The god who burns people alive for eternity

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"And God said: 'Let Us make automatons in Our image, according to Our likeness …"

The logic crashes right there already, you see.

*Genesis 1:26, "And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness …"*

We will never understand anything about Hell unless we understand that God chose to populate this planet not with zombies but with moral agents.

A moral agent is a person who can discern right from wrong and is accountable for his or her actions. A person who has freedom of choice, that is to say. And God, being Who He is, respects that freedom of choice.

True: two chapters later, in Genesis 3, we learn about the Fall. Equally true: in no later chapter, _beginning with Genesis 4_, do we learn that man ceased being a moral agent.

Discerning right from wrong presupposes light. Light, as in knowing what is right and what is wrong. Sin is what 1 John 3:4 says it is — lawlessness. There's no being lawless without light on the law in the lawlessness. That is why it is not true that babies who die go to Hell. Jesus held out small children to us *not* as examples of sinfulness but as examples of innocence. Luke 18:15-17. David, whose poem in Psalm 51 has often been *forced* to teach sinfulness in babies, says in 2 Samuel 12:23 about his dead baby, "I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me".

Moral responsibility goes hand in hand with light. Children discern right from wrong only later. And yet later comes the time when parents can do no better than to respect their freedom to choose for themselves. See Luke 15:11-32.

God does the same with us. That in short is how C.S. Lewis could end up saying there are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done."

For some background, here is the most thorough treatment I have ever heard on "the unpardonable sin":

austin-sparks.net/TAS0061.mp3

(More than an hour and he starts slowly, but hear him out — it's worth it.)

@thinkofone said
With the Bible being what it is, there's no choice for anyone other than to pick which parts they want to believe.

Many, like you, lack to integrity to acknowledge this fact.

If you believe what KJ posted isn't nonsensical, by all means formulate a cogent argument to that effect. If you remain true to form, you'll refuse.

Interpretation of the Bible is tricky. Something that has helped me a lot with interpreting the Bible, is the 8 levels of understanding Scripture, as described by Moises Silva.

It requires that, when reading Scripture, we look at it through various lenses:

1) Linguistic level (different translations, words used, how is the sentence constructed)

2) Socio-historical context (what was the history of that time, what were the uses, culture, politics of the specific time)

3) Message within the time (looking at points in nr 2, what was the author trying to say to the people of that time? What significance must this text have had to those people)

4) Historicity of the passage (was the text meant as a real life story, or as an metaphor or as poetry or opinion)

5) Context within Bible (be aware of the context of the whole book and passage - this specific text should be read within the bigger context)

6) Canonical context (what is God saying within the context and time of the Scripture - God sometimes builds a better understanding over time, an example of this is how He says an eye for an eye, and then later it develops to turn the other cheek).

7) History of interpretation (over the course of history, how have other Christians interpreted this scripture, what has the Holy Spirit illuminated regarding this text.. See different commentaries on the text)

8) Personal meaning (what does the passage mean to me in this day and age)

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You have forgotten one very important part:

Christ Himself says that hell exists in the Gospels.

I have never heard you account for this.

Moreover, as Kelly Jay has eloquently pointed out before: Christ talks about hell more than anyone else in the Bible.

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I understand this. When we interpret everything that we read in Scriptures regarding the end of times and regarding hell, it seems to contradict a bit with the way that God is portrayed in the rest of the Bible. If we look at the history of prophecies, we tend to find that the human interpretation of these prophecies were way inferior to the reality of what happened. For example, the Jewish leadership and scholars had a very clear idea of what the Messiah would be like. But when Jesus came to earth, although all of the prophesies regarding Him were correct, He was completely different to the mental picture that the Jews had in their heads. He was so much more wonderful! He was so wonderful, in fact, that no one during that time in history would have been able to grasp or predict what He would be like (even with all the prophecies).

I think that the end times and our understanding of Hell and Heaven is the same. We have these prophecies, and they are true (whether in literal or figurative sense we cannot be completely sure of until Jesus' second coming). But our minds are so small that we are not able to fully grasp it. I think that when we try too hard to create answers for God, then we end up confusing ourselves and others.

There have been years of my life where I would study Revelations and Daniel day and night.

But strangely enough, the more I get to know God on a personal level, the more I see His power, mercy, love, holiness and righteousness. The more I feel light and happy about the fact that He is the One overseeing the end times, judgement and afterlife. I know He is good beyond my abity to grasp. And I know that if I struggle to understand Hell (for example), I can simply find rest in the fact that nothing that God has ever done has been mean or unfair. What God does is always superior (more kind, more loving, more righteous) to what we imagine. And in that I find my peace. ❤

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Do you believe your moral principle is superior to God’s? Or anyone else’s for that matter?

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OK, so what does this mean:

44 “Then they also will answer [d]Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ 45 Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ 46 And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

(Matthew 25)

@philokalia said
OK, so what does this mean:

44 “Then they also will answer [d]Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ 45 Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ 46 And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

(Matthew 25)

Dive is probably going to say he’s not interested.

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Bingo.