Even if we reduce the length of time by several orders of magnitude I'm not sure what comfort it would be to you that that person would get out of Hell/Purgatory in 'only' 210 years.
This assumes "time" exists or can be measured in the afterlife.
For it to be true all that needs to occur is for there to be a state where some people were in the new heavens/new earth and some of their loved ones were not.
As a side note; assuming everything in the hearafter is creation as it was supposed to be but fulfilled, I'm not sure why we'd necessarily assume that time passes away, it's just as possible that we'll interact with it in much more complex ways.
Even if we reduce the length of time by several orders of magnitude I'm not sure what comfort it would be to you that that person would get out of Hell/Purgatory in 'only' 210 years.
This assumes "time" exists or can be measured in the afterlife.
For it to be true all that needs to occur is for there to be a state where some people were in the new heavens/new earth and some of their loved ones were not.
I'm pondering if, taken together the Biblical passages that reference hell or eternal condemnation etc, and they are disparate Bible passages, are telling us how things might have ended up when, at the end of time, everything is wound up, had not Christ, by his life death and resurrection made that ultimate outcome no longer needing to be even contemplated?
In other words hell is 'see how awful things could have been without salvation achieved on the cross'
(exegesis of this to follow later )
I've certainly reached for that explanation in the past when preaching on one of the parables.
Even if we reduce the length of time by several orders of magnitude I'm not sure what comfort it would be to you that that person would get out of Hell/Purgatory in 'only' 210 years.
This assumes "time" exists or can be measured in the afterlife.
For it to be true all that needs to occur is for there to be a state where some people were in the new heavens/new earth and some of their loved ones were not.
No. To have 210 years, you need time.
The figure was picked for illustrative purposes because the source Eutychus used quoted a (much larger) figure. But nevertheless the argument is still the same as long as there is a state where some people were in the new heavens/new earth and some of their loved ones are not (yet).
We can see God as He passively and ineffably is now through creation thanks to the lens of His activity as Christ. Through a glass darkly. Which ain't our fault. Nothing is. So all our faults will be corrected. We'll be given eyes to see. To understand. While we walk with our brother God. One on one in paradise. All of us.
Yeah, something like that. Except they would say:
- God is not passive
- Our sinful actions are our fault
- God is our Father not brother.
Their words are dead.
- Where is He active apart from when human?
- Who made us thus?
- What is Jesus?
Well I guess they're dead. Don't know what you mean about their words being dead.
Putting my 'early 1800s American Universalist' hat on:
- The whole of creation witnesses the active participation of God. His continual activity is the reason anything continues to exist and why events follow one after another. We can also see his activity in the history of his chosen people and in signs in our own lives.
- At one level, God made us thus, for God is the Author. On another level, we made ourselves thus by our choices. The Devil isn't a real entity but a personification of evil, the story of the fall is not a literal event occurring in a literal garden.
- The man Christ Jesus is the Mediator between God and man, the true image of God, our Lord and Savior.
They weren't deists. We would probably call them either compatibilists or determinists but those terms are anachronistic. They were mostly high unitarian in Christology. They strongly believed in individual thought, so their theology varied widely. The main thing they shared was the belief that God is love and "will finally restore the whole family of mankind to holiness and happiness."
My point isn't to convince anyone with these viewpoints, but to point out the wide variety of historical positions on the subject of Hell (and the way in which our view on Hell seems to bleed through to the rest of our theology - eschatology, Christology, soteriology, you name the ology and Hell seems to be tied up in it).
That said, how have we moved on in 200 years? What have we learnt in that 200 years that makes the theology of these guys and in particular their view of hell so worthy of dismissal and contempt?
Because what they would say according to you is refuted above. The - - - 3 bullet points. Dead.
And their - - - formularies, they don't work either; dead.
Their being unitarian didn't help their case at all either. It never does. God the Monad is somewhat ontologically complex.
But yes, the Reformation took one step forward and two back, in the name of freedom, in decluttering back to the wooden faith once delivered, it embraced Hell. The psychology is predictable. If you reject your suffocating mother you may well embrace your austere father.
So, never mind what's behind us and never mind where we are, we're all looking up the same very long haul. That includes the - unavoidable - north face of the Eiger, facing what is left when the illusory, pareidolic path of meaning provided by literal, linear Biblicism disappears forever. We must all find our own way. Together. That's all of humanity. We are the meaning.
That said, how have we moved on in 200 years? What have we learnt in that 200 years that makes the theology of these guys and in particular their view of hell so worthy of dismissal and contempt?
I'm still not sure how to parse @Martin54 but I'm bothered by his association of purpose with outmoded theology. I'm not at all into Purpose Driven™ stuff but I think eschatology and a linear sense of history is an integral part of Christian belief. Not for nothing is Jesus the Alpha and the Omega. Our sense of ultimate justice and resolution derives from linearity. Hell fits in there somewhere. It doesn't have to be as literalistic as @KarlLB makes it out to be.
I think you're right about linearity, I also think that it is hard to conceive of a passive God within the usual Christian framework.
