~ Is There a Hell? ~

Weakening or denial of hell is problem within Christianity in general. In some ways though, it's a long-standing problem. In City Of God, Augustine notes,

Then what a fond fancy is it to suppose that eternal punishment means long continued punishment, while eternal life means life without end, since Christ in the very same passage spoke of both in similar terms in one and the same sentence, "These shall go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into life eternal!" Matthew 25:46 If both destinies are "eternal," then we must either understand both as long-continued but at last terminating, or both as endless. For they are correlative—on the one hand, punishment eternal, on the other hand, life eternal. And to say in one and the same sense, life eternal shall be endless, punishment eternal shall come to an end, is the height of absurdity. Wherefore, as the eternal life of the saints shall be endless, so too the eternal punishment of those who are doomed to it shall have no end.

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CoolDude68 said:

If Hell wasn't real, then what would be the point of anything we do on earth? God is the ultimate judge and his justice is fair and final. If there was no Hell, I could go out and murder, lie, steal, be the worst human being on the planet and my actions would never be accountable? I don't buy that, sorry. How could God allow any of those types of people in Heaven? He couldn't, period. So, where do these souls go? After all, a soul never dies so where do souls that never enter His kingdom go if there's not a Hell?

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Good point, and this is precisely why there is one. Many whine about it as if God is unjust, yet they won't complain if the mass murderer who lives next door gets thrown in prison. Of course, it's all about being "humane" and all, only the really scary part is that they get handed over to the most evil "jailor" in all of creation. But not without warning, and his day is coming as well.

But yes, it was intended to be a deterrent, and yet many still insist on taking the teeth out of it, as if they think they are doing God a favor.

Have fun with this thread. Something tells me it won't be pretty, cuz Satan HATES when anyone discusses this subject. He would just prefer if everyone ignored the matter until they got there.

HereIStand said:

Weakening or denial of hell is problem within Christianity in general. In some ways though, it's a long-standing problem. In City Of God, Augustine notes, "Then what a fond fancy is it to suppose that eternal punishment means long continued punishment, while eternal life means life without end, since Christ in the very same passage spoke of both in similar terms in one and the same sentence, "These shall go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into life eternal!" Matthew 25:46 If both destinies are "eternal," then we must either understand both as long-continued but at last terminating, or both as endless. For they are correlative—on the one hand, punishment eternal, on the other hand, life eternal. And to say in one and the same sense, life eternal shall be endless, punishment eternal shall come to an end, is the height of absurdity. Wherefore, as the eternal life of the saints shall be endless, so too the eternal punishment of those who are doomed to it shall have no end."

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Excellent quote. Haven't always been the biggest fan of Augustine, but that particular quote I really like.

Hidden In Him said:

Excellent quote. Haven't always been the biggest fan of Augustine, but that particular quote I really like.

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Thanks. I listened to a City of God audio book. I've only read portions of it. The quote also appears in Robert Peterson's book Hell on Trial: The Case for Eternal Punishment, which I've read some of.

I believe in Dualistic Conditional Immortality.

This is the view that hell is a real and literal place, but the Lake of Fire is a place where the wicked will be destroyed or erased from existence (after a possible amount of time of punishment for their sins there). I also believe that hell is not a torture chamber, either. The richman was not screaming in pain by the fire. In real life if you tried to talk to somebody engulfed in fire, they would be screaming too much in pain to carry on a normal conversation with you. So either the fire is not all that painful like real fire in hell or the richman was tormented by the HEAT of the flame nearby him. I also believe God is into fair justice (See Luke 12:47-48). So the idea that God will roast alive people like a steak for all eternity is not consistent with fair justice and or a loving and good God. Nobody has a time machine so as to sin against God for all eternity and nobody is tortured horribly for the rest of their life for sinning against a major leader (with us thinking that is fair judgment). Also, I believe the wicked in hell will go through long periods of sleep and they are awakened at certain points in time, or special events like when Jesus was in heart of the Earth and he talked with the wicked who perished in the global flood, or like when the richman talked with Abraham.

Anyways, you can learn more about this at the following thread (I created a while back):

The Dualistic Conditional Immortality View of Hell


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HereIStand said:

Weakening or denial of hell is problem within Christianity in general. In some ways though, it's a long-standing problem. In City Of God, Augustine notes,

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Did Augustine take into account that maybe the Bible was corrupted and Jesus never said those things?

Lucian Hodoboc said:

Did Augustine take into account that maybe the Bible was corrupted and Jesus never said those things?

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No way, my friend.
There are too many evidences that back up God's Word in that it is divine.
Check out this thread here (that I created):

https://www.christianforums.com/threads/general-list-of-biblical-evidences.7833944/



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Lucian Hodoboc said:

Did Augustine take into account that maybe the Bible was corrupted and Jesus never said those things?

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Not to my knowledge.

Jason0047 said:

No way, my friend.
There are too many evidences that back up God's Word in that it is divine.
Check out this thread here (that I created):

https://www.christianforums.com/threads/general-list-of-biblical-evidences.7833944/



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What does being divine have to do with the possibility of having been corrupted?

CoolDude68 said:

Where in the Bible would anything be that contradicts the mention of Hell? This is what I need to see. If there were, then the Bible would not be consistent and meaningless.

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1 Timothy 4:10

Colossians 1:17-20

Lamentations 3:31-33

1 Corinthians 15:28

"God will be all in all"... If there are people burning in Hell, then God won't be in them, therefore God won't be in all.