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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Hell. Surprised it's not a DH? So am I.
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
Greyface, I agree with Matt about your post. I think you have it. ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
However, I'm not quite in line with this:
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
If Heaven is fully-realised eternal life, none of us deserve to have it. We're agreed that we can't earn our way into Heaven, right? We can't be perfect enough to compel God from simple justice to grant us an entry pass to Heaven.
I'm not sure that this is how it works. The Bible not only doesn't say this, but it says things that appear to be opposite to it. The Bible does say "all have sinned" and "none are righteous before God"
quote:
Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Romans 3:10 As it is written: “ There is none righteous, no, not one;"
The meaning, though, I think, is that all goodness is from God, not from us. God's righteousness saves us, not our own. The point is not so much that we can't "earn" our way into heaven, but that anything that we do is to be attributed to God's power, not our own.
Scores of passages, on the other hand, urge us to "earn" our way into heaven by obeying Christ.
quote:
Matthew 7:21 Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.
Mark 3:35 For whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and mother.”
1 John 2:17 And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.
Not that it is a matter of deserving. It is all from God. The reality, I think, is that doing God's will opens us up inside so that God can work within us. The process is really about our willingness to receive what God would give us.
In any case, your first statement above seems to contradict the statement below, which I really agree with, and which I think, is why Matt gave you the :
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
I'm approaching my level of philosophical incompetence here but I don't know how far you could change a person against their will without actually erasing them and replacing them with somebody else.
The question is where our will comes into it? Are we responsible for our will? If so, don't we "merit" heaven thereby? Don't we "earn" our way into heaven by being a certain way or believing certain things?
I think the answer is that all we do is receive life from God, and so all is to be attributed to Him. All we have, as a free gift from God, is the capacity to receive or not receive, according to our free choice. We are responsible for that choice, but the results are not attributable to us, but to God. There is a fine line between this and merit, but this line is unavoidable unless we are willing to accept complete predestination.
In any case, I think that the way you put it in your response to the third option is the way that it really is. Thanks.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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CrookedCucumber
Shipmate
# 10792
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
The crux (cough) of the matter is whether God is looking at Hell (whatever Hell is like) thinking "Bastards. I wonder if I could make it any hotter?" or if he would drag them out if it was meaningful and possible to do so.
What could conceivably _prevent_ God dragging the unfortunates off the toast-rack if he chose to do so?
Matt Black describes God in these circumstances as `lovingly self-limited', rather than logically or metaphysically limited. But in what circumstances can it be more loving to let a person languish in Hell (whatever it is) than to drag him out?
I think all this free-will-don't-interfere-with-personal-integrity stuff just doesn't cut the mustard. I regularly interfere with my kids' free will when they want to play in the traffic. Why should I expect less from God?
Posts: 2718 | From: East Dogpatch | Registered: Dec 2005
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by CrookedCucumber:
What could conceivably _prevent_ God dragging the unfortunates off the toast-rack if he chose to do so?
We've been talking about those. The one I favour most is that getting off the toast-rack requires freely-chosen repentance, not because God's sat there saying "I'm not letting you out until..." but because being Heavenly and repentance are intricately related.
quote:
But in what circumstances can it be more loving to let a person languish in Hell (whatever it is) than to drag him out?
If dragging him out involves annihilating him?
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by CrookedCucumber:
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
The crux (cough) of the matter is whether God is looking at Hell (whatever Hell is like) thinking "Bastards. I wonder if I could make it any hotter?" or if he would drag them out if it was meaningful and possible to do so.
What could conceivably _prevent_ God dragging the unfortunates off the toast-rack if he chose to do so?
Matt Black describes God in these circumstances as `lovingly self-limited', rather than logically or metaphysically limited. But in what circumstances can it be more loving to let a person languish in Hell (whatever it is) than to drag him out?
When he knowingly and freely wants to be there
quote:
I think all this free-will-don't-interfere-with-personal-integrity stuff just doesn't cut the mustard. I regularly interfere with my kids' free will when they want to play in the traffic. Why should I expect less from God?
Because we should expect more from ourselves to the extent that we're not children.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
quote:
But in what circumstances can it be more loving to let a person languish in Hell (whatever it is) than to drag him out?
If dragging him out involves annihilating him?
If Hell is eternal pain and anguish, then surely annihilation would be better...
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
What I WAS trying to say is that most cultures I'm aware of (I've studied quite a few, so this isn't total gas) have a deep-seated sense of "God (or the gods) is up there, and I'm down here, and I'd better keep that fact in mind." They may moan and bitch and complain, in extremely robust language (see the psalmists for example) but they don't usually lose track of who's on top. They consider hubris to be a sin, and they commend the man who knows his place--in the universe, in the world, in the family. And who functions in it properly, beautifully, and freely.
And most cultures I'm aware of (and I've studied quite a few) have a pantheon of Gods that are complete and utter brats who screw people over for fun. There is a sense of "I'd better keep that in mind", I'll grant - but largely because the Gods don't like competition (but sometimes have to take it if the competition is strong enough).
If you really want your theology to be based on "Might makes right" principles, and have a God who does things like turning people into spiders because they might weave better than the God does, go right ahead and use other cultures fear of their unjust and arbitrary Gods as a reason we should fear ours. But at this point, you have relegated your God to the moral authority of [pick random pantheon] which has all the vices of humanity with the power to back them up.
