Ship of Fools: Is eternal damnation fair?

Thread: Is eternal damnation fair? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

Given that the worse thing we can do in our Earthly lives is probably to kill someone, and given the average lifespan of humans as around 80 years, it follows that the maximum amount of Earthly life we can take from someone is about 80 years before they would have died anyway.

Given that, is it fair or just that someone should suffer in hell for eternity? The punishment doesn’t seem to fit the crime!

Even Hitler, with say, the blood of 20 million on his hands, will have taken away (80 * 20 million) 1.6 billion years of life. Is it just that he spends 1.6 billion years and 1 day in hell for that crime? Even spending 1.6 billion years, is literally nothing compared to eternity, so where is the justice in eternal damnation?

Given that murder is the worst thing we can do, it is even more egregious to send someone to hell for eternity for something less, such as not believing in God. Where is the justice in that?

Can any punishment for eternity ever be fair or just for a sin committed in this Earthly life that is, by definition, limited in its impact by our own lifespans. We can only hurt people for a finite amount of time, so why punish them for infinity?

Isn’t there a biblical verse about the punishment fitting the crime?

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

Didn't we have this one a month or two back?

Generated more heat than light IIRC.

Posted by Dinghy Sailor (# 8507) on :

Yes, it's fair. What's really unfair is grace - but I'm not going to say no if God is offering me free forgiveness.

Turn your question around: Are we entitled to eternal life?

Posted by Lord Jestocost (# 12909) on :

You're viewing Hell as a punishment (which is indeed a traditional though unhelpful viewpoint) rather than the default state of fallen humanity. As a punishment, no, it's not fair, which is one reason I don't believe in it. As a default state, however, it's no more unfair than the fact that if you walk over a cliff then you will plummet to your death, whether or not you believe in gravity, or saw the cliff coming, or whatever.

I know that then opens a whole truckload of other cans of worms, but it's a start ...

Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on :

I recommend for your reading pleasure If Grace Is True: Why God Will Save Every Person by Philip Gulley and James Mulholland.

Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :

Eternity is not, strictly speaking, an infinite number of years, so it's not really possible to speak of it in deano's utilitarian terms.

Or so it went the last time around the block.

[ 22. February 2013, 14:24: Message edited by: Zach82 ]

Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
Yes, it's fair. What's really unfair is grace - but I'm not going to say no if God is offering me free forgiveness.

Turn your question around: Are we entitled to eternal life?

Are they the only two options? What about eternal mediocrity, or non-eternity?

For me, it's totally not fair, and goes against the character of God that we see in Jesus and scripture.

But as Karl said, we've had a few threads on this before, so I'm not sure I have much new to add from previous discussions.

Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :

quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
Are they the only two options? What about eternal mediocrity, or non-eternity?

For me, it's totally not fair, and goes against the character of God that we see in Jesus and scripture.

But as Karl said, we've had a few threads on this before, so I'm not sure I have much new to add from previous discussions.

I dunno. God gets pretty wrathful in the scriptures, and it gets pretty hard to explain away sometimes.

"Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat?

I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment.

For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come." Isaiah 63:2-4

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

I don't think the issue is how God is sometimes portrayed in Scripture. It's trying to justify that portrayal and reconcile it with God being love, mercy and all that that gives folks issues, methinks.

Posted by gorpo (# 17025) on :

What about the children of those who were dead, who didn´t have the oportunity to be born? And what if eternity cannot be measured in years? The problem with this logic ("I don´t think it´s fair, therefore it cannot be true") is that it means God should obbey whatever human beings think is fair (and that changes a lot through the years...). Therefore, God should obbey our human laws and not the other way around! It sounds ridiculous.

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
Turn your question around: Are we entitled to eternal life?

According to traditional Christian thought on the matter, yes we are. In fact, there's nothing we can do to avoid eternal life. It's simply a question of how unpleasant that eternal life will be.

Posted by Mere Nick (# 11827) on :

I don't see the idea of a conscious, eternal punishing taught in the bible.

Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I don't think the issue is how God is sometimes portrayed in Scripture. It's trying to justify that portrayal and reconcile it with God being love, mercy and all that that gives folks issues, methinks.

How does one justify any portrayal of God? The God of love is not any more justified, humanly speaking, than this wrathful God that is trampling his enemies like grapes.

God is love, and God is wrathful about injustice. We don't have to reconcile them.

Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:

quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
Are they the only two options? What about eternal mediocrity, or non-eternity?
I dunno. God gets pretty wrathful in the scriptures, and it gets pretty hard to explain away sometimes.

I meant from a logical point of view, rather than a scriptural one - I think on a bunch of issues stuff gets presented as if there are only two alternatives - creation or evolution, eternal life or eternal punishment, etc.

As with many things, there are actually a whole load of other options. I agree with Dinghy Sailor that eternal life is unfair (but in a good way). Eternal punishment is unfair too, unless the person being eternally punished is continuously doing something during that punishment that means that they deserve more punishment. But even then, the eternity is not a given, because the person could stop doing those things.

In terms of Scripture, God does get wrathful, and rightly so. Evil deserves wrath, but God is also patient, loving and forgiving. The truth, ISTM, is holding both those extremes as great and true, rather than watering down either of them. The doctrine of eternal punishment waters down the love and mercy of God too much, just as forms of universalism water down his righteousness and justice too much.

Damnation is not in God's nature, he doesn't condemn us, we condemn ourselves. Any suffering we undergo in the next life will be self-imposed. God does discipline and chastise us, but that is a different thing to damnation and retributive punishment. God doesn't do those things.

But, we've been here before, haven't we Zach? [Big Grin]

I'm just waiting for Ingo to come along to remind us that infinite punishment is fair because it is a consequence of sin against an infinite God...

(Edit for clarity... Or at least I hope...)

[ 22. February 2013, 14:53: Message edited by: goperryrevs ]

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:

In terms of Scripture, God does get wrathful, and rightly so. Evil deserves wrath, but God is also patient, loving and forgiving. The truth, ISTM, is holding both those extremes as great and true, rather than watering down either of them. The doctrine of eternal punishment waters down the love and mercy of God too much, just as forms of universalism water down his righteousness and justice too much.

Spot on.

My own denomination (PCUSA) says something similar:

quote:
Jesus Christ is the only Savior and Lord, and all people everywhere are called to place their faith, hope, and love in him. No one is saved by virtue of inherent goodness or admirable living, for "by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God" [Eph. 2:8]. No one is saved apart from God's gracious redemption in Jesus Christ. Yet we do not presume to limit the sovereign freedom of "God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth" [1 Tim. 2:4]. Thus, we neither restrict the grace of God to those who profess explicit faith in Christ nor assume that all people are saved regardless of faith. Grace, love, and communion belong to God, and are not ours to determine.

[ 22. February 2013, 14:57: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
Damnation is not in God's nature, he doesn't condemn us, we condemn ourselves. Any suffering we undergo in the next life will be self-imposed. God does discipline and chastise us, but that is a different thing to damnation and retributive punishment. God doesn't do those things.

Isn't that the excuse torturers always use? "Why are you forcing me to do this to you?"

Posted by Anglican_Brat (# 12349) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
Damnation is not in God's nature, he doesn't condemn us, we condemn ourselves. Any suffering we undergo in the next life will be self-imposed. God does discipline and chastise us, but that is a different thing to damnation and retributive punishment. God doesn't do those things.
Isn't that the excuse torturers always use? "Why are you forcing me to do this to you?"

I think the point is that if people are in hell, they are there because of their free choice. If my child doesn't want to join the party and stays outside sulking, I usually leave him or her alone. Should I want to physically compel him to come in and say "You MUST have fun?"

Now of course, being that God is the source of all life and love, to reject God means necessarily to reject life and love. It seems profoundly irrational, but then evil is irrational.

I do think as Christians, we have to at least entertain the possibility that people can get fed up with their self-imposed exile and come in the door. So, salvation in the afterlife in my view is a possibility.

But then again, none of us have been there yet, so what do we know about the afterlife?

Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :

I gotta go with Croesos on this one. One cannot let God off the hook over damnation, him being the creator of the system after all. We should be wary of pat answers that explain these problems away too easily.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
Damnation is not in God's nature, he doesn't condemn us, we condemn ourselves. Any suffering we undergo in the next life will be self-imposed. God does discipline and chastise us, but that is a different thing to damnation and retributive punishment. God doesn't do those things.
Isn't that the excuse torturers always use? "Why are you forcing me to do this to you?"
I think the point is that if people are in hell, they are there because of their free choice. If my child doesn't want to join the party and stays outside sulking, I usually leave him or her alone. Should I want to physically compel him to come in and say "You MUST have fun?"

But the OP is about the notion of "eternal torment", so the analogy is not just about a child missing some fun, but rather a child missing some fun to stand out in the middle of a busy highway in the path of an oncoming bus. I rather think you WOULD physically compel him to come in.

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
[qb]
But then again, none of us have been there yet, so what do we know about the afterlife?

Spot on. This is all speculative-- which is fine, it's what we do on the Ship, and our own version of great fun. But in the end, Scripture tells us simply that there is an afterlife, and that God is there. That's really all we need to know.

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

In my view, the love of God is hell for those who hate that love.

This view is often countered with the claim that no one would find exposure to eternal love and mercy an unpleasant experience. I deeply disagree with that.

I would have thought that love is the very last thing the proud and arrogant person desires to be exposed to (other than love of self). I speak with fear and trembling...

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
Now of course, being that God is the source of all life and love, to reject God means necessarily to reject life and love. It seems profoundly irrational, but then evil is irrational.

Doesn't this reasoning imply that all non-Christians are irrational and evil?

Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on :

quote:
Originally posted by gorpo:
The problem with this logic ("I don´t think it´s fair, therefore it cannot be true") is that it means God should obbey whatever human beings think is fair (and that changes a lot through the years...). Therefore, God should obbey our human laws and not the other way around! It sounds ridiculous.

The logic for me goes: does this theology sound like the fair and just God as revealed in scripture? The one who claimed that he will repay each according to their sin, no more, no less. And the God who would rather humble Himself and go to the cross rather than see the worst sinner among us perish.

For me, the theology of eternal conscious torture goes directly against the revelation of God in scripture. It is also illogical in that eternal life is described as a gift of God for those who beleive in him, and the opposite is promised for those others who don't. The opposite of eternal life is eternal death surely, not eternal life just the same, with added pitchforks so you won't enjoy it.

Scripture never once mentions the eternal conscious torture of unbelievers as their penalty, except in a parable which is obviously not meant to be taken literally (since in it apprently people in Hell can have a chat with people in Heaven whenever they want). The penalty is decribed mainly by the metaphor of being thrown into an unquenchable fire, which can only mean being consumed and destroyed utterly, since this is what happens when you throw things into a fire. It's also called the second death, and eternal destruction. Both phrases surely referring to an end, rather than a continuance, of conscious existence.

I beleive that God is love, but he is also just. He won't force anyone to accept his free gift of eternal life. And if people choose to go into the eternal blackness of death instead then that will be their just punishment.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
Now of course, being that God is the source of all life and love, to reject God means necessarily to reject life and love. It seems profoundly irrational, but then evil is irrational.
Doesn't this reasoning imply that all non-Christians are irrational and evil?

No, it implies all sinners are irrational. In fact, Christian sinners are really the ones who are irrational-- we claim that God is good, that he wants only the best for us, and that he is wise and knows what is the best for us. And yet we (and by we I mean me) constantly choose something other than God's way.

Call me Crazy.

[ 22. February 2013, 15:19: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:
Originally posted by [not]Crœsos:
But then again, none of us have been there yet, so what do we know about the afterlife?
Spot on.

That was actually Anglican_Brat's comment, not mine. Credit where credit is due.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:
Originally posted by [not]Crœsos:
But then again, none of us have been there yet, so what do we know about the afterlife?
Spot on.
That was actually Anglican_Brat's comment, not mine. Credit where credit is due.

oops, yes, picked up wrong tag line on that. My bad. Thanks for the correction.

Posted by Wilfried (# 12277) on :

No, it is not fair. Humans are finite, and our sins our finite, so how can infinite torment for finite transgression be fair?

And why the presumption that eternal hellfire and damnation is the default state? The sheol of the Hebrew Bible was rather grey, dreary, and dull, with little mention of eternal damnation, nor of heavenly bliss for that matter. Some mediocre middle seems to be the default of this world too. In various times and places the world can (too often) descend into hellishness, but it's doesn't last forever (and there can be temporary golden ages of prosperity too). Why should default state of God's kingdom be worse? And if love, mercy, and grace define God, why would his kingdom default to the very opposite?

Posted by Raptor Eye (# 16649) on :

ISTM that the judgement day spoken of in the Bible is not meant to be a threat as much as a promise, a promise that the God of true justice will ensure that justice is done, in good time.

None of us is perfect. Therefore, if heaven and hell were about good and bad thoughts and deeds, we'd all be split in two at the time of judgement, with a lesser or greater amount allocated to each. [Ultra confused]

If salvation for those who believe in Christ Jesus means that they 'will not perish' (John 3:16), we have an indication that those who are not saved will no longer exist. None of us can reckon on being saved, we can only live in hope and trust in God's mercy.

Posted by Anglican_Brat (# 12349) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
Now of course, being that God is the source of all life and love, to reject God means necessarily to reject life and love. It seems profoundly irrational, but then evil is irrational.
Doesn't this reasoning imply that all non-Christians are irrational and evil?

I didn't equate "rejecting God" with being non-Christian.
[Razz]

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor
Yes, it's fair. What's really unfair is grace - but I'm not going to say no if God is offering me free forgiveness.

Turn your question around: Are we entitled to eternal life?

We may not be 'entitled' to eternal life, but neither are we entitled to earthly life, since we did not earn it. The concept of 'entitlement' is completely meaningless in the context of man's relationship to God, since everything comes from Him anyway. If God did not want to give us eternal life, then He would not have granted us earthly life. Why would God start something that He could not finish? After all, we can't imagine God saying the following to a redeemed person in heaven: "I am now bringing your life in heaven to an end, because you are not entitled to it, just like I brought your earthly life to an end, because you were not entitled to that." So why would God think it fair only to grant life to someone on earth, but withhold it in the eternal age to come?

And it is certainly grotesquely unfair for God to deliberately bring us into a world where we become automatically infected with a sinful nature, and then declare that, on the basis of that sin nature, we deserve to burn in the fires of hell for all eternity. None of us ever asked to be born into a fallen world! We were never consulted as to whether we wanted to be preprogrammed with original sin. We never made any choice to embrace original sin, because original sin cannot, by definition, be chosen.

To say that God is just in creating people in this way, and declaring that we all deserve to go to hell on the basis of something we inherited which none of us can help or resist in our own strength, and then to say that His solution to the problem is 'unfair', is tantamount to saying that God is not a morally responsible being, but entirely capricious.

Everything flows from God's grace, and this grace IS fair, because God is fair. God loves justice. Therefore everything that comes from God is consistent with justice. To say that grace is 'unfair' is to say that God is unfair, and therefore God rejects justice. And if God rejects justice, then His Word is a lie, which states clearly that God loves justice and hates injustice (see Isaiah 61:8 or Deuteronomy 32:4). Mercy is just. If mercy were unjust, then it could not flow from God, because there is no injustice in God. Hence 1 John 1:9 - "If we confess our sins, He is faithful AND JUST to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Of course, there are those who deliberately choose to reject the love of God. The eternal life that God gives to such people will be an extremely painful and traumatic experience. This is known as 'hell'. It is not a fate which is 'deserved', in the same way that someone who deliberately walks over the edge of a cliff does not 'deserve' to have his skull crushed on the rocks below. That fate is a consequence of a choice. Nothing to do with "just deserts" meted out by a fanatical legalist.

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Croesos
Isn't that the excuse torturers always use? "Why are you forcing me to do this to you?"

OK, so a child who has a screaming tantrum is being forced to have that tantrum by his evil, torturing parents?

I suppose really they ought to just give in to him, and give him whatever he wants...

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

quote:
Originally posted by Croesos
Isn't that the excuse torturers always use? "Why are you forcing me to do this to you?"
OK, so a child who has a screaming tantrum is being forced to have that tantrum by his evil, torturing parents?

quote:
Father arrested after burning sons' hands as discipline

Twin 6-year-old boys remained hospitalized Monday after police say their father put their hands under scalding hot water as a form of discipline.

<snip>

While investigating that case, officers noticed twin 6-year-old boys each had one or both of their hands severely burned, said Sandy Police Sgt. John Arnold. One of the boys also had blood on his face, mouth, nose, legs and chest as if he had been punched in the nose, he said.

Their hands looked as if they had been placed under boiling water, according to jail documents detailing police observations. One boy was, "crying and waiving his hands around because it hurt him so bad," the report stated.

What a little whiner! Throwing a tantrum just because he'd been given the old "lake of fire" punishment. Clearly a case that calls for further discipline. [Mad]

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

I'm not even sure we can properly choose to enter into God's love or reject it for eternity!

As humans we can have no real sense or experience of 'eternity'. So our choice can only be made from the basis of our 'human' experience of time from seconds and minutes up to the decades that make up a natural human lifespan.

How can we make a choice if we don't understand the options, nor have any concept of how long we are being tied in for?

In my opinion, we cannot, unless after death God implants the proper knowledge and experience into us to be able to make a proper choice.

It's why I am a universalist. I understand it can be proof-texted to show it is wrong, but anything less is a miscarriage of justice, or a con trick!

Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:
I'm not even sure we can properly choose to enter into God's love or reject it for eternity!

As humans we can have no real sense or experience of 'eternity'. So our choice can only be made from the basis of our 'human' experience of time from seconds and minutes up to the decades that make up a natural human lifespan.

How can we make a choice if we don't understand the options, nor have any concept of how long we are being tied in for?

In my opinion, we cannot, unless after death God implants the proper knowledge and experience into us to be able to make a proper choice...

And that, dear chum, is why salvation is about grace, and not works.

quote:
It's why I am a universalist. I understand it can be proof-texted to show it is wrong, but anything less is a miscarriage of justice, or a con trick!

Do you have any idea that the True God is not the image of God in your mind that fits comfortably with your moral sensibilities?

Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:
How can we make a choice if we don't understand the options, nor have any concept of how long we are being tied in for?

In my opinion, we cannot, unless after death God implants the proper knowledge and experience into us to be able to make a proper choice.

Or unless the choice God presents us with is not an intellectual "which do you choose: A or B?" so much as a "what kind of person do you choose to be?"

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

I don't see how one can reconcile "If you're in Hell it's because you chose to be" with "God is trampling down his enemies like grapes." The latter is definitely in the "I'll get you for that" camp; it is incompatible with the former.

And I don't think the old "You're judging God by your own standards" canard floats. No, we're judging God by HIS standards, as HE told us in HIS book.

[ 22. February 2013, 19:14: Message edited by: mousethief ]

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Croesos
Father arrested after burning sons' hands as discipline

Twin 6-year-old boys remained hospitalized Monday after police say their father put their hands under scalding hot water as a form of discipline.

etc...

Ah, so all parents, whose children have tantrums, are evil torturers?

I never knew that!

(Because if there are any parents, whose children have tantrums, who are not evil torturers, then my original comment stands. It does not follow that God is necessarily an evil torturer if he has children who have eternal tantrums, described figuratively with the imagery of fire.)

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:

quote:
Originally posted by deano:
How can we make a choice if we don't understand the options, nor have any concept of how long we are being tied in for?

In my opinion, we cannot, unless after death God implants the proper knowledge and experience into us to be able to make a proper choice.
Or unless the choice God presents us with is not an intellectual "which do you choose: A or B?" so much as a "what kind of person do you choose to be?"

Even that doesn't work in Heaven, or with God's full and eternal love swirling around us, because we cannot make the choice without the knowledge of the different people we can be in Heaven. Yes, we can on Earth, to an extent, but not for eternity, after death. Unless we are given the experiences we still have no context to make the decisions on.

To use an analogy from upthread, it isn't that we are stood outside the party, not wanting to go in because we are having a tantrum, it's that (a) we are having a tantrum and in parallel, but completely unconnected, (b) we don't know what a party is, and what we will get from it!

[ 22. February 2013, 19:38: Message edited by: deano ]

Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :

Unless the choice is essentially the same for us in Heaven (or Hell) as it was on Earth.

Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I don't see how one can reconcile "If you're in Hell it's because you chose to be" with "God is trampling down his enemies like grapes." The latter is definitely in the "I'll get you for that" camp; it is incompatible with the former.

And I don't think the old "You're judging God by your own standards" canard floats. No, we're judging God by HIS standards, as HE told us in HIS book.

Well, all the above images are in HIS book. You work it out without dismissing half the equation.

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:
. . . is it fair or just that someone should suffer in hell for eternity? . . . Isn’t there a biblical verse about the punishment fitting the crime?

Given that this supposed God has allegedly created and also allegedly controls or manages or at least takes some sort of mildly interventionist interest in the whole of creation, I really don't see where "fair" and "just" come into this issue. Such notions can materialize only if we assume that "fairness" and "justice" are permanent attributes of this alleged God. Even if we can credibly posit this, we'd still have to raise questions about fair and/or just to whom, and about what, and according to whose standards, and on what basis: all his. Or hers.

It seems to me that there are lots of unstated assumptions underlying this idea, and I can't honestly see much point to pursuing them. The God portrayed in Hebrew and Christian scriptures seem far more invested in human obedience to divine will than in anything else; and if this alleged God were actually concerned about human welfare-justice-fairness (and also had even the slightest clue what human existence is actually like -- aging, aching, tiring, sorrowing, suffering, and equipped with a capacity for boredom), said God would not have conjured up speculations re: eternal life in the first place. It's a hideous prospect, if you ask me. Hell and damnation needn't even come into it.

Seriously: will you be up for harp-twanging, however metaphorical, after the galaxies burn out?

Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :

quote:
The God portrayed in Hebrew and Christian scriptures seem far more invested in human obedience to divine will than in anything else; and if this alleged God were actually concerned about human welfare-justice-fairness (and also had even the slightest clue what human existence is actually like -- aging, aching, tiring, sorrowing, suffering, and equipped with a capacity for boredom), said God would not have conjured up speculations re: eternal life in the first place...

Wow, it doesn't seem to me that you've read much of the Bible.

The God of the Christian Bible longs for a relationship with humankind, is profoundly concerned with justice and peace in the here and now, and waits until almost the very end to throw out only vague hints of the afterlife.

Heck, you don't seem to have even the slightest awareness of the Passion!

[ 22. February 2013, 21:42: Message edited by: Zach82 ]

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:

quote:
The God portrayed in Hebrew and Christian scriptures seem far more invested in human obedience to divine will than in anything else; . . .
Wow, it doesn't seem to me that you've read much of the Bible.

The God of the Christian Bible longs for a relationship with humankind, . . .

These aren't contradictory. Demanding obedience is a kind of relationship.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Demanding obedience is a kind of relationship.

Master/slave is a relationship.

Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:
the maximum amount of Earthly life we can take from someone is about 80 years before they would have died anyway.

Given that, is it fair or just that someone should suffer in hell for eternity? The punishment doesn’t seem to fit the crime!

What if the crime from God's viewpoint is not the murder itself, but the justifying a murder as "good"? Then hell is not "punishment" (I don't believe God punishes) for a single past deed of limited effect, hell is an ongoing response to an ongoing crime of destructive attitude. Repent/turn/change your attitude, you are no longer in hell.

Do we at some point become so hardened in an attitude we cannot change? Habits are really hard to break even when we know they hurt us.

Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:

quote:
Originally posted by deano:
the maximum amount of Earthly life we can take from someone is about 80 years before they would have died anyway.

Given that, is it fair or just that someone should suffer in hell for eternity? The punishment doesn’t seem to fit the crime!
What if the crime from God's viewpoint is not the murder itself, but the justifying a murder as "good"? Then hell is not "punishment" (I don't believe God punishes) for a single past deed of limited effect, hell is an ongoing response to an ongoing crime of destructive attitude. Repent/turn/change your attitude, you are no longer in hell.

Do we at some point become so hardened in an attitude we cannot change? Habits are really hard to break even when we know they hurt us.

Call me crazy, but I think murdering is worse than some dodgy ethical conclusions about murder.

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
What if the crime from God's viewpoint is not the murder itself, but the justifying a murder as "good"? Then hell is not "punishment" (I don't believe God punishes) for a single past deed of limited effect, hell is an ongoing response to an ongoing crime of destructive attitude. Repent/turn/change your attitude, you are no longer in hell.

Do we at some point become so hardened in an attitude we cannot change? Habits are really hard to break even when we know they hurt us.

Hell as Room 101? Interesting idea.

quote:
But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.

This goes back to the Torturer's Justification. "Why are you making me do this to you? This can stop any time you want. You just have to cooperate."

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Croesos
Demanding obedience is a kind of relationship.

You make obedience sound like a terrible thing.

I tend to think the opposite is the case. For example, disobedience is pretty horrible when out on the road. I rather like the fact that most drivers obey the rules of the road. After all, the rules are there for our benefit and well-being.

And I suppose in any love relationship there is no concept of 'obedience' to that relationship, is there? "Hey, love, you go off and have affairs with whomever you like. No probs..."

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

And I suppose in any love relationship there is no concept of 'obedience' to that relationship, is there? "Hey, love, you go off and have affairs with whomever you like. No probs..."

That should not be about obedience, but commitment.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

Damnation is so oversold and much loved by those who want to control others. It appeals to humans baser instincts, about revenge I think, and projects onto God characteristics we see within ourselves.

So, no, it is not fair, and most probably doesn't exist in the form that we imagine, and what those humans who wrote up the bible suggest. I like the explanations provided with CS Lewis' writings, where it is suggested that the damnation, or hell, is constructed within the life and intentions of the individual, such that it really is only a logical next step of a person's existence, and fully a product of their own choices. God doesn't do the damning, rather, God simply gives what the person asks for, with the questions continually asked, and probably never too late, but unfortunately made in directions such the individual cannot see that they've made a choice, so practiced they are in their restricted damnable hellish way of thinking and being.

So the fairness issues has to come back to that of free will and whether it is fair that the world, and humans within it, are characterised by full choice and full free well. Should humanity have been characterised by free will? If yes, then, it is fair to be damned. If no, then, it is unfair.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Lewis was a vast pessimist, He failed to see the power of God.

Jesus SAVES.

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

it seems to e that Lewis was portraying life as a game show, with God as te host continually asking us, the contestant,whether we are happy with our answer, or do want to "phone a friend" or pick another box or door. it's too random!

If God is love and sent his Son to die for us, then there can be no injustice. All punishment must fit the crime... eternal damnation for being a hypocritical Pharisee is not just and fair.

I raised this thread because reading the Bible and it's many references to eternal punishment just don't make sense. I'm coming to the conclusion that the Bible is flawed in so many ways.that in order to reconcile God's actions, we need to disregard much of what he says!

The writers, in my opinion, remembered the actions perfectly, but got the recollections of what He said wrong in many ways.

Posted by Truman White (# 17290) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
Turn your question around: Are we entitled to eternal life?
According to traditional Christian thought on the matter, yes we are. In fact, there's nothing we can do to avoid eternal life. It's simply a question of how unpleasant that eternal life will be.

Now here's a thought Big C. What would you consider more unpleasant - an eternity
with God, or one without him?

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha
That should not be about obedience, but commitment.

Someone willingly and happily obeys the rules of the road, because he is committed to being a safe driver.

