What made me question CS Lewis’ theory of hell was when David Bentley Hart wrote, “It makes no more sense, then, to say that God allows creatures to damn themselves out of his love for them or out of his respect for their freedom than to say a father might reasonably allow his deranged child to thrust her face into a fire out of a tender regard for her moral autonomy.”
@@storba3860 Certainly as long as we deny God we will not enter heaven. Peter denied God but later repented and I assume he is in heaven. It seems to me given enough time all people will turn to God. “for as ALL die in Adam, so ALL will be made alive in Christ.” 1 Corinthians 15:22
@@storba3860 I don’t see what either of those those things has to do with what I said. The location of Hades is irrelevant. Also if someone is cast into the lake of fire I do not see why it cannot be a refining fire from which you can emerge with the sin burned away.
@@benbockelman6125 I mean this from a good faith position of either ignorance or doctrinal study (or both?). I don't see a whole lot of evidence for the conclusion you presented. I understand the concept you outlined, and that God WANTS us to turn to him, but I struggle with finding scriptural evidence or scriptural context for hell being a purging process. I don't know of many nuances beyond the common convention: if you live for yourself, then hell is the eternal reward. If you live for Christ, then heaven. We've heard how the house will be burned and tested, and the house of stone, precious metals and precious gems will survive the fire, and that the house of wood will be burned-- with the builder running to escape the Holy fire, but even with that, I find many dots that need to be connected. Such as in that same example, the builder still ran from God's judgment with no indication that he would come back. The parable also did not indicate any sort of refinement. It seemed to represent a judgment. Please believe when I say this: i am on the a quest for Truth, NOT to be right. I welcome any engagement you have to offer on this if you're interested in such a conversation
You're a superlative mind, Randal! I think you're one of the greatest thinkers on many subjects, including my favorite thing that brings me ultimate peace and joy, which is universal salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ (If I'd said this 15-20 years ago, I would have sounded like a hyper-religious zealot)! All that aside, in my heart, I know that Jesus Christ is the savior of the world and that it's fully true, no doubts! Your presence and the wisdom you share is highly undervalued and underrated (and lovingly welcomed)!
I am greatly comforted to know that Jesus 'Holds the keys to death and Hades' ( Rev 1 :18 ) The saviour who 'sets the captives free' is indeed the one who is actually in total control .
Also, eternal punishment is not a just punishment for a finite life of sin, because human being simply cannot *truly* comprehend the concept of infinity. You may think you can, but no matter how you slice it, you end up thinking of it as "a period of time," which it's not. Therefore the punishment of eternity is not just and in proportion to a 70+ year life.
Many of us believe the Bible does NOT teach “eternal punishment” but instead Conditional Immortality. I highly recommend delving into the work of Edward Fudge. His YT videos are a great place to begin, and to dig deeper, he wrote well-researched books on this subject.
To me, it seems basically impossible to believe that any conscious agent with "free will" would choose the exact same state of existence for all of eternity, like what C.S. Lewis describes. The idea that every single person going to hell wants to be there permanently, in agony, is preposterous. It's like a criminal "choosing" to stay in solitary confinement for 1 million years, and at no point wishing to be released, but even more ridiculous because of hell being eternal.
Perhaps it's even greater agony and torture for an unsaved person to be in God's presence, so they choose their own self imposed hell rather than be with God for eternity.
@@Patrick-sg7cm I wouldn't see that as likely, since those who are unsaved probably want what they don't deserve, which could include salvation. Although again, a self-imposed Hell seems contradictory to human nature, as no one would choose to stay the same permanently, assuming that they could even choose such a thing instead of changing over time naturally anyways. It's an interesting idea, but it seems to fall flat.
@@Patrick-sg7cm That doesn't even make sense. If your kid is misbehaving in a way you know they're suffering you don't enable their bad behavior. Let alone put them in the same place as the literal embodiment of evil. If a person doesn't come screaming out of Hell after 10 minutes they're not in any actual danger. The only way anyone would stay in Hell forever is if God has the doors to Hell bolted shut or Heaven is just kinda mediocre.
Yeah. I only see one possible case for people staying in hell. Maybe they want to stay in hell because they are so offended by the fact that the rules are made the way they ended up in hell and thats why they hate god for that and dont want be with this god ? Maybe this would the only possibility for the case that hell is locked from the inside. but it is NOT solving the problem of hell. For me the whole topic about "you send yourself to hell not god" is a chicken egg problem. You should ask Why do people send themselves to hell? maybe they are not convinced that they send themselves to hell and think god is evil….
@@levimark548 There are people who would rather not be with God, but sheer agony would eventually make us change our ways because negative reinforcement is a powerful tool. It might be a "chicken egg problem" but I think it's in the sense that God made people to go to hell. He knew what they'd do before making them, and in doing so is making people just to send them to hell by setting them up himself.
I appreciate your tweet from a while ago about C.S. Lewis being difficult to read. I'd never heard anyone else say that before, and the way in which you categorized those difficulties made a lot of sense to me. I read "The Problem of Pain" several years ago and remember finding it tricky to follow. So far as theodicies go, I liked Gregory Boyd's "Satan and the Problem of Evil" more.
My ultimate philosophical argument against Eternal Conscious Torment is that when you strip everything away, there are only two reasons why someone would remain in agony in Hell forever: either God *can't* get them out, or God *won't* get them out. If He can't, then He is not all powerful, and if He won't, then the boundless grace of Christ is not boundless.
I have no problem saying God can't get them out. All you're saying is that God can't force someone to make a free choice. That's not really any different than saying God can't make a square circle or a married bachelor.
Less than five years before C. S. Lewis died a reverend asked why he did not agree with the universalism of George MacDonald whom Lewis dubbed “my spiritual mentor.” Lewis replied, “I parted company from MacDonald on that point because a higher authority - the Dominical utterances themselves - seemed to me irreconcilable with universalism… The finality of the Either-Or, the Sheep and Goats, the Wise and Foolish Virgins - is so emphatic and reiterated in our Lord’s teaching that, in my opinion, it simply cannot be evaded. If we do not know that he said that, then we do not know what he said about anything. And this is my sole reason… Need I add that I should very much prefer to follow G.M. on this point if I could?” [C. S. Lewis to Rev. Alan Fairhust, personal letter, September 6, 1959] Still not as inane or unsympathetic as A joke C. S. Lewis told (when asked whether animals, including mosquitoes, might be resurrected in “heaven”/the new creation): C. S. Lewis wrote in The Problem of Pain: “Nor am I greatly moved by jocular inquiries such as, ‘Where will you put all the mosquitoes?’ - a question to be answered on its own level by pointing out that, if the worst came to worst, a heaven for mosquitoes and a hell for men could very conveniently be combined.” But the question is not as Lewis surmises, simply "Where will you put all the mosquitoes?" Where will you put all the parasites period? Parasites live not only off of human beings but animals as well, who suffer like us from mites, fleas, ticks, and species of flukes and worms that infest intestines, or even brains, or eyeballs. Filarial worms cause elephantiasis a disease that involves a horrendous inflation of the limbs or even one’s scrotal sac. And what about unicellular parasites like trypanosomes that cause malaria and Chagas disease? Deadly parasites cripple or kill myriads of animals, not just humans. Resurrect them all? Hell keeps growing grislier and grislier if you abide by Lewis's "convenient” solution. If I may paraphrase it, “If worst came to worst, a heaven for great white sharks and a hell for men could very conveniently be combined.” Let’s add jellyfish with stinging tentacles and every other creature with sharp fangs, claws, or painful venomous sting, all of them torturing resurrected flesh, inducing riots of pain forever like in a Clive Barker Hellraiser novel. How else is one to conceive the full implications of Clive Staples Lewis’s most unsympathetic theological statement? I also ran across this rejoinder to Lewis: “So where do the naughty mosquitoes go, Spider heaven? Venus Flytrap heaven?”
