A Fundamentalist View of Hell

[exOBCstudent]

(04-18-2012 11:30 AM)dramaturge Wrote:  I don't know that I assume everyone wants heaven actively in their life. I do believe that sin and depravity is a Thing, which is why we are called to love but don't always succeed. I think that as I'm wrestling through an instinct that leans to being an inclusivist, I'm beginning to wonder if God doesn't meet us somewhere along the way, even between this life and the next, with Love and Mercy and Renewal. I suppose that I'm beginning to see a bit of a dichotomy in the idea that Christ's death was the victory over death, but not if I don't hear the gospel and believe it. That doesn't seem much like a victory over death. I get the struggle to deal with redemption when we look at the hurt and cruelty and evil around us. But to say, “I guess it’s ok now, God’s got it” when a cruel, evil, or hurtful person “gets saved” seems narrow to me. I’m starting to see that scripture would seem to indicate that God’s got it regardless, that perhaps death → judgment isn’t the two-step phase we’ve constructed or imagined it to be.

Currently, it seems to me that “why not now” is still answered by “Christ is molding us and using us to show Himself and His love to others.” I suspect the way we are used in the next age will relate to how we’ve shown Love in this one; and perhaps the way that God reaches each person in their life or somewhere in that death → next stage is directly related to how they’ve given and received Love.

RE: the absence of “hell” in the OT: I’ve heard the explanation that those who died pre-Christ were “in holding,” so to speak until Christ was revealed in time, thus no hell for all practical purposes. Now, I don’t think that’s really the case. I don’t think God’s method of handling the afterlife shifted upon the revelation of Christ in time. Which necessarily leads me to conclude that “hell” isn’t in the OT because it doesn’t exist the way we imagine Hell to exist. I am no biblical scholar, though, and this is a journey I am still walking through. I suppose that I have always been influenced by Aslan telling that Calormene soldier the he was always truly serving Aslan all along.

Another thing that has influenced my questioning of the “traditional” idea of Hell over time has been my firm belief that God is Logic. And I find little logic in His ordaining such a narrow path to Him that for thousands of years, millions of people were completely unaware of it.

Now, I’m finally becoming brave enough to begin studying through what all that really means, and where, biblically, the historical positions and diversions on Hell have been supported (or not, as the case may be). I am currently reading through Love Wins, and have found little flaw in Bell’s logic. I have not had the chance yet to examine his support.

In my life, I have found that most people derive and defend their idea of Hell from Revelations rather than the rest of the Bible (except maybe for that one story of Lazarus and the rich man). Now that I’m more convinced that ever that the view of how Revelations presents the End Times with which I grew up is not all that secure and well-defended, I feel it necessary to follow-through and examine whether or not the view of Hell gathered from there is worth retaining.

I realize that my answers at this point are largely based in personally reasoned trains of thought and intuition, but that’s where I am. I certainly understand the struggle with the presence of evil and evil men, and the need to balance justice with mercy. I do wonder if, as humans, we don’t assign our view of justice to God, and if what we label justice isn’t more often the need for retributive closure. We need a sense that “that guy got what was coming to him.” What I see in Christ, though, are actions that left many questioning, “Why didn’t he give that guy what he had coming?” I suppose that, above all, undermines my certainty that a retributive Hell is a Thing.

I hope that added to the conversation rather than just rambled along. :-D We’re in testing week and yesterday was…interesting and exhausting, so my brain may not be communicating as clearly as I’d like. haha

You put it MUCH more eloquently than I did.