This is by our friend and pastor and author, John Frye.
A JUST GOD DOES PUNISH PEOPLE
The church of the Thessalonians “in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” exploded into being. However long Paul was in Thessalonica, most agree it wasn’t an extensive amount of time (see Acts 17:1-9). Swept out of town because of a political uproar, Paul, Silas and Timothy left in a hurry. Paul was anxious to know how this new, mostly Gentile convert church was doing. Hearing a report from Timothy, Paul was greatly encouraged (1 Th 3:6). The “gospel” they received was full of life-transforming energy and Paul beams his excitement about their growth in the Christian faith.
Paul is astounded by and brags about the Thessalonians’ conversion to Jesus Christ. People are telling Paul how the Thessalonians “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead–Jesus, who rescues us from coming wrath” (1 Th. 1:9-10). Thessalonica, a privileged Roman city, a free city like Philippi, was home to rampant pagan idolatry. Any cursory study of idolatry in the first century world reveals the totalitarian nature of its control over the lives of common people. Serving idols was a crap-shoot and no one ever lived with peace of mind regarding the gods.
The new converts turned to God from idols. Conversion. The necessary turning (repenting) was evoked by the gospel as it was permeated and spoken with power and the Holy Spirit. The new converts were now serving not lifeless idols, but the living God, the true God, the raised-his-Son-from-the-dead God. These new converts were waiting for the exalted Son’s return, the Son who rescues us from the coming wrath. Rescues? Coming wrath (orges) ? Two strong concepts. But I thought God is love and love wins. We can’t make this text read “rescues us now from whatever wrath we make for ourselves.” It is clearly an eschatological anticipation.
These new converts to Jesus the Messiah were being persecuted either by angry citizens or by jealous Jews or both. The new converts were enduring, even florishing under the threats. Paul in his second letter continues to thank God for their stamina (2 Th. 1:3-4). Then we read (NIV) “God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might…” (2 Th. 1:6-9).
I read [if indeed] God is just, he will pay back trouble. This isn’t ugly, sinful, fitful vengeance. God is just and will pay back.
I read God will punish (ekdikesin), they will suffer punishment (pay the penalty), everlasting destruction (olethron aionion) away from the presence of the Lord. If behind the blazing fire of v 7 is an allusion to Isaiah 66:15 (Fee), then the fire is not a purifying fire, but a punishing fire. This is dreadful fire.
This text is not necessarily Paul’s description of hell. The horrifying consequence for Paul is to be “shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might” (v 9) for the reason of “not knowing God and obeying the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (v 8).
In our continuing conversation about the consequences of sin and conditions in the “eternal state,” I think we can conclude from these two Thessalonian texts that God is just in punishing those who do not know God and who do not obey the gospel of the Lord Jesus. God’s justice does not require that he, in the end, forgive everyone. Forgiveness is not an attribute of God. It is an act. Therefore not forgiving is not a violation of God’s being. Yes, God is love and God can be unforgiving. Forgiveness is not part of our nature, either. It, too, is a decision, an act just like God’s forgiveness is a decision, an act. I think it is petulant to respond: if God does not forgive all the time, then I don’t have to either. In view of the cross, we live in a vast forgiveness atmosphere. We are called to forgive just as God forgives us. This is right and commanded. Yet, God is just and he will punish evil doers. Love does not require that God forgive.
The question isn’t whether or not God will unleash his rage against sin, but whether or not a “just” God can punish someone indefinately for “not obeying the gospel” and remain a “just” God. I would love for someone to show me how that is possible.
Justice seems to require giving the correct amount of punishment to fit the infringement.
The annihilationist take on the above passages still strikes me as superior.
Jeff,
I suspect that for not a few there is a question as to whether or not we should view God as acting in wrath toward anyone.
Also, it didn’t seem to me that there was anything in Frye’s entry that mediated against annihilationism. Am I missing something?
Like you, I too would be interested in seeing how somone would go about justifying how God can punish someone in an unending sort-of-way and still remain a just God.
The annihilationist interpretation of 2 Thessalonians 1:9 would come a lot easier if the NIV didn’t butcher the verse by adding “and shut out” (which is found nowhere in the Greek). The AV and other older translations render the verse correctly as “destruction from the presence of the Lord.”
The “from” (apo) likely denotes source, not separation. The ESV’s alternate rendering of verse 9 is probably correct (“They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction that comes from the presence of the Lord”). God’s glorious, fiery presence (literally “face,” Gk. prosopon) brings death and destruction. This is seen throughout the Old Testament (Exodus 33:20 is a famous example).
At issue here is whether or not God’s punishments are retributive or entirely restorative. From that angle, there is no substantive difference between classic punitive retributive judgment and annihilationism. (Not to say there aren’t clear differences, but both of them in this issue are retributive and not restorative.)
I am quite certain that it is not any humans’s prerogative to sit in judgement of God’s character. Since God Himself is just and holy, the question is not whether we agree with Him or not, the question is what do we do in response to how He has revealed Himself. The idea of sinful creators passing judgment on their Creator is presumptuous and frankly silly. In fact it would be entirely unjust for God, based on who He is and who we are, to not punish sin. What is glorious and unimaginable is that He deigns to save any at all.
But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” (Rom 9:20)
Arthur #5,
I don’t think that we are sitting in judgement of God just because we try to understand the character of God.It is not judgemental to ask a question. We need to try to understand God by looking at who God is and adjusting our beliefs accordingly. I’m sure when we see Him face to face it will all be clear and we will say “well of course that is just and right” but here we are trying to look at the mirror ond understand the nature of One that we see only dimly.
I don’t think we are answering back to God but are saying, “please show me God so I can know you better”,.
I also think that any theology of God needs to start with the assumption that God is working out of love because that is what the Bible tells us that God is (love).
John, I may be getting off the point here but in reference to
II Thessalonians 1:6-9 you said “I think we can conclude from these Thessalonian texts that God is just in punishing those who do not know God and who do not obey the gospel of the Lord Jesus. God’s justice does not require that he, in the end, forgive everyone.”
But do you think the “judgment” that Paul describes in these verses, in intensely apocalyptic language, is about a philosophy/theology of forgiveness? Or does it describe a visible, public, and therefore historical event, when those who persecuted the churches will “suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord” (1:9). The context seems to raise the possibility that this is not about God’s justice requiring that he, in the end, does not have to forgive everyone, but the specific judgment of a culture that sought to eradicate the churches.
It seems the most that is described here is the “destruction”—of the wicked opponents of the righteous king when he comes at his parousia to “inflict vengeance” on those who afflicted his loyal people. Paul later speaks of the revelation of a man of lawlessness, “whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming”. This suggests a rather more symbolic “destruction” of the persecutors of the churches. The narrative expects the king to judge the persecutors, to bring them to nothing, and permanently to exclude them from his presence. It looks like the punishment is a destruction by exile.
Leithart describes some of this in his book on Constantine: God will sooner or later judge—that is, overthrow, in the arena of history—the powerful, idolatrous and unrighteous nation which destroyed Jerusalem and persecuted the saints of the Most High. As you rightly said, “the text is not necessarily Paul’s description of hell”. But from there can we skip the aforementioned historical context (if it is in fact the correct understanding) and begin speculating on whether or not God’s justice does not require that he, in the end, forgive everyone?
(4) Scot. True. Just banging the drum…
(5) Arthur. I agree with Tom (6). You said, “I am quite certain that it is not any human’s prerogative to sit in judgment of God’s character … the question is what do we do in response to how He has revealed Himself.” The judgment at hand is how should I inturpret how God is revealing himself. That is the question at hand, and it seems to me, unavoidable.
@4Scott- I don’t think annihilation has to be retributive. A person who is so recalcitrant that s/he would never be capable of living in harmony with God and Gods new world might meet this end as the more merciful of the remaining options.
Let’s talk about contradictions:
“This text is not necessarily Paul’s description of hell. The horrifying consequence for Paul is to be “shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might” (v 9) for the reason of “not knowing God and obeying the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (v 8).”
So this isn’t Paul’s description of hell but we’re going to use it to talk about hell right here:
“In our continuing conversation about the consequences of sin and conditions in the “eternal state,” I think we can conclude from these two Thessalonian texts that God is just in punishing those who do not know God and who do not obey the gospel of the Lord Jesus. God’s justice does not require that he, in the end, forgive everyone.”
But what if God’s justice was fully on display on the cross and it truly is finished and God meant it when he inspired the words, “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world”
“Forgiveness is not an attribute of God. It is an act. Therefore not forgiving is not a violation of God’s being. Yes, God is love and God can be unforgiving. Forgiveness is not part of our nature, either. It, too, is a decision, an act just like God’s forgiveness is a decision, an act. I think it is petulant to respond: if God does not forgive all the time, then I don’t have to either. In view of the cross, we live in a vast forgiveness atmosphere. We are called to forgive just as God forgives us. This is right and commanded. Yet, God is just and he will punish evil doers. Love does not require that God forgive.”
We are called to forgive our enemies because God forgives his enemies – and Jesus himself says that’s the perfection of God… his mercy and grace is the ultimate separation between divine and fallen humanity. It’s not that God has to forgive us, it’s that he has chosen to, not matter how we want to portray him as not really doing so.
Justice being purely retributive leaves not room for restoration. Justice being focused on restoration still allows room for retribution but it is retribution with a greater purpose. God himself recognizes that retributive violence doesn’t destroy the sin that so pervades a fallen creation, that’s why he hung up his war bow after the flood and chose a different, deeper strategy: to destroy sin in our hearts by allowing us to gaze upon his victory at the cross on our behalf.
Anyone who is universally loving will act in forgiveness at every opportunity. I cannot conceive of an individual who loves another individual unconditionally yet is not willing to, or simply does not, forgive the beloved. So yes, withholding forgiveness IS antithetical to God’s character. Furthermore, Scot, if justice is, in the end by God’s economy, simply people “getting what they deserve,” then this “justice” makes a mockery of grace and forgiveness themselves, as you must DO something to earn them. I’m not getting up on some sola gratia high horse, only trying to save the meaning of the concepts! There is no dichotomy between God’s grace/mercy and justice (I’m thinking of Socrates position in the Euthypro here, if God is love, then love is ultimate justice. Forgiveness is justice. Mercy is justice.)
Admittedly I am not up to speed on the subtleties of of these issues. However, I am curious as to the texts in Scripture that would indicate that a loving God could/would not punish forever. Apart from such texts, statements to that effect are simply expression of one’s personal opinion/preference about what a loving God would do. Apart from such information being revealed to me, it would be presumptuous of me to declare what a loving God would do.
PS I don’t see how annihilation restores anything. Destroying is not restoring.
That was a good read.
However, i disagree with the part where he says “God can be unforgiving”.
That statement seems to go against much of the biblical reflection of who God is and what God HAS done.
I have never seen anywhere in the NT where it says anyone needs to ask for forgiveness(after the cross)……Because the world is already forgiven…We only need to respond to this gift of forgiveness,by receiving it.
I can forgive a man who murders my wife and yet still believe he needs to go to prison.So there is no philosophical problem with that.
But i do think there is a huge biblical problem with “God can be unforgiving” in lite of the OT.When was someone not forgiven?What was the accepted known standard that God went by?
Where in the NT does it ever say someone is not or can not be forgiven…Please do not avoid the context either..without context,who care what the vrs says anyway.
@ 11 Well said Bo.
Bo I didn’t write the post, but define loving because you seem to have defined love in such a way that it excludes retribution.
Jeff (12), the thing being destroyed is, of course, not restored. If a person has cancer, health is restored by destroying the tumors; the tumors themselves are not restored. In the same way, God can restore his good creation by destroying the evil in it—including unrepentant sinners.
When God saw “that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually,” his solution was not to restore them. Neither was his solution to inflict pain on them for long periods of time. His solution was to blot them out.
@ 16
How well did that solution work out? God reveals through Scripture that no human is purely good or purely evil – we’re all cracked icons. But the God of the Scriptures doesn’t seem too interested in throwing away all this cracked pottery, he seems more interested in letting it be reformed and refired…
It would be great if all humans came with black hats and white hats so we knew who was good and who was evil but we live in a world where everyone wears a gray hat. How repentant does a sinner need to be to be restored? What about the lifelong pastor that tries to build the Kingdom by lording it over his parish? Is the gospel undermined by his life?
Bo – If withholding forgiveness is “antithetical to God’s character”, then why does he do it?
@PaulE
Where does it say God does this?
Britt (13), “Where in the NT does it ever say someone is not or can not be forgiven?” How about Mark 3:28-30//Matt 12:31-32? ” ‘Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin’— for they were saying, ‘He has an unclean spirit.’ ”
@Jeff (1), “The question isn’t whether or not God will unleash his rage against sin, but whether or not a ‘just’ God can punish someone indefinately for ‘not obeying the gospel’ and remain a ‘just’ God. I would love for someone to show me how that is possible.” That last sentence is perhaps too glib for the gravity of this topic. In any case, you’re stating the question askew. If justice means that the punishment fits the crime, then if a crime goes on forever, then it would be unjust to make the punishment for it less than forever. Likewise, if a crime is infinitely heinous, it would be unjust for the punishment to be anything less than infinite. So your question is not really whether it’s just to punish a crime forever but whether there is any crime that could possibly be infinitely heinous. There are numerous good cases that have been made to defend the infinite duration of hell if you’re seriously interested (see here and here, for example). But let’s be honest, none of us would “love” to be shown that our sin is an infinite crime deserving an infinite punishment. Who among us has the strength of character to so damn ourselves?
In any case, there is Biblical warrant for thinking of sin in infinite terms (Matt 18:21-35). And it has very practical implications. If you put a less-than-infinite measure on our guilt, then you likewise put a less-than-infinite measure on our forgiveness. My desire is that we think more carefully about this issue because the practical implications are so important: “But he who is forgiven little, loves little” (Luke 7:47). If our guilt is less-than-infinite, then so will be our love.
Ronnie (16), I agree God’s solution at the Flood was not to restore the wicked. But it does not follow Scripturally that “Neither was his solution to inflict pain on them for long periods of time. His solution was to blot them out.” Won’t these folks be included in the resurrection (Dan 12:2; Rev 20:11-15)?
@ Scot oops! Sorry for the false attribution! Need to be more careful!
