Food for thought: Can you be happy with a family member or friend in hell?

Gerrup Outta Dat!

Respectfully, I am going to say that I don't believe in God at all but I respect everyone else's right to do so. I have a question however.

If you are a firm believer and your significant other or close family member doesn't accept Jesus' salvation, are you comfortable with the fact that they will burn in Hell for all eternity? Can you be happy in Heaven with your loved one in hell?

Why would God give a person free-will not to believe, and then punish for an eternity in Hell that same person for not believing (since God created them that way).

jimmycrackcorm

But how would you know that they should go to hell? Add there is insufficient data then its simply a case of needlessly making assumptions.

Gerrup Outta Dat!

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

But how would you know that they should go to hell? Add there is insufficient data then its simply a case of needlessly making assumptions.

If you are in Heaven and you don't meet your loved one there, then their soul must be in Hell. I don't believe in it at all, so it makes no sense to me but I just want to see what actual Christians think about the situation that they could be in Heaven with loved ones in Hell.

Peregrinus

Well, "actual Christians" don't necessarily believe that non-Christians all end up in hell.

But lets accept that there are Christians who do believe that. Are they happy about their non-Christian friends and family being destined for hell? Presumably not.

But so what? Presumably non-Christians are also unhappy about any kind of misfortune or suffering that they think affects or may affect people that they love. In both cases, whether the anticipated misfortune will in fact occur is in no way affected by this unhappiness.

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

Well, "actual Christians" don't necessarily believe that non-Christians all end up in hell.

Out of interest, is this a reference to purgatory or limbo? I'm assuming most Christians would believe non-Christians can't end up in heaven. Hardly a theological reference, but I seem to remember from Dante's Inferno that virtuous non-Christians and those who lived before the time of Christ ended up in limbo, but also though that limbo had since been done away with.

But lets accept that there are Christians who do believe that. Are they happy about their non-Christian friends and family being destined for hell? Presumably not.

But so what? Presumably non-Christians are also unhappy about any kind of misfortune or suffering that they think affects or may affect people that they love. In both cases, whether the anticipated misfortune will in fact occur is in no way affected by this unhappiness.

Is the implication there that heaven is a place in which you can be unhappy?

antiskeptic

Gerrup Outta Dat! wrote: »

If you are a firm believer and your significant other or close family member doesn't accept Jesus' salvation, are you comfortable with the fact that they will burn in Hell for all eternity?

I'd agree with Peregrinus, that it's not quite as clear cut as you suggest. The topic of salvation (who and how) is complex. I myself suppose that there'll be Muslims, atheists, Buddhists and the like "in heaven"

Can you be happy in Heaven with your loved one in hell?

I don't suppose my 'loved ones' will be in hell.

Everybody, though fallen, is made in the image and likeness of God. That which is beautiful, good, kind, lovable, etc. about a loved one stems from their being God-imaged. And that which is ugly about them, stems from their falleness

The person in hell won't possess Godly attributes in Hell. Attributes they possessed, deriving from the image of God will be removed from them (for the environment of Hell might be summed up as a place where nothing of the beauty of God is present). All that will be left is their ugly attributes, attributes attenuated and revealed-in-full because there are no redeeming features to provide a counter-balance.

You might get some idea of what these 'loved ones' will look like by examining people in this life who have suppressed the image of God in which they were made: the Himmlers, Hitlers, child-rapists, torturers, sociopaths. They aren't loved ones because there is nothing there to love anymore. Ditto, the person in Hell from whom all lovable attributes have been stripped

Why would God give a person free-will not to believe, and then punish for an eternity in Hell that same person for not believing (since God created them that way).

The choice is, in a way, simple. Do you want that which characterizes God and what he stands for. Or do you want that which is contra-God. Being stripped of Godly characteristics and being left to exist which what remains is a torture of the persons own choosing.

God has ensured that everybody is given the opportunity to answer his question of them as to what it is they want (him or not-him). This irrespective of the religion they were brought up with, their socio-economic standing, their education. You need not believe this but assuming this is the case, then the person in Hell has no one to point to for their ending up there except for themselves.

For free will to exist, the choices of that will must be honoured. Even if that means eternal separation and torment for the person doing the choosing.

Nick Park

The OP poses a good question, and one which will hopefully challenge notions of heaven and the afterlife which owe more to popular paganism than to biblical and historic Christianity.

Firstly, while not wanting to quibble unnecessarily, historic Christianity does not see eternity as floating around on a cloud in an airy-fairy place in the sky called heaven. The biblical view of the future is that there will be a new heavens and a new earth where we live forever in the presence of God.

Secondly, I don't believe the Bible supports the notion of our eternal afterlife being a drugged up happy oblivion where we don't remember anything bad. Christian concepts of eternity are more grown-up than that. Eternal life will be an experience of joy, where the trials and tribulations that we went through are seen as less significance than the ultimate triumph of good over evil and our achieving the moral potential of who God intended us to be.

