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I immediately thought of C.S. Lewis' "The Great Divorce" upon reading this question. In the book, he puts forth the idea that separation from God is what sinners desire, and God gives them what they desire. I did some digging and found this blog (written by Bird) on the topic:
"The idea of Hell being something of a choice for the damned fits hand-in-glove ...
21
Put simply, it doesn't. Satan will not be the punisher in hell, but among the punished. Satan is not any any sense the king of hell
And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his
prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four
corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their
number ...
21
The statements ascribed to Pope Francis by that article are not true. It is a hoax.
See:
Don’t fall for this Pope Francis hoax: 5 things to know and share
Pope Francis Declares All Religions are True : Facts (Hoax or Fact)
20
Technically, a couple of different terms are being confused in the question.
Conditionalism is the teaching that immortality / eternal life is conditional upon a right standing with God.
Annihilationism is the teaching that anyone who is ultimately unrepentant will cease to exist, usually after a period of torment that accommodates to the amount of evil ...
18
Did Jesus actually ever say if you don't believe in me you go to Hell?
Yes, He did say this directly, without mincing words. Bolded in the passage below.
John, Chapter 3 (KJV)
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have
everlasting life.
17 For God sent not ...
17
Romans 3:23 (NIV) for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of
God
No one is righteous. Better is not enough. God demands 100% holiness. No one can achieve that. Therefore, we need the Blood of Jesus Christ. Only in Jesus, can we have salvation.
Romans 5:12 (NIV) Therefore, just as sin
entered the world through one man, and death through sin, ...
14
The Christian definition notion of hell itself already assumes in itself a belief in the Christian doctrines. As such, most atheists have exactly zero fear of hell, and it is considered merely an invention, typically either of fear or of control (depending on who you ask). As such, it isn't the atheists desire to exist in an afterlife without God - simply ...
14
I have never had a problem with the idea of God punishing someone forever. It is based on the concept of infinity, if God is infinitely excellent and glorious than sin against him is an infinite crime. We do not get it because part of our sinfulness is to deny His absolute glory. Love hates hatred; it does not just want to reform it, but to punish it for ...
14
My Thesis
While you won't find many modern Calvinists preaching firebrand sermons of this sort, that has more to do with the change in American culture than with a change in theology. The point of the sermon is not to rejoice in the suffering of sinners, but to warn of the very real danger (under Calvin's theology) of falling into hell. Edwards was ...
13
The Spirit of God is everything that will make eternal life worthwhile.
My understanding is that the full glory of God will be revealed to everyone at the time of judgement. Hell is torture because it is complete and utter separation from God, nothing more, nothing less. This will be torture for unbelievers and anti-believers because they will first have ...
13
These two lines of reasoning are, as you've presented them, problematic as you suggest. Ideally, they'd be used together and be founded in the true message of the gospel.
First, the few details to be cleared up:
I don't understand how can someone venerate Jesus for his act of ultimate selflessnes and love (the crucifixion) but at the same time try to ...
13
According to Peter Binsfeld, you've got the list right. He made the list in 1589; there was no support for that theory before then, and there has been very little support for that theory since.
As far as I know, there is no Christian tradition which adheres to there being seven princes of Hell. More than that, at least the names "Lucifer" and "Satan" ...
12
Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe that there is a soul that survives the death of the body. We believe that, at death, a person ceases to exist, since the body simply returns to the "dust". (Genesis 3:17-19) This makes sense if you think about people who have brain damage (a damaged body): their consciousness is affected by this. Our consciousness is not an ...
12
Short answer: We don't know for sure. The rest of this answer explores various "Christian answers", but the conclusion is "we don't know for sure".
This is a question that I struggled with when I was an atheist, and it's a question that Christians have grappled with and that has never been answered in a way that would have been intellectually satisfying to ...
11
Yes, God is also in hell. The separation is not from his presence as if there was a place where his power was in effect, it's a severing of the relationship with him. The thing that will be experienced in hell is the wrath of God against sin rather than the grace of God towards his Son.
