Is it actually possible to choose Hell? Do we really deserve Hell?

truthseeker32 · Jun 4, 2013

I know I have brought this topic up several times, but I need to talk it out, as I still cannot understand how anyone can believe in anything but eventual universal reconciliation; that or a cruel God.

Based only what I know of the human condition, human beings only make bad choices when they are ignorant of the consequences or compelled to make the choice.

For example, imagine there is a $100 bill on a table, and a sign that says "feel free to take this $100 bill." Now imagine upon going to take it a booby trap is activated which traps the individual in an eternal state of torment. Do you think it serves him right, or do you think that the torment is unfair, given that he did not know the consequences?

Now imagine a similar scenario where there is a $100 bill on a table that says "Do not take this money or that trap under your feet will confine you to eternal torment." You can see the torment below, and you can see the trap. Would a human being freely choose to still activate this trap, or would his choice to activate the trap be a sign of mental illness, mental retardation, or some other impediment.

When an individual comes face to face with God, can he freely choose to reject God, or would his choice to reject God be due to some impediment that God ought to heal so the individual can choose God?

I can't speak for anyone else here, but if I knew there was a God, and a risk of eternal torment if I didn't live a certain way, then I would do everything in my power to conform to God's will. In my experience, my bad choices are due to my doubting that there is a God.

Memento Mori · Jun 4, 2013

Hey truthseeker, I will leave better people to answer your scenarios, especially since you are looking for the Orthodox perspective, but I'm wondering if you've read The Great Divorce. Though I don't think it would settle anything definitively for you, Lewis did muse about how people could choose hell, and his insights are worth checking out. (I hope Rusmeister approves when he sees this.

)

truthseeker32 · Jun 4, 2013

Jared R said:
Hey truthseeker, I will leave better people to answer your scenarios, especially since you are looking for the Orthodox perspective, but I'm wondering if you've read The Great Divorce. Though I don't think it would settle anything definitively for you, Lewis did muse about how people could choose hell, and his insights are worth checking out. (I hope Rusmeister approves when he sees this. )

I've read the book several times. A good read. That being said, I have a pretty serious problem with it:

Those people in Lewis' Hell, what mental state are they in? Are they actually freely choosing Hell, or are they in some way prevented from making a free decision, and if so why doesn't God remove these impediments so they can make a free decision for or against God? I don't think it is possible to freely choose against God. If someone chooses to rebel against God, they aren't free. Something is wrong with them.

inconsequential · Jun 4, 2013

You underestimate the power of hate and stubbornness.

InnerPhyre · Jun 4, 2013

Think of all the angsty teenagers in the world who hate the parents that love them. It doesn't matter to them that their parents adore them and want only the best for them. It only matters that the parents are telling them they can't do whatever they please. This is a small picture of a larger reality that exists within humanity.

Now imagine your best friend invites you to a party and when you show up, you find out he invited several people that you absolutely hate, so you storm off and everyone else enjoys the party while you sulk.

Disobedience, pride, and hatred run deep within the human heart. Someone with a clear mind would not objectively look at eternal love and happiness vs. eternal anguish and hatred and choose the latter, but the variables that can exist in the human experience make things a bit more cloudy.

St. Gregory of Nyssa (who actually did believe that everyone would eventually be saved) says that those with carnal and self-centered minds will die and suddenly all the things they thought were good will no longer exist, and faced with a good, loving, humble God, they will be in agony, still seeking after the things they have lost and not understanding the good they could be receiving. There will be no one there to exalt them and stroke their ego. They will see the poor and the downtrodden going into the kingdom before them and be in agony fueled by their pride and self-love. They won't have an outlet for their lusts that still consume them. They will have no more material property to acquire. What will it matter that this Divine Being is showering them with love? They don't want love.

Now read this.

River of Fire

truthseeker32 · Jun 4, 2013

inconsequential said:
You underestimate the power of hate and stubbornness.

If a person is in a state where hate and stubbornness are so overpowering that they choose to reject God are they making a free decision, or has the hate taken over?

truthseeker32 · Jun 4, 2013

InnerPhyre said:
Think of all the angsty teenagers in the world who hate the parents that love them. It doesn't matter to them that their parents adore them and want only the best for them. It only matters that the parents are telling them they can't do whatever they please. This is a small picture of a larger reality that exists within humanity.

Are the teenagers acting freely, or are they heavily influenced by immaturity, hormones, and a lack of understanding about how much their parents actually sacrifice for them?

Now imagine your best friend invites you to a party and when you show up, you find out he invited several people that you absolutely hate, so you storm off and everyone else enjoys the party while you sulk.

