# Covenant of Works & Ontology



## py3ak (Mar 16, 2006)

I'm hoping Rich and Mark will follow through on the hint given in the thread about Wilson's Credo on Justification.

Am I wrong in thinking that it is a commonplace of Reformed theology that God withheld confirming ________________ (grace, mercy, voluntary condescencion) from Adam?

I think we are probably clear on the fact that some people use grace and mercy exclusively to refer to man in sin, while others do not. The question would be how much real, as opposed to verbal, disagreement there is. Creation was an act of God's kindness; creating man as he was created was also kindness; the covenant of works was voluntary condescencion, also kindness. Kindness is not deserved. But part of the provision of the covenant of works was that there would be a way in which man really could earn something, and man had the ability to do so. Had man continued in holiness and passed the time of probation, *would eternal life have been given as an act of kindness or as a wage?*
My own feeling is that one can say both; it is, perhaps, kindness in an employer to hire one. But once having signed the new-hire paperwork, it is his obligation to pay --that paycheck is _ultimately_ the result of kindness, but only because there was no constraint to enter into the obligation to cut that check.
What thinks the rest of the world?


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## Arch2k (Mar 16, 2006)

It was "gracious" to enter into the covenant, but had Adam fulfilled the covenant, it would have been 100% owed to him.


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## py3ak (Mar 16, 2006)

Very succinct and clear --thanks Jeff.

Now to another question. *Was God's enabling necessary for Adam to succeed in keeping the covenant of works?*. Obviously, in one sense you would have to say yes; Adam had to be created in order to be part of that covenant. But in a more restricted sense, *did Adam need the help of the Holy Spirit to render obedience to this covenant?*


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## kceaster (Mar 16, 2006)

Again, no. Adam was made upright in knowledge and holiness. He needed no help of the Spirit because he was created to obedience. He had the ability not to sin, or to sin. His will was free.

It shows the utter depravity of man in his fall and how in dying he died. But previous to that, Adam stood before God blameless, reflecting the untainted image of God.

In Christ,

KC


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## Semper Fidelis (Mar 16, 2006)

I confess I'm fairly ill equipped to discuss the ontological aspects of this discussion.

Here is how I undertand the ontological view (if that's even the right term):
Adam had an ontological defect that led to his fall. Further, it appears the issue of salvation is that Grace lifts man up and "repairs" or "improves" man's nature in some fashion and that, in Glory, we partake of the Divine Nature in some form.

Again, my apologies for butchering the issue. I'll let Mark pipe in because he knows much more.

What little I know, however, is that this issue of ontology and the COW are not really the same thing. You don't see the Reformers using Aquinas' formula on the Fall but recast the Fall in terms of Covenant vice Ontology. For them, the Fall is seen as a breaking of the COW that Adam had the capacity, in his prelapsarian nature to keep. The Reformed view is that he was created good, with a capacity to obey as opposed to the Aquinian idea that he was metaphysically imperfect and prone to falling unless Grace be ever present to protect him from his own nature.

As I understand it, and again I would like to understand more, the COW view of the Fall and the Ontological view of the Fall seem like two different theological views.

[Edited on 3-17-2006 by SemperFideles]


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## Saiph (Mar 16, 2006)

> _Originally posted by Jeff_Bartel_
> It was "gracious" to enter into the covenant, but had Adam fulfilled the covenant, it would have been 100% owed to him.




I agree Jeff.

However, I do think Adam needed sustaining grace to continue in obedience. It was available to him during the temptation, but he chose hubris like Lucifer instead. The lie spoken to Eve is the root of all wickedness, "You shall be as gods".

Aquinas emphasizes God's love, His truth and His order. Sin is then disorder predicated on hate, or breaking of the divine order. God is the eternal present that creates harmony, like an ontological symphony (in Him we live and move and have our being) where nature acts for an end through an order that is the outcome of the providence or wisdom of God. Creation is all that is sustained in being by God, who is pure act, pure existence, with no essence other than His existence. The world is nothing other than God's creative work continually sustained by divine love.

I believe the life breathed into Adam was the animating spirit, and sustained ontologically by God's Spirit. Adam was sent out, or commisiioned to tend the garden. He failed to do so, and broke the covenant of works which through obedience to God's Spirit sustained him.

Since then, we have the covenant of grace, which God progressively revealed and enhanced throughout history until perfected in the obedience and sacrifice of Christ. God re-creates us and breathes life into us anew.

John 20:21-22
Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you." And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit.


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## py3ak (Mar 16, 2006)

I understand what you are saying Rich. I think we do need to emphasize that the problem with Adam is *not* his humanity. The man was part of what God saw that He had made and pronounced very good --and salvation does not consist in converting us from humans to something else. So if salvation is not ontic, *then Adam did not fall because of who he was*, inasmuch as salvation corresponds to the Fall.

However, Kevin I would tend to question what you said. Would you agree that God withheld confirming _virtue_ from Adam? That God could have caused him to stand but did not? I understand that Adam had plenary ability to obey (I don't think it makes a material difference, unless I am missing something, _to this point_ whether we prefer Mark's formulation that confirming grace was available to him and he rejected it).

Mark, does your viewpoint differ in any practical way from Kevin's? Saying that grace was available to Adam but that he rejected it still leaves us at this point; God did not give him the grace to seek that particular grace....

Now one further point: did Christ triumph in His own strength or through the Holy Spirit? In my exposure, Reformed theologians have typically emphasized that Christ was given the Spirit without measure, and have connected His fullness of the Spirit with his triumph in the Temptation, His miracles and His offering up of Himself to God. Would you disagree with this? Why?
If you agree, does it affect your view of the Fall in any way?


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## WrittenFromUtopia (Mar 16, 2006)

> _*4. The history of the Fall shows us what sin is [Gen., ch.3]: unfaithfulness*_
> 
> As the act which God punished so severely must have been not a trivial fault, but a heinous crime, it will be necessary to attend to the peculiar nature of the sin which produced Adam's fall, and provoked God to inflict such fearful vengeance on the whole human race. The common idea of sensual intemperance is childish. The sum and substance of all virtues could not consist in abstinence from a single fruit amid a general abundance of every delicacy that could be desired, the earth, with happy fertility, yielding not only abundance, but also endless variety.
> 
> ...



It is clear that the Covenant in the Garden (prelapsarian) was a Covenant of Works. Obedience was the nature of this covenant, and only by continued obedience would Adam continue to have a relationship and communion with God. Adam broke this covenant by dis-obedience -- by unfaithfulness -- and all of mankind since has been born accursed, counted in Adam as a covenant breaker of the Covenant of Works.

On the other hand, all of mankind is still, realistically, saved by WORKS. The merit and work of Christ, which is imputed -- counted to -- all those who rest in Christ by faith. The Covenant of Grace is not a "new economy of salvation", necessarily, but it is *how* we gain access to the one way of salvation brought into the world before the Fall -- perfect obedience. Faithfulness, which Christ has accomplished once-for-all for the elect.


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## Saiph (Mar 16, 2006)

Consider the source of my feeble attempts at explaining what I mean :



> *
> OF THINGS PERTAINING TO THE FIRST MAN'S WILL---NAMELY, GRACE AND
> RIGHTEOUSNESS (FOUR ARTICLES)*
> 
> ...


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## WrittenFromUtopia (Mar 16, 2006)

Mark, is that Aquinas? Sounds like him.


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## Saiph (Mar 16, 2006)

Ruben, God is making us into a different order of creature, namely, incorruptible humans.

We are now, as Adam was able to be, corruptible humans.

Adam, could have obeyed, the grace was there in abundance, but he chose disobedience.

We will be ontologically different from what prelapsarian Adam was.

Gabriel, yes it is sorry. (Summa 1.9.95)

[Edited on 3-17-2006 by Saiph]


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## WrittenFromUtopia (Mar 16, 2006)

I believe also an important distinction must be made...

Surely, we would all agree that God's goodness and -- even -- graciousness, was present in the world, prelapsarian. God graciously created the world and all that is in it, and graciously put Adam in the garden, with a FREE WILL, unlike anything you or I possess.

HOWEVER . . .

Adam was not "continuing" in this covenantal relationship with God by "grace", in the sense that we understand salvific grace in the Covenant of Grace, and so forth. No, Adam remained in covenant and communion with God by his faithfulness -- by his obedience -- to the stipulations of the covenant. This is why the Reformers called it a Covenant of Works. Adam remained in his state of original righteousness and communion with God by WORKS (shudder!). Faithfulness. Obedience.

When Adam, through an act of his free will, transgressed the covenant, all of mankind from that point forward was born into this world as a counted unrighteous covenant-breaker (of the CoW). Yet, salvation did not change -- the way we gain access to it did, however. God graciously brings us into a covenantal relationship with Him, post-lapsarian, by the Covenant of Grace, which is the means by which we are counted as righteous covenant-keepers of the Covenant of WORKS. We are counted such by the work and merit of Christ, however, not ourselves. This is why Christ is called the Second Adam.


