that the folk who accept this are wicked.

or at least insensitive.

But that's not a possible outcome if they're following a Creator's decree, though (this, in the world where that exists lmao). I mean, i take the argument entirely. But for a believer, that does nothing but tell them you aren't one, surely.

The usual problem of evil is that a theistic god who creates hell is not a nice person; the Lewis extension to that is that those who worship such a god are also not nice people.

And of course there are all sorts of what if's and maybe's.

And of course they make up reasons not to think of themselves as wicked.

But this is an argument worthy of consideration. Uncomfortable as that may be.

Lewis' further question concerns how those who do not agree with those who accept divine command theory and the existence of hell ought deal with those who do.

Have another look at the article. see what you make of it.

1. It is not in God's power to be a Trinity: it is God's nature to be a Trinity. To say it is in His power is to imply that God chose to be or willed it to be the case, when really God's nature necessitates that He is three persons in one.

2. God cannot take human form (in a literal sense); however, He could create and animate a human. The idea of a hypostatic union of Jesus only makes sense to me, in principle, if his will is the upshot of God the Son.

3. God animating a human, so to speak, such as Jesus (let's say), would entail a human that will's perfectly in accordance with God's will; and so this being would a perfect human in will but still imperfect in toto. Every human is necessarily imperfect in total because their essence does not entail existence. Now, would it count in favor of the view that this man has God's will as his own (in literal sense) if the man were completely unblameworthy? Yes. Is it possible that a man could be unblameworthy and not have God's will as his own? Yes, but it would be highly improbable.

This seems like a central argument to your post:

Here would be my contention: no one chooses the worse over the better but for ignorance about what is truly best, weakness of will, or external constraint. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But isn't this tantamount to the denial of (moral) evil? Flannery rightly points out that arguments against Hell are very similar to arguments against evil, or for the claim that evil ought not exist.

If what you say is true then sin and (moral) evil do not exist at all, and of course Hell cannot then exist either. You could actually read my thread, "Beyond the Pale," as an inquiry into the rational grounds for moral blame, which is in turn related to the question of whether moral evil is possible. It's a difficult question that our culture struggles with in a special way, but nevertheless I don't see how such a thesis is compatible with Christianity. For Christianity moral evil does exist.

Let me quote Flannery given that this is such a ubiquitous issue:

Before dealing with this issue directly, we need to establish one preliminary point: that there is no intrinsic reason to regard the sayings of Jesus found at Matthew 25 as mere threats or warnings. The only reason we might have for so regarding them would be if Balthasar (and others) were right: that it is incompatible with God’s nature to allow to happen what Christ says will happen to those who are not merciful. But there is no reason to make this assumption. Is such evil incompatible with the notion of a loving and all-merciful God? We already have such evil in the world: sinners who separate themselves from God and live—even humanly-speaking—frustrated, resentful lives. If such suffering is incompatible with the notion of the Christian God, he is either not as powerful as Christians claim (and therefore not the Christian God) or he does not exist. Given that the Christian God does exist, if such suffering is in itself not incompatible with his nature, why must its duration be incompatible with that same nature? As Newman remarked ‘the great mystery is, not that evil has no end, but that it had a beginning.’ Ultimately, the problem of hell can be reduced to the problem of evil—and no one thinks of solving the problem of evil by denying its existence. If we have no reason to regard Christ’s remarks at Matthew 25 as mere threats or warnings, it is legitimate to represent them as conditional statements of the form ‘if p then q’: if we are not merciful we will find ourselves in hell. The question facing us is how to understand such statements. — Kevin Flannery, How to Think About Hell, 476

(To look at the mysterium iniquitatis and conclude that evil does not exist, or to look at the mystery of goodness and conclude that goodness does not exist, strike me as concrete instances of the low anthropology referenced earlier. The idea—so tied up with our own culture—is that responsibility does not exist, whether deserving praise or blame. The dual potency goes hand in hand with that responsibility. This is also related to a transgression of Przywara's Analogia Entis, where one consideration is allowed to trump all others.)

Okay yeah, agree with 1.
2. What do you mean by "upshot?" Jesus is considered the Word of God, what God the Father has spoken, according to my faith tradition.
3. Disagree with 3 on the basis that I don't think Jesus is "animated" by God (as though he were once inanimate) but rather is God fully just as He is fully a person who shares in the divine life of the Godhead and is eternally begotten by, and consubstantial with, the Father.

Who said that sin is transient? There is, I think, no way to erase a sin; the only way forward is through forgiveness.

There is, I think, no way to erase a sin — NotAristotle

How merciful.

Sorry for the belated response! — Bob Ross

No worries.

My answer was that there are three kinds of things that can be quantified over for the sake of this discussion as it relates to infinitude: (1) dignity, (2) duration, and (3) repetition. My point was that you can pick any of them or all of them for our discussion and my argument will apply. — Bob Ross

And my point is that if you don't pick one of them then you simply don't have an argument at all.

It's like if I said, "If one wanted to argue against factory farming they could do so on the basis of animal welfare, environmental issues, or sustainability." The natural response would be, "Are you going to produce an argument against factory farming? If so, you'll need to pick one of the three and put together an actual argument. Until you do that there is no argument being proposed."

I agree with your assessment here; and I would point out that no matter how many gallons of spillage happen due to this person it would not warrant infinite demerit unless the water that spilled was infinite in volume, was spilling for infinite duration, or was itself or a casually derived offended party was of infinite dignity. None of these three are the case in every human example of sin. — Bob Ross

Aquinas' point is precisely that the water spills out for a potentially infinite duration. "So long as the disturbance of the order remains the debt of punishment must needs remain also."

This was my complaint with Acquinas, because he attempts to tie the infinite demerit of a sin to God’s infinite dignity since God is an offended party; — Bob Ross

You've already been told by multiple people that Aquinas doesn't do that at all, and that you have Anselm in mind. If you want to characterize Aquinas, I would suggest quoting him, or at the very least quoting a secondary source.

Thanks for the response and the link, I'll read.

As a short premise, I didn't change my mind. I just see more subtlety in the 'free will' defence of semi-traditional hell view. Although I don't consider them convincing, you did make good points.

Anyway, let's say that the sinner does, indeed, have the ability to make a 'oath to evil' (or 'mortal sin') and the ability to commit to it perpetually. Let's consider the following propositions:

• One can make an oath to evil and has the ability to perpetually commit to it
• One can always sincerely repent from the 'oath to evil'
• God saves everyone who sincerely repent

Given that this life is finite, of course, the actualization of the first proposition here cannot be realized in this finite life. But if we assume that after death, life will be infinite, it might be reasonable to make. Anyway, it seems a traditional theological assumption that all three the above propositions are valid in this life.

So, it seems clear to me that the abilities of the first proposition cannot logically exclude the other two propositions. So, the ability to repent is not excluded by having made 'oaths to evil' (or 'mortal sins'). Let's say that Bob dies unrepentant and goes to hell. There are no logical reasons to assume that in the after life he can't sincerely repent and, assuming that God would still save anyone who sincerely repents, Bob can be still saved after death.

So, here at least from a logical standpoint, it seems to me that if some are beyond any hope for salvation, for them, after this life, either the second proposition or the third. Let's John is in this category of the damned. Either John lost the ability to sincere repent or if he still has it, God would not save him even if he sincerely repents.

I believe that there are two problems here.

First, Bob and Jack are given different chances for salvation. If Bob can still repent and be saved, why can't Jack also be saved? There seems to be a lack of impartiality here.

Second, in the case of Jack, if we assumed that the second and the third propositions are valid in this life, this means that repentance and salvation are possible even if one makes an 'oath to evil'. And making an 'oath to evil' doesn't by itself lead to perpetual damnation. Perpetual damnation is possible only if either one at a certain point is not able to repent or if after a certain point God doesn't save someone who makes a sincere repentance. Assuming that God would always save the sincere repentants, this would imply that some cannot make a sincere repentant if there is no hope for salvation for them.

Hence, it seems to me that if 'perpetual damnation' is not an extrinsic punishment but a possible result of our ability to make 'oaths', then no one would be completely beyond hope. Repentance would still be a possibility.

So my contention here is that the hopeless state of (some of?) the damned cannot be explained solely on terms of their ability to make oaths.

BTW, I didn't know that Balthasar allowed the possibility of post-mortem salvation. Interesting.

Regarding your points about evangelization, I think we are talking past each other at this point. I am not really sure why you think that believing in the traditional view of hell is so fundamental for evangelization, if you also agree that universalists would still have their valid reason to evangelize. But it is a tangential discussion.

I see what you mean. But my point is that even if one allows the possibility to make and commit to a 'definitive oath to evil' this alone doesn't preclude the possibility of repentance after death (and salvation if one accepts that God would still save the repentant). So, my point is that even if one accepts that view, one would still have to assume that no one would be beyond hope unless either the possibility to repent is denied or the salvation for the sincere repentants is denied at a certain point.
So, yes, I agree with you that even if that assumption is true, one would still invoke some extrinsic constraints to explain perpetual damnation.

Futhermore, if one assumes that evil is not infinite, one might say that at a certain point the 'restless state' of the will, will exhaust the 'resources' of evil and then turn to the good.

I would say that it would be rational if this man is reasoning in accordance with Reason’s principles; and it is a ‘rationally free choice’, to use your term, if this man’s rational choice is in accordance with what he sincerely believes. None of this per se negates the possibility that one sincerely believes that killing innocent people at the exchange of their well-being is the best option. I agree it would be ‘irrational’ in the colloquial sense of the term, but it meets the criteria you set out for ‘rational freedom’. — Bob Ross

Yes, we can say that one can be rational and evil, in the sense that if one sincerely believes that evil actions are 'right', then doing them is consistent.

BUT if one believes in an objective morality, then one must assume that here the 'rational evildoer' is mistaken in their belief.

So, if 'rational choice' merely means 'act according to one's belief', this would mean that one can do evil acts rationally if he or she is mistaken about what is good and what is evil. So, there is ignorance here that might decrease the culpability.

But isn't this tantamount to the denial of (moral) evil? Flannery rightly points out that arguments against Hell are very similar to arguments against evil, or for the claim that evil ought not exist.

In one sense, this quite true. Evil doesn't have an essence; it is a privation. I think this understanding is pretty mainstream in the West (e.g. St. Augustine), and it certainly is in the East. It is absolutely true that evil ought not exist, and thus Hell ought not exist either. The Fall is the result of irrational rebellion. Both man and the demons' rebellion is something blameworthy, something that ought not have occured.

Evil exists in the world though, and in the hearts of men. We need not deny this. Evil exists as privation and imperfection, the tendency of creatures towards multiplicity and non-being.

Hence, I don't think considerations I mentioned erase moral blame. Freedom, self-determination, self-governance, knowledge, etc. have contrary opposites (e.g. unity/plurality, true/false). We can be more or less free, more or less aware of what is truly best, and so more or less culpable for "missing the mark" in our thoughts and deeds. Spiritual sickness is not blameless, since people enable their own sickness and freely partake in their own degradation.

This is reflected in the architecture Dante's Hell. Upper Hell has the less severe sins of weakness of will. Lower Hell contains the sins of malice, evil that is known as evil and committed anyway in the pursuit of some finite good judged to be higher than the Good Itself. Dante puts the Hitlers and Stalins of his epoch fairly high up. The lowest pits are reserved for sins of fraud, the fullest twisting of the intellect away from God, and into the self (and ultimately towards nothingness). These aren't just sins that are particularly vile, but also those that are hardest for man to escape because, having enslaved his intellect to the passions, he can no longer recognize Good as Good or evil as evil. This is the maximum extent of the curvatus in se, and I suppose that one argument for a Hell of infinite temporal duration might be that this curving inwards approaches something like a black hole at the limit, a point at which no light can escape.

I don't think this in anyway precludes retributive justice, let alone remedial punishment. People know evil as such and still embrace it; they have a right to be punished. The reduction of justice solely to remediation (rather than the restoration of right) degrades justice into something like breaking a horse.

The question is not whether punishment is deserved, but whether punishment of infinite temporal duration is deserved. I have already mentioned why I think such punishment must either be extrinsic, or involve the destruction of the soul's rational nature (a sort of annihilation). The latter could be considered an intrinsic punishment that one does to oneself, but would also imply a capacity to deface (and lose) the Imago Dei absolutely, beyond any capacity to repent, which is at odds with a lot of theology (closer to Plato than Aristotle in some ways too).

At any rate, I don't think voluntarism actually helps here. The voluntarist will, to the extent that it chooses evil in the absence of the informing intellect, is acting arbitrarily. If it doesn't make sense to punish people for being sick (and I think it does make sense, because such sickness does not remove all freedom or culpability), it makes even less sense to punish them for some sort of bare remainder of uninformed will, whose action can only be random.

The question of the Fall and thus the problem of evil is a difficult one indeed. The explanation that most resonates with me is that man, in order to "be like God," had to freely transcend his own finitude in turning towards the transcendent Good (the same with the demons). But they failed to do this, choosing rebellion instead.

But there is no reason to make this assumption. Is such evil incompatible with the notion of a loving and all-merciful God? We already have such evil in the world: sinners who separate themselves from God and live—even humanly-speaking—frustrated, resentful lives. If such suffering is incompatible with the notion of the Christian God, he is either not as powerful as Christians claim (and therefore not the Christian God) or he does not exist. Given that the Christian God does exist, if such suffering is in itself not incompatible with his nature, why must its duration be incompatible with that same nature?

I'm not even sure what position this is supposed to be responding to. Objections to "punishment of infinite temporal duration" tend to focus on the duration and extrinsic nature of such a punishment (since this is how it is normally framed; the accident of one's state at death being the deciding factor) or the fact that this implies a sort of "eternal survival of sin." It is not an objection to the existence of suffering per se. The more famous examples of universalism (or theology that seems to imply it) mention Hell and punishment quite often. In his essay on the early deaths of infants St. Gregory of Nyssa points to an indefinitely long punishment for the worst offenders for instance. And a lot of theology that is pointed to as implying universalism in its grand scale also doesn't ignore suffering and Hell.

BUT if one believes in an objective morality, then one must assume that here the 'rational evildoer' is mistaken in their belief.

The corrupted nous is often seen as "painting beauty/goodness" onto what lacks it (e.g. when Dante's vision "transforms" the putrid siren into an alluring woman in Canto 19 of the Purgatorio). If people can be complicit and culpable vis-á-vis their own degradation then they are to some degree responsible for such misunderstanding. This is particularly true if they turn back to evil after having received healing (e.g. Hebrews 6:6).

It's just like how drunkenness might explain crimes but need not absolve them, since people generally choose to impair their judgement in this way. We still hold drunk drivers accountable in a way we do not hold people accountable if they have a stroke while driving.

I'd agree that evil, being nothing, must eventually be "exhausted." It is, in this case, not evil, but finite goods that will be exhausted. C.S. Lewis has the damned traveling ever further from one another, spreading out into absolute solitude. But to me, this suggests that motion must also stop in the other direction. Eventually there is nothing good left to impel motion and one has stasis in nothingness, which would seem to me to track with a sort of annihilation, a will and intellect oriented towards nothingness, and so contentless.

That the "Outer Darkness" is a place of wailing and gnashing of teeth suggests an appetite for Goodness though. Talbot reads this as the maximum withdrawal of God from the creature, leaving them to experience the absence of Goodness as a final (but in his view remedial) chastisement.

