The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Universalism and death as God's punishement

Even if we are all compensated by the joys of heaven for our sufferings this isn’t enough to justify the sufferings. If it was then anyone could be justified in torturing someone as long as the person tortured was later compensated for it.

Hi Lothar,

Very interesting post and I thought there was some very good stuff in your blog post as well. :smiley: I think there’s something to the mathematics you mention…“Reasoning purey mathematically, a finite amount of suffering divided by an infinite quantity equals zero.” I don’t think this can justify evil God allows but, perhaps, mitigates it significantly. In the case of this post, this would not justify God in directly killing Ananias and Saphiras, however. I agree with what you said here…

In the end, I think skeptical theism is necessary in order to explain what appears to be gratuitous evil…to fill in the gaps not covered by the other theodicies.

Steve

God doesn’t kill anyone. He doesn’t take life; He gives it.

I’m not sure that death is GOD’s punishment per se. It seems to me that when God told Adam, “In the day you eat of it you shall surely die,” He was warning Adam, not threatening him. Sin leads to death. In order to escape death we had to be set free from sin. Death is the last ENEMY – not some ally of God’s. It’s the enemy that must be destroyed for all of creation to catch fire with life never ending.

Primarily, God is not bound to punish sin; he is bound to destroy sin. If he were not the Maker, he might not be bound to destroy sin–I do not know; but seeing he has created creatures who have sinned, and therefore sin has, by the creating act of God, come into the world, God is, in his own righteousness, bound to destroy sin. - George MacD :astonished:

I’m :astonished: because though I’ve read that essay a number of times, the phrase “he has created creatures who have sinned, and therefore sin has, by the creating act of God, come into the world, God is, in his own righteousness, bound to destroy sin” just sorta popped out at me.

The context of course is his essay “Justice”, which I have tried to memorize, sort of. Here is one point that is made, to the point of this thread:

“Justice then requires that sin should be put an end to; and not that only, but that it should be atoned for; and where punishment can do anything to this end, where it can help the sinner to know what he has been guilty of, where it can soften his heart to see his pride and wrong and cruelty, justice requires that punishment shall not be spared. And the more we believe in God, the surer we shall be that he will spare nothing that suffering can do to deliver his child from death. If suffering cannot serve this end, we need look for no more hell, but for the destruction of sin by the destruction of the sinner. That, however, would, it appears to me, be for God to suffer defeat, blameless indeed, but defeat.”

online-literature.com/george … ermons/31/

Hello Alecforbes, thanks for your positive review :slight_smile:

I think you are right that the perspective of eternity considerably mitigates the problem of evil. After all, after one million of years I won’t probably remember or care about the profound pain of a depressive phase of my life.

I suffer a lot under anxiety, restlesness (and to a lesser extent depression), yet this does not lead me to call God’s goodness into question because this is negligable in comparison to an everlasting hapiness.

And it might very well have positive effects in the long run.
However, the problem of this kind of answers is that God could have created a universe without the pain but with the same positive effects.
So this is not an explanation in and of itself.

That said, it might very well be that we could not experience joy without also knowing what pain is.
And practically speaking, pain simulated in our brain would not have the same type of effect.

“God could have created a universe without the pain but with the same positive effects.”

That’s why I posted the George MacD quote above.

That is a nice quote, but it does not explain gratuitous evil, like the death in agony of small kids and animals.

I did not even know that “torturing kids” or whatever was part of the thread. The quote is very apropos to the actual thread, I would think.

But of course if it does not speak to your real question, so be it.

It’s more than a ‘nice’ quote, IMHO.

Have you considered zoroastrianism?? :mrgreen:

I’m reasonably certain that God could NOT have created a universe without pain – not without depriving His creatures of freedom. If we have freedom to do only what’s right, then we in effect have no freedom at all. It is entirely possible that Father has created the universe, of all universes which He could have created, with the LEAST possible amount of suffering whilst still attaining His goal that all shall eventually freely come to Him and be saved.

