How could we survive the horrors of heaven?

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Ignorance of the fact that our lack of free will here on earth is a Christian doctrine of many theologians and whole sects of the Church does you no good. No free will for sinners is doctrine, your quibbles aside. And the necessity to reconcile that doctrine with the absolute necessity of all sin / evil and all righteousness / faith MUST be by a free will decison is explainable to those who are not blinkered by a previous commitment to a mindset...Christian or atheist.
In that case, the doctrine is obviously mistaken. Not only is the idea that sinners have no free will obviously, plainly, unmistakeably apparent to anyone who knows a sinner, it contradicts Christian doctrine itself.
If you don't understand Christian theology and cannot follow ordinary Christian words in a theological context....why are you here?
To show you your mistakes, of course.
Again you act as if Christian doctrine is new to you, so curious.
(Shrug)
Wrong.
The letters of the NT are full of the doctrine of our enslavement to sin over, and over, Even Jesus purportedly supported this pov at John 8:34 Jesus replied, "Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. The use of the more modern and available word 'addiction' for its metaphor 'enslavement' is not out of bounds for the meaning of the words.
It's a metaphor. That's all. You give the game away here when you have to choose your own word to show what you think he meant. Please try not to extrapolate a whole theology out of one short, out-of-context sentence.
Debating forum or not - I have no vested interest in winning or beating your or you changing your mind.
I don't debate, I prefer a dialectic.
Then you've just lost. This is a debating forum. Its purpose, as stated on the top of the front page, is for non-Christians to challenge the faith, and Christians to defend it.
You asked, I answered and it is your job to understand the basic concepts enough to follow the answer. If election, sanctification and the concept of the necessity of free will but it not being available to sinners is gobbledygook to you then I am at a loss... The pejorative gaslighting words sophistry, playing word games and claiming my paragraph doesn't actually mean anything are NOT acceptable debating techniques so we must guess as to why you use them...
You're quite right. I apologise. Checking the dictionary, I find that sophistry includes the intention to deceive. I am sure you have no such intention.
"Playing word games" also carries a pejorative overtone, and I withdraw it and apologise for that too.
Claiming that your paragraph doesn't actually mean anything, though - no, I think that is fair comment. You ideas are mistaken, your logic is flawed, and your arguments are self-contradictory. I hope that my answers have helped you to understand this.

It's what I'm here for.
 
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com7fy8

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how can you consider yourself a loving person if you don't feel bad about people in hell,
It depends on what you mean by feeling bad. If I have compassion for people in trouble, I am feeling good in compassion, because I am caring.

How can having compassion feel bad? Compassion is good.
and how can heaven be perfect if you feel bad there?
Compassion is good and Jesus of Heaven had compassion for us, so He came here to reach us and die for us in order to save us. This is good; so why would this have us feeling bad??

Heaven has compassion; compassion is good. So, how can it feel bad?

So, I don't think ones feel bad, in Heaven. I would say ones might mourn, at times, for wrong people. But the sorrow in Heaven, if it is there, is not the same as the kind of sorrow selfish people experience. You might consider 2 Corinthians 7:10. In God's love there is sorrow which is not an unkind experience; it does not hurt and make you suffer, like selfish sorrow does.

Also, if you are deeply sick with what is bad and feels bad, how can you bring someone else to what is good?

You need to be an example of what a miserable person can have, so you can bring someone to this. So, being miserable along with a selfish person is not going to work.
 
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It depends on what you mean by feeling bad. If I have compassion for people in trouble, I am feeling good in compassion, because I am caring.

How can having compassion feel bad? Compassion is good. Compassion is good and Jesus of Heaven had compassion for us, so He came here to reach us and die for us in order to save us. This is good; so why would this have us feeling bad??

Heaven has compassion; compassion is good. So, how can it feel bad?

So, I don't think ones feel bad, in Heaven. I would say ones might mourn, at times, for wrong people. But the sorrow in Heaven, if it is there, is not the same as the kind of sorrow selfish people experience. You might consider 2 Corinthians 7:10. In God's love there is sorrow which is not an unkind experience; it does not hurt and make you suffer, like selfish sorrow does.

