How can someone as awful as Hitler not be in Hell ? We know what awful things Adolf Hitler was responsible for ,but do we know whether at the last moment after he pulled the trigger he repented and asked for God's mercy ?
It is God who is the judge,not we.
If Hitler repented truly then yes he is in heaven. My point was that the idea that all are saved is not acceptable to many people. Justice is also part of God’s personality. So long as we accept Jesus as saviour then God’s justice on us is taken care of. If not then justice will be done
Eternal torment is not justice. It cannot be.
If I shoot someone and not repentant the judge had guidelines to sentence me. If eternal torment is appropriate for what a person has done then that is the sentence. You will find very few people who would say that eternal torment is not justice for the pain and torment the likes of the Nazis put people through.
How can infinite suffering be just for finite sin? If Hitler suffered the same pain as every one of his victims it would still be absolutely nothing compared to eternal torment. If people really want Hitler to endure infinite eternal suffering that's not justice, that's purely vindictive.
Sorry to double post. We need to ask how God’s justice differs from ours. Justice is not the same for everyone. Bad parking causes accidents in some cases death. We don’t give jail time for bad parking (at first anyway). A fine is seen as enough. How is a fine of say £25 justice for those who have been hurt due to bad parking
I expect God's justice to be proportionate, not sentencing people to infinite suffering for finite sin. Where does the infinite torment cut in? Nicking a rubber from the shop? Armed robbery? What do you get for a burglary?
And it seems Jesus got off lightly with Crucifixion if it can pay for millions of people who would otherwise suffer for ever.
Of course, both retributive and restorative justice are to be found in the bible, and God's judgement is critical for the realisation of either.
He also says that God saves all: some through love, some through correction - which has strong connections to the sheep/goats parable that @Lamb Chopped mentioned earlier - i.e. God is saving both the sheep and the goats, but in different ways.
If that's the case then sin doesn't actually matter.
No it doesn't. Not in the next life. It matters now. To our victims.
How can someone as awful as Hitler not be in Hell ? We know what awful things Adolf Hitler was responsible for ,but do we know whether at the last moment after he pulled the trigger he repented and asked for God's mercy ?
It is God who is the judge,not we.
If Hitler repented truly then yes he is in heaven. My point was that the idea that all are saved is not acceptable to many people. Justice is also part of God’s personality.
I believe that So long as we accept Jesus as saviour then God’s justice on us is taken care of. If not then justice will be done.
Many people find it offensive that really nasty people will be in heaven.
If that's the case then sin doesn't actually matter.
Jonathan Edwards' answer to that was to say (paraphrasing) that the extent to which we overcome sin in this life increases our capacity to enjoy God in the next:
“The saints are like so many vessels of different sizes cast into a sea of happiness where every vessel is full: this is eternal life, for a man ever to have his capacity filled. But after all ’tis left to God’s sovereign pleasure, ’tis his prerogative to determine the largeness of the vessel.”
And I discover John Bunyan said much the same:
“He who is most in the bosom of God, and who so acts for him here, he is the man who will be best able to enjoy most of God in the kingdom of heaven.”
I think these perspectives mesh well with the parable of the eleventh-hour workers in the vineyard @mousethief alluded to upthread.
My non-Hell-inspired motivation for living the Christian life now is to make that vessel as big as I can.
So those whom God fixes more in paradise won't enjoy Him as much?
Hitler died a Roman Catholic, not excommunicated. I know we highlight Nazis our societies as the worst exemplars of evil. I agree Nazism was a foul regime, but not that it is so different than quite a few others.
I don't recall those who participated in colonial massacres of indigenous people being other than ignored about this conduct, and at times, congratulated. Same holds true for those who kidnapped people to be sold as slaves, and the slave owning people. And those who conquered and slaughtered for reasons of empire, which is up until at least the early parts of the 20th century.
More recently, people like Tony Blair and George Bush jr, who prosecuted wars based on fraud, sanctioned torture.
We're having trouble reconciling ourselves with the evil within I believe.
So I don't know about a score card for evil, and who is the worst of the worst. And, I've noted before that I have pictures of cousins with swastika armbands on, black and brown uniforms. The educational system being what it is in Germany at present, their direct descendants in discussion with me, place Nazism in the context of European imperialism in all its glory, and also note Russia under Stalin, the former Yugoslavian, Rwanda, the School of the Americas, the colonial history of Europe in general. There's no attempt to excuse anything Germany did, but to identify that humanity as a whole has the tendencies which Nazism expressed. So I dispute @Hugal's Nazi comment as insufficiently elabourated.
Without wishing to dispute any of that, I wonder if it's the sheer scale of the Nazi tyranny, especially against the Jews, that boggles the mind...yet the death toll under Stalin was far greater, if less obvious, IYSWIM.
The trouble is, we have no experience of annihilation of anything--there are always remnants, ruins, leftovers--and so it's a jump to say that God will annihilate anything or anyone. Not something I'd want to bet on.
I see perish as being permanently dead like anything that dies
Coming at it from a different angle, I am completely sure, based on God's character in Scripture, esp. as shown in Jesus, that nobody is going to wind up in hell unjustly or under any circumstances in which any human or angel will be able to say, "That doesn't seem right." The justice and probably pure necessity of any such outcomes will be obvious on that day. I'm hoping, of course, that there won't be any such, but ...
On judgement day, I will not be asking for justice. I will be asking for mercy.
I think there is something in this idea of a community believing the same thing. Christianity has a choice element (choice made by you as in Baptists, and confirmation in more traditional styles) if you can choose not to believe them people will. In a society like Islam or Judaism you are born into it and have to choose to leave. Where people can choose not to believe we don’t want our family to go to hell.
All saved no matter who does have problems outside of theological argument. If there is no line in the sand the Hitlers, and Bin Ladens of the world are in heaven. Many people find that difficult. How can someone who has acted so awful not be in Hell
One of the problems with a binary Heaven that's unspeakably good and a Hell that's unspeakably bad is that actual real people are neither of these so actually *deserve* neither. And we can I think cope with getting better than we deserve rather better than we can getting worse. This is perhaps one reason we have a presumption of innocence in our judicial system.
I actually have a bigger problem with Hitler or Bin Laden being in an eternal Hell of conscious suffering than I do them being in a Heaven of conscious bliss.
Conservative Chrisianity still has this eternal Hell for being a bit grumpy one morning fundamental injustice problem.
Yes that is why God worked salvation not based on being good or bad but on loving God. We do what God asks because he has given us his love and salvation not to get it.
Absolutely BF. Absolutely. Like the stereotype of Germans: they organized and documented so well, and as were defeated such that all of the meticulous records display the perfidity and banality of the evil so well: so we know so much about their conduct.
Everyone now and again I wander past the Ship, and lo and behold there is a thread about Hell. It appears to be a niggling irritation for many people. The skeleton in the family closet which we either ignore or constantly talk about.
As usual, almost no one is prepared to do a full traditional defence of the justness, and righteousness of eternal torment of sinners, willingly and deliberately inflicted on them by God the perfect judge. Mostly people who defend any sort of post-mortem unpleasantness implicitly concede the unjustness of it by attempting to absolve God of blame - it is us locking the door from the inside, don't you know.
But at the same time, few are prepared to openly proclaim God's universal redemption and salvation of all, and I think this stems in a sense from the same root. We are reluctant (unable?) to concede that we are not ourselves in control. We hold tightly to the claim that our immediate day to day choices, here in this messy incarnated fallen world, or in some new world to come, will in the End be the deciding factor. That we will choose our fate.
But I suspect we are, like Paul on the road to Damascus, in the hands of a living God.
Very good. As long as that means a competent one. Which, subtle cove tho' you be, I reckon it does.
As usual, almost no one is prepared to do a full traditional defence of the justness, and righteousness of eternal torment of sinners, willingly and deliberately inflicted on them by God the perfect judge
No-one here is particularly interested in defending the indefensible.
People here defend indefensible positions all the time!
It is interesting though how a position which was standard became indefensible. Clearly for many Christians historically this position wasn't indefensible but irrefutable, and not just ill educated fundamentalists but the Augustines, Aquinases (Aquinii?), Anslems etc. In fact it is hard to find anyone between, say, Origen and James Relly who wouldn't have supported this indefensible view.
My suggestion: our society's rejection of the idea of hell is based on our belief in our own individual sovereignty. So the traditional theological concept of hell diminished with the rise of individualism in the 19th Century, and survives only in a pale version of itself.
Ah. A plague on both their houses (sod tradition and sod individualism). I reject Hell because God as He is does.
Lots of atheists or deists or members of other religions were baptised Roman Catholics and were never excommunicated. I don't believe Voltaire was ever excommunicated (I just googled and didn't find any mention of it). It would be misleading to the point of inaccuracy to say that they died Roman Catholics.
Trump's profession of evangelical Christianity is more sincere than whatever professions of Christianity Hitler may have made in public. In private Hitler was decidedly hostile, and looked forward to the day when the churches contained just a few old ladies as meek and quiet as you please.
I know we highlight Nazis our societies as the worst exemplars of evil. I agree Nazism was a foul regime, but not that it is so different than quite a few others.
I think it was qualitatively worse than even Stalin's USSR and quantitatively worse if you consider that Hitler was only in power for twelve years. But that's not to say that other countries can't go there. (If Trump stays in power for another ten years it's not impossible that he could take the USA there.)
I suppose the problem with saying even Hitler may be saved is not so much whether God can forgive Hitler as whether one can imagine the people who died in the Holocaust forgiving him. I'm not sure whether one ought to imagine the latter, morally.
You can also see it in the change of justifications for Universalism - before that period you have Universalist theologies built on Calvinism (some of which ended up as the Universalist Church of America) with the alternative being New England Unitarianism.
Yeah and no. That's much more recent history. The earlier theology of Apocatastasis was all about a reorientation of creation to its original intended vision. It was much more cosmological in its idea than the more modern 'personal salvation' themes..
This is absolutely right. The theme of the Day of Atonement ritual in the Holy of Holies was the repair of the fabric of creation which was damaged and distorted by sin. In the First Temple period of the priest kings, this was carried out by the High Priest/King acting in God's stead, who absorbed the negative effects of sin. Hebrews makes it clear that Jesus is the fulfilment of the older priesthood of Melchizedek, King of Salem and priest of the Most High God, who gave Bread and Wine to Abraham. This predates and has nothing to do with the Levitical priesthood. In Christ's death on the cross, and institution of the Eucharist, He for all time set in motion the restoration of the created order to God's intended purpose. It has nothing to do with personal salvation.
...
I suppose the problem with saying even Hitler may be saved is not so much whether God can forgive Hitler as whether one can imagine the people who died in the Holocaust forgiving him. I'm not sure whether one ought to imagine the latter, morally.
What's that got to do with his transcendence? And theirs?
And what circumstances could compel Trump to be worse than Stalin or Hitler?
So those whom God fixes more in paradise won't enjoy Him as much?
In this scenario, everyone "fixed" will enjoy him to the full, but how deep that fullness is may vary. But anyone thinking "it's OK, I'll get fixed in Heaven" as an excuse to leave fixing till then has not really grasped what grace is all about, in my view.
Thou shalt not kill (Old Testament)
Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.(New Testament)
These are words which Christians are supposed to take seriously.
As we know these words, even if taken seriously, can be and have been interpreted in different ways at different times.
Whilst as human beings we can judge people according to our human understandings and even believe that we can justly sentence people to death (not to be considered as 'killing')
we cannot make the judgements for Almighty God. His justice is His,not ours.
We are entitled to make human judgements on people like Adolf Hitler, but we are not the ones who might decide to send him to Hell.
My suggestion: our society's rejection of the idea of hell is based on our belief in our own individual sovereignty. So the traditional theological concept of hell diminished with the rise of individualism in the 19th Century, and survives only in a pale version of itself.
I'm sure that fourth century bishop Gregory Nanzianzen's universalism is based on his post-Enlightenment understanding of individual sovereignty.
I think there is something in this idea of a community believing the same thing. Christianity has a choice element (choice made by you as in Baptists, and confirmation in more traditional styles) if you can choose not to believe them people will. In a society like Islam or Judaism you are born into it and have to choose to leave. Where people can choose not to believe we don’t want our family to go to hell.
All saved no matter who does have problems outside of theological argument. If there is no line in the sand the Hitlers, and Bin Ladens of the world are in heaven. Many people find that difficult. How can someone who has acted so awful not be in Hell
You can also see it in the change of justifications for Universalism - before that period you have Universalist theologies built on Calvinism (some of which ended up as the Universalist Church of America) with the alternative being New England Unitarianism.
Yeah and no. That's much more recent history. The earlier theology of Apocatastasis was all about a reorientation of creation to its original intended vision. It was much more cosmological in its idea than the more modern 'personal salvation' themes.
Sure, don't disagree, my point was about the decline of hell in the 19C, in particular in American Protestantism as that is where I think you can see it most clearly. The trajectory between say Jonathan Edwards and Harry Emerson Fosdick (though both of them are interesting as individuals, not just representatives of their time).
How can someone as awful as Hitler not be in Hell ? We know what awful things Adolf Hitler was responsible for ,but do we know whether at the last moment after he pulled the trigger he repented and asked for God's mercy ?
It is God who is the judge,not we.
If Hitler repented truly then yes he is in heaven. My point was that the idea that all are saved is not acceptable to many people. Justice is also part of God’s personality. So long as we accept Jesus as saviour then God’s justice on us is taken care of. If not then justice will be done
Eternal torment is not justice. It cannot be.
If I shoot someone and not repentant the judge had guidelines to sentence me. If eternal torment is appropriate for what a person has done then that is the sentence.
That's just circular. It's appropriate (justice) because it's appropriate.
You will find very few people who would say that eternal torment is not justice for the pain and torment the likes of the Nazis put people through.
Since when is soteriology democratically determined? Do we take a vote on whether Jesus is the Son of God? Why not?
No, but he talks a lot about the wrath of God and has the vases "destined for destruction".
The problem with the word wrath (orge) as used by Paul, is that it is understood in English to be synonymous with anger. A nearer meaning is that it is God's response rising up with Him, to a situation that is intolerable to him. A bit like the shadow side of compassion, that being a response within Him drawn from His identification with the suffering within His creation.
Similarly, the "destined for destruction" could be understood in the light of Romans 8 to mean something more liked "adapted to" (or "shaped towards") destruction, in other words, it is the fact that those "instruments" (or "vessels") have become habituated towards a destructive trajectory, that causes God's response. Thus God's wrath is towards the "Law of sin and death", which, if left to find its natural course, will result in destruction, rather than towards those who are potentially destroyed. Paul has already outlined in Romans 8 the idea that creation is subject to futility in order that Creation would be set free from, to use an anachronistic term, spiritual entropy, the said Law of Sin and Death. And, of course, as Paul would have understood, that response was the incarnation, life, teaching, actions, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus.
My suggestion: our society's rejection of the idea of hell is based on our belief in our own individual sovereignty. So the traditional theological concept of hell diminished with the rise of individualism in the 19th Century, and survives only in a pale version of itself.
I'm sure that fourth century bishop Gregory Nanzianzen's universalism is based on his post-Enlightenment understanding of individual sovereignty.
Or not.
Universalism in Christianity is a strange beast. It isn't really a thing in itself but something which bubbles up out of the current theological framework. So Greg's universalism* is Platonic, James Relly's is Calvinistic, Carlton Pearson's is Charismatic, J.A.T. Robinson's liberal and Anglican etc.
Whether this is due to the promptings of the Holy Spirit or a re-occurring heresy is an exercise left to the reader.
My suggestion: our society's rejection of the idea of hell is based on our belief in our own individual sovereignty. So the traditional theological concept of hell diminished with the rise of individualism in the 19th Century, and survives only in a pale version of itself.
I'm sure that fourth century bishop Gregory Nanzianzen's universalism is based on his post-Enlightenment understanding of individual sovereignty.
Or not.
Universalism in Christianity is a strange beast. It isn't really a thing in itself but something which bubbles up out of the current theological framework. So Greg's universalism* is Platonic, James Relly's is Calvinistic, Carlton Pearson's is Charismatic, J.A.T. Robinson's liberal and Anglican etc.
Whether this is due to the promptings of the Holy Spirit or a re-occurring heresy is an exercise left to the reader.
* If he was a universalist, which is arguable.
Given that we are told "God is Love" but never "God is Judgment" or "God is Condemnation", I'm unwilling to blithely call universalism heresy. YMMV.
My suggestion: our society's rejection of the idea of hell is based on our belief in our own individual sovereignty. So the traditional theological concept of hell diminished with the rise of individualism in the 19th Century, and survives only in a pale version of itself.
I'm sure that fourth century bishop Gregory Nanzianzen's universalism is based on his post-Enlightenment understanding of individual sovereignty.
Or not.
Universalism in Christianity is a strange beast. It isn't really a thing in itself but something which bubbles up out of the current theological framework. So Greg's universalism* is Platonic, James Relly's is Calvinistic, Carlton Pearson's is Charismatic, J.A.T. Robinson's liberal and Anglican etc.
Whether this is due to the promptings of the Holy Spirit or a re-occurring heresy is an exercise left to the reader.
* If he was a universalist, which is arguable.
Given that we are told "God is Love" but never "God is Judgment" or "God is Condemnation", I'm unwilling to blithely call universalism heresy. YMMV.
Ah, but don't you know, God's way beyond our understanding and his love isn't like our love, it's actually a bit more like hate. Do try to keep up
@Jolly Jape the point I was trying to make is that it's a bit too easy to say "Paul never mentions hell or sheol" without dealing with the concepts I mention in more detail, as you have done.
I think there are quite a few caricatures of other people's view of hell (witness the caricature upthread that evangelicals believe in a two-stage judgement after death, the first stage upon death without a body, and the second stage with a body, something I have never heard asserted in a lifetime in the world of evangelicals) so it's worth taking the time to be more specific. Thank you.
Ah, but don't you know, God's way beyond our understanding and his love isn't like our love, it's actually a bit more like hate. Do try to keep up
This is why I'm not a Calvinist.
Isn't it Orthodox belief that God's love is perceived as torment and suffering by the unsaved?
I don't think that's a very Calvinistic view. And I'm prery sure Calvinists don't think the perception of love as torment can subsequently evolve, which, if I've understood @mousethief correctly, at least some Orthodox do (and I'm leaning towards myself, also influenced by CS Lewis).
To be clear I wasn't at all claiming it was a Calvinistic view! But a love which causes torment and suffering in its beloved sounds to me maybe wee bit like a love which is 'actually a bit more like hate'.
Hopefully the self righteously saved are the only ones to be tormented by all the riff-raff being let in: God's love for the scum of the Earth will torment the elect.
Universalism in Christianity is a strange beast. It isn't really a thing in itself but something which bubbles up out of the current theological framework. So Greg's universalism* is Platonic, James Relly's is Calvinistic, Carlton Pearson's is Charismatic, J.A.T. Robinson's liberal and Anglican etc.
I am not sure what this even means. One could equally well say that views of damnation and salvation bubble up out of the current theological framework.
Many people find it offensive that really nasty people will be in heaven.
I'd say that's the sort of attitude that would, on their reading, disqualify them for heaven.
Indeed, Jesus' words about tax collectors and prostitutes suggest that Heaven may well be full of all the wrong sorts of people.
(And, more worryingly, that some of those upset by this may not be going in...).
I have a vision of the entire population of Hell being made up of those who obstinately refuse to enter Heaven if [individual they consider unforgivable] is also there.
We're all perfectly happy to pray "forgive us our sins", but too many of us ignore the "as we forgive those who sin against us" part. If we want God to completely forgive us then we don't get to refuse forgiveness for others. Not even [individual you consider unforgivable].
I think the problem with the Orthodox idea that God refuses to save us against our will is that our will is what we need saving from.
Then we are robots and do what we are programmed to do. I can't see a middle path. Maybe you can explain and defend one?
If I had a genuinely new insight into the problem of free will and determinism I would be expounding it somewhere other than the Ship. It seems to me that all the points of view on the matter have something to say for themselves, and presumably they all share in the truth imperfectly.
On the one hand, we have the view that determinism means we're preprogrammed robots, and on the other we have the view that anti-determinism means we're just flipping coins in a void.
Bentley Hart, being traditionalist as he sees it, thinks that the will chooses what is good or beautiful. Like other Christian determinists, he therefore thinks that a will that doesn't determine its choice by perceived goodness is the opposite of free: to choose freely is to choose what is good. To deliberately choose evil is not the act of a free will but of a will that has gone wrong.
A robot by contrast makes choices not because it responds directly to the goodness or evil of a situation, but in response to its programming which is only arbitrarily connected to the good or evil as far as the programmer decides. But it doesn't become more free because the programmer inserts a random choice into the decision algorithm.
