Why would God need a hell?
- Thread starter Mickiel
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lukecash12
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| Crucifixus | |
Crucifixus etiam pro nobis sub Pontio Pilato:
Passus, et sepultus est.
He was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate:
He suffered and was buried.
Why does God need a place like hell? God is an eternal, infinite God. Everything we know about Him is through an analogous revelation. While the whole of the scriptures is true, it is in reality an analogy of a God whose fullness is wholly inexpressible.
God is good, but any sense of "good" that we can understand is a pale comparison to the "good" that is God. The same is true of every other attribute of the Lord, which is why the doctrine is firmly held to amongst orthodox theologians (by that, I mean theologians associated with groups that are recognized by the World Council of Churches as not being a cult) that the Lord is essentially simple. What it means when an orthodox theologian affirms the simplicity of God is that each of His attributes are One, that God's love cannot be understood apart from His justice, His omnipotence cannot be understood apart from His omniscience, and so on.
What does this mean in a discussion about hell? Any offense against such a God is an infinite offense. The Lord had to give Himself up as a sin offering and experience the full punishment for the sins of the world because God must be satisfied.
It is important for Christians to understand that there exist two attitudes when contemplating theology: anthropocentric and theocentric. Anthropocentric theology regards man and his situation, looks at the scriptures, and then comes to a conclusion. It is a misguided perspective and any exegesis that proceeds forth out of that attitude is bound to find itself in error. Theocentric theology regards first God, His purpose, His emotional requirements, what it is that He deserves, and then comes to a conclusion on the Word. It is the perspective that theologians need to continually strive for, because He is the object of the Word.
Sin, being an offense against an infinite God, caused an incomprehensible amount of suffering for the Lord. While we do benefit from the Atonement, and His mercies are great indeed, it is fitting and proper that He went through the Atonement first in order to satisfy Himself, and second in order to afford us the benefits of Him satisfying the sin problem.
It was necessary that the Lord Himself experience something as horrifying as the Atonement because we, not being infinite and not being ineffably simple (which is the essence of our word "holy"), are utterly incapable of experiencing the whole emotional anguish, the whole fallout of sin, in any measurable space of time. Jesus, being infinite Himself ("before Abraham was, I AM"), was able to experience an infinite amount of suffering in a finite time.
Where am I leading with this? Those who have not benefited from the Atonement are not capable of ever atoning for their own sin. An eternal hell is necessary because God absolutely must be satisfied. It is not monstrous of Him to exact something that He by all means deserves.
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Lon
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I generally leave that to God. Paul makes some mention of 'law unto themselves.' Those who don't want God, won't get Him, and that's you, correct? All of us ever only have to account for ourselves and our decision. These other issues are us interposing between them and God and we need to take care and responsibility for ourselves.
Mickiel
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I care about what God said he is going to do , its the Christians I don't listen to. God said in Isaiah 45:23, " I have SWORN by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness and shall not return to me void, that to me EVERY knee shall bow and EVERY tongue shall confess." This is God making a holy vow to himself that every single human will obey him and follow him, which is the result of bowing and confessing- conversion!
This is the biblical course of action I believe and trust in; and its good news for every human. Its a holy promise from God, and no Christian can subtract from it or reduce it.
Greg Jennings
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Does that mean he will be just by revealing himself to the villagers cut off from the outside world, or that he'll be just by understanding that they never had a realistic chance to hear his message while alive?
Greg Jennings
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lukecash12
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It means that God's requirement, as outlined in the Word, that His Son is the Way and the Life, has been and always will be in force. God is just because it is in His nature. We are in no position to determine if either alternative method you've posited is just because we are neither the Judge, nor are we completely sanctified from our broken sin nature yet.
Before people explicitly knew the Lamb they were saved, because His blood still covered their iniquity. It is not perfect or complete theological understanding of soteriology or any other theological subject that saves a fallen person. It is the Atonement that saves.
We did not deserve the Atonement in the first place. The Word is plain on this subject, and in numerous places:
Job 11:5-6
For you say, ‘My doctrine is pure, and I am clean in God's eyes.’
But oh, that God would speak
and open his lips to you,
and that he would tell you the secrets of wisdom!
For he is manifold in understanding.
Know then that God exacts of you less than your guilt deserves.
Ignoring that there is a hell, and people will be in it, is ignoring wide swaths of scripture. Properly conceived theology harmonizes seemingly contradictory passages in the Word; it does not disregard one part for another.
Your hypothetical villager has experienced the natural revelation of God, just as Paul lays out in Romans 2.
For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.
They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.
All sin is beyond excuse, and God's judgements are always just.
Perish
lukecash12
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You are not reconciling seeming contradictions, rather you are setting the Word against itself and writing as if other portions are not true. The Word is truth, it is a testimony to Jesus Christ, the light of the world. If all of it is true, the Great White Throne Judgement must be reconciled with passages like Isaiah 45:23.
