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First it has to be determined if there is even such a place as Hell...or if it is an imaginary construct. (That could conceivably have something to do with why the question is never answered, as you say).
In my case no. I asked this question the people who believe in hell, and mostly they believe in eternal Hell.
This question is difficult for christians who don't believe in co-operation when saving a man's soul. And yet they can not admit that God did fail when trying to save somebody.
Of course, one theory is that God created some people for Hell. In that case we can not say god failed.
Man has failed. Think of it like this. A teenage boy gets in trouble with the law. He then goes to jail and awaits his hearing. When he walks into the courtroom, the judge is none other than the boys father! { forgetting the ethical implications of this scenerio for a moment } After thinking things through, the judge decides that he cannot betray the oath he took just because the criminal before him is his son. He says to the boy, I am your father and I dont want to see you in trouble, but you must be punished for the crimes you commited. Your choices are either pay 500 dollars bail or go to jail. The boy then says to his father, I dont have 500 dollars. Having compassion for his son, the judge reaches into his wallet and pulls out the 500 dollars. He then reaches his hand out to give the money to the boy. Now, he can either accept his fathers gift or he can take the punishment that has been given him, its his choice.
In this parable, the judge represents God, his son represents mankind, and the money represents eternal salvation while jail represents hell. You see, God offers us a way out of punishment, but its completely up to us as to wether or not we will accept it. This is from a Christian perspective.
Man has failed. Think of it like this. A teenage boy gets in trouble with the law. He then goes to jail and awaits his hearing. When he walks into the courtroom, the judge is none other than the boys father! { forgetting the ethical implications of this scenerio for a moment } After thinking things through, the judge decides that he cannot betray the oath he took just because the criminal before him is his son. He says to the boy, I am your father and I dont want to see you in trouble, but you must be punished for the crimes you commited. Your choices are either pay 500 dollars bail or go to jail. The boy then says to his father, I dont have 500 dollars. Having compassion for his son, the judge reaches into his wallet and pulls out the 500 dollars. He then reaches his hand out to give the money to the boy. Now, he can either accept his fathers gift or he can take the punishment that has been given him, its his choice.
In this parable, the judge represents God, his son represents mankind, and the money represents eternal salvation while jail represents hell. You see, God offers us a way out of punishment, but its completely up to us as to wether or not we will accept it. This is from a Christian perspective.
OR, the father can pull the 500 dollars out of his wallet and pay the fine. Now the son is free, whether he can believe it or not.
(Side note: the father originally made the boy a criminal, because Adam disobeyed. In other words, the son was already guilty when he was born.)
OR, the father can pull the 500 dollars out of his wallet and pay the fine. Now the son is free, whether he can believe it or not.
(Side note: the father originally made the boy a criminal, because Adam disobeyed. In other words, the son was already guilty when he was born.)
Blessings,
brian
If you do somthing bad or even criminal, is it your parents fault or is it yours? God dosnt make anyone bad, but you yourself have the choice to live either a righteous life or turn your back away from God. Its the same as when you first go out into the world away from your parents. They may not approve of the choices you make, but once you get so old only you can make those choices. Your parents arnt going to stop you.
God supposedly is entirely responsible for creating us; he gave us ever attribute we were born with. Now, some say that he did not give us our fallen natures, that we inherited that as a result of the Fall of Adam and Eve. But, he set up the Fall, and he created Adam and Eve with the capacity to be beguiled, surely god knew when he gave them the capacity to be beguiled that Satan would beguile them and they would eat. It is bad thinking to think they had a choice. They ate the fruit because they were tricked; they were tricked because god did not sufficiently equip them so that they would not be tricked by Satan. It is god's fault that they were tricked, since he could have prepared them but did not. And it is god's fault that we have fallen natures and weaknesses. If we don't ask god to help us overcome our weaknesses, it is because we did not have enough faith or we are mistrustful or we have a rebellious spirit. God could have given us enough faith but did not, he could have made us more trusting or given us the experiences to make us more trusting but did not, he could have given us a less rebellious spirit, but did not. We do what we do because of what we are, and we are what we are because god made us that way. Sometimes, we are what we are due to how our parents raised us or due to what others have done to us. Those people are the way they are because of what came before them and on and on until one gets back to the creation of Adam and Eve, which is all god's fault. At each moment of decision, when we could go this way or that, there is a reason why we go the way we go. Whether it is because we were more tempted or inclined to go that way or for some other reason, god could have made the way less tempting, just enough for us to choose the other way, god could have made us more inclined to go the other way, but he didn't. So, how is it right for him to judge us for what we do when we do what we do because of the inclinations, strengths, weaknesses, etc, he gave us. If he wanted a different result, he could have made us stronger and our lives would have played out differently.
