Open-minded agnostic seeker

Forgive me for asking such a simple question, but what does a "lake of fire" actually mean? Taken literally, whatever is thrown in would be burnt up, annihilated and destroyed, you would be no more. Or, would you not burn up, but stay in eternal pain?

godshapedhole said:

Forgive me for asking such a simple question, but what does a "lake of fire" actually mean? Taken literally, whatever is thrown in would be burnt up, annihilated and destroyed, you would be no more. Or, would you not burn up, but stay in eternal pain?

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That my friend is the rub. I've asked myself that many many times. I've come to 4 conclusions. 1. purification of fire like the Bible has referred to quited a bit. 2. total annihilation where everything thrown in will be wiped out as though it has never existed, never to be thought of or even remembered again in that way would the concept of hell even be extremely bad because eventually it would come to an end even though it would feel like eternity while we were there. 3.eternal suffering and anguish. And finally 4. I have absolutely no idea whatsoever, it was not explained point blankly verbatim by God therefore anything would be an explanation by man and can (and most likely IS) false lol. Since It's not one of Jesus' commands for us to know and in fact by us knowing and doing Jesus' commands saves us from the lake of fire. I have come to the conclusion that I really don't need to know, I was driving myself crazy trying to answer a question that only God can answer, and therefore I really don't care hehe.

Steven Wood said:

I see where you're coming from and truly appreciate it. Thank you for ministering but hell is not the lake of fire. In Revelation it does say that on the Day of Judgement, the Great White Throne Judgement, Even Hell itself with all the inhabitants will be cast into the lake of fire so they are 2 completely different things. I'm not nitpicking or anything I just don't want you to be mistaken in your studies or called out by anyone who may be rude to you.

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Just because the KJV (and possibly others) use the English word "hell" for three different places (Hades, Gehenna, and Tartarus) does not mean that Hell is not the Lake of Fire (Gehenna). When Scripture says that "death and hell were cast into the Lake of Fire" please read "death and Hades were cast into the Lake of Fire" (check a lexicon or concordance). "Hades" (Sheol in the OT) is the place of the departed dead, and is currently only for the unbelieving dead. So Hades is personified as being cast into the Lake of Fire after the Great White Throne judgement. That means all the unbelieving and ungodly in Hades are cast into the Lake of Fire, and Hades then ceases to exist.

godshapedhole said:

Forgive me for asking such a simple question, but what does a "lake of fire" actually mean? Taken literally, whatever is thrown in would be burnt up, annihilated and destroyed, you would be no more. Or, would you not burn up, but stay in eternal pain?

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Imagine a volcano spewing out hot lava (at least 1200 degrees Celsius) which forms a huge lake, and which always remains molten and burning, and never solidifies or cools. (And we do not even know whether the temperature of the Lake of Fire is 1,200 or 12,000 degrees C).

And as to eternal pain, that too is right there in Scripture (if you care to look). Why create Hell for the Devil and his angels if annihilation is the objective? Annihilate = to destroy something completely so that nothing is left.

terryjohn said:

Do aithiests really get such images of hell from reading scripture or are they just parroting what others say it says? Hell and its torments are but natural consequences of our working against the way things are. Even nature shows us that there is away that leads to life and another that leads to death. Many may not see much of a difference between hell and the lives they are currently living. The issue is not an intellectual one or even a moral one for men but about trying to justify ourselves.

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Atheists, I would say, don't even think about hell. To us it's a human construct that has no relevance to the way we live our lives. Which, by the way, are not in your words "sinful", but rather very moral and rational.

The book of the Revelation isn't written to be taken literally. There are no literal four horsemen, no multi-headed monsters coming up from the sea, etc. Likewise the lake of fire and sulfur isn't literal--there's really no reason to switch gears and assume a lake of fire where the underworld (Hades) and death are personified and cast in must be a literal anything.

-CryptoLutheran

Rational Inquirer said:

As an agnostic who strives to keep an open mind, the aspect of Christian doctrine that disturbs me the most, and seems like it would prevent me from ever accepting Christianity, is the teaching that non-Christians go to hell. It doesn't make sense to me that if you don't happen to pick the right religion, you get tortured forever and ever. Do a billion people in India deserve eternal suffering simply because they were born in a non-Christian society? Am I looking at this the wrong way? How can I reconcile this teaching with the Christian conception of a loving and just God?

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Sorry for the confusion. We are all in our respective choirs and the noise can be deafening.

The reality of the reality of Hell, is no different than the reality of the world. Please understand, that if any of what is preached is true...it was all made up...that is what "created" means.

Actual reality only exist outside of the created universe and the world as we know it. Again, if any of what is preached is true...Hell, cannot exist in the reality outside the world, or within the greater reality of God - He just won't have evil in His presence. So...Hell, is simply a fitting explanation of the loss of any actual reality for anyone who does not get lifted up out of the non-reality of the make-believe [created] world. And, yes, that means that only Pinocchio becomes a real boy. What is missing however, from that sad sad tale, is that everyone gets the fairy tale life here in the world that everyone thinks is so special. Yaaa!

