Hi everyone! This is my first post, but I wanted to hear your thoughts about this subject.
One problem I see with saying that God damns some to hell is this: God damns people to hell either for 1) doing something or believing something bad (or failing to do or believe something) which they knew would cause them to go to hell, OR 2) doing something or believing something bad which they did not know would cause them to go to hell.
If we go the first route and assume something like an "educated decision", namely that people knew they were going to go to hell for what they did, we have two problems: First, I would argue that no one can contemplate eternity, and so this first route is impossible. We cannot comprehend even 100 years of anything, let alone 100 years of "gnashing of teeth" and such. Because we do not understand the full extent of hell, our decision cannot be fully educated. Even if we are to get around this problem (and I don't see how one can), the second problem with this first route is that no one would make such a decision. At least not in a proper frame of mind, and I doubt God would bind us to decisions made in the midst of depression, drunkenness, drug addictions, etc.
The second route says that God damns people who made a mistake that they DID NOT know would cause them eternal damnation. The problem here is that God is surprising us with punishments we did not know we were earning. Humans generally shy away from this--for example, we don't scorn a two year old for swearing or breaking something the way we might an adult. This argument somewhat approximates what in law is called the "mens rea" of the crime: the guilty mind. If we do not fully understand the seriousness of the crime (the mistake) we are making, how can a just God punish us as if we did?
By the way, I realize many Christians will say that they receive salvation only by accepting Jesus Christ, but clearly this is a kind of act, no? (And if it is not an act, then failing to accept Christ is not an omission, and some of us are sent to hell for something we did not even fail to do... an even more problematic statement).
Thanks for reading, I know that was long but I couldn't find a good way to shorten it up and still get my point across. Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
Objections to the Hell Idea
Moderator: Moderators
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Catharsis
Post #2
God didn’t create the hell for sinners, they did it themselves
The Russian Orthodox Church’s representative to the European International Institutions Bishop Hilarion of Vienna and Austria, on Interfax-Religion’s request, commented on the recent suggestion of Danish Lutheran theologians to consider the hell and the devil a metaphor and to accept only existence of the paradise.
- This theology should be considered in general context of liberalized Christian dogmatic and moral teaching developed in depth of many Protestant communities in several recent decades. Everything that makes Christianity is “inconvenient”, “uncomfortable” is being omitted, “the dark Middle Ages” heritage is cleared up. Christianity in light version is under construction and the hell and devil don’t match it.
A tragedy of Protestantism has originally been the following. Seeking to get rid of medieval stratification of Catholicism, Protestants didn’t properly study the heritage of the Eastern fathers. And today when arguing with the Middle Age hell and devil, liberal Protestants don’t trouble themselves with reviewing the Holy Fathers and their conception of afterlife retaliation.
Meanwhile, the Eastern Christian tradition has never considered the hell as created by God to punish sinners. God didn’t create the hell, free will of people has created it. It exists not because God wants it, but because people keep it existing. They first create the hell on Earth and then carry it on to the afterworld.
-What do you mean by the hell on Earth?
- When a man using his power over others makes Earth the hell for them. Didn’t Hitler turn Earth to hell for millions of people tried and tortured in concentration camps, perished in gas cameras and battlefields? Didn’t Lenin and Stalin make hell for thousands and millions of people who died in camps or were shot on false denunciations or sentenced by Stalin’s “troika”? Don’t today’s terrorists, who kill peaceful citizens, take them hostage and cut off their heads, turn Earth to the hell?
And is it believable that malefactors and monsters, who kill other people and revolt against God and all-hallows will share the paradise with righteous and saints? Is it believable that the paradise will welcome both John the Baptist and Herod, St. Veniamin of Petrograd and Lenin, thousands of the murdered new Russia’s martyrs and confessors and their torturers? It removes division between the good and the evil. Then there’s no difference if you are a saint or a villain, if you do the good or the evil, if you save people from death or kill them.
-So sins will be inevitably recompensed?
-Any person bears moral responsibility for his actions. And he will answer for the sins of his earthly life in the eternity. St. Isaac the Syrian writes that sinners in the hell are not deprived of God’s love. On the contrary, love is given equally to everyone: to the righteous in the Heavenly Kingdom and to the sinners in Gehenna. But for the righteous it becomes the source of joy and bliss while for sinners it is the source of torture.
Thus, God didn’t create the hell for sinners, they did it themselves. God doesn’t send sinners to the hell, but people who oppose God’s will and revolt against God choose the hell themselves. And this choice is made in their earthly life rather than in some distant eschatological prospect. It is right here on Earth that infernal tortures and “the Kingdom of God come with power” begin.
- However, even the Orthodox divine service says that the hell is “abolished” by Christ after His Resurrection from the dead?
