Purgatory And Prayers For The Dead.

[ozso]

There are a number, but one instance is "the Lord's prayer" which is a condensed version of the Amidah which is found in the Babylonian talmud.

So it's being said that what was written in the Talmud starting around 375 AD going forward, which can be matched to things Jesus promoted, weren't actually influenced by Jesus, but rather things that were purely oral for at least four or five hundred years. I mean which seems more likely?

 

[chevyontheriver]

It's hardly limited to just me. Isn't scripture a combination of a record of what God Himself said and what God dictated to the Apostles? Rather than a bunch of elements slapped together?

The inspiration of Scripture is independent of how the human authors put together the Words they heard from God. In that regard it's kind of the obverse of making sausage.

And why is it to be presumed that what the Apostles taught orally isn't exactly the same as what they wrote? Or wasn't written down by the Apostolic Fathers? Jesus only gave oral instruction, but of course it was written down by His Apostles rather than just remaining orally transmitted for several centuries. Isn't late reading due to a lack of printed scripture being readily available and a high rate of illiteracy?

One thing we do not have in the canonical Scriptures is an ordo for the liturgy. Some Protestants presume consequently that a Christian service should be totally free form. But something else was going on instead. The written liturgies came later but they were carried out earlier, formed from the Israelite liturgies. The book of Revelation actually makes sense best when read in the context of later liturgies, with incense and lampstands and the like. It's evidence of the liturgy that was not included as a liturgical ordo in other books of the Bible. My point is that not everything was in the Bible. And that was neither necessary nor the plan of God or of humans writing the canonical texts.

One has to wonder how it all would have gone if copies of the Gospels and Epistles had been mass produced and most everyone could read going into the fourth century.

But many of the less well off who were so attracted to Christ were not literate. And hand made manuscripts were the order of the day. Only a few rare individuals could afford an actual book. One has to wonder why Jesus didn't wait to come in the 21st century with inexpensive books and near universal literacy.

 

[Fervent]

So it's being said that what was written in the Talmud starting around 375 AD going forward, which can be matched to things Jesus promoted, weren't actually influenced by Jesus, but rather things that were purely oral for at least four or five hundred years. I mean which seems more likely?

The formal codification of the Talmud was a centuries long project that began almost immediately upon the return from exile, and the historical evidence is that the Amidah was not only in use in the 1st cenntury but an obligatory prayer with the dispute being centered on the number of benedictions needed.

 

[ozso]

The formal codification of the Talmud was a centuries long project that began almost immediately upon the return from exile, and the historical evidence is that the Amidah was not only in use in the 1st cenntury but an obligatory prayer with the dispute being centered on the number of benedictions needed.

I'm getting confused here as to what's supposed to be purely oral and what was actually put into writing.

 

[Valletta]

It's hardly limited to just me. Isn't scripture a combination of a record of what God Himself said and what God dictated to the Apostles? Rather than a bunch of elements slapped together? And why is it to be presumed that what the Apostles taught orally isn't exactly the same as what they wrote? Or wasn't written down by the Apostolic Fathers? Jesus only gave oral instruction, but of course it was written down by His Apostles rather than just remaining orally transmitted for several centuries. Isn't late reading due to a lack of printed scripture being readily available and a high rate of illiteracy? One has to wonder how it all would have gone if copies of the Gospels and Epistles had been mass produced and most everyone could read going into the fourth century.

Realize the Catholic Church was thriving before one word of the New Testament was written. There is no record of Jesus writing anything down (except on the ground when he almost certainly wrote names) or commanding others to write down what He said and did it, and compile that, with other inspired writings, in one book. Most of the Apostles wrote nothing down. But inspired by the Holy Spirit, the Catholic Church set out to determine what was God's Word and what was not. The first list of NT books, in the same order we use today, was not determined until the latter part of the 300s. When the 73 books of the Bible were finalized it was a fantastic addition to the Church, wonderful to have much important information written down. But by no means was it nearly all that Jesus had said or shown to the Apostles, no where close. Never was the Bible intended to supplant any of the numerous teachings of Jesus as passed down through the Apostles, instead it contained a fraction, a subset, of those teachings.

 

[The Liturgist]

I'm getting confused here as to what's supposed to be purely oral and what was actually put into writing.

The Talmud was a project by the Pharisees and Scribes, the Rabinnical Jews who unlike the Sadducees, Essenes and moderate Hellenic Judaism, survived intact as a religious movement the destruction of the temple and continued working towards their goal of codifying the “Oral Torah” in the Mishnah, and a few centuries later, began work on the Talmud, which essentially contains the entire Oral Torah including material on how to interpret it.

It is this tradition by the way, which frequently produces unexpected and seemingly contra-textual regulations for the obedience of certain commandments, for example, Tzitzit, which the Old Testament text directs should be white and blue, can only be white according to this rule because the exact shade of blue dye or a recipe for it is not known. In comparison, the Karaite Jews, who now number only 50,000 and endure quite a bit of persecution, simply interpret the above as requiring white and blue fringes on Tzitzit.

Now not all of their ideas, arrived at largely through a system of reasoning called the Kalaam, are that good, or seemingly logical from our perspective, for example, the Karaites do not believe in the devil and instead believe that Eve was deceived and led astray by a very sophisticated, seductively speaking slithery snake. But the Karaites did arise to challenge obvious controversial positions taken by what became “Orthodox Judaism” such as the aformentioned, and also the change in how the calendar is calculated (Karaites still do this based on observation of the Barley crop in the Holy Land). Together with Ethiopic Jews and Samaritans they are one of the other three Hebraic religions still extant in addition to Rabinnical Judaism and its derivatives, like Conservative, Reform and Recontructionist Judaism.

Thus I do think scriptural evidence is clear that the Oral Torah as recorded in the Mishnah and the Talmud and later encoded in the Sulchan Aruch constitutes the “Traditions of Men” our Lord warns about in the Gospel According to Mark, ch. 7, since it is clear from 2 Thessalonians 2:15 and Galatians 1:8-9 that there is an Apostolic tradition which is authoritative and important.

 

[ozso]

The Talmud was a project by the Pharisees and Scribes, the Rabinnical Jews who unlike the Sadducees, Essenes and moderate Hellenic Judaism, survived intact as a religious movement the destruction of the temple and continued working towards their goal of codifying the “Oral Torah” in the Mishnah, and a few centuries later, began work on the Talmud, which essentially contains the entire Oral Torah including material on how to interpret it.

It is this tradition by the way, which frequently produces unexpected and seemingly contra-textual regulations for the obedience of certain commandments, for example, Tzitzit, which the Old Testament text directs should be white and blue, can only be white according to this rule because the exact shade of blue dye or a recipe for it is not known. In comparison, the Karaite Jews, who now number only 50,000 and endure quite a bit of persecution, simply interpret the above as requiring white and blue fringes on Tzitzit.

Now not all of their ideas, arrived at largely through a system of reasoning called the Kalaam, are that good, or seemingly logical from our perspective, for example, the Karaites do not believe in the devil and instead believe that Eve was deceived and led astray by a very sophisticated, seductively speaking slithery snake. But the Karaites did arise to challenge obvious controversial positions taken by what became “Orthodox Judaism” such as the aformentioned, and also the change in how the calendar is calculated (Karaites still do this based on observation of the Barley crop in the Holy Land). Together with Ethiopic Jews and Samaritans they are one of the other three Hebraic religions still extant in addition to Rabinnical Judaism and its derivatives, like Conservative, Reform and Recontructionist Judaism.

Thus I do think scriptural evidence is clear that the Oral Torah as recorded in the Mishnah and the Talmud and later encoded in the Sulchan Aruch constitutes the “Traditions of Men” our Lord warns about in the Gospel According to Mark, ch. 7, since it is clear from 2 Thessalonians 2:15 and Galatians 1:8-9 that there is an Apostolic tradition which is authoritative and important.

When Jesus condemned their traditions, was he condemning everything they came up with during the intertestamental period?

I know there is Apostolic tradition. But can it be substantiated that every tradition currently in the Catholic and Orthodox church was established by the Apostles? I think it's alright to have traditions, but I wouldn't call them Scriptural or Apostolic traditions, unless they can absolutely be confirmed as such.

