Your article on universalism as reality avoidance
Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2015 6:51 am
(This is an archived correspondence at The Path of Truth. We have sent notification to the correspondent.)
Hi,
With reference to the article of yours whose address is http://www.thepathoftruth.com/falsehood ... idance.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;: Would I be right in gathering from its seventh paragraph that since the rest of the article makes it apparent that you consider fearing hell to be undesirable, the fear of God that you regard as good (or at least more acceptable than other forms of fear) involves not fear of being punished by Him, but rather - and this is paraphrasing something from your splendid article on Mary Baxter - the dread of having one's sinful nature exposed in the light of His glory?
Talking of Mary Baxter: Are the tortures described in her first book really any big deal per se if every adult on the planet does indeed deserve to be afflicted endlessly with such tortures? Put differently: If God would be perfectly within His rights to give us hell for eternity (but chooses not to because of His mercifulness and His love for us), is it appropriate to criticize the book for depicting Him as cruel for forcing people to suffer out of proportion to the severity of their sins, as opposed to just criticizing it for presenting itself as a divine revelation when it's merely a work of fiction?
Whatever, I can understand why some wind up in an asylum due to fear of hell. For whether they feel they deserve it or not, it is surely only natural and human for a person to be terrified of experiencing something excruciatingly painful, and to get very depressed about it too, if they think that they truly are in danger of experiencing it - all the more so if what they're afraid of is being sent to an awful-beyond-comprehension realm in which their agony will never, ever come to an end. Furthermore, many worry greatly about what might become of loved ones of theirs in the afterlife,* although the fact that scores of orthodox Christians decide to reproduce in the face of the teaching of everlasting damnation does make me wonder if it's a teaching that, on a deep, subconscious level, is taken seriously by only a small minority of them (seeing as, according to their brand of religion, their offspring will be at real risk of finishing up in hell). In which case, maybe the Christians belonging to that small minority are the ones most likely to be put in an asylum?
*I once read a purportedly true story telling of a woman who'd become so traumatized at the thought of her unbelieving son being cast into an impossible-to-escape-from hell that she offered to sacrifice herself in his place - in other words, begged God to send her there instead of him.
Jon
Hi,
With reference to the article of yours whose address is http://www.thepathoftruth.com/falsehood ... idance.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;: Would I be right in gathering from its seventh paragraph that since the rest of the article makes it apparent that you consider fearing hell to be undesirable, the fear of God that you regard as good (or at least more acceptable than other forms of fear) involves not fear of being punished by Him, but rather - and this is paraphrasing something from your splendid article on Mary Baxter - the dread of having one's sinful nature exposed in the light of His glory?
Talking of Mary Baxter: Are the tortures described in her first book really any big deal per se if every adult on the planet does indeed deserve to be afflicted endlessly with such tortures? Put differently: If God would be perfectly within His rights to give us hell for eternity (but chooses not to because of His mercifulness and His love for us), is it appropriate to criticize the book for depicting Him as cruel for forcing people to suffer out of proportion to the severity of their sins, as opposed to just criticizing it for presenting itself as a divine revelation when it's merely a work of fiction?
Whatever, I can understand why some wind up in an asylum due to fear of hell. For whether they feel they deserve it or not, it is surely only natural and human for a person to be terrified of experiencing something excruciatingly painful, and to get very depressed about it too, if they think that they truly are in danger of experiencing it - all the more so if what they're afraid of is being sent to an awful-beyond-comprehension realm in which their agony will never, ever come to an end. Furthermore, many worry greatly about what might become of loved ones of theirs in the afterlife,* although the fact that scores of orthodox Christians decide to reproduce in the face of the teaching of everlasting damnation does make me wonder if it's a teaching that, on a deep, subconscious level, is taken seriously by only a small minority of them (seeing as, according to their brand of religion, their offspring will be at real risk of finishing up in hell). In which case, maybe the Christians belonging to that small minority are the ones most likely to be put in an asylum?
*I once read a purportedly true story telling of a woman who'd become so traumatized at the thought of her unbelieving son being cast into an impossible-to-escape-from hell that she offered to sacrifice herself in his place - in other words, begged God to send her there instead of him.
Jon