Why do I hate them? Do I have good reason? Would it be more or less enjoyable for me to stay?

Disobedience, pride, and hatred run deep within the human heart. Someone with a clear mind would not objectively look at eternal love and happiness vs. eternal anguish and hatred and choose the latter, but the variables that can exist in the human experience make things a bit more cloudy.

Exactly, and why should our eternal fate be based on a decision made in a hazy state? When a person gets conned because they couldn't fully understand what they were getting into, we fault the con man, not the person being conned.

Now read this.

River of Fire

I've read it, several times in fact. I guess one more time wouldn't hurt.

Memento Mori · Jun 4, 2013

truthseeker32 said:
I've read the book several times. A good read. That being said, I have a pretty serious problem with it:

Those people in Lewis' Hell, what mental state are they in? Are they actually freely choosing Hell, or are they in some way prevented from making a free decision, and if so why doesn't God remove these impediments so they can make a free decision for or against God? I don't think it is possible to freely choose against God. If someone chooses to rebel against God, they aren't free. Something is wrong with them.

I understand your thoughts because I've had the same. I still don't understand well enough to address the doubts themselves, but I've seen enough that persuades me the Christian picture can be true.

People are not always free in what they do, but they are either more or less free as a result of their own choices. In The Great Divorce, remember how MacDonald explains to Lewis that it's a woman who grumbles at first, but if she just keeps grumbling, she'll become less a woman and more a grumbler, until eventually the grumbling is all that's left.

truthseeker32 · Jun 4, 2013

Jared R said:
In The Great Divorce, remember how MacDonald explains to Lewis that it's a woman who grumbles at first, but if she just keeps grumbling, she'll become less a woman and more a grumbler, until eventually the grumbling is all that's left.

I do indeed. This is a complex issue. Why is the woman grumbling? If as Christians we believe that the good things we do are not to our credit, but the grace of God, why doesn't God give the woman the grace to stop grumbling? Someone may say that would be compromising the woman's freedom, but why is she grumbling in the first place? Maybe her lot in life has been so tragic that her view of the world is pessimistic. Perhaps evil stripped her of her freedom long ago.

inconsequential · Jun 4, 2013

So free will really only exists in an unfallen human? We aren't responsible for our actions because we are influenced by a corrupt system? Or do we not have free will because we are influenced by a corrupt system?

inconsequential · Jun 4, 2013

God knows our hearts, our situations, our influences, etc and He is merciful. Being a righteous Judge, I'm sure He will take these things into consideration.

truthseeker32 · Jun 4, 2013

inconsequential said:
So free will really only exists in an unfallen human? We aren't responsible for our actions because we are influenced by a corrupt system? Or do we not have free will because we are influenced by a corrupt system?

I guess we should define free will. I don't believe in libertarian free will. I believe our choices are always influenced by other factors. For example, whether or not we choose to have a cigarette will be based on a number of factors. If I want a cigarette, what reasons do I have for smoking? What reasons do I have for not smoking? If I have no desire or urge for a cigarette I likely won't even think to smoke in the first place. We don't operate in a vacuum.

I see free will as the ability to choose what is good, and thus things that get in the way of us choosing the good are impediments to our freedom. The free will to choose bad things is like saying the freedom to become a slave. When you make the choice you simultaneously sacrifice some degree of freedom.

truthseeker32 · Jun 4, 2013

inconsequential said:
God knows our hearts, our situations, our influences, etc and He is merciful. Being a righteous Judge, I'm sure He will take these things into consideration.

If you are willing, I would like you to paint a picture of a hypothetical human being who suffers hell? Why is he or she there?

Memento Mori · Jun 4, 2013

truthseeker32 said:
I do indeed. This is a complex issue. Why is the woman grumbling? If as Christians we believe that the good things we do are not to our credit, but the grace of God, why doesn't God give the woman the grace to stop grumbling? Someone may say that would be compromising the woman's freedom, but why is she grumbling in the first place? Maybe her lot in life has been so tragic that her view of the world is pessimistic. Perhaps evil stripped her of her freedom long ago.

I am not familiar with Orthodox views of grace and don't want to ruffle any feathers. I will just say that a meritorious action may not be "to our credit," because the initiative is God's, but that doesn't mean it isn't freely undertaken. There was more to my response, but it wasn't coming together very well, so I'll leave it there for now since it's bedtime anyway. :wave:

inconsequential · Jun 5, 2013

truthseeker32 said:
If you are willing, I would like you to paint a picture of a hypothetical human being who suffers hell? Why is he or she there?

