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Post by seraphim on Jan 13, 2009 11:19:20 GMT -5
On that point I am not convinced. Scripture from time to time condescends to man's weakness and speaks in human experiencial terms concerning God that should not be understood as standing on the same footing as other passages about God. For example we know God is changeless and that He is love from the testimony of the Apostles. We also know something of the eternal nature of love and its persitance. So when we see changable human emotions ascribed to God we have to take care how we understand them. Our great forefathers in the faith understood such things as expressive of our human experience of His presence, without necessarily being descriptive of Him. Take for example the image of fire as applied to God's presence. In some contexts it is warming, illuminative, guiding. In others it is wrathful, calamatous for those exposed to it. So did God change? And beyond this even when speaking of such things as His vengenge, His wrath, His anger etc. they are not to be understood in human terms as if he were a medieval feudal Lord in the sky poised to avenge his wounded honor. For example there is much in scripture about God's judgement. If we think in terms of human jurisprudence we conceptualize a forum of condemnation where the bad guys ultimately get their comeupance. But a careful search of the Scriptures soon shows how inimately His righteousness and His judgements are intertwined and expressed in terms of tender mercy, lovingkindness, and forebearance. Very different from our judgement.
In such light to equate God's vengence with our notions of 'getting even'/payback is effectively to fall back upon crypto-pagan catagories and mindset without our even being aware of it.
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Post by dizzyjam on Jan 13, 2009 12:35:20 GMT -5
I wasn't talking about "getting even" or "payback" just that if Hell is vengeance then that would fit with God pouring out His vengeance on unrepentant sinners. No matter how we look at it based on our human understandings, that's a Biblical statement. What's speculative is if Hell is that vengeance or not.
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Post by scintor on Jan 13, 2009 18:52:07 GMT -5
That's the open question, whether or not Hell is a place of punishment. Punishment/chastizement without the possibility of correction is essentially vendeta, vengence. This does not mean however Hell is without torment, it only questions from whence that torment arises. I'm afraid that I must disagree. Punishment that has been earned is justice not vengence. Vengence requires that it make the vengeful feel better. God is a just God. When He gives death to those who diserve it, he is being true to Himself. But He is also a loveing and merciful God, so he gives us the chance of redemption. You seem to require that God justify Himself for giving people and Angels what they have earned. Scincerely, Scintor@aol.com
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Post by seraphim on Jan 14, 2009 11:38:12 GMT -5
I am saying we must be careful to know what God means by terms like "justice/judgment" not what we mean by them and then assume that is what God means as well.
As noted earlier in Scripture all God's justice/judgments are all intimatly linked to tender mercy and lovingkindness, not at all like human justice/judgment.
We do differ though. God does not give death to anyone, He permits it in those who will not have the life He offers them. Like you say, He must be true to Himself. He does not change. We change and hence our experince and perception of Him correspondingly changes. The fire of His presence is unchanging for all, but one experiences its warmth as blessedness and another experiences it as torment. One receives mercy the other condemnation, but there is no qualitative difference in what they receive. God, like the sun, shines on the just and the unjust. The difference is in us, in our correspondance to Him. The same fire that makes gold to shine makes hay and stubble to combust, but the fire is as it ever was.
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Post by metalikhan on Jan 15, 2009 2:13:52 GMT -5
One explanation I heard a few years back was that God ratifies our choice to be in His presence (in heaven) or separate from Him (in hell).
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Post by Jeff Gerke on Jan 16, 2009 9:03:32 GMT -5
That sounds like a nice summary of Romans 1:18-32.
Jeff
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Post by rossbondreturns on Nov 14, 2009 15:00:51 GMT -5
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Post by jfranklin on Nov 15, 2009 17:01:10 GMT -5
OK, this is something I am wrestling with. If we are working in the land of fiction and we take creative licensing with, in my case, some of Genesis are we being blasphamous? In my story, Hell is Lucifer's attempt at creating an angel-ran Heaven. However, he can only alter/corrupt/modify God's work and not actually create. Thus the reason Hell is ,, well ... Hell. I tweek the story a few more ways and sometimes worry that this will be taken seriously, but it is just a story.
