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Dear Marty: The Father of all fathers Name is dearest Daddy (iow) Abba. Abba has one purpose only for His creation, to bring it home to Himself by at-one-ment. Not some of it, not more than some, the whole sick and sorry all of it! The good, the bad & the ugly is coming Home to the Author & Finisher for radical transformation.I don't really see you addressing the problem. Nowhere does scripture ever speak of us sending ourselves to eternally tormented. You answer doesn't address the concern of the meme, that ultimately, God is holding his creation to higher standards than himself, if he doesn't actually do what he tells others to do.
Hi Martymonster,
We can't separate-out God's love from His justice, holiness, and righteousness or He wouldn't be God. God's attributes and character all operate concurrently and in perfect harmony together at all times. Many people attempt to separate His attributes and embrace only those which suit their own desires or beliefs to the exclusion of the rest, but "that god" is a manufactured one, not the Living God who has revealed Himself to us in His word.
When people are confronted with the reality of sin and hell, they will often cite God’s loving nature as their defense against such things, as if His love should compel Him to overlook or accept their sin. Or, in the case of your friend's post, they attempt to malign God's character by claiming He can't love those whom He must carry out His righteous justice upon.
The problem with these skewed perceptions of God is that - because He is loving and holy, just, and righteous - He cannot close His eyes to sin; otherwise, He would not be holy, just and righteous. Using a human example, we would never consider a courtroom judge "just" if his rendered sentence upon a convicted rapist or murderer was freedom and exoneration instead of a prison sentence. That judge would be corrupt, not just. Likewise, God's attribute of being loving doesn't cancel out or supersede any other attribute of His; instead they must function together and in perfect harmony at all times.
To specifically address this FB post, God can absolutely love those who end up in hell even when they are experiencing His just punishment for their sin. To say otherwise would be like saying a parent doesn't love their child for disciplining them for bad behavior.
Love doesn't ignore wrongdoing. If it did, it's not genuine love. And it was because of God's love for us (as sinners) that He sent Jesus to die for us so we wouldn't have to suffer His just judgment in hell for our sins. But if we reject His payment for our sins, we will unfortunately suffer for them ourselves because God's justice will be rendered since sin must be punished.
etc.1. Undying Worm and Unquenchable Fire (OT)
But how do you reconcile that idea, with verses like this one?
Rev 14:10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:
Rev 14:11 And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.
Dear Kris: All sin is wrongdoing and will be rectified by absolute cleansing of His Fire. But make zero mistake, the Love of God prevails! In fact it is the foundation for everything He does. All of His perfect justice flow out of His essence.
God IS Love, Love never fails, EVER!
"I have a word for you. I know your whole life story. I know every skeleton in your closet. I know every moment of sin, shame, dishonesty and degraded love that has darkened your past. Right now I know your shallow faith, your feeble prayer life, your inconsistent discipleship. And my word is this: I dare you to trust that I love you just as you are, and not as you should be. Because you’re never going to be as you should be." -Brennan Manning-
The torment is the fire. The fire burns and rises forever. It is not same as they live and suffer forever.
Hi FineLinen,
I'm not sure I'm understanding your point in relation to you quoting my post...
We don't know whether the meme was posted by a Christian or non-Christian. But I think it would be fair for a non-Christian to think that Christianity includes the concept of eternal torment. Most Christians do believe this, and many think that the alternatives contradict the core Gospel.
I don't much like Christianity to be judged by beliefs I think are both un-biblical and wrong, but a non-Christian probably should judge Christianity by what most Christians believe and do. It's reasonable to believe that if Christianity is what it claims to be, it should advocate and demonstrate better qualities and show a better type of life than the general culture. If Rodney Stark's analysis is right, that was what caused Christianity to grow within the Roman Empire.
I think starting in the 20th Cent, that is no longer true. I can't help wondering if that's part of why a younger generation isn't interested. If they don't see things to admire in Christians around them, and in fact Christianity seems in some cases to make people worse, why bother investigating any further?