Also, if you are deeply sick with what is bad and feels bad, how can you bring someone else to what is good?

You need to be an example of what a miserable person can have, so you can bring someone to this. So, being miserable along with a selfish person is not going to work.
That's not how it works.
Feeling good because you feel sorry for other people is not a virtuous act. If you see someone suffering, you don't get to say "I'm a good person because at least I feel bad about them suffering."

A truly good person would either try to do something to help the suffering, or feel bad because he or she couldn't.

In either case, heaven is a horrible place.
 
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com7fy8

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A truly good person would either try to do something to help the suffering, or feel bad because he or she couldn't.
But now we do the good we can.

And we need to be examples of how a miserable person can become, not being miserable, ourselves.

And I am talking about misery which is in sin. God's love makes us strong so sin can not make us weak enough to suffer in sin's misery. We need to be examples of this, in order to help people into this. We do not minister for people to only stop feeling miserable, but we labor for people to come into God's love which keeps us safe from being miserable in sinful stuff.

And Heaven has this power of immunity against the horribleness of the misery of sin. And through Jesus we can share in this now.

If someone is suffering misery because of the weakness of one's selfish nature, one needs to get into God's strength of love so the person can stay joyful and free of that misery, and become able to minister for others to be comforted, also > 2 Corinthians 1:3-4.
 
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Paulomycin

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Such thinking continues today. Popular Christian theologian R.C. Sproul told of one of his teachers saying, "In heaven, you will be so sanctified that you will be able to see your own mother in hell and rejoice in that, knowing that God’s perfect justice is being carried out." (video @19:35).

Ha-ha. Love it. Gerstner was the bomb.

So what's the problem? Did you finish the video? You assuming Gerstner's hypothetical mother somehow doesn't deserve it? That mother is somehow entitled to something more than God's perfect justice on account that she's somebody's mother? That appeal to emotion is somehow not fallacious?

Nobody goes to Heaven on merit, or entitlement. The bottom line is that God doesn't owe anyone anything. Ever. The moment we look at people in Hell and conclude they're not being treated fairly, is an indication that we don't understand the gospel.

Sproul's main point starts up again @34:14. Can you endure 10 more minutes?
 
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But now we do the good we can.

And we need to be examples of how a miserable person can become, not being miserable, ourselves.

And I am talking about misery which is in sin. God's love makes us strong so sin can not make us weak enough to suffer in sin's misery. We need to be examples of this, in order to help people into this. We do not minister for people to only stop feeling miserable, but we labor for people to come into God's love which keeps us safe from being miserable in sinful stuff.

And Heaven has this power of immunity against the horribleness of the misery of sin. And through Jesus we can share in this now.

If someone is suffering misery because of the weakness of one's selfish nature, one needs to get into God's strength of love so the person can stay joyful and free of that misery, and become able to minister for others to be comforted, also > 2 Corinthians 1:3-4.
You're sidestepping the point.
Let's return to it.
Will you feel bad about the fate of sinners while you are in heaven? If not, how will you be able to call yourself a loving person?
 
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com7fy8

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Will you feel bad about the fate of sinners while you are in heaven? If not, how will you be able to call yourself a loving person?
As I have said, I do not know what God will have me doing, in relation to ones in hell. But I trust Him, that He will have us doing what is right . . . including guiding where our attention needs to be.

I will be loving, by trusting God to do what He knows is right, with them.

And, like I have offered, now is the time to do what can help people who are in the destruction and misery of their selfishness-infected nature. Theorizing about what I will do in Heaven will not help me to help selfish people, now.

And I need to pay attention to what God knows is good, in order to help evil people. Just paying attention to them and suffering about them is not going to help them. I need to give attention to God, first, so I am doing what He knows can help. And this includes becoming how He is able to correct me to become, so I can be His example to spread how Jesus is, to wrong people.

So, just giving attention to selfish people is not a good idea.