I'm pondering if, taken together the Biblical passages that reference hell or eternal condemnation etc, and they are disparate Bible passages, are telling us how things might have ended up when, at the end of time, everything is wound up, had not Christ, by his life death and resurrection made that ultimate outcome no longer needing to be even contemplated?
In other words hell is 'see how awful things could have been without salvation achieved on the cross'
(exegesis of this to follow later )
That just moves God's wrath back a universal step.
That said, how have we moved on in 200 years? What have we learnt in that 200 years that makes the theology of these guys and in particular their view of hell so worthy of dismissal and contempt?
I'm still not sure how to parse @Martin54 but I'm bothered by his association of purpose with outmoded theology. I'm not at all into Purpose Driven™ stuff but I think eschatology and a linear sense of history is an integral part of Christian belief. Not for nothing is Jesus the Alpha and the Omega. Our sense of ultimate justice and resolution derives from linearity. Hell fits in there somewhere. It doesn't have to be as literalistic as @KarlLB makes it out to be.
As I alluded in a couple of my posts up, eschatology and linearity are illusory. Pareidolia. Hell fits in there. Nowhere. There may be a transcendent purpose, but until then the only one we can see is in front of our noses. Each other. Incarnation in, as each other.
My point isn't to convince anyone with these viewpoints, but to point out the wide variety of historical positions on the subject of Hell (and the way in which our view on Hell seems to bleed through to the rest of our theology - eschatology, Christology, soteriology, you name the ology and Hell seems to be tied up in it).
That said, how have we moved on in 200 years? What have we learnt in that 200 years that makes the theology of these guys and in particular their view of hell so worthy of dismissal and contempt?
Because what they would say according to you is refuted above. The - - - 3 bullet points. Dead.
And their - - - formularies, they don't work either; dead.
Their being unitarian didn't help their case at all either. It never does. God the Monad is somewhat ontologically complex.
But yes, the Reformation took one step forward and two back, in the name of freedom, in decluttering back to the wooden faith once delivered, it embraced Hell. The psychology is predictable. If you reject your suffocating mother you may well embrace your austere father.
So, never mind what's behind us and never mind where we are, we're all looking up the same very long haul. That includes the - unavoidable - north face of the Eiger, facing what is left when the illusory, pareidolic path of meaning provided by literal, linear Biblicism disappears forever. We must all find our own way. Together. That's all of humanity. We are the meaning.
You pronouncing ideas dead ex cathedra doesn't make for interesting discussion. I still don't know why, especially since the ideas you are pronouncing dead seem pretty close to ideas you seem to prefer.
Except the 'we are the meaning' thing, which I guess put a gulf between you and them.
And pre-Reformation Western Christianity had plenty of Hell in it. Purgatory to them didn't soften Hell so much as tarnish Heaven.
So, never mind what's behind us and never mind where we are, we're all looking up the same very long haul. That includes the - unavoidable - north face of the Eiger, facing what is left when the illusory, pareidolic path of meaning provided by literal, linear Biblicism disappears forever. We must all find our own way. Together. That's all of humanity. We are the meaning.
Your description of achieving enlightenment and release from linearity sounds rather inescapably... linear.
And overwhelmingly centred on the enlightened "we".
So, never mind what's behind us and never mind where we are, we're all looking up the same very long haul. That includes the - unavoidable - north face of the Eiger, facing what is left when the illusory, pareidolic path of meaning provided by literal, linear Biblicism disappears forever. We must all find our own way. Together. That's all of humanity. We are the meaning.
Your description of achieving enlightenment and release from linearity sounds rather inescapably... linear.
And overwhelmingly centred on the enlightened "we".
Touché, mon Brave! Touché. We - Pan narrans - all have to make up meaning, we can't escape evolution.
My point isn't to convince anyone with these viewpoints, but to point out the wide variety of historical positions on the subject of Hell (and the way in which our view on Hell seems to bleed through to the rest of our theology - eschatology, Christology, soteriology, you name the ology and Hell seems to be tied up in it).
That said, how have we moved on in 200 years? What have we learnt in that 200 years that makes the theology of these guys and in particular their view of hell so worthy of dismissal and contempt?
Because what they would say according to you is refuted above. The - - - 3 bullet points. Dead.
And their - - - formularies, they don't work either; dead.
Their being unitarian didn't help their case at all either. It never does. God the Monad is somewhat ontologically complex.
But yes, the Reformation took one step forward and two back, in the name of freedom, in decluttering back to the wooden faith once delivered, it embraced Hell. The psychology is predictable. If you reject your suffocating mother you may well embrace your austere father.
So, never mind what's behind us and never mind where we are, we're all looking up the same very long haul. That includes the - unavoidable - north face of the Eiger, facing what is left when the illusory, pareidolic path of meaning provided by literal, linear Biblicism disappears forever. We must all find our own way. Together. That's all of humanity. We are the meaning.
You pronouncing ideas dead ex cathedra doesn't make for interesting discussion. I still don't know why, especially since the ideas you are pronouncing dead seem pretty close to ideas you seem to prefer.
Except the 'we are the meaning' thing, which I guess put a gulf between you and them.