If you want to say that your God is Love, or Good, you have given me something about your God that I can check. And if what is observable about such a God is incompatable with your God being Love or Good, either you are lying to me about your God or your God is (or your teachers are) lying to you. Whichever case is true, I am being lied to. And if I know that I am being lied to by you in your attempt to convert me, I am not going to convert.
In short, if your God's description does not match your God's actions, your worship is based on a lie.
Also, if your worship is based on fear of hell, that puts it on a par with worshipping Cthulu so you get eaten first.
quote:
But in the West, many (most?) of us have lost that sense of hierarchy, of being under anyone's authority but our own. We sit in judgement on God, on our leaders, and on our parents. (Okay, in the case of some of our leaders, that's more than warranted. ![[Biased]](wink.gif) )
I call that Growing Up, myself.
quote:
And God forbid that we should be asked to accept the authority of a sacred book, an old tradition, or the opinions of those older and more experienced than us.
And when the authority is completely inconsistent with itself, of couse we don't take it for granted. Trust, but verify. And a God who is supposedly Love and who created Hell and condemns people to it completely fails the verification process.
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Sorry, Demas, but my [Overused] was to Greyface, not you; I wouldn't describe God so much as impotent as lovingly self-limited
And I'd describe such a God as lovingly self-limited only in the way that an abusive parent is self-limited in not being nicer to his or her children.
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
A merciful God allows me to say whatever idiotic thing I want, as long as I obey the Ship's Commandments. According to Justinian's argument, I think, God would not be loving if He allowed those who are wrong to keep on being wrong.
If he allowed those who are wrong to keep being wrong for eternity. There's a difference between that and allowing people to make mistakes. One of the purposes of allowing people to make mistakes is to allow them to learn clearly. If they keep making those mistakes eternally, they clearly can not learn from them...
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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CrookedCucumber
Shipmate
# 10792
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
The one I favour most is that getting off the toast-rack requires freely-chosen repentance, not because God's sat there saying "I'm not letting you out until..." but because being Heavenly and repentance are intricately related.
Fair enough; but it seems to me that your model of Hell allows at least the possibility of redemption for its inhabitants. This makes it different, I believe, from the usual mainstream concept of Hell, which is that it's for keeps.
I don't really have a problem with the idea of a limited Hell, even a very extended one (whatever that means outside the context of the physical world). It's the `All hope abandon' thing that bothers me.
quote:
quote:
But in what circumstances can it be more loving to let a person languish in Hell (whatever it is) than to drag him out?
If dragging him out involves annihilating him? [/QB]
Fair enough, again. I can see how a person could, for his own reasons, reject God and Heaven indefinitely. I can see how God might have no better way of dealing with that person than to leave him to languish, if the alternative would essentially be his destruction.
What I find tricky is why God would allow such a situation to develop in the first place. Again we come back to the old free-will chestnut, no? God creates us with sufficient free will to reject him if we choose. But why create people capable of rejecting him indefinitely?
[ 27. July 2006, 12:33: Message edited by: CrookedCucumber ]
Posts: 2718 | From: East Dogpatch | Registered: Dec 2005
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Papio
Ship's baboon
# 4201
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Posted
Greyface - my problems are:
A) It is unfair to save some and not others.
B) why Hell and not annihilation?
In addition, it is not all that problematic for me personally to suppose that God should not have created souls who will burn for ever if he is a) omnipotent and if b) we take Jesus at his word when he says that those in Hell would have been better off not being born.
I am not saying that God should cause no suffering to exist, but a perfectly loving God ought to minimise suffering, which makes Hell exceedingly problematic.
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Infinite Penguins.
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Posts: 12176 | From: a zoo in England. | Registered: Mar 2003
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anteater
Ship's pest-controller
# 11435
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Posted
Freddy:
quote:
Shreds are pretty small things. Would these qualify?
None is in the slightest bit relevant. Yes they ARE relevant to the issue of future judgement, hence all the arguments about their precise meaning. None of them has any bearing on the question as to whether the soul is metaphysically indestructable.
It is precisely the apologetic move of CSL that God would annihilate if he could. What your texts would say to a strict believer in Hell (e.g. the not notedly liberal Hermann Hoeksema a Calvinist theologian who dismissed the Immortality of the Soul as a heretical doctrine) is that it is the free choice of God to maintain these people alive precisely in order to punish them in the fire of hell. He could have decided to annihilate them but chose not to.
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Schnuffle schnuffle.
Posts: 2538 | From: UK | Registered: May 2006
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
Surely annihilation is preferable to eternal torment?
It might depend on the nature of the torment.
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003
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CrookedCucumber
Shipmate
# 10792
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
quote:
I think all this free-will-don't-interfere-with-personal-integrity stuff just doesn't cut the mustard. I regularly interfere with my kids' free will when they want to play in the traffic. Why should I expect less from God?
Because we should expect more from ourselves to the extent that we're not children. [/QB]
But we are all like children before God, aren't we?
Posts: 2718 | From: East Dogpatch | Registered: Dec 2005
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Papio
Ship's baboon
# 4201
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
Surely annihilation is preferable to eternal torment?