There are lots of attempts to make eternal torment seem reasonable. This is one of them. But the passages show God sending them to it. The OT images of fire are fire from heaven, not fires that came from knocking over a lamp and got out of control.
If annihilation is true, it's annihilation done by God.
Personally I think anything other than universalism has severe moral problems, though it's not the obvious reading of much of the NT.
It's an interesting question. How is creating a system where (if you believe traditional calculations) 90% of the human race is going to suffer forever better? Most attempts to explain suffering assume God is trying to develop people with certain qualities. I'm not aware of any attempts to understand it that don't end up in some variant of that.The severe moral problem of Universalism is that it presents no reason for the present.
Why has God put the world through all these centuries of torment if in the end He's merely going to change everyone's head and make everyone right? What's the point of the evil of today?
The severe moral problem of Universalism is that it presents no reason for the present.
Why has God put the world through all these centuries of torment if in the end He's merely going to change everyone's head and make everyone right? What's the point of the evil of today?
It's an interesting question. How is creating a system where (if you believe traditional calculations) 90% of the human race is going to suffer forever better? Most attempts to explain suffering assume God is trying to develop people with certain qualities. I'm not aware of any attempts to understand it that don't end up in some variant of that.
But what about the rest? Discard them, punish them forever, or convert them. All have problems.
The other option is that God isn't responsible for evil. There seems to be lots of support in Scripture for that, though a few passages that suggest he is and some serious theological implications.
I don't see a wonderful alternative anywhere here. But the one that seems the worst is infinite punishment for most humans. I'm also concerned with the moral implications for Christians in believing and teaching this. It would seem to require people to deaden their empathy. And might tend to result in people who, I don't know, don't care if a lot of people don't get health care?
I think Paul would agree with you. But I have to admit that there is some sense to the question: what's the point of putting us all through this if everyone is going to end up saved?Dear Hedrick: Any system that has the Author & Finisher of the all losing the vast, vast majority of His creation to sin & evil, is falling so far short, all words in my vocabulary fall far short of conveying the utter impossibility of such a ghastly dogma!
Kindly, I disagree that this "moral problem" for Universalism is as significant as it might seem. Eternal torment doesn't explain evil, either. Your point basically says God "put the world through all these centuries of torment," in order that some would be condemned. In other words, your point is essentially: the condemnation of some explains evil today. That may be a reason, but you can't blame some folks for finding it unconvincing.
Unfortunately there are zero scriptures which definitely state this. UR is arrived at by a series of inferences. E.g. we are commanded to love our enemies. Inference: therefore God must love His enemies too. But some folks forget that God did not love His enemies in Genesis 7:21, Genesis 19:24-25, Exodus 11:5, Exodus 14:28 et alii.FineLinene said:All sin is wrongdoing and will be rectified by absolute cleansing of His Fire. But make zero mistake, the Love of God prevails! In fact it is the foundation for everything He does. All of His perfect justice flow out of His essence.
God IS Love, Love never fails, EVER!
It's really hard to put yourself in God's shoes. We have to deal with our enemies for a short time here on Earth. God has to decide what to do with them for eternity. If you had 10 sons and one hated the other nine, would you hope they could work out their differences through love or would you be okay with them hating each other until the day they died ? In the end God has to decide what to do with people that reject him and his children.I don't really see you addressing the problem. Nowhere does scripture ever speak of us sending ourselves to eternally tormented. You answer doesn't address the concern of the meme, that ultimately, God is holding his creation to higher standards than himself, if he doesn't actually do what he tells others to do.
It's really hard to put yourself in God's shoes. We have to deal with our enemies for a short time here on Earth. God has to decide what to do with them for eternity. If you had 10 sons and one hated the other nine, would you hope they could work out their differences through love or would you be okay with them hating each other until the day they died ? In the end God has to decide what to do with people that reject him and his children.
This comment seems to imply that traditional Christianity was deliberately created to ensure that 90% of the human race was going to suffer forever. Is that your belief?It's an interesting question. How is creating a system where (if you believe traditional calculations) 90% of the human race is going to suffer forever better? ...
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