So, really, the Christian story, is a story of nothing ventured, nothing gained. Or from the non-Christian perspective: nothing ventured, nothing lost. Either way...it is not possible to lose anything, but only possible to gain something.

ScottA said:

...So, really, the Christian story, is a story of nothing ventured nothing, nothing gained. Or from the non-Christian perspective: nothing ventured, nothing lost. Either way...it is not possible to lose anything, but only possible to gain something.

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Very simply and eloquently stated. In my own logical journey to Christ that was a major realization. Without seeking God, I had nothing to lose. But in finding him I had (potentially) eternity to gain. But now that I walk with Christ I realize that I was wrong. There is much to be gained in this life as well.

Rational Inquirer said:

As an agnostic who strives to keep an open mind, the aspect of Christian doctrine that disturbs me the most, and seems like it would prevent me from ever accepting Christianity, is the teaching that non-Christians go to hell. It doesn't make sense to me that if you don't happen to pick the right religion, you get tortured forever and ever. Do a billion people in India deserve eternal suffering simply because they were born in a non-Christian society? Am I looking at this the wrong way? How can I reconcile this teaching with the Christian conception of a loving and just God?

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I hope no Christian would like the idea of hell and it really should disturb them; it disturbs me. Yet when I was converted to Christianity by the grace of God, I didn't structure my belief system around what was acceptable to me. That hardly seems a way to go about searching for truth. It's kind of like if say a massacre happens where I live and dozens of families with small children are horrible murdered. Am I really going to say, "You know I don't like the idea of that happening, so I'm not going to believe it."

The only thing that makes the idea of hell mildly tolerable to me is that it is a result of God's justice. It seems that people like to focus on God's love and mercy (and other attributes of his that are beneficial to us) and exclude the fact that he is just. Really that just seems natural to me in that many of us are comfortable in sin and those that have not been converted have no idea of the holiness of God (and those of us who have have only experienced perhaps a fraction of it in varying degrees). We don't know why God would be so angry at us to have something so horrible as hell as punishment for those who don't believe upon Christ's sacrifice for the atonement for their sins.

According to the Bible we are all under the condemnation of God and all of us deserve hell. Why do we deserve anything different? If the answer is that we don't think we've done anything that bad to deserve such a punishment then we do not understand the gravity of sin. We are God's creation and this is his world and his rules. It might be nice to think that we can change the rules and say let's just make sin this and that, only those really bad things will merit that kind of punishment. Fortunately though, God is the judge and not us.

Hell is reconcilable to the concept of a loving and just God because, though he didn't have to spare any of us, he did choose to be merciful to those he had sovereignly elected before the foundation of the world to believe upon Christ for forgiveness of sin. He didn't have to spare any of us. And God shows mercy to whom he will show mercy. It shows our sinful nature to look up to God and say, well that's not fair--you spared this person and that person, so now you've got to spare all of us. We say God's ways are unequal when it is our ways that are unequal. His ways are not our ways. God didn't have to pour out his wrath upon his only begotten Son to reconcile some of his rebellious creation to himself. He did that because he loves us. Christ's death on the cross displays both the love and justice of God.

Rational Inquirer said:

As an agnostic who strives to keep an open mind, the aspect of Christian doctrine that disturbs me the most, and seems like it would prevent me from ever accepting Christianity, is the teaching that non-Christians go to hell. It doesn't make sense to me that if you don't happen to pick the right religion, you get tortured forever and ever. Do a billion people in India deserve eternal suffering simply because they were born in a non-Christian society? Am I looking at this the wrong way? How can I reconcile this teaching with the Christian conception of a loving and just God?

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One thing that I find interesting (and myself ascribed to for decades) is the concept of choosing a religion. Which for most adults means finding a belief system that best agrees with/supports decisions they've already made in life and/or what makes them feel best. So if one doesn't think God is just, well then just be an atheist or pick another religion.

I would hope we are all seeking the truth. That was my journey. The quest for truth. And based on my logical research of historical record and my education in the sciences I came to the conclusion that Christ did in fact live, died on the cross, and three days later rose from the dead. Having reached that conclusion, the rest falls into place.

One either does or doesn't believe. Disagreeing with God isn't disbelief. It's arrogance. It's hard to understand why God allows bad things to befall us on earth. But he's God. Who am I to argue. All we can do is seek to understand and have faith in Christ's teaching of a just and loving Father.

Being a Christian is rewarding but no one said it's easy. Christ warned his disciples that the world would hate them for believing in him. Sometimes truth hurts but it's still truth.

I can not imagine hating anybody enough that I would want them to suffer for eternity.

