THREE PICTURES OF GOD IN WESTERN THEOLOGY Thomas Talbott Willamette University Originally published in Faith and Philosophy 12 (1995)
A cardinal doctrine of the Christian faith is that God, being a loving Creator, is at work in the world redeeming sinners—that is, reconciling to himself those who have fallen into moral corruption. But Christians have often disagreed among themselves about the extent and the ultimate success of God's redemptive activity, and these disagreements reflect surprisingly different conceptions of the divine nature. The conceptions are so different, indeed, that some may even wonder whether all Christians worship the same God. Here is a relatively easy way to understand these issues and to organize our thinking about them. We begin with an inconsistent set of three propositions: (1)
It is God's redemptive purpose for the world (and therefore his will) to reconcile all sinners to himself;
(2)
It is within God's power to achieve his redemptive purpose for the world;
(3)
Some sinners will never be reconciled to God, and God will therefore either consign them to a place of eternal punishment, from which there will be no hope of escape, or put them out of existence altogether.
In calling this an inconsistent set of propositions, I assume, of course, that the following is necessarily true: If it is God's redemptive purpose to reconcile all sinners to himself and it is within his power to accomplish that purpose, then he will indeed reconcile all sinners to himself. If this is necessarily true, then at least one of the above propositions is false.
1
Next, we observe the following: Although at least one of the propositions above is false, we nonetheless find theological arguments in support of each of them; we also find texts in the Bible which may appear, at least initially, to support each of them. In support of proposition (1), for example, we find such texts as II Peter 3:9: "The Lord . . . is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (KJV); I Timothy 2:4: God "desires all men to be