Recently I received this extended comment on my post 'Being Good Part 2':
Someone who isn't a Christian will not 'struggle' with sin. They'll just do it, without caring what God thinks.
Does this in some ways mean that they are not to blame for this sin, and thus can incur God's forgiveness, as it is not a struggle, since they in effect have nothing to struggle against?
I am having many, many problems with "No-one comes to the Father except through Me" at the moment, and I think this is related.
This, to me, implies that knowledge and acceptance of Jesus is a prerequisite to salvation. This brings up the problem, however, of those who do not 'know' (I find know very limiting in English!- it's the French distinction that I need!) Jesus being necessarily 'damned', although for want of a better word, as I understand that this should not be passive, but active, as in someways damning is done to oneself with God. In my mind there are three groups of people that this affects: those pre-incarnation; those who, because of remoteness have no access; and those who are not exposed in the correct way to the Gospel (I think Gandhi is the best example, being turned away from a church). for the first group, I can see that this is filled by an "implicit" belief in Jesus through faith. The second and third groups, however, seem to be excluded from Salvation because of the exactness of this passage - "no-one".
I cannot reconcile this with my faith!
Hope you can convince me otherwise!
Loads of good questions raised here! And I think they are indeed closely related.
The book of Romans is a good place to turn to here. Romans 1 argues that all men are accountable for their rejection of God: 'For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities- His eternal power and divine nature- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.' (v20) Paul argues that 'Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin' (Romans 3:9)- the Jews, because they had God's law and knew what was right and wrong and yet failed to obey; the Gentiles, because God's glory is evident through creation and they 'suppressed the truth by their wickedness' (Romans 1:18). Quoting Psalm 5, Paul writes 'There is no-one righteous, not even one' (Romans 3:10). And because God is holy and just He cannot tolerate sin. He must punish it because it would go against His nature to ignore it.
But God has made a way for us to be seen as righteous in His sight, through sending Jesus. With Jesus' sacrificial death on the cross, if we trust in Him, we can come before God and God will see Christ's perfection, not our sin. This is what Paul means when he says 'all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in His blood. He did this to demonstrate His justice, because in His forbearance He had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished- He did it to demonstrate His justice at the present time, so as to be just and the One who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.' (Romans 3:23-26)
Now there are still people out there who have never heard the good news about what Jesus has done. God will judge them and I cannot say what He will say to them. I do know that He is perfectly just, more just than our puny human souls can fathom or imagine. Jesus says that 'And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.' (Matthew 24:14) This means that God will wait until all people groups have been reached with the gospel before the Final Judgement. It also says that 'The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance' (2 Peter 3:9). The reason Jesus hasn't yet returned is because God wants more people to be saved. So we can safely trust that God is not rejoicing in the fact that people don't know the gospel. He desires more people to come to believe in Him. That is why it is so important for Christians to tell others about the good news of Jesus, and support mission work overseas too.
But on the 'pre-Incarnation' point, Jesus Himself made it clear that His death paid for sins past, present and future. He spoke of Abraham as alive, rebuking the Sadduccees' dismissal of the idea of resurrection of the dead. (Matthew 22:32) The only way Abraham could be with God was through Jesus' redemption for him on the cross. The writer of Hebrews also talks about the great people of faith in the Old Testament. They were saved because of their faith that God would justify them... which would happen on the cross in the future.
I hope that helps slightly. Keep seeking and you will find! Although perhaps sometimes we should not simply seek answers to our questions, but a peace of trusting that God knows what's best and accepting that sometimes we don't understand everything. Thank you for your comments!
7 comments:
[EDIT: Fixing link!]
Here was my take on the issue:
http://www.jamiefrost.co.uk/page.php?page=3&year=2009&month=2&day=22&display=1#sinandjudgementI am still convinced (especially with posts such as this) that the vast majority of Christians do not believe in a tangible hell, instead resorting to impassioned 'theologically correct' responses propelled by simply regurgitating scripture.
Typo: by 'impassioned' I actually meant 'indifferent', i.e. quite the opposite!
Jamie, would you rather have Christians as emotional wrecks?
Here is an email I received in response to these comments:
Dear Jamie
As the person who made the comment, I feel that I should make a response to your assertion that "the vast majority of Christians do not believe in a tangible hell".