" If we do not know that he said that, then we do not know what he said about anything." Yep, fully agree. And that's something you just have to face if you want a mature and not a blind faith. We simply don't know what Jesus said about anything. All we can do is deal with deductions and probabilities. And that's enough to acknowledge how unique his message was.
@@DoloresLehmann Yes, but C. S. Lewis was willing to make excuses for Jesus prophesying incorrectly that the world's final judgment was not far off. Lewis argued that the human side of Jesus could commit such an error. But if Lewis could argue that the human side of Jesus could be incorrect about such a major cosmic prediction, why not admit that the human side of Jesus might also believe incorrect things about the afterlife, things that many believed in his day. By the way, prophecies of a soon coming final judgment are found in earnest in the the earliest NT writings, like the letters of Paul, while excuses for the delay of the final judgment appear in later writings of the NT, like Luke-Act and 2 Peter. (Search on the internet for "The Lowdown on God's Showdown" for examples of such incorrect prophesies throughout the NT.) What I am saying is that Jesus spoke like an apocalyptic prophet about divine punishment, even eternal punishment, and a soon coming final judgment. The earliest Gospel, Mark, has both the Baptist and Jesus preaching "the kingdom of God is at hand." But that was not an uncommon message seen in writings between the OT and NT. (Several groups in Jesus' day expected a soon coming final judgment, such a message is found in several inter-testamental writings including the Dead Sea Scrolls, all written prior to Jesus' birth.) In other words, hellish language (and soon coming kingdom language) was what the people understood back then, like other metaphors such as cutting off one's hand and plucking out one's eye to avoid sin. What would have stood out would have been if Jesus had spoken about universalism. Instead we see Jesus employing language and ideas exactly as one would expect for someone during the inter-testamental period, including belief in a literal Adam and Eve, Noah, Flood, Jonah story, etc. Because that was what people already believed. So such talk does not mean that the Bible must be literally interpreted exactly as inter-testamental Judaism interpreted it. Instead one is left questioning just how literally one should take the words and ideas of someone who was parroting what people of his generation already believed one or two centuries prior to his day. Speaking of which, note how Jesus says that those who do not leap on the "soon-coming-kingdom-of-God" bandwagon that the historical Jesus preached, should be viewed as "Gentiles and tax collectors" (per the Gospel of Matthew). No love for Gentiles I guess. Again, that is a typically insulting view of "Gentiles" and even of any fellow Jews working with Rome like "tax collectors."
@@edwardtbabinski I get your point, and although I agree with several things you said, I come to totally different conclusions. We basically have two different, yet related questions here: Did Jesus teach hell? and: Was Jesus an apocalypticist? I see all the evidence that points to a yes, and yet, I think the answer to both questions is no. To the first question: The fact that Matthew, who has hell threats left and right, was put first in the canon, leads us to overlook how many scriptures actually DON'T speak of hell. Paul doesn't, not once. John doesn't. Mark does once, maybe (although i think that's a misinterpretation, there's a different interpretation that makes far more sense), and Luke has the same passage as Mark, now modified to point to hell, and two more. So we have the earliest NT writer who doesn't speak of hell, we have one strand of tradition that ends in the gospel of John, that also doesn't teach hell, we have yet another strand of tradition that ends in the non-canonical gospel of Thomas, also without a mention of hell. And we have only one strand of tradition that starts with (maybe) Mark, and goes on enforcing the concept of hell up till Matthew. Why should this be the only one that represents Jesus' actual teachings? To the second point: Paul is clearly an apocalypticists, as are the evangelists. But was Jesus? Apart from all the apocalyptic passages and the later added passages that try to explain the delay of the apocalypse, there is a parallel strand of tradition that already begins in Mark and is clearly non- or even anti-apocalyptic. Most of the parables belong to this category, and two (the parable of the weeds and of the fishnet) are only turned apocalyptic by their interpretations, which are clearly later interpolations. So, either Jesus was an apocalypticist and an anti-apocalypticist at the same time, or one of those strands was added, either because he was misunderstood or with a clear agenda to twist his words. So, what's more likely? That an environment literally brimming with apocalyptic ideas, as you correctly point out, would have projected those expectations onto their leader character, or that it would have added a clearly anti-apocalyptic narrative to their apocalypticist leader? I find the first option far more logical. As to the "treat them like Gentiles or tax collectors", that's supposed for "brothers" who wrong you and won't listen to reason. That sounds far more like something taken out of the Pauline letters concerning internal disputes within the congregation, but even if Jesus actually said it: Judging by the way Jesus himself treated those people, that verse would most likely mean: Have dinner with them and make them your friends. It's of course clear that's not what the verse is supposed to mean, but then it contradicts Jesus' behaviour.
C. S. Lewis’ friend and fellow Inkling, Charles Williams, chided Lewis for attempting to explain what God had in mind when it came to evil and pain. Williams reminded Lewis that it was “Job’s comforters” (in the biblical book of Job) who sought to explain God's ways, while Job remained adamant that his sufferings made no sense and He would rather speak to God directly concerning such a matter, "But I would speak to the Almighty, And I desire to argue with God... O that a man might plead with God, As a man with his neighbor!.. Sorry comforters are you all. Is there no limit to windy words?" Williams added that the book of Job ends with God aiming His displeasure at Job’s comforters, who were “the kind of people who wrote books on the Problem of Pain,” a direct dig at Lewis’ book! Nor is “pain” the only thing that needs explaining, there's also fear, confusion, anxiety, forgetfulness, inaccurate or false memories, auditory and visual hallucinations, and the fact that a tiny brain tumor in the right place can turn a person into a pedophile (the person lost the desire for pedophila right after the tumor was removed), while other strange occurrences include a person who believed his wife was a hat, and people who believe they are dead no matter what they see themselves doing in a mirror or hear themselves saying. There's also the wild things people see and hear after ingesting only teensy amounts of drugs and/or poisons. And there's wild meditation experiences, lucid dreams, nightmares, obsessions and addictions to nearly anything, including some people who are addicted to having a limb surgically removed. Plus there are such things as sleepwalking, sleep-eating, sleep-driving, not to mention rumors and legends, circulating endlessly each day, including, misread signals, misheard words, misunderstood information, miscommunication in general and a hundred or so known cognitive biases, all which can naturally escalate into irritations, disagreements, or doubt.
The other option is that people who are in hell are able to commit suicide in every moment, but they choose not to. God allowed them to cease to exist, but it's their free choice to continue their existence.
C. S. Lewis defended a sort of eternal fading away, progressive-annihilationism, or as close to annihilationism as possible w/o the soul being absolutely snuffed out.
I enjoyed this video! I have one suggestion, however. When you criticize views that are held by the majority of Christians, you should then explain what your position is as a possible alternative. One of tho main reasons why I am an agnostic who still consumes Christian philosophy and content is because I listened to a podcast on annihilationism days before I really confronted the problem of Hell. Had I not known that there were viable alternatives, I likely would have become an atheist who would not have considered Christianity much further.
