Posted on 04/29/2012 3:06:06 PM PDT by NYer
Absolutely not. I'm just saying that if you truly love Jesus you would be willing to endure an eternity of the pain and deprivation threatened in the fire and brimstone hell for His sake as I am sure He would do for us. The God who created human psychology surely knows that positive reinforcement is a far more effective motivationa tactic than coercion.
"You say Jesus "was speaking to a Jewish audience who did not have a complete understanding and appreciation of heaven, hell and an afterlife". That's an astounding admission when you have mocked and criticized people like Smvoice and others, who spoke about the audience of Jesus in the gospels being the Jews and the effect on the context of what he said."
Were that lack of understanding limited only to the Jews you might have a point, but obviously that lack of understanding persists among some Christians to this day.
"Are you saying you disagree with your church's teachings about hell?"
Not at all. I am not saying that fire and brimstone do not exist, just that as a Catholic and Christian the threat of that pales in comparison to an eternity absent God:
CCC 1057 Hell's principal punishment consists of eternal separation from God in whom alone man can have the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.
Amen to that!
"These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God."
nl: Absolutely not. I'm just saying that if you truly love Jesus you would be willing to endure an eternity of the pain and deprivation threatened in the fire and brimstone hell for His sake as I am sure He would do for us.
What on earth kind of reasoning is that? And how do you figure that Jesus would be willing to endure eternal torment for our sake? What's your Scriptural justification for that????
Not at all. I am not saying that fire and brimstone do not exist, just that as a Catholic and Christian the threat of that pales in comparison to an eternity absent God:
Spending an eternity absent from God without the torment is no punishment for someone who already hates and rejects God.
What's going to be the punishment for people who don't want God isn't being without Him; that's just giving them what they want.
It's going to be the torment
It only seems bizarre when considered in the absence of an understand of what divine and perfect love is.
"And how do you figure that Jesus would be willing to endure eternal torment for our sake?"
He loves me, divinely and perfectly.
"What's your Scriptural justification for that????"
You don't believe that Scripture says that God loves you?
"What's going to be the punishment for people who don't want God isn't being without Him; that's just giving them what they want..."
It is a very dark and hedonistic soteriology that puts the personal fear of the physical above the loss of the divine and believes that the Gospel must rely on threats and coercion to precipitate what should be selflessly given.
Time to complete the thought.....
bb: You say Jesus "was speaking to a Jewish audience who did not have a complete understanding and appreciation of heaven, hell and an afterlife".
NOBODY has a complete understanding and appreciation of heaven or hell.
I've noticed that the Catholic church and Catholics like to CLAIM they do, like they claim to understand the Trinity, but most of what we believe about things unseen and things of God is most likely nowhere near the mark.
I didn't think so.
The comment about if we truly loved Jesus we would be willing to spend eternity in eternal torment for His sake is total nonsense.
Granted, it's a sentence, but still, sentences are supposed to mean something. That doesn't.
It is a very dark and hedonistic soteriology that puts the personal fear of the physical above the loss of the divine and believes that the Gospel must rely on threats and coercion to precipitate what should be selflessly given.
Well, you'll have to take that up with Jesus because He's the one that warned us more about hell and the eternal torment and the punishment for unbelief than He taught about heaven and the rewards for belief.
And it isn't nearly as twisted as some of the teachings about salvation that the Catholic church purports.
It may not have occurred to you yet, but *threatening* someone who doesn't want anything to do with God with an eternity without Him, is no threat to them. You still haven't explained how giving someone what they want is punishment to them. For the God hater, the punishment would be to spend eternity WITH Him.
Take out the eternal torment and there's no impetus for the non-believer to give a rip about the idea of spending eternity without God.
Spending eternity without God is only a deterrent to those who want to spend eternity WITH Him, and they're most likely going to be saved anyway.
It is only nonsense to those who value their own creature comforts more than they do Him. I pray that your statement was only the product of anti-Catholic contrariness and not your true feelings.
"But above all these things is the being associated with the companies of angels and archangels, thrones and dominations, principalities and powers, and the enjoyment of the watches of all the celestial virtues—to behold the squadron of the saints, adorned with stars; the patriarchs, glittering with faith; the prophets, rejoicing in hope; the apostles, who in the twelve tribes of Israel, shall judge the whole world; the martyrs, decked with the purple diadems of victory; the virgins, also, with their wreaths of beauty. But of the King, who is in the midst, no words are able to speak. That beauty, that virtue, that glory, that magnificence, that majesty, surpasses every expression, every sense of the human mind. For it is greater than the glory of all saints; but to attain to that ineffable sight, and to be made radiant with the splendor of His countenance, it were worth while to suffer torment every day—it were worth while to endure hell itself for a season, so that we might behold Christ coming in glory, and be joined to the number of the saints; so is it not then well worth while to endure earthly sorrows, that we may be partakers of such good, and of such glory?" - St. Bede 710 AD
No, it IS nonsense and it has NOTHING at all to do with a person valuing creature comforts more than they do the Lord Jesus. The Apostle Paul spoke about how much he loved his fellow Jews - so much that if it were possible he would be accursed from Christ in their place (Romans 9:3). But, as we know FROM Scripture, God does not allow that and each person must make a decision about Christ for himself. So, I agree with Metmom, that imagining eternity in hell separated from Christ to somehow prove our love for him is nonsense. It may sound pious to some, but it is nonsense nonetheless.