I am not myself fully convinced by the coin-flipping analogy. But I don't know how to talk about free will any better than anyone else. Fundamentally, all our language to describe how we make choices is based on either external observation or on metaphors drawn from things that don't have free will.
Universalism in Christianity is a strange beast. It isn't really a thing in itself but something which bubbles up out of the current theological framework. So Greg's universalism* is Platonic, James Relly's is Calvinistic, Carlton Pearson's is Charismatic, J.A.T. Robinson's liberal and Anglican etc.
I am not sure what this even means. One could equally well say that views of damnation and salvation bubble up out of the current theological framework.
With the possible exception of very early in the history of the Church, almost all Christians have historically believed in the reality of post-mortem eternal suffering, aka Hell. Or to be more precise, almost all public Christian denominations/churches have had formal theologies which included Hell as a necessary component.
This is true of Copts, Orthodox, Rome, Lutherans, the Reformed tradition, Anglicans, Pentecostals, you name it.
The idea of Hell doesn’t bubble up, it is ubiquitous and formally included in institutional theologies. There is a continuation of evolving theologies including the concept of Hell.
Yet in many ages, especially where the Church does not suppress freedom of thought and expression, we see individuals coming up with the idea of universal salvation and expressing and justifying that idea in terms of the existing theological tradition they are part of.
There is not really a historically continuous theology of Universalism, but a number of sui generis recreations of it. There isn't a line between Origen and, say, Elhanan Winchester in the same way there is between Augustine and Edwards.
This idea “bubbles up” out of an institutional context that does not support it.
Universalism in Christianity is a strange beast. It isn't really a thing in itself but something which bubbles up out of the current theological framework. So Greg's universalism* is Platonic, James Relly's is Calvinistic, Carlton Pearson's is Charismatic, J.A.T. Robinson's liberal and Anglican etc.
I am not sure what this even means. One could equally well say that views of damnation and salvation bubble up out of the current theological framework.
With the possible exception of very early in the history of the Church, almost all Christians have historically believed in the reality of post-mortem eternal suffering, aka Hell. Or to be more precise, almost all public Christian denominations/churches have had formal theologies which included Hell as a necessary component.
This is true of Copts, Orthodox, Rome, Lutherans, the Reformed tradition, Anglicans, Pentecostals, you name it.
The idea of Hell doesn’t bubble up, it is ubiquitous and formally included in institutional theologies. There is a continuation of evolving theologies including the concept of Hell.
Yet in many ages, especially where the Church does not suppress freedom of thought and expression, we see individuals coming up with the idea of universal salvation and expressing and justifying that idea in terms of the existing theological tradition they are part of.
There is not really a historically continuous theology of Universalism, but a number of sui generis recreations of it. There isn't a line between Origen and, say, Elhanan Winchester in the same way there is between Augustine and Edwards.
This idea “bubbles up” out of an institutional context that does not support it.
I think there are quite a few caricatures of other people's view of hell (witness the caricature upthread that evangelicals believe in a two-stage judgement after death, the first stage upon death without a body, and the second stage with a body, something I have never heard asserted in a lifetime in the world of evangelicals) so it's worth taking the time to be more specific. Thank you.
I've never seen it spelt out either; but for a long time it has seemed to me that this is the obvious interpolation that falls out of various popular dispensationalist accounts.
Comments
How can infinite suffering be just for finite sin? If Hitler suffered the same pain as every one of his victims it would still be absolutely nothing compared to eternal torment. If people really want Hitler to endure infinite eternal suffering that's not justice, that's purely vindictive.
It is not, cannot be, appropriate.
And it seems Jesus got off lightly with Crucifixion if it can pay for millions of people who would otherwise suffer for ever.
It makes no sense whatsoever.
No it doesn't. Not in the next life. It matters now. To our victims.
If Hitler 'repented' when?
So those whom God fixes more in paradise won't enjoy Him as much?
Presumably just before he pulled the trigger/bit the capsule?
You know - as in The Great Mercy Poem by Katharine Tynan:
Betwixt the saddle and the ground
Was mercy sought and mercy found.
Yea, in the twinkling of an eye,
He cried; and Thou hast heard his cry.
I don't recall those who participated in colonial massacres of indigenous people being other than ignored about this conduct, and at times, congratulated. Same holds true for those who kidnapped people to be sold as slaves, and the slave owning people. And those who conquered and slaughtered for reasons of empire, which is up until at least the early parts of the 20th century.
More recently, people like Tony Blair and George Bush jr, who prosecuted wars based on fraud, sanctioned torture.
We're having trouble reconciling ourselves with the evil within I believe.
So I don't know about a score card for evil, and who is the worst of the worst. And, I've noted before that I have pictures of cousins with swastika armbands on, black and brown uniforms. The educational system being what it is in Germany at present, their direct descendants in discussion with me, place Nazism in the context of European imperialism in all its glory, and also note Russia under Stalin, the former Yugoslavian, Rwanda, the School of the Americas, the colonial history of Europe in general. There's no attempt to excuse anything Germany did, but to identify that humanity as a whole has the tendencies which Nazism expressed. So I dispute @Hugal's Nazi comment as insufficiently elabourated.
What if he didn't? What possible difference could it make? Thumbs down at the end of the line?
Everyone gets both.
I have No Idea (hence the question mark).
God, S/He knoweth...[
Salvation is based on God. Period.
Why do you have no idea? Seriously. Is God competent or not?
Sorry to be shouty, but...I don't know enough about *God* to answer you.
Very good. As long as that means a competent one. Which, subtle cove tho' you be, I reckon it does.
We coo-ell Bishops. Do you know enough about what you like? What you want? What's fair? Do you want God to be competent?
Ah. A plague on both their houses (sod tradition and sod individualism). I reject Hell because God as He is does.
Trump's profession of evangelical Christianity is more sincere than whatever professions of Christianity Hitler may have made in public. In private Hitler was decidedly hostile, and looked forward to the day when the churches contained just a few old ladies as meek and quiet as you please.
I think it was qualitatively worse than even Stalin's USSR and quantitatively worse if you consider that Hitler was only in power for twelve years. But that's not to say that other countries can't go there. (If Trump stays in power for another ten years it's not impossible that he could take the USA there.)
I suppose the problem with saying even Hitler may be saved is not so much whether God can forgive Hitler as whether one can imagine the people who died in the Holocaust forgiving him. I'm not sure whether one ought to imagine the latter, morally.
This is absolutely right. The theme of the Day of Atonement ritual in the Holy of Holies was the repair of the fabric of creation which was damaged and distorted by sin. In the First Temple period of the priest kings, this was carried out by the High Priest/King acting in God's stead, who absorbed the negative effects of sin. Hebrews makes it clear that Jesus is the fulfilment of the older priesthood of Melchizedek, King of Salem and priest of the Most High God, who gave Bread and Wine to Abraham. This predates and has nothing to do with the Levitical priesthood. In Christ's death on the cross, and institution of the Eucharist, He for all time set in motion the restoration of the created order to God's intended purpose. It has nothing to do with personal salvation.
What's that got to do with his transcendence? And theirs?
And what circumstances could compel Trump to be worse than Stalin or Hitler?
Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.(New Testament)
These are words which Christians are supposed to take seriously.
As we know these words, even if taken seriously, can be and have been interpreted in different ways at different times.
Whilst as human beings we can judge people according to our human understandings and even believe that we can justly sentence people to death (not to be considered as 'killing')
we cannot make the judgements for Almighty God. His justice is His,not ours.
We are entitled to make human judgements on people like Adolf Hitler, but we are not the ones who might decide to send him to Hell.
I'm sure that fourth century bishop Gregory Nanzianzen's universalism is based on his post-Enlightenment understanding of individual sovereignty.
Or not.
Then we are robots and do what we are programmed to do. I can't see a middle path. Maybe you can explain and defend one?
Because God heals.
I'd say that's the sort of attitude that would, on their reading, disqualify them for heaven.
That's just circular. It's appropriate (justice) because it's appropriate.
Since when is soteriology democratically determined? Do we take a vote on whether Jesus is the Son of God? Why not?
The problem with the word wrath (orge) as used by Paul, is that it is understood in English to be synonymous with anger. A nearer meaning is that it is God's response rising up with Him, to a situation that is intolerable to him. A bit like the shadow side of compassion, that being a response within Him drawn from His identification with the suffering within His creation.