It might depend on the nature of the torment.
I am not so sure, because for me the fact that the torment is eternal means that it has absolutely no redemptive quality. If it had such a quality, we might expect the suffering of Hell to, eventually, come to an end when the soul became redeemed. It looks to me like, once in Hell, the soul never shall be redeemed, since it's suffering is eternal.
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Infinite Penguins.
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
Surely annihilation is preferable to eternal torment?
It might depend on the nature of the torment.
And the torment of Hell is described in terms like "It would have been better if he had not been born". In short, it's very bad torment of the sort that destruction is preferable to.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by CrookedCucumber:
What I find tricky is why God would allow such a situation to develop in the first place. Again we come back to the old free-will chestnut, no? God creates us with sufficient free will to reject him if we choose. But why create people capable of rejecting him indefinitely?
In the abstract, because their freedom requires the capability. In the particular, as in why create this particular person, well I've tried to argue that it might be more loving to create such a person than have them never exist.
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Papio
Ship's baboon
# 4201
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
well I've tried to argue that it might be more loving to create such a person than have them never exist.
Even though Christ Himself said such a person would have been better off if he had never been born?
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Infinite Penguins.
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
Christ said it about Judas specifically, and although I've been hassled recently for making assumptions I assume you haven't put one of your eyes out recently?
ETA: That is, I don't think you can conclude either that Christ was speaking literally about Iscariot, or that this has anything to do with the torment of Hell for him or anybody else. Faulty prooftexting.
[ 27. July 2006, 12:52: Message edited by: GreyFace ]
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
Arguing with Gordo.
More seriously, missing out on Heaven qualifies if Heaven is as good as we've been led to believe. Judas might have been tormented with guilt at betraying his Lord. I don't know.
The point is surely - don't go there. It's a Very Bad Idea.
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IconiumBound
Shipmate
# 754
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Posted
There is an old story that bears on this discussion of eternal punishment or a hell of ones own choosing.
A farmer on a cold December day saw a flock of sparrows huddling against his barn, trying to escape the snow and wind that was blowing them around. He went out and opened the barn door to let the birds get into the barn but they would not. "If only I was a sparrow I could lead them to safety.", he thought. As he pondered what could be done to save the sparrows he heard the church bell in town ring out, for it was Christmas day. Then he said to himself, "Now I know why you did it."
Allowing for the slightly saccharine nature, the story does make a sharp point: Jesus does make the difference between Heaven and Hell.
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black::
quote:
Originally posted by CrookedCucumber:
I think all this free-will-don't-interfere-with-personal-integrity stuff just doesn't cut the mustard. I regularly interfere with my kids' free will when they want to play in the traffic. Why should I expect less from God?
quote:
Matt:Because we should expect more from ourselves to the extent that we're not children.
CC:But we are all like children before God, aren't we?
That would be to absolve us from all responsibility for our actions - and I don't find that concept in Scripture or Tradition.
[Tried to tidy up code to show who said what]
[ 27. July 2006, 15:02: Message edited by: Matt Black ]
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
That would be to absolve us from all responsibility for our actions - and I don't find that concept in Scripture or Tradition.
But the concept of Hell as normally presented is not about responsibility. It is clearly (because it is eternal) disproportionate to any conceivable notion of proportionality and any God who would set up a system that condemned people there is Unmerciful, Unjust, Unloving, and Vengeful.
You can have Hell being a consequence of certain actions - but only at the cost of the Creator being evil in certain cases.
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
Not if the action is the knowing and fully-informed refusal to be with God/ in heaven
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Not if the action is the knowing and fully-informed refusal to be with God/ in heaven
So you're giving humans Omniscience after death now? And full access to the mind of God? That's the only way they could be fully informed.
In short, the conditions you state are impossible for any lesser being than God. Thanks for arguing my case.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Oh, for gosh sake, Justinian. Can we keep this from getting personal? Or take me to hell, I don't care.
Just for the record, I do NOT lie to people in an attempt to convert them, and I do not recommend this course to others. That's seriously fucked up.
I don't think you get what I'm saying. I'll give it one more shot, and then give up.
There are two senses of the word "fear." One involves cringing and terror--the kind of thing you get with the pantheons you speak of, a sense of being in the hands of an irrational but powerful being. That's not what I'm recommending. Got it?
There is also the "fear" which refers to a healthy respect for someone worthy of respect--one's father, one's teacher, one's boss, or God. This is the "fear" that in most cultures (and sometimes in our own) prevents people from smart-mouthing their elders. Not the fear of being sent sailing across the room, but rather a sense that it's wholly inappropriate, and particularly coming from a person in a lower position to a person in a higher position.
I'm not concerned with people questioning, arguing, or even complaining to God. God knows I do this plenty myself. What bugs me is the culturally pervasive attitude of "God is my copilot," "me and Jesus-my-buddy," "God-you-better- come- through for me," "God- you- owe- me- one," and anything else that is based on an idea that the speaker is equal or higher than God, and has the right to cheek him that way. It's just damned rude. Though I'm sure those who do it, don't see it that way.