I think that this is true, but not because the vast majority of Christians don't believe in Hell. If hell were tangible we would understand it, which we do not. We might understand what it isn't - that is under the grace of God, but even that brings about problems, as ultimately God is omnipotent. We do not understand hell to be tangible, but we can gain glimpses of what it might be like.
Similarly, I might draw your attention to such theories as "the empty hell theory" which is not an 'indifferent 'theologically correct'' response, but actually a well considered logical response - humans being constrained by logic and faith must resort to these arguments. Yes, this is going to bring about difference of opinion and is not concrete, but who said Christianity was 'concrete'?
I also take some issue with your assertion that "Christianity requires us to have an overtly negative view of humanity and ourselves. Part of salvation is the recognition of the need for mercy and that we deserve nothing but eternal punishment". I would like to attack this problem in two ways: firstly what is wrong with humility? Secondly we do not 'deserve nothing but eternal punishment' in the same way that a child does not deserve to spend the rest of their life on a naughty step to make a point. This may seem like pre-empting God, which is certainly not what my goal is, but if we accept the premise, as Christians do, that God is our Father and Merciful, we may not deserve forgiveness, but we must remain hopeful of forgiveness - Christianity really asserts that we should acknowledge that we are not perfect - that is not too difficult - and that the God of our faith is merciful, as He has revealed himself. Consider the Sacrament of Penance (sorry, I am of a Roman persuasion - its position as a Sacrament is not certain, but as a practice it is pretty universal). This exists to reconcile humans with God in any way we can. That we are able to do anything of the sort is certainly not demeaning of the Christian!
I have many problems with the nature of Hell, which I would like to pursue further, but that does not mean that Hell doesn't exist. In my opinion, and my faith, the bible points to an 'empty hell' but that does not mean that it might not be empty - I don't know, but I cannot see that there is any sin that God would not reconcile given that we do not understand enough, much like the little child who sees nothing wrong in going near a fire - yes, we may get burnt, despite God's intention and benevolence, but eventually we will learn and be reconciled.
I hope that I have convinced you that 'theologically correct' arguments come not only from regurgitating scripture, but that Theology from studying scripture leads towards certain conclusions, that are debatable, but are certainly not loose or liberal, necessarily. Once again, thank you Sophie for the informative blog!
In response to the comments of the email, I think it's worth saying that Jesus presented hell as occupied rather than empty. He always spoke of it as a place where there is 'weeping and gnashing of teeth'(Mt 13:42 to name one reference)- pretty hard if no one is there.
The commenter is totally right in saying there is no sin God cannot forgive, but the sinner has to ASK for forgiveness. If someone dies having gone through life refusing to acknowledge God, to accept that they are a sinner and they need His forgiveness, then they cannot just be forgiven. Jesus' blood was shed at a HUGE cost, and all through the New Testament the point is made that for Jesus' sacrifice to mean anything, we have to believe in it, and we have to respond to it.
'if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.' Romans 10:9
"I think that this is true, but not because the vast majority of Christians don't believe in Hell. If hell were tangible we would understand it, which we do not. We might understand what it isn't - that is under the grace of God, but even that brings about problems, as ultimately God is omnipotent. We do not understand hell to be tangible, but we can gain glimpses of what it might be like."The Bible is actually very graphic on hell, and although no Christian can claim to have a 'full understanding' of it, the Bible says enough that a Christian should be much more emotionally evoked by it than they evidently are. Similarly, one does not need to have been to Auschwitz to have some appreciation of its horror, or to be appalled by the concept of someone been there.
"Similarly, I might draw your attention to such theories as "the empty hell theory" which is not an 'indifferent 'theologically correct'' response, but actually a well considered logical response - humans being constrained by logic and faith must resort to these arguments."In should initially say that the reason I responded to Sophie's article was because I believed she was trying to hammer out an attempt for someone to think for themselves, or to put it in other words, that a sincere response would be bludgeoned by Bible passages and an emotionally detached attitude. I'm not sure how much of my article you read, but if you read my testimony, you may identify with some of the parts, yet in some ways my attitude was different. My response to 'problematic issues' bore more similarity to Sophie's - when challenged by such a problem, to rally all the Bible verses on such a topic, and fashion my mindset around these verses, while (subconciously) suppressing again contradicting rationalism. Another policy was to just sweep the issue under the carpet in a fideistic fashion. I eventually realised while on the last New Word Alive that my views on hell for example had become desensitised, that by allowing the Bible and Christian speakers to tell me how to think, I may have been elegant and correct in my explanations of hell to others in my evangelism, but that deep down it wasn't a theology that made any sense to me; I just believed it made sense to me. It's this two-tiered attitude that is as clear to me now in others than it was when I first realised it.