Someone willingly and happily obeys the 'law' of compassion, because she is committed to loving her neighbour.

Someone willingly and happily obeys the 'law' of faithfulness, because he is committed to the one he loves.

Obedience does not have to be about grim compulsion, you know!

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

God just can't cut it can He? He is so pathetically incompetent, ineffectual. Or worse.

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
God just can't cut it can He? He is so pathetically incompetent, ineffectual. Or worse.

Wrong. God is perfection, sublime love, forgiveness and compassion. Humans, on the other hand have done a piss-poor job of representing him.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:

I raised this thread because reading the Bible and it's many references to eternal punishment just don't make sense. I'm coming to the conclusion that the Bible is flawed in so many ways.that in order to reconcile God's actions, we need to disregard much of what he says!

Define "many".

By my count, there's at best a "few". So often our assumptions about what the Bible says and how often it says it is based on what we've "heard" so many times that it just becomes part of the cultural noise-- a given we never bother to check out or even notice it's inaccuracy.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha
That should not be about obedience, but commitment.
Someone willingly and happily obeys the rules of the road, because he is committed to being a safe driver.

Someone willingly and happily obeys the 'law' of compassion, because she is committed to loving her neighbour.

Someone willingly and happily obeys the 'law' of faithfulness, because he is committed to the one he loves.

Obedience does not have to be about grim compulsion, you know!

Good point. We have come to believe that having endless options is freedom, but so often it keeps us from the one thing we most desire, which we cannot attain w/o commitment.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:
I raised this thread because reading the Bible and it's many references to eternal punishment just don't make sense.

Can you give me a list of the many references, so I can see exactly what it is you're talking about? Because I don't see what you say you see.

quote:
I'm coming to the conclusion that the Bible is flawed in so many ways.that in order to reconcile God's actions, we need to disregard much of what he says!

I don't think we have to disregard anything. We just have to understand it correctly. When the Psalmist commends smashing the heads of your enemies' babes against the rocks, if you understand that literally, it's monstrous, and evil, and for the sake of all that's good and holy, yes, it's best disregarded. But that's not the only way to understand it. If you understand it metaphorically, with the enemies being our passions and the children of our passions being our sins, it's a very different thing.

In the Orthodox Church, we're taught to read the Scriptures through the lens of the Gospels, as reflected in the lives of the saints, with the guidance of the Tradition of the Church. Maybe you could try a different lens and see how it reads to you then.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

deano, of course it's WRONG [Smile]

That's what we do. Vastly underestimate the power of God's love. It is all but inexorable, irresistible. Our commitment has nothing to do with it. It's all about His.

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:

quote:
The God portrayed in Hebrew and Christian scriptures seem far more invested in human obedience to divine will than in anything else; and if this alleged God were actually concerned about human welfare-justice-fairness (and also had even the slightest clue what human existence is actually like -- aging, aching, tiring, sorrowing, suffering, and equipped with a capacity for boredom), said God would not have conjured up speculations re: eternal life in the first place...
Wow, it doesn't seem to me that you've read much of the Bible.

The God of the Christian Bible longs for a relationship with humankind, is profoundly concerned with justice and peace in the here and now, and waits until almost the very end to throw out only vague hints of the afterlife.

Heck, you don't seem to have even the slightest awareness of the Passion!

Awareness of the Passion? Really? Didn't the alleged Savior of humankind pray to "let this cup pass from me?" -- that is, "if it be Thy will?"

Note that said cup failed to pass. Note the Savior's obedience.

Aren't we all "fallen," according to both tradition and scripture, due to our mythological parents' (Eve's and Adam's) disobedience?

Aren't we all in alleged need of forgiveness, again, due to our essentially disobedient nature?

And therefore, aren't all these egregious sins we commit actually divine creations -- created by the Divine One's definitions of what constitutes "good," "holy," "Christlike," "godly," etc.?

Don't the 10 Commandments allegedly originate with God?

Isn't our ongoing refusal and/or failure to conform to these down to our essentially flawed (from the First Creation!) constitution?

YMMV, but it looks like a rigged game to me. As a result, I find questions about "fairness" in this context somewhat hilarious.

Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:
Isn’t there a biblical verse about the punishment fitting the crime?

No. That would be Gilbert and Sullivan. Good, but not God.

Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :

quote:
Awareness of the Passion? Really? Didn't the alleged Savior of humankind pray to "let this cup pass from me?" -- that is, "if it be Thy will?"

Note that said cup failed to pass. Note the Savior's obedience.

You have asserted that God does not understand human experience. Being all knowing, he certainly does. Furthermore, since Jesus is God, he experienced those things firsthand in the Passion.

quote:
Aren't we all in alleged need of forgiveness, again, due to our essentially disobedient nature?

You are positing a dichotomy between human well being and obedience to God's arbitrary will. What if, as Christianity supposes, God wills the good of human kind?

For example, what if, as Christianity supposes, it is true that Jehovah is the only God? He is God, we are his creatures, and worshiping him alone is merely admitting the fact. It's an entirely reasonable ethical conclusion drawn from the facts of the matter.

These matters are so basic, I can only conclude that your criticisms proceed from a profound ignorance of the Bible and the Christian faith?

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Trisagion:

quote:
Originally posted by deano:
Isn’t there a biblical verse about the punishment fitting the crime?
No. That would be Gilbert and Sullivan. Good, but not God.

Leviticus 24:20 - fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. As he has injured the other, so he is to be injured.

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

One will do for the eternal bit...

Mt 25:41 “Then he will say to those on his left, e‘Depart from me, you fcursed, into gthe eternal fire prepared for hthe devil and his angels.

And for the being cast into it bits...

Matt. 3:12 says, "And His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." (See also Luke 3:17.)

Mark 9:43 says, "And if your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life crippled, than having your two hands, to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire."

And all of those references to gnashing and wailing, casting into outer darknesses and so on.

I think there's plenty in there. But it just doesn't square with a loving, forgiving God. Therefore what is written in the Bible about eternal punishment must be wrong. The writers misheard or misremembered.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:
One will do for the eternal bit...

Mt 25:41 “Then he will say to those on his left, e‘Depart from me, you fcursed, into gthe eternal fire prepared for hthe devil and his angels.

And for the being cast into it bits...

Matt. 3:12 says, "And His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." (See also Luke 3:17.)

Mark 9:43 says, "And if your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life crippled, than having your two hands, to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire."

And all of those references to gnashing and wailing, casting into outer darknesses and so on.

I think there's plenty in there. But it just doesn't square with a loving, forgiving God. Therefore what is written in the Bible about eternal punishment must be wrong. The writers misheard or misremembered.

That's three. I'm not sure there's "all those others" or "plenty". Which is why I acknowledge a "few" but not "many". There just aren't. These few stick out in our minds for exactly the reason you cited-- they don't square with the overwhelming testimony in the NT of a loving, forgiving God. But there aren't "many" of them.

I agree there's a huge problem with these few verses, one we've got to wrestle with. But let's keep it in perspective.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

fwiw, a concordance search for "gnashing" gets only 7 hits, many of which are synoptic duplicates. "Torment" gets 10 hits, but 6 of those are references to something other than hell/eternal torment. "Hell" itself gets 13 hits, but most are not specific about what it entails, and again, a lot of synoptic duplicates.

So again, few, not many.

[ 23. February 2013, 20:30: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

I don't care about the numbers. One will do! It is just plain wrong.

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
These matters are so basic, I can only conclude that your criticisms proceed from a profound ignorance of the Bible and the Christian faith?

My criticisms proceed from several years as a deacon in a U.S.-based branch of Christianity accompanied by a reasonably thorough acquaintance with the scriptures used by most Christians, a couple of semesters in an accredited theological seminary, and the realization that if there is in fact a God, and that God actually operates as advertised by said scriptures and said religious tradition, then Christians are pathologically enmeshed in a brutally dysfunctional family headed by a deranged single father who, if human, would be facing charges of criminal neglect, if not outright abuse.

Personally, if this God-Father exists, I think it's high time he remarried. He's clearly in over his head and needs help.

Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:

quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
These matters are so basic, I can only conclude that your criticisms proceed from a profound ignorance of the Bible and the Christian faith?
My criticisms proceed from several years as a deacon in a U.S.-based branch of Christianity accompanied by a reasonably thorough acquaintance with the scriptures used by most Christians, a couple of semesters in an accredited theological seminary, and the realization that if there is in fact a God, and that God actually operates as advertised by said scriptures and said religious tradition, then Christians are pathologically enmeshed in a brutally dysfunctional family headed by a deranged single father who, if human, would be facing charges of criminal neglect, if not outright abuse.

Personally, if this God-Father exists, I think it's high time he remarried. He's clearly in over his head and needs help.

Ah, I thought ignorance was more charitable than malicious misrepresentation.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:
I don't care about the numbers. One will do! It is just plain wrong.

I agree-- it's disturbing and hard to put alongside the loving God who "desires that none should be lost". But it does make a difference, I think. When it comes to our core theology, our essential tenets, and our picture of God, we ought to look for the grand narrative themes, the things that we find repeated often. It's problematic that we hinge so much of our theology on something that is so speculative (so few first-person testimonials!) and so infrequently mentioned in Scripture (and usually either cryptically or metaphorically). And it's interesting that so many seem to assume that it's one of those repeated themes when, in fact, it is not.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:
it seems to e that Lewis was portraying life as a game show, with God as te host continually asking us, the contestant,whether we are happy with our answer, or do want to "phone a friend" or pick another box or door. it's too random!

Your point is a good one, but I don't see Lewis as quite this grim, though maybe I read into Lewis some more optimistic things. For example, he seems to honour different traditions as possibly allowing a path. He seems to consider that salvation might be available post-death, where the drama (as you put it, 'game') is still possible to play forward another act (or question). I find Lewis also appeals to my aesthetic sense, probably finding an affinity with the underlying mythology and literature basis he draws from.

I'm also seeing that the emphasis on free will, and this is not just our's as humans, but the freedom of the world / universe to vary and respond in a likewise way, where living and natural processes all receive minimal divine interference (I suspect none), and the judgement part of this equation is a human inference and probably is distortion.

quote:
deano
If God is love and sent his Son to die for us, then there can be no injustice. All punishment must fit the crime... eternal damnation for being a hypocritical Pharisee is not just and fair.

Which is why there is probably additional distortion in the human retelling of this story. What you go on to say, is worthy commentary, but I would extend it: the writers wrote down what they heard others say, and most probably none of the writers actually observed any of the events, none of the books were probably written by those whose names are their labels. It is thus intent of the books of the bible not anything in their precision.

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
God just can't cut it can He? He is so pathetically incompetent, ineffectual. Or worse.

Worthy of us killing him don't you think? I wish to spend any part of any eternity I may be granted killing and rekilling God. Hyperbole and anger aside about eternity, I believe our best purpose while alive on earth is to avoid killing God as encountered in all of our sister and brother humans, and it seems that we should also include the natural world in our avoidance of killing.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

deano, mate, CHILL.

Which means DECONSTRUCT. Get pomo baby.

It's ALL metaphorical. It says NOTHING about the reality of the afterlife.

Jesus used His milieu's thinking AGAINST it.

And beware, one can think that one is deconstructing, but all one comes up with is a narrow, worst case rationalisation: "Turn or burn in some existential way.".

This is ALL because you HAVEN'T turned yet. You and evangelicalism haven't repented. Turned to Christ in your thinking.

To the bias, the presumption, the daring, the POWER of love in Jesus saves.

And what about Satan?

Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :

I was e-mailed a few minutes ago re the BBC 1 Question time on at the moment; which is about 'What is hell?' I turned on for a few minutes, but turned off again quite quickly!

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
I was e-mailed a few minutes ago re the BBC 1 Question time on at the moment; which is about 'What is hell?' I turned on for a few minutes, but turned off again quite quickly!

Yes, I do that when there is something on that I might think may affect me more than I want.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

I have that experience every time now in Holy Trinity Leicester. This morning was no exception. I had to pray to submit, to be inclusive, to be brought down in the midst of a vast congregation being told to be imperialistic - I'm sorry, 'missional'. I was brought to realise that I am just as ineffectual as they, that I have nothing to be superior about.

We sang that ALL are saved and only 1% of us believed it. We heard that Tear Fund has realised that churches can be used to make the gospel real to people in the 'deleloping' world (when in fact it's the other way around).

That Muslims were coming to Christ it's so effective. I REALLY hope that doesn't mean that their Muslim culture, heritage and way of life ISN'T destroyed. For once.

That this isn't just another imperialist venture.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
I was e-mailed a few minutes ago re the BBC 1 Question time on at the moment; which is about 'What is hell?' I turned on for a few minutes, but turned off again quite quickly!

I think you mean 'The Big Questions'.

The Muslim description of Hell was best because it was temporary (bit like Purgatory in Catholic Christianity). The speaker talked about 'paying your dues there.'

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

My sense is that in popular/folk religion, there's still a use for 'hell'. Plenty of people seem to be happy with the idea that paedophiles and murderers of children should roast forever.

Of course, few would want to see such punishment applied to anyone with lower levels of depravity, so to speak.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
My sense is that in popular/folk religion, there's still a use for 'hell'. Plenty of people seem to be happy with the idea that paedophiles and murderers of children should roast forever.

Of course, few would want to see such punishment applied to anyone with lower levels of depravity, so to speak.

Yes, it is interesting that most of us want to draw the line somewhere-- that there are people we're ready to throw off the bus in the name of justice, and some we want to let in the back door in the name of grace. We all draw the line differently, and the difference seems to depend on our own sins/areas of weakness.

All of which IMHO is the appeal of the PCUSA statement I quoted above. It seems clear to me that my own judgment is fatally flawed-- and probably yours as well. I trust Christ on this matter more than I trust myself, and am happy to turn the job over to him (not that it ever was mine to turn over).

Posted by Mere Nick (# 11827) on :

I read of the wicked coming to destruction in the OT and Jesus telling us to not fear the one who can destroy the body but the one who can destroy both body and soul. When I read 1 Tim 6:12-16 it appears that we are called to the eternal life that God wants us to have but he alone is inherently immortal.

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
My sense is that in popular/folk religion, there's still a use for 'hell'. Plenty of people seem to be happy with the idea that paedophiles and murderers of children should roast forever.

Of course, few would want to see such punishment applied to anyone with lower levels of depravity, so to speak.

That was my point, even for such people as that, does the punishment that lasts forever truly fit the crime, or is it unjust?

And doesn't it say more about human nature, and the built-in unfairness and injustice that some people have if they advocate a punishment that lasts "forever". Isn't that level of "justice" more a reflection on us than God?

Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on :

Deano, you've got to remember that 'forever', 'eternity', 'infinity' are modern concepts. We readily think of infinity because of mathematics - we even have some concept of imaginary numbers, irregular numbers, and so on. It took humanity a long time to even have a concept of 'zero' as a number.

Infinity wasn't really part of their understanding when the bible was written. When you read 'forever' or 'eternal' in your English bible it's translating a a word of phrase that means something different. In Hebrew and Greek you have phrases like 'in the far distance', 'to the end of the age', 'age-enduring', 'long-lasting' and so on. IMO these get rendered 'eternal' far too readily in English translations.

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
Deano, you've got to remember that 'forever', 'eternity', 'infinity' are modern concepts. We readily think of infinity because of mathematics - we even have some concept of imaginary numbers, irregular numbers, and so on. It took humanity a long time to even have a concept of 'zero' as a number.

Infinity wasn't really part of their understanding when the bible was written. When you read 'forever' or 'eternal' in your English bible it's translating a a word of phrase that means something different. In Hebrew and Greek you have phrases like 'in the far distance', 'to the end of the age', 'age-enduring', 'long-lasting' and so on. IMO these get rendered 'eternal' far too readily in English translations.

Okay, I can understand that, to an extent, but then there is still the issue of proportionality. Again Matthew 25:41 – burning people for whatever period of time “eternity” represents (presumably quite a long one) for not visiting someone in prison!

It still doesn’t work as the punishment still doesn’t fit the crime.

It seems to me that all of those sorts of verses need to be expunged from the Bible as they merely point to a God that doesn’t exist in my opinion – a God who burns people for long periods of time for not visiting someone in prison.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
Deano, you've got to remember that 'forever', 'eternity', 'infinity' are modern concepts.

No they aren't. Unless you count Origen and Augustine and Boethius as modern.

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
Infinity wasn't really part of their understanding when the bible was written.

Depends on which parts of the Bible you're talking about. Perhaps not the oldest parts of the First Testament. By the time the later parts of the First Testament were written the Greeks at least had a pretty good grasp on infinity. (They didn't like it and mostly avoided it where possible, but they knew what it was. Think Zeno's paradox.) By the time the Second Testament was penned it was widely known in the greater Mediterranean area (at least among the educated).

Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on :

Thanks creosos & ken, my wording was rushed & poor.

What I was trying to say was that, when talking about the 1st century (& ancient) Jewish mindset, eternity & infinity wasn't really part of the equation - especially when talking about people (when talking about God, the language seems stronger). It was a relatively novel concept. And, though the NT is written in Greek, the mindset is still Jewish.

So, for example, when the young man asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, he's not asking "how do I live forever?" (which our English translation would suggest), but he's asking how he will get to be part of God's Kingdom in the Next Age.

Posted by Russ (# 120) on :

Eternal damnation as punishment for finite crime is clearly not fair. Yet this does seem to be part of Traditional Christianity. Alongside the assertion that God is both just and merciful.

The options seem to be three in number:

- cling to the notion that traditional Christianity has it right, and weasel about what "justice" really means. Along the lines of "not justice in the ordinary sense of the word, justice as God sees it, which might be something totally different"

- weasel about what "traditional Christianity" means, carefully defining it in such a way that all those hellfire-and-brimstone sermons are distorted ravings on the fringe and not the mainstream of the tradition

- accept the obvious implication that traditional Christianity got it wrong, perhaps within an approach that sees all our human understandings of God as work-in-progress.

But you may think of others...

Best wishes,

Russ

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

There can be no possibility of the audiences on the mount and the plain inferring Jesus was talking about anything after death. Jewish afterlife beliefs were nebulous beyond whether there was one (Pharisees) or not (Sadducees). Even if such were in the audience.

We read that in to it.

And what did the man Jesus believe?

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

Don't some theologians believe that there's a hell, but it's empty? Someone can enlighten us on that.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
Thanks creosos & ken, my wording was rushed & poor.

What I was trying to say was that, when talking about the 1st century (& ancient) Jewish mindset, eternity & infinity wasn't really part of the equation - especially when talking about people (when talking about God, the language seems stronger). It was a relatively novel concept. And, though the NT is written in Greek, the mindset is still Jewish.

So, for example, when the young man asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, he's not asking "how do I live forever?" (which our English translation would suggest), but he's asking how he will get to be part of God's Kingdom in the Next Age.

So when Christ talks about "everlasting fire" and "their worm is not quenched" what did his hearers think he was saying?

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Russ:

- weasel about what "traditional Christianity" means, carefully defining it in such a way that all those hellfire-and-brimstone sermons are distorted ravings on the fringe and not the mainstream of the tradition

Weasel here.

Sure, "mainstream" as in the majority. But there has been a significant and ongoing minority strand of Christianity that has understood "hell" differently throughout the history of the Church, for the very reasons we have mentioned. I don't think it's "weasling" to point that out, nor is it wrong to point out how few verses actually speak or even allude to eternal torment.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Don't some theologians believe that there's a hell, but it's empty? Someone can enlighten us on that.

Yes. It goes well with that cryptic verse in 1 Peter 318ff where Peter talks about Jesus dying and then "preaching to the spirits in prison" "who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah..." Very cryptic, but the creeds connect that to Jesus "descending into hell". Which begs the question, why? And what is he preaching? One notion-- one I find quite appealing-- is that Jesus is preaching freedom-- release to the captives. A massive "jailbreak" if you will.

Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
So when Christ talks about "everlasting fire" and "their worm is not quenched" what did his hearers think he was saying?

Well, he's talking about Gehnna, the city rubbish dump. The reason that the fires kept on burning and burning was because people kept putting their rubbish on the fire. And the worms ate up the cooler rubbish that spilt over the edge of the fire. So I guess that if you'd asked them "what would happen if there was no more rubbish?", then the response would be that the 'eternal' fire goes out, and the worm have nothing to eat, so they'd die.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the idea of eternity isn't there, but without a mathematical concept of infinity, it's implied, not explicit. So it's implied by the idea of a fire burning and burning (but still requiring fuel), or a distant horizon that you can't see beyond. Or Jesus saying forgive "77" times ("77x7?"). If it said elsewhere that there were 77 soldiers in an army, we wouldn't think that there were infinite soldiers in the army, but we do think that Jesus is saying to forgive an infinite number of times. Despite the words being the same, the context implies something different.

So, although we can infer that something might be talking about 'forever', it shouldn't be the default position, because the same words that seem to talk about 'forever' are used elsewhere and very obviously mean a temporary amount of time, especially with aionios. And that subtlety just doesn't translate to the English word 'eternal'.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

1. I don't see how the 77x7 thing has anything at all to do with eternity or anaios. You're saying that because he uses a finite number as a metaphor for infinity, when he uses a word meaning eternity, it must mean something finite?

2. And what good is a metaphor for infinity if his hearers had no concept of infinity?

3. Do you really mean to say that when he said the devil and his angels would be cast into everlasting fire, his hearers said, "Oh he means a fire that keeps going until people stop putting garbage in the dump"?

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Do you really mean to say that when he said the devil and his angels would be cast into everlasting fire, his hearers said, "Oh he means a fire that keeps going until people stop putting garbage in the dump"?

When anything is cast on a fire it is burned up, with nothing more than ash left. They are 'no more'.

That's what I take it to mean. If we reject God completely and utterly after meeting Him face to face - then we will simply cease to 'be'. No eternal torment, just non-existence.

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
When anything is cast on a fire it is burned up, with nothing more than ash left. They are 'no more'.

That's what I take it to mean. If we reject God completely and utterly after meeting Him face to face - then we will simply cease to 'be'. No eternal torment, just non-existence.

Just to clarify, you mean in the same way that atheists believe happens to us when we die?

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Eternal damnation as punishment for finite crime is clearly not fair. Yet this does seem to be part of Traditional Christianity. Alongside the assertion that God is both just and merciful.

The options seem to be three in number:

- cling to the notion that traditional Christianity has it right, and weasel about what "justice" really means. Along the lines of "not justice in the ordinary sense of the word, justice as God sees it, which might be something totally different"

- weasel about what "traditional Christianity" means, carefully defining it in such a way that all those hellfire-and-brimstone sermons are distorted ravings on the fringe and not the mainstream of the tradition

- accept the obvious implication that traditional Christianity got it wrong, perhaps within an approach that sees all our human understandings of God as work-in-progress.

But you may think of others...

Best wishes,

Russ

Russ, I only wish I could think of others. And I think you're right on the money with the nub of the problem.

Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
1. I don't see how the 77x7 thing has anything at all to do with eternity or anaios. You're saying that because he uses a finite number as a metaphor for infinity, when he uses a word meaning eternity, it must mean something finite?

I'm saying that there isn't even a word that literally means 'eternity' in the whole bible. So the idea of eternity is always inferred from other words:

quote:
Let me say to Bible students that we must be very careful how we use the word “eternity.” We have fallen into great error in our constant use of that word. There is no word in the whole Book of God corresponding with our “eternal,” which, as commonly used among us, means absolutely without end. The strongest Scripture word used with reference to the existence of God, is—“unto the ages of the ages,” which does not literally mean eternally.

(Morgan G Campbell)

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
2. And what good is a metaphor for infinity if his hearers had no concept of infinity?

They did have a concept of infinity, but it was different to ours. For example, the Olympic torch burns 'eternally' in that we keep the flame going indefinitely. But there was a time when it wasn't lit, and there probably will be a time when it goes out. So from our point of view, we wouldn't use the word 'eternal' to describe the burning of the torch. But in terms of their concept of eternity, it would be eternal.

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
3. Do you really mean to say that when he said the devil and his angels would be cast into everlasting fire, his hearers said, "Oh he means a fire that keeps going until people stop putting garbage in the dump"?

I think it's more subtle than that. I do think that's a reasonable interpretation - as far as I know, that's what the annihilationist interpretation would be.

I do think that the connotations that the English word 'everlasting' has to English (or American) ears, which leaves no possibility of an end, is very different to the connotations of the Greek word 'aionion', had to Jewish ears, which did leave open the possibility of an end.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
When anything is cast on a fire it is burned up, with nothing more than ash left. They are 'no more'.

That's what I take it to mean. If we reject God completely and utterly after meeting Him face to face - then we will simply cease to 'be'. No eternal torment, just non-existence.
Just to clarify, you mean in the same way that atheists believe happens to us when we die?

Yes, I do.

The fire is eternal - but we are not, unless we wish to be (with God).

Posted by Zappa (# 8433) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
deano, of course it's WRONG That's what we do. Vastly underestimate the power of God's love. It is all but inexorable, irresistible. Our commitment has nothing to do with it. It's all about His.

And it will not be thwarted by time

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Cliffdweller, chaps

Transliteration of the Greek of I Peter 3:18-20 AKA the Yoda translation

18 For also Christ
once for all
for sins suffered,
just for unjust
so you bring the God death even flesh
quickened but spirit
19 in which also the in prison spirits went preached
20 disobedient once when waiting the
the God patience in days Noah construction ark

which we reasonably grammatically interpret thus:

18 For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, 19 through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison 20 who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.

Now come our second order interpretations, interpolations, assumptions and entity proliferations

For Christ … made alive by the Spirit
through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison
[on Holy Saturday]
...who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah

Which is interpreted to mean that Jesus harrowed Hell between His death and resurrection.
That He was alive while He was dead.
Before He was alive.
That the people He only went to see were those who failed to respond to Noah’s preaching.

A more minimal, complete, meaningful interpretation is

For Christ … made alive by the Spirit
...through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison
......who disobeyed long ago
...when God waited patiently in the days of Noah
saves you

and another

For Christ … made alive by the Spirit
...through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison
......who disobeyed
...long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah
saves you

The spirits in prison are identified by Peter himself in his next letter:

2 Peter 2:4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment;

This has NOTHING to do with the dead.

And all this hair-splitting legalism from which we extrapolate absolute dogma (how beautifully ironic that SEEMS) about life after death.

About which Jesus was saying absolutely NOTHING. Eternal life is NOW. The eternal is in fact superfluous. Life. True life. Endless life. Life from NOW onwards. In THIS life we are transformed. In THIS life we are free. In THIS life we are just, righteous, merciful, kind, generous, encouraging, humble. THIS is eternal life. Without it, Him our lives are cursed NOW.

The afterlife takes care of itself. Himself. Beyond our wildest dreams of hope.

Posted by iamchristianhearmeroar (# 15483) on :

quote:
SvitlanaV2 posted:
Don't some theologians believe that there's a hell, but it's empty?

Certainly Karl Barth talked around those sort of lines, yes:

"Who knows what sort of "last" ones might turn out to be first again? The proclamation of the Church must make allowance for this freedom of grace. Apokastasis Panton? No, for a grace which automatically would ultimately have to embrace each and every one would certainly not be free grace. It would certainly not be God's grace.

