From: julian@sfu.ca (Julian Shillcock)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: damnation
Date: 16 Oct 92 08:17:48 GMT
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada

REXLEX@linac.fnal.gov writes:

>I understand the difficulty in accepting the harsh reality that- our present
>actions cause *significant* effects in the dimension of eternity.  But there it
>is.  You can't be soft on sin and have a high view of the dignity of man and a
>high view of the holiness of God. 

>Rex

julian replies:

I have followed the posts on this debate and had some email
correspondence, but I stil think that the main point is being missed.
As christians we agree (I assume) that we should learn from the Bible
what God wants us to believe.  But we also live in the world and have
to interpret our experiences in the light of God's grace. I believe he
gives us uinderstanding so that we can share the good news of Jesus
Christ with others. Such understanding must make sense of the world. I
do not believe God tells us absurdities that we must accept simply to
test our faith.

So, when I look at the world I see a lot (A LOT) of evil happening. I
want an explanation for this.  If I were an atheist it would be no
problem: there is no (objective) good and evil so I can't complain
about the conditions in the world. But as I believe in an omnipotent
loving God I have to find some way of reconciling my experience (and
observations) with what the Bible teaches about God's love.  Now the
traditional view of heaven as the final destination of people who
accept Jesus as their saviour (etc, etc) and hell fro everyone else I
find insufficient to account for the evil in the world. Even as
teenager and new christian it did not seem sufficient to say that
Hitler spends eternity in hell (presumably being tortured) and so
does, say, Bertrand Russell.

I have had replies that our free will requires God to punish everyone
who rejects the message of salvation. But this simply hides the facts
of the enormity of evil behind a cloak called "free-will". I do not
know a good explication of free-will that really explains the problem.


So, to bring the discussion back to what I think is the important
point: God created a universe where a vast number (the majority in
fact) of his creatures reject (or have never heard of) his message of
salvation. Either he is incompetent to get the message across or there
is some other reason for the way the world is. I think if people (ie
christians) do not realise there is a problem here they have not
thought enough about how the world is. My interest in this debate is
to find out what the Bible tells us about the afterlife as I think the
solution must be related to our spiritual relationship to God and not
just our physical existence.  It is not enough to say that hardship
and pain help us to grow: some pain does, but there are many examples
of people being crushed by hardship who have not grown but been
destroyed.  My starting point for undstanding evil is: God was
incarnate in Christ so he has become part of his creation and takes to
himself all of its suffering and pain; and our life after physical
death must somehow reflect how we live here and relate to God now.

I do not think this is an academic debate: even though the Bible uses
terms like "lakes of fire" etc, these must have some meaning and
cannot be ignoreed.  But I am not prepared to take the traditional
concept of bad people being eternally punished as a sufficient
justification for God making the world. Job is a good example of
someone I admire, and who persisted in trying to understand the world
in spite of his well-meaning friends misunderstandings.  (And I know
the end of the story: that Job had eventually to be silent before God,
but I take that as meaning I will never understand everything but must
continue in faith, not that I should not ask questions at all).

Any comments?

Peace

julian