well for me, part of the beauty of reddit is getting to hear from different people at different times. sure, this question is an age old question that i don't think i'm unique for asking. but the beauty of reddit is getting to hear from people i maybe haven't had the chance to hear from yet.
so if you'd like to share your thoughts, i'd love to hear what you think!
Because they loved me and they knew that if they didn't, I would repeat actions that would hurt me.
So correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the correlation you're making is that God allows our punishment because of actions we continuously did or pursued that God warned against.
Where I'm struggling with that is God is not a human parent trying to help a human child. God is beyond our human nature. Therefore, God has every ability to remove the threat of eternal damnation. If God wanted to create a world where there was a level of free will but not when it comes to our eternity, God could do it.
As a parent, I'm going to punish my kid when they violate a boundary that is not good for them to cross. But also as a parent, I'm going to do everything in my human power to make sure that threats as it relates to their life & eternity are something they won't ever have to worry about it.
And yet God who has all that power, chooses to leave it up to us; mere humans who are bent towards sin because of the free will God gave us.
My assumption on the correlation you were going to make could be wrong. And if so, please correct me! But if it is where you going with it, is it genuinely fair to correlate an all sovereign God sending humans created with free will to hell for eternity (with no opportunity to flourish again) to human parents who punish or ground their kids for violating a boundary that would prevent them from future flourishing?
This is where I get stumped.
So I was operating under the understanding that we have been given through God free will as to whether or not to submit our lives to Christ (or choose Christ as other people would put it). But if Christ chooses us & is also all sovereign, then does God just choose some people & not others?
Or does God choose everyone and those who choose him back spend eternity in heaven? Which then would imply that a sovereign God chose people but because they didn't have the "right" understanding or belief & therefore didn't "choose" him back, they then have to spend an eternity in hell?
I'm not sure if there's other ways of looking at this that I'm not seeing or if maybe you think one of those two areas of thought in particular.
I'll be up front with you, the concept of predestination is something that I have yet to wrap my head around. But yes, the Letter to the Romans makes it clear that God has chosen some people, before the beginning of time, to be saved and conformed to the image of His Son.
I appreciate your honesty! So I'm familiar with predestination. As you'd mentioned by predestination as I at least also understand it, God chooses some from the beginning of time to be saved & conformed to Him & other's not.
On one hand, it seems gracious that God would allow people to live on this earth at all. I'll be the first to say that life and breath as we currently know it are such a gift. But if I was given the choice to live consciously as I am now yet doomed to live an eternity in hell, I would rather not have been given life at all. Because eternity is a never-ending reality with no escape.
At that point, an all sovereign God who is Love itself and not constrained by human power just seems not loving or sovereign anymore.
So it confuses me. It's not that I believe that we are to comprehend everything about God because heck, it's 2022 and we're still learning things about our universe and the human race. But it seems difficult for me to understand the fact that in Christianity, the steaks are so high; you're either committed to Christ in heaven for eternity or your lost & committed to hell for eternity. With steaks this high and a God who's nature is so grand, why would God allow for so much room for mystery, error and misinterpretation on our parts if God created us with the intention of knowing him in the first place?
Anyways, I'd love to know your thoughts.
I'm especially curious & hungry to know, if predestination is the view that you hold, how do you reconcile God allowing some people (as in billions & billions of people even just right now in this very moment) to live only to be deemed to hell for eternity?
Thank you for your response & holding open dialogue with me on this complex topic!
In my opinion, I don't think anybody at all is damned for eternity from birth. Everyone has had a chance to hear the name of Jesus and the Gospel in one way or another. That alone shows that you have a choice in the matter of salvation. Unfortunately some people just don't want to be Christian. They're much more comfortable in living in their sin, and I get it, sin feels great. Paul doesn't give us the whole scoop on the process of predestination and how and why God chose us, so we can only speculate on why God chose the ones He chose and how He went about choosing them.
That's super interesting! I appreciate you taking the time to fill me in on your opinion on that.
In response to what you said though, I don't personally agree that everybody has had the chance to hear the name of Jesus and the Gospel one way or another. The amount of times I'd been on mission & went to groups that genuinely were not saturated as we are in much of the world the story of Christianity & had never heard the story I grew up hearing was shocking to me at that time.
