And yes, God hardens your heart by allowing you to freely choose to do evil, instead of by force stopping you from choosing evil.

"Extend": It doesnt matter, living after death is still an extension of this failed life and existence right? Or do you suggest that there is no life after death?

It doesnt matter, living after death is still an extension of this failed life and existence right? — Beebert

Life after death doesn't necessarily mean it is like this life, especially if it's not a life in TIME.

I am not given an "oppurtunity" to play a part in God's game. I am FORCED to or else eternal hell awaits. Yes I read your answers on the bible texts in question and unfortunately they didnt convince me.Except perhaps if you then admit that the New Testament writers were just exceptionally bad and ungifted writers who couldnt make things clear and properly explain what they actually meant?

I am not given an "oppurtunity" to play a part in God's game. — Beebert

No, you are honestly given the opportunity to do something good. Going to hell is throwing it away.

Yes I read your answers on the bible texts in question and unfortunately they didnt convince me. — Beebert

Why not? You keep telling me about the NT writers, that doesn't matter. The OT and NT were never meant to be stand-alone - they need to be read and understood through the lens of Apostolic Tradition.

Time=movement basically. Is there no movement in eternity? By your definition if eternity, then what suggests that there will not be an end to the punishment of the wicked? If eternal punishment just means timeless punishment, or punishment outside of time, then Perhaps it will not be without end?

Is there no movement in eternity? By your definition if eternity, then what suggests that there will not be an end to the punishment of the wicked? If eternal punishment just means timeless punishment, or punishment outside of time, then Perhaps it will not be without end? — Beebert

I can't answer your questions. We'll have to wait and see. Clearly talk of "end" or "beginning" is pointless with regards to eternity.

"Why not? You keep telling me about the NT writers, that doesn't matter. The OT and NT were never meant to be stand-alone - they need to be read and understood through the lens of Apostolic Tradition."

I told you Why in the same post. Because the writers of the New Testament are extremely ungifted writers if what you claim about its meaning is true. Though you might absolutely be right. It is quite obvious that the writers of the New Testament werent exactly literary geniuses or geniuses of prose and poetry. Just read the Book of revelation. It really is a disgusting little piece of literature as far as beauty of writing is concerned. Its moral message isnt any better.

So in a sense, since God is in eternity and outside of time, there was no beginning of creation really?

So in a sense, since God is in eternity and outside of time, there was no beginning of creation really? — Beebert

From God's perspective yes. From your perspective no.

Though that is problematic. God both is in Eternity and isn't in Eternity.

Just read the Book of revelation. It really is a disgusting little piece of literature as far as beauty of writing is concerned. Its moral message isnt any better. — Beebert

I think the message of Revelation is great. The wicked will be destroyed, what's bad about that?! If a criminal is arrested and put in jail to rot there, will you cry or rejoice? I would rejoice, because we've been freed of an evil man who was harming us!

When I call the New Testament ungifted, what I mean is basically that they seem incapable of delivering a clear message. But perhaps being clear didnt matter to them.

When I call the New Testament ungifted, what I mean is basically that they seem incapable of delivering a clear message. But perhaps being clear didnt matter to them. — Beebert

It was exceedingly clear to people who were familiar with Tradition. The NT - such as Paul's letters - were given to communities which were ALREADY Christian. How did they become Christian? By the oral teachings of the Apostolic Tradition. The writings they received were meant only as further guidance, to be interpreted in the light of Tradition. It is through Tradition that they first became Christians, not through reading Paul's letters. So it may be difficult for you to interpret because you don't understand the metaphors that are used, but those who have the support of Tradition do.

If a criminal is in jail to rot, I would most often cry(Which Silouan would too obviously) but sometimes in exceptional cases rejoice. So it is all about being free from harm? Is christianity nothing but some sort of a transcendental and metaphysical utilitarianism? Btw, John doesnt just want them destroyed, he wants them to be tormented forever and ever. And ever. Without end. Only then he can enjoy his paradise.

Btw, John doesnt just want them destroyed, he wants them to be tormented forever and ever. And ever. Without end. Only then he can enjoy his paradise. — Beebert

That's not what John says.