- The reality of the hell, its existence for sinners and even the possibility of its eternal existence don’t contradict the news of its abolition by Christ resurrected. The hell is really “abolished” in the resurrection of Christ, as it is not inevitable for people anymore and doesn’t have power over them. But those, who consciously oppose God’s will and commit crime and sin, restore destroyed and abolished hell as they don’t want to reconcile with God’s love.
I’d like to stress it again: God didn’t create the hell, people created it for themselves, God destroyed and abolished the hell, but people restore it again and again. The hell is re-created every time when the sin is consciously committed and isn’t repented.
The Russian Orthodox Church’s representative to the European International Institutions Bishop Hilarion of Vienna and Austria, on Interfax-Religion’s request, commented on the recent suggestion of Danish Lutheran theologians to consider the hell and the devil a metaphor and to accept only existence of the paradise.
- This theology should be considered in general context of liberalized Christian dogmatic and moral teaching developed in depth of many Protestant communities in several recent decades. Everything that makes Christianity is “inconvenient”, “uncomfortable” is being omitted, “the dark Middle Ages” heritage is cleared up. Christianity in light version is under construction and the hell and devil don’t match it.
A tragedy of Protestantism has originally been the following. Seeking to get rid of medieval stratification of Catholicism, Protestants didn’t properly study the heritage of the Eastern fathers. And today when arguing with the Middle Age hell and devil, liberal Protestants don’t trouble themselves with reviewing the Holy Fathers and their conception of afterlife retaliation.
Meanwhile, the Eastern Christian tradition has never considered the hell as created by God to punish sinners. God didn’t create the hell, free will of people has created it. It exists not because God wants it, but because people keep it existing. They first create the hell on Earth and then carry it on to the afterworld.
-What do you mean by the hell on Earth?
- When a man using his power over others makes Earth the hell for them. Didn’t Hitler turn Earth to hell for millions of people tried and tortured in concentration camps, perished in gas cameras and battlefields? Didn’t Lenin and Stalin make hell for thousands and millions of people who died in camps or were shot on false denunciations or sentenced by Stalin’s “troika”? Don’t today’s terrorists, who kill peaceful citizens, take them hostage and cut off their heads, turn Earth to the hell?
And is it believable that malefactors and monsters, who kill other people and revolt against God and all-hallows will share the paradise with righteous and saints? Is it believable that the paradise will welcome both John the Baptist and Herod, St. Veniamin of Petrograd and Lenin, thousands of the murdered new Russia’s martyrs and confessors and their torturers? It removes division between the good and the evil. Then there’s no difference if you are a saint or a villain, if you do the good or the evil, if you save people from death or kill them.
-So sins will be inevitably recompensed?
-Any person bears moral responsibility for his actions. And he will answer for the sins of his earthly life in the eternity. St. Isaac the Syrian writes that sinners in the hell are not deprived of God’s love. On the contrary, love is given equally to everyone: to the righteous in the Heavenly Kingdom and to the sinners in Gehenna. But for the righteous it becomes the source of joy and bliss while for sinners it is the source of torture.
Thus, God didn’t create the hell for sinners, they did it themselves. God doesn’t send sinners to the hell, but people who oppose God’s will and revolt against God choose the hell themselves. And this choice is made in their earthly life rather than in some distant eschatological prospect. It is right here on Earth that infernal tortures and “the Kingdom of God come with power” begin.
- However, even the Orthodox divine service says that the hell is “abolished” by Christ after His Resurrection from the dead?
- The reality of the hell, its existence for sinners and even the possibility of its eternal existence don’t contradict the news of its abolition by Christ resurrected. The hell is really “abolished” in the resurrection of Christ, as it is not inevitable for people anymore and doesn’t have power over them. But those, who consciously oppose God’s will and commit crime and sin, restore destroyed and abolished hell as they don’t want to reconcile with God’s love.
I’d like to stress it again: God didn’t create the hell, people created it for themselves, God destroyed and abolished the hell, but people restore it again and again. The hell is re-created every time when the sin is consciously committed and isn’t repented.
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olivergringold
- Apprentice
- Posts: 102
- Joined: Wed Apr 18, 2007 5:39 pm
Post #3
As I understood it (and bear in mind I could be completely wrong as I've never been Christian) most of the tortures and pains of hell are human elaborations that have very little to do with Christian canon. The primary punishment in hell is distance from the Creator and his Love, and as such the suffering of hell's occupants are brought on by themselves, rather than the torment of God. Thus, hell is not the work of a hypocritical God, but simply one who prunes those who may not enter His kingdom from His grace.