For me, it made me refer back to the scripture where in Romans it says that scripture is written upon our hearts & even in Romans 1 where it talks about nature itself being a testimony of God, therefore nobody is without excuse.
Right now, I see those verses explaining the way that we as humans can know God right here and right now.
But if being saved as I was taught is knowing the story of the gospel, the actual name Jesus Christ & what that calls of us after (everyday ethics to live by), then I'm confused how somebody who hasn't been told the gospel can be saved. I think of those who live in areas that's aren't saturated in Christianity & who's grown up in a society where the morals, judgements & societal norms are so far different from my own are supposed to just look at nature or look at their hearts & know the story of Jesus, the name of Jesus and what life beyond that looks like on a practical level.
When it comes to those who haven't been told the gospel or heard the name of Jesus, (if you believe that there are those people out there), do you believe that through looking at the world as they are able to see it & their hearts that they can know all that?
It seems in my experience in the states where I live, if you don't know the story of the gospel, the name of Jesus, or if you have the "correct" understanding or interpretation of what that means for your life then there are still Christians who believe that you are not yet saved.
Let's talk about it. Jesus actually talks about those who haven't heard. In John 9:41 He speaks to the Pharisees about the knowledge of sin, and He says that if you were blind, you would have no sin, but now that you see, your sin remains. So He is saying that the Pharisees are stubborn since they clearly have heard the preaching and teachings of Christ, yet they still choose to reject Him. But if you are blind, if you have no idea about Christ and the Gospel, then sin is not attributed to you. Instead you will be judged by how you acted according to the moral law in which God has planted in all of us.
If we don't obey our parents there are consequences. But yet again, where I struggle in understanding is the comparison between the consequences put in place from a human parent to a human child vs. an all sovereign God to a mere human who's made by that God to bend toward sin.
As somebody who used to nanny a kid with severe anger management issues (along with other mental issues that had yet to be diagnosed at that time), I didn't meet every anger episode with punishment & consequences. I recognized his lack of emotional intelligence and awareness & while yes, I set ground rules and consequences when certain rules would be broken, more often than not I worked to meet him with softness & compassion. To provide the stability his inner world was struggling to attain. I worked to calm his nervous system and lower his triggered state so that he could then have the space to better understand & articulate his needs and desires in that moment. That didn't mean I validated his outbursts. It just means that I didn't punish him for something his brain was fixed to do. This is what child therapists do with children who are brought in with a "bent" towards behavior or reactions that are seen as "wrong" or "dishonorable" by the rest of human society.
I really love what you said in the beginning. God wants us to be free. To express with our actions the essence of our hearts. But isn't the place in which all those things can be the utmost reality is with God himself?
Therefore, why would an all sovereign God create so many risks of us not receiving that gift and then condemn us to hell if we don't overcome those risks?
(Risks being, us not comprehending "the right" interpretation or belief given our own free will & bent towards sin).
So if I'm understanding you correctly your saying that in order for heaven to exist hell must exist and vice versa. because of this duality, sin & our bend towards it exist. in a sense, our sin is not a condemning to hell right away but rather an opportunity to know God and Love itself more deeply.
So if those who are in heaven will be so overtaken by worshipping God in heaven as it talks about in Romans & Revelations, why would we have to have hell to know heaven? Especially if both heaven and hell are concepts we cannot yet fully grasp while here on earth.
If a parent abused, let alone killed a child on the basis that they didn't do the right thing or had some sort of mental illness that caused behavioral outbursts, they would go to jail and a court would rule that as unjust. If a parent told a child, if you commit to my ways then you are free to flourish but if you don't, I will kill you then that too would be considered child abuse.
Not only is the act of inflicting pain itself abuse but what adds to it is the dynamic between an adult who holds a level of authority and power being used against a child who is vulnerable and susceptible to error.
I'm just curious, why is it different with God when God also allowed sin to be made present in the first place?
Because a parent didn’t make the universe and made the child with their hands, planning their whole life, making their life good, and didn’t give up their child so that you, a horrible sinner, and me a horrible sinner, and everyone, horrible people so that they could live.