 

[ozso]

Realize the Catholic Church was thriving before one word of the New Testament was written. There is no record of Jesus writing anything down (except on the ground when he almost certainly wrote names) or commanding others to write down what He said and did it, and compile that, with other inspired writings, in one book. Most of the Apostles wrote nothing down. But inspired by the Holy Spirit, the Catholic Church set out to determine what was God's Word and what was not. The first list of NT books, in the same order we use today, was not determined until the latter part of the 300s. When the 73 books of the Bible were finalized it was a fantastic addition to the Church, wonderful to have much important information written down. But by no means was it nearly all that Jesus had said or shown to the Apostles, no where close. Never was the Bible intended to supplant any of the numerous teachings of Jesus as passed down through the Apostles, instead it contained a fraction, a subset, of those teachings.

So what happened to the majority of what Jesus taught?

 

[FenderTL5]

So what happened to the majority of what Jesus taught?

John the Evangelist said, "there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written."

 

[The Liturgist]

When Jesus condemned their traditions, was he condemning everything they came up with during the intertestamental period?

I don’t think so, not based on the writings of St. Paul, since the Pharisees were correct in one area where the Sadducees were wrong, that being belief in the Resurrection of the Dead and the Life of the World to Come.

Also I should say I reject entirely the idea of an Intertestamental period; I believe the corruption our Lord was experiencing in Judaism was a recent phenomenon that began during the life of King Herod the Great, and became worse.

The most recent book in the Bible is the Wisdom of Solomon, which was compiled, from older texts, around 60 BC, and which is truly remarkable, because just 60 years before the Incarnation and 93 years before the Passion of our Lord and the spreading of Christian doctrine, we find these things clearly articulated in this amazing book, which is also one of the most beautiful in the Old Testament, particularly chapter 2, which is a prophecy of the rejection and suffering of our Lord.

I am unable to understand how anyone who has actually read the Wisdom of Solomon, and noted the date at which it was compiled (which is not the same as the date when its contents, which are more ancient, were written, likely by Solomon in at least some cases, or in other cases perhaps attributed to him due to their beauty since the actual author was unknown, a pious custom in that era which also occurred with the early Christian hymns known as the Odes of Solomon, most of which are beautiful but a few of which show evidence of Gnostic corruption…the one thing one must be vigiliant for in examining new documents found from the Patristic era is that they are actually by the Early Church Fathers and not the heretical sects, chiefly the Gnostics, who liked to forge psuedepigrapa with the name of Apostles, who they claimed had passed the material down as a secret tradition, since our Lord would be alleged to have shared this secret knowledge with that one apostle only.

The idea of salvation by secret knowledge is entirely rejected by the Orthodox Church, and indeed some of our concerns about some recent Restorationist churches are due to a seeming neo-Gnosticism in their doctrine. Indeed the 1930s Unitarian catechism implied that American Unitarians were the benefits of some obscure salvific knowledge. This was from when the Unitarians were still nominally, loosely, theoretically Christian, which they are no longer.

I know there is Apostolic tradition. But can it be substantiated that every tradition currently in the Catholic and Orthodox church was established by the Apostles? I think it's alright to have traditions, but I wouldn't call them Scriptural or Apostolic traditions, unless they can absolutely be confirmed as such.

While it is true that not all of Orthodox Tradition can be linked to the practices of the very early church, most can, even the specifics of our Marian doctrine, which at a minimum date from the second century, but it seems unlikely in the paranoid-sensitive church of the second century someone could fabricate the entire contents of the Protoevangelion of James, which is psuedepigraphical but agrees for the most part with our views, without being called out on it by, for example, St. Irenaeus of Lyons. In other cases, it is possible to see the Orthodox Church is the only ancient church that is adhering to various traditions of the Early Church, including, but not limited to, the ancient liturgies of the Alexandrian, Byzantine, Hagiopolitan (Jerusalemite) and Antiohene liturgical rites, fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays, the ordination of bishops by at least three previously ordained bishops, and other requirements of ancient canon law which other churches ignore, the use of the Creed without the Filioque, and so on. In this group I should add that I also include, for purposes of this statement, not just the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, but also certain Eastern Catholic churches where these things are also the case, if they exist (and evidence indicates they do, despite the OP’s rejection), and also the Church of the East, sometimes incorrectly referred to as the Nestorian Church, which would more accurately be called “the Christian Church in Persia, Mesopotamia, Arabia, and the Far East,” although its membership outside of the Fertile Crescent and the Malabar Coast of India was the victim of a genocide initiated by the Mongol-Turkic Islamic warlord Tamerlane, who distressingly is venerated as a national hero in Uzbekistan.