Original depictions of hell were of a cold, distant, dark realm where Satan, in addition to man, was destined to suffer. The concept of punishment being related to crime was introduced (or, rather, elaborated on) by Dante, and the notion of hell as a kingdom under Satan's charge was "elaborated," then, by Milton. The only fire in hell is its lake.
I'm told its rather scenic during snowfall
Original depictions of hell were of a cold, distant, dark realm where Satan, in addition to man, was destined to suffer. The concept of punishment being related to crime was introduced (or, rather, elaborated on) by Dante, and the notion of hell as a kingdom under Satan's charge was "elaborated," then, by Milton. The only fire in hell is its lake.
I'm told its rather scenic during snowfall
Post #4
Catharsis--
Even if I were to accept your view (which I wholly protest), this still does not take God from the equation. Maybe we created hell and send ourselves there. But God is either implicit in this, or powerless to stop it. If my son is drowning in a lake, and I don't save him, its either because I was unable to do so or wished not to. Even if the natural course was for everyone to go to hell, when God does not save people, he sends them to hell in the same way that I kill my son by not saving him. And so your response does not get around my objection.
So, when I sin and don't repent, if I don't believe this is sending me to hell and it really does, then my objection is correct. If I sin and don't repent, realizing I'm going to go to hell because of it, then my objection is similarly correct. Nothing you said (or the story from which you quoted) indicates that either of my possibilities is untrue.
Oliver--your response, while interesting, similarly fails to address my objections. Calling it "pruning" rather than sending does nothing. I could call failing to save my drowning son "pruning", (maybe he's a little jerk and I have multitudes of other children on whom my resources and time would be better spent) but that does not make the act any less my own. In other words, just because it may be justified or done without malice does not change that its God's act, God's decision. Unless you say He's powerless to stop it.... which brings up a whole other bag of discussion...
Even if I were to accept your view (which I wholly protest), this still does not take God from the equation. Maybe we created hell and send ourselves there. But God is either implicit in this, or powerless to stop it. If my son is drowning in a lake, and I don't save him, its either because I was unable to do so or wished not to. Even if the natural course was for everyone to go to hell, when God does not save people, he sends them to hell in the same way that I kill my son by not saving him. And so your response does not get around my objection.
So, when I sin and don't repent, if I don't believe this is sending me to hell and it really does, then my objection is correct. If I sin and don't repent, realizing I'm going to go to hell because of it, then my objection is similarly correct. Nothing you said (or the story from which you quoted) indicates that either of my possibilities is untrue.
Oliver--your response, while interesting, similarly fails to address my objections. Calling it "pruning" rather than sending does nothing. I could call failing to save my drowning son "pruning", (maybe he's a little jerk and I have multitudes of other children on whom my resources and time would be better spent) but that does not make the act any less my own. In other words, just because it may be justified or done without malice does not change that its God's act, God's decision. Unless you say He's powerless to stop it.... which brings up a whole other bag of discussion...
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olivergringold
- Apprentice
- Posts: 102
- Joined: Wed Apr 18, 2007 5:39 pm
Post #5
What you're really challenging, then, is the paradox of an omniscient, omnipotent God and one that doesn't interfere with free will. This is where we find common ground.
However, presuming Christianity is right, then God failing to stop these people from impaling themselves on the swords of their own pride or ignorance has nothing to do with his having the ability. In short, the people who CHOOSE to follow the word of God are permitted to enter His kingdom, and those who do not, are not.
Immoral and disgusting? Yes. Hence my failure to be a Christian, academic problems notwithstanding.
However, presuming Christianity is right, then God failing to stop these people from impaling themselves on the swords of their own pride or ignorance has nothing to do with his having the ability. In short, the people who CHOOSE to follow the word of God are permitted to enter His kingdom, and those who do not, are not.
Immoral and disgusting? Yes. Hence my failure to be a Christian, academic problems notwithstanding.
Post #6
I think I'm challenging the paradox of an omniscient, omnipotent God who sends people to eternal suffering. I can solve your paradox by saying that God would not create a reality which requires Him to be unloving--He wouldn't create a system where rejecting him made people go to hell.olivergringold wrote:What you're really challenging, then, is the paradox of an omniscient, omnipotent God and one that doesn't interfere with free will.
Why not? (By the way, while most would argue that "Christianity" dictates that some go to hell, certainly a number of well-versed and intelligent Christians have believed that no one goes to hell--John Scotus, for example. I'm challenging a belief many Christians hold; I would not be willing to accept that I'm challenging a basic tenet of Christianity. But this is very much a whole different argument indeed.)olivergringold wrote:However, presuming Christianity is right, then God failing to stop these people from impaling themselves on the swords of their own pride or ignorance has nothing to do with his having the ability.