St. Maximus is sometimes read as a universalist (it's really his grand metaphysical vision that most suggests this IMHO), but some of his work suggests that the damned are reformed and at rest, but not deified. From Questions and Problems:

The third meaning [of apokatastasis] is used by Gregory especially in refer­ence to the qualities of the soul that had been corrupted by sin and then are restored to their original state. Just as all nature will regain, at the expected time, its completeness in the flesh [at the resurrection], so also will the pow­ers of the soul, by necessity, shed all imprints of evil clinging to them; and this after aeons have elapsed, after a long time of being driven about without rest [stasis]. And so in the end they reach God, who is without limitations [peras]. Thus they are restored to their original state [apokatastēnai] through their knowledge [of God], but do not participate in [his] gifts. It also will appear that the Creator cannot be blamed for any sinfulness.2

This makes more sense if we recall that in the Ad Thelassium Maximus says that experience of God (union with God) is beyond knowledge (building off I Corinthians 13), just as St. Gregory Palamas seems to have direct experience of God occuring above any sort of separation of intellect and will.

Thanks for the response and the link, I'll read. — boundless

You're welcome. If you are referring to the thread on a different forum, beware that it may be a bit hard to follow. I was tailoring it to individuals rather than to a general audience. In any case I think a thread like that would shed more light on justice than a discussion of Hell. Hell is a hard case, and it is better to begin with easy cases ("Hard cases make bad law").

As a short premise, I didn't change my mind. I just see more subtlety in the 'free will' defence of semi-traditional hell view. Although I don't consider them convincing, you did make good points. — boundless

That's fair, and I appreciate that you are taking care with this conversation.

Anyway, let's say that the sinner does, indeed, have the ability to make a 'oath to evil' (or 'mortal sin') and the ability to commit to it perpetually. — boundless

Sticking with Aquinas, to fix one's end in sin is not to form an intention towards evil (or in an extreme case, an oath towards evil). For example, adultery is a sin, but when a man commits adultery he is not doing it for the sake of evil. He is doing is because he desires the romance and sex, and chooses to pursue it. He values the romance and sex more than he cares about not-committing adultery.

As I see it this question of understanding how an evil act could ever be performed is much closer to the heart of the issue, and it bears on my last post to Count Timothy.

So, here at least from a logical standpoint, it seems to me that if some are beyond any hope for salvation,... — boundless

Let me repeat and elaborate:

Rational grounds for hope are always different than rational grounds for assent. What you are effectively doing is switching from Hart's position to Balthasar's, where Balthasar is merely recommending hope. — Leontiskos

Universalism is the belief that all will be saved, and this is largely what you and I have been discussing in this thread. But now you are switching to a different topic, namely the topic of "Hopeful universalism": the belief that one can or should hope that all will be saved. These are two different things.

Hope positions are always easier to defend than assent positions, and the same holds here. Hans Urs von Balthasar wrote a book in 1979, Was dürfen wir hoffen? ("What may we hope?"). As you know, David Bentley Hart wrote a book in 2019, That All Shall Be Saved. Hart was one-upping Balthasar by switching from the topic of hope to the topic of assent or assertion.* What you are now doing in the thread is shifting back into Balthasar's more modest position.

Specifically, if we say that no one ever moves beyond the possibility of repentance, then Balthasar's position is secured, but Hart's is not. So what you say is right: if no one ever moves beyond the possibility of repentance, then hopeful universalism is rationally permissible.

So my contention here is that the hopeless state of (some of?) the damned cannot be explained solely on terms of their ability to make oaths. — boundless

Sure - I think you are technically correct. But I don't find the psychology and anthropology convincing. To make the point quickly, we could say that a man who has been addicted to opium for 70 years is logically permitted to stop using opium, but this is undue "logicalism." Although it is logically possible, that's just not how reality works. Human acts form the habits and the soul towards an end. There may be creatures who do not move towards fixity in an end, but they are certainly not humans. I take it that these claims are much more empirically sound than the idea that reversal of one's fundamental orientation is always possible, no matter what has come before.

(We might even begin to ask what it means to say that the opium addict is "logically capable" of abandoning opium.)

BTW, I didn't know that Balthasar allowed the possibility of post-mortem salvation. Interesting. — boundless

You may have misunderstood me, because I don't think he did. He tended toward what I said here:

(It may be worth pointing out that universalists don't need to deny the fixity of the will at death. The fixity of the will at death has much to be said for it, and many universalists don't find it reasonable to question. Instead they claim that we don't have inside knowledge on what happens in someone's soul before they die. I.e. Everyone may secretly repent before they die.) — Leontiskos

-

Regarding your points about evangelization, I think we are talking past each other at this point. I am not really sure why you think that believing in the traditional view of hell is so fundamental for evangelization, if you also agree that universalists would still have their valid reason to evangelize. But it is a tangential discussion. — boundless

I think it is a central point of the discussion. Let me elaborate on the logical error that I see:

If an end is inevitable then it need not be pursued. A necessary means to an inevitable end is already a contradiction, if the means is supposed to be contingent. — Leontiskos

This is basically your position:

Suppose that next week you and your spouse will be taken to Brazil, and there is nothing you can do about it. You know with perfect certainty that you will end up in Brazil. Your spouse says to you, "Let's buy plane tickets and fly to Brazil next week." You respond, "There is no need. We will be in Brazil next week no matter what we do. It would be a waste of money to buy plane tickets." Your spouse will only desire to buy tickets insofar as they don't realize that there is no need to buy tickets (and this explains the secretive universalists you referred to).

The universalist has no more ultimate reason to evangelize than the man has a reason to buy a ticket to Brazil. Buying the ticket is irrational. I think this argument actually destroys the notion of universalism in the Christian context, hook, line, and sinker. Folks who accede to universalism literally act this way, and that's perfectly logical. They become uninterested in pursuing the inevitable end. The Unitarian Universalists are a great historical example of this.


* He was even playing on the English title of Balthasar's book, "Dare We Hope That All Men Be Saved?"

In one sense, this quite true. Evil doesn't have an essence; it is a privation. I think this understanding is pretty mainstream in the West (e.g. St. Augustine), and it certainly is in the East. It is absolutely true that evil ought not exist, and thus Hell ought not exist either. The Fall is the result of irrational rebellion. Both man and the demons' rebellion is something blameworthy, something that ought not have occured.

Evil exists in the world though, and in the hearts of men. We need not deny this. Evil exists as privation and imperfection, the tendency of creatures towards multiplicity and non-being. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Okay, agreed.

Hence, I don't think considerations I mentioned erase moral blame. Freedom, self-determination, self-governance, knowledge, etc. have contrary opposites (e.g. unity/plurality, true/false). We can be more or less free, more or less aware of what is truly best, and so more or less culpable for "missing the mark" in our thoughts and deeds. Spiritual sickness is not blameless, since people enable their own sickness and freely partake in their own degradation. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well then let me explain why I think your contention undermines moral culpability and the possibility of moral evil. You give a threefold dichotomy, ignorance, weakness of will, and external constraint:

Here would be my contention: no one chooses the worse over the better but for ignorance about what is truly best, weakness of will, or external constraint. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Is one evil or morally culpable on the basis of ignorance? It seems not. Is one evil or morally culpable on the basis of weakness of will? It seems not. Is one evil or morally culpable on the basis of external constraint? It seems not. If moral culpability and moral evil are not possible on any of the three exhaustive options you have provided, then they are not possible at all.

Indeed, your whole argument here is that universalism is inevitable because humans could not but choose otherwise. Given your understanding of human choice, humans could never choose evil, and therefore they could never fail to choose God. You apparently view humans as something like Roomba vacuum cleaners, which may make a few wrong turns but will never ultimately fail. This is why Flannery's analysis is so relevant. Evil itself would not exist if this theory of choice were correct, and the Problem of Evil goes hand in hand with the problem of Hell.

Spiritual sickness is not blameless, since people enable their own sickness and freely partake in their own degradation. — Count Timothy von Icarus

If they do it continually throughout life, why cannot they do it continually throughout eternity? Can one take a mulligan on their entire life?

