Dee, you wrote:
“…Personally, I believe that infants go to heaven. For Biblical text support, I go to the events surrounding the death of King David’s tiny son…”

Don’t forget Romans 2:14-16. Or better yet (for this one time case anyway), forget about the Bible and examine your own conscience. Does it condemn or excuse you? Ask your own guts throughout the thoracic and abdominal cavities (this is what the Hebrews meant by the word “heart”) if God’s justice demands that little babies be pan fried like the canaanites used to do with their red hot brass idols.

I can’t accept Calvinist theology, either, and this thing about babies just spells out they “whys” of that.

I am thankful for biases in this situation. Finally some pointed questions that have depth instead of the typical circular conversation about nothing. I don’t think Bell was expecting it at all. He was probably expecting to be able to ramble with his “questions” about hell. He did look like a deer caught on the Highway.

I do not see Bell as all that different from Mohler, Piper, Mahaney, etc. And I am not talking about theology. I think they are all showmen. Performers. They just have a different schtick.

I only have read up to the “Age of Accountability” section, but I can’t wait to read the rest of this until I get this out of my system.

Quoted of Piper:
God in his justice will find a way to absolve infants who die of their depravity. It will surely be through Christ. But beyond that we would be guessing. It seems to me that the most natural guess would be that babies will grow up in the kingdom (either immediately, or over time) and will by God’s grace come to faith so that their justification is by faith alone just like ours.

Many people criticize me for criticizing Piper, but I have read far more weird stuff from this man, and it far outweighs the good. I honestly look for the good in him. I really do. But what is this?

He makes a statement that suggests authority that God is just and makes a way for infants (assuming that this means all infants, both “in the covenant community of believing parents” and outside the Faith. Then, he says that it is SURELY through Christ. But then, following on the heels of making two authoritative statements, the guy says, “beyond that,” we would be guessing. Well, isn’t what he said to begin with guessing? Or is it not guessing because he believes it and says it? What definitive Scripture can he give or even a presumptive one does he use to defend this? He doesn’t say. I can’t give a “SURELY” statement, though I can give you a list of ones that I think argue that our loving Creator would call infants and young children to Him. I can’t give you a positive (definitive) one, otherwise we would not be having this debate and Piper could just quote the Scripture.

Babies will grow up in the kingdom. Hold the phone. This is more of his anthropmorphic view of the afterlife that he somehow discerns by what reason I know not. God puts our essence in us — our conscious awareness that we call life. Baring the discussion of whether people are dichotomists or trichotomists (are we just a body and a soul/spirit, or are we body, soul, and separate spirit?), we don’t know that this part of a human being is aged or ageless. I know Piper thinks we are eternally male and female, but does he think that our spirits have ages? How do we know whether there is any age to our eternal soul?

Here is where I think that Piper sees too many things about the nature of God and the nature of man through anthropomorphized “lenses” (as his buddy Ware is want to say). These guys benchmark the afterlife based upon what eye has seen and ear has heard. We are not told that we have ages in heaven. We are told that we will not be married or given in marriage in heaven. We are not told that there are babies in heaven.

Sorry again. Piper, in this statement, sounds like he is making a statement that is much more in line with some mystical doctrine about purgatory. Why would a soul be confined to their physical age in life? If there are babies that have to be raised into adulthood in heaven, are their wet nurses there who feed them? Are they the righteous dead? Since Ware tells us that godly women are saved through childbirth, we know it’s not mothers who died while in delivery. Does God send these unsaved infants to Abraham’s bosom while they grow up?

Protagoras said that man was the measure of all things. Why do I hear so many elements of the same thing in what these men preach? Maybe not in the bare elements of salvation, but man’s flesh is the measure of the afterlife. We are not made in God’s likeness, but He is more like us in our confines of human flesh that He created.

Piper is right in that we are guessing. Eye hath not seen, neither ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man those things that are prepared for us.

But I guess Jesus goes down to these babies or instant adults and preaches salvation to them, and then His irresistible grace translates them from Abraham’s bosom to heaven. Or do they go to purgatory maybe? This stuff sounds half mystical quasi-Roman Catholic, and it’s the Roman Catholic doctrines that made this issue of a child’s eternal fate such a point of torment and why Calvin wrote some of the things that he did.

