Ross Douthat makes the case for hell:
Atheists have license to scoff at damnation, but to believe in God and not in hell is ultimately to disbelieve in the reality of human choices. If there’s no possibility of saying no to paradise then none of our no’s have any real meaning either. They’re like home runs or strikeouts in a children’s game where nobody’s keeping score.
In this sense, a doctrine of universal salvation turns out to be as deterministic as the more strident forms of scientific materialism. Instead of making us prisoners of our glands and genes, it makes us prisoners of God himself. We can check out any time we want, but we can never really leave.
The doctrine of hell, by contrast, assumes that our choices are real, and, indeed, that we are the choices that we make. The miser can become his greed, the murderer can lose himself inside his violence, and their freedom to turn and be forgiven is inseparable from their freedom not to do so.
As Anthony Esolen writes, in the introduction to his translation of Dante’s “Inferno,” the idea of hell is crucial to Western humanism. It’s a way of asserting that “things have meaning” — that earthly life is more than just a series of unimportant events, and that “the use of one man’s free will, at one moment, can mean life or death … salvation or damnation.”
April 26th, 2011 | 2:34 pm
Can’t wait to read the comments in the NYT on this one.
I think the problem most folks have with Hell depends on what Hell’s nature really is. Again, to repeat my commonly used example, if Hell means Christopher Hitchens gets to reject eternal, perfect, sinless happiness in God’s presence and instead gets an imperfect sinful eternity of smoking, drinking, fornicating, and blaspheming separate from God, I think more folks would understand why the vast majority of humanity might choose this.
If, on the other hand, it’s every unsaved person getting what Jonathan Edwards described, it’s hard, at least for me, to see how any sane person can believe this.
“In this sense, a doctrine of universal salvation turns out to be as deterministic….”
And so are various forms of orthodox notions of Hell, especially Calvinistic notions of predestination and election.
Finally: To dispel this idea, if everyone gets into Heaven, earthly choices don’t really matter….I’ve read a great deal of old school universalist theology and see they answered this claim. Most believed in a state of future rewards AND PUNISHMENTS where the bad got what they deserved in a temporary and proportionate sense. Some argued a typical stay in purgatory was 1000 years before being redeemed. Others argued that you suffer in a temporary Hell enough time to cancel out all of the pleasure you got from sinning on Earth. I could go on and could quote them if any readers desire.
April 26th, 2011 | 3:44 pm
I lost a friend one month ago to cancer. She was just 43 and had two teenaged children. She was a wonderful person but always maintained, “I came from dirt and will return to dirt.” Two nights ago I dreamt that I met with her in a non-descript place. I asked if she had seen God and she responded, “I tried to worship but I don’t know the Way.” I asked if she was at peace, happy. She answered simply and sadly, “No.” After some time, I said, “You have to go back and I have to wake up.” Her final message to me was, “You HAVE to believe.” I understood that to mean nothing less than Jesus meant what he said: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”
April 26th, 2011 | 4:14 pm
Alana,
Maybe it was just a dream.
Dying of cancer at 43 and leaving 2 teenagers behind? That’s Hell enough. What could she possibly have done on Earth to deserve anything more than that?
April 26th, 2011 | 4:37 pm
Alana, I am sorry to hear of your loss.
The fears and anxieties when it comes to wondering what happens to those we love is one of the most difficult questions, because it is their free will, not ours, and therefore out of our control.
April 26th, 2011 | 9:16 pm
I don’t believe she chose hell (or was in hell). In her last hours, I silently prayed beside her and claimed her for Christ. In my dream she said she knew I had prayed for her and was grateful. She was also hopeful for the general resurrection but knew she must wait. Whether it was a dream or something else, I understood that she wanted me to help her sons to believe.
April 26th, 2011 | 10:23 pm
@Alana
Why didn’t your god help your friend find the way to heaven? Or did your god try, but fail?
April 26th, 2011 | 10:57 pm
“… and while we affirm that the souls of the wicked, being endowed with sensation even after death, are punished, and that those of the good being delivered from punishment spend a blessed existence, we shall seem to say the same things as the poets and philosophers.”
– First Apology of Justin Martyr, written ca. A.D. 150
Apparently, that there must be punishment and reward in the next life seemed so evident that the reality of such was proclaimed by “the poets and philosophers” apart from and preceding Christianity.
The safe bet is always to live as though there is another life in which we will be eternally rewarded or punished. If there is not, we have only lost a lifetime we might have lived differently. If we find out there is, and we haven’t lived accordingly, we have lost an eternity.
Of course, living a good life should spring from higher ideals than avoiding punishment, but that lesser motive still works. ;o)
April 26th, 2011 | 11:37 pm
Jeff wrote:
“@Alana
Why didn’t your god help your friend find the way to heaven? Or did your god try, but fail?”