So, without getting into the whys and wherefores of whether hell exists and what exactly it will look like (and there is wide divergence among Christians on those points) I believe that we will be aware that some of our loved ones chose to reject the opportunity to spend eternity with God. That will not stop us being joyful, in the same way that the sadness, say, of Martin Luther King's assassination did not stop his colleagues rejoicing and thanking God when their campaign against racial segregation was ultimately successful.

In other words, joy (a experience with a moral dimension rather than mere happiness) can exist even when we acknowledge sad realities.

uck51js9zml2yt

antiskeptic wrote: »

I'd agree with Peregrinus, that it's not quite as clear cut as you suggest. The topic of salvation (who and how) is complex. I myself suppose that there'll be Muslims, atheists, Buddhists and the like "in heaven"

.

How did you come to that conclusion?
Scripture says that there is no other name by which we can be saved, referring to Jesus.
How can someone who has not believed in Him get to heaven?

Peregrinus

smacl wrote: »

Out of interest, is this a reference to purgatory or limbo? I'm assuming most Christians would believe non-Christians can't end up in heaven . . .

As Tatranska's post shows, there are indeed Christians who do believe this. But your assumption that most Christians believe it is mistaken; the Catholic church, for example, explicitly teaches the contrary.

smacl wrote: »

Is the implication there that heaven is a place in which you can be unhappy?

No, no. My point was that, if I believe or fear that something terrible will happen to you, and that makes me unhappy, my unhappiness does not mean that my belief or fear is incorrect (or that it is correct). It may be that there are Christians who believe that friends or family members are damned, and who are very unhappy about that, but their unhappiness tells us nothing at all about whether their belief is correct.

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

As Tatranska's post shows, there are indeed Christians who do believe this. But your assumption that most Christians believe it is mistaken; the Catholic church, for example, explicitly teaches the contrary.

Apologies for labouring a point, ignorance on my part, but are you saying that without a deathbed conversion of some sort, even if only in the mind, non-Christians can go to heaven? Say we take the example of Gandhi, who would be broadly considered as having led a virtuous life but was staunchly against the spread of Christianity, would he make it into heaven with becoming something that he clearly was not?

No, no. My point was that, if I believe or fear that something terrible will happen to you, and that makes me unhappy, my unhappiness does not mean that my belief or fear is incorrect (or that it is correct). It may be that there are Christians who believe that friends or family members are damned, and who are very unhappy about that, but their unhappiness tells us nothing at all about whether their belief is correct.

I take your point, but the logic remains that there are those in heaven whose loved ones are not and never will be, which surely leads to unhappiness. Surely to be happy, one must also have the capacity to be unhappy?

Peregrinus

smacl wrote: »

Apologies for labouring a point, ignorance on my part, but are you saying that without a deathbed conversion of some sort, even if only in the mind, non-Christians can go to heaven?

Yes.

smacl wrote: »

Say we take the example of Gandhi, who would be broadly considered as having led a virtuous life but was staunchly against the spread of Christianity, would he make it into heaven with becoming something that he clearly was not?

Well, the Catholic position on this is that the only people who can be said not to be saved are those who "who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it". Everbody else can be saved, including non-Catholics, non-Christians and non-beleivers who do not know God but who "seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience".

smacl wrote: »

I take your point, but the logic remains that there are those in heaven whose loved ones are not and never will be, which surely leads to unhappiness. Surely to be happy, one must also have the capacity to be unhappy?

Mmm. I see where you're coming from. I had, perhaps carelessly, understood the OP as asking whether a Christian could be happy now if he believes that his unbelieving wife, brother, friend or whatever is headed for hell but, on rereading, no, he does ask if a Christian can be happy in heaven knowing that someone else is in hell.

The answer has to be, we don't know if the question has any meaning. It's tempting to think of heaven as a bit like our present existence, but with more clouds, angels and harps and less bad weather, hunger, grief and pain. But I think the theologians would say that heaven is, strictly speaking, unimaginable. What's different about heaven is not where you are; it's who you are. To be saved is to be changed utterly; to become who you are called to be, rather than the fallen version of yourself that you currently are. And since this is not something that we have ever experienced, we cannot imagine what it will be like to become that being, and therefore we have no idea what "happiness" for such a being might mean.

This is underlined by your earlier reference to the old "limbo" concept. If you recall, or if you look it up, limbo was conceived of as a state of "natural happiness", the point being that natural happiness is something fundamentally different from anything we might expect to experience in heaven.

So, will we be happy in heaven? Well, yes, but that happiness is only vaguely analogous to anything we experience as happiness now. How will that happiness be consistent with the knowledge that a friend, a lover, or whatever is forever separated from God (and, therefore, from us)? No idea. But a possible speculation is that unhappiness resulting from loss of or separation from something beloved is essentially selfish, and our perfected selves will not be selfish.

EirWatchr

Gerrup Outta Dat! wrote: »

Can you be happy in Heaven with your loved one in hell?

Your love for them may be the very thing that keeps them from hell.

antiskeptic

Jessie Round Drug wrote: »

How did you come to that conclusion?
Scripture says that there is no other name by which we can be saved, referring to Jesus.

It doesn't appear to have stopped Abraham. He believed what God said - not in Jesus.

I can't help but consider my own case. I found myself at the end of the line, praying one night to a God (not Jesus) I didn't believe in and being saved as a consequence of that prayer (or rather, I believe, the heart behind it). It was only later, when I found out something about this Jesus and what he had done that I knew of the person (and their act of sacrifice) upon which my salvation rested. I accept there is no other name under heaven by which I am saved. But that name isn't the way in which I arrived at salvation.

There is no other name by which we can be saved - all who are saved are saved through the 'device' of him. But that's quite a different matter to that which enables a person to be placed into his salvation in the first place

To put it another way:

There is no other name by which we can get a 10 euro flight to Stansted. A different matter to that which causes us to arrive at the airport at some godforsaken hour.

How can someone who has not believed in Him get to heaven?

Again I would point to my own experience. I woke up the morning after praying that prayer (which went up and out without any expectation of anything occurring because of it). Standing at the bottom of the stairs hauling myself into my motorcycle gear, a voice in my head, which I identified as not my own, said: "Everything is going to be okay".

I somehow understood "everything" to mean some kind of big picture everything rather than my being able to sail through life without a trouble in the world. I could crash my bike and be rendered a paraplegic still. I could get sick, I could get depressed. But everything, in some ultimate, overarching sense, was going to be okay. The everything involved aspects of my existence which I still hadn't consciously recognized but which still bubbled away somewhere deep within me: my guilt, my shame, my life, my purpose, my death.

And I believed what I was told. Everything was going to be okay. And I walked on much lighter of step. I had a new sense of peace, having received resolution to a problem I had (and which affected me in all kinds of ways) but didn't, up to that point, know I had.


Let's suppose for a moment that that was Jesus talking. I can be said to have believed him (because I did believe that everything was going to be okay, evidenced by my being now at peace). Without having yet encountered him in any consciously informed way.

Can you see the difference? A person believes Jesus because they have been born again (without believing in Jesus). Believing Jesus is, thus, a marker of your having being saved rather than a means whereby you cross the threshold from lost to found.

It's a pattern we see in the Bible. Take the thief on the cross. Something happens to him and he is able to see Jesus for who he is - having switched from hurling insults. I would suggest he was saved due to some heart-response to the call of God placed on all men. Typically the response is aided and abetted by the person being in dire straits. His eyes were opened as a result of becoming spiritually alive. He hears Jesus beside him and recognises him for what he is - as a result of his being already being saved. And he believes him.

Salvation first, belief in Jesus second. It's utterly logical - for there is no reason or mechanism to believe Jesus save for your eyes being opened to who he is.

In the case of Muslims, atheists and the like, I'm only suggesting that the way in which we believe Jesus need not involve the kind of informed view of him that, say, I have. I would suppose an atheist who is born again and who is exposed to knowledge about Jesus will come to believe in him in the informed way I believe in him. But what about an atheist somewhere in the world without access to knowledge of him. Or a muslim without access to my kind of knowledge about him? They can believe him in the way I believed him standing at the end of my stairs. Belief in him without knowledge of him.

uck51js9zml2yt

antiskeptic wrote: »

It .

Salvation first, belief in Jesus second. It's utterly logical - for there is no reason or mechanism to believe Jesus save for your eyes being opened to who he is.

In the case of Muslims, atheists and the like, I'm only suggesting that the way in which we believe Jesus need not involve the kind of informed view of him that, say, I have. I would suppose an atheist who is born again and who is exposed to knowledge about Jesus will come to believe in him in the informed way I believe in him. But what about an atheist somewhere in the world without access to knowledge of him. Or a muslim without access to my kind of knowledge about him? They can believe him in the way I believed him standing at the end of my stairs. Belief in him without knowledge of him.

We repent and believe in Him for Salvation. The amount of understanding differs but it's there.
The Philipian jailer asked how he could be saved. He was told repent and believe, after which he and his family were instructed in the way of salvation. That doesn't change. It's by faith in Him that we are saved.
Our experience and knowledge of Him might be different but there are foundational aspects to it.
There are no Muslims, atheists or Catholics or for where I am now, Hindus in heaven. Only believers in Jesus Christ, people who've known repentance and forgiveness of sin and the new birth.
How can they hear? There are countless reports coming from Muslim countries of Jesus appearing to people who would never have the opportunity to hear the gospel by normal means who are believing in Him

antiskeptic

Jessie Round Drug wrote: »

We repent and believe in Him for Salvation. The amount of understanding differs but it's there.

The Philipian jailer asked how he could be saved. He was told repent and believe, after which he and his family were instructed in the way of salvation. That doesn't change. It's by faith in Him that we are saved.

