Four Kinds of Forgiveness

We are forewarned -

" at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of His power, in flaming fire.

Rendering vengeance to those who do not know God and tot those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

They will pay the penalty of eternal destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His strength when He comes to be glorified in His saints and to be marveled at in all those who have believed (because our testimony to you was believed) in that day." (1 Thess. 7b-9)

Some may reason this way:

A. If the message of 1 Thess. 1:7-10 is credible then it is true.

B. The message is not credible to me.

C. Therefore the message is not true.

Such a one is hoping that premise A is true.
If it is a false premise conclusion C will not be the result.
The penalty will still be paid.

And someone may reason like this:

A. If the message of 1 Thess. 1:7-10 is explained well by Christian Jack then the message is true.

B. Christian Jack is not very good at explaining the message.

C. Therefore the message is not true.

Such a one is hoping that premise A is true.
If it is a false premise conclusion C will not be the result.
The penalty will still be paid.

The Christian as a messenger or explainer is not the enforcer of the penalty only a messenger, albeit not the best.

It may be that if the Christian badly misrepresent things that will be taken into account by a Perfect Judge God. Probably anyone smart enough to that will give them some advantage is also smart enough to realize he would do well just to believe the warning so that the punitive penalty is not paid.

Then there are those who just want to gamble and take their chances. They should consider the character of the Person responsible for the whole matter - Jesus Christ.

Christian ______ (even the Apostle Paul) may in fact be a poor example and explainer. We give him an D or F in explaining the Gospel of Christ. I would not put confidence in that situation rendering Christ's words as frivolous.

As it stands I think Paul is as good a conveyor of Christ's teaching as there can be. God would see to it that the most prevailing conveyor of His gospel would also be the most faithful example of a consistent disciple.

@FMF

If all the fearmongering and threats and attempts at psychological coercion made by Christians don't work ~ for lack of corroborating evidence to back their claims ~ and non-believers go to their graves as non-believers, what would be the purpose [ideologically and morally speaking] of a creator being carrying out the threat to torture them if the people still alive [living non-believers] do not know?

I don't see it this way. I go back to the first warning of God to created man.

"Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you may not eat. For in the day you eat of it you will surely die. " [paraphrase]

Satan the slanderer comes alongs and twists the truth with a question:

"Yea, has God restricted you from eating ANY tree of the garden?" [paraphrase]

His question is an accusation against God's heart for man. It portrays that God does not have a heart of love to Adam. It implies that God is withholding something to the hurt of Adam. It portrays that God is evil and that the serpent (Satan) is the rescuer. It in fact exactly REVERSES the truth of the universe.

I think you have succumbed to the same deception.
You don't believe in God. And what you have heard you twist to be convinced that God's heart is evil if He is real. I

In fact you almost arrive at a philosophy that ANY warning of danger constitutes evil bullying, coercing, and fear mongering.

A loving parent warns a child not to run across the street blindly chasing a toy ball. "Fear mongering!" you grumble.

Life in the creation involves our free will. We can choose. But there are laws both natural and spiritual by which the creation runs. Free will has its blessed results. But it can also have its terrible results.

Of the terrible results we are warned. Some grumble "Fear mongering! I should be free to do whatever I want."

I think the truth of God's creation is:

1.) We are free to choose.
2.) We are not always free to escape the consequences of what we have chosen.

I do not claim I do the best explaining. And if you want use my failure to be convincing in explaining as a good reason to not believe, what can I do about that. Run with that and see how it turns out.

Time will tell. "Torture god ideology" you may repeat 100 times, bold it, underline it.

I cannot deny that it says "tormented" concerning three individuals - Satan - his antichrist - and the false prophet. And it says those whose names are not recorded in the Lamb's book of life go to the same place.

It is written I think taking away any hope of thinking one will be comfortable to be forever un-reconciled and un-forgiven by God - rejecting His becoming sin on our behalf in His love to save us.

