Traditional Salvation Violates God’s Justice

[Bociferous]

Sorry. I am not able to understand you.

In the OP, you noted how Abraham understood God's justice that God won't annihilate the righteous along with the wicked. And you said God did that in Sodom and Gomorrah: He separated the righteous before He annihilated the wicked.

Did that Sodom & Gomorrah account violate God's justice?

If you say Yes, then you should not have used that account as basis for your interpretation that annihilating the wicked violates God's justice. Because in so doing you have God violating His own justice system when He annihilated the inhabitants of Sodom & Gomorrah.

If No, then you have no reason to complain with the Scriptural solution I presented because all the elements you wanted in God's justice system are all there.

God restored humanity to what you described as "wholly true or righteous state" when on the cross He fashioned humanity into the body of His Son. But those who won't live up according to His standards, will be separated from the Body, thus the BODY as a whole REMAINS in the "wholly true or righteous state". The Body is not annihilated. It will stay on forever. It's the wicked that will be annihilated. Nothing good remains in them having been removed from the Source of all good.

Hi Samie,

I believe God purposefully told Abraham what He planned to do knowing that Abraham would react as he did, to set up a metaphor in these passages to be uncovered in its proper time.

Remember, Abraham's nephew Lot and family had settled in Sodom. Abraham, probably in part pleading for the sake of his nephew and family, correctly pointed out (Gen 18:25) to God that it was a violation of His holy justice to destroy Sodom while righteous folk yet remained.(Gen 18:23-32).

In the above scene God sets up the metaphor. Observe that Sodom was a single city, a whole containing many parts [inhabitants]. Some (Lot and family) were deemed righteous by God, others (the Sodomites) deemed unrighteous. He then shows in Gen 19:1-24 how He solves the problem identified by Abraham: instead of destroying the entire city consisting of unrighteous and righteous parts, He separates the two, destroys the latter and saves the former. Abraham was right--it's wrong of a perfect God to destroy good with bad. God is pure Good, to destroy good violates His justice.

The reason most can't get their heads around the metaphor is because we're taught to understand the Bible only in its literal sense. The literal only sees whole people. You're seeing unrighteous people annihilated and righteous people saved, but the people involved were just paints on God's canvas or actors on His stage of history. God used those who lived in Sodom to show us not only how He saves, but who He saves. Once it's understood that God uses Sodom's inhabitants to represent the spirit or soul of each and every human being, at least two principles suggest themselves:

1. God is showing us the work He performs in human soul/spirit has some likeness to a whole consisting in many parts.
2. Those "parts" [a term from the realm of substance] are "value elements", not necessarily substance. Base value (derived from Aquinas) is true and false. Goods follow from the true and evils from the false. These terms fit easily into Scripture, i.e., truth and falsity can be exchanged for "darkness/light", "spirit/flesh", "righteous/unrighteous", etc.
3. God always destroys or annihilates only good, never bad parts.

Once made manifest, this order and process of salvation is necessarily universal in nature as the metaphor shows the logical problems dealing with whole persons. Strong arguments can be made for example that there is some good in even the worst human beings and some evil in the best.

One test of truth is whether this metaphor repeats in Scripture. It does. Dozens of times. God separates wheat and tares (Mat 13), sheep and goats (Mat 25), good figs and rotten (Jer 24), He cuts off righteous from wicked (Ezek 21) cuts off bad branches from the vine (Jn 3, Jer 5), and so on.

This concept is presented in a bit more detail here,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePVHVPgQp3k

The point is Samie, God violates the perfection of His justice if He saves some people and destroys or separates and punishes others because He will have destroyed a whole person who had some good in her. But His justice is preserved when He moves His destruction and eternal separation from individuals to bad parts within each human spirit .

This isn't the whole story of course. Salvation has two distinct aspects, Death and Resurrection. The Gen 18-19 metaphor is just the death part of the equation. In His great mercy, what He destroys in the soul He resurrects [rebirth, restoration], as Jesus taught (John 12:24).

 

[chair]

Though this is off-topic, are you saying the doctrine of the fall doesn't make sense?

Yes. I have had many people try to explain it to me, but when it comes down to it, it is not a moral doctrine.

 

[chair]

Would you drink from a cup with poison in it?

No. Not knowingly. What is your point?

 

[Bociferous]

Yes. I have had many people try to explain it to me, but when it comes down to it, it is not a moral doctrine.

Unless you're using the term "moral" to mean something considerably different than most folks, I find this position astonishing. There is probably no doctrine in Christianity more obvious in both Testaments of the Bible--especially in light of the confirming experience of every day life--than that human beings are naturally morally defective.

Simple thought experiment. What do you think would happen in this world if tomorrow we woke up and all forms of civil constraint--police, armed services, etc.--were gone? Would society quickly dissolve into chaos or would we all join hands and sing Michael Row the Boat Ashore? I find it hard to fathom that you'd even need anyone to 'explain' the idea of a fallen human nature. Yours is a position typically held by humanists.

 

[chair]

Unless you're using the term "moral" to mean something considerably different than most folks, I find this position astonishing. There is probably no doctrine in Christianity more obvious in both Testaments of the Bible--especially in light of the confirming experience of every day life--than that human beings are naturally morally defective.

Simple thought experiment. What do you think would happen in this world if tomorrow we woke up and all forms of civil constraint--police, armed services, etc.--were gone? Would society quickly dissolve into chaos or would we all join hands and sing Michael Row the Boat Ashore? I find it hard to fathom that you'd even need anyone to 'explain' the idea of a fallen human nature. Yours is a position typically held by humanists.

Of course humans are imperfect. Should we go ahead and punish everybody for being imperfect? That is what the doctrine of Original Sin says. Or should we punish people for the actual crimes they commit?

 

[Jamie Gigliotti]

[/SIZE]The doctrines of Annihilationism and eternal punishment both violate the perfection of God’s justice. Only the allegorical approach to the salvation of all in the Bible is able to resolve these violations.

The story of God’s discussion with Abraham on the road to Damascus (Gen 18) is a metaphor that, combined with Sodom’s destruction (Gen 19), identifies certain spiritual principles. Briefly, the story contains these elements:
1. Abraham challenges God by asking Him if He would destroy Sodom if only a few righteous existed there. God answered that He would not. (Gen 18:17-33)
2. God then proceeds to remove righteous Lot and family from Sodom before destroying it. (Gen 19:1-24)

In this metaphor—a symbolic depiction of God’s work in human spirit or the soul—God establishes at minimum the principles that,
A. He will not destroy a whole (Sodom) in which any good exists;
B. The soul exists in a “one and many” organization or multiplicity of “value elements”. [Analogical to but not to be confused with elements of substance.]

Salvation is revealed to be the removal and destruction of the false or bad elements of the soul (as shown in the Gen 18-19 passages) and their restoration or resurrection to a good or true state (as shown elsewhere in Scripture).

THE PROBLEM

Abraham identifies the logical problem in Gen 18:25: "Far be it from Thee to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from Thee! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?"(NASB)

God, if He is the God of the Bible, is necessarily perfect in all His attributes—love, justice, wisdom, etc. Abraham pointed out that the destruction of any good violates the perfection of His justice. God then confirms Abraham’s point by separating good (righteous) parts from bad before destroying the latter.

Both Annihilationism and eternal punishment violate the perfection of God’s justice, the former by destroying good and the latter by eternal separation and punishment of wholes (persons) in whom at least some good arguably still exists.

THE SOLUTION

In separation of good and bad parts from a whole, God shows the first of the dual aspect [death and resurrection] of Christian salvation and reveals that because all are enlightened (Jn 1:9) destroying wicked components from human essence and restoring them to a wholly true or righteous state [and thus restoration of the whole] is His plan and work of salvation in every human being. Using the Gen 18-19 passages as a supervising metaphor establishing these principles, there are dozens of other semantically unified metaphors from both Testaments that form a systematic support. This view is unavailable to a literal understanding of the Bible.

I’ve posted this elsewhere. There’ve been no adequate refutations to date.

Questions, comments?

"Some good" in people.
You seem to confuse value with goodness. Christ proved the value we possess. But good and goodness only comes from Him. We are stained by sin controlled by our sinful nature. He has made the way. We have redemptive value. He desires to clean us reconcile us with himself and empower us with Himself, His love, His Spirit to share in Him and His goodness. He does desire us all to share in His love, but he does not force. Most refuse Him. He desires to create love between us and Him that can only be achieved with freedom to choose Him. He has paved the way with His blood, the Master, all glorious King made himself nothing to satisfy His love His Justice. He can not go against His nature.

