From: dxf12@po.cwru.edu (Douglas Fowler)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: damnation
Date: 12 Oct 92 06:27:14 GMT
Reply-To: dxf12@po.cwru.edu (Douglas Fowler)
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)

[Previous question concerning how a loving God can allow damnation,
examples of earthly parents' love, deleted]
     I think the question of how a loving God can allow this is that He gives
 us free will, but that He tries to speak to us through the Spirit.  Now,
 original poster is correct to say that parents would not burn
 their own children to teach them what it feels like - that kind of mis-
 treatment is what the devil loves.  They would also try not to allow their
 child to stick their finger in a fire.  Parents would, and do, allow children
 some freedom to allow them to explore and expand their minds - they can't
 totally shut them off from the world, just as God can't shut us off from
 evil while we're here on Earth.  Think how a child would feel if he were
 stuck in a room with no freedom, no stimulation, and nothing to learn from
 all day.  He would hate it - so much so that a 2-10-minute timeout in a corner
 or in his room is punishment for him (length depending on age).  Hence, we
do let our children touch a radiator or hot stove once after warning them,
because we know that there are some things that they have to learn for
themselves. (Plus, such little lessons after such warnings can teach them
to listen to us for the more important warnings.)
      Similarly, God knows that, while we grow, and continue growing as
 adults, there are some things we will heed, but some we won't.  He doesn't
 want our freedom to be too restricted, so He lets us be greedy and see how
 others need money more than us, for instance, in the hopes of instilling
 some lesson about how we need to feed the hungry.  He lets us have the bad
 feelings of insulting someone in anger and having them turn away, because
 He wants us to learn not to.  Sure, He tries to stop us - a few times when
 I have been really angry, He has helped me back off through the Holy Spirit,
 but sometimes His 'No"s don't work, just as we can do anything to a child,
 but - short of keeping him in our sight 24 hours a day, and never more than
 a few feet away - that child may try to touch that hot stove despite our
 "no"s, and get hurt.  We, as parents and future parents, realize that we
 can't do our children justice without allowing the little scrapes and boo-boos
 that come with learning.
      How does all this relate to the original subject?  Well, assuming the
 principle that evil exists, there has to be a place for it.  There is a
 reason that in Heaven we will neither sorrow nor hunger nor thirst, and that
 all tears will be washed away.  Part of it is that we will have "graduated"
 into it by triumphing over evil through Jesus.  This principle means that
 once we have heard the Word, we must accept that only through Jesus can we
 escpae evil.  I think anyone who has turned to things that God says are
 truly evil - murder, whoremongering, lying, etc. - and used it as a way of
 life, then, would be condemned even if they have not heard of Jesus.  Now,
 undoutedly, we are all sinners - does that mean that those who don't know
 how to escape evil through Jesus are condemned?  Since, according to this,
 Hell is only for that which is evil, I am not sure.  I wonder if perhaps
 such people are those who will be judged according to their works.
      Though I am not Catholic, I am beginning to lean more and more to their
 thinking on Purgatory - it sounds like this would be a good compromise for
 such people, and the kind that a loving God would create.  The reason I
 feel that such people would not necessarily be consigned to Hell is that
 Jesus Himself went down to Hell, and preached there until the REsurrection.
 This is something we lose track of, but He is everywhere, as He is God.
 Therefore, I think it may be plausible that such people are given some
 time in Purgatory as a chance to repent - one last chance to turn to
 Jesus.  If this is the case, then Hell is only permanent for those who
 have made the "decision for evil," and those who die without knowing the
 Word, but who live just as good a lives as the best of Christians, will
 suffer but will have a chance to be redeemed.
-- 
Doug Fowler: dxf12@po.CWRU.edu      :    "Every baby born into the world is
Real home: Canton, Ohio             :  finer than the last."--Charles Dickens
 Trying to follow in the path of our :     "A baby is an inestimable
Lord;anything close will be a success:  blessing and bother."--Mark Twain