A Fundamentalist View of Hell

[myotch]

I've heard a lot on Hell being forever shielded or hidden from God's grace. Perhaps "unquenchable fire" and the unsatisfied worm are the best metaphors they had to explain this. It is reminiscent of the grave, if "fire" could mean the rotting of the body, and the "worm" was a reference to the, well, germs and bugs and creepy-crawlied that help break down the flesh after it dies.

As if to say, believe in me, and paradise awaits you after your earthly journey; believe not in me, and your grave in the earth is your eternal destiny.

Of course, that's not even close to a fundy consideration.

I used to be sure there was a hell, and I used to believe I knew a lot about it through the surety of my fundy upbringing. The older I get, I realize I don't know much of anything.

[exOBCstudent]

Wow...thanks guys for all the responses! I'm going to check these things out and post more questions in a bit.

[bean]

I don't think there is a hell after death. I think we can be separated from God and that is hell.
In fact, we spend enough time making our own hell right here on earth. When we struggle on our own, and allow ourselves to be separated from God's love, we make our own hell right here.
Hell as a concept was a nice way to keep people under the thumb of the church and the powerful people thousands of years ago.

I also believe that God's love is infinitely powerful and inescapable. We can choose to run from it, but His love will run us down eventually. We were created in love. He has a special plan for our lives. He wants us to know that love and share that love TODAY. I have a hard time believing that the God who "God IS love" would at some point write someone off. I am probably a universalist in this sense: that ALL shall be made alive!

I don't think God has our timetable, either.

A big thing I always noticed in fundamentalist theology is they seem so worried about the past and the future. I am choosing to live in God's love and share that love with others TODAY.

[oneflewoutofthecuckcoosnest]

(04-10-2012 12:36 AM)lucrezaborgia Wrote:  Where did hell really come from in Christianity if it wasn't a concept in ancient Judaism?

I am relying on memory here so you might want to check this out more closely (Anchor Bible Dictionary would be a great resource if you can get your hands on it). The doctrine developed during second temple Judaism probably due to contact with Persian and Greek ideas and as a result of theodicy questions. Since the righteous weren't always blessed in this life and the wicked always punished, ultimate justice must happen in an afterlife. The doctrine existed in Judaism in the first century (though not all Jews held it) and the church took it from there.

Again, it's been some time since I studied this.

[TurningIntoDavid]

exOBCstudent: Fantastic question! ...And I apologize in advance for a super-long post in reply haha

I've been wrestling with this off and on for about a year now, ever since I picked up "Love Wins" by Rob Bell in Barnes and Noble and read it. Bell is an inclusivist like C.S. Lewis seems to be, and he writes beautifully, with a TON of verses, and a lot of Greek and Hebrew and history.

C.S. Lewis's hero, George MacDonald, was a universalist (and a proponent of the Christus Victor theory of atonement rather than the Penal Substitutionary atonement theory. Frequently, when I have argued with Hellists that a loving God wouldn't send people to Hell for a literally unending period of time. MacDonald burns dozens of holes in that notion in his sermon "Justice." (And speaking of penal substitutionary atonement, Derek Flood has a fantastic critique on it over at TheRebelGod)

One of my favorite Christian Universalist websites is tentmaker.org for all their very well-researched content. Gary Amirault is a Universalist, and though his arguments haven't completely convinced me, I'm at least a hopeful Christian Universalist.

Your bullet points were quite nice, by the way.

Quote:If Hell was actually a created idea of religious powers it could've easily been added to the Bible during translation

Or, the idea of Hell as we fundies were raised on it may not be in the Bible at all, as Rob Bell and Gary Amirault argue.

Quote:It would be EXTREMELY convenient for religious powers to threaten non-members with

True. That.

Quote:God would essentially have created some of us for Satan's company for all eternity

There are a lot of fancy ways around that notion, but I haven't found any that really satisfy me.

Quote:God wouldn't be powerful engouh to ever redeem those who didn't "pray the prayer"

And practically no Christians deny God's omnipotence.

Quote:Why would God create us for eternal destruction? Wouldn't it be better to not exist rather than exist in torments?

That's a fantastic philosophical debate. Some have argued that no, it wouldn't. It's nice reasoning they use, but I have a hard time buying it.

Quote:Would God truly set us up for failure of the worst kind by creating a Hell for us and allowing some to ignorantly go there for eternity?

Hellists would say that God doesn't really set us up for failure; we are "without excuse" in the words of Romans 1. Quite frankly, this doesn't float.

Quote:If God's love is so great, why wouldn't He make a way to keep EVERYONE He created from destruction?

