A Question of Christianity, Hell and Free Will.

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I travelled into Gisborne on the East coast of New Zealand's North Island a few weeks past, and i found my self in conversation with a Protestant Christian preacher.
I listened to what he wanted to tell me, stories of his depravity followed by realisation of his sin and forgivness from the Lord. I had heard it before because i always make a point of listening to these people if i can. They have a hard job and a great deal of abuse to take.

So there were two things i would like any comments on from you guys.

1) I asked him a question:

I said 'If a child is born to a Muslim (or any other faith) mother and father, and he is brought up as such, and he lives a good honest life wherein he never harms or kills or acts in a 'bad' way, but he never hears the name of Jesus and is never even told of any such thing as Christianity and he dies in such lack of knowledge. Where does he go after death'
Of course the man attempted to stall but i eventually got the simple answer.

'Then he would send himself to hell' (mark the words, send HIMSELF')

It occurred to me that a deceased friend of mine, who was a much better person than I, in fact the best of people, is right now slowly turning on a spit in hell. All because he did not ask forgivness from this all loving God.. Comments?


2) I then described to the Preacher my position on free will and sin. I told him that God is by very defintion infinitely good and wise, if he is not then he is not God, an issue agreed by philosphers. As such, when he created Adam and Eve in 4004 BC he MUST have known every consequence and action that every human being would ever take. For he is all knowing. He gave us free will in the knowledge of what we would do with it, and if he did not know that eve would take the fruit then he is not all knowing and he is not God. Therefore, if God created us he created us in the knowledge that we would send ourselves to hell, yet he continued.

So is God good?

The preacher had no answer to this. He simply said, after thought. Yes. I asked why. He said, Because we send ourselves to hell.
...He hadn't really understood what i had said.


I would love to hear constructive comments and i welcome criticism so no unsightly anger please...

 

Muslims believe Jesus to be a prophet.

Anyway I don't believe that God would send anyone to hell because they do not believe Jesus to be the Son. The Bible has been changed so many times and there are many versions so which one is correct?

I don't believe that any Rabbi, Priest, Minister etc has any authority to give a definate answer to your questions.

 

You only go to hell of you believe it exists. That's why missionaries need to be shot on sight.

Every religion has its mechanisms for punishment if you don't leed a life according to their moral code. But you cannot expect that priests of one religion agree to this.

 

Your questions and the answers you received are a large part of why I left Chrisitianity.

 

The bloody hell were you doing in Gisborne of all places? That bloody one horse town

But your questions are obviously justified and yes, Christian holy men (priests, whatever) can never agree on the result. However, given that it's one of the ten commandments that one must worship God and no other god/idol (and idol could mean idology such as Bhuddasim - which in my opinion is possibly the most reasonable of all the faiths) and the ten commandments are basically the 'word of God'... set in stone no less (haw haw - the wit! ) one would imagine that to defy even ONE of those is pretty much a one-way ticket to hell, less they repent - and as you said before: they're not repenting. So according to Christians - if you take The Bible to be true - then yes, they would go to hell because they simply don't believe in God despite never even hearing of the notion.

 

I never knew that Gisborne was the ultimate destination for people on a pilgrimage to find the ultimate meaning of life. Maybe all the answers can be found in Gisborne. Maybe the second coming will take place at the Makoriri Point surf beach!

 

Now I know were I should go on my next vacation.
Everybody, hop up! We are all going to the land of the second coming…

 

Well, I take it this is an invitation to give alternative answers and, as a Protestant Christian myself, I must say this preacher didn't really know his stuff. His answer to the first question absolutely shocked me. God makes it pretty clear (considering it's in the Old Testament of the Bible ) that those who never hear the word of God are judged by what they DID know. It also says that the evidence of God's glory and power are written throughout nature, and this is backed up by a number of smaller religions that popped up the Americas, India, southern Africa, and other parts of the world. These religions were all basically the same, they believed there was one God who made all things and controlled all things and that He was a just and loving God, and that all of them had sinned and had to make it up to God somehow. They never knew the 10 commandments, never knew the name of Jesus, or anything in the Bible, but they knew the character of God and their own sinful nature. Lets just say the missionaries had a really easy time with them.

Anyway, my point is, if someone never knows the word of God, yet acts according to his/her conscience and admits that they have sinned SOMEHOW at SOME POINT, God will reward them and forgive them. So you're hypothetical child is going to heaven.