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## Saiph (Mar 16, 2006)

Here is the key statement I think:



> Now it is clear that such a subjection of the body to the soul and of the lower powers to reason, was not from nature; otherwise it would have remained after sin; since even in the demons the natural gifts remained after sin, as Dionysius declared (Div. Nom. iv). Hence it is clear that also the primitive subjection by virtue of which reason was subject to God, was not a merely natural gift, but a supernatural endowment of grace; for it is not possible that the effect should be of greater efficiency than the cause. Hence Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xiii, 13) that, "as soon as they disobeyed the Divine command, and
> forfeited Divine grace, they were ashamed of their nakedness, for they felt the impulse of disobedience in the flesh, as though it were a punishment corresponding to their own disobedience." *Hence if the loss of grace dissolved the obedience of the flesh to the soul, we may gather that the inferior powers were subjected to the soul through grace existing therein.*



Thank you all so far for your patience and comments, I am going to sleep on what has been suggested, and pick this up tomorrow.

[Edited on 3-17-2006 by Saiph]


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## py3ak (Mar 16, 2006)

> Objection 4: Further, the Master says (Sent. ii, D, xxiv): "When man was created he was given sufficient help to stand, but not sufficient to advance." But whoever has grace can advance by merit. Therefore the first man was not created in grace.
> 
> Objection 5: Further, the reception of grace requires the consent of the recipient, since thereby a kind of spiritual marriage takes place between God and the soul. But consent presupposes existence. Therefore man did not receive grace in the first moment of his creation.



I think this expresses an idea of grace very different from that of standard reformed theology. I understand that these are the objections to be disposed of, but for those who have read Aquinas more than I have would you say that he would agree with these statements concerning grace? If so, this discussion may be more complicated than I anticipated.


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## py3ak (Mar 17, 2006)

Mark, in the paragraph containing the first statement I think there is an issue in the first line that I would have to disagree with the Ox about:


> Now it is clear that such a subjection of the body to the soul and of the lower powers to reason, was not from nature; otherwise it would have remained after sin.


 The authority of the Pseudo-Areopagite notwithstanding, nature was disordered in the fall; death is unnatural; greed is unnatural; disease is unnatural; insanity is unnatural; idiocy is unnatural. 

I don't believe that 'incorruptible' humans are a different class than 'corruptible'. It is not an alteration of human nature. God made human nature capable of being corruptible or of being confirmed in incorruptible holiness. It is a glorification; but it is not a change in the kind of beings we are. 

[Edited on 3-17-2006 by py3ak]


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## WrittenFromUtopia (Mar 17, 2006)

> That Christ, by his obedience, truly purchased and merited grace for us with the Father, is accurately inferred from several passages of Scripture. I take it for granted, that if Christ satisfied for our sins, if he paid the penalty due by us, if he appeased God by his obedience; in fine, if he suffered the just for the unjust, salvation was obtained for us by his righteousness; which is just equivalent to meriting. Now, Paul's testimony is, that we were reconciled, and received reconciliation through his death, (Rom. 5: 11.) But there is no room for reconciliation unless where offence has preceded. The meaning, therefore, is, that God, to whom we were hateful through sin, was appeased by the death of his Son, and made propitious to us. And the antithesis which immediately follows is carefully to be observed, "As by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous," (Rom. 5: 19.) For the meaning is - As by the sin of Adam we were alienated from God and doomed to destruction, so by the obedience of Christ we are restored to his favour as if we were righteous. The future tense of the verb does not exclude present righteousness, as is apparent from the context. For he had previously said, "the free gift is of many offences unto justification."
> 
> *John Calvin. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Book Two. Chapter 17. Article 3.*



If Christ is the Second Adam, it would appear that Calvin believes Adam -- like Christ -- merited grace from God by perfect obedience, not the other way around? *shrug*


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## py3ak (Mar 17, 2006)

Gabriel --I think the key to Calvin may be the phrase "for us".


> That Christ, by his obedience, truly purchased and merited grace for us with the Father


 Grace is bestowed to us because of Christ's merit.

However, the relationship between Adam and Christ is an area where I don't feel happy with my understanding. On the one hand, I understand Kevin's assertion that Adam had ability to obey God, and I think I understand the theological reasons behind that assertion. On the other hand, if Christ did His saving work in the power of the Holy Spirit, as the second Adam....