Not everyone is saying that God hasn't made a way to keep EVERYONE He created from destruction; in fact, many of the early church fathers said quite the opposite! Origen, one of the early church fathers, believed that all would be saved. So did Clement of Alexandria, Justin Martyr, St. Jerome (the guy who translated your Bible into Latin), Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose (Bishop of Milan), and other leaders of the early church of the first 5 centuries. Even Augustine acknowledged that "There are very many in our day, who though not denying the Holy Scriptures, do not believe in endless torments." (Quotes and names from Tentmaker)

If Christian Universalism isn't your style (though I think there are many good reasons to believe it is true), there are many who are inclusivists (with even stronger reasons than the Universalists), and some who, like the Anglican theologian John R.W. Stott, believe that the wicked will not suffer eternally, but will rather be destroyed at the end of time (also with good reason). As I see it, the fundamentalist view of "hell" is the one that is least supported by scripture and scripture's presentation of the character of God!

I read Francis Chan's book "Erasing Hell" where he went through all the verses he could find about hell and came to a terrifying conclusion: Hell is like the fundies say it is. The reasons you go there may be different, but it's the same, if not worse, than they say it is. It's horrible. And I almost lost all faith, because if the Bible teaches that God is like that, and the Bible is infallible (a fundy teaching I'm still trying to figure out where I fall on), then God is like that. And I don't think I can worship a god without grace enough for everyone. (Please, no "sufficiency versus effectuality" arguments. I've heard too many of them.)

Lastly. I wrote a paper on Hell for my Philosophy of Religion class. Got an A- on it. If you want it, PM me your email address and it's yours. I'd love to help out, and I'd also love to read any critiques anyone has of it.

Shalom.

[Presbygirl]

So where's the justice? I want to worship a God who mediates perfect judgment. If everyone eventually makes it to heaven, why did Jesus have to die?

[pastor's wife]

Lady Julian, I loved your comment and your insights. Maybe I relate to what you wrote because I'm a literature person too!

I don't understand a lot of things in the Bible. I feel I have to believe in hell, which IS horrifying, because it is in Scripture. But I also believe that God is loving AND just. Justice would not allow for unrepentant people to "hold heaven hostage" if they were allowed there in their sinful state.

I also agree with Lady Julian that "The Great Divorce" by Lewis gave me some really good insight on the issues of hell and God's goodness. I could go on and on about that book, but Lewis speaks for himself so I just suggest to read it! (It's pretty short too!)

A couple quotes from Lewis:

“All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell.” from Mere Christianity

“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those that say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ from The Great Divorce

I do think God is greater and more amazing and more mysterious than our minds can comprehend. And when things are beyond me, I'm going to concentrate on living for God NOW. As bean said: " I am choosing to live in God's love and share that love with others TODAY."

[TurningIntoDavid]

PresbyGirl, I can't tell you how many times people have asked me that question. I used to defend Hell being eternal as unloving, but now I think I can just as easily defend it as unjust. If you want to worship a God who mediates perfect judgment, then why would you want to worship a God who sentences someone to an infinite sentence for sins committed in a finite lifespan? We see the atrocities performed on the Jews by the Nazis and consider it unjust that even one person should be treated this way, but when someone attributes far worse actions to God, we accept it as perfect justice.

Justice then becomes a travesty, because justice, ceasing to be fair, becomes as follows:
1. Everything God does is perfectly just.
2. God sends some people to Hell for all eternity.
3. It is perfectly just for God to send some people to hell for all eternity.

If your hypothetical neighbor Steve did that to you or someone you know, you would call the police! He would be an absolute sicko. I wrote a short fiction about a human being who eternally torments people who don't pray a prayer or believe like he wants them to...

Quote:“No, you couldn’t, Rusty," Huey said. "My torturers are skilled. They will torment you everywhere until the pain becomes unbearable, but not until you lose consciousness. You will be in horrible agony every instant of every second of every day. Oh, and as for days, there is only one day: This one. Today will start in five minutes, and due to some quantum physics you can’t even begin to imagine, after your torture begins, the hell you are living in will loop. Forever.”

I've attached the whole disgusting thing if you want to read it. The point is that we see it as unjust when (almost) anyone is tortured forever no matter what sins they committed - until God is the one doing the torturing. Then it's all just fine - and perfect justice, in fact, by the 1-2-3 formula above.