"But would it be God's free grace if we could absolutely deny that it could do that? Has Christ been sacrificed only for our sins? Has he not, according to 1 John 2:2, been sacrificed for the whole world? Strange Christianity, whose most pressing anxiety seems to be that God's grace might prove to be all too free on this side, that hell, instead of being populated with so many people, might some day prove to be empty!" ("The Proclamation of God's Free Grace," from God Here and Now, Nook location pp.49-50).

It is clearly dialectical, saying that on the one hand grace which must automatically embrace everyone can not be God's free grace, but saying on the other hand that Christ has been sacrificed for the whole world so would it be so surprising if hell turned out to be empty. So at the same time Barth shies away from saying "Universalism must be true" whilst also inviting us to consider whether an empty hell is not perhaps a possibility.

My own two cents on this is that half the problem seems to be in translation. The words "Sheol", "Hades" and "Gehenna" would have had specific meaning to those original hearers of Jesus and the writers and readers of the scripture. The extent to which timeless truths about a more abstract "hell" can be drawn from those specific references is clearly still up for some debate.

The two other key points which I think tend to get ignored in this sort of debate are the Cross and Resurrection. To what extent was the work of the Cross effective in destroying the powers of death and hell? Is it effective only for a tiny elect or for everyone, everything in creation? (I am not aware of any Christian tradition that says everybody who ever lived and who will ever live is going to hell.)

And what about the Resurrection? That surely is the hope for all Christians. Will the reprobate really be physically raised from the dead simply in order to suffer again and again and again?

There was a comment above in response to the OP about whether hell or grace was the thing that was unfair. That is an interesting question. Would we be more horrified to find ourselves, or our loved ones, in hell than to find Hitler, say, amongst the redeemed?

Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on :

quote:
Originally posted by iamchristianhearmeroar:
Is it effective only for a tiny elect or for everyone, everything in creation?

Interestingly, Jerome says of the story of Jonah that at the time he was around,

"I know that most persons understand by the story of Nineveh and its king, the ultimate forgiveness of the devil and all rational creatures."

So not only just the salvation of all men, but Satan and his fallen angels too.

Whether they were right or not is another matter, but it's interesting that that was the majority view of Jerome's contemporaries.

[ 26. February 2013, 10:54: Message edited by: goperryrevs ]

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

The universal forgiveness is there already goperryrevs. It has been from the beginning. But the universal acceptance of it has not. And for some may never be, no matter how it is presented.

Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
The universal forgiveness is there already goperryrevs. It has been from the beginning. But the universal acceptance of it has not. And for some may never be, no matter how it is presented.

Sure. But the use of the word 'ultimate' suggests that, at least according to Jerome's contemporaries, it will be accepted.

But, who knows? I agree with Cliffdweller here:

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:
Originally posted by Russ:

- weasel about what "traditional Christianity" means, carefully defining it in such a way that all those hellfire-and-brimstone sermons are distorted ravings on the fringe and not the mainstream of the tradition

Weasel here.

Sure, "mainstream" as in the majority. But there has been a significant and ongoing minority strand of Christianity that has understood "hell" differently throughout the history of the Church, for the very reasons we have mentioned. I don't think it's "weasling" to point that out, nor is it wrong to point out how few verses actually speak or even allude to eternal torment.

ISTM that you can make Traditional Christianity say a lot of things, for the simple reason that Traditional Christianity has said a lot of things, many of them contradictory.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

They can't possibly know that. Not even God can.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
They can't possibly know that. Not even God can.

ooooh.... that sounds so (swoons) Open Theist
[Yipee]

[ 27. February 2013, 02:19: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Cliffdweller, chaps

Transliteration of the Greek of I Peter 3:18-20 AKA the Yoda translation

18 For also Christ
once for all
for sins suffered,
just for unjust
so you bring the God death even flesh
quickened but spirit
19 in which also the in prison spirits went preached
20 disobedient once when waiting the
the God patience in days Noah construction ark

which we reasonably grammatically interpret thus:

18 For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, 19 through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison 20 who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.

Now come our second order interpretations, interpolations, assumptions and entity proliferations

For Christ … made alive by the Spirit
through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison
[on Holy Saturday]
...who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah

Which is interpreted to mean that Jesus harrowed Hell between His death and resurrection.
That He was alive while He was dead.
Before He was alive.
That the people He only went to see were those who failed to respond to Noah’s preaching.

A more minimal, complete, meaningful interpretation is

For Christ … made alive by the Spirit
...through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison
......who disobeyed long ago
...when God waited patiently in the days of Noah
saves you

and another

For Christ … made alive by the Spirit
...through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison
......who disobeyed
...long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah
saves you

The spirits in prison are identified by Peter himself in his next letter:

2 Peter 2:4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment;

This has NOTHING to do with the dead.

A perfectly reasonable interpretation, but no more definitive (despite your protestations to the contrary) than the one I suggested. Which, as I mentioned, is an interpretation echoed in both the Apostle's and Nicene Creeds-- not bad credentials, I would say.

It's a cryptic verse. The Bible is like that sometimes. The reference from 2 Peter is intriguing, but no linguistic ties to suggest definitively that those "fallen angels" are one and the same as the "spirits in prison".

So, again, we just don't know.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Oh it's quantitatively more reasonable cliffdweller. But not dispositionally. You need a different rhetorical mix and I'm not smart enough for that. I doubt anyone is.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Ooooh, yeah, open theism. Bin arguin' that here for donkey's. If it's good enough for my mate John Polkinghorne (bid him good evening in a Northampton University car park), it's good enough for me.

[ 27. February 2013, 11:12: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

If damnation is eternal then God is the most evil being it is possible to imagine because God set up the system that inflicts eternal evil on others.

As for EE's comments about tantrums on page 1, sheer irrelevance. The operative word is "Eternal". No human can have a tantrum that approaches eternal. But because a child had a tantrum once, or even a few times, God will cut them off forever and ensure that they are tortured literally for ever. Talking about tantrums the way he does is missing the point. No human can throw a tantrum forever therefore punishing them forever is massively disproportionate. All parents who ensure their children are made to suffer for ever for a few tantrums are indeed evil torturers.

I'm also afraid I have problems getting from the God who hardened Pharoah's heart and drowned almost the entire world to something loving and that can in any sense be called good.

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian
If damnation is eternal then God is the most evil being it is possible to imagine because God set up the system that inflicts eternal evil on others.

You would be right if hell is a 'system set up', and if hell 'inflicts eternal evil'. Both these ideas ignore a (IMO) perfectly justifiable interpretation that says that hell is simply a subjective experience of the goodness of God suffered by wilfully unrepentant people. If I have read you right, you seem to assume that love and compassion cannot cause pain to anyone. But shame is a painful experience that is the effect of love and goodness exposing evil (hence John 3:20).

The assumption that no one would reject love, and that love would always be a pleasurable experience to anyone exposed to it, are false assumptions, that are rooted in a deep-seated belief that there is no moral content to love, and thus that love is merely pure hedonism.

quote:
As for EE's comments about tantrums on page 1, sheer irrelevance.

Not at all. There are those who, through sheer arrogance, wail and gnash their teeth at God. If they refuse to give up their arrogance, then it follows that their tantrum will endure forever. I'm afraid I cannot see the irrelevance and illogicality of that view.

I was, of course, referring to child's tantrums by way of analogy.

quote:
I'm also afraid I have problems getting from the God who hardened Pharoah's heart and drowned almost the entire world to something loving and that can in any sense be called good.

Yes, it is true that God hardened Pharaoh's heart, but this was on occasions subsequent to Pharaoh first hardening his own heart: read Exodus chapter 5, which recounts Moses' first encounter with Pharaoh. Nowhere does it say that God hardened Pharaoh's heart at that time. It was only later (see Exodus 7:3) that God decided to harden Pharaoh's heart. I agree that it may be difficult to understand why God hardened Pharaoh's heart at all (presumably to punish a nation that had been extremely evil to the Hebrews, who were brutally enslaved, and many of whose children had been murdered at birth - see Exodus chapter 1). However, God did not make Pharaoh an evil man. He was evil already.

As for the flood (however one understands it historically), it is not as though God did not seek to convict people to turn them from their violent and depraved ways - see Genesis 6:3 ("My Spirit shall not strive with man forever...").

While these judgements may seem harsh, the fact is that goodness is not 'good' if it never acts against 'anti-goodness'. What sort of 'goodness' is it that simply ignores and / or condones evil?

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Justinian, your paras 1 & 2 are excellent. And 3. Aye, there's the rub. We can dispense with 1 & 2 easily. Love doesn't do that. Love busts itself doing whatever it takes to save everyone of its, His children.

But 3 ?! How does love do that? Until last year, I'm almost ashamed to say ... becoming ashamed to say, I was a cool with it. I have argued here for years for the pragmatism of God the Killer. And there's just NO getting away from it, that's what He is one way or another, even if we rationalise away all the violence attributed to Him directly and by His command (and I can't), we're still left with suffering, the suffering of becoming evil, of being and doing evil, of experiencing evil one way and another. Even for so far immortal angels.

So it's not as if He didn't have a choice to make us mortal. He made us to fall, suffer AND die.

Which convinces me that there is no other way. But I've no idea why He had to trump our violence with His beyond further pragmatism.

I just don't know anymore. Apart from knowing Jesus one bit better. As a pacifist. Non-violent. Non-coercive. That whatever pre-incarnate God was like, incarnate He was ... perfect. The perfect example. The express image of the Father He revealed in Himself.

Is there anything in Jesus we can question? Beyond the worst case interpretation of His language?

Tell you what, when we get there, with the Sodomites, Gomorrahites, Egyptians, Amalekites in paradise, we can ask, with them, please could we ask that He explain why His violence was necessary to get us there?

I suspect the answer might be a silent smile and open arms indicating where we are. And we will find out by future experience in participating in the eternal increase of His government.

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
You would be right if hell is a 'system set up', and if hell 'inflicts eternal evil'. Both these ideas ignore a (IMO) perfectly justifiable interpretation that says that hell is simply a subjective experience of the goodness of God suffered by wilfully unrepentant people. If I have read you right, you seem to assume that love and compassion cannot cause pain to anyone.

I assume that if your love and compassion causes pain to someone for eternity then you are doing it wrong. It's not the can not cause pain. It's the "For eternity" part that's the part that makes it impossible for God to be genuinely good.

quote:
But shame is a painful experience that is the effect of love and goodness exposing evil (hence John 3:20).

Shame is not hell. If God's love were genuine love and not a perversion masquerading then not even Hitler or Judas would find it torture in the end. There'd be a lot of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth first, granted. But genuine love leads to acceptance and forgiveness even of yourself.

God's love does not do this if Hell is indeed eternal. Therefore it isn't genuine love. It's the love of the abuser "I'm only doing this to you for your own good". From which the victim knows that when things are very good they will be very good (another textbook element of one model of abuse).

quote:
The assumption that no one would reject love, and that love would always be a pleasurable experience to anyone exposed to it, are false assumptions, that are rooted in a deep-seated belief that there is no moral content to love, and thus that love is merely pure hedonism.

And once more you are missing out the single word that turns your God from a possibly worthy being into the greatest monster it is possible for me to imagine. "Eternal." The idea that one would eternally reject love and that it would eternally feel hateful to some is rooted in the idea that humans are falliable and that love is powerful.

quote:
Not at all. There are those who, through sheer arrogance, wail and gnash their teeth at God. If they refuse to give up their arrogance, then it follows that their tantrum will endure forever. I'm afraid I cannot see the irrelevance and illogicality of that view.

Once again you are ignoring the crucial word "Eternal". A child will cry itself out. With hell being eternal, we have a situation where if the child has at any time thrown a tantrum then the parent will not ever stop punishing them for having thrown a tantrum. Ever. Terrible parenting here.

quote:
Yes, it is true that God hardened Pharaoh's heart, but this was on occasions subsequent to Pharaoh first hardening his own heart:

And with all due respect who the hell cares? Pharaoh might have been the biggest bastard ever to walk. But that doesn't change the morality of God literally mind controlling Pharaoh simply in order to give himself an excuse to torture the Egyptians then massacre the firstborn. God, in that story, is an absolute monster.

quote:
I agree that it may be difficult to understand why God hardened Pharaoh's heart at all (presumably to punish a nation that had been extremely evil to the Hebrews, who were brutally enslaved, and many of whose children had been murdered at birth - see Exodus chapter 1). However, God did not make Pharaoh an evil man. He was evil already.

Actually it's very easy. It was done because God is even more evil than Pharaoh and wanted to give himself an excuse to show off in that story.

quote:
Exodus 11: 9-10
9 And the Lord said unto Moses, Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you; that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.

10 And Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh: and the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go out of his land.

Clear as day. God tortured the Egyptians because God wanted an excuse to torture the Egyptians and when Pharaoh wasn't as evil as God wanted him to be, God forced Pharaoh to be more evil to give himself an excuse to torture the Egyptians.

This, of course, is entirely consistent with the sadistic bastard who tortures children eternally for throwing one tantrum that is the consequence of eternal damnation.

quote:
As for the flood (however one understands it historically), it is not as though God did not seek to convict people to turn them from their violent and depraved ways - see Genesis 6:3 ("My Spirit shall not strive with man forever...").

You mean that the creator was remorseful he'd fucked up with his creation and resolved to destroy almost all of it whether or not it was to blame Genesis 6:7 "And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them."

God fucked up.

quote:
While these judgements may seem harsh, the fact is that goodness is not 'good' if it never acts against 'anti-goodness'. What sort of 'goodness' is it that simply ignores and / or condones evil?

Once more you are ignoring the word "Eternal". When a child throws a tantrum, you probably send that child to their room. If you are God on the other hand, you send that child to their room, lock the door and throw away the key, but leave one small letterbox in the door to make sure they don't even have the escape of starvation. And if they try starving themselves you open the door, force feed them, and then leave again. That is not ignoring evil. It is returning greater evil for lesser evil. It is magnifying evil.

And seriously, you can't see that there is some point between doing that to someone, not even letting them die of old age (which is where we are with eternal damnation) and doing nothing? Your argument here is a pure fallacy of the excluded middle.

Posted by Mere Nick (# 11827) on :

Why is it treated as a given than the lost are kept in existence throughout all eternity just so they can be tormented? Look through the OT where the end of the wicked is described. Or look in the NT, where it is eternal destruction. It seems to be incorrect to say that there are folks that will be soaking in a hot tub of lava for trillions and trillions of years with no hope of it ever ending. Does destruction not mean destruction? It was the devil in the garden who first said we wouldn't die.

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Justinian, your paras 1 & 2 are excellent. And 3. Aye, there's the rub. We can dispense with 1 & 2 easily. Love doesn't do that. Love busts itself doing whatever it takes to save everyone of its, His children.

But 3 ?! How does love do that? Until last year, I'm almost ashamed to say ... becoming ashamed to say, I was a cool with it. I have argued here for years for the pragmatism of God the Killer. And there's just NO getting away from it, that's what He is one way or another, even if we rationalise away all the violence attributed to Him directly and by His command (and I can't), we're still left with suffering, the suffering of becoming evil, of being and doing evil, of experiencing evil one way and another. Even for so far immortal angels.

So it's not as if He didn't have a choice to make us mortal. He made us to fall, suffer AND die.

Which convinces me that there is no other way. But I've no idea why He had to trump our violence with His beyond further pragmatism.

I just don't know anymore. Apart from knowing Jesus one bit better. As a pacifist. Non-violent. Non-coercive. That whatever pre-incarnate God was like, incarnate He was ... perfect. The perfect example. The express image of the Father He revealed in Himself.

Is there anything in Jesus we can question? Beyond the worst case interpretation of His language?

Tell you what, when we get there, with the Sodomites, Gomorrahites, Egyptians, Amalekites in paradise, we can ask, with them, please could we ask that He explain why His violence was necessary to get us there?

I suspect the answer might be a silent smile and open arms indicating where we are. And we will find out by future experience in participating in the eternal increase of His government.

There are plenty of things you can question about Jesus including whether he was even a real person (I'm going with "Why would anyone bother to make up a 1st Century apocalyptic preacher?"). But the winebibber who hung around with prostitutes and tax collectors and was eventually crucified is a much more sympathetic character altogether.

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
Why is it treated as a given than the lost are kept in existence throughout all eternity just so they can be tormented? Look through the OT where the end of the wicked is described. Or look in the NT, where it is eternal destruction. It seems to be incorrect to say that there are folks that will be soaking in a hot tub of lava for trillions and trillions of years with no hope of it ever ending. Does destruction not mean destruction? It was the devil in the garden who first said we wouldn't die.

Do you want an answer from the Bible, from Tradition (including Dante), or from Aquinas? And "Eternal destruction" implies that the destruction itself is eternal rather than instantaneous for the destroyed.

Posted by Mere Nick (# 11827) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:

quote:
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
Why is it treated as a given than the lost are kept in existence throughout all eternity just so they can be tormented? Look through the OT where the end of the wicked is described. Or look in the NT, where it is eternal destruction. It seems to be incorrect to say that there are folks that will be soaking in a hot tub of lava for trillions and trillions of years with no hope of it ever ending. Does destruction not mean destruction? It was the devil in the garden who first said we wouldn't die.
Do you want an answer from the Bible, from Tradition (including Dante), or from Aquinas? And "Eternal destruction" implies that the destruction itself is eternal rather than instantaneous for the destroyed.

It doesn't imply the destructing is eternal, like they keep trying to destroy you and can't quite pull it off. At least, it doesn't appear that way to me.

I'm only looking at the bible as authoritative. While knowledgeable, the rest are like good folks to talk to at the baseball game but none of them are umpires.

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian
I assume that if your love and compassion causes pain to someone for eternity then you are doing it wrong. It's not the can not cause pain. It's the "For eternity" part that's the part that makes it impossible for God to be genuinely good.

OK... (imagining what God might say): if someone hates my guts, and I love that person, which causes him a feeling of shame, or perhaps even greater anger, then that is my fault, is it? I really don't understand that. I would be doing nothing bad to that person. I would only be showing kindness. What would I have to do? Feed that person's hatred of me by hating him back, just to 'comfort' him with a feeling of self-justification?

As for eternal pain: what if that person hates me forever? For all eternity I am asking him not to be consumed with hatred and arrogance and self-obsession. But he refuses to give up these attitudes which cause him torment. What am I supposed to do? Annihilate him? But how can I, if I love him? Perhaps I am supposed to come to some special arrangement with him by administering some kind of general anaesthetic? If so, then how is he supposed to have the opportunity to respond to my love, if he is completely unconscious?

quote:
Shame is not hell. If God's love were genuine love and not a perversion masquerading then not even Hitler or Judas would find it torture in the end. There'd be a lot of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth first, granted. But genuine love leads to acceptance and forgiveness even of yourself.

You are making some huge assumptions here. You have no idea whether such people would ever repent of their wickedness. If there was such an openness to love and mercy in the heart of, say, Adolf Hitler, would he have committed the crimes that he did? What motivated him to commit mass murder? Mere ignorance? No, it was a deep-seated and absolute commitment to evil and a total contempt for compassion.

quote:
God's love does not do this if Hell is indeed eternal. Therefore it isn't genuine love.

So "genuine love" eventually gives in to evil, and raises the white flag, because it cannot stand the screams any more?

I have to tell you categorically that "genuine love" does no such thing! Thank God that His love will utterly destroy evil for all eternity, so that it never rises again. If there are those who utterly refuse to repent of their evil, then God's genuine love will not concede to them.

Furthermore, genuine love keeps the door open to all people forever. That is why the Bible says that God's mercy endures forever. It cannot keep the door open to people who have been annihilated or who have been permanently anaesthetised!

quote:
When a child throws a tantrum, you probably send that child to their room. If you are God on the other hand, you send that child to their room, lock the door and throw away the key, but leave one small letterbox in the door to make sure they don't even have the escape of starvation. And if they try starving themselves you open the door, force feed them, and then leave again. That is not ignoring evil. It is returning greater evil for lesser evil. It is magnifying evil.

God, the eternal parent, does no such thing. He does not lock the door and throw away the key. In Revelation 14:10, it talks about the wicked being tormented "in the presence of the Lamb", which is a clear reference to Jesus Christ crucified (see the cross-reference to the symbolism of Revelation 5:6 and other biblical references to Jesus as "the Lamb of God"). The cross reveals Jesus (God) as the eternal victim of evil, not the perpetrator of evil. The cross is the doorway to salvation, and, in fact, Jesus referred to Himself as "the Door" - obviously the open door to God. The death of Christ applies to all. This is biblical evidence that God is not an evil torturer, but the eternal victim and sufferer of evil.

This is also evidence that God is with those suffering condemnation, and given that His mercy endures forever, and given that "mercy triumphs over judgment" (James 2:13), and given that "God is love" - a love which extends to His enemies, as Jesus made clear in the Sermon on the Mount - then it follows that the door of salvation is open to all forever. Therefore the eternal tantrums of the damned are self-imposed and self-perpetuated.

And why are they like this? I find that CS Lewis has put it rather succinctly:

quote:
According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere flea bites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.

(From: Mere Christianity)

And for that reason, I write all the above with fear and trembling, knowing my own tendencies...

(You will probably have noticed that I seem to be taking the view that 'hell' in the Bible has a purgatorial nature, in that it is possible to escape this fate post mortem. I am well aware that this is not consistent with most traditional Christian theology. Ah well... My bad.)

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Hitler will be restituted, restored, deadapted, that's what Judgement Day is for. He will be reconciled to his appalling father for whom the same process will be gone through. He will be re-united with his beloved mother of whose loss by Hitler the family doctor said he had never seen such a picture of human grief. He will meet his sea of victims.

After all that then HE will decide.

And there is no comparison with Hitler and Judas. Judas was far less damaged. His repentance, rejected by everyone else, is already accepted by Jesus, who was forsaken, betrayed by EVERYBODY. Who knowingly of his kleptomania, chose him.

EE, you just dig the hole deeper and deeper. No modern, civilised, morally educated person and most back for two thousand years and more can justify the violence of God in the face of Christ. Which doesn't mean He wasn't.

As for justifying deliberately keeping people alive in conscious eternal chronic acute mental sleepless inexhaustible screaming agony, as of being burned alive (ever seen that have you ?) and being devoured by parasites, in utter endless, full conscious hopelessness or 'just' that and blaming THEM for it, because YOU love them.

That's insane.

Have you ever had to sanction the death of someone you love EE ? A sick dog even ? Killed a mauled bird ?

And yeah, you can ask mate.

Love CAN kill. For all the RIGHT, obvious reasons.

It CANNOT torture. If it lets helpless unhelpable self-inflicted torture that cannot end of itself go on, and it cannot stop the mechanism without stopping the victim's consciousness, it ISN'T love by ANY sane definition.

(See your Hell thread for that which I probably can't write here.)

[ 27. February 2013, 19:26: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC...
EE, you just dig the hole deeper and deeper. No modern, civilised, morally educated person and most back for two thousand years and more can justify the violence of God in the face of Christ.

If God is violent, then so is Christ, given that Christ is God.

quote:
As for justifying deliberately keeping people alive in conscious eternal chronic acute mental sleepless inexhaustible screaming agony, as of being burned alive (ever seen that have you ?) and being devoured by parasites, in utter endless, full conscious hopelessness or 'just' that and blaming THEM for it, because YOU love them.

In the story about the beggar Lazarus, was the rich man screaming, when he was in hell? No. He was having a lucid conversation with Abraham. This is biblical evidence that the torment in hell is very different from the crude descriptions you have presented.

By the way... if it is 'love' to annihilate someone, then presumably you think it is right to withdraw any hope of heaven from that person?

quote:
(See your Hell thread for that which I probably can't write here.)

You rail against torturing people, but recommend that I look at a stupid and puerile thread in which the rent-a-mob insult me?

The day these "oh so loving" liberal types stop insulting and condemning people, is the day I might start taking their claims seriously.

Posted by Garasu (# 17152) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
In the story about the beggar Lazarus, was the rich man screaming, when he was in hell? No. He was having a lucid conversation with Abraham. This is biblical evidence that the torment in hell is very different from the crude descriptions you have presented.

Eternal damnation is a philosophy seminar?

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Garasu
Eternal damnation is a philosophy seminar?

Well, judging by some people's efforts at philosophy, I guess that probably is a fair description! [Snigger]

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

So, EE, God advocating holding an eternal grudge for people acting within their design parameters is love and people complaining about posting style is vile hate? Interesting.

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha
God advocating holding an eternal grudge for people acting within their design parameters is love...

Nope.

Since God doesn't hold grudges.

Not a lot He can do about people (choosing freely to act against their design parameters), who insist on holding grudges against Him, though!

quote:
...people complaining about posting style is vile hate?

Some of it certainly is. Because some of it (the early part of the thread that I read) goes way beyond merely complaining about posting style.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

If you keep digging I wonder where you'll end up?

My 'crude descriptions' are biblically normative. Are from Jesus own words. No hyperbole from which is possible. Your extrapolating from the only obvious allegory in the New Testament to reality to tone down the figurative horrors from Jesus' mouth is ... sweet.

And you compare your treatment on the Hell thread to your loving God's helplessly uselessly eternally torturing your loved ones out of pure, perfect love ... why bless your heart.

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

quote:
(See your Hell thread for that which I probably can't write here.)
You rail against torturing people, but recommend that I look at a stupid and puerile thread in which the rent-a-mob insult me?

The day these "oh so loving" liberal types stop insulting and condemning people, is the day I might start taking their claims seriously.

Do not even begin to bring your Hell thread up here. As I've told you before in the last week or two, you want to get personal keep it in hell. (Commandment 4)

Gwai,
Purgatory Host

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

I'm sorry.

I was responding to what someone else said here, but I know I shouldn't have taken the bait. [Hot and Hormonal]

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC...
Are from Jesus own words. No hyperbole from which is possible.

Ah, so you agree that Jesus was / is violent then?

[Confused]

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Er, what?

"Does the gostak distimm the doshes?" Careful how you answer now. That question ALONE is probably worthy of death. Hence my disarming it.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Not a lot He can do about people (choosing freely to act against their design parameters), who insist on holding grudges against Him, though!

Computer programs often act against their designers intent. (Bugs) This is because the programmers are imperfect and often working with imperfect guidelines.
A perfect creator setting its own guidelines deliberately creating creatures who will fail? Messed up.

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

quote:
...people complaining about posting style is vile hate?
Some of it certainly is. Because some of it (the early part of the thread that I read) goes way beyond merely complaining about posting style.

I will answer this, rationally and with no vitriol, on the appropriate Hell thread. Should you care to read it.

Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
If God is violent, then so is Christ, given that Christ is God.

No no no. We don't get to know what Christ is like because we know about God and project that onto Christ. We can't know about God, he is unseen and unknowable.

We know about God because he is like Christ. Christ tells us what God is like. Anything that tells us God is different to Christ is projection. Even if it's in Scripture.

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs
We know about God because he is like Christ. Christ tells us what God is like. Anything that tells us God is different to Christ is projection. Even if it's in Scripture.

So how do you know what Christ is like, if you reject Scripture?

Posted by Latchkey Kid (# 12444) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs
We know about God because he is like Christ. Christ tells us what God is like. Anything that tells us God is different to Christ is projection. Even if it's in Scripture.
So how do you know what Christ is like, if you reject Scripture?

One way would be to say that what scripture says about Christ tells us about God, but other parts of scripture may tell of a God that is different from Christ. It does not have to be either accept all or reject all.
There is a viewpoint that scripture should be read starting with Christ and then looking back to the prophets and patriarchs or forward to the early church.

