B
BirdandBee
Guest
Pretty much ever since I first became a Christian, I have struggled with reconciling a loving, omniscient God with an eternal Hell. It doesn’t really matter how you define Hell: obviously a punishment is barbaric, but a willful self-exclusion is difficult to believe too. I find it incredible that human beings would not soon realize their error, in the afterlife, and repent - so the real question is why does dying seal the deal? Why does God permanently cut off His grace from fallible, fickle beings like us?
The way the problem of evil was explained to me involved the Ainulindalë, a creation story by Tolkien, written for Middle-Earth. The angels (Ainur) sang the world into being. The devil’s relationship to God is much like Melkor’s relationship to the One. It is not a contrast, as much as Melkor would have liked it to be, or the devil would like it to be. He sang in opposition to the music of the Ainur. He wanted it to be a perversion. He tried to be as dischordant as possible. But Eru Illuvatar (God) harmonized it, and it made the song more beautiful than it could ever have been without, ultimately contributing to the greater good in a way conformity could not have done. Melkor tried, and failed, to bring ugliness into Illuvatar’s plan. It is much the same with the devil. It is the contrast of evil which sets apart so clearly the light. It is our opportunity to suffer in this life which makes our joys so profound.
This set my mind at rest on the issue of the problem of evil, but ever since I got my head around it I have wondered - is God really reconciling everything to himself? How harmonious can we say the song is in light of the existence of Hell? Annihilationism is a little better, and I stuck with that view for quite a while - but it too is ultimately unsatisfying. This is probably something I will never totally be at ease with, but I would like to hear your thoughts anyway.
The way the problem of evil was explained to me involved the Ainulindalë, a creation story by Tolkien, written for Middle-Earth. The angels (Ainur) sang the world into being. The devil’s relationship to God is much like Melkor’s relationship to the One. It is not a contrast, as much as Melkor would have liked it to be, or the devil would like it to be. He sang in opposition to the music of the Ainur. He wanted it to be a perversion. He tried to be as dischordant as possible. But Eru Illuvatar (God) harmonized it, and it made the song more beautiful than it could ever have been without, ultimately contributing to the greater good in a way conformity could not have done. Melkor tried, and failed, to bring ugliness into Illuvatar’s plan. It is much the same with the devil. It is the contrast of evil which sets apart so clearly the light. It is our opportunity to suffer in this life which makes our joys so profound.
This set my mind at rest on the issue of the problem of evil, but ever since I got my head around it I have wondered - is God really reconciling everything to himself? How harmonious can we say the song is in light of the existence of Hell? Annihilationism is a little better, and I stuck with that view for quite a while - but it too is ultimately unsatisfying. This is probably something I will never totally be at ease with, but I would like to hear your thoughts anyway.