This is the maximum extent of the curvatus in se, and I suppose that one argument for a Hell of infinite temporal duration might be that this curving inwards approaches something like a black hole at the limit, a point at which no light can escape. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Right.

People know evil as such and still embrace it; they have a right to be punished. The reduction of justice solely to remediation (rather than the restoration of right) degrades justice into something like breaking a horse. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, agreed.

The question is not whether punishment is deserved, but whether punishment of infinite temporal duration is deserved. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This "maximum extent of the cuvatus in se" is already its own punishment, and need have no temporal limit if humans and angels/demons are indeed eternal beings who do not cease to exist.

At any rate, I don't think voluntarism actually helps here. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I haven't seen anyone propose it, so no biggie.

I'm not even sure what position this is supposed to be responding to. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Precisely the position that you've set out, namely the one that logically entails the impossibility of moral evil. Else, you are basically trying to justify a position where moral evil is possible for x amount of time but not x+y amount of time, which is a rather difficult task.

The latter could be considered an intrinsic punishment that one does to oneself, but would also imply a capacity to deface (and lose) the Imago Dei absolutely, beyond any capacity to repent, which is at odds with a lot of theology (closer to Plato than Aristotle in some ways too). — Count Timothy von Icarus

The idea that one can deface the imago dei is written up and down throughout Scripture. In that there is some similarity with Aristotle, but universalism is basically just a form of Platonism, of the ineluctable Good. I don't think you get to universalism from Scripture or from empirical data (Aristotle). You basically need to be ultimately committed to Platonism, and thus allow Platonic theories to override these other considerations. It's no coincidence that your theory where evil is basically derived from ignorance is so closely bound up with Socrates' approach.

By Jesus, I am referring to the man; and by the Son I am referring to God as the Word. For you, I would imagine that Jesus refers to the man and the Son as a union of some sort; however, I think it is still useful to separating out the concepts of the Son qua God and qua man. Jesus, as a man, cannot be fully God but could be, as a person in the sense of his will, God the Son working through the material body of the man.

To say that Jesus is fully God and man is contradictory; for they have contrary essences. What I mean by “Jesus’ will being the upshot of the Son” is that Jesus as a man could be united with God insofar as his will is the will of the Son (literally speaking); however, this does not make Jesus fully God (in a literal sense).

:up:

"If one wanted to argue against factory farming they could do so on the basis of animal welfare, environmental issues, or sustainability."

This is disanalogous: your example here states multiple different arguments for why factory farming is wrong without providing an exposition of any of them, whereas my argument establishes that all three forms of infinitude (relevant to judging sins) are absent in practical sins which entails that infinite punishment would be disproportionate.

My argument is simple:

P1. If the dignity of the offended, the duration of the offense, and the repetition of the offense are finite, then it is disproportionate (and thusly unjust) to inflict a punishment that requires the sacrifice of something of infinite dignity, infinite duration, or infinite repetition.

P2: All human sins, thus far, are finite in the dignity of the offended, the duration of the offense, and the repetition of the offense.

C: Therefore, it is unjust to punish those who committed those sins with a punishment that requires the sacrifice of something of infinite dignity, infinite duration, or infinite repetition.

Now, one might object:

Aquinas' point is precisely that the water spills out for a potentially infinite duration. "So long as the disturbance of the order remains the debt of punishment must needs remain also."

I suppose it is possible that most or all human sins, thus far, are “open cases” like a continuous water spillage; but I would find that implausible. How is someone who steals and does their time in jail akin to this continuous water spillage? Likewise, wouldn’t this argument require that the universe is eternal (for the sin would have to causally affect for eternity)?

You've already been told by multiple people that Aquinas doesn't do that at all, and that you have Anselm in mind

Duly noted: perhaps I am thinking of the wrong person. I will re-read Aquinas on that part.

...whereas my argument establishes that all three forms of infinitude (relevant to judging sins) are absent in practical sins which entails that infinite punishment would be disproportionate. — Bob Ross

I don't see that you have. P2 is merely an assertion. There has been no argument to "establish" it. In fact we've already seen Aquinas rebut the idea that the duration of the punishment must be proportionate to the duration of the offense.

I suppose it is possible that most or all human sins, thus far, are “open cases” like a continuous water spillage; but I would find that implausible. How is someone who steals and does their time in jail akin to this continuous water spillage? Likewise, wouldn’t this argument require that the universe is eternal (for the sin would have to causally affect for eternity)? — Bob Ross

Well remember how the analogy began:

I missed this. To use an analogy, imagine that a pipe breaks and the water that was flowing through it is now flowing out onto the ground. This is an order being disturbed, and as long as the pipe remains broken, the water will continue flowing out onto the ground. It will flow out onto the ground for all eternity if the cause/pipe is never repaired. Put crudely, Aquinas is saying that we are able to break our own pipes in ways that we cannot repair, and that Hell flows out of this. — Leontiskos

The "order" is charity, or friendship with God, and Hell is basically the absence of that friendship. To destroy a friendship is like breaking a pipe, on my analogy.

But yes, humans are eternal beings on Christianity.

Duly noted: perhaps I am thinking of the wrong person. I will re-read Aquinas on that part. — Bob Ross

Sounds good. :up:

It's just like how drunkenness might explain crimes but need not absolve them, since people generally choose to impair their judgement in this way. We still hold drunk drivers accountable in a way we do not hold people accountable if they have a stroke while driving. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Agreed!

But to me, this suggests that motion must also stop in the other direction. Eventually there is nothing good left to impel motion and one has stasis in nothingness, which would seem to me to track with a sort of annihilation, a will and intellect oriented towards nothingness, and so contentless. — Count Timothy von Icarus

As I see it, the classical notion that evil is 'privation of the good' and not a substance seems to lend itself in a universalist or annihilationist direction.
Evil is parasitic on the good, and evil can't exist without the good. Being a corruption, without the corrupted substance it can't exist, just like a parasite can't live if the host dies or if it is eradicated from the host.

If someone destroys the good in itself in an irrevocable way (as Pope Benedict put it in the case of the damned in hell), it seems that there is a kind of annihilation as you say. The 'imago Dei' is destroyed. But if it is destroyed, how can evil remain if its existence is parasitic?
On the other hand, even the universalist can use the annihilationist language without much problems: the sinner is destroyed and the 'image of God' is healed.

That the "Outer Darkness" is a place of wailing and gnashing of teeth suggests an appetite for Goodness though. Talbot reads this as the maximum withdrawal of God from the creature, leaving them to experience the absence of Goodness as a final (but in his view remedial) chastisement. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, I remember that part. If God is truly omnipresent, however, there can be no situation where God is absent. Maybe it should be understood in this way: in their refusal to acknowledge God, the damned try to ignore God and seek the good for them elsewhere. But once finite goods end and each damned is totally alone, there is an intolerable feeling of loneliness and privation that impels a response in their heart.

Also the universalist could use the view of St Isaac of Niniveh that 'hell is regret' to explain repentance. The definitive encounter with God removes all kind of ignorance and mistaken beliefs one had. The damned, then, acknowledge their errors and experience a painful, but remedial regret that eventually leads to their healing. The direct confrontation with the truth can't be resisted, maybe.

St. Maximus is sometimes read as a universalist (it's really his grand metaphysical vision that most suggests this IMHO), but some of his work suggests that the damned are reformed and at rest, but not deified. From Questions and Problems: — Count Timothy von Icarus

Interesting, thanks. But if they are at 'rest', I would argue that they have lost their innermost desire for communion with God. Are still, then, the same entities after this 'restoration'?

As St. Augustine put it, if our heart is restless until is united with God, it would seem that the damned should be restless.