I'm not sure Lewis would have to accept the premise that God is appropriating self-torture as his mode of punishing them. Rather, Lewis and his intellectual ilk would say if the truth of a heart is the desire for something less than God, then God permits this. That hell is torture is perhaps, in this view, non-obvious to someone in Hell. To the light of a saint in Heaven, it would seem bleak and empty, but to a person in Hell, they have what they desire most. God, being God, cannot but continue to offer more than this Hell, and that is what frustrates the person in Hell- but how frustrating this is and in what form it appears to one in Hell, we can only guess. The offer for More would appeal to the denizen of Hell (hypothetical denizen, as I'm not sure about the issue myself) as authoritarian or deceiver, depending on the particular dispositions of sin. The next point is interesting: a whole person cannot enter Hell. This is like David Bentley Hart's claim that to be a person is to be oriented to God at least in part, and even the most partial orientation to God is, from the view of eternity, an absolute orientation to God. So there is at least a sense in which no "who" goes to Hell. So, if anything ends up in Hell, what? Lewis does not elaborate this point, but my understanding is that consciousness can fail the integration into personhood. A sort of integration is supplied in life with the human body. But if our character, through identifying with lesser goods and ends, fragments itself, then consciousness becomes a diversified set of tendencies. Once the integrating function of the body dies, these tendencies go off on their own ways towards their chosen ends, in a way not completely unlike the skandhas of Buddhism. In other words, the claim is that, while the body gives all humans the appearance of unity, and even grants a functional unity, what has grown, spiritually, in some bodies is something less than a person- the obvious example being a serial killer with no conscience that just is the desire to end life and assert power (nothing but self-assertion). While there is not a complete absence of being, the lack of human unity describes these spiritual zombies. In general, the truth that Hell is torment is not the lived experience of those consciousness fragments that just are their self-assertions. What it means to be a person is to be spiritually porous- we are our family and friends, in some sense. We have opened ourselves to God and neighbor such that they enter into and become us. No longer I (self-assertion) but Christ lives in the person fully alive.
It seems to me, especially upon reading Lewis’s preface, that he wasn’t so keen on writing this book to begin with. And that in fact he wasn’t convinced by his own beliefs/perceptions at the time.
When you critique Lewis’ ‘perplexing’ notion of 'humanity', in the sense that the damned become less-than/non/anti(?) human, I think there is a more to it than you presented here. On the Aristotelian view, us, humans, often become slaves to our 'sensible soul' (our instincts, lusts, desires, appetites) at the expense of our ‘reasoning soul’. As such, on earth, we often become less than fully human. We fall into akrasia, weakness of the will, and do what we know we ought not do (especially when given the knowledge of what we have done - hence the value of hindsight). So, when speaking of hell, when one ends up being bereft of God forever, could we not think in a similar fashion? As we on earth become ‘less than human’ by becoming slaves to our animalistic appetites in the knowledge that those obstruct the development of our virtue and relationship with God, couldn’t we also fully become ‘less-than-human’ by severing our relationship with God? This could be spelled out in better detail but I figured I'd offer the thought - or rather a spaghetti string of a thought. Thank you for the video.
It would be nice if you gave your own view rather than just critiquing Lewis. One friend of mine who has done a lot of work on this stuff told me that the word for 'punishment' in Hebrew is the same as 'consequence.' If that is true, and if we can carry that meaning over to the New Testament Greek, this would seem to take away any contradiction between Lewis' view and the texts you mentioned.
Thank you for these dissections of the attempts at justifying ECT. Even when they come from people like Lewis, and Wright, (both of whom I deeply respect) they still fall embarrassingly short of anything rational or reasonable.
I wouldn't go that far in calling it a bad thesis - If someone is in a bad state, but can get out of that state, and that person knows they can, but willingly choose not to, that's literally on them. Can you contest this point honestly without prioritising feelings over facts? You literally claim to to prioritise the reading of the Bible that is not accurate but one that does not offend the sensibilities the reader or others. But I will concede Lewis' thesis opens up more questions like masochists - is it really a punishment if they like being tortured?
Enjoyed your video here. As a Christian I always find it troubling or disturbing that pretty much all modern apologetics on the doctrine of hell will sooner quote CS Lewis then Scripture itself - as if CS Lewis after 2000 years of Christian thought had unlocked the 'true' paradigm that Christians should view hell
Why does Rev Rauser make it so hard for himself? Clearly CS Lewis holds - following the dominical statements recorded - that human choices in this realm are permanent in their outcome and not willed by God.
The two greatest problems I see with the concept of Hell, which I've never seen addressed anywhere, is that it renders Jesus' love commandment virtually useless as a rule for how to treat your fellow humans, and that, in combination with the concept of sacrificial atonement as the only way to be saved from hell, it turns Jesus into a liar.
I don't understand. I'm not an infernalist, but even infernalists like Lewis define hell as free separation from God, and we reject God every time we sin. It's a fact that many people reject God for all their lives, so given the "post-mortem" scenario (without even getting into the details of defending the thesis of an actual afterlife), it's at least possible that humans reject God even when they have direct contact with him (theologically, the fall of the angels was similar, they went their own way, like us). God's love doesn't change. The great thing that Lewis does is open the door for post-mortem opportunity (not like the Catholic limbo or purgatory), in which you know God still gives grace for eternity. I'm a hopeful universalist, and trust me, there's a vast literature on this exact topic. I would love to understand what you're trying to say, so please feel free to share your thoughts about hell with me.
@@SantiagoAaronGarcia Sure. First, the love commandment: If you're supposed to treat everyone you encounter with love, as you would like to be treated yourself, and eternal conscious suffering is a thing that exists, then logically the best and most loving thing you could do would be to keep your fellow humans out of hell. Everything you could to to achieve that goal would be justified. It's a perfect "the end justifies the means" scenario. Anything you could do to them, perhaps lying to them, tricking them into accepting Jesus would be better than letting them suffer forever. Even killing a child before it reaches the "age of maturity" could be a good thing to do. If I really believed in hell, I surely wouldn't have brought any children into this world. This was ultimately the logic of the people who burned "heretics" and "witches" alive: If we burn them here on earth, they are saved from burning for eternity. So, ultimately, they thought they were doing them a favour. Virtually anything could be regarded as an act of love if the goal is avoiding hell. So, what good does that commandment do under these circumstances? To the second point: There a number of biblical passages where Jesus clearly doesn't teach at all that accepting his sacrifice is the only way of avoiding hell, while there is no single passage where he teaches this doctrine publicly (or at all, depending on the interpretation of the passage). This was no part of the gospel he himself preached. So how did this doctrine suddenly turn into "the gospel"? This is already a pretty long post, but I could give you several examples, if you're interested.
3:10 My problem with this point is that God could make it so the people in Hell cease to exist. This is something that even scripture says is preferable to hell- it is said after all that it’d be better for Judas to have never been born rather than live and be damned as he did. God could simply put the people in hell into an eternal sleep after long enough if for some reason nonexistence isn’t preferable. God wants people to burn forever in hell. That’s not love.