So I really can't imagine how someone who genuinely loves someone (as God loves His children) could ever sentence them to eternal pain of any sort. If you love someone you want to protect them. If it is in your power you do so.

I can not get my head around a loving Father who could stand by and let anybody He loved be thrown into "the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" and "the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever and they have no rest day and night".

Rational Inquirer said:

As an agnostic who strives to keep an open mind, the aspect of Christian doctrine that disturbs me the most, and seems like it would prevent me from ever accepting Christianity, is the teaching that non-Christians go to hell. It doesn't make sense to me that if you don't happen to pick the right religion, you get tortured forever and ever. Do a billion people in India deserve eternal suffering simply because they were born in a non-Christian society? Am I looking at this the wrong way? How can I reconcile this teaching with the Christian conception of a loving and just God?

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Catholicism doesn't teach that those who are non-Christian automatically go to hell. We have a concept called Invincible Ignorance that means a person is not responsible for not being a Christian. In other words, a person must hear and understand the gospel in order to reject it with moral responsibility. For those in a state of Invincible Ignorance, nature reveals all that they need, so that they are without excuse--they must be faithful to the light they do have, and be good and moral human beings. I think it was Dietrich Boenhoffer who talked about "Unconscious Christians" who lived more like Christ than the Christians he knew.

Rational Inquirer said:

As an agnostic who strives to keep an open mind, the aspect of Christian doctrine that disturbs me the most, and seems like it would prevent me from ever accepting Christianity, is the teaching that non-Christians go to hell. It doesn't make sense to me that if you don't happen to pick the right religion, you get tortured forever and ever. Do a billion people in India deserve eternal suffering simply because they were born in a non-Christian society? Am I looking at this the wrong way? How can I reconcile this teaching with the Christian conception of a loving and just God?

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You describe yourself as an "agnostic who strives to keep an open mind" but have closed your mind to a biblical doctrine you don't like. That doesn't seem very open-minded to me...

Understand that God doesn't need you to accept Christianity. He isn't in heaven biting his nails in fear you won't accept the faith. You need Him; He doesn't need you. And so, He doesn't skew the truth to make you feel more comfortable about it, or work to satisfy your sense of fair play, or order His doings so that they always "makes sense" to you. No, God comes to us as God and says, "This is the way it is. You can choose to believe me or not, but your belief or disbelief doesn't change what I have determined shall be."

Hell isn't merely the consequence of failing to "pick the right religion." Hell is the just punishment of our sin. "All have sinned," the Bible says, and so all are deserving of God's divine punishment. People go to Hell because they are sinners, not simply because they have not heard the Gospel or adhere to the Christian faith. We all have a conscience, the "law of God written in our hearts," (Ro. 2:14, 15) as the apostle Paul describes it, and we all at certain points act contrary to it. We do wrong and we know we have done so. It is this willful contravention of our innate knowledge of God's Moral Law that brings us under divine condemnation.

Paul writes in his letter to the Roman church that people "suppress the truth in unrighteousness." (Ro. 1:18). Like the innate moral sense all of us possess, we all also possess an innate awareness of our Creator that is witnessed to by the wonder, and complexity, and balance of Creation. But most of us don't want His rule, His control of us. We want to do what we want to do and so we suppress the truth of Him that we might feel more comfortable in our self-serving rebellion toward Him. If Paul is right (and I believe he is), there is in every person a part - often deeply suppressed - that knows God is and that one day He must be faced. And so it is that when an unrepentant, self-willed person finally stands before God it will be "without excuse" (Ro. 1:20). They will not be able to say, "I had no idea you existed!" And God will say to them, "Depart from me."

How is Hell reconciled to a just and loving God? Well, it begins by understanding that God is not an all-loving God. There is one thing He absolutely hates: Sin. God is perfectly holy, you see, and cannot abide what is evil, what is contrary to His perfect law and utterly pure nature. "God is light and in Him is no darkness at all," the apostle John wrote (1Jn. 1:5). When we forget this, we soon develop a warped picture of God that appeals to our sinful nature. God must be easy with our sin as we are; He must compromise with sin as we do; He must love and accept us even when we do what is evil. But such a God is impossible to reconcile to the holy, just and wrathful God revealed in the Bible. We cannot understand the incredible holiness of God by working from ourselves to God. As sin-prone creatures, we have nothing in our frame of reference by which to properly comprehend just how stunningly pure and righteous God is. But this is what many people try to do. They attempt to understand God by way of themselves and when they do, they just can't understand why God reacts so strongly and severely to the sin with which they are so easy. God, though, is not over-reacting when He punishes our sin with eternal Hell; He is responding in perfect holiness and justice to our sin.

When we fail to see God holiness properly, we cannot then understand His justice. The two things, God's holiness and justice, are inextricably intertwined. God's judgment upon our sin is so severe because His holiness is so great. When we fume over God's harsh punishment of our sin it simply reveals how poorly we understand His holiness - and our own wickedness.

Selah.