Whether St. Maximus was a universalist or not, it would seem that St. Gregory was. IIRC, he even speaks about a 'universal feast' after the purgation is complete and other statements that all beings do not fall out from the Kingdom of God. It would not make any sense to call a 'universal feast' something were a part of the participants is actually suffering.
But maybe the term 'apokatastasis' doesn't necessarily mean 'salvation' and Maximus was only making a lexicographic point here. TBH, I did not read the works of St. Maximus, only secondary literature.

This makes more sense if we recall that in the Ad Thelassium Maximus says that experience of God (union with God) is beyond knowledge (building off I Corinthians 13), just as St. Gregory Palamas seems to have direct experience of God occuring above any sort of separation of intellect and will. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Ok, thanks. Probably the universalist reading here is that the 'direct knowledge' would trigger a repentance.

You're welcome. If you are referring to the thread on a different forum, beware that it may be a bit hard to follow. I was tailoring it to individuals rather than to a general audience. In any case I think a thread like that would shed more light on justice than a discussion of Hell. Hell is a hard case, and it is better to begin with easy cases ("Hard cases make bad law"). — Leontiskos

OK, thanks. Anyway, yes, probably using hell to make a discussion about justice isn't the best idea.

That's fair, and I appreciate that you are taking care with this conversation. — Leontiskos

Thank you!

Sticking with Aquinas, to fix one's end in sin is not to form an intention towards evil (or in an extreme case, an oath towards evil). For example, adultery is a sin, but when a man commits adultery he is not doing it for the sake of evil. He is doing is because he desires the romance and sex, and chooses to pursue it. He values the romance and sex more than he cares about not-committing adultery. — Leontiskos

But one should have the sufficient awareness that is making is wrong, right? Maybe not an explicit 'oath to evil' but still a deliberate decision to be 'faithful' to a lesser good.

The problem that I see with how the notion of 'mortal sin' is formulated is that it is legalistic. The view you presented here isn't.

Specifically, if we say that no one ever moves beyond the possibility of repentance, then Balthasar's position is secured, but Hart's is not. So what you say is right: if no one ever moves beyond the possibility of repentance, then hopeful universalism is rationally permissible. — Leontiskos

I did read Balthasar's book BTW. But I could have missed the reference about post-mortem repentance (if I am not mistaken, in a quote of St Edith Stein there is that suggestion, however, but I have also read that she later expressed reluctance about the 'hope for all'...).

Anyway, I still am not convinced that 'universalism' proper is rejected if the necessity of repentance is affirmed. Maybe, the direct encounter with God triggers a response in the hearts which makes repentance inevitable and/or maybe it is the suffering itself that does at a certain point. Of course, however, if one still says that in any case freedom involves the power of 'contrary choice' then, yes, the 'hopeful' position still stands and the 'universalist proper' doesn't.

BTW, I do find weird that among Christians the 'hopeful' position is quite rare. Either some are irrevocably damned/annihilated or all will be saved. The 'middle way' seems not to be accepted.

Sure - I think you are technically correct. But I don't find the psychology and anthropology convincing. To make the point quickly, we could say that a man who has been addicted to opium for 70 years is logically permitted to stop using opium, but this is undue "logicalism." Although it is logically possible, that's just not how reality works. Human acts form the habits and the soul towards an end. There may be creatures who do not move towards fixity in an end, but they are certainly not humans. I take it that these claims are much more empirically sound than the idea that reversal of one's fundamental orientation is always possible, no matter what has come before. — Leontiskos

Ok! The more one is addicted, the more is difficult to heal from the addiction. I also believe that addiction is a very good analogy for evil/sin.

But what traditionalists do not seem to allow is the possibility that experiencing the painful consequence of having remained in sin might not lead to repentance. In a sense, we see it even in this life. It's much more difficult to change their mind for those who do not experience painful consequences of their choices. So, I don't agree that experience suggests one outcome over the other. I get your point, but again I am not persuaeded by it.

The universalist has no more ultimate reason to evangelize than the man has a reason to buy a ticket to Brazil. Buying the ticket is irrational. I think this argument actually destroys the notion of universalism in the Christian context, hook, line, and sinker. Folks who accede to universalism literally act this way, and that's perfectly logical. They become uninterested in pursuing the inevitable end. The Unitarian Universalists are a great historical example of this. — Leontiskos

Well, here you seem to assume that the 'ultimate reason' is necessary for evangelize. But as I said before, a universalist has many other reason to share his or her views.

Also, your example of the travel to Brazil is misleading IMHO. A better analogy would be that if I don't buy the ticket, I can't take the plane and I have to go there without a plane. The point is that you seem to neglect that most universalist would still say that there is very painful process for the damned which while finite it's presumably far worse than one can imagine.

A better analogy is one of an illness where you are presented two choices. If you take a painless drug now, you are healed without much suffering. But if you wait, you have to undergo a very painful treatment, where both the pain from the illness and the treatment is hard to bear. So, even if the final result is the same (being healed), the process might be very, very different. In this case, the doctors would have a very good reason to try to convince the patients to take the first medication.

Is one evil or morally culpable on the basis of ignorance? It seems not. Is one evil or morally culpable on the basis of weakness of will? It seems not. Is one evil or morally culpable on the basis of external constraint? It seems not. If moral culpability and moral evil are not possible on any of the three exhaustive options you have provided, then they are not possible at all.

I don't see this. If someone suffers from weakness of will and cheats on their spouse we normally consider them blameworthy. So too if they inappropriately strike someone in a rage; it's their fault. Weakness of will is often precisely what we mean by "blameworthy."

Certainly, there are instances of weakness of will were we find people to be more or less culpable in. Pete Hegseth getting blackout drunk and commiting adultery on a work trip (his defense against sexual assault claims IIRC) is blameworthy because middle aged men elevated to levels of high office (and subject to espionage attempts) hopefully have better self-control. Phineas Gage becoming quarrelsome and impulsive after a railroad spike took out most of his frontal lobe is less his responsibility. Self-determination and self-government isn't something people either have or don't have, but rather something that must be cultivated to some extent, even if human nature allows some individuals to transcend bad circumstances as well (e.g. Epictetus becomes free as a slave while his masters remain slaves to their vices). We also tend to blame Ivy-educated Wall Street criminals more than African child soldiers for this reason, even if the crimes of the latter are more visceral and clearly wrong.

Likewise for ignorance. Negligence can be blameworthy. Sometimes people are also responsible for enabling the external constraints they find themselves dealing with.

What makes serial killers so disturbing isn't just their strong appetite for cruelty, which would merely make them akin to vicious feral dogs, but also the way they bend reason to their evil ends. Yet you see the same thing to a lesser degree all the time. This capacity for reason denotes culpability. In philosophy, reason is often bent towards defending a notion of freedom and human nature that attempts to have man usurp the place of God for instance. This is blameworthy. There are cases where people should, or do know better. This is self-determination turned towards finitude.

Indeed, your whole argument here is that universalism is inevitable because humans could not but choose otherwise. Given your understanding of human choice, humans could never choose evil, and therefore they could never fail to choose God. You apparently view humans as something like Roomba vacuum cleaners, which may make a few wrong turns but will never ultimately fail. This is why Flannery's analysis is so relevant. Evil itself would not exist if this theory of choice were correct, and the Problem of Evil goes hand in hand with the problem of Hell.

People obviously do choose evil. Sometimes they choose evil because they cannot resist temptation. They know cheating on their spouse is wrong, but they do it anyway. Sometimes they rationalize their behavior, and might even convince themselves that what is wrong is actually good. "It's ok for me to cheat because I am a higher sort of man beyond the strictures of plebian morality." They put their intellect into the service of evil, into the pursuit of finite goods and falsity. This doesn't absolve them of blame. Rather, this is precisely what blame consists in, having the capacity to receive the light, and to know the light as light (even if vaguely), and loving the darkness instead.

