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Laika
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433
| Posted 12/10/2005 10:44 PM (GMT -6) |   |
Corey said...
P.S. This is quite different from purgatory. My daughter wouldn't be working her way back to me, all I'm waiting for is that moment of humble broken contrition, then call out in faith to be "saved." But it wouldn't be "faith".
Faith is the evidence of things NOT SEEN.
It's believing God exists and rewards those who seek Him DESPITE all evidence to the contrary and in a hostile and disbelieving world.
Your analogy breaks down because people bobbing in the Lake of Fire have NO opportunity for faith.
Any "contrition" would be self-seeking, expedient, Machiavellian, and in-line with observation and evidence; totally the CONTRARY to faith.
Without faith it is impossible to please God. No way to please God once you're dead.
Satan would bring the same accusation to God about your daughter he did with Job, "does Corey's daughter repent for naught?"
expedient - Something contrived or used to meet an urgent need
The opposite of faith.
Read Hebrews 11. The saints are listed as giving up the "passing pleasures of this world" in order to follow God.
Your daughter and others bobbing in the Lake of Fire (aka "rock bottom") are giving up WHAT in order to follow God?
That's not faith.
"in the bar, in the senate, in the alley, in the study
pimping dreams of riches for everybody" Post Edited (Laika) : 12/10/2005 9:54:30 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Laika
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433
| Posted 12/10/2005 11:11 PM (GMT -6) | |
jefscott said..."in the bar, in the senate, in the alley, in the study pimping dreams of riches for everybody" Laika, who originally said that?
Bruce Cockburn
"in the bar, in the senate, in the alley, in the study
pimping dreams of riches for everybody" | | Back to Top | | |
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Truth Aficionado
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2003
Total Posts : 1544
| Posted 12/10/2005 11:29 PM (GMT -6) | |
Laika said...
jefscott said..."in the bar, in the senate, in the alley, in the study
pimping dreams of riches for everybody"
Laika, who originally said that?
Bruce Cockburn
Ya’ learn something new everyday… I never new Bruce was a Universalist. 
Contradictions if well understood and managed can spark off the fires of invention. Orthodoxy whether of the right or of the left is the graveyard of creativity. | | Back to Top | | |
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Corey
Five with a Four-wing
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1893
| Posted 12/11/2005 3:26 AM (GMT -6) | | | Laika,
Seriously, I posted the EXACT case you made to a thread about a year ago (if the bleepin' search feature was working right I could find it for you!) So I hear ya, and from the inside. But I've changed my thinking since then.
Wouldn't we agree that faith isn't so much about coming to believe that God exists (good! even the demons...etc I'll agree there are no atheists in hell). So what sort of faith pleases God? Heb. 11. Got it. But is it necessarily true that such a faith is impossible in hell?
It seems reasonable that it would take faith for a person to cry out for reconcilation with God, especially in hell. In fact, it may in some sense require MORE faith... is it possible that even now God COULD save me? Is it possible that even now God WOULD save me? I now KNOW I'm a sinner justly condemned and I'm PROFOUNDLY out of relationship with God. Sure, he had mercy on his "favorites" ... but me? How could or why would he have mercy on me?! There's no freakin' way. Or is there?.... Maybe... Could it be that Jesus work on calvary could cover even me, even now? You'll recognize that this has strong echos to the parable of prodigal son.
Laika, wouldn't this be hope in things unseen? One may assert that only Machiavellian motivations would exist in hell, but can we know this is truly the case? Wouldn't God know the difference between being manipulated and true contrition? Of course he would. Post Edited (Corey) : 12/11/2005 3:42:57 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Corey
Five with a Four-wing
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1893
| Posted 12/11/2005 4:22 AM (GMT -6) | |
TGB said...
I can't buy either (a) or (b). [...]
A) Arguing that the ‘ECT’ passages don’t really mean what they seem to mean and that either the universalist or annihilationist is correct,
or
B) Arguing that the passages that describe the universal, final, or ultimate and all-inclusive nature of God’s ‘victory’ doesn’t really mean ‘ultimate’ or ‘final’ at all, but instead is compatible with such a great swatch of creation carrying on unendingly the rejection and hatred of God.
If I had to choose. I’d say (A) is more likely to be the case. I can more easily embrace the plausible (if even not very plausible) universal or annihilationist explanations than I can the idea that God’s victory is less than ultimate, final, and all-inclusive.
