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Are you one if those that reject Christianity because of the doctrine of hell?
Be careful. Christianity is an interpretation of scripture and based on only a dozen or so critical believes that are universally followed by all Christians. These believes, which are required for salvation and eternal life, are not debated much. I call them believes with "salvific value". The doctrine of hell is not necessarily such a universal or important believe at all. And indeed the interpretation of hell as being eternal conscious torment is not clearly taught in the bible.
But before we discuss the bible's teaching about hell allow me to summarize the important believes of Christianity. They are:- There is one God - He has three persons or centers of consciousness: Father, Son & Holy Spirit- God is morally perfect and have existed eternally in moral perfection and infinite love- Mankind has fallen into sin - no one is morally perfect- God's morally perfect nature (or "righteousness") prevents Him from sharing a future eternal existence with morally imperfect beings- But God is also a being with "infinite love" that requires Him to forgive and share eternal life with us. - This caused a dilemma which He resolved as follows- God became man through the person of the Son. This was accomplished by being the "spirit" or "soul" of the person Jesus of Nazareth even from before birth (think of the movie Avatar)- Jesus was therefor truly God (morally perfect and able to do miracles) and truly man (got tired and underwent growth)- while being crucified, Jesus, the "Son of Man", having lived a morally perfect life, suffered the full and complete justice of God on our behalf as total and complete payment of all our immorality or "sin" - To show that His claims of being God was true Jesus was raised from the dead whereafter He appeared to several individuals and groups of people- Some of these people were willing to die for the belief that they met the risen Christ- Eternal life is promised to everyone who do not reject this gift of redemption. Those who recognize and have remorse of their sins and who then believe in Christ and His eternal gift of sacrifice for our redemption- true believe will cause us to change - to be renewed through the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives
These believes are universal within all Christian denominations and is roughly what CS Lewis called the believes of "mere Christianity".
Now to reject Christianity on some denominations' interpretation of the creation narrative, about Noah's flood, even about biblical inerrancy or the doctrine of hell would be a grave mistake. Why? Because they are not central and/or salvific issues.
Let's look now at the doctrine of hell. Most of Christianity (I count myself in that group) always believed that hell is eternal self inflicted conscious separation and therefore eternal conscious torment. Yet is this what the bible clearly teaches? What if Christianity always misinterpreted the teaching of hell? And what if you based your rejection of Christianity on a mistaken interpretation of this "side issue"? A "side issue" not in the sense of being unimportant or uninteresting, but in the sense that a mistaken believe about the doctrine of hell has no salvific implication (no one goes to hell because they didn't understand what the bible taught about hell!). Therefore if you reject Christianity because you cannot see how a just God could eternally allow conscious torment, then you might be in for a surprise on the other side of the grave. You might find that eternal torment is not what awaits the ones who rejected Christ. Rather that you would have to endure the fires of hell for some time and then miss out eternally on the life that awaits those that did not reject God's gift.
Let's briefly examine the annihilationism view.
John 3:16 reads "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." The word "perish" stands opposite to "eternal life". Maybe the word perish means "perish" and not "eternal conscious torment" - the proponents of this view asks. And one has to agree that they might have a point.
This is the annihilationism view: Hell exists. Gnashing of teeth exists. The unrighteous will indeed be raised from the dead together with the righteous to be judged and thrown in the fire of hell. But only for a time and punishment that fit their sins. Torment will happen. It may be torment for days, years, decades, centuries. Who knows. But the punishment or torment will fit the crime. And eventually the reprobate is destroyed. This is not a capitulation to critics of the Christian faith, they insist. This is merely a direct interpretation of scripture. And indeed there seems to be merit in their claim that there are more than 100 verses consistent with this view and only a handful consistent with the eternal torment view. And they even have answers for those...
You see annihilationism basically affirm that we should read the words in their literal meaning. "Destroy, destruction, perish, death" must be read as just that and not as "eternal conscious torment". And we should regard "everlasting destruction" as a single irreversible event - similar to "everlasting judgement". The undying worm and unquenchable fire exist to eternity - yes. But its use is finite and focused on a single event of destruction, not eternally they say. The smoke rise forever indeed, but scripture does not say souls exist consciously and eternally in the fire. In total between 100 and 264 biblical references are cited by supporters of annihilationism while they admit to 1 to 5 "problem texts", but for which they do have quite convincing answers.[1]
Please do not misunderstand. The article is not to defend annihilationism. I am personally quite undecided. Rather it is to warn: Do not reject Christianity because of "side issues"! Issues that are debatable and extremely important, but do not have salvific value. In the end Christianity is the believe that Jesus was God and gave us a gift of salvation that leads to eternal life if we do not reject this. If this is truly accepted so that it makes a change in our lives through the Holy Spirit, then we are promised eternal life. The rest is interesting and even very important, but not central and not a reason to reject Christianity.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PMGvBOYa0k4
[1] To read the case for and against annihilationism click below and jump to the "Justification" sectionhttp://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annihilationism.
Alternatively read more about the annihilationism here: http://reknew.org/2008/01/the-case-for-annihilationism/.
