by jimwalton » Sun Aug 09, 2015 11:15 pm
I do empathize with your sensitivities, and I share them. Hell is portrayed in the most negative terms possible: torment for eternity. I think to get true sight of hell being practiced, two understandings are necessary: first, to grasp the true extent of the offense (so that we can properly assess justice), and second, to grasp the place of free-will in the equation.
In the first case, we are looking at the offense (including all offenses and all sins), from a vantage point of (1) human perspective, and (2) limited knowledge of the situation. I would guess that our human perspective could possibly be gnarled up with all sorts of other components and not be totally objective, and that our limited knowledge of the depths and the truth of the offense (how many, for how long, to what extent) is also going to cause us to be quite limited in our capacity to accurately assess the situation.
Secondly, as I mentioned, hell is a choice, not an assignment. Your sentences show a misunderstanding, as if God forces them there and keeps them there, when the Biblical picture is better represented by a person choosing not to want to be with God, and continuing to do so. The "misery without end" is the lack of God's presence that an individual selects, not a sentence that God pronounces. Hell was made for the devil and his angels. Any human who goes there goes there by his or her own choice.
Last bumped by Anonymous on Sun Aug 09, 2015 11:15 pm.