My point was not that man cannot choose evil; he clearly can, although this is a (sometimes known) misordering of goods. My point was that the will's infinite desire for Goodness cannot be fulfilled by evil, or by merely finite goods. A pretty common argument against materialism runs: "if materialism is true, there is no reason for us not to find full satisfaction in the finite, material goods we see around us. Evolution should not lead us to desire an infinite Good. But man has an infinite desire for Goodness, indicating an orientation beyond the material."

If man's natural desire for Goodness and Truth cannot find rest in evil and falsity, in the absence of what is desired, then the rational soul stays in motion and hungry until it has attained its ends. It is never satisfied. Motion continues indefinitely, until it turns back towards its natural end. Hence, if it never turns back towards Goodness and Truth (repentance) it must either:

A. Be externally constrained from turning towards what actually fulfills their appetites (making the punishment extrinsic).

B. Have lost its rational nature and rational appetites, which is in some sense to have become a different substance and so to have been annihilated.

Anyhow, on your view, if man chooses evil as evil, and finds his rest in evil (i.e., he no longer has any impetus to ever turn back towards Truth and Goodness), in virtue of what does he make this choice? My point is this: It cannot be because he knows that evil is truly a better end; it isn't. It cannot be because his will is attracted to evil as evil. All goodness, even what merely appears good, participates in the Divine Goodness. To chose evil as evil would be to choose absolutely nothing. But sinners don't want nothing, rather they prize finite goods over the infinite Good. Satan, classically conceived, is seen as wanting to rule out of pride. He attacks mankind precisely because he isn't pursuing nothingness as nothingness.

I'm not sure exactly what is supposed to be "free" here except for a bare will that is uninformed by either the intellect or the object of desire. Evil, being nothing, has nothing of its own that can attract the will. It is precisely this sort of choosing that doesn't seem blameworthy to me, because it is wholly inexplicable, "for no reason at all." Being arbitrary, it is random. There is no culpability in this sort of bare remainder of will that is uninformed by intellect and is equally capable of gravitating towards and finding its rest in non-being/evil as God.

Man has real choice precisely in the process of becoming self-determining and self-governing, and transcending his own finitude. The more culpable sinner has succeeded in this to some degree, only to bend themselves backwards onto finite goods.

The idea that one can deface the imago dei is written up and down throughout Scripture. In that there is some similarity with Aristotle, but universalism is basically just a form of Platonism, of the ineluctable Good. I don't think you get to universalism from Scripture or from empirical data (Aristotle). You basically need to be ultimately committed to Platonism, and thus allow Platonic theories to override these other considerations. It's no coincidence that your theory where evil is basically derived from ignorance is so closely bound up with Socrates' approach.

Deface, yes, but not utterly destroy. I sort of meant this in the opposite way I think you took it though. It is Plato who thinks the wicked man ceases to be truly human, and to be a rational nature. For Aristotle, man cannot lose this nature without becoming something other than what he is (the original being annihilated).

I don't see that you have. P2 is merely an assertion.

The entirety of a syllogism is a mere series of assertions; but I can elaborate. I have been thinking about this more since the creation of the OP, so my explanation might veer off a bit therefrom.

An immoral act is evaluated relative to the (1) the object(s), (2) the end(s), and (3) the dignity of the offended party (parties) involved. The order of importance is 3, 2, and 1; and 3 is a subtype of 1. EDIT: it isn't really coherent to say 3 is a subtype of 1, I should have called 1 "the means".

3 holds the most weight, when considering punishment, because the thing offended (i.e., the object of the offense) is what is owed justice and punishment is about justice; and, so, punishment must firstly evaluate the value of the thing offended to determine how severe the punishment should be. E.g., skinning a rabbit alive is not as bad as skinning a human alive, disobeying the wishes of a random fellow-citizen is not as bad as disobeying a court order by a judge, etc. The objects and ends (1 and 2) could be identical in every regard and the dignity of offended party could cause the punishment to vary significantly.

2 holds the second-most weight because, after determining what was offended, what was intended by the culpable party is what is most closely tied to culpability itself (since morality is about right and wrong behavior as it relates to rational deliberation—to willing freely through thought which necessarily is determinable through ends that one had in store for the act). E.g., a person that runs over a kid because they were distracted with their phone hasn’t done something as bad as running over that same kid purposefully even thought the kid has the same dignity in each scenario. Likewise, the objects involved (1) are tied to the ends (and intentionality) of course, but their could be a divergence; and what was intended is how we investigate the act since an act is a volition of will.

The last aspect, which holds the least weight, is the objects involved as it relates to the means. E.g., a person that murders someone else by way of murdering someone else to get their body to fall on the other person’s body (to kill them)(perhaps they shoot someone on top of a building so that they fall 1,000 FT onto the target victim thereby murdering both for the sake of murdering the one) is doing something worse than someone who just, ceteris paribus, murdered the same target victim because a part of the means was bad.

A sin is just an immoral act that has as one of its offended parties God. A sin, therefore, has at least two offended parties: the object of the sin (as the object of the act) and God (as the perfectly good being which wills the perfect order to things).

For the latter, a being with infinite dignity has been offended and this part of the sin does not fall prey to my OP’s argument; however, the punishments varying by objects or/and ends would have to be distinguished in varying by something—I am not sure what that would necessarily look like. E.g., having the end of killing this tree for no reason other than to go against God’s will is worse than killing the same tree in the same manner but self-gratification: both are against a being of infinite dignity, but they have different weights in terms of the ends one had; likewise, disrupting God’s will by being mean to someone in a relatively trivial manner (so to speak) is not as bad as disrupting God’s will by murdering someone: both are against a being of infinite dignity, but they have different objects (and ends, but I am emphasizing objects here) and dignities of those objects which were offended. Does this mean that it would be proportionate for God, if He did not forgive someone for their sin as it relates to offending Him, to infinitely punish them with some kind of infliction? Maybe: I don’t know.

For the former, no object of the act can have infinite dignity because it is a contingent being and none of them have been of infinite repetition (historically); however, to your point, it is in principle possible that the universe continues for infinite time and that some sins which are not rectified would “spill out” infinitely. If there’s nothing infinite about the act or its consequences, then it cannot be proportionate to punish the person responsible for the act with something infinite because something infinite is disproportionate to something finite.

Thank you! — boundless

Sure.

But one should have the sufficient awareness that is making is wrong, right? Maybe not an explicit 'oath to evil' but still a deliberate decision to be 'faithful' to a lesser good. — boundless

Yes, that's basically right. But the key is that what is chosen is in fact a good, albeit a lesser good. It is not evil simpliciter.

The problem that I see with how the notion of 'mortal sin' is formulated is that it is legalistic. The view you presented here isn't. — boundless

There are various reasons why Roman Catholic praxis tends towards legalism, but the theological undergirding is not really legalistic.

Anyway, I still am not convinced that 'universalism' proper is rejected if the necessity of repentance is affirmed. — boundless

I said that Hart's position is not secured, not that it is rejected. Indeed, if Balthasar's position is secured then Hart's conclusion can't be rejected. The securing of Balthasar's position entails that Hart's conclusion is possible, for we cannot hope for the impossible.

BTW, I do find weird that among Christians the 'hopeful' position is quite rare. — boundless

I don't find it odd. I don't think hopeful universalism is compatible with Christian revelation. Let me quote the crucial line, with the originally emphasized 'if':

Specifically, if we say that no one ever moves beyond the possibility of repentance, then Balthasar's position is secured, but Hart's is not. So what you say is right: if no one ever moves beyond the possibility of repentance, then hopeful universalism is rationally permissible. — Leontiskos

I don't think Christians can uphold that 'if'. I said why here:

Rational grounds for hope are always different than rational grounds for assent. What you are effectively doing is switching from Hart's position to Balthasar's, where Balthasar is merely recommending hope. My answer is basically the same: philosophically speaking, sure; theologically speaking, no. By my lights verses like Matthew 26:24 exclude universalism, whether hopeful or firm. If no verses like that existed, then universalism would be theologically possible. — Leontiskos

-

Ok! The more one is addicted, the more is difficult to heal from the addiction. I also believe that addiction is a very good analogy for evil/sin. — boundless

Right, but it is broader than addiction. It is 'habit' or even 'phronema'. Humans mold themselves into definite shapes, and as far as we can tell, those shapes are not reversible (after a point). Minor moldings can be reversed, but even that can be quite hard. I think these discussions tend to overlook the empirical data that molded patterns or phronemata have a telos of stability or fixedness. Once this is seen universalism looks more and more like a deus ex machina.

