I remember drilling into this on Zen retreats, and also felt that there cannot be justice. However, this also seemed to dissolve my need for same.
That's really interesting, @quetzalcoatl. How does that work out in practise? From my knowledge of your posting, injustices of all sorts still rile you. Do you mean personal injustices against you, or injustice in general?
Gosh, you spotted an inconsistency. I hate being misrepresented, so I haven't dissolved that. My ma lost 2 children, to illness, I don't know if that's unjust, she thought so. But in the end, all the water goes down to the sea. We accept, don't we? That teacher who bullied me, poor schmuck.
Yes. Sorry, wasn't intended as a criticism! In my mind, indignation for oneself is natural, and righteous indignation on behalf of others is a virtue. I wonder if there's a way that a peace/acceptance can be married with a thirst for justice in a wholesome way. The two ends of the spectrum (militant-judgmentalism and resignation) both have their flaws.
Also, your ma's sense of injustice was at fate/God. Injustice that can be aimed at individual human beings works a bit differently. I think it's easier to find peace with the former than the latter (and strangely, injustice aimed at someone who has died is also easier - it works more similarly to injustice aimed at fate/God).
I didn't take it as criticism. I think a big factor is getting old, as I was a firebrand, in my youth. And doing Zen shifted the needle. I was joking about inconsistency, as it's a human delight.
Karl B thank you for your explanation of Evangelical Theology in the case of the young girl abused and who then grew up hating the 'church' and all it stands for. If this is the case ( and I do not know whether it is or isn't ), is it not possible that God will see things differently and judge in His way ?. He will know why the girl hated the 'church' and will know whether she hated God or not. He will also know just why she took her own life.
I know that I said earlier on that it is possible that Adolf Hitler repented of his actions at the last moment of his life. I certainly did not say that I believed that he would go straight to Heaven. Perhaps, however, you are referring to an other poster.
My point was, as I think you are saying in an other way, that it is God who makes the final judgements. And for all we know it is possible that Adolf Hitler fully repented of his sins at the end of his life.
By reading our holy books ,we can have some sort of understanding .By listening to our pastors we may get some more understanding of the general aims.
But our understanding whether it comes from the Bible or the Koran or another holy book, whether it comes from the Church, or the 'church' or a pastor or imam or rabbi or priest will still be somewhat limited.
Only on the Great Day of Judgement will all things be made clear.
You see, ironically this is where Universalism and Catholicism agree against con-Evo; Hitler doesn't get straight to Heaven in either of our scenarios while he does in theirs (assuming a pre-mortem repentence). Where we differ perhaps is in whether death is a point of no return before which he must do so. In other words, I think Universalism does logically lead to some kind of Purgatory, as does any recognition of the imperfection of virtually every human even by the time of their death in Catholic thinking.
The poor girl in example 1 is doomed in con-Evo thinking where salvation comes and can only come from explicit faith in Christ. The injustice problem is addressed by them by the to my mind ludicrous claim that everyone deserves Hell.
I'm sure most Evos would jump in to tell me this isn't what they believe would happen at all, but it's the logical conclusion of their theology.
I'm not a con-evo, but I think you are parodying their theology.
But I'll leave that aside for now.
Someone upstream spoke of the problem of having a murderer/abuser/Hitler dropped down in heaven right next to his victims, and asked how that could possibly be justice.
The thing that is being left out here is the cross.
I'm going to take this away from the theoretical and into the real and personal, if you'll let me.
Some of you know that some years ago, three people in our congregation plotted together to betray, harm, and slander my family to the point that they nearly destroyed us. They did in fact put the church into schism, and their part of it later disbanded. They fucked up my mental and physical health, they lost both of us our jobs, destroyed our financial security, ruined our public reputation, and terrorized our friends and supporters (in the literal sense of that term).
These people are still alive, still attending church somewhere, and still in our community. Mr. Lamb has added them to the prayers of the people every Sunday in our church, which is the surviving, replanted half of the schism.
We are working to forgive them. That is damned hard when there is such a massive, massive injustice. To forgive someone means (among other things) to hope they will find forgiveness with God as well, and that they will end up in heaven. In my personal practice, it has meant formally going to God and "dropping the charges" against these people, in the hopes that, whatever their standing with God now or on the day of Judgment, it will be the better by whatever amount of sin/guilt has been dropped off the record. Basically I've asked God to forgive them for what they did to us--to not hold it against them--to make it as if it never happened. And I do in fact believe that God takes such requests seriously. Maybe more seriously than I do. So yeah, I think it is cancelled.
Now what does that leave me with? I'm holding the bag of injustice. They will not pay. God will not make them pay (I've asked him not to), either in this life or the next. How am I, then, to be made whole?
Through the cross of Christ.
That is gift enough, wholeness enough, repair and reimbursement enough, to cover all my sins--and theirs. That is a fountain so overflowing that all the sins of humanity are paid for and plenty to spare. That is enough, not only to make us right with God, but to make us right with each other--provided the victim agrees.
