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One Love
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Posted 5/2/2010 8:38 PM (GMT -6)

We just say that "hell" exists only as long as it necessary. However long that takes.

Whole thread

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Tom
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Posted 5/2/2010 8:38 PM (GMT -6)

D: Maybe the time in the "lake of fire" (per the second resurrection) will only be a little "dip" in the pool of divine judgment (truth-bringing). Then he can get out of the pool, go to God's City, and receive some healing (for the nations).

T: It would be imperceptible to Hitler. No real suffering. It doesn't HAVE to entail suffering. The "fire" just means the light of illumination, the erasing of faulty thinking. It's GOOD fire. If you're lost in the woods at night, fire is a GOOD thing! Right?

No hell. No suffering. Just instantaneous enlightenment.

Will that make you and Ash happy?

T

KIXYTΘEMTA

One Love
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Posted 5/2/2010 8:39 PM (GMT -6)

Tom:
It doesn't HAVE to entail suffering.

Repentance for one's sins against God, neighbor, and self USUALLY seem to do so.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

One Love
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Posted 5/2/2010 8:41 PM (GMT -6)

Let's get that straight: The Prodigals don't come into the City UNTIL they do just like the Prodigal Son did when he came to himself.

"I have sinned before heaven and before you..."

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Tom
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Posted 5/2/2010 8:41 PM (GMT -6)

D: We just say that "hell" exists only as long as it necessary. However long that takes.

T: No, we definitely CAN'T say THAT. Because God is love, D. Love. And there's NO violence done to person's in flooding them with the light of truth and so guaranteeing their choice for God. How long that takes is ENTIRELY up to God. The creature has NOTHING to do with it. The creature can't illuminate his own soul.

There is no hell. It's not needed. Right? Can you think of some good RATIONAL reason for why we HAVE to believe people wail in hell before GOD decides to do what he always could have done and just flip the switch in the soul and--presto--instant choice for God?

Tom

KIXYTΘEMTA

One Love
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Posted 5/2/2010 8:44 PM (GMT -6)

Tom:
There is no hell. It's not needed. Right? Can you think of some good RATIONAL reason for why we HAVE to believe people wail in hell before GOD decides to do what he always could have done and just flip the switch in the soul and--presto--instant choice for God?

No. God CONVICTS OF SIN and the person RESPONDS to this conviction. The pain of "anguish and alienation" that accompanies this would be all the "hell" needed, for those unredeemed post-mortem. Wouldn't you think?

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Tom
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Posted 5/2/2010 8:46 PM (GMT -6)

T: It doesn't HAVE to entail suffering.

D: Repentance for one's sins against God, neighbor, and self USUALLY seem to do so.

T: It's the FORGIVER who suffers the injustice against it. The forgiven need only perceive this. I didn't SUFFER when I repented and God saved me. I just perceived HIS suffering and said, "Wow, thanks God! You suffered. I don't HAVE TO. Thank you!"

D: The Prodigals don't come into the City UNTIL they do just like the Prodigal Son did when he came to himself: "I have sinned before heaven and before you..."

T: But God can absolutely guarantee that with the flood of light. And that's done instantaneously. It wouldn't be LOVING of GOD to insist that WE suffer (when he already did so we don't have to). We'd suffer so long as we persisted in acting out of a perspective that was insufficiently informed, but how informed we are is UP TO THE LOVING GOD. A loving God wouldn't wait. He'd enlighten all souls prior to any NEEDLESS suffering.

But then he would have started the whole program out that way. Hmmm.

Guess God's NOT loving.

It's rational. Must be right.

Tom

KIXYTΘEMTA

Tom
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Posted 5/2/2010 8:50 PM (GMT -6)

D: No. God CONVICTS OF SIN and the person RESPONDS to this conviction. The pain of "anguish and alienation" that accompanies this would be all the "hell" needed, for those unredeemed post-mortem.

T: Dude, how LONG does it take God to provide the sinner a vision of himself that convicts? A few seconds. Come on. Whatever pain or anguish God is interested in the sinner feeling (thought insisting that the sinner FEEL pain seems to cheapen Christ's pain--What, God wants BOTH Jesus AND us to suffer for the SAME sin? That dudn't make sense) can be experienced immediately. You don't need that long. This is God we're talking about after all. God CAN get it done pretty much instantly IF GOD WANTED TO. If he dudn't want to, then he's not love, right?

You don't WANT sinners to go to hell to perceive a truth they don't HAVE to go to hell to perceive, do you? If you do push a button that would secure a state of enlightenment and guarantee your boys didn't have to go through hell but choose God right now, wouldn't YOU push the button? Is there such a button or not? Can God flood the soul with light if God wants to or not?

Tom

KIXYTΘEMTA

One Love
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Posted 5/2/2010 9:00 PM (GMT -6)

Hmmm...given your argument, God is unloving for not revealing the reality of germs to the human race before we discovered it. Had he been really loving, he would have let us know about those from the jump. Do you know how many people suffered horribly and died because of this lack of knowledge? Do you know how many babies and mothers died because doctors didn't know enough about germs to wash their hands? Yeah. So...does the same logic apply?