I just find it dishonest to say on one hand that we can only guess but then make definitive sounding statements and use words like “surely” to describe guesses. He can’t back any of that up with Scripture, and he should state that honestly. We don’t know. I would have more respect for him if he said “I’ve speculated about this in my own heart, but none of us know. These are my musings and should not be misunderstood as doctrine. But here’s six references which I believe makes the case that infants will be received by Jesus.” I don’t think that he can come right out and say something like this because too many hard Calvinists would go bonkers. But this way, he can sound like a nice guy who makes it work for his fans and his critics. Piper’s a nice guy because all babies go to heaven, and he’s also a good Calvinist because he’s not softening on the five points.

Rant over.

Gonna go back and read now.

RE: numo says @ Thu, May 05 2011 at 05:55 pm & Thu, May 05 2011 at 05:56 pm,

I agree, the concept of the hell we are familiar with in our Hellenistic Western tradition is simply not there in the OT. Neither is the concept of an immortal soul existing as a separate entity from the fleshly body. In Hebraic thought, no such bifurcation exists, body and soul are an integral unit. In addition to this view, the only thing that leaves the body upon death is ruach, or the life force which animates both man & beast. I happen to subscribe to the Jewish view.

You’re not alone numo, I can no longer buy into the old system either, even Luther’s insistence that the literal sense of Scripture must always take primacy over the allegorical and parabolic sense. I think that Erasmus won the argument with Luther on that account.

@ Muff: well, my point in saying that (re. Sheol) is that we tend to read backward, so to speak – imposing ideas on OT texts that simply were/are not there. I think it behooves us to be careful to *not* do that, which is one of the things Bell addresses in his book – more of a meditation on “last things” (imo) than a book that is intended to make clear statements about doctrine and dogma.

The longer I live, the more I’m inclining toward Erasmus’ view!

Cindy, You are pointing out the serious problems I have with Piper. He is more like Bell than he wants to admit except that Piper makes his statements authoritatively. If more folks would analyze all his teaching as you have done above, they would see that he is actually very strange and when you take away the passion, adjectives and adverbs, there is not a lot there.

I can remember being astounded that more folks did not call him out on his teaching about primogeniture being the foundation for comp doctrine. I could not believe he could teach this with a straight face considering God ignored primogeniture quite a few times when choosing leaders for His purposes.

Nevermind about his teaching that a husband who asks his wife to have a threesome is to STILL be viewed as her leader.

Who knows,

All I know is that I want to be the kind of person my dog thinks I am. :o)

“conservatives have always dislike MSNBC due to its perceived skewed leftist viewpoint. Then, out of the blue, comes a Christian interviewer and kind of turns things on its head. ”

You should record Morning Joe. Left, right, and middle all at once. 🙂

“All I know is that I want to be the kind of person my dog thinks I am.”

Well one of mine is stoic. Her attitude about ANYTHING but a doggie treat seems to be “whatever, life goes on”. The other one on the other hand seems to be convinced that we’re ruining her life by not allowing her to run through all the neighborhood flower beds 5 to 10 times a day. Or anything else she wants to do.

“Note a recent commenter-his concerns were for the gang: Mahaney, Piper, Mohler, etc. He didn’t know who Randle was, couldn’t care less. He knows the “real” leaders. He even called Piper “John” trying to allude that he is on first name basis. Now, if Piper were to invite Randle to a conference, suddenly the commenter would “recognize” him.”

Dever was on that list. I was trying to figure out what you guys had said about Dever that could be considered negative? Guess he just got lumped in as one of the “leaders”.

I don’t know that I’d agree with what Rob Bell teaches (haven’t read his book or really listened to any of his sermons), but I have watched the Bashir interview, and I don’t think it can serve as a solid source to point to any confusion, real or perceived, in Bell. The interview was an ambush, chock full of “Have you stopped beating your wife?” types of questions that would leave Bell with no reasonable way to respond, and I actually think Bell handled it pretty well. It was also pretty evident to me that Bashir had likely not read the book, and his goal was to attack the “idea” most were suggesting the book represents.