About pain and its mitigation, in my experience (not to be trite) it always feels better when it stops hurting. Now some things NEVER stop hurting – in this life – but for things that do truly stop hurting, including mental and emotional trauma associated with any physical trauma, we no longer suffer. How much agonizing to you experience over the thought of a toothache long gone? Yet a toothache can be among the more intense forms of pain. Once it’s gone, it’s gone and it no longer matters the least little bit. Father promises to wipe away all our tears (which to me seems a metaphor for complete healing – mental, physical, spiritual and emotional. It will be all gone and it will never matter. We will forget it just as we forget the pain of a burn long ago healed.

That’s not to say that it’s less important to alleviate any pain we can alleviate both for ourselves and for others. We should always work to end any pain we can, and we should do it as quickly and thoroughly as we possibly can. If we can avoid causing pain without bringing harm to another person, then we should do that. Sometimes it’s necessary to cause pain, such as when performing medical procedures, or denying your child a much-coveted gift, or bringing bad but needed news, or any of a number of unpleasant duties we may have toward one another. Even so, it’s important to carry out these uncomfortable duties while causing the least pain possible while still accomplishing the task.

BUT, pain, once gone, is gone. This is my experience – personally – when it’s over it’s over. It doesn’t hurt any more and I no longer suffer. Given an eternity of bliss and the pain far behind me, I don’t think I’ll care about any suffering I’ve ever endured or ever will endure.

Just my take on it –

Love, Cindy

i1098.photobucket.com/albums/g374/Paidion9/Emoticons/goodpost.gif

Just a little question.

Given an eternity of bliss and the pain far behind you, would you ever think about or care about the suffering others might be enduring at that very moment? Perhaps some close relative or other person with whom you are close?

I’ve been considering something very similar, Lothar. I think Universalism is certainly part of the solution to the problem of suffering.

But what about the Flood and the Plagues in Egypt? God’s chastisements of Israel in the Torah, and the extreme violence in the Former Prophets? How many babies died at God’s command? How many women were taken as spoil? There has to be more to the answer I think, though I personally do believe that without UR there is no acceptable answer to it.

I think that there must be some positive value in these acts that could not be achieved by any other means that is only known to God. But I can only say that through faith, because I really can’t see it. When I think and read about those events they are appalling. It’s something that I continue to struggle with.

Thanks, Paidion :blush: :slight_smile:

You asked:

I do think we’ll be acutely aware of the suffering of others, until every last one of us is home at our Father’s table. I kind of don’t think the true, unadulterated bliss can happen before that. If, for example, my son or my daughter was suffering in “hell” (however we define that) I would be in sorrow until s/he finally completed the journey home. And if I were in sorrow, then you (who are my brother and part of the body of Christ) would sorrow with me – so we would ALL sorrow until every last wandering child is safely home. I like to think that the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus for which Paul said he ran IS the ministry of reconciliation, and that this ministry will last until everyone is home and that we will be active in bringing our lost brothers and sisters to Father’s arms. I hope that’s true. It will be much easier waiting if we have a precious job like that to do.

To have eternal bliss without universal reconciliation seems to me impossible. There would always be someone in pain, and if one hurts, the rest of the body hurts together. I think I’m right about this – it seems to accord with our becoming like Jesus, who is the perfect image of our Father, who is love.

This sounds certainly nice and lovely, Cindy :slight_smile:

But I doubt I would whine and howl during the suffering of Hitler and Pol Pot.
And I would not call God “a moral monster” if He were to utterly destroy them.
And many secular people in Europe would not either.

Hi Marc - the problem for me here is one of imitation -

Moral monsters have often not been godless but have made themselves in a certain (to my mind misguided) image of God

This was the logic of the Inquisition - all about saving people from ECT by the burnings and torturing. :slight_smile: It is purely mathematical and not ethical.

Does God want to terrorise us into obedience or to love in freedom?

