It’s widely known that many Christians claim non-Christians all go to hell. I’m no expert on religions in general, but I imagine quite a few may share similar dogma. This got me wondering…where does God draw the line? Are there any sins so bad that, even if you repent, you won’t be forgiven? Should there be? Or does everyone get to go to heaven, no matter what? What about people that we consider great, that aren’t/weren’t a member of [insert chosen religion]? Discuss.
Though it probably shouldn’t be tangential enough to derail the thread, mentioning specific persons or people that have committed certain deeds as examples would not necessarily be out of line here. Huge laundry lists of people that hell awaits belong in the pit, not here (obviously) (no pun intended).
According to my college theology professor, who was a Catholic priest of some ilk, the only sin God cannot and will not forgive is denial of Him. So simply saying (and meaning) “I renounce God” is grounds for damnation without parole. All other sins could be confessed and if honestly and truly repented (this means you can’t just confess with plans to repeat the sin), God will forgive.
I would assume and hope that this is denial by someone who has been exposed to their scripture and chosen not to believe, rather than innocents who have never heard of Jesus, but I don’t know for sure.
He was also a strange old bat, so I’m not sure if this was actual Church Doctrine, or simply the ravings of an ancient man.
So, it’s okay to kill and rape people, as long as you don’t renounce God. So, people like Hitler, Ted Bundy, and the late terrorists of Al-Qaeda from 9/11…all these people are in heaven?
Actually, your first sentence is one of those things that goes along with “it’s widely believed that a duck’s quack does not echo.”
A fair minority of Christians are universalists – they believe in the ultimate salvation of everybody, simply because of the inherent unfairness of Hell (eternal punishment is out of proportion to limited, secular occasions of sin).
Many others, while they believe in Hell as a choice, see God’s mercy as extending far beyond the minima that the stereotypical witnesser would set forth. There’s an Orthodox adage that defines this: “We know where God’s grace may be found [i.e., in an Orthodox Church]. We do not presume to know where it may not be found.”
Granted, there is a school of conservative evangelical Protestants, along with a few judgmental types from other Christian traditions, that is 100% firm on what’s been referred to sarcastically around here as the “Get out of Hell free card.” (See AmazingGrace’s OP in another GD thread for a prime example of this view.)
For a person like Mr. Grossi, God’s justice calls on Him to condemn every single one of us for the evils we have done. (You think you haven’t done any evil? Hey, I remember that incident in fourth grade, and what you were thinking that day just after you turned 14…) But His mercy calls on Him to forgive us – justice demanding only that a price be paid – so He Himself paid it in the person of His Son, dying in agony to atone for our sins. If you claim Him as Lord, you invoke His protection, and, in a fairly literal sense, when God tries to look at your sins, what He sees instead is His sinless Son, interposed between your sins and the divine judgment.
For me, this is getting too arcane – God is depicted by Jesus as a loving Father. He may discipline; He does not disown. His interest is in seeing His children grow in grace and humaneness towards each other, loving Him and each other and being willingly reshaped by His lovingkindness and wisdom.
Hell remains there – but solely as the alternative necessary to give our choices meaningfulness and consequence – if you have freedom to choose, but absolutely NO choice ultimately makes a difference, that effectively means you have no choices. God won’t let anyone go to Hell while they still have capacity to choose Him instead.
As for the idea that Al Qaida, Hitler, Stalin, Jeffrey Dahmer, et al., can go to Heaven, you need to hear that in the proper context for it not to seem like a travesty of justice. They need to repent. That’s not merely “recite a sinner’s prayer or go to confession” – it means *they need to recognize the enormity of their evil, feel contrition for the harm they have caused, loathe themselves for having done it. Only then can they find forgiveness and absolution for their evil. And at that point, any human being with a heart would be willing to grant it to them.
It’s only OK to kill and rape people IF you honestly regret it, repent it (wish you hadn’t and promise never to do it again) and confess it to God through his priest and recieve a sentance from the priest and accept punishment for your sin.
I don’t know for sure, but I suspect Hitler never repented or was absolved of his sins. Ted Bundy, um, I don’t think he was real repentant either. Maybe his priest knows something I don’t. I’m not very familiar with him, actually. The Al-Qaeda terrorists from 9/11 definitely didn’t repent and promise never to fly another plane into another building - they were dead. I don’t belive you can repent before the act. You have to be honestly and truly sorry afterwards.
