But what the survey did find was broad support for the notion of a judgment day, in which God divides the lost from the saved. While universal salvation in which all are united with God is popular in some clerical and academic circles, it is not the belief shared by most clergy in Scotland. The God of most of Scotland's ministers is one who divides."
When you look at the detail reported then it starts to be a bit murkier still. I found myself wondering just what questions were put and how I would respond. I can't say that I take some biblical imagery literally or that I identify with some ways of 'using' the notion of hell to browbeat others. I can conceive of some lines of questioning which would have me apparently not believing. Why? Because I hope for all to be saved but I take seriously the possibility that such will not be the case; Jesus's teaching seems to envisage at least the possibility that some, perhaps many will not want to be saved. I also am not convinced that the Biblical stuff actually teaches the whole eternal torment thing. It does seem to me that being seperated from God is to be seperated from Life and so eternal separation would mean dwindling away to nothing, perhaps with anguish ... but that's about as far as I can go. I really hope that 'seeing' God would wake people up, on the other hand, I do think that CSLewis was onto something in The Great Divorce in the portrayal of the psychology of unrepentance.
Worth reading The Mystery of Salvation which broadly commends the kind of position I take.
EducationGuardian.co.uk | Research | St Andrews researcher questions belief in hell: Filed in: Christian, belief, hell, judgement
1 comment:
There's a lot of debate about this in evangelical circles at the mo. So a lot of books recently published putting different views....
I find it hard to think of God really getting off on the neverending torment scene. The only way this would work would be either for human 'souls' to be immortal in such a way as to be impervious to God deconstructing them, or for God to be hoping that they'd change. Either eventuality sits ill with other biblical considerations. So that forces the question back on us: is the interpretation that seemed to point to neverending torment correct. It seems to me there are a lot of questions about that. From the meaning of 'eternal', to what we are supposed to understand about 'the second death' if not extinction in 'eternity', to the nature of human personhood and the possibility of anything persisting in opposition to God when God is the ground of existence.
Perhaps I should look out for more links to expand on this stuff.
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