To be sure, God doesn't need my help to defend him--that would be just as presumptuous as the other. But I was trying to explain why this whole "God on trial" bit bugs me. I'll shut up now.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Not if the action is the knowing and fully-informed refusal to be with God/ in heaven
So you're giving humans Omniscience after death now? And full access to the mind of God? That's the only way they could be fully informed.
In short, the conditions you state are impossible for any lesser being than God. Thanks for arguing my case.
You're forgetting that we're made in the image of God; we are, as St Paul reminds us on the personal responsibility point, "without excuse" (Rom 2:18-3:1ff). Now, unlike some evangelicals, I'm not one to come up with a particularly harsh interpretation of that passage and neither do I wish to indulge in a war-of-the-proof-texts but I do cite that passage as evidence in some form that
1. It's not impossible despite us not being omniscient
2. We are not absolved of personal responsibility.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Just for the record, I do NOT lie to people in an attempt to convert them, and I do not recommend this course to others. That's seriously fucked up.
I'd agree. But the messages I was criticising are completely incompatable with each other. And that means that there is a lie in there somewhere. And that means that intentional or not, I am being lied to by many evangelists in a way you are defending.
quote:
There are two senses of the word "fear." One involves cringing and terror--the kind of thing you get with the pantheons you speak of, a sense of being in the hands of an irrational but powerful being. That's not what I'm recommending. Got it?
OK. That's not what you are recommending. But you brought up the pantheons and other societies as a model to follow. That's why I thought you meant that sort of fear. Because it was the sort of fear that most societies had for their Gods.
And it was the sort of fear that underlay the respect in any sort of caste structure there has ever been. If someone broke the rules of the caste system they would normally be cut down. Yes, it was then claimed to be based on respect for the position - but was enforced by means of fear.
In short, it may not have been the type of fear you intended to recommend - but it was the type of fear you did recommend. And you even called it fear rather than respect.
quote:
There is also the "fear" which refers to a healthy respect for someone worthy of respect--one's father, one's teacher, one's boss, or God. This is the "fear" that in most cultures (and sometimes in our own) prevents people from smart-mouthing their elders. Not the fear of being sent sailing across the room, but rather a sense that it's wholly inappropriate, and particularly coming from a person in a lower position to a person in a higher position.
That's not fear. That's respect. An entirely different matter. Unless it is enforced by fear (as it has been in an awful lot of cultures when it's been connected to a social hierarchy rather than ability).
To me the lack of respect we have in contemporary society for those supposedly better on most scales is a sign of maturity and a sign that we have civilisation that is not at the point of a sword. The thing that many, many cultures have thrown up may look like respect but it is normally based on fear and the ability to wipe people out rather than respect for what people can do or actually are. I do wish there was more respect for genuine expertise and genuine goodness than there appears to be. But that's about it.
In order to gain respect rather than fear, a being ought to be worthy of that respect. The message you are giving is that God is worthy of respect because he is God. God is certainly worthy of fear because he is Omnipotent. And certainly worthy of respect as a creator. But I do not worship or even follow Vincent van Gough. The question is whether God is worthy of respect or even deferance on a moral level. Being Big and Powerful won't give him that. See some of the Greek Gods for a group of morally contemptable individuals who were extemely powerful.
True respect is a much higher level of praise than fear because it must be given freely. It can not be demanded. Yet you seem to be demanding it for an entity that may not exist and if such an entity exists can not be all you claim of it.
quote:
I'm not concerned with people questioning, arguing, or even complaining to God. God knows I do this plenty myself. What bugs me is the culturally pervasive attitude of "God is my copilot," "me and Jesus-my-buddy," "God-you-better- come- through for me," "God- you- owe- me- one," and anything else that is based on an idea that the speaker is equal or higher than God, and has the right to cheek him that way. It's just damned rude. Though I'm sure those who do it, don't see it that way.
For once I'd agree. But you have completley missed the point. The point is not whether God is a slot machine - it is whether God is worthy of respect as well as fear.
quote:
To be sure, God doesn't need my help to defend him--that would be just as presumptuous as the other. But I was trying to explain why this whole "God on trial" bit bugs me. I'll shut up now.
God is on trial because without such a trial he can not be given the sort of respect you want. Such respect attaches to beings rather than to power (which gives the respect based on fear). And in order to understand the being and whether they are worthy of respect, such a judgement is necessary.
Quick question so you can see the difference: If it turned out that the creator and omnipotent one was actually Lucifer, would you give him the same respect you give God?
And Matt, whether or not we can have excuses, we can not have full and informed consent without omniscience and experience. Therefore your condition is completely impossible for a human. We are not absolved of responsibility - but the outcome is not just and is ordained by God.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Okay, one quickie and I'm out like I promised--I would NOT cheek Lucifer either, even in his current position. One does not cheek a tiger, caged or not.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Okay, one quickie and I'm out like I promised--I would NOT cheek Lucifer either, even in his current position. One does not cheek a tiger, caged or not.
OK. But would it be the same sort of respect you give him as you do God? Rather than just fear him?
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
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angelfish
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# 8884
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Posted
A few posts ago Matt Black and Crooked Cucumber were having an interesting exchange on the theme of "wouldn't a loving God save us from Hell as a loving parent saves a child from being run over?" and I would just like to stick my tuppence worth in.
I don't think the child playing in the road / person choosing to reject God analogy is true. The difference is between limiting a person's behaviour and changing a person's attitude.
The parent plucking a child from the path of an oncoming vehicle would not necessarily thereby elicit a change in the child's attitude to playing in the road. It would be a "one-off" save but not a "conversion". All the parent can hope for is that by following his example, the child will learn that roads are dangerous and cease, by his own volition, to play in the road.
I am sure God would be able to "physically" remove someone from Hell (or change her experience of Him so that she could bear to be in His presence if you prefer) but this could not guarantee the person would not stop wanting to turn away from Him at a future date. God can't change the individual's mind without somehow controlling her will. I can't imagine that we have no free will after death.
The point of love is that it can only be given, not procured. We can only love our children, show them how to love and then hope they love us in return. Isn't it the same with God?
[edited for grammar]
[ 27. July 2006, 16:58: Message edited by: angelfish ]
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"As God is my witness, I WILL kick Bishop Brennan up the arse!"
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by angelfish:
The point of love is that it can only be given, not procured. We can only love our children, show them how to love and then hope they love us in return. Isn't it the same with God?
Possibly, but if God can not get the response he wants to out of his creation, God is imperfect.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by anteater:
Freddy:
quote:
Shreds are pretty small things. Would these qualify?
None is in the slightest bit relevant. Yes they ARE relevant to the issue of future judgement, hence all the arguments about their precise meaning. None of them has any bearing on the question as to whether the soul is metaphysically indestructable.
Anteater, I may be misunderstanding what it is that you are not seeing in these quotes. Do you require the quote to say: "The soul cannot be destroyed"?
There are numerous quotes about things that are eternal and everlasting, many quotes about forever, eternity, without end, and similar concepts. If these are applied to people, don't they mean that they are indestructable?
A normal Bible reading gives us two options:
quote:
Matthew 25:46 And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
Either way, the soul lasts forever. Are you aware of passages that say something different?
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Jason™
Host emeritus
# 9037
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Posted
Any good argument rests upon its assumptions. Accepting the arguments conclusion depends, at least in part, on acceptance of these assumptions. I've identified a few of them in this argument.
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
If Heaven is fully-realised eternal life, none of us deserve to have it. We're agreed that we can't earn our way into Heaven, right? We can't be perfect enough to compel God from simple justice to grant us an entry pass to Heaven.
1. We don't deserve heaven.
I agree so far.
quote:
If we think of Hell as the alternative or perhaps the collective name for the alternatives to Heaven (whatever that might entail) then by this argument, everybody deserves Hell.
2. Hell is defined as any alternative to Heaven.
This is a very loose definition that disregards most people's traditional concept of Hell being a place of misery (for whatever reason). If Hell can be an "okay enough place," what is it?
quote:
...think about a person who eternally rejects God and ends up in Hell.
3. It is possible to eternally reject God.
Why is this so universally accepted as Absolute Truth™? What if it's not possible? What if it's extremely unlikely?
quote:
How could you be said to love someone if your assessment of their value was that they should be wiped out of existence? If one of my children grew up to be a murderer, deeply unhappy and so on, would I be loving if I were to develop a time machine and then go back and kill him at birth?
4. Hell is better than annhilation.
As others have said, this seems blatantly false. Eternal suffering, in any form, known or unknown, seems obviously worse than non-existence. It's why torturers don't kill their victims--then the pain and suffering would end.
quote:
I'm approaching my level of philosophical incompetence here but I don't know how far you could change a person against their will without actually erasing them and replacing them with somebody else.
5. Some people were created to reject God, and causing them to accept God would change their fundamental being.
This boils down to flat-out Calvin's five. (Because of this*, I think it's the most important assumption.) If we are all created with the potential to love and accept God, then God's loving, coaxing, unending pursuit can win us all to him without changing anyone intrinsically.
Of the five assumptions I identified, I can only grant number (1). (2) through (5) seem to be unfounded at best, and thus, the salvation of all seems more likely than inevitable condemnation of some, most, or even one.
-Digory
[eta brevity and coherence]
[ 28. July 2006, 05:52: Message edited by: professor kirke ]
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by professor kirke:
2. Hell is defined as any alternative to Heaven.
This is a very loose definition that disregards most people's traditional concept of Hell being a place of misery (for whatever reason). If Hell can be an "okay enough place," what is it?
Don't know, we only have metaphorical language about it. What I think we do know, from the Gospels, is that it's a place comparable to Heaven such that if you don't end up in the latter, there'll be weeping and teeth-gnashing. I don't think people are arguing against a literal lake of fire here.
quote:
3. It is possible to eternally reject God.
Why is this so universally accepted as Absolute Truth™? What if it's not possible? What if it's extremely unlikely?
Free will theodicy requires it. Without it, why does any suffering exist?
quote:
4. Hell is better than annihilation.
As others have said, this seems blatantly false. Eternal suffering, in any form, known or unknown, seems obviously worse than non-existence.
So would you obliterate your children if you knew they'd be unhappy for ever? Or make them as happy as you could, even if that involved a fair bit of weeping and teeth-gnashing? Most people seem unwilling to answer that question.
