• Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.

sculleywr

Orthodox Colitis Survivor
Jul 23, 2011
7,789
683
Starke, FL
✟30,069.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Eastern Orthodox
Marital Status
Engaged
Politics
US-Others

One God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Father of ALL. Now, last I checked, "all" includes all people. Right?


Only one problem with your use of adoption: if a person is adopted, he doesn't automatically receive the benefits of adoption. He must come into the family. When the prodigal left the family, he forfeited ALL of the benefits of being in the family. We were always God's children, as we are ALL made in the image of God. The only way a person could bear the image of God is by being His children. God is the Father of all. Whether they choose to accept that or not is the only choice they have


So God Himself is the ultimate contributor to our sins. He is the one who makes the sin infinite, even though He is able to choose not to. Good to know that God created the concept of infinite sin just so that He could establish something that only He can fix.

You do know that this makes God responsible for the infinite nature, since He could choose NOT to magnify the sin and instead treat it for what it was before He altered it, right?

Quite right. But you stipulated in your last post to me that "infinite begets infinite" and "finite begets finite." As I pointed out, this is obviously not the case. The Infinite has begotten the finite.

Semantics...


Our sin has a clear beginning and end. Only things created by the eternal God can be eternal. So yet again, you end up with mankind doing something it isn't capable of doing. However, when we make it the consequences, which is what Orthodoxy does, it doesn't become something that man is incapable of doing and it doesn't necessitate God torturing men for eternity. Remember, my argument as to the pain of hell isn't that it doesn't exist, but that God is not intentionally causing it as a punishment that isn't really a punishment. Instead the cause of the pain is the same reason that loving a person who hates you is like piling lit coals on top of his head.

I'm very sorry to hear it! I have my own physical problems, too. I'll keep praying for you.
grazie.



Except there is nothing that the pain of hell has in it of redeeming quality. If God is causing it intentionally, then He is naught but a sadistic torturer, which is why I'm not addressing the next segment, because it doesn't negate the fact that:

1. God could choose not to inflict the pain
2. God chooses to inflict the pain, anyways
3. The pain has no redeeming value or purpose

If God truly willed that none should perish, under this line of thinking, then all He would have to do is forgive them. God is not limited to punishing them because He is without limit. However, if it is the sinner who is incapable of receiving that forgiveness, and the forgiveness is, itself, the cause of his pain, then it is no longer God essentially standing around whipping them with a cat of nine tails, but men made of straw coming in contact with the all consuming fire that is the nature of God.
 
Upvote 0

Sultan Of Swing

Junior Member
Jan 4, 2015
1,801
787
✟9,476.00
Faith
Anglican
Marital Status
Single
You have to ask? Really?
How little do you care about your fellow humans?No, in Christ we "deserve" LIFE.
Christ is the condition for Life Eternal.
You think we deserve life? The wages of sin is death. God has mercy on us, that implies it isn't deserved, otherwise He would owe us and give us what we earn ourselves.
 
Upvote 0

sculleywr

Orthodox Colitis Survivor
Jul 23, 2011
7,789
683
Starke, FL
✟30,069.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Eastern Orthodox
Marital Status
Engaged
Politics
US-Others
Jonah prayed about feeling as though he were in hell, but the narrative and the dialogue contradict each other. The narrative says he was in the belly of the fish.

Take the following italicized text as an example:
Jonathan was in the bedroom, and he said "here I am in hell"

Is Jonathan in the bedroom, or in hell? Also, Jonah does not say he drowned. He said he was surrounded by the waters. And either way, the NARRATIVE CONTRADICTS HIM. So is the narrative lying to us? This isn't a both/and thing. Either he was praying from the inside of the fish, or he was praying from hell. The narrative says the former, and I'm going to follow the narrative rather than the statements of a man who was inside of a fish at the time he made them, especially since there are many cases of places in Scripture where a person is quoted as saying something that isn't true, such as Saul saying he followed the commands of God. In this case, the narrative trumps the dialogue.
 
Upvote 0

PapaZoom

Well-Known Member
Nov 3, 2013
4,377
4,392
car
✟66,806.00
Faith
Baptist
Marital Status
Private

So you're calling fellow Christians who disagree with your view, carnal.
 
Upvote 0

BobRyan

Junior Member
Angels Team
Site Supporter
Nov 21, 2008
53,335
11,894
Georgia
✟1,091,827.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
SDA
Marital Status
Married
LoL! It's weird that they belive in hell but not God.

in the Bible - John 16 we see that the Holy Spirit "convicts the WORLD of sin and righteousness and judgment" and in Romans 1 Paul says that even non-Bible-aware godless pagans know that those who do certain things deserve judgment.

