Challenge to those who believe in Eternal Hell

[he-man]

First, the fact that you see no one finding an 'exit door' from the lake of fire does not mean there is not one. Second, in my universalism I make no claim that anyone finds an exit door from the lake of fire. ) And when even unbelievers are brought to a state of perfection (a wholly true soul), hell disappears. As the stain of sin is burned away from human spirit, the pain recedes, the torment wanes. As spiritual death is consumed and replaced by new life, the Scriptures are reconciled:
When finished, the unbeliever is also restored to the purity of life and walks in the furnace unscathed, death and hell gone and the smoke of their former torment gone up forever and ever, never to return.

Death is the result of sin, which is wilful neglect or disobedience of God's commandments and without remorse.
Unbelievers are not brought to a state of purity, they are left in the state of death, annhiliation, without being able to stand face to face with God.

That clarifies what the Lake of Fire means and why there is no punishment in hell, only annihiliation, death for those who that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:
2Th 1:6 Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you;

7 And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels,

8 In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:

9 Who shall pay a penalty of everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;

10 When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.

Revising your version to the truth:1) The lake of fire is God Himself. Representationally, it is God's purifying Fire: His holy furnace. But this is only half the tale; the definition of hell is the other half.
2) Hell, generally speaking, is the word used to describe:
a) the annihilation of any person or iota of falsity, that opposes God's purity, Thus, there is no 'exit door' from the lake of fire, as testified to by God: What is destroyed in the hell of the lake of fire is death and sin, and the false accusers and preachers who stained the human spirit with their false self righteous teachings.

Act 3:14 But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you;

15 And killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses.


Act 3:23 And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people.


Luk 20:15So they cast him out of the vineyard, and killedhim.What therefore shall the lord of the vineyard do unto them?

16He shall come and destroy these husbandmen, and shall give the vineyard to others. And when they heard it, they said, God forbid.

Mat 13:38 The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked;


39The enemy that sowed them is the false accuser; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.


Mat 13:28 He said unto them, A man, an enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?


29But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.


30 Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers [v. 39], Gather ye together first the tares [weeds], and bind them in bundles to burn them up: but gather the wheat into my repository


Let the false Preachers, Priests, Churches grow with them together until the harvest, the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels, to burn them up: that is, consume wholly


Do you really think God is going to let someone get away with destroying peope with false teachings ?


Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broadisthe way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of briars?
Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
Mat 7:13-21

 

[Bernie02]

Greetings heman,

Do you really think God is going to let someone get away with destroying peope with false teachings ?

Sure. What did He say of those with whom He contended, then allowed them to conspire to murder Him?

"Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do."

Plus, the organized church teaches the false doctrines of eternal hell or eternal annihilation, yet they will also be saved. If you will step down off your wrath and destruction soapbox, take a deep breath and look at the OP, you will see that this thread is not dedicated to discussing the salvation of all--or to parroting the same tired eternal torment doctrine. If you have a well reasoned, thoughful insight by which to refute the logical problem in the OP, I'd be delighted to hear it.

By the way, the whole 'screaming in big text colors' thing doesn't really work. Perhaps you might try another way of calling attention to your posts--with robust, well thought out debate, maybe?

 

[Miracle Storm]

[I apologise, hadn't posted in a while and noticed this is a Christian only section.]
Post removed.

 

[gort]

1) Just to clarify again, I'm not saying we're saved because we practice some good, but we practice some good because we're saved.

4) The main reason your refutation fails is that your reasoning is circular. I establish in the OP a principle by which the traditional view of salvation fails logically. Doctrine is an interpretation established from both the literal meaning of the Scriptures and the principles which arise from it--yours, mine, tradition's and everyone else's. Your refutation fails because you try to refute a logical principle with established doctrine. This is circular and backwards. You are essentially saying, "Your logic fails because it does not harmonize with popular doctrine". One of my biggest frustrations with traditionalists is that they use doctrine as though it were truth itself. Doctrine is not identical to truth, it cannot be wholly true until all tensions within it have been resolved.

The point is, all interpretations should be subjected to tests of truth. A big part of the reason the OP was developed is to show that traditional salvation does not pass at least one very important truth test. This test is crucial because it immediately throws into doubt the veracity of the orthodox understanding of hell as a condition of eternal torment. Not only that, if correct, it leads automatically and logically to a domino effect which culminates in a resolution of the main tensions orthodox views of salvation present and are unable to resolve.

Doctrines are found in biblical scriptures and must therefore hold to an abslolute Truth. For me, there are no unresolved tensions but there are for you. The condition of man is either saved or unsaved, regenerate or unregenerate, sons of God or sons of satan. There cannot be an already occuring condition of saved for all and all being in a condition of salvation and going through sanctification and purification unless justification has been processed through the act of repentence.