I've agreed (at least in this case, not gonna lie and say that I'm not struggling with unforgiveness in other cases). So yeah, if they pop up in heaven in the room next to me, it may be a bit awkward ("um, hi") but it's done with.
It's no big thang. When you give it a try, you soon discover that the only way to survive is to go straight through--like being in a battle. Cautious hesitation and half-measures gets you shot. Yikes!
The older I get, the more surprised (heh) I am to see just how practical Jesus' instructions are. Nothing pie-in-the-sky about them at all, any more than there is in a commander's instructions to his troops before they go over the top.
Please forgive me jumping in after a long absence, and also if I have missed this point if it has already been made.
There have been many references to the injustice of an infinite punishment for a finite crime. However, are all sins finite? There is a concept (well acknowledged by psychiatrists and other professionals in the field) of generational trauma - the trauma from a particularly distressing event (eg genocide) being passed down to descendents. People have been literally diagnosed as having PTSD due to the trauma experienced by other people, known as secondary PTSD - this can include trauma due to people you don't know, eg a significant hate crime against a group you belong to. Many LGBTQ+ people experienced this after the Pulse massacre, for example. To bring it back to Hitler as an example, there is a lot of evidence for such experiences relating to the Holocaust. If it can be argued that some sins are infinite, then couldn't infinite suffering be completely justified? I genuinely do not know what my stance is here, so this is just hypothetical - but I would certainly argue against the idea that genocide (as an example) is finite in its sinful impact.
Also (again sorry if this has been mentioned), Purgatory in Catholicism is explicitly only for those headed to Heaven. I think of it as a parallel to Limbo (which brings up more questions now Limbo is officially no longer Catholic doctrine) - Limbo being a sort of 'blank' Hell, and Purgatory being the swimming pool verruca bath* of Heaven.
*I know Americans don't call verrucas verrucas so apologies if this doesn't translate outside of the UK!
I'm not sure the whole counting/measuring thing is at all valid. If it were, I could entertain an idea like that. But counting/measuring seems to me an artificial overlay on the way we experience both sin and grace, which are very much interpersonal matters. I'd like to just chuck that paradigm ("how many times did I sin today?" yuk). There are better ones out there, including "What you make of yourself, that's what you'll be."
I don't see where I suggested that they are the same thing.
You said that the effects of Hitler's actions extended beyond his immediate victims. And then jumped to talking about his sin being infinite. Unless you propose that there are an infinite number of people affected by his actions, I'm not sure how you're making that leap.
I'm not thinking in terms of counting how many generations a sin has affected, or anything like that, though it is interesting to me how many people write off the sins of the fathers being visited upon their offspring as being horribly cruel without realising how involved said offspring would be in that sin. I think as a concept it makes perfect sense that generational sin exists as well as generational trauma...a certain First Family is a rather good example.
I am in general agreement with LC's ideas about how the post-death experience doesn't exist in the same dimension as our Earthly lives, and would say that some sins (such as genocide) have multi-dimensional 'ripple effects' across space-time. I'm not saying definitively that Hitler's sin is infinite but I can accept the idea that some sins can in theory be genuinely infinite in that way. That idea makes me personally lean towards Annihilationism, but my own personal answer is that I don't know and I just have to trust that God's justice will clearly look and feel unquestionably just.
@Pomona, they can only be infinite if they have an infinite effect. Like annihilation. Justice takes everything in to account and doesn't just weigh it, it evens it out by restitution, it obtains full equality of outcome. That's what we're OWED.
You see, ironically this is where Universalism and Catholicism agree against con-Evo; Hitler doesn't get straight to Heaven in either of our scenarios while he does in theirs (assuming a pre-mortem repentence). Where we differ perhaps is in whether death is a point of no return before which he must do so. In other words, I think Universalism does logically lead to some kind of Purgatory, as does any recognition of the imperfection of virtually every human even by the time of their death in Catholic thinking.
#notalluniveralists
As I said earlier, there is a tradition of Univeralism which denied any post-mortem punishment/purgatorial cleansing. And, to go back to my questions above, these Universalists firmly believed that this was just, and biblical.
Ballou-style Universalists are not really around much today so I'll do my best at explaining. This is a bit of a mishmash of their terminology and mine:
True justice is not equalising suffering, but bringing restorative joy to those who have suffered. True joy is when we are in loving reconciled harmony with God our Father.
Hitler sinned in thought, word and deed and his wilful actions caused immense suffering. He caused this suffering because he was in a state of sin - his hardness of heart caused him to not see God his loving Father as the worthy object of his love, and not to see his fellow humans as fully loved children of that Father, equal to himself. While he was in a state of sin, he hated the true God.
Hitler did not, while alive, encounter the risen Christ. If he had, then he would have seen the image of the Father and would have perceived him as worthy of love. Atonement signifies reconciliation, at-one-ment, and Christ atones by reconciling us to our Father.
We do not choose whether to love that we perceive as loveable - if we see it as loveable then we love it. It's almost a tautology. God, when perceived correctly and not through a glass darkly, is loveable and we cannot choose to hate him any more than we can choose not to see what is in front of our eyes.
Sometime after his death, at the resurrection of the dead, Hitler will (or has, is is) see clearly Christ, the image of the Father.
Justice is satisfied by his true, willing and tearful post-mortem repentance, made in the full clear knowledge of all the suffering he so willingly and intentionally inflicted, and by the loving reconciliation of his victims, with the whole human race, to their Father.
Justice does not require inflicting proportional suffering on Hitler, after he has ceased to sin.
I'm not totally happy with this description but it will have to do.
Basically they were as determinist as Edwards - humans love what they see as loveable. When we truly see God for what he is, we will love him. Full stop. Our lack of love now is caused by the distorting effects of our state of sin.
Jesus is not merely a moral leader but frees us from sin by showing us God's true nature.
Their criticism of purgatorial Universalism was that it quickly devolves into works soteriology.
Purgatorial Universalism says, in effect, everyone dies, everyone suffers/is punished/is chastised/whatever for a period then when cleaned and healed they go to Heaven. It is an individual focused process - each person goes through alone.
One criticism is that this encourages comparisons with other individuals. Presumably Hitler will need more Hell than me, because I'm a pretty good guy who gives money to charity. It's only just. I'm also better than those racist, sexist, ill-bred low-lives in the pub, so they better watch out too.
The other criticism is that Jesus also becomes a bit of a sideshow to this, except as a source of information about the process.
We can see God as He passively and ineffably is now through creation thanks to the lens of His activity as Christ. Through a glass darkly. Which ain't our fault. Nothing is. So all our faults will be corrected. We'll be given eyes to see. To understand. While we walk with our brother God. One on one in paradise. All of us.
@Pomona - very very big, much bigger than you imagined could be possible, and infinite are not the same thing.
A Short Stay in Hell brings this home powerfully. In the (finite but very large) hell he finds himself in, the author says (shortly after the 23439th day of his stay there):
My earth life was so long ago that by now trillions of universes like the one in which I lived on earth have come and gone
On the one hand, this makes me wonder whether very very large and infinite are not actually so similar as to make little meaningful difference from the point of view of the subject. On the other hand, it makes me wonder about the meaningfulness of the finite.
On the one hand, one is tempted to say that in infinity, everything finite pales into complete insignificance (close to CS Lewis' Great Divorce take on evil, only he depicts it in terms of size rather than duration):
If all Hell's miseries together entered the consciousness of yon wee yellow bird on the bough there, they would be swallowed up without trace
But this can't be the whole story, or if it is, then our entire life here ought to pale into insignificance too, which doesn't make much sense of quite a lot of the Gospels.
On the one hand, one is tempted to say that in infinity, everything finite pales into complete insignificance (close to CS Lewis' Great Divorce take on evil, only he depicts it in terms of size rather than duration)
Just a note that in the Hebrew language, the two (distance and time) were more interchangeable. Olam (world/age) refers to both. L'olam va'ed, which is often translated as "forever and ever" literally means "to the horizon and again".
We can see God as He passively and ineffably is now through creation thanks to the lens of His activity as Christ. Through a glass darkly. Which ain't our fault. Nothing is. So all our faults will be corrected. We'll be given eyes to see. To understand. While we walk with our brother God. One on one in paradise. All of us.
Yeah, something like that. Except they would say:
- God is not passive
- Our sinful actions are our fault
- God is our Father not brother.
We can see God as He passively and ineffably is now through creation thanks to the lens of His activity as Christ. Through a glass darkly. Which ain't our fault. Nothing is. So all our faults will be corrected. We'll be given eyes to see. To understand. While we walk with our brother God. One on one in paradise. All of us.
Yeah, something like that. Except they would say:
- God is not passive
- Our sinful actions are our fault
- God is our Father not brother.
We can see God as He passively and ineffably is now through creation thanks to the lens of His activity as Christ. Through a glass darkly. Which ain't our fault. Nothing is. So all our faults will be corrected. We'll be given eyes to see. To understand. While we walk with our brother God. One on one in paradise. All of us.
Yeah, something like that. Except they would say:
- God is not passive
- Our sinful actions are our fault
- God is our Father not brother.
Their words are dead.
- Where is He active apart from when human?
- Who made us thus?
- What is Jesus?
@Pomona - very very big, much bigger than you imagined could be possible, and infinite are not the same thing.
A Short Stay in Hell brings this home powerfully. In the (finite but very large) hell he finds himself in, the author says (shortly after the 23439th day of his stay there):
My earth life was so long ago that by now trillions of universes like the one in which I lived on earth have come and gone
On the one hand, this makes me wonder whether very very large and infinite are not actually so similar as to make little meaningful difference from the point of view of the subject. On the other hand, it makes me wonder about the meaningfulness of the finite.
On the one hand, one is tempted to say that in infinity, everything finite pales into complete insignificance (close to CS Lewis' Great Divorce take on evil, only he depicts it in terms of size rather than duration):
If all Hell's miseries together entered the consciousness of yon wee yellow bird on the bough there, they would be swallowed up without trace
But this can't be the whole story, or if it is, then our entire life here ought to pale into insignificance too, which doesn't make much sense of quite a lot of the Gospels.
Yon wee yellow bird lives in the moment. As will we. Fully. Forever and ever. And we'll be busy being rookies until we're busy with them.
@Pomona - very very big, much bigger than you imagined could be possible, and infinite are not the same thing.
A Short Stay in Hell brings this home powerfully. In the (finite but very large) hell he finds himself in, the author says (shortly after the 23439th day of his stay there):
My earth life was so long ago that by now trillions of universes like the one in which I lived on earth have come and gone
On the one hand, this makes me wonder whether very very large and infinite are not actually so similar as to make little meaningful difference from the point of view of the subject. On the other hand, it makes me wonder about the meaningfulness of the finite.
One of the impulses that led to people advancing annihilationism, is the idea that Heaven wouldn't truly be Heaven if you knew that someone you loved was still suffering somewhere else. Even if we reduce the length of time by several orders of magnitude I'm not sure what comfort it would be to you that that person would get out of Hell/Purgatory in 'only' 210 years.
Yon wee yellow bird lives in the moment. As will we. Fully. Forever and ever.
That works for me in terms of my understanding of what timeless 'eternity' will be like. In Heaven. It doesn't get me any further forward in trying to characterise Hell.
Yon wee yellow bird lives in the moment. As will we. Fully. Forever and ever.
That works for me in terms of my understanding of what timeless 'eternity' will be like. In Heaven. It doesn't get me any further forward in trying to characterise Hell.
You're imprisoned, shackled by dead baby steps text. Hell was for then.
Barnabas62Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
Complacency is just another form of imprisonment. But perhaps we can agree that the most insidious forms of imprisonment occur when the prisoner cannot see the walls? Even denies the possibility that there might be walls they cannot see?
We can see God as He passively and ineffably is now through creation thanks to the lens of His activity as Christ. Through a glass darkly. Which ain't our fault. Nothing is. So all our faults will be corrected. We'll be given eyes to see. To understand. While we walk with our brother God. One on one in paradise. All of us.
Yeah, something like that. Except they would say:
- God is not passive
- Our sinful actions are our fault
- God is our Father not brother.
Their words are dead.
- Where is He active apart from when human?
- Who made us thus?
- What is Jesus?
Well I guess they're dead. Don't know what you mean about their words being dead.
Putting my 'early 1800s American Universalist' hat on:
- The whole of creation witnesses the active participation of God. His continual activity is the reason anything continues to exist and why events follow one after another. We can also see his activity in the history of his chosen people and in signs in our own lives.
- At one level, God made us thus, for God is the Author. On another level, we made ourselves thus by our choices. The Devil isn't a real entity but a personification of evil, the story of the fall is not a literal event occurring in a literal garden.
- The man Christ Jesus is the Mediator between God and man, the true image of God, our Lord and Savior.
They weren't deists. We would probably call them either compatibilists or determinists but those terms are anachronistic. They were mostly high unitarian in Christology. They strongly believed in individual thought, so their theology varied widely. The main thing they shared was the belief that God is love and "will finally restore the whole family of mankind to holiness and happiness."
Yon wee yellow bird lives in the moment. As will we. Fully. Forever and ever.
That works for me in terms of my understanding of what timeless 'eternity' will be like. In Heaven. It doesn't get me any further forward in trying to characterise Hell.
You're imprisoned, shackled by dead baby steps text.
Please set me free and subscribe me to your newsletter.
Yon wee yellow bird lives in the moment. As will we. Fully. Forever and ever.
That works for me in terms of my understanding of what timeless 'eternity' will be like. In Heaven. It doesn't get me any further forward in trying to characterise Hell.
You're imprisoned, shackled by dead baby steps text.
Please set me free and subscribe me to your newsletter.
Biblicism is the most terrible curse of fundamentalism and evangelicalism. For without it we lose purpose.
We can see God as He passively and ineffably is now through creation thanks to the lens of His activity as Christ. Through a glass darkly. Which ain't our fault. Nothing is. So all our faults will be corrected. We'll be given eyes to see. To understand. While we walk with our brother God. One on one in paradise. All of us.
Yeah, something like that. Except they would say:
- God is not passive
- Our sinful actions are our fault
- God is our Father not brother.
Their words are dead.
- Where is He active apart from when human?
- Who made us thus?
- What is Jesus?
Well I guess they're dead. Don't know what you mean about their words being dead.