Anyway I would define love as excluding retribution entirely. I am not a parent, but I cannot imagine my own parents, while raising me, intentionally or willfully including retribution in their raising/loving of me. A single time I remember as a small child being spanked for chasing my parents car into the street as they left me with a baby sitter, but of course the “violent” action on behalf of my very unviolent father was no retributive, I did not necessarily deserve it nor was he so angry he had to vent his wrath on me to maintain his justice, it was simply a stark action to get the point across – running in the road is dangerous. Similarly, I think we often conflate God’s loving corrective action as retributive, we misinterpret it as some kind of “eye for an eye” justice. In reality, such justice is man’s idea, and in fact is probably the best we can do as a society given our differences and resources. Now I’ll get to the point…
I like Thomas Oord’s working definition: ” To love is to act intentionally, in response to God and others, to promote overall well-being.”
So if one is not always working toward the well being of the beloved, love is excluded. This, I contend, disqualifies retribution qua retribution, whatever “punishment” is entailed in a loving relationship is of the restorative, corrective sort. Retribution, by one party against another is ultimately selfish, it seeks first “justice” i.e. an eye for an eye before it seeks forgiveness, restoration, resurrection, and the overall best interest of the other. Love is “you, not me” when it gets down to brass tacks. The other before yourself. This is the radical nature of love that even (necessarily) extends to the most vile enemies. God does not (selfishly) put his own reputation or “holiness” or “justice” before the well being of his beloved (all of creation).
@PaulE
… I don’t think he does do it. That’s the issue, not the assumption!
If God does not forgive and love his worst enemies, then it seems that those among us who do are simply more Christ-like than God himself!
Pete G.
Like i said within it 1st century 2nd temple context….
Context…..
I knew someone would list that vr,but it’s useless without it 1st century,2temple historical context…
“If’ this was written by Paul, we still run into the conundrum of the call to ‘be perfect like God and love our enemies’, yet ‘be like God and hate our enemies.’ We are to forgive, but God doesn’t need to, yet ‘be like God’ – ‘don’t be like God’. It is far easier to believe that the NT writers were still trying to put together a coherent theology. So, what we read is a mixed bag of old and new covenant thinking – possibly the evidence that this was not a letter written by Paul?
Richard (17),
How well did that solution work out?
It worked out quite well—all the evil that God intended to destroy was actually destroyed. Is your beef that the world became evil again? If so, how is that relevant?
But the God of the Scriptures doesn’t seem too interested in throwing away all this cracked pottery, he seems more interested in letting it be reformed and refired…
But I just gave an example to show that this is false. Whether or not you think God’s solution was good or not is a bit besides the point!
And speaking of pottery, I seem to recall that some people are described as vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, not reformation.
@Ronnie,
If you can…Please provide the historical context,otherwise these vr can mean anything.
Peter (21),
But it does not follow Scripturally that “Neither was his solution to inflict pain on them for long periods of time. His solution was to blot them out.”
Of course it does. His solution at that time was not to torment or restore the people, but to destroy them. Whether or not they will be tormented forever following the general resurrection is a separate issue.
Interestingly, the NT likens final punishment to the flood. Conditionalists affirm that after being judged, the wicked will be blotted out. Traditionalists affirm that after being judged, the wicked will be sustained forever in order to be tormented. Only one of those views makes the comparison intelligible.
God gave the world a wonderful promise in Isaiah 25:6-8 (NKJV):
And in this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all people a feast of choice pieces, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of well-refined wines on the lees.
And He will destroy on this mountain the surface of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations.
He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces; the rebuke of His people He will take away from all the earth; for the Lord has spoken.
What few of us seem to recognize is that we are born into a world full of deception, and until we are born again (when we become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus), we have no way to overcome the results of the deceptions (all kinds of “sins” and iniquities). God’s judgments are truth and truth sets us free. Therefore, when God gives His judgments, people are set free. This setting people free is an on-going process called the baptism of fire.
Christ did not die on the cross so that we might go to heaven when we die. Rather, Christ died on the cross to destroy Satan’s power to keep the human race away from God and to keep them captive to deception (as represented by the veil). Once that veil (or dividing wall) was demolished, any one who wanted/wants to cleave to God could/can. The result of cleaving to God is life, the life that is more abundant than the loss, death, and destruction that the kingdom of evil has ensared our world with (John 10:10).
Some people will go through the baptism of fire before Christ’s return and will be able to fight and win the spiritual warfare that puts Christ’s enemies under his feet. Others will go through the baptism of fire during the White (representing righteousness) Throne Judgment, and God will “detangle” all the deceptions and resulting unrighteous acts that have kept them from the life that Christ came to give us (I Corinthians 3:11-15).
As a far as God’s forgiveness goes, here’s a question–did God always answer Christ’s prayers? On the cross, Christ specifically prayed that God would forgive those who knew not what they were doing. Since the moment Satan lied to Eve in the Garden of Eden, the human race has been held captive to deception, and as a result, has not understood truth. As I John 2:2 states, Christ is the propitiation for the whole world’s sin. I believe it is fair to say that God, who sees the whole picture, did answer Christ’s prayer. And, because our sins are already forgiven, we repent (or turn around) and run into God’s open arms.
britt (27),
No, the verses can’t mean anything. I’m not sure why you would think that.
If you feel that the historical context somehow should lead us to conclude that “destroy” actually means “restore,” feel free to provide the context yourself and make the argument. If I’ve taken something out of context, then show me how.
As it stands, just sitting there asking for “context” doesn’t strike me as a helpful tactic.
Here are a handful of examples:
In Deuteronomy 29:20, a strong curse is places on those who despise the oath they have made with the LORD – “The LORD will never be willing to forgive them; his wrath and zeal will burn against them.”
2 Kings 24:1-4 records the invasion of Judah by the armies of Babylon. At the end, the narrator notes, “Surely these things happened to Judah according to the LORD’s command, in order to remove them from his presence because of the sins of Manasseh and all he had done, including the shedding of innocent blood. For he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the LORD was not willing to forgive.”
In Jeremiah 13:14, the prophet records God’s judgments: “I will smash them one against the other, parents and children alike, declares the LORD. I will allow no pity or mercy or compassion to keep me from destroying them.”
Other OT examples might include Joshua 24:19, Lamentations 3:42, or Hosea 1:6. I’m hesitant to give NT examples, but I guess I will offer Matthew 6:15 as an explicit example.
Britt (24), “I knew someone would list that vr,but it’s useless without it 1st century,2temple historical context…” So enlighten us.
Ronnie (28), “Interestingly, the NT likens final punishment to the flood.” Does it liken it to the flood exclusively? And what’s the point of resurrecting people from being blotted out only to blot them out once again?
Wm (25), “we still run into the conundrum of the call to ‘be perfect like God and love our enemies’…” What examples does Jesus give in Matt 25:43-48 of what God’s enemy love looks like? Does Jesus say, “love your enemies and so be like your Father in heaven who forgives his enemies”?
Peter (33),
No, it also likens final punishment to Sodom and Gomorrah. And we know that those people were tormented for a long ti—wait, they were destroyed as well!
As for your question, the same could be asked of the traditionalist. What’s the point of resurrecting people who are currently suffering torment only to put them right back into a state of suffering again?
On the conditionalist view, the dead are raised precisely because dead people can’t be punished. The unredeemed will be raised, judged according to their deeds, and punished appropriately. The punishment will culminate in their extinction.
There is no reason at all to suppose that the final destruction of the wicked will be a painless, instantaneous thing, and most evangelical conditionalists affirm that there will be distinctions in future punishment (see for examples Henry Constable’s classic treatment on the subject). Conditionalists do not deny that future punishment will involve pain, they just deny that the pain will last forever.
Bo wrote, “If God does not forgive and love his worst enemies, then it seems that those among us who do are simply more Christ-like than God himself!”
This is simply not true. We are not the sovereign LORD. Our enemies are not our creatures, they are not our possessions, nor are they to whom we sent the Son. We simply do not stand in the same position as God towards them. Thus we do not get to say, like Him, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” Rather when we forgive we are but those who say, “We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.”
Maybe I’m just being contrary today but I think we should stop trying to describe God as Just. Radical forgiveness is not Justice. Punishing someone else for my deeds is not Justice. It’s sacrifice, it’s mercy, it’s love, it’s all kinds of other things, but it’s not Justice.
Justice is the parable of the servant who was forgiven a huge sum of money but when he failed to pass on that forgiveness to another he was punished. That’s Justice, that is righting a wrong and punishing the wrong doer. (We who claim to have received forgiveness from God should take special note about how we deal with others)
I don’t think our Gospel is about Justice. Our Gospel is about a ridiculous forgiveness and it seems that Justice is reserved for people who claimed the forgiveness and then misused it.
The idea of “universally loving” (#11) is a bit tough for me. The universal solution is presented in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s not a “universal guarantee”. We still can reject the message of Jesus. God has made the solution available. We still have the right to reject it and stay apart from him in this life and in eternity.
We still are unrighteous. He still is Holy. He still will judge the world. Romans 3:5-6 point toward this.
We can’t even make an argument that innocent people exist — none are righteous as Romans 3:10 continues. Given humanity’s rejection of God and His laws — that’s the justice of God’s character stepping in. His love cannot ignore his Holiness.
I’m open to other scriptural based ideas of course… (* one reason this blog is so solid *)
Thanks, Scot, for posting this conversation-generating glance into 2 Thessalonians 1:3-9. I have not seen anyone make the theological connection between Paul’s terms (NIV): “God is just: He will *pay back* trouble to those who trouble you…” God’s justice and retributive action seem to be working together against the persecuters of the church and unbelievers in the gospel. The word “punish” is used.
I am not necessarily arguing against annihilation, nor am I supporting “double jeopardy”–Jesus died for all sins and some have to pay eternally for their sins, too. I am trying to present the idea that “love wins” does not mean there is no wrath/punishment/retribution in God’s being and actions. For me the weakest argument in univeralism is the one that offers: if just one person suffers in hell, then God’s love did not win. All have to be saved at some point in eternity future or God is the big loser. That is bunk.
Ronnie @ 3,
You’ve got to do more work on verse 9 so that you can understand why the NIV does not “butcher” the verse, but presents the full weight of Paul’s allusion to the terminology in Isaiah 2:10 (LXX) within its context. The judgment in Isaiah who in a “day of the LORD” oracle declares clearly that Israel will be cut off from the divine presence. For Paul the allusion is applied: the punishment is severe–eternal loss, that is, total, irreparable exclusion from Christ. This is a punishment that God the LORD metes out.
@John Frye
I don’t think we fully appreciate the magnitude of any concept of unending punishment and how ridiculous that is in light of finite sins committed in life. A world in which people are born at the risk of suffering for an infinite period does, in this respect, make God a deficient creator (i’m going out on a real limb here questioning a God who would let such a thing happen…) Eternal torment IS far, far too high of a glitch for it to be included in any statement about love. That’s bunk.
@PaulE
I’ll admit that I’m coming from a process-relational perspective that does not hold to the sovereignty or even omnipotence of God. We’re in completely different paradigms, which is ok! The problem, especially highlighted by Zizke, Caputo, Catherine Keller, and others is the God who, when questioned, opts for intimidation and evasion, such as the verse you cited and even more highlighted in the conclusion of the book of Job. What we see (and forgive me those of you who are a bit more traditionally orthodox) is a God who is quite self defensive. The cavalier attitude of “i’ll do whatever I want because I’m God” is not the attitude of any love relationship. This is elucidated within the text itself, we are told that God empties himself (kenosis), Jesus does not count being divine as anything to brag about or hold hold over others, etc. There is certainly tension within the text, but once we give up the Greek commitment to omnipotence and the “creatio ex nihlo” narrative, we begin to be more open to the genuine, radical love of God, which is highly relational and open, the way we love one another!
Adam (37), “Radical forgiveness is not Justice. Punishing someone else for my deeds is not Justice. It’s sacrifice, it’s mercy, it’s love, it’s all kinds of other things, but it’s not Justice.” How then do you understand Paul’s theology of the cross in Rom 3:25-26? How does the cross show God to be righteousness in light of his passing over previous sins?
Does anyone know about and is willing to explain the idea that there is something about/within sin that renders sin eternal? So that while I who am finite am able to commit sins worthy of infinite judgment? Does a sin against the *eternal* God revealed in the Bible and in Christ require an *eternal* judgment? If this theology holds up, then the issue of eternal punishment for sin is not an argument against the nature of God’s justice, but a reasonable argument from some (eternal) aspect of sin.
John, the idea that a finite sin requires infinite punishment comes from feudal societies where the severity of the crime was not only determined by the crime itself, but also whom the crime was committed against. A peasant who offended a nobleman could be on the hook for a life sentence whereas crimes between upperclassman were considered more fairy or justly. When this logic is extended to an omnipotent prime mover, a crime (sin) against God merits eternal punishment. So I would say the argument for the “eternal nature of sin” is a bit of gymnastics done to get God off the hook (something we should not look to be doing) which turns on archaic social logic. If you believe that there is some eternal nature to sin, or that someone could actually deserve eternal hell (not that God is about giving people what they deserve) then OK… but then I would ask you how you feel about that belief. Because it’s about as depressing of a belief as I can imagine, far from good news for the world.
John (40),
I’m actually writing an article about the passage as we speak. I’m well aware of the similar terminology found in Isaiah 2:10 (also verse 19 and 21). Doug Moo relies exclusively on the similarity to argue that apo in 2 Thessalonians 1:9 denotes separation. But the Isaiah passage refers to people who will “hide from” from face of God, while the 2 Thessalonians passage refers to “destruction from” the face of God. So there is no parity there which determines the meaning of apo in 2 Thessalonians.
And yes, the NIV butchers the verse by turning the judgment into a two step process: people will be destroyed AND shut out from God’s presence. The Greek says no such thing. The NASB, for instance, translates apo as “away from” (which I think is incorrect), but it doesn’t illegitimately add the conjunction.
Isaiah 2 says nothing about being “cut off from the divine presence.” Throughout the OT we learn that God’s glorious, fiery, presence destroys sinners. 2 Thessalonians 1:9 is just a reaffirmation of this theme.
I’ll be publishing my article in the next day or so. Feel free to comment on it.
Ronnie (33), “As for your question, the same could be asked of the traditionalist. What’s the point of resurrecting people who are currently suffering torment only to put them right back into a state of suffering again?” I don’t assume the unrepentant are suffering torment right now, at least not the torment of the lake of fire. But even if they were, removing someone from torment only to place them back in again is not nearly the same thing as bringing the non-existent back into existence only to punish them briefly before returning them to non-existence. If annihilation is the ultimate form of God’s justice, then Sodom and Gomorrah and those in the flood (and everyone else who has already died) already got it. Why do they need to be re-created (depending on your view of the intermediate state) only to be re-annihilation?
“On the conditionalist view, the dead are raised precisely because dead people can’t be punished. The unredeemed will be raised, judged according to their deeds, and punished appropriately. The punishment will culminate in their extinction.” So if everyone’s punishment culminates in extinction, what sense is there in pre-extinction punishment? A 20-year prison sentence is no worse than a 5-year prison sentence if both end in the hangman’s noose. Extinction is, after all, the Great Leveler. As Derek Kidner observes, “If one fate comes to all, and that fate is extinction, it robs every man of his dignity, and every project of its point” (cf. Eccl. 2:14-17).
Approached from another angle, why should the unrepentant fear the punishment for rape any more than the punishment for cheating on their income taxes if both end in extinction? In the end, both end up in the same place. Whatever their pre-extinction punishments are, they fade into oblivion in the face of, well, oblivion.
This is probably the philosophical point on which I’ve struggled the most with annihilationism. Any help would be appreciated.
I guess the question comes down to how big your world is? When God so loved the ‘world’ was it a small one or a big one? When Scripture say that Christ died for our sins, but not only ours but the whole world- is that a small one or a big one? Even ‘Love Wins’ conceded that despite this wide and vast forgiveness that people could still reject God and this Good News. If you are missing this point you may want to look at it again. It makes sense to me that people become what they worship and that is why idolatry is so dangerious and destructive in Scripture. Why can’t we tell people they are forgiven and it is their choice whether they believe that or not. I think where the argument breaks down is that someone can offer forgiveness, but for the other person to accept it they have to admit their wrong doing and actively accept it for it to fully be worked out. I could forgive an enemy a wrong, but if they say ‘screw you’ then it is not that I didn’t forgive them, but they didn’t accept it. Unless as Jeff Cook pointed out before that forgiveness doesn’t work by any definition that we use, which then the word itself is meaningless in terms of describing the reality of what God did in Christ.
Hm.
In Cuba there’s this expression that we use “El es pan”, or he is bread. Fluffy. Nice with ham. He’s nice. And that’s it. You can be nice, but not loving.
I wonder if this debate is based off a fault definition of love, when we’re all just… nice. Love doesn’t seek the good, it shrugs and tells everybody it’s okay.
And I would go further in saying that justice is an extension of love, since God’s justice is a restorative justice.
What’s even more amusing is that this Rob Bell thing isn’t really relevant in the Church of Miami. Nobody’s heard of the Emergent Church, unless they’re not native to Miami or read. People who seem to have a problem with justice are those (in my experience) are those who haven’t seen much injustice.
And those who have a problem with forgiveness (as has been my experience being a Christian in Miami) have seen too much injustice.
Just some observations.
John (43), “Does anyone know about and is willing to explain the idea that there is something about/within sin that renders sin eternal? So that while I who am finite am able to commit sins worthy of infinite judgment?”
Yes. The logic runs like this: the seriousness of an offense rises with the importance and significance of the being offended. The more important the offended party, the more serious the offense. We do this all the time when we react differently to lawn mowers than to French guillotines. Contrary to Bo’s opinion (44), this notion of justice is not tethered to medieval feudalism. It is still alive and well in modern, democratic America. We take a presidential assassination much more seriously than we do other murders. This is due, in part, to the difference between the importance of the person murdered. The difference is not found in the lifespan of the offender.
Couple this with the Biblical notion that all sin is first and foremost against God (Gen 39:9; Ps 51:4) and it is not difficult–logically, not morally–to see that a finite creature can commit a crime worthy of an infinite punishment. As I mentioned earlier, Matt 18:24 presents a debt against a master that, in terms of first century Palestine, is astronomical. It’s unimaginable that a person could be 10,000 talents in debt. (Craig Keener says that this may be more money than was in circulation in all of Egypt. It’s the equivalent of 6 million days wages!) And that’s precisely the point. We are astronomically indebted to God because of our sin. As Keener says, “It was thus inconceivable that one official could get so far in debt.” Inconceivable indeed. So Jesus’ hearers would have been in disbelief when “in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt” (Luke 18:34). It seems many today are equally shocked by the gravity with which Jesus gives to our sin.
Peter, while I agree with you that we certainly take presidential assassination very seriously, it’s not as if it is punished more severely than comparable murders, as in the United States, we claim that all men are created equal – not a tenant that would be very popular in earlier feudal societies. You seem to be claiming that this archaic logic is a good thing, to which I suppose I will simply shrug with disbelief. Even if we are in debt 6 trillion days wages,for example, which demonstrates our so-called depravity,for example, your mistake is equating our ontological status with the justice or ethics of its outcome. In other words, even if we are in infinite debt, it does not necessarily follow that we deserve the consequences of this debt: THIS is where God’s justice comes in to right the situation, to not allow us to perish because of a “sin” situation we have little control over (I can’t simply “choose” not to sin at all and incur no debt, as you would equate one finite sin against an infinite creator the same a a million sins). I am not denying free will, but simply stating that everyone, if they are born in this world, WILL sin and thus runs the risk of having a brain that does not interpret the empirical evidence the same as most Christians, thus does not “believe” in God, and is thus on the hook for an eternity (a thing so terrible we cannot comprehend but nonetheless fight to defend it) of punishment. I would say it is quite irresponsible in that model to have children, for even in the best Christian household you run the risk of bringing a consciousness into the universe that could potentially suffer forever! Not worth the risk! It’s far too terrible! Like I said to John, if you fell good about this opinion of yours, I cannot see why.
Bo, I agree that we punish presidential assassination’s the same as we do other murders. My point is that in our attitudes, we are not truly democratic about it. But regardless of how we act in society, God is certainly no elected president and his kingdom, to the chagrin of some, is no democracy. He is, after all, the King.
In any case, I assume you still distinguish between cutting grass and cutting off heads? If so, why? Does it not have something to do with the stature and importance of the offended party? There is a difference of kind not just degree in our offense against God as, again, both David (Ps 51:4) and Joseph (Gen 39:9) illustrate for us.
“In other words, even if we are in infinite debt, it does not necessarily follow that we deserve the consequences of this debt.” I’m not sure I understand you because that is exactly what follows. Jesus says, “In anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt.” If the servant doesn’t deserve this, then the whole parable falls apart and the answer to Peter’s question would have been much simpler: “There’s nothing to forgive. Get over it.” Jesus’ whole lesson for Peter assumes we are massively in debt to God and it is precisely his forgiveness of this massive debt that makes our unforgiveness so shocking an unthinkable. If you lessen the guilt (or say we don’t deserve to pay it), then you’ve lost Jesus’ entire ethic of forgiveness. Either that, or you’ve reduced true forgiveness to something small or easy–two things it is not when real wrong has been done.
I don’t follow your argument about the inevitability of sin. Can you explain?
And to avoid having children would be unthinkable because life is a gift from God not because they might reject God and so bear the just penalty of their rejection. I could just as easily say that because there is a chance God will forgive so massive a debt, we ought to have as many children as we can in order to increase the opportunity of seeing such massive grace on display.
Peter (46),
In my response, I was assuming the traditional view of a intermediate state in conscious torment. If this is not your view, then my challenge doesn’t apply to you.
As for your main question, are you saying that gradations in punishment are only meaningful if the punishment is experienced forever? That strikes me as not merely false, but obviously false. I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather be beheaded than burned at the steak, even if both forms of execution have the same ultimate end.
And again, I don’t see how the traditional view can claim any advantage over conditionalism in this regard. On the traditional view, both the rapist, the tax evader, and the lawful pagan will experience unimaginable torment forever (or, on the contemporary toned-down view, both will experience conscious separation from God forever). I’m astonished that anyone’s intuition would be that this scheme is more fair or more just than the conditionalist scheme.
Peter (42) I understand it through Romans 3:24
Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous.
OK Peter,
First, let’s not compare grass and human beings. My argument is that when it comes to a human being, there is no gradation. This is an obvious point.
Second, as for the inevitability of sin, I am arguing that we can be held accountable for a vast multitude of individua sins (but not all of them) but what any human cannot be held accountable for is simply being “a sinner.” This follows from the simple fact that we cannot choose to not be a sinner in God’s debt, it is part of being human, it is a condition we are born into, a sin saturated world in which avoiding contamination is literally impossible (unless you have an unfair advantage, say, being divine). Therefore, while I am not saying “everyone gets off the hook, there is no accountability!” I making the point that when one argues that any offense against the highest being in the universe is punishable eternally, it doesnt matter what that offense is. Since we cannot choose to not sin, we will commit an offense. Therefore, in conclusion, we are not morally or ethically responsible for being “sinners” carrying an astronomical debt. And again, because of this less than ideal situation, God comes into the world to “put us to rights” and restore the intended order of things, where we do not accrue insane debts that we cannot pay. It’s not as if the guilt is lessened or its not a big deal. It’s as if you murder a man while in your sleep and have no memory of it. You are the responsible party, but you are not morally culpable in the same sense as a cold blooded calculating killer (and I’m not saying that all sin is “in our sleep”). Or, more appropriately, if you inherit debt from a family member (like we do from the human race) you can still be on the hook for it,but didnt “earn” it.
Anyway, the underlying objection here is to an all powerful God creating a system in which you are born and on a natural path to eternal torture, with the only exceptions those who DO something, i.e. believe something about God or Jesus or whatever, and call that “justice” That’s ridiculous. If you believe it, I hope it keeps you up at night, because the universe is just an awful place (unless you are self centered and saved). This is a continuation of a regretted digression, but Bringing a child into that world where they are guilty and sentenced to eternal torture (again, something so terrible we cant begin to conceive of it) UNLESS they DO something to get off the hook (become a Christian) is far too risky. Grace may abound… but for your God, it may as well not.
In closing, I will say that a God who places eye for an eye justice before the good of the beloved is not the God of the New Testament described by John AS love. And secondly, I am still confounded as to why you cling to this medieval sense of social justice, and why you think God is so egotistical. Remember, God is love, and hates sin because it hurts US! Not because he is personally offended by it, he is offended on behalf of those we hurt, of course, but no for self-interested reasons (as if what we do or what God does could make God any less holy or just anyhow). I think I’ve made my argument short of writing it out formally, thus said my peace, but if anything is unclear I’d be happy to clarify with the assumption we’re still miles apart on this issue.
And of course I could be wrong ; )
One last thing, the issue is not sneaking into Heaven and not offending God with the smell of your unrighteousness, or hiding behind Jesus’ justification, or a debt being paid (as if there is a divine economy), but rather becoming the kind of person you were meant to be, fully human, who can exist with God is full open relationship. That is God’s prime directive, helping us get there, to be fully human, not giving us a few years on earth to escape hell. This restoration process of God’s is justice, and go figure, it looks a lot different than our conception of the concept.
John @43,
From what I’ve read of the eastern fathers here and there, they do not think sin has any “substance” in itself. It’s a perversion, a parasite, a nothing – but it does require expression by a Person. The general consensus is that when we die, our sin comes to an end.
Athanasius says that God couldn’t simply forgive Adam’s sin at the outset; if he had done that, humans would simply have kept on sinning, God would forgive, etc. etc. in a vicious, possibly eternal, circle. To put an end to sin and to bring his creatures into the life he had planned for them, God had to get god-ness into humanity (incarnation) and enter into and conquer death (cross & resurrection).
Dana
Bo (54-55), you seem to be wildly confused about the traditional view of hell. And equating being self-centered and being saved, even if merely rhetorical, is neither helpful nor charitable.
I’m sorry you don’t want to compare grass and human beings because the distinction between the nature of grass and the nature of humans is akin to the distinction between the nature of the Creator and the nature of his creation, namely a difference of kind not just degree.
But with this I simply demur and point to Scripture: “Remember, God is love, and hates sin because it hurts US! Not because he is personally offended by it, he is offended on behalf of those we hurt, of course, but no for self-interested reasons.” I dare say this flies in the face of overwhelming scriptural evidence. The whole Bible pictures God as very personally offended by sin. Again, to cite two clear examples: “‘He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except yourself, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?‘” (Gen 39:9). “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment” (Ps 51:4). I dare say that David had hurt a good many of God’s creatures in his sin. Yet he receives no correction for saying that his sin is primarily and fundamentally against God.
If no human can be held accountable for being a sinner (there is nothing simple about it), then what purpose does David’s statement serve in his confession that “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Ps 51:5)?
And I’m afraid we most certainly have accrued “insane debts that we cannot pay.” That is, to say it again, an essential foundation point in Jesus’ ethic of forgiveness in Matthew 18.
Ronnie (52), thanks for explaining. I can see what you mean that from the perspective of the criminal being beheaded is preferred to being burned. But I’m not really asking about which form of death is more or less comfortable for the criminal. I’m asking which is more in keeping with moral rectitude. From the standpoint of the law, beheading is not a more serious punishment than being burned alive. At least not as far as strictly retributive justice is concerned. In both cases, it’s capital punishment. So while one may strike more fear into would-be criminals (deterrent justice) I don’t see how it manages to maintain any meaningful distinction in the punishment of the ones executed (retributive justice).
But honestly, it’s not the injustice of it so much as it is the meaninglessness of it that I’m struggling with. If all finally suffer the exact same fate, then whatever variability in treatment they receive prior to that is swallowed up by it. To re-quote Kidner, “If one fate comes to all, and that fate is extinction, it robs every man of his dignity, and every project of its point.” We could tweak it to say, “If one fate comes to all the unrepentant, and that fate is extinction, it robs every punishment prior to that of its point.”
Peter,
I don’t see how it manages to maintain any meaningful distinction in the punishment of the ones executed
All I can say is I don’t see how it doesn’t maintain a meaningful distinction. I dispute your assertion that from the standpoint of the law, one type of execution is not a more serious punishment than another. On the contrary, painful, drawn-out executions have often historically been reserved for the worst crimes (e.g. high treason).