In order to minister correction and comfort to wrong people, I need to be corrected and in the comfort of God's beautifully pure and pleasant and kind love which is gentle and humble . . . all-loving. And if I live in this, this can spread to change miserable people into comforted ones; and we children of God need to help each other with this, so we can help selfish people out of their suffering. So, our attention needs to be to each other, not only to feeling bad about wrong people whose character makes them weak enough to deeply suffer in anti-love, cruel stuff. We need our own correction!

And Jesus who loves us enough so He so suffered and died for us did not only spend all His time feeling bad about evil people. But Jesus spent time in prayer . . . I understand . . . with His attention to our Father and enjoying and appreciating our Father. We need prayer in which are attention is to God . . . including so we know how God is, plus we are encouraged, plus we have hope for how God is able to also bless wrong people to become in His love. Or, we can't help people in their misery of sin, only by giving them attention and feeling miserable about them.

So, I am loving wrong people, by giving my attention to God and trusting how He alone is able to change any of us from selfish character into love's character with its beauty and sweetness and pureness and pleasant rest which is so kind to us, emotionally and spiritually. We need to be in this so this can spread to selfish people; or else I am not loving them, by staying in their selfish bad feeling stuff along with them!!
 
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PuerAzaelis

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for he does not willingly afflict or grieve anyone.
Lamentations 3:33

As Francis Schaeffer said, the doctrine of hell must be taught "with tears." To believe in "the eternal lostness of the lost without tears would be a cold and dead orthodoxy, indeed."
 
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As I have said, I do not know what God will have me doing, in relation to ones in hell. But I trust Him, that He will have us doing what is right . . . including guiding where our attention needs to be.

I will be loving, by trusting God to do what He knows is right, with them.

And, like I have offered, now is the time to do what can help people who are in the destruction and misery of their selfishness-infected nature. Theorizing about what I will do in Heaven will not help me to help selfish people, now.

And I need to pay attention to what God knows is good, in order to help evil people. Just paying attention to them and suffering about them is not going to help them. I need to give attention to God, first, so I am doing what He knows can help. And this includes becoming how He is able to correct me to become, so I can be His example to spread how Jesus is, to wrong people.

So, just giving attention to selfish people is not a good idea.

In order to minister correction and comfort to wrong people, I need to be corrected and in the comfort of God's beautifully pure and pleasant and kind love which is gentle and humble . . . all-loving. And if I live in this, this can spread to change miserable people into comforted ones; and we children of God need to help each other with this, so we can help selfish people out of their suffering. So, our attention needs to be to each other, not only to feeling bad about wrong people whose character makes them weak enough to deeply suffer in anti-love, cruel stuff. We need our own correction!

And Jesus who loves us enough so He so suffered and died for us did not only spend all His time feeling bad about evil people. But Jesus spent time in prayer . . . I understand . . . with His attention to our Father and enjoying and appreciating our Father. We need prayer in which are attention is to God . . . including so we know how God is, plus we are encouraged, plus we have hope for how God is able to also bless wrong people to become in His love. Or, we can't help people in their misery of sin, only by giving them attention and feeling miserable about them.

So, I am loving wrong people, by giving my attention to God and trusting how He alone is able to change any of us from selfish character into love's character with its beauty and sweetness and pureness and pleasant rest which is so kind to us, emotionally and spiritually. We need to be in this so this can spread to selfish people; or else I am not loving them, by staying in their selfish bad feeling stuff along with them!!
See? You have no answer. All you can do is talk about how it's good to care for people now, in this life. But that's just avoiding the issue.

I can ask again, and can keep on asking until I get an answer: will you feel bad about people in hell when you are in heaven? If not, how can you call yourself a loving person? If yes, how can heaven be perfect?
 
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Paulomycin

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But that's just avoiding the issue.

I can ask again, and can keep on asking until I get an answer: will you feel bad about people in hell when you are in heaven? If not, how can you call yourself a loving person? If yes, how can heaven be perfect?

Oh, is that how this works? I can ask again, and can keep on asking until I get an answer? Awesome! :grinning:

So what's the problem? Did you finish the video? You assuming Gerstner's hypothetical mother somehow doesn't deserve it? That mother is somehow entitled to something more than God's perfect justice on account that she's somebody's mother? That appeal to emotion is somehow not fallacious?

