God could technically force a child to love him (to say otherwise would mean he's not omnipotent), he messed with "free will" a few times in the Bible. And a parent wouldn't toss their child into a burning flaming pit to be tortured for all eternity, right? Would you really call that a "good parent"?
Yeah, but "severed relationship" shouldn't equal "malevolent torture".
I don't quite get what you're saying there. And when you think about it, around 80 years isn't as long when someone spends about 25 of those years sleeping, and not everyone lives in Christian places anyway.
Creating the conditions He alone would know resulted in someone hardening their heart against Him is not an example of God impinging upon their free will. That men would observe and later describe such events as "God hardening" someones heart or making them do this or that are allegories. Taking such allegory beyond what many feel is reasonable when speaking of what God will and will not do, that is not something everyone is willing to do. It is not really a question of could He do it, Omnipotence, which the answer is absolutely yes.
It is a question rather would He do that, to which many would say absolutely no. Perhaps some conditionally no because God is also Omniscient. So someone could suppose (as in we'll never know in this life) that God knows no matter which of all possible lifetimes (so many choices) plays out for a specific man, the Pharaoh for example, he would never ultimately choose to love Good (Him). So God acting on such a persons life to even force a desired outcome has not changed the eternal fate of that person at all. Personally I rather like to think God gave us free will because it was true love He would want, which could only be a result from an exercise of truly free will. Conversely His Justice demands He could not condemn someone who had not freely chosen to not love Him. So with the Pharaoh for example, and not even knowing if we should expect to see him in heaven or not, I choose to view such verses as God able to create conditions He knows would result in a choice the man would freely make anyway, rather than see it as God forcing him to do what God wanted him to do to His Glory. I see that view as being more for His Glory than if the man was said to be forced, because it gives the Pharaoh the same dignity of freedom in use of his created faculties as the rest of us.
Abraham was ready to "toss his child" wherever he believed God to be telling him to. But I get the emotional appeal being made would likewise take a very dim view of and deeply appalled by Abraham's parental love as well. So we could in same view equally ask if we could call that a "good parenting". Am still not given pause or swayed by the emotional appeal.
Am not the one attempting to invoke an emotional appeal against Justice by insisting God holds the pitch fork and flame nozzle. That is not a traditional view of Hell and certainly not mine. Allowing suffering is not the same as actively producing it. We do not blame Him now (we can question why He allows it) for suffering am unclear why we must do so in the next life. Realize the traditional view is predominately the damned start suffering immediately after death and continue to do so until a body is joined to that damned soul to make their suffering more complete as a human. Likewise with the souls of the elect.
My Church has never taught that every in it goes to Heaven and everyone outside of it goes to Hell, not from a membership or practice sense anyway. I am assured by the same Church there will be nominal Catholics in hell from all ages, just as there will be pagans, atheists and agnostics from all ages in Heaven.
My point about duration was simply that any appeal a Universalist can make appealing to duration is fatally flawed in one or more ways. Pick one and try to stay on topic with it and I will show what I mean. For instance, it appears some appeal was made at end of last post to shortness of this life. Yes, it can be quite short indeed, especially compared to eternity. Am unclear why berivity should be a hindrance to God being able to properly Judge a person's life. The thief on the Cross was in an instant Judged worthy of eternal happiness, even though he lingered a little longer afterwards than our Lord God, Jesus Christ did.
More time. The whole idea that some people need more time also works against the notion of Omniscience, which is how we can hold the various beliefs most Christians hold to predestination. It works against our need for a Savior if all God really needed was a good furnace to help some people eventually love him. Needing more time works against the idea of there being any need for suffering at all unless one views listening to preaching as suffering. Indeed some Universalist insist Hell is not suffering at all, just less happy than they would be otherwise. Am sure the more we think about the more flaws we could find in the notion that some people just need more time to come around.