It seems to me that to refute the proposition noted in the OP--that the notion of God destroying or assigning to eternal separation and/or punishment a human in which some good exists is discordant--you will have to show how the presented logic is itself faulty according to its own merits. Hence, the use of the distinction between imputed and literal righteousness (an orthodox, primarily Calvinist, doctrine) does nothing to contradict the logic of the OP. In using it you are only really stating "God can do what He wants because He chooses to whom He imputes righteousness and to whom He chooses not to impute righteousness and this choice alone determines who is saved and who is not." The Op was presented in large part to show the futility of this very doctrine, and further, that God anticipated its value in debunking the notion of eternal hell by hiding its refutation in esoteric (hidden) form--in plain sight, near the beginning of the Bible.

If the problem of sin and repentence of such cannot be allowed, then your logic in the OP cannot be refuted.

This went over my head when I read it, but find it important to respond now that I caught it. I think you have tried to understand my broader point of view, and I applaud your efforts, Gort. But I think you miss enough of the details to not put the pieces together.
First, the fact that you see no one finding an 'exit door' from the lake of fire does not mean there is not one. It only means that you have not found one. The most weight this observation can carry is to say the Scriptures are silent on the matter in your understanding. Silence has no power to prove or disprove...it only has the power to say that the Bible says nothing on a particular issue or idea.

This is a logical fallacy.

Second, in my universalism I make no claim that anyone finds an exit door from the lake of fire. Tradition fails, imho, to understand what hell and the lake of fire really are because they do not see the metaphors God paints and harmonizes in both Testaments on this subject.

Most universalists do postulate an eventual exit door.

1) The lake of fire is God Himself. Representationally, it is God's pure Truth: His holy essence. But this is only half the tale; the definition of hell is the other half.
2) Hell, generally speaking, is the word used to describe:
a) the annihilation of any iota of falsity, that opposite property of God's purity, and,
b) the tension and resistance raised in the human mind by "a".
Thus, there is no 'exit door' from the lake of fire, as testified to by God: "'Now the end is upon you, and I shall send My anger against you; I shall judge you according to your ways, and I shall bring all your abominations upon you. For My eye will have no pity on you, nor shall I spare you, but I shall bring your ways upon you, and your abominations will be among you; then you will know that I am the LORD!’" (Ezek 7:3-4) What is destroyed in the hell of the lake of fire is the fragmental falsity which stains human spirit. Once these 'tares', 'goats', etc. are destroyed, hell disappears from the perception of the one who was previously writhing in fiery torment. The "hell" of tension and resistance (torment) is raised in the apprehension of the one not dressed in the wedding robes of faith as his purification is performed without mercy: "Therefore thus says the LORD, 'Behold I am bringing disaster on them which they will not be able to escape; though they will cry to Me, yet I will not listen to them.'" (Jer 11:11)
No exit door. All must pass through the furnace of God's holiness (Heb 9:27). Those of faith will walk into the presence of God (lake of fire) like Daniel's friends in Nebuchadnezzar's furnace (Dan 3). And when even unbelievers are brought to a state of perfection (a wholly true soul), hell disappears. As the stain of sin is burned away from human spirit, the pain recedes, the torment wanes. As spiritual death is consumed and replaced by new life, the Scriptures are reconciled: "And death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire." (Rev 20:14), and, "But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." (Rev 21:8) Hell disappears as falsity is consumed and the soul is made one (existing in a true state) with God. This comes first in the special salvation (1Tim 4:10) of faith in time (Jn 17:17-23), with Jesus' promise for all (Jn 12:32) being fulfilled without mercy in the lake of fire judgment (1Cor 3:11-15). This view resolves the tensions traditional salvation raises.
Death is a product of the false, that which corrupts the truth. All goods proceed from the highest value, the true, with life itself a primary good. Thus, death (which is replaced with life as falsity is destroyed) is destroyed in the lake of fire, along with hell (the mind's apprehension of falsity's destruction). When finished, the unbeliever is also restored to the purity of life and walks in the furnace unscathed, death and hell gone and the smoke of their former torment gone up forever and ever, never to return.

You've made no mention at all of the cleansing blood of Christ Jesus which washes away all sin. It is not the lake of fire which does away with sin.

Can you see you've made another way of salvation?

 

[Bernie02]

Hey Gort,

Thanks for responding.

Doctrines are found in biblical scriptures and must therefore hold to an abslolute Truth.

Doctrines are an interpretation of the meaning of Scripture. We can agree that God is absolute truth, and that the Bible is absolutely true, and even that doctrines are formulated as an attempt to draw as coherent a picture of absolute truth from God's word as possible--but surely you don't take the position that your doctrine is identical to absolute truth?

For me, there are no unresolved tensions but there are for you.

Then either you cannot see the tensions or, placing absolute faith in your doctrines, refuse to see them. You have properly admitted that all good comes from God, then shove aside the fact that even though both justified and unjustified (using your version of doctrine) can be seen to possess some internal good, yet some are punished eternally and others not. This is a tension resolved in the op which I pointed out recently, yet which you do not address except to say that your interpretation of the Bible (doctrine) simply dismisses the tension. This is intellectually dishonest, Gort. Think about it.

The condition of man is either saved or unsaved, regenerate or unregenerate, sons of God or sons of satan.

Don't parrot doctrine at me. Prove it.

I take the position that all are elected and justified in eternity, and all are fragmentally and partially regenerate in time. God said: "For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." (Isa 55:10-11) Jesus said, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself." (Jn 12:32)
Tension in orthodox doctrine: Jesus said He will draw all, the Father says He will do all His good pleasure. Orthodoxy denies this, which places tension in the equation. Paul said that God, "...will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth." (1Tim 2:4) Gort says no tension exists. Huh?

More tension: Paul makes a careful distinction of some saved, some not in Rom 11 (vv. 17-23), yet says in virtually the same breath that all Israel will be saved (vv. 25-28). How can this be so? Orthodox soteriology fails completely to resolve this tension--your doctrine, in which you place such faith, says that some will be saved and some not in eternity. A tension is raised in Rom 11, how do you solve it? Yet Paul, in agreement with Jn 12:32 says not only will ALL ISRAEL be saved, but literally ALL will be saved (vv. 30-32), which agrees with John's understanding (Jn 1:9) that all are illuminated (regenerated) by Christ, logically as a sign of God's election and justification of the same all--a sign which is irrevocable, providing at minimum, even if a human rejects Him, because that smoldering wick exists and is made possible by the possession of some portion of inner good which cannot sin or die (1Jn 3:9). It is impossible for God to destroy one in which His own seed exists without violating His own perfection.

There cannot be an already occuring condition of saved for all and all being in a condition of salvation and going through sanctification and purification unless justification has been processed through the act of repentence.

Says who? Again with the doctrine! Show me that this opinion holds up logically. I've already shown you how the rationally esoteric view of the salvation of all resolves these tensions...God elects and justfies all IN ETERNITY, partially regenerates all IN TIME, allows whomever believes and chooses to conform (based on the moral ability provided by that regeneration) participate in their sanctification IN TIME. All are at least smoldering wicks, signifying that God's sovereign decree IN ETERNITY will stand, as those who enter His presence at the point of physical death do so either with the imputed righteousness of Christ by virtue of their sanctification to faith IN TIME, or be drawn through their own destruction to Him in hell itself in that He acts as Intercessor, not to stop their destruction of hell in God's holy presence, but to restore that source of inner death which is being destroyed to a state of life as per Rom 11:26, "...as it is written, "THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM ZION, HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB. AND THIS IS MY COVENANT WITH THEM, WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS.". This is not only to all the Jews, but is logically necessary inclusive of all who reject Christ in time...Christ rejects no one, and will, as He stated, draw all.

Listen to His voice in the OT: "Thus says the LORD, "As the new wine is found in the cluster, And one says, ‘Do not destroy it, for there is benefit in it,’ So I will act on behalf of My servants In order not to destroy all of them. And I will bring forth offspring from Jacob, And an heir of My mountains from Judah; Even My chosen ones shall inherit it, And My servants shall dwell there." (Isa 65:8-9)
Who stands as intercessor for the human spirit fragmented with falsity but Christ our Lord? See, not all human spirit is destroyed, "for their is benefit [life] in it", (remember the smoldering wick of Isa 42?) from which "offspring" (new life) will be brought forth as the soul is 'remanufactured' to a true state.

God's eternal will is not shaken, as one of the greatest testimonies of God to His sovereignty in salvation is found in Isa 28:14-19, in which God does not ask politely if it's okay if he saves, but rolls up His sleeves and destroys that in the soul which prevents the individual from reaching out naturally to Him. He loves every human too much to let us separate ourselves from Him for eternity.

If the problem of sin and repentence of such cannot be allowed, then your logic in the OP cannot be refuted.

Don't be silly, what I present does not disallowed these at all. Like Paul, I make what I beleive to be careful and Biblical distinctions between the saved and unsaved in time, which includes the place for repentance...and I believe my view of sin can be supported quite well both Biblically and metaphysically.

This is a logical fallacy.

C'mon, Gort....opinion. Again. Don't tell that you believe something is a logical fallacy, show how it is. I don't think you can, as the notion that the absence of information has no power to refute an idea is simply common sense, it ain't, as they say, rocket surgery.

Most universalists do postulate an eventual exit door.

I agree with you here. I, however, being in possession of the most intricate and complete theology for the Biblical salvation of all, do not.

You've made no mention at all of the cleansing blood of Christ Jesus which washes away all sin. It is not the lake of fire which does away with sin.
Not true. I just hold a different view of the role of His atonement than you do. Generally, I hold that Jesus didn't die so some are saved--many or most of whom show no more (and in certain cases, less) moral aptitude than that of the others who are not saved--and get off scott free, which raises logical problems. I contend for the Biblical doctrine that He died so that the stain of falsity in all human spirit will not merely be destroyed, as is right and good, but that in that destruction, He brings forth new life (Jn 12:24).

Can you see you've made another way of salvation?

No. I see what the Lord took three years out of my life ('91-'93) and turned me aside to see, not only that He would save all, but how.