Posted by the gnome (# 14156) on :

I sometimes imagine it as an alternate solar system, in which:

*God is analogous to the sun.
*God's love is a gravitational field.
*All created beings are in space.
*God radiates personhood toward all beings.
*To lose personhood is to suffer.
*The intensity of one's suffering at any given moment is proportional not only to how quickly one's personhood is decreasing, but also on how much personhood one has with which to experience that loss.
*The overall amount of suffering one experiences is equal to the intensity of one's suffering multiplied by time.
*Through our own actions in life, we can move closer to God, move tangentially in such a way as to put ourselves into orbit, or even build up an escape velocity.

In such a scenario, if someone casts him/herself toward the outer dark at greater than escape velocity, he or she will continue in that direction forever, going further and further from the source of all personhood, even though God's love, like a gravitational field, extends out indefinitely in all directions.

As I'm envisioning the math--with inverse squares and all that--the suffering in such an unending escape-velocity course goes on forever, but it is nonetheless finite in amount--the area under the curve is not infinite even though the curve itself extends to infinity, asymptotically approaching zero.

It's just a thought experiment, of course--a mental model that almost certainly doesn't represent the true state of affairs, and it certainly isn't a specifically Christian sort of metacosmology. (Where would Christ fit into such a model, for instance? How about the Holy Spirit?) But it does suggest that it's at least possible to conceive of an afterlife in which suffering is both self-inflicted and finite, even if it's eternal.

Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Latchkey Kid:
One way would be to say that what scripture says about Christ tells us about God, but other parts of scripture may tell of a God that is different from Christ. It does not have to be either accept all or reject all.
There is a viewpoint that scripture should be read starting with Christ and then looking back to the prophets and patriarchs or forward to the early church.

Exactly. Everything in Scripture should be read through the lens of Christ.

And it's not so much 'reject' as 'interpret in the light of'. I agree with a lot of what Justinian says. Taken at face value God in the Old Testament at times seems monstrous. But if 'face-value' is at odds with Christ, then we need to look again at how we understand those Scriptures.

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Latchkey Kid
One way would be to say that what scripture says about Christ tells us about God, but other parts of scripture may tell of a God that is different from Christ. It does not have to be either accept all or reject all.

There is a viewpoint that scripture should be read starting with Christ and then looking back to the prophets and patriarchs or forward to the early church.

Jesus Himself said: "You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of me." (John 5:39)

He was, of course, referring to what we now call the Old Testament. Hence Jesus expected His contemporaries to start with their 'dodgy', 'bloodthirsy' Scriptures, which apparently speak of a nasty, sadistic God, and see Him in them.

Now presumably, if Jesus is not the Son of this God revealed in the Old Testament, then He is at odds with such a God. Is it not strange that nowhere does Jesus condemn or reject the Hebrew Scriptures, but He actually affirms them? Furthermore, the Early Church - through the writings of Paul - affirmed the value of the "Old Testament" - hence 2 Timothy 3:14-17.

As far as I am concerned, Marcion was a heretic. And therefore I can't agree with the views of his contemporary disciples.

Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :

We definitely did do this just a few months ago, so I'll just do the tiresomely predictable thing here and point out that virtually every answer suggested here to the "problem of Hell" presumes the immortality of the soul, a doctrine which finds little if any support in the Bible. If you take away the (mostly Greek) idea of everyone having a disembodied soul that has to exist in some state or other for all eternity, and return to the Biblical idea that eternal life is a GIFT from God to His people, a lot of the weeping and gnashing over Hell engendered by "Traditional Christianity" disappears.

Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:

quote:
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
Why is it treated as a given than the lost are kept in existence throughout all eternity just so they can be tormented? Look through the OT where the end of the wicked is described. Or look in the NT, where it is eternal destruction. It seems to be incorrect to say that there are folks that will be soaking in a hot tub of lava for trillions and trillions of years with no hope of it ever ending. Does destruction not mean destruction? It was the devil in the garden who first said we wouldn't die.
Do you want an answer from the Bible, from Tradition (including Dante), or from Aquinas? And "Eternal destruction" implies that the destruction itself is eternal rather than instantaneous for the destroyed.

Any of those would be good thank you. I, and others seem to be suggesting the idea of annihilationism on this thread and I think it's an important question but no one seems interested in defending the traditional interpretation of Hell against it yet.

Dante is obviously not a valid source, he's a medieval poet and liked to make up an impressive sounding fiction to give his 14th century readers a scary thrill, like Clive Barker did for people in the 1980's, another source for popular ideas of Hell. Unfortunately most traditional ideas of Hell do seem to come from such popular horror stories, rather than from scripture.

'Eternal destruction' can mean that the process of destruction lasts for ever, or it can mean that the destruction is for ever, and there is no more hope of a second chance or reprieve. To me, this latter seems the most scripturally consistent position, being supported by passages that talk of the 'second death'; of 'burning up the chaff'; of the fire 'consuming' those thrown into it.

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
As for eternal pain: what if that person hates me forever?

You mean what if their hatred is perfect?

Then they are not human. No human can manage any perfect emotion. If God's love is perfect and human hatred isn't then Love Wins. So your question really boils down to one of two. These questions are:

1: What if humans are more perfect than God?
2: What if God's perfect behaviour continually fuels and is the cause of human hatred?

And if 1 is the case then we aren't talking about a classical conception of God. If 2 is the case then God is doing love wrong.

quote:
For all eternity I am asking him not to be consumed with hatred and arrogance and self-obsession. But he refuses to give up these attitudes which cause him torment.

You mean what if we have a human who is perfect in focus and dedication? I don't know. What if we have a square circle? This question makes even less sense than asking if God can make a rock so heavy he can't lift it.

quote:
What am I supposed to do? Annihilate him? But how can I, if I love him? Perhaps I am supposed to come to some special arrangement with him by administering some kind of general anaesthetic? If so, then how is he supposed to have the opportunity to respond to my love, if he is completely unconscious?

So for your question to make any sense here we need:

1: A human who is perfect.
2: A God who is not omniscient.
3: To define every single person who has ever taken part in euthanasia as unloving.
4: To automatically take surgery with a temporary general anaesthetic as utterly and obscenely wicked, and instead want to ban all major surgery that allows people to heal.

quote:
You are making some huge assumptions here. You have no idea whether such people would ever repent of their wickedness. If there was such an openness to love and mercy in the heart of, say, Adolf Hitler, would he have committed the crimes that he did?

Yes. Definitely. Hitler was a human, no more and no less. I didn't say there was much openness. Or that it wouldn't take a long time. If Hitler's time in purgatory involved living the life of every victim of Nazi Germany whose life was cut short that would probably take a million years.

quote:
What motivated him to commit mass murder? Mere ignorance? No, it was a deep-seated and absolute commitment to evil and a total contempt for compassion.

Ultimately it boiled down to treating people as things. The root of almost all evil. He saw others, and many groups of others, as less than human and was able to encourage others to believe they were.

And I have no idea what a "commitent to evil" is. Even Hitler, who was as evil as they come, wouldn't have described himself as evil in the way a fictional moustache twirling villain might.

quote:
So "genuine love" eventually gives in to evil, and raises the white flag, because it cannot stand the screams any more?

No. Genuine love overcomes. Mere human evil eventually raises the white flag.

quote:
I have to tell you categorically that "genuine love" does no such thing! Thank God that His love will utterly destroy evil for all eternity, so that it never rises again. If there are those who utterly refuse to repent of their evil, then God's genuine love will not concede to them.

Love is ultimately stronger than hate in the same way that gravity is stronger than the electromagnetic force.

Furthermore, genuine love keeps the door open to all people forever. That is why the Bible says that God's mercy endures forever. It cannot keep the door open to people who have been annihilated or who have been permanently anaesthetised!

quote:
God, the eternal parent, does no such thing. He does not lock the door and throw away the key.

Then there is no such thing as eternal damnation and we don't have a problem.'

quote:
In Revelation 14:10, it talks about the wicked being tormented "in the presence of the Lamb",

And [quote=http://www.newadvent.org/summa/5094.htm]Aquinas clarifies this sort of statement magnificently[/quote]. With a heaven that involves moral lobotomies and saints that enjoy the suffering of the damned.

quote:
The cross reveals Jesus (God) as the eternal victim of evil, not the perpetrator of evil.

Abusers routinely paint themselves as victims.

quote:
This is also evidence that God is with those suffering condemnation, and given that His mercy endures forever, and given that "mercy triumphs over judgment" (James 2:13), and given that "God is love" - a love which extends to His enemies, as Jesus made clear in the Sermon on the Mount - then it follows that the door of salvation is open to all forever.

If that is the case then there is no such thing as eternal damnation. As I have been saying love triumphs - and mercy triumphs over judgement.

quote:
Therefore the eternal tantrums of the damned are self-imposed and self-perpetuated.

Were those the case then mercy would demonstrably not be triumphing over judgement. Only a perfect human who could defeat mercy would stay there forever.

quote:
And why are they like this? I find that CS Lewis has put it rather succinctly:

Personally I find Lewis a fifth rate theologian most known for an obvious false trichotomy and the rest of his theology very seldom rises above the fallacy of the excluded middle (often failing to even reach that low bar).

quote:
(You will probably have noticed that I seem to be taking the view that 'hell' in the Bible has a purgatorial nature, in that it is possible to escape this fate post mortem. I am well aware that this is not consistent with most traditional Christian theology. Ah well... My bad.)

Which means that your hell does not include eternal damnation. Or it includes perfect humans with a stronger will than God. It is, however, an improvement over the moral lobotomies Aquinas hands out.

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
We definitely did do this just a few months ago, so I'll just do the tiresomely predictable thing here and point out that virtually every answer suggested here to the "problem of Hell" presumes the immortality of the soul, a doctrine which finds little if any support in the Bible.

Yup. There are a lot of possible ways out of the problem. Eternal damnation is the issue and a fairly classic teaching of the Christian church. It's also a corruption.

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
Dante is obviously not a valid source, he's a medieval poet and liked to make up an impressive sounding fiction to give his 14th century readers a scary thrill, like Clive Barker did for people in the 1980's, another source for popular ideas of Hell. Unfortunately most traditional ideas of Hell do seem to come from such popular horror stories, rather than from scripture.

This is, of course, why I called Dante out. And I suspect the traiditonal Blood and Hellfire sermon was the equivalent of a horror movie back in the day and inspired many third rate hack priests. On the othe hand that's no excuse for Aquinas. (This, incidently, is one reason I have little respect for Tradition).

Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
[Aquinas clarifies this sort of statement magnificently. With a heaven that involves moral lobotomies and saints that enjoy the suffering of the damned.

Aquinas sounds like he's been watching too many horror films. He should get out more and meet some of these 'damned' whose suffering he likes to fantasise about so much. If he realised they were flawed humans trying their best and failing, just like him, maybe he'd think very differently. But then Article 2 in your link shows he had no idea what compassion was, so perhaps he was devoid of it entirely.

Aquinas' view of the saints as emotionless logic machines who only feel compassion for others when they choose that it is rational to feel compassion for them, is a fundamentally terrifying description - more like Hell than Heaven in my opinion. I am pleased that scripture opposes this view such as 1 Cor 13 - if you don't love others, you're only a clanging gong. The saints of Aquinas appear as Holy gongs, issuing noisy praise to God, but devoid of passion and compassion both.

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :

Is eternal damnation fair?

No.

Hence it must be a ruse.

Cos God is fair. Beyond fair even. Full of Grace. How do we know this? Most of New Testament scripture and lots of OT scripture.

(Just thought I'd add my two cents)

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Is eternal damnation fair?

No.

Hence it must be a ruse.

Cos God is fair. Beyond fair even. Full of Grace. How do we know this? Most of New Testament scripture and lots of OT scripture.

(Just thought I'd add my two cents)

You mean God's either lying about eternal damnation or about being fair and full of grace?

Let's hope it's the first, eh?

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
We definitely did do this just a few months ago, so I'll just do the tiresomely predictable thing here and point out that virtually every answer suggested here to the "problem of Hell" presumes the immortality of the soul, a doctrine which finds little if any support in the Bible. If you take away the (mostly Greek) idea of everyone having a disembodied soul that has to exist in some state or other for all eternity, and return to the Biblical idea that eternal life is a GIFT from God to His people, a lot of the weeping and gnashing over Hell engendered by "Traditional Christianity" disappears.

Exactly. But why a doctrine that rejects the teachings of both the Apostle's and Nicene Creeds would ever be considered "traditional Christianity" in the first place is a bit of a puzzler.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Even Hitler, who was as evil as they come, wouldn't have described himself as evil in the way a fictional moustache twirling villain might.

I agree completely. In fact, I would go further and say that Hitler thought he was doing good.

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian
I agree completely. In fact, I would go further and say that Hitler thought he was doing good.

So what?

Posted by Mere Nick (# 11827) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
We definitely did do this just a few months ago, so I'll just do the tiresomely predictable thing here and point out that virtually every answer suggested here to the "problem of Hell" presumes the immortality of the soul, a doctrine which finds little if any support in the Bible. If you take away the (mostly Greek) idea of everyone having a disembodied soul that has to exist in some state or other for all eternity, and return to the Biblical idea that eternal life is a GIFT from God to His people, a lot of the weeping and gnashing over Hell engendered by "Traditional Christianity" disappears.
Exactly. But why a doctrine that rejects the teachings of both the Apostle's and Nicene Creeds would ever be considered "traditional Christianity" in the first place is a bit of a puzzler.

Maybe parts of "traditional Christianity" should be rejected if it conflicts with scripture. I suspect those who put together those creeds would agree.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

It's not just within Christianity. This link discusses a book about Islam.

quote:
Mouhanad Khorchide
... he claimed that paradise was open to anyone who lived a good life - regardless of whether he or she believed in God.

About damnation, he goes further.

quote:
"We face the challenge of many young people who say they are not interested in a restrictive God, or a God that scares [them]," he said. It's the same reason, he added, that he teaches that religion exists for people and not for God. God's concern is for people, the teacher believes, not self glorification."

This last bit I think is interesting. What is the role of God's self glorification in damnation?

Posted by PaulTH* (# 320) on :

Eternal or infinite punishment for finite sins isn't justice, it's vindictive vengeance. This is so whether God inflicts the punishment Himself, or merely permits it to happen. It is unworthy of a God who tells us to forgive 70 times 7 and who is a God of Love, which keeps no record of wrongs and bears all things (1Cor13:6-7). An omniscient God, who knows our eternal destiny from before the foundation of the world. These thoughts have led me to a quite profound universalism.

Yet the universalist position has its flaws, the most obvious of which is that, if God respects the free will of sentient creatures, what can He do with someone who eternally refuses to accept His love and forgiveness. And I don't equate that with not accepting Jesus as a personal saviour, but with not loving mercy and walking humbly with God Micah 6:8). As Trudy points out, an obvious answer to this paradox, and one which has scriptural support, is the idea that we aren't naturally immortal creatures, but that God may reward us with immortality for a life lived in faith and righteousness.

Jesus certainly spoke of damnation, though there is some linguistic dispute over the meaning of eternal in original Greek. But Paul spoke of God, in Christ reconciling all things to Himself, whether on earth or in heaven (Col 1:19-20). So the Bible is unclear: damnation, anihilation and reconciliation are all mentioned. Perhaps most Christians, apart from double predestination Calvinists would agree on a few points.

1 God desires the salvation of all (1 Tim 2:4)
2 For God (regarding His ability to save) all things are possible (Matt 19:26)
3 God gives everyone sufficient Grace to make him/her, using his/her freedom, turn to God and be saved. (Whether or not it happens).

It is therefore quite legitimate for us to both hope and pray for the salvation of all. Ultimately it is a matter for God alone to know to whom He will show mercy, and to whom He will be gracious (Ex 33:19). The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, "The Church prays that no one should be lost." (CCC1058) It behoves us all to add our voices to that prayer.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Amen.

Posted by Raptor Eye (# 16649) on :

And Amen Paul.

I was given a 'desert' experience along the way, which gave me to glimpse the agony of a parched spirit living without the cooling balm of God's love, the balm so easily taken for granted as it's one of the good things God gives to everyone. I'll never forget it, and don't want anyone to be abandoned to it.

What were the thoughts about it in Judaism at the time of Jesus? I found a website which indicated that gehenna was the punishment destination for those who were not ready to be resurrected on the 'day of the Lord' but it was limited to a year at the most, and repentance would be accepted at any time, even at the point of entry. I'll add the link if I can find it again.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mere Nick:

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
We definitely did do this just a few months ago, so I'll just do the tiresomely predictable thing here and point out that virtually every answer suggested here to the "problem of Hell" presumes the immortality of the soul, a doctrine which finds little if any support in the Bible. If you take away the (mostly Greek) idea of everyone having a disembodied soul that has to exist in some state or other for all eternity, and return to the Biblical idea that eternal life is a GIFT from God to His people, a lot of the weeping and gnashing over Hell engendered by "Traditional Christianity" disappears.
Exactly. But why a doctrine that rejects the teachings of both the Apostle's and Nicene Creeds would ever be considered "traditional Christianity" in the first place is a bit of a puzzler.
Maybe parts of "traditional Christianity" should be rejected if it conflicts with scripture. I suspect those who put together those creeds would agree.

In this case, I believe the creeds are consistent with Scripture, and it is indeed (what we assume to be) "traditional Christianity" that needs a course correction.

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian
I agree completely. In fact, I would go further and say that Hitler thought he was doing good.
So what?

So you would do well to read the prooftext you so blithely link. You are calling the greatest evil imaginable good and genuine good - healing and forgiveness - evil simply because you want to see suffering in the name of "justice".

But so what in Hitler's case. The So What is that if Hitler thought he was doing good and fucked up, your made up tantrums are irrelevant. The answer to an evil caused by someone messing up their discernment badly is to teach - that is to fix the faulty discernment.

And the sort of punishment that Aquinas revels in and you condone does precisely one thing. It means that they are too busy dealing with the pain you want them to suffer to be able to learn.

As for the idea that God grants mercy to all and that this is not unique to Christianity, I agree. And I'm going to throw Wicca into the mix - the last two thirds of The Charge of the Goddess.

quote:
Upon earth, She gave the knowledge of the spirit eternal; and beyond death, She gives peace and freedom, and reunion with those who have gone before. Nor does She demand sacrifice, for behold, She is the mother of all living, and Her love is poured out upon the earth.

She who is the beauty of the green earth, and the white moon among the stars, and the mystery of the waters, and the desire of the heart of man, calls unto thy soul. Arise, and come unto Her. For She is the soul of nature, who gives life to the universe. from Her all things proceed, and unto Her all things must return; and before Her face, beloved of gods and men, let thine innermost divine self be enfolded in the rapture of the infinite. Let Her worship be within the heart that rejoiceth; for behold, all acts of love and pleasure are Her rituals. And therefore let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence within you. And thou who thinkest to seek Her, know thy seeking and yearning shall avail thee not unless thou knowest the mystery; that if that which thou seekest thou findest not within thee, then thou wilt never find it without thee. For behold, She has been with thee from the beginning; and She is that which is attained at the end of desire.

Posted by Mere Nick (# 11827) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
In this case, I believe the creeds are consistent with Scripture, and it is indeed (what we assume to be) "traditional Christianity" that needs a course correction.

You know what? They appear to me to be consistent with scripture, too, especially when it comes to the idea of folks being tossed into the gaping maw.

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
...virtually every answer suggested here to the "problem of Hell" presumes the immortality of the soul, a doctrine which finds little if any support in the Bible.

What about the parable about Lazarus and the rich man?

Moo

Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Moo:

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
...virtually every answer suggested here to the "problem of Hell" presumes the immortality of the soul, a doctrine which finds little if any support in the Bible.
What about the parable about Lazarus and the rich man?

Moo

I don't think you can take that literally. In the parable there appears to be a chasm between heaven and hell, but one so narrow that people from either place can see and talk to each other!

In response I'd point you to Ecclesiastes 9:10 "there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going”

The modern notion of Heaven and Hell seems very different from the ancient Israelite notion of Sheol/the Grave, where the dead 'sleep', not knowing anything, until God chooses to ressurect them.

Posted by Mere Nick (# 11827) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:

quote:
Originally posted by Moo:

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
[qb]...virtually every answer suggested here to the "problem of Hell" presumes the immortality of the soul, a doctrine which finds little if any support in the Bible.
What about the parable about Lazarus and the rich man?

Moo
I don't think you can take that literally.

Even if you could, there appears to be no indication he is going to be there 487 trillion centuries from now with no possible end in sight.

When condemned men have their last words does the execution drag out as long as possible?

Posted by Laurelin (# 17211) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Hitler will be restituted, restored, deadapted, that's what Judgement Day is for. He will be reconciled to his appalling father for whom the same process will be gone through. He will be re-united with his beloved mother of whose loss by Hitler the family doctor said he had never seen such a picture of human grief. He will meet his sea of victims.

With all due respect ... you have no idea whether or not that will happen. Neither do I, of course. I wouldn't care to speculate too much.

I'm evangelical, so I take the scary words of Jesus seriously. I am open to the idea of our Lord using scary hyperbole to shock us from complacency.

I am sympathetic to universalism, I understand why people believe it, or want to believe it. I also know that the idea of an unrepentant mass murderer sharing the same eternity as his victims makes me feel decidedly queasy. [Help]

But I am not the judge of men's hearts or the eternal arbiter of such serious things. Only God is. And I believe He is good, just and fair.

Whatever Hell is, I don't believe it is a medieval torture chamber where people literally burn. Even less is it a place where demons torture the lost souls (such imagery is never found in the Bible). The 'lake of fire' in Revelation, where Satan, and the 'second death' are tossed, is clearly a metaphor. A metaphor expressing an utterly serious reality.

But the seriously scary words of Jesus do talk of a place of eternal regret and desolation. Hmmm.

quote:
After all that then HE will decide.

Sorry, who will? Do you mean the Lord, or Hitler? [Confused]

quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
It is therefore quite legitimate for us to both hope and pray for the salvation of all. Ultimately it is a matter for God alone to know to whom He will show mercy, and to whom He will be gracious (Ex 33:19). The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, "The Church prays that no one should be lost." (CCC1058) It behoves us all to add our voices to that prayer.

Yes. This. Amen.

[ 01. March 2013, 14:05: Message edited by: Laurelin ]

Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Moo:

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
...virtually every answer suggested here to the "problem of Hell" presumes the immortality of the soul, a doctrine which finds little if any support in the Bible.
What about the parable about Lazarus and the rich man?

Moo

I take that as poetic license on the part of Jesus -- using one image of the afterlife (not necessarily a correct one) to tell a story that is really all about this life, and how we're supposed to treat the live people we have around us all the time. I find it encouraging in that it suggests that Jesus thought telling a good story (and caring for the poor) was more important than doctrinally correct belief about what happens after death. In other places Jesus refers to death as a sleep which is more in keeping with how it's presented elsewhere in the Bible.

Posted by WearyPilgrim (# 14593) on :

My reading of Jesus' views on this subject, particularly in the Gospel of Matthew, is that he did indeed teach that there is punishment after death. Whether he (and Paul, for that matter) thought of it as remedial or solely retributive is another question. As has long been debated, there are Scriptural arguments both ways (e.g., the meaning of "aionios"). I think it was Berdyaev who taught that hell is a necessary concomitant of justice: that if there is no hell, there really is no justice in the universe. Jesus' use of the imagery of Gehenna as a symbol of hell indicates pretty clearly that one can waste one's life with "eternal" consequences, and the whole thrust of NT teaching is that's a volitional thing. One goes to hell as the result of a consistent, willful rejection of all that is good and true and holy.

All that having been said, I personally believe, with Lewis, George Macdonald, Barth, Origen and others, that God's mercy extends beyond death and that at least the possibility of eventual universal salvation is something that warrants our humble consideration.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Latchkey Kid:
There is a viewpoint that scripture should be read starting with Christ and then looking back to the prophets and patriarchs or forward to the early church.

This is basically the Orthodox position.

quote:
Originally posted by the gnome:
In such a scenario, if someone casts him/herself toward the outer dark at greater than escape velocity, he or she will continue in that direction forever, going further and further from the source of all personhood, even though God's love, like a gravitational field, extends out indefinitely in all directions.

It is certainly, on this model, possible to say that none of us has the power to reach escape velocity.

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by WearyPilgrim
My reading of Jesus' views on this subject, particularly in the Gospel of Matthew, is that he did indeed teach that there is punishment after death. Whether he (and Paul, for that matter) thought of it as remedial or solely retributive is another question. As has long been debated, there are Scriptural arguments both ways (e.g., the meaning of "aionios"). I think it was Berdyaev who taught that hell is a necessary concomitant of justice: that if there is no hell, there really is no justice in the universe. Jesus' use of the imagery of Gehenna as a symbol of hell indicates pretty clearly that one can waste one's life with "eternal" consequences, and the whole thrust of NT teaching is that's a volitional thing. One goes to hell as the result of a consistent, willful rejection of all that is good and true and holy.

All that having been said, I personally believe, with Lewis, George Macdonald, Barth, Origen and others, that God's mercy extends beyond death and that at least the possibility of eventual universal salvation is something that warrants our humble consideration.

Great post.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mere Nick:

quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:

quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
[qb] What about the parable about Lazarus and the rich man?
I don't think you can take that literally.
Even if you could, there appears to be no indication he is going to be there 487 trillion centuries from now with no possible end in sight.

It seems to me that there is a general confusion on this thread between "eternal" and "perpetual." If you read fairy tales as a child, you would know the difference -- eternal life is a gift, perpetual life is a curse. God has offered us the former, and not the latter. In fact, some have said that he gave us death to protect us from the latter.

In any event, no one will spend trillions of centuries in hell, because hell (like heaven) is the presence of God, and God exists outside of time. At the close of the age, it appears that we will exist with him, and so will also be outside of time.

So whatever state we are in, we will not be in it for 487 trillion centuries, because centuries of any number will not exist. There will be only the eternal Now.

We talk as if there were time in the age to come, just as we talk as if there were time before the Creation, because we are creatures bound by time, and it is difficult for us to talk, or even think, any other way. But even though we are bound by time, God, who created time, is not.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

We talk as if there were time in the age to come, just as we talk as if there were time before the Creation, because we are creatures bound by time, and it is difficult for us to talk, or even think, any other way. But even though we are bound by time, God, who created time, is not.

So would there be the possibility for people to change in the age to come. How can there be change if there is no time?

Does someone who has cultivated a hard and evil heart in this life (for whatever reasons) have the chance to repent and change - or do they have to live with themselves in the eternal Now?

Sounds like hell to me if that is so.

[ 02. March 2013, 07:03: Message edited by: Boogie ]

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Justice requires NO punishment whatsoever.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

We talk as if there were time in the age to come, just as we talk as if there were time before the Creation, because we are creatures bound by time, and it is difficult for us to talk, or even think, any other way. But even though we are bound by time, God, who created time, is not.
So would there be the possibility for people to change in the age to come. How can there be change if there is no time?

Does someone who has cultivated a hard and evil heart in this life (for whatever reasons) have the chance to repent and change - or do they have to live with themselves in the eternal Now?

Sounds like hell to me if that is so.

In the Orthodox Church, we don't have much in the way of specific official teachings about the age to come. We believe that Jesus will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead; we believe in the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. That "world to come" is Christ's kingdom, which will never end, and in which we can begin to participate in this age.

Beyond that, it's all what we call theologumena -- personal opinions.