And then you will say that God's justice is higher than our justice. And I will agree; I will say that God's justice is strong enough to save everyone. Our justice could never do that. But to say that God's justice requires Him to torment anyone for all eternity for a finite set of sins makes a mockery out of what justice is - in fact, rendering justice itself meaningless. If God's justice forces Him to eternally torment anyone, then God's justice has nothing in common with what we understand as justice and could be of no comfort to us whatsoever.

Quote:If everyone eventually makes it to heaven, why did Jesus have to die?

Ask the Brethren church people that question, or anyone who doesn't trust penal substitutionary atonement. Derek Flood has a great article on that too, which I highly recommend and linked in my earlier post but will do again here. One of the best quotes from that article is this one, part of an answer to "Why did Jesus have to die?"

Quote:Love entered our world and went to the broken and the rejected, the "throwaways", and told them they were loved. Purity touched the untouchable, and made them whole and clean again. In doing this Jesus directly subverted the societal and religious authorities of the time. By associating with those who were considered sinners and unclean he showed that these people did not need to let the authorities define their worth, because God had seen them, and called "worthy" what the world had called "the least". This was extremely threatening to the people in religious and societal power because Jesus, in empowering and loving the small and the least, had directly undermined the Powers' own oppressive authority. So the Powers set out to shut him up. Hatred and Oppression set out to kill Love.

But Jesus would not back down. He stood up for love, for the small, for you and me. even though he knew that it would cost him his life. So the Powers stripped him naked, exposed him and shamed him. They crucified him as a common criminal to show that no one can oppose the System. But when the people saw that the Powers had killed Love, they realized what a travesty of justice this was. The people realized what a sham the oppressive System was. As Love hung on that cross the authorities were exposed, unmasked in their hatred. The illusion was lifted.

Basically, there are a TON of responses to this question within Christianity, only one of which is Penal Substitutionary Atonement, which many theologians today think is false. Some credit Anselm with Penal Substitutionary Atonement theory (in Cur Deus Homo) not the Bible (true story. Look it up!) Another outcome of the cross, according to Flood, is this:

Quote:Even if we are hostile to God, reacting destructively towards life, violently reacting to the authority images we struggle with - God's response as revealed in Jesus is not to crush us as we might expect, but to break the cycle of estrangement and rivalry with the transforming power of love. We see on the cross, in Richard Rohr's terms, "the naked God". ,God is made small, stripped naked, arms stretched out, so that our false image of a threatening judgmental God is taken away and God's heart of love for us is revealed. The threat is removed; we have nothing to fight against. God surrenders first so we can give up the fight too and come home. The cycle of rivalry and violence is broken through the weakness of God on the cross.

That is one of the most beautiful things that I have ever read.

Full part 3 of the article (from which I grabbed those quotes) is here.

The notion of justice I referenced is elaborated more in part 1, including a demonstration that the idea of Penal Substitutionary Atonement runs contrary to Justice According to God.

Quote:Ironically, as we will see in this section, even in its attempt to champion justice, Satisfaction-Doctrine does not present a biblical picture of what justice is about, but a legalistic medieval one. Biblically to "bring justice" does not mean to bring punishment, but to bring healing and reconciliation. Justice means to make things right. All through the Prophets justice is associated with caring for others, as something that is not in conflict with mercy, but rather an expression of it. Biblically, justice is God's saving action at work for all that are oppressed:

"Learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow". (Isaiah 1:17)

"This is what the LORD says: "`Administer justice every morning; rescue from the hand of his oppressor the one who has been robbed" (Jeremiah 21:12)

#teaser.

Shalom.

[Donb123]

(04-15-2012 11:20 PM)TurningIntoDavid Wrote:  PresbyGirl, I can't tell you how many times people have asked me that question. I used to defend Hell being eternal as unloving, but now I think I can just as easily defend it as unjust. If you want to worship a God who mediates perfect judgment, then why would you want to worship a God who sentences someone to an infinite sentence for sins committed in a finite lifespan?

You presume that sin is temporal and not eternal- why? Why would the sinner separated from God in "hell" (whatever it may be) will not continue sinning against God and cursing him throughout eternity. I would assume that an omniscient God would know this when he proclaimed the sentence with finality.

Some of the universalists here talk about God's love being so all-pervasive that it could redeem people in the afterlife but it strikes me as a bit odd that these people are usually anti-Calvinistic as well. If a person has the choice to accept or reject Christ then why would they accept a Christ who was currently punishing them for their sin by placing them in whatever it is that hell is?

[Presbygirl]

Yikes! So many issues with what you've put forth.

But, since most of what you cite is emotionally based, how about this? I guess I can comfort my very good friend who is a Christian, whose urepentant husband molested her children,that even though he is a pedophile, he's going to heaven too!