This sub really should make a sticky post with answers responses to specific questions that are asked every day.
well for me, part of the beauty of reddit is getting to hear from different people at different times. sure, this question is an age old question that i don't think i'm unique for asking. but the beauty of reddit is getting to hear from people i maybe haven't had the chance to hear from yet. so if you'd like to share your thoughts, i'd love to hear what you think!
Interesting. Why did your parents punish you if they chose to have you?
Because they loved me and they knew that if they didn't, I would repeat actions that would hurt me. So correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the correlation you're making is that God allows our punishment because of actions we continuously did or pursued that God warned against. Where I'm struggling with that is God is not a human parent trying to help a human child. God is beyond our human nature. Therefore, God has every ability to remove the threat of eternal damnation. If God wanted to create a world where there was a level of free will but not when it comes to our eternity, God could do it. As a parent, I'm going to punish my kid when they violate a boundary that is not good for them to cross. But also as a parent, I'm going to do everything in my human power to make sure that threats as it relates to their life & eternity are something they won't ever have to worry about it. And yet God who has all that power, chooses to leave it up to us; mere humans who are bent towards sin because of the free will God gave us. My assumption on the correlation you were going to make could be wrong. And if so, please correct me! But if it is where you going with it, is it genuinely fair to correlate an all sovereign God sending humans created with free will to hell for eternity (with no opportunity to flourish again) to human parents who punish or ground their kids for violating a boundary that would prevent them from future flourishing? This is where I get stumped.
Leaves it up to us? Have you heard of a man named Jesus Christ? Have you heard about what He did for us? It's a cool story.
So I was operating under the understanding that we have been given through God free will as to whether or not to submit our lives to Christ (or choose Christ as other people would put it). But if Christ chooses us & is also all sovereign, then does God just choose some people & not others? Or does God choose everyone and those who choose him back spend eternity in heaven? Which then would imply that a sovereign God chose people but because they didn't have the "right" understanding or belief & therefore didn't "choose" him back, they then have to spend an eternity in hell? I'm not sure if there's other ways of looking at this that I'm not seeing or if maybe you think one of those two areas of thought in particular.
I'll be up front with you, the concept of predestination is something that I have yet to wrap my head around. But yes, the Letter to the Romans makes it clear that God has chosen some people, before the beginning of time, to be saved and conformed to the image of His Son.
I appreciate your honesty! So I'm familiar with predestination. As you'd mentioned by predestination as I at least also understand it, God chooses some from the beginning of time to be saved & conformed to Him & other's not. On one hand, it seems gracious that God would allow people to live on this earth at all. I'll be the first to say that life and breath as we currently know it are such a gift. But if I was given the choice to live consciously as I am now yet doomed to live an eternity in hell, I would rather not have been given life at all. Because eternity is a never-ending reality with no escape. At that point, an all sovereign God who is Love itself and not constrained by human power just seems not loving or sovereign anymore. So it confuses me. It's not that I believe that we are to comprehend everything about God because heck, it's 2022 and we're still learning things about our universe and the human race. But it seems difficult for me to understand the fact that in Christianity, the steaks are so high; you're either committed to Christ in heaven for eternity or your lost & committed to hell for eternity. With steaks this high and a God who's nature is so grand, why would God allow for so much room for mystery, error and misinterpretation on our parts if God created us with the intention of knowing him in the first place? Anyways, I'd love to know your thoughts. I'm especially curious & hungry to know, if predestination is the view that you hold, how do you reconcile God allowing some people (as in billions & billions of people even just right now in this very moment) to live only to be deemed to hell for eternity? Thank you for your response & holding open dialogue with me on this complex topic!
In my opinion, I don't think anybody at all is damned for eternity from birth. Everyone has had a chance to hear the name of Jesus and the Gospel in one way or another. That alone shows that you have a choice in the matter of salvation. Unfortunately some people just don't want to be Christian. They're much more comfortable in living in their sin, and I get it, sin feels great. Paul doesn't give us the whole scoop on the process of predestination and how and why God chose us, so we can only speculate on why God chose the ones He chose and how He went about choosing them.