Life as it is seems generally a mix of suffering and joy. At the moment for example I'm "suffering" from sinusitis but if you come round here recommending euthanasia and berating my mother for giving birth to me, I'll set the dogs loose.
quote:
5. Some people were created to reject God, and causing them to accept God would change their fundamental being.
This boils down to flat-out Calvin's five
Absolute nonsense. You have to remove free will to be able to say this is one of my assumptions. What's wrong with Calvin's model is that God creates people who has no chance. Omniscience might be able to foresee what they will freely do, but that's not the same thing. They were not created to reject God. It's all in Boethius
quote:
If we are all created with the potential to love and accept God, then God's loving, coaxing, unending pursuit can win us all to him without changing anyone intrinsically.
Can, or necessarily must? You remove the ability to choose. If you're certain of this, you don't believe we have free will.
Now, I think you're being a bit unfair saying that these are assumptions. My actual assumptions, for the purpose of this argument, are that Jesus in the Gospels wasn't lying about the potential eternal consequences of rejecting him and that God is loving even towards any that miss Heaven. Many Universalist arguments just seem too quick to throw away these words completely on the grounds that a loving God clearly wouldn't allow anything bad to happen to anybody, which seems a bit simplistic considering the state of things in this world.
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003
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Lurker McLurker™
Ship's stowaway
# 1384
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
A normal Bible reading gives us two options:
quote:
Matthew 25:46 And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
Either way, the soul lasts forever. Are you aware of passages that say something different?
But if something is completely detroyed, it stays destroyed for ever. So the verse could be referring to annihilation.
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Just War Theory- a perversion of morality?
Posts: 5661 | From: Raxacoricofallapatorius | Registered: Sep 2001
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CrookedCucumber
Shipmate
# 10792
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by angelfish:
The parent plucking a child from the path of an oncoming vehicle would not necessarily thereby elicit a change in the child's attitude to playing in the road. It would be a "one-off" save but not a "conversion". All the parent can hope for is that by following his example, the child will learn that roads are dangerous and cease, by his own volition, to play in the road.
I am sure God would be able to "physically" remove someone from Hell (or change her experience of Him so that she could bear to be in His presence if you prefer) but this could not guarantee the person would not stop wanting to turn away from Him at a future date. God can't change the individual's mind without somehow controlling her will.
I agree that, however many times I pull my children out of the road, it doesn't stop them wanting to play in the road. And I'd agree that rescuing a person from Hell (whatever it is) without changing that person from the inside may not be a loving act, depending what the consequences are.
If there were some safe drug (say) or some psychotherapeutic procedure that would give my children a natural aversion to roads, I would be tempted to use it. After all, my front door opens directly onto a main road and it is a constant worry.
Of course, if I did that, I would then have to consider similar intervention to prevent my children climbing trees they can't get down from, swimming out of their depth in the pool, and so on. I concede that, most likely, there is no way for me to make a child who enjoys risk-taking into one who does not, without changing that child into a different one.
But for me, the crux (sorry) of the matter is not what I am capable of doing, but what God is capable of doing. Can God bring about a state of affairs in which people are wholly free, and always freely accept him? I would argue (as Plantinga does) that such a state is, indeed, a logical impossibility.
But can God bring about a state of affairs in which people are mostly free, and yet always freely accept him? I don't think that is a logical impossibility.
If it is not, then the issue comes down to this: Why is a world in which people are wholly free, even to the extent of their own perdition, superior to one in which people are free except to the extent of their own perdition?
Posts: 2718 | From: East Dogpatch | Registered: Dec 2005
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
Because, for me at least, love can only be love if it is totally free. I can pluck my child from the road but I cannot force him to love me. If, as I believe, God's primary attribute is love, then that total freedom must be given by Him to us - and that includes our freedom to reject Him.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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The Great Gumby
Ship's Brain Surgeon
# 10989
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by CrookedCucumber:
But can God bring about a state of affairs in which people are mostly free, and yet always freely accept him? I don't think that is a logical impossibility.
Hm. I'm not sure about this. What does "freely accept" mean to you? Do you mean we would always intellectually accept God, or always act according to His will? I'm sure you can see the problem with the latter, but I'm not sure the former's much better either. Adam and Eve could be said to have intellectually accepted God, but nevertheless employed their free will to do the only thing they were told not to. I'm not sure that could be considered acceptance.
This is why I tend towards a more purgatorial vision of hell, with possibly a dash of annihilationism thrown in. As Greyface said very eloquently upthread, none of us deserves heaven, and as was agreed on the Purgatory thread, anyone heading in that direction would still need to be fully sanctified. I suggest that the process of sanctification and what has been described as hell might actually be the same thing.
In essence, while God may wish to save everyone, only that which is pure and holy can stand His presence. In drawing us to Himself, all that is impure is stripped away. For a truly holy person, this is a relatively minor concern. For some, that might mean most of their being is eaten up in this process. I don't want to get too metaphysical about this, but I suspect that it would be fairly painful to know that most of what you consider as "you" is ceasing to exist. As to whether there are any people who are wholly evil, and therefore would be completely destroyed, or who would rather be destroyed than go through that painful process, I don't know.
