Charity

Thanks to everyone for sharing your thoughts on my posts in both the Christian and atheist forums. The challenge I have of respecting the boundary between the two shows how counter-productive it is for me to continue trying to do so. It's time to make a clean break from all things biblical.

Did God prove his existence in the garden of Eden to Adam and Eve? Will he prove his existence to those in the afterlife? So why couldn't/can't he prove his existence during the period between those two times in order to directly give us his word? If I still haven't answered your question, perhaps you could state what point you are trying to make. Thank you Rocky..

Considering the forum this thread is under, the serious point I was making relates to all the different doctrines there are around the same topic that theologians have come up with, all of which are supposedly based on scriptures. It can be exhausting dealing with them all when one is wanting to find out what is the truth which Jesus himself spoke of in John 8:32, "and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” My rhetorical question is why didn't God make himself and his true word known directly without any middlemen and then prevent it from being changed, suggesting in a fantastical way the threat of a lightning strike upon anyone who tried to do. Jeremiah 32:17 says "Oh, Lord GOD! Behold, You Yourself have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! Nothing is too difficult for You,"

Thanks - I agree.

I suspect many people will have made that "jump" right along with JS without noticing what you have pointed out above.

So, you have what JS believes about end time punishment and on the other end of the spectrum, you have what Sean Finnegan from Living Hope (Vince Finnegan's ministry) believes. In his video The Lost Suffer Eternal Torment in Hell (after the 41:00 mark), he teaches that the lake of fire is simply the symbol for the second death and later says, “Now, you may ask the question...what about proportional justice. What if God wants somebody to experience pain for so long before they’re executed? I don’t know. I don’t have a verse on that. So maybe God is going to do that, maybe he’s just going to be merciful." Rhetorical question: Why didn't the almighty God (who is not the author of confusion) not make the one topic of end time punishment clear and concise in one piece of writing (necessarily in different languages) and preserve it forever (without any changes on the threat of a lightning bolt immediately striking anyone who tried)? That would definitely prove his existence! IMO, we have too many cooks spoiling the broth.

My mistake - the thread is in the Matters of Faith forum.

That's cool.

I'm thinking that I may have crossed the line by sharing my atheistic idea on a doctrinal forum by calling God's torment in the lake of fire of the unsaved/wicked (whether temporary or eternal) as being abhorrent. My biblical critique of the doctrine would be whether the word "fire" used in Schoenheit's Appendix 4 is figurative or literal or a mixture of both. That I do not know.

If you go over to the doctrinal subforum, there is the thread "Salvation Universal or Not?" where I shared John Schoenheit's Appendix 4 from his REV bible. It's basically the written form of the doctrine he teaches in the tape. His point #6 is called "The 'immortal soul' is not biblical; the Bible never says the soul is immortal," if you are interested in reading it.

JS never once says in his Appendix that "fire" is used figuratively when it comes to the lake of fire. So, what he is teaching in his point #10 is that the torture in the Lake of Fire, before one actually dies, is similar in nature to how garbage actually burns up - some things take longer than others before they are nothing but ashes. This idea of actually burning for any length of time is simply abhorrent. I think it shows how deceitful his opening paragraphs are when he wants to defend that God is love. In those paragraphs, he only refers to how unloving, unrighteous and coldhearted eternal torment would be and does not even mention temporary torment, only the unsaved being "annihilated." So, by the time you get to point #10, the God of Love now appears to see temporary torment as loving and righteous. He writes (underlining is mine): "One of the most powerful truths about God in the Bible is “God is love,” but some Christians teach that God tortures the unsaved in the flames of hell for all eternity. How could that be love? Thankfully, God does not do that. The Bible says that the saved will live forever and the unsaved will be annihilated in the Lake of Fire. There is no “eternal torment” in the Bible. There are a number of important reasons why many people have had difficulty believing that God would torture people eternally. One reason that we have just seen is that God is love and torturing people forever is not love. Another reason is that God is righteous, it is not logical that someone could commit sin in one short lifetime that would be justly recompensed by being tormented forever. How could everlasting torture be just or righteous? Also, the doctrine of eternal torture makes saved people seem very cold-hearted. Could it really be that the saved are rejoicing forever while hearing the screams of people being tortured forever? And frankly, even if the saved could not hear the cries of the damned, would that make such a big difference? Just knowing that people were being tortured forever would seem to make everlasting life hard to enjoy. Civilized people will not even torture their worst enemies here on earth; does that change when the saved are perfected? Unsaved people are not tortured forever, and the teaching that they are contradicts many clear and simple scriptures."