Do you worship the God who created the heaven and earth from nothing, who created the light before the sun, who formed man from the dust, who sent down fire and brimstone on the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, who appeared to Moses in the burning burn and gave him the power to part the Red sea, who gave Samson the strength to tear down the city gate, who delivered Azariah and his companions from the fiery furnace, who walks on water, transforms bread and wine into his body and blood, heals the sick and blind, died and rose to sit at the right hand of his Father? Many do not believe these things, they lack supernatural faith. Some question God's righteousness in his condemnation of the wicked. God does not grant the supernatural faith necessary to believe these truths to those who seek Him in the world's wisdom, God is found in solitude and he gives his wisdom to those who seek Him in his way. Those who know this life is a shadow of the things to come and devote their lives to obeying the Lord profit. You might not fully understand why eternal punishment is price for offending a Holy God but you should pray that God's will is done. No one will get to heaven and look down on the judged and think "They don't deserve this punishment." God bless
I find it truly remarkable that you mention Old Testament heroes to prove your point even though the very notion of eternal torment is nowhere to be found in the OT. In the books attributed to Moses, death/annihilation is always the most severe form of punishment.
@@marcfischer114 While it's true the Old Testament word translated "hell" in the KJV means "sheol" or " the grave". The Old Testament does desribe God's wrath for sin and how sinners receive rewards in this life but punishment in the next. 2 And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Daniel 2:12 The Old Testament many places tells us of the day of the Lord a time when God will enact wrath on wickedness. 9 See, the day of the Lord is coming -a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger- to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it. Jeremiah 13 10 But that day belongs to the Lord, the Lord Almighty- a day of vengeance, for vengeance on his foes. The sword will devour till it is satisfied, till it has quenched its thirst with blood. For the Lord, the Lord Almighty, will offer sacrifice in the land of the north by the River Euphrates. Jeremiah 46 Some see these verses as merely a finite punishment that terminates at a certain time but we can't forget the New Testament which clearly precludes that interpretation. 25:46 And these will depart into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” Both receive an eternal(αἰώνιον) reward not just the righteous. and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Mathew 13:50 That sounds like torment to me!
@@shamuscrawford 1) There's a consensus among historians that the book of Daniel was written long after the reign of king Cyrus and that it doesn't represent the views of the early writers of the Torah. Even so, "eternal contempt" doesn't mean "eternal torment" and it doesn't refer to the experience of the unrighteous but that of the righteous; 2) Jeremiah did NOT teach that the unrighteous will be eternally tortured in hell. You're so strongly blinded by the dogma of Biblical inerrancy that you read this into the text. 3) The goats who'll depart into eternal punishment aren't those who died without believing in Jesus but those who died without having helped the most vulnerable of Jesus' brethren. That passage doesn't tell us anything about the fate of a teenage Jewish girl who was murdered by the Nazis. Once again, you're reading the dogma of Biblical inerrancy into the text.
@@lotharson7935 So in other words the only defense you're capable of giving for annihilation involves denying Biblical inerrancy? No thanks. God is Holy, he is perfect and everything he does he does perfectly including his inspiration of scripture and tradition.
I feel that if Lewis were alive today, he'd probably lean more towards Universal salvation. I could be wrong, but that's my what my instinct tells me. I think this because he'd most likely be influenced by other writers/authors, like yourself, DBH, Jersak, Wm. Paul Young, Heath Bradley, David Artman, and many others.
No because he wasn't a determinist and if you think that human beings are, at least to some extent, genuinely free, you cannot feel assured that all of them will choose God.
@@marcfischer114 Fair enough, but I don't see it that way. I feel like I could translate your text in more than one way. Please forgive my h.d.h.d./and whatever other undiagnosed mental issue I might have currently. To answer your non-question, No, I don't genuinely believe in free moral agency, that we all have a free will to precisely choose everything we do in this life. I think we're freely alive, but not necessarily living free.
@@marcfischer114 Additionally, I do really think that everyone will eventually choose to be with God. I've challenged others to think about it in this way for years and years. There is always, and without a doubt someone who will challenge me back, not that I actually view in terms of competing with someone for the sake of being right. I only care about understanding the truth, and even less in being the winner all the time. I fully believe that Christ fully took our past, present and future iniquities and made them ultimately obsolete. God will be all in all. I can go in with you for several days if you want, but eventually we will disagree with one another (or will we?).
I think Hell exists as much because the Demons will have their prey - a form of Cosmic justice. Jesus is clear that Hell exists and many go there. We all must repent and accept Christ. God cannot force that on our free will.
The question are you still hitting your wife? rests on the premise that the individual was hitting their wife in the first place. If he was not then it is either malicious or at best nonsense. The Lewis question is what do you expect God to do with those who damn themselves by not believing or following him and the answer that he would leave them to go their own way (to hell) rests on at least four assumptions (1) That the evidence for Jesus being a God man - 100 percent God and 100 percent man and the saviour is huge and completely irrefutable (2) That all the humans who have ever lived have an equal chance to hear this completely irrefutable message (3) That in the spirit of fairness it is just as easy or just as hard for every human being to accept God (4) That humanity can be easily and flawlessly divided into those who accept Christ and those who don't. I don't think any of these pillars of presupposition are true and so Lewis' question that is propped up on them comes crashing down and smashes itself. Just like the simpler earlier example if the man was never hitting his wife in the first place. In terms of only having two options for people when they die - heaven or hell and just how complicated and individual peoples responses to goodness and supporting fellow humans is you begin to wonder not only if the Christian God is actually a good god but also if he really is that intellectually bright. You could say - well all our allegedly good deeds look like dross to God. How could they get us to heaven? I would say that God would not judge them by how they look to him on his holy throne but on how many of his children on earth they help. And although they absolutely would not give anyone a completely wrong and inappropriate place in heaven (no human deserves that) it would also mean that complete hell and damnation would be inappropriate too. You could say that Christ will take away your sins and that is to get the heaven you don't deserve but (1) Many people were born before Christ ever came along (2) Many many people after he came along have not heard of him or know who he is or have only heard vague rumours about him (4) Some people including still born people and very young children are not in an emotional state to make an informed decision. This also includes many people with profound learning disabilities. NONE of this is explained in the Bible and if a baby automatically goes to heaven (which the bible does not say) I would consider that a grossly unfair advantage. So I don't think Lewis' model - despite how impressive it looks from a long distance - stands up and I think God needs to change his model of justice and not base it round heaven and complete hell. Two options that are inappropriate for everyone. Though some deserve a very very harsh time in the afterlife this is not the same as eternal damnation with no possible exit. If someone refuses to do good and remains utterly evil and depraved and an utter utter menace no matter what scenario they are put in or however many mentors they are given then a loving God would annialate them with great great sorrow. I could well see this happening - but this is very very different from some sort of eternal barbeque where the meat is still alive. Whether the flames are real or metaphorical makes in the end no difference. It is still gratuitious senseless senseless pain.
CS Lewis shows how self destruction is possible, leaving only a shell of one's former self, incapable of reformation, in The Great Divorce.
What made me question CS Lewis’ theory of hell was when David Bentley Hart wrote, “It makes no more sense, then, to say that God allows creatures to damn themselves out of his love for them or out of his respect for their freedom than to say a father might reasonably allow his deranged child to thrust her face into a fire out of a tender regard for her moral autonomy.”
@@storba3860 Certainly as long as we deny God we will not enter heaven. Peter denied God but later repented and I assume he is in heaven. It seems to me given enough time all people will turn to God. “for as ALL die in Adam, so ALL will be made alive in Christ.”