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The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman
A letter to my son about death
Posts: 5382 | From: Home for shot clergy spouses | Registered: Feb 2006
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Calindreams
Shipmate
# 9147
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Because, for me at least, love can only be love if it is totally free. I can pluck my child from the road but I cannot force him to love me. If, as I believe, God's primary attribute is love, then that total freedom must be given by Him to us - and that includes our freedom to reject Him.
You can't make the child love you, this is true. But neither did the child have any choice to whether he was plucked out or not.
Another analogy would be someone who is about to jump of a building. Even if it were there expressed desire to jump, if I had the chance to forcibly stop them doing it I would. In this sense I would be acting against there free will because I think I have a greater persective on what is good for them.
Eventual salvation for all is not inconsistent with free will. For it to be an impossibility to be separate from God's presence is just a state of affairs of which we have no choice. We have no choice whether we die or not.
If there is a consioussness after death then I reserve the possibility that some will not be very happy to be in the presence of God, and if I knew there were some souls suffering eternal punishment while I am supposed to be enjoying my salvation, I might be one of those unhappy souls in heaven.
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Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore
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angelfish
Shipmate
# 8884
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Posted
I agree with you, Canlindreams
- but to say that if God is unable to make everyone happy in his presence He is therefore imperfect (as per Justinian above) is, I think, distorting the meaning of the word "perfect" to mean "can do anything, even something that is logically impossible". If that is your definition of the word "perfect" then yes, God is imperfect.
It is logically impossible to force a person's will, whilst maintatining their freedom to choose. I am sure God can be highly persuasive (as he is in many instances on earth - see the conversion of Saul/Paul for one such example) but it is still up to the individual to submit to the refining, "burning" process of being in contact with God and be made holy through it, or to fight/reject the process and forfeit a right relationship with God (and thus fullness of joy) as a result. Isn't it the spiritual equivalent of leading a horse to water but not being able to make him drink?
I think I may now be confounding the processes of sanctification and salvation - but what is the difference (if any)?
[ 28. July 2006, 11:28: Message edited by: angelfish ]
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"As God is my witness, I WILL kick Bishop Brennan up the arse!"
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Demas
Ship's Deserter
# 24
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Posted
I'm pretty sure I could make you happy in my presence by lacing your food with ecstasy. I could certainly make you happy by rearranging your neurons appropriately, had I the knowledge and power to do so.
I'm not sure why making me happy against my will is somehow a logical impossibility. I think that this thread is displaying a highly abstract and quite unrealistic conception of 'free will'.
I also think that this thread is displaying a view of judgment and hell which is at the very least as unorthodox as anything which a universalist could come up with!
Can you point me to a denomination which openly teaches that God allows us to choose to go to hell out of his love for us and respect for our free will, but that's OK because hell isn't that bad anyway?
(OK, maybe Freddy shouldn't answer that question ![[Razz]](tongue.gif) )
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They did not appear very religious; that is, they were not melancholy; and I therefore suspected they had not much piety - Life of Rev John Murray
Posts: 1894 | From: Thessalonica | Registered: May 2004
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Demas:
(OK, maybe Freddy shouldn't answer that question )
I just might. ![[Two face]](graemlins/scot_twoface.gif)
But I don't want anyone to think that I don't think hell is all that bad. The New Church teaches the hell that is in "The Great Divorce." It is pretty bad, but it is chosen nevertheless. ![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Calindreams
Shipmate
# 9147
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by angelfish:
I agree with you, Canlindreams
- but to say that if God is unable to make everyone happy in his presence He is therefore imperfect (as per Justinian above) is, I think, distorting the meaning of the word "perfect" to mean "can do anything, even something that is logically impossible". If that is your definition of the word "perfect" then yes, God is imperfect.
Maybe I didn't explain myself clearly enough. I'm sure God is capable of making everyone happy in his presence, but to do so would be a wrongful impingement of our free-will. I never said that God was imperfect by allowing unhappy souls in heaven.
[edited to say: Sorry Angelfish, I realise once I posted you were responding to someone else, I thought you were referring to some Early Church father when you said Justinian].
[ 28. July 2006, 12:48: Message edited by: Calindreams ]
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Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore
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angelfish
Shipmate
# 8884
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Posted
quote:
By Demas:
I'm not sure why making me happy against my will is somehow a logical impossibility.
Because I am assuming:
1. The only way to be happy in God's presence is to love him
2. Love has to be a voluntary act, otherwise it is not love
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"As God is my witness, I WILL kick Bishop Brennan up the arse!"
Posts: 1017 | From: England | Registered: Dec 2004
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Demas
Ship's Deserter
# 24
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Posted
Where do you get your first assumption from?
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They did not appear very religious; that is, they were not melancholy; and I therefore suspected they had not much piety - Life of Rev John Murray
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Calindreams
Shipmate
# 9147
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Posted
But I think Demas is inferring (correct me if I'm wrong) that this type of anaesthetizing people into happiness is very much like the belief in being happily saved and gone to heaven whilst people are eternally suffering.
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Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore
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Calindreams
Shipmate
# 9147
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Posted
Anyway, at the root of my understanding of universalism, is the notion that logically there can be no separation from God. If we have a reality where such a dualism exists (ie. God/no God) then God is reduced to a 'thing in the universe), an existent.
