Current Christian understandings of hell

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  • Well, perhaps you could tell us!
    :wink:

    Mind you, all this talk of Heaven and Hell reminds me (for some odd reason) of a former Christian Aid (IIRC) slogan referring to their concern for Life before Death.

    That (ISTM) is somewhat more immediate and important, and meanwhile, I'm becoming rather more inclined to the view that life after death is summed up in the words of Hamlet:

    'To die, to sleep – to sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there's the rub, for in this sleep of death what dreams may come...'
  • demas wrote: »
    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.

    That is an opinion. Here is another.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    I have to say that "God is reconciling broken creation to himself; get in early and start now!" sounds much more like Good News, Gospel, than "everyone's going to be tormented forever unless you're lucky enough to hear this set of beliefs and happen to be inclined towards believing them, otherwise you're still going to suffer..."
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    edited October 2020
    As if they or anyone else knows a thing about it. Apart from by rational faith. Everything is a caricature. Rational faith excluded of course. Talking of which the two stage judgement looks like psychopannychism. The stuff we make up, eh?
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    As if they or anyone else knows a thing about it.

    I certainly agree with that...

  • HugalHugal Shipmate
    Martin54 wrote: »
    As if they or anyone else knows a thing about it. Apart from by rational faith. Everything is a caricature. Rational faith excluded of course. Talking of which the two stage judgement looks like psychopannychism. The stuff we make up, eh?

    No wishing to carry on our previous conversation how can faith not have an irrational element. If it was rational we t would be fact.
  • Hugal wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    As if they or anyone else knows a thing about it. Apart from by rational faith. Everything is a caricature. Rational faith excluded of course. Talking of which the two stage judgement looks like psychopannychism. The stuff we make up, eh?

    No wishing to carry on our previous conversation how can faith not have an irrational element. If it was rational we t would be fact.

    Faith, the substance of things hoped for, is rational if they are. If rationality is applied to desire. For transcendence, for God as He is, as He must be if He is.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Hugal wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    As if they or anyone else knows a thing about it. Apart from by rational faith. Everything is a caricature. Rational faith excluded of course. Talking of which the two stage judgement looks like psychopannychism. The stuff we make up, eh?

    No wishing to carry on our previous conversation how can faith not have an irrational element. If it was rational we t would be fact.

    That's a false dichotomy.

    I have faith that when my speedometer reads 70mph I must be doing between 63mph and 70mph. This is a rational deduction from the observations that I am running standard tyres for the model, that there are no indications of speedometer faults and that the regulations require that the speedometer not under-read but that it may over-read by a given percentage. I can further trust that I am actually doing approximately 67mph following calibration against other speed information sources (such as the sat-nav).

    I could be wrong; it's not certain - it may have developed a fault - but it's still a rational deduction, not a fact. It involves faith.

    Contrariwise, the people going around saying Covid doesn't exist display both a lack of faith in microbiology and a lack of rationality.
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    edited October 2020
    demas wrote: »
    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.
    I find it implausible that no later universalists were aware of Origen. The influence of Origen on the Cappadocian fathers, in all areas of their theology, is I think a fact. Gregory of Nyssa has always been to the best of my knowledge counted as one of the major figures among the Fathers.

    Besides which the logical foundations of universalism, namely that God desires that all sinners are saved, and God is able to save all sinners, are quite as continuous in the Christian tradition.

  • HugalHugal Shipmate
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Hugal wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    As if they or anyone else knows a thing about it. Apart from by rational faith. Everything is a caricature. Rational faith excluded of course. Talking of which the two stage judgement looks like psychopannychism. The stuff we make up, eh?

    No wishing to carry on our previous conversation how can faith not have an irrational element. If it was rational we t would be fact.

    That's a false dichotomy.

    I have faith that when my speedometer reads 70mph I must be doing between 63mph and 70mph. This is a rational deduction from the observations that I am running standard tyres for the model, that there are no indications of speedometer faults and that the regulations require that the speedometer not under-read but that it may over-read by a given percentage. I can further trust that I am actually doing approximately 67mph following calibration against other speed information sources (such as the sat-nav).

    I could be wrong; it's not certain - it may have developed a fault - but it's still a rational deduction, not a fact. It involves faith.

    Contrariwise, the people going around saying Covid doesn't exist display both a lack of faith in microbiology and a lack of rationality.

    Believing in a God in the enlightened west is seen as irrational by some. Faith in God has to have an irrational element.
    You know your car is set to run properly and that is the default. So you can be pretty much assured you are travelling at the right speed. As proved by this thread we cannot agree on what God actually wants RCs say one thing Baptists another. If we believe in a God we do not fully understand then to we may be at least slightly irrational. Things were known about Mount Everest before it was conquered. Was it rational to try and climb it?
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited October 2020
    I'm not sure we're using irrational in the same way.

