Liberal Hell

[lucaspa]

I'm just wondering what the liberal consensus on Hell is. I've seen quite a few comments on the actuality of Hell in this forum and it puzzles me. Surely liberal Christians don't believe in Hell? Well I don't.

As you can see, there are lots of beliefs about Hell. There is no consensus within liberal Christianity. A God of ultimate forgiveness doesn't need to put people in Hell to punish them forever. Humans need that sense of punishment -- as part of justice. I think the contemporary Christian view of Hell came from the Christians undergoing persecution in the 1st and 2nd centuries. Those humans had a human need for justice. It was obvious that the people doing such terrible things to them -- rape, beatings, torture, painful execution -- were never going to get punished for their crimes in this world. They wanted to believe they were going to get punished in the next. That God would mete out the punishment. Jews in the OT had felt much the same way when Israel's neighbors conqueored Israel and persecuted them.

But God isn't human. He has infinite love, infinite patience, infinite compasion, and infinite forgiveness. He doesn't have a use for eternal punishment.

However, God has shown a tenacity in trying to get the attention of humans. The best explanation of concept of Hell in Dante's Inferno and much of Christianity I have seen was in a re-telling of the Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle -- 2 science fiction writers. Their idea was that, having failed to get our attention during life, Hell was God's means of getting our attention after death. As they put it, Hell is "an asylum for the theologically insane." And God will keep trying for all eternity.

 

[hedrick]

A lot of writers say that the OT concept of judgement wasn't from a desire for punishing bad guys. Rather, judgement is God putting things right. That includes the rejection of evil. Unfortunately it may mean the rejection of evil people in some situations.

At first you'd say, but if an evil person comes before God in judgement, surely he'd be sane enough to see the error of his ways. While it would certainly create fear and a desire to do something to escape judgement, would it create genuine repentance? I'm not so sure. One of the classic views is that confronting God in his holiness only makes people who have rejected him worse.

There are all kind of unanswered questions. Could or should God intervene to regenerate someone in that position? Perhaps. I have no settled view on that. But it's not just a desire for punishment that would make one suspect that some people won't survive the judgement.

 

[VolRaider]

I glance at both the liberal and conservative boards, so I guess I'm staying in the middle here. I am sure there is some sort of "hell," but I'm not even going to offer an opinion of what I think it's like. I would prefer to just not think about it and focus on the positive aspects of my faith.

 

[lucaspa]

A lot of writers say that the OT concept of judgement wasn't from a desire for punishing bad guys. Rather, judgement is God putting things right.

"putting things right" is also justice. In the OT concept, what needed "putting right"? Reestablishing Israel as a nation. Part of that is going to involve humbling and hurting the nations that conqueored/were occupying Israel. Pain was the only way those nations were going to leave.

At first you'd say, but if an evil person comes before God in judgement, surely he'd be sane enough to see the error of his ways.

If he were sane, wouldn't he have seen the error to begin with and never committed the crime? C'mon, are we really going to say that a serial killer is sane? We sane people already know that is wrong. Why doesn't the killer?

I think the point you are trying to make is that the shock of coming "face to face" with God (as it were) would shock the person into sanity. I would agree that it certainly should. But then, they should have been sane enough to begin with to see the harm and consequences of their action. They didn't. So I am not convinced it would shock them even into false repentence, much less real repentence. Thus God's attempts to keep trying.

Could or should God intervene to regenerate someone in that position? Perhaps. I have no settled view on that. But it's not just a desire for punishment that would make one suspect that some people won't survive the judgement.

Remember, in Hell people do survive. Classical Hell is not that people go to nothingness. Instead, they still "exist" and are aware of their surroundings. They know what is happening to them and know the pain that they are undergoing.

When you talk of "intervention", what do you mean? Do you mean messing inside their heads to get them to change their minds? Can God still do that and be a loving God? Is brainwashing consistent with love?

OTOH, can you apply external stimuli, even pain, and be consistent with love? We think so. After all, don't we think that loving pain, or at least inconveniece, is an acceptable stimuli in raising our kids? We have limited spanking, but everyone agrees on things like timo out and withholding dessert, etc. as means to get kids to realize that some behaviors and attitudes are mistaken are acceptable. We agree that this is part of loving our children. Can we view the stimuli in Hell as an extreme form of that? An extreme form justified by the severity of the consequences of the behavior of the sinner?

 

[lucaspa]

I glance at both the liberal and conservative boards, so I guess I'm staying in the middle here. I am sure there is some sort of "hell," but I'm not even going to offer an opinion of what I think it's like. I would prefer to just not think about it and focus on the positive aspects of my faith.

What I, at least, am doing is testing various ideas about Hell. And yes, all my views on the matter are tentative and subject to change with further evidence or better arguments.

However, if there is a Hell in the classical (Dante) view, a further question would be: is there a way that such a Hell can fit with the standard Christian view of God as all-loving and all-forgiving? This, it appears, is what Niven and Pournelle were trying to deal with. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the classical Hell exists. What consequences does that Hell have on God and the Christian faith? We are then faced with the problem, as Niven and Pournelle pointed out, that God has a "private torture chamber". Since you look at conservative boards, VolRaider, you have seen some of conservative answers to that problem. Are they satisfactory in liight of a loving and fogiving God? I don't find them satisfactory. Neither did Niven or Pournelle. Now, since both are agnostic at most, they could have used that as a starting point to thoroughly dis Christianity. However, they had enough intellectual integrity to seriously look for a possible answer. I respect them for that. What is more, I think they may have found the answer.