An omnipotent God doesn’t “try” anything. All He wills happens. He does not will that we sin, yet He allows that to happen in that He wills that we have a free will. God judges everyone perfectly, according to whether or not they chose to live according to the light they had received.
It sounds to me like Alana has good reason to be hopeful her friend will eventually experience eternal joy. She should keep praying for her friend.
April 27th, 2011 | 12:14 am
You are taking a theodicy argument that is valid, and stretching it to something that isn’t.
We need to be able to choose evil to know good is the base argument. This I can see. However, the only way people “choose” hell is through deception or lack of proof. People cannot see or comprehend hell, or even God. We have people and personal experiences which you take on faith, and an account of a man born 2000 years ago. That’s not enough ammo to make a choice that spans eternity.
I mean, you talk about being prisoner to God, but if he is just and merciful, why is it important we have the right not to be?
April 27th, 2011 | 12:15 am
The notion that, some people “choose” Hell, and these choices should be respected, seems to imply that, people always know what’s in their best interests, and their choices always reflect that.
Of course, this insn’t true. If someone chooses her first sniff of cocaine, one cannot conclude that this choice is in her best interests. A forteori, if someone chooses to go to Hell, and be eternally shut off, from God, and since this latter choice is profoundly worse than cocaine use, in terms of one’s self interests, it’s hard to argue that one’s “choice” for Hell should proceed, without God’s intervention.
Oddly enough, the modern era, is all about “choice”, and religion tends to be skeptical that we should always have the “choice” to do, whatever. And, the principal reason, is, we don’t always know what’s in our best interests, and part of proper morality, is not allowing others to self distruct, and hide behind the notion, “well, it’s their choice, i have no right to intervene”.
If we have the right to stop someone from taking drugs, even thought that’s his “choice”, because the taking of drugs, is not in his self interest, all the more reason, for god to stop someone from choosing Hell, since that’s infinitely worse, for him.
April 27th, 2011 | 12:30 am
Also, if one believes that, we should “hope” for the salvation of all, how can one also, at the same time, believe that, one must have the choice for Hell?
April 27th, 2011 | 1:35 am
I am not sure what Douhat is talking about. As an atheist I scoff at the doctrine of hell and paradise. I believe human have choices, but the consequences of those choices aren´t determined by some supernatural consequences in some imaginary after life, but by the real consequences in the world we actually live. Those choices and their consequences are then very real to me, and have little to do with the existence of some big brother who watches from heaven and punishes or rewards us, as his capricious will determines.
April 27th, 2011 | 3:00 am
Dblade wrote:
“… the only way people “choose” hell is through deception or lack of proof.”
People “choose” hell by freely choosing to live in a way that is contrary to what they know good and well is the right way to live. Through uncoerced, freely chosen sins of omission or commission in grave matters they make their choice. Unless there is repentance before they die those wrong choices in grave matters have eternal consequences.
Catholics believe that if one dies in a “state of grace,” that being a state where there are no grave sins for which one hasn’t repented (through a sincere confession or the intention of making a sincere confession as soon as possible) then there may be a period spent in purgatory for “not so grave” sins (“venial” sins) before entering into eternal bliss.
If one is interested, see #1030 through #1037 and #1854 through #1864 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church for a more precise explanation of Catholic teaching on these matters.
These can be viewed here:
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p123a12.htm
and here:
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c1a8.htm
April 27th, 2011 | 8:34 am
Some of the Fathers, notably St Maximus the Confessor, taught that heaven and hell are simply the presence of God, as experienced by the just and the wicked, respectively, citing “our God is a devouring flame” (Hebrews 12:29) St Isaac of Syria also says that “Hell is the torment of the love of God.” St Theophanes Graptus even went so far as to identify the fires of hell with the uncreated light of Tabor, as experienced by the lost.
It is we who react to the Eternal and Unchangeable; not He to us.
April 27th, 2011 | 9:07 am
There is a poker table in Hell. The players are Mao Tse Tung, Stalin, Hitler and Ghengis Khan. I hope no one else is there; I don’t even hope those I named are there, but I could see why they might be.
April 27th, 2011 | 11:02 am
Harry
Jesus’ final word was, “Tetelestai,” –it is finished, paid in full, complete in its fulfillment.
What more, then, needs to be paid if it’s already paid in full?
April 27th, 2011 | 11:24 am
“St Isaac of Syria also says that ‘Hell is the torment of the love of God.’”
I can imagine that as well. Imagine Christopher Hitchens dies and is greeted not just by God but by Jerry Falwell saying “see I was right and we are going to have to spend eternity together.”
April 27th, 2011 | 11:40 am
Heaven for a mosquito can be the same hell for a man.
–C.S. Lewis.
(Paraphrased from memory, as I don’t have the exact quote in front of me.)
April 27th, 2011 | 1:40 pm
Buzz wrote (regarding my remarks on purgatory):
“Jesus’ final word was, “Tetelestai,” –it is finished, paid in full, complete in its fulfillment. What more, then, needs to be paid if it’s already paid in full?”
“For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.”
1 Cor 3:11-15
Below is an excerpt from http://www.staycatholic.com/ecf_purgatory.htm .
In it are Origen’s (born 185 A.D.) comments on 1 Cor 3:11-15 which was cited above:
“If a man departs this life with lighter faults, he is condemned to fire which burns away the lighter materials, and prepares the soul for the kingdom of God, where nothing defiled may enter. For if on the foundation of Christ you have built not only gold and silver and precious stones; but also wood and hay and stubble, what do you expect when the soul shall be separated from the body? Would you enter into heaven with your wood and hay and stubble and thus defile the kingdom of God; or on account of these hindrances would you remain without and receive no reward for your gold and silver and precious stones? Neither is this just. It remains then that you be committed to the fire which will burn the light materials; for our God to those who can comprehend heavenly things is called a cleansing fire. But this fire consumes not the creature, but what the creature has himself built, wood, and hay and stubble. It is manifest that the fire destroys the wood of our transgressions and then returns to us the reward of our great works.”
Origen’s remarks represent the thinking of the early Christians in that from the beginning it was believed there was a state one could be in after one died that was neither heaven nor hell, that it was a place where our remaining sinfulness was purged. This is why the practice of praying for the dead has also been in the Church from the very beginning. This is attested to in early Christian liturgical texts:
“… the most ancient liturgical texts for the Eucharist that we possess, from both the eastern and the western Mediterranean, also contain prayers for the departed. In the mid-third century, St. Cyprian of Carthage tells us that prayers for the departed had been said in all the churches since the time of the apostles. In fact, there are no known opponents of prayers for the departed among orthodox Christian believers in the ancient Church.”
– excerpt from: http://prayforsouls.org/library/articles/article.php?NID=3723
April 27th, 2011 | 10:47 pm
The entire concept of Hell is just too ludicrous to take seriously.
A supposedly perfect, merciful and just God, in order to show just how just and merciful He is, consigns (for all eternity, no less – no hope of parole here) sentient creatures to unbearable torment for the ‘sin’ (another bogus concept) of being merely human and making mistakes, or for simply not believing in ‘Him’ (i.e. the ‘correct’ God; Hindu, or other, deities are not accepted) in the first place. The punishment (Hell) is grossly disproportionate to the alleged crime (being an imperfect human), but our imperfection isn’t seen as being a mitigating circumstance for some obscure reason, and so one’s – predetermined – fate must be accepted. This whole setup began when the, purely symbolic, ancestor of humanity (Eve) ate the fruit of a magical tree, that was deliberately placed within easy reach by God (why???), because she was told to by a snake that could talk. This sole act then resulted in the condemnation of all of her descendants, who had no choice in the matter, because ‘sin’ is hereditary.
Is there anyone else here who can see just how UNJUST this whole set-up is? Have I over-simplified the matter? Left something out?
April 28th, 2011 | 12:44 am
Hi, Peter A.,
I enjoyed your remarks. They seemed to me to be quite sincere.
We really do have a free will. We were created by God to be happy with Him forever. That is our true destiny. He won’t force that on us. We are truly free. There will be no one in hell who didn’t choose to be there.
God is very humble. He is pure love. If He is unjust – it is in our favor. He made us. He holds us in existence. He paid the debt for our sins with a humiliating and excruciatingly painful death on a cross, making our true destiny accessible to us again after mankind had sinfully gone its own way. We really owe Him the obedience a child owes a loving Father. We are free to refuse to respond to His love.
Think of it like this: His love for you drew Him down from heaven and into a garden one night. In His divinity He knew what was about to happen. He was going to be scourged, humiliated and condemned to the most cruel death the Romans knew how to administer: crucifixion. In His humanity He responded to that knowledge like any human would. He found it terrifying and asked His Father in heaven if there was some way out of this. Yet He was willing to be obedient: “Father, not my will but thine be done.”
In His divinity He knew what eternity would be like without you. Now THAT thought was more terrifying than anything that was about to happen to Him. He would do whatever was necessary in order to have you with Him forever. When He said, “Not my will but thine be done,” He resolved to accept all that torture and horror, if that is what it took not to lose you. Think of the love of a mother or father for their child, causing them to race back into a burning house in order to save their child who they realize, to their horror, is still inside. Yet there really is no perfect example for the love of God for His children, but just realize that no one has loved you, or will ever love you, like Christ has loved you.
I have personalized this in terms of God’s love for you here, but that is how God loves each of us. He is God. He can do that. He loves each of us like we were the only person who ever lived. He anxiously waits for us to discover and consider His love for us. Those who have been madly in love with someone who never noticed them at all have some small conception of God’s impatience for each of us to respond to His love.
