A society built on punishment that exceeds the crime is not a just society.
A society where the perpetrators get to choose their punishment is not a just society.
That is not actually addressing anything anyone has said nor is it rebutting a position anyone has advocated.
Who gets to decide whether the punishment exceeds the crime? If the entire population is guilty, as is the case with the debt of sin, then the only way of reaching a just decision is with reference to another authority.
I don't think hell is a particularly effective deterrent. There's only so long most people can be afraid of something they've never seen or experienced. That's partly why I tend to think of it as a containment zone--fear of hell isn't a great motivator IMHO, and God would know that.
The number of people on these forums experiencing a strong, enduring emotional reaction and resistance to the idea of hell suggests this is simply not the case. People's fears are oft rooted in their beliefs. 2000 years of Church history illustrates what a fear of hell can achieve.
It seems it's important to you to believe that other people's responses are "emotional reaction and resistance" rather than rational or moral judgements.
Why can't it be a bit of both? Suggesting that our responses are either one or the other sounds like a false binary.
The term 'resistance' in particular has pejorative overtones. It makes your responses appear self-protective rather than respectful.
My understanding is that it can sometimes be seen as pejorative to suggest that people are resistant to new ideas (or other people's ideas). However, it isn't usually seen as controversial to suggest that resistance is a natural human response often rooted in fear or uncertainty. The issue being addressed here is the question of how long people can fear something, in which regard it seems entirely reasonable to consider how long people express negativity about the concept, and the nature of that negativity.
I don't think hell is a particularly effective deterrent. There's only so long most people can be afraid of something they've never seen or experienced. That's partly why I tend to think of it as a containment zone--fear of hell isn't a great motivator IMHO, and God would know that.
If God watched the way my friends in undergrad made jokes about Chick Tracts, God would certainly understand. And that is one way of coping with Hell.
The notion is so ridiculously depicted that it becomes an existential punchline. It's a bit like how people deal with any other kind of tyrant, you either cower in terror or you laugh uproariously because the whole premise is - literally - absurd. You're punishing me for not worshiping you? And you call this love? WTF, dude...
Pain compliance is unethical. Full stop. If your rule depends fundamentally on that, you have no business being in charge.
I think this is a fairly modern take, though. In the past maybe it felt right to completely erase bad things.
For example let's say a village was known to be infected with the plague. Cutting them off and burning everything to the ground seemed like a sensible (if not scientifically effective) precaution.
It's a bit circular but if people don't know things it isn't unreasonable for them to act as if they don't know things.
I don't think hell is a particularly effective deterrent. There's only so long most people can be afraid of something they've never seen or experienced. That's partly why I tend to think of it as a containment zone--fear of hell isn't a great motivator IMHO, and God would know that.
If God watched the way my friends in undergrad made jokes about Chick Tracts, God would certainly understand. And that is one way of coping with Hell.
The notion is so ridiculously depicted that it becomes an existential punchline. It's a bit like how people deal with any other kind of tyrant, you either cower in terror or you laugh uproariously because the whole premise is - literally - absurd. You're punishing me for not worshiping you? And you call this love? WTF, dude...
Pain compliance is unethical. Full stop. If your rule depends fundamentally on that, you have no business being in charge.
Of course. I would do the same if I believed in that sort of God. It's one reason why I think the deterrent effect is very over-rated.
Can we also talk about the negative effects of teaching about Hell?
Case in point - Smyth. The Inquisitors. Burning Heretics. Crusades. Forced conversions.
There is a catalogue of cruelty down the ages which has been justified in the minds of those inflicting it that they were saving their victims, or at least others who might listen to their victims' "heresy", from a worse fate - eternal torment in Hell.
I don't think it's reasonable to talk about potential benefits of Hell as a deterrent without talking about its other, more questionable, social effects.
If Jesus' message was intended to transform society, which I think it was, one issue is the ways in which it has transformed society, and how society has reacted to this transformation. What we (most of us here) are dealing with today is the message of Jesus in societies that have already been transformed by the message of Jesus and, chronologically, I think that starts being the case well before the historical events that are mentioned above.