Why on earth would anyone seek salvation unless there was some conviction that salvation from anything was a) required b) available. Dead-in-their-sins souls, like any object, move in a straight line unless acted upon by an exterior force. They will not turn to an unbelieved in God unless some force causes them to do so.

We circling around on that handover point, the point where something happens a person to convict of sin, righteous and judgement (to put it one way it's been put). Once that happens, the person will make the call out to God.

The Phillippian jailer, like the thief on the cross, like me ... finds themselves at a point under conviction of need (a need that can be entitled in many ways but has at root, the sense of arriving at end of ability to be able to scratch own itch and submitting to the idea that the itch can only be scratched by a higher power).

-

I cannot underscore the point too heavily. You cannot believe something without good cause. To suppose a dead-in-their-sins person can spontaneously, in-a-vaccum repent of something they have no cause to be convicted about and believe the Jesus Christ is their Lord and Saviour, as opposed to the Tooth Fairy or any of the other options is, not to put too fine a point on it, a non-sense. Something has to happen to bring them to that point.

And if a person has been convicted then it is by God they will have been convicted and in being convicted thus, they have effectively believed what God says. Since he is the one whose voice imparts the evidence that convicts

-

I'd note, again from own experience, that repentance during that initial, salvific prayer of mine wasn't at all heartfelt. I simply followed the written down prayer which I was reading but hadn't any deep sense of regret at my sin. It was about 6 months later than the sense, quantity and magnitude of my sin overcame me and I experienced a genuine sense of regret. The repentence that followed was indeed heartfelt and the sense of forgiveness that followed that repentance, tangible and healing

I simply can't get hooked up on formula (especially) when it's not that clear cut whether the formula is complete and is being correctly read. We have, in addition to the ease at which my own view/experience can be harmonized with the New Testament thrust, this problem of Abraham and all the others who lived before Christ. And the problem of what is to be done with all those who simply cannot have heard of Christ post-his incarnation.

Either we suppose they are to be forever lost OR suppose their is some mysterious way of salvation that we haven't heard of OR suppose there is some way to reconcile the biblical narrative with a universal, one-type-fits-all way of salvation. I feel the latter and am steered towards a way in which the totality of the scriptures dealing with the subject are to be read together. So as to be able to draw the conclusion I do.

How can they hear? There are countless reports coming from Muslim countries of Jesus appearing to people who would never have the opportunity to hear the gospel by normal means who are believing in Him

See in the point I made above, the categories of people excluded by the way of salvation you hold to. Perhaps you can explain what you think is to happen to them?

uck51js9zml2yt

My own experience is that I sought God and sought to serve Him long before I knew Him. By your thinking this shouldn't have been possible. But my experience is that God isn't bound by what we think is possible.
34 years on , Im teaching pastors in Asia.

antiskeptic

Jessie Round Drug wrote: »

My own experience is that I sought God and sought to serve Him long before I knew Him

Yet the bible is clear on the state of a man dead in his transgressions and sin: antagonistic, god-hating. Romans 3:11,There is no one who understands; no one who seeks God.

Perhaps, as I have been suggesting, something was active in you (better said: something which attempts to act in all men and which wasn't utterly suppressed by you) to cause you to travel the road you did towards God. God, I'm supposing, attempts to draw all men to himself, with those attempts being fought more or less vigorously by each individual. Your's happened your way, others can be like me, with no apparent questioning of God, why am I here, where am I going - giving an apparent Damascus Road conversion. Others will be like CS Lewis, self-described and the most reluctant convert in all England.

It's the same basic mechanism at work in all: God drawing and men resisting to greater or lesser degree.

I ought to underscore this part of the mechanism of salvation I adhere to. To my mind, everyone will be saved except those who suppress/disable/dodge to the point where God figures the person's will has given their final answer and they are finally lost. Salvation is the default result, in other words, unless like Jerusalem, Jerusalem "you willed it not"]


The point is that God must do the drawing forth. No belief in Jesus is required for God to do that drawing, for that drawing is being applied to all men because God wants that none should perish. If the person is brought to the point of realizing their need (like an Abraham in the matter of a heir he could not produce, like the thief who realized the game was up, like me who had tried everything to fill the God shaped hole and had run out of viable options) then God's attempt has been successful in that case. They're will will bow - even if to an unknown, unbelieved in God. And the salvation transaction will occur.

It matters not a jot whether Jesus can be known to the person in the way it can be known to you and me.

God is interested in the heart. Not in whether or not a person has the right name to call out upon. As ever, it is the spirit of the law he is interested in ("what sayeth your heart and will") not the letter ("sorry, you didn't/couldn't have know/known my name so it's Hell with you").

34 years on , I'm teaching pastors in Asia.

I'm not sure what the relevance of that is? Somebody teaching someone something doesn't make that something correct. I mean no disrespect here, but Christianity is nothing if not a container for a wide variety of mutually irreconcilable doctrines. Someone, somewhere is teaching others the wrong stuff. Again, no disrespect, but you might agree that there are priests out there preaching a gospel they have no belief or interest in. It's a job s'all


-

There were a number of points made in the last post which you might be interested in addressing. How it is, for instance, that a man in sin can, without God's action repent and believe in God. How do you resolve that chicken and egg? That object in motion travelling in a straight line?

And what about the dilemma of Abraham etc. And the millions post Christ who couldn't have heard of him. What do you say to this. Do you simply suppose it a mystery? Or that God will do what is right?

Nick Park

antiskeptic wrote: »

And what about the dilemma of Abraham etc.

Just to point out that Abraham's faith, which was counted as righteousness, was faith in God's promise that through his descendant (Jesus) all the nations on earth would be blessed.

uck51js9zml2yt

antiskeptic wrote: »

Yet the bible is clear on the state of a man dead in his transgressions and sin: antagonistic, god-hating. Romans 3:11,There is no one who understands; no one who seeks God.

Perhaps, as I have been suggesting, something was active in you (better said: something which attempts to act in all men and which wasn't utterly suppressed by you) to cause you to travel the road you did towards God. God, I'm supposing, attempts to draw all men to himself, with those attempts being fought more or less vigorously by each individual. Your's happened your way, others can be like me, with no apparent questioning of God, why am I here, where am I going - giving an apparent Damascus Road conversion. Others will be like CS Lewis, self-described and the most reluctant convert in all England.

It's the same basic mechanism at work in all: God drawing and men resisting to greater or lesser degree.

I ought to underscore this part of the mechanism of salvation I adhere to. To my mind, everyone will be saved except those who suppress/disable/dodge to the point where God figures the person's will has given their final answer and they are finally lost. Salvation is the default result, in other words, unless like Jerusalem, Jerusalem "you willed it not"]


The point is that God must do the drawing forth. No belief in Jesus is required for God to do that drawing, for that drawing is being applied to all men because God wants that none should perish. If the person is brought to the point of realizing their need (like an Abraham in the matter of a heir he could not produce, like the thief who realized the game was up, like me who had tried everything to fill the God shaped hole and had run out of viable options) then God's attempt has been successful in that case. They're will will bow - even if to an unknown, unbelieved in God. And the salvation transaction will occur.

It matters not a jot whether Jesus can be known to the person in the way it can be known to you and me.

God is interested in the heart. Not in whether or not a person has the right name to call out upon. As ever, it is the spirit of the law he is interested in ("what sayeth your heart and will") not the letter ("sorry, you didn't/couldn't have know/known my name so it's Hell with you").





I'm not sure what the relevance of that is? Somebody teaching someone something doesn't make that something correct. I mean no disrespect here, but Christianity is nothing if not a container for a wide variety of mutually irreconcilable doctrines. Someone, somewhere is teaching others the wrong stuff. Again, no disrespect, but you might agree that there are priests out there preaching a gospel they have no belief or interest in. It's a job s'all


-

There were a number of points made in the last post which you might be interested in addressing. How it is, for instance, that a man in sin can, without God's action repent and believe in God. How do you resolve that chicken and egg? That object in motion travelling in a straight line?

And what about the dilemma of Abraham etc. And the millions post Christ who couldn't have heard of him. What do you say to this. Do you simply suppose it a mystery? Or that God will do what is right?

Salvation is not a default position. It's His desire for all men but the truth is that many won't repent and believe.
The default is that all have sinned and fall short of His standards and by one man's sin(Adams), all have died and shall experience Hell unless they are born again.
We are saved by Grace which is in itself a gift of God.

You seem very Calvinistic in your approach to salvation. God is a lot bigger that you give him credit for.

As to the relevance of the last comment. It was purely that a desire to serve Him pre conversion was fulfilled post conversion.How do you explain that? I expect you can't!

antiskeptic

Jessie Round Drug wrote: »

Salvation is not a default position. It's His desire for all men but the truth is that many won't repent and believe.

Which is essentially that which I have said:

God attempts to fully bring the truth of man's position to all men. (you and I differ on what the essence of that truth is and probably, how that truth is delivered)

Some men won't do what is required in the face of the truth God attempts to deliver (you and I differ on what the essence of what they've to do in the face of the truth God attempts to deliver)

Ergo, all men shall be saved unless they won't be. Salvation is the default position unless men opt otherwise .. is all I said.

The default is that all have sinned and fall short of His standards and by one man's sin(Adams), all have died and shall experience Hell unless they are born again.

Agreed. We're merely discussing how the born again process occurs.

We are saved by Grace which is in itself a gift of God.

Indeed. But that too need be unpacked. You have saved by grace alone, yet man's will/choice is an essential part of the process. Grace alone but no credit accruing to man for his choice? There is a way to reconcile that, to my mind

Or you can have Calvinisms version, which see's no part at all played on man's part. No act of will. I think that's a load of baloney - something which flies in the face of scripture.