Bell may be a wacko for all I know, but I do admire his courage in going where few before him have dared to go in saying “I don’t know”, and frankly, other than having faith that we’ll spend eternity with God through Christ, unless we’ve visited our eternity and come back to report on it, even though we “know”, we really don’t know what it’ll be like.

It takes a LOT of courage to question the sacred cows of our own faith.

One thing that I think the whole Bell issue has made pretty evident, though…The “gospel” of most of the Christian community these days seems extremely reliant on eternal torment’s existence, and regardless of where anyone stands on the aspect of eternal torment, any gospel reliant on it is a gospel that de-emphasizes Christ, and really isn’t much of a “gospel” at all. Using one thing to scare people toward another thing isn’t “good news”. It’s manipulation.

@ Lewis: YES! [high five]

@ Dee: oh, I absolutely agree about reading the OT through the lens (lenses?) of the NT. Am thinking that I didn’t explain myself very well.

If you look into the OT concept of Sheol (which isn’t all that clearly explained, but it shows up in lots of the Psalms and elsewhere), it appears to be – like the ancient Greek Hades – the abode of the dead. Not hell – or heaven – as Christianity postulates, but simply the place where the dead go. (And I’m not talking about bones in the ground, as Muff was.)

What I was trying to say is that I think we all have a lot of preconceptions about OT texts and that it can help to set those aside at times and just look at what is actually being communicated, as best we can tell. I can’t pretend to know what David’s answer would have been if someone had asked him to explain his views about the afterlife, but I’m willing to *guess* that what he was saying there is about his acceptance of his son’s death… i.e., I will die, too, and nobody comes back from the dead. (Or something like “I will rest with him one day, but he will never come back to me, in this life.”)

Does that make sense?

I have found that looking into some Jewish studies of texts like this one is very helpful, as the authors I’ve read are more focused on what x text says and how a concept might be developed throughout OT history and what we call the intratestamental period.

Clearly, something is going on during and after the Exile, because by Jesus’ time, there are people who believe in an afterlife (represented by the Pharisees, but probably includes others, I’m guessing), people who don’t believe in any afterlife at all (the Saduceees, and, I’m guessing, probably others as well) + then add in the Essenes (extra-biblical) via the Dead Sea Scrolls. I think it is pretty clear that there was not one single agreed-upon belief about the afterlife in 1st century Palestine, and probably elsewhere, in other Jewish communities. (Like the one Saul/Paul came from, which was in what is now Turkey.)

I dunno, I’ve always been the geeky type who likes to read footnotes in study Bibles + do cross-referencing because I think it’s fun! 😉

I hope it’s true that those with diminished mental capacity will go to heaven. I have a 12 year old son with autism and right now, I have no way of knowing if he really understands anything about God, Jesus, heaven or salvation!

also: http://www.jewfaq.org/olamhaba.htm

and http://books.google.com/books?id=8OJCa6euw5gC&pg=PA53&lpg=PA53&dq=sheol+in+jewish+thought&source=bl&ots=K_gcOdXxlc&sig=3JVVCi2wW_Sww8kc4QdMZK_0yzs&hl=en&ei=ZkjETZyCJ-jy0gHK2qCyCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=sheol%20in%20jewish%20thought&f=false

are two of the better (though too-brief) things I’ve found while poking around on Google re. Sheol and Jewish beliefs about the afterlife.

But those links are just for starters, and I admittedly have not done as much reading on these topics as I would like.

One thing that I think is fascinating: even the Orthodox do not believe in eternal punishment, although they do believe in eternal life in “the world to come.” (For gentiles, too.)

Dee:

Thanks.

But “don’t know” is the only answer to a question that we do not know the answer to.

That’s not just me. That applies to all people.

How can we know something we can’t know?

We guess and extrapolate. I am fine with folks doing that so long as they admit to doing that.

Cindy K,

Like Bell, you are making similar errors…spinal manipulation or manipulation of a loose tooth has nothing to do with, and is not in any way related to emotional manipulation. A tooth or a vertebra does not have any emotional awareness and is not sentient, on the other hand, human beings have both. To manipulate a person, in other words, to coerce, trick or emotionally blackmail a person into a certain type of behavior is never a good thing….even when done with noble intent or when trying to get a person to do what is “right”…the ends never justify the means.

and… if someone thinks that only one of two answers is correct, then they rule out other possible answers.