I have heard this quip from several preachers so I don't know who ...
11
Neither. Both if these options are built around a human centered view of justice.
In reality, God isn't working under the same constraints as we would be and he has other purposes in mind. It still comes down to justice, but not quite the same kind of justice that would be metered out on a court on earth.
Here on earth, our purposes in "punishment" are ...
11
Memories:
Romans 14:12 So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to
God
I am under the impression that yes we will have memories of our lives (because without such memories how could we give account?). We would not be able to give an account if we did not have consciousness.
Conscious Experience:
I think that this Scripture gives us a ...
11
According to the doctrine of the Trinity, Jesus being the Son of God means that He is fully God made manifest in human form (John 1:14). Jesus is simultaneously both fully God and fully man. As such, Jesus being crucified wasn't God sending someone else to be pusnished, but instead God taking the punishment Himself.
This, therefore, does not compromise God'...
10
In reading your question, I don't think the issue at hand is God's omnipresence at all. Frankly it's not a terribly important doctrine in the first place and while I think one could make a case for it from Scipture, I think it's a little forced. Much more importantly, the Scripture states the reverse quite plainly, that all things are in and held together by ...
10
The three degrees of glory are the telestial, terrestrial, and celestial. Each kingdom is on the order of the law it represents: Telestial law is the law of the world, effectively lawlessness (in the scriptures, this is compared to the glory of the stars), Terrestrial law is a "middle" law (compared to the glory of the moon), and the Celestial law is God's ...
10
We do not know exactly where heaven or hell is. However, in Scripture, the word "up" is commonly used in association with the location of heaven and "down" is typically associated with the location of hell, either figuratively or literally. Also, from the vantage point of heaven, earth is down.
The "up" and "down" context may certainly be completely ...
10
There is no biblical support for Satan or any of his demons torturing people in Hell. Rather, the adversary, Satan is said to travel around the world (Job 1:7) and even to have access to God's presence (Job 1:6). In the gospel and Acts accounts, we find demonic figures not in Hell but on earth, dwelling in men (Matthew 12:22). Interestingly, in Matthew 12:43-...
9
There's an old saying (more or less) in Christianity that it's not a religion, but a relationship. There is biblical support for this coming from this verse:
Matthew 7:21-23 (NIV)
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that ...
9
Early Christians:
Epistle of Barnabas (70 - 130 AD):
The way of darkness is crooked, and it is full of cursing. It is the
way of eternal death with punishment. (“Epistle of Barnabas”)
Ignatius of Antioch (110 AD):
Corrupters of families will not inherit the kingdom of God. And if
they who do these things according to the flesh suffer death. how ...
9
Short answer: Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe in Hell.
Longer answer: Technically, Jehovah's Witnesses do believe in Hell, but (a) their beliefs about Hell are quite unusual, and (b) they generally don't use the name "Hell". (So it's simpler to say they don't believe in Hell.)
Even longer answer: The Biblical words usually translated as "Hell" are the ...
9
I cannot comment on that particular series, but I can assuredly say the following:
It seems quite clear to me that you need to intimately know Jesus to be accepted by Him.
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘...
9
I think the misunderstanding here is that the wicked are resurrected and then killed. I'm not sure there's a Biblical backing for the idea that those who rejected Christ will again be separated from their bodies. Their souls will be in bodies when they are cast into the lake of fire. Therefore, the punishment is eternal, physical, punishment in the ...
9
Yes, those in hell can remember their past life; no, I know for a fact (according to the Bible; if you don't consider the Bible a valid source, then I got nothin :) ) that it doesn't apply in either. (Didn't want to just say "yes" or "no" because that would have been ambiguous.)
In Luke 16:19-31, the rich man in hell pleads for Abraham to allow Lazarus, a ...
9
I can't do any better than C. S. Lewis's sermon The Weight of Glory (my apologies for basically simply quoting this and moving on, but this is at the crux of the matter). This is expounding on what Thomas Shields has already said, but I do love the way Lewis says it.
If you asked twenty good men to-day what they thought the highest of
the virtues, ...
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