Our definitions of free will differ so it would be like trying to speak French in Swahili.

But I have to admit I do like the concept of an insanity defense on judgement day.

astein · Jun 5, 2013

STUDY TO SHOW THYSELF APPROVED!

2 Peter 2:15 Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;

rusmeister · Jun 5, 2013

truthseeker32 said:
If a person is in a state where hate and stubbornness are so overpowering that they choose to reject God are they making a free decision, or has the hate taken over?

They are making a free decision. We have will, but we choose the hate, because we want the sweet "payback" that hate gives us. We may not WANT there to be negative consequences on us for the, but that is silly in regard to ANY choice in the real world.

We have a lifetime, however much time that may be, and between that, and whatever other grace God can extend to us, I think we all have ample opportunity to decide whether we will choose hate and self-will over love and self-sacrifice, whether we can strive to love God and keep His commandments, or hate them and desire only our own will, which general direction we WILL to orient ourselves towards.

And what Jared, IP and others have said is valid, too.

MKJ · Jun 5, 2013

Here is a question - do you doubt that Satan has really, freely, rejected God.

I tend to think he has, that such a thing is possible, and so I tend to think humans can do so as well.

I do think that because of the Fall, in many cases our seeming rejection may be less clear than one might think, that are motives and weaknesses are mixed up even to ourselves, and ignorance plays a part as well. Even the very human tendency to put less wight on things that are in the future.

That is the sort of thing I think we can leave to God the sort of thing I think we will be given the opportunity to make good if we want to. I think that is what Lewis might have been getting at when he talked about the woman who became a grumble. To the extent that she looked to hold on to her humanity, even if she failed in the execution, there would be something there to make a free decision.

For me, this is really where faith and hope are essential to the Christian worldview, where there is no way we can know ratoinally that we or others will be ok. We have to trust in Gods love and justice to sort us out.

Monica child of God 1 · Jun 5, 2013

truthseeker32 said:
If you are willing, I would like you to paint a picture of a hypothetical human being who suffers hell? Why is he or she there?

Not sure if this will help, but in the parable of the Prodigal Son there are two pictures of hypothetical humans who choose Hell:

1) the prodigal son chooses to leave the presence of the Father (God) and demands his inheritance. Everything he wants (sex, wine, food, good times with friends) are good, holy things and the desire for these things is given to us by God's grace. However, in demanding his inheritance and leaving the house of the Father, the prodigal son wishes to enjoy these things outside of God's grace and ends up experiencing "hell." Instead of being in the house of the Father where there is grace upon grace in ever increasing measure, the son is in the position of having diminishing grace as he pursues his desires and turns away from God/the Father.

2) the faithful son refuses to enjoy the feast that the Father provides for the the prodigal. There is joy and rejoicing set before him and he will not allow himself to enter into that joy. The faithful son claims that the Father never did anything for him, to which the Father replies, "Everything I have is yours." Even being in the Father's presence, the faithful son could not see all that he posessed and could not partake of what the Father had given to him too. I mean, a party isn't just for the guest of honor. That fatted calf was for everyone to enjoy. So the choice not to enter into the feast, where the Father is, is "hell" as well.

All this occured to me during this past Lent.

M.

truefiction1 · Jun 5, 2013

truthseeker32 said:
I can't speak for anyone else here, but if I knew there was a God, and a risk of eternal torment if I didn't live a certain way, then I would do everything in my power to conform to God's will. In my experience, my bad choices are due to my doubting that there is a God.

Have you ever considered it possible that your doubting that there is a God (i.e. lack of faith) is caused by or due to a love for, or dependence upon the bad choices?

Ever contemplate the meaning of this?: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."
Or rather, they do see God (present tense).

But even the disciple Thomas had doubts. Lets face it, in our world if you're dead, then you're dead. People don't come back from death. Death is the accepted natural order of things and a resurrection unto life eternal flies in the face of this normality as absurd and unbelievable. So doubts are understandable. Thomas needed to see a sign in order to believe. So do many of us. I prayed for such a sign and God was merciful and allowed me that which I needed. I know that you won't be moved to faith on the basis of my testimony just as Thomas was not moved by the testimony of his companions regarding Christ's resurrection. We can only hope that if you need to see a miracle in order to be convinced that Jesus Christ is really the Son of God, that one will be shown to you.

There is hell. It is the state of not being able to see God for Who God really is. This would describe many of us I think.

Is it actually possible to choose Hell? Do we really deserve Hell?

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