We are free to ungratefully and coldly walk away from Him forever. Those who do that suffer hell, which is for the most part, I think, a pain of knowing we will be forever unfulfilled, always experiencing an emptiness in ourselves that only God can fill, and wanted to fill, yet couldn’t because He honors our free will.
April 28th, 2011 | 4:00 am
“Where shall I go from your presence?” asks the Psalmist.
In the end, we are all confronted by the supreme and uncaused Act, the pure and endless Being. He is what He is, the ultimate fact of existence.
That vision will be the consummation of bliss to those who love Him and unutterable misery and frustration to those who hate Him.
How could it be otherwise?
April 28th, 2011 | 8:04 am
Harry
You can cite Origen and other early writers concerning 1 Cor 3:11-15, but I rely on Jesus’ own words: It is finished, paid in full.
If paid in full, what more payment is needed? The concept of Purgatory mocks the sufficiency of Christ’s complete and total defeat of death and sin on the cross. It teaches that work is yet to be done and payment to be made.
April 28th, 2011 | 8:09 am
Forgot to add: Just because a teaching is ancient and close in time to the founding of Christ’s church does not make it correct. After all, an early form of Gnosticism and neo-Platonism was already creeping into the church and is addressed in some of the Epistles. Those heresies are also ancient and close in time to the founding of the church.
Our only true guide is Scripture. It is finished, paid in full, from the mouth of our Lord himself.
April 28th, 2011 | 8:11 am
Peter A.
Unjust according to what standard? What is your measuring stick for just vs. unjust?
April 28th, 2011 | 11:48 am
Hello, Buzz,
I fully appreciate your reverence for the efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ. I share that with you. It is not that I don’t like your ideas. I do in the sense that I am not looking forward to being “purged” after I die. Yet I don’t have a right to interpret Scripture any way I want, since I believe that Christ kept His promises to the Church:
I shall ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you *forever*, that Spirit of truth whom the world can never receive …
Jn 14:16-17
… when the Spirit of truth comes *he will lead you to the complete truth* …
Jn 16:13
Still, I must tell you the truth: it is for your own good that I am going because unless I go, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I do go, *I will send him to you.*
Jn 16:7
Christ kept and still keeps these promises He made to the Church. Because He kept them, there grew up a tradition regarding the meaning of Scripture in spite of those who were “tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine” (Eph 4:14), and in spite of those who misinterpreted the “scriptures unto their own destruction” (2 Pet 3:16). This promised work of the Holy Spirit Who Christ sent to the Church is evident in the remarks of St. Irenaeus, who was born around A.D. 140:
“As I have already observed, the Church, having received this preaching and this faith, although scattered throughout the whole world, yet, as if occupying but one house, carefully preserves it. She also believes these points [of doctrine] just as if she had but one soul, and one and the same heart, and she proclaims them, and teaches them, and hands them down, with perfect harmony, as if she possessed only one mouth. For, although the languages of the world are dissimilar, yet the import of the tradition is one and the same. For the Churches which have been planted in Germany do not believe or hand down anything different, nor do those in Spain, nor those in Gaul, nor those in the East, nor those in Egypt, nor those in Libya, nor those which have been established in the central regions of the world. But as the sun, that creature of God, is one and the same throughout the whole world, so also the preaching of the truth shines everywhere, and enlightens all men that are willing to come to a knowledge of the truth.”
–Irenaeus, Against Heresies [1, 10, 2]
“Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle” (2 Thes 2:15).
This standing fast, submitting to the Holy Spirit in the Church, which is the “pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15) precisely because of the Holy Spirit’s presence within it, is possible only if we are familiar with what that uniform belief was that the Holy Spirit brought about in the Church “as if she had but one soul, and one and the same heart” and proclaimed, and teaches, and hands down with “perfect harmony, as if she possessed only one mouth.”
That uniform belief included purgatory, which is, if you think about it, quite Scriptural:
“ … there shall in no wise enter into it [ the New Jerusalem] any thing that defileth” (Rev 21:27).
Most of us aren’t quite ready for heaven when we die. We would be embarrassed to join the all-pure elect who populate the New Jerusalem in our unclean state, with all that remains of our attachments to the world and the flesh. We will want to be “purged” before entering the heavenly city.
Anyway, it is not of no importance that the Church has prayed for the dead from the very beginning. That practice and the belief that the faithful departed need those prayers is the result of the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church according to the promise of Christ.
Belief in Jesus includes believing He keeps His promises.
April 28th, 2011 | 12:55 pm
Harry
The classic circular argument. We are the authority on interpreting Scripture because we say we are.
Yet according to this doctrine I am anathema (condemned to hell) because I do not believe in the bodily assumption of Mary into heaven, a doctrine that is not even remotely hinted at in Scripture, and a teaching that was considered heretical itself according to Pope Gelasius in the 6th century. So, depending on when you believed or taught the bodily assumption of Mary, you were either anathema for believing or anathema for not believing.