And pre-Reformation Western Christianity had plenty of Hell in it. Purgatory to them didn't soften Hell so much as tarnish Heaven.
That was a point of departure for both. The ideas further up the trajectory are dependent on all threads on the braid that evolved before. Why must we keep looking back once we know? Walking uphill backwards seems...
@Martin54 again, I think narrative (by multiple and sometimes conflicting narrators) is a design feature of the Bible and that its linearity is more than pareidolia.
If you see linearity as something to be escaped then the text, and everything in it (with the possible exception of Ecclesiastes but most definitely including the Old Old Story, the account of the Christ Event) should be the first thing to be discarded.
To me the fact that we have a written text provides an objective, physical reference to corral our inherent self-centredness.
I believe the Word of God for us today emerges from our interaction together around that text in good faith.
I share Martin's view about linearity. Well, undoubtedly humans are addicted to narrative. One damn thing after another, I suppose a common view in Asian religion is that we're so obsessed with the next step/chapter, that we miss this step now. Rumi, "this silence, this moment". Although Christianity has its own contemplatives.
That was a point of departure for both. The ideas further up the trajectory are dependent on all threads on the braid that evolved before. Why must we keep looking back once we know? Walking uphill backwards seems...
That was a point of departure for both. The ideas further up the trajectory are dependent on all threads on the braid that evolved before. Why must we keep looking back once we know? Walking uphill backwards seems...
And you say you don't believe in linearity?
Oh I believe in it for sure. Like I believe in purpose. Limited liability companies. Well less so than them admittedly.
@Martin54 again, I think narrative (by multiple and sometimes conflicting narrators) is a design feature of the Bible and that its linearity is more than pareidolia.
If you see linearity as something to be escaped then the text, and everything in it (with the possible exception of Ecclesiastes but most definitely including the Old Old Story, the account of the Christ Event) should be the first thing to be discarded.
To me the fact that we have a written text provides an objective, physical reference to corral our inherent self-centredness.
I believe the Word of God for us today emerges from our interaction together around that text in good faith.
Eeee @Eutychus. Well you would do wouldn't you? Its linearity is a Fibonacci consequence of its evolution. Of its non-teleological 'design'. The Christ Excession remains, as it is orthogonal to the 'story'. You're smarter than me by a country mile, why the block? That's rhetorical. You're blocked by story. So am I of course. Hence the evangelical Biblicism. My story is God intruded in to our made up one and took ownership of it in Christ. First. It's that or there is no story at all. Last. To be discarded.
There is nothing physical behind the text except possibly that impossible OCP. Otherwise it's just a Judeo-Perso-Hellenic-Romano humanist conspiracy.
Aye, textual Jesus re-emerges in our contextual interaction.
In fact, you could say that the Christ event obliterates linearity, as it spreads out to cover all space and time, or if you like, space and time are no more, the rest is memory. But still we need that "after that".
I'm pondering if, taken together the Biblical passages that reference hell or eternal condemnation etc, and they are disparate Bible passages, are telling us how things might have ended up when, at the end of time, everything is wound up, had not Christ, by his life death and resurrection made that ultimate outcome no longer needing to be even contemplated?
In other words hell is 'see how awful things could have been without salvation achieved on the cross'
(exegesis of this to follow later )
That just moves God's wrath back a universal step.
or maybe all will be revealed when all mankind ('asleep' or extant) see the Three Persons of the Godhead as they are; in perfect unity and together expressing: 1. Wrath 2. Forgiveness 3. Healing
I'm pondering if, taken together the Biblical passages that reference hell or eternal condemnation etc, and they are disparate Bible passages, are telling us how things might have ended up when, at the end of time, everything is wound up, had not Christ, by his life death and resurrection made that ultimate outcome no longer needing to be even contemplated?
In other words hell is 'see how awful things could have been without salvation achieved on the cross'
(exegesis of this to follow later )
That just moves God's wrath back a universal step.
or maybe all will be revealed when all mankind ('asleep' or extant) see the Three Persons of the Godhead as they are; in perfect unity and together expressing: 1. Wrath 2. Forgiveness 3. Healing
If you see linearity as something to be escaped then the text, and everything in it (with the possible exception of Ecclesiastes but most definitely including the Old Old Story, the account of the Christ Event) should be the first thing to be discarded.
I'm not sure it does justice to the text to define it as linear, I think sometimes our understandings of the text is much more the linear than the text itself -- which is more like multiple sets of interlocking improvisational cycles.
If you see linearity as something to be escaped then the text, and everything in it (with the possible exception of Ecclesiastes but most definitely including the Old Old Story, the account of the Christ Event) should be the first thing to be discarded.
I'm not sure it does justice to the text to define it as linear, I think sometimes our understandings of the text is much more the linear than the text itself -- which is more like multiple sets of interlocking improvisational cycles.
Perfect. As Iris Murdoch, our cleverest woman until she got dementia, said about life vs. story, the characters are fine, but the plot?
If you see linearity as something to be escaped then the text, and everything in it (with the possible exception of Ecclesiastes but most definitely including the Old Old Story, the account of the Christ Event) should be the first thing to be discarded.