You seem very Calvinistic in your approach to salvation. God is a lot bigger that you give him credit for.

Dunno how you got that idea!! I see the will of man as centrally involved in his salvation. Indeed, he will be saved unless he wills it not. That's how important a part a man's will plays in his salvation.

I don't understand for the life of me how Calvinism is supposed to stand scripturally.

As to the relevance of the last comment. It was purely that a desire to serve Him pre conversion was fulfilled post conversion.How do you explain that? I expect you can't!

Perhaps you can elaborate on what occurred at your conversion which makes you suppose that was the point of conversion? I don't see a problem in explaining your zeal before the event, given the example of Paul before his event. He was zealous but a off target. Presumably you were a off target before your conversion (otherwise I'm not sure what you were converting from)

As I say, I see God drawing all men so don't see any issue with a man with a certain zeal for God (but probably one that's "out of tune" to some degree). Conversion is said to bring sight were blindness existed before. What did you see on conversion that you didn't see before? In which way were you re-tuned?

ouxbbkqtswdfaw

Peregrinus wrote:

Well, the Catholic position on this is that the only people who can be said not to be saved are those who "who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it". Everbody else can be saved, including non-Catholics, non-Christians and non-beleivers who do not know God but who "seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience".

A non believer is someone who has heard the Good News, but refuses to accept it. Such a person cannot enter Heaven.

uck51js9zml2yt

Anti.. try reversing this"
. Indeed, he will be saved unless he wills it not. That's how important a part a man's will plays in his salvation."

Your default position is that men will be saved unless they choose between not to be. Mine is the opposite. All are destined for hell until they are saved.

ouxbbkqtswdfaw

He who believes and is baptised will be saved. He who does not believe will be condemned.

antiskeptic

Jessie Round Drug wrote: »

Anti.. try reversing this"
. Indeed, he will be saved unless he wills it not. That's how important a part a man's will plays in his salvation."

Your default position is that men will be saved unless they choose between not to be. Mine is the opposite. All are destined for hell until they are saved.

Although you are technically correct, there is no mechanism there.

I've included the role of God and the role of man such as to provide a mechanism which can, if not already fleshed out:

- properly assign the credit for salvation with God alone / properly assign the dubious credit for a mans damnation with the man himself alone. This is, I think, scripturally, logically, legally, rationally, emotionally and psychologically sound.

- explain why people turn to God at that headline event: the moment of conversion.It is neither mysterious (a.k.a. our theology goes silent at that point) or Calvinistically lotto-pick like. Rather, it's the culmination of a process involving both man and God up to that point.

- permits salvation for all men at all times: the Abrahams who never heard of Christ (which nobody really ever deals with), the folk who never could have heard of Jesus despite being born in NT time (which nobody ever deals with). The one mode of salvation for all men at all times.

- explain why someone like you seeks out God prior to a salvation event.


A sound theology is like a sound scientific theory. It need accommodate all the observations. If it can't accommodate all the observations by way of modification of the theology/theory then it must be scrapped.

Which is why I ask about Abraham and about all those who cannot, due to circumstances of time or geography, follow some narrow Jesus-naming/accepting formula. How are they to be saved?

-

ouxbbkqtswdfaw

All the Abrahams were saved when Christ descended among the dead.

antiskeptic

g4qy6c5pehr9w0 wrote: »

All the Abrahams were saved when Christ descended among the dead.

A theology of salvation purporting to govern the majority of the people who have ever (to date) lived need something thicker to stand on than the Rizla paper I'm planning to roll my next cigarette from.

Peregrinus

Well, to pick nits,it's almost certainly the case that a majority of all people who have ever lived were born after the time of Christ.

But that's not really relevant. I'm curious as to why you think that a theology of salvation that addresses onlyt some people would be more robust than one which addresses all people?

uck51js9zml2yt

Scripture says that Jesus was the Lamb slain BEFORE the foundation of the world.
You think it was 2000 years ago on a hill in Jerusalem. It was, but it was also eternal in God.
When it says He died for the whole world...He did.
His effect of His sacrifice spreads to the past as well as the future. It wasn't just something for the period.

recedite

Nick Park wrote: »

In other words, joy (a experience with a moral dimension rather than mere happiness) can exist even when we acknowledge sad realities.

That is an interesting definition of the word "joy" which seems widespread in religious groups, but is not actually true in a strictly dictionary or non-religious context.
In normal parlance, the word joy does not have a moral dimension.

What I find even more interesting is whether this special religious definition of the word "joy" includes a certain amount of schadenfreude?
You know, that special kind of satisfaction that comes from knowing that you made the correct choice, difficult as it was at the time, and now those others who made the wrong choice are suffering.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Well, the Catholic position on this is that the only people who can be said not to be saved are those who "who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it". Everbody else can be saved, including non-Catholics, non-Christians and non-beleivers who do not know God but who "seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience".

