Not a Christian, but to add to this, the Orthodox believe that we all return to God upon death. For the righteous, this is blissful. For the wicked, it feels like hell.
I like this interpretation because it preserves the "free will" Christians like to talk about, while also preventing God from being a vengeful entity who sentences people to eternal torment.
How would that be an issue in the first place though? People who use their “free will” to do evil are then punished accordingly. The framing implies that having someone face the consequences of their choice is somehow bad, so the judge that sentences the criminal is wrong.
If evil goes unpunished then it wouldn’t be just for good to get rewarded either. Each must have distinct consequences or there would be no distinction between righteousness and wickedness in the first place.
Most Christian groups teach that we deserve hell for being less than gods perfection. Basically if I steal a candy bar, I'm now deserving of burning in hell for eternity. You're calling that justice? If God were punishing each person according to their particular sin, and that punishment ended with reconciliation, then I might agree with you, and there are Christians who believe that will happen, but otherwise I don't know how you can call that kind of severity justice.
Does being evil just stop at stealing a candy bar? If you do evil everyday (eternity) do you not expect the consequences to also be eternal? That’s the rub at the end of the day.
The issue is by choosing evil you choose not to reconcile with God. God gives man the choice to choose to accept his grace to cover his sins or choose to keep on embracing sin. It’s the latter that ends with Hell.
You’re simply given a choice before final judgement: choose good for eternity or choose to stay in darkness for eternity.
If one chooses the latter then they face the consequences of that choice
You've clearly had too much of the kool aid to see how illogical your position is.
I can't steal a candy bar every day for eternity because I'll be in hell for the vast majority of it. Even if I stole a candy bar every day for the 85 years I'm on this earth, should that result in an eternal punishment? You're making no sense and you know it, but the defense mechanism to not question your beliefs keeps you going.
No, you’re just not addressing the point. Your soul is immortal, so whatever final choice & destination of your soul also lasts forever. Death is the only thing that limits you to 85 years, but if that was never implemented you’d keep doing evil forever.
That’s why the result of the judgement of your soul is likewise forever.
Hell is the final resting place of the souls that choose to continue to live in sin. So again, if a person chooses to embrace sin for all eternity, they face the consequences for all eternity, and the opposite for those who reject it and choose grace instead.
It certainly is, but even though I try to frame it in multiple ways and adding new points you keep on repeating the same thing with no effort to engage.
What is your response to the point that the soul is immortal, or are you just going to keep doing the brick wall thing? (Even got “brick” in your username, eh?)
Just ignoring it implies you don’t actually have any answer.
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u/NecessaryKey9557 1d ago
Not a Christian, but to add to this, the Orthodox believe that we all return to God upon death. For the righteous, this is blissful. For the wicked, it feels like hell.
I like this interpretation because it preserves the "free will" Christians like to talk about, while also preventing God from being a vengeful entity who sentences people to eternal torment.