But what traditionalists do not seem to allow is the possibility that experiencing the painful consequence of having remained in sin might not lead to repentance. — boundless

I think you probably included more negatives in this phrase than you intended.

Empirically, reversals do happen, and they often happen in the way that you illustrate. Also empirically, reversals do not always happen.

Well, here you seem to assume that the 'ultimate reason' is necessary for evangelize. But as I said before, a universalist has many other reason to share his or her views. — boundless

As I've said, the universalist has non-necessary reasons to evangelize, but no necessary reasons. That's a big difference from the traditionalist. It also contradicts the urgency with which the Gospel is presented in revelation.

Also, your example of the travel to Brazil is misleading IMHO. A better analogy would be that if I don't buy the ticket, I can't take the plane and I have to go there without a plane. — boundless

Well your idea that "I have to go there" contradicts the premise that "you and your spouse will be taken to Brazil." You are presumably thinking of universalists who believe in purgatory, but this broader issue is another problem with universalism: how exactly are the unbelievers to be forced "to go there"?

I would suggest facing the analogy more squarely. If I will inevitably end up in Brazil no matter what I do, then why do I have to do anything? Your contention that I have to do something is part and parcel of the logical error I have been trying to point out. If I will end up in Brazil no matter what I do, then I don't have to do anything at all (in order to arrive in Brazil). If arriving in Brazil is the ultimate and most important goal, then that's all that needs to be said.

Now maybe someone wants to go to Brazil early. Or maybe someone wants to sit in first-class rather than coach. For these lesser goals, one might have to do something. But in the end it won't matter at all, especially given the way the universalists in this thread have been talking about things that "could be seen as a punishment" (e.g. "A sub-equal condo in Brazil could be seen as a punishment").

A better analogy is one of an illness where you are presented two choices. If you take a painless drug now, you are healed without much suffering. But if you wait, you have to undergo a very painful treatment, where both the pain from the illness and the treatment is hard to bear. So, even if the final result is the same (being healed), the process might be very, very different. In this case, the doctors would have a very good reason to try to convince the patients to take the first medication. — boundless

So on your analogy the most significant universalist motivation is avoidance of pain, whereas the most significant traditionalist motivation is avoidance of death. What's worse? Pain or death? I don't think there is a real comparison here. And the urgency with which revelation presents the Gospel is apparently not compatible with a mere lessening of pain. The analogy is apt given the way that revelation speaks about the ultimate stakes as death, not pain.

Again, the difference is between expedience of means and arrival at the end. Arriving at the end is by definition enormously more important than doing so via an expedient means. Universalism dissolves any possibility of not arriving at the end, and is left only with admonitions about the expedience of the means to that end.

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

The God that would condemn you to eternal punishment after giving you free will to do whatever you want to do is a hypocrite. If God wanted you not to do anything objectionable, why give you the ability to do objectionable things? Is it a test? Is God using his creations for entertainment, like watching TV? If we are all a part of God, why would God condemn a part of itself to eternal punishment?

The entirety of a syllogism is a mere series of assertions — Bob Ross

No, I don't think so. "Bears are furry; water is wet; and Bob's last name is Ross." On your reckoning that would be a syllogism, given that it is a series of assertions.

An immoral act is evaluated relative to... — Bob Ross

Okay, this is an interesting and thoughtful theory. :up:
I am not going to enter into prolonged interaction with the theory given that it feels a bit like a new OP.

For the former, no object of the act can have infinite dignity because it is a contingent being and none of them have been of infinite repetition (historically); — Bob Ross

The first question to ask is whether there are, using your definitions, immoral acts which are not sins. You seem to be presupposing that there are immoral acts which are not sins, and that these immoral acts are (likely) not proportionate to infinite punishment. Are you claiming that there are immoral acts which are not sins?

If there’s nothing infinite about the act or its consequences, then it cannot be proportionate to punish the person responsible for the act with something infinite because something infinite is disproportionate to something finite. — Bob Ross

I agree with that. What we are asking is whether you have the burden of proof to show that there is nothing infinite about human acts (or at least immoral acts that are not sins); or whether I have the burden of proof to show that there is something infinite about human acts. The reason I think you have the burden of proof is because you are the one who started the thread. But let's consider Aquinas' argument:

however, to your point, it is in principle possible that the universe continues for infinite time and that some sins which are not rectified would “spill out” infinitely — Bob Ross

And if this is right then the act which causes the infinite "spillage" would itself be infinite insofar as it is the true cause of an infinite effect. The question seems to ask whether humans are capable of acts which incur eternal consequences:

<Only a very substantial act is able to incur an eternal consequence; humans are not capable of such substantial acts; therefore humans cannot incur eternal consequences> — Leontiskos

If someone suffers from weakness of will and cheats on their spouse we normally consider them blameworthy. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Likewise for ignorance. Negligence can be blameworthy. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Okay, thanks for the correction. Usually when someone speaks about things like ignorance they aren't speaking about things like negligence, but I see that you meant to include the latter in the former.

Nevertheless, the more central reason I interpreted you that way is as follows. First, an edit I added that you may have missed:

Else, you are basically trying to justify a position where moral evil is possible for x amount of time but not x+y amount of time, which is a rather difficult task. — Leontiskos

Your argument:

1. No one chooses the worse over the better but for ignorance about what is truly best, weakness of will, or external constraint.
2. Therefore, no one chooses anything other than God for x+y amount of time.

My counterargument asks why (3) does not follow:

3. Therefore, no one chooses anything other than God for x amount of time.

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

If man's natural desire for Goodness and Truth cannot find rest in evil and falsity, in the absence of what is desired, then the rational soul stays in motion and hungry until it has attained its ends. — Count Timothy von Icarus

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.

As I said:

I do not find plausible the idea that our earthly lives are too short for moral or spiritual formation, or that we have some good reason to think that our earthly lives are accidental, such that our destiny-orientation will be fundamentally changed by temporal experiences outside our earthly course. — Leontiskos

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.

"We already have such evil in the world: sinners who separate themselves from God and live—even humanly-speaking—frustrated, resentful lives" (Flannery). If we can do that for 80 years, why can't we do it for eternity? You are required to say that the bigger picture is just entirely different and incommensurable with the earthly picture. On your theory of will unrepentant evil is possible for x amount of time but not x+y amount of time. I'm not sure what basis there is for such a theory. Nevertheless, I grant that if there were no evil then the Platonic theory of will would be a really excellent theory; and that if Socrates were right in claiming that evil merely flows from ignorance then it would also be an excellent theory.

Anyhow, on your view, if man chooses evil as evil, and finds his rest in evil... — Count Timothy von Icarus

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

B. Have lost its rational nature and rational appetites, which is in some sense to have become a different substance and so to have been annihilated. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Here's the argument:

1. Humans by definition desire God
2. Therefore something which does not desire God is no longer human (and has therefore been "annihilated")

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. This goes back to the tension between Hart's position and classical notions of Pelagianism and grace.

In any case, are you right that a substantial change must occur for someone to be damned? We can talk that way metaphorically, but I have no good reason to take such a claim literally. I don't find the underlying Platonic theory of the will overly certain, and I think there are better sources which contradict it, such as the empirical data we have from earthly life and Scripture.

Presumably their identity perdures, and therefore there is no actual annihilation. We could ask various questions here, such as, "Do the damned desire God?" I would say that unfulfilled desire is part of Hell, but that the desire is not accompanied by repentance. So Hell in the afterlife is presumably a lot like the Hell we occasionally see in this life, and that's probably why Jesus connected the two.