You're second point is one that has raised a lot of debate, and I have yet to settle on an answer myself, but I'd say it has to do with the nature of free will. You see, in order to have free will, there must be a choice. This means a choice between obeying God and doing something else. Since everything else is sin, that means that there must be sin. God is not only wise and good, He is also just, which means sin must be punished. When you get right down to it, all sin is placing yourself in place of God, so all sin is equal, so all punishment must be equal. It is also all REALLY bad, as claiming (explicitly or implicitly) to be God is REALLY bad, so eternal death (Hell) for all who sin is just. God is also merciful, so He came up with a way to forgive us, but someone had to take the punishment, as God can't just forget about it, that wouldn't be jsutice. That's where we get Jesus.

Again, anyway, yes God made humans knowing that they would sin, and even knowing that some would not recieve forgiveness and go to Hell, but He did give us all a way out, and knowing that something will happen and causing it to happen are two different things, so yes, God is good.

 

1) I think this guy is not a reasonable person. In Islam ( and in most of the other religions), and as NOG said, in christianity; the answer is "to heaven"

 

I have sinned. Does that mean I get to go to heaven now? That was easy. Why hasn't anybody put it so simply to me before?

 

Of course, the guns and small pox also helped.

OK, that was facetious, but you can find echoes of Judeo-Christian-Islamic stories in a number of religions preceeding them, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, etc. Perhaps there were certain basic religious ideas that travelled with the first humans as they migrated out of Africa. But that doesn't explain why major wars have been blamed on, say, different interpretations of the Apostle's Creed...

Faith always seemed a slippery notion to me. For example, why should an all-powerful God care what it is you say you believe? It's very easy to say "I believe," especially if everyone around you says the same thing. It's also not so difficult to convince yourself that you believe in something; when I was a little kid, playmates of mine had an unshakable faith in Santa Claus...

Or think of it this way: human thought is incredibly complex, and the bits that can be articulated as conscious thought are only the very tip of the iceburg. Shouldn't faith be more than a yes or no answer to a loyalty test? If you say you believe in a God that has some kind of relationship with you, wouldn't that relationship encompass all of you, and not just the parts you can articulate publically? And if God is in relation to parts of you that you can't articulate, shouldn't that make one just a little cautious about rendering judgments about what God does or does not approve of?

 

Never heard of these religions before. I'm curious. Do you have any links to any sources?

 

The old testament God is not loving, benevolent, or good. After decades of hearing such, it was quite shocking to actually read through the Bible.

As for your first question: I doubt there is a heaven or hell or a God as portrayed by christian teachings. If there is an eternal punishment for evil acts commited while on this earth, it seems that you would have to do something far more dire than to be ignorant of the christian faith...or commit adultery, bear false witness, indulge in 'deadly sins' etc. In short, it's unimaginable that the creator of the universe, *an infinite being* could possibly be so petty.

As for your second point: Your position on free will and sin closely reflect my own. I would add that it seems very unlikely that an omnipotent being would have failed ventures such as the ones God suffered. He created the earth and people and then realized at the time of Noah that it just wasn't working out, so he just erases everything and tries again? God, as described in the Bible, would just do it right the first time...wouldn't He?

If I were to create something exquisitely simple, as simple as I am to God, would flaws in my creation be it's fault or mine?

 

False witness, adultery or freely indulging in the deadly sins? Something far more dire? And not repenting?

For most of those one should be eternally punished.

And the just punishment? Far worse than fire and brimstone.

 

@Bion:

Ah, but an all-powerful God would know what you really believed, wouldn't He? If you're just saying it because it seems like fire-insurance, He'll know.

You have stummbled (or walked very carefully) into something I have been trying to explain to many people for years. My relationship with God is so much more than just me praying and going to church. It's more than I can put into words, and it does stretch into every portion of my life and mind. But at the same time, so does my girlfriend, and I can tell you flat out what she approves of. It becomes especially easy when He or she tells me. Whether its in His Bible, or her emails, I know that X will get a good reaction and Y will get a bad one because they said so. Like with everyone else, two-way communication is critical to a good relationship with God.

@Rotku:
Here's one: Mi'kmaq I'm actually descended from the Mi'kmaq, 1/64. If you read through the link, you find a complex religious belief system, but all linking back to one central creator and paying hommage to Him, not very common in early religions. It paints this creator as a loving, caring, good, and just creator, again, not very common in early religions. There's a lot more than this, and I don't know much of it, but this is only the creation story.