I'm not sure it does justice to the text to define it as linear, I think sometimes our understandings of the text is much more the linear than the text itself -- which is more like multiple sets of interlocking improvisational cycles.
Maybe this is a tangent*. Yes there is a sense of interlocking cycles, but there is also a linear progression. The beginnings (!) of, off the top of my head, Genesis, John, and Hebrews are all undisputably linear in nature, as are the historical books. The Acts and the Epistles, especially Paul's, all grapple with progressive revelation and interpret it in linear fashion. While I don't subscribe to things in Revelation happening in the chronological order they are described, there is a clear sense of a direction in history leading to a final resolution and judgement (whatever that means).
==
*If the hosts deem it a tangent worthy of another thread, maybe they could split this one?
Even if we reduce the length of time by several orders of magnitude I'm not sure what comfort it would be to you that that person would get out of Hell/Purgatory in 'only' 210 years.
This assumes "time" exists or can be measured in the afterlife.
For it to be true all that needs to occur is for there to be a state where some people were in the new heavens/new earth and some of their loved ones were not.
No. To have 210 years, you need time.
The figure was picked for illustrative purposes because the source Eutychus used quoted a (much larger) figure. But nevertheless the argument is still the same as long as there is a state where some people were in the new heavens/new earth and some of their loved ones are not (yet).
The number is irrelevant. What is relevant is the existence of measurable time in the next world. Which not everybody who believes in a next world accepts.
I don't think it's even necessarily measurable time, and indeed I doubt it's elapsed time in the sense we experience it here.
But for those who believe in a next world, there must be a 'dimension' in which one experiences things.
CS Lewis hypothesised that it was most like an ongoing present. My musing is about what happens to those who die far from God; whether that condition can change and if not, whether their existence ceases. An ongoing present in which they experience separation from God which cannot evolve seems pointless - all the more so because in that scenario it can no longer serve as a deterrent; the chips are down for everyone by that stage.
ETA for another, zany take on the afterlife, try to catch Cargo on Netflix (the Hindi sci-fi film, not the dystopian Australian one) before it goes. I just found it and it's both fun and moving.
I'm pondering if, taken together the Biblical passages that reference hell or eternal condemnation etc, and they are disparate Bible passages, are telling us how things might have ended up when, at the end of time, everything is wound up, had not Christ, by his life death and resurrection made that ultimate outcome no longer needing to be even contemplated?
In other words hell is 'see how awful things could have been without salvation achieved on the cross'
(exegesis of this to follow later )
That just moves God's wrath back a universal step.
or maybe all will be revealed when all mankind ('asleep' or extant) see the Three Persons of the Godhead as they are; in perfect unity and together expressing: 1. Wrath 2. Forgiveness 3. Healing
Wrath? How dare they!
What did you mean by 'moving God's wrath back a universal step'?
Isn't God's wrath just a bloody-minded 'I can and will put everything right'?
And that expressed determination is just one part of God's character the fullness of which is fully revealed in the Trinity.
And the Trinity is the key to realising that there will be no literal hell.
I'm pondering if, taken together the Biblical passages that reference hell or eternal condemnation etc, and they are disparate Bible passages, are telling us how things might have ended up when, at the end of time, everything is wound up, had not Christ, by his life death and resurrection made that ultimate outcome no longer needing to be even contemplated?
In other words hell is 'see how awful things could have been without salvation achieved on the cross'
(exegesis of this to follow later )
That just moves God's wrath back a universal step.
or maybe all will be revealed when all mankind ('asleep' or extant) see the Three Persons of the Godhead as they are; in perfect unity and together expressing: 1. Wrath 2. Forgiveness 3. Healing
Wrath? How dare they!
What did you mean by 'moving God's wrath back a universal step'?
Isn't God's wrath just a bloody-minded 'I can and will put everything right'?
And that expressed determination is just one part of God's character the fullness of which is fully revealed in the Trinity.
And the Trinity is the key to realising that there will be no literal hell.
You said 'see how awful things could have been without salvation achieved on the cross' in other words from how eternal condemnation would have happened implicitly to all. If Jesus hadn't sacrificed Himself we'd be damned.
God's wrath is bloody minded. Period. A human fantasy. He does not lift a finger in material creation unless He's wearing one. You're trying to have your conservative biblicist cake and liberally eat it. Been there. It can't be done.
And the Trinity is the key to realising that there will be no literal hell.
Not to sound like a broken record, but there has only been one denomination of Christians which has been openly and formally universalist in belief and they were almost all Unitarians, And in their sister denomination, which was formally Unitarian, most were universalist.
Whereas the vast majority of Trinitarian Christians have believed in Hell, aka a state of eternal suffering and rejection by God after death.
So it would seem on the face of it that a proper understanding of the Trinity is neither sufficient nor required to disbelieve in a literal Hell...
I don't think it's even necessarily measurable time, and indeed I doubt it's elapsed time in the sense we experience it here.
But for those who believe in a next world, there must be a 'dimension' in which one experiences things.
