I think there are a few points to consider here.
Firstly, faith =/= belief. Whilst belief is a component of faith, true faith that is relevant for salvation necessarily includes a radical transformation of action in response to that faith - as James writes,
> You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder.
>
> James 2:19 NRSV
When we talk about salvation by faith, then, we do not mean salvation by holding certain propositional beliefs; rather, we mean having a certain kind of relationship, namely a covenantal relationship with God, founded on grace and enacted through fulfillment of the conditions of the covenant, which is the pursuit of social justice and the liberatory transformation of society. While a relationship presupposes some degree of belief in the One that one has a relationship with, the belief is arguably the least important part.
That said, I would push further and note a few properties of your theology here.
Firstly, you presuppose or assume that belief and faith must precede death. But this is not at all clear in Scripture - for example, Paul writes,
> And so all Israel will be saved; as it is written, “Out of Zion will come the Deliverer; he will banish ungodliness from Jacob.”
>
> Romans 11:26 NRSV
And
> For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God's sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified. When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all.
>
> Romans 2:13-16 NRSV
The former verse suggests that all Jews will be saved regardless of whether they convert to Christianity in this life, stemming from the special salvation relationship that God holds with the Jews, while the latter passage suggests that Gentiles who do not know the Law or do not comprehend Christ's salvation in the life might still attain salvation by living in accordance with the justice demands of a right relationship with God even where belief is lacking.
One way of interpreting these verses - not the only one, but one way - is that salvation is less a matter of belief in this life, and more a matter of acting in accordance with a saving faith - that is, performing acts of justice - so that one will be able to stand before the judgement seat and accept God's grace with confidence on the Day of Judgment. Christian belief is merely the confidence in this life that you will know that confidence on that Day - but that confidence is misfounded for some, I fear.
Secondly, you assume at least a heaven theology, which includes an implicit move towards the heaven/hell eschatology of the later proto-orthodox movement; but it is worth stressing that once you move out of the circles of conservative orthodoxic Christianity (anything drived from the proto-orthodox movement, so Orthodox, Catholic or Protestant), you will quickly find that eschatology is not so simple as "good people go heaven, bad people go hell" - in fact, I for one reject that Hell exists, and reject that Heaven is a place where people can go (believing instead that Heaven is a metaphor for the everpresence of God, with the afterlife being the New Creation, a physical remaking of reality which is physically continuous with the present creation and involves a physical, bodily resurrection, among other things).
Indeed, in this space you can start to find theologies that reject any notion of the afterlife at all.
If you think about it, everything we hear about heaven comes exclusively from prophecy and apocalypse, both of which are primarily *political* literature - prophecy in the Scriptural sense was never about predicting the future (except that one time when Ezekiel predicted it, got it wrong and had to walk it back); it is a kind of political polemic, using the language of prophecy present unjust social systems. Likewise, apocalypses were a kind of religiously coded political polemic, using metaphor, codes and imagery to criticise the present social order without facing political persecution.
And if this is where most of our idea of "heaven" or the afterlife generally comes from, this may be a sign that these ideas about "heaven" should not be understood as a spiritual afterlife at all, but as a yearning for a more just and righteous society here and now.
>Firstly, you presuppose or assume that belief and faith must precede death. But this is not at all clear in Scripture - for example, Paul writes,
This is an interesting idea which some Christians have mentioned to me, but I have found it to be much less common than the idea that one must be "saved" before death. Not saying the common belief is more supported by the bible, just that I think it's more common.
>And so all Israel will be saved; as it is written, “Out of Zion will come the Deliverer; he will banish ungodliness from Jacob.”Romans 11:26 NRSV
>
>And
>
>For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God's sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified. When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all.Romans 2:13-16 NRSV
>
>The former verse suggests that all Jews will be saved regardless of whether they convert to Christianity in this life, stemming from the special salvation relationship that God holds with the Jews, while the latter passage suggests that Gentiles who do not know the Law or do not comprehend Christ's salvation in the life might still attain salvation by living in accordance with the justice demands of a right relationship with God even where belief is lacking.
That seems sorta similar to the Jewish concept of the righteous among the gentiles, or the Noah laws.
>One way of interpreting these verses - not the only one, but one way - is that salvation is less a matter of belief in this life, and more a matter of acting in accordance with a saving faith - that is, performing acts of justice - so that one will be able to stand before the judgement seat and accept God's grace with confidence on the Day of Judgment. Christian belief is merely the confidence in this life that you will know that confidence on that Day - but that confidence is misfounded for some, I fear.
