On Free Will
Part 5, Hell and the Augustinian Will
In the last post we raised the question, assuming there is post-mortem movement, about if the human will could resist the grace of God in hell for all eternity. Could some rebels remain holdouts forever?
As I described at the end of the last post, opinions vary here. Free will defenders of eternal separation from God say, yes, rebels can hold out forever. People answering this way likely do so because they feel committed to the word "eternal" in eternal separation. Free will becomes the lever you have to pull to create a vision of an eternal self-imposed exile from God. Humans are free, which means some people can and will make the free choice to stay separated from God forever.
Universalists, by contrast, reject this conclusion, arguing that God's infinite love, given all of eternity, will eventually persuade every last rebel to lay down their arms in surrender. As they say, love wins.
In today's post I want to go back to the contrast we made in Part 2 concerning libertarian and Augustinian views of human freedom and how these play out differently in hell.
At issue between the free will defenders of eternal separation and the universalists isn't simply the plausibility of a finite human will resisting the infinite love of God for all eternity. Competing visions of the will itself are also at work here.
Specifically, most free will defenders of external separation work with a liberationist vision of free will. For the will to be free there must be an eternally and perpetually live option to rebel. Freedom here is having this live option in front of you. This liberationist view of freedom has a kind of atemporality about it. Rebels can be rebels for all of eternity because the choice to rebel is perpetually live and available.
Universalists, by contrast, tend to adopt an Augustinian view of the will. The will becomes increasingly free because it more deeply participates in the life of God. In this view, freedom of the will isn't an expansive array of available choices. Freedom is, rather, a narrowing and constricting of the will, an "enslavement," to state it baldly, to the love of God. Rebellion becomes less and less likely the deeper we move into the life of God. In fact, being "free" to rebel is symptomatic, not of freedom, but of a will enslaved to a different master.
For the universalist, then, the free will defense of eternal separation, the argument that "the door of hell is locked from the inside," is premised on a wrongheaded view of human volition. Human will isn't libertarian, it's Augustinian. The will isn't free, it becomes free. Nor can the will, of its own power, self-actualize. Grace is necessary.
The universalist view here is identical (strange bedfellows!) to the Lutheran and Reformed idea that the will, given its bondage and brokenness, requires divine rehabilitation and regeneration. God has to take the initiative, because we cannot help ourselves. Consequently, if this vision of the will describes the souls in hell, then talk about the door of hell being "locked from the inside" in nonsense. The free will defense of eternal separation collapses, because we are incapable of opening the door.
Of course, God might be justified in sending us to hell, but remember, the game we are playing here is premised on post-mortem movement, and who is to blame for any lack of movement. The free will defense blames us, as rebels, for refusing to unlock the door. But if we're incapable of opening the door, well, then the jig is up, as we can't be blamed for something we cannot do.
In sum, the debate here isn't just about if the human will could resist the love of God forever. The deeper issue is the vision of the will itself. Is our view of free will libertarian or Augustinian? If the will is libertarian, we can blame the rebels in hell for any lack of post-mortem movement. They have the "free will," after all, to unlock the door of hell, and they are refusing. So: They are to blame for their torments. But if the will is Augustinian, then divine initiative is needed. We can't be blamed for any lack of post-mortem movement because we lack the capacity to unlock the door. We require God's grace.
God has given us many opportunities to repent of our sins here and now. Each time we sin and repent, we learn a bit more about ourselves and the nature of good and evil. When we die however, we meet God face-to-face and our sins are exposed to the white-hot fire of God's love. If its refining power to purify us from our arrogant pride is recognized, we say humbly to God, "Thy will be done" and approach it. If, however, we perceive it as a threat and flee, God says, "THY will be done". At death, there are no more cycles of sin and repentance. At death, God gives us complete knowledge of our sins and their consequences. From this sort of thinking, there arises the Catholic tradition that teaches that any choice to reject God after seeing Him face-to-face is irrevocable.
The idea of "post-mortem movement" (a la CS Lewis) seems very unlikely other than at death, we enter into a short state in-between heaven and earth where . . . things can happen.
Can you tell me who holds to the liberationist view of free will? I’ve encountered more of the thinking that true freedom is only found in Christ, and any idea that we have of being free without Him is actually just enslaved to Sin/Death instead of God.