The Holy Spirit does not "cease to exist" as soon as someone becomes an atheist.

But of course you are right to say that this is not what we would expect from the doctrines of the religion we call atheism. They should no more curse in Christ's name than in the name of Santa Clause and they should not be calling in on the hotline about hell.
 
Upvote 0

aiki

Regular Member
Feb 16, 2007
10,874
4,352
Winnipeg
✟251,568.00
Country
Canada
Gender
Male
Faith
Baptist
Marital Status
Married

I think we already covered this some posts back in this thread. I pointed out in that earlier post - as you are here - that words in Scripture don't always mean precisely the same thing in every instance where they are used. As I explained, the immediate context and the general context are the primary means by which any particular term is to be understood. You are focused on "forever" in your example above, but I showed that terms like "dead," "destroy" and "perish" are not always used in a strictly literal way in Scripture.

For examples see Romans 6:1-11, Matthew 9:17, Colossians 3:3, 2 Peter 3:6.

Selah.
 
Upvote 0

aiki

Regular Member
Feb 16, 2007
10,874
4,352
Winnipeg
✟251,568.00
Country
Canada
Gender
Male
Faith
Baptist
Marital Status
Married
Certainly it is true that sin has "eternal consequences" for the lost regardless of the duration of the lake of fire event.

And those consequences are clarified by verses like:

Matthew 25:46
46 And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.


As I already pointed out, punishment is not punishment if it is not consciously experienced:

"The punishment spoken of in Matthew 25:46 cannot be defined as a nonsuffering extinction of consciousness. Indeed, if actual suffering is lacking, then so is punishment. Let us be clear in this: punishment entails suffering. And suffering necessarily entails consciousness. Bible scholar John Gerstner comments, 'One can exist and not be punished; but no one can be punished and not exist. Annihilation means the obliteration of existence and anything that pertains to existence, such as punishment. Annihilation avoids punishment, rather than encountering it.' " - Reasoning From the Scriptures with Jehovah's Witnesses, Ron Rhodes, pg. 331.


I agree with all of this. But none of what you've written here affects my point about the adoption of sons and daughters into God's spiritual family.

Selah.
 
Upvote 0

aiki

Regular Member
Feb 16, 2007
10,874
4,352
Winnipeg
✟251,568.00
Country
Canada
Gender
Male
Faith
Baptist
Marital Status
Married
One God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Father of ALL. Now, last I checked, "all" includes all people. Right?

See my comment to BobRyan on this head.

Only one problem with your use of adoption: if a person is adopted, he doesn't automatically receive the benefits of adoption. He must come into the family.

But, you see, God's adoption of us is His doing, not ours. He brings us into His family, we don't bring ourselves. Spiritually, then, adoption and all the attendant benefits are immediately bestowed by God upon those He adopts.

When the prodigal left the family, he forfeited ALL of the benefits of being in the family.

He took all the benefits with him! And squandered them! And the benefit of being able to resume fellowship with his father whenever he chose to return to him was never lost. Someone outside the family would never have had this sort of access to the Prodigal's family.

We were always God's children, as we are ALL made in the image of God. The only way a person could bear the image of God is by being His children. God is the Father of all.

Not spiritually, He's not - as the passages I posted clearly state.


Our shortcomings in the matter of our righteousness are not God's doing. We freely choose to sin and when we do we place ourselves under the judgment of God. He contributes to our sin only as its Judge and Punisher. And God could not alter the eternal consequences of our sin without limiting our freedom to choose and to love Him. But all of this is moot to those who have accepted His gift of salvation. As C.S. Lewis has noted, the door to Hell is locked from the inside.

You do know that this makes God responsible for the infinite nature, since He could choose NOT to magnify the sin and instead treat it for what it was before He altered it, right?

If our sin is worthy of eternal punishment, why should God not punish our sin accordingly? Why ought He to fudge on the punishment - especially after all He has done to make a way for us to escape Hell entirely!?

Semantics...

Only on your part. I simply made a clarification.

Our sin has a clear beginning and end.

I disagree. And so does the Bible. Our sin begins but only finds forgiveness and permanent remission in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross that we must by faith accept for ourselves. If we do not, our sin - or, rather, the consequences of our sin - carry on into eternity.

1. God could choose not to inflict the pain
2. God chooses to inflict the pain, anyways
3. The pain has no redeeming value or purpose

1. If God chose not to inflict the penal suffering of Hell, He would be less than perfectly holy and just. He would also be mitigating the effects of our moral choices unilaterally and thus diminishing our freedom to choose and to truly love.

