Is the doctrine of Eternal Conscious Torment biblical or not?

ok doser

lifeguard at the cement pond
Everyone is mostly referring to sins (plural articular hamartemata), not sin (singular anarthrous hamartia).

Individual acts are the not the fundamental issue of salvation and that which Christ directly died for. Christ died directly and primarily for sin as a human condition and state of being, individually applied; then the inclusion is for the individual acting and resulting acts/actions of the redeemed. (This is why Calvinism and Arminianism are a false dichotomy based upon a false premise with opposing emphases.)

There should never be a primary evaluative emphasis on individual acts on a scale from benign to heinous. The focus is upon the state of being for all individuals. Salvation is first an ontological issue, and secondarily an economy issue.

Doing bad versus badder versus baddererest things is not the consideration for salvation. Murder, or even genocide, is not something that prevents salvation. But there are other factors to consider if someone has gotten to that point of sin (singular anarthrous hamartia) as their state of being. It requires frustrating grace in a greater manner to be in that condition ontologically.

must...resist...channeling... inner...slim pickens/taggert

i understood some of that

i'll chew on the rest when i come back
 

Arthur Brain

Well-known member
i'm sorry artie, i shouldn't have posted that

but i'll stand by my report to the woodshed - you were personalizing the argument

in fact you've been doing that all afternoon

if you really want to have a discussion about empathy and compassion, i'm up for it, but leave off the personalizing jabs, ok?

in fact, i started a new thread for it: http://theologyonline.com/showthrea...on-for-Mass-Murderers-Rapists-Child-Molesters

Oh, you're free to report as much as you will, just as you're free to project a not altogether unexpected passive aggressive post tactic about things being personalized towards you.

Almost borders on pathological cliché to the point of being redundant.
 

ok doser

lifeguard at the cement pond
if you really want to have a discussion about empathy and compassion, i'm up for it, but leave off the personalizing jabs, ok?

Oh, you're free to report as much as you will, just as you're free to project a not altogether unexpected passive aggressive post tactic about things being personalized towards you.

Almost borders on pathological cliché to the point of being redundant.

or not :sigh:
 

PneumaPsucheSoma

TOL Subscriber
I'm interesting in hearing what exactly you think this would look like.

1 Chronicles 16:34 O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever.​

Grace is for sin itself as the state of being and condition of man (not to be confused with any resulting acts from acting as established actions). Mercy is for the consequences of sin brought forth into action, and is administered to remove or curtail consequences and/or give strength to bear up under those consequences.

Salvation is ontological, meaning the human hypostasis (individual substanding personal reality of existence) is translated into Christ via hypostatic union (just as Christ’s humanity and divinity are joined), thereby causing man’s internal resurrection unto spiritual life to have communion and the status of partaking of the divine nature through Christ alone (because His divinity and humanity are inseparable and unmixed, illustrating why Christology is a vital aspect of belief).

The lost and unbelieving have no such means of having their ontology changed. No spiritual resurrection in this physical life. So their physical resurrection is devoid of spiritual life. Death is cessation of communion with environment of origin, not annihilation, etc. So this aeviternal state of being for the spiritually unresurrected is an everlasting specific kind of separation from the Lord (Christ, who is God).

This means that there is no means of administering grace; for grace is the divine influence of God’s nature upon man’s own, and there is no means for the unredeemed to partake of the divine nature as their ontology is not translated via hypostatic union (by the hypostasis of faith). Therefore, there is no functional manner in which grace is available to those who have died without Christ. The functionalities are beyond the parameters of divine order for the creation. (And this is why there is urgency for salvation in this physical life.)

So what remains is God’s mercy enduring forever on behalf of those who are in His presence (enopion), but not in the prosopon (presence) of Christ by ontological joinging of hypostases (sons as joint heirs by the spirit of adoption). This mercy gives the unbelieving the ability to bear up under the aeviternal state of being they are in by default. It cuts short the worst consequences and is the only means of them being able to endure their everlasting existence of not being in Christ while still being outwardly in the presence of God.

So even the self-inflicted torment of the lake of fire is bearable because of God’s enduring and unending mercy. Though not in the sense it is for the redeemed at all, this is still a gradient of “salvation” for the unredeemed compared to what their everlasting existence would be apart from it. God’s mercy is the ONLY thing that keeps the torment from being the torture that so many accuse of God, and it being a verb.