But…
The issue of Mephi’s thread here isn’t REALLY hell. It’s the Bible—inspiration, infallibility, etc. What’s it mean to say the Bible is “God’s Word”? I mean, what’s that really mean? What level of error is consistent with it’s being the “word” of God? Can Jesus and Paul hold false theological beliefs? To what extent? What are the consequences for our understanding of the Bible if such error is granted? Very well said. The bigger question here is about understanding How Can The Bible Be Authoritative? Tom, what's your opinion of NT Wright's take on this?
As for the specific question about hell, I'm choosing to pursue option A. There's apparently a case to be made that our generally-accepted notion of hell was imported into Christendom at some point, but was not necessarily taught by the biblical authors. Probably nothing you haven't heard before. But if true, I think this would be the most satisfying answer.
That being said, what if the evidence shows that they actually DID hold and teach an ECT view? What then? Puts me in a tough spot. I've got to make a choice I'd rather just not have to deal with.
My first inclination is to find a way to mitigate the conflict: something like, yes they taught it, but they were just making use of a common cultural reference point for the sake of communicating with their audience, like Paul quoted pagan sources on Mars hill, etc.
Or, yes they taught it, but maybe this topic is like the view of slavery or of women in the bible -- it was remarkably progressive for it's time and established a beachhead which was intended to eventually overthrow those systems. In other words, the bible makes remarkably LIGHT use of the notion of hell, given the culture and how it COULD have been emphasized, presumably effectively. Why not make heavier use?
Or, yes they taught it, but maybe it's like divorce, which God allowed because of the hardness of peoples' hearts. Maybe somehow people's hard hearts required use of ECT to motivate them. (I know, it entails deception -- I don't like it either. Maybe this ties back into Meph's earlier talk about using 'dirty' means within the Matrix.) Hmmm.. just thinking about it now: couldn't we say that Moses' sanctioning of divorce is in some sense a deception?
I'm not necessarily trying to make any of these arguments, but trying to illustrate a category I'd want to pursue. After I've exhausted all such attempts at mitigation, then I'd be up the proverbial creek. Not sure what I'd do. I do basically see only option A or option B at that point; I think the option C Meph described either collapses in to option B, or would be considered under this mitigation category that I just described. Post Edited (Corey) : 12/11/2005 4:05:55 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 12/11/2005 6:43 AM (GMT -6) | | | Lewis' portrayal of the Light coming, and its effects on the children, and on their uncle, and on the witch (not in the first book) is interesting.
But...then...Lewis (and Tolkien) were not making allegories. And maybe, similarly, we are left with scripture's many expressions and don't know (more than a maybe) 'exactly' anything. That is why we need Lewis! And J.R.R.
Post Edited (rj1) : 12/11/2005 5:46:48 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 12/11/2005 9:50 AM (GMT -6) | | |
Corey: My first inclination is to find a way to mitigate the conflict: something like, yes they taught it, but they were just making use of a common cultural reference point for the sake of communicating with their audience, like Paul quoted pagan sources on Mars hill, etc.
Jeff: Doc quotes a passage in the OT that sounds just like Christ's description of gehenna--right down to the never-ending worm. So that would seem to be an argument for Meph's contention--that Christ simply believed the OT just like he implied he did in Matthew 5.
But that OT reference, if I remember correctly, did not necessitate ETERNAL punishment anymore than Christ's statements did. So I don't see how either rules out a finite punishment followed by unconscious death for the unrepentant. Nor do I know how to equate an expression of wrath with an act of love. Nor do I see how the punishment in the eschaton has anything to do with love anyway. Nor do I know of any verse in the bible that says or implies that the future judgement is intended to be rehabilitating.
If wrath and punishment are somehow supposed to be loving acts, I suppose one could infer that they are to be rehabilitating. But I know of no biblical evidence for the former. In fact, I would say there is biblical evidence against it. 1 Cor. says love suffers long. But God expresses His wrath when He has CEASED to suffer in forebearance. Thus, I have no reason to assume that God's expression of wrath is an expression of love. So I'm not seeing how a nonrehabilitating, finite punishment followed by unconscious death is contradictory to the biblical statements about God's love.
Corey: Or, yes they taught it, but maybe this topic is like the view of slavery or of women in the bible -- it was remarkably progressive for it's time and established a beachhead which was intended to eventually overthrow those systems.