1 Corinthians 15:22
@@storba3860 I don’t see what either of those those things has to do with what I said. The location of Hades is irrelevant. Also if someone is cast into the lake of fire I do not see why it cannot be a refining fire from which you can emerge with the sin burned away.
@@benbockelman6125 I mean this from a good faith position of either ignorance or doctrinal study (or both?). I don't see a whole lot of evidence for the conclusion you presented. I understand the concept you outlined, and that God WANTS us to turn to him, but I struggle with finding scriptural evidence or scriptural context for hell being a purging process.
I don't know of many nuances beyond the common convention: if you live for yourself, then hell is the eternal reward. If you live for Christ, then heaven.
We've heard how the house will be burned and tested, and the house of stone, precious metals and precious gems will survive the fire, and that the house of wood will be burned-- with the builder running to escape the Holy fire, but even with that, I find many dots that need to be connected. Such as in that same example, the builder still ran from God's judgment with no indication that he would come back. The parable also did not indicate any sort of refinement. It seemed to represent a judgment.
Please believe when I say this: i am on the a quest for Truth, NOT to be right. I welcome any engagement you have to offer on this if you're interested in such a conversation
You're a superlative mind, Randal!
I think you're one of the greatest thinkers on many subjects, including my favorite thing that brings me ultimate peace and joy, which is universal salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ (If I'd said this 15-20 years ago, I would have sounded like a hyper-religious zealot)! All that aside, in my heart, I know that Jesus Christ is the savior of the world and that it's fully true, no doubts! Your presence and the wisdom you share is highly undervalued and underrated (and lovingly welcomed)!
I am greatly comforted to know that Jesus 'Holds the keys to death and Hades' ( Rev 1 :18 ) The saviour who 'sets the captives free' is indeed the one who is actually in total control .
Also, eternal punishment is not a just punishment for a finite life of sin, because human being simply cannot *truly* comprehend the concept of infinity. You may think you can, but no matter how you slice it, you end up thinking of it as "a period of time," which it's not. Therefore the punishment of eternity is not just and in proportion to a 70+ year life.
Many of us believe the Bible does NOT teach “eternal punishment” but instead Conditional Immortality. I highly recommend delving into the work of Edward Fudge. His YT videos are a great place to begin, and to dig deeper, he wrote well-researched books on this subject.
To me, it seems basically impossible to believe that any conscious agent with "free will" would choose the exact same state of existence for all of eternity, like what C.S. Lewis describes. The idea that every single person going to hell wants to be there permanently, in agony, is preposterous. It's like a criminal "choosing" to stay in solitary confinement for 1 million years, and at no point wishing to be released, but even more ridiculous because of hell being eternal.
Perhaps it's even greater agony and torture for an unsaved person to be in God's presence, so they choose their own self imposed hell rather than be with God for eternity.
@@Patrick-sg7cm I wouldn't see that as likely, since those who are unsaved probably want what they don't deserve, which could include salvation. Although again, a self-imposed Hell seems contradictory to human nature, as no one would choose to stay the same permanently, assuming that they could even choose such a thing instead of changing over time naturally anyways. It's an interesting idea, but it seems to fall flat.
@@Patrick-sg7cm That doesn't even make sense. If your kid is misbehaving in a way you know they're suffering you don't enable their bad behavior. Let alone put them in the same place as the literal embodiment of evil. If a person doesn't come screaming out of Hell after 10 minutes they're not in any actual danger. The only way anyone would stay in Hell forever is if God has the doors to Hell bolted shut or Heaven is just kinda mediocre.
Yeah. I only see one possible case for people staying in hell.
Maybe they want to stay in hell because they are so offended by the fact that the rules are made the way they ended up in hell and thats why they hate god for that and dont want be with this god ? Maybe this would the only possibility for the case that hell is locked from the inside. but it is NOT solving the problem of hell.
For me the whole topic about "you send yourself to hell not god" is a chicken egg problem.
You should ask Why do people send themselves to hell? maybe they are not convinced that they send themselves to hell and think god is evil….
@@levimark548 There are people who would rather not be with God, but sheer agony would eventually make us change our ways because negative reinforcement is a powerful tool.
It might be a "chicken egg problem" but I think it's in the sense that God made people to go to hell. He knew what they'd do before making them, and in doing so is making people just to send them to hell by setting them up himself.
I appreciate your tweet from a while ago about C.S. Lewis being difficult to read. I'd never heard anyone else say that before, and the way in which you categorized those difficulties made a lot of sense to me. I read "The Problem of Pain" several years ago and remember finding it tricky to follow. So far as theodicies go, I liked Gregory Boyd's "Satan and the Problem of Evil" more.
My ultimate philosophical argument against Eternal Conscious Torment is that when you strip everything away, there are only two reasons why someone would remain in agony in Hell forever: either God *can't* get them out, or God *won't* get them out. If He can't, then He is not all powerful, and if He won't, then the boundless grace of Christ is not boundless.
He paid the price out!!!!!! …Tell people to trust is his holy sacrifice full stop…..full stop
I have no problem saying God can't get them out. All you're saying is that God can't force someone to make a free choice. That's not really any different than saying God can't make a square circle or a married bachelor.
Less than five years before C. S. Lewis died a reverend asked why he did not agree with the universalism of George MacDonald whom Lewis dubbed “my spiritual mentor.” Lewis replied, “I parted company from MacDonald on that point because a higher authority - the Dominical utterances themselves - seemed to me irreconcilable with universalism… The finality of the Either-Or, the Sheep and Goats, the Wise and Foolish Virgins - is so emphatic and reiterated in our Lord’s teaching that, in my opinion, it simply cannot be evaded. If we do not know that he said that, then we do not know what he said about anything. And this is my sole reason… Need I add that I should very much prefer to follow G.M. on this point if I could?” [C. S. Lewis to Rev. Alan Fairhust, personal letter, September 6, 1959]
Still not as inane or unsympathetic as
A joke C. S. Lewis told (when asked whether animals, including mosquitoes, might be resurrected in “heaven”/the new creation):
C. S. Lewis wrote in The Problem of Pain: “Nor am I greatly moved by jocular inquiries such as, ‘Where will you put all the mosquitoes?’ - a question to be answered on its own level by pointing out that, if the worst came to worst, a heaven for mosquitoes and a hell for men could very conveniently be combined.”
But the question is not as Lewis surmises, simply "Where will you put all the mosquitoes?"
Where will you put all the parasites period?
Parasites live not only off of human beings but animals as well, who suffer like us from mites, fleas, ticks, and species of flukes and worms that infest intestines, or even brains, or eyeballs. Filarial worms cause elephantiasis a disease that involves a horrendous inflation of the limbs or even one’s scrotal sac. And what about unicellular parasites like trypanosomes that cause malaria and Chagas disease? Deadly parasites cripple or kill myriads of animals, not just humans. Resurrect them all?
Hell keeps growing grislier and grislier if you abide by Lewis's "convenient” solution. If I may paraphrase it, “If worst came to worst, a heaven for great white sharks and a hell for men could very conveniently be combined.” Let’s add jellyfish with stinging tentacles and every other creature with sharp fangs, claws, or painful venomous sting, all of them torturing resurrected flesh, inducing riots of pain forever like in a Clive Barker Hellraiser novel. How else is one to conceive the full implications of Clive Staples Lewis’s most unsympathetic theological statement?
I also ran across this rejoinder to Lewis: “So where do the naughty mosquitoes go, Spider heaven? Venus Flytrap heaven?”
" If we do not know that he said that, then we do not know what he said about anything." Yep, fully agree. And that's something you just have to face if you want a mature and not a blind faith. We simply don't know what Jesus said about anything. All we can do is deal with deductions and probabilities. And that's enough to acknowledge how unique his message was.
@@DoloresLehmann Yes, but C. S. Lewis was willing to make excuses for Jesus prophesying incorrectly that the world's final judgment was not far off. Lewis argued that the human side of Jesus could commit such an error. But if Lewis could argue that the human side of Jesus could be incorrect about such a major cosmic prediction, why not admit that the human side of Jesus might also believe incorrect things about the afterlife, things that many believed in his day.
By the way, prophecies of a soon coming final judgment are found in earnest in the the earliest NT writings, like the letters of Paul, while excuses for the delay of the final judgment appear in later writings of the NT, like Luke-Act and 2 Peter. (Search on the internet for "The Lowdown on God's Showdown" for examples of such incorrect prophesies throughout the NT.)
What I am saying is that Jesus spoke like an apocalyptic prophet about divine punishment, even eternal punishment, and a soon coming final judgment. The earliest Gospel, Mark, has both the Baptist and Jesus preaching "the kingdom of God is at hand." But that was not an uncommon message seen in writings between the OT and NT. (Several groups in Jesus' day expected a soon coming final judgment, such a message is found in several inter-testamental writings including the Dead Sea Scrolls, all written prior to Jesus' birth.) In other words, hellish language (and soon coming kingdom language) was what the people understood back then, like other metaphors such as cutting off one's hand and plucking out one's eye to avoid sin. What would have stood out would have been if Jesus had spoken about universalism. Instead we see Jesus employing language and ideas exactly as one would expect for someone during the inter-testamental period, including belief in a literal Adam and Eve, Noah, Flood, Jonah story, etc. Because that was what people already believed. So such talk does not mean that the Bible must be literally interpreted exactly as inter-testamental Judaism interpreted it. Instead one is left questioning just how literally one should take the words and ideas of someone who was parroting what people of his generation already believed one or two centuries prior to his day. Speaking of which, note how Jesus says that those who do not leap on the "soon-coming-kingdom-of-God" bandwagon that the historical Jesus preached, should be viewed as "Gentiles and tax collectors" (per the Gospel of Matthew). No love for Gentiles I guess. Again, that is a typically insulting view of "Gentiles" and even of any fellow Jews working with Rome like "tax collectors."
@@edwardtbabinski I get your point, and although I agree with several things you said, I come to totally different conclusions.
We basically have two different, yet related questions here: Did Jesus teach hell? and: Was Jesus an apocalypticist? I see all the evidence that points to a yes, and yet, I think the answer to both questions is no.
To the first question: The fact that Matthew, who has hell threats left and right, was put first in the canon, leads us to overlook how many scriptures actually DON'T speak of hell. Paul doesn't, not once. John doesn't. Mark does once, maybe (although i think that's a misinterpretation, there's a different interpretation that makes far more sense), and Luke has the same passage as Mark, now modified to point to hell, and two more.
So we have the earliest NT writer who doesn't speak of hell, we have one strand of tradition that ends in the gospel of John, that also doesn't teach hell, we have yet another strand of tradition that ends in the non-canonical gospel of Thomas, also without a mention of hell. And we have only one strand of tradition that starts with (maybe) Mark, and goes on enforcing the concept of hell up till Matthew. Why should this be the only one that represents Jesus' actual teachings?
To the second point: Paul is clearly an apocalypticists, as are the evangelists. But was Jesus? Apart from all the apocalyptic passages and the later added passages that try to explain the delay of the apocalypse, there is a parallel strand of tradition that already begins in Mark and is clearly non- or even anti-apocalyptic. Most of the parables belong to this category, and two (the parable of the weeds and of the fishnet) are only turned apocalyptic by their interpretations, which are clearly later interpolations.
So, either Jesus was an apocalypticist and an anti-apocalypticist at the same time, or one of those strands was added, either because he was misunderstood or with a clear agenda to twist his words. So, what's more likely? That an environment literally brimming with apocalyptic ideas, as you correctly point out, would have projected those expectations onto their leader character, or that it would have added a clearly anti-apocalyptic narrative to their apocalypticist leader? I find the first option far more logical.
As to the "treat them like Gentiles or tax collectors", that's supposed for "brothers" who wrong you and won't listen to reason. That sounds far more like something taken out of the Pauline letters concerning internal disputes within the congregation, but even if Jesus actually said it: Judging by the way Jesus himself treated those people, that verse would most likely mean: Have dinner with them and make them your friends. It's of course clear that's not what the verse is supposed to mean, but then it contradicts Jesus' behaviour.
C. S. Lewis’ friend and fellow Inkling, Charles Williams, chided Lewis for attempting to explain what God had in mind when it came to evil and pain. Williams reminded Lewis that it was “Job’s comforters” (in the biblical book of Job) who sought to explain God's ways, while Job remained adamant that his sufferings made no sense and He would rather speak to God directly concerning such a matter, "But I would speak to the Almighty, And I desire to argue with God... O that a man might plead with God, As a man with his neighbor!.. Sorry comforters are you all. Is there no limit to windy words?"
Williams added that the book of Job ends with God aiming His displeasure at Job’s comforters, who were “the kind of people who wrote books on the Problem of Pain,” a direct dig at Lewis’ book!
Nor is “pain” the only thing that needs explaining, there's also fear, confusion, anxiety, forgetfulness, inaccurate or false memories, auditory and visual hallucinations, and the fact that a tiny brain tumor in the right place can turn a person into a pedophile (the person lost the desire for pedophila right after the tumor was removed), while other strange occurrences include a person who believed his wife was a hat, and people who believe they are dead no matter what they see themselves doing in a mirror or hear themselves saying. There's also the wild things people see and hear after ingesting only teensy amounts of drugs and/or poisons. And there's wild meditation experiences, lucid dreams, nightmares, obsessions and addictions to nearly anything, including some people who are addicted to having a limb surgically removed. Plus there are such things as sleepwalking, sleep-eating, sleep-driving, not to mention rumors and legends, circulating endlessly each day, including, misread signals, misheard words, misunderstood information, miscommunication in general and a hundred or so known cognitive biases, all which can naturally escalate into irritations, disagreements, or doubt.
What do fundamentalist Christians and Atheists have in common? Neither believes in a loving God.
This is why we are to preach,warn, tell them what Jesus has done…Price Paid…..breathtaking
In Revelation 1 : 18 Christ states that He 'Holds the keys to death and Hades' ... I find it extremely comforting that the Saviour is in control.
The other option is that people who are in hell are able to commit suicide in every moment, but they choose not to. God allowed them to cease to exist, but it's their free choice to continue their existence.
C. S. Lewis defended a sort of eternal fading away, progressive-annihilationism, or as close to annihilationism as possible w/o the soul being absolutely snuffed out.
What about near death experiences in which a person goes to hell? Will you address that in one of your lectures?
Well, if we take Hell NDEs at face value than that automatically disproves Eternal Conscious Torment since everyone who's ever had one got out.