ISTM that 'dimension (be it an enhanced relationship with time and/or a relationship with something of which time is a shadow and/or something else), is a feature of our creatureliness - in the same way that the fact that the hope is the resurrection of the body is an indication that we aren't supposed to subsist as 'pure spirit' (while also indication of a continued relationship with space).
And both are pre-figured in the origin story(ies) in Genesis.
I happened to like what you said, although the idea of us being maggots is more than a little nauseating. Then again, I am currently suffering some malady that causes me to vomit frequently. Twice last week, once the week before that. Four or five times in September.
Ugh, talk about Hell!
Most of the time I can't understand your posts. Most of the time I skip past them because I don't want to develop a migraine. However, every once in a while you stun me with deep insight. This is one of those times. Fair play to you, sir.
I happened to like what you said, although the idea of us being maggots is more than a little nauseating. Then again, I am currently suffering some malady that causes me to vomit frequently. Twice last week, once the week before that. Four or five times in September.
Ugh, talk about Hell!
Most of the time I can't understand your posts. Most of the time I skip past them because I don't want to develop a migraine. However, every once in a while you stun me with deep insight. This is one of those times. Fair play to you, sir.
I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy @The5thMary. Or the nausea! Had idiopathic IBS 12 years ago for a year although the half life of the horror was a fortnight. From midnight till four in the morning for two or one days with one day off in between. Retching. With a bayonet twisting in the right shoulder blade. That was the worst. After a night off you knew it was coming 'tonight'. 2-0-1-0-2-0-1-0... I didn't believe in it. I do now. I daren't take an aspirin ever since. Stress. I also got cold urticaria - hives if sat on a cold seat - and benign pemphigus - burning palms; stopped me driving - for the second time in 30 years. All stress. I still get spasms in my oesophagus if my beer's too cold. So damnwell stop it. It's not nice.
I happened to like what you said, although the idea of us being maggots is more than a little nauseating. Then again, I am currently suffering some malady that causes me to vomit frequently. Twice last week, once the week before that. Four or five times in September.
Ugh, talk about Hell!
Most of the time I can't understand your posts. Most of the time I skip past them because I don't want to develop a migraine. However, every once in a while you stun me with deep insight. This is one of those times. Fair play to you, sir.
I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy @The5thMary. Or the nausea! Had idiopathic IBS 12 years ago for a year although the half life of the horror was a fortnight. From midnight till four in the morning for two or one days with one day off in between. Retching. With a bayonet twisting in the right shoulder blade. That was the worst. After a night off you knew it was coming 'tonight'. 2-0-1-0-2-0-1-0... I didn't believe in it. I do now. I daren't take an aspirin ever since. Stress. I also got cold urticaria - hives if sat on a cold seat - and benign pemphigus - burning palms; stopped me driving - for the second time in 30 years. All stress. I still get spasms in my oesophagus if my beer's too cold. So damnwell stop it. It's not nice.
...My musing is about what happens to those who die far from God; whether that condition can change and if not, whether their existence ceases...
Who dies close to God?
Presumably those who live in God, and in whom God lives.
Uh huh. Know any do you?
Do I know any perfect people? Of course not. Do I know people who display love of God and neighbour in their lives, albeit imperfectly? Sure. As presumably did the writer of 1 John.
To circle back to @Eutychus, it seems reasonable to say there is a difference between dying far from God, close to God, and in perfect harmony with God.
...My musing is about what happens to those who die far from God; whether that condition can change and if not, whether their existence ceases...
Who dies close to God?
Presumably those who live in God, and in whom God lives.
Uh huh. Know any do you?
Do I know any perfect people? Of course not. Do I know people who display love of God and neighbour in their lives, albeit imperfectly? Sure. As presumably did the writer of 1 John.
To circle back to @Eutychus, it seems reasonable to say there is a difference between dying far from God, close to God, and in perfect harmony with God.
Where will you die? And what difference could it make to your eternal life?
...My musing is about what happens to those who die far from God; whether that condition can change and if not, whether their existence ceases...
Who dies close to God?
Presumably those who live in God, and in whom God lives.
Uh huh. Know any do you?
Do I know any perfect people? Of course not. Do I know people who display love of God and neighbour in their lives, albeit imperfectly? Sure. As presumably did the writer of 1 John.
To circle back to @Eutychus, it seems reasonable to say there is a difference between dying far from God, close to God, and in perfect harmony with God.
Where will you die? And what difference could it make to your eternal life?
We are temporal creatures. Christianity has always argued that a person’s current situation or trajectory doesn’t define them, that no one is beyond turning to God. If we deny the sense of continual movement we have in our lives and try to think of ourselves as the static sum of our moments, then I’m not sure we have Christianity so much as Anubis weighing our souls against a feather. Christianity surely tells Faust “even now at the eleventh hour”, not “you’re screwed dude, sorry”
...My musing is about what happens to those who die far from God; whether that condition can change and if not, whether their existence ceases...
Who dies close to God?
Presumably those who live in God, and in whom God lives.
Uh huh. Know any do you?
Do I know any perfect people? Of course not. Do I know people who display love of God and neighbour in their lives, albeit imperfectly? Sure. As presumably did the writer of 1 John.