Be careful. Christianity is an interpretation of scripture and based on only a dozen or so critical believes that are universally followed by all Christians. These believes, which are required for salvation and eternal life, are not debated much. I call them believes with "salvific value". The doctrine of hell is not necessarily such a universal or important believe at all. And indeed the interpretation of hell as being eternal conscious torment is not clearly taught in the bible.
But before we discuss the bible's teaching about hell allow me to summarize the important believes of Christianity. They are:- There is one God - He has three persons or centers of consciousness: Father, Son & Holy Spirit- God is morally perfect and have existed eternally in moral perfection and infinite love- Mankind has fallen into sin - no one is morally perfect- God's morally perfect nature (or "righteousness") prevents Him from sharing a future eternal existence with morally imperfect beings- But God is also a being with "infinite love" that requires Him to forgive and share eternal life with us. - This caused a dilemma which He resolved as follows- God became man through the person of the Son. This was accomplished by being the "spirit" or "soul" of the person Jesus of Nazareth even from before birth (think of the movie Avatar)- Jesus was therefor truly God (morally perfect and able to do miracles) and truly man (got tired and underwent growth)- while being crucified, Jesus, the "Son of Man", having lived a morally perfect life, suffered the full and complete justice of God on our behalf as total and complete payment of all our immorality or "sin" - To show that His claims of being God was true Jesus was raised from the dead whereafter He appeared to several individuals and groups of people- Some of these people were willing to die for the belief that they met the risen Christ- Eternal life is promised to everyone who do not reject this gift of redemption. Those who recognize and have remorse of their sins and who then believe in Christ and His eternal gift of sacrifice for our redemption- true believe will cause us to change - to be renewed through the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives
These believes are universal within all Christian denominations and is roughly what CS Lewis called the believes of "mere Christianity".
Now to reject Christianity on some denominations' interpretation of the creation narrative, about Noah's flood, even about biblical inerrancy or the doctrine of hell would be a grave mistake. Why? Because they are not central and/or salvific issues.
Let's look now at the doctrine of hell. Most of Christianity (I count myself in that group) always believed that hell is eternal self inflicted conscious separation and therefore eternal conscious torment. Yet is this what the bible clearly teaches? What if Christianity always misinterpreted the teaching of hell? And what if you based your rejection of Christianity on a mistaken interpretation of this "side issue"? A "side issue" not in the sense of being unimportant or uninteresting, but in the sense that a mistaken believe about the doctrine of hell has no salvific implication (no one goes to hell because they didn't understand what the bible taught about hell!). Therefore if you reject Christianity because you cannot see how a just God could eternally allow conscious torment, then you might be in for a surprise on the other side of the grave. You might find that eternal torment is not what awaits the ones who rejected Christ. Rather that you would have to endure the fires of hell for some time and then miss out eternally on the life that awaits those that did not reject God's gift.
Let's briefly examine the annihilationism view.
John 3:16 reads "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." The word "perish" stands opposite to "eternal life". Maybe the word perish means "perish" and not "eternal conscious torment" - the proponents of this view asks. And one has to agree that they might have a point.
This is the annihilationism view: Hell exists. Gnashing of teeth exists. The unrighteous will indeed be raised from the dead together with the righteous to be judged and thrown in the fire of hell. But only for a time and punishment that fit their sins. Torment will happen. It may be torment for days, years, decades, centuries. Who knows. But the punishment or torment will fit the crime. And eventually the reprobate is destroyed. This is not a capitulation to critics of the Christian faith, they insist. This is merely a direct interpretation of scripture. And indeed there seems to be merit in their claim that there are more than 100 verses consistent with this view and only a handful consistent with the eternal torment view. And they even have answers for those...
You see annihilationism basically affirm that we should read the words in their literal meaning. "Destroy, destruction, perish, death" must be read as just that and not as "eternal conscious torment". And we should regard "everlasting destruction" as a single irreversible event - similar to "everlasting judgement". The undying worm and unquenchable fire exist to eternity - yes. But its use is finite and focused on a single event of destruction, not eternally they say. The smoke rise forever indeed, but scripture does not say souls exist consciously and eternally in the fire. In total between 100 and 264 biblical references are cited by supporters of annihilationism while they admit to 1 to 5 "problem texts", but for which they do have quite convincing answers.[1]
Please do not misunderstand. The article is not to defend annihilationism. I am personally quite undecided. Rather it is to warn: Do not reject Christianity because of "side issues"! Issues that are debatable and extremely important, but do not have salvific value. In the end Christianity is the believe that Jesus was God and gave us a gift of salvation that leads to eternal life if we do not reject this. If this is truly accepted so that it makes a change in our lives through the Holy Spirit, then we are promised eternal life. The rest is interesting and even very important, but not central and not a reason to reject Christianity.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PMGvBOYa0k4
[1] To read the case for and against annihilationism click below and jump to the "Justification" sectionhttp://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annihilationism.
Alternatively read more about the annihilationism here: http://reknew.org/2008/01/the-case-for-annihilationism/.