In fact, since you put so much stock in what the early church was doing, why is there no mention of Mary outside of Scripture until the 4th century? Surely such an important teaching would have been discussed and taught by the early church fathers. Yet silence for more than 300 years. Suddenly, an apocryphal writing turns up discussing what MIGHT have happened to Mary. Sorry, not good enough, even by your own criteria.
So much for a trustworthy guide. “Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle” (2 Thes 2:15). Indeed!
Christ said, It is finished. Paid in full. No purging needed. No further payment needed.
April 28th, 2011 | 5:26 pm
Hello again, Buzz,
You wrote:
“The classic circular argument. We are the authority on interpreting Scripture because we say we are.”
My argument is that the Holy Spirit in the Church is the authority on the Scriptures. Scripture itself attests to the fact that the Church had the promised guidance of the Holy Spirit, as is made clear by the decree of the Council of Jerusalem in Acts:
“It has been decided by the Holy Spirit and ourselves …”
Acts 15:28
If Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a leading Jew (Jn 3:1), had become openly Christian by then, and had considered himself more of an authority on the Scriptures than those at the council, and had disagreed with the decisions of the council, would he have had the right to ignore the decisions of that council, and teach others to do so, based on his own interpretation of the Scriptures? If not, why not? What if he had, in fact, been able to convince more people with his argument from the Scriptures than the apostles had? Would that have given him the right to ignore its decisions and continue to teach others to do so? Or was it a matter of who God had given authority to — an authority He backed up with His promised guidance of the Holy Spirit?
As for the assumption of Mary, it was never officially condemned by the Church. A work regarding the Assumption was labeled “apocryphus” along with many other works in the “Decree of Gelasius.” It is disputed as to whether this decree was really authored by Pope Gelasius. That really doesn’t matter, as the decree had nothing to do with the Assumption. It nowhere mentions that theological topic. If a work regarding the resurrection were to be labeled “apocryphus” that wouldn’t mean the Church was tossing belief in the resurrection.
Veneration of Mary by Christians is ancient. This is evident from, among other things, much graffiti referring to her found in the catacombs and from her image being found on many artifacts from the early Christian era. It seems they always knew, as we should realize, that Mary, being the New Covenant fulfillment of the type of the Old Testament Ark of the Covenant, and being the Mother of God, whose consent was necessary for our salvation to come about, has a privileged position. (Yes. Her consent. God didn’t take on human nature by forcing a pregnancy on a robotic woman without a free will. )
“And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail. And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.”
Rev 11:19-12:1
This Woman’s body was clothed with the sun. She was seen in heaven. Whose clothed body was that which appeared “in heaven”? Chapter 12 of the book of Revelation goes on to tell us that “The Woman” gives birth to the one “Who was to rule all nations with an iron sceptre.” That would be Jesus. His Mother would be Mary. “The Woman” enraged the dragon, who “went away to make war on the rest of her children, that is, all who obey God’s commandments and bear witness for Jesus.” (Rev 12:17). That would include you, and makes you the child of Mary, and her your Mother. She is the Mother of God as well, by virtue of being the Mother of Jesus Who was God, and it should surprise no one if God didn’t let His own Mother’s body experience corruption when He had taken up Enoch and Elijah bodily into heaven.
The war with the dragon engaged in by “The Woman” and her son Jesus was foretold in Genesis:
“And I will put enmity between thee and “The Woman,” and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
Mary is “The Woman” of Scripture and does indeed have a privileged position in salvation history.
The Fathers tended to see in Rev 12 the Church, the Body of Christ. Yet from where did Christ take His Body? From His Mother Mary. Rev 12 applies to Mary as well as to the Church, and makes more sense in terms of Mary in many of its specifics than it does in terms of the Church. In Scripture, there are often several levels of meaning. This is true of Rev 12, which, besides speaking figuratively of the Church, sees Mary *bodily* in heaven.
April 28th, 2011 | 6:07 pm
Hello again, Buzz,
A few remarks to complete the thoughts from my previous post:
Ultimately, rather than relying only on the Scriptural argument for Mary being bodily in heaven, those Who believe in the promises of Christ to the Church would accept the Assumption of Mary because:
* The successors of the Apostles were unanimous that the doctrine should be defined as dogma.
* The Successor of St. Peter clearly affirmed there was a development of the doctrine in the life of the Church by the Spirit of Truth;
* The Successor of St. Peter affirmed this belief is based on the Scriptures;
* The belief is thoroughly rooted in the minds of the members of the Universal Church
* The belief was approved in liturgical worship from remote times;
* The Assumption is completely in harmony with other revealed truths of the Universal Church.