I honestly do not feel the force of the “swallowed up” assertion. You say that final extinction would “rob every punishment prior to that of its point.” But this seems to presuppose that punishment has some utilitarian purpose, or “point”, which is a view that I thought you rejected. If the purpose of punishment is retributive justice, then any punishment that occurs prior to death will fulfill its purpose, regardless if it’s followed by extinction.
Just curious, on your view, is it less meaningless for God to keep people in existence forever for the sole purpose of making them suffer?
I’ll frankly admit that philosophically, the only view that completely satisfies me is universal reconciliation. But as it stands now, the biblical case for conditionalism seems to me insurmountable. So I do the best I can with what I think I know.
Boy, it seems like you guys are way overthinking this. I don’t normally do this when I comment on blog posts, but since Rob Bell has been mentioned, I would like to suggest my book because it explains why God’s absolute love will prevail (or win). All of the “-isms” that are filling current Christian controversies miss the whole point of the death and resurrection of Christ.
I teach high school English and one the biggest problems I encounter with my students is their inability to discern what the main idea of a piece of literature is. They often confuse supporting or minor details with the main thrust. The Bible is a huge book with lots and lots of supporting and minor details, and it’s easy to caught up in them and miss its main idea. The Bible is clearcut when it says that God is love (I John 4:8) and when it gives a definition of that love (I Corinthians 13:4-7). If we look at the whole book with that perspective and ask God for knowledge, understanding, and wisdom, we will find that the power of His absolute love is greater than any other force in our world.
John,
I think I agree that the passage from 2 Thess.does say punishment of a very severe type. But in light of the many problems that I see in holding for an eternal punishment, I would definitely go for annihilation view any day though I must also admit that I still am not sure if annihilation is fully compatible with an all loving and just God who created a good creation and who loves his creation enough to send his Son to die in order to redeem it back to it’s original proper state.
Then I don’t think the issue of eternal punishment can be solved even we can establish a theology for finite beings capable of infinite sin. First what about God’s final overcoming of sins? If sin exists eternally then his victory over sin on the cross and his final judgment would not be final at all. What about the new heaven and new world as promised in Revelations? With sin still existing and sinners still unrepenting, it would seem not much difference to the one we’re in right now. It would be too long for me to go on. I have written something last Oct titled “Why I have come to believe that HELL may not be eternal”. For anyone who is interested may want to go this link: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=478628530478
And recently I have been reading Jon Levenson’s ‘Creation and the Persistance of Evil’ and I think he has made a good case about the nature of God’s justice as seen in OT–justice is constituted by compassion–by referring to the Hebrew phrase “justice and righteousness” as being rooted in the ANE culture that “denotes societal acts of benevolence” (p.103-107). This to me would seem to support that God’s punishment is more restorative than retributive. I would also ask myself what a purely retributive punishment does to the offender/sinner? Furthermore, it seems difficult to perceive God as ultimately unforgiving either. One only needs to think about how Jesus taught that we should forgive people 70 x 7 times meaning that we simply need to forgive, period. Also is UNFORGIVENESS a sin? If so what good does it bring and what does it imply if God is unforgiving?
Just some thoughts.
George ngo,
I admit to struggling with how to put God’s final victory together with an eternal hell, but it’s important to remember that the sin is contained in the lake of fire (well outside the new heaven and the new earth) and it is justly punished (a punishment that contributes to rather than stains God’s ultimate victory). That is very different from our world now where sin is not openly punished and where it runs rampant even in our own hearts.
On the OT, there are some clear texts where God’s justice is retributive with no hint of restoration. A good example is the book of Habakkuk. The prophet is not questioning why God doesn’t restore his people. He is questioning why he tolerates it, why he doesn’t punish it. In answer to your question, a purely retributive punishment treats the offender or sinner as a truly responsible moral person. As C.S. Lewis argued, anything other than retributive justice treats people as something less: “Thus when we cease to consider what the criminal deserves and consider only what will cure him or deter others, we have tacitly removed him from the sphere of justice altogether; instead of a person, a subject of rights, we now have a mere object, a patient, a ‘case’.”
Also, I would encourage you to read the whole context that follows Jesus’ instruction for Peter to forgive 70×7 (Matt 18:21-35). Not only does the unforgiving servant end the parable in jail (Matt 18:34), unforgiven of his debt, but the whole parable itself is testimony that Jesus’ ethic is grounded in a far greater motivation than “we simply need to forgive, period.”
What God’s unforgiveness of unrepentant sinners implies is that he is just, that he is important, that sin is deadly serious, and that the universe has a moral order, and that we answer to him not vice versa.
Ronnie (59), you’re right that “painful, drawn-out executions have often historically been reserved for the worst crimes.” But I wonder if this has as much to do with the fact that once a person’s dead there’s nothing more the law can do to them. In other words, it’s precisely because we can’t keep the criminal alive indefinitely that the only way to heighten the punishment is to do so before extermination. God is not so limited. So I’m not so sure that drawing out the execution is really any different so far as true justice is concerned. The only reason it satisfies our sense of justice when a more heinous criminal’s execution is prolonged is because we are limited by this life as the only domain for meting human justice.
I’m still struggling with the pre-extermination punishments. I go back and forth. Sometimes I’m like you and I don’t see any problem. At other times it seems that there is something about eternity that gives greater gravity to our personhood, even when that eternity is spent in just punishment. It seems to me that it is our very personhood that becomes pointless or meaningless if people are finally snuffed out. I’m not suggesting that God punishes people in order to preserve their personhood (as if that’s the only way he could do it), but I am suggesting that that is one of the corollaries of it. If a person is exterminated, it makes a mockery of their very personhood. John Stott once wrote that “The Bible takes sin seriously because it takes humanity seriously” (The Cross of Christ, 103) and I wonder if something similar isn’t true of punishment: that the duration of God’s punishment is a sign of how seriously God takes humanity. It’s this seriousness of our humanity that I see as being lost in the annhiliationist position. These are admittedly pretty rough thoughts still in my mind.
You asked, “Just curious, on your view, is it less meaningless for God to keep people in existence forever for the sole purpose of making them suffer?” Well first, that’s not a fair way to phrase it. God’s purpose in hell is not to make people suffer as if he’s some kind of sadist. It’s to balance the scales of justice. But yes, continued existence is more meaningful than non-existence. It simply has to be otherwise we have no reason to avoid suicide.
For those still following the conversation, let me apologize if I have come across overly rational or detached from the topic. It is only in an attempt to understand others in the conversation and in order to be understood. Hell is a horrific reality and one I do not for a moment wish to take lightly. It will be due only to God’s grace in Christ if he saves me from it.
#62 Peter G,
Thanks for your comments.
I’m mostly aware of what you’ve put forward and I think in my article (the link I have provided in above #61 entry) I have addressed most of the issues.
Then probably I haven’t been clear in my last comment but let me say that again that I’m not saying that God doesn’t punish. What I’m saying is that hell as a punishment for our sins may not be eternal. It seems to me a rather poor alternative.
Now, I’m also saying that even from OT it would seem that the overall portrait of God’s purpose of punishment is MORE restorative THAN retributive simply because he’s for repentance and restoration rather than punishment for the sake of punishment. His justice is as I have said constituted in his compassion as Levenson has convincingly shown.
As for Matthew text, I don’t think we have any disagreement. Whether the unjust or unforgiving servant ends up in jail or not, Jesus’ teaching in the parable to me is clear: forgive. Of course God punishes but the question is the punishment justifiably eternal as the “HELL existing as eternal punishment” view would have to consider. Please note, what the Bible seems to paint is a picture of God avoid punishing the offenders according to what they deserve so much so that he was willing to send his Son to fulfill this. Thus it’s hard to imagine that his justice has to be based on “his unforgiveness of unrepentant sinners”. BTW, as you’ve mentioned yourself, isn’t it interesting that it is the UNFORGIVING servant that ends up in jail? His justice I think is based on his mercy and compassion as I have argued in my article mentioned in the above.
Peace.
I think we can all agree that Paul is drawing upon stock apocalyptic imagery by writing “God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you 7 and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. 8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might 10 on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed” (2 Thess 1:6-10), especially “This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels” (see Matt 16: 27; Mark 8:38; Luke 9:26. Also see Matt 10:32-33, Luke 12:8-9). Beneath Paul’s words are the Son of Man’s coming for both rescue and punishment. We cannot lose the force of Jesus saying that he will “deny” people before his Father in heaven. For all the love of God in Christ we confess, Jesus will still deny, that is, declare a non-relationship with human beings who have denied him. This is a judgment which leads to rejection. The Thessalonian text picks up all this in the strong apocalyptic Son of Man imagery as now applied to Jesus. So, for some people “Denial Wins.”
“On the classical account of strong theology, Jesus was just holding back his divine power in order to let his human nature suffer. He freely chose to check his power because the Father had a plan to redeem the world with his blood. … That is not the weakness of God that I am here defending. God, the event harbored by the name of God, is present at the crucifixion, as the power of the powerlessness of Jesus, in and as the protest against the injustice that rises up from the cross, in and as the words of forgiveness, not a deferred power that will be visited upon one’s enemies at a later time. God is in attendance as the weak force of the call that cries out from Calvary and calls across the epochs, that cries out from every corpse created by every cruel and unjust power. The logos of the cross is a call to renounce violence, not to conceal and defer it and then, in a stunning act that takes the enemy by surprise, to lay them low with real power, which shows the enemy who really has the power. That is just what Nietzsche was criticizing under the name of ressentiment.”
– John D. Caputo
Peter G,
I’m not exactly making a case solely from scripture, as scripture itself, and indeed on this issue, simply contradicts itself. I value scripture, I love scripture, I value tradition and orthodoxy, but I will not allow it to be the sole informer of what God and love are like. This is the impasse we have come to. I find your theories and hermeneutic repugnant and unacceptable, perhaps to my fault, and perhaps you see mine in the same way, or perhaps less repugnant than heretical or sloppy, I’m not sure. Either way, I am saddened to encounter so many that will fight so valiently to maintain what should be seen as a disappointing doctrine (if believed), that of eternal torture or even eye-for-an-eye justice. Peace be with you.
I know what follows is not the norm for “responses” or contributions to a thread. But, I recently wrote an essayistic poem in response to this very conversation. It is titled “Mercy Will Follow” and for what it’s worth,
Judgment without mercy is just
Where mercy without justice is
Impossible, for mercy must
And always follow justice.
No one hopes only for the just
-ice of the judge, but for mercy
To follow. For we stand
Either saved by grace
Which includes mercy. Or we
Are lost unto justice because
We stand condemned.
We can not hope that justice
Is the final word unless we
Hope also for death.
Speaking of the final
Word, what of it? What of him
Who spoke forgiveness to men
Seeking justice without
Mercy – oh to be Judge!
How would we have responded,
Much the same as we do today,
Condemning the innocent
For we know not what it means
To desire what the judge desires
What the maker hopes for,
To desire mercy in place of
Sacrifice; Where sacrifices are just
But are not the beginning or the end
Of justice. This is the law
Which greets us with hope,
Mercy follows justice as life follows
Death. This is the scandal of grace,
Forgiveness, this is what we
Desire on that day, hope for on that day
And every day. That justice would reign,
That mercy will follow.
That love never fails,
Always hopes and the Judge will be
Present, faithful to the faithless. That he
Would desire what we
Often fail to desire for
Our world and ourselves: immediate
Compassion as he rises to deliver
The judgment.
George ngo,
How long would it have taken the servant in Matt 18 to pay his debt from within jail? He was in debt 6 million days wages by one estimate. So your shock at the eternal duration of hell is well matched by the shock Jesus’ hearers would have felt at contemplating a man paying off a debt of 10,000 talents. The whole parable assumes that it would be unjust for the king not to make him pay so that when he casts the unforgiving servant into jail we are meant to be shocked not by the injustice of it, but by the gravity of the man’s offense. No doubt the parable is teaching us to forgive. The question is how does it teach us? And the answer is by reminding us how great our debt is before a holy God and thus how his forgiveness of that debt ought to shock us into forgiveness-offering wonderment and thanksgiving.
“Thus it’s hard to imagine that his justice has to be based on ‘his unforgiveness of unrepentant sinners’” You’re misunderstanding the Scriptural logic here. His justice is not based on unforgiveness. Rather, he is always just when he withholds it. In Rom 3:25-26, Paul is not asking “How can God be righteous if he leaves some people unforgiven?” He’s asking a much more radical question (for us moderns anyway) which is “How can God be righteous if he forgives any given the severity of our crime?” Those are fundamentally different questions. And the fact that Paul is asking the latter shows that his theology of God’s justice/righteousness is at odds with how you’re using Jon Levenson’s thesis. Paul is not concerned in Rom 3:25-26 with restorative justice. He’s concerned with retributive justice. God did not set Jesus forth on the cross to restore Jesus. He set him forth as a propitiation, to absorb the just wrath we deserved. While that absorption brings restoration for those who trust him, it was not restorative for Jesus. And neither will that wrath be restorative for those on whom it falls at the last judgment as John Frye points out in the original post.
Thanks.
Sorry for the delay (20) Peter G.
You said, “If a crime goes on forever, then it would be unjust to make the punishment for it less than forever.” One of the problems with recent apologetic arguments for the traditional view of hell is they paint God constructing scenarios in which the damned cannot fail to continue sinning. I don’t hear good reasons for why God would want to create such a state of affairs. It seems such arguments are trying to hold both the everlasting life of the damned, and show that God is just in continuing to punish them. The picture is like punishing a rat in a cage and then extending his incarceration every time he nips at you—such a hell serves no purpose, and seems beneath dignity of Christ.
You said, “Likewise, if a crime is infinitely heinous, it would be unjust for the punishment to be anything less than infinite.” True enough. Show me a quick example of an “infinitely heinous” crime cause apparently all the hell bound have committed such sins (and 10,000 talents is slightly less than an infinite number of talents. In fact Jesus assumes an ending “until he should pay back all he owed”). Though he references eternal severity of sin, John Edwards argument you linked in no one establishes what makes a specific act infinitely heinous.
You said, “If you put a less-than-infinite measure on our guilt, then you likewise put a less-than-infinite measure on our forgiveness.” Where do you see the idea of “infinite forgiveness”? I’m not sure that’s a biblical picture.
