The Problem of Hell

I was excited to read my opponent’s last round. I thank him for it.I did notice a distinct shift to the belief on annihilationism. However, could not the same problems as stated by my opponent’s contention, with God being “perfectly loving” and “all powerful” etc --- still exist with eternally destroying someone?How does God completely burning someone out of existing through a torturous burning death scenario show God to be the “traditional perfectly loving God”?If He is all-powerful could he not just fix them?Looks like the same problems exist as my opponent stated them.You might argue God is more loving as my opponent did by not torturing them too long, but the same traditional perfectly loving God would still be a problem.Annihilationism also does not resolve God not being powerful enough to fix them.Annihilationism has all the same “problems” that my opponent has laid out. Could you be eternally blissful if these people were obliterated?Fortunately it also has all the same proven solutions we have seen already.As a side note, eternal punishment is clearly and explicitly taught within the Bible. All implicit statements of destruction must be interpreted in light of the explicit statements of eternal punishment.We see:Revelation 14:9-11“They will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. 11 And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever.” And another oneMatthew 25:46“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”There are more but these are so clear that Jesus, the author of Matthew and St. John all viewed Hell as a place eternal with punishment in view.Concept:This shows that my opponent and I completely agree. He may as yet not realize it but we do.When we say “perfectly loving” we do not mean God is weak or that God is unjust. His love checks and flows through His other character traits.Whether this is through eternal torment or eternal destruction. “Perfectly loving” to the traditional view of Christianity is not that the guilty do not get punished.[ibid] Eternal sin begets eternal punishment.When we say “all powerful” we do not mean that God has not limited himself in his dealings with a being he created to have free will.[ibid]The result of such concepts? That God is indeed still perfectly loving and all powerful as he chooses to punish the guilty and evil people.He is “perfectly loving” to give justice to the victims.His “all powerful” nature shows that it will not be undone outside of His choosing.Result:The problem of Hell stands negated. A person need not like the idea of Hell. They need not desire to be sent there but nothing in my opponent’s last round supported his side of the resolution. He in fact entirely supported my side of the contention. There is no problem scriptural or logically with God and his punishing people eternally. He and I may not agree with the degree of punishment but nevertheless his assertion of annihilationism concedes the resolution.It merely would argue how extreme is God’s punishment. It would argue against the Early Church fathers. The same fathers who explained the Traditional view of God’s nature and character, as well as His eternal justice system of eternal Hell.My opponent himself has supported my side of the resolution by selecting system of punishment:That would be subject to the same:Bliss of the saved objection Reconciliation objectionThe proportionality argument appears to be resolved.I will address a few of the pertinent statements made by my opponent:Justice Argument:A) I am glad that my opponent concedes that sins can be eternal and the punishment can be eternal as well. God is well within his rights to punish eternally.I fail to see why my opponent continues to assert that NOT punishing someone but allowing the guilty evil people to run around heaven is MORE morally justified than punishing them.My opponent needs to stop saying it is immoral to punish evil people.It is clearly FAR more natural to view a person as immoral when a person does NOT punish evil people.B) Again here my opponent is merely claiming that eternal punishment is something that is immoral or specifically morally wrong.Causing pain is only morally wrong when it involves self-interest or self gain.Is my opponent suggesting that every judge that causes pain to a guilty person is committing an immoral act?Is my opponent suggesing that every judge that knowingly causes pain to a guilty person is morally deficient?Sure if the Judge was causing pain for profit due to bribery or some other such immoral self interest act, but the sentence being dealt for the sake of retributive justice is not in anyone sense a morally wrong act.He must prove such an assertion.My opponent would have to prove that God is not causing pain out of a system of Justice but a system of malice or self-interest for his assertion to be true.I do not think that is even remotely possible and I do not think he has done this.C) Again my opponent merely claims that God causing pain is a sadist. I have shown in point “B” causing pain is not morally wrong. My opponent must prove that God’s use of pain is morally wrong.D) My opponent concedes that a reformative belief is not in view within this debate.E) My opponent here misunderstands the difference between a perfect moral framework that is chosen and one that is inherent in ones essence.There is no claim that when we get to heaven that a perfect moral framework will be forced upon our freewill and our free will, will be removed from us.We will abide by the perfect moral framework it will not be an inherent part of our being.Hell with eternal punishment could indeed posses a reformative quality in that capacity. The Eternal Bliss Objection - My opponent still needs to prove that “bliss” means what he feels it means. - We see it is indeed affirmed that I would be eternally “blissful” knowing that evil people were being punished with eternal pain that is equivalent to the eternal pain they caused. The Reconciliation Objection - I fail to see how destroying someone eternally solves this objection for my opponent. By my opponent’s definition of reconciliation and by his stated beliefs of annihilationism he is also at odds with this contention. - The clear resolution is that the Biblical authors did not mean reconciliation in the sense that free will would be overridden. - We see lots of places in the Bible where “all” does not mean the actually all. Revelation 13:3 “One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast.” We know the whole world did not or will not follow the beast. There clearly was a remnant discussed. This literary device of All being power or gravity is common in the bible. We see it in such passages as: Rev 13:16 “It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads,” We see that many later did not take the mark as they were set apart 144,000 I could go on to Luke 2:1 “Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth.” We know the author meant the Roman Empire but that is not how he used the word All. You must make a case your interpretation is correct especially when you consider so many places in the bible where “all” does not mean “all”. We see the word used in Col 1:20 is the Plural form of “Pas”. We can see clearly that a use for the Greek word “all” is very much in view of types, collectives and subsets as we saw in the other sample verses above.[1] Thayers Lexicon: 1) individually 1a) each, every, any, all, the whole, everyone, all things, everything 2) collectively 2a) some of all types [1] http://www.scripture4all.org...