I think the abusive behaviours mentioned above only come to be done in, or by, societies whose members have, to a significant extent, internalised the existence of hell. Once hell is a thing to be feared, and becomes the thing feared over all other things, then “the only thing we have to fear is hell itself”, and all other fears become secondary.
However, rather importantly, the way in which Jesus' message is transformational is not primarily about fear. The primary transformational element of Jesus' message is love. Love takes precedence over fear:
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment [or torment]. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
Putting this in terms of heaven and hell, I take it that saving people from hell is secondary to saving people for heaven. In contrast, it's long struck me that, for the majority of (evangelical) evangelists I've talked to about this, the primary motivation is not saving people for eternal life in heaven, but saving people from eternal torment in hell.
Even in good faith (ie leaving aside all the bad faith actors involved in the Church's activities over the past 2000 years), I can see how this attitude could inform and reflect an environment in which it would be possible to justify the behaviours described above. This isn't about cause and effect (ie which came first), it's about the significance of the messengers and the way in which the message that people hear can change.
If human free will led to sin, what is the guarantee it won't do so again in heaven?
I would suggest that free will can manifest in two ways. In this life, where good and bad exist beside each other in close proximity, both in our minds and in the world around us, free will naturally manifests as the freedom to make a choice between the two. But in the next life, where good and bad are separated to avoid conflict, free will naturally manifests as the freedom to experience whatever comes from fully embracing what we have chosen, unencumbered by all the obstacles and conflict we encounter in this life.
That free will allowed for sin in this world doesn't necessarily mean it allows for the same possibility in the next.
Aye, it depends on other factors. For free will to lead to sin requires the presence of temptation, which in heaven seems more than unlikely.
It’s being separated, not only from them, but from God and goodness and love, forever. Even if it’s by the offender’s own choice, that’s horrible. It makes any imagery of fire and worms and such minuscule by comparison. I’d rather have fire and the love of Jesus and others rather than luxury and isolation.
Someone (Lewis?) said that Hell is only Hell from the point of view of those outside it. I can see that.
The references to Lewis in this thread remind me that his views were significantly influenced by George MacDonald. MacDonald, however, was a notable believer in (patristic) universalism, a view not shared by Lewis. In The Great Divorce, the protagonist encounters George Macdonald:
‘In your own books, Sir,’ said I, ‘you were a Universalist. You talked as if all men would be saved. And St. Paul too.’
‘Ye can know nothing of the end of all things, or nothing expressible in those terms. It may be, as the Lord said to the Lady Julian, that all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of thing will be well. But it’s ill talking of such questions.’
If God watched the way my friends in undergrad made jokes about Chick Tracts, God would certainly understand. And that is one way of coping with Hell.
The notion is so ridiculously depicted that it becomes an existe of ntial punchline. It's a bit like how people deal with any other kind of tyrant, you either cower in terror or you laugh uproariously because the whole premise is - literally - absurd. You're punishing me for not worshiping you? And you call this love? WTF, dude...
Pain compliance is unethical. Full stop. If your rule depends fundamentally on that, you have no business being in charge.
What about punishment - is completely painless punishment possible?
Neither George MacDonald nor C S Lewis believed in a punitive God, but they both saw God's purpose in human suffering, in Lewis' case, here on earth. From The Problem with Pain:
If tribulation is a necessary element in redemption, we must anticipate that it will never cease till God sees the world to be either redeemed or no further redeemable.
…
God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world ... No doubt Pain as God’s megaphone is a terrible instrument: it may lead to final and unrepented rebellion. But it gives the only opportunity the bad man can have for amendment.
There's one issue in connection with the question of hell that this thread hasn't touched on, and I'm curious how the Biblical literalists deal with it, and that's the question of infant damnation. This holds interest for me because I have a very dear friend who started life as a self described pious Catholic alter boy, and has ended up now in his 70s as a total atheist.
The issue that was the final blow to his theism was when, in his college days, one of those Campus Crusade for Christ guys tried to recruit him, and it came out that, yes, the logical outgrowth of his faith was that unbaptized infants and children were in hell. This was such anathema to him that he chucked the whole thing.