Is this just me or does anyone else wrestle with this?
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Post by waldenwriter on Nov 15, 2009 23:02:59 GMT -5
OK, this is something I am wrestling with. If we are working in the land of fiction and we take creative licensing with, in my case, some of Genesis are we being blasphamous? In my story, Hell is Lucifer's attempt at creating an angel-ran Heaven. However, he can only alter/corrupt/modify God's work and not actually create. Thus the reason Hell is ,, well ... Hell. I tweek the story a few more ways and sometimes worry that this will be taken seriously, but it is just a story. Is this just me or does anyone else wrestle with this? Milton and Dante wrote their own ideas about Hell (Milton very briefly in describing where Satan and the other angels fell down to in Paradise Lost and Dante in great detail in the Inferno), so I don't see why we cannot. Biblical fiction as a genre sometimes takes liberties with the story, though generally they do this while maintaining as much of the source material as possible. One example is a series of novels about Biblical women that was once my grandmother's but was passed down to me after my grandmother's death, per a note she had written. The ones on Miriam, Ruth, Hagar, and Naomi stay pretty close to the source material, but this is likely because a good amount of those women's stories are given in the Bible. The others, on Lydia (the woman who invited Paul and his friends into her house in Philippi), Mary Magdalene, and Abigail (one of David's wives), take more liberties with the stories. But these are based on stories of women who only have a handful of verses apiece devoted to them in the Bible, so maybe the liberties are acceptable. As for whether the Devil can create, that is part of a tricky question about the Devil's capabilities that has been debated by the Church for centuries. Catholics believe that the Devil can do nothing without God's permission (the Islamic idea of Satan as submissive to God, just like everything else in the universe, is similar to this). Early Protestants, including Calvinists, took this view further and rendered the Devil essentially powerless, because his having power would contradict their idea of God having absolute sovereignty over everything. This led to some controversy regarding trials of witchcraft, where one of the common accusations was that the accused persons had made a pact with the Devil. (I just had to read an anthology of historic witchcraft-related documents for school, which is where I'm getting this stuff from). I suppose you should be fine tweaking the idea of Hell a bit, though there are always people who read too much into books and become upset as a result. As long as you retain enough of the Biblical basis for it, you should be ok (if you start straying into really questionable theology, à la Philip Pullman or Dan Brown, then you might be in trouble). I mean, I found Dante's description of Hell to be interesting (though not fully understandable; without the canto summaries given in most translations of Dante, I would be lost about what is going on most of the time), but have no reason to believe Hell is actually like how he describes - with the eight circles and the various punishments and so on. Just like I have no reason to believe levels of heaven exist on the various heavenly bodies of our solar system (as Dante's Paradiso suggests, though of course his levels are limited by the astronomical knowledge of the time, as well as a Earth-centered, pre-Copernican view of the universe). Hope that helps!
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Post by jfranklin on Nov 16, 2009 5:58:26 GMT -5
Hi WW. Thanks for the reply. Did it help? Yes and no. You have many goodpoints, but the crux of it all is that there are those who will take it too far. The bottom line for me is that I am going to continue on as this is just too much fun. :-D
Thanks!
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Post by waldenwriter on Nov 19, 2009 1:56:02 GMT -5
Hi WW. Thanks for the reply. Did it help? Yes and no. You have many goodpoints, but the crux of it all is that there are those who will take it too far. The bottom line for me is that I am going to continue on as this is just too much fun. :-D Thanks! You're welcome!
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Post by mlv123 on Dec 7, 2009 19:26:21 GMT -5
Hell is the absence of God. As to the idea that God is everywhere, God is omnipotent and, not trying to be trite, He can be or not be anywhere He chooses.
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Post by dragonlots on Dec 7, 2009 21:42:14 GMT -5
I’ve studied the final judgment and the lake of fire. This includes double checking verses and doing word studies. Here’s what I’ve found.