Putting my 'early 1800s American Universalist' hat on:
- The whole of creation witnesses the active participation of God. His continual activity is the reason anything continues to exist and why events follow one after another. We can also see his activity in the history of his chosen people and in signs in our own lives.
- At one level, God made us thus, for God is the Author. On another level, we made ourselves thus by our choices. The Devil isn't a real entity but a personification of evil, the story of the fall is not a literal event occurring in a literal garden.
- The man Christ Jesus is the Mediator between God and man, the true image of God, our Lord and Savior.
They weren't deists. We would probably call them either compatibilists or determinists but those terms are anachronistic. They were mostly high unitarian in Christology. They strongly believed in individual thought, so their theology varied widely. The main thing they shared was the belief that God is love and "will finally restore the whole family of mankind to holiness and happiness."
Biblicism is the most terrible curse of fundamentalism and evangelicalism. For without it we lose purpose.
I fully understand that I myself am playing with a few pebbles on the sea shore while you swim at your ease in the vast ocean of truth as yet undiscovered by me.
Are you sure you're saying that there is no purpose without the curse of biblicism?
Biblicism is the most terrible curse of fundamentalism and evangelicalism. For without it we lose purpose.
I fully understand that I myself am playing with a few pebbles on the sea shore while you swim at your ease in the vast ocean of truth as yet undiscovered by me.
Are you sure you're saying that there is no purpose without the curse of biblicism?
I envy you. The ocean is empty of all but rational truth and a call, a yearn, a claim across the millennia.
Hell is one hot pebble, but you can't drop it, no? One has to keep tossing it from hand to hand.
In the mean time, like @Lamb Chopped and my son-in-law, you do know that you can do know wrong, don't you?
@Martin54 So just to be clear, are you asserting that there's not purpose without the "curse" of biblicism? (One of the reasons I ask is that one of the outworkings of A Short Stay in Hell is, similarly to what @quetzalcoatl was saying, the disappearance of a sense of purpose).
@Martin54 So just to be clear, are you asserting that there's not purpose without the "curse" of biblicism? (One of the reasons I ask is that one of the outworkings of A Short Stay in Hell is, similarly to what @quetzalcoatl was saying, the disappearance of a sense of purpose).
Aye, it comes with purpose. Whatever religion we're indoctrinated in does. Unless one is in fellowship with other faithful post-fundamentalists/evangelicals, it is extremely difficult to find purpose in the trappings of a church service and other fellowship activities where no conversation can be had, unless they are tied to the social gospel. You and @Lamb Chopped have that. As does Oasis of course. I just had to bunk off 'Triangle' - serving the poorest - tonight as I fell off me bike and I'm too stiff to move. I'm missing it already. No conversation can be had (except with one seeking younger friend on the serving side of the counter, and I'm diffident believe it or not), but the reach is there. My current church was doing a brilliant Saturday morning breakfast for the poorest but won't start it up again regardless. There will be no reason to go back at all, apart from communion, when the plague passes over. They're going to talk to fewer people in a cafe...
My point isn't to convince anyone with these viewpoints, but to point out the wide variety of historical positions on the subject of Hell (and the way in which our view on Hell seems to bleed through to the rest of our theology - eschatology, Christology, soteriology, you name the ology and Hell seems to be tied up in it).
That said, how have we moved on in 200 years? What have we learnt in that 200 years that makes the theology of these guys and in particular their view of hell so worthy of dismissal and contempt?
My point isn't to convince anyone with these viewpoints, but to point out the wide variety of historical positions on the subject of Hell (and the way in which our view on Hell seems to bleed through to the rest of our theology - eschatology, Christology, soteriology, you name the ology and Hell seems to be tied up in it).
That said, how have we moved on in 200 years? What have we learnt in that 200 years that makes the theology of these guys and in particular their view of hell so worthy of dismissal and contempt?
That inflicting horrific pain and suffering on people in for example the forms of torture, corporal and capital punishment is a bad thing?
That said, how have we moved on in 200 years? What have we learnt in that 200 years that makes the theology of these guys and in particular their view of hell so worthy of dismissal and contempt?
I'm still not sure how to parse @Martin54 but I'm bothered by his association of purpose with outmoded theology. I'm not at all into Purpose Driven™ stuff but I think eschatology and a linear sense of history is an integral part of Christian belief. Not for nothing is Jesus the Alpha and the Omega. Our sense of ultimate justice and resolution derives from linearity. Hell fits in there somewhere. It doesn't have to be as literalistic as @KarlLB makes it out to be.
One of the impulses that led to people advancing annihilationism, is the idea that Heaven wouldn't truly be Heaven if you knew that someone you loved was still suffering somewhere else.
I feel much better that my mother has been snuffed out like a candle, as if she had never been. Yeah. That works. </bitter sarcasm>
Even if we reduce the length of time by several orders of magnitude I'm not sure what comfort it would be to you that that person would get out of Hell/Purgatory in 'only' 210 years.
This assumes "time" exists or can be measured in the afterlife.
My point isn't to convince anyone with these viewpoints, but to point out the wide variety of historical positions on the subject of Hell (and the way in which our view on Hell seems to bleed through to the rest of our theology - eschatology, Christology, soteriology, you name the ology and Hell seems to be tied up in it).
That said, how have we moved on in 200 years? What have we learnt in that 200 years that makes the theology of these guys and in particular their view of hell so worthy of dismissal and contempt?
That inflicting horrific pain and suffering on people in for example the forms of torture, corporal and capital punishment is a bad thing?
To bring this back around to Hell, God says "Love your neighbor. Do not harm them. Otherwise I will harm you excruciatingly and indefinitely. Love ya, bruh."
My point isn't to convince anyone with these viewpoints, but to point out the wide variety of historical positions on the subject of Hell (and the way in which our view on Hell seems to bleed through to the rest of our theology - eschatology, Christology, soteriology, you name the ology and Hell seems to be tied up in it).
That said, how have we moved on in 200 years? What have we learnt in that 200 years that makes the theology of these guys and in particular their view of hell so worthy of dismissal and contempt?
That inflicting horrific pain and suffering on people in for example the forms of torture, corporal and capital punishment is a bad thing?
To bring this back around to Hell, God says "Love your neighbor. Do not harm them. Otherwise I will harm you excruciatingly and indefinitely. Love ya, bruh."
Quite.
You know, convince me of the God who will torment the old man in the care home, who has had any chance of believing in a benevolent God torn from him by seeing those closest to him destroyed too young by cancer, for all eternity. Convince me I must kowtow to this God who will torment me alongside him for ever if I don't. From my inherent cowardice, fear and self interest I may, in self-loathing, do so. But no, that's not enough. They demand I love and praise him.
I'm pondering if, taken together the Biblical passages that reference hell or eternal condemnation etc, and they are disparate Bible passages, are telling us how things might have ended up when, at the end of time, everything is wound up, had not Christ, by his life death and resurrection made that ultimate outcome no longer needing to be even contemplated?
In other words hell is 'see how awful things could have been without salvation achieved on the cross'
I'm pondering if, taken together the Biblical passages that reference hell or eternal condemnation etc, and they are disparate Bible passages, are telling us how things might have ended up when, at the end of time, everything is wound up had not Christ, by his life death and resurrection made that ultimate outcome no longer needing to be even contemplated?
In other words hell is 'see how awful things could have been without salvation achieved on the cross'
(exegesis of this to follow later )
Perhaps, if - and this is important - the Incarnation and its salvific effect derives from the very nature of God - that he could not be true to himself and do otherwise, because condemnational judgement is foreign to his nature and as abhorrent to him as it is to us. Well, some of us.
Comments
Gosh, you spotted an inconsistency. I hate being misrepresented, so I haven't dissolved that. My ma lost 2 children, to illness, I don't know if that's unjust, she thought so. But in the end, all the water goes down to the sea. We accept, don't we? That teacher who bullied me, poor schmuck.
Also, your ma's sense of injustice was at fate/God. Injustice that can be aimed at individual human beings works a bit differently. I think it's easier to find peace with the former than the latter (and strangely, injustice aimed at someone who has died is also easier - it works more similarly to injustice aimed at fate/God).
I know that I said earlier on that it is possible that Adolf Hitler repented of his actions at the last moment of his life. I certainly did not say that I believed that he would go straight to Heaven. Perhaps, however, you are referring to an other poster.
My point was, as I think you are saying in an other way, that it is God who makes the final judgements. And for all we know it is possible that Adolf Hitler fully repented of his sins at the end of his life.
By reading our holy books ,we can have some sort of understanding .By listening to our pastors we may get some more understanding of the general aims.
But our understanding whether it comes from the Bible or the Koran or another holy book, whether it comes from the Church, or the 'church' or a pastor or imam or rabbi or priest will still be somewhat limited.
Only on the Great Day of Judgement will all things be made clear.
The poor girl in example 1 is doomed in con-Evo thinking where salvation comes and can only come from explicit faith in Christ. The injustice problem is addressed by them by the to my mind ludicrous claim that everyone deserves Hell.
I'm sure most Evos would jump in to tell me this isn't what they believe would happen at all, but it's the logical conclusion of their theology.
But I'll leave that aside for now.
Someone upstream spoke of the problem of having a murderer/abuser/Hitler dropped down in heaven right next to his victims, and asked how that could possibly be justice.
The thing that is being left out here is the cross.
I'm going to take this away from the theoretical and into the real and personal, if you'll let me.
Some of you know that some years ago, three people in our congregation plotted together to betray, harm, and slander my family to the point that they nearly destroyed us. They did in fact put the church into schism, and their part of it later disbanded. They fucked up my mental and physical health, they lost both of us our jobs, destroyed our financial security, ruined our public reputation, and terrorized our friends and supporters (in the literal sense of that term).
These people are still alive, still attending church somewhere, and still in our community. Mr. Lamb has added them to the prayers of the people every Sunday in our church, which is the surviving, replanted half of the schism.
We are working to forgive them. That is damned hard when there is such a massive, massive injustice. To forgive someone means (among other things) to hope they will find forgiveness with God as well, and that they will end up in heaven. In my personal practice, it has meant formally going to God and "dropping the charges" against these people, in the hopes that, whatever their standing with God now or on the day of Judgment, it will be the better by whatever amount of sin/guilt has been dropped off the record. Basically I've asked God to forgive them for what they did to us--to not hold it against them--to make it as if it never happened. And I do in fact believe that God takes such requests seriously. Maybe more seriously than I do. So yeah, I think it is cancelled.
Now what does that leave me with? I'm holding the bag of injustice. They will not pay. God will not make them pay (I've asked him not to), either in this life or the next. How am I, then, to be made whole?
Through the cross of Christ.
That is gift enough, wholeness enough, repair and reimbursement enough, to cover all my sins--and theirs. That is a fountain so overflowing that all the sins of humanity are paid for and plenty to spare. That is enough, not only to make us right with God, but to make us right with each other--provided the victim agrees.
I've agreed (at least in this case, not gonna lie and say that I'm not struggling with unforgiveness in other cases). So yeah, if they pop up in heaven in the room next to me, it may be a bit awkward ("um, hi") but it's done with.
The older I get, the more surprised (heh) I am to see just how practical Jesus' instructions are. Nothing pie-in-the-sky about them at all, any more than there is in a commander's instructions to his troops before they go over the top.
Seconded.
There have been many references to the injustice of an infinite punishment for a finite crime. However, are all sins finite? There is a concept (well acknowledged by psychiatrists and other professionals in the field) of generational trauma - the trauma from a particularly distressing event (eg genocide) being passed down to descendents. People have been literally diagnosed as having PTSD due to the trauma experienced by other people, known as secondary PTSD - this can include trauma due to people you don't know, eg a significant hate crime against a group you belong to. Many LGBTQ+ people experienced this after the Pulse massacre, for example. To bring it back to Hitler as an example, there is a lot of evidence for such experiences relating to the Holocaust. If it can be argued that some sins are infinite, then couldn't infinite suffering be completely justified? I genuinely do not know what my stance is here, so this is just hypothetical - but I would certainly argue against the idea that genocide (as an example) is finite in its sinful impact.
Also (again sorry if this has been mentioned), Purgatory in Catholicism is explicitly only for those headed to Heaven. I think of it as a parallel to Limbo (which brings up more questions now Limbo is officially no longer Catholic doctrine) - Limbo being a sort of 'blank' Hell, and Purgatory being the swimming pool verruca bath* of Heaven.
*I know Americans don't call verrucas verrucas so apologies if this doesn't translate outside of the UK!
You said that the effects of Hitler's actions extended beyond his immediate victims. And then jumped to talking about his sin being infinite. Unless you propose that there are an infinite number of people affected by his actions, I'm not sure how you're making that leap.
I am in general agreement with LC's ideas about how the post-death experience doesn't exist in the same dimension as our Earthly lives, and would say that some sins (such as genocide) have multi-dimensional 'ripple effects' across space-time. I'm not saying definitively that Hitler's sin is infinite but I can accept the idea that some sins can in theory be genuinely infinite in that way. That idea makes me personally lean towards Annihilationism, but my own personal answer is that I don't know and I just have to trust that God's justice will clearly look and feel unquestionably just.
#notalluniveralists
As I said earlier, there is a tradition of Univeralism which denied any post-mortem punishment/purgatorial cleansing. And, to go back to my questions above, these Universalists firmly believed that this was just, and biblical.
Ballou-style Universalists are not really around much today so I'll do my best at explaining. This is a bit of a mishmash of their terminology and mine:
I'm not totally happy with this description but it will have to do.
Basically they were as determinist as Edwards - humans love what they see as loveable. When we truly see God for what he is, we will love him. Full stop. Our lack of love now is caused by the distorting effects of our state of sin.
Jesus is not merely a moral leader but frees us from sin by showing us God's true nature.
Their criticism of purgatorial Universalism was that it quickly devolves into works soteriology.
Purgatorial Universalism says, in effect, everyone dies, everyone suffers/is punished/is chastised/whatever for a period then when cleaned and healed they go to Heaven. It is an individual focused process - each person goes through alone.
One criticism is that this encourages comparisons with other individuals. Presumably Hitler will need more Hell than me, because I'm a pretty good guy who gives money to charity. It's only just. I'm also better than those racist, sexist, ill-bred low-lives in the pub, so they better watch out too.
The other criticism is that Jesus also becomes a bit of a sideshow to this, except as a source of information about the process.
