By Rev. William M Brennan, TH.D.
Abstract
This essay argues that dominant Augustinian and Reformed accounts of creation, evil, and final judgment rest upon a speculative teleology—namely, that the chief end of creation is the demonstration of divine attributes—that is neither explicitly biblical nor internally coherent. When combined with doctrines of eternal punishment, this framework fractures divine benevolence and sovereignty, redefining “good” as instrumental to divine self-manifestation rather than as other-directed love. By contrast, the redemptive-historical narrative of Scripture presents creation as ordered toward redemption, culminating in the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ. Within this framework, traditional accounts of the origin of human spirits—creationism and traducianism—prove inadequate, motivating renewed consideration of the pre-existence of spirits as a provisional explanatory hypothesis. While Scripture does not explicitly teach pre-existence, neither does it foreclose it; moreover, pre-existence coheres more naturally with an entirely redemptive telos while avoiding moral and metaphysical difficulties endemic to orthodox alternatives. The essay concludes by defending epistemic humility: theological coherence must be pursued where Scripture speaks, but dogmatic closure must be resisted where revelation remains silent.
1. Introduction: Teleology as the Hidden Determinant
Disagreements about hell, judgment, and redemption often mask a deeper divergence concerning the purpose of creation. In post-Augustinian Western theology, especially in its Reformed scholastic forms, creation is frequently construed as a theater for the manifestation of divine attributes—justice, mercy, sovereignty, and power. Within this paradigm, eternal punishment is justified as “good” insofar as it displays divine justice, even if it does not serve the good of the punished.
By contrast, Scripture presents a redemptive-historical narrative in which creation, covenant, judgment, and restoration are unified within a single salvific purpose. The present study contends that these two frameworks are incompatible. The former fractures divine attributes into competing principles; the latter integrates them within divine love as revealed in Christ. This divergence has significant implications for doctrines of evil, hell, anthropology, and the origin of spirits.
2. Augustine, Privation, and the Persistence of Evil
Augustine’s privation theory of evil correctly denies evil any positive ontological status, defining it instead as the absence or corruption of good. However, Augustine simultaneously affirms the eternal persistence of privation in the damned. Evil is thus defeated ontologically but preserved eschatologically.
This position introduces a tension. Privation, by definition, has no intrinsic telos; it exists only parasitically upon the good. To maintain privation eternally—without restorative intent—requires appealing not to benevolence but to divine will. Eternal punishment is therefore justified not as good for the creature, but as good for the order of creation or for the manifestation of justice. Divine sovereignty and divine goodness are asserted together but never fully reconciled. They remain in dialectical stasis.
Later Reformed theology intensifies this structure by explicitly grounding eternal reprobation in God’s decretive will, often framing it as necessary for the full display of divine glory. This move does not resolve Augustine’s tension; it hardens it.
3. The Biblical Grammar of Divine Goodness and Love
Biblically, divine goodness is not defined abstractly but narratively and relationally. “Good” consistently denotes that which gives life, restores communion, and perfects the other. Divine justice is covenantal and restorative, not retributive as an end in itself. Judgment serves redemptive history; it is never portrayed as intrinsically valuable apart from its relation to healing and restoration.
The definitive revelation of God’s nature is the cross of Christ. Here, justice, power, and glory are expressed through self-giving love and suffering-for-the-other. Any theological account that renders eternal loss “good” while denying its loving or restorative character stands in tension with this Christological center.
Accordingly, the “grand demonstration of attributes” model proves alien to the biblical witness. Scripture does not present creation as a metaphysical exhibition but as the arena of God’s redemptive action.
4. Hell as Necessity Without Eternalization
A redemptive-historical framework does not deny hell or judgment. Rather, it reconceives them as necessary consequences of sin within a moral universe ordered by holiness. An unregenerate spirit cannot immediately abide the divine presence; therefore, a real post-mortem state of exclusion, confinement, or darkness must exist. Scripture’s language of Hades, prison, chains of darkness, and second death coheres with this understanding.
Crucially, such judgment need not be metaphysically eternal. From the creature’s perspective, it may be indefinite and inescapable apart from divine intervention. From God’s perspective, it remains subordinate to redemption and does not require the eternal preservation of evil. This preserves both divine holiness and divine love without redefining goodness as self-serving.
5. Anthropological Difficulties: Creationism and Traducianism
The origin of individual human spirits remains one of theology’s most persistent unresolved questions. Two dominant orthodox accounts both fail under scrutiny.
Creationism, which posits that God creates each soul ex nihilo, cannot adequately account for the universal inheritance of a sinful nature without implicating God in the creation of corruption. Traducianism, which locates the transmission of the soul in biological generation, struggles to explain the sinlessness of Christ without ad hoc exceptions.
These failures do not merely reflect gaps in knowledge; they reveal structural incoherence. Both systems claim dogmatic certainty where Scripture offers none.
6. Pre-Existence as a Provisional Hypothesis
The hypothesis of the pre-existence of spirits—historically associated with Origen—re-emerges not from speculative excess but from explanatory necessity. Pre-existence avoids attributing the origin of sin to God, preserves Christ’s purity, accounts for inherited dispositions, and coheres with a redemptive telos in which creation serves healing rather than demonstration.
Scripture does not explicitly teach pre-existence. However, it does not explicitly deny it either. The absence of direct teaching is plausibly explained by irrelevance to human redemption—the central concern of revelation—rather than by refutation. Angels, described as “sons of God,” moral agents subject to judgment, and beings bearing likeness to God, further complicate simplistic denials of pre-temporal moral existence.
Pre-existence should therefore be held provisionally, not dogmatically, as a plausible explanatory framework rather than revealed doctrine.
7. Covenant, Redemption, and Epistemic Humility
The guiding principle emerging from this analysis is methodological rather than speculative: metaphysics must be subordinate to redemption. Where Scripture speaks—of Christ, covenant, judgment, resurrection—it demands coherence and integration. Where Scripture is silent—on the origin of spirits—it demands humility rather than closure.
Theological systems that absolutize speculative accounts while redefining divine goodness betray the redemptive grammar of Scripture. By contrast, a restrained openness to unresolved questions honors both divine revelation and creaturely limitation.
8. Conclusion
The Augustinian–Reformed paradigm, grounded in an unscriptural teleology of attribute-demonstration, cannot integrate divine sovereignty and divine love without redefining goodness and eternalizing evil. A redemptive-historical framework, centered on Christ and ordered toward restoration, offers a more biblically coherent alternative.
Within this framework, traditional accounts of spirit-origins prove inadequate, rendering pre-existence a compelling but provisional hypothesis. Whether ultimately correct or not, such a hypothesis better serves a theology in which creation exists not to display God, but to be healed by Him.
The task of theology is not to resolve every mystery, but to ensure that where God has revealed Himself—in Christ crucified and risen—our doctrines do not contradict the love they proclaim.
No comments:
Post a Comment