Nunsbane:
The old testament God is very loving to His chosen people. Look at Daniel, David, Abraham, Jonah (well, more the people He sent Jonah to, but...). The old testament focuses more on the just nature of God and His plans for Israel, but you can still see a loving God in there.

First point:So how bad is bad enough? And who makes you the person to decide? If you admit that God (if there is one), being the only perfecly just being is the only one to decide what merits what punishments, then you have to settle with what He gives.

Second point:Another issue of free will is that it isn't free if it's forced. If God made people behave right the first time, they wouldn't have done so out of free will, would they? God couldn't 'make it right the first time' because He can't 'make it right'. It isn't God's creation that makes people good or bad, it's human choice.

 

Rats have free will too. We just tested it today.

 

We are free to choose our actions, but not our consequences. Christianity has this thing called the atonement of Jesus Christ to enable the forgiveness of our sins.

Where I differ with this minister is that after death, there is a holding area for spirits. Those who lives righteously will know this and teach those that never received the truth (like the Muslim in your example). then there is the ressurection where all of us get ressurected bodies, and the Millenial reign of Christ, which will have unprecedented scientific learning. Then comes the final judgement. By this time, all will have had time to learn what will be taught, and only the most extreme of sinners (Shedding Innocent blood) and those that refuse to repent will be damned...

 

You mean that they'll finally admit that evolution is true, it's impossible to part oceans and that the world was created through physics rather than god?

Isn't it interesting how the church has evolved. If you were to go back a thousand or so years ago, only a few minor off-shoots would ever think about suggesting that we have free will. Yet now it comes up commonly to defend religion. And the curious thing is that prehaps the earlier religions might have been closer to the truth - from my understanding, most lines of thinking now would point towards us not infact having free will.

I mean, if you look at free will - to have free will one must be able to make a decision or take an action that is not caused by something else. But how do we do these things? If I were to raise my right hand in the air, it's caused by muscles contracting/expanding, which in turn is caused by nerve impulses and so on. For it to be an action of freewill, there must have been a point somewhere where there is no causation. Yet even making the descision to raise my right hand has a cause; series chemical reactions in my brain caused me to take that action.

 

@Rotku:
Except that scientists have proven how you COULD part the Red Sea at a particular point if the winds were blowing strong enough. The aerodynamics are just right to split it down to the sea floor. Now that doesn't dry the land, or explain why it happened just when the Jews needed it and collapsed as the Egyptians tried it, but it is possible.

And what's this about only a few minor offshoots accepting free will? The New Testament is pretty heavy on free will, what with us choosing to serve God, to have faith, to be good, and all that. The Old Testament even goes as far as to almost flat out say it. It says that God 'hardened Pharoe's heart', which sounds like Him interfering with free will to me, which means that free will has to exist. Now I'm no expert on the state of the Church at 1000 AD, but it seems the basis of the Bible is on free will.

On top of that, you're confusing method of achieving a feat with the motive behind the feat. If I raise my hand, it is caused by muscles, yes, and those muscles act because of nerve impuses from the brain, yes, but what caused the brain to send them? My decision to raise my hand. Now whether it was raised because of instinct, or social programming, or free will is an issue of much debate.

By the way, a good definition of free will is not 'doing something without cause' but rather denying our instincts and social programming. If I eat when I'm hungry, I'm not really exerting free will, because my hunger said I should eat and I did it. If I refuse to eat because I need to study for a test, well, you could say free will did it or you could say social programming did it, but I refused my instinct. Now if I refuse to eat because the only food is something I don't want to eat, maybe I don't like the falvor and know I can get something better soon, that I can hold out that long, then what caused it? Certainly not instinct, because that says to eat food. Not social programming, because that never says eating what tastes better is right and just and you need to do it. Free will?

@Tass:
How exactly did you test a rat's ability to exert free will?

 

Well that was quite fun actually, we set up a closed area with a number of very different toys (shape, colour). Then we measured how long each rat spent with each toy (counting number of sniffs, single paw touches, two paw touches, aggressiveness to toy, etc). We had to wipe down the toys and area before each test to get rid of scent. Each rat very clearly prefers a different toy, they check them all out and return to their favourite.