Would You Accept This proposal of Marriage?

[GospelJohn]

Imagine the person you love and admire most from afar asks you out on a date. During your time together you only confirm what you already believed to be true about them. They are loving, kind, patient, prosperous and a great companion to spend the rest of your life with in marriage. At the end of the evening, this person asks you to marry them so this wonderful evening can go on forever…however, there is one other thing you need to know before you answer. Should you decide that you do not want to accept their offer, you will be cast into prison and tortured forever without chance of possible redemption. Now that you have been given the full story, the suitor asks that you please choose him freely with only love in your heart so that eternal bliss can begin.

Would anyone be able to ignore this last caveat to the suitor's proposal? In fact, didn't everything sound great until they brought up the consequences of not choosing as they would prefer? How is this scenario any different from what the traditional Christian creed asks of Mankind?

[OnceConvinced]

*snip*

Hold on a minute, Hell exists because God created it as a consequence for sin. Sin only exists because God created Satan and stood by doing nothing when he sullied his creation.

No one forced God to create Hell. Jesus will have his angels cast us into Hell if we don't worship him. Ultimately our salvation comes down to whether we accept Christ as our lord and savior and if we don't we burn.

Without Hell we would simply continue to live in a world with sin (like this one). What is there to be saved from? As long as your alive there will always be sin to deal with. Salvation does not change that fact. The only thing salvation saves us from is an eternity in Hell.

But when you are saved you're no longer under the power of sin. "The truth shall set you free". He who does the things of the flesh is a slave to the flesh, etc.

When a person is regenerated, he is given a new nature, not under the power of sin.

But Christians still sin and they still suffer from acts of sin done agaist them. So what do you think it means to "not be under the power of sin?" And how is there any benefit in every day life from not being under the power of it?

Also note that when you are "saved" you are no longer in danger of Hell. This would seem to be a more tangable benefit of being "saved" and would be the thing that allows you to feel comfortable as a Christian, giving you peace. No more having to be in fear of God's wrath. That seems more like salvation to me. Saved from God's wrath.

[James15]

Hold on a minute, Hell exists because God created it as a consequence for sin. Sin only exists because God created Satan and stood by doing nothing when he sullied his creation.

No one forced God to create Hell. Jesus will have his angels cast us into Hell if we don't worship him. Ultimately our salvation comes down to whether we accept Christ as our lord and savior and if we don't we burn.

Without Hell we would simply continue to live in a world with sin (like this one). What is there to be saved from? As long as your alive there will always be sin to deal with. Salvation does not change that fact. The only thing salvation saves us from is an eternity in Hell.

OnceConvinced: a compelling argument my friend, and in fact if the premises of the argument were true, then I would probably agree with you. However, as far as I understand scripture, I think you're missing a few things.

First of all, Check out Deuteronomy 6:24 "He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he."

So the bible claims that his works are perfect, everything He does is just.

I'm going to keep track of my claims from scripture.
1. God's works are perfect
2. God's works are just

Let's go back to your understanding of how sin entered the world...

You accused God of making Satan and letting him wreak havoc.
Now there isn't too much about the demons and Satan in scripture, but as James says "You believe that God is one You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder."

So we know the problem that Satan and Co. have is not a lack of knowledge: they know all the pertinent truths.

So where did sin come from? Why was there a tree in the Garden?

1 John 4:8 tells us "God is love"

And as this question (the bridegroom with a knife to your throat analogy) has already pointed out, obedience out of anything but choice is not love, but simple servility.

So if we didn't have choice, then we couldn't love God.
And since our ultimate purpose is to love God and glorify them (Matt 22:37-38 "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment.") it follows that we must have that choice (in some fashion), so that we have the capacity to love.

Therefore, if there had been no tree in the garden (or some way to sin), we would have had no choice, but could only do good things. Therefore we would be robots, unable to love.

So the choice existed. Obviously it existed for Satan to, because he wanted to be like God (to take His job essentially), and rebelled: CHOOSING to rebel against a just God, which of course brings punishment. Hell was created to punish that rebellion.

So our problem is, again, not that hell exists, but that we choose to rebel against a loving God. Even though we rebelled, so God "so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son, that whosoever believed in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)

[Goat]

Hold on a minute, Hell exists because God created it as a consequence for sin. Sin only exists because God created Satan and stood by doing nothing when he sullied his creation.

No one forced God to create Hell. Jesus will have his angels cast us into Hell if we don't worship him. Ultimately our salvation comes down to whether we accept Christ as our lord and savior and if we don't we burn.

Without Hell we would simply continue to live in a world with sin (like this one). What is there to be saved from? As long as your alive there will always be sin to deal with. Salvation does not change that fact. The only thing salvation saves us from is an eternity in Hell.

OnceConvinced: a compelling argument my friend, and in fact if the premises of the argument were true, then I would probably agree with you. However, as far as I understand scripture, I think you're missing a few things.

First of all, Check out Deuteronomy 6:24 "He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he."

So the bible claims that his works are perfect, everything He does is just.

Why yes, it does. That eliminates the concept of Hell. Of course, you do realize the Jewish faith, whose scripture you just quoted, don't believe in
an eternal hell.

I'm going to keep track of my claims from scripture.
1. God's works are perfect
2. God's works are just

Let's go back to your understanding of how sin entered the world...

You accused God of making Satan and letting him wreak havoc.
Now there isn't too much about the demons and Satan in scripture, but as James says "You believe that God is one You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder."

The concept that Satan is a free willed being is a christian modification from
the Jewish faith, in specifically, from the Book of Revelation. The Jewish
faith has Satan just doing his job, and that is to provide bad choices, so that
people can refuse those bad choices, do good, and be closer to god on their own free will.

So we know the problem that Satan and Co. have is not a lack of knowledge: they know all the pertinent truths.

So where did sin come from? Why was there a tree in the Garden?

1 John 4:8 tells us "God is love"

And as this question (the bridegroom with a knife to your throat analogy) has already pointed out, obedience out of anything but choice is not love, but simple servility.

So, 1 John does. However, that is contradicted by the Christian belief in eternal punishment. Therefore, either one , or the other is wrong.

So if we didn't have choice, then we couldn't love God.
And since our ultimate purpose is to love God and glorify them (Matt 22:37-38 "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment.") it follows that we must have that choice (in some fashion), so that we have the capacity to love.

Therefore, if there had been no tree in the garden (or some way to sin), we would have had no choice, but could only do good things. Therefore we would be robots, unable to love.

So the choice existed. Obviously it existed for Satan to, because he wanted to be like God (to take His job essentially), and rebelled: CHOOSING to rebel against a just God, which of course brings punishment. Hell was created to punish that rebellion.

So our problem is, again, not that hell exists, but that we choose to rebel against a loving God. Even though we rebelled, so God "so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son, that whosoever believed in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)

Ah, but what does John 3:16 really mean? That gospel has been worked over extensively over the years. It was first popular in the Gnostic circles, and then was modified to be anti-gnostic. Can you really tell what the meaning of that is?

If we read it in context, and then make gnostic assumptions, or make look at the text with a different mind set, I can think of at least 3 or 4 equally valid interpretations of that phrase.