Matthew 18 does show that without forgiveness, the debt must be paid. Once it is paid, the person is released. If it is not paid, the person remains in prison. The parable does not support his doctrine though which is "The wicked are annihilated after a period of suffering, and that period of suffering fulfills the Word of God and the justice of God." In that sense, he is not talking about purgatory where Catholics go from there only to heaven. He does list 9 verses that talk about being judged "according to one's works." Do you think these verses support there is suffering according to one's works before one is destroyed in the Lake of Fire?

Appendix 4. Annihilation in the Lake of Fire I think John Schoenheit's doctrine above is a different viewpoint from what I've read above. It's all BS to me, but it might be of interest to someone. It's a long appendix so I'll quote what I think is the most pertinent part (underlining is mine). "10. People will be punished in proportion to their sin. Scripture says people will receive punishment for what they have done, and that the punishment will be in proportion to the sin they have committed. Romans 2:5 says of stubborn people, “you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath.” Just as godly people by their good works store up treasure for the life to come, wicked people store up wrath for themselves. It would make no sense to say that a person “stored up wrath for themselves” if every person got the same “wrath,” that is, eternal torment. Jesus taught that people would be tortured “until” they paid back what they owed for their sin (Matt. 18:32-35). Theologians who believe in eternal torment claim that no one can ever pay for their sin, but no Scripture says that. In fact, Scripture is clear that sin can be paid for, and that is exactly what Jesus taught in Matthew 18:34 and what verses such as Romans 2:5 indicate. The clear message of Scripture is that unless people get forgiveness for their sins they will receive punishment for the evil they have done, but never does Scripture say the people deserve being punished forever (Ps. 62:12; Eccl. 11:9; Jer. 17:10; 32:19; Ezek. 33:20; Matt. 16:27; Rom. 2:6; 2 Cor. 5:10; Rev. 2:23). Beings such as the Devil and his demons have stored up much wrath for themselves and will be punished for a very long time before they are destroyed. God metes out two different types of justice: corrective justice and retributive justice. Corrective justice is punishment that is meant to correct a behavior, while retributive justice is retribution, or repayment, for something that the person did (see commentary on 2 Thess. 1:8). Torment and then destruction in the Lake of Fire is not corrective, it is retributive; it is a righteous repayment for harm done. The demons knew this justice was coming, and so they said to Jesus, “Have you come to destroy us?” (Mark 1:24). Some theologians have argued against annihilation because they say it would not make sense for God to resurrect someone from the dead only to kill them again. That misses the fact that God’s annihilation in the Lake of Fire is a judgment, a retribution, a fulfillment of a promise, and a lesson to those still living. We can assume many evil people, the Pharisees are a good example, have died in complete confidence that they will be saved, and as rich and powerful people, often died in the comfort of their own homes, well-fed and cared for. Not only do wicked people such as those Pharisees need to be judged and fulfill the promise that “every knee will bow,” but their annihilation is not immediate. The wicked are annihilated after a period of suffering, and that period of suffering fulfills the Word of God and the justice of God. It seems clear that not every sinner spends equal time suffering, but the more wicked a person is, the more severe the punishment, fulfilling the Scripture that they have stored up wrath for the Day of Wrath. It is God’s just retribution that those who have ignored God and caused pain and suffering on earth will suffer in proportion to the evil they have done. Also, the suffering of the wicked before they are annihilated will show those who have everlasting life that God is truly just. God, through Jesus Christ, offered to pay for the sins of anyone who wished to accept that payment. Those people who rejected God’s offer, and thereby decided by default to pay for their own sins, had to make good their decision, and pay for their sins with suffering and death, just as Scripture said: “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23).

I need to correct the above post. After listening to the tape again, John Schoenheit did not use the phrase "right" translation, he said a "good" translation.

In that video I half watched about "What is the Destiny of the Unsaved?" JS claimed twice that you need to have "the right translation" in order to get to the truth about hell, the second death, etc. I can't remember if he mentions his bible by name, but any verses he puts up show they come from the REV.