That all things happen according to God’s providence is a shared belief of Christians. But to equate this with death as punishment for sin is problematic. Are God’s purposes the same as the natural course of events. Is it wrong to interfere with God’s purposes by medicine, sanitation etc. Should AIDS for example have been seen as coming from God? IF so were those who sought and discovered methods of preventing and containing it acting against the will of God? You will answer no to both questions Marc – so I guess it is not useful to construe physical death as punishment for sin (or why do we fight against it?)

To think upon God as the Angel of death translating us into place of endless bliss is not a good conception of what is important for us and for our salvation IMHO. The resurrected cosmos is the one we are in but perfected and transformed. Our individual deaths are part of the drama of this transformation – but they are not ‘going home’ as such. We are already held in God – enclosed in love – but the drama of consummation is still unfolding-and unfolding beyond our individual deaths too. Indeed- it we believe in the communion of Saints the dead and the living are bound together somehow.

I think this life is a blessing. We need to choose life – apart from those circumstances where choosing death is the only possible witness against the forces that degrade life in its fullness (as in martyrdom of the sake of love – rather than martyrdom in the cause of resentments and vengeance). Our love must be rooted in affirmation and respect for life and those alive here and now (I speak of respect for life in its fullness and flourishing here – which is the fountainhead of justice). Death is an outcome of sin – but God is on the side of life and our views of God should be rooted in an awareness of this and not on contemplating God as their the sweet or avenging angel of Death. If we are not afraid to live fully – we will not be afraid to die and we will die in confidence of greater life to come for us and for all. Death can come as a welcome release after great physical torment. Death often comes in ways that we cannot moralise as begin useful and just. Sometimes wicked people are killed in this life at what seems to be a time of reckoning – sometimes evil people dies peacefully in their beds (Idi Amin for example). But death is not what we worship nor is it the source of our consolation and moral lessons IMHO. :slight_smile:

I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death.
I hear him leading his horse out of the stall; I hear the clatter on the barn-floor.
He is in haste; he has business in Syria, business in the Balkans, many calls to make this morning.
But I will not hold the bridle while he clinches the girth.
And he may mount by himself: I will not give him a leg up.

Though he flick my shoulders with his whip, I will not tell him which way the fox ran.
With his hoof on my breast, I will not tell him where the black boy hides in the swamp.
I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death; I am not on his pay-roll.

I will not tell him the whereabout of my friends nor of my enemies either.
Though he promise me much, I will not map him the route to any man’s door.
Am I a spy in the land of the living, that I should deliver men to Death?
Brother, the password and the plans of our city are safe with me; never through me
Shall you be overcome.

My point is in quoting this poem that we tend to imitate our ‘gods’ - our God has to be the God of the Living and the Resurrection.

Nevertheless you might weep for the heartbreak of any who loved them and did their best for them only to have their dreams turn to horror.

Cindy, I am in complete agreement! I, too, believe that the ministry of reconciliation (which is being carried out in this present life), will continue post-mortem until all the lost ones are found and gathered home, and Christ’s last enemy is reached.

The following passage indicates a present ministry of the church to “the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” The fact these authorities are in heavenly places, seems to indicate a ministry to those who are not of this earth. I recall how surprised I was when that thought first came to me.

So if even now, we, the church, are ministering to those in heavenly places, shall it not be much more so in the ages to come? Indeed, Paul says that this is in accordance with THE PURPOSE OF THE AGES. And isn’t that purpose the reconciliation of all to God?

By the way, it seems that Paul coined a new word which is found nowhere else in Greek literature. The word is ἐλαχιστερω (elachisterō) which is literally “to the leaster”,though usually translated as “less than the least” or something similar.

:laughing: I’m glad you told me about “leaster,” Paidion. I thought you’d made a typo, but this must be your own translation and so you’ve given the word as it’s written. Cool!

I hadn’t seen that passage as part of the ministry of reconciliation, but of course you’re right. Our being a witness to unseen powers is by definition intended as part of their own redemption process.

Thanks for pointing this out! :smiley: