Why an eternal hell?

Blessedj01 said:

This is such a pointless arguement right now...sigh...why is it like this all over CF?

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Well, it does tie this rabbit trail into the thread title. After all what is more like an eternal hell than an endlessly pedantic debate on meaning of the word "buddy"?

dies-l said:

Well, it does tie this rabbit trail into the thread title. After all what is more like an eternal hell than an endlessly pedantic debate on meaning of the word "buddy"?

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Haha.

Am excerpt from a blog entitled "Is God A Monster".

Nearly fifty years ago, the British agnostic Bertrand Russell penned these words: "There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ's moral character, and that is that He believed in hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment" (Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian).

Philosopher John Hick echoed those sentiments when he called hell "a perversion of the Christian gospel." He believed the doctrine of hell attributed to God "an unappeasable vindictiveness and insatiable cruelty."

We expect statements like that from fallen, unregenerate minds. But what do we do when we hear similar things from prominent, professing evangelical writers? "How can Christians possibly project a deity of such cruelty and vindictiveness whose ways include inflicting everlasting torture upon his creatures, however sinful they may have been? Surely a God who would do such a thing is more nearly like Satan than like God..." (Clark H. Pinnock, "The Destruction of the Finally Impenitent").

It's become popular today for professing evangelicals to join the ranks of Pinnock, atheists, and agnostics in protesting the doctrine of hell. They are preaching sermons, writing articles, and publishing books, and some are wandering into the comment threads of Christian blogs. Here's a small sampling from Grace To You's blog in our recent series on hell:

"What kind of God torments people for all eternity?" "...Satan loves the false doctrine of eternal torment" "[eternal torment is] cruel and unusual punishment" "[eternal torment] makes God out to be a cruel tyrant," "absolutely cruel and malevolent" "How can you in your right minds even consider this to be justice?"

If the doctrine of hell as eternal, conscious torment hadn't been the position of the Christian church for two millennia, it might be easy to think we're seriously out of step--a bunch of mindless minions who worship a monster-god! But when you examine the biblical evidence, without an agenda, you'll find we sound a lot like Jesus and the apostles.

So, how could someone who claims to be faithful to Scripture ridicule the idea of eternal punishment? What is at the heart of their rejection of a never-ending hell? It's simple, really--they minimize the seriousness of human sin and guilt, and they distort the perfection of divine justice. That's the crime of Protestant Liberalism and every false religion.

Minimizing the Sinfulness of Sin

To one degree or another, we're all guilty of minimizing sin. I remember the first time I read the account of Lot's wife. God turned her into a pillar of salt as she was leaving Sodom. Her crime? A backward glance (Gen. 19:26). Reading that story as an unbeliever provoked me to ask the question: "Was that really an offense worthy of death--turning your neck to take one final look at your home?" As I explored more of the Bible, other accounts of God's judgment appeared equally capricious and severe to me.

Nadab and Abihu deviated from the priestly procedures. God consumed them with fire (Lev. 10:1-2). One man gathered wood on the Sabbath. God commanded Moses to stone him (Num. 15:35). Achan took a few forbidden items from the spoils of Jericho. God commanded Joshua to stone and then burn Achan along with his entire family (Josh. 7:24-25). Uzzah kept the ark of God from falling into the mud by reaching out his hand and taking hold of it. God immediately struck him dead (2 Sam. 6:6-7). Ananias and Sapphira lied to the apostles. God killed them both in front of the entire church. (Acts 5:1-10).

We often struggle to understand how something seemingly so trivial could enact such a severe judgment. Our flesh wants to cry out in protest, "That's not fair!" But responses like that reveal our failure to grasp the depth of sin. We see only actions--a devoted father gathering firewood to keep his family warm; a zealous Israelite anxious to keep the Ark of God off the ground--but God sees things differently, more clearly, than we do. He sees our sin as insurrection, rebellion against His holiness (Ex. 31:14; Num. 4:15). What's more, He sees the hidden motives and intentions at the core of our actions (Mt. 5:28; Heb. 4:12).

One of the most basic tenets of justice is that the punishment must fit the crime. So, if the ultimate punishment for those who die without Christ is hell, then what is the crime? What do men do to merit the eternal sentence of hell? Put plainly, they sin.

You can read the rest here:

http://www.gty.org/blog/B110518

May God Richly Bless you!

Blessedj01 said:

This is such a pointless arguement right now...sigh...why is it like this all over CF?

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Blessed,

Jim Packer summed it up in 1996:

For more than three hundred years God-shrinkers have been at work in the churches of the Reformation, scaling down our Maker to the measure of man's mind and dissolving the biblical view of him as the Lord who reigns and speaks (1996:127, emphasis added).

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I think Packer has hit the theological nail on the head. When there are God-shrinkers in the pulpits and on the printed and electronic pages, we'll get them in the pew, and they'll flow through to places like CF.

I'm about to give up on CF as the God-shrinkers are seen in too many threads here (including this thread). Those who take God at His word and want to listen to what the Scriptures say, instead of making the Scriptures mean what a human mind invents, are decreasing.

In Christ, Oz

Reference:
Packer, J I 1996. Truth & power: The place of Scripture in the Christian
life. Wheaton, Illinois: Harold Shaw Publishers.

OzSpen said:

Blessed,

Jim Packer summed it up in 1996:

I think Packer has hit the theological nail on the head. When there are God-shrinkers in the pulpits and on the printed and electronic pages, we'll get them in the pew, and they'll flow through to places like CF.

I'm about to give up on CF as the God-shrinkers are seen in too many threads here (including this thread). Those who take God at His word and want to listen to what the Scriptures say, instead of making the Scriptures mean what a human mind invents, are decreasing.

In Christ, Oz

Reference:
Packer, J I 1996. Truth & power: The place of Scripture in the Christian
life. Wheaton, Illinois: Harold Shaw Publishers.

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That's definitely a problem. I also think that people get carried away on the internet too quickly.

holo said:

True. And a god, or anybody else, acting 239486709485209873245 times worse than Hitler, for 209348759287358972304587 millennia, and then another 204587032985703485 millennia just to get you warmed up, burning you forever and ever, isn't what I'd call a "holy" god, not in any positive, non-evil sense of the word anyway.

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You are a God inventor. You are presenting your obscure, humanly depraved understanding of God. You are a God-shrinker.

Who are you to decide what eternal damnation looks like. That is the domain of the absolutely pure, holy, infinite God of love. When you begin to understand God's almighty, holy, perfect and absolutely truthful nature, you might not run off at the mouth like this.

Not one person in this world, including you and me, will get more or less than they deserve from the absolutely pure Lord God Almighty. His justice is absolute and we ALL will get it.

"It is impossible for God to lie" (Hebrews 6:18 ESV).

Sincerely, Oz

Blessedj01 said:

That's definitely a problem. I also think that people get carried away on the internet too quickly.

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Then add the problem with defining who is a Christian. This is a Christians-only thread. What does "Christian" mean here?

Oz

Sometimes it seems like that really means anything you want it to mean. Hopefully the mods have a better system for working it out though...

OzSpen said:

You are a God inventor. You are presenting your obscure, humanly depraved understanding of God. You are a God-shrinker.

Who are you to decide what eternal damnation looks like. That is the domain of the absolutely pure, holy, infinite God of love. When you begin to understand God's almighty, holy, perfect and absolutely truthful nature, you might not run off at the mouth like this.

Not one person in this world, including you and me, will get more or less than they deserve from the absolutely pure Lord God Almighty. His justice is absolute and we ALL will get it.

"It is impossible for God to lie" (Hebrews 6:18 ESV).

Sincerely, Oz

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And this is justice:
"This is what the LORD says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of his oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the alien, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place." (Jeremiah 22:3)

And this is justice: “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.’" (Zechariah 7:9-10)

And this is justice:
"Your love is like the morning mist,
like the early dew that disappears.
Therefore I cut you in pieces with my prophets,
I killed you with the words of my mouth;
my judgments flashed like lightning upon you.
For I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings."


I suspect that the populations of heaven and hell are going to be quite different than we can imagine...

Blessedj01 said:

...that's really your choice. I wouldn't use those terms either because I prefer more majestic language when I'm referring to God, but I don't think it's up to us to tell other people how to convey the very same thing we're talking about in their own words.

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yeah, you prefer majestic because He is majestic. Thats the way it should be.

gradyll said:

yeah, you prefer majestic because He is majestic. Thats the way it should be.

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Well yeah.

dies-l said:

Okay, then it sounds like our only disagreement in this portion of the conversation is on the precise meaning on a certain slang term. And, Just FTR, I don't typically call Jesus my "buddy", but given my understanding of that terms as synonymous with friend, I wouldn't fault anyone who does.

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my point is that is it appropriate at all to use slang in reference to God is this not taking the name of the Lord in vain?

gradyll said:

my point is that is it appropriate at all to use slang in reference to God is this not taking the name of the Lord in vain?

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No. There is nothing wrong with using slang when taking to our about God. Jesus called him Daddy; you can't get much more informal than that.

dies-l said:

No. There is nothing wrong with using slang when taking to our about God. Jesus called him Daddy; you can't get much more informal than that.

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He called him abba, which is a term for dad.

not slang

seeingeyes said:

And this is justice:
"This is what the LORD says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of his oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the alien, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place." (Jeremiah 22:3)

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seeingeyes,

So is God being doing justice and what is right when he sends unrepentant people to Hades and Gehenna?

Oz

What is slang though really? It's just a different way of saying the same thing isn't it?

Blessedj01 said:

What is slang though really? It's just a different way of saying the same thing isn't it?

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Blessed,

In the English language it means more than that. Dictionary.com gives this definition of 'slang', that is somewhat more extensive than you gave:
Oz

...that's a dictionary definition. But what about what we discern ourselves?

I mean, sometimes we use slang in place of formal language and it's not necessarily because we are being flippant.