Hell is theologically impossible if God is omnipotent.

Hell is theologically impossible if God is omnipotent.

Definition of omnipotent. ----- Having virtually unlimited authority or influence.

Definition of influence. ---- The act or power of producing an effect without apparent exertion of force or direct exercise of command. The power or capacity of causing an effect in indirect or intangible ways: sway. IOW, unlimited powers of persuasion.
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2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
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When we die, believers believe that we will face a God who is said to have infinite persuasive powers and influence on the conditions of our consciousness. This power would overwhelm any reluctance for any non-believers who were not sure of God’s existence before death. For the first time, this is when full disclosure answers all questions that have prevented non-believers from believing in God.

All then would come to repentance and be saved.

Given this theology, hell would become a construct without purpose or inhabitants.

That would make Bishop Spong correct in his view.

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Why then would the Church invent the concept of hell?

By doing so, the Church ignores God’s omnipotence and causes God to back slide from his position of master of all time and space, to the master of just some. He would not be master of those in hell. It can be argued that God could destroy those souls but that just makes him a destroyer and not master which is his ultimate goal or intent for all souls.

Do you recognize the huge power of God’s persuasive powers that would negate or deal with any objection that the non-believer would have for his non-belief?

Do you recognize that none would choose hell and that it is therefore not required and that God would not cause his back slide by creating it?

Regards
DL

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I think this can be easily explained...

When I was younger and doing something naughty, my Mum would say "Pack that in or your Dad will belt you around the head"...

Of course he never would but it put enough fear into me to make me stop.

It's a way for "God" or the Church to discipline us without harming us.

At least that's how I see it.

reply to post by Greatest I am

efinition of omnipotent. ----- Having virtually unlimited authority or influence.

3 things God cannot do:

1. Lie.
2. Learn. He'll never be surprised when you make a mistake. He still loved you in Christ.
3. Violate your sovereignty as a being created in His own image. He will not make you love Him.

reply to post by Greatest I am


You make your choice "here" in this life and will be judged later. You are choosing right now every day, unless you have never heard the messages of god's word. The only ones that would be given a choice like you speak of are people who have never heard the word of god. I agree that none of them would say no to god, but hell is for the ones who have already made their choices.

My question is; if a person is right at the line of acceptance into heaven and could be judged either way, who gets to make the call on acceptance and on what grounds would they lean one way or the other?

reply to post by Greatest I am


Hey, and there is another good reason. I am usually riding this band wagon but from a religious history viewpoint. You are correct though too sir! Good Job.

My take on this question is that no other religion in the world has kept Hell as a theme park for the naughty before Christianity. Except of course for the sole exception of the Sun (Son) worship of Mithraism. Throughout history new faiths have nearly always incorporated elements of the previous faith it was replacing to make the transition easier for us stubborn humans.

S+F OP

reply to post by Greatest I am


Hell ,God and Satan are all man made inventions. They all come from man's imagination. Just like aliens .


All man made. All based on blind faith with not a single ounce logic.

in mythologies humans are not judged at the end of their lives, its the soul. the soul is not human and not mortal, it exists before and after you.

reply to post by Communicationwillfreeus


Ok so you make your own choice, free will and all yada yada.
Did god know that you would make that choice, or is he just uninformed (not much of a god)?
If god knows your choice, did he err by making something that would be damned even before it was created?
Kind of like having a baby just for the amusement of tormenting it don't you think?
Sounds pretty cruel to me.

Good reasoning!! I'm not religious at all but this I can understand.

Be interesting to see the replies. S+F for you sir.

Peace

PS: What I never understood is that people who do good, in the eyes of God, go to heaven as a reward but people who do evil get punished in hell......??

What's with the punishment? You'd think Satan would be happy with "evil" people....

People dont have an immortal soul... when dead you're dead. God can bring you back into existence just like Jesus (through the power of his father) revived Lazarus. God revived Jesus from the dead as well...

Hell is purely a fabrication of the church. The word Hell cannot be found in the bible. The words used to create the concept of hell are Hades, Sjeool and Gehenna. all 3 are meant symbolically just like when you'd say you made someone bite the dust... SYMBOLICAL...

reply to post by Greatest I am


Hell is greatly debated historically in Christianity. Is it a literal place, a state of being, is it eternal or limited, can one escape it after death, etc.

Regardless of what "it" is "it" is something that Christ has paid the ultimate price for so that we can escape "it". He did this out of love when He did not have to. He chose to give us the ability to return to light and escape darkness.

I have to allow my kids to make choices that I may not agree with and for them to experience the consequences, good or bad, of those choices.

Sometimes parents even have to allow children to make choices they know will be pure hell to their lives.

My belief, from reading the scriptures, is that God is the same (even more so) and very often it is the hell we put ourselves in that brings us to the end of our prideful selves and leads us back to the light that is in Christ alone.

reply to post by Greatest I am


There is a reason why agnosticism is untheological. Even Satan knows God exists and we can read the eternal separation that is to be prepared for him and his angels in John's revelation. Therefor we know salvation isn't based on knowing He exists but on Faith in His Grace through Jesus, His example to us of His Love and desire for us.

Theologically, Hell is the term used for the absence of or separation from God. Hell exists as the antithesis to God's presence much like how in light, no darkness can abide. If you don't want God then spending eternity without Him and all He is would be the judgment whereby one has judged one's self in this life and the decision is made while we yet call it today.

Hell theologically exists because God theologically exists and that apart from His omnipotence.

Originally posted by NOTurTypical
reply to post by Greatest I am

 

efinition of omnipotent. ----- Having virtually unlimited authority or influence.

3 things God cannot do:

1. Lie.
2. Learn. He'll never be surprised when you make a mistake. He still loved you in Christ.
3. Violate your sovereignty as a being created in His own image. He will not make you love Him.

When it comes to 3 you are not 100% right in my way of thinking. Have chi running thru your body a while and see if you don't have another perception about whether he/she/all will not make you love him/her/the devine. Heaven and hell is also a state of mind that can be percieved on earth. Those who are living thru hell here unjustly in the end gets what is comming for them. True caring/afffection and harmony is a very hard thing to ignore when you haven't feelt it in decades. No body is left behind in the end. But some are very lost for a very long time. Love a soulbrother. Namaste

Originally posted by NOTurTypical
reply to post by Greatest I am

 

efinition of omnipotent. ----- Having virtually unlimited authority or influence.

3 things God cannot do:

1. Lie.
2. Learn. He'll never be surprised when you make a mistake. He still loved you in Christ.
3. Violate your sovereignty as a being created in His own image. He will not make you love Him.

1. While he may not lie, he can deceive.

It would be even more interesting to see what those people think about the Bible when it talks of God misguiding people, such as in 2Thessalonians 2:11-12, where it says God "shall send ... strong delusion, ... that they all might be damned who believed not the truth".
Or perhaps of the book of Isaiah, chapter 6 verse 10, (which Jesus quotes in John 12), where he describes how "God has blinded their eyes and deadened their hearts". (NIV translation)

Credit to the source

Ezekiel 14:9
9And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the LORD have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.


John 12:40
He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.


Isaiah 29:10
10For the LORD hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered.

Source Again

Lying and Deceiving are the same thing. Therefor, God can lie. Unless you want to argue semantics and twist definitions around to make them different. (I personally love toying with this one. Christians, like everyone else, will argue that lying and deceiving are the same thing. That is, until they see they scriptures.)

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2. Interesting that God "can't learn". Because, regret, as we all know, requires you to learn. See(learn) the consequence of your actions.

1 Samuel 15:11 ESV "I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments." And Samuel was angry, and he cried to the LORD all night.

Genesis 6:6 The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.

"Both mostly from memory, with some Google aid to find the exacts. There are a few more as well."

Any being who knew the consequences of all his actions, would not end up regretting them. He'd of known ahead of time what decisions were for the better or not, and wouldn't make bad ones. If all his decisions were good, then he had no reason to regret.

If you don't know the consequences of your actions, you learn.

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3. I believe hardening the hearts of the people(mind control), violates sovereignty very well. We all know that was happened with pharaoh, but even more people besides that.

Joshua 11:20 For it was the LORD himself who hardened their hearts to wage war against Israel, so that he might destroy them totally, exterminating them without mercy, as the LORD had commanded Moses.

Exodus 14:17 I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them. And I will gain glory through Pharaoh and all his army, through his chariots and his horsemen.

Deuteronomy 2:30 But Sihon king of Heshbon refused to let us pass through. For the LORD your God had made his spirit stubborn and his heart obstinate in order to give him into your hands, as he has now done.

That is not all. There is more. Every time he "Hardened a Heart", he took away a persons ability to choose themselves. Every time he did this, he did it to hurt them. He even did it as an excuse to kill them.


On top of that, not going to post the scriptures, but he killed and demanded the deaths of people for, lifestyle choices(such as fornication), being born a certain (such as being gay), and more. He actively condoned and at times promoted the oppression of women(taking away their sovereignty), and he was perfectly ok with slavery, which also obviously takes away sovereignty.

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Weird how the 3 things God "Can't do", are all done, by him, throughout the bible.


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In all seriousness, back to the OP. All you have to do is research Hell/Gehenna and it's meanings. Even the writers in the old testament who wrote about a merciless and brutal god, didn't envision him sending people to a place of eternal torture and agony. Neither did to purported speakings of jesus promote that either. The "Fiery Hell" was definitely not what modern christians interpret it to be.

reply to post by Greatest I am

Hell is theologically impossible if God is omnipotent.

The simple solution would be that God is not omnipotent, and neither is anyone else, including whoever created the universe. They could create a universe, but could not make one that made everyone happy all the time.
God, or the gods (take your pick but it is all a matter of terminology) are as powerful a being as you are going to find in this universe because most likely what created the universe expended itself in the creation of it, and no longer exists.

God is supposed to be omnipresent too:

www.parentcompany.com...

So if Hell is the absence of God, how can it exist if he is omnipresent?

reply to post by berenike

So if Hell is the absence of God, how can it exist if he is omnipresent?

The simple solution would be that this is not an accurate definition of Hell.

And the correct way to understan it would be that it is a naturally occurring phenomenon.

reply to post by jmdewey60


Or perhaps 'omnipotent' and 'omnipresent' aren't accurate descriptions of God?

I think people run into trouble when they try and make their god bigger and more powerful than everyone else's - the argument becomes illogical and difficult to sustain.

reply to post by berenike


It comes from the ancient Cult of Kings where the king was a virtual God with all these wonderful attributes so in the case of Israel, once they had no king and they had to present God as their leader, then they needed to put Him in a higher position than they had earlier put the king.

reply to post by berenike



Philosophically speaking, to say God "Is" Omnipresent is to imply that omnipresence confines God, orders Him to be everywhere at all times however such is not the case if God is to be omnipotent. The decision to be here or there or everywhere when and how He desires is completely up to the Omnipotent. Therefore, what should be said is that God "can" be omnipresent for it is not beyond the power of a righteous omnipotent God to separate from himself unrighteousness, sin, and darkness while choosing to be absent from it forever.

Furthermore, theologically speaking, hell is not a place from which God is to be absent. Rather, hell is nothingness because God has chosen to be eternally absent.

So we see that God can in fact exist as omnipotent, and omnipresent while still being God.