So ... is there repentance, change, and healing in the world to come? Some of us would say, as you suggest, that without time, change and healing and repentance are impossible. So we are urged to repent today, while we still have time. (And we don't mean "while you have time" as in "when you're not too busy," the way you might say that you have time to go to the movies. Rather, we mean while time still exists, while you are still living in space-time.)

Others say that our prayers for the dead are all the evidence that we need that change, healing, repentance are possible in the age to come. Being as we are time-bound creatures, we can't explain how that could be possible, but we know that God is not bound by time, and that in the age to come, we shall be like him in ways that we can't possibly yet understand.

But, yes, we'll all have to live with ourselves in the eternal Now. And with each other. That is why forgiveness is absolutely essential: if you won't forgive someone, but you are with them, unshielded by space and time, it's not going to be pleasant. And if you can't live with yourself, that's not going to be pleasant either.

But do you have to accomplish all of that while you are still bound in time? Clearly, the saints suggest that we'd best do so, to the best of our ability. But Christ was the lamb sacrificed before Creation (as if "before" means anything in that sentence -- but we can't talk any other way). It seems likely that the sacrifice, and the healing, that he has granted operate outside of time. We don't worry too much about the details, since we won't understand it until we get there. We just have to get busy and do what we can in this now, and trust him to take care of the eternal Now.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Justice requires NO punishment whatsoever.

Justice might require punishment: an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But Jesus overturned any idea that justice is a Christian virtue when he said this:

quote:
You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

I think God gave justice to mankind as a sort of minimum standard. But it's not a virtue, nor something to aspire to. It's the baseline, the very least that we can do.

But in Christ, we are forbidden from seeking justice. Instead, we are called to love and to do good to others, whether they are evil or good, whether they love us or hate us. It's hard. But I think it's true.

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine
But in Christ, we are forbidden from seeking justice. Instead, we are called to love and to do good to others, whether they are evil or good, whether they love us or hate us. It's hard. But I think it's true.

A very interesting comment.

As I thought about this, a question came to me (which is admittedly a tangent)...

Do you think it is right for Christian victims of sexual abuse (priestly or otherwise) to seek justice?

Posted by Laurelin (# 17211) on :

EE - Yes. They are. Absolutely they are. I can't imagine that any reasonable person would deny that ...!

Justice is a cleaner, better thing than revenge and lynch mobs. Justice is not the same thing as revenge.

Forgiveness - forgiving someone who does not deserve that grace - is a higher thing than justice.

Being able to forgive the person who abused you sexually (and I've read testimonies from survivors who WERE able to forgive their abusers) does NOT mean that you shouldn't go to the police. Apart from anything else, you are acting to protect other folk from becoming victims of the abuser.

Martin - I don't understand what you mean. At all. Whose justice are you talking about?

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine
But in Christ, we are forbidden from seeking justice. Instead, we are called to love and to do good to others, whether they are evil or good, whether they love us or hate us. It's hard. But I think it's true.
A very interesting comment.

As I thought about this, a question came to me (which is admittedly a tangent)...

Do you think it is right for Christian victims of sexual abuse (priestly or otherwise) to seek justice?

Read what Jesus said: Love your enemies, bless those that curse you, do good to those that hate you and despitefully use you.

That is the standard. Think about it. If this is what God has called us to, can it be right for a Christian to seek to inflict equivalent pain on their abuser? "Throw them in jail, and let them be raped there" is probably just, but it is not good.

Seeking justice doesn't have to be about inflicting equivalent harm, though. There is such a thing as restorative justice, and it may be right for a Christian to seek that.

It may also be right for a Christian to seek to protect others (and the perpetrator) by ensuring that the perpetrator is not placed in a position to harm anyone else. It is not an offense against charity to say that someone who has embezzled funds from their employer should not be given access to other people's money. It is not an offense against charity to say that a parent who has beaten their children must have only supervised visitation.

Because we're all sinners, many of us, maybe most of us, won't be able to live up to the standard Christ set for us. So we can, if we must, fall back to justice as the absolute minimum. If a man is forward with a woman, justice does not permit him to be tortured and killed. It may be just to take an eye for an eye, but no more is permitted, ever.

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine
But in Christ, we are forbidden from seeking justice. Instead, we are called to love and to do good to others, whether they are evil or good, whether they love us or hate us. It's hard. But I think it's true.
A very interesting comment.

As I thought about this, a question came to me (which is admittedly a tangent)...

Do you think it is right for Christian victims of sexual abuse (priestly or otherwise) to seek justice?

What do you consider justice to be? Restitution? Impossible. (Although as much as is possible is valid). Revenge? Two wrongs don't make a right. Keeping the person from being in a position to do it again? Assuredly yes.

[ 02. March 2013, 17:34: Message edited by: Justinian ]

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Laurelin. Justice. Any of it. All of it. And YES child abusers must be pursued with the full, relentless, open light of justice. Every THOUGHT will be accounted for in Judgement. I'm not looking forward to that. But there will be NO punishment. Full accounting, full restitution, full reconciliation.

Full justice.

Josephine. [Smile]

(That's British understatement.)

Posted by Alisdair (# 15837) on :

Perhaps it's more the case that we're still in the process of 'being born', only now that we're outside Mum's tum we have more say in what we're about. We're free to learn, explore, and make choices about what life's all about, what really matters---right, wrong, good, bad, love, fear, etc.

We're free to make mistakes and learn from them; and we're free to learn to walk the way that leads to life, and accept the hand that reaches out to us, regardless of whether we recognise the name of 'Jesus'.

If 'God is Love', then it seems highly unlikely, downright impossible, that any of us will be able to look back on our lives and say with any kind of credibility or integrity that, 'it's all God's fault'.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

It's all God's responsibility. ALL. The people 'of low estate' I have the privilege of 'giving' - sharing - 1% of my AND their time with ALWAYS blame themselves.

I ask them if they chose their parents. Always stops them in their tracks.

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian
What do you consider justice to be? Restitution? Impossible. (Although as much as is possible is valid). Revenge? Two wrongs don't make a right. Keeping the person from being in a position to do it again? Assuredly yes.

I agree with the third one.

God keeps unrepentantly evil people from harming others. Some people's idea of God keeping them from harming others is to annihilate them, which does seem rather draconian to me. But if God loves them, and simply separates them from harming those who accept and receive the love of God, and if such separation is a torment to these wilfully evil people (because their entire pleasure in life is to hurt others), then I guess that their experience is a pretty good description of eternal hell.

Nothing, of course, to do with God being a sadist or a torturer, but rather the evil in these people, of which they refuse to repent, is the sadist and the torturer. In other words, they are torturing themselves.

But apparently that's God's fault, so we are told! Even though it is the result of human and not divine choice.

[ 03. March 2013, 13:15: Message edited by: EtymologicalEvangelical ]

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

It is ultimately by God's choice. And who are these people? What kind of people are they? Have you ever met one? Known of one? Ever?

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

God keeps unrepentantly evil people from harming others.

Yes! Like those unrepentantly evil babies mentioned up thread.

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

But apparently that's God's fault, so we are told! Even though it is the result of human and not divine choice.

Right. Perfect, loving, all-powerful creator. Designs beings with massive flaws. Places some of them in horrible situations which will test those flaws. Wait a moment. Perfect. All-powerful. Loving? Sets up its beloved creation in situations of nearly guaranteed failure? [Confused]

Something in this equation just doesn't add up.

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha
Yes! Like those unrepentantly evil babies mentioned up thread.

Please feel free to elaborate (as in: what the hell has this got to do with anything I have written?)

quote:
Right. Perfect, loving, all-powerful creator. Designs beings with massive flaws. Places some of them in horrible situations which will test those flaws. Wait a moment. Perfect. All-powerful. Loving? Sets up its beloved creation in situations of nearly guaranteed failure?

Something in this equation just doesn't add up.

So we're all robots then?

That's a relief! It means that you have absolutely no grounds for criticising anything I write*!

Thanks!!

*...or the way I write it.

[ 03. March 2013, 15:01: Message edited by: EtymologicalEvangelical ]

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

There's no need to elaborate lilBuddha. It has everything to do with what EE has written, we all see that.

And as for the rhetorical non-sequitur and even greater sarcastic unreason that follows, your ignoring it would be far more gracious than this.

...

See hatless, we're useless. Chalke and Clifford and Holmes, McLaren and Campolo are the best there is so far.

...

EE, I want you to be the best that you can be for us. That us includes you. What do you need for that to happen? For you to be Ptolemy to Copernicus. Wilkins and Franklin to Watson and Crick?

Instead of getting bogged down in hostile rhetoric, of which I'm much more guilty than you.

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC...
And as for the rhetorical non-sequitur and even greater sarcastic unreason that follows, your ignoring it would be far more gracious than this.

Actually I was making a serious point.

If no one possesses any moral responsibility (because God is responsible for everything), then none of us can help what we do. Therefore it is absurd for anyone to be critical of anyone else. So why has lilBuddha been critical of me?

We can't have it both ways. We cannot blame God for everything when it suits us, and then feel at liberty to treat others as though they are morally responsible beings.

It is therefore not unreasonable of me to ask for an explanation, especially considering that the poster in question has been so critical of me.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

EE: Actually I was making a serious point.

--MPC: Accepted. (Hosts, may I indent thus?).

EE: If no one possesses any moral responsibility (because God is responsible for everything), then none of us can help what we do.

--MPC: No one is saying that. And NONE OF US (sorry to shout, but it's to point out the superpositioned contradiction) can possibly help what we do. Total depravity, disordered passions, brokenness, original sin, whatever we want to call it? Weakness and ignorance. We can only evolve so far unaided. Whatever.

EE: Therefore it is absurd for anyone to be critical of anyone else.

--MPC: Aye, indeed it is, alone, by itself, as an end in itself.

EE: So why has lilBuddha been critical of me?

--MPC: Because, like and you and me s/he is - they are - human. Weak and ignorant.

EE: We can't have it both ways. We cannot blame God for everything when it suits us, and then feel at liberty to treat others as though they are morally responsible beings.

--MPC: Yes we can [Smile]

That's human too. Valid too. God would have it, would have us do so. It's part of the process, social psychological evolution, salvation. And it's the game of rhetoric that we are all so futilely addicted to here.

EE: It is therefore not unreasonable of me to ask for an explanation, especially considering that the poster in question has been so critical of me.

--MPC: No it's not unreasonable of you to ask. Regardless. Regardless of ALL that's gone before. We ALL need to ALL start again. ALL apologise, ALL forgive each other.

So where would we start again? How? With the OP? Whoever started it should be shot in the face. AH! deano.

EE you make valid points. That annihilation is Draconian. You seem to believe that while there is life there is hope, that after aeons of damnation, of wailing and gnashing of teeth in outer darkness, in a permanent state of misery, bitterness, rebellion, depression, rage, burning and rotting in hell or helium ice cold in Cocytus (euthanasia without the thanatos: living death), an entity can be brought to change.

What kind of entity? How does a person get to be like that?

How will WE judge such entities? For we will judge angels.

We know Lucifer became proud. How? Being us on steroids. He disbelieved. Distrusted. Can that be undone? I suspect NOBODY - that means God - knows for sure. I like to think that when the trillions of us are resurrected and he sees the reality of God's outrageous gracious judgement, even he will be blown away. Beyond the narrative that doesn't look good.

I imagine you might give that the time of day?

I CAN argue, still, easily for the pragmatism of God, despite my neo-liberalism in the face of Jesus on this thread and the related theodical one 'God on trial' with which this intersects. But I don't want to disappoint, hurt, depress the liberals I now embrace.

Or you.

So I'm sorry for where I've failed you here and elsewhere.

Martin

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

I am not critical of you, I am critical of some of the arguments you put forth. I offer the same to others who have professed them.

I do not question that humans have free will. I do question the source of this.

I do not question that some believe in an all-loving God and, at the same time, believe this God orders the killing of innocents. I do question the logic of this. I do question the reasonableness of this claim.

Your arguments are often A or B, ignoring the answers C to Zed. I will naturally take issue with this.

ETA: Addressed to EE, not Martin.

[ 03. March 2013, 17:14: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
God keeps unrepentantly evil people from harming others.

This is not consistent with God's lack of actions in this world. Were God to actually do so there would have been no holocaust.

quote:
But if God loves them, and simply separates them from harming those who accept and receive the love of God, and if such separation is a torment to these wilfully evil people (because their entire pleasure in life is to hurt others),

I do not believe that there has ever been a person in the whole of history that description has fitted. People who took pleasure out of hurting others, of course. People whose entire pleasure was to hurt others? Who never found a touch pleasurable? Never saw beauty in a sunset, a flower, or a smile?

Once again, like your everlasting tantrums, you need to invent actions, behaviours, and motivations that humans simply aren't capable of in order to justify the monster you worship as being other than the blackest evil imaginable. You need to come up with imaginary inhuman monsters to justify your God treating people in a way I wouldn't treat inhuman monsters.

(And yes, there will probably be art appreciation classes in purgatory if there is such a thing).

quote:
But apparently that's God's fault, so we are told! Even though it is the result of human and not divine choice.

Being inhuman is not and can not be the result of human choice. Being treated as something inhuman is the fault of the person treating them that way.

[ 03. March 2013, 19:31: Message edited by: Justinian ]

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Bravo Justinian!

Sorry EE and sorry lilBuddha for my responding as if you were critical of EE. I'm not going back on what I said EE, but Justinian's rhetoric is excellent and echoes mine (which isn't) where I question where are such people? Leaving aside mythic ones like Satan.

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian
Once again, like your everlasting tantrums, you need to invent actions, behaviours, and motivations that humans simply aren't capable of in order to justify the monster you worship as being other than the blackest evil imaginable. You need to come up with imaginary inhuman monsters to justify your God treating people in a way I wouldn't treat inhuman monsters.

OK, so let's suppose you're right, and God just opens the doors of everlasting bliss to everyone, quite irrespective of what they are like. Fine. Everybody's welcome, and no one is rejected.

Sounds lovely.

Now could you please explain what will happen to those people who insist on being arrogant bastards, and who wish to carry on being what they were like on earth: haters and despisers of love, compassion and mercy, who are determined to make everyone else's life a misery?

Ah, but God isn't allowed to take any action against them, is He? After all... He is so afraid of being accused of being a monster of the "blackest evil imaginable", isn't He? Actually God isn't shamed by your accusations or swayed by your blasphemies. If you don't like the idea of God taking action against the evil and the depraved, then all I can say to you is: tough. Because God will not roll over and concede to the arrogant, the blasphemous and the unrepentant: not now, and not for all eternity.

You seem to think that there aren't really any truly evil people in this world (that they are all really just a bit confused or misled and in their heart of hearts they are all truly open to the love of God). This is an idea that I have read a number of times on this site, and it really is such incredible delusion. It is an idea to which I will never concede, because it is about as absurd (and dangerous) an idea as one can imagine.

If you want to continue deluding yourself that I am trying to justify a monster, then do carry on. I prefer to think that I am actually living in reality, knowing full well that we are all morally responsible beings, and some choose one thing and some the other. If God did not ultimately act against evil, then He would not be good. What concept of 'goodness' is it that concedes to evil? God condemns evil precisely because He is good, and the very opposite of a monster.

You are just so wrong.

Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
You seem to think that there aren't really any truly evil people in this world (that they are all really just a bit confused or misled and in their heart of hearts they are all truly open to the love of God). This is an idea that I have read a number of times on this site, and it really is such incredible delusion. It is an idea to which I will never concede, because it is about as absurd (and dangerous) an idea as one can imagine.

I think the very opposite. I think reducing anyone to 'truly evil' ie. solely evil is dangerous, because that's what leads to demonisation. If I may quote what someone else posted on this site when this has come up before:

quote:
Originally posted by Moth:
I have recently come to the realisation that we are not defined by how we are either at our best or at our worst. A person who leads a good life but commits one terrible act is not a monster. A person who lives a terrible life but commits one heroic act is not a saint.

I think that we are most ourselves at our best, because that is what God intended us to be. The us we really like, the us that others love to be with. In this fallen world, some of us struggle to be that person for more than a few fleeting minutes, and some of us manage things better - or perhaps are just more fortunate.

Really, there are no monsters, only humans in despair and confusion and rage. Who would not choose to be happy and brave and good, if we only could? That we so often appear to choose otherwise shows how broken we are.

I'm sure this is not a popular view, but the older I get, the less I can find it in my heart to condemn. Life is simply too complicated and confusing to judge what lies in another's heart.

Posted by Russ (# 120) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Now could you please explain what will happen to those people who insist on being arrogant bastards ?

...You seem to think that there aren't really any truly evil people in this world

OK, let's suppose for a moment that there are a few really bad people around, people with no empathy for others, people with no regard for anything but increasing their own power.

Suppose that God in His wisdom has delegated to you the task of dealing with these bad people, and given you enough of His power to accomplish what you will with them. But unfortunately hasn't granted you His wisdom, so you just have to do the best you can.

What would you do ?

Kill them all now, or wait for them to die of natural causes or by another's hand before you do anything ?

Torture them for a few millennia ?

Unmake them, snuff out their existence ?

Put them on a desert island somewhere where they can't hurt anybody ? An unpleasant place ? Or a paradise with robot slaves ?

Heal them ? Correct the malfunction of their brain ?

Bring them to repentance by giving them empathy, make them feel (in dream or otherwise) what it's like to be the others that they've hurt and despised ?

Something more creative ? More just ?

What's your idea of the right response to evil, if you but had the power, the ability to do it ?

Best wishes,

Russ

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

Something that is often ignored in these evil people arguments is opportunity.
How do you know someone is truly good if they have not had the opportunity to be truly bad?
Typically, the unarguably evil is referenced. But forget, for the moment, the Hitlers, the Pol Pots and the Jack the Rippers.
You, every one of you reading this I would wager, has had small opportunities to be bad. And much good fortune, in the overall scheme of things.
But what of those who have no opportunity? No chance to be good. Consider the child soldiers of Uganda, for example. Some of the actions they commit are reprehensible. But are children themselves evil? Would they rape and maim and torture if they were raised in London? Ottawa? Los Angeles?
And us, would we resist when the choice is our death, our families death?

This is an extreme, of course. But the reality is we do not truly know if we are good unless we have been tested. And most people on this board have not been tested. Not to their limits.
Now, some will say, but God knows. If that is true, why the need for all this bullshit? We have freewill, but God knows how we will act; so why the charade?

Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Russ:

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Now could you please explain what will happen to those people who insist on being arrogant bastards? ...You seem to think that there aren't really any truly evil people in this world
OK, let's suppose for a moment that there are a few really bad people around, people with no empathy for others, people with no regard for anything but increasing their own power.

I don't see that anyone has made this suggestion, so I will make it.

I fully agree that there are truly evil people. But I also think that God loves them and would never punish them.

Instead, the afterlife is a completely organic, superbly organized existence. The organizing principle is simply that like attracts like. Birds of a feather flock together. Everything else follows from that.

What we see as the "rewards" and "punishments" of heaven or hell, and even the concepts of heaven and hell themselves, are nothing more than the happiness or unhappiness that are inherent in the desires and behaviors that we call "good" or "evil."

All God does is allow people to think, will, and do what they wish to do. The rest follows as a matter of course. The difference between life after death and life in this world is mainly that people's wishes are more evident, and this causes segregation based on those wishes. Everything else just happens naturally.

So we have a loving God. A free population. And all are not equally happy. Some are very unhappy, yet do not recognize the source of their discontent. We are all like that to some degree.

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Ah, but God isn't allowed to take any action against them, is He? After all... He is so afraid of being accused of being a monster of the "blackest evil imaginable", isn't He?

The only facts we have about what God is or isn't allowed to to is that God did not stop them on earth. Your God even allowed the Holocaust. At that point there are two phrases that come to mind about the way your God takes action. A day late and a dollar short and shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted.

If God's intent were to stop cruelty and evil, the Holocaust would not have been allowed. If your God's intent was to make people as good as possible, much more intervention and teaching would have happened.

quote:
Actually God isn't shamed by your accusations or swayed by your blasphemies. If you don't like the idea of God taking action against the evil and the depraved, then all I can say to you is: tough.

I don't mind the idea of God taking action against the evil and the depraved. If you were to actually bother reading I have even allowed a certain amount. What I object to is a God who allows the holocaust and then uses that as an excuse to add to the torture. Prevention is better than cure. And allowing people free reign while they are growing and then torturing them for growing wrongly is the most stupid method of trying to promote goodness I can think of.

quote:
Because God will not roll over and concede to the arrogant, the blasphemous and the unrepentant: not now, and not for all eternity.

Except your God has rolled over. Your God has given them free rein in this world. Your God has allowed the Holocaust. Your God has allowed the killing fields of Rwanda. Your God has allowed the Rape of Nanking. Your God has allowed the trans-atlantic slave trade. I could go on about everything your God allows in this world. All your omnipotent God then does about it is punishes people in the next. Rather than preventing such things.

quote:
You seem to think that there aren't really any truly evil people in this world (that they are all really just a bit confused or misled and in their heart of hearts they are all truly open to the love of God). This is an idea that I have read a number of times on this site, and it really is such incredible delusion. It is an idea to which I will never concede, because it is about as absurd (and dangerous) an idea as one can imagine.

Read your bible. Man was made in God's image. And Jesus came not for the saved but the sinners. There is evil in the world, but evil is something that is grown and nurtured by circumstance, and often grows the most from the spoiling of the best. People learn from the examples they see around them, and practice makes permanent. You can learn that life is cheap - or that life is valuable. You can learn that you get better results by bullying - or by nurturing. You can learn... And it's always harder to unlearn a bad lesson than to learn right the first time.

And yes, the idea that even evil people are people first and evil second is incredibly dangerous. It means you actually have to think about root causes and improving things. It means you can't casually dehumanise people, and that you can see the darker reflections of yourself in those who give in to them.

quote:
If you want to continue deluding yourself that I am trying to justify a monster, then do carry on. I prefer to think that I am actually living in reality, knowing full well that we are all morally responsible beings, and some choose one thing and some the other. If God did not ultimately act against evil, then He would not be good. What concept of 'goodness' is it that concedes to evil? God condemns evil precisely because He is good, and the very opposite of a monster.

You are just so wrong.

Right back atcha. Whatever you might prefer to believe, you are not "actually living in reality". You are living in a cartoon version of the real world. And then looking to a comic-book supervillain to save you from the fact that the world is complex.

What property of 'goodness' is it that allows the Holocaust? Because your omnipotent, omniscient God did exactly that. More to the point, what property of 'goodness' is it that it not only allows the Holocaust, but that it in turn dehumanises and then tortures people?

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
You seem to think that there aren't really any truly evil people in this world (that they are all really just a bit confused or misled and in their heart of hearts they are all truly open to the love of God).

Not at all - I for one freely accept that some people are a lot confused or misled.

But humanity is not split into "good" and "evil" like some second-rate 1980s cartoon series. Nobody is entirely good, and nobody is entirely evil.

The only "dangerous delusion" here is the one that encourages us to think of other people as utterly evil, utterly irredeemable. That is the delusion that leads to oppression, destruction and even genocide - and all at the hands of those who earnestly believe that they are the "good guys"...

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

I agree with you. A God who “plans” for the holocaust (and other “bad things”) to happen is not a very pleasant God!

However, I believe that it is humans who are responsible for the “bad things”. People actually evolved and grew into what we are – vicious, selfish, uncaring and with a tendency to evil.

But God loves us for the thing that is different… that we also have the capacity for love. We are indeed a reflection of God’s image.

God loves us as he is pure, complete love, and we also have the capacity for love, even the people who do “bad things”. Every human who has a capacity for love is loved, even if it is deeply buried and rarely used.

Hence we are all saved, as every single one of us, no matter how bad we are, has a capacity for love, which means God loves us in return, to develop that relationship.

Maybe Hell is a separation from God, that eternal death of nothingness that Atheists believe we are doomed to, but it’s only for those who have no capacity for love. As I believe love is part of us from the ground up, no matter how little it is used, I also must believe that everyone is saved, and will enter into that relationship with God.

We live on Earth because that is what we do and we lie, cheat, steal, kill and fall in love have kids, hold down jobs, play football, listen to music etc. But love is what grants us eternal life with God after our time on Earth is over.

I think the above is a little bit all over the place, a stream of consciousness, and I apologise for that, but hopefully the gist of what I’m saying will come through.

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

Here is a quote from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

quote:

If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

Moo

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs
I think the very opposite. I think reducing anyone to 'truly evil' ie. solely evil is dangerous, because that's what leads to demonisation.

Who am I demonising?

But let's suppose you are right. Let's suppose that God says to every single person (quite irrespective of anything thay have done, do, will do or intend to do): "You are all declared righteous in my sight. I love you all. I accept you all. I demonise none of you."

So there we have it. No torture coming from God. No rejection. No condemnation at all.

BUT...

Even despite this, what if some people still insist that they do not accept the love of God, the position and authority of God, the righteousness of God and the mercy of God? They insist that they want to go their own way. Nothing to do with God rejecting them and everything to do with their rejection of God. God is humble, they are proud. God loves them. They return His love with hatred, blasphemy and implacable bitterness. Nothing that God can say or do will satisfy these people.

So what is God supposed to do? These people have chosen to be in torment before God. They have created a hell for themselves. They are being sadistic to themselves. Again, nothing to do with God.

Now if I affirm that this is a distinct possibility, how am I demonising these people? I am not demonising them. They are demonising themselves!

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian
If God's intent were to stop cruelty and evil, the Holocaust would not have been allowed. If your God's intent was to make people as good as possible, much more intervention and teaching would have happened.

Yes, it is true that evil occurs on this earth and in this life. Also an incredible amount of evil does not occur, which, given people's attitudes, one would expect to occur (but, of course, God never gets the credit for that, and anyway, He is playing on a losing wicket there, because we can never know the extent of that from which we have been protected!).

But God has created moral beings. What is the point of creating morally responsible beings, if they are not allowed - for a season - to make real choices: choices that have a real effect?

You accuse me of having a cartoonish view of God. But, I can't think of anything more cartoonish than the idea that all moral reality should be mere fantasy. The idea that God has created moral beings, but has told them that He will not allow them to make moral choices that actually stick. What kind of padded cell do you think God has put us all in? It is your "Superman" idea of God - who just swoops in at the first hint of trouble - which is cartoonish.

My view of God is sublimely real: a God who has gone to such lengths to not only entrust man with moral responsibility (with all the risk that that takes), but who has given of Himself (in entirety) to suffer with man, to suffer all the injustice, and take it upon Himself. But I expect such an idea is rather beyond your understanding. After all, this is what your response was to my comment about Revelation 14:10:

quote:
Abusers routinely paint themselves as victims.

It is very difficult to reason with someone so closed-minded as to write a comment like that.

It sounds to me that you just want to live your life exactly as you want, and have a God who will just bail you out. Nothing could be more cartoonish and deluded than that!

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian
But humanity is not split into "good" and "evil" like some second-rate 1980s cartoon series. Nobody is entirely good, and nobody is entirely evil.

I agree. That is why I have never suggested such a thing. However, humanity is split between those who repent of their evil and those who do not. Nothing cartoonish about that. On the contrary, it has something to do with what is known as 'reality'.

quote:
The only "dangerous delusion" here is the one that encourages us to think of other people as utterly evil, utterly irredeemable.

And who is encouraging that idea?

The only people who are irredeemable are those who choose to be. Nothing to do with anyone else's judgment of them.

[ 05. March 2013, 12:51: Message edited by: EtymologicalEvangelical ]

Posted by Mere Nick (# 11827) on :

quote:
Originally posted by WearyPilgrim:
My reading of Jesus' views on this subject, particularly in the Gospel of Matthew, is that he did indeed teach that there is punishment after death. Whether he (and Paul, for that matter) thought of it as remedial or solely retributive is another question. As has long been debated, there are Scriptural arguments both ways (e.g., the meaning of "aionios"). I think it was Berdyaev who taught that hell is a necessary concomitant of justice: that if there is no hell, there really is no justice in the universe. Jesus' use of the imagery of Gehenna as a symbol of hell indicates pretty clearly that one can waste one's life with "eternal" consequences, and the whole thrust of NT teaching is that's a volitional thing. One goes to hell as the result of a consistent, willful rejection of all that is good and true and holy.

All that having been said, I personally believe, with Lewis, George Macdonald, Barth, Origen and others, that God's mercy extends beyond death and that at least the possibility of eventual universal salvation is something that warrants our humble consideration.

Jesus said to not fear the one who can destroy the body but to fear the one who destroy both body and soul in hell.

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Who am I demonising?

Anyone who does not kowtow to the monster you call God. Anyone who does not "repent" of not willingly serving the being who mind controlled Pharoah to give himself an excuse to show off by committing mass-murder.

quote:
But let's suppose you are right. Let's suppose that God says to every single person (quite irrespective of anything thay have done, do, will do or intend to do): "You are all declared righteous in my sight. I love you all. I accept you all. I demonise none of you."

And let us, while we are doing so, exclude the middle.

Now let us suppose we have a limited but at least non-stupid and non-evil God. One who says "Here is every action you have committed in the world. Here are their consequences. Live them." And then teaches people to empathise, to feel each others' suffering, and to love each other and themselves.

quote:
BUT...

Even despite this, what if some people still insist that they do not accept the love of God, the position and authority of God, the righteousness of God and the mercy of God? They insist that they want to go their own way.

Then you read the Parable of the Prodigal Son. (Never mind the father's behaviour being pretty poor. They get to walk until the famine forces them to return home.

quote:
Nothing to do with God rejecting them and everything to do with their rejection of God. God is humble, they are proud.

"God is humble"? Riiiiight. Or are you saying in this new hypothesis that God is humble.

quote:
God loves them. They return His love with hatred, blasphemy and implacable bitterness. Nothing that God can say or do will satisfy these people.

So what is God supposed to do?

Love them. "If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you it's yours." Or be a hopefully better version of the father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son.

Instead your God's "Love" would bind the people with chains of metaphorical fire.

quote:
These people have chosen to be in torment before God.

No. They've chosen to depart from God's presence. That's completely different unless God makes the universe such that that is torment.

quote:
Now if I affirm that this is a distinct possibility, how am I demonising these people? I am not demonising them. They are demonising themselves!

No. You are demonising them. You are saying that it is right that they be tortured.

quote:
Yes, it is true that evil occurs on this earth and in this life. Also an incredible amount of evil does not occur, which, given people's attitudes, one would expect to occur (but, of course, God never gets the credit for that, and anyway, He is playing on a losing wicket there, because we can never know the extent of that from which we have been protected!).

In short the influence of God's goodness at preventing evil is the same as throwing rolled up newspaper out of the window of a suburban train to keep elephants away (I've never seen elephants on that line so it must work). But even compared to the rolled up newspaper argument this is onto a loser - God allowed the Holocaust.

The problem with claiming that God is playing on a losing wicket is we can see the stumps. We can see how the balls fly. We can see no batsman. We can hear no bat meeting ball. In the last 1900 years, there has not been one single successful cover drive played by the batsman who is supposedly "playing" on a losing wicket.

quote:
But God has created moral beings. What is the point of creating morally responsible beings, if they are not allowed - for a season - to make real choices: choices that have a real effect?

So by EE's standards there are two methods to childrearing. The first is that you do not ever let children leave the playpen. The second is that you expose them in a scrapyard and never come back to them.

Me, I prefer the nurturing and teaching method of childrearing to the malevolent neglect model or the helecopter parenting model.

quote:
You accuse me of having a cartoonish view of God. But, I can't think of anything more cartoonish than the idea that all moral reality should be mere fantasy.

That much straw could be better used thatching a roof.

The Holocaust was evil. Why was it evil? It harmed people. It overrode their consent. Consent and harm are not mere fantasies. Neither is growth, happiness, or joy. On such observable realities is morality built, not on a mythical monster.

quote:

quote:
Abusers routinely paint themselves as victims.
It is very difficult to reason with someone so closed-minded as to write a comment like that.

Are you claiming that my statement is not true? Or are you claiming that there is no possibility that your God is an abuser? In that case it is obvious which of us has the closed mind.

quote:
It sounds to me that you just want to live your life exactly as you want, and have a God who will just bail you out. Nothing could be more cartoonish and deluded than that!

Personally I am glad that God doesn't exist. Which means we get to make our own lives in a way that matters. Moral reality is observable in this one. And I am very glad that we don't all have to kowtow to a sadistic scumbag whose mere presence renders anything we can do meaningless.

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian
But humanity is not split into "good" and "evil" like some second-rate 1980s cartoon series. Nobody is entirely good, and nobody is entirely evil.
I agree. That is why I have never suggested such a thing. However, humanity is split between those who repent of their evil and those who do not. Nothing cartoonish about that. On the contrary, it has something to do with what is known as 'reality'.

And given that one evil is spreading the idea that an abusive sadist in the sky who sees to it that people are tortured forever is good, you are among the unrepentant. The being you worship undermines any morality based on that which is real, replacing it with a morality based on the mythical being.

Your God is not part of reality. But by trying to force such an abhorrent being into the list of things actually real people need to take account of, and by trying to claim that which is evil is in fact good, you have unbalanced your own moral scales by adding some fairly massive false weights, and are trying to do the same to others.

quote:
The only people who are irredeemable are those who choose to be. Nothing to do with anyone else's judgment of them.

And on this we can agree. But no one is or even can be stubborn enough to stick with a bad choice for eternity.

Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs
I think the very opposite. I think reducing anyone to 'truly evil' ie. solely evil is dangerous, because that's what leads to demonisation.
Who am I demonising?

Anyone who you say is truly evil. Although, since you then denied that people are not divided into goodies and baddies, I'm not quite sure what you are saying.

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
But let's suppose you are right. Let's suppose that God says to every single person (quite irrespective of anything thay have done, do, will do or intend to do): "You are all declared righteous in my sight. I love you all. I accept you all. I demonise none of you."

Let's suppose I am. If so, the final 3 statements I am happy with (I love, accept and don't demonise). The first (you are declared righteous) I'm not. It takes time and repentance to be declared righteous. So careful you don't argue against something I'm not saying, and I'll try to do the same for you.

Posted by Mere Nick (# 11827) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
If you read fairy tales as a child, you would know the difference -- eternal life is a gift, perpetual life is a curse.

You're talking close to 50 years ago. The only one I seem to have cared to remember is the story of the Hobyahs.

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God has offered us the former, and not the latter.

Right . . .

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In any event, no one will spend trillions of centuries in hell, because hell (like heaven) is the presence of God, and God exists outside of time. At the close of the age, it appears that we will exist with him, and so will also be outside of time.

To those of us who believe the fire is the fire that consumes, yeah.

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So whatever state we are in, we will not be in it for 487 trillion centuries, because centuries of any number will not exist. There will be only the eternal Now.

Yes and no, as I see it. 487 trillion years from now, those in Christ will be with him. We won't have noticed when 487 trillion centuries have rolled past, but there we will be.

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We talk as if there were time in the age to come, just as we talk as if there were time before the Creation, because we are creatures bound by time, and it is difficult for us to talk, or even think, any other way. But even though we are bound by time, God, who created time, is not.

He's aware of time even though it can't bind him.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

quote:
Abusers routinely paint themselves as victims.
It is very difficult to reason with someone so closed-minded as to write a comment like that.

Um, but that's true. How is it closed-minded to speak the truth?

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian
But humanity is not split into "good" and "evil" like some second-rate 1980s cartoon series. Nobody is entirely good, and nobody is entirely evil.
I agree. That is why I have never suggested such a thing.

Oh, but you have.

"a deep-seated and absolute commitment to evil and a total contempt for compassion".
"unrepentantly evil".
"their entire pleasure in life is to hurt others".
"haters and despisers of love, compassion and mercy, who are determined to make everyone else's life a misery".

Sounds like descriptions of cartoon baddies rather than real people to me...

quote:
However, humanity is split between those who repent of their evil and those who do not.

Still the same black-and-white approach. Nothing's really changed, you've just swapped "good and evil" for "repentant and unrepentant".

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The only "dangerous delusion" here is the one that encourages us to think of other people as utterly evil, utterly irredeemable.
And who is encouraging that idea?

See the lines from your previous posts that I quoted above.

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The only people who are irredeemable are those who choose to be. Nothing to do with anyone else's judgment of them.

If you're saying that it's good and just for someone to suffer eternal torment, you're judging them. I don't particularly care what criteria you're choosing to use.

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief
Um, but that's true. How is it closed-minded to speak the truth?

So your idea of 'truth' pays no attention to context?

How strange.

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical
Who am I demonising?
Anyone who you say is truly evil. Although, since you then denied that people are not divided into goodies and baddies, I'm not quite sure what you are saying.

Depends what we mean by "truly evil". It may indeed be true that Fred West, for example, might have had a few minor "redeeming features", but these features hardly have any relevance in the light of the unspeakably horrific crimes which he committed. Clearly his will was entirely orientated to evil. If that was not the case, then why did he not show mercy towards his victims?

Do I think that Fred West was truly evil? In a sense, yes. Does that mean that I am demonising him? Again, it depends what we mean by the term. 'Demonise' generally means to portray as evil or diabolical, but usually in the sense of doing so for propaganda purposes by focusing on a few debatable negative points and exaggerating them (and, in the case of an ethnic group, for example, applying them corporately). There is a world of difference between that, and a judge telling a convicted serial killer in the dock: "you are an evil man". The latter is simply a statement of fact, and it could be uttered with great sadness and regret.

So I think we have to be very careful how we use these terms. I am certainly not demonising people. I am simply facing up to the reality of evil. Others seem to want to deny its reality and seriousness - a tendency I find deeply disturbing.

As for denying that the world is "divided into goodies and baddies": we are all tainted with sin. But some people repent of their sin, fight against it and seek to forsake it. Others happily, willingly and arrogantly embrace it. There is clearly a huge difference between these two groups of people. None of us should indulge in self-righteousness (and I can't help but notice that theologically liberal types are as prone to this as the more conservative types, and self-righteousness certainly infects all parts of the political spectrum). But it is not being self-righteous to face up to the reality of evil, and not just one's own evil.

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical
But let's suppose you are right. Let's suppose that God says to every single person (quite irrespective of anything thay have done, do, will do or intend to do): "You are all declared righteous in my sight. I love you all. I accept you all. I demonise none of you."
Let's suppose I am. If so, the final 3 statements I am happy with (I love, accept and don't demonise). The first (you are declared righteous) I'm not. It takes time and repentance to be declared righteous. So careful you don't argue against something I'm not saying, and I'll try to do the same for you.

Well, however we understand the idea of "being declared righteous" (whether one has achieved a track record of pure thoughts and actions, or whether someone has simply been declared to be justified by God's grace), the point I was making that no matter what God might say to people, He cannot be held responsible for someone else's wilful rejection of Him and His grace. That is why I cannot accept the idea that God is a sadistic torturer (as Justinian persistently asserts). He is no more a torturer than an innocent driver is a torturer, whose car seriously injures a reckless pedestrian who chooses to run out in front of the car in such a way that the driver has no time to stop (and he is perfectly obeying the rules of the road in that situation and is driving with due care and attention).

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
As for denying that the world is "divided into goodies and baddies": we are all tainted with sin. But some people repent of their sin, fight against it and seek to forsake it. Others happily, willingly and arrogantly embrace it. There is clearly a huge difference between these two groups of people.

Not even close. Those two groups of people are, in my experience, one and the same. Take, for example, Oscar Schindler. Corrupt, cheated on his spouse, but when confronted by true evil saved thousands. Never notably good either before or after but stepped up when it mattered. I know no one who doesn't have things they will accept they probably shouldn't - and no one who doesn't have a line or two that shouldn't be crossed.

quote:
the point I was making that no matter what God might say to people, He cannot be held responsible for someone else's wilful rejection of Him and His grace.

Grace, if it means anything, is a gift. Your version of God's Grace is "You will take this or else." If they will not eat, your God force-feeds them and wonders why they get upset. That is what "rejecting God's grace is hell" makes of grace.

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That is why I cannot accept the idea that God is a sadistic torturer (as Justinian persistently asserts). He is no more a torturer than an innocent driver is a torturer, whose car seriously injures a reckless pedestrian who chooses to run out in front of the car in such a way that the driver has no time to stop (and he is perfectly obeying the rules of the road in that situation and is driving with due care and attention).

And once again you expose how ill-thought out your God is. If the Omnipotent, Omniscient God can not stop his car then he absolutely is driving without due care and attention. If your God is humanly falliable then this isn't an issue, but any argument based on "The Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent being had no choice" is inherently incoherent. And "The driver had no time to stop under the rules of the road" is also an irrlevant argument where the driver was the person who wrote the rules of the road, set the legal stopping distances, and has the only car. The driver was driving under his rules and the pedestrian had never seen a car before. In such a case I would blame the driver.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

Originally posted by Justinian:

quote:
Take, for example, Oscar Schindler. Corrupt, cheated on his spouse, but when confronted by true evil saved thousands. Never notably good either before or after but stepped up when it mattered. I know no one who doesn't have things they will accept they probably shouldn't - and no one who doesn't have a line or two that shouldn't be crossed.

This is what I attempted to say up thread. Most will never be tested, so what is the point?

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief
Um, but that's true. How is it closed-minded to speak the truth?
So your idea of 'truth' pays no attention to context?

How strange.

So you're saying that "incorrect in this context" means the same thing as "close-minded."

Okayyy.

Or perhaps you mean "incorrect as applied to God"? Which would make more sense in context, but must be argued for and not merely baldly asserted.

Posted by Pre-cambrian (# 2055) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
As for denying that the world is "divided into goodies and baddies": we are all tainted with sin. But some people repent of their sin, fight against it and seek to forsake it. Others happily, willingly and arrogantly embrace it. There is clearly a huge difference between these two groups of people.

This really sums up your problem. You seem to be looking at the world as if it is made up of "huge differences". (I've commented before on the way you paint the world as black and white. You, predictably, went off the deep end.) You said much the same thing only yesterday:

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Even despite this, what if some people still insist that they do not accept the love of God, the position and authority of God, the righteousness of God and the mercy of God? They insist that they want to go their own way. Nothing to do with God rejecting them and everything to do with their rejection of God. God is humble, they are proud. God loves them. They return His love with hatred, blasphemy and implacable bitterness.

Do you really think there is no middle ground between these positions? Middle ground that the vast majority of decent people probably occupy? Do you really think that someone who does not believe in your God because he considers that the evidence is simply lacking is driven by hatred, blasphemy and implacable bitterness? I can only suspect that your language says much more about your attitudes to the people around you that it does about the people you seek to dismiss as arrogant, blasphemous or implacably bitter.

quote:
None of us should indulge in self-righteousness (and I can't help but notice that theologically liberal types are as prone to this as the more conservative types, and self-righteousness certainly infects all parts of the political spectrum).

Motes. Beams. Eyes.

[ 06. March 2013, 00:16: Message edited by: Pre-cambrian ]

Posted by savedbyhim01 (# 17035) on :

1. God is the Creator and therefore He can do whatever He wants. We should test Him or doubt Him.

2. God is holy and just. Punishment is not only about what, but also about who. A crime against God is infinitely worse than a crime against other people because He is infinitely greater.

3. God loves us so much that He sent His own Son to take the punishment. We don't have to face eternal damnation. There is a way out if we will take it.

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

quote:
Originally posted by savedbyhim01:
1. God is the Creator and therefore He can do whatever He wants. We should test Him or doubt Him.

This is true if and only if might makes right and God does not want us to use our brains at all.

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2. God is holy and just. Punishment is not only about what, but also about who. A crime against God is infinitely worse than a crime against other people because He is infinitely greater.

Justice is something that needs to be demonstrated.

And punishment is indeed about who. A crime against a child is far more deserving of punishment than one against an adult. Generally the smaller, weaker, and less able to protect themselves, the more the punishment for abusing them should be. So your God is the smallest, weakest, least important being in the cosmos if crimes against your God should be punished so severely. On the other hand if your God is as great as you say he can not actually be hurt so crimes aren't that serious.

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3. God loves us so much that He sent His own Son to take the punishment. We don't have to face eternal damnation. There is a way out if we will take it.

Note that in your description
1: God demands the punishment to satisfy himself. "I'm so generous for not beating you to a pulp". No, you don't get marks for that.
2: God sent his Son. Not himself.

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

quote:
Originally posted by savedbyhim01:
3. God loves us so much that He sent His own Son to take the punishment. We don't have to face eternal damnation. There is a way out if we will take it.

But this was my point in the OP – I assume you have read the thread fully.

If the crime is not to believe in God, or even to deny someone of about seventy years of Earthly life, and the punishment is to last for eternity, then by definition the punishment does not fit the crime and it is unjust, and God is just.

Ergo, we – none of us – can be punished for eternity otherwise God will be denying His own nature of justice, love and compassion.

You need to address that point specifically.

Posted by Mere Nick (# 11827) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:
If the crime is not to believe in God, or even to deny someone of about seventy years of Earthly life, and the punishment is to last for eternity, then by definition the punishment does not fit the crime and it is unjust, and God is just.

Do you not see that a punishment may last eternity but the punishing may not?

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical
As for denying that the world is "divided into goodies and baddies": we are all tainted with sin. But some people repent of their sin, fight against it and seek to forsake it. Others happily, willingly and arrogantly embrace it. There is clearly a huge difference between these two groups of people.
Not even close. Those two groups of people are, in my experience, one and the same. Take, for example, Oscar Schindler. Corrupt, cheated on his spouse, but when confronted by true evil saved thousands. Never notably good either before or after but stepped up when it mattered. I know no one who doesn't have things they will accept they probably shouldn't - and no one who doesn't have a line or two that shouldn't be crossed.

So, according to your logic, being corrupt and cheating on your spouse does not count as "true evil"? This is what you wrote: "Corrupt, cheated on his spouse, but when confronted by true evil saved thousands. Never notably good either before or after but stepped up when it mattered."

Firstly, I have a hard time understanding how someone with your view of reality can even define the word 'evil'. You assume we all know what it means, but on what basis? Can you justify your definition, according to your (presumably atheistic) worldview? Just appealing to some vague commonly held sense of "right and wrong" is simply not rigorous enough. The Nazis believed that they were doing good for their own race and nation. Of course, I certainly believe that their policies were evil, but I can't see how a philosophical naturalist can say the same thing with justification, other than by an appeal to one's own personal feelings.

You criticise me for my analysis of human attitudes to evil, but I can't see the basis from which you are arguing. It seems to me that you are stealing an idea from the theistic worldview (namely, an objectively valid moral sense) and using it to condemn theism.

As for the idea of repentance... I do not deny that repentance can take many forms, and that there are different levels of repentance. Someone may have many faults and persist in those faults, while doing the right thing in a time of the greatest crisis. Only God really knows a person's heart. So Schindler, for all his faults, was walking in the right direction. But how you can criticise me for stating that there are people who are wilfully walking in the opposite direction and revelling in so doing, is quite beyond me. I don't know how anyone - other than certain coddled individuals living an incredibly sheltered existence - can deny the reality of evil, and that there are individuals who are seemingly sold out to it. The idea that the Yorkshire Ripper, for example, was, at heart, quite a good bloke who just got a bit unstable, and thereby murdered thirteen innocent women, is a vile thought. I prefer to call things by their proper name, and if that means being accused of all sorts of things for so doing, then so be it. I regard those accusations with the contempt that they deserve.

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Grace, if it means anything, is a gift. Your version of God's Grace is "You will take this or else." If they will not eat, your God force-feeds them and wonders why they get upset. That is what "rejecting God's grace is hell" makes of grace.

You couldn't be more wrong if you tried. The whole point is that God does not force-feed anyone. People are free to reject God's grace. But given that the entirety of all that is good in reality flows from God's grace, then the rejection of this grace has extremely unwelcome consequences. Some people seem to think that God should then annihilate these people, so that they do not have to experience these self-chosen consequences. The problem with that is: how can God eternally offer his grace and forgiveness to people who no longer exist? The door of mercy is open forever (symbolised by the Lamb, but apparently, if you are to be believed, this symbolises "God as abuser claiming that He's the victim. A kind of eternal manipulation". Like I said, it's very difficult to reason with someone who insists on putting the most negative and cynical construction on anything God says or does).

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And once again you expose how ill-thought out your God is. If the Omnipotent, Omniscient God can not stop his car then he absolutely is driving without due care and attention.

No, my position and my analogy is not ill-thought out at all. If the person represented by the pedestrian insists on embracing evil and refuses to repent of it, then what you are asking God ("the driver") to do is use his omnipotence to deny His own character. In other words, you want God to actually be evil - like a kind of indulgent devil - in order to allow those who love and embrace evil to experience pleasure, comfort and peace. Or you want him to annihilate them (so that they could never have the opportunity to repent). It seems to me that you just want God to be an extension of yourself and your own demands, and you seem incredibly bitter and resentful that He is not. God, by definition, could never be a puppet of man.

The "rules of the road" are the rules of God's unchanging and eternal character. He cannot change those rules, or use his power to suspend them, given that His power is under the authority of those rules.

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
So, according to your logic, being corrupt and cheating on your spouse does not count as "true evil"?

Not when you rank it alongside the Holocaust. There are degrees and degrees of badness - and without the time when he stepped up and saved thousands, Oscar Schindler would probably have gone down in history as a bad man.

quote:
Firstly, I have a hard time understanding how someone with your view of reality can even define the word 'evil'. You assume we all know what it means, but on what basis? Can you justify your definition, according to your (presumably atheistic) worldview?

That which harms others or reduces them to things. Simple as that. The Nazis were sticking people in gas chambers and starting aggressive wars that killed millions. Definite harm.

quote:
I don't know how anyone - other than certain coddled individuals living an incredibly sheltered existence - can deny the reality of evil, and that there are individuals who are seemingly sold out to it. The idea that the Yorkshire Ripper, for example, was, at heart, quite a good bloke who just got a bit unstable, and thereby murdered thirteen innocent women, is a vile thought.

The idea that Peter Sutcliffe was a deeply damaged person who harmed a lot of others and spread a lot of evil and was thereby a bad person is one I agree with. The idea that this means that there was nothing of good in him is to me a vile thought. He wasn't "quite a good bloke". And were I judging him I'd have no problem sentencing him to life in prison. On the other hand, buried under his actions was that which could have been other although for Peter Sutcliffe as he was in 1980 this would have taken a lot to bring out. (I have no idea what he's like now). And it would probably take a more than human effort to bring the aspects of him that would be good out to the point they dominate. However this does not mean that drawing him to such a degree of enlightenment is beyond the ability of the Divine.

The scary thing about people like Peter Sutcliffe isn't the evil. Rabid dogs get put down. It's the humanity. The humanity you are trying to deny.

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You couldn't be more wrong if you tried. The whole point is that God does not force-feed anyone.

Then it will not burn them.

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But given that the entirety of all that is good in reality flows from God's grace, then the rejection of this grace has extremely unwelcome consequences.

Your statement there is designed to do nothing more than openly degrade humanity and to reject the beauty of the universe, and by doing so it shows how mean your conception of God is. Even in your own theology man was made in God's own image - was God really so miserly as to withhold goodness from being an inherent part of humanity? And is God's creation really without inherent good? What does that say about the Creator and the work of the Creator? An evil tree can not bear good fruit - and if there is a Creator then the fruits of the Creator's work are the universe.

But if we carry out any model of the real world, goodness is necessary for any social animal to survive. No one can face this world on their own and triumph. Without goodness - that is the desire for others to grow and prosper - you could not have language. Or even tribal species. The worst societies there have been (e.g. the Nazis) have done so by twisting these good impulses of fellow feeling and wanting to support and help each other to exclusionary ends and cutting sharp boundaries on who is included and who you get to trample.

Literally the only way all goodness can be said to flow from God is a panentheistic conception of God in which God is in everything and every one and a part of all.

quote:
The door of mercy is open forever (symbolised by the Lamb, but apparently, if you are to be believed, this symbolises "God as abuser claiming that He's the victim. A kind of eternal manipulation". Like I said, it's very difficult to reason with someone who insists on putting the most negative and cynical construction on anything God says or does).

If there is one single being suffering eternal torment then God is not good. And everything said by or about God needs to be read in the light that God is clearly and demonstrably not good. If this is not the case and Hell is Purgatory then the reading is not necessary.

And given you put a Polyannaish construction on anything reported to be God to the point that you actively degrade humanity in order to attribute anything that is good to other than the humans doing it, difficult conversations are a speciality of yours.

And I've yet to have a clear answer of how a God that openly shows off by mind controlling Pharaoh in order to give him an excuse to order the massacre of the firstborn can be described as good.

quote:
No, my position and my analogy is not ill-thought out at all. If the person represented by the pedestrian insists on embracing evil and refuses to repent of it, then what you are asking God ("the driver") to do is use his omnipotence to deny His own character. In other words, you want God to actually be evil - like a kind of indulgent devil - in order to allow those who love and embrace evil to experience pleasure, comfort and peace.

Given that comfort and peace are two of the best routes to allow someone to stop lashing out and instead listen to the better parts of themselves, yes I do. I want God to nurture rather than rain down afflictions that will only confirm the evil nature of God. This is not evil.

quote:
The "rules of the road" are the rules of God's unchanging and eternal character. He cannot change those rules, or use his power to suspend them, given that His power is under the authority of those rules.

And now you are denying the Incarnation. Which (assuming anything in Christianity is real) absolutely did involve God changing nature and character and relationship.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
The idea that Peter Sutcliffe was a deeply damaged person who harmed a lot of others and spread a lot of evil and was thereby a bad person is one I agree with. The idea that this means that there was nothing of good in him is to me a vile thought.

Exactly.

Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
The idea that Peter Sutcliffe was a deeply damaged person who harmed a lot of others and spread a lot of evil and was thereby a bad person is one I agree with. The idea that this means that there was nothing of good in him is to me a vile thought.
Exactly.

Agreed.

Which raises an interesting inverse question to one asked the other way. The question asked of certain Universalists is "how can God allow evil into Heaven" - a fair question. But the inverse question is also troubling. Given that no-one is 100% evil, and there is good in everyone, however small, how can God sentence that Good to Hell?

This is one thing that, when interpreting a parable like the wheat & weeds, pushes me towards thinking that rather than individual people being either wheat or weeds (the interpretation I usually hear), that we all have both weeds and wheat in our souls. In this life they are impossible to separate, but in the next they will be. The weeds in my heart will be thrown into Gehenna, and the wheat will be left good and pure for heaven.

Anyway, just a thought.

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
Agreed.

Which raises an interesting inverse question to one asked the other way. The question asked of certain Universalists is "how can God allow evil into Heaven" - a fair question.

