Thoughts on Matt. 7:21-23

[Karen]

[jo]

[Fea_Istra]

Allan, I've read the article, and that's a good point I've never heard it before. :) So do you see hell as a type of 'purgatory' where people are 'cleansed' to go to heaven? CS Lewis once said that he thinks it's a good idea for people to go through that stage so that they would be perfect in heaven. (well he said this about himself but I can relate to it).

I think that makes sense...but the difficulty I have with that, is that I think people still have their free will after death; and what if they reject heaven even then? Would punishment change the person, or just scare them into choosing God (which wouldn't be a real choice)?

Another point is concerning time. If we still experience time linearly; then it makes sense that a person should first go to hell, then be 'purified' of evil, and go to heaven. But if time is different, then the moment of judgement/decision would be a 'moment that contains all moments' and since God is supposedly outside time He would know that a person who rejects him then would always reject Him (everything is 'present' to God, no past or future).

However, perhaps you're right and people might still be changed after death. I really don't know I guess all that we can do is to trust God to do what is right, since He is after all perfect Wisdom and Love.

I am also confused as to how this Judgement happens. I don't think it matters really what I think about it, but just for the sake of 'philosophy'....

...the Judgement is either like in Narnia, where the creatures 'choose' God or hell (the idea is that when we actually see God, we react to Him based on how good/bad our souls are); or God chooses 'His own' with no input from the creatures. I think that the former alternative does not undermine God's authority, although it might seem that way. But I think it's useful to think of judgement more as 'what God thinks of us' than what 'we think of God' (even though these are very much related), because that is all that matters in the end... maybe it's best to just combine these two ideas together, and say that 'what matters more is what God thinks of us, but that is influenced by what we think of Him'. hmmm....the second idea is useful in that it takes free will into account, and the first idea points out God's authority.

And I have drifted away from the topic

cheers

[Shadowland Dweller]

[Fea_Istra]

Hey, thanks SD :)
I used to lurk around a lot and read discussions
(muahah)
Actually it's good because I read about things I haven't thought about much

[Theo]

[Karen]

[AllanS]

[Fea_Istra]

"There is nothing 'free' about a will that chooses torment over bliss. It is an insane will, an enslaved will. Anything but free. But, thank God, Christ has come to set us free."

Indeed that's true :) such a will is 'dead' and enslaved by evil. But I meant it in a different way. I meant that people still have choices; even if they make the wrong ones...I meant that 'after this life' they are not directly controlled; but I do think that people in hell are controlled by evil.

"How can the saints in Revelations pray "How long, O Lord?" if they were suddenly timeless, or plonked in a time-stream utterly divorced from our own?"

Well to tell you the truth I have no clue about time or lack of it, I was just examining alternatives :) About Revelations, I think that the Bible is true, but it's written in a way that we can understand it. After all, there is no point of giving the human race a text that is way too confusing that they can't understand or apply it...the Bible is meant to be useful, and it is. But there is still much in reality that we dont' see or understand, but perhaps we don't really need to yet (due to our fallen nature we'll probably misuse such great knowledge anyway). I think if God gave us all the facts about everything in our state, we would just use them for evil.

But back to the subject : sure, it may be true that there is still linear time, who knows...

"I think it's like a potter. He stops the wheel and judges the pot. If it's not the shape he desires, he continues to work the clay."

hmm that's interesting. It goes together with what the article was talking about. Well, it's a possibility. It depends on what hell is; a place of 'cleansing' or being eternally and finally ignored by God (which is a painful idea but still a possibility).

cheers

[AllanS]

[soul101]

How can such a God "vomit up" all of those He considers "lukewarm"? The god you professed there is in contradiction to the verse that started this thread. He will say to some "I do not know you." hmmm....

[Fea_Istra]

hmm...this is difficult. Well I think the only way that a loving God can 'ignore' someone is if the person's nature is so opposite to His that they just can't be 'reconciled'...it also depends on whether there is a 'final' Judgement or just an 'inspection'. 'Ignored' doesn't necessarily mean 'forgotten', but just finally left alone because they would never come back to God...remember that God is thought to be outside time, and can 'observe' the future.

Also, perhaps people in hell are like those people in 'Great Divorce', they just can't see anything except their own point of view. No matter how much you try, they just don't understand or want heaven.

Of course, it is a much more comforting idea to think that they are still given more chances, and perhaps they are, but what happens if the people are so enslaved by evil they don't see or take the chances? I do believe that God is loving and perfectly good, but I don't see how such people can be 'fixed' without taking away free will.

Yes, good is stronger than evil, and God is more powerful than the devil, but what happens when the human will is so enslaved that it sees nothing else? Like again, in Great Divorce (well of course Lewis didn't know how heaven and hell look like etc but it's still an idea):

(conversation between Lewis and George MacDonald in heaven, in a dream, after MacDonald says that hell is smaller than one atom of heaven)

"...a damned soul is nearly nothing: it is shrunk, shut up in itself. Good beats upon the damned incessantly as sound waves beat on the ears of the deaf, but they cannot receive it. Their fists are clenched, their teeth are clenched, their eyes fast shut. First they will not, in the end they cannot, open their hands for gifts, or their mouth for food, or their eyes to see".
"Then no one can ever reach them?"
"Only the Greatest of all can make Himself small enough to enter hell. For the higher a thing is, the lower it can descend--a man can sympathize with a horse but a horse can not sympathize with a rat. Only One has descended into hell."
"And will He ever do so again?"
"It was not once long ago that He did it. Time does not work that way when once ye have left the earth. All moments that have been or shall be were, or are, present in the moment of His descending. There is no spirit in prison to Whom He did not preach."
"And some hear Him?"
"Aye".

Something like that....

There is another point: I haven't read Revelations for a while, but I seem to recall that in one part, it says that evil shall be finally 'destroyed' (maybe I'm just making this up..I'll look it up). But then, it says that people go to hell. I guess I should go look it up.

[Karen]

[Fea_Istra]

[AllanS]

Fire: Puros in Greek, as in purify. Brimstone: Theion in Greek, meaning divine.

The Lake of Fire is the place of divine purification. Death and Hell are thrown into the lake and destroyed. Death and Hell are killed. This is the second death. If there is no Hell, there can be no one in it. If death is killed, all must be alive. The Lake of Fire is the death of death.