To take another example, Christians love the description of Moses as a great 'man of faith' (Hebrews 11:23 onwards). Yet in Numbers 31:13-18, he instructs the officers of his army to kill all the boys and women in Peor, with the exception of keeping the virgins to use as sex slaves. If this kind of thing happened today, Christians would be mortified. Yet given its place in the Bible, Christians manage to remain 'emotionally detached' from it, or simply just ignore such verses. I'm glad you are thinking clearly about the issue, and my motivation for posting is not to bate Christians (as goes the stereotype), but that I have a sincere desire for people to think in an independent and rational way.
As for your specific response, I draw your attention to part of my article:
"When a Christian encounters a problematic passage or concept in the Bible, there is generally one of two dichotomous responses:
1. To fit their observations and reasoning around the Bible: One prominent example is the (non-evolutionary) creationist interpretation of science by many Christians. But this attitude is pervasive, sometimes subtly, throughout the whole of the Christian faith.
2. To try and fit (and often distort) the Bible around our observations: Difficult passages are frequently explained away by pertaining to their metaphorical nature, putting heavy emphasis on their context. Sometimes this is legitimate, but other times passages are clearly ‘watered down’, or distorted beyond what the clear intended meaning permits."I mean this in the kindest possible way, but do you think that the 'empty hell' theory possibly suffers from (2)? While in one sense I applaud attempts to consider empirical evidence or logic when desparately trying to grapple the Bible's issues, I think a much more honest (and easier) approach is to simple not consider the Bible as the inerrant word of god. As soon as one does, the multitude of contradictions, rhetoric, other inconsistencies and archaic sentiments suddenly make a lot more sense.
"Yes, this is going to bring about difference of opinion and is not concrete, but who said Christianity was 'concrete'?"This was actually another problem concerning Christianity for me; the issue of god granting 'divine wisdom', as promised in numerous verses in the Bible (e.g. James 1). You can read Section 5 of my article if you want to know more.
"I also take some issue with your assertion that "Christianity requires us to have an overtly negative view of humanity and ourselves. Part of salvation is the recognition of the need for mercy and that we deserve nothing but eternal punishment". I would like to attack this problem in two ways: firstly what is wrong with humility?"Nothing, and I make no claims that humanity is 'perfect', more that it is not overtly evil as the Bible describes, and not deserving of eternal torment, for reasons I set out.
"Secondly we do not 'deserve nothing but eternal punishment' in the same way that a child does not deserve to spend the rest of their life on a naughty step to make a point. This may seem like pre-empting God, which is certainly not what my goal is, but if we accept the premise, as Christians do, that God is our Father and Merciful, we may not deserve forgiveness, but we must remain hopeful of forgiveness - Christianity really asserts that we should acknowledge that we are not perfect - that is not too difficult - and that the God of our faith is merciful, as He has revealed himself. Consider the Sacrament of Penance (sorry, I am of a Roman persuasion - its position as a Sacrament is not certain, but as a practice it is pretty universal). This exists to reconcile humans with God in any way we can. That we are able to do anything of the sort is certainly not demeaning of the Christian!"6 months ago when I was an evangelical protestant, I would have disagreed with this, so there's not really much I can comment on. I would however make the point that many Christians (although not necessarily yourself) use the 'mercy of god' to exaggerate the sense of the uncertainty of the eternal destination of their heathen friends, thereby watering down their emotional reaction.
"I hope that I have convinced you that 'theologically correct' arguments come not only from regurgitating scripture, but that Theology from studying scripture leads towards certain conclusions, that are debatable, but are certainly not loose or liberal, necessarily. Once again, thank you Sophie for the informative blog!"Once again, I would not accuse you of such a mentality. I am of course more than happy to discuss any issues you would like further, and my email is jamie.frost@worc.ox.ac.uk if you don't wish to use an intermediary. Your comments are a refreshing alternative to merely having Gospel verses thrown at me or just being told I need to know Jesus and receive the Holy Spirit (while having my arguments or counter-arguments ignored).
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