Hell is mistranslated. It’s actually the ‘grave’. Since the Bible was translated into English during the Middle Ages, the priests used the fear of going to Hell as a way to control the peasants and keep them obedient to the church and nobility. The lower class couldn’t read, so they had no way to disprove what their leaders were telling them. The traditional teaching of heaven and hell still exists and very few have researched to find out if what is taught is true or not.
Paul tells us point blank in I Thessalonians 4: 13-18 that the dead are dead. I’m paraphrasing but the gist is – Hey, why are weeping, wailing and carrying on like the unbelievers. Don’t you know that those who are asleep, meaning dead, just like Christ are going to get up when He returns and that those of us who are still alive are going to be changed and we will not go before them that are dead. For JC is going to descent from heaven with a shout by the voice of the archangel and a trumpet will sound, and the, and here’s the key phrase everyone misses, ‘the dead in Christ shall rise first’. Then those of us who are alive will gathered with them in the clouds, met the Lord in the air and we’re going to be together forever.
Then he commands us to comfort each other with these words.
Even the old Testamont says that David sleep with his fathers. Meaning, he died just like they did.
John 6:44 “ No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him and I will raise him up in the last day.”KJV
Christ confirms who is going to do the raising.
I Cor. 15:51-58. Again speaks of Christ raising the dead, mortals putting on immortality, the dead putting on incorruption.
Paul also says, in verse 55: Oh death, wehre is they sting? O grave, where is thy victory.
Revelations20: 5 says that the rest of dead would not get up until the thousand year reign of Christ was over. Now, it says dead, not those suffering in hell. So where is Abraham? Dead. Where is King David? Dead. Where are all the unbelievers? Dead.
Vs 6 speaks of the first resurrection, you know, those who were dead and waiting for Christ’s return and that the second death has no power on them, rather, they shall be the priests of God and Christ and reign with him a thousand years.
Skip ahead to verse 10. After the devil is defeated he’s thrown in the lake of fire along with the antichrist and the false prophet. This is where the three of them shall spend eternity.
Earth and heaven flee. Vs 11
Vs 12: All the dead get up, including everyone who lived under Old Testament law, because God has to judge them according to their deeds and how they did or didn’t keep his commandments. Theologians don’t really understand that Adam, Eve, Jacob, King David, etc. lived under different rules than we do.
Vs 13Now, you’ll notice ‘hell’ is mentioned in this verse. However, the correct translation is ‘the grave’. So here we have, death, the grave, the sea all giving up their dead. Each person is then judged according to their works.
Notice again, that nothing is said about Christians being part of this judgment. It specifies the dead. So whose names in the Book of Life are being sought? I suggest, and this is speculation on my part, those who lived under OT laws. Why? Because those saved are already in heaven with God and Christ, because Jesus has redeemed us.
Vs 14 death and hell, ie ‘the grave’ are thrown into the lake of fire. It’s called the second death.
Vs15 anyone whose name was not written in the books of life is thrown into the lake of fire.
Chapter 21: vs 8 explains more of what or who is in the lake of fire and part of the second death. Second death, when you work the Greek means a permanent physical and spiritual death.
II Thess. 1: 8-9 confirms a this. “In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power. “
Destruction, Greek word Olethros, meaning to slay or ruin the physical being; it is final, eternal and irrevocable.
The comes the new heaven and new earth, with no more seas, the description of heaven and then one, very important verse, Chapter 21: 27. Sin will be gone only those who are in the Lamb’s Book of Life remain.
Now I realize, this makes me sound like a heretic. However, this has been a pet study of mine for several years and what I found out, blew me away. I will also admit there is gray area where unbelievers ‘might’ have to suffer for a time, before they’re allowed to finally die. This would be consistent with God being both just, and compassionate.
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Post by newburydave on Dec 20, 2009 20:59:53 GMT -5
Um, I hate to be a contrarian but if the torment of the wicked is limited then how can Jesus say that unrepentant sinners will be tormented for ever and ever. A careful study of the words of our savior indicate that the duration of the torment of the souls of the lost is the same in duration as the joy of the redeemed.