Jeff: How are the NT statements on slavery or women more progressive than the OT ones? I thought the NT alluded to the OT to justify it's assertions about women. Here again, I would say Meph's approach seems more probable.
Corey: In other words, the bible makes remarkably LIGHT use of the notion of hell, given the culture and how it COULD have been emphasized, presumably effectively. Why not make heavier use?
Jeff: How would it have been effective? I thought the whole contention here is that Christ's notion of hell is CONTRADICTORY to his teaching on God's love? Thus, to have emphasized hell MORE, by that view, would be to make that contradiction more EMPHATIC.
Corey: Or, yes they taught it, but maybe it's like divorce, which God allowed because of the hardness of peoples' hearts. Maybe somehow people's hard hearts required use of ECT to motivate them. (I know, it entails deception -- I don't like it either. Maybe this ties back into Meph's earlier talk about using 'dirty' means within the Matrix.) Hmmm.. just thinking about it now: couldn't we say that Moses' sanctioning of divorce is in some sense a deception?
Jeff: Not following you here. In what sense is Moses deceptive about divorce? Moreover, I don't see how our generation needs any less motivation than Christ's generation. Why would that be?
As I see it, Meph is right about thinking that Christ and the apostles BELIEVED the OT and were therefore constrained by it. But his view creates a greater difficulty with respect to discovering a rational hermeneutic that might provide a means to know WHEN authorial intent is TRUE. Sure, we can say everything is to be tested by the love of God. But if we are to suppose, as he does, that God is weird enough to create destructive natural evil that wipes out the innocent independent of any Fall or preceding CAUSE, how do we get a good handle on what God's love is really like in the first place? I don't see any way to make it rational and intelligible. Thus, how can it serve as a TEST as to when authorial intent is to be received?
Post Edited (jefscott) : 12/11/2005 9:06:01 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 12/11/2005 9:59 AM (GMT -6) | | Mephi: Come on, Selah. Existentially, there is NO finite sin that is worthy of the kind of torture that ECP depicts.
Selah: How do you know there is NO finite sin worthy of ECP? Some would say that every/any sin is worthy of that.
Tom: ALL who hold to ECT say every/any sin is worthy of that. But what makes it difficult to explain is that just punishment, we usually argue, takes into account various aspects of the offender that make ECT difficult to accept. God’s infinite holiness isn’t the only aspect that defines what just punishment for offense might be. The understanding and context of the offender should be taken into consideration too (like the offender’s finite understanding of infinite holiness, or perhaps the offender’s absolute ignorance of such holiness—yet the ignorant savage is to burn forever?) And I don’t know that we finite humans are ever in a position given our limited earthly context to qualify as ‘infinite’ offenders of infinite holiness. We can’t be said to be sinning with ‘eyes wide open’ in the sort of way that infinite/eternal punishment would require. Selah, do you know of ONE possible finite sin that you’d say is worthy of ECT? What would it be?
-----------------------
Tom: And the only way is by:
A) Arguing that the ‘ECT’ passages don’t really mean what they seem to mean and that either the universalist or annihilationist is correct,
or
B) Arguing that the passages that describe the universal, final, or ultimate and all-inclusive nature of God’s ‘victory’ doesn’t really mean ‘ultimate’ or ‘final’ at all, but instead is compatible with such a great swatch of creation carrying on unendingly the rejection and hatred of God.
Mephi: You are leaving out Option C:
C) Jesus, Paul, and others had the view that God's victory was seen like a military conquest, where things are "put to rights" by utterly supplanting and humiliating the opposition. Everyone gets their just deserts and in so doing, the conquerer becomes ruler "of all".
Tom: Your (C) is my (B). Same thing. You’re arguing that the biblical authors understand God’s final victory over sin and evil in a manner that is compatible with the unending existence of sin and evil. God’s victory just means that evil is forever limited to the agent herself in utter isolation. Sin can’t grow or multiply anymore. But it continues to exist. This isn’t a third option. It’s just the second option I mentioned.
Tom
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Truth Aficionado
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Date Joined Dec 2003
Total Posts : 1544
| Posted 12/11/2005 10:50 AM (GMT -6) | |
MephEternal said...
