Yesterday’s post proved that hell does not exist. The reasoning was actually very similar to the problem of theodicy. The problem of theodicy is to explain the contradiction between the existence of the Evil of with the goodness of God. My problem is that I cannot understand how the existence of hell after the end of the world is compatible with God’s goodness as well as God's love and rationality.
But there is an important difference. Once you have solved the problem of theodicy (can you?) you still have to solve the problem of hell. OK, God exists. OK, the evil exists. But why do you have punish people for their evildoings after the end of the world, when such punishment serves not apparent purpose, because the Last Judgment has taken place and nobody can improve (The threat of Hell is a different matter).
The purpose of theodicy is to explain the relationship between two categories: God and the Evil. Hellodicy is to explain interrelations between three: God, the Evil and Hell.
"Hell is just a metaphor for the grave."
ReplyDeleteThere are three words translated "hell" in Scripture:
* Gehenna (Greek): The place of punishment (Matthew 5:22,29; 10:28; and James 3:6)
* Hades (Greek): The abode of the dead (Matthew 11:23; 16:18, Luke 16:23; Acts 2:27)
* Sheol (Hebrew): The grave (Psalm 9:17; 16:10)
There are those who accept that hell is a place of punishment, but believe that the punishment is to be annihilated—to cease conscious existence. They can’t conceive that the punishment of the wicked will be conscious and eternal. If they are correct, then a man like Adolph Hitler, who was responsible for the deaths of millions, is being "punished" merely with eternal sleep. His fate is simply to return to the non-existent state he was in before he was born, where he doesn’t even know that he is being punished.
However, Scripture paints a different story. The rich man who found himself in hell (Luke 16:19–31) was conscious. He was able to feel pain, to thirst, and to experience remorse. He wasn’t asleep in the grave; he was in a place of "torment." If hell is a place of knowing nothing or a reference to the grave into which we go at death, Jesus' statements about hell make no sense. He said that if your hand, foot, or eye causes you to sin, it would be better to remove it than to "go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: where their worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9:43–48).
The Bible refers to the fate of the unsaved with such fearful words as the following:
* "Shame and everlasting contempt" (Daniel 12:2)
* "Everlasting punishment" (Mathew 25:46)
* "Weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 24:51)
* "Fire unquenchable" (Luke 3:17)
* "Indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish" (Romans 2:8,9)
* "Everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord" (2 Thessalonians 1:9)
* "Eternal fire...the blackness of darkness for ever" (Jude 7,13)
Revelation 14:10,11 tells us the final, eternal destiny of the sinner: "He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone...the smoke of their torment ascended up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day or night."
Source: The Way Of The Master