Nobody goes to Heaven on merit, or entitlement. The bottom line is that God doesn't owe anyone anything. Ever. The moment we look at people in Hell and conclude they're not being treated fairly, is an indication that we don't understand the gospel.

Sproul's main point starts up again @34:14. Can you endure 10 more minutes?
 
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TedT

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The bottom line is that God doesn't owe anyone anything. Ever.
Well, if HE promised something to someone like, say , election to heaven to be HIS Bride, then HE owes them the fulfillment of that promise, right?
 
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Paulomycin

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Well, if HE promised something to someone like, say , election to heaven to be HIS Bride, then HE owes them the fulfillment of that promise, right?

The promise isn't based on entitlement, but rather mercy and grace (un-merited favor). Meaning that it's not owed.
 
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Paulomycin

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It's a metaphor. That's all.

Are you saying that "sin" itself is a metaphor, or rather, the "slavery" to sin is a metaphor? Both? Well then, does Jesus even mean what He's saying?

I think you should at the very least concede that this character in the gospel narrative sincerely believed in something called "sin," as well as some-sort of slavery to it.

And if there was some sort-of grand conspiracy theory to stitch together a ton of unverifiable accounts into a coherent "Jesus narrative" to fool the masses, then what on earth did "they" intend to do with it? One certainly can't "gin up" an effective religion if the gospel itself is nothing more than mere metaphor. There have to be at least some literal claims to be made.
 
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Paulomycin

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In either case, heaven is a horrible place.

You mean after God has conformed someone to His image through complete sanctification?

They would literally see God's Glory as God Himself sees it. They would see complete Justice and Mercy. Both of which are never contradictory. <-- :fish: This is excellent bait.
 
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com7fy8

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will you feel bad about people in hell when you are in heaven?
short answer >

As I have said, I plan to simply trust God to have me do what He wants . . . to guide my attention. I already said I do not know, plus I might add that what God does with me is often so better than what I might have predicted I would do.

And a long answer, for context so I am clear about where I am coming from, and what I mean >

Even if I myself to not pay attention to people in hell, God will and He will do what is right with them. Plus, if He wants anyone to give them attention, what the do will be enough. We do things as a family; not all do the same things.

Right now, also . . . there are times when we attend to hard and bad things which are not encouraging, but also we attend to things enjoyable and to good news things. But whatever we deal with, we have God encouraging us to do what He wants . . . even in dealing with trouble things. We do better while we are encouraged > I mean, while we are handling trouble and even tragic things, we can think better and function better while encouraged, versus being depressed and shut down with discouragement.

So, it is not wise to try to do what is good while we are miserable. Staying miserable about children of hell is not going to make us able to do what is best.

David got into a major tragedy. But what worked was he got encouraged with God, first, so then he could do what God knew would work, and it did.

And . . . again . . . what works about people in hell is we do what we can now . . . so they don't go there!
 
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Oh, is that how this works? I can ask again, and can keep on asking until I get an answer? Awesome! :grinning:
Okay, if you like.
So what's the problem? Did you finish the video? You assuming Gerstner's hypothetical mother somehow doesn't deserve it? That mother is somehow entitled to something more than God's perfect justice on account that she's somebody's mother? That appeal to emotion is somehow not fallacious?
no, I haven't watched the video. I should explain something: I live in China. That means I can't see youtube.
Nobody goes to Heaven on merit, or entitlement. The bottom line is that God doesn't owe anyone anything. Ever. The moment we look at people in Hell and conclude they're not being treated fairly, is an indication that we don't understand the gospel.
So your answer to the question is that if you were in heaven, and you thought of loved ones in hell, you would not feel bad in any way because they deserved it?
Sproul's main point starts up again @34:14. Can you endure 10 more minutes?
Perhaps you'd like to explain his argument yourself?
 