And the answer is "However God wants. And by making sure that evil isn't effective in heaven."

This seriously is a non-question. There is nothing wrong with giving someone a present they don't deserve. And everything wrong with giving them a punishment they don't deserve.

quote:
This is one thing that, when interpreting a parable like the wheat & weeds, pushes me towards thinking that rather than individual people being either wheat or weeds (the interpretation I usually hear), that we all have both weeds and wheat in our souls. In this life they are impossible to separate, but in the next they will be. The weeds in my heart will be thrown into Gehenna, and the wheat will be left good and pure for heaven.

Anyway, just a thought.

And I'm reminded of a Jewish midrash. My apologies if I'm not getting this quite right - it's almost a decade since I heard it.

One day the rabbis went to G-d and asked him to remove all the evil from the world. G-d agreed. The next day no one did work. No one ate. No one tried to procreate. No one did anything productive. The next day G-d allowed evil back into the world so people would continue to grow.

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical
So, according to your logic, being corrupt and cheating on your spouse does not count as "true evil"?
Not when you rank it alongside the Holocaust. There are degrees and degrees of badness - and without the time when he stepped up and saved thousands, Oscar Schindler would probably have gone down in history as a bad man.

So being corrupt and cheating on your spouse is 'bad', but not 'evil'? Sounds like a contradiction to me. As it happens, corruption is the cause of unspeakable horror the world over - rather like a silent cancer. But be that as it may, your view is contradictory.

quote:
That which harms others or reduces them to things. Simple as that. The Nazis were sticking people in gas chambers and starting aggressive wars that killed millions. Definite harm.

Except that they believed that the Jews were harming them. So, according to your reasoning, how were they wrong? Furthermore, if morality is simply defined in terms of "not harming people", then presumably you don't accept that any action should be taken against criminals? After all, imprisoning someone is 'harming' them, isn't it? So again, your position is incoherent.

quote:
The idea that Peter Sutcliffe was a deeply damaged person who harmed a lot of others and spread a lot of evil and was thereby a bad person is one I agree with. The idea that this means that there was nothing of good in him is to me a vile thought.

I have not suggested that there was "nothing of good in him". But what meaning does this supposed 'good' have, in the light of his actions? It's a bit like an extremely dangerous, structurally unsound building, that cannot be safely inhabited, but in which there are a few worthy features. So what? Those worthy features will not justify saving the building from demolition.

Peter Sutcliffe's 'good' is no comfort to his thirteen precious victims or their bereaved families.

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However this does not mean that drawing him to such a degree of enlightenment is beyond the ability of the Divine.

I most certainly believe that God can save Peter Sutcliffe. But it requires Peter Sutcliffe's cooperation. And what if he refuses to give it?

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The scary thing about people like Peter Sutcliffe isn't the evil. Rabid dogs get put down. It's the humanity. The humanity you are trying to deny.

Actually, I am the person who is most definitely NOT denying Peter Sutcliffe's humanity. Central to our humanity is something called free will. This is a vital function of our lives which you persistently deny.

You are the one who wants to turn people into automatons, who have to comply with the demands of goodness or salvation. I affirm that people are morally responsible agents, who have the freedom to say no to goodness.

So don't accuse me of something which is diametrically opposed to everything I have been saying.

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical
You couldn't be more wrong if you tried. The whole point is that God does not force-feed anyone.
Then it will not burn them.

Rejecting the grace of God will involve suffering, because all that is good comes from His grace. 'Burn' is a metaphor for the kind of suffering that results from a rejection of the goodness of God. So, yes, their rejection of God's grace will burn them.

quote:

quote:
But given that the entirety of all that is good in reality flows from God's grace, then the rejection of this grace has extremely unwelcome consequences.
Your statement there is designed to do nothing more than openly degrade humanity and to reject the beauty of the universe, and by doing so it shows how mean your conception of God is. Even in your own theology man was made in God's own image - was God really so miserly as to withhold goodness from being an inherent part of humanity? And is God's creation really without inherent good? What does that say about the Creator and the work of the Creator? An evil tree can not bear good fruit - and if there is a Creator then the fruits of the Creator's work are the universe.

This paragraph is incoherent. You acknowledge that I affirm God as the Creator, and yet you claim that I am degrading humanity and rejecting the beauty of the universe when I say that all goodness flows from God's grace? So God is the creator, but He is not allowed to be the creator? How bizarre!

I can only assume that you are interpreting the word 'grace' in a far more specific way than I am. 'Grace' describes "that which God gives", which, of course, includes His works. As for God withholding goodness - what are you talking about exactly? Perhaps you are assuming that I subscribe to the notion of total depravity? I do not. What I do affirm, is that part of the 'goodness' that is inherent in humanity, being in the image of God, is free will. And free will cannot operate without choice. Therefore, there has to be the moral choice of good and evil. God presents these to everyone in different ways, and will judge everyone on the basis of the choices we have made according to the light each of us has been given.

quote:
If there is one single being suffering eternal torment then God is not good.

Absolute nonsense! Again, here we see an example of your deep-seated hatred of human free will. You cannot stomach the idea of freedom. I think this is very telling, not to mention disturbing. You say that I reject the humanity of certain people, but how are you affirming anyone's humanity by patronisingly telling them that they are not even allowed to be responsible for their own actions? God would only be morally responsible for other people's actions, if He had created them as automatons. Not only do you degrade man, but also God.

quote:
I want God to nurture rather than rain down afflictions that will only confirm the evil nature of God.

And that's exactly what God wants to do:

quote:
‘Thus says the Lord God to Jerusalem: “Your birth and your nativity are from the land of Canaan; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. As for your nativity, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed in water to cleanse you; you were not rubbed with salt nor wrapped in swaddling cloths. No eye pitied you, to do any of these things for you, to have compassion on you; but you were thrown out into the open field, when you yourself were loathed on the day you were born.

“And when I passed by you and saw you struggling in your own blood, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ Yes, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ I made you thrive like a plant in the field; and you grew, matured, and became very beautiful. Your breasts were formed, your hair grew, but you were naked and bare.

“When I passed by you again and looked upon you, indeed your time was the time of love; so I spread My wing over you and covered your nakedness. Yes, I swore an oath to you and entered into a covenant with you, and you became Mine,” says the Lord God.

“Then I washed you in water; yes, I thoroughly washed off your blood, and I anointed you with oil. I clothed you in embroidered cloth and gave you sandals of badger skin; I clothed you with fine linen and covered you with silk. I adorned you with ornaments, put bracelets on your wrists, and a chain on your neck. And I put a jewel in your nose, earrings in your ears, and a beautiful crown on your head. Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was of fine linen, silk, and embroidered cloth. You ate pastry of fine flour, honey, and oil. You were exceedingly beautiful, and succeeded to royalty. Your fame went out among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through My splendor which I had bestowed on you,” says the Lord God.

(Ezekiel 16:3-14)

And then what did God's people do? If you read on in Ezekiel 16, they totally rejected the love of God, committed idolatry, which involved human sacrifice and all manner of evil. God's preferred "love and comfort" strategy didn't work with these people, so God had to resort to His "Plan B", which was extremely regrettable ("He does not afflict willingly", as the Bible says in Lamentations 3:33).

But you think you know better than God. You are so naive about human nature that you think that the softly softly approach will always work. I'm afraid it just does not fit reality.

quote:
And now you are denying the Incarnation. Which (assuming anything in Christianity is real) absolutely did involve God changing nature and character and relationship.

God's essential character did not change in the incarnation of Christ. Of course, God became man, but that is not what I am talking about. The whole point of the incarnation is the revelation of God in a way comprehensible to man. This could not therefore have involved a change of character. The incarnation would have been totally self-defeating if that had happened!

Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
any argument based on "The Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent being had no choice" is inherently incoherent.

The logic of this statement is clear and obvious.

I would think, though, that it shouldn't be too hard to see the logic of an alternative to it.

For example, wouldn't the "perfect choice" be one that is required of such a God?

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Freddy

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian
any argument based on "The Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent being had no choice" is inherently incoherent.
The logic of this statement is clear and obvious.

I would think, though, that it shouldn't be too hard to see the logic of an alternative to it.

Justinian is clearly wrong. An Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnipresent being can respect the choices of other beings. That is not contrary to his power, knowledge or presence. In fact, a God who could only create automatons would be vastly inferior to one who could create beings able to make their own moral choices.

A God who can only create robots is a God made in the image of man. This is the straw man 'God' imagined by humanists, hence their constant complaint that He does not live up to their expectations. Christians, of course, are under no moral or logical obligation to try to defend that kind of phoney 'God'.

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
So being corrupt and cheating on your spouse is 'bad', but not 'evil'? Sounds like a contradiction to me. As it happens, corruption is the cause of unspeakable horror the world over - rather like a silent cancer. But be that as it may, your view is contradictory.

I do not think I have ever dealt with a single person other than you who couldn't tell the difference between cheating on his wife and being corrupt, and helping throw people into gas chambers. The difference is one of orders of magnitude.

quote:
Except that they believed that the Jews were harming them. So, according to your reasoning, how were they wrong?[/quot]

Um... by being wrong?

And you know, by throwing people into gas chambers. Returning what they perceived as hurt by hurt magnified many times over.

quote:
Furthermore, if morality is simply defined in terms of "not harming people", then presumably you don't accept that any action should be taken against criminals? After all, imprisoning someone is 'harming' them, isn't it? So again, your position is incoherent.
No. This question is merely showing how badly you understand matters. I've been through classical theories of punishment. And in this less than perfect world it is justifiable to prevent people causing harm to others by proportionate means. This is the course of action that will result in the least evil.

My position is not even slightly incoherent here. It's simply your black and white understanding of the universe.

quote:
I have not suggested that there was "nothing of good in him". But what meaning does this supposed 'good' have, in the light of his actions? It's a bit like an extremely dangerous, structurally unsound building, that cannot be safely inhabited, but in which there are a few worthy features. So what? Those worthy features will not justify saving the building from demolition.
In this world, yes.

God, however, can fix the foundations if God is genuinely omnipotent and omnibenevolent.

quote:
Peter Sutcliffe's 'good' is no comfort to his thirteen precious victims or their bereaved families.
And this has what to do with the next life where they will be together again?

quote:
I most certainly believe that God can save Peter Sutcliffe. But it requires Peter Sutcliffe's cooperation. And what if he refuses to give it?
As I have said before wait him out. Let him wander lonely and alone until he decides otherwise. Peter Sutcliffe is far from perfect and can not outlast the patience of the eternal.

quote:
You are the one who wants to turn people into automatons, who have to comply with the demands of goodness or salvation.
I am the one who thinks the choice between salvation and damnation is complete bunk. If you need to offer everyone such a choice then give them all salvation. But it's a stupid and cruel setup.

quote:
This paragraph is incoherent. You acknowledge that I affirm God as the Creator, and yet you claim that I am degrading humanity and rejecting the beauty of the universe when I say that all goodness flows from God's grace? So God is the creator, but He is not allowed to be the creator? How bizarre!
If, as Creator, God gets credit for every scrap of good in the universe then there are only two options I see.

1: God also gets credit for every scrap of evil. Peter Sutcliffe is every bit as much a creature of God as Francis of Assissi and the Holocaust is as much God's will as any form of healing is. God is in this pattern not good. God just is. If you want God given credit for all good as creator then you must logically give him the credit of all evil.

2: All good is God's. All evil is man's. Therefore everything contributed by man is evil and man is the root of evil. And man is therefore a blemish on creation. It is this latter that I assume you take.

quote:
What I do affirm, is that part of the 'goodness' that is inherent in humanity, being in the image of God, is free will. And free will cannot operate without choice. Therefore, there has to be the moral choice of good and evil.
And this does not follow. Hard choices aren't between good and evil. They are where the balance is well matched.

If goodness and evil are inherent in humanity then God is responsible for either most or all of both or only a little of one (or both).

quote:
Absolute nonsense! Again, here we see an example of your deep-seated hatred of human free will. You cannot stomach the idea of freedom.
Complete nonsense. I can not stomach the idea of wantonly inflicting massive suffering on any other being as God's judgement does.

I believe in freedom. I believe that this life is it. The greatest freedom there is. That is far freer than having a God at all.

And as for your twisted notion of freedom, is someone made freer by being given a nuclear weapon and their hand put over the button? That one choice constrains so many others.

Your freedom boils down to one single choice. How do you align yourself with the Great Torturer? That is a hell of a lot less choice than making your own way.

quote:
but how are you affirming anyone's humanity by patronisingly telling them that they are not even allowed to be responsible for their own actions?
I'm not. I'm saying that "The choice between heaven and hell is an even sillier one than between cake or death." I'm also allowing them the responsibility of their actions in this world not some silly pass/fail in the next.

quote:
God would only be morally responsible for other people's actions, if He had created them as automatons. Not only do you degrade man, but also God.
God is responsible for God's actions. If those actions include torturing people eternally then God is a torturer. You, however, are trying to claim that God isn't responsible for setting the system and thereby are making God evade responsibility.

quote:
[QUOTE]I want God to nurture rather than rain down afflictions that will only confirm the evil nature of God.
And that's exactly what God wants to do:

Coming in the middle of several chapters of victim blaming by that self-same abusive God. When your God is open about mind-controlling others in order to show off by committing mass-murder then I take his claims to be the injured party.

quote:
God's preferred "love and comfort" strategy didn't work with these people, so God had to resort to His "Plan B", which was extremely regrettable ("He does not afflict willingly", as the Bible says in Lamentations 3:33).

So he says. This is once again a classic abuser approach. "It's for your own good I'm beating you. Why did you have to make me hit you honey?"

quote:
But you think you know better than God.

No. I think I know better than you. I think that your God is a figment of the imagination.

quote:
You are so naive about human nature that you think that the softly softly approach will always work. I'm afraid it just does not fit reality.

I think softly softly and controlling the environment and consequences will always eventually work. I also think that in some cases this will take more than three score years and ten. And humans therefore have to deal with expediency. God doesn't.

I also think that the omnipotent God is being pretty perverse in Ezekiel. A few lightning bolts as the knife for the child sacrifice was raised would have been a much better lesson than after the sacrifice had taken place. Instead of a short lesson to nip the behaviour in the bud, God went on the rampage and as usual closed the barn door after the horse bolted. After his behaviour in Exodus, I can't help but wonder whether this is another case of giving himself an excuse to be a sadist.

quote:
God's essential character did not change in the incarnation of Christ. Of course, God became man, but that is not what I am talking about. The whole point of the incarnation is the revelation of God in a way comprehensible to man. This could not therefore have involved a change of character. The incarnation would have been totally self-defeating if that had happened!

And your entire argument about nature is that "God has no free will". Right. As for nature changing, if Jesus' nature didn't change then Jesus was less than a man. If God's didn't change as Jesus' did then God didn't incarnate but instead rode a meat puppet.

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

quote:
Originally posted by Freddy

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian
any argument based on "The Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent being had no choice" is inherently incoherent.
The logic of this statement is clear and obvious.

I would think, though, that it shouldn't be too hard to see the logic of an alternative to it.
Justinian is clearly wrong. An Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnipresent being can respect the choices of other beings. That is not contrary to his power, knowledge or presence. In fact, a God who could only create automatons would be vastly inferior to one who could create beings able to make their own moral choices.

A God who can only create robots is a God made in the image of man. This is the straw man 'God' imagined by humanists, hence their constant complaint that He does not live up to their expectations. Christians, of course, are under no moral or logical obligation to try to defend that kind of phoney 'God'.

And this claim about robots is why the idea that "Good means in line with the wishes of another being" is such a perversion. Good is not singular. It is growth and nurture. And it involves encouraging people to reach towards their best potentials. Growth only implies robotics if and only if there is one single perception of what is good and what people can grow towards.

You are objecting to what is entirely an artifact of your rejection of the beauty of the world in favour of your pie in the sky.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
This seriously is a non-question. There is nothing wrong with giving someone a present they don't deserve.

Indeed, that's grace. I find it unimaginable that someone who believes in Hell as a punishment for sin in this life (not speaking about you, obviously) thinks grace is anything other than undeserved.

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
It's a bit like an extremely dangerous, structurally unsound building, that cannot be safely inhabited, but in which there are a few worthy features. So what? Those worthy features will not justify saving the building from demolition.

To further this analogy, there are firms that go into old buildings with beautiful fixtures and remove the beautiful things before the building itself is demolished; they are then made available for people building or enhancing other buildings. It's as goperryrevs said; God could destroy the evil in us, and allow the good to continue.

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
The whole point of the incarnation is the revelation of God in a way comprehensible to man.

Uh, no. The whole point of the incarnation is the salvation of man, and the uniting of the human and divine natures. Your incomplete understanding of the incarnation may be what's behind some of your other theological errors.

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
And your entire argument about nature is that "God has no free will".

Which is odd if, as EE says, the imprint of God's image in man is free will.

Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :

quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
The idea that Peter Sutcliffe was a deeply damaged person who harmed a lot of others and spread a lot of evil and was thereby a bad person is one I agree with. The idea that this means that there was nothing of good in him is to me a vile thought.
Exactly.
Agreed.

Which raises an interesting inverse question to one asked the other way. The question asked of certain Universalists is "how can God allow evil into Heaven" - a fair question. But the inverse question is also troubling. Given that no-one is 100% evil, and there is good in everyone, however small, how can God sentence that Good to Hell?

This is one thing that, when interpreting a parable like the wheat & weeds, pushes me towards thinking that rather than individual people being either wheat or weeds (the interpretation I usually hear), that we all have both weeds and wheat in our souls. In this life they are impossible to separate, but in the next they will be. The weeds in my heart will be thrown into Gehenna, and the wheat will be left good and pure for heaven.

Anyway, just a thought.

Exactly.

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
One day the rabbis went to G-d and asked him to remove all the evil from the world. G-d agreed. The next day no one did work. No one ate. No one tried to procreate. No one did anything productive. The next day G-d allowed evil back into the world so people would continue to grow.

Exactly.

The physical universe is designed as a place for us to choose between good and evil: the laws of time and space and limited resources means good and evil exist side by side and everyone encounters some degree of both. Part of the process of choosing necessarily involves choosing good for the wrong reasons (at least initially). Heaven and Hell, in contrast, are designed to separate them completely (individually and collectively) to allow maximum enjoyment of each (depending on your choice).

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Oooh, and Laurelin, Hitler of course.

Although choice is not a word that's real for me. Like punishment isn't either.

[ 06. March 2013, 20:51: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian
I do not think I have ever dealt with a single person other than you who couldn't tell the difference between cheating on his wife and being corrupt, and helping throw people into gas chambers. The difference is one of orders of magnitude.

Could you please quote something I wrote as evidence to justify the claim that I cannot "tell the difference between cheating on his wife and being corrupt, and helping throw people into gas chambers"?

I am not denying that there are orders of magnitude of the effect of evil, but that is different from evil itself. For example, the hate propaganda that led to the Rwandan genocide was intrinsically as evil as the acts of murder. It was in essence evil. Likewise corruption, which has condemned millions to poverty and starvation (whether greed in the developed world, as the political left like to remind us, or corruption in the developing world, which the political right focus on. Millions have died premature and painful deaths - actually far more painful than being gassed, horrific and disgusting though that is - due directly to corruption). So I make no apology for my comments. I think you need to think more deeply about the nature of evil, and then you may have more insight into the real causes of so much suffering in the world.

quote:
And you know, by throwing people into gas chambers. Returning what they perceived as hurt by hurt magnified many times over.

So, because the Nazis believed that the Jews were harming Germany, then, according to your (subjective and totally contrived) moral philosophy, they were genuine victims? After all, you have defined evil as simply causing harm to others. And you cannot claim that the Nazis' belief was false, because hurt is something experienced and therefore subjective. Therefore, in your philosophy, we would have to take these people at their word: they felt that Jews were undermining their country, and that is a reason to feel hurt (quite irrespective of the appalling way they responded to their perceived oppressor).

It all shows that your moral philosophy is vacuous.

quote:
No. This question is merely showing how badly you understand matters. I've been through classical theories of punishment. And in this less than perfect world it is justifiable to prevent people causing harm to others by proportionate means. This is the course of action that will result in the least evil.

No. It is not the case that I don't understand. What is the problem is that your moral philosophy does not stack up. And when it is shown to be incoherent, you just come out with cheap assertions about my "lack of understanding" or some such comment. You cannot define evil simply in terms of "causing harm" and then run away from the absurd implications of that.

quote:
My position is not even slightly incoherent here.

Whatever. *sigh*

quote:
God, however, can fix the foundations if God is genuinely omnipotent and omnibenevolent.

Of course He could. If the "building" (in this case a real human being) is willing. But you can't accept that, given your philosophy of compulsion: "I know what's best for you, and I am going to force feed you the medicine." All very patronising.

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical
Peter Sutcliffe's 'good' is no comfort to his thirteen precious victims or their bereaved families.
And this has what to do with the next life where they will be together again?

You have been talking about the little bit of 'good' in the Yorkshire Ripper, as if to suggest that it has some kind of legitimacy or reality. Let's say that Sutcliffe was only 10% good. How was this 10% manifested towards his victims? How did they personally benefit from this 10% goodness? How did this 10% mitigate their appalling suffering? Perhaps the 10% enabled him to hit them a little bit harder with the hammer so that death would come more quickly?

Hey, I tell you what... why don't we apply the same "little bit of goodness" to the Nazis? Perhaps their 5% or 10% goodness was manifested in gassing so many Jews, instead of working all of them to death? In their 'goodness' they gave most people a less prolonged death!

It's all bullshit. This "little bit of goodness" crap has no bearing at all on the actions of these vile murderers. It's an irrelevance.

And as for the bereaved... are they supposed to thank Mr Sutcliffe for not being more brutal towards their loved ones, because, after all, there must be a "little bit of goodness" in the vile murderer?!

quote:
As I have said before wait him out. Let him wander lonely and alone until he decides otherwise. Peter Sutcliffe is far from perfect and can not outlast the patience of the eternal.

Well who knows? God desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. That's all I can say. But I cannot presume that no one can finally reject all that is good. Some people, for the sake of their own pride, may be committed to self-worship forever. If free will is real, then it has the capacity to make permanent decisions.

quote:
I am the one who thinks the choice between salvation and damnation is complete bunk. If you need to offer everyone such a choice then give them all salvation. But it's a stupid and cruel setup.

A comment which confirms what I said.

Thank you.

quote:
If, as Creator, God gets credit for every scrap of good in the universe then there are only two options I see.

1: God also gets credit for every scrap of evil. Peter Sutcliffe is every bit as much a creature of God as Francis of Assissi and the Holocaust is as much God's will as any form of healing is. God is in this pattern not good. God just is. If you want God given credit for all good as creator then you must logically give him the credit of all evil.

2: All good is God's. All evil is man's. Therefore everything contributed by man is evil and man is the root of evil. And man is therefore a blemish on creation. It is this latter that I assume you take.

The first option denies the reality of free will. That is illogical, because God has created morally responsible beings, who have the freedom to choose. On the basis of that, it is absurd to charge God with wrong. Furthermore, if we believe in God as Creator of all things, then, of course, if He is evil, then none of his creatures could possibly charge Him with any wrong. If the Creator is evil, then so are the minds and souls of all He has created. And how could one trust the judgment of creatures created by an evil God?

Belief in an evil God is self-refuting. Atheism is the only 'logical' position if God is deemed to be evil (I put 'logical' in inverted commas, given that I think that atheism is itself deeply illogical for reasons I have given elsewhere).

Furthermore, evil is essentially parasitical. It needs the existence of the good. You cannot destroy, unless there exist good, wholesome things that can be destroyed. Therefore for God to be evil, He would need to contain within Himself contradiction: a force of creation, which turns back on itself and destroys that which has been created. It loves and hates simultaneously. Simple logic tells us that the absolute and perfect Creator cannot exist with inherent contradictions, since contradictions cause any system or structure to collapse.

So option one can easily be shown to be false.

Option two is nearer the truth. Certainly God is wholly good, and all goodness comes from God. Christianity certainly affirms that man is not the only being tainted by evil, but certainly the spiritual reality of evil can be chosen by man, and God is not responsible for this choice.

As for "man being a blemish on God's creation": no, I don't think I would put it like that at all. I am a humanist, because I believe in the dignity of man. In my view, Christianity is the true humanism, because it affirms the glory, honour and dignity of man, and does so above any other philosophy. Certainly atheism is not humanistic, because there is no dignity at all in reducing man to an ultimately meaningless collection of molecules without free will.

Man has his faults, but God has met those faults in Himself. Hence the incarnation and the redemption offered in Christ.

quote:
I believe in freedom. I believe that this life is it. The greatest freedom there is. That is far freer than having a God at all.

Well, if you genuinely believe that you are living in freedom, then I am happy for you. I'll keep my thoughts to myself on that one.

Personally, I find it hard to believe that an entirely materialistically determined collection of molecules can be free. My view is that you feel free, precisely because you are not merely a collection of molecules. But you deny the basis of your freedom. That is up to you.

quote:
Your freedom boils down to one single choice. How do you align yourself with the Great Torturer? That is a hell of a lot less choice than making your own way.

Where have I said any such thing?

Please provide the evidence from one or more of my posts.

quote:
I'm also allowing them the responsibility of their actions in this world not some silly pass/fail in the next.

Bullshit.

Josef Mengele died in freedom in Brazil. How the hell did he bear the responsibility of his unspeakably satanic actions in this world?

In your atheistic model, there is no real justice. Many of the most vile murderers get away with it, and enter the same supposed eternal oblivion as the most compassionate of people.

And, of course, millions of the most innocent of people do not get justice in this life. But, hey, that's OK, because that's how nature works. It's called "survival of the fittest".

quote:
God is responsible for God's actions. If those actions include torturing people eternally then God is a torturer. You, however, are trying to claim that God isn't responsible for setting the system and thereby are making God evade responsibility.

Instead of just repeating myself, let me take a different tack.

This is what you want to believe. So be it. You are vainly putting God on trial, and rather pathetically trying to point the finger at Him, in your puny little court which has absolutely no jurisdiction other than within your own mind. Fine.

So God is an evil torturer. If that is so, and if God exists (which He does), then there is nothing any of us can do about it. We certainly cannot put God on trial and successfully convict Him of any crime, and then impose punishment. Basically it's just tough!

It's obvious that you are just implacably bitter against God, and nothing anyone can say to you makes any difference. So I can only just leave you in the hands of the "evil God", and you can rant and rave for as long as you like.

Your understanding of the passage from Ezekiel is just laughable. You are determined to interpret anything to do with God in a certain way. You use the word 'twisted' to describe my views, but I think perhaps you ought to take the beam out of your own eye on that score!

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Could you please quote something I wrote as evidence to justify the claim that I cannot "tell the difference between cheating on his wife and being corrupt, and helping throw people into gas chambers"?

"So being corrupt and cheating on your spouse is 'bad', but not 'evil'? "

quote:
I am not denying that there are orders of magnitude of the effect of evil, but that is different from evil itself.

Indeed. Badness and evil exists. Evil itself is classic platonic bunk.

quote:
I think you need to think more deeply about the nature of evil, and then you may have more insight into the real causes of so much suffering in the world.

And I think you need to do likewise and stop coming up with half thought out answers that you think are worthwhile only because you refuse to look at them from more than one angle..

quote:
So, because the Nazis believed that the Jews were harming Germany, then, according to your (subjective and totally contrived) moral philosophy, they were genuine victims?