I enjoyed this video! I have one suggestion, however. When you criticize views that are held by the majority of Christians, you should then explain what your position is as a possible alternative. One of tho main reasons why I am an agnostic who still consumes Christian philosophy and content is because I listened to a podcast on annihilationism days before I really confronted the problem of Hell. Had I not known that there were viable alternatives, I likely would have become an atheist who would not have considered Christianity much further.
I'm not sure Lewis would have to accept the premise that God is appropriating self-torture as his mode of punishing them. Rather, Lewis and his intellectual ilk would say if the truth of a heart is the desire for something less than God, then God permits this. That hell is torture is perhaps, in this view, non-obvious to someone in Hell. To the light of a saint in Heaven, it would seem bleak and empty, but to a person in Hell, they have what they desire most. God, being God, cannot but continue to offer more than this Hell, and that is what frustrates the person in Hell- but how frustrating this is and in what form it appears to one in Hell, we can only guess. The offer for More would appeal to the denizen of Hell (hypothetical denizen, as I'm not sure about the issue myself) as authoritarian or deceiver, depending on the particular dispositions of sin.
The next point is interesting: a whole person cannot enter Hell. This is like David Bentley Hart's claim that to be a person is to be oriented to God at least in part, and even the most partial orientation to God is, from the view of eternity, an absolute orientation to God. So there is at least a sense in which no "who" goes to Hell. So, if anything ends up in Hell, what? Lewis does not elaborate this point, but my understanding is that consciousness can fail the integration into personhood. A sort of integration is supplied in life with the human body. But if our character, through identifying with lesser goods and ends, fragments itself, then consciousness becomes a diversified set of tendencies. Once the integrating function of the body dies, these tendencies go off on their own ways towards their chosen ends, in a way not completely unlike the skandhas of Buddhism. In other words, the claim is that, while the body gives all humans the appearance of unity, and even grants a functional unity, what has grown, spiritually, in some bodies is something less than a person- the obvious example being a serial killer with no conscience that just is the desire to end life and assert power (nothing but self-assertion). While there is not a complete absence of being, the lack of human unity describes these spiritual zombies.
In general, the truth that Hell is torment is not the lived experience of those consciousness fragments that just are their self-assertions. What it means to be a person is to be spiritually porous- we are our family and friends, in some sense. We have opened ourselves to God and neighbor such that they enter into and become us. No longer I (self-assertion) but Christ lives in the person fully alive.
It seems to me, especially upon reading Lewis’s preface, that he wasn’t so keen on writing this book to begin with. And that in fact he wasn’t convinced by his own beliefs/perceptions at the time.
When you critique Lewis’ ‘perplexing’ notion of 'humanity', in the sense that the damned become less-than/non/anti(?) human, I think there is a more to it than you presented here.
On the Aristotelian view, us, humans, often become slaves to our 'sensible soul' (our instincts, lusts, desires, appetites) at the expense of our ‘reasoning soul’. As such, on earth, we often become less than fully human. We fall into akrasia, weakness of the will, and do what we know we ought not do (especially when given the knowledge of what we have done - hence the value of hindsight).
So, when speaking of hell, when one ends up being bereft of God forever, could we not think in a similar fashion? As we on earth become ‘less than human’ by becoming slaves to our animalistic appetites in the knowledge that those obstruct the development of our virtue and relationship with God, couldn’t we also fully become ‘less-than-human’ by severing our relationship with God?
This could be spelled out in better detail but I figured I'd offer the thought - or rather a spaghetti string of a thought.
Thank you for the video.
It would be nice if you gave your own view rather than just critiquing Lewis.
One friend of mine who has done a lot of work on this stuff told me that the word for 'punishment' in Hebrew is the same as 'consequence.' If that is true, and if we can carry that meaning over to the New Testament Greek, this would seem to take away any contradiction between Lewis' view and the texts you mentioned.
Thank you for these dissections of the attempts at justifying ECT. Even when they come from people like Lewis, and Wright, (both of whom I deeply respect) they still fall embarrassingly short of anything rational or reasonable.
Well said. If I thought that ECT were true, as I used to, I think I’d need to get rid of my belief in omnibenevolence
I wouldn't go that far in calling it a bad thesis - If someone is in a bad state, but can get out of that state, and that person knows they can, but willingly choose not to, that's literally on them. Can you contest this point honestly without prioritising feelings over facts? You literally claim to to prioritise the reading of the Bible that is not accurate but one that does not offend the sensibilities the reader or others. But I will concede Lewis' thesis opens up more questions like masochists - is it really a punishment if they like being tortured?
This wasn't "tentative" in the least 😂😂😂
Enjoyed your video here.
As a Christian I always find it troubling or disturbing that pretty much all modern apologetics on the doctrine of hell will sooner quote CS Lewis then Scripture itself - as if CS Lewis after 2000 years of Christian thought had unlocked the 'true' paradigm that Christians should view hell
Why does Rev Rauser make it so hard for himself? Clearly CS Lewis holds - following the dominical statements recorded - that human choices in this realm are permanent in their outcome and not willed by God.
The two greatest problems I see with the concept of Hell, which I've never seen addressed anywhere, is that it renders Jesus' love commandment virtually useless as a rule for how to treat your fellow humans, and that, in combination with the concept of sacrificial atonement as the only way to be saved from hell, it turns Jesus into a liar.
I don't understand. I'm not an infernalist, but even infernalists like Lewis define hell as free separation from God, and we reject God every time we sin. It's a fact that many people reject God for all their lives, so given the "post-mortem" scenario (without even getting into the details of defending the thesis of an actual afterlife), it's at least possible that humans reject God even when they have direct contact with him (theologically, the fall of the angels was similar, they went their own way, like us).
God's love doesn't change. The great thing that Lewis does is open the door for post-mortem opportunity (not like the Catholic limbo or purgatory), in which you know God still gives grace for eternity. I'm a hopeful universalist, and trust me, there's a vast literature on this exact topic.
I would love to understand what you're trying to say, so please feel free to share your thoughts about hell with me.
@@SantiagoAaronGarcia Sure. First, the love commandment: If you're supposed to treat everyone you encounter with love, as you would like to be treated yourself, and eternal conscious suffering is a thing that exists, then logically the best and most loving thing you could do would be to keep your fellow humans out of hell. Everything you could to to achieve that goal would be justified. It's a perfect "the end justifies the means" scenario.
Anything you could do to them, perhaps lying to them, tricking them into accepting Jesus would be better than letting them suffer forever. Even killing a child before it reaches the "age of maturity" could be a good thing to do. If I really believed in hell, I surely wouldn't have brought any children into this world.
This was ultimately the logic of the people who burned "heretics" and "witches" alive: If we burn them here on earth, they are saved from burning for eternity. So, ultimately, they thought they were doing them a favour. Virtually anything could be regarded as an act of love if the goal is avoiding hell. So, what good does that commandment do under these circumstances?
To the second point: There a number of biblical passages where Jesus clearly doesn't teach at all that accepting his sacrifice is the only way of avoiding hell, while there is no single passage where he teaches this doctrine publicly (or at all, depending on the interpretation of the passage). This was no part of the gospel he himself preached. So how did this doctrine suddenly turn into "the gospel"? This is already a pretty long post, but I could give you several examples, if you're interested.
