Divine punishment? Is it needed?

[Mark Quayle]

What reasons are there to think the statement that God desires everyone to be saved doesn't actually mean everyone? 1 Tim. 2: 4-6. Did he not give himself as a ransom for all (v. 6)?

Well, for starters, because not everyone will be saved, which implies a couple more things, like he didn't actually pay for the sins of everyone, but for the sins of those who are redeemed.

 

[Clare73]

What reasons are there to think the statement that God desires everyone to be saved doesn't actually mean everyone? 1 Tim. 2: 4-6.
Did he not give himself as a ransom for all(v. 6)?

No, check out Matthew 20:28. . .he came to die as a ransom for many.

Well, for starters, because not everyone will be saved, which implies a couple more things, like he didn't actually pay for the sins of everyone, but for the sins of those who are redeemed.

 

[Clare73]

God chooses who is saved and who is not and the reason is not found in human will or anything in creation but God alone.

Yes, according to Romans 9:11-12, Romans 9:20-21.

But don't get sidetracked. The result is that God desires for everyone to be saved but chooses to save some. So God chooses against God's own desire.

God's "desire" and God's "will" are not the same thing.
What he desires is revealed to us, but is not necessarily what he wills/decrees. (Deuteronomy 29:29)

What God "desired," he revealed to Pharaoh, "Let my people go," which was not what he willed/decreed for Pharaoh, and had explained to Moses before Moses even left Midian for Egypt, "I will harden his heart so that he will not let them go," (Exodus 4:21), but then later revealed to Pharoah, "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." (Exodus 9:16; Romans 9:7).

One of two things has to be changed. Either God does not want to save all but only those that get saved. Or, God wants to save all and eventually all -even if they have to go through hell first- are saved. Obviously, pace Calvin, God only wants to save some-limited atonement. That means the others were created for the purpose of eternal suffering and torment since that is their telos.

Not created for, but used for God's higher purpose of demonstrating "his power, purity and justice, and his mercy, to those whom he has chosen for his particular people" (Romans 9:22-23), who are his
treasured possession (Exodus 19:5, Deuteronomy 7:6, Deuteronomy 26:18; Malachi 3:17), and
personal inheritance (Psalms 33:12; Ephesians 1:18); i.e., the church of his saints, both OT and NT (Hebrews 12:22-23), the spotless bride he has prepared for his beloved Son (Revelation 21:9-14),
who redeemed her (bought her back from God's condemnation on her sin) with his own blood.

And if that don't lite yer fire, then yer wood's wet!

 

[Mark Quayle]

God chooses who is saved and who is not and the reason is not found in human will or anything in creation but God alone.

I'm having a bit of a problem following you: Is this what you were referring to by God's 'whim' earlier? I can easily agree with the sentence you post here, but to call that mere 'whim'?

But don't get sidetracked. The result is that God desires for everyone to be saved but chooses to save some. So God chooses against God's own desire.

I'm having a bit of a problem following you: Are you saying this as something to change in the next few sentences?

One of two things has to be changed. Either God does not want to save all but only those that get saved. Or, God wants to save all and eventually all -even if they have to go through hell first- are saved. Obviously, pace Calvin, God only wants to save some-limited atonement. That means the others were created for the purpose of eternal suffering and torment since that is their telos.

No. It means that God created them for the purpose of demonstrating his purity, power and justice to the objects of his mercy.

 

[GenemZ]

The trouble with giving up omniescense temporarily is that you may not know how to to get it back again as you're no longer omniescent. A much simpler hypothesis is that God doesn't torture people.

If you say so....

Yet, Jesus said that the Father gave him the power and authority to take back up the life he laid down. That life was his Deity life that was needed to be denied in order for the Lord to become as a man to take our place on the Cross.

“Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.” Jn 10:17-18​

That can be taken two ways. And, both ways would be correct!

The Lord God of Israel laid down his life as Deity to make Himself become as Jesus the man (Phlippns 2:6-8). He had the power to take it back up again, but refused to in his sufferings. That is why the Father loved him! Jesus was willing to suffer and die to please the Father. He could have escaped by taking back up his Deity power!

He also laid down his human life on the Cross while he was remaining willing to stay as a man.

 

[Gregory Thompson]

Purification is necessary, but is the intent to "punish?"

 

[Der Alte]

Does this vs. guarantee that every person will be save, righteous and unrighteous alike no matter what.

