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Life Arts    H4'ed 4/9/15

Revision of Restricted Free Will and Conditional Universalism

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James Goetz
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I defined strong unrestricted free will, weak unrestricted free will, restricted free will, compatibilist free will, and unfree will to preface my explanation for how these categories impact the possibility of what I call conditional universalism. Also, the concept of conditional universalism at first glance looks like an oxymoron, but let me explain. Conditional universalism means that every human will eventually enjoy Christ's gift of salvation while the gift of salvation is nonetheless conditional. For example, Hebrews 11:6 emphasizes the vital importance of faith and says that all who approach God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. Mere awareness of God saves nobody, but people are saved by God's gracious gift through the condition of faith. This condition applies to experiencing salvation in life or afterlife. Also, the concept of universalism is meaningless if some people forever rebel against God and likewise never reconcile with God.

Consider God's love and ministry to humans: Romans 5:8 says that God's love is demonstrated by Jesus Christ dying for the salvation of sinful people; 2 Peter 3:9 says that God wants to save all people; as previously mentioned, 1 Peter and Revelation indicate imagery of postmortem lost people facing opportunities for salvation. Assuming the reality of (1) God desiring to save everybody and (2) postmortem offers of salvation, then one might conclude that God would eventually make an enticingly irresistible offer of salvation to afterlife holdouts if God could make irresistible offers. Among the five categories of human free will that I discussed, strong unrestricted free will and weak unrestricted are the only categories that are incompatible with irresistible offers. These categories leave room for the hope of universalism while God cannot ensure universalism. However, restricted free will, compatibilist free will, and unfree will are compatible with irresistible offers. These models are logically consistent with conditional universalism.

I believe in restricted free will and identify that my theology is modified Arminianism. For example, I believe that resistible prevenient grace is the general rule and God wants everybody to convert within the realm of resistible grace. This helps the development of human agency. However, I also believe that God never ceases to reach out to humans regardless of death. Moreover, God's love would eventually reveal a final offer of salvation that is enticingly irresistible to any recalcitrant afterlife holdout. This ensures the glorious universal reconciliation. Marvelous benefits include believers reuniting with loved ones who passed away lost and all archenemies making peace with each other.

Copyright 2015 James Edward Goetz

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James Goetz is a philosopher, theologian, and member of the National Coalition of Independent Scholars. His published conjectures include the universal wormhole, semiclassical theism, semiclassical Christianity, Relative-Social Trinitarianism, (more...)
 

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