If a criminal is in jail to rot, I would most often cry(Which Silouan would too obviously) but sometimes in exceptional cases rejoice. — Beebert

You have a very strange morality then. Clearly getting rid of evil is a good thing, not a bad thing. Would you rather that the criminal torment his innocent victims?! :s

Silouan would never cry about an unrepentant criminal. In a sense he would cry - in that the poor criminal is so deluded and has so ruined his soul - but in another sense he would rejoice, for a great evil was exterminated!

So to articulate better, Silouan would cry about the fact that he is a criminal, but would rejoice about the fact that he's thrown in jail and prevented from harming others.

I understand concerning tradition. It just seems to me that God could communicate a little more clearly than by sending his son to die in a remote part of the middle east among a bunch of superstitious and illiterate people 2000 years ago. And then Communicating these great news to the rest of us by letting Paul have an epileptic seizure in which he receives the whole gospel in a vision. And then time goes on and Rome takes over it all and proclaims the Good news by threatening people with a Dante's vision of hell and burning heretics and wirtches on the stake, which eventually after approximately 400 years of tyranny results in a reformation where a mean Little peasant is angry and wants to Change it all. So he Changes the whole idea of Faith and salvation basically which eventually results in us having 30 000-40 000 different denominations of christianity. And during all this time God and his truth has been hiding itself in the east! Doesnt this sound a bit ironic?

I understand concerning tradition. It just seems to me that God could communicate a little more clearly than by sending his son to die in a remote part of the middle east among a bunch of superstitious and illiterate people 2000 years ago. And then Communicating these great news to the rest of us by starting to letting Paul have an epileptic seizure where he receives the whole gospel in a vision. And then time goes on and Rome takes over it all and proclaims the Good news by threatening people with a Dante's vision of hell and burning heretics and wirtches on the stake, which eventually after approximately 400 years of tyranny results in a reformation where a mean Little peasant is angry and wants to Change it all. So he Changes the whole idea of Faith and salvation basically which eventuellt results in us having 30 000-40 000 different denominations of christianity. And during all this time God and his truth has been hiding itself in the east! Doesnt this sound a bit ironic? — Beebert

Nope. Christianity has been very successful, so clearly that "remote" part of the Middle East wasn't so remote at all. It's the world's largest religion, and has spread today in all corners of the world - and it's spreading at a super-fast rate in the developing world.

Yes but you said before that catholicism isnt christianity. Yet 1.2 billion of all Christians are catholics.

Yes but you said before that catholicism isnt christianity. Yet 1.2 billion of all Christians are catholics. — Beebert

No I didn't say that. I said it's not the deepest and most authentic form of Christianity, not that it's not Christianity. Catholics are going to Heaven.

"You have a very strange morality then. Clearly getting rid of evil is a good thing, not a bad thing. Would you rather that the criminal torment his innocent victims?"

Yes, but I wouldnt cry over a crimimal going to hell, I would cry over the true reason why People put him in jail: In order for him to rot. And the same is the problem with Christian morality and eschatology. Their enemies arent just put in jail in order to realize their wrong doings and regret them and then be rehabilitated. No, they are supposed to rot.

"That's not what John says."

Oh it seems so to me

In order for him to rot — Beebert

That's what he deserves no? Why would he deserve anything better?

"Nope. Christianity has been very successful, so clearly that "remote" part of the Middle East wasn't so remote at all. It's the world's largest religion, and has spread today in all corners of the world - and it's spreading at a super-fast rate in the developing world."

Oh it was remote. So remote that all those hideous things had to happen in western Europe that I mentioned. BTW, since when did amount of members mean success? Was the inquisition a success?

And eternal suffering is what we all deserve for being Born in to God's failed mess of creation without our saying in the matter.

If I live a life alone in the Woods from the age of 0 to 40 and never injure Another man, and then I die at that age without believing in God and Christ, I am going to hell right? So I deserve to rot just because I dont accept God's creation for example?

we can then ask why there is the privation of the good, as opposed to just the good. — Thorongil

Why can't there be a mountain range with no valleys? That would be just great - everything would be 'up', there would be no 'down'. The other great advantage is, you couldn't fall off anything.

