Harbal wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 12:02 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jan 19, 2023 10:23 pm
If God exists, what's at stake is one's eternal soul...its destiny, and its ultimate value. The stakes literally could not be higher. One is deciding on the disposition of one's soul forever...and one is receiving the outcome of one's own determination.
Can we come back to this?
Absolutely.
Your above comment about the soul doesn’t provide much detail. I know you haven’t just made it up, so what is the source of your knowledge about what happens to the soul, and how specific is it in detail? From what you do say, I get the sense that you don’t just mean the soul misses out on something good, but, rather, faces something very bad.
My knowledge comes from Jesus Christ. And what He says is specific in some ways, but more general in others. He speaks of two things: how totally great it is to know and love God, and how lousy it is to miss out on that. But He describes both through the use of things that cannot be but metaphorical language -- the using of something you and I have some experience with, in order to illustrate two realities greater than anything with which you or I have any experience. So in that sense, the particulars he gives are not fully detailed, though they make use of the best metaphors available to try to give us some idea of the astronomical stakes involved.
For example, Jesus says,
"The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. The one who has ears, let him hear." (Matthew 13:41-43)
So on the one hand, we have metaphors of "fire" (some kind of real pain or unpleasantness, obviously), "weeping" (regret, I would think) and "gnashing of teeth" (unrepentant hatred of God? I'm not sure, but elsewhere, the metaphor seems to convey that, when "gnashing" is involved). And on the other side, a "shining forth like the sun," meaning obviously some kind of glory, life, light and well-being).
But the metaphors about Heaven are even less picturesque than those about what people commonly call "Hell," and the Bible terms, "the lake of fire." It's as if it's harder to describe the good that's coming than it is the bad that's coming, because the good is too far beyond human imagining, whereas the bad is within striking distance of normal imagination, at least. And this suppostion is further supported by the whole Bible. For Paul summarizes the situation this way: "just as it is written:
“Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, And which have not entered the human heart, All that God has prepared for those who love Him.” (1 Cor. 2:9) The upshot, then, is that in this present world, no analogy will suffice for the reality of what's coming. There isn't a person who's seen it, and not a person who presently can fully grasp it...whether we're talking about eternal reception, or eternal lostness -- two more metaphors that the Bible applies.
Two final metaphors: eternal life, and eternal death. The former seems to mean not some floating on pillowy clouds (the Bible never suggests any such nonsense) but rather a new life on a renewed Earth, with Jesus Christ, with an opening up of the vast vista of the possibilities inherent in God Himself that is to last for all of eternity. It's a wide space for exploration, with no limits ever, and all the creativity and beauty that is in God available to us...a pretty good offer, by any account. Eternal death is something different, though:it's apparent that souls (for whatever reason, I do not know) cannot actually die. They are eternal entities, one way or the other. And that gestures at a perpetual bad of some kind. Paradoxically, all the good things about life are gone, but the residual consciousness remains in some form. Not a happy prospect.
What we can derive is precisely this: it's very good to know and love God, and really empty and unpleasant to have chosen to have no relationship with Him. And that makes sense, really: because if God is, as the Bible says, the source of all life, light, health, happiness, goodness, joy, peace, well-being, delight, possibility, and so on, then to absent oneself from God is to choose to absent oneself from everything good...all the good gifts of God that come with right relationship to Him.
I apologize that I can't be more precise here. I could multiply the metaphors that the Bible uses, but I think they'd only give you the external facets of the diamond of truth, there. That's because you and I are in a world that, it seems, is very inadequate to fully illustrate the realities of the realms soon to come. And I can't say it's God's fault if my imagination is not sufficient to fill out all the details. That's on me. I have to take God's word for it that what's coming is beyond my powers of imagination, for good or bad.
Robert Lawrence Kuhn, the guy who made the Closer To Truth video I posted, has said he wants to believe in God but can’t quite manage it -or something to that effect- and I’ve heard others say something similar.
Yes, I've heard people say that. I think what they mean is, "I'm want to be absolutely certain before I believe, and I'm not absolutely certain yet." What it seems to me they fail to notice is that they actually aren't certain about
anything at all, at least not to the 100% certainty they think they have a right to expect God to deliver them. They're contingent, belief-dependent beings; and yet they don't want to exercise any belief on the road to God. They want to have eliminated that necessity. They want to remain unilaterially in control of the relationship, really.
Is that a realistic demand, if that's what they're aiming at? I think not. And the Bible says God doesn't respond to that sort of control obsession and demandingness. He responds to simple faith, though, since it offers Him at least some space in the agenda of the relationship -- absent which, no real relationship is possible anyway.
It’s not like that with me. I’m not attracted to the notion of God, but neither am I repelled by it, so I don’t think there is something deep down in me that just wants to be contrary. No account of God that I have heard sounds plausible, so I am left without belief. That may be due to a deficiency in my rationality, as you might suggest, but the fact remains, I just do not believe that God exists. I could pretend to believe, just in case, as Pascal advises, but God would surely see through that. What I’m saying is, genuine belief in something is not a matter of choice.
Well, choice is the second step. The first is experience. One has to have some experience with God in order to have something in which to invest faith, something about which to make a choice. Fortunately for us, experience is something you and I create, not just a thing that happens to us. We create experience (or perhaps better, we co-create it) by seeking it out -- investigating, getting into things, going places, finding our more, pushing our own boundaries in various directions. To know God, one has to seek God. And you're quite right that this doesn't happen automatically. But neither is it, for that reason, at all impossible to us. And God promises to meet us half way on that, if we will try. As He says,
"you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart." (Jer. 29:13)
So let me tell you what I'd tell a skeptic who said, "I want to check this out." I'd say, "Okay. Do this: take five minutes at the start of every day, and open a conversation with God." What I mean is, before you do anything else in your day, pray for five minutes, AS IF God were listening, even if you have not much belief in Him. Use nothing but your own words, and your own sincere thoughts. Talk about what's going on with you, ask His input, and talk through the challenges of the day to come. And as part of that, tell Him that you are willing to believe in Him, if He will show His realness to you, but that you have sincere doubts and concerns, but you're ready to be convinced if He so chooses.
It costs you nothing but five minutes a day...probably less than it takes for your morning coffee. You do it for two months, and then you conclude the experiment. If nothing's changed, you know that at least you opened up a space in your life for God to speak into it, if He chose. And if He didn't, you've had a nice, thoughtful chat with yourself, and you get all your full skepticism or cynicism returned to you without a scratch or dent, no charge.
That's the most minimally-invasive strategy I know for inviting yourself to an experience of God. There are ways to do more -- much more -- but I try to keep the burden small and private, so people can run this experiment easily, and with minimal strain. But I don't find God is reluctant to reveal Himself to people, provided they can muster even enough faith for it to be the size of a mustard seed. It doesn't take much faith; but it does take a little -- at least the investment of a few moments.
Given this, is it really just, or proportionate, that I suffer for eternity because I couldn’t do something required of me during my blink of an eye lifespan as a mortal human being?
"Can't?"
"Can't" under present circumstances, perhaps. But
could. Is the idea I've suggested actually hard to do?
You are going to tell me that is not for you to say, and whatever God decides, or does, is the right thing, aren’t you?
No, actually.
That's true, but I'm not going to tell you to just to believe it because I say so. That wouldn't be fair.
What God decides to be fair, is fair, let that not be in dispute.
Okay.
Even so, despite your total faith in God’s judgement, you are human, with a human’s sense of right and wrong, and what is fair or unfair, so, human to human, tell me if you think it fair that I suffer for eternity for failing to believe that God exists?
It's not just the "Does God exist," question, Harbal. It's much more than that.
The Bible says that even the various enemies of God believe He exists. So we get no special status for admitting that. What's important about belief is not believing in mere facts; it's how that faith introduces us to God Himself. When we show even a little willingness to enter into a relationship with Him, God is willing in return. But God is also committed to our individuality, our freedom, our identity, our value...and part of that is that we are choosing beings.
You don't force a person with whom you have an ambition for a love relationship into something he or she doesn't want. You don't break his or her will, and compel him or her to love you, turning him or her into some kind of automaton or being whose will and identity don't matter. You don't
dehumanize him or her. Instead, you appeal to them, and leave them to make the decision about whether or not they want to reciprocate. Real relationships are always two-sided, and voluntary on both sides. God's willingness is not even in doubt. But ours is.
We have a choice. We don't have to do much to signal our willingness to have some relationship with God. But we do have to do something -- not just as a signal of our will, but because unless we agree, it's not a real relationship anyway.
The Bible says,
"...without faith it is impossible to please [God], for the one who comes to God must believe that He exists, and that He proves to be One who rewards those who seek Him." (Heb. 11:6) Believe that God will reward you, if you seek Him. You will find Him. That's the promise. But it has to come from your choice in the matter.
That's my attempt to explain complicated issues, and respond to very good questions, as clearly as I can. I hope it's as forthcoming as you would like.