You said, “He who is forgiven little, loves little” (Luke 7:47). If our guilt is less-than-infinite, then so will be our love.” Certainly the final claim itself is false. It does not need to apply. One *can* have immeasurable love without the experience of guilt (see: God).
These strike me as important questions, and asking for rationality behind the construction of such a hell is in no way ‘glib’ – especially when believing in such a hell is dependent on one’s own personally chosen interpretation of the scripture. There are of course other biblically based models of hell than the one you are defending.
(43) John – That’s the right question.
(46) Peter. The Annihilationist can point to the parable of Lazarus and the Rich man as a picture of the state prior to the judgment, and God may certainly punish with just severity any specific crimes prior to the destruction of the soul. So the rapist may receive harsher treatment that the strip club owner.
BTW – Much love. Good thoughts.
Justin, I enjoyed the poem very much! Jesus always pointed to the hardness of heart of the pharisees, not a flaw in their argument, logic, or justifications for condemning people. It was the heart, or Kardia, not Logos. I’m convinced that justice-centric soteriologies are missing the kardia of Jesus’ insistance.
One aspect of this conversation we, including me, tend to leave out is “the mission of God.” The gospel of Jesus Christ took energetic root in Thessalonica and the news of their conversion was spreading like wild-fire. Both upset Jews and disgruntled Roman citizens in Thessalonica opposed the spread of the reign of the one True, Living God. We tend to play down God’s fierce judgment on those who oppose making his Name known in the world. The sweep of the biblical Story is the making of the one True Creator God known as Yahweh (OT) and as Jesus-Yahweh/LORD (NT). If we look closer at the 2 Thess 1:6-10 text we see embedded in it this hostile attempt to making God known. Jesus’ mission was to make God known as never before. Yes, God is known as a God of grace (hesed), love, mercy, AND as LORD and King who accepts no disloyalty. Try as we may, we cannot escapr that a personal relationship with Jesus Christ determines the eternal destiny of human beings. Jesus is to be “owned” by us as we are owned by his redemptive work. If we disown Jesus, he bluntly stated he would disown us.
Bo, I don’t get to pick what I want to believe. As a follower of Jesus I’m committed to his cause. A cause that includes the Scriptures he believed, the teaching he gave, and the apostles he trained. I would rather be committed to that than committed to what suits my tastes. There is no stability and no Gospel to be found in our preferences.
Peter I suppose I’ve just come to realize that to some extent, we all choose what to believe, we all interpret the BIble selectively, we are all cafeteria Christians, so to speak. The first step to being faithful to the text is, as Patricia pointed out earlier, finding the central themes with which to use as a lens for the rest of the text. As a fellow follower of Jesus, as someone committed to Jesus, not the Bible, I am committed to unconditional love, forgiveness, and grace, which leads me, in my spare time, to put up a bit of a fight against theologies which are not love and grace centered. We’re all interpreting, Peter, remember that.
John,
“we cannot escapr that a personal relationship with Jesus Christ determines the eternal destiny of human beings.” Are you restricting this to while we are still breathing? Is it as simple as no personal relationship (a phrase not found anywhere in scripture) no heaven?
As James 2:13 indicates, judgement without mercy will be shown to those who do not practice mercy, not those without a “personal relationship.” James goes on to say Mercy triumphs over justice in the Kingdom. This seems to be a pretty unilateral statement, no matter what you believe, if you walk humbly and mercifully, you will be shown mercy to. But of course there’s also a hint that no matter who you are mercy will, in the end, be extended ; )
Jeff, thanks for the engagement.
You misrepresent the traditional view if you say that it presents a picture where God constructs a scenario where people continue to sin indefinitely. No one says that that I know of. As Carson writes, “I cannot prove this, but I think that there are enough Biblical hints to hold that it is true [that those in hell remain unrepentant]. The last chapter of the Bible says, ‘Let those who do wrong continue to do wrong; let those who are vile continue to be vile; let those who do right continue to do right; and let those who are holy continue to be holy’ (Rev. 21:11). That is, you move into the new heaven and new earth–or you move into hell itself–and you remain in principle what you already are” (The God Who Is There, 209). Perhaps we’re not ready to give that level of significance to our state in this life? That where I would appeal to John Stott’s point. Doing this makes our decisions in this life more significant not less. How we respond to God now has eternal ramifications. What could give more significance to our decisions now than that? Why would he do it this way? I think the question assumes we’re not really bad enough that this way of doing it could be just. I don’t share that assumption and–more importantly–I don’t think Scripture does.
How long would it take a person to pay off 6 million days’ wages, Jeff? If you do the math, you’re right, it comes to an end. But then that’s missing Jesus’ point. He wasn’t hoping we’d all pull out our calculators. I want to suggest that the outrage many feel toward an eternal hell is precisely the kind of outrage Jesus was banking on in his parable. It is outrageous. That’s the point. So yes, if you want to be woodenly literalistic in your application of Matt 18, then the payment has an end. I’m okay with that. But I think it misses Jesus’ point. Remember, it was Peter who wanted him to do calculations for him in an effort to tally up how much he should forgive. The point was: don’t limit forgiveness because there’s no limit to how much you’ve been forgiven. As soon as you put any limit on that you’re beginning to drain Jesus’ ethic of its power. If the man’s payment comes to an end then maybe I’ve forgiven my friend enough already–that’s the kind of logic Jesus demolishes. And it’s the kind of logic I think questions about the length of hell can lead to if we miss how Jesus’ ethic works here.
I don’t have time to go back through Edwards’s sermon but I thought I remember him connecting the infinite heinousness of sin directly with the infinite importance of the God we’ve offended. But here’s an infinite sin: appreciating the infinite goodness of God with anything less than infinite appreciation.
Infinite forgiveness: again see Matt 18 not to mention the infinite value of the blood required to purchase our pardon. Was Jesus’ blood worth less than that? What price would you put on God’s own Son?
“One *can* have immeasurable love without the experience of guilt (see: God).” Indeed. And if we were all God we wouldn’t have this problem.
Did I say questions about hell are glib? Sorry if I did. They aren’t. We should ask them. But we need to watch our tone. It’s easy to slip from an attitude of honest inquiry to an attitude of arrogance wherein we have switched places with God–not that you are doing that! But it’s a caution worth hearing from all sides in the discussion so that we don’t trifle with God.
Bo, we are. And that’s why we need to sharpen and correct each other’s interpretations. But saying we’re cafeteria Christians is a cop-out for doing real interpretive work. If I’m wrong in my interpretations then what I need is someone who cares deeply about what Scripture means to come help clear my wrong thinking. Someone who shrugs the details is not going to be much help are they? So tolle lege! And help the rest of us read aright! We are all in this together. But if some jump ship when the waters get rough, we all lose.
Bo @ 76-77,
For the conversion process, you’re correct Paul did not use the phrase “personal relationship.” He wrote, “I promised you to one husband, to Christ…” Paul used the marriage relationship as a metaphor the community of persons in union with Christ. So, ‘personal relationship’ is too weak in that it does not have the teeth of a marital commitment as envisioned in the Bible. I mean the ideas of fidelity, loyalty, endurance, protection, etc.
Peter (78). Good responses. Lots to say. But let me focus. Your use of “infinite” is being used in ways that don’t make sense to me. I’m not sure what “infinite appreciation” or “infinite forgiveness” or even “infinite goodness” mean, but the way you are constructing your argument uses such terms as the foundation for God rightly punishing a soul forever. As such, I’d like to see more here. It seems there are a few categories at work: 1. The infinite duration of a punishment, or 2. The unceasing amount God would forgive, or 3. possessing the maximal amount of a given property. Though the word “infinite” can be used in the 3 cases above, it seems you are taking about apples and oranges, and so the move from one to the other is illegitimate. Again, I would want to see more here.
Peace.
But John (80) is this relationship absolutely required for God to forgive somebody? Does God only forgive those whom love him back and distribute “justice” to all the rest?
Just to clarify and expand on my poem from a ‘definition’ and ‘logic’ standpoint…
If GOD is merciful, then he HAS to be just, but only following the justice rendered.
He can’t be only merciful (as we humanity knows him as of now). But he would HAVE to be ultimately merciful, if he is merciful at all.
This is the logic laid out through Scripture and our world as we know it. If, at the end of this Age, he rises with something else – then so be it. But, to pretend that for any part of his creation he would end with justice, and then turn to a separate part of creation, others, and continue being merciful is truly absurd. Is it not?
There again. If he has an ounce of mercy toward the unjust (“followers/believers”) then why would he withhold mercy toward the unjust (“non-followers/doubters”)?
Mercy, by definition, follows justice. This is not to suppose that one could withhold mercy of course. But why would we ever hope for justice to ever be the final word for anyone or anything? We ourselves are only made righteous, in part, because of the mercy of GOD; therefore, at the end of this Age, we should surely be hoping for the mercy to continue and GOD not to “change his mind” as it were. In which case, if we hope for mercy for ourselves, then should we not also hope for the mercy of all? And if we hope for the mercy of all, is it a stretch to see GOD has hoping for, desiring, wishing for mercy also?
Bo @83
We start with a belief that the reason God created anything at all, including us, is because God-Three-in-One wanted to draw creation and creatures into God’s joyful, unified love. For this to take place, God created humans with the ability to choose to love or not. That was God’s risk. The Story tells us the sad human choices made and God’s subsequent actions to still have a community of voluntary lovers in union with God through and only through Jesus Christ (see Paul’s creative “in Christ”). The mission of God in the world is the varied expressions of God’s pursuit of a people of his own who love God. With love and sanctioned relationship comes, yes, jealousy and a fierce commitment to protect as the covenant is honored (for covenant read “commitment”). There are drastic, distasteful, eternally damaging consequences for spurning and/or interfering with God’s loving mission. That is the Story as revealed in the Bible and most emphatically emphasized in the words and actions of Jesus Christ. What we so with Christ in this life matters for all eternity. The whole universe pivots on Christ.
About amount of debt and forgiveness, Jesus does equate love with debt forgiven. Jesus’ short story told to Simon the Pharisee concludes with “The one who has been forgiven much loves much.” This is against two debts freely forgiven–a 500 denarii debt and 50 denarii debt (see Luke 7:40-47).
Jeff (81), I just don’t see the problem with letting infinity bleed over your category distinctions. I just don’t see that, Biblically, the burden of proof lies with me. Emotionally? Sure. But when have criminals ever been the best ones to ask about what’s an appropriate punishment?
Again, I’m fearful of making calculations. How precise a formula do you need to see before you’re willing to admit that it’s possible to infinitely offend and infinitely good God? Do you really think it’s possible for us to feel the full gravity of our own offense against God? Should it be?
I’m so nervous about too protracted an attempt to calculate what our sin deserves because of how easy it is to move from that to justifying our sin as “not really that bad.” But look how David speaks of his sin in Psalm 25:11. “For your name’s sake, O LORD, pardon my guilt, for it is great.” He does exactly the opposite of what we’re prone to do. He appeals to God precisely because his sin is so great. He doesn’t say, “pardon my guilt because it’s not as bad as it could be!” And yet I fear that some opinions in this conversation will, if not checked, lead us to that kind of thinking. Until we see our sin as incomparably bad we will always play the comparison game when it’s our turn to forgive. As B.F. Westcott said, “Nothing superficially seems simpler than forgiveness. Nothing if we look deeply is more mysterious or more difficult.” No one needs to know they’ve been forgiven an infinite debt to forgive small offenses. But when the big ones come, what will power our radical, joy-filled extension of forgiveness to those who wrong us?
But I think pushing it toward the cross is where we need to go. In terms of cost (and debt), how much did it cost God to forgive us? And more pointedly: what did God in Christ save us from? From a justly deserved, infinite punishment or from something less?
#69 Peter G
I’m glad that we agree that Jesus’ teaching is to forgive. If we are to forgive why wouldn’t God want to forgive too? And let me repeat, I’m not saying that there should be no judgment and punishment. But as Jeff in #70 has said, first “the 10,000 talents is slightly less than an infinite number of talents. In fact Jesus assumes an ending “until he should pay back all he owed” 6 million days wage worth of sin still doesn’t equal eternal punishment. The question is after the punishment that God deems just, will there still be forgiveness? If not, what does it imply?
The part on God’s justice basing on ‘his unforgiveness of unrepentant sinners’: I didn’t say it. I’m merely quoting from the last paragraph in your previous entry #62. If I have misunderstood or misquoted you, I apologize.
I’m basically in agreement with what Jeff has commented; then finally I would want to say that it’s hard to dialogue if you haven’t read my article that I have linked in the first place. But definitely it’s beneficial for me to able to read and try to understand the many different views presented here. I have learned a lot.
Thank you and have a blessed day.
George ngo, How long would it take a person to pay 6 million days’ wages? According to Google, it’s 16,427.4556 years of debt. Do you know anyone who’s lived that long? Neither did those in Jesus’ audience. Within the context of the parable, this guy will die in jail. There is no after for him. That is the tip of Jesus’ knife that cuts to his hearer’s hearts. We can’t pay our own debt. Ever. It’s supposed to be unbelievable. That’s the point of saying 10,000 talents! [As a side note, it doesn't make sense to forgive someone who's already paid their debt. You can't forgive a debt someone doesn't have. Hence, if hell has an endpoint, then God has no legal reason not to permit them entrance into heaven.]
But to say still one more time, making calculations is to play calculator games with Peter–the very thing Jesus is trying to rid from our hearts.
Sorry if you explained something I’m missing in your article. I didn’t have time to read it.
I appreciate the dialogue as well. Thanks.
Peter (63),
If a person is exterminated, it makes a mockery of their very personhood.
There’s not much I can say about this. You already said that you were offering but rough thoughts, so I won’t ask you to present an argument for the assertion.
Our exchange has meandered a bit too much for my liking. I usually don’t engage people on this issue on a philosophical level (even though my academic background is philosophy—go figure) because a lot of our conclusions stem from intuitions that just are not shared by everyone.
So whether or not I find eternal torment to be cruel or unfair is ultimately immaterial. Whether or not I find universalism to be the only truly satisfying answer to the problem of evil matters little. I’m not saying that intuitions and philosophy should play no role whatsoever, but on these issues I am guided ultimately by what I think Scripture teaches.
That being said, if someone could actually demonstrate via philosophical argumentation that conditionalism is somehow incoherent or incompatible with some other doctrine that I hold to be true, then I’d seriously consider changing or adjusting my view.
I did want to comment on one thing you said:
But yes, continued existence is more meaningful than non-existence. It simply has to be otherwise we have no reason to avoid suicide.
Anyone personally acquainted with suicide will probably tell you that a person attempts to take his life precisely because he has concluded that there is no hope. The thought that God will sustain human beings forever in a state unthinkable misery, knowing full well that there is no hope for them is almost unimaginable to me. Every intuition I have about love, justice, fairness and mercy just rages against the notion.
I really just don’t know what to tell a person who finds this view less odious than conditionalism on moral, philosophical, or intuitional grounds.
Thanks, Ronnie. I still find there to be a categorical difference between any kind of existence and non-existence.
But you’re right, we have meandered far afield.
I’m not saying that intuitions and philosophy should play no role whatsoever, but on these issues I am guided ultimately by what I think Scripture teaches.
On that I can only offer a hearty amen! That’s why I qualified my earlier questions as philosophical and not Biblical. We have far more in common than not.
Thanks for engaging.
Peter G.,
Here is the problem with your logic; even 16,427.4556 years of debt could be paid off given enough time. So if I am going to take this passage litterally as you are; then there is a price paid according to what is owed and that amount is reachable given enough time. Your logic is contradicting your whole argument about ‘infinity’! 16,427.4556 is not infinity because it has an end. So your misreading of the text is really obvious in this case because infinity does not have an end.
So in Jesus’s parable even this great debtor could pay back his debt given enough time. You can’t say that 16,427.4556 is not enough time because to us it would seem like forever, but would not actaully be ‘forever’ or infinite!
Ahhh I give up!
Kaleb, if you want to use Matt 18 to make a mathematical case for the length of hell, go ahead. I readily concede that 16,427.4556 does not equal infinity.
The point of Jesus’ astronomical number was to get people to sit up and say, “What? No debt can be that big!” And since that’s exactly how many are responding to the notion of an infinite hell, what am I to say?
Think for a moment with me about how it would be possible for a person to accrue that much debt in the first century. Can you figure it out in your head? Can you calculate the number? If you can, you’ve already missed Jesus’ point! Our debt is unimaginable, incalculable, unbelievable. You’re not supposed to be able to measure it! Nor should you try. If Jesus used 10,000 talents instead of, say, 15,000 because, after all, he knew sin wasn’t that bad, then he is failing the very lesson he’s trying to teach Peter–that calculations become meaningless in light of magnitude of our debt to God.
I simply suggest that those who want to shorten hell to less than eternity (which is, let’s remember, the testimony of the rest of the NT!), are verging on being guilty of Peter’s mistake at the opening of the parable: namely, counting beans. Stop counting! You can’t measure how deep, how wide, and how murky our guilt is before God. It’s immeasurable–which is the same thing as saying infinite. If you want to argue that because Jesus gives a concrete number (10,000) that it can’t be immeasurable then be my guest. But then you’ve short-circuited Jesus’ ethic of forgiveness.
Could Jesus have said the servant owed an infinite debt? Sure. I suppose he did not because the concept would not have meant much to his hearers much as it wouldn’t make much sense to talk about America’s debt ceiling to folks in Africa who live on $1/day. Talking to them about infinity would be as meaningful as talking to them about space travel. 10,000 was just enough to be ridiculous (16,000+ year’s wages!) without being totally meaningless. That is to say, 10,000 was precisely the number Jesus wanted to get the reaction he needed. If his numbers don’t bring about the same reaction to us today it is only because we aren’t first century peasants. Fair enough.
Peter G.,
Just to clarify you were the one ‘googling’ how long it would to work off that great of a debt. You opened the door on that anology, not me. You wrongly assume that I think that Hell is not forever. It could be, but I readily admitt that Scripture leaves room for other options as well that could be reasonably interpreted differently outside your reformed lenses. Can you admitt to that? Or are you the only one right and no one can reasonably interpret otherwise? If the latter is true then talking about it is worthless. I don’t know for certain because of the paradoxe of the wide road to destruction and the deep forgiving grace of God. I don’t ignore the passages that talk about ‘the whole world’ and that Christ died for sinners.
And just because Africans are poor doesn’t mean they aren’t smart and it is likely some know more of space travel than you! I know you were just giving an example, but the point remains to assume you have more knowledge than certain people is wrong, even if they are poor.
A few concluding remarks about justice and forgiveness.
I hope that we can all agree that whatever God does is just, that God is not beholden to some Platonic form of “justice” wherein if he were to just forgive everyone, or punish everyone, it would be “just” because God is the ultimate authority. If you think Jesus HAD to die for our sins so that we could be saved or forgiven or whatever, then it is because God chose that specific way for some reason, not because he had to demand a kill or a payment because God’s hands are tied by some system of justice or some one to one economic principle where everything must be paid for.
When it comes to forgiveness, let us be very clear what we are talking about. Forgiveness is not an exercise of power but a forgoing of the exercise of power, giving up the power one has over the other. If we are speaking of justice as getting what one deserves, or an eye for an eye etc., then forgiveness is exactly opposed to such primitive justice, it is giving up your claim on the other, the releasing of a debt (which is why citing the atonement as a prerequisite of God’s forgiveness is asinine, for the releasing of a debt is not when someone else pays it for you, if God cannot truly forgive then why does he command us to… but i digress). God, in his merciful, infinite mercy and forgiving nature, which seeks first not his own holiness but the good of the beloved, forgoes his claim, his right as creator, in order that we may be given new life, be transformed, and ultimately redeemed. God is a better father/mother than we can imagine, and what good parent would insist upon laying their rightful vindictive claims on their children, retribution for the sake of revenge? Even justified revenge? The Kingdom does not operate like that, God does not hold grudges against his children.It is not that God forgets what we have done, as if we are getting away with anything, he simply takes measures to help us along in our journey by transforming the past into something not to be held against us, but something to inform what measures need to be taken in order to redeem us. It is not annihilation of the past, or the transgressions, but the re-formation, or transformation, where the offense is transformed in the moment of forgiveness into something that is no longer hanging over us, no longer between us, not anymore. It is not ignorance or repression of the offense either, the offense is simply given new meaning, the meaning of “as if it never happend,” which presupposes that it did. (here I cite my inspiration from John Caputo) WHy does God stand for the powerless amongst us? BEcause he is constantly giving up his own, emptying himself in the event of impossible forgivenes. Contra to John’s opinion, the consequences of “interfering with God” are not damnation and oppression, nothing could be more unbiblical. When God’s agenda is interfered with, if he is a shepard with 100 sheep and one goes missing, even if he is running late, he will look for the one well into the night until he finds it. God’s priorities are his beloved. God forgoes debts because he is God, he does not need payment, what could we possibly offer God? Jesus tells us to not let our enemies exert power over us by holding their crimes against them, he tells us to let it go, over and over and over and over if need be. this is what God is like.
I’m afraid the justice John has been describing could not be more antithetical to the prophetic Biblical witness to God’s character, and we should become more confortable with the unexpected grace of God in the world around us.
Let’s take some time to define terms so that we can actually talk to the same issues.
My definition of forgiveness is: Maintaining my attitudes and actions toward another AS IF the sacrifice of Jesus was ACTUALLY sufficient payment for any and all wrongdoing (against me). What’s yours?
Notice that with this definition, forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation (restoring a right relationship), nor is it necessarily related to consequences that may result from wrongdoing. Forgiveness is also not the same as PARDON which is to forgo a punishment that is deserved (a convicted felon may be released from his punishment if he receives a pardon). Forgiveness is also not the same as MERCY. Forgiveness is also not the same as LOVE (actively seeking to do the very best thing you can for the other person, unconditionally, and without regard of cost to self). And it is not the same as GRACE (the God given power and desire to do His will).
All of these words, of course, are related and do overlap.
But if we are going to discuss some of the deeper issues of Scripture, we should be quite careful to make sure that we are all using the same language.
Kaleb, let’s be clear. It isn’t Scripture that leaves room for other options, it’s our own fallibility. I’m more than happy to engage in discussion of actual texts and their meaning. What I’m not happy with is using the difficulties inherent in the interpretive process as an excuse for evading the hard work of interpretation. I’m not saying you’re doing that. But some of your comments could lead us there if we’re not careful. If my reformed lenses are clouding my judgment then help me clear them. But help me with actual interpretations of Biblical texts not with sentiment (however strong it may be) or with general themes culled from Scripture.
The comment about infinity and space travel was about first century peasants, not modern-day Africans. Sorry for the confusion.
Bo @ 94,
Please. What I write may be antithetical to how *you* understand the biblical prophetic witness to God’s character, but not antithetical to the character of God as revealed in that witness. You seem to think you alone have a corner of God’s character. You might want to rethink that.
Bo@94
Your first comment is exactly correct. God is who He says He is, not who we say He is. Whether we like it, or understand it or not.
John’s comments pretty clearly describe what the Scripture actually has to say, as opposed to your man made interpretation based on what you seem to be comfortable with based on your ability to reason.
I guess I would expect no less from someone who notes at comment #67 that Scripture is only one of your sources of truth. You appear to be committed to deciding for yourself what is true and right, as opposed to submitting yourself to the truth that God has set forth in His Scripture. So sad.
The important things of Scripture are not unclear.
Whatever “eternal punishment” is, it is clear that it is a fate to be avoided. How do we do THAT?
We can “not like” the fact that everyone who is born into the human race is born separated from, and in condemnation before, the Holy God of the universe, but we cannot deny that this is the clear teaching from Scripture. Everyone is born headed for “eternal punishment”. What do we do about THAT?
Understanding our actual condition should result in falling on our knees before God and saying “what must I do to be saved?”, not thinking we know more than God and trying to prove it with all of our faulty logic.
John is also correct in noting that the solution to our problem (headed for eternal punishment) is a right relationship with Jesus, and that is the only way.
When we ask “what must I do to be saved”, Jesus, the Holy One, is quick to answer “Turn from your sinful ways (repent), and believe that My work was sufficient”.
May Jesus show you His Truth, and may you be humble to accept Him.
John, I have nothing original to say, this is al very much within a 2000 year old stream of orthodoxy. I am not claiming to hold any kind of exclusively correct position, far from it, I am leaving room for diversity. To you and Morgan and Peter, I would say that while you can claim to be interpreting scripture the singular orthodox way, however what I am saying is no less Biblical, and has just as much traction with the early church fathers. I don’t have any corner on God, but I am wiling to rule out worshiping a God who is more or less an omnipotent crazed egotistical being who claims to be a loving parent but is willing to allow billions of humans to walk off of a cliff into hell because they did not love him back.
Morgan says the important things of scripture are not unclear, but of course that’s an untenable claim, as the BIble is ambiguous on many, many central issues, like the why there is evil suffering and who gets into heaven or who goes to hell. The debate circling these issues alone should be enough to convince you that perhaps, as I am perfectly willing to claim, that you could be wrong. I could be wrong. We don’t have the direct access to objective knowledge when it comes to God OR interpreting scripture. Universalists are just as “Biblical” as exclusivists. Calvinists are just as Biblical as Armenians. The arrogant or pretentious delusion is to come along and make definitive statements about which position is the true, God-approved way. You can’t have that, I’m sorry if it’s something you desire.
Here’s what we can say, however – it’s hard to find beauty or anything worth worshiping in a creator God who allows 90% of his children to enter into eternal damnation and withholds love and forgiveness from those who do not love him back. Any killer or mobster can love their only family and friends who love them back. It takes the Christ to love his enemies and instruct us to do the same. If we worship a God because of what He has done for ME though not for my neighbor, not only are we forsaking Christ who was always on the side of those on the margins who were outcast, but I fear we are nothing but sycophants worshiping not beauty and love, but power. This may seem contrary to claiming that whatever God does is “just” because he is the ultimate authority, and I still suppose that’s right, but hey, I’ll have to deal with it if youre right. And buy the first drink for my friends in hell. I am not humble enough to accept a totalitarian God, though you may pray for me, but remember, you are the one claiming an exclusive position as well. Perhaps we could both use some humilty, but I would be surprised if you find my position of ultimate love, acceptance, and restoration as evil and anathema as I find yours, Johns, and Peter’s. May God help me for being too optimistic. And God help us all.
All that is to say, I’m the one claiing that worshiping the right God is a very petty criterium for deciding who gets tortured forever and ever or gets paradise. I’ll have to introduce you to my Muslim and Hindu friends who are more Christ like than I am.
Well said Bo!!
“Your comment was a bit too short. Please go back and try again.”
Really?
Ha, after skimming 100 comments, I didn’t have much to say, but wanted to thank Bo for her articulate expression of the loving nature of our Father.
bo@96
I am so sorry that I led you to believe I am interested in “convincing” you of my position as an intellectual exercise, nothing could be less important.
My only interest is that you would come to see that Jesus is the only way to a right relationship with God.
But who Jesus is, and what our relationship with God is, and whether or not a person needs salvation are the critical questions. Those questions are answered correctly only in the Bible. And those fundamental things are abundantly clear therein, and only therein.
The Mormans don’t have it right. The Koran doesn’t have it right, etc., etc.
Let me say something you have probably heard, but a little bit differently to hopefully make the idea clear.
There are many roads and they all lead to God. I agree with that statement (you should be shocked). No matter what faith a person has, he will end up face to face with God, the Holy One, the Creator of all.
The truth of Scripture (again abundantly clear) is that only those who have a right relationship with Jesus will be welcomed at that meeting. The rest …
I can say with confidence that you already know this, because Scripture says He has written His laws on your heart.
He waits for you to admit that you are who Scripture says you are, to repent of your pride and believe that apart from the Salvation that is offered in Jesus, you have no hope. Your eternal destiny hangs in the balance.
Me eternal destiny, eh? What if I can’t just change my beliefs, Morgan? I mean, you can’t just try really hard and convince you of things you feel deep in your soul are immoral and depraved. Or just silly. I can’t simply try really really hard and convince myself that God lives on Kolab, like the Mormons believe. Or that Santa Claus lives in the North Pole. My brain interprets the evidence differently, I can’t help it. So in light of that fact, that I literally can’t simply “believe” what you hope I would to be saved, what is your advice to me and my atheist friends who cant even believe God exists even if they try really hard, about how to get out of hell? Can we fake it til we make it? Perhaps I am simply unelect and out of luck…
Also I would say that it’s “abundantly clear” that every tongue sha confess Christ, and that there will be a “restoration of all things.” Which of course means, ALL things. Youre reading universalist texts through the lens of the other exclusivist texts, I simply do the opposite.
Bo @103
My “advice” to you is the same as it was to myself so many years ago: Give up trying to make “figuring it out” a prerequisite for believing the truth of Jesus and His sacrificial love for you.
You don’t study calculus first, you study addition and subtraction.
The Holy Spirit only reveals what we need to know at any time in our life, all the other knowledge we have is simply information.
You’re right, you can’t “try harder”, in fact the opposite is required (his ways are not our ways).
You have only to accept the simple Gospel. You stand condemned before the Holy God of all. But He loves you and has made a way for you to know Him through Jesus. All you have to do is to repent (turn from the way you are going) and accept His gift of eternal life.
Your relationship with Him is the key question (He will handle all of the rest of the people you mentioned as He sees fit).
Some people focus on making the Gospel a “free gift”, and that is certainly true, Jesus freely offered Himself for us. But it was not “free” to Him (cost Him an agonizing death). And there is a real sense that salvation is not “free” to us either.
Maybe God will call you to Africa, are you willing to go? Maybe He will call you to serve in a soup kitchen, are you willing to serve?
Maybe He will call you to give up trying to figure it all out, are you willing to trust Him?
Well Morgan I am much more interested in the “call” of God than I am whether or not he exists. I’m certainly willing to DO all of the things Jesus calls us to, but I am not able to believe what you say! Believe me, I don’t have it “all figured out” nor am I trying. I am doing precisely the opposite – moving the onus AWAY from belief and correct knowledge as having any efficacy as to whether or not one gets sent to an eternal Gitmo by a demon/god. The Holy Spirit has indeed revealed many things to me that I am trying to express, but for some reason it is revealing different, mutually exclusive truths to each of us! Let’s just hope I’m right, then we’re both in the clear, I know you’d be at least a little upset to think of me suffering with no hope whatsoever for all of eternity! But you know, Morgan, I wouldnt leave you in Hell to escape to Heaven, maybe you’d do the same for me…
Bo, I am very upset at the thought of you, or anyone else going to Hell. I am also so sad that you cannot see the contradictions in your own thoughts, so many in just one short paragraph.
How can a “call” of a God that does not exist be interesting at all?
What would be more “unfair” that a God who demands worship, but does not reveal “correct knowledge to inform that worship?
How could the Holy Spirit of the God of Truth “reveal” conflicting information?
You and I don’t get to decide who goes where.
Sadly, when you stand before God face to face, you will not be able to convince Him that He did not give you everything you needed to believe in Him.
What does Jo 13:36 say to you?
Morgan you know what Karl Barth once said to a student who asked whether or not he believed the serpent literally spoke to Adam and Eve, he said something akin to, “what’s important is not whether or not the snake spoke, but what the snake said…”
How are you to assume which one of us has the “correct” revelation? Do you doubt that my experience of God is as clear or intense as yours?
If I believe in Jesus, would God hold me prisoner in Heaven when I desire with all of my being to go and be with the outcasts, family and friends in Hell?
Don’t you think that our brains simply interpet empirical data a particular way? You can’t willfully change all of your beliefs. You can choose how you act. I don’t always hold the propositional belief of a metaphysical being/God, but I have absolute faith, or hope, that the call of God will bring restoration the world. I suppose I will be damned for that…
Let us not conflate belief with faith.
“Today faith is most often taken to refer a way of holding propositions. In other words, faith is considered to be a mode of belief. To be precise faith is thought of as a way of firmly believing something that lacks sufficient evidence to know beyond reasonable doubt. Here are a few examples,
- I have faith that John will remember to pick us up
- I have faith that the rain will clear up later today
- I have faith that my partner will come back to me
In each of these examples the individual who asserts them believes that something will happen in the absence of overwhelming evidence (indeed, for some, faith increases in direct proportion to the decrease in evidence). This will become more clear as we contrast the above expressions with statements that we would not likely hear or utter,
- I have faith that 2 plus 2 equals 4
- I have faith that the film will start at the time it is scheduled to show
- I have faith that the milk I put in the fridge will be there when I open the fridge door [unless, of course, you live with people who might drink it]
The point here is simply that faith has come to mean a psychological claim to certainty about something that would, from a purely empirical point of view, be uncertain. In terms of religion faith has come to mean the confident assertion of dogmas (historical, biological, cosmological etc.) that evidence alone could not reasonably enable us to affirm.This definition however misses the true meaning of faith as expressed by Paul. Paul is referring to faith as a way of participating in a different kind of reality, one that has nothing whatsoever to do with beliefs (for their domain is the world of exteriority). For Paul faith is a way of participating in a mode of life that he calls the life of Christ. He is referring to a different type of existence, not a different way of thinking (though it will cash out in that). Faith expresses a way of being that one cannot deny but that one cannot fully grasp.
This is what we find beautifully hinted at in the famous definition found in Hebrews. Here faith is described as a way of living that we cannot deny but that we cannot render into a thing. It is an invisible reality that we do not see, but that we fully live within. A reality that enables us to see.” Peter Rollins http://peterrollins.net/?p=2765
I have a ton of faith… but still Morgan, can’t always help the belief. I think we should probably end this debate, it isnt on the original topic of Justice (not directly, anyway) and we’re not making any progress. We can pray for each other (especially since you’ve got me on the road to perdition!)
But bo, what does Jo 3:36 say to you?
#96 Peter G.,
I am glad fallibility applies only to my interpretations and not yours
Thanks for at least admitting that you have to ignore Scripture as a whole and look specifically at the verses you do to come to the conclusion you hold. Your seemingly arrogant statement, that no other conclusion can be interpretted from the text just shows how set you are that you are right and all others are wrong. While I at least hold the view point that your option is a real possibility due to my fallibility, but there is also the real possibility that Scripture gives a much bigger hope than we like to see due to our fallibility in reading it. So thanks for admitting you have to ignore other parts of Scripture to hold your view of ETC. I always appreciate when we can be honest with ourselves and each other. I side with Jesus that we should forgive our enemies, love those that persecute us, and never stop forgiving others-even when they continue to hurt us. Love Wins because Jesus has already won the victory over Sin as Scripture makes clear. Sorry if you miss that because it is terribly liberating and freeing and feels like very very GOOD NEWS!
“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.”
I can’t be 100% sure of John’s intention, but given the fact that Jesus did not go around to everyone he met and say “believe the propositional belief that I am God and be saved! It’s that easy!” I think something else is meant by belief than those examples of propositional beliefs I used in the previous post, i.e. believing that something will happen or is true in the absence of overwhelming empirical evidence. But sticking with “belief,” there are two kinds. The first, as I have mentioned, is something like “I believe there is a God” or “I believe in Platonic forms.” These are the kind of propisitions that once may have strong convictions about based upon personal experience and inclinations, but lacks har evidence to support them. Secondly, one may say “I believe in Barack Obama,” which means something entirely different. Now we are away from the category of simply what exists, and into the realm of hope/faith. If one believes in Obama, one has hope that his character, policies, and executive skills will lead the country out of troubled times, in a sense, rather than saying that you believe Obama exists, you are saying that in the absence of overwhelming evience, you hope or believe in the same things AS Obama, perhaps a more universal healthcare system, for example.
Now to the point – to say that one “believes” in Jesus in order to inherit “eternal life” and sticking to the first definition of belief is just silly. “Eternal life” does not mean :life forever in Heave n after you die,” though it doesnt rule it out. “Eterna” is AIÓNIOS which of course does NOT mean never-ending. Plato uses the term in the Timaeus to mean something that is opposed to time, where time does not exist, Euripides And Aristophanes both use it to mean a man’s lifetime or severa lifetime’s. It’s an ambiguous phrase that does certainly not mean infinitely perpetuated time. “Eternal life”is “life of the ages,” or life as it was meant to be lived, “the good life,” to be fully alive and human. You dont get that by just believing a fact about Jesus, but rather by BELIEVING in Jesus as one has hope or faith, by believing the same things about the word as Jesus, which leads to living LIKE Jesus. When we believe in Jesus, we believe that being compassionate, self-giving, loving, forgiving, humble, creative, non-violent etc. IS what it means to be fully human, to live the “life of the ages.” When you believe what Jesus says (and he talked about his own divinity very little… in fact he told his disciples to tell everyone he was God…. oh wait, he did the oposite) you inherit the Kingdom of God by walking the walk, you believe that Jesus wasnt calling us to be boring ans austere in this life to get to Heaven, but to live so authentically that we couldn’t imagine going back to our own ways (whether God exists or not!).
Lastly, as far as wrath, I am quite persuaded by Process-Relational theologians such as John Cobb, Bruce Epperly, Philip Clayton, Robert Mesle, and others who follow Alfred North Whitehead’s account of God’s wrath (if I am going to take the BIble seriously on this point, or I should say John’s opinion of those who do not “believe” in Jesus). God is always working for the best in a situations, he is present in everything, using his creativity and compassion to open up positive possibilities to us. However there are not aways positive possibilities for a given situation, and when we are living antithetically to the life of Jesus, we are selfish, arrogant, greedy, vindictive, violent, etc., then the “good” possibilities that God wants us to be able to choose in our life simply are not there. Nothing good can come from such a life. When this is the case, I think we interpret it as God’s “wrath.” By not believing in Jesus, by not being fully human, when God is working in our lives, it truly is toward somewhat terrible or evil consequences, because we have left no other way. Some things are not possible. So when God is working toward making the best of someones life possible, that possibility may still be terrible, even if it is the “best” possible possibility or outcome. We then see that as wrath. This is a basic tenant of Process-Relational philosophy.
Sorry to be so long winded, but there’s you answer!
And AMEN! To Kaleb!
Kaleb, you’re confusing conviction with arrogance and uncertainty with humility. When you’re ready to start talking about actual texts that speak of hell I’m ready to listen. Until then, you’re talk about humility rings hollow. It sounds more like unwillingness to engage an extremely difficult topic.
In any case, lose the sarcasm. I never said fallibility in interpretation only applies to me. I did, however, challenge you to deal with actual texts rather than broad themes–a challenge I hold you to.
Also, remember, the logic of Jesus’ ethic in Matt 18 about the extent of our forgiveness cannot apply to God unless, of course, you think that God is in debt to someone 10,000 talents. Remember, in the parable, the King does stop forgiving others. If you can’t reconcile that with God’s love, then perhaps you need to rethink it’s nature and character. I would point you here as a good starting place.
113# Peter G.,
The problem is not that I am unwilling to work with the Gehenna texts, the problem is that you are unwilling to see the other principles that are presented to us about who God is and what he does as being pertinent to how doles out punishment. So I would give you the very same challenge that you do not engage the texts that clearly describe the character of God that does fly in the face of your particular view of Hell. I think you are the one who is confusing arrogance with conviction and I do not have a false set of humility. I have a theology that allows God to speak through God’s word, and if times there seems to be contradictions I learn to live within those. Scripture presents many paradoxes and if you can see or acknowledge these then it is arrogance and not conviction.
The parable of Matt 18 was about forgiving others as we have been forgiven. So the true downfall of the person having to go to jail to pay back every denari was about him not handing out the forgiveness he had already been afforded. Do you miss that? Sin has been paid for and everthing is forgiven; that whole o’ death where is your sting thing. So if we are really going to take this verse as anything judgement falls on those that do not forgive as they have been already forgiven.
You confuse false humility with uncertainty because you do not carry any sense that your convictions could be wrong. I think God character revealed in Jesus is the most important part of trying to figure out this weighty issue. I agree judgement is definately a big topic at times; I assume that my trust in Jesus leads me to believe that the sermon on the Mount and other parts where Jesus reveals the Kingdom ethic also apply to God as our lead example. That is my starting point that I do not share with you. So you can continue to seperate Scripture as you feel ‘convicted’ but please do not label me uncertain because I see both sides of a coin.
We all need to be honest that we are choosing, less objectively than we think, a mode of interpreting the BIble, emphasizing some aspects while leaving others out, reading some parts while overlooking others, reading some parts in light of other parts instead of the other way around, etc. This is what I meant before by us all being “cafeteria Christians” whether we admit it or not. The primary factor in rejecting Peter and Morgan’s view of scripture, for me, is the revulsion and disgust I have with their articulation or picture of God. Eternity in Heaven with such a being would be Hell for me. I’m a seminary student, I appreciate good exegesis, hermeneutics, theology, etc, we can’t be relativists or sloppy, it’s not “anything goes” that caters to our tastes, but we have to admit our biases play a huge role in reading such a parallactical text as the Bible. “Orthodoxy,” historically speaking is not a single set of doctrinal statements, anyone who studies the history of Christianity can see very quickly that the “love wins” approach has been in the conversation for thousands of years, though it is just once voice. Hopefully what we are having here is a continuation of an ancient conversation, not a fight over the singular correct answer that will somehow save us from the fire…
Kaleb,
You struggle to reconcile God’s forgiving character with a hell from which no one escapes. You struggle to see how God can command us to forgive our enemies if he doesn’t forgive all his enemies, is that fair?
Bo, if you’re serious that we can’t be relativists, then once we’ve all acknowledged we have biases, let’s drop our concerns about bias and get on with the work of finding the objective meaning of the text. We don’t have to understand a text omnisciently in order to understand it truly.
I am more than happy to admit I have biases. But I’m not going to look for help in overcoming those biases from someone who thinks that’s an impossible goal. That would be counter-productive. I’m not trying to belittle your concerns about bias. But I am saying that at some point in a discussion, all our talk about our bias becomes a smokescreen, an excuse for avoiding coming to real convictions. At it’s worst, our concerns about bias can become a bias in themselves, a way of screening everyone else’s opinion out as simply too biased for serious consideration.
As I said earlier, interpretation is hard work. It takes us into tough waters at times. But if all you can do is stand on the bow and tell us how big the waves are you’re not going to be much help in getting our sailboat through them.
