Deadworm
Well-Known Member
An ideal starting point for the OP's question is Job 4:17:
"Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?"
Ethically sensitive humans recognize that reformative justice is more loving and hopeful than purely retributive justice. Divine perfection is of course far more loving and praiseworthy than our inadequate strides towards perfection. So of course, God is morally monstrous if all who, for whatever reason, have not embraced Christ as their Lord and Savior suffer eternal conscious torment. Common sense dictates that humans are created with innate character flaws that require the right environment and the right support network to make spiritual progress. It is obvious that most humans can't make enough mistakes in their 3 score years and 10 to merit eternal torment.
But the New Testament in fact teaches that God's essence is love, and that applies to deceased humans as well. So what does not mean for God to love Hellbound humanity? Evangelical apologist C. S. Lewis pithily sums up the thrilling answer: "The gates of Hell are locked from the inside." In other words, souls remain trapped in Hell only because of their continued refusal to open to redemptive choices. Thus the NT teaches that Hell is a debtor's prison from which ultimate release is possible, that the damned are exposed to Gospel preaching, and that proxy baptism for the unsaved dead can be effective. In short, the NT image of Hell is compatible with the image of a reform school or place of postmortem purgation.
Good evangelism asks the unsaved to be honest with themselves. Consistency requires Christians to be honest in their assessment of the Bible, so that they can display the honesty they demand of the unsaved. That means that the credibility of the biblical God depends on that God satisfying our best and purest intuition. A sadistic God is simply not compatibility with the biblical model of a God of pure unconditional love. I am a Christian because my lifelong study of the Bible demonstrates that God is no sadist. I am willing to stake my eternal destiny on this holy perception and want to avoid the company of those who embrace a sadistic God.
In her study of the Holocaust, Hannah Arendt laments the banality of evil. Death camp guards and their support team were often otherwise decent loving people who served their communities, coached youth soccer teams, and helped out fellow Germans in need. In that sense, their evil oppression of Jews was blended into a life that was otherwise very decent. Still, we rightly regard them as ghastly criminals. We should lifewise disparage the moral sensibilities of a Christian spirituality that cheerfully condemans all unbelievers to eternal conscious torment.
"Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?"
Ethically sensitive humans recognize that reformative justice is more loving and hopeful than purely retributive justice. Divine perfection is of course far more loving and praiseworthy than our inadequate strides towards perfection. So of course, God is morally monstrous if all who, for whatever reason, have not embraced Christ as their Lord and Savior suffer eternal conscious torment. Common sense dictates that humans are created with innate character flaws that require the right environment and the right support network to make spiritual progress. It is obvious that most humans can't make enough mistakes in their 3 score years and 10 to merit eternal torment.
But the New Testament in fact teaches that God's essence is love, and that applies to deceased humans as well. So what does not mean for God to love Hellbound humanity? Evangelical apologist C. S. Lewis pithily sums up the thrilling answer: "The gates of Hell are locked from the inside." In other words, souls remain trapped in Hell only because of their continued refusal to open to redemptive choices. Thus the NT teaches that Hell is a debtor's prison from which ultimate release is possible, that the damned are exposed to Gospel preaching, and that proxy baptism for the unsaved dead can be effective. In short, the NT image of Hell is compatible with the image of a reform school or place of postmortem purgation.
Good evangelism asks the unsaved to be honest with themselves. Consistency requires Christians to be honest in their assessment of the Bible, so that they can display the honesty they demand of the unsaved. That means that the credibility of the biblical God depends on that God satisfying our best and purest intuition. A sadistic God is simply not compatibility with the biblical model of a God of pure unconditional love. I am a Christian because my lifelong study of the Bible demonstrates that God is no sadist. I am willing to stake my eternal destiny on this holy perception and want to avoid the company of those who embrace a sadistic God.
In her study of the Holocaust, Hannah Arendt laments the banality of evil. Death camp guards and their support team were often otherwise decent loving people who served their communities, coached youth soccer teams, and helped out fellow Germans in need. In that sense, their evil oppression of Jews was blended into a life that was otherwise very decent. Still, we rightly regard them as ghastly criminals. We should lifewise disparage the moral sensibilities of a Christian spirituality that cheerfully condemans all unbelievers to eternal conscious torment.
Upvote
0