2. God cannot rightly do otherwise.

3. Penal suffering is not supposed to have "redeeming value or purpose."

If God truly willed that none should perish, under this line of thinking, then all He would have to do is forgive them.

But indiscriminate and unlimited forgiveness is tantamount to enabling our sin which a holy God cannot do.

God is not limited to punishing them because He is without limit.

That is not entirely true. God does have limits that are in accord with His holy, just, loving and truthful nature. He cannot lie, the Bible says. He cannot love or do what is evil. He cannot be deceived. He cannot act in contradiction to His essential nature.

Selah.
 
Upvote 0

sculleywr

Orthodox Colitis Survivor
Jul 23, 2011
7,789
683
Starke, FL
✟30,069.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Eastern Orthodox
Marital Status
Engaged
Politics
US-Others

You do know that under Roman laws, there were two levels of sonship, right? One could adopt the son that came of their own biological line.


No. He took none of the benefits with him. He took what HE found valuable, the inheritance. However, he received the TRUE benefits of being part of the family when he returned. The signet ring was something he did not have when he went to the far lands. Without the signet ring, he had NONE of the real benefits of being part of the family. With the ring, he could sign documents as an official representative of the family, make business transactions as part of the family, and even adopt someone into the family. The inheritance was ephemeral. It wasn't a real benefit. It was the icing on the cake, but there was no cake on which to put the icing without the ring and being part of the family itself. In fact, without the ring, he had no real connection any more than someone who had been paid for a donkey they sold to the family. He simply received a worldly payment from the family. He didn't receive the benefits of being in the family that are only bestowed upon those who are in the family. Had he died in the far land, in a place where nobody knew his family, he would not have been buried in the family plot. He would have been buried in a servant's grave, probably a mass grave given that he was feeding and living among swine.

Not spiritually, He's not - as the passages I posted clearly state.

Refer again to the Prodigal. Had he died outside of the family's estate, in a land where his family was unknown, he wouldn't have received any of the burial his family would have. The benefits of being part of the family, as I said earlier, were lost.


No. The eternal nature of our shortcomings are God's doing. Only God can make the sin itself eternal. By making it eternal, by increasing the sin to a status which is impossible for us to make it, God is the operant sinner. We don't make it eternal. God makes it eternal. So in this equation, who contributed the most to the equation? God is. We added a finite amount, while He multiplied it by infinity. You still end up with a God Who makes sin infinite. If God were not to add to the equation, were He to be truly just and not put His hand on the scales, then the punishment for our finite contribution would be a finite punishment. That's where you run into a wall. If God does not ACTIVELY MAKE YOUR SIN ETERNAL, then your theology goes straight out the window. And even then, the whole concept that He is just is thrown out the window in both cases, because a just judge does not tip the scales in EITHER direction, either by forgiving the sins of one because of the actions of another, or by artificially inflating the sins of one.

If our sin is worthy of eternal punishment, why should God not punish our sin accordingly? Why ought He to fudge on the punishment - especially after all He has done to make a way for us to escape Hell entirely!?

You haven't made the argument that sin is worthy of eternal punishment without implicating God by saying He artificially inflates the severity of our sins. And in either case, you're telling me that somehow God can be just by tipping the scales in both directions by making an arbitrary way out of the maze that He created by just picking you up in a helicopter.

Only on your part. I simply made a clarification.

An unecessary clarification since you obviously ignored the point of what I said.


If God does not artificially give them eternality, then how do they carry on past their natural ends?


1. As I said, your God is not just, as He tips the scales by artificially inflating the severity of our sins.
2. God is limited? I thought He was all-powerful
3. Then it is naught but God torturing people for no constructive reason whatsoever. What, if He truly WILLED that they not suffer, then He would simply stop torturing them. So I guess He wants them to suffer. We've established He isn't just because He is punishing the finite with infinite results.

Of course, this is kind of why the Scripture doesn't say "if you eat of the tree, I will kill you". It says "if you eat of the tree, you will die.

But indiscriminate and unlimited forgiveness is tantamount to enabling our sin which a holy God cannot do.