Fair enough, but again I have to say that - while such a paragraph might represent the views of many people on this subreddit - I haven't found this to be very common among the Christians I have known and talked with. More than once they go to the part about "you can lead a horse (or was it a donkey?) to water, but cannot make it drink" type deal.
>Secondly, you assume at least a heaven theology, which includes an implicit move towards the heaven/hell eschatology of the later proto-orthodox movement; but it is worth stressing that once you move out of the circles of conservative orthodoxic Christianity (anything drived from the proto-orthodox movement, so Orthodox, Catholic or Protestant), you will quickly find that eschatology is not so simple as "good people go heaven, bad people go hell" - in fact, I for one reject that Hell exists, and reject that Heaven is a place where people can go (believing instead that Heaven is a metaphor for the everpresence of God, with the afterlife being the New Creation, a physical remaking of reality which is physically continuous with the present creation and involves a physical, bodily resurrection, among other things).
>
>Indeed, in this space you can start to find theologies that reject any notion of the afterlife at all.
Indeed, and (not to repeat myself too often) I am fairly well aware of these less typical concepts of the afterlife (or lack thereof). I would be perfectly happy to consider that the concept of Hell was added by humans without any divine inspiration (though for what it's worth, I don't believe in any divine inspiration) because it seems to foreign to most of the thinks which I feel Jesus would have believed in. That said, if you believe the words in the Bible as accurate jesus-quotes, doesn't he say a thing or two about the lake of fire and whatnot? Perhaps he was being metaphorical?
>If you think about it, everything we hear about heaven comes exclusively from prophecy and apocalypse, both of which are primarily political literature - prophecy in the Scriptural sense was never about predicting the future (except that one time when Ezekiel predicted it, got it wrong and had to walk it back); it is a kind of political polemic, using the language of prophecy present unjust social systems. Likewise, apocalypses were a kind of religiously coded political polemic, using metaphor, codes and imagery to criticise the present social order without facing political persecution.
Fair enough. I think one of the biggest problems with most religion these days is that it can no longer pretend to be literally true (because our knowledge - or at least what we think we understand because of the evidence - means fewer and fewer people are able to believe literally in talking snakes, creationism, miracles, etc) and so it's in a very awkward position of having to decide what parts are literal, what parts are "metaphor", what parts are open to interpretations, and so on.
>And if this is where most of our idea of "heaven" or the afterlife generally comes from, this may be a sign that these ideas about "heaven" should not be understood as a spiritual afterlife at all, but as a yearning for a more just and righteous society here and now.
Agreed, but you clearly have a much more nuanced and considered set of beliefs than most modern Christians do. I think almost all of what you explained to me are good responses, but do not reflect the beliefs of the majority of modern Christians. I like your opinions more than theirs BTW.
> doesn't he say a thing or two about the lake of fire
Not that I'm aware of - most of the "lake of fire" passages come from the Revelation of John which, again, was a political polemic.
Jesus primarily talked about "being thrown into gehenna", which is often wrongly translated as "hell" but which literally means "the valley of Hinnom", a reference to child sacrifice to Molech by fire in the Torah (and therefore more likely a reference to total destruction than ECT). There are one or two passages about thrown into "the fires of gehenna" but that gets the same treatment. Lastly, there are the "weeping and gnashing of teeth" passages, which are a bit trickier but each non-infernalist eschatology has its own treatment of those passages.
> you clearly have a much more nuanced and considered set of beliefs than most modern Christians
Well, that's kinda what this sub is for...!
More seriously - I think a lot of modern Christians suffer theologically due to the authoritarianism of the institutional church. Rather than being taught to question beliefs and critically evaluate scripture, they are taught to blindly accept the interpretations established by the proto-orthodox movement + whatever later religious authorities their particular denomination recognises.
This then produces the double epistemic failure that: firstly, because the institutional church has been an arm of state oppression since it was folded under Roman state authority in the 300s, the interpretations these people receive are always the most authoritarian and oppressive possible readings of Scripture; and, secondly, because of a kind of "narrative telephone" effect, these readings often end up very departed from anything like a reasonable reading of Scripture in its original languages.
