I was wondering, if the “punishment” for original sin is death, and we all eventually die, then why do we then have a final judgment day? Weren’t we already punished for our sin just by dying?
There are two separate issues.
#1
God’s justice system is surprisingly similar in some ways to what modern society has. For example, it’s quite possible to be put in jail before you’re even tried for a crime. The Final Judgment (aka Great White Throne Judgment) is the official trial and sentencing.
#2
There are two different types of death–physical and spiritual.
Everybody dies physically regardless of their moral standing before God. Sinning is spiritual death. Adam and Eve died spiritually the day that they disobeyed God.
It makes a little more sense in the context of Christianity, where some people will be judged guilty, yet given an imperial pardon by having thrown themselves upon the mercy of the court. Such persons die…but are returned to life and given an infinite reward.
It also works well enough in Judaism, where some people, who tried to live good lives, while not being perfect, might still be good enough to be found acceptable in God’s view.
A loving, Just, all knowing being would be responsible for its creation, just as we don’t blame a car for the faults built into it. I would think such a creator would not make a being with faults then kill them because they were not perfect.
During Yom Kippur services you atone and ask to be written into the Book of Life for next year. One of the items you atone for are all those not covered in the long list you’ve just read.
The Book of Life makes me think that it is possible that death in “the wages of sin are death” was originally just death - but now has been changed to the spiritual death meaning when Christians started with the going to heaven and hell bit.
As I understand it, the Final Judgment takes place in the context of the end of our universe, controlled by the evil demiurge Satan, and the beginning of a new, eternal one overseen by Christ. Think of our universe as a virtual reality presided over by an insane renegade AI that has corrupted everyone and everything in it. The old system is scheduled for the big Delete button; but those reborn in the image of Christ are part of the New Creation, and will make the transfer to the new system.
Since both systems are designed by the same Creator, might it not turn out to be like going from Windows 98 to Windows ME?
If God were all knowing there would not be any need for a final Judgement. He would know before they were conceived that they would either go to Heaven or Hell.
Hence Calvinism.
But he has to actually let them make the choice- i.e., the free will thingy. But that’s an ancient and probably unsolvable debate.
It truly isn’t free will, One doesn’t put limits on one, and say if you don’t do it my way I will kill you.
At the risk of turning this into a witnessing thread, that’s based on an extremely common misconception of what Christianity is all about (and even many leaders of the various churches hold it too). The notion that Christianity is about getting scored on a test based on how well you follow a set of rules and if you don’t make the grade you get flunked. That’s actually what Jesus preached against when he bitterly criticized the Pharisees’ emphasis on the Mosaic Law.
Jesus preached that sin is in essence spiritual unconsciousness- simply not having any direct perception of God, That an emphasis on following the rules was missing the point: the Law was a (partial) list of all the things a perfectly pure and holy person would and would not do spontaneously, without needing to be told. That everyone was blameworthy in that they needed to be taught the Law in the first place; that no one had ever kept the Law perfectly (even the extreme aesthetic John the Baptist had only made a valiant effort); and that even if one could somehow follow the Law perfectly, the mere following of it wouldn’t give you spiritual consciousness- any more than, in modern terms, a sophisticated computer simulation of a person running quadrillions of lines of code wouldn’t truly be self-aware.
Christianity claims that Jesus’s death and resurrection as the Christ made it possible for people to gain the Holy Spirit: to actually have true spiritual awareness direct from God himself. And that those partaking of this spiritual awareness will have a place in the new universe to come.
Yes, we are all dead, this is death. Since we are eternal beings we are in a cycle of eternal death. Each cycle brings about the karmic consequences of the former, the weight increases until…
One realizes that they have the ability to step out of it into eternal life. Sometimes called enlightenment.
Now from what I gather the scripture you refer to is:
It does not say this is a final judgment, just stating the order, only one death per judgment, it does not say that this cycle does not continue nor does it say anythingat all about what comes after.
The closest you can come to about a ‘final judgement day’ is reserved only for Satan, the False Prophet and the Beast, but even that has been taken as ages of ages instead of ever and ever, and that final judgement has more to do with being dethroned (the authority to rule over humanity removed by the Lord God of Hosts) then eternal unending torment.
So, logically speaking, you haven’t realised what you just said yet?
Damn. Ninja’d.
Adam was an innocent victim of circumstances, faced with a no win situation.
Short version.
God gives Adam and Eve 2 rules.
- Be fruitful and multiply.
- Don’t eat from the tree of knowledge. (the apple)
Eve falls to temptation and eats the apple. Eve gets evicted.
Adam is faced with an interesting problem. Does he violate rule 1, or rule 2? He can’t be fruitful and multiply without Eve, and he can’t be with Eve (who is now homeless) unless he eats from the tree of knowledge. He chooses to partake.
The death involved is not death, as in dead. It’s, as already said, a spiritual death. It’s being cut off from returning to he who created you. Everyone is alive, everyone dies. However, the final judgment is that part of the plan where what you did while alive is taken into account in deciding whether you’re headed north or south. Eternal life, or damnation, which is not necessarily hell, but being eternally out of the presence of God.
Of course, that fruit held the “knowledge of good and evil” (sapience/sense of morality). So Eve couldn’t have really had any inkling that following this God fellow was “right” because she had no sense of right and wrong until after she disobeyed. That was a system set up to fail from the beginning.
Edit: Also, “spiritual death” seems to be, at best, Obi-Wan levels of truth when he said they’d “die” from it.
An all knowing being would have known even when he created evil that Satan would reject him so Heaven was not such a perfect place either, so to me that doesn’t make sense, Also it doesn’t seem like a just Being would punish his children When he knew they would have faults. If God is all knowing then he would not have needed to punish Adam and Eve and all their ancestors, when he knew in advance they would not do as he expected. and a Last Judgement doesn’t ring true either.
As far as I’m concerned, if one entity is totally responsible for the creation of everything, and that same entity had total knowledge as to the outcome of its creation beforehand, then that entity is the one on trial.
If God created *perfect *individuals, then there would be no need for an earthly portion of the plan. The fall and the salvation would have been unnecessary. God had to create imperfect man, and allow man to fail or pass on his own.