MrDarwin

I already tried posting this in RRP, which admittedly was probably not the best place to get some serious discussion. Nonetheless, it appears that Christians don't want to touch this one with a 10-foot pole. Any takers?

David Mathews

Hello MrDarwin,

Those people who are in heaven will know very well that all those people in hell made a conscious choice to receive their condemnation. I don't suppose that people in heaven are going to have any time to devote to mourning the condemnation of the lost.

Love,

David Mathews

NOGO

Nonsense. Where in the Bible does it say that people have to make a conscious choice of going to hell.

Just read Matthew 25 and you will see that this is not so.

Matthew 25
41 "Then He will also say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;
42 for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink;
43 I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.'
44 "Then they themselves also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?'
45 "Then He will answer them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.'
46 "These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."


First there is the "Depart from Me".
Why?
"for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat ... etc"
Then the condemned reply
"Lord, when did we see You hungry ..."

They protest their condemnation. This is not conscious choice.

"These will go away into eternal punishment"

This choice is made by God not by the condemned.


I know what your problem is David. This kind of thing is unacceptable to you as it is to all of us unbelievers. You may wish that this did not exist in your bible but it does.

Why is that David?
You will not look for your mother once up there?
You wont have time, right?

trientalis

On a related note:

"Can the believing husband in Heaven be happy with his unbelieving wife in Hell? Can the believing father in Heaven be happy with his unbelieving children in Hell? Can the loving wife in Heaven be happy with her unbelieving husband in Hell?
I tell you, yea! Such will be their sense of justice that it will increase rather than diminish their bliss."

Jonathan Edwards from "Discourses on Various Important Subjects", cited in _The Great Thoughts_, edited by George Seldes

Also:

"The sight of hell-torments will exalt the happiness of the saints forever."

Jonathan Edwards from "The Eternity of Hell-Torments", cited in _The Great Thoughts_, edited by George Seldes


Here endeth the lesson.

David Mathews

Hello NOGO,

Hell is a difficult concept for believers and unbelievers alike. I would never suggest otherwise. I am confident that we cannot legitimately predict our emotions in heaven (or hell, for that matter), and therefore have no means of knowing how people will feel about their lost loved ones in heaven.

Best Regards,

David Mathews

philechat

Here. St. Thomas Aquinas obviously said similar things:

"The blessed in the kingdom of heaven will see the punishment of the damned, in order that their bliss be more delightful for them."

(from Summa Theologica)

Tertullian went through an even longer description:

"How vast a spectacle then bursts upon the eye? What there excites my admiration? What my derision? Which sight gives me joy? Which rouses me to exultation?--as I see so many illustrious monorachs, whose reception into the heavens was publically anouced, groaning now in the lowest darkness with great Jove himself, and those, too, who bore witness of their exultation; governers of provinces, too, who persecuted the Christian name, in fires more fierce than those with which in the days of their pride they raged against the followers of Christ. What world's wise men besides, the very philosophers, in fact, who taught their followers that God has no concern in aught that is sublunary, and were wont to assure them that either they had no souls, or that they would never return to the bodies which at death they had left, now covered with shame before the poor deluded ones, as one fire consumes them! Poets also, trembling not before the judgment seat of Rhadamanthus or Minos, but of the unexpected Christ! I shall have a better opportunity then of hearing the tragedians, louder-voiced in their own calamity; of viewing the play-actors, much more 'dissolute' in the disolving flame; of looking upon the charioteer. all glowing in his chariot of fire; of beholding the wrestlers, not in their gymnasia, but tossing in the fiery billows; unless even then I shall not care to attend to such ministers of sin, in my eager wish rather to fix a gaze insatiable on those whose fury vented itself against the Lord....What quaester or priest in his munificence will bestow on you the favour of seeing and exulting in such thing as these?And yet even now we in a measure have them by faithin the picturings of imagination. But what are the things which eyes has not seen, ear has not heard, and which have not so much as dimly dawned upon the human heart? Whatever they are, they are nobler, I believe, than circus, and both theaters, and every race-course."

(From De Spectaculis)



I am despairing like Herr Joseph K now...almost wetted my pants reading these. Okay. The supreme example of Christian Love done by two of the greatest Christian philosophers...

[ July 30, 2002: Message edited by: philechat ]</p>

MrDarwin

Why are Christians so reluctant to touch this question?

Have I been misled to believe that the Bible describes Heaven as a place without pain, without sorrow, and without suffering?

If we have no idea what we will experience or what we will feel in Hell or Heaven, why should we be concerned about which one we end up in?

[ July 31, 2002: Message edited by: MrDarwin ]</p>

HelenM

Have you missed that this is the Secular Web, Mr Darwin? There aren't many Christians here...it's not an easy place for a Christian to be. Can you guess why, perhaps?

If you are sincere in wanting a Christian answer you can go ask a pastor...if you dare...or would you rather just ask in a place where you know that almost everyone is not only not a Christian but many of them are full of objections to the Christian faith?

Anyway here's a Christian answer...Christians do something known as 'trusting God'. They believe that God will have a way of them retaining their identities in heaven and yet not be heartbroken if they have loved ones in hell. They don't know exactly how He will do that but they trust that He will.

If you trust someone you don't need all the answers. I daresay you do trust various people. Well, Christians trust God.

love
Helen

[ July 31, 2002: Message edited by: HelenSL ]</p>

babelfish

Since part of who we are is who we love, if we no longer love our loved ones enough to feel sorrow for their pain, then in heaven we will no longer be ourselves.

So what the hell's the point?

NOGO

God must have a special pill. Take one in the morning and one at night and you will feel better.
The problem with this Helen is that your loved ones are still in hell.

Trust is a wonderful thing and if you can't trust God then who can you trust?

The problem, however, is not trust in God but trust in Christianity, trust in the people who wrote the Gospels, trust in the people who wrote the Epistles etc.

I have very good reason not to trust them.
What is sad is that you do not distinguish between them and God.