3:10 My problem with this point is that God could make it so the people in Hell cease to exist. This is something that even scripture says is preferable to hell- it is said after all that it’d be better for Judas to have never been born rather than live and be damned as he did. God could simply put the people in hell into an eternal sleep after long enough if for some reason nonexistence isn’t preferable.
God wants people to burn forever in hell. That’s not love.
Do you worship the God who created the heaven and earth from nothing, who created the light before the sun, who formed man from the dust, who sent down fire and brimstone on the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, who appeared to Moses in the burning burn and gave him the power to part the Red sea, who gave Samson the strength to tear down the city gate, who delivered Azariah and his companions from the fiery furnace, who walks on water, transforms bread and wine into his body and blood, heals the sick and blind, died and rose to sit at the right hand of his Father? Many do not believe these things, they lack supernatural faith. Some question God's righteousness in his condemnation of the wicked. God does not grant the supernatural faith necessary to believe these truths to those who seek Him in the world's wisdom, God is found in solitude and he gives his wisdom to those who seek Him in his way. Those who know this life is a shadow of the things to come and devote their lives to obeying the Lord profit.
You might not fully understand why eternal punishment is price for offending a Holy God but you should pray that God's will is done. No one will get to heaven and look down on the judged and think "They don't deserve this punishment." God bless
I find it truly remarkable that you mention Old Testament heroes to prove your point even though the very notion of eternal torment is nowhere to be found in the OT. In the books attributed to Moses, death/annihilation is always the most severe form of punishment.
@@marcfischer114 While it's true the Old Testament word translated "hell" in the KJV means "sheol" or " the grave". The Old Testament does desribe God's wrath for sin and how sinners receive rewards in this life but punishment in the next.
2 And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Daniel 2:12
The Old Testament many places tells us of the day of the Lord a time when God will enact wrath on wickedness.
9 See, the day of the Lord is coming
-a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger-
to make the land desolate
and destroy the sinners within it.
Jeremiah 13
10 But that day belongs to the Lord, the Lord Almighty-
a day of vengeance, for vengeance on his foes.
The sword will devour till it is satisfied,
till it has quenched its thirst with blood.
For the Lord, the Lord Almighty, will offer sacrifice
in the land of the north by the River Euphrates. Jeremiah 46
Some see these verses as merely a finite punishment that terminates at a certain time but we can't forget the New Testament which clearly precludes that interpretation.
25:46 And these will depart into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Both receive an eternal(αἰώνιον) reward not just the righteous.
and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Mathew 13:50
That sounds like torment to me!
@@shamuscrawford 1) There's a consensus among historians that the book of Daniel was written long after the reign of king Cyrus and that it doesn't represent the views of the early writers of the Torah. Even so, "eternal contempt" doesn't mean "eternal torment" and it doesn't refer to the experience of the unrighteous but that of the righteous;
2) Jeremiah did NOT teach that the unrighteous will be eternally tortured in hell. You're so strongly blinded by the dogma of Biblical inerrancy that you read this into the text.
3) The goats who'll depart into eternal punishment aren't those who died without believing in Jesus but those who died without having helped the most vulnerable of Jesus' brethren. That passage doesn't tell us anything about the fate of a teenage Jewish girl who was murdered by the Nazis. Once again, you're reading the dogma of Biblical inerrancy into the text.
@@lotharson7935 So in other words the only defense you're capable of giving for annihilation involves denying Biblical inerrancy? No thanks. God is Holy, he is perfect and everything he does he does perfectly including his inspiration of scripture and tradition.
@@shamuscrawford Even if the Bible is interrent, your interpretation of what it means certainly is not, which pretty much levels the playing field.
I feel that if Lewis were alive today, he'd probably lean more towards Universal salvation.
I could be wrong, but that's my what my instinct tells me. I think this because he'd most likely be influenced by other writers/authors, like yourself, DBH, Jersak, Wm. Paul Young, Heath Bradley, David Artman, and many others.
No because he wasn't a determinist and if you think that human beings are, at least to some extent, genuinely free, you cannot feel assured that all of them will choose God.
@@marcfischer114 Fair enough, but I don't see it that way. I feel like I could translate your text in more than one way.
Please forgive my h.d.h.d./and whatever other undiagnosed mental issue I might have currently.
To answer your non-question, No, I don't genuinely believe in free moral agency, that we all have a free will to precisely choose everything we do in this life. I think we're freely alive, but not necessarily living free.
@@marcfischer114 Additionally, I do really think that everyone will eventually choose to be with God. I've challenged others to think about it in this way for years and years. There is always, and without a doubt someone who will challenge me back, not that I actually view in terms of competing with someone for the sake of being right. I only care about understanding the truth, and even less in being the winner all the time. I fully believe that Christ fully took our past, present and future iniquities and made them ultimately obsolete. God will be all in all. I can go in with you for several days if you want, but eventually we will disagree with one another (or will we?).
I think Hell exists as much because the Demons will have their prey - a form of Cosmic justice. Jesus is clear that Hell exists and many go there. We all must repent and accept Christ. God cannot force that on our free will.
The question are you still hitting your wife? rests on the premise that the individual was hitting their wife in the first place. If he was not then it is either malicious or at best nonsense. The Lewis question is what do you expect God to do with those who damn themselves by not believing or following him and the answer that he would leave them to go their own way (to hell) rests on at least four assumptions (1) That the evidence for Jesus being a God man - 100 percent God and 100 percent man and the saviour is huge and completely irrefutable (2) That all the humans who have ever lived have an equal chance to hear this completely irrefutable message (3) That in the spirit of fairness it is just as easy or just as hard for every human being to accept God (4) That humanity can be easily and flawlessly divided into those who accept Christ and those who don't. I don't think any of these pillars of presupposition are true and so Lewis' question that is propped up on them comes crashing down and smashes itself. Just like the simpler earlier example if the man was never hitting his wife in the first place. In terms of only having two options for people when they die - heaven or hell and just how complicated and individual peoples responses to goodness and supporting fellow humans is you begin to wonder not only if the Christian God is actually a good god but also if he really is that intellectually bright. You could say - well all our allegedly good deeds look like dross to God. How could they get us to heaven? I would say that God would not judge them by how they look to him on his holy throne but on how many of his children on earth they help. And although they absolutely would not give anyone a completely wrong and inappropriate place in heaven (no human deserves that) it would also mean that complete hell and damnation would be inappropriate too. You could say that Christ will take away your sins and that is to get the heaven you don't deserve but (1) Many people were born before Christ ever came along (2) Many many people after he came along have not heard of him or know who he is or have only heard vague rumours about him (4) Some people including still born people and very young children are not in an emotional state to make an informed decision. This also includes many people with profound learning disabilities. NONE of this is explained in the Bible and if a baby automatically goes to heaven (which the bible does not say) I would consider that a grossly unfair advantage. So I don't think Lewis' model - despite how impressive it looks from a long distance - stands up and I think God needs to change his model of justice and not base it round heaven and complete hell. Two options that are inappropriate for everyone. Though some deserve a very very harsh time in the afterlife this is not the same as eternal damnation with no possible exit. If someone refuses to do good and remains utterly evil and depraved and an utter utter menace no matter what scenario they are put in or however many mentors they are given then a loving God would annialate them with great great sorrow. I could well see this happening - but this is very very different from some sort of eternal barbeque where the meat is still alive. Whether the flames are real or metaphorical makes in the end no difference. It is still gratuitious senseless senseless pain.