I'll see your D.B Hart, and raise you a Horkheimer:

In traditional theology and metaphysics, the natural was largely conceived as the evil, and the spiritual or supernatural as the good. In popular Darwinism, the good is the well-adapted, and the value of that to which the organism adapts itself is unquestioned or is measured only in terms of further adaptation. However, being well adapted to one’s surroundings is tantamount to being capable of coping successfully with them, of mastering the forces that beset one. Thus the theoretical denial of the spirit’s antagonism to nature – even as implied in the doctrine of interrelation between the various forms of organic life, including man – frequently amounts in practice to subscribing to the principle of man’s continuous and thoroughgoing domination of nature. Regarding reason as a natural organ does not divest it of the trend to domination or invest it with greater potentialities for reconciliation. On the contrary, the abdication of the spirit in popular Darwinism entails the rejection of any elements of the mind that transcend the function of adaptation and consequently are not instruments of self-preservation. Reason disavows its own primacy and professes to be a mere servant of natural selection. On the surface, this new empirical reason seems more humble toward nature than the reason of the metaphysical tradition. Actually, however, it is arrogant, practical mind riding roughshod over the ‘useless spiritual,’ and dismissing any view of nature in which the latter is taken to be more than a stimulus to human activity. The effects of this view are not confined to modern philosophy.

Eclipse of Reason

This perhaps more than anything else forms the greatest barrier to my possible conversion. — Thorongil

What 'religion' tells you, is that 'the world' is illusory. Not 'merely' illusory, but deeply and profoundly illusory, an illusion to which we have a visceral tie and in which we're deeply invested. Nowadays, man has put nature in the place of the holy, and worships and reveres the material universe, and then is uncomprehending and indignant when time devours and destroys everything he holds dear.

BTW, since when did amount of members mean success? — Beebert

That's certainly part of the criteria of success. If Christianity is true, and God communicates through Christianity, then presumably Christianity couldn't be a small religion followed by very few people, but would rather reach out to a large number of people, and that's exactly what we see today.

Was the inquisition a success? — Beebert

No, because it diminished the number of Christians, amongst other things.

If I live a life alone in the Woods from the age of 0 to 40 and never injure Another man, and then I die at that age without believing in God and Christ, I am going to hell right? — Beebert

I don't know, I'd tend to believe you're more likely to go to heaven to be honest.

So only those who know about Christ and reject him anyway goes to hell?

So only those who know about Christ and reject him anyway goes to hell? — Beebert

It's hard to say, we're not given any kind of certain knowledge about who achieves salvation and who doesn't. There's a gentile for example talked about in Scripture called Cornelius, and he was called righteous and pleasing to God before he heard about Christ.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_Christian

There are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand. There are people in other religions who are being led by God's secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it. For example, a Buddhist of good will may be led to concentrate more and more on the Buddhist teaching about mercy and to leave in the background (though he might still say he believed) the Buddhist teaching on certain other points
— C.S. Lewis

Anonymous Christianity means that a person lives in the grace of God and attains salvation outside of explicitly constituted Christianity — Let us say, a Buddhist monk — who, because he follows his conscience, attains salvation and lives in the grace of God; of him I must say that he is an anonymous Christian; if not, I would have to presuppose that there is a genuine path to salvation that really attains that goal, but that simply has nothing to do with Jesus Christ. But I cannot do that. And so, if I hold if everyone depends upon Jesus Christ for salvation, and if at the same time I hold that many live in the world who have not expressly recognized Jesus Christ, then there remains in my opinion nothing else but to take up this postulate of an anonymous Christianity.
— Karl Rahner

Nevertheless, God, who desires to call all peoples to himself in Christ and to communicate to them the fullness of his revelation and love, "does not fail to make himself present in many ways, not only to individuals, but also to entire peoples through their spiritual riches, of which their religions are the main and essential expression even when they contain ‘gaps, insufficiencies and errors'". Therefore, the sacred books of other religions, which in actual fact direct and nourish the existence of their followers, receive from the mystery of Christ the elements of goodness and grace which they contain.
— Pope Benedict XVI

If someone who lives in the midst of Christianity enters, with a knowledge of the true idea of God, the house of the true God, and prays, but prays in untruth, and if someone lives in an idolatrous land but prays with all passion of infinity, although his eyes are resting upon the image of an idol – where, then, is there more truth? The one prays in truth to God although he is worshipping an idol; the other prays in untruth to the true God and is therefore in truth worshipping an idol.
— Kierkegaard