Similarly, the "destined for destruction" could be understood in the light of Romans 8 to mean something more liked "adapted to" (or "shaped towards") destruction, in other words, it is the fact that those "instruments" (or "vessels") have become habituated towards a destructive trajectory, that causes God's response. Thus God's wrath is towards the "Law of sin and death", which, if left to find its natural course, will result in destruction, rather than towards those who are potentially destroyed. Paul has already outlined in Romans 8 the idea that creation is subject to futility in order that Creation would be set free from, to use an anachronistic term, spiritual entropy, the said Law of Sin and Death. And, of course, as Paul would have understood, that response was the incarnation, life, teaching, actions, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus.
Whether this is due to the promptings of the Holy Spirit or a re-occurring heresy is an exercise left to the reader.
* If he was a universalist, which is arguable.
Given that we are told "God is Love" but never "God is Judgment" or "God is Condemnation", I'm unwilling to blithely call universalism heresy. YMMV.
Ah, but don't you know, God's way beyond our understanding and his love isn't like our love, it's actually a bit more like hate. Do try to keep up
This is why I'm not a Calvinist.
I think there are quite a few caricatures of other people's view of hell (witness the caricature upthread that evangelicals believe in a two-stage judgement after death, the first stage upon death without a body, and the second stage with a body, something I have never heard asserted in a lifetime in the world of evangelicals) so it's worth taking the time to be more specific. Thank you.
Indeed, Jesus' words about tax collectors and prostitutes suggest that Heaven may well be full of all the wrong sorts of people.
(And, more worryingly, that some of those upset by this may not be going in...).
I don't think that's a very Calvinistic view. And I'm prery sure Calvinists don't think the perception of love as torment can subsequently evolve, which, if I've understood @mousethief correctly, at least some Orthodox do (and I'm leaning towards myself, also influenced by CS Lewis).
I have a vision of the entire population of Hell being made up of those who obstinately refuse to enter Heaven if [individual they consider unforgivable] is also there.
We're all perfectly happy to pray "forgive us our sins", but too many of us ignore the "as we forgive those who sin against us" part. If we want God to completely forgive us then we don't get to refuse forgiveness for others. Not even [individual you consider unforgivable].
On the one hand, we have the view that determinism means we're preprogrammed robots, and on the other we have the view that anti-determinism means we're just flipping coins in a void.
Bentley Hart, being traditionalist as he sees it, thinks that the will chooses what is good or beautiful. Like other Christian determinists, he therefore thinks that a will that doesn't determine its choice by perceived goodness is the opposite of free: to choose freely is to choose what is good. To deliberately choose evil is not the act of a free will but of a will that has gone wrong.
A robot by contrast makes choices not because it responds directly to the goodness or evil of a situation, but in response to its programming which is only arbitrarily connected to the good or evil as far as the programmer decides. But it doesn't become more free because the programmer inserts a random choice into the decision algorithm.
I am not myself fully convinced by the coin-flipping analogy. But I don't know how to talk about free will any better than anyone else. Fundamentally, all our language to describe how we make choices is based on either external observation or on metaphors drawn from things that don't have free will.
ISTM that true freedom of will is not the ability to choose between good and evil, but to decide for oneself what good and evil actually are.
With the possible exception of very early in the history of the Church, almost all Christians have historically believed in the reality of post-mortem eternal suffering, aka Hell. Or to be more precise, almost all public Christian denominations/churches have had formal theologies which included Hell as a necessary component.
This is true of Copts, Orthodox, Rome, Lutherans, the Reformed tradition, Anglicans, Pentecostals, you name it.
The idea of Hell doesn’t bubble up, it is ubiquitous and formally included in institutional theologies. There is a continuation of evolving theologies including the concept of Hell.
Yet in many ages, especially where the Church does not suppress freedom of thought and expression, we see individuals coming up with the idea of universal salvation and expressing and justifying that idea in terms of the existing theological tradition they are part of.
There is not really a historically continuous theology of Universalism, but a number of sui generis recreations of it. There isn't a line between Origen and, say, Elhanan Winchester in the same way there is between Augustine and Edwards.
This idea “bubbles up” out of an institutional context that does not support it.
The founder does.
I've never seen it spelt out either; but for a long time it has seemed to me that this is the obvious interpolation that falls out of various popular dispensationalist accounts.