Hell.....

[sculleywr]

God is the Creator of Adam, but that doesn't automatically make Him Adam's Father. When a potter makes a pot, is he the pot's father, or merely its creator? It seems obvious to me that making a pot does not necessarily entail any parental bonds to it. So, too, with God and Adam. God made Adam but that by itself does not make Adam His child. God also made dinosaurs, and insects, and fish. Are they, too, children of God? I don't think so.

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?

If you mean by "come to our senses" that we were unsaved and come to realize it, then I don't agree. Not being saved is not parallel to being a prodigal son. The Prodigal Son is not a picture of the non-believer. As you say, there was a relationship of father to son in the parable that pre-existed the prodigal's choice to live independently of his father. No matter how awfully the son lived, he was always his father's son. Can the unbeliever say the same? I don't think so. Consider the following verses:

Romans 8:9-15
9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.
10 And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors--not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.
13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
15 For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba, Father."

Galatians 4:4-7
4 But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
5 to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
6 And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, "Abba, Father!"
7 Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

Ephesians 1:4-6
4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,
5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,
6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved.

All of these passages clearly indicate two states in which a person may exist: An adopted state, or an un-adopted one. A person has either been redeemed, and adopted by God, and indwelt by His Spirit, or they have not. Not all people that live, then, are adopted into God's family. And those that aren't are not His children and have no part in His kingdom.

1 Corinthians 6:9-11
9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites,
10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.
11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.

Again, two states of the human person are described: An unrighteous state outside of God's kingdom, or a washed, sanctified and justified state inside of God's kingdom. It seems pretty plain to me that the Bible does not teach a universal family of God.

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

You make my case for me here. It is because our sin is against an infinite God that our unconfessed and unrepented-of sin never ceases to be a violation of His will. So long as God exists our sin against Him continues to exist.

The other eternal problem with our sin is that we can't, in and of ourselves, make perfect restitution for it, which is the only kind of restitution that will fully expunge our sin. We must atone for our sin until the atonement is fully and perfectly made. But we are flawed, sin-corrupted creatures incapable of such atonement. This is why Jesus, the perfect, sinless Lamb of God, was sent to "take away the sin of the world." If we do not avail ourselves of his gift of salvation, then we must atone for our sin ourselves, which, because of our own imperfection, results in an endless process of restitution.

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...

Let me clarify terms, then: instead of infinite, which describes something without beginning or end, without boundaries, our sin is eternal, which means that it may have had a beginning a finite time in the past but goes on from that point without end. For the reasons I have outlined above, our sin is better described as eternal in its consequences than infinite.

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.

You've skirted the point I made about pain. Whether or not it is related to our love of a thing, pain is necessary. Without it - as leprosy horribly illustrates - deformity and death result. Pain protects us. It warns us of our limits and provokes us to change our behaviour when it is pain-producing. Enduring a modicum of pain is also necessary to high achievement. Not all pain, then, is bad.

In any case, the pain of Hell is not supposed to be anything but penal suffering. It is not intended to be the same sort of pain our love for something may produce.

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.

 

[Sultan Of Swing]

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.

 

[vinsight4u]

/

 

[sculleywr]

Lazarus came back as resurrected, yet died again.
Jonah went to hell where both the righteous and wicked
wait at that time. After Jesus arose is when one side of
hell lost the people in it. He redeemed them from hell/Sheol.
Jonah was not talking to God for the first time as being located
inside of the fish, he was in the belly of hell. He is referring to
that time later when he begins to pray from within the fish.
Look at what Jonah says. He did not go on floating on the water.
He gives a story as to drowned in the water.

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.

 

[PapaZoom]

that's not my fault seasoned biblical scholars don't find it easy lol .the carnal mind does not get the things of the spirit .
and we .. are the children of god .. made by his power the sons of god and the wisdom of this world is foolishness to god
faith must be child like - as long as it is indeed IN GOD and not in man .

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

 

[Alithis]

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

..if it makes you satisfied to view it that way.

 

[BobRyan]

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.

 

[aiki]

All right, let's deal with the specifics.

Here is a text from the Old Testament

Isaiah 34:9-10
Edom's streams will be turned into pitch,
her dust into burning sulfur; her land will become blazing pitch!
It will not be quenched night and day;
its smoke will rise forever.
From generation to generation it will lie desolate;
no one will ever pass through it again.

This prophecy was fulfilled - Edom was indeed defeated.

Question: Is smoke rising from Edom today? No it is not. So we have clear Biblical precedent of the image of "forever" being used to denote a time interval that is, in fact, not really forever at all.

What is your response?

Was Edom not defeated after Isaiah wrote these words?

If "forever" really always mean "forever", why do we not see smoke rising from Edom today?

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.

 

[aiki]

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.

While it is true about the pot -- it is not true about living beings such as humans. hence Luke 3:38
38 the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.

Adam is the "son of God" in the sense that God created him and he has no other Father or Mother.

Christ is the Son of God - in that He is ontologically eternal God - and functions in the "one God in three persons" Godhead as the Son of God. Christ has "Life in Himself" John 5 - unlike all non-God beings who merely borrow life - from the life-giver -- to live.

Even the devil is not 'as god - having life IN himself'.

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.

 

[aiki]

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.

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.

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.

 

[sculleywr]

See my comment to BobRyan on this head.



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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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."

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.

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.

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.

 

[Colter]

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

 

[vinsight4u]

/

 

[Catherineanne]

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.

 

[BobRyan]

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 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".

 

[BobRyan]

Yep. There is a lot of nonsense in the Bible.

I know why atheists say that - why do Anglicans say it??

 

[BobRyan]

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

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.

 

[BobRyan]

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.

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. .

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?

 

[BobRyan]

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."

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

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.

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.

 

[BryanMaloney]

So I have seen lately that Hell is getting redefined to not really be a place of torment but just the fact that since God is everywhere than it will be awful for non Christians and to them that will be Hell. I was surprised to learn that the idea of Hell that many Christians know has not always existed. I was taught that Hell was a real place so is it real or just a state of mind?

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/