Torment is a state of being, not the action that God takes toward those in the lake of fire. And God has mercy upon that state of being for all aeviternity. Forever. It’s His very nature to be and do that. But there is no functionality in creation for anything else, for the divine order was violated in the beginning; and every man is culpable for their own condition after frustrating grace.
 

glorydaz

Well-known member
So even the self-inflicted torment of the lake of fire is bearable because of God’s enduring and unending mercy. Though not in the sense it is for the redeemed at all, this is still a gradient of “salvation” for the unredeemed compared to what their everlasting existence would be apart from it. God’s mercy is the ONLY thing that keeps the torment from being the torture that so many accuse of God, and it being a verb.

I'd like to say I could follow all that, but instead I'd like to focus on this part....which seems to be what we're talking about here. What exactly do you mean by a gradient of salvation?

And what do you make of this text?
When God shall be all in all?

1 Cor. 15:22-28
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.

24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. 25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

27 For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him. 28 And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.​
 

PneumaPsucheSoma

TOL Subscriber
So, what's the claim?

If you blow it in this life, you remain separated from God for all eternity?

In the presence (enopion) of God rather than in the presence (prosopon) of Christ. Before Him, rather than in Christ.

Just wander around with no one to talk to?

It’s not a spatial consideration. It’s a qualitative condition/state of being; and there is no perichoresis (the interpenetrating conjoining of humanity that only Believers have in the lapsed cosmos, and is not available to those who are not in Christ). This perichoresis was originally divine order for humanity in creation and was abrogated at the “fall” in the garden.

You burn in hellfire for all eternity?

God is the consuming fire (puros), and the aeviternal state of being for the unredeemed is to be in this fire but not in Christ. The fire is the means of God administering mercy.

Like the burning bush, but never burn up?

Yes, that’s the typology for God as a consuming fire. Humanity is in a lower form of that image, so the human hypostasis is never consumed. It’s not physical.

God expects us to forgive, but He refuses?

Forgiveness (aphiemi) means to set apart, in the sense of setting one’s offenses apart from them to be able to have love and compassion; for their actions have hurt and destroyed them even more than anyone they sin against, as they will be culpable for the very state of being that produced/es all the acting and actions.

So the lost still being the presence (enopion) of God and experiencing the flames of the fire (puros) is indeed not only mercy but forgiveness. But there is nowhere external to themselves for the sins to be set apart, as Christ already bore them on the cross in His physical life and death. So it is the flames alone that administer any separation from the effects of their state of being. The torment is living with their sin instead of it all being upon Christ and resting in Him.

He is unable?

No. But according to divine order in creation, the functionalities established have limitations based upon ontology. Someone must be in Christ (by hypsotatic union) to have their sins fully set apart from them.

He is too Righteous to forgive everyone?

Not at all. But the unredeemed do not have any ontological means of having their sin set apart from them, and God cannot abide sin within Him. He’s not compatible with that privation and somethinglessness, for He is whole and complete with no void or lack. He is the all in all. So those who are separated from the prosopon (presence) of Christ are still receiving God’s mercy in the only manner available to them. (Ontologically, God cannot by nature - and will not by volition - take into Himself that which is contrary to His divine nature.)

This is God’s omni-benevolence. And it stands in stark contrast to Him being accused of being a heartless and loveless torturing monster.
 

glorydaz

Well-known member
When word came of the Seals' successful execution of Osama bin Laden, my reaction was one of positivity - not joy, not laughter, not glee - positivity, satisfaction

certainly not compassion and empathy for the poor poor dead murdering moosie


how about you two?

artie - did you respond to the news of the death of bin Laden with compassion and empathy?

how about you glory?

Knock it off Doser. You need to stay on topic.
 

PneumaPsucheSoma

TOL Subscriber
I'd like to say I could follow all that, but instead I'd like to focus on this part....which seems to be what we're talking about here. What exactly do you mean by a gradient of salvation?

And what do you make of this text?
When God shall be all in all?

1 Cor. 15:22-28
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.

24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. 25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

27 For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him. 28 And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.​

Though the unredeemed are not saved as we know salvation, they are “saved” from a greater torment than they will endure; and all because of God’s mercy.

The unredeemed are not “the all”, which is the opposite of what Enscausasui was alleging with Univeralism.
 

way 2 go

Well-known member
The Man who 's heart was moved with compassion when He saw the suffering of others?
condemnation , compassion

Mat 25:45 Then he will answer them, saying, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.'
Mat 25:46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."
 

Arthur Brain

Well-known member
Though the unredeemed are not saved as we know salvation, they are “saved” from a greater torment than they will endure; and all because of God’s mercy.

What "greater torment" would that be without God's mercy exactly and why is it not possible that God can actually subject all back unto Him?
 
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