Ultimately, belief in purgatory and in the Assumption of Mary is to be based on the authority of the Holy Spirit within the Church, making it the “pillar and ground of the truth,” the Holy Spirit being present within it according to the promises of Christ.
April 28th, 2011 | 7:02 pm
“Those who have been madly in love with someone who never noticed them at all have some small conception of God’s impatience for each of us to respond to His love.”
Patience is a virtue and impatience is a vice. Your analogy is very poor and not worthy of an all perfect God. You make God sound like a teenager with a psycho-crush.
April 28th, 2011 | 8:10 pm
Hello, Jon Rowe,
You wrote:
“Patience is a virtue and impatience is a vice. Your analogy is very poor and not worthy of an all perfect God. You make God sound like a teenager with a psycho-crush.”
Maybe so. That what not my intent.
Christ clearly has human emotions. I think He loves us more deeply and desires a more intimate relationship with us than we give Him credit for. I think His feelings are hurt by indifference, or by what maybe isn’t complete indifference, but is a rather low estimate on our part of just how interested He is in us. I think He is more anxious for a deep, intimate relationship with us than we have ever been when we were “in love” with someone.
It seemed easier just to say “impatient,” but you are right, that has a connotation that wasn’t really what I intended to convey.
Thanks
April 29th, 2011 | 4:10 am
Buzz
It is simply not true that there is no mention of Blessed Virgin Mary outside scripture before the 4th century.
Thus, St. Justin Martyr (A.D. 120-165) – “We know that He, before all creatures, proceeded from the Father by His power and will, … and by means of the Virgin became man, that by what way the disobedience arising from the serpent had its beginning, by that way also it might have an undoing. For Eve, being a Virgin and undefiled, conceiving the word that was from the serpent, brought forth disobedience and death; but the Virgin Mary, taking faith and joy, when the Angel told her the good tidings, that the Spirit of the Lord should come upon her and the power of the Highest overshadow her, and therefore the Holy One that was born of her was Son of God, answered, ‘Be it to me according to thy word.’” —Tryph. 100
And Tertullian (160-240) – “God recovered His image and likeness, which the devil had seized, by a rival operation. For into Eve, as yet a virgin, had crept the word which was the framer of death. Equally into a virgin was to be introduced the Word of God which was the builder-up of life; that, what by that sex had gone into perdition by the same sex might be brought back to salvation. Eve had believed the serpent; Mary believed Gabriel; the fault which the one committed by believing, the other by believing has blotted out.”— De Carn. Christ. 17.
And St. Irenæus (120-200) – “As Eve by the speech of an Angel was seduced, so as to flee God, transgressing His word, so also Mary received the good tidings by means of the Angel’s speech, so as to bear God within her, being obedient to His word. And, though the one had disobeyed God, yet the other was drawn to obey God; that of the virgin Eve the Virgin Mary might become the advocate. And, as by a virgin the human race had been bound to death, by a virgin it is saved, the balance being preserved, a virgin’s disobedience by a Virgin’s obedience.”— Adv. Hær. v. 19
To me, at least, the similarity between the teaching of these three early Fathers, representing the traditions of the churches of Palestine, Africa and Rome and Asia Minor and Gaul, renders it probable that this antithesis between the Blessed Virgin Mary and Eve is part of the original apostolic teaching.
April 29th, 2011 | 8:34 am
Everyone meets God in the end. If you did not reconcile, it will be hell. Creatures of darkness hate the light.
April 29th, 2011 | 9:48 am
Harry
The amount of question-begging in your comments makes my head hurt just contemplating how to respond to each. Suffice it to say that your assertions are not supported by Scripture, but merely by what other men have said and done.
The first and primary, from which all else arises, is the idea that Jesus’ promised Holy Spirit must be mediated and interpreted by men. It’s not claimed or suggested in Scripture. Even Peter, the supposed first Pope, was rebuked for false teaching by Paul and considered himself merely a “fellow elder,” not the supreme pontiff.
For example, the woman in Rev 11-12 is described in richly symbolic language that parallels Joseph’s dream in Gen 37, the likely referent, which means the woman is more likely Christ’s church, who is often referred to (in Scripture) as his bride. But because you’re determined to affirm a man-made doctrine, you must interpret all Scripture in light of that instead of in light of Scripture itself.
Core doctrines are arrived at by appeal to apocrypha and hearsay, hardly grounds for spiritual security.
I’ll stick with Scripture. Yes, I appreciate and sometimes rely on the help of learned men and women for help in understanding, but I do not consider them infallible.
Michael PS
I should have been more precise: by no mention of Mary, I meant with regard to her bodily assumption into heaven, not just discussion in general.