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Are you saying that "sin" itself is a metaphor, or rather, the "slavery" to sin is a metaphor? Both? Well then, does Jesus even mean what He's saying?
The slavery to sin is a metaphor. It does a good job of explaining how people can get their lives messed up, and find it hard to be or to do good. But to take it literally and say that sinners have no free will is just silly.

And if there was some sort-of grand conspiracy theory to stitch together a ton of unverifiable accounts into a coherent "Jesus narrative" to fool the masses, then what on earth did "they" intend to do with it? One certainly can't "gin up" an effective religion if the gospel itself is nothing more than mere metaphor. There have to be at least some literal claims to be made.
I think you're overthinking this too much. None of what you say makes sense.
But that's the problem Christian apologists face. They're forced to defend an illogical claim, and so they have to use unreasonable arguments. All the atheist has to do is point out their flaws.
 
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You mean after God has conformed someone to His image through complete sanctification?

They would literally see God's Glory as God Himself sees it. They would see complete Justice and Mercy. Both of which are never contradictory. <-- :fish: This is excellent bait.
You're still faced with a dilemma, that you don't seem able to solve (that's two so far, including Euthyphro's).
What does a Christian do if s/he has to face the fact that loved ones are in hell?
Either feel bad for them - and how can heaven be heavenly if you feel bad when you're there? - or not care about them in the slightest (in which case, how can they claim to be a loving person?)
Either way, heaven isn't heavenly.
 
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As I have said, I plan to simply trust God to have me do what He wants . . . to guide my attention.
Okay, then. I'm afraid this means you've conceded the argument. Confronted with a logical dilemma, you admit that you have no answer.
 
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com7fy8

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So your answer to the question is that if you were in heaven, and you thought of loved ones in hell, you would not feel bad in any way because they deserved it?
First, if anyone is in hell, they are not truly loving anyone, and never did. Their character has been about themselves, not about loving any and all people the way Jesus wants >

"if you love those who love you, what reward have you?" (in Matthew 5:46)

So, they do not and will not have the character which makes them able to benefit from being in Heaven. Because of their character >

"Destruction and misery are in their ways;
.And the way of peace they have not known."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . (Romans 3:16-17)

Because of their character, they can not love and submit to God in His peace (Colossians 3:15), can not love as His family (Ephesians 4:31-32), and ones of this character became able to curse their own children with the shed blood of Christ > Matthew 27:25. So, they are merciless, by character, no matter how many humanitarian gestures they decorate themselves with. So, in case any are my "loved ones", they are not nice people, to say the least.

Plus, the character of sin makes a person deeply sick and weak so he or she can suffer the deep misery of sin, including how worry is so abusive and lies in very cruel ways about what will and will not and could and could not happen. I remember how I was; it was horrible. And in my selfish nature I was only or mainly concerned about myself.

So, I mean misery in which a person is mainly concerned about one's own self. And ones can tend to seek pleasures and excitements, in order to keep themselves from feeling the horribleness of their own selfish character. But as they keep desperately seeking nice feelings, they are exercising their deep weakness so they get "worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived" (in 2 Timothy 3:13).

And later in hell, that deep weakness will still be there > after there will be no more physical creation which they can use to try to feel pleasure. They will have nothing but their own selves, how they have become . . . weak so they can suffer torment.

So, we are doing what we can, now, to reach people so they join with Jesus and have His strength so we not only avoid the horribleness of Satanic cruel stuff in us, but also we share with God as His family.

Loved ones will not be in hell unless God knows they have Satan's character. Of course, then, they will not be evaluated by how charming they might have acted in this world, so we could fall in love with them and use them for pleasures; their real character is developing and will come out.

But if they refuse, they will get pickled in a permanent state. And if they were to be able to cry out from hell and beg us to save them . . . it will be coming from their character which had Satan considering Heaven to be horrible so he tried to destroy how Heaven is. Now is their time, then, to change and desire genuine salvation, not merely to use trickery to try to feel nicer while staying deeply weak.

So, how Satan would have Heaven would be horrible, and how they would relate with Heaven would be horrible; their horrible character is their dictator of how they can see and feel about things. And Jesus of Heaven has already come to minister for people to escape that, plus to share with God as His family, instead.
 
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