So I am curious about how this plays out in the faith of the literalists about hell who have been posting here. I know the Catholic church came up with Limbo to explain this, but have since discarded that. So what's the answer?
There's no reason to think infants and children who are unbaptized go to hell. That's ridiculous, when the verse usually cited (from Mark 16) very carefully avoids saying anything of the sort--"He who believes and is baptized shall be saved but he who does not believe is condemned". Note it does NOT say "He who is not baptized," even though that would be the expected ending to such a sentence beginning. It is deliberately left out. Then there is of course the example of the thief on the cross who was presumably un baptized, and Paul's mysterious words "As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive" -- in both instances the qualifier for death / resurrection is simply being a human being. Being human means being part of the "all" who are in Adam and side as a result; but that same "all " gets made alive "in Christ" . And just as infants are not exempt from death, neither are they exempt from resurrection. The same holds true for the severely disabled, both physically and mentally, and for the permanently unconscious. If you are human enough to die, you're human enough to be saved. And the way Paul phrases it suggests that life is an opt-out situation--those who choose to reject Christ certainly may, but those incapable of choice get life. Jesus seems to confirm this when he describes little children as "these little ones who believe in me" even though the child was small enough for Jesus to hold in his arms.
All of this (waves hands) has the further advantage of explaining w where the huge innumerable crowds of people around God's throne in the book of Revelation come from. Because most of the human race has always died before age five, many before birth. If I'm right, these who are too young to refuse him will be saved , as well as those who can't refuse due to other problem like disability. Because we need to remember: God WANTS as many as possible to be saved, his bias is in favor of saving, and he is not anal or a victim of scrupulosity. Nothing will stop him from saving but our own ongoing permanent refusal, chosen with our eyes open. He really does want us.
For some of my teenage years I went to an FIEC* church where the pastor ,in his evangelistic preaching, would point with one hand up towards heaven and downwards with his other hand to a "Christless eternity". The gospel message had an urgency about it and was intended to be seriously thought-provoking.
Since I've been in the warm fuzz of a suburban C of E church I don't think I've ever heard any preaching that has addressed the possibility of 'Hell' or anything like it. And I'd be gob-smacked if I did hear such preaching. As a consequence I think the 'Gospel message' is 'weaker' and I'm not sure what I think about that.
*Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches -whose Doctrinal Basis includes "After His return in glory.. Christ will judge the world... The wicked will be sent to eternal punishment".
I think there's a difference between "pain compliance" and "suffering that is intrinsic to change." Appropriate discipline may involve discomfort, certainly, but that's not the same thing as saying something akin to "You must obey me merely because I have the ability to hurt you."
And in my opinion, Hell is not a place of punishment, because the purpose of punishment is transformation. You "punish" someone to change their behavior. By the time the soul is in Hell, according to most models, there is no hope for change. Transformative change is for Purgatory, or for being alive.
For some of my teenage years I went to an FIEC* church where the pastor ,in his evangelistic preaching, would point with one hand up towards heaven and downwards with his other hand to a "Christless eternity". The gospel message had an urgency about it and was intended to be seriously thought-provoking.
Since I've been in the warm fuzz of a suburban C of E church I don't think I've ever heard any preaching that has addressed the possibility of 'Hell' or anything like it. And I'd be gob-smacked if I did hear such preaching. As a consequence I think the 'Gospel message' is 'weaker' and I'm not sure what I think about that.
I would see it as the other way around, I think. What you describe from your youth strikes me not so much as “intended to be seriously thought-provoking” as it does as intended to be fear-provoking. It has always struck my as a very impoverished and skewed Gospel message, focused as it is almost completely on what happens to an individual—i.e., me—after death.
You know there's an awful lot of literalists who would disagree with you, LC. But I like your take on it.
I'd like to hear them try to support their view from scripture, then! Because the poorly educated we have with us always, and sheer numbers don't make them right.
Thing is, @Lamb Chopped they will state their case from scripture, just as you have done.