But if someone wants to elevate that Platonic theory of the will to an extremely high place, then I can understand why they would hold to universalism. I just wouldn't understand what grounds we could have for that manner of elevation.

Being arbitrary, it is random. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Let's save your trope about libertarian free will until we have finished this topic of the Platonic view of the will.

Deface, yes, but not utterly destroy. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Right: can the imago dei be destroyed? I think it can. Scripture certainly depicts individuals who are beyond help or return, and I would venture to say that this is because they have destroyed their imago dei. I am convinced that Orthodox scholars like Fr. Stephen De Young are correct in saying that deification (as becoming an icon/idol of God) vs. "demonification" (as becoming an icon/idol of a demon) is a central theme in Scripture. Indeed, Scripture presents a kind of parity between angels/demons and humans, where the same possibilities of eternal life and eternal death are available to both angels/demons and humans. This is why Augustine's anti-universalist argument about the demons is so strong, and it is also strong because the Platonic theory of the will should apply to demons too.

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I think a basic critique you are making is something like, "Your view of evil is problematic." I would say that every view of the mysterium iniquitatis is problematic, and that trying to explain it perfectly is a fool's errand. What I want to do is stick to the most credible sources in forming a judgment. I don't find much credibility in a Platonic theory of the ineluctable good, at least when compared with the empirical nature of this earthly life and Scripture.

Yes, that's basically right. But the key is that what is chosen is in fact a good, albeit a lesser good. It is not evil simpliciter. — Leontiskos

Ok.

There are various reasons why Roman Catholic praxis tends towards legalism, but the theological undergirding is not really legalistic. — Leontiskos

Ok, I get that.

I said that Hart's position is not secured, not that it is rejected. Indeed, if Balthasar's position is secured then Hart's conclusion can't be rejected. The securing of Balthasar's position entails that Hart's conclusion is possible, for we cannot hope for the impossible. — Leontiskos

I see, thanks for the clarification.

Rational grounds for hope are always different than rational grounds for assent. What you are effectively doing is switching from Hart's position to Balthasar's, where Balthasar is merely recommending hope. My answer is basically the same: philosophically speaking, sure; theologically speaking, no. By my lights verses like Matthew 26:24 exclude universalism, whether hopeful or firm. If no verses like that existed, then universalism would be theologically possible. — Leontiskos

I see what you mean. As I said, however, it's difficult to harmonize what the Bible seems to say in various places. For instance, 1 Tim 2:3-4 seems to say that God's will is that all people shall be saved. St Augustine in Enchiridion, ch 103 tires to harmonize this passage with the belief in eternal damnation by saying that the 'all/everyone' in an exclusive manner and he proposes two possible readings: either 'all people' should be understood as (I paraphrase) 'God wants to save the people that will be saved (but some will not be saved)' or 'God wants some people from all classes of people to be saved'. This is because St Augustine assuemed that God's plans will be realized and that some will be eternally damned. Another example is St John Chrysostom's reading of 1 Cor 3:11-15 in his Homily 9 on 1 Corinthians, where he identifies the 'fire' mentioned here with the fire mentioned in Mark 9:47-49, where St John says that the 'salvation through fire' actually means 'damnation', because the damaned are saved from annihilation, but it's not true salvation (note that Mk 9:49 says that 'everyone will be salted by fire' and St. Paul in that passage doesn't mention a third group. So, I do understand why St John felt he had to harmonize the verses in the way he did... I know however that the passage in Corinthians is generally understood to refer to Purgatory, but I found interesting that St John read in that way. After all, it is interesting that St. Paul simply didn't mention a third group there).

Of course, one can accept, say, St Augustine's reading but it is a contrived way IMO to save the appearances. If one says that God actually wants all people to be saved, then, one must admit that God's will might not be realized if one will never be saved.

I also believe that St John Paul II said that despite what that verse you cite about Judas, the Church never made any definite pronouncements on people who are forever in Hell and this includes even Judas.

Personally, as I said, I do not know what to make of all this ambiguities I see in the Bible. I do not see it as clear as you see it.

Right, but it is broader than addiction. It is 'habit' or even 'phronema'. Humans mold themselves into definite shapes, and as far as we can tell, those shapes are not reversible (after a point). Minor moldings can be reversed, but even that can be quite hard. I think these discussions tend to overlook the empirical data that molded patterns or phronemata have a telos of stability or fixedness. Once this is seen universalism looks more and more like a deus ex machina. — Leontiskos

Empirically, reversals do happen, and they often happen in the way that you illustrate. Also empirically, reversals do not always happen. — Leontiskos

Ok, but anyway as I see it, if you allow the logical possibility that one can repent, then the logical conclusion is simply that no one will be beyond hope of repentance (assuming that they will exist forever). The conclusion is inexcapable.

So either the damned - or some of them - will lose the ability to repent or even if they do, they will not be given mercy from God. If we assume that they will lose the ability to repent, it seems to me that, based on what we have said so far, the damned will either not given the possibility to do so or they will not be allowed to do so. So, in other words, it is either an active punishment of God or a complete 'abandomnemnt/desertion'.
But it it is so, then, we have to think eternal damnation as an extrinsic punishment again.

But what traditionalists do not seem to allow is the possibility that experiencing the painful consequence of having remained in sin might not lead to repentance. — boundless

I think you probably included more negatives in this phrase than you intended. — Leontiskos

Yes, thanks for the correction.

As I've said, the universalist has non-necessary reasons to evangelize, but no necessary reasons. That's a big difference from the traditionalist. It also contradicts the urgency with which the Gospel is presented in revelation. — Leontiskos

I doubt that a Christian universalist would say that evangelization or repentance is unnecessary. They do allow that both can also happen after death. Also, I believe that universalists would say that God's help is needed for salvation.

But anyway, do you think that the main reason that one should have to evangelize, do good etc is to avoid unending torment?

So on your analogy the most significant universalist motivation is avoidance of pain, whereas the most significant traditionalist motivation is avoidance of death. What's worse? Pain or death? I don't think there is a real comparison here. And the urgency with which revelation presents the Gospel is apparently not compatible with a mere lessening of pain. The analogy is apt given the way that revelation speaks about the ultimate stakes as death, not pain. — Leontiskos

Let's say that the illness is actually fatal. The doctors try at first to convince the patient to take a painless drug. The patient refuses because of, say, pride. Then, the patient's pain worsens, the doctors then try to gove the patient a more heavy medicine but the patient refuses again. Then the patient's pain becomes intolerable, the doctors try to convince the patient to take a more serious medication. Maybe at a certain point, the patient will be convinced by his painful experience to take the serious medication, which will cause itself pain but it will lead to his or her healing. So, maybe, one can say that while the illness is, in fact, fatal, at a certain point the patient will be persuaded by the pain from the illness itself to take the medication.
Or maybe the illness is not fatal but leads 'only' to agonizing pain but the patient refuses to take the medicine. If the pain could go along forever, will the patient simply forever say 'no' to the medication if he or she will suffer agonizing pain?

Furthermore, the doctors here merely do not want to avoid death or pain but want that the patient will heal and be well. So the motivation isn't just to avoid pain/death but also to give the patient well-being.
Assuming that the medicines are necessary for the patient's well-being, compassionate doctors will try to convince the patient to accept them as long as is possible for them to do so.

The 'hard' universalists would say that at a certain point the 'patient' (sinner) will be convinced to take the 'medication' ('salvation') possibly by the painful experience (where the pain might be regret, a painful experience of loneliness and so on). The 'hopeful' universalists would say that there will be always hope that the 'patient' will be convinced. The traditionalist would say that the 'patient' at a certain point is beyond hope or is actively condemned to not take the 'medication' or even to not desire it.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to respond in the following days. I hope to come back by mid or the end of next week.