I don’t think this is an either/or thing – especially not in terms of the spectrum of belief in both the Eastern (Orthodox) and Western churches, but that’s just me. You all might be surprised by some of the basics of Orthodox belief on the afterlife! (They believe in final judgment, but they also believe in Hades as a holding place for all of the dead until final judgment, for one; they do not rule out the possibility that God might save all in the end… but they are upfront in saying that they don’t know the answer to that for certain. I like that position, myself.)

It’s really hard for me to see the Bashir “interview” with Bell as anything more than an ambush. I think the natural bias against the idea of Bell’s book in the majority of the Christian community works against a fair representation of the interview for a lot of people.

Like I say, I know little of Bell, but Bashir lost ME, and I’d dare say anyone else who was expecting a reasonable and fair exchange, with that “Have you stopped beating your wife?” question about the situation in Japan right out of the gate. It was a manipulative, ambushing question, and he’d already predetermined FOR Bell that it had to be one of only two possible answers. Bashir lost me, integrity-wise, there. And frankly, Bell’s response to that ambush was graceful…Yet Bashir tried, once more, to read an answer INTO the equation FOR Bell. No integrity as an interviewer.

You’ve got to cut Bell some slack when the person interrogating him breaches the trust right out of the gate. Regardless of what anyone thinks of the theology, or lack thereof, of Bell’s answers in the piece…he gracefully handled a situation that I probably wouldn’t have handled particularly gracefully. Any “deer in the headlights” vibe I got from him was him waiting for the other shoe to drop after the Japan ambush. My answer to the Japan question might have been, “If this interview is gonna be filled with this kinda cheese, you might want to go ahead and cue up the next segment.”

dee…I agree that his book “appears” to have been written in a transitional phase (I put appears in quotes, because this is total assumption on my part – like I say, I haven’t read it), but barring that he isn’t steering people away from Christ (and I can’t speak to that issue), I kinda LIKE the idea of a prominent Christian writing about their own beliefs in transitional periods, their own “wrestling matches with God”, so to speak, because that’s where most Christians are – always learning, always growing, and sometimes the process of making the sausage is a messy one. While I’m not particularly drawn toward reading his book, if there was anything attractive about it to me, that would be it.

Anonymous…In saying Bell handled the interview well, I’m not really speaking to the quality of the theology in his answers. I’m speaking to the integrity and approach of the two people involved. He could have answered Bashir’s first question with “Are you kidding me? What does that have to do with my book? Why are you trying to set a trap for me before we even begin?”

Maybe he SHOULD have responded that way. I don’t know. He’d sell just as many books taking that tact.

Karlton,

I quite respectfully disagree with you, and I do so as a forensic point. Think of it as the rules in a court. If I go from state to state or nation to nation, certain things are declared legal to do in court and certain rights are laid out to citizens in court. You are talking about how things are defined in a different court than the one in which I find myself with Bell.

If a person claims that they are a Christian, that they accept the Bible as truth, then those who do accept it agree to be true to it. If you don’t accept the Bible, just imagine that we do as a point of argument. Bell and I, presumably, both accept the Bible as inspired truth.

There are things spelled out clearly and plainly in that Book. The matter of where babies go when they die is not one of those clear and plain things that are spelled out. Hell is clearly defined, just based on the words of Jesus alone, something that Bell professes to be of great importance.

I have been taught that the Bible is the objective standard. Merely as a point of what the Bible says, I believe very much that Bell is evasive and that I am not.

If I were talking to you as an atheist, knowing that we do not agree on the authority of Scripture, I would not be able to make these same claims. We have not agreed upon the same premise and presuppositions and disagree about how truth is defined. Supposedly and presumably, Bell makes the claim that he and I do share at least some basic premises, so it is on that point as a forensic matter that I challenge him.

Concerning the concept of hell in general: Personally, I have a problem with saying there is no hell, or trying to make the concept of it less, well, hellish. If it were up to me, I would have planned something different than hell, and what I might plan today will look very different from what I might devise as a plan twenty years from now.

I don’t get any pleasure out of the concept hell, but I also don’t look at it as some kind of garbage can catch all place for really evil people. I understand it more in terms of the complete absence of God’s presence and goodness, more of a function of the opposite of God’s holiness. It isn’t so much a place where God either takes joy in or is indifferent about destruction but is about God being God – and He is holy. Hell is the opposite of where and what God is. It is the opposite of holiness and the place of it. Most things are not pure black and white, but in terms of God’s holiness, they are. And forensically, the only reason we are considered holy is through the Blood of Jesus.

Why do I accept it? Well, looking at only the red letters in the Bible, Jesus taught it several ways, beyond just references to certain words for hell only. I think that you can debate whether sheol and ge’henna are the same, but… I don’t think that any of that erases the many ways Jesus Himself describes the place for those who “miss the mark” who discover that they are not born of the Spirit in a final reckoning in an existence to come when each soul faces God. I count some 15 references, and I don’t think that I did a comprehensive search.

If you don’t consider the place of weeping and gnashing of teeth or outer darkness, there are still other compelling verses. Most of these references are in Matthew. In one weeping/gnashing reference in Chapter 13, it adds “furnace of fire.” Mark 9 talks of fire that cannot be quenched where the worm never dies, right after it says that those who hurt His little ones would be better to be saddled with a millstone and dropped into the sea. Matthew 25 talks about eternal fire and everlasting punishment. It’s specific, and it goes beyond just the use of the word ge’henna or hades and what that might mean. And then there is Luke 16’s discussion of Lazarus and the nameless rich man which is quite a compelling description. Now, this is not red letter stuff, but Revelation 20:15 says that those not written in the Lamb’s Book of Life get delivered up from whatever you want to call the place where the dead are kept, and they get thrown into the lake of fire after they face judgment. Revelation 20:10 describes the lake of fire as a place where there is torment, day and night, forever and ever.

I don’t understand how all of that can be explained away in any way other than to say that the Gospels are not the inspired Word of God. I am more consumed with living my life in a way so that, according to Matthew 25, I never hear Jesus say that I left him alone, naked or in prison without help and comfort because I love Him. It isn’t because I fear eternal hell but I am more contrite and broken by the idea that I might abandon Jesus who loves me. I found this morning that I’d actually forgotten that this passage had such a specific description of hell. I don’t accept hell because I like it or because I feel like if someone else gets grace, there is less there for me. I have to accept it because it is a part of what Jesus said, and if I reject that much, I would have to reject all of it. Here I stand, God help me.

Cindy K.

I think you misunderstood my post. I was only commenting on your statement that “manipulation” could be a good thing where you used spinal manipulation and dental manipulation as examples. It was not a “biblical” or “theological” comment, I just felt that the comparison was inappropriate because manipulating a “thing” is not comparable with manipulating a human being.

And while Adrian Warnock spends his time debating Bell, he still continues to gush praise for CJ Mahaney and his gang of spineless pastors. I guess it’s more important to speculate about the afterlife (especially Hell) than to confront sex abusers, pedophiles, and ignore the children who are now in a living hell. Thanks for all you do Adrian……again, no moral courage…..sorry to rant, I do appreciate what you’re doing here.

@ Dee again: thanks for the offer re. notes and such. it’s probably going to be a while before I get around to listenin; not sure if that’s helpful to you or not.

Numo

Take your time-it is all in God’s good hands.

Cindy K:

GREAT analysis about Bell.

Bell is apparently a guy who can talk about cubed ping pong balls.

I shudder to think what this means for propositional truth in the Christian community. I am optimistic that this will not take off in any big way. That was tried in the first century, and failed then, too.

Bell may be migrating to incorporate some eastern mysticism with Christianity. He is not there yet, obviously, but I suspect he could go this way.

@ Dee: Thank you!

Of course, there may not be much, if anything, in those sermons that isn’t in his book, in which case…

RE: Cindy K @ Fri, May 06 2011 at 07:56 pm,

Whether we (believers) want to admit to it or not, we all practice some form of selective literalism. In my own belief system, Biblical literalism extends into, but is not exclusively confined to the tenets of the Creeds.

