Eternal Life (thanks, but no thanks)

I did use a form of words intended to antagonise slightly.- You'll remember back in the garden of Eden where Adam is told that he may chose to eat any of many fruits of the garden - bar for one? Well, his case models the position that we've all been born into. We too are faced with a choice regarding the direction we want to go viz-a-viz God. When I talk about choosing to give up choice I'm talking about choosing to have the "forbidden fruit option" removed forever from my list of options. In eternity I'll have plenty to choose from - it's just that all options will be pleasing to God - none will be sinful. I'll be a bit like Adam - able to chose from all the fruit in God's garden - without having to face again the option of forbidden fruitGod has received my answer on the issue of forbidden fruit - I don't want it. That being my eternal answer, there'll be no need for him to ask me that question again.- The reason why we do evil arises out of our having a sin-enslaved nature. That's hardly the stuff of free will now is it? The vital thing which differentiates from the animals - and alters our simply acting according to that nature 24/7 is a thing called conscience (or a knowledge of good and evil if you like).Conscience is God's voice - not yours. You without conscience would do only evil all the time.Free?- Hopefully this has be clarified somewhat.- Folk who are there have "chosen" to throw in their lot with God - eternally. It's a once off choice that you're not forced to take but when you take it you take all that goes with it. It's not a choice primarily from the intellect (although that is utilised along the way). It's a choice made from the hearts desire and that tends towards the digital i/o, yes/no.- You in your current state are a proto-person. You are a work-in-progress - not a finished object. The set up of your existance in this time/space dimension, in this fallen world, with the abilities of expression you possess is all temporary, all stage setting. This world and your existance in it, acts as mechanism by which your final, eternal form is established - with your own will being an essential ingredient in what you'll become.At the moment you are composed, as you say, of good and evil elements and the question is which direction does your heart plump for - because there are only the extremes to be plumped for. And it's Gods job to attempt to convince you of the utter ugliness of the evil within you which currently doesn't cause you as much problem as it should. If he convinces you of just how ugly it objectively is (is in his sight I mean) then you'll fall to you knees in anguish over yourself. If you, on the other hand, resist being brought to conviction then you'll carry on as you are - thinking you're not such a bad person all things told.I wouldn't concern myself about spending an eternity with God whilst currently loved ones perish in hell. That which makes a person attractive and good and worthwhile and loveable is the image of God in which they are made: God is good and worthwhile and attractive and loveable. That image will be removed from the person before they are cast into the pit. All that will remain attaching to them is the horror of their evil. There would be nothing about them to love anymore.My concern for loved ones is the time they have left to be convinced by God. My prayers are that they surrender before it's too late. The Bible has no place for praying or pity for the occupants of hell.- Hopefull the above explained the mechanism whereby your eternity in heaven won't be sullied by those in hell. Exposure to God will result in only one direction you want to go in. And that towards him. He's just that fantastic..- It appears that God is constrained by his own nature and that manifests in various ways. For example: the general rule when forgiving someone an offenceis that you have to pay the cost yourself. If they break a valuable lampstand and you forgive them then you don't say "I forgive you now pay for the lampstand". No, you say "I forgive you" and you pay for the lampstand yourself (or go without it). Forgiveness being this way arises out of the nature of God. God, in forgiving us, had to pay the price of the offence against him, himself - which is why he came to die.In similar fashion, it appears that true love must be chosen for. That is, not even God can create a creature which will truly be able to love him without first giving that creature the equally-weighted option not to love him.God is God and there is no reason why he should do things half measures. Total relationship means total love mean total choice. Or not.Lucifer made his choice and it seems that an immutable aspect of making a choice is that you receive the consequences of it. If you didn't recieve the consequences then it wouldn't be a choice in the first place. Besides, satan is an intergral part in Gods presenting us which a choice for/against him. Satan represents the force enticing us to chose against. If there was no force in that direction there would be no choice possible. Would there?- Leaving aside "no true believer" issues.If you look around you'll see that some folk have been convinced and believe. And others haven't been convinced and don't believe. You've got the spectrum of people from unintelligent to very on both sides - the intelligent on the believing side being sufficient to dispel the lack of evidence defence. Perhaps it's just that the evidence that convinces is closer than you imagine. And that looking in empirical bushes is not to be found in the testimony of believers.- As I say. This is where you effectively choose where you're going. I must add a rider to this. You haven't got free will so the choice isn't set up in the same way that freewilled Adam and Eve's choice was. We could talk about that more if you like.

As mentioned in my last post, "force" must be exerted in order that a persons choice is empowered. Take the serpents temptation in garden as an example of force exerted drawing Eve's choice in that direction. Given forces at work, ones activity can be aimed towards neutralising forces.Stalemating an objection is a way of neutralising it. Of kicking it into touch. The person placed in neutral is a person not going in the "wrong" direction anymore. They're not going in the right direction either - but that's not the point of neutralising objections.- My certainty is the motivation for attempting to neutralise Mods objection. I rely on the argument itself to do the neutralising.- The argument given attempts to show Mod that his dilemma is a dilemma only if his starting premise is right. Given that he can't know that his starting premise is right he can't know whether he has a dilemma or not.It doesn't seem wise to tell God to stick eternity on such flimsy foundations. He's doing what God advises against - he's relying on his own understanding.