And God can see into your heart and if you’re just going through the motions, your absolution isn’t real, and you’ll still be punished for your sin, until and unless you truly repent at a later date. This is why the Catholics place such importance on death-bed confessions. If there’s something you’ve been hanging onto all your life, your death-bed is the last chance you’ll get to repent and be forgiven.
So, based only on the narrow criteria my theology prof gave me, which only even claimed to be Catholic in nature and which I do not have verifiable Church Dogma information to back me up on, NO. Hitler, Bundy and the terrorists are not in heaven because they did not repent and were not forgiven. (Note that they’re NOT not in heaven because they killed people.)
I think Poly & I are on similar wavelengths- along with “Eastern” Orthodoxy & C.S. Lewis (my self-designated patron saint)…
the common “Western” model of Heaven/Hell has been Judiciary- Heaven is where you are sentenced for being “good”/“saved”/whatever; Hell is where you are sentenced for being “bad”/“unsaved”, etc.
Poly’s, EO’s & my models are Relational- Heaven is what you experience if you essentially trust in &/or are open to God/Christ; Hell is what you experience if you essentially distrust &/or are closed to Them.
Horrible sinners who truly regret their sins will not escape pain as they plunge into God/Christ, indeed that pain will be profound & soul-consuming but ultimately redemptive. They will experience the Passion that Christ experienced for them in full, but will also follow in His Resurrection.
The self-righteous tho who cling to their petty faults may have a much tougher time in that Fire of God/Christ if they resist letting go of their sins.
Check C.S. Lewis’s THE GREAT DIVORCE for a good allegory on all this.
Off topic, but for FriarTed’s reading pleasure: The Episcopal Church has added Jack Lewis to the Church Calendar as a lesser feast – the closest we come to canonizing anyone. The anniversary of his death, November 22, is (as is common practice) his feast day. A biography/bibliography by Fr. James Kiefer and the appointed readings and proper collect for his feast can be found here.
This is pretty good stuff, though dwelling on the issue of pain more than I would. Think of it as a surgical procedure, like pulling out a splinter or having a tooth extracted, and you’re more on target.
Salvus, translated as “saved,” refers in standard non-ecclesiastical Latin not to a religious state, but to health – one who is salvus is whole, healthy, cured of the illness plaguing him.
Thanks for the info on the Feast of Jack the Blessed of Narnia G
I stand by my idea of a blessed intense pain as we enter into the Fire of God/Christ’s Love/Justice. If the Biblical concept of our sharing in the Mystical Body is at all accurate, we’ll have at least a glimpse, if not a full plunge, of what Christ endured spiritually in the Passion (the one area in which I think the movie failed to convey Christ’s suffering, but I don’t know if it would have been possible to do so within the bonds of legality).
I think the Hebrew idea of Y’sh’ & the Greek Sozo also have the same Wholeness, Health aspect (I’ve also heard Y’sh’ has connotations of Victory & Prosperity also).
Maybe according to the Roman Catholic Church today, but not the Bible. There were no priests immediately after Jesus died that one could go into a Christian church and repent to. According to the Bible, if after posting this I accept Jesus as my personal savior, and sincerely in my heart repent all previous sins, if an airplane crashes into my home a few minutes later and kills me I will be saved.
So the repentance is between you and God, no priest, penance or absolution needed. You can ask God for forgiveness directly, and assuming you’re sincere in your repentance, He will grant it. I did know that. But thanks for clarifying.
RC or otherwise, for a Christian*, **repentance **is the key to forgiveness and the ticket into heaven, right?
*Let’s assume for the moment that a Christian accepts Jesus, whatever that may mean in each particular denomination.
Let’s clarify one thing that annoys the hell out of me- whether it comes from Christians or non-C’tians…
In Chrisitan/Biblical theology, it is NEVER OK to do commit a sin & no one EVER gets away with doing so as long as they repent. God didn’t endure the torture-killing of Jesus so that those throwing themselves on His mercy can get away with stuff. He did it so that He would fully share in the responsibility & Death-Hell penalty for these sins, so that those who entrust themselves to them might experience Resurrection from that Death-Hell penalty.
