Hell as a concept is impossible for me to accept. I also don’t understand what would be the point in us knowing about Hell. This seems antithetical to free will.
Free will is a central tenant in Christianity; without it, original sin wouldn’t exist and there would be no need for salvation through Christ. And yet the Bibles admonishes us to believe in Jesus lest we be cast into the pits of Hell, forever. In what world is this ultimatum supposed to be in harmony with free will? Where I come from, we call this type of setup a crime, not a choice.
I believe that if there is an afterlife, it is unknowable to us and for good reason. Because if it was knowable, then that knowledge would get in the way of whatever purpose our earthly existence is supposed to serve.
It could also be visiting the sins of the father on his sons type punishment without free will.
“for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me”
It is not as if El has shown restraint in holding offspring accountable for their parents actions in most of the stories.
Could you refresh my recollection about the inherent contradiction here? ISTM that if you’ve got any sort of infinities within our four-dimensional spacetime bubble, and God is outside of it, created it, and has the ability to alter or destroy it at whim, then God has infinite power by definition.
(No need to include a primer on the mathematics of infinities, btw. I’m aware that the rationals can be put into one-to-one correspondence with the integers, but the reals can’t, and that there are infinities that can’t be put into one-to-one correspondence with the reals, and so forth.)
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What would you think of parents who shot their teenage son for not cleaning up his room? He didn’t do what he was told now he won’t do it right forever.
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What? No, I always heard they shot their kid even though he had cleaned his room. And they spared his messy sister, because she said some other kid used to be tidy.
Part of the problem with Hell is that most modern Christians - especially the evangelicals, who are the most outspoken about hell - have really drifted away from the biblical and historical Judeo-Christian notions of hell in the New Testament.
If you read Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew chapter 25), on judgment day the “Son of Man” comes in glory and separates people into two groups, “as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” To the first group he says (paraphrasing): “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.” To the second group he says “Depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his angels.”
He explains his criteria for judgment and his has *nothing *to do with who believed what, or who had faith, or who was an atheist. His criteria for sending people to eternal reward or punishment is: “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” And when the people ask, When did we do (or not do) any of that? he says “Truly, inasmuch as you did (or did not do) it to the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did (or did not do) it unto me.”
Evangelicals will often point to Ephesians 2:8-9 to support their “by faith alone” soteriology: *It is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, that no one should boast." But they don’t continue on to verse 10: “For we are God’s workmanship, created for good works in Christ Jesus, which he has prepared in advance for us to do.”
My point is, insisting that one’s eternal destiny hinges on whether or not one places faith in Jesus during the brief time we are on this earth attributes God with a capriciousness akin to the level of a comic book villain.
As a Christian believer myself, I believe that there is a hell of torment, although not physical torture. I believe some people will find themselves there at some point, by resisting God’s love and grace. But I think many people will be surprised at who ends up on the inside and who is on the outside. And furthermore, although hell is eternal, God’s love and grace and invitation to reconciliation is also eternal and God will not turn people away just because they did not recognize him during their brief lifetime on earth. Hell is eternal but it will eventually be empty as the call of Love proves irresistible.
But God retains this appearance even if we make actions a requirement rather than faith in Jesus. Eternal suffering–whether that be spiritual, mental, physical, or something else we lack the language for–for offenses committed in the relatively microscopic flicker of time that a human lives…this setup doesn’t readily jibe with a loving God. Because it doesn’t even jibe with a loving human.
People are imperfect beings full of conflicting emotions, fleshly desires, persistent insecurities, deep-seated fears, and hungry egos. It’s bad when we let these character flaws block our potential to act charitably, but bad enough to warrant Hell? That’s the question. You may say that’s God call to make, and that’s fair enough. But it is not unreasonable for us to question how Godly love is consistent with eternally tormenting his own children–particularly since Jesus has instructed us to turn the other cheek and love our enemies. If the existence of Hell acts as a barrier to people accepting God, then God undermines himself by using it to keep us in line, through fear and coercion.
If it is possible to resist God’s love and grace to the extent that some people would rather accept eternal suffering, then we should wonder why God sucks so bad at selling himself. Where there is a will, there is a way, God.
Either I wasn’t clear or you didn’t read me carefully enough, but I completely agree with you. I said Hell - as in the place or condition - is eternal, but I rejected the idea that people are sent there irrevocably forever. To be more clear:
Through Jesus, all mankind is saved and reconciled to God.
Not everyone embraces this reconciliation - some folks would rather live apart from God. God loves them anyway.