There is also the fact that the Bible clearly teaches that we are the offspring of God and thus immortal and eternal as He is. He created us that way and our spiritual substance, our soul, can never be destroyed. We have to go somewhere. C.S. Lewis had an interesting take on that in his book "The Great Divorce".
Jesus said that Hell / Gehenna, is a place of eternal fire, torment and remorse. That cannot be the "grave" that the soul sleep advocates propose. It is interesting that the only one who really knew what hell was who spoke to us about it was Jesus. He said more about it than anyone else in the Bible, and his descriptions of it were the most horrible.
Another flaw that I see in that argument is the idea that we can know whether there is any kind of time or process in Eternity. We cannot know that one way or another. The choice we make in this life of time and process is for either Eternal Life or Eternal Death. The plain language of the Bible indicates that both are Eternally conscious states, one of Joy the other of torment. The only thing we know for certain about eternity is that it never ends.
If we allow the argument that the Priests were able to pervert the meaning of the text of the Bible in order to keep the people in subjugation then we need to throw the whole of scriptures away and forget this Christianity thing.
If wicked men successfully meddled with any of the Word of God that the church has transmitted to us in the 21st century, then we can't trust any of it. If wicked me altered it that means that God was not able to preserve his own eternal word down to our time. Thus we are blind, with no truth we can depend on to be saved.
We may as well base our hope of eternal salvation on a well written Science Fiction story like Star Wars. A corrupted Bible is no Bible at all and a faith based on such a book is the height of foolishness.
Now, God worked a supernatural change in me when I came out of my Atheism and utterly sinful life. The Faith with which I took hold of him, was based on the words of Scripture. Satan flees when I quote Scripture at him in the midst of the fires of temptation. So I for one know by experience that the Scriptures we have in English are the preserved Word of God. My eternal hope is based on His unlimited Soveriegn power to preserve both his Word for me to believe; and to preserve my soul through faith in the Jesus revealed in his word.
For these reasons I can't accept any argument that includes the idea that someone, anyone, altered the true meanings in the Bible sometime between the time of the Apostles and our day.
When Jesus says that Hell is eternal torment for the unbelieving, fearful, etc. (as in Revelation 20) I think he means just what he said. If he didn't he would have said what he really meant.
That's my humble opinion.
Besides, when He convicted me of my sinfullness and how lost I was he showed me a glimpse of Hell. I don't want to go there.
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Post by newburydave on Dec 20, 2009 23:28:53 GMT -5
I'd like to address the original question that launched this discussion.
For the sake of my contribution I'd like to make it clear that I hold two assumptions: 1) The Bible as we have it in the plain language sense of our English translations is a creditable transmission of the truth as God inspired it originally; 2) We don't have the out that "what the Bible says isn't what God really means". (Augustine, Calvin and many others addressed this in the principle of Normative Hermeneutics [Latin for: the plain language sense is what God means]).
I think that your apologetics professor may have been throwing you a curve in the way he phrased the question. It sounds suspiciously like the kind of paradoxes that classical philosophers used to propose to each other for amusement (and profit in some cases).
Now this is a question that unbelievers do pose to try to make us get off their backs. Some may actually ask it honestly because the Devil has battered them away from faith with this or one of the similar questions. (ie. If God is love then why do the innocent suffer? . . . why does He allow sin in the world? . . . why doesn't he stop war? etc)
In either case if it's asked as a brush off or honestly by a soul tormented by a loss of faith I think that punting by saying "hell isn't really as bad as you think it is" doesn't help them much. It actually is abandoning the point that is potentially convicting truth for the questioner. I believe that we are so made by God that regardless of the surface motive both types of people really want a satisfying answer.
The real question in all of these "paradox" type questions about God isn't really about the "how could he, why does or doesn't he" part of the question; in my opinion the real question is about the nature of God himself. The thing that makes these questions paradoxical is our misunderstanding of God's true nature and how the created universe stands in relation to him. We exist in him and he sustains our lives moment by moment.
The questions all posit "if God is a God of Love. . . " as the contradictory condition. The problem is that though God's Love defines what true love is His primary essence is defined by scripture as Holiness. Holiness is first and foremost a total seperation from sin and defilement.