We did not choose to be made or to go through this earth-test, why can't god be merciful and wipe us out of existence when we die if we were bound for hell? Non-existence is preferable to eternal torment. Why bring us into existence to live for 75 years and then torture us forever if we did not do what god wanted in those first 75 years? And even if we do exactly what god wants, our reward is to praise god forever. Doesn't this seem narcissistic to you? It is as if I created a bunch of robots to eternally worship me and tell me how great I am. If the robots worship me for the first 75 minutes of their lives, I reward them by allowing them to worship me forever, if not, then I send them to robot hell to be tortured forever. Moderator cut: edit
Why did God create evil in the first place? Did he have to? Did someone compel him to do so? Did he not know what Pandora's box he was opening by creating evil? These are the REAL questions that Christians are unwilling to address.
If there is anything people hate more than an unsolvable mystery I don't know what it is.
There are many of them in Christianity and they will never be answered.
One such mystery is this. Man can take no credit at all for his salvation. This is a rock solid Christian doctrine taught all through the bible.
The other and opposing doctrine is that God takes no blame or responsibility for those that are lost.
There are many of these types of ununderstandable concepts all through the bible.
In the reformed faith, one of our statements of faith is that we will not look deeply into the mysteries of God to the detriment of our faith.
You have to understand that the things of God are not in any way understood through logic or intellegence. If they were then all the very smart people of the world would be believers if the bible is true. We know that's not the case however and many of the most brilliant minds are athiest.
The bible it's self tells us that, "The things of God are nonsence to the natural man". What this statement means is that you can not understand the bible, you can not be saved, you can not become a Christian in your natural state. The very beginning of understanding is when God performs a supernatural act upon a person and causes that person to be "born again". The bible characterizes this change in various ways. God takes a dead heart, a heart of stone and causes it to become alive, a heart of flesh. This heart that is now alive to the things of God will always believe and be saved.
For this reason I feel strongly thast the modern church has greatly lost the only message that should be preached to the unbeliever. The basic Gospel of Jesus Christ. It's a very simple message that even a young child can understand. Belief in this message is the beginning of understanding anything about God and His plans for His creation. Anything outside of that message to the unbeliever is just nonsence and a waste of breath.
To those who God saves He gives understanding to as He sees fit. Even at that there are so many things we will not understand this side of the grave.
Can you understand a being that created the entire universe out of nothing by a word?
Can you understand a being that lives outside of time and space?
Can you understand a being that is present everywhere, that knows everything, that is all powerful?
Of course we can not understand these things, we just believe them by the faith that He has given to us.
Can you understand that we can have an intimate relationship with this awesome God and call Him our Daddy. I can and thanks be to Him for it. If that was all that I understood it would be enough, Praise His Holy name.
I don't like to view it in terms of failure, but only people turn away from God, not God from people. God is unconditional love and unconditional love is just that--unconditional. So when people don't have God it's not because God stopped loving them--it's because they stopped loving God.
If you do somthing bad or even criminal, is it your parents fault or is it yours? God dosnt make anyone bad, but you yourself have the choice to live either a righteous life or turn your back away from God. Its the same as when you first go out into the world away from your parents. They may not approve of the choices you make, but once you get so old only you can make those choices. Your parents arnt going to stop you.
But in the book of Genesis, God cursed all mankind, just because of one man's sin. That would be like giving the death penalty to all of the world just because you stole a piece of candy.
If God made man a sinner, then that means that man's destiny is to sin. He cannot not sin.
God didn't give man a choice. He gave Adam a choice, and all mankind paid the consequences as a result.
Again: no man/woman can notsin. We have no "choice."
But in the book of Genesis, God cursed all mankind, just because of one man's sin. That would be like giving the death penalty to all of the world just because you stole a piece of candy.
That is what happened ONLYaccording to the reasoning and explanations of our ignorant ancestors, brian. What I cannot comprehend is how modern educated human beings cannot see the absolute absurdity of such an explanation of God's actions! (Questioning the absurdity of the explanation does NOT mean questioning the actions).
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