My own selective literalism is about as contradictory and speculative as one can get. For example, I believe that God contravened the laws of mass & inertia with no gradual slow-down on the day the earth stood still (Joshua 10:12-14). I also believe that the great darkness mentioned in the synoptic Gospels when Yeshua was crucified was a literal and global event, just as I believe that the Noadic flood was also a literal and global event.

But when it comes to the alleged literalness of Yeshua’s teaching on corporeal torment for the damned, I choose the parabolic option for those passages of NT scripture.

Hi Muff

A toast to your 15 years. That is a feat worth celebrating. You go!!! I used to work in an alcoholic hospital. My husbands father made 10 years before he passed away. I have some awesome memories or working in that facility. I made some wonderful friends among the patients who have gone on to much success.

Could you explain your view on life after death for the Osama Bin Ladens of the world? Are you an annihilationist or something else? How do you view the punishment from the fallen angels-Satan and gang? Are they punished or annihilated or…? This is meant out of curiosity. I enjoy contemplating the views of my favorite readers.

Also, I plan to write on the thinking of annihilationism next week along with another view which proposes levels of hell, similar to the rewards that some will receive in heaven. I will be interested in your perspectives on these as well.

Dee,

Sorry for all you eye for an eye people out there, but the Osama bin Laden’s, Genghis Khan’s and Joseph Mengele’s of the world are simply gone…a good thing for those of us that remain, but if you are looking for some justice after death, well…it doesn’t seem that there is any…death, is just that..the end of existence.

But, for the benefit of those who do believe in a biblical God…I would love to hear how you explain the angelic rebellion. I mean, here we have, a group of supernatural beings with the emotional and intellectual awareness to understand, far better than we can, the concept of an omnipotent God, who have spent countless eons enjoying His presence, knowing fully, as Paul wrote in Corinthians, His love and grace who decided one day to wage war on God and those who follow Him. Please, assuming that angels cannot go mentally insane, explain that action. On what planet, in what universe,can that action have even a minutia of rationality or common sense associated with it.

A thought…

If babies go straight to heaven, then the kindest thing a person can do in this life would be to murder as many babies as he or she possibly can and thus guarantee them a life of eternal bliss. Certainly much better then the few who would make it on their own, percentage wise.

Hi Karl

I thought about your questions last night. As always you keep me on my toes.

Eye of an eye, hmmm? Why bother to punish criminals in this society? We should just forgive them and let them go on. Just arm the citizenry and set all phasers on stun. A doctor in Raleigh was just sentenced to 3-5 years for driving drunk and killing a young ballerina. Why bother to send him to jail? Just treat his alcohol problem and let him continue. Remove his driver’s license and make his wife drive him to work. Why all this retributive stuff?

There is an innate sense of longing for justice meted out for a crime. Few people in this world believe that a criminal should go free. The weakness inherent in atheism is that everyone meets the same end. Hitler dies, Mother Theresa dies and all is well? There is no hope then that Hitler is punished for his crimes against humanity. They both just rot in the ground.

Frankly, Hitler had a pretty good run of it up until the end. He was adored, had troops and people hanging onto his every word and even, for sometime, had some of the liberal elite of England and Europe wining and dining him.

Karl, there is something in all of us that longs for justice. I believe it is put there by God. The atheist would say it is part of some evolutionary meme meant for tribal survival.

As for the angels thing, I can only imagine they had free will as well. I know of men who have beautiful, wonderful wives who suddenly take off and have an affair and leave their home, only to regret it many years down the road. It was obvious to all around them that they were making a mistake but the grass is always greener…

Dee,

To the latter point…while it may not be in our “purview” to decide to end a life, wouldn’t it still be the “right” thing to do, to sacrifice our life of a blissful eternity in order to save millions of others. To hide behind saying it isn’t your responsibility or that you weren’t given that level of authority is a bit cowardly..isn’t it? After all if you truly believe that heaven is the ultimately good place to be, and if you believe that all infants go there if they die before some vague age of accountability, and if you believe that the vast majority of adults do not go there if they die later on in years, then whether you have been given that responsibility or not, you are morally responsible for doing everything you can to get as many as you can into heaven.