 

[1Mind1Spirit]

He desires to create love between us and Him that can only be achieved with freedom to choose Him. He has paved the way with His blood, the Master, all glorious King made himself nothing to satisfy His love His Justice. He can not go against His nature.

It seems you confuse seeking with choosing.

Jeremiah 29:13
And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

Luke 11:9
And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

 

[Bociferous]

Of course humans are imperfect. Should we go ahead and punish everybody for being imperfect? That is what the doctrine of Original Sin says. Or should we punish people for the actual crimes they commit?

Okay, I thought you stood opposed to the idea of the fall from virtually any standpoint. We're probably closer in thinking than I guessed. If I now understand you were reacting to the extremist or fundamentalist notion that humans are automatically born with moral offense in human essence--which I also disagree with. We're born defective as I see it, and some of that defect creates dispositions for immoral choice and choice, to the extent it's actually free [open for lots of discussion], begets culpability as near as I can see.

 

[Bociferous]

Hello JG,

"Some good" in people.
You seem to confuse value with goodness. Christ proved the value we possess. But good and goodness only comes from Him.

No, I take the position [and this view of truth is foundational to my theology] that all value derives from only two properties, true and false. Good and evil are effects created by complex assortments of truth and falsity. The "all things" of Scripture that are subjected to God so He may be all in all (1Cor 15)is, in my thinking, truth. Creation was created in a wholly true (perfect) state but God allowed it to become falsified, maybe to let the pathogen of falsity work itself out in existence so we'll eventually build a natural resistance to it. To work all in all is to restore creation to its original perfection.

But I agree that good and goodness--as effects of falsity being removed and the soul restored to a a higher truth state--are from God. We seem to know how to falsify, but God knows how to restore what is damaged back to a true state.

He does desire us all to share in His love, but he does not force.

Sure He does. The idea that God doesn't "force us to be good" or to choose Him is rooted in a corrupt view of the power of the human will. God doesn't force us to be saved; He gradually and fragmentally sets us free from the thing (elemental falsity in the soul) which prevents us from choosing good automatically and appropriately if not hindered by spiritual disease. The free agency idea places individual humans on a level playing field with God in terms of will, which is absurd.

He "forces" us to be saved in the same way any loving Father "forces" his toddler to be safe and well.

 

[Samie]

Hi Bociferous;

I noticed in your post I quoted below, that you did not make any reference to what I pointed out in my response you quoted. I take that to mean that perhaps you saw nothing in my post as going against God's justice system.

Hi Samie,

I believe God purposefully told Abraham what He planned to do knowing that Abraham would react as he did, to set up a metaphor in these passages to be uncovered in its proper time.

Remember, Abraham's nephew Lot and family had settled in Sodom. Abraham, probably in part pleading for the sake of his nephew and family, correctly pointed out (Gen 18:25) to God that it was a violation of His holy justice to destroy Sodom while righteous folk yet remained.(Gen 18:23-32).

In the above scene God sets up the metaphor. Observe that Sodom was a single city, a whole containing many parts [inhabitants]. Some (Lot and family) were deemed righteous by God, others (the Sodomites) deemed unrighteous. He then shows in Gen 19:1-24 how He solves the problem identified by Abraham: instead of destroying the entire city consisting of unrighteous and righteous parts, He separates the two, destroys the latter and saves the former. Abraham was right--it's wrong of a perfect God to destroy good with bad. God is pure Good, to destroy good violates His justice.

The reason most can't get their heads around the metaphor is because we're taught to understand the Bible only in its literal sense. The literal only sees whole people. You're seeing unrighteous people annihilated and righteous people saved, but the people involved were just paints on God's canvas or actors on His stage of history. God used those who lived in Sodom to show us not only how He saves, but who He saves. Once it's understood that God uses Sodom's inhabitants to represent the spirit or soul of each and every human being, at least two principles suggest themselves:

1. God is showing us the work He performs in human soul/spirit has some likeness to a whole consisting in many parts.
2. Those "parts" [a term from the realm of substance] are "value elements", not necessarily substance. Base value (derived from Aquinas) is true and false. Goods follow from the true and evils from the false. These terms fit easily into Scripture, i.e., truth and falsity can be exchanged for "darkness/light", "spirit/flesh", "righteous/unrighteous", etc.
3. God always destroys or annihilates only good, never bad parts.

