A Volitionist Argument for the Assurance of Salvation

Agent Intellect has a very interesting post comparing the idea of salvation as manifested in Islam and Christianity. He argues that since Allah is irreducibly capricious, Muslims can only hope that they will be found worthy in His eyes; a righteous man therefore could be damned if Allah decided it should be so. Christianity's promise, on the other hand, assures that God can, does, and must allow any righteous follower. This is a heavy claim, even without the comparison.

What has always puzzled me is the idea that we can know any limitations to God's nature. After all, if God is all-knowing and all-powerful, why couldn't He perform the impossible? Why couldn't He create a rock that He could not lift? By extension, why couldn't God go back on His word? This is a well-known argument against Christianity: any limitations to God lead to self-contradictory conclusions, and so Christianity is absurd. If that is the case, then Islam presents the only logical conception of God - a Supreme Being who can change His mind in an instant, even deceive us whimsically.

I believe St. Paul supplies a response to this charge. My contention is that the impossibility of a lying God exists and is perfectly logical, but that it still rests on His will. Far from being a limitation, this evidences God's love for us. First we have to trace the nature of this impossibility, and then we can draw out the implications.

Understand that I am not arguing that God exists here. In the following argument

If the Bible is true, God is real and He spoke to Abraham.
If God had this conversation with Abraham, He could not lie.
Therefore if the Bible is true, God did not lie to Abraham.

this post addresses only Premiss #2. Nor am I arguing for theological voluntarism necessarily (!), though this could be regarded as supportive of that position. For the moment I'm simply unpacking this question and offering an account.

Agent Intellect cites several verses supporting the thesis that God cannot lie, but the only one which says it is impossible for God to lie is Heb. 6.18. What's interesting is that He does so purely out of volition, which is confirmed by verses 13-15. God made the promise to Abraham, which really was not necessary; nobody forced Him to make the promise. The force of necessity comes in thanks to (1) the nature of promises and (2) the absolute nature of God, not in His willing to make the promise. Because a promise involves swearing by something higher than oneself, God was compelled to appeal to a higher authority. But since God is the highest authority around, He could only swear by Himself. That's what makes the Law what it is. In other words, in the act of promising, God transmuted His word from actuality to necessity; it became binding because He willed it.

Thus prior to the Covenant there was no necessity behind God's word; it was merely actually so. We can then say He did not lie, though He very well could have. Therefore the necessity mentioned in Hebrews 6.18 rests ultimately on God's decision to make the promise to Abraham. In other words, God created His own necessity.

Does that mean we're supposed to take God's word for it? He cannot lie because He said so...? That's like the ultimate used-car salesman: "Trust me." Let's compare the two cases. The used-car salesman wants to be trusted, but we know there are greater sources of truth than his snake-oil testimony. We can have the car tested and see whether there's any truth in the claim. In the case of God, however, we have no higher authority to appeal to. Assuming that God is real, He is the final arbiter on all matters and therefore the ultimate assurance for a promise - even His own.

The consistency of God's nature manifests itself in His love for us. This is evidenced by the fact that He makes himself trustworthy, as the Covenant demonstrates. Out of the very nature which created the world, God literally creates necessity by binding His word with Himself. He could deceive us, but He doesn't; instead he holds Himself to his word, which is by definition superlative in power and authority.

This rendition comes with an interesting twist: since God's word ought to be binding because it is so, it appears to fall prey to the Naturalistic Fallacy - and yet does not. The reason for this is that the Naturalistic Fallacy depends on immanent conceptions of modality. The domain of philosophy is the world around us, and we try to explain things in terms that anybody could examine. In other words, we cannot explain how necessity of any kind may be derived from actuality in terms of the everyday world. This is true. But God by definition transcends the universe, and therefore its laws do not necessarily apply. In this case alone can we derive an ought from an is. This argument therefore provides a valid speculative link between the immanent and transcendent.

This conception of God seems most consistent with His nature. See Genesis 1.3 or John 1.1: things happen on the basis of God's speaking, and they occur as commanded. I am not arguing from the authority of these verses, I am citing them as evidence of sacred consistency. (My argument for the basis of Christian assurance rests on Scripture, but only to the extent that it asserts the reality of God. Even if we leave the question mark of God standing, the argument remains valid.) The world came into being: none of this had to be, it simply was the case. The complexity of the universe is certainly fascinating, but so what? That doesn't make me go "Wow!" It could be more complex. Big deal. No, it is the world's very contingency which makes it so astonishing - that it exists at all.

So it seems that Paul sheds light on the loving nature of God by explaining why He cannot lie: the will to be true to His word, which only makes sense because of care. God cannot lie because He cares enough for us to make a promise. Hopefully I've got it right, but I could well be wrong.