This is clearly an old fashioned position that stems from the worldview which sees the savages living in faraway places as being ignorant of the gospel and in need of conversion. They would be good catholics, but first they need missionaries and bibles.

It clearly does not apply to Gandhi, who tried to prevent the spread of Christianity. Nor to atheists, or muslims or anybody else in the modern world who has heard the "good news" and shut the door on it. At this stage, there is hardly anybody left in the world who has not already been exposed to Christianity

Clearly then, there are a huge number of good and virtuous people in the world "who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it".
What happens to them?

antiskeptic

Peregrinus wrote: »

Well, to pick nits,it's almost certainly the case that a majority of all people who have ever lived were born after the time of Christ.

Born after falls a ways short of people having the opportunity to have heard of Christ

But that's not really relevant. I'm curious as to why you think that a theology of salvation that addresses onlyt some people would be more robust than one which addresses all people?

Ockhams Razor springs to mind. A theology of salvation which addresses only some of the people and which supposes one or more 'mysterious' ways of salvation for the significant rest adds to the number of ways of salvation. An unnecessary, according to the Razor, level of complication - if the one way is sufficient to cover all.

There is a problem too with this/these mysterious modes of salvation. Perhaps there are mysterious ways. But the claim can also be read as an attempt to paper over the cracks in the theology-of-some. I made the point earlier about a theology being analogous to a scientific theory. You cannot simply ignore a large group of observations which don't fit your theory/theology with silence (a.k.a. it's a mystery). It would be like wiping out a significant data set which doesn't fit your theory in science

antiskeptic

Jessie Round Drug wrote: »

Scripture says that Jesus was the Lamb slain BEFORE the foundation of the world.
You think it was 2000 years ago on a hill in Jerusalem. It was, but it was also eternal in God.
When it says He died for the whole world...He did.
His effect of His sacrifice spreads to the past as well as the future. It wasn't just something for the period.

I agree. All who are saved are saved through the device of his sacrifice. It is applied and effective through all ages.

The issue under discussion is how one accesses the device. Specifically: before Christ lived and after Christ lived, but before knowledge of him could have been available to a person. How are these people saved?

uck51js9zml2yt

antiskeptic wrote: »

I agree. All who are saved are saved through the device of his sacrifice. It is applied and effective through all ages.

The issue under discussion is how one accesses the device. Specifically: before Christ lived and after Christ lived, but before knowledge of him could have been available to a person. How are these people saved?

Abraham believed God and was counted as righteous.

antiskeptic

Jessie Round Drug wrote: »

Abraham believed God and was counted as righteous.

What does that do to the specific idea that belief in Jesus / the name of Jesus is critical to a person being declared righteous?

uck51js9zml2yt

antiskeptic wrote: »

What does that do to the specific idea that belief in Jesus / the name of Jesus is critical to a person being declared righteous?

For me it boils down to 2 things.
The Lord knows those who are His.

Shall not the God of the whole earth judge rightly.

My job is to preach the gospel now wherever I'm sent.

antiskeptic

Jessie Round Drug wrote: »

For me it boils down to 2 things.
The Lord knows those who are His.

Shall not the God of the whole earth judge rightly.

My job is to preach the gospel now wherever I'm sent.

Fair enough. I just suppose there's a bit more to the gospel than one typically hears about in Christian circles. And if there is more to the gospel than one typically hears about in Christian circles, are we sure we're preaching the correctest, fullest gospel?

I don't mean to undermine by this. Indeed, I don't think it relies on our having a precisely-correct-on-all points gospel to preach in order that God use us (l mean, how could be we sure we have a precisely-correct-on-all-points gospel?)

It just seems to me that, to suppose we have "arrived" at a correct gospel and never question it again, leaves us more open to error than need be the case.

MrPudding

Jessie Round Drug wrote: »

For me it boils down to 2 things.
The Lord knows those who are His.

Shall not the God of the whole earth judge rightly.

My job is to preach the gospel now wherever I'm sent.

Similar to how Santa knows who is naughty and who is nice?

MrP

c_man

MrPudding wrote: »

Similar to how Santa knows who is naughty and who is nice?

MrP

Wow, you absolute legend. You've done it! What startlingly fresh and original content, you've got a bright future kid.

The reviews are in!

"MrPudding the A&A breakout star..."

"I nearly wet myself at his "sky fairy" routine..."

"I was a Bishop but after the Santa bit, I traded in my mitre for a neckbeard. Top stuff"

Delirium

MOD NOTE

MrPudding wrote: »

Similar to how Santa knows who is naughty and who is nice?

MrP

Less of the goading comments please.

c_man wrote: »

Wow, you absolute legend. You've done it! What startlingly fresh and original content, you've got a bright future kid.

The reviews are in!

"MrPudding the A&A breakout star..."

"I nearly wet myself at his "sky fairy" routine..."

"I was a Bishop but after the Santa bit, I traded in my mitre for a neckbeard. Top stuff"

Please refrain from personal comments.