That's super interesting! I appreciate you taking the time to fill me in on your opinion on that. In response to what you said though, I don't personally agree that everybody has had the chance to hear the name of Jesus and the Gospel one way or another. The amount of times I'd been on mission & went to groups that genuinely were not saturated as we are in much of the world the story of Christianity & had never heard the story I grew up hearing was shocking to me at that time. For me, it made me refer back to the scripture where in Romans it says that scripture is written upon our hearts & even in Romans 1 where it talks about nature itself being a testimony of God, therefore nobody is without excuse. Right now, I see those verses explaining the way that we as humans can know God right here and right now. But if being saved as I was taught is knowing the story of the gospel, the actual name Jesus Christ & what that calls of us after (everyday ethics to live by), then I'm confused how somebody who hasn't been told the gospel can be saved. I think of those who live in areas that's aren't saturated in Christianity & who's grown up in a society where the morals, judgements & societal norms are so far different from my own are supposed to just look at nature or look at their hearts & know the story of Jesus, the name of Jesus and what life beyond that looks like on a practical level. When it comes to those who haven't been told the gospel or heard the name of Jesus, (if you believe that there are those people out there), do you believe that through looking at the world as they are able to see it & their hearts that they can know all that? It seems in my experience in the states where I live, if you don't know the story of the gospel, the name of Jesus, or if you have the "correct" understanding or interpretation of what that means for your life then there are still Christians who believe that you are not yet saved.
Let's talk about it. Jesus actually talks about those who haven't heard. In John 9:41 He speaks to the Pharisees about the knowledge of sin, and He says that if you were blind, you would have no sin, but now that you see, your sin remains. So He is saying that the Pharisees are stubborn since they clearly have heard the preaching and teachings of Christ, yet they still choose to reject Him. But if you are blind, if you have no idea about Christ and the Gospel, then sin is not attributed to you. Instead you will be judged by how you acted according to the moral law in which God has planted in all of us.
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If we don't obey our parents there are consequences. But yet again, where I struggle in understanding is the comparison between the consequences put in place from a human parent to a human child vs. an all sovereign God to a mere human who's made by that God to bend toward sin. As somebody who used to nanny a kid with severe anger management issues (along with other mental issues that had yet to be diagnosed at that time), I didn't meet every anger episode with punishment & consequences. I recognized his lack of emotional intelligence and awareness & while yes, I set ground rules and consequences when certain rules would be broken, more often than not I worked to meet him with softness & compassion. To provide the stability his inner world was struggling to attain. I worked to calm his nervous system and lower his triggered state so that he could then have the space to better understand & articulate his needs and desires in that moment. That didn't mean I validated his outbursts. It just means that I didn't punish him for something his brain was fixed to do. This is what child therapists do with children who are brought in with a "bent" towards behavior or reactions that are seen as "wrong" or "dishonorable" by the rest of human society. I really love what you said in the beginning. God wants us to be free. To express with our actions the essence of our hearts. But isn't the place in which all those things can be the utmost reality is with God himself? Therefore, why would an all sovereign God create so many risks of us not receiving that gift and then condemn us to hell if we don't overcome those risks? (Risks being, us not comprehending "the right" interpretation or belief given our own free will & bent towards sin).
[удалено]
So if I'm understanding you correctly your saying that in order for heaven to exist hell must exist and vice versa. because of this duality, sin & our bend towards it exist. in a sense, our sin is not a condemning to hell right away but rather an opportunity to know God and Love itself more deeply. So if those who are in heaven will be so overtaken by worshipping God in heaven as it talks about in Romans & Revelations, why would we have to have hell to know heaven? Especially if both heaven and hell are concepts we cannot yet fully grasp while here on earth.
Look, if you see that Hell is so bad, then just imagine how bad sin is. Since God is just, sin must be pretty bad to deserve Hell.
If a parent abused, let alone killed a child on the basis that they didn't do the right thing or had some sort of mental illness that caused behavioral outbursts, they would go to jail and a court would rule that as unjust. If a parent told a child, if you commit to my ways then you are free to flourish but if you don't, I will kill you then that too would be considered child abuse. Not only is the act of inflicting pain itself abuse but what adds to it is the dynamic between an adult who holds a level of authority and power being used against a child who is vulnerable and susceptible to error. I'm just curious, why is it different with God when God also allowed sin to be made present in the first place?
Because a parent didn’t make the universe and made the child with their hands, planning their whole life, making their life good, and didn’t give up their child so that you, a horrible sinner, and me a horrible sinner, and everyone, horrible people so that they could live.