One place I see HUGE implications for this is in the realms of homosexuality and women in ministry. If we get to a place where we cannot call something right or wrong JUST because the Bible teaches such, then I don't see how Christians can assert that homosexuality is wrong JUST because Pauline writings mirror OT ideas in that direction. Heck, if Paul can be wrong on matters of creation, the nature of human origins, and his eschatological framework, why in the world couldn't he be wrong on homosexuality being PURELY a moral issue...or women truly being subordinate to men because of Eve's sin? Now, of course, we could still claim homosexuality and the complete egalitarianism of men and women to be wrong...but we'd have to find OTHER REASONS because biblical claims to say such. We'd no longer be able to speak as Billy Graham..."The BIBLE says..." and that be that.
The Holy Bible is deemed so offensive to certain lifestyles that those caught on the wrong side go to extremes to prove scripture fallible. In doing so, the Divine King is ousted off his rightly throne in exchange for man’s finite ego.
Wisdom slips the intellects, as they try to pick the locks that open the cell doors of hell.
Contradictions if well understood and managed can spark off the fires of invention. Orthodoxy whether of the right or of the left is the graveyard of creativity. Post Edited (sparknheart) : 12/11/2005 9:59:00 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Corey
Five with a Four-wing
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1893
| Posted 12/11/2005 11:13 AM (GMT -6) | |
Starkman said...
Is there any research suggesting or demonstrating that the concept of ECP in the scripture for the Hebraic mind turns out to be a way of merely saying, "One will get his/her just deserts"? Could the concept of ECP have been included in the mutable expression of doctrines such as women to be in equal standing, the Sabbath "Day" kept as an eternal Sabbath in Christ, etc?
Perhaps—I don't know, I'm just wondering—if the same purpose for apocalyptic accounts in scripture (the language being literal but the events being figurative) carries over into ECP. Yep. This is essentially Klassen's project in his book, What Does the Bible Really Say about Hell?: Wrestling With the Traditional View. He attempts to make the case that although the Bible teaches judgement, the concept of ECT is something that was imported from the outside. Judgement, yes, Hell, no. (And Hades, yes.... he insists this is something different that our traditional concept of Hell.)Post Edited (Corey) : 12/11/2005 10:21:21 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 12/11/2005 11:17 AM (GMT -6) | |
Tom: Your (C) is my (B). Same thing. You’re arguing that the biblical authors understand God’s final victory over sin and evil in a manner that is compatible with the unending existence of sin and evil. God’s victory just means that evil is forever limited to the agent herself in utter isolation. Sin can’t grow or multiply anymore. But it continues to exist. This isn’t a third option. It’s just the second option I mentioned.
Jeff: Yo! If Christ believed (C) AND he believed God was love, doesn't that mean that Christ's concept of God's love was consistent with (C)? Unless, of course, Christ held radically contradictory notions? So I'm REALLY wondering why God wants us to conceive of His love different than Christ conceived of it. Why would this be?
Tom: Yes! And this is what Mephi has to say. Mephi either has to say Jesus failed to understand the love of God as well as he (Mephi) understands it, or Jesus was not a very consistent and thorough THINKER, since he failed to make the connect between love and hell which he (Mephi) sees as clear as day.
Tom
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 12/11/2005 11:22 AM (GMT -6) | | Hmmmm...I'm manic on this now...
I figure that the best way to go at this whole thing is to really consider Intertestimental Period development of Judaism, the Pharisaic sect, and the Rabbinic literature, particularly with respect to eschatology. Paul was a deep PHARISEE...and Jesus theological perspectives were aligned most deeply with the Pharisees. Rabbinic Judaism is the direct descendant of the Pharisee sect. Particularly check out doctrines about resurrection and the afterlife in Rabbinic literature. Moreover, look at the development of apocalyptic literature of post-Exilic Judaism...with the idea of Jesus as apocalyptic preacher.
I want to do a LOT more work...but, re-examining stuff, my initial impression is that, all things considered (including the Apocalyses of John and Peter), it makes more sense of everything to think that the originating points of Christianity [I'm centering that around Jesus and Paul] really asserted some things about the ECT. Everything just seems to point in that direction. Work forward from the post-Exilic period, backward from Rabbinic Judaism, ponder apocalyptic literature...and THEN re-read Jesus as displayed in the Gospels, Jude, Paul, and Revelation.
It almost seems overwhelmingly the case.
