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Angellous vs Angellous: Nature of Hell

  • Thread starter angellous_evangellous
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
I would like to thank Angellous for his wonderful participation in the debate yesterday concerning the inerrancy of Scripture: Angellous vs Angellous: Is the Bible Inerrant?.

I've been pondering a few other threads started by Angellous and I'm wondering if he would humor me and discuss the topic of hell in Christian theology.
 
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
angellous_evangellous said:
I would like to thank Angellous for his wonderful participation in the debate yesterday concerning the inerrancy of Scripture: Angellous vs Angellous: Is the Bible Inerrant?.

I've been pondering a few other threads started by Angellous and I'm wondering if he would humor me and discuss the topic of hell in Christian theology.

I'll be glad to if you're able to stay on topic this time.

What specifically do you protest in my earlier threads?
 
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
angellous_evangellous said:
I'll be glad to if you're able to stay on topic this time.

What specifically do you protest in my earlier threads?

I have noticed that your posts often detract from or contradict early and modern Christian creeds.
 
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
angellous_evangellous said:
Prove it.

First of all, in many places you seem to forget the words of Jesus and Paul and others that all who reject Jesus will be sent to hell. This is reflected in early and late Christian creeds.

The Athanasian Creed (ca 550CE), which is one of your favorites (I should know - I have to listen to you rant about it all the time) plainly states:

http://www.creeds.net/ancient/Quicumque.html
"For unless a person keeps this faith whole and entire, he will undoubtedly be lost forever."
 
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
angellous_evangellous said:
So what exactly is your position?

1) Hell exists as a real place
2) People go there after death according to God's just judgement
3) Hell is eternal, firey judgement
 
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
angellous_evangellous said:
1) Hell exists as a real place
2) People go there after death according to God's just judgement
3) Hell is eternal, firey judgement

Wow that's depressing. I suppose that you didn't enjoy Portrait of a Madman.

Unfortunately, the concept of an eternal hell requires an anthropology that Scripture does not support - if of course you wrongly think that your views are a valid interpretation of Scripture.
 
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
angellous_evangellous said:
Being lost forever says nothing about eternal hell.

So what exactly is your position?

Well I showed you mine.

Are you going to just flatly accuse me of poor interpretation or are you going to show me yours?
 
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
angellous_evangellous said:
Well I showed you mine.

Quite so.

My position is:

1) The Augustinian concept of hell as eternal punishment is Platonic, and the writers of the Bible were more influenced by the Cynics and Stoics who were dependent on Aristotle - not Plato
2) Plato's eternal nature of the soul is foreign also to the Hebrew anthropology that the Biblical writers had
3) I reject the idea that people are sent to hell only on the basis of their unbelief in Christ
 
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
angellous_evangellous said:
We cannot reject a doctrine simply because it depresses some people.

We have to consider what our teachings say about God.

I've found that the doctrines of hell that you espouse are destructive for ethics (a pragmatic protest) and say things about God that are theologically unsuitable for a just and loving Being.

In my opinion, if we adopt your view, we would be following an unjust and unloving God, who sends people to hell solely on the basis of one irrational belief rather than on the basis of righteous judgment. If hell does actually exist, I would hope that God sends people there because of what they have done rather than what they believed.
 
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
angellous_evangellous said:
Quite so.

My position is:

1) The Augustinian concept of hell as eternal punishment is Platonic, and the writers of the Bible were more influenced by the Cynics and Stoics who were dependent on Aristotle - not Plato
2) Plato's eternal nature of the soul is foreign also to the Hebrew anthropology that the Biblical writers had
3) I reject the idea that people are sent to hell only on the basis of their unbelief in Christ

I think that I am able to refute these three points from the bottom up.

Christ himself said that those who reject him will go to hell, which was reinforced by John. Since Augustine's hell is in the canon itself, I see no reason why we should expel it on the basis of Platonic influence - if indeed it is there. Plato obviously influenced Augstine, but I'm not convinced that the biblical writers would have had to accept his concept of the immortality of the soul to construct their idea of hell.
 
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
angellous_evangellous said:
Where/when do you think that God said it?

First I will show that the doctrine of hell does not directly rely on Plato's doctrine of immortality of the soul. We see the eternal nature of the soul in Daniel 12.2-3, as well as in the NT.

Daniel 12:2,3
2And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

Matthew 25:46
And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

Revelation 20:14-15
14Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. 15And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
 
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
Next, the Scripture is clear that the people who suffer in hell will suffer forever:

Mark 9.48
It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, 48'where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.' 49For everyone will be salted with fire.[j] 50Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another."

Rev. 14.10
9And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, "If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, 10he also will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. 11And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name."
 
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
Finally, the only way to go to heaven is by confessing that Jesus is Lord:

Matt 13.50
47"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. 48When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad. 49So it will be at the close of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous 50and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

John 3
16"For God so loved the world,[g] that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
 
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
angellous_evangellous said:
Finally, the only way to go to heaven is by confessing that Jesus is Lord.

OK, aside from all of my other protests concerning the interpretative errors in your prooftexting above, do you even realize what you're saying about God here?
 
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