On Hell
"In the long run the answer to all those who object to the doctrine of hell is itself a question, 'What are you asking God to do?' To wipe out their past sins and, at all costs, to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty and offering every miraculous help? But He has done so, on Calvary. To forgive them? They will not be forgiven. To let them alone? Alas, I am afraid that is what He does."
C.S. Lewis
posted by Russel Trojan @ 8:26 AM
7 comments
7 Comments:
I forget where the quote comes from but I heard it once put as, "Once you've been to heaven, everywhere else is hell."
I don't know if it came from Faust, or some parody of it, or whatever.
Heaven and hell both exist here on Earth.
Here are a couple of good ones ;o)
"Salvation is universal because the love of God encompasses all. If God is God and if God is love, nothing is outside the love of God. A place like hell is thus inconceivable." --Jacques Ellul
"Why were a few, or a single one, made at all, if only to exist in order to be made eternally miserable, which is infinitely worse than non-existence?" –Immanuel Kant, “End of All Things”
Love is not hatred or wrath, consigning billions of people to eternal torture because they have offended your ego or disobeyed your rules. Love is not obedience, conformity, or submission. It is a counterfeit love that is contingent upon authority, punishment or reward. True love is respect and admiration, compassion and kindness, freely given by a healthy, unafraid human being. - Dan Barker author of "Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist"
Tom, I've never heard that quote before, but it is true that once perfection is experienced everything else pales dramatically.
Sorry Rocketstar, but if God were as simplistically one-dimensional as these quotes suggest, then He wouldn't be much of a God. To my mind, they show a remarkable lack of understanding of the complexity of personality.
I never figured out the common Christian perception of God as (a) loving unconditionally, yet (b) judging. Talk about a contradiction in terms. If you love someone unconditionally, that means there are no conditions on your love. Are we supposed to believe that God's up there saying "This hurts me more than it hurts you"? How does one hurt the Almighty, anyway? And doesn't being "hurt" entail some sort of judgment call? Sorry, the God I believe in isn't that petty.
Likewise, I spit on a God who punishes sin, particularly by means of a "Hell". Sin is not to be punished but rather to be healed.
Ken says: "I spit on a God..."
Well Ken if you can spit on a god, then you don't know much about gods. My guess is you fancy yourself some kind of god, but, well, anyone who thinks they're above a god is rather silly. Come back when you want to talk sense.
Literalist, aren't we? Okay, let's say instead that I refuse to accept such a god. I'm not above God--nothing is, since God is everywhere and in everyone. You don't even have to leave Christian theology behind to agree with that one: we are all part of the body of Christ, right?
My points stand. Judgement is a human conceit, not a Godly one.
"My points stand. Judgement is a human conceit, not a Godly one."
Your point stands if God is unjust, unfair, arbitrary and powerless. And by extension, meaningless. Logic demands a god that judges and condemns.
And no, we are NOT all part of the body of Christ.
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