Your quotation of Bede, BTW, does NOT address eternity in hell but "for a season" and he used the analogy to encourage us to endure whatever hardships in this present life for the glory that awaits those who are Christ's. He came that we may HAVE life and that abundantly.
For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. (Romans 8:18)
You missed the point. We can and always choose the wrong course in our lives. We can and never choose the right way. While Protestants accept that Christ is our atonement and the perfector of our faith, Catholics feel there is a need to work one’s way. Thus the purpose of purgatory. Of course Mary would have been excluded.
Would you say that Judas could be in purgatory?
Catholics do not accept the doctrine of total depravity. While we are wounded by Original Sin, with the grace of baptism we need not be defeated by it. We only lose when we surrender to it.
"Catholics feel there is a need to work one’s way. Thus the purpose of purgatory.
Purgatory is not a place. It is a timeless state named for the purgation of our sins to ensure that we are pure when we enter heaven.
"Would you say that Judas could be in purgatory?"
Since I cannot say with any certainty or knowledge where Judas is or is not I cannot comment except to sat that it is a possibility.
Would you willingly suffer an eternity in the fire and brimstone of hell if it pleased God? If the answer is no then your understanding of love is hypothetical and your love of God is conditional and incomplete.
Basing your understanding of the kind of love God expects with hypotheticals is nonsense. That as well as the kind of God we love. Fortunately for us God does not leave us to wonder about hypotheticals, We love him because He first loved us. (I John 4:19) and Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (I John 4:10)
With Jesus Christ making complete and total propitiation for our sins, we need never have to contemplate an eternity in the fire and brimstone of hell. All, who receive the gift of eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ, have been redeemed from the threat of eternal damnation FOREVER and:
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)
If it pleased God?!?!?! It doesn't please God to send anyone to hell. What kind of God do you serve? (No need to answer, really. I know what kind of god Catholics serve because that is the one I was taught about as a Catholics and the one I rejected for the true God, the one of the Bible who is as He knows Himself to be, not a lopsided construct used to cow people into submission to a church.)
*if it pleased God*...... That's a false premise if there ever was one. A hypothetical question that has no basis in reality, but Catholics do love to play the pious martyr, don't they? I guess it comes from all that Catholic teaching that somehow we can earn forgiveness by self-abasement and suffering for God enough, as if our suffering can remit sins and please God.
Well, any god that our suffering pleases is not the God of the Bible.
And Catholics wonder why people reject the Catholic God.
If the answer is no then your understanding of love is hypothetical and your love of God is conditional and incomplete.
Not as incomplete as the understanding of God that someone could actually think up something so ludicrous.
EVERYBODY'S love of God is conditional and incomplete. No human is capable of the kind of love and devotion to God that He deserves and anyone who claims otherwise is deceiving themselves. It's only through the work of the Holy Spirit in us that enables us to be or do anything that pleases God.
"Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." - Matthew 16:24, Luke 9:23
I do have to say that you have a unique ability to turn every discussion into a gratuitous attack upon the Church. It saddens me to think that you derive some perverse pleasure and satisfaction from it. Insulting me and the Church is not helping convince anyone of your Christianity and only evokes my pity and prayers. Whatever injury you may have suffered at the hands of Catholics and those acting in the name of the Church you would best serve yourself and God by finding a way to forgive.
For all of the postings you have made the one thing that is clear is that you were extremely poorly Catechised or have an extremely vivid imagination. I would only hope that you would learn the actual doctrines and history of the Church and base your criticism on fact and not fancy. Those within the Church need to hear legitimate and constructive criticism, but your attacks only cloud the real problems in vitriol.
Peace be with you.
AMEN!!! Why isn't it enough for some people to deal with reality as God tells us in Holy Scripture? Why the need to "out-holy" another or try to sound oh-so-much-more-pious-than-thee based on imagined scenarios or hypotheticals? There were theologians that actually argued about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin and other such nonsense! I can imagine God laughing in derision at some of them.
I join you in praising God that He also led me into the truth of His nature and out of a false religion that twisted it. We love Him because He first loved us.
LOL Now thats funny.
It seems you do not want to miss a chance to criticize anyone who left the Roman Catholic Church under the pretext that they "just didn't get catechized correctly". Metmom is correct, God does NOT take pleasure in our suffering and the verse you quoted speaks about what anyone who desires to be a disciple can expect. We WILL have suffering in this world - Jesus warned us repeatedly - but to suggest that God is pleased when we do suffer is wrong. He takes NO pleasure in the wicked suffering, what makes you think He does with His children?
Nothing Metmom has said about her upbringing in the Catholic Church contradicts my experience nor that of the many others that have also left and post here. Perhaps it is your own "unique ability to turn every discussion into a gratuitous attack upon" former Catholics that is at issue. You also cannot know what is in our hearts that compels us to speak about these things. Why does ANY criticism of your church insult YOU? Are you suggesting none of it is truthful or based upon facts? That kind of tactic, as you should know by now, doesn't work.
Then I guess you don’t know what dying to self means.
Even worse is the accusation and more than clear implication that those who left the RCC did so out of *personnel reasons*, with the speculation that it is due to immorality, divorce, or other blatant sin in their lives. Never because of the Church's unscriptural theology.
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