So, we can discuss separately whether Hell exists at all. However, if we take the conservative Christian view that classical, Dantian Hell exists, we may have a way it can exist and maintain that God is loving and forgiving. An alternative to the "private torture chamber". Of course, Hell is not there for justice or punishment. It is there for the spiritual benefit of the sinner. A corollary of that is that, if the treatment does shock the sinner into sanity and sincere repentence, the sinner must be able to get out of Hell.

 

[SilenceInMotion]

Classical Hell has different degrees of punishment. Not everyone goes into a literal Hellfire. Some go to Purgatory for temporal punishment, which has always been thought to be a place of mandatory fasting and thirst. As for eternal punishment, it is determined by God how th eperson will suffer, with Hellfire being the most severe.

This is Hell proper, which is neglected by Protestants whom 'black & white' salvation and punishment and thus lead to contradictory theologies. There is little debate in the Catholic realm on these things, but denominations have to constantly juggle their notions on the subject.

 

[Kylor]

I don't believe in hell and am universalist

 

[back2thebible]

this section is hilarious yet soberingly sad at the same time

 

[SilenceInMotion]

I don't believe in hell and am universalist

Universalism fails under it's own pretenses. There is a reason why Jesus speaks on morals so thoroughly, and it wasn't so people could simply ignore it and still be saved.
There is ample warning in the Bible about the unrighteous, and thus, it is why universalism is neglected by most of Christendom.

 

[Kylor]

Trolls are more active than the members in this section

 

[SnowyMacie]

Universalism fails under it's own pretenses. There is a reason why Jesus speaks on morals so thoroughly, and it wasn't so people could simply ignore it and still be saved.
There is ample warning in the Bible about the unrighteous, and thus, it is why universalism is neglected by most of Christendom.

I personally consider myself to be a universalist and also believe in Hell. I think that the idea that people will be eternally tormented is MAN's view on punishment, not God's. When I read scripture, God does give out consequences and punishment, but things are always restored in the long run. For me, there are several types of Hell: 1) People outside of the church who refused to believe until whenever (I don't think that people who never get a chance to here the gospel can be held accountable) 2) I also think that there will be people within the church that will be so miserable in Heaven because of who else is there that they will be in their own torment until they can accept it.

 

[Adamski]

I don't understand how an eternity in a 'dark place' is so much better then an eternity in fire.

If I'm ever given a multiple choice questionnaire then I'll be putting a tick next to "Eternity in a dark place".

Unless one of the other options is eternity in a brewery

 

[Izdaari Eristikon]

The best portrait of what I think it's like is in C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce.

And to me the Eastern Orthodox model, which Bourne mentioned back on p.1, seems likely also.

Both fit my view of theoretical Universal Reconciliation. Theoretical, I say, because some will stubbornly resist, perhaps even for all eternity. But God will, I believe, reconcile all who are willing, though it may take eons to win some of them over, and some may never be won over.

 

[William II]

Being eternally separated from God.

 

[Alive_Again]

The Pharisees were told: "Who told you to flee the wrath to come?" (Something alone those lines.) They were instructed to bring fruits worthy of repentance, so repentance has a lot to do with fleeing the wrath to come (their must be wrath coming).

So if the religious guys don't have it together, they probably should be concerned about the wrath to come. Where do we fit in with this? I suppose we should have our lives reflect fruits of repentance and faith. Sound reasonable?

 

[SilenceInMotion]

'Liberal Hell' is heresy, plain and simple. One can bleed all over the object of eternal Hellfire, but that's all it is. It doesn't simply go away.

 

[Kylor]

I always thought the usa Bible Belt was liberal hell.

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[Alive_Again]

No, Hell is a place of constant torment, burnings, weakness, hunger, thirst, exhaustion, nauseous fumes, physical torture, fear of your family and loved ones coming, hopelessness, and regret that will never end. Your senses are a thousand times more sensitive in the spirit realm and as wonderful as Heaven is, Hell is inversely as worse.

For those who do not walk in the light or enter into (and keep) covenant with God through Jesus Christ, it is the worst of the worst. It is worth anything to hear and be warned of this place (no matter how inconvenient or unseemly to hear it) that we might repent and receive the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

 

[Kylor]

No, Hell is a place of constant torment, burnings, weakness, hunger, thirst, exhaustion, nauseous fumes, physical torture, fear of your family and loved ones coming, hopelessness, and regret that will never end. Your senses are a thousand times more sensitive in the spirit realm and as wonderful as Heaven is, Hell is inversely as worse.

For those who do not walk in the light or enter into (and keep) covenant with God through Jesus Christ, it is the worst of the worst. It is worth anything to hear and be warned of this place (no matter how inconvenient or unseemly to hear it) that we might repent and receive the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Sounds just like Texas to me (I grew up there)

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[Alive_Again]

The Lord is in Texas. The devil may be the "god" of this world, so our welfare depends on who's tipping the balance in our lives. The move of God in Texas is very strong. Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. After we pass from this world, if we do not know Him intimately, He will tell us to depart into torment. We are given the opportunity to know Him according to the covenant He made with us.

Each person has to ask themselves, are they just "serving God" or do they know Him intimately. I pray each person will humble themselves in their answer and seek Jesus based on their spiritual poor-ness in spirit, that they may find the Kingdom of God.