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Post Edited (One Love) : 5/2/2010 9:26:13 PM (GMT-5)

Tom
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Posted 5/2/2010 9:58 PM (GMT -6)

One could make that case if she wanted to try. But catching a cold isn't misrelating to God. YOU think God can unilaterally flood the soul with light and guarantee and instant choice for God. I'm wondering why God doesn't either do that at the instant of death (for the wicked) to avoid their suffering in hell, or start us out in Eden with as much soul light as would guarantee our making only loving decisions. There can be germs and sickness. But those don't equate to spiritual my misrelating to God. God could have at least guaranteed not moral evil in the universe. That seems to follow from your idea that human freedom isn't violated in God's flooding the soul with light sufficient to preclude our rejecting him. So why didn't God preclude our rejecting him without violating our freedom from the start if he's able to do so at all?

Tom

KIXYTΘEMTA

Tom
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Posted 5/2/2010 10:25 PM (GMT -6)

Where'd Jeff's comment go?

T

KIXYTΘEMTA

One Love
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Posted 5/2/2010 10:47 PM (GMT -6)

Ok. Common ground time.

How about this, Tom?

1) We both agree in EUR.

2) We both agree that some form of "damnation" experience awaits unrepentant humans post-mortem, before they experience repentance unto salvation.

3) We both agree that this post-mortem "hell" will not last one moment longer than it has to for any given person, given all relevant considerations and constraints.

Do we at least agree on these 3 things?

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Post Edited (One Love) : 5/2/2010 10:54:02 PM (GMT-5)

Tom
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Posted 5/2/2010 11:01 PM (GMT -6)

I don't see any reason for hell whatsoever. All I've gotten "Maybe God just wants it that way." And I don't see, if it's true as you say that God can unilaterally flood the soul with light and guarantee a choice for God without violating creaturely freedom, a) why God doesn't just go with that from the get go, or at least b) go with that from the moment of death for the wicked. Really. Gimme SOME reason why hell has to be at all, a reason that can't be RATIONALLY disposed of in favor of instant salvation (including enlightenment, conviction, and repentance). If the latter is rational and possible, then shouldn't you conclude that IS the way God's gonna go? You used this reasoning to become a universalist in the first place, right?

T

KIXYTΘEMTA

Post Edited (Tom) : 5/2/2010 11:06:03 PM (GMT-5)

Tom
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Posted 5/2/2010 11:08 PM (GMT -6)

I'm not sure God's even maximaly loving. He could have birthed us into a constancy of light sufficient to guarantee we never chose to misrelate without violating our freedom. A God of love who COULD do that WOULD do that. That much (about love) is at the heart of universalism anyhow. But he didn't do that. Either he couldn't or he wouldn't. You say he could have (for you say he WILL do so for those in hell), so it must be that he just didn't want to earlier, which means he's not love.

Tom

KIXYTΘEMTA

One Love
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Posted 5/2/2010 11:33 PM (GMT -6)

Been prayin'. Thought about SK. Picked up Sickness Unto Death.

Got somethin'...

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Tom
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Posted 5/2/2010 11:37 PM (GMT -6)

Somebody's right. Can't be all of us. All but one of us is completely and utterly irrational. The one who's right is rational. But who? Doesn't being rational and right mean knowing you're rational and right? Wait a sec. We all think we're rational and right.

Oops.

Tom

KIXYTΘEMTA

One Love
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Posted 5/2/2010 11:38 PM (GMT -6)

I had the thought about this child who came to hate his parent...and began doing self-destructive behaviors in the presence of the parent out of pure spite. Like literally, this child would do all kinds of hurtful things to himself for the SAKE of causing emotional pain to the parent.

And I had a thought of the tearful parent continuing to unconditionally love the spiteful child, despite it all. Speaking words of love, significance, and encouragement.

I imagine the child saying "F*#k you! YOU gave me this life. Damn you! I will hate you forever! I will make you suffer forever!!!"

And I imagine the parent just holding him...singing to him...and loving him in hope.

Almost like the parent KNOWS something...

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

One Love
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Posted 5/2/2010 11:40 PM (GMT -6)

"Love never fails."

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Tom
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Posted 5/2/2010 11:46 PM (GMT -6)

If love can flood the soul with light sufficient to guarantee we cease such crazy activity without violating our freedom (which you think divine love CAN do) but doesn't choose to do so (which you think God chooses not to do [until we're in hell for a while]), then I'm not so sure there is such love to speak of.

Why do you think there's such love if it could have saved all this suffering and still gotten what it wanted? What would love even be if such willful oversight can be attributed to it?

Tom

KIXYTΘEMTA

One Love
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Posted 5/3/2010 7:03 AM (GMT -6)

"To take the stand that God is at fault for the presence of evil is implicitly to lose one's relation to God since one now becomes God's judge, which is the very position of evil. Thus, to lose one's relationship to God is to lose one's self to evil; to remain agnostic where God and evil are concerned is to lose one's own soul by refusing to choose and implicitly to admit to having a love of God that can be qualified or negated by that which is not God--and thuse to confess one neither loves or even knows God."