Since God is the ultimate source of love, goodness, peace, joy - then complete separation from God is the absence of all these things. Hell.
God does not revoke promises or invitations. People who find themselves in Hell in the age to come will still have the opportunity to turn to God. In fact, in light of eternity, it is inevitable that everyone will. Hell will be empty.
The Bible says that God is good and loving and that it is God’s will that all humanity be saved - reunited in a loving relationship with God and creation. If we believe in a God who is all-powerful then why would we think he would fail to accomplish this?
But you’re not, are you? I mean, you have people in your life from whom you derive love and joy, I assume? And if not people, you have other parts of creation - pets, wildlife, nature - that you may derive pleasure from.
To be clear, are you saying this reconciliation happens in the afterlife? Or does it happen when we’re alive? If the latter, that would mean there are those of us who are in Hell now (and conversely, some in heaven too). This would appear to be an extra-biblical belief and inconsistent with the Judgement Day concept as expressed in the parable you just posted. The faithful also experience suffering as much as the non-faithful do, so what practical meaning would Hell have in light of that? But maybe you’re not saying reconciliation is supposed to happen on Earth.
Since I’m unclear when this reconciliation is supposed to occur, I might be misunderstanding this. But how could anyone choose to live apart from God (will they be turning down a direct offer from Him the same way I do when a telemarketer calls? Or is the choice less explicit and obvious than that?) and more importantly, why would they would choose to do that–especially with the foreknowledge that they’ll get torment in exchange?
The rationale for such a perplexing choice is itself perplexing. If it’s a matter of ignorance or fear or even anger, that means as spiritual beings we’ll still be suffering from our earthly limitations. And is it loving of God to let irrationality keep people from taking the medicine (his love) they need to be happy and healthy?
Okay, but “complete separation” doesn’t exist unless God sets up the system to allow that to exist. Why would a loving God allow himself to exist separately from his stupid, poorly designed creations, when such separation causes his us pain? We don’t do that with our own children, even when they are misbehaving demons.
Which is comforting, but not supported by anything in the Bible, sadly.
If Hell is simply a unpleasant rest stop for stubborn souls to fart around before they make the inevitable choice to finally join God, the Bible misrepresents this by it calling eternal punishment. Wouldn’t you agree? Furthermore, what is the point of any of this? What lessons are to be learned in Hell? “If you don’t turn to God, you suffer; thus, you might want to turn to God” isn’t all that profound and it’s not really an endorsement for God’s greatness.
Skammer, I think you’re a valuable poster on this board and respect your intelligence; this is why I’m engaging your right now.
The question you’ve presented hits on the Bible’s most critical plot hole. God is supposedly all-powerful. If an all-powerful God truly wants a certain outcome to occur, it is laughable to he would be put all the onus on us imperfectly designed mortals to deliver that outcome. The idea that an all-powerful God who is loving and compassionate would even allow Hell to exist–in any form we could dream of–doesn’t make any sense.
God didn’t “create” Hell, in the tradition I am espousing. Hell is where God isn’t. You may as well say that the sun creates darkness, because that’s what we get when the sun isn’t there.
ETA: you with the face – your questions require a more detailed response than I have time to compose, at the moment, but I will respond to you within a few hours.
Six thousand years ago God created darkness when He created the sun. When the sun revolves around the Earth, it’s always dark on the opposite side, the two are connected, so God created darkness because He created the sun.
If god is everywhere, according to the bible, 1Ki 8:27, Proverbs 15:3 etc… He would have had to remove himself from this place you call hell, thus he made it.
What form of “love” is this creation of a furnace with weeping and gnashing of teeth? A place where the likes of Gandhi would go and not those such as Charles Manson.
To an outsider this doesn’t appear to be love but the actions of a sadistic “jealous God”. A god who punishes people for the mere thought that this god does not exist. A belief that this “loving” god intentionally makes the default “choice” in his supposed creation.
That said, assuming that’s accurate; let’s say me and my friends Alice and Bob all die. Me and Alice, for whatever reason, go to hell, while Bob goes to Heaven. How is it the love I feel for my friends taken away? How does Bob get to feel that love still despite knowing that his friends are separated from it? I can’t picture any circumstance in which a person I love is put in a place where they are deprived of that as well as any love or enjoyment or otherwise happiness that would mean I could ever be happy about it in Heaven. Unless I and they are fundamentally changed by the experience so that I am happy despite my friends being tortured and they altered so as not to feel love, in which case it’s not so much an afterlife as it is three new beings with our memories.