Free Will and Universal Salvation

 

by Virgil Vaduva

With all the ruckus and debate on Universal Salvation, I have decided to add my own irrelevant voice to the fray and present some arguments that will hopefully be considered by those interested in this dialogue. I have no stake in “winning” or “losing” this argument, however I do have a stake in discovering what truth is and taking the road that will hopefully bring me closest to God.

It is my impression now that most, if not all of the theological arguments have been exhausted. Besides that, I am not even sure something positive comes out of carrying out a debate on a theological level alone, especially when taking into account the age of the argument. Christians have been arguing in favor of and against Universalism from almost the very beginning, and no much has been resolved so far. Prominent Church Fathers, scientists and theologians have professed Universalism over the years, and the same can be said for the opposing camp, thus the credibility war is also irrelevant and a waste of time.

 

What remain to be discussed then are the philosophical aspects of the argument, and to me, the crux of the argument rests on the importance of man’s free will which is often underestimated or completely ignored. The issue therefore comes down to one of two options: (a) God drags everyone, kicking and screaming into salvation and (b) some people are saved, either because of God choosing them or them choosing to have faith in God.

 

As a third possibility which I have not seriously considered before, Dr. Joh Noe expanded on Isaiah 46:10 stipulating that God does whatever God wants, therefore the dogmatic attitude on either side of the argument is irrelevant. In principle I agree with John and I want to underline yet again the fact that no satisfactory explanation has been provided for 2 Peter 3:9 and 1 Timothy 2:4 except for God’s “will” in this instance being nothing more than a “wish” rather than a “decree” – thus the text becomes “God wishes all men to be saved.” In my opinion this creates a picture of God being on the sidelines cheering us on, instead of having an active role in the salvation of mankind. The reciprocal aspects of salvation are lost between the lines, either because of Calvinistic influences, or because of a pragmatic way of viewing life in our world today, as ultimate evidence that not all men are in fact saved. With that said though, Isaiah 46 should not be used outside its ultimate context which seems to be “God’s will (decree), whatever that may be, will always be fulfilled and accomplished.”

 

Also, the proposition that "God does whatever God wants because my thoughts are not His thoughts," has deeper implications and it ultimately leads back to negating indubitable truth. If we start with the premise that God will perform an action regardless of whether or not that action negates for example what He promised to do in His word, then yes, no single truth can be indubitable, so we can all pack our bags and go home. On the other hand, if we put the burden of proof on human perception, we will perhaps come to some interesting conclusions.

 

As I already pointed out, there is little that is new about this argument. Descartes has been struggling with human nature and perception in his writings, acknowledging the possibility that there is a being out there (God) able to deceive us at every turn, but this contradicts the already established truth that God does not and cannot deceive. Furthermore, he correctly observed that man’s every action is the result of two faculties, namely understanding (characterized by observation and perception) and will (as the ability to use understanding to make decisions). Descartes understood that man’s will is “perfectly free in every aspect” therefore erroneous decisions are not a result of the free will but a result of faulty understanding leading to mistakes and errors. So I would agree fully with him in that ultimately all errors of course lead to man’s limited capacity to observe and perceive truth. So then, the idea that God will do whatever God pleases is true in the sense of assigning aptitude as an attribute to God’s person, rather than assigning impulsive and vagary characteristics to Him. Therefore ultimately this notion while true, has no immediate bearing on indubitable truth.

 

As I pointed out in my Philosophical Argument against Calvinism, the question of self-transcendence goes beyond our physical realm, and since we are made into God’s image, we also are, just as God is. This in itself is sufficient to discard the brain-in-a-vat skeptical argument raised by Hillary Putnam[1] in an effort to question reality and expand on Descartes’ work on human nature and human perception. So, the very realization that we are does in fact lead us to conclude that we can know truth; perhaps the level of knowledge varies from person to person and from the physical to the spiritual realm, nonetheless we can at least know chunks of truth.

 

With that said, we can in fact use our understanding to direct our will to make certain choices, and it seems to me that quite a large number of people on this planet make wrong choices when it comes down to their Creator. This is largely due, as I already showed earlier, to faulty understanding and perception. This is evident when we compare cultures and countries across history. Countries which are largely Christian will in fact create a large number of Christian offspring while countries which are Islamic for instance, will create mostly Muslim people. Clearly, observation and perception gives assent to one’s will to subscribe to a particular religion or philosophy.