[Edited on 3-17-2006 by py3ak]

[Edited on 3-17-2006 by py3ak]


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## py3ak (Mar 17, 2006)

On the thread from which this one spun off Patrick said:



> Did Jesus perform "autonomous" works?



This is a good question. Who has an answer?


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## WrittenFromUtopia (Mar 17, 2006)

> _Originally posted by py3ak_
> On the thread from which this one spun off Patrick said:
> 
> 
> ...



God the Son was in submission to God the Father, as a requirement of the Covenant of Redemption.


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## py3ak (Mar 17, 2006)

I understand that Christ was submissive --if that was Patrick's question then I misunderstood it. As I thought of it did Christ perform those works independently, or did He have help?


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## Semper Fidelis (Mar 17, 2006)

I found this post from another thread by Dr. Clark most helpful in regard to this issue:


> _Originally posted by R. Scott Clark_
> 
> 
> > What did Adam enjoy before the fall ? The idea that we cannot speak of grace where sin is absent does not seem biblical to me.
> ...


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## Saiph (Mar 17, 2006)

Ruben, you said:


> The authority of the Pseudo-Areopagite notwithstanding, nature was disordered in the fall; death is unnatural; greed is unnatural; disease is unnatural; insanity is unnatural; idiocy is unnatural.



This may be a whole new thread but how could there not be those things before the fall ? What was the tree of life for then, if not healing ? And how would Adam know the punishment od death if death was not in the world ? The day you eat of the fruit you shall surely die. Why didn't he ask, die ? What does that mean ?
Did animals just go on living forever ? 

I am sorry about this, not trying to be argumentative, just not sure I think death was unique to the fall. There is a kind of death that only man can experience, as in seperation from God, maybe that is all the curse brought ?


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## Saiph (Mar 17, 2006)

Rich, can man even exist one nanosecond apart from God's sustaining grace ?
I will admit, that the nature of salvific grace is probably different pre and post fall.

If Clark is right, then he still has to say that "natural" ability was given to him by God. So Adam obeyed, up to the fall, by the natural ability that was a gracious gift from God. So Adam, fell from grace.


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## Semper Fidelis (Mar 17, 2006)

Mark,

I only added the post to help others read what Dr. Clark had written you. I wish he were here to finish the discussion. It seemed, at the time, you were starting to understand his point.

I would say that God upholds His Creation just as the Scriptures and our Confession say.

I think the distinction is the nature of man as created. God creates Adam good and upright in his prelapsarian nature. In other words, it's not as if God creates a metaphysically imperfect being that must be pulled away from falling constantly. Adam has an ability, within his own nature, to obey. There is certainly mystery as to how he falls (which is, in some way, what interests you) but the Reformed position is to uphold that God created Adam good with the ability to obey but he fell.

So, yes, Adam fell from a position of grace in a sense - God didn't have to create Adam and He didn't have to create Him good. He didn't even have to give Adam a promise of Life based upon obedience so the COW is a condescencion (after all Adam owed God obedience simply as a creature).

In the end, however, Adam was created with the capacity to obey and reward was held out on condition of obedience. Adam did not fall from moral uprightness because God removed Grace that was restraining Adam's inherent ontological defect that pulled Adam to fall. In this scenario, it seems, Adam's fall from Grace is nothing more than God letting him go. Poor Adam, he could do no other. He's created as a metaphysical mess.

I'm not claiming to be remotely equipped to talk in-depth on this but I appreciate the ability to talk things out...

[Edited on 3-17-2006 by SemperFideles]


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## Saiph (Mar 17, 2006)

Rich, I think I agree with you. Adam did fall on his own. But when he was obeying, it was because his will was aligned with God's Spirit. God created him upright.

You said:


> In other words, it's not as if God creates a metaphysically imperfect being that must be pulled away from falling constantly. Adam has an ability, within his own nature, to obey.



Any contingent being, is metaphysically imperfect, and so, dependant upon God to sustain them, or grant them an obedient will, or make that will able to obey, like Adam's.

Only God, is metaphysically perfect. All I am saying, and which Aquinas seems to imply, is that there are degrees of metaphysical completeness.

Those in hell will be different ontically than those in heaven, and right now, Christians are at different levels of spiritual submission to Christ and walking in the Spirit.



[Edited on 3-17-2006 by Saiph]


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## CDM (Mar 17, 2006)

> _Originally posted by py3ak_
> On the thread from which this one spun off Patrick said:
> 
> 
> ...