Unlimited forgiveness was already given. In YOUR model, it is tantamount to enabling sin. But by giving us the ability to choose to sin, God already enabled our sin, at least by that definition. In the Orthodox model, forgiveness is not all that salvation is. Salvation is becoming like Christ in such a way that we are made by grace what Christ is by nature, a term we call Theosis. We don't pretend that sin is just enabled by forgiveness. Even with forgiveness, sin has a real effect, and the effect is within us. This is how a place can be completely dark, and yet be perceived as burning. Because God does not NEED to torture us for us to experience pain spiritually. Look at all the spiritual maladies that God doesn't cause. People who are so despondent that they end their own lives. Do you think God made them experience such pain that they caused the end of their own lives? Where does that pain come from? It comes from a lack of hope, a lack of joy. And it has nothing to do with the absence of God, Who is literally right there in their room with them, wanting them to experience the joy He offers. It has to do with the inability to experience that joy. I know that feeling. I was there. I felt like God had abandoned me. And then I was given an awakening when my friends, who loved me more than I could imagine, decided to intervene.

What happens when you plug a computer into a power source it isn't compatible with. It needs alternating current, but you plug it into a direct current. You'll fry the computer. The same thing happens when men are put into contact with God. If they are not compatible with God's love, then it fries them. It isn't something God does uniquely to them, but something they have done to themselves.

As I established. God isn't just in either of our descriptions of His actions. In yours, He is artificially inflating the severity of our crime. Kind like the judge who gives a life sentence to a man who got caught with a gram of marijuana. In mine, He is forgiving literally everything, but that doesn't mean everyone is saved. Forgiveness is only the beginning of salvation. God hasn't completed His work in us, as Scripture says He is faithful to complete the work He began in us.
 
Reactions: BobRyan
Upvote 0

Colter

Member
Nov 9, 2004
8,711
1,407
61
✟100,301.00
Gender
Male
Faith
Other Religion
Marital Status
Married
What the Quran says about Hell
Non-Muslims will be tortured forever in hell. Hell is a most unpleasant place.


Lo! Those who disbelieve Our revelations, We shall expose them to the Fire. As often as their skins are consumed We shall exchange them for fresh skins that they may taste the torment. 4:56


They will wish to come forth from the Fire, but they will not come forth from it. Theirs will be a lasting doom. 5:37


For them is drink of boiling water and a painful doom, because they disbelieved. 6:70


And the dwellers of the Fire cry out unto the dwellers of the Garden: Pour on us some water or some wherewith Allah hath provided you. They say: Lo! Allah hath forbidden both to disbelievers (in His guidance) 7:50


If thou couldst see how the angels receive those who disbelieve, smiting faces and their backs and (saying): Taste the punishment of burning! 8:50


On the day when it will (all) be heated in the fire of hell, and their foreheads and their flanks and their backs will be branded 9:35


Hell is before him, and he is made to drink a festering water, Which he sippeth but can hardly swallow, and death cometh unto him from every side while yet he cannot die, and before him is a harsh doom. 14:16-17


Thou wilt see the guilty on that day linked together in chains, Their raiment of pitch, and the Fire covering their faces. 14:49-50


We shall assemble them on the Day of Resurrection on their faces, blind, dumb and deaf; their habitation will be hell; whenever it abateth, We increase the flame for them. That is their reward because they disbelieved Our revelations. 17:97-98


Lo! We have prepared for disbelievers Fire. Its tent encloseth them. If they ask for showers, they will be showered with water like to molten lead which burneth the faces. Calamitous the drink and ill the resting-place! 18:29


The guilty behold the Fire and know that they are about to fall therein, and they find no way of escape thence. 18:53


If those who disbelieved but knew the time when they will not be able to drive off the fire from their faces and from their backs, and they will not be helped! 21:29


Behold them, staring wide (in terror), the eyes of those who disbelieve! 21:97


But as for those who disbelieve, garments of fire will be cut out for them; boiling fluid will be poured down on their heads, Whereby that which is in their bellies, and their skins too, will be melted; And for them are hooked rods of iron. Whenever, in their anguish, they would go forth from thence they are driven back therein and (it is said unto them): Taste the doom of burning. 22:19-22


The fire burneth their faces, and they are glum therein. 23:104


For those who deny (the coming of) the Hour We have prepared a flame. When it seeth them from afar, they hear the crackling and the roar thereof. And when they are flung into a narrow place thereof, chained together, they pray for destruction there. 25:11-13


It will be a hard day for disbelievers. On the day when the wrong-doer gnaweth his hands, he will say: Ah, would that I had chosen a way together with the messenger (of Allah)! 25:26-27


But as for those who disbelieve, for them is fire of hell; it taketh not complete effect upon them so that they can die, nor is its torment lightened for them. Thus We punish every ingrate. And they cry for help there, (saying): Our Lord! Release us; we will do right, not (the wrong) that we used to do. ... Now taste (the flavour of your deeds), for evil-doers have no helper. 35:36-37