Who said you couldn't create in heaven? Or relate? Or wonder? One of the things I expect (given God's mission concerning us) is that we will be able to relate more fully that we ever could here - and that not just with those who are "close" but with everyone.Everyone will be able to do that which is a rare enough thing here - and that is to hold constant eye contact with another.- It will count alright. What you need to remember is that you're viewing things through the lens of a lost sinner (rather than through the lens of a found one). A found sinner sees no problem in jettisoning all that they have come to realise is vile and ugly about themselves. To be mortal is to be in the grip of death - why would one want to cling to that element of oneself. I don't know that you won't remember this life.You don't seem encumbered by the title of the point of this life (which is to choose for/agaisnt God) so I wouldn't be put off by the title of the point of the next one. What it will involve in practice is seen through a glass very dimly. You won't be gone. All that will be gone will be that which attaches to you and which you'll have grown to recognise as vile and ugly. You'll be you - without the distortion. You're good looking enough now - you'll be stunning thenSee your position as a blind person complaining that they'll loose their blindness in heaven and you won't be far from the point. Perhaps this is why Jesus cured physical blindness and lameness so often. To picture the way it is spiritually.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Fallen short of what - if not how we know a father should be? In Luke 3's genealogy, the line traces all the way back to the start, terminating at Adam with these words

quote:

---

...the son of Kenan, 38the son of Enosh,
the son of Seth, the son of Adam,
the son of God.

---

God's goal is to have children and given that he is the only God, the intention can't be that we become adults - which is the other alternative we can picture. Remembering that Mod is accepting that both God and an eternal life exist for the sake of discussion.In the context of the discussion I was pointing out that it's not really on to mistrust God if he says eternal life will be fantastic - even if he doesn't fill in the precise mechanical details for us.Mod asks an impossible question because even if someone supplies an answer that changes his mind and results in eternal life becoming acceptable to him he still has to trust that God will deliver on the life thus posited.Trust is not something he's prepared to do in his not taking Gods word that it will be fantasitic. You can't not trust God and trust God at the same time and call it logic.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

If that option were removed at the start then removed along with it is the possibility of beings choosing both for and against God. If a central plank of God's plan involves highest-tier relationship (which necessitates the parties involved being free to opt out of such relationship) then choice there must be. I'd suggest that such is a central plank of Gods plan. The mechanism of salvation would appear to preclude the possibility of a syncophatic relationship. If one cannot lose salvation no matter what one subsequently does or doesn't do, then the last thing one need be is be a syncophant.Remember that the choice to forego the desire/ability to sin (in eternity) is a choice that is left up to the individual.Regarding your question. Without the possibility of a choice against one can't invoke the phrase "opt for". Could you re-phrase the question so as to maintain free will without the possibility of it being exercised. I'd suggest that to be a logical impossibility.Angels might well have had free will but it doesn't make them same order as God. You'd agree that beings of like order can relate better than beings of different order (witness the potential levels of relationship you can have with another person or a dog). God, desiring the highest level of relationship possible opts to makes God-ordered individuals. Thus, the reborn individual is described as a son of God. An adopted son granted, but the equi-order aspect God intends can't be missed. Whilst passionate, you're not being rational. I'm suggesting this world of ours to be a temporary arrangement whose function is to permit us to self-decide our eternal destinations - the eternal being final. The only choices are to be with God and all that that entails - including reflecting fully the image of him in which we have been (re)made. Or to be without God and have nothing at all to do with his image.If the choice is our own, what possible complaint can there be from the one who's made it? If that choice involves them being stripped of that which they choose to reject .. and that renders them only despicable ..why is your disgust aimed at the God who grants their will be done?Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

The saved person is one who has (effectively) decided that God's way for them is the way they want to go, that it's the destination they want to arrive at. Once that overarching decision has been made there is no need to revisit it or "grow up and leave home" from it.That decision is part-arrived at by a having already having had ample opportunity to cross the street - despite an invisible man (the conscience) having said no.

"Growing up and being their own people" can't happen so no one is trying to do it. Either you go to be with God (which means perpetual childhood wrt God) or you don't (which would appear to mean an eternal existance locked up with the inability to express own will > ergo and existance less than that of childhood.)You don't need to believe in God in order to tell God what it is you want. We are therefore we act, think and do. Our will is on show to God whether we like it or not.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

They will. But in the meantime the instruction is to tell them that they don't have to.

Hi PD,They don't truly understand God. They understand sufficient of God to understand that they want and need more of God. Haven't you forgotten another stage in the above process - which you suppose to parallel the eternal kingdom? Death. If death isn't a part of God's kingdom then why suppose adulthood?Besides, the picture isn't that we don't grow - it's just that we can never become God: he'll always be more powerful, always wiser, always the one who provides the sustenance which we need.The picture given from Hebrew times is one where the son, on engagement, builds an dwelling onto his fathers house and comes back with his bride to reside under his fathers roof. I think you'll find logic to the contrary inescapable. Unless you suppose we can get around to sustaining ourselves. Or perhaps get to looking after God in his dotageEdited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

??Warning someone that the path they are wandering leads (you know but they don't yet) to a horrific destination and them choosing to ignore you doesn't mean you shouldn't warn them.It's as appropriate I end there as they except that I was warned. All the more reason to warn them - appropriate as it is they end up there if they indeed do.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Agreed Rather than having things both ways I'm forced to approach things from what I experience as a human in this space and time. And what the cold mechanical aspects of theology tell me.Firstly and for correctness sake; our loved one's won't be in Hell because our loved one's won't exist anymore. An essential element of the current 'them' will be missing.Secondly, I won't be in heaven because I, as I am, won't exist anymore. An essential element in the current me will be missing (namely that which is unholy about me)From my perspective now I can be sad at the thought of someone I love being in danger of being destroyed. I'm not in heaven yet and don't have a heavens-perspective to apply experientially to the matter. I can only apply the dry theological reality of things and it's impossible now to imagine what my sister would look like with all that is good about her gone. I'm not quite sure if my clarification about who and what-of-whom will be in heaven/hell answers this. I'm on the fly at the moment but will give it some thought. There appears to be some kind of dilemma in there somewhere but I'm not sure if I'm getting what it is.Later