2 Peter 3:9
(9) The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.​

Note this passage from Jeremiah. God said “I have caused to cleave” That word is הדבקתי/ha’dabaq’thi. It is in the perfect or completed sense. God’s express will, clearly stated, for the whole house of Israel and Judah, to cling to God as a belt clings to a man’s waist.
It was done, finished, completed, in God’s sight, and, according to some arguments, nothing man can do will cause God’s will to not be done. But they, Israel and Judah, would not hear and obey, their will, vs. God’s will, So God destroyed them, vs. 14.
…..This passage very much speaks to God’s sovereign will, and man’s free will and agency. God stated very clearly what His will was, in terms that cannot be misunderstood. But, because the Israelites and Judeans would not hear, and obey, God destroyed them, instead of them being unto God, “for a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory, vs. 10.”

Jer 13:1 Thus saith the LORD unto me, Go and get thee a linen girdle, and put it upon thy loins, and put it not in water.
2 So I got a girdle according to the word of the LORD, and put it on my loins.
3 And the word of the LORD came unto me the second time, saying,
4 Take the girdle that thou hast got, which is upon thy loins, and arise, go to Euphrates, and hide it there in a hole of the rock.
5 So I went, and hid it by Euphrates, as the LORD commanded me.
6 And it came to pass after many days, that the LORD said unto me, Arise, go to Euphrates, and take the girdle from thence, which I commanded thee to hide there.
7 Then I went to Euphrates, and digged, and took the girdle from the place where I had hid it: and, behold, the girdle was marred, it was profitable for nothing.
8 Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
9 Thus saith the LORD, After this manner will I mar the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem.
10 This evil people, which refuse to hear my words, which walk in the imagination of their heart, and walk after other gods, to serve them, and to worship them, shall even be as this girdle, which is good for nothing.
11 For as the girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave [הדבקתי/ha’dabaq’thi] unto me the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah, saith the LORD; that they might be unto me for a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory: but they would not hear.
· · ·
14 And I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, saith the LORD: I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them.​

Note, verse 14, God said “I will NOT have pity, will NOT spare, and will NOT have mercy but destroy them.”

 

[GenemZ]

Does this vs. guarantee that every person will be save, righteous and unrighteous alike no matter what.

2 Peter 3:9
(9) The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.​

Note this passage from Jeremiah. God said “I have caused to cleave” That word is הדבקתי/ha’dabaq’thi. It is in the perfect or completed sense. God’s express will, clearly stated, for the whole house of Israel and Judah, to cling to God as a belt clings to a man’s waist.
It was done, finished, completed, in God’s sight, and, according to some arguments, nothing man can do will cause God’s will to not be done. But they, Israel and Judah, would not hear and obey, their will, vs. God’s will, So God destroyed them, vs. 14.
…..This passage very much speaks to God’s sovereign will, and man’s free will and agency. God stated very clearly what His will was, in terms that cannot be misunderstood. But, because the Israelites and Judeans would not hear, and obey, God destroyed them, instead of them being unto God, “for a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory, vs. 10.”

Jer 13:1 Thus saith the LORD unto me, Go and get thee a linen girdle, and put it upon thy loins, and put it not in water.
2 So I got a girdle according to the word of the LORD, and put it on my loins.
3 And the word of the LORD came unto me the second time, saying,
4 Take the girdle that thou hast got, which is upon thy loins, and arise, go to Euphrates, and hide it there in a hole of the rock.
5 So I went, and hid it by Euphrates, as the LORD commanded me.
6 And it came to pass after many days, that the LORD said unto me, Arise, go to Euphrates, and take the girdle from thence, which I commanded thee to hide there.
7 Then I went to Euphrates, and digged, and took the girdle from the place where I had hid it: and, behold, the girdle was marred, it was profitable for nothing.
8 Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
9 Thus saith the LORD, After this manner will I mar the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem.
10 This evil people, which refuse to hear my words, which walk in the imagination of their heart, and walk after other gods, to serve them, and to worship them, shall even be as this girdle, which is good for nothing.
11 For as the girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave [הדבקתי/ha’dabaq’thi] unto me the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah, saith the LORD; that they might be unto me for a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory: but they would not hear.
· · ·
14 And I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, saith the LORD: I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them.​

Note, verse 14, God said “I will NOT have pity, will NOT spare, and will NOT have mercy but destroy them.”

Few scholars will tell us what it was the Jews were doing that caused God to raise up Jeremiah to condemn them.

They were going out to the 'high places' to set up Baal altars. They would have sex orgies as 'worship.' And, to enhance their sexual energies they would throw their children into the fire of a idol furnace. The screams of their children would arouse them even further while under the demonic influence of the ritual... That is why Jeremiah prophesied about 'near' utter destruction of the people!

Jeremiah's prophecy... Bible Gateway passage: Jeremiah 4 - New International Version

 

[zippy2006]

Yeah, except God. God gets the short stick. God wanted a good creation, but alas, some (many?) must be tortured forever. <--- That's not a caricature; that's somebody's doctrine. God wanted, but didnt get what God deserved. Lord have mercy.

"Getting what one deserves is getting what one wants."

This is simply another irrational premise and a poor use and understanding of words. Namely, someone who makes such a strange statement clearly does not understand what the concepts 'desert' and 'desire' mean.

Of course, God does not deserve ill-treatment, which is precisely why those who treat God poorly are punished. But this has nothing to do with some putative connection between wanting and deserving.

Again, see my posts <here>.

 

[zippy2006]

The only form of punishment that makes sense in relation to the divine is reformative, cathartic, healing punishment. It's like bad medicine but good in the end.

Retributive punishment makes no sense in relation to the divine. God lacks nothing; nothing can be taken from God. Hence, no retribution needed. God can heal, restore, redeem creation with a mere thought (a Word, even), if God so desires. There's just no need for divine retribution.

There's no need for God to use punishment as a deterrent. God knows the heart. If fear of punishment keeps us from acting, but our hearts desire the act, God knows that; and therefore, God knows our hearts are rotten and need healing.

Yes, the idea of divine punishment as an eternal act is repulsive. And, it just doesn't make sense, either.

These are assertions, not arguments, and they have already been answered in some detail:

It is worth noticing that you probably do not understand punishment at all, divine or otherwise.



(1) is simply misleading. Punishment and healing are two different things. When we punish someone we are not healing them and when we heal someone we are not punishing them. The "paying of the debt" is precisely what is cathartic, not some separate act of healing, but the catharsis comes through satisfaction, not simple retribution. Thus the catharsis is a byproduct of freely accepting and undergoing deserved punishment. Paradoxically, if the malefactor is only seeking the relief of catharsis and is not making satisfaction, they will not even receive catharsis.

Regarding (3), deterrence does of course affect the one being punished, and probably more than anyone else. Nevertheless, deterrence without desert and retribution begs the question of why the sin was wrong in the first place. It would be circular to say that we deter because the sin is evil, and we know the sin is evil because of deterrence.

I've been handing this out often of late, but it looks like you should read it too: C.S. Lewis' "The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment."

 

[GenemZ]

Purification is necessary, but is the intent to "punish?"

Who set that rule?

 

[public hermit]

Well, for starters, because not everyone will be saved, which implies a couple more things, like he didn't actually pay for the sins of everyone, but for the sins of those who are redeemed.

Right. Under that framework, God chooses who will be eternally separated by not saving them.

 

[public hermit]

No. It means that God created them for the purpose of demonstrating his purity, power and justice to the objects of his mercy

Yes, by choosing not to save them. God demonstrates purity, power, and justice by creating objects of his mercy for eternal suffering. That's a contradiction: by creating creatures whose sole telos is eternal suffering and torment, God's justice and mercy is displayed.

But you keep ignoring the contradiction (one of them) that your Calvinism entails: God desires to save all (according to scripture) and fulfills that desire by saving some. I guess the only response is God does not desire to save all, which brings us back to God created some for the sole purpose of eternal conscious torment.

 

[Gregory Thompson]

Who set that rule?

What rule in particular?

 

[public hermit]

God's "desire" and God's "will" are not the same thing

That sounds like a construct used to ensure some aren't saved. "God wishes all could be saved but wills that only some are saved." Apparently, God needs a therapist or perhaps some greater principle that can unify God's desires with God's will.

What you fail to acknowledge is that God can, and perhaps will, choose to save all. What will the clay (that assumes some won't be saved) say to the Potter then? Paul's arguments in Romans support that very point. If the choice is solely up to God, then UR is not off the table unless you assume that can't be the case. But, of course, God can simply disagree with you.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Yes, by choosing not to save them. God demonstrates purity, power, and justice by creating objects of his mercy for eternal suffering. That's a contradiction: by creating creatures whose sole telos is eternal suffering and torment, God's justice and mercy is displayed.