RIcher's Island is a prison in New York. It may be that there are worse places then others in the prison. Maybe Solitary is much worse then some other place.

The loving parent would want her children to avoid the ENTIRE place and situation. Maybe the lake of fire is described in terms of its WORST possible penalty. The Bible is not Danta's Divine Comedy. The ENTIRE situation of the second death is to be avoided.

And arguing that the torment of the serial child rapist is not just for the tax evader may be persuasive. But the loving parent would not want to give any impression that under ANY circumstances one should want to end up in the Richer's Island.

Under no circumstances should we want to end up not reconciled to God. And under no circumstances should we not want our names to be recorded in the Lamb's book of life at the end of time.

Now you are free to say there is no such book because there is no such God and no such Savior. And you are free to reject God's word because after hearing it you still can make questions.

"The fact that once hearing this Bible, I can still form a thousand questions" may not be a mechanism that can render what you were told frivolous and not real.

We do not understand everything even about ourselves. We don't just choose to die because we still have many questions.
We have an adequate understanding to live.

I think we have an adequate understanding about eternal destinies. We can receive Christ as divine and eternal life now. We don't have to be without any further questions totally to make a wise decision about what has been explained by Him.

@sonship said
I go back to the first warning of God to created man.

I lack belief in the particular mythology that appeals to your imagination and which has you talking here about "the first warning of God to created man".

@sonship said
I don't see it this way. I go back to the first warning of God to created man.

"Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you may not eat. For in the day you eat of it you will surely die. " [paraphrase]

Satan the slanderer comes alongs and twists the truth with a question:

"Yea, has God restricted you fr ...[text shortened]... without any further questions totally to make a wise decision about what has been explained by Him.

I've read all that carefully, twice. And I think, to a certain degree, you are spamming me.

I will ask the question once more and see if you are willing to tackle it head on rather than try to smother the conversation with tracts of texts asserting your religious doctrine as if I were a fellow believer.

Try to focus on the sharp end of what I am asking you instead of trying to blunt it and avoid it by laying down banks of white phosphorous dogma. Here it is:

If all the fearmongering and threats and attempts at psychological coercion made by Christians don't work

~ for lack of corroborating evidence to back their claims ~

and non-believers go to their graves as non-believers,

what would be the purpose [ideologically and morally speaking] of a creator being carrying out the threat to torture them

...if the people still alive [living non-believers] do not know?

@sonship said
@FMF


And I am not impressed with re-asking questions as a method of dodging answers given.

I am not dodging at all. But I know why you are.

@FMF

I lack belief in the particular mythology that appeals to your imagination and which has you talking here about "the first warning of God to created man".

You don't have to believe in the history of humans and God in order to understand the principle laid out in the logic.

Your lack of belief lacks relevance.

@sonship said
You don't have to believe in the history of humans and God in order to understand the principle laid out in the logic.

Your lack of belief lacks relevance.

You're so self-regardingly religious, you cannot comprehend lack of belief.

You're so obsessively religious you cannot conceive of the fact that your ideology is morally incoherent.

The people that dreamed up the torturer god ideology didn't stop to think logically about lack of belief.

And here you are parotting it to a non-believer thinking that massive stodgy dollops of doctrine - that you have no evidence to support or even render credible - will somehow disguise the half-baked nature of your convoluted nonsense about "fear" and bizarro "justice".

The dead-and-buried ideologues you are enthrall to have hung you out to dry.

@FMF

You're so self-regardingly religious, you cannot comprehend lack of belief.

I comprehend that "lack belief" is a handy phrase developed by new atheists to reinforce their debating position. They have that right.

But the whole "I lack belief" thing was designed to place all burden of proof on the theist. What they mean is that they are not making any truth claim. Ie " I shoulder absolutely no to burden of proof. All burden of prove is on the theists. I am ever only a passive inquisitor with lack of belief."

Older style atheists made a truth claim.

You're so obsessively religious you cannot conceive of the fact that your ideology is morally incoherent.

I think in civil society of imperfect justice some find that fact that they are in prison "incoherent."

And in a world in which there is a perfect Judge being punished by God will appear "incoherent" with those whose guilt has not been dealt with. This will be a temporary bafflement.

I don't think the lost will be baffled with the incoherence of their being lost. I suspect that they will be baffled at how stupid it was to consider their Creator as their enemy.

I think it is better to have these realizations now upon hearing God's word.

The people that dreamed up the torturer god ideology didn't stop to think logically about lack of belief.

What I know about God punishing some in eternal punishment came mainly from the mouth of Jesus Christ.

And from His mouth came undoubtedly the most gracious words of love, forgiveness, mercy, and longsuffering.

Being chided though these attributes of God will not go on forever for the unbeliever. And that is a matter of justice. That I am not able to carry out that judgment is my limitation and finititude.

I trust that God is not incompetent. And the hope that any such last judgment cannot be but incompetent I regard as a vain hope.

We are warned - it is impossible for God to lie.

And here you are parotting it to a non-believer

You are following me from thread to thread asking that it be repeated. That is not parroting to an unbeliever.

That is sometimes not remaining altogether silent to provocation.

thinking that massive stodgy dollops of doctrine

Christ has won my sense of approvedness more than any other human who has ever lived. God did not send anybody to speak these vital things. He sent One who wanted nothing for himself but wanted all for the will of His Father.

You see if you come back with "I lack belief" I have to repeat - your lack of belief lacks relevance.

Time will have to do its work, Time will tell if your lack of belief is informed or the life and words of Jesus are. I think the life and words of Jesus Christ are believable and will be vindicated to the uttermost.

- that you have no evidence to support or even render credible

If I had not adequate evidence that Jesus Christ can be trusted, I probably wouldn't trust the New Testament.

I just don't disguise the refusal of my will with the public demand that more evidence is needed.

We get it. You "lack" and want to remain with the "lack".

If you could be persuaded that Christ rose from the dead and is an authority on actual ultimate destinies would you become a Christian?

You probably will tell me now about how you were a Christian. But I don't know that.

- will somehow disguise the half-baked nature of your convoluted nonsense about "fear" and bizarro "justice".

It has to be absolute justice because the One whose judgment AND redemption you reject is the Absolute Moral Being.

It has to be justice unless you expect that God bestowed upon His creatures a sense of morality which He didn't have to give.

I think the effect cannot be greater than the cause.
So the thought of the incompetent ultimate Governor wrongly punishing the more competent creature is a vain hope and an impossible situation.

God has communicated to us in terms that we can understand - we will not enjoy eternal separation from His love.

The dead-and-buried ideologues you are enthrall to have hung you out to dry.

The Christian faith is alive and well. Far from it dying out to be buried in the 21rst century it is spreading and growing as much as it has in other centuries.

We just don't expect the same denominational structures to be perpetual. Some traditional structures lose members. But the faith itself is growing on the four continents.

The announcement of the death of God has been tried before. Those who started the hype, rather, are now dead.

As for "enthrallment" - I do not have to like everything I read in the Bible. I feel to believe what it says.

I would much rather start threads on many positive things concerning the eternal purpose. You and Dive see to it always that you follow these threads and bring up torture.

You re-visit the matter and then say I am "enthralled".
It appears that the negative enthrallment is coming from your side.

And now since this is considered "spamming" by me against you, I will cut this reply here.

I consider you like a blind man who lacks belief that the sun exists. Whatever is done by those who see that the sun is there, you have excuses for with endless conspiracy theories.

The analogy is not perfect. No need to look for inconsistencies for me.

@sonship said
I consider you like a blind man who lacks belief that the sun exists. Whatever is done by those who see that the sun is there, you have excuses for with endless conspiracy theories.

I am not blind. And I can see the sun. So can you. You are like someone who is making claims about a sun/star so far away that absolutely no one has any evidence that it exists. And then on top of that, you are trying to threaten me with being supernaturally tortured for eternity unless I also believe the star exists.