You know Peter, I don’t know many people who’s interpretations go agains their inclinations, such as a Calvinist who is a misotheist because he believes love only comes with freedom or an Armenian who wishes that God was totally sovereign. This is pretty good evidence that we get what we want out of the Bible, our interpretations make us happy. Again, this isn’t relativism, As I think you have acknowledged, but an admittance that because someone disagrees with you it is not because they ar less of an exgete or less logical (though that may be the case), but it could be because we actually do have a parallax. The reason I choose one carefully crafted, well founded interpretation or theory over another equally text-based, principled, and crafted interpretation is that I find beauty in one but not the other. It’s literally insane to be of a particular Christian persuasion these days, with thousands of denominations and theologies, and not be a pluralist in regard to truth AT LEAST within the Christian faith, if not all of religion. To pick a camp, say conservative evangelical, or presbyterian, or Anglican, whatever, and claim that only YOUR tribe is correct, and not only are you correct, but somehow your salvation hangs on being “correct” theologically? We have to affirm the possibility of truth anywhere, even where we least expect it! To pick a tiny group of people, and look around at the other billions, and think to yourself “everyone else is wrong” is not conviction, but epistemological arrogance! I’m not throwing my hands up and saying “welp, waves are too big, may as well stay out of the water!” No! I’m saying listen, the waves are big, we are small, let’s to our best, be creative, rigorous, methodological when doing things like hermeneutics, but maintain the humility that the world does not hinge on us getting it right, or anyone for that matter! Let’s be free to create beautiful things without being chastised, to value tradition but not let it strangle us! Peter, don’t be afraid to admit that you dont have access to objective knowledge about ethereal things, it puts you in the same camp as the rest of us! Don’t give up your convictions, don’t be passive, don’t despair, find something beautiful and tell people about it! And Leave room. God will always turn up where you least expect him.
Also as per John 3.36, there is an interesting conundrum if we seek to isolate that verse from everything else.
“…but the one who rejects the Son…”
So the question becomes, can one reject whom he never hears of? Never meets?
Now, obviously, we are presented with a couple of options as a response.
1. We can dismiss this as “Well, yeah, but, Paul says that Creation testifies, and, well, um, yeah, they still know there is a Creator.” But this line of thinking never ever presupposes that a human being could somehow magically assume there is a Son attached to this Creator. In which case, we’re back at square one in John 3.36.
B. What of Rashid? You know, Rashid, the Middle Eastern man living a thousand miles away on the day Yeshua resurrected? Turns out, the work of the cross was finished and the first fruits were present, all was well…outside of Jerusalem. But poor Rashid died in his sleep, and not one disciple could make it to him in time. Well, off to Hell I imagine. And then, probably, the Fiery Lake for eternity. Guess he really got the short end of the Adam-N-Eve stick, eh?
Are we okay with allowing other examples of “seeing life”?
I reveal my bias here: I don’t think that’s the best translation of the verse.
Consider the Messianic Jewish Translation,
“The one faithing in the Son [HaElohim] has Chayyei Olam; but the one disobeying the Ben [HaElohim] will not see Chayyim, but the Charon Af Hashem remains on him.”
This would seem to imply that this 36th verse is not speaking to believers and unbelievers as it were, but to believers only. It’s about tasting the kingdom life here and now or disobeying Yeshua and being blocked, in a sense, from tasting the kingdom life here and now.
“If you love me, you will obey me,” is what comes to mind.
The heart of the conversation going on in this verse is not so much about salvation (sozo, being born again, etc.) – as many are trying to make it – but about kingdom life, abundant life from faithing Yeshua and loving Yeshua – and thereby bringing the Kingdom, if you will.
Your thoughts?
@Bo alludes to the Chayyei Olam and Chayyim in 111. Sorry, didn’t see that until just now ;]
Peter G. 116,
“You struggle to reconcile God’s forgiving character with a hell from which no one escapes. You struggle to see how God can command us to forgive our enemies if he doesn’t forgive all his enemies, is that fair?”
No, it is not quite fair. It is not that I struggle to think God would be saying do as I say and not as I do, even though I think that is a very inacurate representation of God. It is that there is Scripture that talks about the width and depth of God’s mercy and grace to all that paradoxically conflict with other verses about the ‘narrow road to life’ and the ‘broad road to destruction’. There is plenty of Scripture that talks of both and if you leave one out of the equation I don’t think you are being honest with the text or yourself that they are harder to line up. So while you call this ‘confusion’ I call this being honest that two sides of a coin are shown and it is left up to us to wrestle with it. If you have wrestled with it and come to your own conclusion it doesn’t mean someone else who takes it just as seriously, or more, will come to the same conclusion as you. You do not seem to recognize this possibility that people with just as much Spirit and devotion as you may logically come to a different conclusion by looking at the same texts. If you can admit that I would feel we would have made progress.
I Would have concern not only for Rashid, but Matthew, who grew up in a bad church environment, and wants nothing to do with Jesus, though he has “heard” the Gospel, based upon his experience with Christians. Or Ted who is a scientist, and simply cannot make himself believe in a metaphysical diety he has no proof for, Ted being a hyper-analytical, rational being by nature. He has considered all of the arguments and evidence, and his brain tells him there is no God. If Matthew and Ted (not to mention Rashid) are on a highway to Hell, it would certainly, to my extreme chagrin, point toward soteriological predestination, that evil, twisted doctrine.
Kaleb, thanks for clarifying. Do you have specific texts in mind that suggest God’s grace and mercy are wider than the narrow way?
Bo, it’s Arminian. Armenia is a country not a theology.
You know Peter, I don’t know many people who’s interpretations go agains their inclinations. I do. But I don’t think it’s a virtue. God is not only good but he is lovely. If I find something in scripture about God that is unattractive to me I can (1) assume I’m misunderstanding it and rethink my interpretation (2) dismiss that teaching of Scripture or (3) try to correct my mis-perception of what’s really beautiful. Number 2 is unwise for a follower of Jesus. Number 1 is where I spend most of my energies and where we should spend most of our time in discussing them with each other. But at some point I move to #3.
So I like that you let beauty play an important role in sifting opposing viewpoints. I just think that the Spirit working through Scripture is powerful enough to change even what we find beautiful. It has for me. Apart from the work of the Spirit I would never have found Christ beautiful.
Peter G. 123,
I won’t have the space here to list things that allude to a wideness and depth in God’s grace beyond our understanding. These verses are only one side of the coin and the paradox lies in the fact there is another side and we are simply left with both. I would love to hear what you do with some of these verses!
And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the WHOLE WORLD. (1 John 2:2)
For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile ALL THINGS to Himself, having made PEACE through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven. (Col. 1:15-20)
For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men,especially of believers. (1 Tim. 4:10)
And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, “To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.” (Rev. 5:13)
But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of
the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the
grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. The gift is not like
that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification. For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men. (Romans 5:15-21)
Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2:8-11.)
For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to
all. (Romans 11:32)
He spoke another parable to them, “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of flour until it was all
leavened.” (Matt. 13:33)
Always dangerous to take a text out of context.
The context of Jo 3:36 is that it is the record of what John the Baptist said in response to questions from his followers. It is in Jo 3 because the first part of the chapter records the words of Jesus in His conversation with Nicodemus.
They are together because both conversations make the same exact point. JTB makes the point in 3:36. Jesus teaches exactly the same in 3:18. The point is that we stand condemned before a Holy God. Our only response to that should be to cry out “What must I do to be saved from the predicament?”
The point of all of it is 3:3 “…you must be born again…” (the way out of our predicament)
The Gospel is so simple that a 4 year old can “get it”.
Those who demand that God explain everything to them so they can decide if they will believe will never be satisfied because there is always something we do not understand (but that is the way it should be if God is actually God because He is very much beyond our ability to completely understand).
Jesus is not auditioning for the position of Messiah in hopes that you will approve His performance.
He demands that we come to Him on His terms.
You must be born again.
Kaleb,
Colossians 1:20 does seem to teach universalism when read in isolation. But two things mitigate this conclusion. First, the language Paul uses is most likely a reference to the created order which has been in shambles since Gen 3. That Paul is not thinking of all the inhabitants of heaven and earth becomes clear in Col 2:15 where we’re told that Christ has triumphed over the principalities and powers, putting them to open shame. That’s not reconciliation. What’s more, what would it mean for the angels who did not rebel to be relationally reconciled to God? So I think it’s more likely that Paul is talking about restoring a fallen and rebellious creation than he is about saving everybody from hell. Since the lake of fire seems to lie outside the realm of the new heavens and the new earth in Revelation, there’s no theological tension. Second, Paul says three verses later that the Colossians themselves have been reconciled “if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard.” So at least in the human realm, Paul conceives of reconciliation as continent upon perseverance. In sum, as N.T. Wright says, “The process of reconciliation between God and man does not simply happen by some autonomic process. Paul clearly believed that it was possible for human beings to reject God’s offer of salvation, and thereby be themselves rejected (see Rom 1:18-2:16; 14:10; 2 Cor 5:10; 2 Thes. 1:5-10)” (Colossians and Philemon, 77).
1 Timothy 4:10 on first read seems to teach that God has two salvation tracks. Believers are saved in a special way (“especially”) that everyone else is not. There is, however, some evidence that the word “especially” (malista) can be used to provide a further identification or clarification akin to “that is.” In that case, Paul is saying that God saves everyone, but lest he be misunderstood, he means everyone who believes. Regardless of the meaning of “especially”, Paul uses the term “all” to mean “all sorts” elsewhere in his letters (Titus 2:11-12), including this same letter (2:1-7). It’s likely that he’s using it the same way here in 4:10. As George Knight says, “Here, as in 2:1-7, the phrase pantes anthropoi ["all men"] designates ‘all sorts of people.’” (The Pastoral Epistles, 203). God’s offer of salvation breaks down all our social, economic, and ethic barriers. None is excluded from the offer of salvation.
Revelation 5:13 is an amazing picture of universal recognition of and submission to God’s rightful rule over all creation. Only those who love God will say these things gladly and with great joy. But where does Revelation 5 suggest that all these who so recognize God’s rightful rule are doing so with joy-filled hearts? As George Ladd says, “The worship and adoration of all creation is no more a song of personal redemption than is the song of the four living creatures and of the elders” (Revelation, 93). The same holds true in Phil 2:8-11. Paul gives no indication that all those who recognize the lordship of Christ are doing so with joy and love in their hearts. In fact, in light of Rom 10:9-10, I think it’s significant that Paul does not say every heart will believe and be justified here in Phil 2.
In Romans 5 and 11:32, the contexts show that Paul does not mean these statements absolutely. In 5:17 Paul says that those who “receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness” are the ones who “will reign in life through the One.” Paul is clear that it is only through Christ that one gains eternal life (5:21; 6:23) and if there is any book of Paul’s that emphasizes how one gains this eternal life it is Romans. And that way is faith (Rom 1:26; 3:22; 28, etc.). I have no problem admitting that these verses in isolation teach universalism. They do. But Paul didn’t write them in isolation and so we shouldn’t read them that way either. Romans 11 all about how God has not abandoned Israel in his plan to include the Gentiles. To take “all” in 11:32 absolutely as everyone who ever lived is to completely ignore the groups Paul has in mind: Jews and Gentiles. Nowhere in the chapter has he shown concern for everyone individually. If he did in 11:32, it would be the first time. That’s why the second person pronouns are plural in vv. 30-31.
1 John 2:2 is a tough one. A propitiation is a sacrifice that turns away God’s wrath (cf. Rom 3:25). Since Paul says that God is the one who offered Jesus as this wrath-absorbing sacrificing, I don’t see how God’s propitiousness could be contingent in any way on our faith (though many disagree with me here). God’s wrath was either poured out on Jesus or it wasn’t. If it was poured out for all of us without exception, then there shouldn’t be any left for anyone and hell should be empty. But elsewhere Scripture says that Christ saves believers from God’s coming wrath (1 Thess 1:9) so perhaps 1 John 2:2 should not be read universally. There are clearly other passages in John’s first letter where “world” cannot mean “everyone who ever lived.” If it meant that in 1 John 2:15, for example, then John is commanding us not to love anyone! So while the jury’s still out on this one for me, I think there is evidence that “world” here should not be read as everyone who ever lived. D.A. Carson argues that this verse should be understood against the background of the proto-gnostic threat in John’s community. These folks thought they had “the inside track with God” but “when Jesus Christ died, John rejoins, it was not for the sake of, say Jews only or, now, of some group, gnostic or otherwise, that sets itself up as intrinsically superior…. The context, then, understands this to mean something like ‘potentially for all without distinction’ rather than ‘effectively for all without exception’” (The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God, 76). The jury’s still out on this one, in my book, but Carson has given me pause about how best to understand “world” in this verse.
That’s probably way more than you wanted, but, even if you were less-than-serious when you said, “I would love to hear what you do with some of these verses!” I still appreciate the opportunity to think out loud about Scripture.
Many thanks for the engagement on this tough topic. May God grant us wisdom, humility, and courage as we undertake the serious work of handling his written revelation.
Peter G. – I also appreciate the conversation. I don’t believe all will be saved unfortunately. But I do believe these verses point to a wildness in Gods grace. I also believe you had to do way to many hermenuetical gymnastics to try to make sense of these in light of your current tradition. I don’t do the same thing as you with the verses that are exclusive in nature they just hold each other in tension. Peace and Grace.
“He demands that we come to Him on His terms.” Sounds like a Psychopathic Lover, Morgan. Come to me, my way, I love you! And if you don’t… I will make your life miserable! (This is the spot on part of Zizek’s critique of orthodox CHristian theology in what he calls “The Perverse Core of Christianty)
And Peter, I’ve said my peace, but I’d rather be damned than become the kind of person who would be willing to live with God in Heaven while others suffer with no hope. I can’t imagine worse news than you “gospel,” actually. It would be less cruel and evil for God to leave humans in solidarity in their suffering than to pick out a few lucky ones amongst the billions. Especially with the damned having knowledge of the lucky ones. Anyway, let us all aspire to be like Mother Teresa? Yeah? Who said if she became a saint she would be a saint of Darkness, always outside of Heaven, in the margins, with the outcasts, even after death. I am willing to claim, exclusively, that this is the Christ-like attitude, to forsake any kind of persona pleasure for the sake of others if needed.
Anyone who would forsake the outcast or the marginalized for the sake of God is only forsaking both. Peace be with you.
And my apologies to Scot, as this is his space and I’m not sure he intends these kind of debates to be happening, especially with the somewhat harsh tone taken (by me at least) at points. So my thanks for Scot’s patience.