Dostoyevsky couldn't have known about David Bentley Hart's superior intellect, he lived too early

I think you missed the gist of my concern regarding Creatio Ex Nihlo. The thumbnail is simple: did God foreknowingly create sentient beings for the purpose of them suffering torment forever?

This claim is ludicrous. No Universalist claims such a thing. Perhaps you should see if you can go into the next life and find Hugh Hefner, Adolph Hitler, Mao Tse Dung, and the many others who have caused horrendous pain to others in this life and ask them to tell you if it doesn't matter. That is, if you can get them to answer through the suffering and torment they are going through.

This accusation is ridiculous on the face. Christ and St. Paul both warn us that our actions in this life have consequences, and they will be severe in accordance to the deeds we have done here on earth. No one gets a free pass. Show me one Universalist who said that it doesn't matter what we do in this life.

But since you are so concerned, tell me the last time you warned a sinner that he is going to suffer in the next life? If you really believe in an eternal, unending suffering in hell, you should, if you really love people with Christ's love, be spending every free moment you have pleading with people to avoid this horror.

And as for permission to sin: look around you. Seems that the preaching of hellfire and damnation hasn't kept people from sin very well, has it? In fact, I would rather say that it has been a colossal failure in both converting people and keeping people from doing wrong. So what's the point of believing in this if it doesn't work?

I would agree with you on one thing: mankind is very clever in finding ways to rationalize away his sin. I would like to see a bit more emphasis from David Bentley Hart and others that what we do in this life does have consequences in the next life. After all, that is very biblical.

Your smarm is showing. I think you are just jealous of Hart. He is a massive intellect, extremely well read in a classical education.

Trust me when I tell you that I am not jealous of Hart

Which do you think is better:

(1) God created men knowing that some of them would go to hell

or

(2) God never created men at all

Keep in mind that existence is a good, it is better for a man to exist and be damned than it is for a man never to exist at all. If God is a monster for creating men when He foreknows that some of them will go to hell, then a fortiori God would be a monster for never creating men at all. But we know the conclusion is false, so the premise is false as well.

Much to dissect here.....I'll just quickly reply (in no particular order):

1) This is a Cath101 and not a Ortho101 forum, therefore, its important that we provide answers as to what Catholics believe:
According to Ott, "Hell is a place of state of eternal punishment inhabited by those rejected by God." pp. 479 Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma. Ott then goes on for several pages discussing the Catholic dogma of hell.

2) OK, I will, for the sake of argument only, stipulate the word "hell" isn't in the Bible (that its a bad translation) So, what's your point? Neither is the word "Trinity" in the Bible. I'm sure even the Orthodox believe in the dogma of the Holy Trinity. Right?

3) Regarding my supposed misunderstand of Universal Restoration - you are mixing up what I said. I never said anyone immediately went to Heaven - I was simply pointing out that the context of Jesus' words made it clear that our final destination was either Heaven or Hell. Not sure how you made the leap you did, but my apologies for lack of clarity.

4) I don't care what Jewish people of that era believed. I seem to recall Jews who didn't believe in the bodily resurrection. Does that mean they are correct? I believe in what the Church believes (the "pillar and foundation of truth" 1 Tim 3:15).

Your respect for the tremendous intellects of folks like DR. Larry Chapp and David Bentley Hart is touching, but it's odd that you so emphasize their alleged human intellects while brushing aside someone like St. Augustine.

With respect to this little puzzle you like so much, you're just wrong. You think there's some kind of deep problem--an either-or like you fundamentalists are always hung up on--and you just fail to see that you're obscuring some basic distinctions.


This simply fails to take into account the nature of that which is being created here, namely a free being. I think you give up the game when you emphasize the alleged use of the term "drag" in your account of salvation. Does God respect the freedom of his free creatures? If so, then there is an in-between. There's God's antecedent will--the salvation of all--and God's consequent will--his acknowledgment of the free choices of some of his creatures.

You make a mockery of creaturely freedom. God does not. There is the difference, and there's no in-between.

Unending pain. Torment without ceasing. Have you ever really deeply thought about being in this condition forever without respite? Why does this not cause a deep horror in you? Would it not be much better that God have a way to heal all mankind without violating either His justice or our freewill? I think to never be created is better than unending pain. What would make you think that unending pain is a desirable state?

Why do you (and all hellists by extension) have such a deep aversion to God being wise enough, powerful enough, and loving enough, to bring all men to eventual repentance?

Nonsense. So you are saying the in creaturely freedom, if I go out of my house one day and see my 4 year old on his tricycle, pedaling furious towards a busy highway, I should "respect his freedom" and let him do what he wants to do?

I would be put in prison for life for depraved indifference.

Is God any less of a good Father? Would He really allow a soul to run to its destruction? If so, then He is either powerless or not a good God. You can't have it any other way.

Here is my take on man's free will:

https://http4281.wordpress.com/2017/07/ ... free-will/

If God had respected my free will, I would be long dead and in my grave. I am thankful He didn't respect my free will, but kept coming after me until I turned to Him.

Of course, the question is this - does man really have a free will here on earth? And the answer is no. No human being, living with a corrupt, sin-attracted nature, living with deceit from lying pastors and demons, can be said to have a free will. You can't even say that Adam had a free will either. The only truly free will decision one can make is that one would know completely and precisely all ramifications of the decisions he is about to make. Only if Adam had known fully what sin would do to the world, and only if he had known fully the glory of full communion with Christ/God, can you say that he made a fully free will decision. Being deceived is not an action of the "free will."

That man is free is a dogma of the Faith. You are a heretic. You also don't have any philosophical training and are not competent to be trying to do theology. Thus, the ease with which you are led astray.

I am reminded of the Calvinists burning Michael Servetus at the stake for preaching man has free will. Think about it:

If Servetus was RIGHT and man does have free will, Servetus should not have been punished.

And if Servetus was WRONG and man does not have free will, Servetus should not have been punished -- because he had no choice in preaching as he did.

The simple existence of punishment is proof we have free will.

1) God is pure existence.
2) God is pure good.
3) Therefore, existence is good.

Since evil means to lack something, it follows that lacking existence is evil.

I get its tough to accept an eternal punishment, but that doesn't make it not true; it just means it bothers you (as it well should).

Why is it we love the idea of eternal bliss, deserved by no man, but rewarded, through grace, for a good life. But, we have trouble accepting eternal misery, given from a rejection of grace for a life not well-lived?

I'm not sure I like this term better than "infernalists", but maybe it will grow on me.


He is in fact all of those things and I'm not averse to acknowledging it.

Let's put a fine point on this: man is free in that he has the capacity to act and make decisions. So in the sense that man can act and make decisions, yes, he is free to do that. But is he really free to choose the good over evil? Is he really free to seek God on his own. The Council of Orange didn't think so. They were quite clear that aside from God acting first, man would never seek God. Thus, I maintain that there is no such thing as a truly free will, and this is in line with the Canons of Orange.

So in other words, theology must be done by the Roman Catholic Church alone, and no man has the right to either read the Bible or think for Himself? I already know your answer, so don't bother: "Not when it contradicts the Church."

Of course, you assume that I think that the Roman Catholic Church is the Church. I have come to the point of serious doubts about that as I have embraced Orthodox teaching. Can the Church teach error?

The Immaculate Conception, Purgatory, Treasury of Merit, Indulgences, Papal Supremacy, are all dogmas which I, as one who holds to Orthodox theology, reject.

Honestly LOTE, when i read your objections to hell (we'll get to the other things you don't accept later), I don't find a single philosophical or theological reason. You appeal to some saints and what they believed, Church Fathers and what they believed, or some emotional reason that God wouldn't do X, Y, or Z. But, I haven't heard anything that's well-reasoned theology.

So I'll give you something from Theology and Sanity by Frank Sheed on hell that is reasoned:

Re: Eternal Separation from God

"....the Soul has chosen self. In this life it may hardly be aware of it. Life is full of all sorts of interests; the soul occupied with them may not have adverted the choice it was making, the direction it was setting. But, the reality is that the soul has come to love self exclusively.....but once death comes, there is nothing to stand between the soul and its awareness of both itself and of God; and loving self to totally, it can only hate God."

He goes on to say:

"Undestand that the will is now fixed; it will not change; of its own choice it loves self to the hatred of God. Therefore it cannot go to God. Heaven is closed to it both by its lack of the supernatural life, which makes living in heaven possible, and by its own continuing hatred of God. Not can it cease to exist, for it is by nature immortal."

Lastly he says:

"Our Lord has told us (Mt 25:41) what is its lot: to be separated from Him (whom it hates): to go into the everlasting fire that was prepared for the Devil and his angels."

So Shed makes a reasoned case of this - the will does not change at death. Therefore, if we have a love of self and not a love of God, then we are spiritually dead. As such, we must be separated from Him per the words of Jesus in the "everlasting fire."

Seems reasoned to me.

Saying things like "its eternal TORMENT!" and "why would a loving God do that to a creature He loves?" is not a theologically-reasoned objection to hell. They are comments made about aspects of God that one doesn't like, agree, or understand. But they don't prove there is no Hell and that people don't go there.

Here is exactly what I mean. You don't have any idea what you're talking about. I know that sounds all mean and nasty, but it's a simply statement of the fact. There is obviously a mystery--a mystery the Church has never tried to "solve"--involved in how freedom and Providence interact. But your attempted solution is heresy.


I don't know what this alleged Roman Catholic Church thing is. But at least you're being clear that you need to be booted from this thread, since you are making no attempt to clarify things from any sort of Catholic standpoint--you are rather arguing against Church teaching.

In answer to your question about whether men have the right to read the Bible and think for themselves...yes, of course they do. You are not simply reading the Bible and thinking for yourself. You are here preaching your errors. And that's altogether different. Moreover, while you have "the right" to do theology, you do not have the ability to do it well. It takes training. You don't have that training. Yes, this is just a message board, for the most part there aren't any actual theologians here, we're all on the same page just doing our best blah blah blah. But my fraternal correction of you, Brother Ed, isn't at the level of what it's kosher for you to on message boards. (I mean, after all, your spiritual director has already been plain with you about that, and you keep ignoring him.) My fraternal correction of you is for the good of your own soul. You're not competent to try to do what you're doing here, and yet you're so prideful that you are actually wallowing in your spiritual and intellectual superiority to St. Augustine. It's quite a spectacle.

What you need to do is turn off your computer, follow your spiritual director's advice, and stay away from these arguments. They don't do you any good. I'd suggest meditating on 1 Corinthians 12:12-27, maybe.

I agree with the pickle. And, this is a good place to stop. Bro Ed, please talk to your spiritual advisor.