Once made manifest, this order and process of salvation is necessarily universal in nature as the metaphor shows the logical problems dealing with whole persons. Strong arguments can be made for example that there is some good in even the worst human beings and some evil in the best.

One test of truth is whether this metaphor repeats in Scripture. It does. Dozens of times. God separates wheat and tares (Mat 13), sheep and goats (Mat 25), good figs and rotten (Jer 24), He cuts off righteous from wicked (Ezek 21) cuts off bad branches from the vine (Jn 3, Jer 5), and so on.

This concept is presented in a bit more detail here,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePVHVPgQp3k

The point is Samie, God violates the perfection of His justice if He saves some people and destroys or separates and punishes others because He will have destroyed a whole person who had some good in her. But His justice is preserved when He moves His destruction and eternal separation from individuals to bad parts within each human spirit .

This isn't the whole story of course. Salvation has two distinct aspects, Death and Resurrection. The Gen 18-19 metaphor is just the death part of the equation. In His great mercy, what He destroys in the soul He resurrects [rebirth, restoration], as Jesus taught (John 12:24).

It appears that you are not coherent in your reasoning, as shown in what I highlighted in red above, and also as follows:

Initially, you said that God's justice system requires that the good be not annihilated with the bad. And He did just that in Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim. He separated the good from the bad AND THEN destroyed the bad.

Then, you likened the righteous and the unrighteous inhabitants in those cities as representing the good parts and bad parts IN a person.

And finally, you reasoned that God will NOT destroy the bad part in a person with his good part, but that He will destroy only the bad parts, thus making the person only having the good parts.

Where lies the incoherence?

In the metaphor, God SEPARATED the good (Lot and family) from the bad (bad inhabitants) and then rained fire on those cities, destroying the cities with the bad in it.

In your application of the metaphor, the cities with its good and bad inhabitants necessarily represent the person with his good and bad parts; the good inhabitants represent the good parts in a person; the bad inhabitants represent the bad parts in a person.

In line with the metaphor, the good parts (good inhabitants) should be removed from the person (cities), and the person (cities) destroyed with its bad parts (bad inhabitants). But that is NOT how you portrayed the metaphor in your application.

Instead, in your application, the person (cities) is not destroyed, only the bad parts (bad inhabitants). You also have the bad parts (bad inhabitants) destroyed in the person (cities) with the good parts (Lot and family) NOT first removed from the person (city).

I'm afraid the incoherence gave you out.

 

[Bociferous]

Hi Samie,

It appears that you are not coherent in your reasoning...

Initially, you said that God's justice system requires that the good be not annihilated with the bad. And He did just that in Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim. He separated the good from the bad AND THEN destroyed the bad.

You're not quite picking up on the salient points brother.

God shows us in metaphor the first part [destruction; death] of what is taking place inside the souls of each of the Sodomites as they were being physically destroyed. As each Sodomite died--and as each human passes from physical life to death throughout history--the false value elements in our essence or spirit are destroyed [death] and being replaced with true value [resurrection]. Human spirit is, fragmentally speaking, undergoing multiple deaths and rebirths. The result? A completely regenerated individual, restored to a wholly true state. Why? Because as Rev 21:8 tells us, "...the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."

Falsity is kindling to the pure essence of God. First we suffer the death of our spirit with wrong choice (re Adam and Eve in the garden), then our spiritual death itself suffers the death of God's wrath [annihilation]followed by His loving grace [rebirth]. What happened to all the falsity inside us that caused us to be cowards, to lie, not have faith, murder and be immoral? It is annihilated in God's loving, fiery presence.

This process describes not only salvation, when it takes place in this life it's sanctification. If we're fortunate we suffer "hell on earth" because hellfire is purification. To the extent we hear and follow Christ Jesus' voice in this life, we're 'cleansed' to a state of saving faith so we can be changed in the twinkling of an eye (1Cor 15:51-52) upon entering physical death while the unsaved squarely face the terrible cleansing fire of God's presence, where He shows no mercy (Jer 11:11, Ezek 7:4, 9:10) until every last bit of falsity is burned up, the sinner is made wholly true and the individual's name restored to the book of life for eternity.

How come? Because nothing unclean and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it [the New Jerusalem], but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life Rev 21:27...i.e., God is pure Truth and no false thing may enter His presence. His pure Truth essence is a roaring lake of fire to the false value in human spirit. Jesus died not that we don't die for our sins (Rom 6:23) but that when we kill ourselves with our sin He lovingly restores us.