If you have a problem with a post, please use the report button.

Thanks for your attention.

uck51js9zml2yt

MrPudding wrote: »

Similar to how Santa knows who is naughty and who is nice?

MrP

The bible asking says it's "the fool who says there is no God."

Cabaal

Jessie Round Drug wrote: »

The bible asking says it's "the fool who says there is no God."

sure it would say that, don't want people questioning it after all...

uck51js9zml2yt

Cabaal wrote: »

sure it would say that, don't want people questioning it after all...

Questioning is fine, once it's done so with a willingness to understand instead of having cheap shots across the bow:)

Nick Park

Cabaal wrote: »

sure it would say that, don't want people questioning it after all...

And sure wouldn't you say that, don't want people thinking you're a fool after all ....

Nick Park

recedite wrote: »

That is an interesting definition of the word "joy" which seems widespread in religious groups, but is not actually true in a strictly dictionary or non-religious context.
In normal parlance, the word joy does not have a moral dimension.

You do realise you are posting in the Christianity Forum, don't you?

If you go in virtually any other forum (e.g. soccer, politics, science, dentistry etc) you are going to find words used in a slightly different sense to normal parlance. That's why you can refer to someone in the rugby forum as a 'hooker' and not expect everyone to think you're talking about prostitution.

It's entirely reasonable, therefore, in the Christianity Forum, for a Christian poster to use a word in a way that is commonly understood in Christian theology.

In Christian theology, joy is frequently understood as possessing a moral dimension.

What I find even more interesting is whether this special religious definition of the word "joy" includes a certain amount of schadenfreude?
You know, that special kind of satisfaction that comes from knowing that you made the correct choice, difficult as it was at the time, and now those others who made the wrong choice are suffering.

My experience, in discussing the subject of hell with literally thousands of Christians, is that I could count on one hand the number of them who have expressed even the slightest pleasure or satisfaction at the prospect of anyone suffering in hell.

But I do realise such false stereotypes are beloved by a certain class of atheist. This was the kind of twisted logic that led Christopher Hitchens to his bizarre assertion that Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (you remember him, the leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference who quoted the Bible in almost every speech he made) wasn't a Christian.

EirWatchr

Peregrinus wrote: »

Well, the Catholic position on this is that the only people who can be said not to be saved are those who "who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it".

What's the source of that quotation Peregrinus?

The Catholic position is that those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell. (CCC 1033)

uck51js9zml2yt

EirWatchr wrote: »

What's the source of that quotation Peregrinus?

The Catholic position is that those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell.

You haven't read much of hinaults posts then. ..sure even the Pope isn't a real Pope!

Cabaal

Nick Park wrote: »

And sure wouldn't you say that, don't want people thinking you're a fool after all ....

I guess all the Muslims and people of other faiths are fools then in your view, they don't believe in your god after all. Awful outlook to have on your fellow man.

I prefer to take the outlook that, if religion gets you through life thats grand, but don't push it on others and if they question it or don't believe in it then thats grand too. Best not to call people fools.

uck51js9zml2yt

Cabaal wrote: »

I

I prefer to take the outlook that, if religion gets you through life thats grand, but don't push it on others and if they question it or don't believe in it then thats grand too. Best not to call people fools.

with that take on life in surprised you honour us with your presence.

smacl

Jessie Round Drug wrote: »

with that take on life in surprised you honour us with your presence.

Maybe the reason is because you're keenness to spread the good word is seen by many of us as attempting to inflict your belief system on our families in such a way that it interferes with our freedom of religious expression? It is patently clear that there are many Christians still keen to push their religion on those who have no use for it as can be seen by frequent proselytising forays on the A&A forum.

Nick Park

Cabaal wrote: »

I guess all the Muslims and people of other faiths are fools then in your view, they don't believe in your god after all. Awful outlook to have on your fellow man.

I prefer to take the outlook that, if religion gets you through life thats grand, but don't push it on others and if they question it or don't believe in it then thats grand too. Best not to call people fools.

No, I don't think that people of other faith are all fools. I might think that they are mistaken, but that's a very different matter. And I'm perfectly happy if they think I'm mistaken.

Best not to go making unwarranted assumptions about other people or falsely attributing views to them that they don't actually hold.

J C

g4qy6c5pehr9w0 wrote: »

He who believes and is baptised will be saved. He who does not believe will be condemned.

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ ... and you will be Saved.
Baptism is a requirement for entry into a church ... not a requirement for Salvation.

J C

wrote:

Originally Posted by tatranska
The bible asking says it's "the fool who says there is no God."

Cabaal
sure it would say that, don't want people questioning it after all...

The exact verse referred to is as follows:-

Psalm 14 King James Version (KJV)

14 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.

The first thing to note is that it is with his/her heart i.e. his/her emotions that the person denies the existence of God ... and not with his/her head (or logic).
The second aspect of it is that this causes the person to make foolish follow-on decisions, like refusing to be Saved, for example.