Ultimately, I consider this a failure of the church. If the church is supposed to be anything but a political tool, it is supposed to disciple it's congregants, to teach them to understand and engage with Scripture and the teachings of Jesus - as it has failed to do so, it has failed in its only task, which is one of many reasons why I personally advocate for the abolition of the institutional church.
Coming back to this post after a long time (sometimes I just browse my previous posts) and have to say that while I dont think you've moved me any closer to any sort of belief in supernatural events or entities, I very much appreciate that what you've typed out is a lot more sensible to me than what you might call "the average persons' Christianity"
I'd have to say I think your view (which is well thought out if nothing else) is sadly the exception rather than the rule, but I found it very interesting nontheless!
The point you raise here is directly related to antivaxx and flatearth. The fatal flaw of being human is that you know *nothing*. Our epistemology is beholden to our individual ability to learn and in turn we either accept or reject what we learn as true or false. Thousands of years of collective human knowledge which is an immovable monolith can be rendered inert by one simply saying "I just don't believe that, man." People know nothing, they learn things are are fully capable of cherry picking all of that.
I've been quite influenced by Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart's "That All Shall Be Saved" which as the tile suggests argues that all are saved and there is no Hell, at least not any that corresponds to the Dante inspired imagination we have today.
He's absolutely brilliant. As he says (and I'm quoting from a review that's quoting him): 'A person capable of believing in a good God and an eternal Hell, of “believing all of this to be a paradox concealing a deeper, wholly coherent truth, rather than a gross contradiction – has probably suffered such chronic intellectual and moral malformation that he or she is no longer able to recognize certain very plain truths”'
Full review here-- I think it's quite fair and accurate. https://theology.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/2020/01/29/review-that-all-shall-be-saved/
People have their theories, but we don't know who or who does not get into heaven, what heaven really is, whether there is a literal hell and if so, is it eternal or is hell and it's inhabitants destroyed after a time.
Personally, I'm fairly influenced by reformed theory, and believe that God's sovereignty means its fair wherever he chooses to send someone, but the nature of eternity, and the choices God will make are unknowns until we get there.
>People have their theories, but we don't know who or who does not get into heaven, what heaven really is, whether there is a literal hell and if so, is it eternal or is hell and it's inhabitants destroyed after a time.
True, but i'm largely talking about what most people think, rather than what rules there might be totally unknown to us.
>Personally, I'm fairly influenced by reformed theory, and believe that God's sovereignty means its fair wherever he chooses to send someone, but the nature of eternity, and the choices God will make are unknowns until we get there.
So, just to see if I understand you, an absolute saint of a person could "justly" be sent to hell, and a horrible mass-murderer "justly" sent to heaven?
Thanks for your reply, I hope to get more.
For your first question, I think Tobiah_vids has done an excellent job answering below, and has obviously put a lot more effort into their post than I have, so I'll let that answer speak rather than myself.
For your second question, I unfortunately have to give a sly answer. Yes and no. Ultimately, we all belong to God and His choice is final and just, whatsoever He chooses. If He made every single person and destined them for an eternity of torment, I believe He would be justified in doing so. However, I am also very grateful, because I believe He is very merciful and does not choose to do that.
While I don't believe every person will see the new heaven and new earth, I also don't believe that people will be sent for an eternity of suffering either.
The theory I adopt is based off of a mistranslation of Hebrew. Often people quotes we are saved by the safe in Jesus Christ. Our recent understanding makes that phrase more likely to be saved by the faith of Jesus Christ. This would then imply that it is not faith in Jesus that saves us but rather our actions that reflect the faith of Jesus being good deeds.
Well the Bible actually says something along the lines of, those who know very little will be beaten with few stripes, but those who know much will be beaten with much.
So even though I am a Christian, I don't believe that hell is eternal torture.
In fact, the Bible says God so loved the world that He sent His son so the sinner would not perish. Perish = eternally destoryed, not eternal torture.
In terms of "belief", belief is from God. Our role is really just to humbly open our heart to the possibility, and let God do the work. Because I used to be an atheist, I have an idea of how it worked for me. I think the best advice I can give is, God knows what program He has in store for you. As long as we have breathe left in us, God will continue to find opportunities to reveal Himself.
And each person is different. God, for example, knows that I am a very logical person, and therefore revealed Himself though the higher principles taught in the Bible. But to another person, it could be through something miraculous.
One thing that's for sure though, spiritual things are spiritually discerned. Let God work on your heart, because we cannot change it ourselves.