But you keep ignoring the contradiction (one of them) that your Calvinism entails: God desires to save all (according to scripture) and fulfills that desire by saving some. I guess the only response is God does not desire to save all, which brings us back to God created some for the sole purpose of eternal conscious torment.

That wouldn't be the only response available to your objection, PH, but I'm afraid that my alternative considerations won't be palpable to most here, on either side of this debate.

So, I'll refrain from sharing them ...

 

[Mark Quayle]

Yes, by choosing not to save them. God demonstrates purity, power, and justice by creating objects of his mercy for eternal suffering. That's a contradiction: by creating creatures whose sole telos is eternal suffering and torment, God's justice and mercy is displayed.

'Telos' is an impressive word, but used vaguely; to you, their 'end' necessarily means their 'use', or their 'reason God made them', as though his purpose for their existence was a meaningless and capricious undeserved treatment. This is wrong on several accounts; for starters: 1) It is not meaningless —again, he made them for the purposes of displaying his power, purity, justice to the objects of his mercy. 2) It assumes they do not actually deserve what they get. They do deserve it; you keep putting God onto our plane of existence and responsibility to some moral principle beyond even himself. I started a thread to deal with this very thing, that God operates so differently from us that our logic concerning causation cannot justly imply wrongdoing on his behalf. As we already know, if God was to be fair, we would ALL be in the Lake of Fire —not in Heaven.

Their final torment is pretty obviously not the only reason he had for creating them. Not their 'sole telos'.

But you keep ignoring the contradiction (one of them) that your Calvinism entails: God desires to save all (according to scripture) and fulfills that desire by saving some. I guess the only response is God does not desire to save all, which brings us back to God created some for the sole purpose of eternal conscious torment.

You keep ignoring, almost as if you hadn't read my response, that God does NOT desire (in the causative sense) absolutely every human who ever lived or will live, to be saved —that is, the 'all' in such references does not mean what you take it to mean; OR, the desire is not causative —that is, he wishes something could be that cannot be if he is going to have his 'dwelling place', his people, in Heaven.

As @Clare73 says, 'desire' and 'will' are not in all cases the same thing.

Your conflating them produces your perception of contradiction.

 

[public hermit]

That wouldn't be the only response available to your objection, PH, but I'm afraid that my alternative considerations won't be palpable to most here, on either side of this debate.

So, I'll refrain from sharing them ...

I don't see why you shouldn't share it. I will readily admit there should be options on the table. I give ECT most of my attention because it needs it lol. Although I was referring to a strictly Calvinist approach, which assumes ECT, you're right that there is another possibility (at least) besides ECT or UR. I was recently rereading 2 Peter 3:7-9, which suggests another possibility: God desires that none perish, but some inevitably face the "destruction of the godless."

I find annihilation more reasonable (and more palatable) than eternal condemnation, but it still presents a God who cannot save some. That's not a problem for those who hold the value of human freedom as paramount. I'm not convinced it is. I think that's partly what we are being saved from, i.e. the freedom to sin.

 

[public hermit]

'Telos' is an impressive word, but used vaguely; to you, their 'end' necessarily means their 'use', or their 'reason God made them', as though his purpose for their existence was a meaningless and capricious undeserved treatment

According to your framework, if God made them and does not choose them, they cannot be saved. God is not surprised by this development because is it God's choice. God knew their beginning and their end.

So they become tools, not persons that image God; they are tools for God's glory. So, yes, their existence is meaningless as far as their being persons made in the divine image is concerned. They do not fulfill their purpose as creatures bearing the divine image, united in love to God and humanity. That's their created purpose, but according to your position, that purpose is abrogated for a greater purpose, God's glory.

I think if you want to hold this position not only are some not elected to salvation, but also that same set of persons were not created in the divine image because they were never intended to be conformed to the likeness of Christ. Their only end is eternal suffering, i.e. God's glory. If they are created in the image for the purpose of being conformed to the likeness of Christ, then we're back to the God who wishes but can't. So much for divine sovereignty, I guess.

God operates so differently from us that our logic concerning causation cannot justly imply wrongdoing on his behalf

Sure, God is transcendent. That which transcends must be revealed if we are to understand it. We can rely on the revelation of God through the incarnate Word, right?