At this point I have no idea whether you are intentionally trolling or just failing to read. Harm is not the same thing as the perception of harm. And don't think that I didn't spot your little linguistic spin there where you are equating hurt and harm and expecting me not to spot this.

quote:
It all shows that your moral philosophy s vacuous.

So my philosophy is vacuous because you claim that hurt and harm are the same thing. Right. Bertrand Russel proved that if 1+1=1 then he was the Pope. Get your definitions wrong and you get incredibly tangled up.

quote:
What is the problem is that your moral philosophy does not stack up. And when it is shown to be incoherent, you just come out with cheap assertions about my "lack of understanding" or some such comment.

Which you then proceed to demonstrate by claiming that hurt is harm.

quote:
You have been talking about the little bit of 'good' in the Yorkshire Ripper, as if to suggest that it has some kind of legitimacy or reality. Let's say that Sutcliffe was only 10% good. How was this 10% manifested towards his victims? How did they personally benefit from this 10% goodness? How did this 10% mitigate their appalling suffering? Perhaps the 10% enabled him to hit them a little bit harder with the hammer so that death would come more quickly?

I don't know what point you think you are making here. In this world I fully support locking Peter Sutcliffe up. But that is, as I have said, because I do not have the resources God does, and can not nurture the part of Good that is within Peter Sutcliffe.

quote:
And as for the bereaved... are they supposed to thank Mr Sutcliffe for not being more brutal towards their loved ones, because, after all, there must be a "little bit of goodness" in the vile murderer?!

No. You are missing the point. This is not about this life. It is about eternity.

quote:
The first option denies the reality of free will.

Oh no it doesn't. I can take responsibility for teaching kids to pass their exams and get the credit for a 97% pass rate. That doesn't deny the kids themselves their part of the credit. Also your version is claiming that free will is bad. If they ever use their own will against the creator's they are doing evil. Therefore free will adds evil to the universe and never adds good.

quote:
Furthermore, if we believe in God as Creator of all things, then, of course, if He is evil, then none of his creatures could possibly charge Him with any wrong. If the Creator is evil, then so are the minds and souls of all He has created. And how could one trust the judgment of creatures created by an evil God?

Because of free will - if we can rebel against God in the service of evil we can also rebel to do good. We were created with the ability to reason and to discern. And might does not make right, unlike in your theology. There is no inherent need for the Creator to be good. The only reason you get this assumption is because God is powerful.

quote:
Belief in an evil God is self-refuting.

No it isn't unless you believe that Might Makes Right. And a more likely assumption anyway is that God is a being - neither inherently good nor inherently evil, merely inherently powerful.

quote:
Furthermore, evil is essentially parasitical.

False. See my midrash.

quote:
You cannot destroy, unless there exist good, wholesome things that can be destroyed.

I work with surgeons. They destroy cancers at times. Cancers are not good, wholesome things.

quote:
Therefore for God to be evil, He would need to contain within Himself contradiction: a force of creation, which turns back on itself and destroys that which has been created.

"I am the Alpha and the Omega. The first and the last. The beginning and the end." Your point?

quote:
It loves and hates simultaneously. Simple logic tells us that the absolute and perfect Creator cannot exist with inherent contradictions, since contradictions cause any system or structure to collapse.

And simple observation says that whatever created this world wasn't perfect. A perfectly good creator is also a contradiction if they create any evil at all under your simplistic understanding of evil. So a perfectly good creator is just as much a contradiction as a perfectly evil one.

quote:

quote:
Your freedom boils down to one single choice. How do you align yourself with the Great Torturer? That is a hell of a lot less choice than making your own way.
Where have I said any such thing?

Are you now saying that whether you go to heaven or hell isn't about how you align yourself with respect to God?

quote:
In your atheistic model, there is no real justice. Many of the most vile murderers get away with it, and enter the same supposed eternal oblivion as the most compassionate of people.

In my model justice is something we have a chance of making. In yours justice is flat out impossible. There is not and has never been a human (with the arguable exceptions I don't want to get into of Jesus of Nazareth and his mother) who has been good enough to deserve heaven. And never one evil enough to deserve hell. Both possibilities are inherently incredibly unjust.

quote:
But, hey, that's OK, because that's how nature works. It's called "survival of the fittest".

Nature is inherently unjust and unforgiving. The purpose of civilisation is to get away from both these problems. Justice is something we help and encourage.

quote:
So God is an evil torturer. If that is so, and if God exists (which He does), then there is nothing any of us can do about it. We certainly cannot put God on trial and successfully convict Him of any crime, and then impose punishment. Basically it's just tough!

The issue isn't God. God probably doesn't exist and certainly isn't going to smite me. And I can no more put God on trial than I can Peter Pan. The issue is that people believing in such a God pervert human morality and discernment. Their fucked up notions of morality actively make this world a worse place because they can literally not tell right from wrong, instead passing off the greatest wrong imaginable as right. By worshipping a monster and by teaching kids to worship a monster you are undermining any attempt at justice.

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical
The whole point of the incarnation is the revelation of God in a way comprehensible to man.
Uh, no. The whole point of the incarnation is the salvation of man, and the uniting of the human and divine natures. Your incomplete understanding of the incarnation may be what's behind some of your other theological errors.

I concede that "whole point of" was the wrong phrase (written in the heat of a response to Justinian's errors). But it was certainly one of the purposes of the incarnation, hence...

He who has seen Me has seen the Father - John 14:9

No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. - John 1:18

As it happens, it is also the view of the Catholic Church.

As for my "other theological errors", do please elaborate. (Or is it a case of "theological errors" as determined by your particular section of Christendom?)

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Hey, I tell you what... why don't we apply the same "little bit of goodness" to the Nazis? Perhaps their 5% or 10% goodness was manifested in gassing so many Jews, instead of working all of them to death?

Or maybe it was manifested in the parts of their lives that weren't involved in atrocities. At home with their families, or socialising with their friends.

You are defining people's entire existence by the single worst thing they did. To you, Sutcliffe never did anything other than murder people and Nazis never did anything other than gas Jews. The entire rest of their lives is, to you (and by extension to your God):

quote:
an irrelevance.

......

quote:
Therefore for God to be evil, He would need to contain within Himself contradiction: a force of creation, which turns back on itself and destroys that which has been created.

By drowning it all in a worldwide flood, say?

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
But it was certainly one of the purposes of the incarnation, hence...

He who has seen Me has seen the Father - John 14:9

No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. - John 1:18

Neither of these proves that was one of the purposes, only that it was one of the results.

quote:
As it happens, it is also the view of the Catholic Church.

He was speaking ex cathedra? It just says it was a general audience. Perhaps you don't understand the difference between things the pope says and the view of the Catholic Church?

quote:
As for my "other theological errors", do please elaborate.

Nah. Everybody else is doing a fine job. They speak for me in most areas.

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief
Neither of these proves that was one of the purposes, only that it was one of the results.

Hair-splitting sophistry, as if God didn't foresee the effect of His actions, and as if the consequences were unintended.

quote:
Perhaps you don't understand the difference between things the pope says and the view of the Catholic Church?

Gosh, you do revel in technicalities, don't you? I never knew the Pope was just some totally irrelevant geezer for Catholics. Obviously you know best.

quote:
Nah. Everybody else is doing a fine job. They speak for me in most areas.

Translation: "Unfortunately I cannot point out your theological errors, so I am giving the impression that others have exposed them, which rather lets me off the hook of having to rouse myself to answer your question. And, of course, it gives everyone else the impression that I know what I am talking about, without actually having to demonstrate it."

Good one. Well done.

Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical
The whole point of the incarnation is the revelation of God in a way comprehensible to man.
Uh, no. The whole point of the incarnation is the salvation of man, and the uniting of the human and divine natures. Your incomplete understanding of the incarnation may be what's behind some of your other theological errors.
I concede that "whole point of" was the wrong phrase (written in the heat of a response to Justinian's errors). But it was certainly one of the purposes of the incarnation, hence...

He who has seen Me has seen the Father - John 14:9

No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. - John 1:18

I agree. This is actually the same purpose as the two that MT mentions.

These statements also describe the same purpose:

quote:
Jesus answered, "For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” John 18:37

Jesus said to them, “I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, because for this purpose I have been sent.” Luke 4:43

Jesus said (quoting Isaiah 61) “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed." Luke 4:18

According to these and similar passages the purpose of the Incarnation was the salvation of the human race. It was accomplished by bearing witness to the truth, or the revelation of God in a way comprehensible to man. This had the effect of dispelling the darkness that enslaved human hearts, opening the eyes of the spiritually blind, and healing the brokenhearted. It is also what is meant by uniting the divine and human natures, or making the divine accessible to humanity. This saved mankind.

So those aren't theological errors. They all amount to the same purpose.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief
Neither of these proves that was one of the purposes, only that it was one of the results.
Hair-splitting sophistry, as if God didn't foresee the effect of His actions, and as if the consequences were unintended.

fwiw, Open and Relational Theists would say that God anticipated (but not "foresaw") the possibility of their chosen action, but that God also anticipated other possible futures. There was another way it could have turned out. God's intent was not for evil, but he knew the possibility that free creatures would choose that, and has a plan in place to, in the fullness of time, set all things right.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Gosh, you do revel in technicalities, don't you? I never knew the Pope was just some totally irrelevant geezer for Catholics. Obviously you know best.

So you seriously think everything every pope has ever said is the official teaching of the Catholic Church? [Killing me]

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

In Sutcliffe and the NAZIs, there but for fortune go you or I EE. Is the gulf between us and them greater than the gulf between us and Jesus? I mean, if Jesus is as high up your wall as you can reach jumping, the ceiling even and the NAZIs and the remainder of the one million ordinary decent Germans who facilitated the Holocaust are at the bottom of the skirting board, where are you?

You are the greatest living authority here below on evil after all. How evil are you? You must know.

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

Strangely I agree with MPC here!

I suspect the overwhelming population of Germany and the Nazi Party were uncomfortable – for want of a better word – with what was happening, but did the bidding of the party anyway out of fear.

How many of their souls were torn by doing that? It would tear mine.

And MPC is right when he says that everyone on the ship would most likely do the same thing. Even the pacifists and absolute opponents of fascism would have, because fear for one’s self or ones family trumps damaging others. It’s what people do. We are selfish and venal.

So do those people deserve an eternal punishment? No. They don’t. There is nothing that does.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Gosh, you do revel in technicalities, don't you? I never knew the Pope was just some totally irrelevant geezer for Catholics. Obviously you know best.
So you seriously think everything every pope has ever said is the official teaching of the Catholic Church?

It's the whole "black-and-white" thing again. Either everything the Pope says is Official Doctrine or he's just some irrelevant geezer. I'm beginning to wonder if EE is even capable of understanding shades of grey - it would certainly explain a lot if he's not.

Posted by Pre-cambrian (# 2055) on :

It's because Shades of Grey are pornography and therefore evil just like the Nazis and Peter Sutcliffe. So obviously EE will have nothing to do with Shades of Grey.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

And EE, by your narrow definition of theology I'm sure you're perfect.

How about Jesus'?

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

Little less heat, little more light.

Thank you so much ladies and gentlemen.

Doublethink
Purgatory Host

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Ma'am.

Meaning that fully I acknowledge your intervention and take it to heart as always, since you got my mind right!

If what follows is seen in any way to be Stygian, although it is in the same positive vein, I'm sure you will say.

This thread has been bothering me and my part in it not the least. Then yesterday I read this in Brian McLaren's superb 'Why Did Jesus, Moses, The Buddha and Mohammed Cross the Road' p 247, ch 28:

quote:
... we respect the freedom of people of any religion including our own to be hostile. We understand that hostility is often an unchosen reflex or unconscious habit, not a chosen response, so we don't insult, shame or condemn people for practising the kinds of religious hostility we are seeking to provide an alternative to. The very act of insulting, shaming or condemning others for hostility would be hostile and therefore inappropriate, not to mention absurd. And besides, we have learned from our own mistakes that religious people engage in hostility not because they are inherently hostile, but because they perceive that things they love are under threat. Their aggression often boils over from a loving defensiveness.

So once again EE, I unreservedly apologise. For my hostility. My absurdity. I have to go and say this elsewhere too now.

Martin

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:

This thread has been bothering me and my part in it not the least. Then yesterday I read this in Brian McLaren's superb 'Why Did Jesus, Moses, The Buddha and Mohammed Cross the Road' p 247, ch 28:

quote:
... we respect the freedom of people of any religion including our own to be hostile. We understand that hostility is often an unchosen reflex or unconscious habit, not a chosen response, so we don't insult, shame or condemn people for practising the kinds of religious hostility we are seeking to provide an alternative to. The very act of insulting, shaming or condemning others for hostility would be hostile and therefore inappropriate, not to mention absurd. And besides, we have learned from our own mistakes that religious people engage in hostility not because they are inherently hostile, but because they perceive that things they love are under threat. Their aggression often boils over from a loving defensiveness.
So once again EE, I unreservedly apologise. For my hostility. My absurdity. I have to go and say this elsewhere too now.

Martin

Added to my quote file.

Lovely response.

Posted by NJA (# 13022) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:
...
Even Hitler, ...

Isn’t there a biblical verse about the punishment fitting the crime?

Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.

You make a good point, Jesus (and Steven) both died saying that sinners "don't know what they do."

The punishment for rejecting the gospel is to forfeit the offer of immortality by having the nature of God. If a soul experiences eternal torment they are not dead, yet "the soul that sins, it shall die". The soul of the righteous escapes this second death, the soul of unrepentant sinners doesn't.

The idea of the immortal soul found it's way into "Christian" thinking through Catholicism which picked it up from the religions they "Christianised" . . . contacting spirits in "the spirit world", Shamanism, necromancy, re-incarnation (eastern religion), Greek philosophy . . . praying to saints, limbo, purgatory. Large amounts of money were literally raked in or collected from the masses (who were kept in ignorance of the scriptures) by selling "indulgencies". Johan Tetzel (Dominican preacher, 16th Century) had money box had a picture of the Devil tormenting souls and an inscription:
"as soon as the money in the casket rings, the troubled soul from Purgatory springs"

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

What about the idea of rejecting Jesus - the gospel?

Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :

Deano said

quote:
So do those people deserve an eternal punishment? No. They don’t. There is nothing that does.

It's more conventional I guess to say 'there is everything that does' - which amounts to the same thing - and then to find with relief that 'what is impossible for man, is possible for God'.

Thanks for the skirting-board picture, Martin. I can see it in a time of open prayer - 'I have a picture. Jesus is on my cieling. I am in that gap under the skirting board with the mouse shit and fluff balls. I can hear someone speaking in a strange tongue...I think it's German...' [Big Grin]

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

[Big Grin]

indeed Mark. Aging radical that I am (don't you just admire my courage in dropping the mute 'E'), even though I'm trying to get a balance on that, put the brakes on and embrace low church evangelicalism and passion for Jesus without damnationism, I do a body-snatcher finger point and howl at you.

NOBODY deserves punishment.
Nobody DESERVES punishment.
Nobody deserves PUNISHMENT.

Nobody.

It's a meme that's long aged out.

Neo-pomo as I am, I cannot see the language of the Bible as anything less than God meeting us where we were.

In fear and trembling of saying THE corollary of this, as I have felt here for some years when saying that in Christ we have the apology of God, in Love we DO ALL deserve salvation.

ONLY salvation is fair.

Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :

Hey Martin

I hope it's OK to say I found your post hard to follow...but if I follow you, I think our trajectories towards the one truth might be in opposite directions.

I don't know about only the fairness being salvation. I know my only hope is there, that I'm down in the hole with the Nazis and paedophiles, and that mysteriously Christ's death and resurrection signifies love's intention to connect with and redeem me in some way, so that tomorrow I can fuck it up all over again. (I don't think this is OK...in case it seems I have not read the right bit of Paul...and I do take solace from the other bit of Paul...if I might join you in being oblique).

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Mark [Big Grin]

& thrice

. I'm glad to see I haven't lost my touch. Looks to me like our trajectories are converging. Obliquely of course. Standing on Paul's rhetorical shoulders. And of course it's OK. With God.

It's ALL about disposition Mark. Which we can't help at all. We're carried despite it. In our lives below the skirting board with the murine faeces, NAZIs, Jews, Israelis, paedophiles, sexually abused children, chickens, eggs and Sutcliffe and the poor women he bludgeoned to death.

Saved.

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

I suppose one might ask if it's fair to save people who don't want to be saved. Or is part of the process that at some point, after death if not before, God will ensure that everyone will want to be saved?

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Don't you think He'll try?

Posted by The Rhythm Methodist (# 17064) on :

Having followed this thread (and the earlier one about God on trial) I’ve been really interested in how people have grappled with the issues. There’s been a lot of thought-provoking contributions on what are difficult (though related) subjects.

In part, they are difficult because they both ask us to consider the morality of God himself. In “God on trial” we are invited to judge him on his ‘earthly’ performance, while this thread deals with his more permanent arrangements.

They both call for major assumptions on our part. In the first, we must assume that our miniscule, two-dimensional snapshot of history is adequate to form a worthwhile opinion on the actions of a being who is beyond time, and who may well interact with his creation in foreknowledge of final outcomes. We are further asked to assume that a Rabbi could somehow be an adequate substitute for God in the dock.

Notwithstanding these remarkable assumptions, it appears there were some who were of the opinion that their morality was indeed superior to that of God…..even if that further assumption was based more on the mere pixel of information available to man, than on any clue about the big picture.

In this thread, we have been invited to ponder the fairness of eternal damnation. Again, the divine morality is called into question. The assumption here, is that we know that there is something which is most properly described as eternal damnation, and we can grasp what that actually means. I’ll put my hand up – I have no idea what that actually means. I cannot begin to grasp it, any more than I can rise above my pitiful lack of knowledge about the big picture, and declare God to be immoral.

My understanding of the bible – which I imagine is often deeply flawed – is that there are consequences proceeding from our actions and attitudes here on earth. The passages relating to eternity, judgment, and what we are pleased to call Hell, seem to me to be allegorical, rather than literally descriptive. I say that, because just about the only common ground between them all, is that they allude to consequences. I understand them – rightly or wrongly – to be attempts to enlighten the reader about a post-mortem situation they couldn’t otherwise begin to comprehend, but only in the most general terms. They really speak of desirable and undesirable outcomes – nothing more specific than that. But these passages do get across what we actually need to know: our lives here are not futile and inconsequential – we matter, and what we do here and now matters, too.

For myself, the bible conveys – through parable, picture language or whatever other medium – a sense that how life is lived is an issue of the utmost profundity. There are outcomes….there are consequences. This life has been imbued and infused with potential, and how we respond to that will somehow impact what will follow it. Scripture would appear to suggest that there are both negative and positive outcomes available, which are a function of responses. I wouldn’t even hazard a guess as to what they will look like in real terms, because I think the bible avoids anything approaching a definitive description. It does, however, give me some encouragement to take Christ’s two commandments seriously – and to try to ensure that my neighbour also benefits from the positive outcome on offer…..whatever that actually is.

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

quote:
SvitlanaV2:
I suppose one might ask if it's fair to save people who don't want to be saved. Or is part of the process that at some point, after death if not before, God will ensure that everyone will want to be saved?

quote:
Martin:

Don't you think He'll try?

Does God 'try' to do things? The Calvinists might say he either does them or he doesn't. The Armenians would say the choice is ours. Ironically, on this subject, it seems kinder for God to override individual choice than not. Kinder, but perhaps not fairer. Not unless we think that God knows best, in which case, God might well think it's best for some people, however few or however many, to go to hell.....

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Best for whom? What would YOU decide? Don't you know we shall judge angels? What will you judge? And as for Calvin and Arminius, a plague on both their houses.

Posted by Russ (# 120) on :

I don 't think anyone seriously believes that they are more just or more moral than God is.

What some of us clearly believe is that some other Christians have a totally inadequate idea of God. We say things like "Let's face it, if His justice isn't an order of magnitude better than what goes on in a typical English courtroom then He's not much of a God", not in the belief that there is a Supreme Being who is so unworthy, but to emphasise that the commonly-held idea of God isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Not that anyone's saying that their own idea of God is perfectly accurate, but if there are glaring problems with the picture that Christians collectively are putting forward to the rest of the world then it seems worth discussing how that image might be improved upon.

Putting it in those terms begs the question of what we mean by "better", but I hope you can see what I'm getting at.

If those who are most "on fire for God" are inadvertently portraying Him to others as a monstrous tyrant because they're stuck on the idea that the ancient writings can only be interpreted in one way then it's not a very happy situation.

Best wishes,

Russ

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

I hope to read up on this in future, but for now, I don't have a set of rigorous thoughts about hell. It could be either cynicism, or resignation; cynicism, because after a lifetime of churchgoing I've practically never heard any urgent sermons about it, so clearly those in the know don't think I should be worrying my little head about it; or resignation, since it seems to me that if eternal punishment is a possibility, I'm as much at risk of it as anyone else, and I don't know what I can do to escape. I'm seriously relying on grace. Others will have to do as seems fit to them. The end result is in God's hands, and I wouldn't claim to any certainty about how it's likely to pan out.

ISTM, though, that the most tolerant and the most punitive visions of God are both problematic. It's not just a case of the world being turned off by a nasty God; the world seems fairly lukewarm to the pronouncements of a cuddly God as well.

[ 11. March 2013, 01:31: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Yes, some people seem to like a touch of severity! I suppose Mrs Thatcher appealed to that, to a degree. Matron will now give you an enema.

My view of God is fairly cuddly. Gosh, how embarrassing.

I would have thought that eternal punishment is very exciting for some people, and sort of gets the adrenalin pounding and so on, either the proximity of it or the risk of it, or the threat of it, and so on.

Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I don 't think anyone seriously believes that they are more just or more moral than God is.

What some of us clearly believe is that some other Christians have a totally inadequate idea of God.

That's what I think too. It's the root of the problem.

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I don 't think anyone seriously believes that they are more just or more moral than God is.

What some of us clearly believe is that some other Christians have a totally inadequate idea of God. We say things like "Let's face it, if His justice isn't an order of magnitude better than what goes on in a typical English courtroom then He's not much of a God", not in the belief that there is a Supreme Being who is so unworthy, but to emphasise that the commonly-held idea of God isn't all it's cracked up to be.

This. Except for this atheist it's more of a "God doesn't exist, but your conception of God informs your morality. And if your God's justice is an order of magnitude worse than what goes on in a typical English courtroom and you consider this an ideal then why should I take any moral pronouncements you make seriously?"

Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :

quote:
I would have thought that eternal punishment is very exciting for some people, and sort of gets the adrenalin pounding and so on, either the proximity of it or the risk of it, or the threat of it, and so on.

I find the justice of it intoxicating (meaning provoking a visceral response) - not for anyone else, but for me . It's in me that the truth really resonates that the world is largely a shithole because it's largely full of w*nkers like me , and like most beliefs I've managed to hold for long enough to bother to formulate their rational implication, the necessary initial significance comes with a great, big, heavy emotional punch that says RIGHT - that's what's going on! In this case, 'The problem isn't them (TM) - it's US'.

[Perhaps interestingly I experience something similar in engineering research, which is part of my job - with the exception of the last sentence]

As a 'cradle Christian' I've never experienced that big 'YES...oh shit' without feeling-knowing that 'what is impossible for man, is possible for God'. So I've nothing to say on how shit it might be to feel the bad news, without the good news alongside it.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I would have thought that eternal punishment is very exciting for some people, and sort of gets the adrenalin pounding and so on, either the proximity of it or the risk of it, or the threat of it, and so on.

Mark's comments notwithstanding, I think that far too many of the people getting excited by the idea of eternal punishment do so because they're imagining all the "bad people" getting what's coming to them. You know, all those murderers/rapists/thieves/muslims/atheists/people who turn up to church late/people who refuse to agree with my finely-crafted theological analysis (delete as applicable) might get away with it now, but when Christ comes again they're gonna PAY! *insert rubbing of hands and gleeful grin here*.

It's a revenge fantasy, with God cast as the one who provides the payback.

Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Mark's comments notwithstanding, I think that far too many of the people getting excited by the idea of eternal punishment do so because they're imagining all the "bad people" getting what's coming to them. You know, all those murderers/rapists/thieves/muslims/atheists/people who turn up to church late/people who refuse to agree with my finely-crafted theological analysis (delete as applicable) might get away with it now, but when Christ comes again they're gonna PAY! *insert rubbing of hands and gleeful grin here*.

It's a revenge fantasy, with God cast as the one who provides the payback.

Sorry to jump in late on this, but you are probably right, at least in some cases.

The thing is, we tend to decide for God who is worthy and who is not - hence we make ourselves judges.

But judgement is God's and His alone - we know there will be some surprises on Judgement Day, as Jesus told us many times.

How can we really complain about Eternal Damnation being unfair when we don't even know who will be subject to it? Supposing that we do decide it is unfair, what can we do about it, apart from letting off steam on the Ship?

If we throw our toys out of the pram and say "I don't believe in God, because His judgements are cruel," what difference will that make?

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:

If we throw our toys out of the pram and say "I don't believe in God, because His judgements are cruel," what difference will that make?

Not how it works. In speaking to former believers turned atheists, it is more that the whole thing doesn't make proper sense to them. Peace, love and flowers on one side and Hellfire and Damnation if you don't do the dance just proper on the other. It is a dichotomy that some cannot reconcile and determine the whole lot is bollocks.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

It's tragi-comic how both extremes are two sides of the same wooden coin.

Posted by Russ (# 120) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:

If we throw our toys out of the pram and say "I don't believe in God, because His judgements are cruel," what difference will that make?

While your earlier comments are spot on, this bit seems somewhat confused.

If you believe that there is some sort of powerful spiritual being who rules the universe and whose acts are tyrannical and cruel, then your choice is whether to offer worship to such a being in the hope of avoiding His wrath for yourself, or whether to make a stand by holding-as-worthy justice, mercy and love , risking eternal torment at His hands if He decides He doesn't like you showing Him up. As I said, I don't think anyone's in that position, but it is a logical possibility.

If on the other hand you no longer believe in the existence of any Supreme Being because you judge the Christian worldview to be hopelessly flawed in its inconsistency, then your choice is how to live meaningfully as an atheist.

In neither case is childish petulance involved.

If, as a third possibility, you believe that you have no moral sense whatsoever and are totally incompetent to judge what is just, you may be admirably humble, but it would seem inadvisable to take your advice on anything...

Valuing justice is what we're supposed to do as Christians. And ISTM that many of the atheists feel that that's what they're called to do as atheists. Whilst denying that there's anyone doing the calling...

Best wishes,

Russ

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

If this were facebook I'd be clicking some Like buttons but not others. There again, as I'm supposed to be inclusive of all I'd have to Like all. Sigh. Just assume you're all Liked.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

Some useful thoughts here: If you had a coat (or some other valuable and well-loved possession) and it was damaged, would you discard it or repair it?

quote:
... ours is the God who leaves the ninety-nine to find the one (Luke 15.3-5), who comes to seek and save the lost (Luke 19.10).

We are created in his image, as the monk said, and God’s work in Christ is to restore that image, damaged as it was in the fall.

We should take heart. God does not discard. He patches.

Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
If this were facebook I'd be clicking some Like buttons but not others. There again, as I'm supposed to be inclusive of all I'd have to Like all. Sigh. Just assume you're all Liked.

[[ LIKED ]] by Mark Betts

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