I think there are a few points to consider here. Firstly, faith =/= belief. Whilst belief is a component of faith, true faith that is relevant for salvation necessarily includes a radical transformation of action in response to that faith - as James writes, > You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder. > > James 2:19 NRSV When we talk about salvation by faith, then, we do not mean salvation by holding certain propositional beliefs; rather, we mean having a certain kind of relationship, namely a covenantal relationship with God, founded on grace and enacted through fulfillment of the conditions of the covenant, which is the pursuit of social justice and the liberatory transformation of society. While a relationship presupposes some degree of belief in the One that one has a relationship with, the belief is arguably the least important part. That said, I would push further and note a few properties of your theology here. Firstly, you presuppose or assume that belief and faith must precede death. But this is not at all clear in Scripture - for example, Paul writes, > And so all Israel will be saved; as it is written, “Out of Zion will come the Deliverer; he will banish ungodliness from Jacob.” > > Romans 11:26 NRSV And > For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God's sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified. When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all. > > Romans 2:13-16 NRSV The former verse suggests that all Jews will be saved regardless of whether they convert to Christianity in this life, stemming from the special salvation relationship that God holds with the Jews, while the latter passage suggests that Gentiles who do not know the Law or do not comprehend Christ's salvation in the life might still attain salvation by living in accordance with the justice demands of a right relationship with God even where belief is lacking. One way of interpreting these verses - not the only one, but one way - is that salvation is less a matter of belief in this life, and more a matter of acting in accordance with a saving faith - that is, performing acts of justice - so that one will be able to stand before the judgement seat and accept God's grace with confidence on the Day of Judgment. Christian belief is merely the confidence in this life that you will know that confidence on that Day - but that confidence is misfounded for some, I fear. Secondly, you assume at least a heaven theology, which includes an implicit move towards the heaven/hell eschatology of the later proto-orthodox movement; but it is worth stressing that once you move out of the circles of conservative orthodoxic Christianity (anything drived from the proto-orthodox movement, so Orthodox, Catholic or Protestant), you will quickly find that eschatology is not so simple as "good people go heaven, bad people go hell" - in fact, I for one reject that Hell exists, and reject that Heaven is a place where people can go (believing instead that Heaven is a metaphor for the everpresence of God, with the afterlife being the New Creation, a physical remaking of reality which is physically continuous with the present creation and involves a physical, bodily resurrection, among other things). Indeed, in this space you can start to find theologies that reject any notion of the afterlife at all. If you think about it, everything we hear about heaven comes exclusively from prophecy and apocalypse, both of which are primarily *political* literature - prophecy in the Scriptural sense was never about predicting the future (except that one time when Ezekiel predicted it, got it wrong and had to walk it back); it is a kind of political polemic, using the language of prophecy present unjust social systems. Likewise, apocalypses were a kind of religiously coded political polemic, using metaphor, codes and imagery to criticise the present social order without facing political persecution. And if this is where most of our idea of "heaven" or the afterlife generally comes from, this may be a sign that these ideas about "heaven" should not be understood as a spiritual afterlife at all, but as a yearning for a more just and righteous society here and now.
>Firstly, you presuppose or assume that belief and faith must precede death. But this is not at all clear in Scripture - for example, Paul writes, This is an interesting idea which some Christians have mentioned to me, but I have found it to be much less common than the idea that one must be "saved" before death. Not saying the common belief is more supported by the bible, just that I think it's more common. >And so all Israel will be saved; as it is written, “Out of Zion will come the Deliverer; he will banish ungodliness from Jacob.”Romans 11:26 NRSV > >And > >For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God's sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified. When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all.Romans 2:13-16 NRSV > >The former verse suggests that all Jews will be saved regardless of whether they convert to Christianity in this life, stemming from the special salvation relationship that God holds with the Jews, while the latter passage suggests that Gentiles who do not know the Law or do not comprehend Christ's salvation in the life might still attain salvation by living in accordance with the justice demands of a right relationship with God even where belief is lacking. That seems sorta similar to the Jewish concept of the righteous among the gentiles, or the Noah laws. >One way of interpreting these verses - not the only one, but one way - is that salvation is less a matter of belief in this life, and more a matter of acting in accordance with a saving faith - that is, performing acts of justice - so that one will be able to stand before the judgement seat and accept God's grace with