I don't think an argument that somehow absolves God from critique is going to be beneficial. Faith depends on a God that is faithful, good, just, and love. If we empty those of meaning by saying God can do what is unjust because it's good, the whole basis for faith and following Christ comes apart. If God is not unjust, then we should have some sense of what that means.

keep ignoring, almost as if you hadn't read my response, that God does NOT desire (in the causative sense) absolutely every human who ever lived or will live, to be saved —that is, the 'all' in such references does not mean what you take it to mean; OR, the desire is not causative —that is, he wishes something could be that cannot be if he is going to have his 'dwelling place', his people, in Heaven

I'm not ignoring that point; I disagree as I have stated. To make a distinction between what God desires and what God wills is to make God too anthropomorphic. We are composite beings with parts and problems. We might have desires that are contrary to what we will, e.g. I desire a banana split for breakfast, but I will to eat healthy in the morning so I abstain. God, traditionally understood, is One in essence. God's attributes are all essential and perfectly united so that there is no real distinction between what God wants and what God does, it all collapses into the divine eternal essence. You want God to have a desire that cannot obtain, which brings disunity into the unity of the divine. If God wants something, it happens or God doesn't desire it.

Have you thought through this idea that God chooses those who are saved but his choice not to save others has no causal efficacy? Surely someone has an explanation for how that works. It seems to me, if the divine choice is necessary to be saved, the choice not to save is efficacious. But maybe there's a good argument out there to the contrary.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I don't see why you shouldn't share it. I will readily admit there should be options on the table. I give ECT most of my attention because it needs it lol. Although I was referring to a strictly Calvinist approach, which assumes ECT, you're right that there is another possibility (at least) besides ECT or UR. I was recently rereading 2 Peter 3:7-9, which suggests another possibility: God desires that none perish, but some inevitably face the "destruction of the godless."

I find annihilation more reasonable (and more palatable) than eternal condemnation, but it still presents a God who cannot save some. That's not a problem for those who hold the value of human freedom as paramount. I'm not convinced it is. I think that's partly what we are being saved from, i.e. the freedom to sin.

I could come at this in two or three ways, and the arguments I have in mind would likely upset many here.

However, I guess I can leave you with one of these since it's more hermeneutical in nature and not too ascerbic to anyone's faith (unless they're more charismatically inclined). This is: Does a Universalist's position deal with any issues pertaining to the presentation of a systematic, comprehensive theology, especially one that takes Hermeneutics seriously in order to demonstrate an overall coherence while reading and interpreting the Bible, or is it all kind of spritually intuited for the most part, in a more or less hodge podge, prima facie fashion, where folks rationalize based upon only what they can or can't possibly morally accept?

I guess that besides the various issues involving Biblical Criticism that could be injected into this debate and which I'm not going to get into at the moment, I'm wondering if the same interpretive principles Universalists use can be applied by to all portions of the Bible. Are they? I'm wondering because it seems to me that Universalists import an already assumed Frame of Meta-Ethics that isn't necessarily reflected within the Bible itself into the overall philosophical evaluation of the biblical texts (usually in essentially 'modern' terms), and out of this synthesis comes the affirmation for "the kind of God we'd all actually prefer to see and are thereby then willing to worship," again in modern terms. It becomes a kind of apologetic from one angle, while attempting to be a theology from another. But do we really need to defend the bible in terms that are only done from within a moral sensibility that is inherent to a 21st century Western mind?

Frankly, what I see going on here is in some ways parallel with the moral evaluations that are brought in from Skeptics when I have to argue that 'the Flood' was a 'morally right action' of God rather than a qualifiable murder of innocents. It's not much different here in that there are insinuations and hints of allegations for a failure to think morally. And this, even, against Christians who hold to a more (or less) traditional view of God and His Judgements, who still think love is paramount.

I could be incorrect in this generic assessment, but I think some of this involves our utter dismissal of what is conceptually deemed to be "a worthless, murdering God," especially if today we're predisposed to knee-jerk reactions against historical evils of Hitlerian proportions. Might we say that living in a Post-Holocaust world and time of human history has flared our moral sensibilities in a such a way that we can no longer stomach anything that even remotely looks like that kind of evil?

Secondly, in assessing the Universalists position, I then have to wonder: what was all of that stuff about 'sacrifices' in the Old Testament? Should I pull a book like that of Beckwith and Selman's, Sacrifice In the Bible, off of my shelves and toss it into the dumper? What was the 'meaning' of all of the sacrifice in the O.T.? Was it all done solely to lead up to a Christus Victor theology for our understanding of the New Testament?

I have a third issue, but I'll refrain from sharing that one.