To circle back to @Eutychus, it seems reasonable to say there is a difference between dying far from God, close to God, and in perfect harmony with God.
Where will you die? And what difference could it make to your eternal life?
We are temporal creatures. Christianity has always argued that a person’s current situation or trajectory doesn’t define them, that no one is beyond turning to God. If we deny the sense of continual movement we have in our lives and try to think of ourselves as the static sum of our moments, then I’m not sure we have Christianity so much as Anubis weighing our souls against a feather. Christianity surely tells Faust “even now at the eleventh hour”, not “you’re screwed dude, sorry”
What about beyond the eleventh hour? The vast majority of humanity have no pact of certainty. And those that think they do have convinced themselves they've won - or lost - Pascal's wager.
Well if you are a purgatorial universalist, the clock never strikes midnight. If you are a different kind of universalist, midnight brings instead of darkness the blinding light of the road to Damascus and the knowledge of the truth of God. For some people, midnight is just the end of the last day.
For many Christians, there is a midnight, a point beyond which Faust can no longer turn round on the road he has been walking. And your question then becomes Eutychus' OP: Can we conceive of a point beyond forgiveness and salvation, where God, perfectly just, does not extend his grace? And if we can conceive of it, how do we talk about it, when we believe in our heart of hearts that we are good people, our own judges and masters of our own fates?
Well if you are a purgatorial universalist, the clock never strikes midnight. If you are a different kind of universalist, midnight brings instead of darkness the blinding light of the road to Damascus and the knowledge of the truth of God. For some people, midnight is just the end of the last day.
For many Christians, there is a midnight, a point beyond which Faust can no longer turn round on the road he has been walking. And your question then becomes Eutychus' OP: Can we conceive of a point beyond forgiveness and salvation, where God, perfectly just, does not extend his grace? And if we can conceive of it, how do we talk about it, when we believe in our heart of hearts that we are good people, our own judges and masters of our own fates?
God's perfect justice is effectual, limitless, efficacious, meaningful, effective grace. Nothing, no cloven worm, asked to be created and so suffer. If we can conceive that there is a point of no return, there's something missing in our 'goodness'.
Well if you are a purgatorial universalist, the clock never strikes midnight. If you are a different kind of universalist, midnight brings instead of darkness the blinding light of the road to Damascus and the knowledge of the truth of God. For some people, midnight is just the end of the last day.
For many Christians, there is a midnight, a point beyond which Faust can no longer turn round on the road he has been walking. And your question then becomes Eutychus' OP: Can we conceive of a point beyond forgiveness and salvation, where God, perfectly just, does not extend his grace? And if we can conceive of it, how do we talk about it, when we believe in our heart of hearts that we are good people, our own judges and masters of our own fates?
I think you've got hold of the wrong end of the stick. It isn't that God refuses to extend his grace--grace is what he is, basically--but I do believe that there comes a point (please God, for as few people as possible) where they have hardened their own hearts of their own self-will in full guilty knowledge and thus refuse to respond to grace. No need to have God change his usual behavior. You can starve sitting at a banquet just as easily as you can in a desert, provided you refuse to eat.
The question that bothers me is what moral or other benefit there might be to maintaining the environment and awareness of the consequences of that refusal indefinitely if there is, by design, no prospect at all of the refusal altering.
Some interesting psychological themes crop up, I was struck by LC's phrase "full guilty knowledge". In depth psychology, I think that would be considered impossible, although this may be incorrect. In fact, I would argue that I cannot have full knowledge of myself, whether guilty or not. Of course, a theological view of the person has different premises.
Well if you are a purgatorial universalist, the clock never strikes midnight. If you are a different kind of universalist, midnight brings instead of darkness the blinding light of the road to Damascus and the knowledge of the truth of God. For some people, midnight is just the end of the last day.
For many Christians, there is a midnight, a point beyond which Faust can no longer turn round on the road he has been walking. And your question then becomes Eutychus' OP: Can we conceive of a point beyond forgiveness and salvation, where God, perfectly just, does not extend his grace? And if we can conceive of it, how do we talk about it, when we believe in our heart of hearts that we are good people, our own judges and masters of our own fates?
I think you've got hold of the wrong end of the stick. It isn't that God refuses to extend his grace--grace is what he is, basically--but I do believe that there comes a point (please God, for as few people as possible) where they have hardened their own hearts of their own self-will in full guilty knowledge and thus refuse to respond to grace. No need to have God change his usual behavior. You can starve sitting at a banquet just as easily as you can in a desert, provided you refuse to eat.
But why would you? Unless you were sick one way or another. Whatever manky little seeds go down, that isn't what will pop up. Is God God or not? Passive grace is abso-bloody-useless. Can God fix broken hearts, lives, minds or not? Can Jesus save?
The question that bothers me is what moral or other benefit there might be to maintaining the environment and awareness of the consequences of that refusal indefinitely if there is, by design, no prospect at all of the refusal altering.
Refusal? Any state a physical mind can get itself irreversibly in to can be gotten out of it in the transcendent.
In fact, I would argue that I cannot have full knowledge of myself, whether guilty or not. Of course, a theological view of the person has different premises.
Are you sure? Try 1 Corinthians 4:3-5, a passage I often refer to:
I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. 4 My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. 5 Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from God.
The question that bothers me is what moral or other benefit there might be to maintaining the environment and awareness of the consequences of that refusal indefinitely if there is, by design, no prospect at all of the refusal altering.
Refusal? Any state a physical mind can get itself irreversibly in to can be gotten out of it in the transcendent.
That's not what the end of Revelation suggests, though (Rev 22:11-12:
Let the unrighteous continue to be unrighteous, and the vile continue to be vile; let the righteous continue to practice righteousness, and the holy continue to be holy. 12“Behold, I am coming soon, and My reward is with Me, to give to each one according to what he has done.…
Comments
For it to be true all that needs to occur is for there to be a state where some people were in the new heavens/new earth and some of their loved ones were not.
As a side note; assuming everything in the hearafter is creation as it was supposed to be but fulfilled, I'm not sure why we'd necessarily assume that time passes away, it's just as possible that we'll interact with it in much more complex ways.
No. To have 210 years, you need time.
I've certainly reached for that explanation in the past when preaching on one of the parables.
The figure was picked for illustrative purposes because the source Eutychus used quoted a (much larger) figure. But nevertheless the argument is still the same as long as there is a state where some people were in the new heavens/new earth and some of their loved ones are not (yet).
Because what they would say according to you is refuted above. The - - - 3 bullet points. Dead.
And their - - - formularies, they don't work either; dead.
Their being unitarian didn't help their case at all either. It never does. God the Monad is somewhat ontologically complex.
But yes, the Reformation took one step forward and two back, in the name of freedom, in decluttering back to the wooden faith once delivered, it embraced Hell. The psychology is predictable. If you reject your suffocating mother you may well embrace your austere father.
So, never mind what's behind us and never mind where we are, we're all looking up the same very long haul. That includes the - unavoidable - north face of the Eiger, facing what is left when the illusory, pareidolic path of meaning provided by literal, linear Biblicism disappears forever. We must all find our own way. Together. That's all of humanity. We are the meaning.
But none of this is really that new.
That just moves God's wrath back a universal step.
As I alluded in a couple of my posts up, eschatology and linearity are illusory. Pareidolia. Hell fits in there. Nowhere. There may be a transcendent purpose, but until then the only one we can see is in front of our noses. Each other. Incarnation in, as each other.
You pronouncing ideas dead ex cathedra doesn't make for interesting discussion. I still don't know why, especially since the ideas you are pronouncing dead seem pretty close to ideas you seem to prefer.
Except the 'we are the meaning' thing, which I guess put a gulf between you and them.
And pre-Reformation Western Christianity had plenty of Hell in it. Purgatory to them didn't soften Hell so much as tarnish Heaven.
Your description of achieving enlightenment and release from linearity sounds rather inescapably... linear.
And overwhelmingly centred on the enlightened "we".
Touché, mon Brave! Touché. We - Pan narrans - all have to make up meaning, we can't escape evolution.
That was a point of departure for both. The ideas further up the trajectory are dependent on all threads on the braid that evolved before. Why must we keep looking back once we know? Walking uphill backwards seems...
If you see linearity as something to be escaped then the text, and everything in it (with the possible exception of Ecclesiastes
To me the fact that we have a written text provides an objective, physical reference to corral our inherent self-centredness.
I believe the Word of God for us today emerges from our interaction together around that text in good faith.
Oh I believe in it for sure. Like I believe in purpose. Limited liability companies. Well less so than them admittedly.
Eeee @Eutychus. Well you would do wouldn't you? Its linearity is a Fibonacci consequence of its evolution. Of its non-teleological 'design'. The Christ Excession remains, as it is orthogonal to the 'story'. You're smarter than me by a country mile, why the block? That's rhetorical. You're blocked by story. So am I of course. Hence the evangelical Biblicism. My story is God intruded in to our made up one and took ownership of it in Christ. First. It's that or there is no story at all. Last. To be discarded.
There is nothing physical behind the text except possibly that impossible OCP. Otherwise it's just a Judeo-Perso-Hellenic-Romano humanist conspiracy.
Aye, textual Jesus re-emerges in our contextual interaction.
or maybe all will be revealed when all mankind ('asleep' or extant) see the Three Persons of the Godhead as they are; in perfect unity and together expressing: 1. Wrath 2. Forgiveness 3. Healing
Wrath? How dare they!
I'm not sure it does justice to the text to define it as linear, I think sometimes our understandings of the text is much more the linear than the text itself -- which is more like multiple sets of interlocking improvisational cycles.
Perfect. As Iris Murdoch, our cleverest woman until she got dementia, said about life vs. story, the characters are fine, but the plot?
Maybe this is a tangent*. Yes there is a sense of interlocking cycles, but there is also a linear progression. The beginnings (!) of, off the top of my head, Genesis, John, and Hebrews are all undisputably linear in nature, as are the historical books. The Acts and the Epistles, especially Paul's, all grapple with progressive revelation and interpret it in linear fashion. While I don't subscribe to things in Revelation happening in the chronological order they are described, there is a clear sense of a direction in history leading to a final resolution and judgement (whatever that means).
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*If the hosts deem it a tangent worthy of another thread, maybe they could split this one?
The number is irrelevant. What is relevant is the existence of measurable time in the next world. Which not everybody who believes in a next world accepts.
But for those who believe in a next world, there must be a 'dimension' in which one experiences things.
CS Lewis hypothesised that it was most like an ongoing present. My musing is about what happens to those who die far from God; whether that condition can change and if not, whether their existence ceases. An ongoing present in which they experience separation from God which cannot evolve seems pointless - all the more so because in that scenario it can no longer serve as a deterrent; the chips are down for everyone by that stage.
ETA for another, zany take on the afterlife, try to catch Cargo on Netflix (the Hindi sci-fi film, not the dystopian Australian one) before it goes. I just found it and it's both fun and moving.
What did you mean by 'moving God's wrath back a universal step'?
Isn't God's wrath just a bloody-minded 'I can and will put everything right'?
And that expressed determination is just one part of God's character the fullness of which is fully revealed in the Trinity.
And the Trinity is the key to realising that there will be no literal hell.
You said 'see how awful things could have been without salvation achieved on the cross' in other words from how eternal condemnation would have happened implicitly to all. If Jesus hadn't sacrificed Himself we'd be damned.
God's wrath is bloody minded. Period. A human fantasy. He does not lift a finger in material creation unless He's wearing one. You're trying to have your conservative biblicist cake and liberally eat it. Been there. It can't be done.
Whereas the vast majority of Trinitarian Christians have believed in Hell, aka a state of eternal suffering and rejection by God after death.
So it would seem on the face of it that a proper understanding of the Trinity is neither sufficient nor required to disbelieve in a literal Hell...
ISTM that 'dimension (be it an enhanced relationship with time and/or a relationship with something of which time is a shadow and/or something else), is a feature of our creatureliness - in the same way that the fact that the hope is the resurrection of the body is an indication that we aren't supposed to subsist as 'pure spirit' (while also indication of a continued relationship with space).
And both are pre-figured in the origin story(ies) in Genesis.
Uh huh. Know any do you?
I happened to like what you said, although the idea of us being maggots is more than a little nauseating. Then again, I am currently suffering some malady that causes me to vomit frequently. Twice last week, once the week before that. Four or five times in September.
Ugh, talk about Hell!
Most of the time I can't understand your posts. Most of the time I skip past them because I don't want to develop a migraine. However, every once in a while you stun me with deep insight. This is one of those times. Fair play to you, sir.
I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy @The5thMary. Or the nausea! Had idiopathic IBS 12 years ago for a year although the half life of the horror was a fortnight. From midnight till four in the morning for two or one days with one day off in between. Retching. With a bayonet twisting in the right shoulder blade. That was the worst. After a night off you knew it was coming 'tonight'. 2-0-1-0-2-0-1-0... I didn't believe in it. I do now. I daren't take an aspirin ever since. Stress. I also got cold urticaria - hives if sat on a cold seat - and benign pemphigus - burning palms; stopped me driving - for the second time in 30 years. All stress. I still get spasms in my oesophagus if my beer's too cold. So damnwell stop it. It's not nice.
And do more weed.
To circle back to @Eutychus, it seems reasonable to say there is a difference between dying far from God, close to God, and in perfect harmony with God.
Where will you die? And what difference could it make to your eternal life?
What about beyond the eleventh hour? The vast majority of humanity have no pact of certainty. And those that think they do have convinced themselves they've won - or lost - Pascal's wager.
For many Christians, there is a midnight, a point beyond which Faust can no longer turn round on the road he has been walking. And your question then becomes Eutychus' OP: Can we conceive of a point beyond forgiveness and salvation, where God, perfectly just, does not extend his grace? And if we can conceive of it, how do we talk about it, when we believe in our heart of hearts that we are good people, our own judges and masters of our own fates?
God's perfect justice is effectual, limitless, efficacious, meaningful, effective grace. Nothing, no cloven worm, asked to be created and so suffer. If we can conceive that there is a point of no return, there's something missing in our 'goodness'.
I think you've got hold of the wrong end of the stick. It isn't that God refuses to extend his grace--grace is what he is, basically--but I do believe that there comes a point (please God, for as few people as possible) where they have hardened their own hearts of their own self-will in full guilty knowledge and thus refuse to respond to grace. No need to have God change his usual behavior. You can starve sitting at a banquet just as easily as you can in a desert, provided you refuse to eat.
But why would you? Unless you were sick one way or another. Whatever manky little seeds go down, that isn't what will pop up. Is God God or not? Passive grace is abso-bloody-useless. Can God fix broken hearts, lives, minds or not? Can Jesus save?
Refusal? Any state a physical mind can get itself irreversibly in to can be gotten out of it in the transcendent.
That's not what the end of Revelation suggests, though (Rev 22:11-12:
Yes I know.