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Randal Rauser

Home of progressively evangelical, generously orthodox, rigorously analytic, revolutionary Christian thinking (that's what I'm aiming for anyway)

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free will

Does Heaven Lose Morally Significant Freedom? And is that a Problem?

November 24, 2021 by Randal

@RealAtheology is a first-rate curator of engaging philosophy of religion content on Twitter. In this article, I’m going to interact with one of those tweets: ..if Heaven is as good as any place can possibly be—and if human beings have severely limited freedom of action in Heaven, then there is at least some reason to […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: free will, freedom, heaven

When you are so free that you’re not free to choose evil

May 27, 2015 by Randal

The 59-Second Apologist podcast on the topic “Will we have free will in heaven?” elicited the following comment from Mike D: “If the only possible choices in a Heavenly moral dilemma are all morally perfect ones, then you’ve basically just neutered the concept of free will into meaninglessness, because all possible choices are equally valid […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: culture, free will, freedom, heaven

10. The 59-Second Apologist: Will we have free will in heaven?

May 25, 2015 by Randal

Mark Twain once quipped: “Let us swear while we may, for in heaven it will not be allowed.” That piece of advice, however questionable it may be, does raise an interesting philosophical question: when a person becomes unable to sin, must they give up their free will? Some theologians have supposed so. To note one […]

Filed Under: Podcast-59 Second Apologist, The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: afterlife, eschatology, free will, heaven

Why did God harden Pharaoh’s heart? On the failure of a popular apologetic response

June 10, 2014 by Randal

It is a well known problem. The book of Exodus describes God hardening Pharaoh’s heart on several occasions. For example, “But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said to Moses.” (Exodus 9:12) The problem is obvious: if God is perfectly good, why […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: apologetics, divine action, free will, God, hardening heart, Pharaoh, problem of evil, providence

Why were we created here and not just directly into heaven?

May 30, 2013 by Randal

This is the question as posed by Counter Apologist. The question is basically this: if we will get to the point where we don’t sin any more as a precondition for entering heaven, then why didn’t God just create us at the point in our history where we would not sin and get heaven started thereby […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: free will, heaven

Can free will solve the problem of hell?

April 7, 2013 by Randal

I’d like to come back to my critique of Blanchette and Walls’ essay on hell in God and Evil. Let’s begin with a little indulgent self-quotation to set the stage: First Blanchette and Walls note that God could override human freedom that opts for hell, but he chooses not to because “Without genuine moral freedom, this […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: eternal conscious torment, evil, free will, hell

Are we determined by our circumstance?

December 21, 2012 by Randal

The other day I was on the phone with my brother when we got into a “Say, I wonder what ever happened to…?” conversation. The name that popped up was Darren S., a neighborhood kid from my youth of thirty years ago with whom we’d spent countless hours playing manhunt in the orchards, having sleepovers, and […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: free will

Does God hate those he does not save?

December 20, 2011 by Randal

This article was originally published at The Christian Post in January, 2010. *** Many Christians assume that God loves all people. This is hardly surprising since scripture declares that God loves all creation (John 3:16-17) and desires to see all people saved (1 Tim.2:4; 2 Pe.3:9). Indeed, the notion that God is loving to all, […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Calvinism, causation, free will, God, love, omnibenevolence, providence

Hell we go again

July 29, 2011 by Randal

Linda responds to my Calvinist critique as follows: “No matter how you slice it, the Bible is clear that many will go to Hell.  Is not the real problem is [sic] that many go to Hell, yet God could of made it where all go to Heaven?” Not according to the traditional Arminian free will response. On […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: arminianism, Calvinism, damnation, election, free will, hell, libertarianism, providence

A Reformed voice brings clarity to free will, providence and election

July 25, 2011 by Randal

There is no shortage of confusion among the recent wave of “new Calvinists” on the Reformed understanding of free will, providence and election. This became very clear to me a couple years ago when my book Finding God in the Shack was critiqued by popular Reformed blogger Tim Challies for providing a correct outline of the […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Calvinism, election, free will, Paul Manata, providence, Reformed

Can we freely dispense with free will?

June 20, 2011 by Randal

Last week I made the claim that “Naturalism is inconsistent with free will.” The most surprising response came from The Atheist Missionary who replied: “Absolutely. I no more had the free choice to type this sentence than I did to take my next unconscious breath.” It would seem then that The Atheist Missionary is a […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: atheism, ethics, free will, hard determinism, humanism, naturalism, soft determinism, theism

Does God ‘rape the will’ to save people from hell?

June 6, 2011 by Randal

“Irresistible force used by God on his free creatures would be a violation of both the charity of God and the dignity of humans. God is love. True love never forces itself on anyone. Forced love is rape, and God is not a divine rapist!” (Norman Geisler, “God knows all Things,” Predestination and Free Will, […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: foreknowledge, free will, God, hell, Norman Geisler, predestination, providence, rape

Free will, hell, and reasonable appeals to emotion

June 6, 2011 by Randal

Many good conversations were had over my four days at Notre Dame University. One of the more interesting conversations occurred with one particular philosopher and concerned the topic of hell. (The philosopher will remain nameless since it is awkward to begin contacting people and asking for their permission to use their name in a blog post based […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: annihilationism, free will, hell, universalism

Will there be free will in heaven?

February 6, 2011 by Randal

Last week a pastor emailed me and asked the question: how can we be free in heaven if we will not be able to do evil things? I have heard this question enough to know that has occurred to many reflective Christians. And even if it does not have the existential grip of some other big […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: compatibilism, free will, heaven, incompatibilism, libertarianism

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