Why one would venerate the 12th century equivalent of Hitler I cannot fathom, but at least the Uzbeks have not been violent towards those Christians remaining there since the end of the Soviet Union (which consist largely of ethnic Russians and Ukrainians who lived there since the Czarist period in some cases, and Germans forced to settle in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan by Stalin after WWII).

At any rate, don’t take my word for it; if you read any objective study of Church History, particularly the history of liturgical worship, it will become clear that the Eastern Churches have changed the least overall, in that our Eucharistic liturgies, and the other essential services, are of immense antiquity. Indeed much of what we do know the history of consists of hymns that were composed more recently, largely between the years 400 and 1300, and the enrichment of the liturgies of the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches that took place during those years with these additional hymns, and also the various changes; indeed, the changes that were omitted are so well documented, that if we wanted to, we could reconstruct with extreme precision the worship of the Hagia Sophia as it was in antiquity, and indeed the composer, musicologist and director of the amazing choir Capella Romana did just that, in several albums, performing ancient Byzantine church music that was part of the glorious old Cathedral Rite that became disused in Constantinople after the Fourth Crusade and in Thessalonica some time later, by the time the Byzantine Empire was conquered by the Turks, to be sure.

It was the Sabaite-Studite liturgical synthesis as we call it, developed by two ancient monasteries, both of which were lost, Mar Sabbas in the Holy Land and the Studion in Constantinople, that would sustain the parishes during the dark years of Turkish occupation. But at least we still have St. Catharine’s in Sinai, from which the celebrated fourth century Bible manuscript, the Codex Sinaiticus, was stolen by a Belgian adventurer in the 19th century, and sold in sections to the British, Russian and French governments, but recently they returned part of it to the monks, and also where the ancient fifth century icon of Christ Pantocrator, and many other priceless icons, manuscripts and relics are kept. This monastery is in danger due to it being in Sinai, due to terrorist activity and also now the current war in Gaza, although historically it has been protected by the local Bedouins, who it provides with medical care. It is probably worth praying for its monks.

At any rate, my point is the Eastern Churches have more faithfully adhered to the apostolic tradition than any other church; the Roman Catholics and traditional Protestants also keep a lot of it, but there is a problem in their theology, that being the influence of Scholasticism and the overuse of the Latin father St. Augustine and the underuse of the Greek Fathers, Syrian Fathers and other Latin fathers such as St. John Cassian and St. Cyprian of Carthage, and this has created a distinct theology, which one can discern the emergence of in the ninth century, which includes specific innovations like the filioque, the idea of Purgatory as a physical destination analogous to Heaven or Hell, the legalistic idea of indulgences and the treasury of merit, the idea of Papal Supremacy, and so on. The Eastern churches are in a much more pristine state. In terms of how they are governed, the closest thing to them are the Protestant churches of an Episcopal polity, particularly the Anglicans; at different times, parts of Anglicanism have nearly entered into communion with the Orthodox, while other portions did join us and became the Orthodox Western Rite Vicarates (there are two, the Antiochian Western Rite Vicarate, which is the largest, and has services that are derived from Anglican and Roman Catholic usages but corrected to Orthodox theology, and ROCOR’s Western Rite, which focuses on reconstructing the liturgy of England and Western Europe before the takeover of Scholastic Theology and the other changes I mentioned).

 

[The Liturgist]

John the Evangelist said, "there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written."

Indeed, this is correct. And we do have fragments of his other teachings in the Orthodox tradition, to be sure, and there might be other fragments elsewhere, but it becomes impossible to verify the authenticity.

 

[dzheremi]

I find it interesting that so much discussion subsequent to the OP (which I don't have much to say about other than to point out for the sake of any non-Orthodox readers the hopefully obvious fact that prayers for the dead do not necessitate belief in purgatory as defined by the RCC) seems to rest upon the idea of what is or isn't a part of the Biblical canon. Someone earlier in the thread brought up Enoch to show how 'apocryphal' things were sometimes quoted in the NT, and I immediately thought "Well, yeah...unless you're an Ethiopian or Eritrean, in which case they're just quoting the Bible." (Since Enoch is canonical in the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox churches.)

That's why this division into canonical vs. apocryphal doesn't really work, or, as I would prefer to put it, there is no one canon that will be agreed upon by all to constitute "THE Bible", so debates about if there are 66 or however many books, or whether or not a particular book that is quoted in the NT is 'apocryphal', while they may be helpful to distinguish where each person involved in them is coming from (in terms of what they'll accept and what they won't), kind of miss the point. The Orthodox Tewahedo Churches of East Africa are rightly referred to as the "daughters" of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria (as it was from Alexandria that Axum received her first bishops after the repose of St. Frumentius, the Syro-Phoenician Greek who is remembered primarily for having converted King 'Ezana c. 330), yet the Coptic Orthodox Church's own canon is not nearly as expansive as the so-called "broad(er) canon" of the Ethiopians and Eritreans. This has never been a problem for any of us because we have the same faith, and the fact that we recognize one another as having the same faith is itself a testament to how little it actually matters to establish some kind of unbreakable consensus regarding the scope of the canon, so long as everyone is reading whatever books they are reading within the scope of the teachings of the Fathers (with the recognition that here too, there are different fathers even within the same communion; while ideally it should not be this way, I would bet that fewer Copts know about, e.g., St. Nerses Shnorhali than do Armenians, just as Armenians are probably not as immediately aware of any given random Coptic authority from the Middle Ages, like ibn Kabar or whoever).

Regarding prayer for the dead as a thing, I think others have covered this ably already in this thread. For myself, I am a simple man: I do it because the Church does it, and I am a member of the Church. I believe that prayers for the dead are efficacious not just because scripture shows them to be so (I like the point someone made earlier about our Lord praying over Lazarus when resurrecting him), but because I likewise believe that God is unbound by time (but that He should choose to make Himself subject to it, as with regard to the incarnation), and that there is no death for His servants, but a departure. So what others may see as useless because "they're already dead" or whatever seems to me to be a misunderstanding of the reality of what we do and why: because no one is truly dead who has fallen asleep in the Lord, and we also recognize that the final judgment has yet to occur, so we of course "look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the age to come."

 

[The Liturgist]

That's why this division into canonical vs. apocryphal doesn't really work, or, as I would prefer to put it, there is no one canon that will be agreed upon by all to constitute "THE Bible", so debates about if there are 66 or however many books, or whether or not a particular book that is quoted in the NT is 'apocryphal', while they may be helpful to distinguish where each person involved in them is coming from (in terms of what they'll accept and what they won't), kind of miss the point.

Indeed, I entirely agree. My own inclination is a bit maximalist; I am inclined to recognize everything the Ethiopian Orthodox Church recognizes as canonical, with the caveat being that some of these extra books must be interpreted exactly as the Ethiopians interpret them, which is to say, using the hermeneutics of the Alexandrian Catechetical School, as allegorical-typological prophecy , because otherwise aspects of, for instance, the demonology in 1 Enoch would conflict with existing Church Doctrine, and furthermore we already interpret much of the Old Testament using the Alexandrian hermeneutics anyway. The best Church Fathers interpreted each book using a mixture of Alexandrian typological-prophetic hermeneutics and Antiochene historical-literal hermeneutics, varying the ratio depending on which book it was.

 

[dzheremi]

Indeed, I entirely agree. My own inclination is a bit maximalist; I am inclined to recognize everything the Ethiopian Orthodox Church recognizes as canonical, with the caveat being that some of these extra books must be interpreted exactly as the Ethiopians interpret them, which is to say, using the hermeneutics of the Alexandrian Catechetical School, as allegorical-typological prophecy , because otherwise aspects of, for instance, the demonology in 1 Enoch would conflict with existing Church Doctrine, and furthermore we already interpret much of the Old Testament using the Alexandrian hermeneutics anyway. The best Church Fathers interpreted each book using a mixture of Alexandrian typological-prophetic hermeneutics and Antiochene historical-literal hermeneutics, varying the ratio depending on which book it was.

Or even more simply than that: We should interpret them according to how they interpret them because they're a part of the EOTC's unique canon, so who would know better than they what those books mean? We don't need to (and shouldn't attempt to) reinvent the wheel.

 

[Fervent]

I'm getting confused here as to what's supposed to be purely oral and what was actually put into writing.

Oral tradition is a bit of a misnomer, because while it is primarily propagated orally that doesn't mean its existence isn't documented in writing. Extrabiblical sources like histories and other secular documents may make mention of oral traditions such that they can be reconstructed, but they remain oral because they aren't formally codified and collected in any single document or codex. The reason Scripture can't be separated from the oral tradition is because the oral tradition gives the full context of Scripture, as the documents were written with particular ends and in particular historical circumstances that are critical for proper exegesis.

 

[The Liturgist]

Or even more simply than that: We should interpret them according to how they interpret them because they're a part of the EOTC's unique canon, so who would know better than they what those books mean? We don't need to (and shouldn't attempt to) reinvent the wheel.

Exactly. That is what I trying to say (my understanding is that they are interpreted by the Ethiopians using the Alexandrian hermeneutic). Forgive me if I did not make it clear. I trust the Orthodoxy of the Ethiopian church and have no doubt as to their ability to include these important works without interpreting them in a way that causes a departure from generic Orthodox and Coptic Orthodox doctrine on demons, based on 1 Enoch; I mentioned this because I have seen some people try to use that book on CF.com as the basis for strange doctrines concerning the Nephilim, etc.

 

[eleos1954]

'Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.' (Matthew 7:13-14, Jesus speaking)

'Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.' (Matthew 7:19, Jesus speaking)

'As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' (Matthew 13:40-42, Jesus speaking)

'But unless you repent, you too will all perish.' (Luke 13:3, Jesus speaking)

"But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” Revelation 21:8

God is just and therefore every ain must be punished. Either Christ pais for your sins, or you will be paying for your sins for eternity. Or do you expect God to reward us for our sins? I do not think so

The punishment is the forfeiting of eternal life (this is the punishment).... God is not a torturing monster. He is merciful.

Revelation 21:8 - second DEATH .... death is death (cease to exist) ... NOT living a tormented life. God does not condemn the lost to a continued life in some burning place .... death (cease to exist) for eternity is not a reward ... eternal life is.

We are being conformed into His image ... sorry to hear you and others think an eternal life of torture is OK. That's sick thinking.

Did Jesus torture anyone? NO the opposite He allowed Himself to be tortured.

Luke 13:3 perish

per·ish
/ˈperiSH/
verb

1. suffer death, typically in a violent, sudden, or untimely way."a great part of his army perished of hunger and disease

(Matthew 7:13-14

Destruction
de·struc·tion
/dəˈstrəkSH(ə)n/

noun

1. the action or process of causing so much damage to something that it no longer exists or cannot be repaired

Jesus did indeed pay for everyones death so those in Him might have life for eternity .... those not in Him will not have life ... but death
for eternity.

 

[The Liturgist]

The punishment is the forfeiting of eternal life (this is the punishment).... God is not a torturing monster. He is merciful.

Revelation 21:8 - second DEATH .... death is death (cease to exist) ... NOT living a tormented life. God does not condemn the lost to a continued life in some burning place .... death (cease to exist) for eternity is not a reward ... eternal life is.

We are being conformed into His image ... sorry to hear you and others think an eternal life of torture is OK. That's sick thinking.

Did Jesus torture anyone? NO the opposite He allowed Himself to be tortured.

Luke 13:3 perish

per·ish
/ˈperiSH/
verb

1. suffer death, typically in a violent, sudden, or untimely way."a great part of his army perished of hunger and disease

(Matthew 7:13-14

Destruction
de·struc·tion
/dəˈstrəkSH(ə)n/

noun

1. the action or process of causing so much damage to something that it no longer exists or cannot be repaired

Jesus did indeed pay for everyones death so those in Him might have life for eternity .... those not in Him will not have life ... but death
for eternity.

The eternal torment is not inflicted by God but is the result of the people themselves, having missed out on the eternal joy of paradise, because of their hatred for God. To quote CS Lewis, “the gates of Hell are locked on the inside.” By which he does not mean Universalism, but rather, God does not desire the damnation of a sinner, but rather that they should receive eternal life; but some people will chose to hate God and as a result will experience His incandescent Love as Wrath, and for these people, early Church Fathers argued that God provided the Outer Darkness as a mercy, since being in His immediate presence would be an unbearable torment for them, but it is essentially their choice which has caused them to wind up in such a scenario. It would be even more inconsistent with God’s love for him to terminate conscious beings as in the case of Annhilationism, since I would argue that existence is better than oblivion, even for those who chose by virtue of their hatred for God to exclude themselves from the joys of paradise and live a tormented life. Its like the difference between pain and paralysis.

 

[eleos1954]

The eternal torment is not inflicted by God but is the result of the people themselves, having missed out on the eternal joy of paradise, because of their hatred for God. To quote CS Lewis, “the gates of Hell are locked on the inside.” By which he does not mean Universalism, but rather, God does not desire the damnation of a sinner, but rather that they should receive eternal life; but some people will chose to hate God and as a result will experience His incandescent Love as Wrath, and for these people, early Church Fathers argued that God provided the Outer Darkness as a mercy, since being in His immediate presence would be an unbearable torment for them, but it is essentially their choice which has caused them to wind up in such a scenario. It would be even more inconsistent with God’s love for him to terminate conscious beings as in the case of Annhilationism, since I would argue that existence is better than oblivion, even for those who chose by virtue of their hatred for God to exclude themselves from the joys of paradise and live a tormented life. Its like the difference between pain and paralysis.

It is his opinion

"since I would argue that existence is better than oblivion"

Who in their right mind would think eternal torture would be better than non existence? Burning for eternity? I would rather die (cease to exist) than to burn for eternity. Wouldn't you?

How in the world is burning someone for eternity showing love ... especially God's love. This is totally illogical.

How are you going to feel for eternity knowing someone you loved is experiencing eternal torture? Torturing is not love.

11 Say to them, iAs I live, declares the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live;

It's life or death.

So, He has no pleasure in death, but He's ok with torture? Nonsensical and illogical.

 

[eleos1954]

The eternal torment is not inflicted by God but is the result of the people themselves, having missed out on the eternal joy of paradise, because of their hatred for God. To quote CS Lewis, “the gates of Hell are locked on the inside.” By which he does not mean Universalism, but rather, God does not desire the damnation of a sinner, but rather that they should receive eternal life; but some people will chose to hate God and as a result will experience His incandescent Love as Wrath, and for these people, early Church Fathers argued that God provided the Outer Darkness as a mercy, since being in His immediate presence would be an unbearable torment for them, but it is essentially their choice which has caused them to wind up in such a scenario. It would be even more inconsistent with God’s love for him to terminate conscious beings as in the case of Annhilationism, since I would argue that existence is better than oblivion, even for those who chose by virtue of their hatred for God to exclude themselves from the joys of paradise and live a tormented life. Its like the difference between pain and paralysis.

God is in control of everything ... in this thinking ... if God allows it (burning in Hell) then He is still be responsible for it. If a burning hell is
a place ... God created it and is responsible for it.

All throughout His Word it's about life or death .... a burning place for eternity would still be life .... a torturous one.

Choose to serve a god that tortures? .... I do not and could not.

Most atheists I know reject God because of this very teaching ...because in that regard they intuitively know torture is wrong.

I often wonder what the Lord will think of those who make Him out to be a tortuous monster. It's something people who teach
this should really think about.

The teaching is right from satan .... a way of leading many away from the Lord and many churches are doing his bidding through
this great deception of a burning place for eternity.

May the Lord open peoples eyes regarding this matter. Amen.