If everyone is converted, then who is the Lake of Fire prepared for in Revelation 20?
Before we even presume to read of the Great White Throne Judgement:
Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”
Revelation 20:11-15 *after Satan and his angels have already been dealt with*
Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them.
And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.
And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done.
Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.
And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
Is one passage true and another utterly devoid of truth?
Zeke
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Yea those allegories are still withering and screaming in everlasting pain and agony.
Dialogos
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First, its pretty clear that Isaiah is talking about the fact that the Lord God of Israel is the only One that can save, the false gods of the nations can't save anyone (Isaiah 45:20).
So when Isaiah records the words of the Lord saying, "to me every knee will bow, ever tongue will swear allegiance."
This is not meant to be seen as a "conversion of all humanity" but rather an acknowledgment that there will come a time, after those who follow idols are "put to shame" and the idol makers go away into "confusion" when all who are left on the earth bow the knee to the Lord and swear allegiance to Him.
So, yes, Isaiah 45:23 teaches universal salvation, after all who refuse to bow the knee and confess the Lord are sent away to punishment.
Your interpretation of Isaiah 45 puts Isaiah in conflict with himself as Isaiah also said:
" "For as the new heavens and the new earth that I make shall remain before me, says the LORD, so shall your offspring and your name remain. From new moon to new moon, and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, declares the LORD. "And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh." (Isaiah 66:22-24 ESV)"
No one can subtract or reduce it and no real Christian would want to, but responsible bible students will understand it in context and will not play "proof text poker" with the word of God, ripping some verses from their context while ignoring others.Mickiel said:
bsmitts
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You say hell is "the grave." Let's see what the Bible says: Luke 16:22-23 Hell is not just a grave my friend. It is a place of torment. You blame Christianity for turning it into a place of torment, but really, you're blaming God Almighty! You question and disbelieve God's righteousness, saying he is unjust to send the wicked to an eternal punishment. Who can know the mind of God? His ways are higher than our ways. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. Our greatest wisdom is but foolishness to God. And the foolishness of God is wiser than men. 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 Here is a scripture for you Romans 10:9-11
Everyone will be offered eternal life through Jesus Christ.
Jesus said he did not come to judge the world but to save the world. Don't sell him short, everyone will have an opportunity for eternal life.
Arthur Brain
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Uh, yeah, because everyone knows there's a sign there and sees it just the same as you right? Your analogy fails on so many levels.
People like you seem to think that everybody "chooses" their fate in life and it's not surprising that people like you have a flippant and callous attitude towards those others that suffer interminaby under your belief. Are you a Calvinist btw? Cos if you are not everyone would even have the chance to see a 'road out' sign anyway let alone act on it...
The most twisted, sickening and darkest depths of the human psyche - "hell" in the contorted doctrine of *traditional* Christianity.
Arthur Brain
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so you believe universal salvation
Oh, so you reckon Mr Spock would be complimenting you on the "logic" of eternal suffering do you? What 'Star Trek' have you ever watched? Talk about ironic...
Arthur Brain
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lukecash12
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Actually, he's not being hyperbolic at all. The Word does indeed teach that people can serve only one of two masters, the Lord or Satan.
Are you interested in a rigorous scriptural perspective on the issue, or are you merely interested in spouting your feelings at us? Your position is understandable and I can sympathize with it, but if the Word just so happens to be true, it's teaching is clear on the subject.
Anyone who is in any appreciable level of agreement with the early church (http://www.ccel.org/fathers.html), knows that it isn't "traditional Christianity" that teaches about an eternal hell, but the literature that most anyone who calls him/her self a Christian believes in.
Arthur Brain
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So you are just black and white then. Everyone is either a believer or a usurper and enemy of God? Clarify, else I'm not seeing it.
Er, look dude, if you're going to start going on about the early church then you should be aware that eternal torment was hardly the prevailing theology of the time outside of Carthage. Universal restoration was more to the front before Augustine and Constantine brought the notion to the forefront. Don't presume to speak on most Christians either because outside of the more fundamentalist bracket there's plenty who aren't doctrinally bound to accept any such thing.
Dear Mickiel,
Why does God need a Mickiel? He wants one. He created spirit so that it does not/can not die. So He gives people a choice. Do they want to live by the rules of His Household {like your Dad did} or live by the rules of the devil's house? At least He gives us an option, huh? His Way or the opposite of His Way. Some may go to Hell, yes, but very few will be cast into the Lake of Fire {See Rev. 20:14}. Death and Hell were cast into the Lake of Fire. Hell is in the center of the Earth, the bottomless pit {it has a center, but no bottom, figuratively, because gravity keeps us all on top}. The Lake of Fire is our Sun, and after that dies out, another one can easily be provided. Lesson learned is "Love Your God with ALL Your Heart, Soul and Mind. And love your neighbor as yourself." On these two all of the laws are hinged upon. Words to that effect.
Hope This Helps,
Michael
:cloud9: :angel: :angel: :angel: :cloud9:
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