Do you see why I didn't answer your post directly? You weren't properly following the metaphor. What I posted in the op is quite coherent friend--it's the doctrines of annihilation and eternal punishment that are incoherent.

 

[chair]

Okay, I thought you stood opposed to the idea of the fall from virtually any standpoint. We're probably closer in thinking than I guessed. If I now understand you were reacting to the extremist or fundamentalist notion that humans are automatically born with moral offense in human essence--which I also disagree with. We're born defective as I see it, and some of that defect creates dispositions for immoral choice and choice, to the extent it's actually free [open for lots of discussion], begets culpability as near as I can see.

Don't get me wrong here. I do not accept any idea of the "Fall". It is a misreading of the Biblical story. I just think that people are not perfect. That is the way God made us.

 

[TulipBee]

God choosing according to his own pleasure still stands

 

[God's Truth]

God choosing according to his own pleasure still stands

God chooses those who believe and obey Jesus.

 

[Bociferous]

God choosing according to his own pleasure still stands

To whom and to what point in particular is this comment directed?

 

[Timotheos]

Questions, comments?

Since the Bible says that the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is an example of the coming judgment of the wicked, and since Sodom and Gomorrah were completely destroyed and not just the sin components of Sodom and Gomorrah, we can know for certain that the coming judgment of the guilty will be complete destruction, just as it was for Sodom and Gomorrah.

I hope this helps you.

 

[Bociferous]

Hello Chair,

Don't get me wrong here. I do not accept any idea of the "Fall". It is a misreading of the Biblical story. I just think that people are not perfect. That is the way God made us.

Then we disagree and you do take a position common to that of humanists I've read. Off topic for this thread anyway.

 

[TulipBee]

To whom and to what point in particular is this comment directed?

The point is like you sitting in the middle of the traffic. You have free will to do anything you want. God accomplished what He wanted by arranging circumstances around you. He arranged stalled cars to be all around you. He got YOU to stay at a single POINT for a little bit to delay you from getting home on time to enjoy your wife's hot meal. He tested your wife's patience through circumstances. You and your wife had free will to do anything you naturally desired. You could have gotten out of your car to walk home but your meal still got cold. God knew a car was going to run a red light at 100 miles per hour in your future. If God didn't arrange circumstances around you, you would have been at that intersection and killed by the speeding robber who God also arranged the bank to be there for the robber to rob. God also put the same bank for the members to deposit money. You see, you're happy, the robber is happy, the member is happy and God is Happy.
.
.
.
All four are happy!
.
It's according to God's pleasure He let you live another day. Instead you complain to God and boastfully claim you're superman with your own self applied non existent free will.

If God is love, he is also reality.
.
.
When will you return to reality?

 

[Jamie Gigliotti]

It seems you confuse seeking with choosing.

Jeremiah 29:13
And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

Luke 11:9
And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

Not sure what you are getting at. We choose to seek.

 

[Jamie Gigliotti]

Hello JG,


No, I take the position [and this view of truth is foundational to my theology] that all value derives from only two properties, true and false. Good and evil are effects created by complex assortments of truth and falsity. The "all things" of Scripture that are subjected to God so He may be all in all (1Cor 15)is, in my thinking, truth. Creation was created in a wholly true (perfect) state but God allowed it to become falsified, maybe to let the pathogen of falsity work itself out in existence so we'll eventually build a natural resistance to it. To work all in all is to restore creation to its original perfection.

But I agree that good and goodness--as effects of falsity being removed and the soul restored to a a higher truth state--are from God. We seem to know how to falsify, but God knows how to restore what is damaged back to a true state.



Sure He does. The idea that God doesn't "force us to be good" or to choose Him is rooted in a corrupt view of the power of the human will. God doesn't force us to be saved; He gradually and fragmentally sets us free from the thing (elemental falsity in the soul) which prevents us from choosing good automatically and appropriately if not hindered by spiritual disease. The free agency idea places individual humans on a level playing field with God in terms of will, which is absurd.

He "forces" us to be saved in the same way any loving Father "forces" his toddler to be safe and well.

Jesus said only a few will find it. Agreed it is the truth that sets us free, Again Jesus said, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free." John 8:31-32

You seem to just take out of God's word what you like.

How could a murderer who is actively murdering and is killed become freed?