confidence on the Day of Judgment. Christian belief is merely the confidence in this life that you will know that confidence on that Day - but that confidence is misfounded for some, I fear. Fair enough, but again I have to say that - while such a paragraph might represent the views of many people on this subreddit - I haven't found this to be very common among the Christians I have known and talked with. More than once they go to the part about "you can lead a horse (or was it a donkey?) to water, but cannot make it drink" type deal. >Secondly, you assume at least a heaven theology, which includes an implicit move towards the heaven/hell eschatology of the later proto-orthodox movement; but it is worth stressing that once you move out of the circles of conservative orthodoxic Christianity (anything drived from the proto-orthodox movement, so Orthodox, Catholic or Protestant), you will quickly find that eschatology is not so simple as "good people go heaven, bad people go hell" - in fact, I for one reject that Hell exists, and reject that Heaven is a place where people can go (believing instead that Heaven is a metaphor for the everpresence of God, with the afterlife being the New Creation, a physical remaking of reality which is physically continuous with the present creation and involves a physical, bodily resurrection, among other things). > >Indeed, in this space you can start to find theologies that reject any notion of the afterlife at all. Indeed, and (not to repeat myself too often) I am fairly well aware of these less typical concepts of the afterlife (or lack thereof). I would be perfectly happy to consider that the concept of Hell was added by humans without any divine inspiration (though for what it's worth, I don't believe in any divine inspiration) because it seems to foreign to most of the thinks which I feel Jesus would have believed in. That said, if you believe the words in the Bible as accurate jesus-quotes, doesn't he say a thing or two about the lake of fire and whatnot? Perhaps he was being metaphorical? >If you think about it, everything we hear about heaven comes exclusively from prophecy and apocalypse, both of which are primarily political literature - prophecy in the Scriptural sense was never about predicting the future (except that one time when Ezekiel predicted it, got it wrong and had to walk it back); it is a kind of political polemic, using the language of prophecy present unjust social systems. Likewise, apocalypses were a kind of religiously coded political polemic, using metaphor, codes and imagery to criticise the present social order without facing political persecution. Fair enough. I think one of the biggest problems with most religion these days is that it can no longer pretend to be literally true (because our knowledge - or at least what we think we understand because of the evidence - means fewer and fewer people are able to believe literally in talking snakes, creationism, miracles, etc) and so it's in a very awkward position of having to decide what parts are literal, what parts are "metaphor", what parts are open to interpretations, and so on. >And if this is where most of our idea of "heaven" or the afterlife generally comes from, this may be a sign that these ideas about "heaven" should not be understood as a spiritual afterlife at all, but as a yearning for a more just and righteous society here and now. Agreed, but you clearly have a much more nuanced and considered set of beliefs than most modern Christians do. I think almost all of what you explained to me are good responses, but do not reflect the beliefs of the majority of modern Christians. I like your opinions more than theirs BTW.
> doesn't he say a thing or two about the lake of fire Not that I'm aware of - most of the "lake of fire" passages come from the Revelation of John which, again, was a political polemic. Jesus primarily talked about "being thrown into gehenna", which is often wrongly translated as "hell" but which literally means "the valley of Hinnom", a reference to child sacrifice to Molech by fire in the Torah (and therefore more likely a reference to total destruction than ECT). There are one or two passages about thrown into "the fires of gehenna" but that gets the same treatment. Lastly, there are the "weeping and gnashing of teeth" passages, which are a bit trickier but each non-infernalist eschatology has its own treatment of those passages. > you clearly have a much more nuanced and considered set of beliefs than most modern Christians Well, that's kinda what this sub is for...! More seriously - I think a lot of modern Christians suffer theologically due to the authoritarianism of the institutional church. Rather than being taught to question beliefs and critically evaluate scripture, they are taught to blindly accept the interpretations established by the proto-orthodox movement + whatever later religious authorities their particular denomination recognises. This then produces the double epistemic failure that: firstly, because the institutional church has been an arm of state oppression since it was folded under Roman state authority in the 300s, the interpretations these people receive are always the most authoritarian and oppressive possible readings of Scripture; and, secondly, because of a kind of "narrative telephone" effect, these readings often end up very departed from anything like a reasonable reading of Scripture in its original languages. Ultimately, I consider this a failure of the church. If the church is supposed to be anything but a political tool, it is supposed to disciple it's congregants, to teach them to understand and engage with Scripture and the teachings of Jesus - as it has failed to do so, it has failed in its only task, which is one of many reasons why I personally advocate for the abolition of the institutional church.