They wouldn't accept your 'take' on these things anymore than you would accept theirs.
We have to ground our arguments in scripture of course but a sword-fight with Bible verses rarely yields any positive result - as I so often found in debates with Jehovah's Witnesses and so on.
A debate with a liberalism (and there aren't just Protestant ones of course) will almost invariably end up with stacking up a barricade of proof-texts on either side.
What we need, of course, are cases made on the whole tenor of scripture - as you were doing in your post - and the heft and balance of tradition/Tradition.
That applies whether we go in for Holy Tradition on a macro-level as it were, or small t tradition at a 'localised' level.
I can see where @Merry Vole is coming from in expressing concern about 'weakening' the Gospel if we don't introduce a whiff of sulphur. Thing is, if we take any tradition or tendency seriously within Christianity as a whole, be it a liberal or conservative stance or all stations in between, it's going to make demands on us.
Or should do.
Comfy, cosy, suburban Christianity - what C S Lewis called 'milk and water Christianity' - isn't confined to particular churches or denominations.
Such places can also be Zoars and havens for those battered and bruised in abusive or more full-on settings.
Equally, we can find individuals quietly living out exemplary Christian lives anywhere and everywhere.
I believe there should certainly be some challenge and 'bite' to the way we present the Gospel (although embodying it is better than simply presenting it of course). But I agree with @Nick Tamen that 'turn or burn' isn't the smartest way to proceed.
However we understand these things the biggest challenge is to be as Christ to those around us. He is the Gospel. He is the Good News. The Orient from on high to use a seasonal Orthodox expression.
Sure, propositions and stating cases, deploying and applying scripture is all part of that- and part of what we all do here.
I have no idea how we work all these things out but follow we must.
@NicoleMR: about five hundred years ago, Martin Luther wrote in pastoral concern to those fearful of hell when unbaptized infants died: "As to what becomes of the souls of unbaptized infants, we commend them to the mercy of God."
Luther had a very high opinion of Baptism and the necessity of it, but that did not preclude the active grace of God.
Comments
Why can't it be a bit of both? Suggesting that our responses are either one or the other sounds like a false binary.
My understanding is that it can sometimes be seen as pejorative to suggest that people are resistant to new ideas (or other people's ideas). However, it isn't usually seen as controversial to suggest that resistance is a natural human response often rooted in fear or uncertainty. The issue being addressed here is the question of how long people can fear something, in which regard it seems entirely reasonable to consider how long people express negativity about the concept, and the nature of that negativity.
If God watched the way my friends in undergrad made jokes about Chick Tracts, God would certainly understand. And that is one way of coping with Hell.
The notion is so ridiculously depicted that it becomes an existential punchline. It's a bit like how people deal with any other kind of tyrant, you either cower in terror or you laugh uproariously because the whole premise is - literally - absurd. You're punishing me for not worshiping you? And you call this love? WTF, dude...
Pain compliance is unethical. Full stop. If your rule depends fundamentally on that, you have no business being in charge.
For example let's say a village was known to be infected with the plague. Cutting them off and burning everything to the ground seemed like a sensible (if not scientifically effective) precaution.
It's a bit circular but if people don't know things it isn't unreasonable for them to act as if they don't know things.
Of course. I would do the same if I believed in that sort of God. It's one reason why I think the deterrent effect is very over-rated.
I think the abusive behaviours mentioned above only come to be done in, or by, societies whose members have, to a significant extent, internalised the existence of hell. Once hell is a thing to be feared, and becomes the thing feared over all other things, then “the only thing we have to fear is hell itself”, and all other fears become secondary.
However, rather importantly, the way in which Jesus' message is transformational is not primarily about fear. The primary transformational element of Jesus' message is love. Love takes precedence over fear: Putting this in terms of heaven and hell, I take it that saving people from hell is secondary to saving people for heaven. In contrast, it's long struck me that, for the majority of (evangelical) evangelists I've talked to about this, the primary motivation is not saving people for eternal life in heaven, but saving people from eternal torment in hell.
