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C.S. Lewis also said > > >
"In the Christian story, God descends to re-ascend. He comes down...down to the very roots and sea-bed of the Nature He has created. But He goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with Him."
The Restitution of all things has nothing to do with "free will"! It begins in God and ends in God with zero input by broken mankind!
This is the rationale for blaming hell on the victims. Because "people who hate God" deserve to be there, right? Well, don't we all deserve to be there?...people who hate God align themselves with evil...
I'll save us both the waste of time. You will claim my scriptures do not mean what they plainly say, citing cherry-picking and out-of-context usage. We have both heard it all before. Right?If you want to bring up Biblical support...
Ergo, monergism. Also I do have to confess, I do find it slightly grating how you are basically quoting CS Lewis in support of a doctrine he did not agree with.
We are already dead at birth. Spiritually dead. Born to the consequence of sin.It is not a threat. To hate God is to love wickedness, and Hellfire is the natural outcome of wickedness. “The wages of sin are death.”
Thanks for responding to my question, even though I didn't agree with it. I appreciate the effort and clarification.I would say the correct response is to acknowledge free will and the self-evident truth that a genuine love for God needs must be voluntary and devoid of coercion, and that conversely, people who hate God align themselves with evil by the very nature of such an act, and this evil is what torments them in the hereafter. However, voluntary love of God is not possible unless people are given the choice to love or not to love (and it would be actively cruel of God to force us into the pretense of loving Him where such love was not genuine, whereas his granting of free will is a kindness, even for those who make the unfortunate decision to hate God, because whatever suffering they endure as a result of their misotheism is less than what would be experienced as the result of being compelled to participate in a relationship devoid of genuine, voluntary love.
I wonder what C.S. Lewis meant then by this quote by him?
"In the Christian story, God descends to re-ascend. He comes down...down to the very roots and sea-bed of the Nature He has created. But He goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with Him." C.S. Lewis-
If that passage is just a parable, then perhaps all of Jesus' words about eternal punishment are not really meant to be taken literally. I do not see how you can say one is just a parable and the other is not.I take it that you are getting that from this these to verses.
Mat 25:31 When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
Mat 25:32 And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:
Mat 25:33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
Mat 25:34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
Mat 25:35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
Mat 25:36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Mat 25:37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
Mat 25:38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
Mat 25:39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
Mat 25:40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Mat 25:41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
Mat 25:42 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
Mat 25:43 I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
Mat 25:44 Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
Mat 25:45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
Mat 25:46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
Luk 16:19 There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:
Luk 16:20 And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores,
Luk 16:21 And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.
Luk 16:22 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;
Luk 16:23 And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
Luk 16:24 And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.
Luk 16:25 But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.
Luk 16:26 And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.
Luk 16:27 Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house:
Luk 16:28 For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.
Luk 16:29 Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.
Luk 16:30 And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.
Luk 16:31 And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.
You need to bear in mind, that these are parables, and not to be taken at face value. They are very deep, require significant scriptural understanding to interpret correctly.
If that passage is just a parable, then perhaps all of Jesus' words about eternal punishment are not really meant to be taken literally. I do not see how you can say one is just a parable and the other is not.
If that passage is just a parable, then perhaps all of Jesus' words about eternal punishment are not really meant to be taken literally. I do not see how you can say one is just a parable and the other is not.
If that passage is just a parable, then perhaps all of Jesus' words about eternal punishment are not really meant to be taken literally. I do not see how you can say one is just a parable and the other is not.
Yes, perhaps Jesus' words about eternal punishment are not really meant to be taken literally. It's called exaggerated emphasis. (as I recall)If that passage is just a parable, then perhaps all of Jesus' words about eternal punishment are not really meant to be taken literally. I do not see how you can say one is just a parable and the other is not.
Here is the scripture I had in mind to share with you. But found the others instead.If that passage is just a parable, then perhaps all of Jesus' words about eternal punishment are not really meant to be taken literally.
Apokatastasis was quite properly rejected as a theological error, indeed, as a heresy, at the Fifth Ecumenical Council
(although I do believe that Emperor Justinian acted arbitrarily in anathematizing Origen for his belief in apokatastasis,
St. Gregory Nyssa also believed in it, and Origen was as widely respected for his piety in the third century, if not more so, than St. Gregory Nyssa in the fourth (whose importance unlike that of Origen, who was individually and uniquely vital in the Church of Alexandria, was that of one of several pro-Nicene Christians known as the Cappadocians, including his older brother St. Basil the Great, and his older brother’s best friend, St. Gregory Nazianzus, neither of whom expressed a belief in apokatastasis)
Indeed, the idea of Apokatastasis as viewed in antiquity is, I think, best summarized by this quote from The Book of the Bee:
I believe that CS Lewis instead properly expressed the truth of the matter when he said “the gates of Hell are locked on the inside.” That is to say, scripture indicates there are people who are so filled with hate that loving God would be impossible for them, and so, tragically, they are binded by their boundless capacity for self-destructive hated.
people tthink hell is a place where demons torture you wrong. hell is a place where the lost will burn in the lake of fire and burn for eternity aswell as the demon and lucifer getting the same punihmen
Zec 13:9 And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God.
1Co 3:13 Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.
1Co 3:14 If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
1Co 3:15 If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.
1Co 3:16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
1Co 3:17 If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.
Joh 2:18 Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?
Joh 2:19 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
Joh 2:20 Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?
Joh 2:21 But he spake of the temple of his body.
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