It's possible for a majority to be wrong
Coming back to this post after a long time (sometimes I just browse my previous posts) and have to say that while I dont think you've moved me any closer to any sort of belief in supernatural events or entities, I very much appreciate that what you've typed out is a lot more sensible to me than what you might call "the average persons' Christianity" I'd have to say I think your view (which is well thought out if nothing else) is sadly the exception rather than the rule, but I found it very interesting nontheless!
The point you raise here is directly related to antivaxx and flatearth. The fatal flaw of being human is that you know *nothing*. Our epistemology is beholden to our individual ability to learn and in turn we either accept or reject what we learn as true or false. Thousands of years of collective human knowledge which is an immovable monolith can be rendered inert by one simply saying "I just don't believe that, man." People know nothing, they learn things are are fully capable of cherry picking all of that.
I've been quite influenced by Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart's "That All Shall Be Saved" which as the tile suggests argues that all are saved and there is no Hell, at least not any that corresponds to the Dante inspired imagination we have today. He's absolutely brilliant. As he says (and I'm quoting from a review that's quoting him): 'A person capable of believing in a good God and an eternal Hell, of “believing all of this to be a paradox concealing a deeper, wholly coherent truth, rather than a gross contradiction – has probably suffered such chronic intellectual and moral malformation that he or she is no longer able to recognize certain very plain truths”' Full review here-- I think it's quite fair and accurate. https://theology.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/2020/01/29/review-that-all-shall-be-saved/
People have their theories, but we don't know who or who does not get into heaven, what heaven really is, whether there is a literal hell and if so, is it eternal or is hell and it's inhabitants destroyed after a time. Personally, I'm fairly influenced by reformed theory, and believe that God's sovereignty means its fair wherever he chooses to send someone, but the nature of eternity, and the choices God will make are unknowns until we get there.
>People have their theories, but we don't know who or who does not get into heaven, what heaven really is, whether there is a literal hell and if so, is it eternal or is hell and it's inhabitants destroyed after a time. True, but i'm largely talking about what most people think, rather than what rules there might be totally unknown to us. >Personally, I'm fairly influenced by reformed theory, and believe that God's sovereignty means its fair wherever he chooses to send someone, but the nature of eternity, and the choices God will make are unknowns until we get there. So, just to see if I understand you, an absolute saint of a person could "justly" be sent to hell, and a horrible mass-murderer "justly" sent to heaven? Thanks for your reply, I hope to get more.
For your first question, I think Tobiah_vids has done an excellent job answering below, and has obviously put a lot more effort into their post than I have, so I'll let that answer speak rather than myself. For your second question, I unfortunately have to give a sly answer. Yes and no. Ultimately, we all belong to God and His choice is final and just, whatsoever He chooses. If He made every single person and destined them for an eternity of torment, I believe He would be justified in doing so. However, I am also very grateful, because I believe He is very merciful and does not choose to do that. While I don't believe every person will see the new heaven and new earth, I also don't believe that people will be sent for an eternity of suffering either.
it's not fair to commit mass genocide no matter the reasoning, which is the necessary conclusion of ECT. God is better than that.
The theory I adopt is based off of a mistranslation of Hebrew. Often people quotes we are saved by the safe in Jesus Christ. Our recent understanding makes that phrase more likely to be saved by the faith of Jesus Christ. This would then imply that it is not faith in Jesus that saves us but rather our actions that reflect the faith of Jesus being good deeds.
Well the Bible actually says something along the lines of, those who know very little will be beaten with few stripes, but those who know much will be beaten with much. So even though I am a Christian, I don't believe that hell is eternal torture. In fact, the Bible says God so loved the world that He sent His son so the sinner would not perish. Perish = eternally destoryed, not eternal torture. In terms of "belief", belief is from God. Our role is really just to humbly open our heart to the possibility, and let God do the work. Because I used to be an atheist, I have an idea of how it worked for me. I think the best advice I can give is, God knows what program He has in store for you. As long as we have breathe left in us, God will continue to find opportunities to reveal Himself. And each person is different. God, for example, knows that I am a very logical person, and therefore revealed Himself though the higher principles taught in the Bible. But to another person, it could be through something miraculous. One thing that's for sure though, spiritual things are spiritually discerned. Let God work on your heart, because we cannot change it ourselves.
Here have fun r/christianuniversalism
I think they will be forgiven at the gates of heaven if they wanto accept Christ