At what level does the existence of heaven justify the existence of hell?

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oliver109 said:
It just makes no sense to me that a person who has repented sometimes during life but happens to die after committing sin would never according to God have repented after death because they just loved sin too much.
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I can only say that it makes perfectly sense to me. God knows everything and He knows that the souls who are in hell will never repent.
 
Julius_Caesar said:
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lelinator:
But if this is the case, then who among us shall get there?
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People who stop being evil.
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Hmmm…so in other words…no one gets there…except for Mary I suppose. Would you accept the premise that I have stopped being evil?
 
Latin said:
As we see above, God is the CREATOR, CAUSER/ DETERMINER of our Aided Free will, and we all freely will what God wills us to will and we all freely do what God wills and CAUSES us to do.
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I’ve seen you raise this argument in slightly different forms a number of times now. The argument being essentially this:

“Men freely will what God wills them to will.”

Originally it seemed to be quite logical, and quite well supported, even though it clearly implies that people don’t actually have free will. An idea that almost no theists would agree with.

But having had the chance to contemplate it, I think that although it’s technically correct, it shows a slight misunderstanding of the nature of God, and of free will.

Let me see if I can explain.

When theists talk about God they often explain that God isn’t just something that exists, God IS existence. And God doesn’t just love, God IS love.

Now if we extend this line of reasoning to free will, we come to the conclusion that God doesn’t just have free will. God IS free will.

So now we can rephrase your premise as:

“Men freely will what free will wills them to will.”

We can do this because the terms God and free will are interchangeable, because God IS free will.

Then we can remove the redundancy to get the following:

“Men will what free will wills them to will”

Now the meaning is slightly different, because it’s not that God’s will supersedes our free will, it’s that our free will is derived from God’s free will. It’s the sharing of God’s free will, not the subjugation to God’s will.
 
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Julius_Caesar said:
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lelinator:
You didn’t answer the question
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And you didn’t answer mine. Does salvation exist in your universe?
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What do you mean by salvation?

It’s a very simple term, but people read into it a number of preconceptions…salvation from what, for example.

What do you mean by salvation?
 
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Julius_Caesar said:
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lelinator:
What do you mean by salvation?
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We are on a religious forum and you’re asking me what salvation is. :roll_eyes:
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Let’s cut to the chase. I think that for me, the most important thing about Christ’s death on that cross, isn’t that He died for my sins, it’s that He died for your sins.

Salvation comes, not from my accepting that Christ died for my sins, but rather from accepting that Christ died for your sins. That’s the thing that I have to accept. That’s the choice that I have to make.

I think that you have a flawed understanding of salvation.
 
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Mmarco said:
I have never said that God’s presence is an hallucination; I have said that you need faith to believe that a beatific vision is not an hallucination. Please read more carefully what I wrote.
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You are contradicting yourself in the first two sentence since Beatific Vision is God presence.
Mmarco said:
I know I am real since I directly feel my own existence as a conscious being; this is the most obvious truth each of us can understand; we can then prove to ourselves our own existence (Cogito ergo sum). On the contrary, we cannot prove to ourselves that a beatific vision is not an hallucination; we can only believe it by faith.
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So apparently you have an argument in favor that we exist. Therefore, you don’t need a faith. Needless to say that your argument does not follow.
Mmarco said:
As I have said, reason fully confirms what we believe by faith. The problem is that you are not using reason correctly in your comments. In fact you give no rational counter-arguments to the rational arguments we explain to you.
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What is the use of faith when you are assured by reason.
 
Julius_Caesar said:
You can be holy and thus enter heaven.
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It isn’t a lack of forgiveness that keeps anyone from heaven, it’s the inability to forgive that keeps them from heaven.

Christ didn’t have to die on that cross in order for God to forgive my sins. God isn’t that vain. He had already forgiven them. He had always forgiven them. So why did God make His Son suffer so?

He made His Son suffer, not so that He would forgive my sins, but so that I would forgive yours. And it’s in forgiving the sins of others that one finally finds the salvation that was always there, but which seems impossible to find.

Heaven is simply the peace that comes with forgiving others. And no one, not even God, can make you do it. And hell is simply the anguish that awaits if you can’t.

You choose.
 
Julius_Caesar said:
You make choices and God sends you there.
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NOOOOO!!! God doesn’t send anyone anywhere. It’s your choice, and only your choice. Those who can’t forgive the transgressions committed against them are doomed to wallow in their own self-pity, and the only way out is to forgive. You create your own hell, and only you can get you out.
Julius_Caesar said:
Then Christ died for nothing.

God made Him sin who didn’t know sin so we may become His righteousness.
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No, Christ didn’t die for nothing. He died so that you would understand that every sin ever committed against you has been forgiven.

Every single one of them.

And the symbol of that forgiveness, the justification for that forgiveness, hung on a cross two thousand years ago. Men find it so amazingly difficult to simply forgive, but if you need justification for it, it was hanging on that cross.

He who was without sin, became those sins which you find so difficult to forgive.

Try to envision that, that hanging there on that cross are all the sins that you refuse to forgive. So maybe the next time someone does something to offend you, you won’t even need to think about forgiving them…because there’s nothing left to be forgiven.
 
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lelinator said:
How do I do that?
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The same way you build a relationship with anyone else…
lelinator said:
He made His Son suffer, not so that He would forgive my sins, but so that I would forgive yours.
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That is…not very well put, at least. You do realize that forgiveness is not a post-Christ phenomenon, right? People forgave one another long before Him.
 
lelinator said:
How many people does it take to justify the existence of hell?
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Even one person who went did evil and refused to repent for it.

The only alternatives God has to Hell are to not create humans in the first place, to destroy the souls of unrepentant sinners upon death, or to brainwash unrepentant sinners into repenting. The first two go against God’s nature as a creator, the third one invalidates human’s free will by not really giving us a choice.
 
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