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Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore
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Jason™
Host emeritus
# 9037
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
quote:
Originally posted by professor kirke:
2. Hell is defined as any alternative to Heaven.
This is a very loose definition that disregards most people's traditional concept of Hell being a place of misery (for whatever reason). If Hell can be an "okay enough place," what is it?
Don't know, we only have metaphorical language about it.
Agreed.
quote:
quote:
3. It is possible to eternally reject God.
Why is this so universally accepted as Absolute Truth™? What if it's not possible? What if it's extremely unlikely?
Free will theodicy requires it. Without it, why does any suffering exist?
Free-will requires that people can reject God. It does not require that some will eternally reject God. It's a strange, pessimistic approach to assume it does.
quote:
So would you obliterate your children if you knew they'd be unhappy for ever? Or make them as happy as you could, even if that involved a fair bit of weeping and teeth-gnashing? Most people seem unwilling to answer that question.
Life as it is seems generally a mix of suffering and joy. At the moment for example I'm "suffering" from sinusitis but if you come round here recommending euthanasia and berating my mother for giving birth to me, I'll set the dogs loose.
The question is unanswerable. To most, the idea of "obliterating" your own child is synonymous with killing them, which of course would not be acceptable. However, if there was a way to cease their existence, and the alternative was an eternity of unending suffering (again, not comparable with even a lifetime of suffering that your own child could endure, and not comparable with the fact that we would never KNOW our child's future), then of course I very much should exercise that ability if I love my child. Again, however, I still might not, out of my own selfishness. I would like to believe God is not so selfish or so powerless.
quote:
quote:
5. Some people were created to reject God, and causing them to accept God would change their fundamental being.
This boils down to flat-out Calvin's five
Absolute nonsense. You have to remove free will to be able to say this is one of my assumptions. What's wrong with Calvin's model is that God creates people who has no chance. Omniscience might be able to foresee what they will freely do, but that's not the same thing. They were not created to reject God. It's all in Boethius
Your earlier point was that if Jim-Bob is destined to reject God forever, if God intervenes and persuades him to accept him, it would necessarily change something fundamental about Jim-Bob. However, this assumes that rejecting God is something fundamental about Jim-Bob. Otherwise, if he was not created to reject God, then God's ability to win him out of rejection would only be allowing him to become who he was meant to be in God--it would be no abuse of his free will.
quote:
quote:
If we are all created with the potential to love and accept God, then God's loving, coaxing, unending pursuit can win us all to him without changing anyone intrinsically.
Can, or necessarily must? You remove the ability to choose. If you're certain of this, you don't believe we have free will.
To quote a great thinker, "omniscience may be able to foresee what they will freely do, but that is not the same thing." Not that I claim this omniscience, but free will is unaffected whether all choose God in the end or not.
-Digory
Posts: 4123 | From: Land of Mary | Registered: Feb 2005
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anteater
Ship's pest-controller
# 11435
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Posted
From DEMAS:
quote:
I also think that this thread is displaying a view of judgment and hell which is at the very least as unorthodox as anything which a universalist could come up with!
Can you point me to a denomination which openly teaches that God allows us to choose to go to hell out of his love for us and respect for our free will, but that's OK because hell isn't that bad anyway?
This is exactly my conclusion to this post. At least nobody has defended the hell-fire view but it doesn't look like many people get angry about it, as I do. I would like to add a comment arising out of my years as a Jehovah's Witness, who as everybody will know, have made a polemic about hell one of there chief attacks against (what they call) christendom.
First, I don't think my time with them is why I reject it now. In fact, I consider that the quality of there teaching to be so low, that it's almost embarrassing to end up seeming to agree with them.
However, where I see a strength in their belief is that because they are not embarrassed by what they teach about the unbelievers, they emphasize much more than most christians, the fact that salvation doesn't just happen simply by not being very wicked. As the chinese proverb says: Nobody by wandering around ends up at the top of a mountain.
I think this is closer to the emphasis of the NT, whereas what is happening in the Church, and in a lot of these posts, is that the urgency of repentance in this life is relatived, either because it is believed that it's not much harder to covert post-mortem, or because hell is reserved for a very few very wicked people, with all reasonably moral people ending up in heaven.
I know lots of christians who take this few.
I don't think that makes all the answers easy, and in fact apart from what I emphatically reject, I am uncertain about the best way to interpret the Biblical data.
But I believe it is possible to mount a good-enough defense of conditional immortality. I'm prepared to concede that if I left aside my moral objections to hell-fire, it is probably the best way to understand the relevant text, but it is, IMO by no means conclusive. As so often, the biblical data leaves wriggle-room.
I don't, however, believe that this can be said for the concept of judgement and just punishment for sin, and am amazed at the attempts of so many, to remove this from the Bible.
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Schnuffle schnuffle.
Posts: 2538 | From: UK | Registered: May 2006
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The Great Gumby
Ship's Brain Surgeon
# 10989
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by professor kirke:
Free-will requires that people can reject God. It does not require that some will eternally reject God. It's a strange, pessimistic approach to assume it does.
No, but it surely allows that some might?
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The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman
A letter to my son about death
Posts: 5382 | From: Home for shot clergy spouses | Registered: Feb 2006
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