    You seem to be saying that faith in God differs from faith in my speedometer because there are good reasons for the latter but not the former.

    If believing in God is irrational then there's no reason to believe in him - a position I find increasingly compelling.
  • The only warrant for having faith in God, i.e. believing that He is the ground of eternal being, despite being lacking nothing in causality, is Jesus. Only Jesus. Is He compelling or not?
  • demasdemas Shipmate
    demas wrote: »
    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.

    That is an opinion. Here is another.

    I’m quite prepared to believe that the extent of universalism in the first few centuries has been underestimated by later historians, however those old UCA books do tend to over egg their position a bit, and I wouldn’t sign up to “prevailing”.
    Dafyd wrote: »
    demas wrote: »
    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.
    I find it implausible that no later universalists were aware of Origen. The influence of Origen on the Cappadocian fathers, in all areas of their theology, is I think a fact. Gregory of Nyssa has always been to the best of my knowledge counted as one of the major figures among the Fathers.

    There is almost no universalism between the cluster in the 4/5th centuries (Origen, Gregory of Nyssa etc) and its reemergence in the radical Reformation and its aftermath. To the extent Origen is involved in this reemergence it is as a rediscovery, not really a continuation.

    Certainly some groups such as the 17th century Cambridge Platonists were aware of Origen and at least a couple of them were Universalists, including one who was chaplain to Cromwell (and as story goes tried to court his daughter, which didn’t go all that well).

    But the biggest body of Universalists, the Universalist Church of America, which is I think historically the only organised body of Christians formally proclaiming the salvation of all, were basically a reaction to, or extension of, New England Calvinism. Their arguments weren't like Origen’s at all, and I don’t think people like Hosea Ballou, Caleb Rich etc, backwoodsmen with limited formal education, would have even known his name until after forming their beliefs.

    Later of course, they trawled through old books looking for fellow Universalists, but they are in no way a continuation of an earlier theological tradition.

    Besides which the logical foundations of universalism, namely that God desires that all sinners are saved, and God is able to save all sinners, are quite as continuous in the Christian tradition.

    Yes, but the conclusion of that syllogism has been formally denied by almost all Christian groups.

    And despite that formal denial, everyone now and again someone puts Premise A and Premise B together, and up pops Universalism.


  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited October 2020
    Indeed; and to draw the two current lines of discussion in this thread together, the obvious course is to accept the rational conclusion of those premises.

    Not doing so may have been more common in Christian history, but it defies logic and makes God's salvation project a massive failure.
  • If I may say, fights among the various brandnames of Christianity isn't current per the @OP. There's no helping Christians treat others as equals if they can't get it together among themselves. Perhaps I'm steeped these days in too much chiding about colonists and settlers, and realizing that although Christians talk of forgiveness and salvation, they do it individually and not as communities. And as I've noted before, everything is dead and already turned into hell in the mindsets and views of most European-derived Christians. Even after they stop believing in anything, it is foundational to their consumerism, capitalism, socialism and corresponding mistreatment of everyone and everything.

    Thus I might say that one view of hell, contemporary and growing, is that when you fail to understand salvation as community - as a world - and see everything as consumseable and everyone as a likely competitor, we create the hell we inherit as our just reward.
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    Telford wrote: »
    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.

    Everyone gets both.
    How can you or I or anyone else possibly know this for certain ?

  • demasdemas Shipmate
    I might say that one view of hell, contemporary and growing, is that when you fail to understand salvation as community - as a world - and see everything as consumseable and everyone as a likely competitor, we create the hell we inherit as our just reward.
    Sure we can have hells on earth, and we see that clearly, though suffering and individual guilt correspond about as well as they did in the time of Job.

    But I suspect that any contemporary view of Hell must be eschatological not transient. Hell is about final outcomes.
  • demas wrote: »
    But I suspect that any contemporary view of Hell must be eschatological not transient. Hell is about final outcomes.
    I think there is a school of liberal Christian thought that says this life is all there is for all of us. Which probably goes hand in hand with a belief that the resurrection of Christ was not an actual bodily one.

    And I'd say this is a logical outworking of @Martin54's position that Scripture is so enculturated and so human as to provide no reliable guide to anything beyond the human authors' primitive and personal perception of events.

    I can't rule this 'universal annihilation' position out, but then I'm quite strongly attached to a belief in the bodily resurrection of Christ.
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    demas wrote: »
    But I suspect that any contemporary view of Hell must be eschatological not transient. Hell is about final outcomes.
    I think there is a school of liberal Christian thought that says this life is all there is for all of us. Which probably goes hand in hand with a belief that the resurrection of Christ was not an actual bodily one.

