From: Don Winterstein (dfwinterstein@msn.com)
Date: Mon Jun 30 2003 - 06:46:47 EDT
George Murphy wrote in part:
>There seem to be no limitations on the "all people" (/pantas anthropous/) Gof
wants to be saved according to I Ti.2:4. Rom.9:11-24, OTOH, is in the context of Paul's
discussion of why Israel appears to have been lost in chapters 9-11. The "hardening"
that has come upon Israel (11:25) cannot mean ultimate rejection of all, for that's
followed by the statement that "all Israel will be saved" - a puzzling claim but it
suggests that in some sense the "hardening" cannot mean final condemnation for all. &
even with the discussion of the "hardening" of Pharaoh in Chapter 9, there is no
statement that he was finally damned....
OK, but Paul's "great sorrow and unceasing anguish" (Rom. 9:2) over the fate of his people implies to me that quite a few are to be truly lost. Otherwise, why get so exercised? Rom. 9:11-24 in this context makes it seem as though God predetermined the loss--although I know that good Lutherans can't tolerate the thought! I can accept it because I believe universal salvation is strictly impossible.
That "all Israel will be saved" is indeed puzzling, but I've never been able to accept that Ahab and like promoters of idolatry--the OT's worst sin--are going to wind up in heaven. (I'm assuming Ahab didn't repent.) It would be good if God could make it happen, and guilt-ridden Catholics could breathe easier, but that would be really lowering the bar, in seeming opposition to what Jesus said about the straight and narrow. I've favored interpretations that call for either massive acceptance of Christ among Jews at some historical time or else criteria applied to Jews that are similar to those God used for them in OT times. This application of different criteria could be justified in Christian terms by saying that it's not the true Jesus that Jews are now rejecting but a distorted image of him colored by centuries of Christian persecution.
>I don't think you've really solved the problem of why some people resist
conversion by appealing to the ego. All of us have egos, so the question becomes then,
why is one person's ego more recalcitrant than another's?
From observations I conclude that some people are much more easily influenced or dominated than others. Some think much less of themselves than others. There's commonly a one-to-one correspondence between these traits and the degree of ego strength. It's fairly obvious that some people have much stronger egos than others. Those who think most highly of themselves as a rule would be most likely to resist subjecting themselves to a higher authority.
But human conversion in our world, as you imply, cannot be explained solely--or at all, in fact--in terms of ego strength; conversion is far too complex, and the process varies from one person to the next for lots of reasons.
So the point I tried to make works backwards from the purely spiritual realm: If the world consisted solely of God and angels, all of whom had egos of varying strengths, at some point an angel with a strong ego would rebel against God and persuade others to go with him (hence Rev. 12:7-9). The trigger for such rebellion would be the need to pander to the powerful ego. Why wouldn't all rebel? They'd all know in advance that there'd be a terrible price to pay. But that price wouldn't come into effect as a deterrent until a significant fraction rebelled. The ego-satisfaction of asserting oneself against God would be compelling until the remaining angels could get a grip on the magnitude of the terrible fate that awaited the rebels, and until the number of rebels got large enough to make rebellion less satisfying to the egos. At that point they would be able to resist the temptation to rebel and remain faithful.
So what does this have to do with the impossibility of saving all people? If God took everyone to heaven to be with him, and spiritual perceptions were so enhanced that everyone could see God and all others as spiritual persons, then the situation would be like that of the angels of Rev. 12:7-9: At some point some person with a strong ego would rebel and ruin heaven. There would be no deterrent. As it is, if not all are saved, as the NT indicates in many places, then the deterrent already exists for human beings. (Recall how often Jesus used the threat of hell as an incentive to follow him.)
