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Peter_Plato
Guest
Well, here is what I see as the problem.There we go, now we seem to be getting somewhere. 1) Yes, you are exactly right, Molinism does not solve the “problem of hell” however it does explain how we can have free will and how God’s will can be totally and absolutely accomplished simultaneously. 2) I don’t have to demonstrate what you asked, because I don’t believe that God is unjust or unfair to anyone, precisely because I think he has access to the knowledge of “all possible worlds” and we don’t have enough reason to suppose this isn’t the best one (on the whole). The OP (Pallas Athene) and I do not share a common set of beliefs, I can assure you. We (and others) argue that there is a substantial issue here, but I believe in the God of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Issac, and Jacob.
To be precise, the punishment of hell does not seem to me to be eternal but (allegedly) “everlasting.” Only God is eternal. Everything else has a beginning in time. Hell is supposedly one of those things. Even if it is not a discreet “thing” it is totally contingent upon the existence of creatures brought into existence at a specific time, even if that time was “immediately from the first instant.” The CCC uses the word “eternal” to describe the duration of hell, but the Greek word in the “new testament” upon which these teachings seem to be based is variously translated as either everlasting or eternal. From reason we can deduce that “everlasting” is meant, otherwise hell has always existed, or we have always existed, or both.
Of course I can’t judge God or know whether his rewards and punishments are deserved. I take it as axiomatic. However, everlasting torment is the kind of punishment that can never be just, reasonable, loving, beautiful, etc. I think if an angel appeared to me and told me that God wanted me to worship an idol or go kill dozens of children, I would rightfully argue that God wouldn’t want me to do something like that, and therefore the angel can’t possibly represent God. I think eternal hell is like that. If a man/church appears teaching that eternal hell awaits most of humanity, or even one person, that man/church does not represent God.
The universe exists with time as an integral component to it. Yet, the universe as a whole exists eternally in God – i.e., God, merely by thinking it, endows to it eternality of sorts even though the time signature within the universe is temporal.
In that sense, persons exist in the mind of God. His thoughts are eternal. Ergo, by creating human persons, even though we view our existence chronologically, God views our existence eternally. We exist eternally as far as God is concerned because he has created us. He loves us eternally and cannot, as far as his eternal love for us is concerned, just “forget” us. In that sense, when we do evil, what we harm and harm ETERNALLY is God’s creative love for us – something he cannot just forget.
In a sense, it is his “pain” that endures eternally, his creative awareness of our being that suffers FOR us by our inflicting evil on the imago dei he has of us. By selfishly viewing our condition ONLY from our point of view, we miss completely the intrinsic BOTH/AND perspective that sharing God’s love for us would provide to us. We don’t SEE it precisely because we don’t see with and through God’s love for us. In a sense, the eternal pain of hell could well be the eternal pain that God suffers for losing us.