I’ve run into a lot of voices, from old-line Christians to liberal Christians, to tired and wounded semi-Christians to agnostics who all have a strong reaction to the idea of damnation.
As a new and thoughtful contribution to this continuing discussion I commend Keith Goodwin’s blog here.
http://keithgoodwin.wordpress.com/2008/12/20/salvation-and-damnation/#comments
Filed under ALL, Christianity, Heaven and hell, Theology
Browsing through the blogs, I found a very interesting blog from “St. Disillusion” on “Christianity is a Travesty”, with a post here:
I am so taken with the blog and the good saints comments, even more his questions, that I posted a rather extensive response to his remarks about the purpose of life. Since I have been mulling these ideas over for a post here, I decided to break protocol and cross post my own response, although I very much encourage you to go visit with Saint D. I expect to return often.
For the record, I thing God is greatly pleased when we ask such questions in the same spirit with which a child, having been wounded or undone by the actions of a parent, never less comes to that parent in faith to make his complaint. Think the book of Job.
Below is my response, which I hope to flesh out almost as a theme to these pages.
Filed under ALL, Christianity, Marriage, Theology
As I have mentioned before, as a funeral director, I attend a lot of funerals, and probably spend more time than most people thinking about death. For the past few weeks, I’ve had a theme in mind that seems of some use, and yesterday, I finally said it at the conclusion of a service for an elderly lady. There were many children, grandchildren and great grandchildren gathered, and many stories from their early years. This is what I had to say.
As I’ve listened to the stories from your years with your mother, your grandmother, and the great grandmother of these little ones, I’ve been thinking of how God has been preparing us for this day since we were just babies. From the first time we played “Peek-a-boo” with our mother, we learned that when we could not see her face, she was still there. You can still see it in the face of your children, the anxiety when your face is hidden, and the delight when you reappear. We learn that what we see does not define the whole of reality, that there is more to reality than what we see.
And then we have our first sleepover away from home. That can be scary, but we learn that even though we are away from home, we still have a home. Separation does not mean forever.
As we grow, we continue these lessons, through going to camp, going away to school, even leaving home and starting our adult lives. We learn them as we teach them to our own children as we enjoy playing “peek-a-boo” …
God has been teaching us these lessons all our lives. And now as we say goodbye to (Mrs. Jones), He reminds us of what He has taught, of what we have learned: That when I can’t see someone, it doesn’t mean that they are gone; there is more to reality than what we see; and that separation does not mean forever.
Filed under ALL, Christianity, Funeral, Heaven and hell
Since I first wrote this post on the doctrine of damnation, and why it seems to me inescapable, I’ve stumbled upon a number of other conversations on the subject, with many voices from the universal salvation perspective. I have read defenses of that position from both liberal and conservative Christians, but to my mind, they all fall short on either or both of two fronts. Sometimes the view of Heaven seems not fully thought through. What is the nature of eternal life, and does it admit even the possibility of the admission of the unwilling? I contend that this would be like insisting that a circle be made with more corners.
The second error seems more peculiar. I contend that the universalist’s view of humanity is too low. For God to produce what I think He intends in us, it is necessary that we have a free will which is efficacious. God cannot trump it without denying and defeating His own purpose. A think that is a lot of the point of the story of Noah and the flood.
For those interested in the question, I suggest the following two discussions, along with my own post below.
-Blessings
http://interspiritualchristian.wordpress.com/2008/10/12/on-the-nature-of-scripture/#comment-3
and
http://chadholtz.wordpress.com/2008/12/10/the-universal-good-news/
Filed under ALL, Christianity, Heaven and hell, preaching, Theology, Uncategorized
I won’t attribute the source, since I can’t now find it; but in the blog of a friend of mine the question of damnation came up as an example of a religious dogma which cannot be accepted.
I beg to differ. If one accepts at least for the purpose of this discussion certain propositions about God, and heaven (I will reference these propositions as we go along) then some sort of doctrine of damnation is inevitable. The only other alternative is for our independence and autonomy to be an illusion.
Orthodox Christians may object that my argument is very short on appeals to the Bible. That is by design. In our current climate, appealing to Holy Scripture is mostly preaching to the choir. Continue reading
Filed under ALL, Christianity, Heaven and hell, Theology
Mr. D. C. Toedt, who is a friend of mine from my church, writes a blog called The Questioning Christian
In a post entitled “The world isn’t broken, it’s just unfinished”
He suggests
1. Suppose hypothetically that God is still creating the world, using processes we’re only beginning to kinda-sorta understand — processes that entail generating lots of variations and keeping the ones that “work” as the starting point for later variations.
(These processes of the ongoing creation seem to include us as construction workers, incidentally: our powers of imagination let us generate new variations, while our powers of perception and memory let us see and remember — imperfectly — what does or doesn’t work.)
This hypothesis is not totally implausible, not if you take a long view of what we think we know of history. …
Now, D.C. (for whom I have a great deal of respect) and I disagree about much in the church, including what is the very nature of “church” and even what it means to be christian. I would argue that to be a christian means to accept Jesus as Lord, as being God incarnate who died in the flesh and rose again so that we might be released from the bondage of our sin. I will let D.C. speak for himself, which he does quite well, but he would more describe it as following the commandments of Jesus in that we are to love God and our neighbor, and teach others to do the same.
But in this post, I think he has it pretty much right. The main difference is that Continue reading
Filed under ALL, Christianity, Theology
More on the idea of universal salvation and personal choice Discussion on the nature of the Holy Trinity: Why only 3? This post prompted me to reply with what I intend to be a draft of a fuller post Starting with Anthroposophy, a very interesting discussion ranging from stained glass and mirrors and the invocation of Saints, to Jung and speculations about the existance of evil.
Random Musings 