 

Now, you may ask, what does all this have to do with Universal Salvation? Quite a bit. First, we can acknowledge that we can know truth, however our understanding of truth is largely affected by cultural, historical and political environments. I have made this clear in my presentation at TruthVoice 2005 when I demonstrated how a Christian’s view of Jesus is largely affected by the person’s cultural background: in African American cultures, Jesus was described as being black, living in the jungle with the hyenas; in early America, Jesus was being perceived by Jefferson as a Republican helping him fight the New England Unitarians; in present America Jesus is perceived as a white, blue-eyes, blonde man with long conditioned hair in a bright-white bath robe.

 

Secondly, the question of man’s free will is not insurmountable as Calvinists would have us believe. The idea of self-transcendence illustrates that we indeed have a will that is free. In fact, who else besides God and man can say “I am?” Are we not in fact made in God’s image? And in fact, as someone recently asked me, what is worse to say “man in God’s image or God in man’s image?” And why do we see some of the choices made by our will as being “wrong” when in fact these are the choices that ultimately lead us to God and His forgiveness? These are all questions that we each will eventually have to face on a personal level; these are the questions that should prompt us to ask if our understanding of this world as “flawed” is in fact accurate, and whether or not this world is in fact “perfect,” the way God always intended it to be.

At last, because I see self-transcendence (and self-awareness) as immutable characteristics of human existence, I find it extremely unlikely if not impossible for God to violate man’s free will. And the basis for this finding is again not based on God’s ability, but on God’s choice and the impact this would have on our current understanding of Him and the world around us. To illustrate this, we can imagine God as having the ability to lie, but God not being able to do so because it simply goes against the nature of God. This has an important bearing on the argument on Universal Salvation since God saves all people, regardless of them being willing or not to be saved. Furthermore, because of the obvious link between man’s understanding and man’s will, a violation of man’s will does in fact lead to a violation of man’s knowledge, perception and ability to independently observe truth. This directly contradicts our initial conclusion that there is indubitable truth. Therefore a violation of man’s free will by God would directly lead to a violation of our ability to understand truth, understand ourselves, understand God, and understand the world in which we live. Under this scenario, self-awareness and self-transcendence would become completely irrelevant; man would cease to BE, and man’s ability to will choices and decisions based on his observations and understanding would be void of any moral substance or independence.

 

Of course, I am under no illusion of solving this argument, but at least this should lead us to conclude that both sides, as John Noe pointed out, should abandon dogmatism and adopt a Christ-like attitude when dealing with this matter. Name calling, accusations of heresy and a general confrontational attitude solves little in this conflict. Polite discussion and conversation can hopefully help both sides gain ground and learn from each other in this continual quest for God’s truth.

 

I am aware there are several difficulties with the argument raised in this article, and I intend to deal with these difficulties in a subsequent article, perhaps after I analyze some of the feedback received. I am hoping this is at least a step in the right direction in this heated dialogue.

 

Footnotes:

 

1. The simplest use of brain-in-a-vat scenarios is as an argument for philosophical skepticism. A simple version of this runs as follows: Since the brain-in-a-vat gives and receives the exact same impulses as it would if it were in a skull, and since these are its only way of interacting with its environment, then it is not possible to tell, from the perspective of that brain, whether it is in a head or a vat. Yet in the first case most of the person's beliefs may be true (if he believes, say, that he is walking down the street, or eating ice-cream); in the latter case they are false. Since, the argument says, you cannot know whether or not you are a brain in a vat, then you cannot know whether most of your beliefs might be completely false. Since, in principle, it is impossible to rule out your being a brain in a vat, you cannot have good grounds for believing any of the things you believe; you certainly cannot know them. This argument is little more than a contemporary revision of the argument given by Descartes in Meditations on First Philosophy that he could not trust his perceptions on the grounds that an evil demon might, conceivably, be controlling his every experience. It is also (though more distantly) related to Descartes' argument that he cannot trust his perceptions because he may be dreaming. In this latter argument the worry about active deception is removed.