I think the doctrine of the "Hypostatic Union" can make this confusing. My answer would be "no" to Jesus doing anything autonomously. Illustrated by Christ's words in John 5:19,

So Jesus said to them, "œTruly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.

And John 5:30,

"œI can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.


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## Saiph (Mar 17, 2006)

Autonomy is a paradox. Even if we say God is the only autonomous being, which I think is true, we do not imply that He is absolutely so free that he can go against His own nature, but rather that His self-governing is that He is consistent with His nature and does not contradict Himself.

[Edited on 3-17-2006 by Saiph]


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## Saiph (Mar 17, 2006)

Before you summon Dr. Clark to enter into the debate and eviscerate me, I want to add that all prelapsarian speculations dwell in the realm of biblical lacunae, and the word "grace" itself is deictic throughout history. Unless of course you are going to attempt to establish a one-to-one correlation between a word and the objective meaning pertaining to the reality it signifies. (an impossible task)

This whole thread is for amusement only, and I hope I will not be branded a heretic for embracing the ideas of Aquinas regarding anthropology.


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## py3ak (Mar 17, 2006)

Mark,

As you point out a lot of this is speculation; and what speculations are convincing are dependent on certain presuppositions, and I am not entirely sure what those presuppositions are, whether in your case, my case, Rich's case or anybody's case. 

The tree of life is taken, in the literature I have read, to be something to which Adam would be admitted after the probation had been successfully completed --an instrument of glorification, it would seem.
Plants dying is different from animals dying --they have no breath of life.
There is one very obvious instance in which human sin caused animal death: the Flood. So I am not opposed to the idea that all animal death is caused by human sin, ultimately (not that it's always a sin to kill an animal). 
Maybe the Garden had steak-flavored mangoes!

Dependence upon God is of course a condition of all creation; it is not a bad condition. It is not an imperfect condition, because that is how God designed us to exist. When I look at the serpent's promise to Eve, I see a temptation to ontological discontentment. On this reading, her sin was a desire to cease being analogous, to have her intellect intersect (as Dr. Clark would say) the divine mind directly. This is why I would disagree with Aquinas and Dionysius. The Incarnation teaches us absolutely that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with being human; and so salvation does not consist in being delivered from humanity (one reason Revelation pictures it as restoration; compare the tree of life references in Revelation to those in Genesis) but being delivered from the corruption of sin. "God hath made man upright, but he hath sought out many inventions." We shall be upright again; and because we are in union with a Head who is indefectibly upright, we shall also be (in principle we are now) indefectibly upright.


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## Saiph (Mar 17, 2006)

> On this reading, her sin was a desire to cease being analogous, to have her intellect intersect (as Dr. Clark would say) the divine mind directly.



Very interesting idea. I do not see the temptation to be like God an intersection, but a usurpation. You bring up an interesting point regarding the fall. Was Eve tempted to a form of pantheism ? Or was she tempted to be an independant analogue, as a law unto herself ?


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## py3ak (Mar 17, 2006)

I guess I would prefer to say that she was tempted to attempt theosis. She did not rejoice in the Creator-creature distinction; she tried to erase or lessen it. If you compare Isaiah 14 there is a similar idea there.


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## Saiph (Mar 17, 2006)

> _Originally posted by py3ak_
> I guess I would prefer to say that she was tempted to attempt theosis. She did not rejoice in the Creator-creature distinction; she tried to erase or lessen it. If you compare Isaiah 14 there is a similar idea there.



She was tempted by a mtaphysical impossibility, not to mention a logical one ? I think Adam and Eve were smarter than that. I think they were tempted to autonomy. To be a law unto themselves. To judge for themselves, knowing good and evil, and call the shots without God telling them what to do. As George McDonald said, the first principle of hell is "I am my own".


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## py3ak (Mar 17, 2006)

Well, if we take Isaiah 14 as is often done as a reference to the devil, he fell for it in some way. The problem with saying that they were smarter than that, is that autonomy is also a metaphysical impossibility; that it's stupid to ignore Him. Sin is stupid --that's why it's so hard to understand. 
I think autonomy was part of it; but it was a desire to be like God, not by way of imitation and submission, but by way of surpassing creaturely limitations.


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## Saiph (Mar 17, 2006)

Autonomy is metaphysically impossible ? How ?
Hell will be populated with autonomous people.


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## py3ak (Mar 17, 2006)

I think the second line of your post answers the question --the reach for autonomy, which I am not sure how that differs from an ontological discontent, leads to Hell; it is an impossibility. They are not independent; they are not even free of God's law; they are in Hell.


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