    And I'd say this is a logical outworking of @Martin54's position that Scripture is so enculturated and so human as to provide no reliable guide to anything beyond the human authors' primitive and personal perception of events.

    I can't rule this 'universal annihilation' position out, but then I'm quite strongly attached to a belief in the bodily resurrection of Christ.

    At what point do these alleged "liberals" admit that they've liberalised themselves out of Christianity altogether?
  • demasdemas Shipmate
    My point isn't to argue against that strain of liberal Christianity, and certainly not to declare it outside Christianity, but to suggest that using hell in that sense - hell as societal and personal brokenness and suffering - is to miss out on the core of the concept. Hell and heaven in Christian thought and mainstream tradition are shorthands for the final eschatological state of humanity. Hell is not traditionally a waypoint to anywhere but the dreadful endpoint. It is the final reaping of what we sowed, the final payment of our wages for sin.

    If you are after a revisiting of Hell comparable to the revisiting of the creation story, then I suspect that 'Hell as current suffering' won't get you where you want to go.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Eutychus wrote: »
    demas wrote: »
    But I suspect that any contemporary view of Hell must be eschatological not transient. Hell is about final outcomes.
    I think there is a school of liberal Christian thought that says this life is all there is for all of us. Which probably goes hand in hand with a belief that the resurrection of Christ was not an actual bodily one.

    And I'd say this is a logical outworking of @Martin54's position that Scripture is so enculturated and so human as to provide no reliable guide to anything beyond the human authors' primitive and personal perception of events.

    I can't rule this 'universal annihilation' position out, but then I'm quite strongly attached to a belief in the bodily resurrection of Christ.

    At what point do these alleged "liberals" admit that they've liberalised themselves out of Christianity altogether?

    It's not your call.

    Another thing that has a bearing on this is whether a human being can exist without a body; whether a soul can exist independent of a body. I am inclined to think it can't as I've yet to be shown a meaningful distinction between "soul" and "mind"; I am inexorably drawn to the conclusion that a soul is an emergent property of a complex brain.

    This is not the poor fit with Christianity that it may at first appear; if we can not exist without a body, then our only hope is in, well, resurrection. This also neatly side-steps the problem mentioned above as to what happens between our death and the final judgement and hoped for resurrection. Nothing. We don't exist. There is no need for annihilation; we can merely be left dead. This was the view I took before I became more convinced of the logical inevitability of universalism.

    It does raise some problems for any kind of Purgatorial process which is usually envisaged as taking place in a disembodied state.

  • Telford wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Telford wrote: »
    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.

    Everyone gets both.
    How can you or I or anyone else possibly know this for certain ?

    Because if there's a God, that's how He is. Not a nasty, useless son of a bitch.
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    Eutychus wrote: »
    demas wrote: »
    But I suspect that any contemporary view of Hell must be eschatological not transient. Hell is about final outcomes.
    I think there is a school of liberal Christian thought that says this life is all there is for all of us. Which probably goes hand in hand with a belief that the resurrection of Christ was not an actual bodily one.

    And I'd say this is a logical outworking of @Martin54's position that Scripture is so enculturated and so human as to provide no reliable guide to anything beyond the human authors' primitive and personal perception of events.

    I can't rule this 'universal annihilation' position out, but then I'm quite strongly attached to a belief in the bodily resurrection of Christ.

    At what point do these alleged "liberals" admit that they've liberalised themselves out of Christianity altogether?

    It's not your call.

    I know, and I understand the practical and theological reasons why it's not, but sometimes struggle to understand what folk can see in Christianity without the risen Christ. It's not like the Church is an attractive organisation in its own right.
  • demas wrote: »
    My point isn't to argue against that strain of liberal Christianity, and certainly not to declare it outside Christianity, but to suggest that using hell in that sense - hell as societal and personal brokenness and suffering - is to miss out on the core of the concept. Hell and heaven in Christian thought and mainstream tradition are shorthands for the final eschatological state of humanity. Hell is not traditionally a waypoint to anywhere but the dreadful endpoint. It is the final reaping of what we sowed, the final payment of our wages for sin.

    If you are after a revisiting of Hell comparable to the revisiting of the creation story, then I suspect that 'Hell as current suffering' won't get you where you want to go.

    No it won't. It gets you motivated to change your ways in a primitive culture that is only capable of such eschatological fantasy. It has nothing to do with God as He is. But as He was: fully human. Even bodily when fully divine.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
    Hell is an intolerable doctrine. I remember reading C S Lewis quoting someone else by writing “God in His mercy made the fixed pains of Hell”. Also from ‘The Great Divorce” arguing something along the lines that in the end people will divide into two groups. Those who say to God “Your will be done” and those to whom God says “Your will be done”. Personally I hope the second group has no one in it. But I can’t rule out the theoretical possibility of eternal enmity towards goodness. It is a characteristic of goodness that it does not insist on its own way.