On the one hand, one is tempted to say that in infinity, everything finite pales into complete insignificance (close to CS Lewis' Great Divorce take on evil, only he depicts it in terms of size rather than duration):
But this can't be the whole story, or if it is, then our entire life here ought to pale into insignificance too, which doesn't make much sense of quite a lot of the Gospels.
Yeah, something like that. Except they would say:
- God is not passive
- Our sinful actions are our fault
- God is our Father not brother.
Isn't he both as Father and Son?
Oh yes. God is FULLY responsible for all this shit. So He'd better make it right. Right?
Their words are dead.
- Where is He active apart from when human?
- Who made us thus?
- What is Jesus?
Yon wee yellow bird lives in the moment. As will we. Fully. Forever and ever. And we'll be busy being rookies until we're busy with them.
One of the impulses that led to people advancing annihilationism, is the idea that Heaven wouldn't truly be Heaven if you knew that someone you loved was still suffering somewhere else. Even if we reduce the length of time by several orders of magnitude I'm not sure what comfort it would be to you that that person would get out of Hell/Purgatory in 'only' 210 years.
Tidied up quote. BroJames, Purgatory Host
You're imprisoned, shackled by dead baby steps text. Hell was for then.
Well I guess they're dead. Don't know what you mean about their words being dead.
Putting my 'early 1800s American Universalist' hat on:
- The whole of creation witnesses the active participation of God. His continual activity is the reason anything continues to exist and why events follow one after another. We can also see his activity in the history of his chosen people and in signs in our own lives.
- At one level, God made us thus, for God is the Author. On another level, we made ourselves thus by our choices. The Devil isn't a real entity but a personification of evil, the story of the fall is not a literal event occurring in a literal garden.
- The man Christ Jesus is the Mediator between God and man, the true image of God, our Lord and Savior.
They weren't deists. We would probably call them either compatibilists or determinists but those terms are anachronistic. They were mostly high unitarian in Christology. They strongly believed in individual thought, so their theology varied widely. The main thing they shared was the belief that God is love and "will finally restore the whole family of mankind to holiness and happiness."
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Biblicism is the most terrible curse of fundamentalism and evangelicalism. For without it we lose purpose.
We've moved on. 200 years. Light years.
Are you sure you're saying that there is no purpose without the curse of biblicism?
I envy you. The ocean is empty of all but rational truth and a call, a yearn, a claim across the millennia.
Hell is one hot pebble, but you can't drop it, no? One has to keep tossing it from hand to hand.
In the mean time, like @Lamb Chopped and my son-in-law, you do know that you can do know wrong, don't you?
Aye, it comes with purpose. Whatever religion we're indoctrinated in does. Unless one is in fellowship with other faithful post-fundamentalists/evangelicals, it is extremely difficult to find purpose in the trappings of a church service and other fellowship activities where no conversation can be had, unless they are tied to the social gospel. You and @Lamb Chopped have that. As does Oasis of course. I just had to bunk off 'Triangle' - serving the poorest - tonight as I fell off me bike and I'm too stiff to move. I'm missing it already. No conversation can be had (except with one seeking younger friend on the serving side of the counter, and I'm diffident believe it or not), but the reach is there. My current church was doing a brilliant Saturday morning breakfast for the poorest but won't start it up again regardless. There will be no reason to go back at all, apart from communion, when the plague passes over. They're going to talk to fewer people in a cafe...
My point isn't to convince anyone with these viewpoints, but to point out the wide variety of historical positions on the subject of Hell (and the way in which our view on Hell seems to bleed through to the rest of our theology - eschatology, Christology, soteriology, you name the ology and Hell seems to be tied up in it).
That said, how have we moved on in 200 years? What have we learnt in that 200 years that makes the theology of these guys and in particular their view of hell so worthy of dismissal and contempt?
That inflicting horrific pain and suffering on people in for example the forms of torture, corporal and capital punishment is a bad thing?
I feel much better that my mother has been snuffed out like a candle, as if she had never been. Yeah. That works. </bitter sarcasm>
This assumes "time" exists or can be measured in the afterlife.
To bring this back around to Hell, God says "Love your neighbor. Do not harm them. Otherwise I will harm you excruciatingly and indefinitely. Love ya, bruh."
Quite.
You know, convince me of the God who will torment the old man in the care home, who has had any chance of believing in a benevolent God torn from him by seeing those closest to him destroyed too young by cancer, for all eternity. Convince me I must kowtow to this God who will torment me alongside him for ever if I don't. From my inherent cowardice, fear and self interest I may, in self-loathing, do so. But no, that's not enough. They demand I love and praise him.
That's impossible.
In other words hell is 'see how awful things could have been without salvation achieved on the cross'
(exegesis of this to follow later
Perhaps, if - and this is important - the Incarnation and its salvific effect derives from the very nature of God - that he could not be true to himself and do otherwise, because condemnational judgement is foreign to his nature and as abhorrent to him as it is to us. Well, some of us.