The misunderstanding in men and women is twofold. They don't understand the true nature of Sin and they don't understand the true nature of Divine Love. Since the phrase Divine Love is a meaningless phrase in practical terms I prefer to call it Christlike Love since the Gospels give us the picture of what that looks like in shoe leather. (Okay sandal leather.)
To state it briefly Sin is the total opposite and contradiction of Christlike Love. Sin is rooted in Selfish Autonomy. Christlike Love is rooted in Self-sacrificing devotion to and dependence on God.
The Apostle John makes a big deal about equating Light, Life and Love as the central essence of Jesus and the substance of the gifts that he brings us when we swear fealty to him and believe in his Atonement for our salvation. (Confessing with out mouths that Jesus is Lord is swearing fealty to him in the old eastern monarchic and medieval tradition)
John uses Darkness, Death and Selfishness as the contrasting essence of Sin and Lawlessness. Sin is death, not some future or allegorical thing but real spiritual death. Our bodies are dying because of sin our souls are already dead. In a very real sense acts of sin are merely our dead souls rotting away like the gangrene in a Leper's dead limbs; spiritual stench, maggots, filth and all.
That's why when Jesus saves us he has to resurrect us to life. Salvation is life from the dead; that's not allegory it is a real thing, the most real thing in this universe.
Now God's love pours out of his Holiness in a mighty life giving stream that expresses itself in mercy and redemption, just to name His two favorite works. But He is in His essence Holy, seperate from Sin and death because His nature is Life and sin/death is the negation of Life.
God loves all of his living creation and as a result he can't let any of it be corrupted, poisoned and killed by the stinking miasma of the death of sin. Based on the revelation in scripture he has limited himself when it comes to us because he wants a Bride not a Bond-slave. He has guaranteed us freedom to choose to love and serve him or to love and live for ourselves and evil. Remember sin is not a thing, it is an attitude of selfish autonomy and rebellion against God and his loving Purity. Sin can only exist in intelligent moral agents who are free to chose evil.
Sin and evil damages and kills the life around it and the people around it just as love and grace heals and gives life. Sin is ultimately against God himself since it rends the fabric of his harmonious universe. One of the word pictures in scripture in the Old Testament gives us the picture God bending near to man to confer blessing and the sinful, rebellious man uses that nearness as opportuinty to stick his finger in God's eye. That's what it's like spiritually when we sin against grace.
We sin against an eternal God; our sin debt is ten thousand Bank of Heaven Talents and we're bankrupt; we have damaged and in some cases helped to d**n eternal souls that God lavished his love upon. The just penalty is an eternal penalty.
The same justice that "is faithful and Just to forgive us our sins" when we repent, confess and believe is also swift and terrible to exact eternal vengence as just recompence upon those who torment the saints of God and rebell against their rightful Lord. They do such things out of proud, hateful selfish rebellion. Paul told one church that it was a Righteous thing for God to execute vengeance on those who were torturing and killing them.
Therefore: In my humble opinion (and I mean that, am no theologian. I've learned most of this on the street, in the Word and the place of prayer, over the last 20 years of rescue mission work.)
In my humble opinion it is God's Holy Love for his living creation that demands he create an eternal maximum security prison for the sentient entities who lust to tear holes of death and corruption in the harmony of his universe just to please their own selfish, rebellious hearts. Men who are drunk and high on sin think it's unfair, but they are drunk and high on Sin the most powerful drug in the universe. Drunks and druggies all think the cops are unfair for stopping them from murdering, raping and stealing.
That prison is called Hell in the common English of our day. Based on what Jesus said about it I don't think we can understand the half or how horrible it will be for any eternal soul who is cast into that place. As Father Abraham told the rich man there is no escape or parole from Hell.
Okay, this is really long. Well it's a really important subject and pretty deep. I think your Apologetics prof was trying to challenge you to use most of the theology you know. I hope my ramblings may help.
God's blessing on you all who suffered through to the end. Behold He comes! Lift up your heads and Rejoice!
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