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David Bentley Hart on Hell

Der Alte

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There is no indication in Luke that the rich man had ever heard of Jesus and Jesus said nothing about the rich man rejecting Him.
Jesus did say the rich man's brothers "[H]ave Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them . . .
if they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'"
There was a specific OT command that the rich man violated,

Leviticus 25:35
35 "'If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and are unable to support themselves among you, help them as you would a foreigner and stranger, so they can continue to live among you.
Deuteronomy 15:7
7 If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites in any of the towns of the land the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them.


 
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a-lily-of-peace

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What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him?

If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?

Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

(James 2:14-17, NKJV)
 
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a-lily-of-peace

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To clarify I don’t believe works save, I believe faith saves.

Faith is like oxygen and works are like carbon dioxide. If you inhale carbon dioxide you can’t breathe. But if you aren’t exhaling carbon dioxide there’s a pretty good chance you also aren’t inhaling oxygen.

So “faith without works is dead.”
 
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Servus

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You've presented what looks like a good case here. But I wonder if there are other things those ECF wrote, that Baptists don't agree with like perhaps the veneration of Mary and the Sacraments etc.
 
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Servus

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What do you think about the fact that both stories in Luke 16 start out exactly the same way?

Luke 16:1 "There was a certain rich man, which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods."

Luke 16:19 "There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day"​
 
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Der Alte

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You've presented what looks like a good case here. But I wonder if there are other things those ECF wrote, that Baptists don't agree with like perhaps the veneration of Mary and the Sacraments etc.
I have not read the ECF thoroughly but from what I have read, no. My Bible program ahs the ECF and it is very easy to do a word search.
 
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Servus

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I have not read the ECF thoroughly but from what I have read, no. My Bible program ahs the ECF and it is very easy to do a word search.

Ah that answers my unasked question of "where did he get those from?". I'm pretty sure David Bentley Hart has read the ECF thoroughly, and I know that Bradley Jersak who's a supporter of his book is an expert in Patristics. So I'll have to conclude there's a bigger picture than what's contained in those excerpts.
 
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Clare73

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There is no indication in Luke that the rich man had ever heard of Jesus and Jesus said nothing about the rich man rejecting Him.
Yeah. . .that's how parables work.
Jesus did say the rich man's brothers "[H]ave Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them . . .
if they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'"
Parables are vehicles for hidden truth. Jesus is speaking to Pharisees and teachers of the law (Luke 15:2), his enemies.His whole presentation to them here is just parables, five of them (Luke 15:3 -16:31), as was his practice with his enemies (Matthew 13:13-18).
The seemingly innocuous story of the fifth one conceals its deeper meaning in the last half of the story, where the rich man's request to send someone from the dead to his father's house (Israel) to turn his brothers (religious leaders)--makes six sons, unholy number--to repentance is used for the wheel on which the parable turns; i.e., unbelief in Jesus, by hearts which do not believe the testimony of Moses and the Prophets because they are so hardened that even the testimony of someone "rising" from the dead will not soften them.
There was a specific OT command that the rich man violated,
Violation of which will not get you in hell.

However, rejection of Jesus as Messiah and Savior, which the religious leaders did, will get you in hell.
 
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Clare73

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If his faith is dead, he was never reborn. And that's what gets him in hell, it is not failing to give his brother or sister what is needed.
 
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Clare73

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And dead faith does not save.
It means you never had true faith in the first place, which is what will get you in hell, just as it got the religious leaders in hell for not having faith in Jesus Christ.
 
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a-lily-of-peace

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If his faith is dead, he was never reborn. And that's what gets him in hell, it is not failing to give his brother or sister what is needed.

And dead faith does not save.
It means you never had true faith in the first place, which is what will get you in hell, just as it got the religious leaders in hell for not having faith in Jesus Christ.

Honestly I do not understand why you keep trying to separate these two things.

You used the phrase “true faith” so what is “false faith” in your mind? Because “false faith” to me would just be an oxymoron and it would make more sense to say faith vs faithlessness rather than redefining faith as “true faith” as if the qualifier “true” needs to be used to differentiate true faith from any other kind of non-true faith.

And in that, faith is active. It’s fidelity. Israel was betrothed to the Lord and the Church is the bride of Christ. Faith (faithfulness, fidelity) is an active, living state of being. The rich man died under the old covenant as @Der Alte said. He was part of Israel and his faithlessness was manifested in his action.

Again I really don’t think this is worth arguing about but I genuinely can’t understand how you can’t see it. I guess it bothers me to hear things like “In the NT, not feeding your hungry neighbour will not get you in hell” because it comes across like not understanding why it would actually be wrong to do what the rich man did. So then if you turn the whole thing into an abstract metaphor it’s like not even hearing or applying what it literally says.
 
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According to Orthodoxy as I understand it, going by Ephesians 4:8-10 and 1 Peter 3:18-20, Jesus released the rich man from hell and then put hell out of business.

That Hades is ultimately emptied and shut down is also confirmed by John in Revelation 20:13-14. Only Jesus has the keys to death and Hades, and he comes to free the prisoners, liberate the captives and raise the dead.

Still, according to many Hades is just a holding pen en route to the Ovens Valley.
 
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but if you view the Bible as God's plan for redemption, then the verses about hell are out of context.

That's very generous Steve. But may I suggest it's not the verses that are out of context, it's the assumptions that are tied to references to Hades, Gehenna and the Lake of Fire...not forgetting the Outer Darkness and Tartaroo.
 
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Servus

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That's very generous Steve. But may I suggest it's not the verses that are out of context, it's the assumptions that are tied to references to Hades, Gehenna and the Lake of Fire...not forgetting the Outer Darkness and Tartaroo.

I have to scratch my head over Peter using the term Tartarus.
 
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I have to scratch my head over Peter using the term Tartarus.

According to Greek mythology apparently, Tartarus is as far below Hades as Hades is below the earth. So the fallen angels start higher and finish lower, relative to man?

Ah, there's another one, the bottomless pit.
 
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Saint Steven

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That's very generous Steve. But may I suggest it's not the verses that are out of context, it's the assumptions that are tied to references to Hades, Gehenna and the Lake of Fire...not forgetting the Outer Darkness and Tartaroo.
I agree. But my analogy was dependent on equal comparatives.

Tartaroo sounds like a town name in the outback. - lol

Saint Steven said:
but if you view the Bible as God's plan for redemption, then the verses about hell are out of context.
 
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Saint Steven

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Ah, there's another one, the bottomless pit.
The "bottomless pit" sounds like an oxymoron. A pit without a bottom is just a hole.

Or as the saying goes: A rut is a grave with both ends kicked out.

Which might describe where we have ended up on this book review. A rut.
 
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