If Universalism is true, then why weren’t all gifted the beatific vision from the cosmic get-go?

especially considering the problem of suffering

Introduction to Protological, Historical & Eschatological Thought Experiments Using Mariology as a Foil

Universalists needn't fret over which aspects of our existence refer to being or ill-being, as a consequence of an initial falling down (epistemic distancing) vs jumping down (sin), for our antecedent - consequent will distinction's immune to a moral modal collapse?

I'm agnostic re many aspects of our universe's initial conditions & our meta-historical protology. But I did craft these arguments, below, mostly as a defense of Tom Belt's & Fr Behr's positions. If I had to choose, I'd default to theirs & lean into a reposeful dormition w/bodily assumption.

We all agree w/how Maximus "fixed" (inverted) Origen: it's genesis then kinesis then stasis (not stasis – kinesis – genesis)?

Epistemic distance is what makes our becoming free.

Becoming is what qualitatively differentiates divine & determinate natures.

BUT - per the way I conceive being, well-being, eternal-well-being & ill-being, along w/nuances I apply to freedom & autonomy, still, there are types of predestination, efficacious gracing, etc that aren't repugnant to my overall scheme.

B/c per my scheme we're protologically journeying from good to better to best, abundance to superabundance, adequately to super-sufficiently free, faith & hope to beatific vision, not away from ECT, I can celebrate without being offended by exceptional gracings, divine favorings & differential destinies.

This is a good jumping off point to evaluate logical defenses & (anti)theodicies:

Thought experiment: Why might some Mariologists have insisted that Mary only ever had transitory enjoyments of the beatific vision?

Some (properly) thought that an habitual enjoyment would’ve deprived her of the gifts of faith & hope along with their benefits.

What wouldn’t be lost — if all were gifted the beatific vision from the cosmic get-go — is our “freedom for excellence” as consistent with our natural inclinations.

What would be lost would be the gifts of faith & hope that enrich that freedom by growing our “autonomy for intimacy,” which is ordered to the expansion of our theophanic scopes & beatitudinal ranges.

I develop all of this, above, at length in pp 79 – 161 of this 3,400 page document: A Neo-Chalcedonian, Franciscan Cosmotheandric Universalism of Apokatastenai, which can be found here.

https://syncretisticcatholicism.wordpress.com/

Christology: Dialectic & Analogy, Antinomy & Paradox

B/c personal logics refer to both hypostatic idiomata & natural propria, a dialectic of antinomial persons & paradox of analogical natures will coincide. We don’t have to choose between them or privilege one over the other.

The answers that others offer re dialectics & analogy is way beyond my monetizable social media paygrade. But I do wholly appreciate & partly grasp the questions posed by Milbank, Žižek, this or that Hegel, etc, especially re “nothingness.”

I less had Žižek or Hegel in mind when I invoked Deacon’s “constitutive absences” in terms of embodied antinomies. I was projecting my interpretation of Bulgakov’s “nothingness” in The Unfading Light.

My interpretation of the work (both analogical & dialectical) that Bulgakov’s “nothingness” was doing vis a vis the I – Thou-ness of Sophia had, as a backdrop, JDW’s approaches to a generation of opposites & nonformal positivity.

JDW’s interpretations of Bonaventure’s emanation in Trinitology & Maximus’ creation in Christology both give a nod to a nonformal positivity – never eschewing, but – complementing the insights from our natural analogies.

JDW’s NC supplements Chalcedon w/an exploratory heuristic not an onto-noetic explanation.

There’s way more of a concrete & practical – rather than abstract & speculative – upshot to JDW’s Neochalcedonism. To me it responds to “Why are constitutively absenced?” with the answer:

“We’re not. It’s just that we can freely & eternally become ever more aware of our divine presencing.” In other words, it’s epistemic via fluctuating concealments & manifestations.

re: the same subject and simultaneity of natural predicates

That rhymes w/HuvB’s distinction btw Christ’s mode of “manifestness” & “concealment” which led to a further (controversial) distinction between Christ’s visio immediata & visio beatifica?

HuvB’s distinction btw Christ’s visio immediata & beatifica, which may fluctuate & which I find most felicitous, suggests that, like Mary & the rest of us, Christ enjoyed the beatific vision AND the benefits of the life of faith & hope?

Thought Experiment – Extrapolating from Mariology

While our divine epistemic distancing’s indispensable in making our theotic journey from being thru well-being to eternal-well-being a sufficiently free self-determination, that doesn’t make any ill-being resulting from our misuse of that freedom necessary.

It only means that the possibility of sin & any consequential ill-being is unavoidable.

If the above holds protologically & we thus conceive any edenic existence sub-eschatologically, and further, if, notwithstanding the Immaculate Conception, even Mary experienced natural dormition & only transitory – not habitual – beatific visions, then we certainly needn’t necessarily conceive either natural death or the life of faith & hope (sans the beatific vision) in terms of ill-being. Rather, they’d constitute an abundant life that’s early on its free journey to a divine superabundance.

Historically, though, there’s no denying the empirical ill-being of our false incarnations.

Still, while the absolute primacy of Christ was not in response to any felix culpa, and since the Incarnation does most efficaciously resolve full-blown eternal antinomies, we can reasonably imagine that the Incarnation will also very readily dispense with history’s half-baked ephemeral subcontraries, too!


Thought Experiment – Further Extrapolating from Immaculate Conception

While our divine epistemic distancing’s indispensable to making our theotic journey from being thru well-being to eternal-well-being a sufficiently free self-determination, that doesn’t make any ill-being resulting from our misuse of that freedom necessary.

It only means that the possibility of sin & any consequential ill-being is unavoidable.

If the above holds protologically & we thus conceive any edenic existence sub-eschatologically,

and

if, notwithstanding the Immaculate Conception, even Mary experienced natural dormition & only transitory – not habitual – beatific visions, then

we certainly needn’t necessarily conceive either natural death or the life of faith & hope (sans the beatific vision) in terms of ill-being. Rather, they constitute an abundant life that’s early on its free journey to a divine superabundance.


Historically, though, there’s no denying the empirical ill-being of our false incarnations. While the absolute primacy of Christ was not in response to any felix culpa, since the Incarnation does most efficaciously resolve full-blown eternal antinomies, we can reasonably imagine that it will very readily dispense with history’s half-baked ephemeral subcontraries.

Thought Experiment – What’s Really At Stake?

Even though the term “mortal sin” does not successfully refer, the perfect goodness of God is still compatible w/the possibility of sin & evil b/c we can appeal to a putative greater good in a logical defense.

On the faith side of things, mortal sin vis a vis an irrevocable foreclosure on repentance is really my one quibble. I don’t negate the venial/grave distinction. I insist that all vicious natures are purged. I don’t insist that all necessarily attain a beatific vision; I resist that its possibility can ever be foreclosed.

In purgatory, as our vicious natures melt away, we enjoy impeccability even on this side of the beatific vision, so, still in our abundant life of faith & hope and capable of secondary beatitudes.

At stake is superabundance of BV vs abundance of apokatastenai & not vs ECT.