It answers it quite well.
That you can't understand how isn't my fault.
No, it doesn't and it's not a case of not understanding how either.
Rather, they (my views of Hell) are based on sound reasoning.
Observe:
| Hell exists because God made us with the ability to love, and that requires the ability to hate. And if God allowed everyone to go to heaven, then He would turn heaven into hell and for all of eternity unleash onto the redeemed the "hell on earth" that so many people already lament. And if God replaced St. Peter's gate with a revolving door, then the rebellion, pride, hatred, cruelty and selfishness that has spoiled the paradise of Eden would forever spoil the heavenly paradise. Also, the deity of Christ and eternal punishment are related doctrines, for cults that do not know that Jesus is God also tend to reject the eternal hell. If the punishment of sin is not eternal, then God could have created something of sufficient worth to pay the price, and He would not have had to sacrifice His infinitely worthy Son. But when Jesus prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will," because the Father's love for the Son was immeasurable, we can be sure that there was no other way to pay for the sins of men. And so, because the demands of righteousness required a full payment for sin, the penalty for sin could not be a finite prison term, for then Jesus Christ would not have had to pay with His life. As Southern Baptist seminary president Albert Mohler said, if Bell were right, then "you don't need Christ, and you don't need the cross. This is the tragedy of nonjudgmental mainline liberalism..." |
From
https://kgov.com/bel/20110426.
This article is hardly "sound reasoning" and is just a regurgitation of a Bob Enyart piece. The first part doesn't hold up at all. If God were to restore all and have all people come to a knowledge of the truth then there'd be nobody wanting to ruin Heaven or usurp it. What, do you think that there'd be rabid atheists who'd want to spoil your Heavenly bliss or something? Ironic if so as plenty of non Christians are opposed to the kind of suffering that you would advocate for them. If anything, this kind of view is rooted in selfishness which again is ironic. Where it comes to eternal hell/the lake of fire then as pointed out before there were plenty in the early church that didn't believe it was a place of fire or unending suffering:
Early Christian Universalists, most notably Origen of Alexandria (c. 184–c. 253), and Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335–c. 395), understood the lake of fire as a symbolic purifying fire used to eliminate the dross from the gold,[21] or a "refiner's crucible". Origen refers to the "lead of wickedness" that must be refined out of the gold.[22] Origen obtained his Universalist views, known then as apocatastasis,[23] from his mentor Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–c. 215),[24] who was a student of Pantaenus.
In the view of Origen,
Our God is a 'consuming fire' in the sense in which we have taken the word; and thus he enters in as a 'refiner's fire' to refine the rational nature, which has been filled with the lead of wickedness, and to free it from the other impure materials which adulterate the natural gold or silver, so to speak, of the soul.[25]
19th-century scholar Charles Bigg summarized Origen's view as, "Slowly yet certainly the blessed change must come, the purifying fire must eat up the dross and leave the pure gold. One by one we shall enter into rest, never to stray again. Then when death, the last enemy, is destroyed, when the tale of his children is complete, Christ will 'drink wine in the kingdom of his Father.' This is the end, when 'all shall be one, as Christ and the Father are one,' when 'God shall be all in all.'"[26]
In the view of Gregory of Nyssa, "when death approaches to life, and darkness to light, and the corruptible to the incorruptible, the inferior is done away with and reduced to non-existence, and the thing purged is benefited, just as the dross is purged from gold by fire."[27]
Further evidence that corroborates their understanding that the Lake of fire is a "refiner's crucible" is that the Greek word commonly translated as "lake" also refers to something small, like a pond[28] or a "pool", as translated in the Wycliffe and New American Bible (NABRE).[29] [30]
Also, the added detail of "sulfur" in the lake of fire is related to an ancient gold refining technique. Gold refining by sulphurization, also related to Gold parting, is described in detail by ancient writers.[31][32][33] When unwanted metals, such as lead and copper, are heated in the presence of sulfur, the chemical reaction reduces the unwanted metals into sulfides, such as Lead(II) sulfide and Copper(I) sulfide. Since sulfur is a much lighter element, atomic number 16 on periodic table, the new sulfide molecules easily float to the top of the crucible as dross. Sulfur is also part of the smelting process related to silver and gold and other metal ores and naturally occurs in these ores.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_of_fire
That makes a lot more sense than this Enyart article and they were hardly part of a "cult". Under his beliefs (and by association yours) you believe that there's a supposedly loving God who creates billions of human beings, gives them a snapshot of existence on Earth and casts most of them off into some realm of suffering for eternity. That makes life a curse, not a gift. The last bit about "nonjudgemental mainline liberalism" is just plain daft. Liberalism has squat to do with the topic.
Um, no thanks. I've heard and read enough of Bob Enyart to know what to expect, the same unthinking fundamentalism as the above.
Yes, it is. You should stop doing it.
lain:
