Ok, sorry in advance if this offends anyone since such is not my goal. To give you folks a little background on myself, I was raised Church of Christ. I have done many years of lay study regarding the Bible, and have even done some peripheral studying of other religions of the world. At one point in my life I even participated in missionary work in and around Port of Spain, Trinidad. That all being said, while I am by no means formally educated in theology, I do consider myself to have a decent grounding in the Bible itself. I recognize that Christianity requires Faith as a component of the interaction between man and God, and I have no doubts concerning the existence of God at all. On the contrary, I find it amazing that people can not look at everything that surrounds them, and combine that with the what our scientists constantly are telling us about our environment, world, solar system, and universe ... and not have a belief in God. To me, God is self-evident. My problem comes into play when I try to understand what my Christian upbringing and base of knowledge tells me and that is this: According to everything I have ever been taught, and according to what I believe, God loves me more than any other person has ever loved me or could possibly ever love me. The Greeks, I believe, used a word, agape, to describe that form of love. A form of love that man could never aspire to have. So, God loves me more than my parents do, more than my wife, more than my siblings, more than I even love myself. Yet, according to Christian beliefs, specifically those of my youth, if I fail to follow every commandment given to me through the Bible, and die in that state, then God, who loves me more than anyone else, can and will consign me to a lake of fire for all of eternity .... in other words, I don't get oblivion as a punishment, or even simple removal from the presence of the Almighty .... I receive eternal torture and torment. Now I know that me trying to understand the mind of God is even more difficult than my cat trying to understand my mind. But, I know for a fact that there is absolutely nothing I could ever do or fail to do that would cause the people in my life to give me the same judgement. Sure, I can think of examples wherein my wife would leave me, my parents would disown me, my siblings would have nothing to do with me and so on, yet I can think of nothing I could possibly do to any of them that would cause them (assuming they had this power) to cast me into eternal torture. This problem has bothered me for many years now, and I haven't yet found anyone who can adequately answer this for me. I get answers that talk about God's sacrifice, which I do not deny, yet does the sacrifice somehow mean that God stops loving me if I fail in some small way (small to us, the Bible does not differentiate in levels or degees of sin)? This truly bothers me and although I have asked questions of Church of Christ ministers and elders, of Catholic priests, of Greek Orthidox priests and so on, I have yet to find anyone who can help me to balance the God of love with the same God who will cast those who are found wanting into eternal torment. Since this is the off-topics area, and since so many of the regular posters are interested in biblical studies, perhaps someone wouldn't mind helping me out on this one. For anyone who was offended by the above questions, again my apologies. It is not my intent to offend anyone.
The question that you're asking is essentially one of theodicy - if God loves me why can X happen to me? There are as many different approaches to the answer as there are people. For me, the answer is found in Jesus' prayer at Gethsemane. As the very Son of God, Jesus asks God to prevent his execution if it's at all possible. God does not. For me, this indicates that the implicit brokeness of the mortal world is such that it limits God as well. God could not erase it (presumably becuase being flawed is intrinsic to being mortal - if God erased the flaws, God would erase the world), so God had to become subject to it. With that said, I am a Christian universalist (of the Neo-Orthodox strain like Karl Barth - for example). I believe that Jesus' crucifixion was the moment at which all of creation was restored to God; and we are all at various stages of unpacking the nature of that restoration. Joshua
cjoshuav, I appreciate the response, but I don't see it that way. I do see this world as a type of proving ground, if you will. We are born and live a relatively brief lifespan in which we are challenged to live a purer life than our natures' incline us. Basically, I see us as the battleground of good vs. evil with our role being to choose good over evil and to atone for those times when we give in to those evil urges. If we denied the nature of this life then we might rightfully ask why did God allow (fill in the blank) to happen to me? But if we look upon this life as being a test given to our souls, then the trials of our life gets put into context. But that context still doesn't answer my question regarding the afterlife and the judgement. I mean, I am terribly tempted to just chuck my entire lifetime's belief set and jump on the Sylvia Brown bandwagon. Although there is no scriptural basis for her belief, she, as a self-professed medium, states that we all choose our life before we ever come to this earth and that we all go back to heaven afterwards, unless of course we choose not to .... far too easy of a belief system in my opinion, and one not based on anything other than a modern day medium's "visions". So, if we assume that this life is a test of sorts, then there has to be a reason for that test. But if the end result of failing that test is to be tortured for eternity, then how can we believe in the inherent "goodness" of the One who created this entire construct in the first place?