April 29th, 2011 | 10:36 am
Hello, Buzz,
Among all my remarks that made your head hurt, was what appears below. If you don’t mind, take an aspirin and respond to just this:
Scripture itself attests to the fact that the Church had the promised guidance of the Holy Spirit, as is made clear by the decree of the Council of Jerusalem in Acts:
“It has been decided by the Holy Spirit and ourselves …”
Acts 15:28
If Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a leading Jew (Jn 3:1), had become openly Christian by then, and had considered himself more of an authority on the Scriptures than those at the council, and had disagreed with the decisions of the council, would he have had the right to ignore the decisions of that council, and teach others to do so, based on his own interpretation of the Scriptures? If not, why not?
April 29th, 2011 | 12:32 pm
Harry
To take one descriptive passage from Acts and make it prescriptive for the whole church age is overreach. A lot of things happened in Acts that even you would agree are not neccesarily operative for today’s church. What about speaking in tongues? Prophesying? Healing the sick with a touch?
More important, look at what the council did: they consulted Scripture, first. We see also in Acts 17 that the Bereans are praised for consulting Scriptute to see if what a bona fide apostle (never mind any self-appointed successors) is true according to God’s Word, not just his say-so.
So, pointing to Scripture (not apocrypha or extra-scriptural pronouncements), please explain to me how the doctrine of the bodily assumption of Mary is orthodox.
Second hypthetical: if some day a Pope pronounces that Jesus’s atonement on the cross was incomplete but rather needs some extra help from another, additional savior, would you therefore accept it? Why or why not?
April 29th, 2011 | 4:45 pm
Hi, Buzz,
You wrote:
“To take one descriptive passage from Acts and make it prescriptive for the whole church age is overreach.”
Where in the scriptures did God ever set things up so anybody and everybody had equal authority?
Everyone having equal authority, as you know, is the same as there being no authority at all.
Did the earthly, visible component of the Church Christ established (as opposed to the invisible Church as the mystical Body of Christ) have particular people in it with God-given authority?
If so, how was that God-given authority to be handed down throughout all the generations till the end of time?
If not, is there anyone with God-given authority in the Church? What is the basis for their claim to that authority? Do they have any more of a claim to it than anyone else?
April 30th, 2011 | 10:31 am
Hello, Buzz,
You wrote:
” … if some day a Pope pronounces that Jesus’s atonement on the cross was incomplete but rather needs some extra help from another, additional savior, would you therefore accept it? Why or why not?”
Colossians 1:24:
New International Version
Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.
English Standard Version
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church,
International Standard Version
Now I am rejoicing while suffering for you as I complete in my flesh whatever remains of the Messiah’s sufferings on behalf of his body, which is the church.
GOD’S WORD Translation
I am happy to suffer for you now. In my body I am completing whatever remains of Christ’s sufferings. I am doing this on behalf of his body, the church.
American Standard Version
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church;
Bible in Basic English
Now I have joy in my pain because of you, and in my flesh I undergo whatever is still needed to make the sorrows of Christ complete, for the salvation of his body, the church;
Douay-Rheims Bible
Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for his body, which is the church:
English Revised Version
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church;
Weymouth New Testament
Now I can find joy amid my sufferings for you, and I fill up in my own person whatever is lacking in Christ’s afflictions on behalf of His Body, the Church.
World English Bible
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the assembly;
Young’s Literal Translation
I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and do fill up the things lacking of the tribulations of the Christ in my flesh for his body, which is the assembly,
Some versions use “that which is behind” instead of that which is “lacking.” I am not sure what “that which is behind” would mean, unless it means, in some way, that it is necessary for more suffering to be experienced that “follows,” or “comes after,” that suffered by Christ.
Could it be that when we take up our cross and follow Him as He commanded us to do, the suffering we experience in carrying our cross has redemptive value as well?
While I certainly don’t think the sufferings of Christ were insufficient in any way, it seems that the members of the Body of Christ are to share in His sufferings. This idea is affirmed by St. Paul:
… with Christ I am nailed to the cross. … That I may know him … and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;
If we are “one body in Christ” then our sufferings are one with His and His with ours, and ours would then share in the redemptive value of His.
What do you think?
May 1st, 2011 | 9:08 pm
‘We really do have a free will. We were created by God to be happy with Him forever. That is our true destiny. He won’t force that on us. We are truly free. There will be no one in hell who didn’t choose to be there.’ – Harry, 28th April
Actually, we DON’T have free will if we ONLY have a choice between accepting what someone tells us to accept on the one hand, and being punished (for all eternity) on the other. This is manipulative coercion, not free will. A (real) father who acted this way would wind up in prison (or a mental institution).
‘Unjust according to what standard? What is your measuring stick for just vs. unjust?’ – Buzz, 28th April
The standard is proportionality. If someone by mistake leaves their car in a spot for five minutes longer than they should have, they get a ticket; you would not sentence them to 50 years hard labour in a penal camp. That would be an excessive punishment for the crime committed. The same goes for ‘Hell’; the idea is grossly offensive if only because no-one should be punished for simply being who they are (ex. an atheist, Jew – whatever) for the rest of conceivable time. This is not ‘just’ – this is barbaric, cruel, absurd, unjust and illogical.
May 2nd, 2011 | 12:01 pm
Hi, Peter A.,
You wrote:
“Actually, we DON’T have free will if we ONLY have a choice between accepting what someone tells us to accept on the one hand, and being punished (for all eternity) on the other.”
Yes, there are realities that we have no choice about:
* God made us to know Him and be happy with Him forever. We will be extremely miserable doing anything else forever, because nothing else will fulfill us. We weren’t made for anything else. It will be hell doing anything else. That is just the way it is.
* To be able to love, and to be more than a programmed robot – in order to be a “who” and not a “what,” we had to have a free will, allowing us to hurt others as well as care for them. No way around that.
* There is such a thing as morality. Some behaviors are gravely wrong. Some omissions are gravely wrong (like failing to care for one’s children, for example). If we misuse our free will by choosing to knowingly engage in these gravely wrong commissions or omissions, and do not ever admit we were wrong to do so and seek forgiveness, then we are at the same time choosing to forfeit our true destiny. That is just how it is.
* We can spend eternity being extremely unhappy and complaining about how unfair the whole deal was, or we can just make up our mind to do the right things and avoid doing the wrong things, and seek forgiveness and begin again when we fail at that, and end up being happy forever. This project becomes much easier with “grace.” It may well be impossible without grace. I am not going to go into that here.
Those in hell who might say, “Nobody told me it would be THIS bad! I would have lived differently so as to avoid ending up here had I known how bad it was going to be!” will deserve no sympathy because whatever hell is really like, everybody knew it had been described as eternal fire, which was more than enough indication that one would be very unhappy there and that one ought to at least minimally meet the requirements to avoid ending up there.
Imagine one is zipping down the highway and sees a sign that informs him the bridge is out up ahead and that he needs to turn around. He could insist the sign is just somebody wanting to impose their will on him, making him do things their way. He could decide to not slow down at all, even though he keeps seeing more signs saying the same thing as he speeds along down the highway. If things end disastrously for him, is it his own fault or is it because he was the victim of some “injustice” or “unfairness”?
May 7th, 2011 | 9:33 pm
I realise that I am very late in responding to this, but if ‘Harry’ is still reading this section then I will just ask these few, final questions.
Harry states:
‘* God made us to know Him and be happy with Him forever. We will be extremely miserable doing anything else forever, because nothing else will fulfill us. We weren’t made for anything else. It will be hell doing anything else. That is just the way it is.’
There are four, in my view completely unjustified, assumptions here.
1. God exists.
2. God is male (‘He’).
3. God wants us to be ‘happy with him forever’.
4. There is an afterlife.
Harry, how do you know any of this? Where is the evidence for these, completely baseless, assumptions?
‘* To be able to love, and to be more than a programmed robot – in order to be a “who” and not a “what,” we had to have a free will, allowing us to hurt others as well as care for them. No way around that.’ – Harry
Again – where’s the actual evidence for these assertions? ‘No way around that’ you say. I ask, how can you be so sure of yourself?
‘* There is such a thing as morality. Some behaviors are gravely wrong. Some omissions are gravely wrong (like failing to care for one’s children, for example). If we misuse our free will by choosing to knowingly engage in these gravely wrong commissions or omissions, and do not ever admit we were wrong to do so and seek forgiveness, then we are at the same time choosing to forfeit our true destiny. That is just how it is.’ – Harry
That’s not how it is. Even if I did all of the things you listed here, how does that justify eternal damnation? Again, the punishment is grossly disproportionate.
‘Those in hell who might say, “Nobody told me it would be THIS bad! I would have lived differently so as to avoid ending up here had I known how bad it was going to be!” will deserve no sympathy because whatever hell is really like, everybody knew it had been described as eternal fire, which was more than enough indication that one would be very unhappy there and that one ought to at least minimally meet the requirements to avoid ending up there.’ – Harry
Judging by the paragraph above, the ‘God’ you believe in is the worst monster to ever appear in a work of fiction.
* ‘will deserve no sympathy’
* ‘everybody knew it had been described as eternal fire’
* ‘one ought to at least minimally meet the requirements’ …and those requirements are?? What?
Harry, do you even realise that the doctrine of hell as you have outlined it here has NO (zilch, zero, naught) basis in scripture? Read Ecclesiastes, where the writer lets the reader know with no ambiguity that the dead are just that – gone, kaput, finished. There is no basis whatsoever within the entire Bible for the misguided notion that the dead ‘live on’ in heaven or hell, this misunderstanding being a result of a misinterpretation of the concept of the common grave – i.e. ‘hades’, ‘sheoul’, where the dead are simply obliterated by the ‘flames of hell’ that you are so fond of. It means eternal destruction, not damnation.
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