"THEY SHALL NEVER PERISH": POSSIBLE WORLDS AND

THE PROBLEM OF ETERNAL SECURITY

by

Shandon L. Guthrie

Christians within the faith have widely disputed the classical doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints. Generally, we have recognized this doctrine to be closely (if not exclusively) associated with John Calvin's categorization of interrelated actions of God and of men. No doubt the most popular acronym to instantiate such beliefs has been promoted in the term TULIP (Total Depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, and Perseverance of the Saints).⁽¹⁾ The Perseverance of the Saints has undergone a considerable amount of terminological refining through the years from Molina to Banez. When assessing the question of whether or not the Perseverance of the Saints is true, as classically understood to be the intrinsically established grace by God such that one cannot lose her salvation under any circumstances, we generally surmise that eternal security is an uncompromising feature of the believer. The Westminster Confession of Faith states:

They, whom God has accepted in His Beloved, effectually called, and sanctified by His Spirit, can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace, but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved.⁽²⁾

1. If the apostolic warnings had not been given, the believer would have fallen away.

Some theologians and philosophers believe that a positive answer to this claim entails that one is freely capable of losing his salvation while a negative answer to it must regard human freedom as illusory. The affirmation of one's inability to choose losing salvation over maintaining it is said to entail theological fatalism.⁽⁴⁾ But this assumes a property of "falling away" not inherent in the phrase itself:

2. Falling away is such that one no longer retains salvation.

I find this to be an unwarranted conjecture where "falling away" implies a final state of salvation loss. It seems that one can deviate from his original faith as to disable certain desserts initially due him, but the idea that salvation loss is a necessary feature of falling away is completely untenable. But the Perseverance advocate can suppose that his perseverance is extrinsically sustained. That is, God actualizes those external causes such that one simply would not lost his salvation via His middle knowledge.⁽⁵⁾ Of course this implies that in some possible world a believer can lose his salvation. Even though a seeming contradiction appears between the Molinist who prefers this model and yet sustains eternal security, the fact that in the possible world that God actualizes there is no believer who chooses to forego his salvation. So the difference appears to simply be either the capability of losing salvation or the willingness to lose salvation. In either Perseverance model, one can establish continuity with eternal security:

Either

3. This world is such that one would never will to lose his salvation.

or

4. This world is such that one could never will to lose his salvation.

So:

(x) [Hx * (Sx e ~Lx)]

In this case all human beings (Hx) who are properly saved (S) do not lose their salvation (L). Both 3 and 4 are consistent with this quantified sentence. Since 3 and 4 are only intended to show consistency between the apostolic warnings and the Perseverance of the Saints, the veracity of eternal security is suspended in order to examine these considerations. So the question that naturally arises now is: Can one forego eternal security?

It appears that the Bible supports the view that once an individual is saved, his salvation is insured forever. The curious phrase uttered by Jesus that once saved "they shall never perish" (John 10:28) invokes either the willful impossibility of someone losing his salvation (4) or the intrinsic inability to lose his salvation (3). In addition to such admonitions, it seems more likely that God would not actualize any world where gratuitous events exist. This seems true given that "we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose" (Rom. 8:28). Ultimately, God operates as to promote the best possible outcomes toward the optimization of the best situation where the number of believers are maximized. It is also true that it is better for God to create a believer in the knowledge that an unbeliever would result than to withhold from creating a believer whose nonexistence would prevent an unbeliever from being created. God would not prefer that believers remain uncreated so that contingent unbelievers would not suffer God's wrath. The believer's eternal bliss in the afterlife far outweigh's the transworld damnation the added unbeliever (~Bx) would experience should he be created. Thus

(x) [Hx * (Bx w ~Bx)] e ~Bx

In assessing whether or not one can forego salvation within one's own Christian life, it seems that since God does not create gratuitous incidences and seeks to maximize the best possible world then the outcome would probably entail that both a final believer and a final unbeliever would be preferable to cause or allow some good result (y) over and above the same result that would otherwise be the consequence of one believer who believes and then loses his salvation. Both situations, one where two individuals are created in that one accepts Christ and the other never does and where one person accepts Christ and then rejects Him resulting in the expiration of his salvation, contain the same necessary cause for y. With this in mind, both situations can be seen in

(x) [Hx * (Sx w ~Sx)] e y

Since both situations account for y and (Bx w ~Bx) e ~Bx, then we must see where both causes of y promotes the most number of believers. In the case where someone accepts Christ and then rejects Him causing the loss of his salvation, there is no final believer in such a causal matrix. In the situation where one believer and one unbeliever are created to furnish the necessary conditions for y there is one final believer in the causal matrix. Since the creation of a believer for some effect (y) is better than creating an unbeliever for the same effect then it seems preferable that God would actualize a possible world where believers do not depart from their own salvation.

I perceive some potential defeaters to this attempt at justifying eternal security with regard to those conditions necessary fory. Someone may suggest:

5. x may not refer to just any believer but only those whose existence is necessary to yield y and, therefore, there may be another believer who does not cause y who loses his salvation.

But this objection misses the point for it is true that only those x that cause y are necessary, but out of all x there is a causal relation to y that is better served should x entail one who is a final believer and another distinct person who is a final unbeliever. So 5 is true but only serves to narrow x to those whose properties of S and ~S are necessary for y. Another may add:

6. It may be true that y differs from every x and so the causal properties of S and ~S are irrelevant.

This seems to revert back to an understanding about S and ~S that entails their gratuitous existence. But as we have noted God creates and permits every event for some good reason. The particular good reason produced by (Sx V ~Sx) is the result of the causal matrix under consideration here. Still:

7. There is another causal matrix satisfying y so long as backsliding entails the equivalent features of ~S so that (x) (Bx V ~Bx) e y leaving the existence of a person being a final unbeliever under other circumstances intact.

This objection fairs no better since a final believer still results in the cause such as the one promoted in the original argument. In the case where (Sx w ~Sx) represents one individual who loses his salvation, no final believer is produced. Secondly, ~S must have unique factors that differ from Bx such that Bx causes some other good result apart from y.

In conclusion, it appears that once a person has been gifted with salvation then he or she shall retain it whether the means of retention be extrinsic or intrinsic. In evaluating the causal matrix necessary for the good reason produced by the existence of properties S and ~S, it seems more plausible that in the best possible world no one expires their salvation. Since God is omnibenevolent, then we should believe and expect that God has actualized the best possible world for us here. Therefore, the classical doctrine of eternal security is a better justified belief.

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END NOTES

1. For a good treatment of the Calvinist position on the so-called TULIP theory, see Edwin H. Palmer, The Five Points of Calvinism (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1972).

2. The Westminster Confession of Faith (1648) 17.1.

3. Rom. 11:17-24; 1 Cor. 9:27; Gal. 5:4; Col. 1:23; 1 Thess. 3:5; 1 Tim. 1:19-20, just to name a few.

4. William Lane Craig, "'Lest Anyone Should Fall': A Middle Knowledge Perspective on Perseverance and Apostolic Warnings."

5. Middle knowledge refers to the "knowledge of a particular kind of propositions, now usually called 'counterfactuals of freedom,' . . . These propositions state, concerning each possible free creature God could create, what that creature would do in each situation of (libertarian) free choice in which it could possibly find itself" (Robert Audi, ed., The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 492).