A tough question, Thorsen! I apologize too for this theological comment from a narrow minded Biblicist and Evangelical : As you say, the NT proposes a seemingly very difficult dilemma. Sorry, I've no ready answer for it. IMO universalism is not an answer as it is not IMO supportable by the same NT which informs us of Jesus' sacrifice.
Bill, Don't evangelicals of your stripe generally resolve the question of theodicy through some form of Calvinism? Joshua P.S. You've now gotten a Neo-Orthodox response and a Simple Biblicist response; everything else should fall somewhere in-between.
Someone has been teaching you some incredibly false theology. The reason Jesus came, died, and rose from the dead was because none of us have the ability to follow every commandment of the Bible. You are not saved by what you do, but by who you have trusted in. Didn't anyone ever teach you about grace? BTW, I am a Church of Christ/Christian Church preacher. BLD
Thorsen, This is a question that people have been struggling with for ages. There simply isn't one neat answer that can be packaged and reviewed. I once had a very difficult time with this issue as well. You raise a very common, very good issue: To paraphrase you, "since my actions would be x given a particular situation, I am troubled that God's actions might be y or z." First of all, be reminded that we don't think like God: Isa 55:8 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the LORD." We all say that we understand this passage but how many of us truly accept it? Secondly, you write: <<But, I know for a fact that there is absolutely nothing I could ever do or fail to do that would cause the people in my life to give me the same judgement. Sure, I can think of examples wherein my wife would leave me, my parents would disown me, my siblings would have nothing to do with me and so on, yet I can think of nothing I could possibly do to any of them that would cause them (assuming they had this power) to cast me into eternal torture.>> Think about what you just wrote. You wrote that you could think of reasons why your wife would leave you, your parents would disown you, and your children would have nothing to do with you, right? Isn't this the exact same thing God does? He disowns you...He has nothing to do with you. Lastly, remember that God's love is a perfect love. We tend to think of God's love as being tender, comforting, and merciful. Western Christianity has done a fantastic job teaching these loving attributes. Unfortunately these attributes are only one part of love. Other parts of a perfect love include discipline and justice. Western Christianity tends to forget about this side of love. Disciple and justice complete a perfect love. Let me use this very brief example: Assume you have a child that constantly misbehaves. You threaten the child with a given punishment. The child ignors you and continues misbehaving. Are you doing the child a favor by not punishing him? No. Accordingly, would justice be served if you waived your punishment? No. God is a loving God, but He is also a just God that can NOT live with sin. In His passive will He desires that none should perish, that all would be saved. However, it would not be just to allow the wicked to escape justice. Pug
CJ Yes. I am a Calvinist. That system , if true, resolves the issue of whether or not God has power over all events. But I don't see the problem of a loving God sending people to Hell solved by His ability to plan that. The problem is still there. The problem still is WHY? A limited atonement , which I basically affirm with qualifications, does not solve it unless the motivation for such were a limited love. But then the difficulty simply evolves into finding a cause for that inequality of affection. The Arminian finds the solution to election in foreknowledge of man's actions and man's capability to choose. But IMO neither Scripture nor logic supports that. [I'm not much interested in debating such, but might be aroused to do that] The Open Theist puts the responsibilty on man saying that God limits Himself. Neither do I find that satisfying though I am still learning. BLD is more expert than I re that system although my dissertation alludes to it. So, I lack a good answer, though a Calvinist.
CJ, If I could make a suggestion? Read C.S. Lewis' short book, The Great Divorce. The basic idea is that those who go to hell choose hell. It is not a matter of God sending them to hell, but a matter of what they prepared themselves for in this life. On a related note, there are many evangelicals who believe in conditional immortality (Edward Fudge of the COC comes to mind, as well as John R.W. Stott) wherein a person is not granted an immortal state unless he/she has accepted Christ as Savior. That person who rejects Christ ceases to exist, rather than suffering eternal torment. BLD
BLD, I haven't read The Great Divorce in years, but I don't remember it persuading me away from Neo-Orthodoxy or Universalism. My final paper in seminary was on the topic; and - to my surprise - I actually found myself more of a universalist after my research. My thoughts on soteriology in general are here -Joshua
