Shtef: A question for those who believe in hell and eternal damnation.
Earthling: I don't believe in hell and eternal damnation as such, but I would like to address your questions, if you don't mind.
Shtef: If God ever held the view that a soul did not deserve a place in heaven, why would 'he' need to go one step further and subject that soul to everlasting torment?
Earthling: First of all, the Bible teaches that the soul is, in a literal sense ... the blood of any living creature, and in a figurative sense ... the life of any living creature. If 'he,' (God is a spirit creature and referred to in the masculine sense, though without gender) thought that the soul of us ought to be in heaven he would have put it there in the first place. The Earth was created for man, and heaven was created for spirit creatures. The notion that all 'good' people go to heaven and all 'bad' people go to hell is a distortion of Bible teachings. Brought about by the Pagan influence in modern day Christianity.
Secondly, the soul, according to the Bible, is not immortal. It dies. (Ezekiel 18:4) So it can't be subjected to the everlasting torment ... that is the hellfire doctrine.
Being a new member and thus potentially a bothersome spammer, I am not yet allowed to give external links, active links. But here is something I have on my website on The Reality Of Hell. Copy the URL into your browser if you would be interested. (Edit: even that won't work ... We will just have to wait. Maybe I will post the information here in this thread.)
It explains how Hell is an old English word which means to cover or conceal. Similar words in our language comes from the same root. Shell, hill, heal, hull are all coverings of some sort and whole is an uncovering.
Shtef: if you answer 'the need for justice' would not disposing of the soul and denying it communion with God in heaven be a lot simpler and serve the ends of justice? What part of God would require 'him' to subject a soul to perpetual suffering?
Earthling: No part, at least not in a literal sense. The only perpetual suffering ... uh ... and this is used in the sense of the Greek word torment which can also be translated as 'jailer,' is that the life of the person is ended, whereas the life of the person not subject to this torment lives forever.
It is interesting that you use the word justice. Words are funny. They change in our minds and in our cultures. The Hebrew word ra is used to describe Jehovah God. He is that word and he created that word. The word means in a basic sense, justice through calamitous events. Like if you have to ground your child for playing out in the busy street, that is ra ... which is translated in our English as the word 'evil.'
According to the Bible and our English language, Jehovah God is evil and created evil. The flood, for example was, a necessary evil. Had the flood not taken place none of us would be here.
Here is my point. God created the earth for man to inhabit forever. If Adam had not sinned (sinned means to miss the mark, set by anyone, in this case God) he would have lived forever. Without sin. Sin = death. It is a rejection of God, the creator.
To make a long story short, man would destroy themselves leaving the earth uninhabitable without God. That is the obvious answer to the question of sin raised by Adam and Satan. In all fairness it has to be addressed.
Those who choose life and those who choose death. Everlasting. This is what the Bible teaches rather than a literal hell which is pagan in origin.