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 12/11/2005 11:27 AM (GMT -6) | |
Tom: Your (C) is my (B). Same thing. You’re arguing that the biblical authors understand God’s final victory over sin and evil in a manner that is compatible with the unending existence of sin and evil. God’s victory just means that evil is forever limited to the agent herself in utter isolation. Sin can’t grow or multiply anymore. But it continues to exist. This isn’t a third option. It’s just the second option I mentioned.
Jeff: Yo! If Christ believed (C) AND he believed God was love, doesn't that mean that Christ's concept of God's love was consistent with (C)? Unless, of course, Christ held radically contradictory notions? So I'm REALLY wondering why God wants us to conceive of His love different than Christ conceived of it. Why would this be?
Tom: Yes! And this is what Mephi has to say. Mephi either has to say Jesus failed to understand the love of God as well as he (Mephi) understands it, or Jesus was not a very consistent and thorough THINKER, since he failed to make the connect between love and hell which he (Mephi) sees as clear as day.
Tom, you mean that it's only ME who may be saying this???
Are you sellin' me out?
The newest mantra:
God graciously FINDS us meaningful when God doesn't need to do it and we, in ourselves, can't do it.
"Hmm. Why not? What the hell. Let's try it."
--God
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 12/11/2005 11:28 AM (GMT -6) | | Selah:
Told ja I didn't have time to be involved! My main beef with Meph's post is his concept of God - in the act of sending someone to hell - resembling someone having a "fit of rage"
Nope. You've got it wrong. I said that the parent was punishing the child for having a fit of rage. The "fit of rage" is related to the one being punished...NOT the punisher.
The newest mantra:
God graciously FINDS us meaningful when God doesn't need to do it and we, in ourselves, can't do it.
"Hmm. Why not? What the hell. Let's try it."
--God
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 12/11/2005 11:38 AM (GMT -6) | | | I can easily see Jesus' view of God's love centering on God's activity of bringing God's Kingdom to earth, overthrowing evil, and redeeming Israel...NOT NECESSARILY the same as the philosophical discussions of omnibenevolence that we have.
If one takes Jesus' position, then ECT of very, very evil people and demons wouldn't be a problem, now would it? God's love is shown in the GRACIOUS recreation of a fallen world...and God's justice (which was heavily desired) would be shown in the righteous punishment of the damned.
We are, more likely than not, asking questions about love, God, and divine activity in the world that Jesus NEVER asked...or never would have thought to ask.
Does that mean we should just ignore the questions?
Post Edited (MephEternal) : 12/11/2005 10:41:49 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 12/11/2005 11:48 AM (GMT -6) | | All I'm saying is this:
I cannot make sense of saying that God is ALL-LOVING (in the way that Doc and other philosophers and theologians take the term to mean) and at the same time say that God takes a long-dead sinner, recreates a new torture-enduring body, and then places that being in that torment for all eternity.
If we want to say that this God is VERY, VERY loving, but not PERFECTLY loving, fine. I can go with that. That way, God can wish eternal retributive, non-rehabilitative harm on another being.
But it is incomprehensible to me that such a God, who supposedly genuinely wishes that all people would be saved and who designed this whole cosmos for the SAKE of love, would do such a thing.
Tom, you agree with this, don't you?
The newest mantra:
God graciously FINDS us meaningful when God doesn't need to do it and we, in ourselves, can't do it.
"Hmm. Why not? What the hell. Let's try it."
--God
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Corey
Five with a Four-wing
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1893
| Posted 12/11/2005 12:02 PM (GMT -6) | | | Jeff: But that OT reference, if I remember correctly, did not necessitate ETERNAL punishment anymore than Christ's statements did. So I don't see how either rules out a finite punishment followed by unconscious death for the unrepentant.
Corey: I'm not intending to say that this rules out an annihilationist view. I'm just talking about ECT here, and being transparent about how I happen to be processing this for myself at this point. Not really trying to persuade anybody that I'm right... I'm still trying to decide this for myself first.
Jeff: Nor do I know how to equate an expression of wrath with an act of love. Nor do I see how the punishment in the eschaton has anything to do with love anyway. Nor do I know of any verse in the bible that says or implies that the future judgement is intended to be rehabilitating.
Corey: Remember that Pinnock quote from earlier? I'm just trying to figure out -- for myself -- how to have a picture of God that passionately compels me into deeper love with him. The ECT view doesn't do this for me.
Jeff: If wrath and punishment are somehow supposed to be loving acts, I suppose one could infer that they are to be rehabilitating. But I know of no biblical evidence for the former. In fact, I would say there is biblical evidence against it. 1 Cor. says love suffers long. But God expresses His wrath when He has CEASED to suffer in forebearance. Thus, I have no reason to assume that God's expression of wrath is an expression of love. So I'm not seeing how a nonrehabilitating, finite punishment followed by unconscious death is contradictory to the biblical statements about God's love.
Corey: I'm starting with the assumption that Jesus is the fullest expression of God. The way that Jesus related to the Lost doesn't square with how Edwards related to the lost, for example. Everything he did just dripped of Love.... it's his character. ECT seems to be quite out of character for the God we see in Jesus.
Jeff: How are the NT statements on slavery or women more progressive than the OT ones? I thought the NT alluded to the OT to justify it's assertions about women. Here again, I would say Meph's approach seems more probable.
Corey: I don't want to get off topic. I'm not really trying to make any of these cases. I'm just pointing out that sometime the Bible teaches things that are not timeless truths, but are culturally conditioned. Divorce is one example. Slavery is another. The relation of women to men is another.
Jeff: How would it have been effective? I thought the whole contention here is that Christ's notion of hell is CONTRADICTORY to his teaching on God's love? Thus, to have emphasized hell MORE, by that view, would be to make that contradiction more EMPHATIC.
Corey: It's not fair of you to put words in my mouth in this way. I'm NOT AT ALL saying that Christ's notion of hell is contradictory with his [incarnation] of God's love. This is a straw-man and I don't appreciate it. I know you're more intellectually virtuous than to need to resort to this tactic. It should be clear that I'm trying to understand, "What is Christ's notion of hell since we know that it can't be contradictory with his very nature as the incarnation of God." Please give me the respect to assume the best of me, not immediately assume that I would so cavalierly trash my Lord. (Now probably I'm straw-manning back at you... sorry. This hit a nerve.)
Jeff: Not following you here. In what sense is Moses deceptive about divorce? Moreover, I don't see how our generation needs any less motivation than Christ's generation. Why would that be?
Corey: If Moses taught that it's lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason, and it's not really okay with God, isn't this a deception of sorts? This accomodation facilitates people's deception that divorce is just fine with God.
I'm also not saying our generation needs any less motivation that Christ's generation. I'm just exploring if it's plausible that Christ (if he did teach ECT) could have been using it in this accomodation sense.
Jeff: As I see it, Meph is right about thinking that Christ and the apostles BELIEVED the OT and were therefore constrained by it.
Corey: Look, don't pit me against Meph or anyone else at this point. I'm really not trying to attack or defend any position. I'm just being out loud about the conflict I'm experiencing as I try to put ECT and Jesus (who was consistent with the OT -- he was the living fulfillment of the shadows seen there!) together. I'm taking Jesus as my fixed point and allowing everything else to be movable and take it's meaning from him. It seems to me that ECT advocates may be doing the reverse.Post Edited (Corey) : 12/11/2005 11:26:51 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 12/11/2005 12:27 PM (GMT -6) | | Corey:
I'm taking Jesus as my fixed point and allowing everything else to be movable and take it's meaning from him. It seems to me that ECT advocates may be doing the reverse.
I suppose that's the issue though. When we take Jesus as the fixed point, the problems emerge. For sure, we have great love demonstrated on the Cross, the annointed of God dying a criminal's death for people who couldn't care less. Got that. We have Jesus compassionately healing and delivering those in bondage. Got that. We have Jesus fellowshipping with and serving the outcasts and forgotten of society. Got that. In Jesus, we see absolutely amazing demonstrations of divine love
HOWEVER...
We also have Jesus talking very poignantly about harsh divine judgement, unforgiveness (Jesus is the one who introduces us to the unforgivable sin!), ostracism of the enemies of God (casting out of the children to outer darkness), and coming doom (both temporal [fall of the Temple] and eternal [end times]). Just read the Gospels (especially Matthew!) over again.
It seems to me that the FULLY HUMAN Jesus, given his background, aligning with John the Baptist's ideas, would have have not had that much of a problem with pronounced ECT upon God's enemies (including Satan!). Especially if he was as aligned with the apocalyptic vein of the time as some people think.
To me, this forms some of the problem.
