Posted by Johannes on March 22, 19101 at 07:02:38:

In Reply to: questions about who will be saved... posted by Tim Blaisdell on February 23, 19101 at 13:17:38:

: I've read a lot of C. S. Lewis and George Macdonald I've noticed that Macdonald is a universalist, but C. S. Lewis maintained that some might actually choose to be lost in the end.

: My question is this:

: Imagine there were a person whose will was to be forever lost. We know from scripture that God desires his salvation. So we have here a conflict. On the one side, a man who absolutely refuses to be saved, and on the other a God who absolutely desires his salvation. Will this conflict go on forever?

: The answer is no. The man is capable of change in response to stimuli. The God on the other hand, is perfect and unchangeable. Therefore simple reason tells you that eventually the man will change in response to the drawing power of God.

: Is there a man who could choose to be eternally lost? Only if there were a God who could stop caring about him.

: Tim

You say that Man is capable of change in response to stimuli. That's just Lewis's point; but being capable doesn't mean being forced to change. I think you presuppose that Man responses to stimuli in the way a machine or an animal might do. But if we really accept the idea that Man is free, we have to accept the idea that he doesn't want to be happy (saved) as well. It's just the thing Lewis tried to show in his Great Divorce: the people insist on being unhappy. - To me the far greater problem is to accept freedom of will as a philosophical idea, because it is against any habit of thinking: Thinking means finding reasons and drawing conclusions, which is contrary to any idea of freedom. Perhaps it's against experience, too: I'm a christian, because I've met so much christian stuff that has shaped me. I can't claim to have made a fundemantel decision to believe in God; I simply do it. Lewis himself expresses the idea that freedom and neccessity might perhaps fall into one (remember the page in Surprised by Joy describing his decision to believe in Jesus).
Johannes

Follow Ups:

Post a Followup