You answer on angels was pretty light, wouldn’t you say. I mean why would they rebel against a loving, compassionate God? They had “free will”, so how was “man” different…and does that mean that God simply chose not to redeem the angels out of some sense of vengeance or maybe lack of concern…if there was no “devil” yet (lucifer) to tempt the angels, and God made the angels, then even more so than with man, God must have made them faulty…remember they too lived in a perfect environment, created by a perfect God…the the question of how sin or rebellion entered the world is even more difficult to explain.

Karlton,

I think that when you look at babies going to heaven as an act of God’s justice, then you still have to consider that it is He who makes those decisions. He is just with the babies, but he is also just with us. His lovingkindness is not separate from His holiness, so while some assume that babies do go to heaven because of His justice, we as people also have to answer for what we do. It is wrong to kill, and like that infant will face the just God, we do to. A just God is not going to let us get away with hurting babies and breaking the heart of parents, and ultimately harming society. (And there are plenty of illnesses and accidents that do this anyway.)

If you talk about the idea that it’s better to kill babies to send then to heaven and pure bliss, the flip side of that will be that the perpetrator will also answer to both God and society for their wrongs — the harm that they caused on this side of the veil than hangs between the physical and the metaphysical realms. There’s also the idea that we are to honor our own gift of life, because society will generally require the life of a zealot child killer, both as justice and as a safety measure. Its not a pragmatic venture if the consequences for taking life to save it will demand your own life. If you are a Christian who thinks there is virtue in ending the physical life of babies to save them, you will also give an account for your own life — a life that you also have to honor, protect and preserve, too.

But we’re talking across different assumptions about whether there is a God and an afterlife and things metaphysical (more on the etherial/eternal meaning as opposed to the philosophical).

…

On the issue of the angels, I don’t know that we are really told enough to figure all that out. Formulating doctrine is much like the scientific method. You get your data, and you test it. You can’t say that it says or means any more or doesn’t mean what the data indicates. It’s the same with these Scriptures. We don’t know enough about it to say either way.

I think the other disconnect we probably have on this issue is whether you think that man is lesser than God. We’re finite, stuck in time for the time being, and we can’t see from God’s perspective. When we get liberated from this life, something that I think is God’s prerogative to choose when and how, we will know and see more. Until then we’re stuck. I wait with joy as I anticipate the day in space and time when God makes things right, whatever that involves, after this life. I understand that I will have better perspective — when I see Jesus and am changed, for I shall see Him as He is.

But I think that, even like these Calvinistas, we can assume too much and we pretend to be able to see from God’s perspective. To state that God must flawed because he made beings that chose to rebel and be evil, you have to make the assumption that you can see from God’s viewpoint, or perhaps even from that of the angels. If you think that you are on even par with God, you can judge Him. Van Til said that we are like small children that crawl up on to the lap of our Creator, and we slap Him in the face.

This is sort of the flip-side of what you’re talking about which results from thinking you can see from God’s perspective. Guys like Calvinista Doug Wilson who teaches that Christians should only support the pro life effort for Christians because the babies in the wombs of non-Christians — he thinks — are guaranteed to be non-elect. He says that we are defeating God’s purpose by trying to save the unborn babies of heathens. Somehow he knows this, and he believes that salvation comes through church membership which is a secondary thing to faith, belief and confession. He says that we should say “Amen” when heathens rush out to kill their babies. He thinks that it honors God because he says God hates the non-elect.

From Doug Wilson’s “Mother Kirk” book:
http://www.amazon.com/Mother-Kirk-Essays-Practical-Ecclesiology/dp/1885767722/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204324870&sr=8-1

Moving Beyond Pro-Life (sub-title in Chapter X)

Pgs 245 – 246

In the hard providence of God, He sometimes allows His enemies to destroy themselves. When the pagan nations outside Israel sent their children into the fires of Molech, Israel wasn’t called to blockade the fire and rescue the babies. And when Israelite kings followed Molech, the people were not commanded to revolt. Israelites were to make sure they didn’t kill their own children (Lev 20), but God-haters were left to destroy themselves (Is 57:13; Jer 5:19; 6:19, 21)…

The unbelievers are destroying themselves in a frenzy of child-murder and fruitless sodomy. Let them go. These are hard words. But Christians must learn to say them. Paul taught us that the children of God-haters are “foul” or “unclean” (I Cor 7:14). We must come to the day when the Christian can truly rebuke those who are “without natural affection” and say – “The ancient psalmist blessed the one who would take little ones of those who hate God and dash them on the rock (Ps 137:9). We see by your pro-abortion position that you clearly agree with this kind of treatment. And we in the Church, in a way you cannot truly comprehend, are now prepared to say amen.”