These ideas are of course partly products of my mind, but they're more than idle speculations. They derive from a personal experience that, despite lasting only seconds, was the most frightening of my life. Not long after my first vivid spiritual encounter with God at age 19, while I was closer to him than I'd ever been before, I was severely tempted to tell him to his face to shove it. The worst part about it was that I had no control over my response: The correct decision was obvious to a rational mind, but I was unable to exercise my reason under the circumstances. I grew up in western Washington state, where people were less attached to organized religion than perhaps anywhere else in the country. If I had not had the impression that God and his religion were in trouble, I think I would have gone against him. As it was, it seemed that God needed help and that I would be able to help, so I went with him. But it truly was not a free choice. Ever since I have thought that a decision to go against God at that point would have been the unforgivable sin, because I was very close to him, and nothing at all that he could have done subsequently could have won me back. I would have become a sworn enemy for the sake of ego satisfaction. Frankly, I still have the impression that God is under siege in the world and badly needs all the help he can get, so opposing him under the circumstances would be very unsatisfying overkill.
Bottom line: If everyone were saved in heaven, some unfortunate soul would rebel and take others with him for the sake of ego satisfaction. Therefore, not all can be saved, and God is free to choose some for condemnation and others for salvation while maintaining all the while in all honesty that he really would like to save everyone. In this way we avoid the logical problem of one-handed predestination: On the one hand, God predestines some for salvation,....(and there's no other hand, though logic requires it).
Don
----- Original Message -----
From: George Murphy
To: Don Winterstein
Cc: asa
Sent: Saturday, June 28, 2003 9:44 AM
Subject: Re: the tradition that Abraham engaged in astronomical studies
Don Winterstein wrote:
> >
> "That of course raises the question of why God doesn't simply convert
> all people.
> Why aren't all saved? The standard answers are:
> a) Some people don't contribute the activity of their "free will" to
> believe -
> problematic in view of what was said above.
> b) God has not only predestined some to be saved but has predestined
> others to
> be condemned - which is hard to square with I Tim.2:4."
>
>
> And I Tim. 2:4 is hard to square with Romans 9:11-24, unless you go
> with a nonstandard answer that I've found to be quite satisfying:
> Basically, there's something about people that makes it
> impossible--even for God--to save all of them. That something is
> ego. We wouldn't be human without ego, but it's an aspect of
> ourselves that can get us into deep trouble. Because of ego it
> is psychologically impossible for all humans to acknowledge allegiance
> to the same lord, principle, idea, whatever. As soon as it looks like
> a great many are about to acknowledge such allegiance, some will
> refuse to do so just to be different. This is especially true if the
> allegiance is of a sort that requires suppression of ego in submitting
> to a person who one must acknowledge is greater than oneself.
>
> Rev. 12:7-9 talks about a war of good angels against evil angels. Why
> would angels in heaven who presumably have all the benefits that God
> can provide want to rebel and fight against God? It's the ego
> problem. If every human were saved and taken to heaven, wouldn't some
> then rebel as those angels rebelled? So God can't save everyone, even
> though it is in his nature to do so. Consequently, as long as he does
> it reluctantly, he can predestine some to condemnation and still be
> consistent with I Tim. 2:4.
>
> Don
>
> PS - I consider this rejection of God "to his face" to be the
> unforgivable sin, the sin against the Spirit. One can commit this sin
> only if one has "...been enlightened, ...tasted the heavenly gift,
> ...shared in the Holy Spirit...." To refuse to submit to God in his
> vivid presence is the ultimate sin of ego. But not many, I think,
> ever have this temptation. It requires an unusually strong ego in an
> unusually close relationship with God...........................
There seem to be no limitations on the "all people" (/pantas anthropous/) Gof
wants to be saved according to I Ti.2:4. Rom.9:11-24, OTOH, is in the context of Paul's
discussion of why Israel appears to have been lost in chapters 9-11. The "hardening"
that has come upon Israel (11:25) cannot mean ultimate rejection of all, for that's
followed by the statement that "all Israel will be saved" - a puzzling claim but it
suggests that in some sense the "hardening" cannot mean final condemnation for all. &
even with the discussion of the "hardening" of Pharaoh in Chapter 9, there is no
statement that he was finally damned. (Maybe he was, but that's not what Paul is
explicitly concerned with here.)
Note that I'm not saying that the verse in I Timothy implies universalism. But
it does speak pretty strongly against double presdestination.
I don't think you've really solved the problem of why some people resist
conversion by appealing to the ego. All of us have egos, so the question becomes then,
why is one person's ego more recalcitrant than another's?
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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