    I think these thoughts make me someone who hopes for universal salvation.

  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    edited October 2020
    Barnabas62 wrote: »
    Hell is an intolerable doctrine. I remember reading C S Lewis quoting someone else by writing “God in His mercy made the fixed pains of Hell”. Also from ‘The Great Divorce” arguing something along the lines that in the end people will divide into two groups. Those who say to God “Your will be done” and those to whom God says “Your will be done”. Personally I hope the second group has no one in it. But I can’t rule out the theoretical possibility of eternal enmity towards goodness. It is a characteristic of goodness that it does not insist on its own way.

    I think these thoughts make me someone who hopes for universal salvation.

    Then you are tolerating Hell. Entertaining the idea that creation is unfixable in the transcendent. That God is a useless, callous SOB. That Jesus doesn't save. Because He can't. And therefore doesn't care. Because there are therefore infinite deformed, stunted, bitter, twisted, unhappy, discontented, lonely transcendent creatures from eternity. Unless in His useless compassion He wrings His hands every day over them.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    edited October 2020
    !
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Eutychus wrote: »
    demas wrote: »
    But I suspect that any contemporary view of Hell must be eschatological not transient. Hell is about final outcomes.
    I think there is a school of liberal Christian thought that says this life is all there is for all of us. Which probably goes hand in hand with a belief that the resurrection of Christ was not an actual bodily one.

    And I'd say this is a logical outworking of @Martin54's position that Scripture is so enculturated and so human as to provide no reliable guide to anything beyond the human authors' primitive and personal perception of events.

    I can't rule this 'universal annihilation' position out, but then I'm quite strongly attached to a belief in the bodily resurrection of Christ.

    At what point do these alleged "liberals" admit that they've liberalised themselves out of Christianity altogether?

    It's not your call.

    I know, and I understand the practical and theological reasons why it's not, but sometimes struggle to understand what folk can see in Christianity without the risen Christ. It's not like the Church is an attractive organisation in its own right.

    Risen Christ =/= physically resurrected Christ. You can believe he's alive without believing in resuscitated corpses.
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    Eutychus wrote: »
    demas wrote: »
    But I suspect that any contemporary view of Hell must be eschatological not transient. Hell is about final outcomes.
    I think there is a school of liberal Christian thought that says this life is all there is for all of us. Which probably goes hand in hand with a belief that the resurrection of Christ was not an actual bodily one.

    And I'd say this is a logical outworking of @Martin54's position that Scripture is so enculturated and so human as to provide no reliable guide to anything beyond the human authors' primitive and personal perception of events.

    I can't rule this 'universal annihilation' position out, but then I'm quite strongly attached to a belief in the bodily resurrection of Christ.

    At what point do these alleged "liberals" admit that they've liberalised themselves out of Christianity altogether?

    It's not your call.

    I know, and I understand the practical and theological reasons why it's not, but sometimes struggle to understand what folk can see in Christianity without the risen Christ. It's not like the Church is an attractive organisation in its own right.

    It's not about a call in any meaningful way, except rational. How can you believe in God without the Incarnation, the only internal proof of which is the Resurrection? And the idea that we are resurrected without embodiment is meaninglessly absurd.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
    edited October 2020
    No Martin

    I find it intolerable. I'm just not second guessing the irreconciling enmity of some creatures with the good God of creation. When Jesus says about Jerusalem "but you would not" isn't that simply pointing to a fact of life? People are free to express undying hatred towards goodness.

    It's why I like the Orthodox view that Heaven and Hell are one place. That which is love and comfort for us may indeed be pain and fire for others. Because that is what irrecomciled emnity does.

    The lust for power may still outlast even the revelation of the loss of it.

  • Barnabas62 wrote: »
    No Martin

    I find it intolerable. I'm just not second guessing the irreconciling enmity of some creatures with the good God of creation. When Jesus says about Jerusalem "but you would not" isn't that simply pointing to a fact of life? People are free to express undying hatred towards goodness.

    It's why I like the Orthodox view that Heaven and Hell are one place. That which is love and comfort for us may indeed be pain and fire for others. Because that is what irrecomciled emnity does.

    The lust for power may still outlast even the revelation of the loss of it.

    God finds it intolerable too Barnabas. Which is why He'll do something about it. Or not. Transcendence will fix it as Ian M. Banks alluded in his final masterwork, The Hydrogen Sonata. Lust for power is a mere experientially broken sometime broken genetic outworking. Vastly overstated, like 'will', free and otherwise. I'm sure He won't be that passive, like He is now; Jesus saves after all.
  • demasdemas Shipmate
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Another thing that has a bearing on this is whether a human being can exist without a body; whether a soul can exist independent of a body. I am inclined to think it can't as I've yet to be shown a meaningful distinction between "soul" and "mind"; I am inexorably drawn to the conclusion that a soul is an emergent property of a complex brain.

    This is not the poor fit with Christianity that it may at first appear; if we can not exist without a body, then our only hope is in, well, resurrection. This also neatly side-steps the problem mentioned above as to what happens between our death and the final judgement and hoped for resurrection. Nothing. We don't exist. There is no need for annihilation; we can merely be left dead. This was the view I took before I became more convinced of the logical inevitability of universalism.

    It does raise some problems for any kind of Purgatorial process which is usually envisaged as taking place in a disembodied state.

    Interestingly, you have outlined a bunch of beliefs which could have come straight from early 19C Universalist Church of America, although their expression, before Higher Criticism, Darwin etc inevitably is different.
    A careful examination of our natural senses, as mediums of pleasure and pain, and health and sickness, will very naturally lead to a consideration of these same senses as being the origin, as far as we can see, of our thoughts and volitions. With these senses are necessarily connected all the various passions which we possess, and which are ever in accordance with the ideas or thoughts by them created. From the ever-changing combinations, and various evolutions of these our senses, thoughts, ideas, appetites and passions, are found to originate all that variety of moral character which is found in man. - Hosea Ballou, Treatise on Atonement 1805
    We have no reason to believe in the immortality of the mind. As far as facts weigh any thing in the argument, they all stand opposed to such an hypothesis ... We are irresistibly led to believe that mind depends on organization, and where that is impaired, the mental capacity is destroyed. Consequently in the article of death, we should say, that the mind perishes with the body. Whether the scriptures teach the immortality of the soul is a question perhaps not so easily decided ... We have given considerable attention to this subject, and we do not hesitate to say, that in our humble opinion the testimony against the doctrine of the soul’s immortality appears to preponderate. - Clement Le Fevre, editor "Gospel Anchor" (1830s)
    man comes into the world, and dies similar to the brute creation ... man at death just returns to his original condition: he returns to dust ... Does the gospel, sir, bring to light any other life and immortality, but by a resurrection from the dead? If it does, I will thank you to show this, for here I confess ignorance ... a world of souls, naked, helpless, disembodied spirits... has no existence except in men's imaginations ... The thing God breathed into Adam was 'the breath of life;' which was no more a thinking, conscious being than the body into which it was breathed. It was this breath of life, breathed into the body and in union with it, both were constituted a living soul, or person. ... the only hope revealed to man of future life is in being raised from the dead in the resurrection at the last day - Walter Balfour, various publications (1830s)

    This stuff is older than people often think. And, anticipating your thoughts on the "Purgatorial process", these writers generally denied the need for such a thing. We are ressurected into the presense of Jesus, we see the beauty and love of God our creator clearly, not through a glass darkly, and we preceive him as lovely and so inevitably love him and thus are reconciled to him.

    Of course this wasn't a universal set of views within the UCA, either at the time or later. For example the denomination nearly had a permanent split at one point over the question of whether there was purgatorial punishment after death or not.
  • I think we have to remember that in the first few centuries of the Christian era espousal of Christianity was fairly liable to bring you to a point of facing death for the Faith. These were the first martyrs who were venerated by the early Christians.
    After the so-called Edict of Milan and later on with the Holy Roman Empire the Church became an inescapable part of life for most people in Europe. Not everyone from then on would have been prepared to face death for the Faith nor indeed really to live for it either.
    It was then necessary to investigate more deeply what might happen to those who disregarded the teachings of Christ.
  • demas wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Another thing that has a bearing on this is whether a human being can exist without a body; whether a soul can exist independent of a body. I am inclined to think it can't as I've yet to be shown a meaningful distinction between "soul" and "mind"; I am inexorably drawn to the conclusion that a soul is an emergent property of a complex brain.

    This is not the poor fit with Christianity that it may at first appear; if we can not exist without a body, then our only hope is in, well, resurrection. This also neatly side-steps the problem mentioned above as to what happens between our death and the final judgement and hoped for resurrection. Nothing. We don't exist. There is no need for annihilation; we can merely be left dead. This was the view I took before I became more convinced of the logical inevitability of universalism.

    It does raise some problems for any kind of Purgatorial process which is usually envisaged as taking place in a disembodied state.

    Interestingly, you have outlined a bunch of beliefs which could have come straight from early 19C Universalist Church of America, although their expression, before Higher Criticism, Darwin etc inevitably is different.
    A careful examination of our natural senses, as mediums of pleasure and pain, and health and sickness, will very naturally lead to a consideration of these same senses as being the origin, as far as we can see, of our thoughts and volitions. With these senses are necessarily connected all the various passions which we possess, and which are ever in accordance with the ideas or thoughts by them created. From the ever-changing combinations, and various evolutions of these our senses, thoughts, ideas, appetites and passions, are found to originate all that variety of moral character which is found in man. - Hosea Ballou, Treatise on Atonement 1805
    We have no reason to believe in the immortality of the mind. As far as facts weigh any thing in the argument, they all stand opposed to such an hypothesis ... We are irresistibly led to believe that mind depends on organization, and where that is impaired, the mental capacity is destroyed. Consequently in the article of death, we should say, that the mind perishes with the body. Whether the scriptures teach the immortality of the soul is a question perhaps not so easily decided ... We have given considerable attention to this subject, and we do not hesitate to say, that in our humble opinion the testimony against the doctrine of the soul’s immortality appears to preponderate. - Clement Le Fevre, editor "Gospel Anchor" (1830s)
    man comes into the world, and dies similar to the brute creation ... man at death just returns to his original condition: he returns to dust ... Does the gospel, sir, bring to light any other life and immortality, but by a resurrection from the dead? If it does, I will thank you to show this, for here I confess ignorance ... a world of souls, naked, helpless, disembodied spirits... has no existence except in men's imaginations ... The thing God breathed into Adam was 'the breath of life;' which was no more a thinking, conscious being than the body into which it was breathed. It was this breath of life, breathed into the body and in union with it, both were constituted a living soul, or person. ... the only hope revealed to man of future life is in being raised from the dead in the resurrection at the last day - Walter Balfour, various publications (1830s)

    This stuff is older than people often think. And, anticipating your thoughts on the "Purgatorial process", these writers generally denied the need for such a thing. We are ressurected into the presense of Jesus, we see the beauty and love of God our creator clearly, not through a glass darkly, and we preceive him as lovely and so inevitably love him and thus are reconciled to him.

    Of course this wasn't a universal set of views within the UCA, either at the time or later. For example the denomination nearly had a permanent split at one point over the question of whether there was purgatorial punishment after death or not.

    Standard Enlightenment thinking if not prior.
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Eutychus wrote: »
    demas wrote: »
    But I suspect that any contemporary view of Hell must be eschatological not transient. Hell is about final outcomes.
    I think there is a school of liberal Christian thought that says this life is all there is for all of us. Which probably goes hand in hand with a belief that the resurrection of Christ was not an actual bodily one.

    And I'd say this is a logical outworking of @Martin54's position that Scripture is so enculturated and so human as to provide no reliable guide to anything beyond the human authors' primitive and personal perception of events.

    I can't rule this 'universal annihilation' position out, but then I'm quite strongly attached to a belief in the bodily resurrection of Christ.

    At what point do these alleged "liberals" admit that they've liberalised themselves out of Christianity altogether?

    It's not your call.

    I know, and I understand the practical and theological reasons why it's not, but sometimes struggle to understand what folk can see in Christianity without the risen Christ. It's not like the Church is an attractive organisation in its own right.

    Risen Christ =/= physically resurrected Christ. You can believe he's alive without believing in resuscitated corpses.

    How? Why?
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited October 2020
    Martin54 wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Eutychus wrote: »
    demas wrote: »
    But I suspect that any contemporary view of Hell must be eschatological not transient. Hell is about final outcomes.
    I think there is a school of liberal Christian thought that says this life is all there is for all of us. Which probably goes hand in hand with a belief that the resurrection of Christ was not an actual bodily one.

    And I'd say this is a logical outworking of @Martin54's position that Scripture is so enculturated and so human as to provide no reliable guide to anything beyond the human authors' primitive and personal perception of events.

    I can't rule this 'universal annihilation' position out, but then I'm quite strongly attached to a belief in the bodily resurrection of Christ.

    At what point do these alleged "liberals" admit that they've liberalised themselves out of Christianity altogether?

    It's not your call.

    I know, and I understand the practical and theological reasons why it's not, but sometimes struggle to understand what folk can see in Christianity without the risen Christ. It's not like the Church is an attractive organisation in its own right.

    Risen Christ =/= physically resurrected Christ. You can believe he's alive without believing in resuscitated corpses.

    How? Why?

    How? Same way people into sceances and wotnot think their deceased relatives are alive.

    Why? Same reasons generally given for believing the resurrection occurred - transformation of the apostles from scared minor cultists to founders of a world religion.
  • demasdemas Shipmate
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Standard Enlightenment thinking if not prior.

    New England Calvinism + Enlightenment + Second Great Awakening = People in 1830s who don't believe in hell and who have overlapping theology with KarlLB.

    More or less.

    What's your point?
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    Telford wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Telford wrote: »
    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.

    Everyone gets both.
    How can you or I or anyone else possibly know this for certain ?

    Because if there's a God, that's how He is. Not a nasty, useless son of a bitch.

    So why does He allow so much suffering in this world ?

  • Telford wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Telford wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Telford wrote: »
    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.

    Everyone gets both.
    How can you or I or anyone else possibly know this for certain ?

    Because if there's a God, that's how He is. Not a nasty, useless son of a bitch.

    So why does He allow so much suffering in this world ?

    He's not nasty about it. And He has no choice. He can't not allow it. It's not up or down to Him except as the instantiator of eternal being and helplessly sharing in that. In the transcendent it is up and down to Him.
  • demas wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Standard Enlightenment thinking if not prior.

    New England Calvinism + Enlightenment + Second Great Awakening = People in 1830s who don't believe in hell and who have overlapping theology with KarlLB.

    More or less.

    What's your point?

    What's yours?
  • edited October 2020
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Eutychus wrote: »
    demas wrote: »
    But I suspect that any contemporary view of Hell must be eschatological not transient. Hell is about final outcomes.
    I think there is a school of liberal Christian thought that says this life is all there is for all of us. Which probably goes hand in hand with a belief that the resurrection of Christ was not an actual bodily one.

    And I'd say this is a logical outworking of @Martin54's position that Scripture is so enculturated and so human as to provide no reliable guide to anything beyond the human authors' primitive and personal perception of events.

    I can't rule this 'universal annihilation' position out, but then I'm quite strongly attached to a belief in the bodily resurrection of Christ.

    At what point do these alleged "liberals" admit that they've liberalised themselves out of Christianity altogether?

    It's not your call.

    I know, and I understand the practical and theological reasons why it's not, but sometimes struggle to understand what folk can see in Christianity without the risen Christ. It's not like the Church is an attractive organisation in its own right.

    Because Church is not Christianity. There may be Christianity and / or Christ in some churches. But there's no guarantee that these 3 things: Church, Christianity, Christ have that much in common. We also have cultural history, way of living/way of life, and then what I'd call the doctrine side which is focussed away from the material world where people to struggle to live. More and more, in my lifetime, I've detected Church and Christianity retreating from the way of life / way of living aspects, retaining the cultural history (Christmas presents, church buildings etc), and emphasizing increasingly the other-worldiness of the salvation doctrine. The focus on salvation worked when the church was part of the world and relevant to it, providing people with tangible things in the form of support and frequently, direct aid. It does not work when it retreats.

    The last great connection people had to churches and institutional Christianity where I live was in the days of social gospel. It's been replaced by prosperity gospel. The individualism the latter emphasizes leads me to despair. Note, I'm talking about the influence of this as a societal direction and often unconscious: I think that most people caught in the consumerist, indivdualist mindset don't realize how eroded the sense of community has become.
  • Merry VoleMerry Vole Shipmate
    edited October 2020
    @Telford;
    Because for the time being H/She is OK with the world having, in no particular order: weather, physical laws, flawed human nature, neural pathways that are experienced as pain or fear, etc etc.
    But there will be a new heaven and a new earth and every tear will be wiped away. And I expect even the memory of pain will be erased. And there won't be room for anything we might call hell.
  • Merry Vole wrote: »
    @Telford;
    Because for the time being H/She is OK with the world having, in no particular order: weather, physical laws, flawed human nature, neural pathways that are experienced as pain or fear, etc etc.
    But there will be a new heaven and a new earth and every tear will be wiped away. And I expect even the memory of pain will be erased. And there won't be room for anything we might call hell.

    Perfect.
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Eutychus wrote: »
    demas wrote: »
    But I suspect that any contemporary view of Hell must be eschatological not transient. Hell is about final outcomes.
    I think there is a school of liberal Christian thought that says this life is all there is for all of us. Which probably goes hand in hand with a belief that the resurrection of Christ was not an actual bodily one.

    And I'd say this is a logical outworking of @Martin54's position that Scripture is so enculturated and so human as to provide no reliable guide to anything beyond the human authors' primitive and personal perception of events.

    I can't rule this 'universal annihilation' position out, but then I'm quite strongly attached to a belief in the bodily resurrection of Christ.

    At what point do these alleged "liberals" admit that they've liberalised themselves out of Christianity altogether?

    It's not your call.

    I know, and I understand the practical and theological reasons why it's not, but sometimes struggle to understand what folk can see in Christianity without the risen Christ. It's not like the Church is an attractive organisation in its own right.

    Risen Christ =/= physically resurrected Christ. You can believe he's alive without believing in resuscitated corpses.

    How? Why?

    How? Same way people into sceances and wotnot think their deceased relatives are alive.

    Why? Same reasons generally given for believing the resurrection occurred - transformation of the apostles from scared minor cultists to founders of a world religion.

    Nothing else would work. Nothing else would transform a bunch of guys like their compelling leader being tortured to death in front of their eyes - those that hid in the crowd apart from John - and being fine three days later. So if He wasn't, what worked? His body unnaturally disappeared and a vision replaced it? If you say so.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Martin54 wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Eutychus wrote: »
    demas wrote: »
    But I suspect that any contemporary view of Hell must be eschatological not transient. Hell is about final outcomes.
    I think there is a school of liberal Christian thought that says this life is all there is for all of us. Which probably goes hand in hand with a belief that the resurrection of Christ was not an actual bodily one.

    And I'd say this is a logical outworking of @Martin54's position that Scripture is so enculturated and so human as to provide no reliable guide to anything beyond the human authors' primitive and personal perception of events.

    I can't rule this 'universal annihilation' position out, but then I'm quite strongly attached to a belief in the bodily resurrection of Christ.

    At what point do these alleged "liberals" admit that they've liberalised themselves out of Christianity altogether?

    It's not your call.

    I know, and I understand the practical and theological reasons why it's not, but sometimes struggle to understand what folk can see in Christianity without the risen Christ. It's not like the Church is an attractive organisation in its own right.

    Risen Christ =/= physically resurrected Christ. You can believe he's alive without believing in resuscitated corpses.

    How? Why?

    How? Same way people into sceances and wotnot think their deceased relatives are alive.

    Why? Same reasons generally given for believing the resurrection occurred - transformation of the apostles from scared minor cultists to founders of a world religion.

    Nothing else would work. Nothing else would transform a bunch of guys like their compelling leader being tortured to death in front of their eyes - those that hid in the crowd apart from John - and being fine three days later. So if He wasn't, what worked? His body unnaturally disappeared and a vision replaced it? If you say so.

    I don't pronounce either way. But this is the prosecutors' fallacy, isn't it? A is very unlikely so it must be B?

  • I know, and I understand the practical and theological reasons why it's not, but sometimes struggle to understand what folk can see in Christianity without the risen Christ. It's not like the Church is an attractive organisation in its own right.

    :lol: Understatement of the year award :lol:
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Eutychus wrote: »
    demas wrote: »
    But I suspect that any contemporary view of Hell must be eschatological not transient. Hell is about final outcomes.
    I think there is a school of liberal Christian thought that says this life is all there is for all of us. Which probably goes hand in hand with a belief that the resurrection of Christ was not an actual bodily one.

    And I'd say this is a logical outworking of @Martin54's position that Scripture is so enculturated and so human as to provide no reliable guide to anything beyond the human authors' primitive and personal perception of events.

    I can't rule this 'universal annihilation' position out, but then I'm quite strongly attached to a belief in the bodily resurrection of Christ.

    At what point do these alleged "liberals" admit that they've liberalised themselves out of Christianity altogether?

    It's not your call.

    I know, and I understand the practical and theological reasons why it's not, but sometimes struggle to understand what folk can see in Christianity without the risen Christ. It's not like the Church is an attractive organisation in its own right.

    Risen Christ =/= physically resurrected Christ. You can believe he's alive without believing in resuscitated corpses.

    How? Why?

    How? Same way people into sceances and wotnot think their deceased relatives are alive.

    Why? Same reasons generally given for believing the resurrection occurred - transformation of the apostles from scared minor cultists to founders of a world religion.

    Nothing else would work. Nothing else would transform a bunch of guys like their compelling leader being tortured to death in front of their eyes - those that hid in the crowd apart from John - and being fine three days later. So if He wasn't, what worked? His body unnaturally disappeared and a vision replaced it? If you say so.

    I don't pronounce either way. But this is the prosecutors' fallacy, isn't it? A is very unlikely so it must be B?

    No, it's nothing like that. If it happened, it happened. No need to rationalize away a miracle and still believe it. I can't do that.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    And many people cannot believe a corpse can come back to life after three days.

    I find it damned near impossible.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    edited October 2020
    KarlLB wrote: »
    And many people cannot believe a corpse can come back to life after three days.

    I find it damned near impossible.

    Of course it's impossible. That's what a miracle is. Like water turning in to good wine.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Martin54 wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    And many people cannot believe a corpse can come back to life after three days.

    I find it damned near impossible.

    Of course it's impossible. That's what a miracle is. Like water turning in to good wine.

    Problem is it's circular. Christ can rise from the dead because he is the Son of God. How do we know he's the Son of God? Because he rose from the dead.
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