Even in good faith (ie leaving aside all the bad faith actors involved in the Church's activities over the past 2000 years), I can see how this attitude could inform and reflect an environment in which it would be possible to justify the behaviours described above. This isn't about cause and effect (ie which came first), it's about the significance of the messengers and the way in which the message that people hear can change.
Aye, it depends on other factors. For free will to lead to sin requires the presence of temptation, which in heaven seems more than unlikely.
What about punishment - is completely painless punishment possible?
Neither George MacDonald nor C S Lewis believed in a punitive God, but they both saw God's purpose in human suffering, in Lewis' case, here on earth. From The Problem with Pain:
The issue that was the final blow to his theism was when, in his college days, one of those Campus Crusade for Christ guys tried to recruit him, and it came out that, yes, the logical outgrowth of his faith was that unbaptized infants and children were in hell. This was such anathema to him that he chucked the whole thing.
So I am curious about how this plays out in the faith of the literalists about hell who have been posting here. I know the Catholic church came up with Limbo to explain this, but have since discarded that. So what's the answer?
All of this (waves hands) has the further advantage of explaining w where the huge innumerable crowds of people around God's throne in the book of Revelation come from. Because most of the human race has always died before age five, many before birth. If I'm right, these who are too young to refuse him will be saved , as well as those who can't refuse due to other problem like disability. Because we need to remember: God WANTS as many as possible to be saved, his bias is in favor of saving, and he is not anal or a victim of scrupulosity. Nothing will stop him from saving but our own ongoing permanent refusal, chosen with our eyes open. He really does want us.
Since I've been in the warm fuzz of a suburban C of E church I don't think I've ever heard any preaching that has addressed the possibility of 'Hell' or anything like it. And I'd be gob-smacked if I did hear such preaching. As a consequence I think the 'Gospel message' is 'weaker' and I'm not sure what I think about that.
*Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches -whose Doctrinal Basis includes "After His return in glory.. Christ will judge the world... The wicked will be sent to eternal punishment".
And in my opinion, Hell is not a place of punishment, because the purpose of punishment is transformation. You "punish" someone to change their behavior. By the time the soul is in Hell, according to most models, there is no hope for change. Transformative change is for Purgatory, or for being alive.
I'd like to hear them try to support their view from scripture, then! Because the poorly educated we have with us always, and sheer numbers don't make them right.
They wouldn't accept your 'take' on these things anymore than you would accept theirs.
We have to ground our arguments in scripture of course but a sword-fight with Bible verses rarely yields any positive result - as I so often found in debates with Jehovah's Witnesses and so on.
A debate with a liberalism (and there aren't just Protestant ones of course) will almost invariably end up with stacking up a barricade of proof-texts on either side.
What we need, of course, are cases made on the whole tenor of scripture - as you were doing in your post - and the heft and balance of tradition/Tradition.
That applies whether we go in for Holy Tradition on a macro-level as it were, or small t tradition at a 'localised' level.
I can see where @Merry Vole is coming from in expressing concern about 'weakening' the Gospel if we don't introduce a whiff of sulphur. Thing is, if we take any tradition or tendency seriously within Christianity as a whole, be it a liberal or conservative stance or all stations in between, it's going to make demands on us.
Or should do.
Comfy, cosy, suburban Christianity - what C S Lewis called 'milk and water Christianity' - isn't confined to particular churches or denominations.
Such places can also be Zoars and havens for those battered and bruised in abusive or more full-on settings.
Equally, we can find individuals quietly living out exemplary Christian lives anywhere and everywhere.
I believe there should certainly be some challenge and 'bite' to the way we present the Gospel (although embodying it is better than simply presenting it of course). But I agree with @Nick Tamen that 'turn or burn' isn't the smartest way to proceed.
However we understand these things the biggest challenge is to be as Christ to those around us. He is the Gospel. He is the Good News. The Orient from on high to use a seasonal Orthodox expression.
Sure, propositions and stating cases, deploying and applying scripture is all part of that- and part of what we all do here.
I have no idea how we work all these things out but follow we must.
Luther had a very high opinion of Baptism and the necessity of it, but that did not preclude the active grace of God.