Those in the Fire say unto the guards of hell: Entreat your Lord that He relieve us of a day of the torment ... although the prayer of disbelievers is in vain. 40:49-50


Those who deny the Scripture and that wherewith We send Our messengers. But they will come to know, When carcans are about their necks and chains. They are dragged Through boiling waters; then they are thrust into the Fire. 40:70-72


Lo! the tree of Zaqqum, The food of the sinner! Like molten brass, it seetheth in their bellies As the seething of boiling water. (And it will be said): Take him and drag him to the midst of hell, Then pour upon his head the torment of boiling water. 44:43-48


Those who are immortal in the Fire and are given boiling water to drink so that it teareth their bowels. 47:15


Then how (will it be with them) when the angels gather them, smiting their faces and their backs! 47:27
 
Upvote 0

Catherineanne

Well-Known Member
Sep 1, 2004
22,924
4,646
Europe
✟84,370.00
Country
United Kingdom
Gender
Female
Faith
Anglican
Marital Status
Widowed
The Bible as well as other religions speak of hell as a real place. It says the unsaved will be tortured for an eternity.

Yep. There is a lot of nonsense in the Bible.
 
Reactions: PuerAzaelis
Upvote 0

BobRyan

Junior Member
Angels Team
Site Supporter
Nov 21, 2008
53,335
11,894
Georgia
✟1,091,827.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
SDA
Marital Status
Married

The doctrine that "punishment ceases to be punishment once the person is not conscious" is a made-up-doctrine. it is not a quote of the Bible - it is simply man-quoting-man.

Eternal and everlasting punishment where the wicked not only suffer the torment of fire and brimstone but also are deprived of heaven - forever -- is eternal. They are never brought back to life and given "heaven". Notice that Jude 7 insists that Sodom and Gomorrah suffer the "punishment" of "eternal fire".

"are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire"

Punishment involves all of those aspects - and the fact that some of the many aspects present at the start of that punishment are not operating the same way as they do all during the punishment - does not turn the punishment into "not punished".
 
Upvote 0

BobRyan

Junior Member
Angels Team
Site Supporter
Nov 21, 2008
53,335
11,894
Georgia
✟1,091,827.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
SDA
Marital Status
Married

Yes that is the nonsense found in the false-religion of Islam.

It is much like the nonsense some Christians were upholding in the dark ages.

Funny how the dark ages work. I pray that Muslims will leave the dark ages soon.
 
Upvote 0

BobRyan

Junior Member
Angels Team
Site Supporter
Nov 21, 2008
53,335
11,894
Georgia
✟1,091,827.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
SDA
Marital Status
Married

These are good points.

What is more - CHRIST as infinite God could only pay ONE infinite price. And since in the model of "one sin - gets infinite punishment" model - Christ pays not for all sins - but for just one sin or at best for just one sinner.

First point:
1 John 2:2 says that "Christ is the atoning sacrifice for OUR SINS and not for our sins only but for the SINS of the whole world" showing that it is the accumulated debt of all - that is paid for at the cross. This means that each sin has a finite amount of punishment due - and thus all of them can be "accumulated" - and that amount - that accumulated amount - can be "paid in full".


Second point:
Hell does not make the wicked "more compliant" or "sinless". Rather the wicked in hell - continue to rail against God "as long as life shall last". They are not "singing God's praises with each new torment". Thus sinNING not just "sin" is perpetuated by God supernaturally for all eternity in that non-Bible dark-ages model.

I find this a bit unusual - because I "thought" the rule we were using was that "I do not agree with sculleywr on anything" -- did something change while I was away?
 
Upvote 0

BobRyan

Junior Member
Angels Team
Site Supporter
Nov 21, 2008
53,335
11,894
Georgia
✟1,091,827.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
SDA
Marital Status
Married

All of that is true. But denying the wicked eternal life is a final, never revoked - never returned to life punishment of sin no matter what your view is of the length of time that -- torture -- is added to that time of punishment.
 
Upvote 0

BryanMaloney

ordinary sinner
Apr 20, 2016
165
93
59
Indianapolis, IN
Visit site
✟23,389.00
Gender
Male
Faith
Eastern Orthodox
Marital Status
Married

That is not a redefinition. That is a very old interpretation of Hell. It has been accepted in the East for thousands of years. Read "River of Fire" by Alexandre Kolomiros: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/the-river-of-fire-kalomiros/
 
Reactions: SnowyMacie
Upvote 0