As a way of sorting through the stuff I've been thinking about with regards to universalism/inclusvism, I'm posting some points concerning the nature of Hell. Feel free to drop in with comments, criticisms, what not. As theses, I currently don't have arguments for these points, but I think they make intuitive sense.
- Everyone in Hell must, given their characters at the time, necessarily be in Hell. It is not a contingent feature of the world that a person of X character is eternally saved or suffering.
- For this reason, if someone is in Hell, they are in Hell due to some feature of God's character of of their own. It seems that these are the only two choices which would give grounds for the necessity of the 1st thesis.
- Hell can be either retributive, redemptive, or unavoidable. The first is if we can say that sinners, due to some feature in their own character of of God's, must necessarily be punished. The second is if Hell would (at least possibly) lead to a better end for those punished. The third is if Hell is not a place of justice, but simply an unavoidable by-product of the way the world is, or of other decision which God has made concerning how the world would be set up.
- Hell could only be retributive if God's nature demanded retribution. The person's own character cannot necessitate retribution without some source from outside herself mandating retribution, and if God only contingently wills retribution, then it would not be necessary and would not be truly just.
- Given that God does forgive some, it is not absolutely necessary that God mete out retribution.
- Given that there is no necessary link between explicit acceptance of Christ's death and God's forgiveness (though there is with the fact of Christ's death, incarnation, and resurrection), there is no relative necessity for why God must mete out retribution.
- Retributive justice really doesn't make sense anyhow, and in theology it is largely an artifact of first feudal (with honor) and then capitalist (with debt) societies, rather than part of God's own character.
- Hell, therefore, is either redemptive or unavoidable.
- If Hell is unavoidable, then it is such due to the person's character and not God's nature (otherwise, we'd be talking about retribution).
- Anyone who truly knows the good and realizes that apart from it, there is no good, would not necessarily hold out against it forever.
- Hell is therefore either redemptive, or contingently unavoidable.
- If exclusivism (that is, salvation through explicit acceptance of Jesus through that name or as translated and interpreted within a traditional Christian framework), then the gospel would be horrible news to most people; before, God could say, "What does the Lord require of you? To do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God," but now these very same activities not only could be non-salvific but anti-salvific, when they would cause someone to reject an often unjust, unmerciful, and prideful Christian witness.
2 comments:
You write:
"Retributive justice really doesn't make sense anyhow, and in theology it is largely an artifact of first feudal (with honor) and then capitalist (with debt) societies, rather than part of God's own character."
Well, what part of theology (biblical or otherwise) is *not* an artifact of the economic/legal/social context of the persons/communities doing the theologizing?
To put it more strongly and directly (and to play devil's advocate): How could we ever know antyhing about God's own character apart from analogies, types, or metaphors drawn from our own social contexts?
This is a real (not DA) question: What do you propse we replace the feudalistic and capitalistic and patriarchal (and whatever) metaphors with in our theology (as members of a post-evangelical, post-Protestant, post-modern, post-post-modern community, or whatever the heck we are!)?
Excellent questions. I actually just threw that one in at the last minute; I don't hold to it as strongly as the others. I'm somewhat inclined to think of the notion of retributive justice and its necessity as a part of our fallen human nature, rather than just our present context.
Where the problem comes in with contemporary theology, and to answer your question, at least in part, is that these metaphors are taken to be absolutely normative. I consider Talbott's appeals in his rebuttal to be rather persuasive, in that Jesus called us to be forgiving and to overlook faults and so to become more like God. So, we are using metaphors which seem to go against Jesus teaching, and this is the most serious concern.
After this, another concern is that using metaphors is fine, and of course they will be imperfect (they are metaphors, after all, not propositions), so long as people realize that they are metaphors. So maybe we have to pull from, say, capitalist sources as this is what people are used to, from where they have their imagery. This fine for practical matters (otherwise, I would be calling for the death of popular-level Christian writing), but when we forget the metaphorical nature, problems arise.
Post a Comment