What is Hell? Who goes there? (moved from WWMC)

[Gukkor]

I think one needs to examine it all... in the same way one reads the newspaper, a dictionary or a text book...

If it isn't all good, then God didn't do a good job creating. We aren't powerful enough to undo God's goodness... sure bad things happen... but like the expression goes "it's all good".

Just to be clear, is this an implication of determinism?

 

[Vegas]

Just to be clear, is this an implication of determinism?

Not that I know of... just sovereignty

 

[Gukkor]

Not that I know of... just sovereignty

'kay, just double-checking. I have hypersensitive allergy to free will/determinism debates.

 

[threedog]

Whether one breaks a commandement or violates a levitical law is not the same thing as sin. You are speaking as if sin were something you could do or not do. Behavior can not be sin. Behavior is only a manifestation of instinct and motivation. Illegal behavior can be done for righteous purposes (David taking grain from the temple storage, Jesus plucking grain or healing on the Sabbath) or for innocent purposes, (like having the brakes fail on your car and you accidently kill someone or destroy their property); and legal behavior can be done for evil purposes.

So it is in our motivations that we sin... which is one reason why the Catholics speak of sins of omission. How then do we sin... by choosing self over God and our neighbor. How do we sin: by choosing neighbor over God or by choosing God over neighbor?

What is the basis for our motivation to choose one over the other? We choose from the options that we are aware are set before us. Those who have power, wealth and education have more options to choose from... whereas a poor starving person may see no option but to steal or kill to survive. Will God condemn that poor person for choosing theft and reward the rich person for shopping at Krogers Foods?
You make it sound so cut and dried: "You commit a sin you must be punished." Obviously God sees so much more than we do... it is not so cut and dried. Why do you think Jesus warned it was nearly impossible for a rich person to enter the kingdom? And he promised the poor, the meek and they that mourn the rewards of the kingdom?

Wow! Impressive

Threedog

 

[threedog]

There appear to be two fundamentally different views of what it is to be human here.

On the one hand we have the person who needs to be constrained by fear, who is assumed (and assumes himself) to be evil, and who is ruled with a rod of iron, and a hard hand. Translated into parenting we have a child assumed to be evil until the evil is beaten out of him, one way or another, and good beaten in. This results in a faith born of fear and emotional destruction, and a resentment of anyone who seems to have found a path to God which is not equally strewn with thistles, rocks and stones. This faith is not one which allows for maturity, but rather seeks to keep the victim an eternal infant, eternally beaten by the parental rod, and eternally condemned as the naughty child, who can never win, because the parent always judges, and the child is never, ever, right. God has become an eternal sadistic parent, and in modern terms, also a child abuser.

On the other hand, we have the person who recognises in God a different kind of parent. The parent who does not rebuke an innocent child with blows and harshness, but nurtures and consoles, picks us up after we fall, dusts us down, sets us on our feet again and says, have another go. This parent allows the child to grow to maturity, and to learn what it is to be an adult; that it is about making choices, and about making mistakes, and taking responsibility for those mistakes, but it is also about having an adult relationship with an adult God. Nothing to do with sin, but everything to do with relationship, with growth and with love. God here is who he always has been; patiently waiting for us to get the message.

God has blessed you with wisdom. Many thanks!

Threedog

 

[threedog]

First, because we do not have the right to determine what God actually regards as evil. Some things are pretty clear, such as genocide, and some are not. God must have his own way of dealing with mass murderers, but I do not know what that is, and neither does anyone else.

Second, because, as I have already told you several times, when we have an example of Jesus Christ standing in judgement on a person who is undoubtedly guilty, and who is not heard to express remorse or repentance (although doubtless feeling it after being caught, as we all would) is shown mercy rather than condemned out of hand.

If the behaviour of Our Lord contradicts the picture of God painted in the Bible, then, on historical principles, I take Our Lord as primary evidence, and the Bible as secondary.

Profound!

Threedog

 

[KCDAD]

Profound!
CatherineAnne:
If the behaviour of Our Lord contradicts the picture of God painted in the Bible, then, on historical principles, I take Our Lord as primary evidence, and the Bible as secondary.

Threedog

Thanks to you, Threedog, for bumping this post ...
I think this is exactly why John calls Jesus The Logos... the true representation of God.

 

[Vegas]

Thanks to you, Threedog, for bumping this post ...
I think this is exactly why John calls Jesus The Logos... the true representation of God.

Perhaps one of the lessons of The New Testament is that the Israel-centric Old Testament needs to give way to the pluralistic and ecumenical view of The New Testament.

 

[threedog]

Vegas,

You are most welcomed,

Threedog

 

[Catherineanne]

From dust you came and to dust you will return...

That is about the body, but not about the soul.

 

[Soul Searcher]

That is about the body, but not about the soul.

and The spirit returms to God who gave it.

 

[Catherineanne]

Perhaps one of the lessons of The New Testament is that the Israel-centric Old Testament needs to give way to the pluralistic and ecumenical view of The New Testament.

As long as we do not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Jesus managed to be Israel centric and show a compassion beyond anything seen before; a compassion to those around him. If we do no more, then we are following his footsteps.

What is important is to remember that it is not God who has changed. So if we take the Logos, and read the OT with him in mind, we will find that God is there.

We will also find that a huge amount of human projection is there too, dumping human emotions, sins, failings and other crud onto the Divinity. God has borne this for many many centuries, but yet through it all, there is the golden thread shining through.

Moses asked God his name, and God said he could not be told the name, but the nearest he could hear was "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion."

I believe we see this God revealed in Christ. One God. No contradictions. But also no genocide, no murder, no slaughter of innocent people. Those are all our sins, not God's.

 

[Catherineanne]

and The spirit returms to God who gave it.

Who says it ever left?

 

[Catherineanne]

Thanks to you, Threedog, for bumping this post ...
I think this is exactly why John calls Jesus The Logos... the true representation of God.

Absolutely right. Our God is not a book, but a living person; Christ himself.

This is the heart of our faith.

Giving premacy - or even equality - to the Bible over the behaviour of Christ, elevates it to the status of God, and is idolatry. God does not comprise God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Scriptures.

It would be like having a friend, and believing what we read in his diary, or in a biography, over and above what we know to be true from walking, sitting and sharing fellowship with that friend. Barking mad, in other words.