James Loder on Kierkegaard's "On the Edification Implied in the Fact that Before God We Are Always in the Wrong."

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

One Love
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Posted 5/3/2010 7:29 AM (GMT -6)

See how this works for you, Tom.

Long ago, we talked about a "rock-bottom" experience occuring because of the "eschatological essence. What I've believed this was, essentially, was when certain truths about themselves and God just couldn't be avoided. I've never thought of this as some mind-ray blast that eliminated all falsehood immediately with no ramification. More like a psychotic or neurotic person being "brought to reality" where it takes time for the person to be empowered to freely choose to accept reality as it really is.

And I think that's part of why "hell" is: creaturely sentient beings have the ability to CHOOSE to spend energy denying, negating, ignoring and/or rejecting reality, self-dispose in said state. And we know that this can happen for a long time. However, we also know that we are "meaning-makers" that are wired FOR reality...so in choosing to deny, negate, ignore and/or reject truth and reality, we cause self-destruction to ourselves. That's testified to well just here on earth!

And this is an aspect of TWT 5: Creatures like us have the irrevocable ability to CHOOSE to deny, negate, ignore and/or reject reality. No animals on the planet can self-delude and self-deceive like humans can. And God cannot "checkmate" that by just...POP!...taking that away that ability by some divine lobotomy. This aspect of TWT 5 is CONDITIONED (TWT 6)by the constitution of us being "meaning-makers" that are DESIGNED to thrive in truth and reality.

So, it's like this: You have a person that is free at each moment to choose denial, negation, and rejection of reality. (Like the spiteful child.) At the same time, the same person has an UNDENIABLE NEED for truth and reality, because of being a "meaning-maker." (All children need love.) So, given enough time and "conviction" of a consistent source of truth and reality, the inborn need for truth and reality begins exercise a "marginal control" over the desire to keep denying, negating, or rejecting reality, such that a "leap of faith" in truth and reality is fairly certain. (The Child's need for love will open them up eventually to the parent's unconditionally given love...and the parent knows this). What follows this is Realization, Repentance, and Restoration. (The child realizes the futility of his spiteful nature given his need for love, repents, and is fully restored by the parent.)

No one can know WHEN this "tipping point" will be, but they can be sure that it will eventually happen. JUST like we have all the examples in the world about all kinds of broken people being humanized by the power of consistently given love. (Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan come immediately to mind. Imagine how many things we currently have for the deaf and blind because of ONE WOMAN'S unconditional love!!!)

Why?

Because "Love Never Fails" in the long run. Never.

And God's Eternity is the LONGEST run.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Post Edited (One Love) : 5/3/2010 7:39:52 AM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Posted 5/3/2010 7:43 AM (GMT -6)

Think about what Jesus experienced on the Cross: A swan dive into OUR "negation" of God's Reality...and all the isolation, alienation, and anguish that felt "separation" from God brings to humanity. He, being a Divine Person, felt that on the deepest levels possible. Ah, but that's the beauty.

God the Son sufffered the existential pain of creaturely negation of God the Father's Presence in his human "flesh" (My God, My God...) IN SERVICE TO his solid affirmation in God the Father's Reality (Into your hands, I commit my spirit.) Jesus never sinned to be separated from God...he FREELY CHOSE to experience it according to the Father's Will...on our behalf.

Isaiah 53

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

One Love
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Posted 5/3/2010 7:51 AM (GMT -6)

Using the Chess Analogy...

The irrevocable ability to CHOOSE to deny, negate, ignore and/or reject reality <=> moving chess pieces

Believed lies that enable ability to CHOOSE to deny, negate, ignore and/or reject reality <=> defensive and offensive pieces

Revealing truth to remove lies that enable ability to CHOOSE to deny, negate, ignore and/or reject reality <=> taking away the defensive and offensive pieces

Point where the truth begins to overwhelm the lies (conviction) <=> point where enough defensive and offensive pieces are eliminated to ensure victory, but not concession; the tipping point; D-day (as opposed to V-day)

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

One Love
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Posted 5/3/2010 7:59 AM (GMT -6)

Love MUST be chosen for interpersonal relationships, so love REQUIRES freedom for accepting or rejecting any offered love relationship. God cannot take that freedom away from us and have what he wants: loving interpersonal relationships with creatures. At the same time, we are DESIGNED and CREATED to give and receive love to the "other" and self. (Imago Dei) And we can only deny, negate, ignore, or reject THAT reality for so long in the face of Reality itself being nothing more or less the the Loving Presence of God in action...and God knows that.

The Parent smiles... biggrin

-----------------------------------------------

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Post Edited (One Love) : 5/3/2010 8:09:06 AM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Posted 5/3/2010 8:07 AM (GMT -6)

May God's love continue to shine in your heart today, Tom.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

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