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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 12/11/2005 12:27 PM (GMT -6) | | |
Meph: I figure that the best way to go at this whole thing is to really consider Intertestimental Period development of Judaism, the Pharisaic sect, and the Rabbinic literature, particularly with respect to eschatology. Paul was a deep PHARISEE...and Jesus theological perspectives were aligned most deeply with the Pharisees. Rabbinic Judaism is the direct descendant of the Pharisee sect. Particularly check out doctrines about resurrection and the afterlife in Rabbinic literature. Moreover, look at the development of apocalyptic literature of post-Exilic Judaism...with the idea of Jesus as apocalyptic preacher.
Jeff: Without reading all the specifics of intertestamental rabbinical literature, I can't help but wonder if they wrote from a chiliastic perspective, which included a preceding cataclysmic outpouring of God's wrath. This seems to be the consistent idea of the prophets, including the NT prophets.
Thus, from Daniel 12, it was reasonable for them to assume that those who would suffer age-abiding (not ETERNAL) torment were those who would defy God in the midst of the MANIFEST outpouring of God's wrath. In other words, these passages might be apocalyptic in nature and, hence, may NOT necessarily describe the typical judgement. Thus, the second death may have meant to them a final unconscious death SUBSEQUENT to a complete judgement of works--a judgement that could be age-abiding for some. Since Christ told his generation that the days of vengeance could conceivably have occurred in THEIR lifetime, it was only natural for him to talk as if that apocalyptic doctrine could be fulfilled in THEM.
Meph: We are, more likely than not, asking questions about love, God, and divine activity in the world that Jesus NEVER asked...or never would have thought to ask.
Jeff: Why would he have never asked those questions? Wouldn't the mere fact that Christ was the quintessential loving person mean he would be even MORE sensitive to the contradiction you are positing, here?
Meph: Does that mean we should just ignore the questions?
Jeff: No. Not at all. I'm just curious as to how we can answer them without raising ones like the one I just asked and the others I've asked in the previous posts. No matter which way we go, we have implausibilities to deal with. This has been my take from the beginning. That's why I think authorial intent should be given the benefit of the doubt unless there is STRONG evidence to the contrary (else what IS faith?). I've heard none yet that rules out a finite punishment (some of which will be long-lasting) followed by a second UNCONSCIOUS death.
But I DO understand why universalism is more compelling if you deny a fall. For then, the final state is the only thing that even looks like benevolent intent at all. If there was NO initially GOOD creation, everything prior to the final state (including natural evil) looks like amoral indifference. So YEAH, I understand where you're coming from. I just think it raises a whole new set of problems.
ALL VIEWS have their seeming implausibilities. Thus, implausibilities can not be seen as vices or weaknesses in an unqualified way.
TWO things seem absolutely inevitable to me:
1) ALL VIEWS have seeming implausibilities, so we can only COMPARE implausibilities for degree.
2) ALL MORAL VIEWS seem unreasonably difficult to SOMEONE, for we ALL have DIFFERENT vices (at least in degree). A homosexual may find Pauline morality unreasonable. But so do lots of heterosexuals (AND homosexuals) who find monogamy ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE (especially MENTAL monogamy). So do we give up ALL biblical sexual morality? If not, on what grounds do we embrace homosexuality but not consensual adult sex?
These are the kind of questions that need, IMO, a rational answer.
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 12/11/2005 12:40 PM (GMT -6) | | Let me pose the question like this:
Is it in the realm of possbility that Jesus embodied and believed in the most loving concept of God that his cultural milieu and religious upbringing would allow for?
Remember, Jesus of Nazareth was NOT omniscient as a human being. He grew in knowledge before men...and he flat out said that he didn't know the exact TIME when he would be returning (Only the Father knew that, remember?) Why can't we postulate that Jesus' ideas and actions pointed the most clearly to who God was,but not in some infallible, culture-transcendent way. Why can't we postulate that to the Jesus, raised in an time of great messianic anticipation, apocalyptic fervor, and political instability, ECT for the utterly resistent enemies of God was not so bad. Think about it. It was ENOUGH for John the Baptist that God was granting people opportunity for repentence at ALL. And Jesus' activity was much different that he thought the Messiah's coming would be.
Perhaps following the ascension of into Jesus, he gained more insight into the breadth of God's forgiving love. He obviously probably LEARNED the day and the hour of his return then, supposedly, right? Perhaps he learned that ECT WASN'T exactly corresponding to reality. I'm just throwing the thought out there.
At some point, we HAVE to take Jesus's full humanity seriously. And this may be one of the implications of that.
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