Karlton,

Can I ask what you believe about the nature of man in regard to the metaphysical? There are miracles and things that we can’t explain. What is going on when the phone rings after you just were thinking that the person on the phone was going to call? Is it all due to an overstimulated temporal lobe in the brain, something like Michael Persinger does with his God Helmet? Everything can be explained by some purely physical cause?

Ultimately, people need to explain why water runs uphill, and many turn to other explanations that are more metaphysical. Jung answered many questions by way of saying there was a collective unconscious. David Hawkins talks about “attractor fields” which were the metaphysical forces that caused life to form. Carl Sagan believed in extra-terrestrials, hoping to find the missing answers through galactic panspermia. And ten years ago I cancelled my subscription to Science News which I’d read for 20 years because most all of the articles were about the metaphysical stuff that physicists started talking about. Half of the articles were about stuff that sounded as weird as Pentecostals (one of which I was) who thought that everything was due to some interfering spiritual force.

I keep wondering what it is you think of the stuff that we cannot explain empirically?

Karlton,

Your question about Angels is an excellent one…I saw a couple others throw some answers out there but I wanted to add a couple thoughts. A few notes:

The bible doesn’t say all that much about Angels…so all we can do is guess. We don’t know when they were created, how they live, how much interaction they actually had with the Trinity etc. But we do know:

1. There is a hierarchy among the Angels, and Lucifer was at the top with a couple others.
2. The motive behind Lucifer’s rebellion was pride.

Lucifer somehow got to the point where his own self love was greater than his desire to obey God. When you think about it, its somewhat understandable how he could have been disgruntled with his job. Hebrews 1: 14 says “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?” Angels are servants…and to be a servant you have to humble, and put others ahead of yourself. For a being as powerful and beautiful as Lucifer, this could have seemed humiliating, and been the catalyst for his hatred of God.

How he got to that point we have absolutely no way of knowing. But somehow he got to the point that he hated God, and was drunk enough in his own self love that he could not just grin and bear it. So I think its possible that he knew very well he wouldn’t win, but was proud enough to die trying.

I think the better answer though, is that he really thought he could win. Obviously to think this, he would had to have not really understood the omnipotence of God, or believed it. He would have had to have thought there was some weakness (maybe taking advantage of God’s love) that he could exploit. He tried desperately to get Jesus to sin…suppose he had succeeded? If one member of the Trinity had sinned…what in the world would have happened. Impossible to say, but it would have been a great victory for Lucifer. Maybe he thought it would be the game changer. It is clear that angels were not privy to God’s plan for salvation ahead of time any more than we were, and Lucifer may have thought that he had ruined God’s plan initially when he caused God’s creatures to rebel against him, and had no idea what the cross was going to accomplish.

So again, we don’t really know, but pride is blinding and Lucifer was overcome with it. Whether he knew he was sealing his own fate or not, I think its understandable that he fell. The Israelites saw God part the Red Sea and were faithless and rebellious very shortly afterword. I believe God is omnipotent, loving and kind and has chosen to save me…and I still sin against him regularly. Seeing the power of God, and believing in him doesn’t inoculate us from pride.

Karlton,

Once he “fell” what else was he going to do but wage war? Unlike humans, he wasn’t given the opportunity to repent. The only reason our sinning doesn’t turn into all out war against God is because we are given the opportunity to join his side. If not for that, what choice would we have after sinning?

For Satan, it is simply a matter of going down swinging, whether or not he thought he had a chance. And the 1/3 that followed were probably those he was the leader of, and joined him in his pride. I am not sure that there are incongruities, unless you have an insight into the nature of Angels?

@ Cindy K: No worries… I was responding to what you said *many* posts above this one (but unfortunately did not quote; it was late and I was rushing to get to bed)…

When your baby was born, you had to hope that it didn’t die before you could take the child to be christened. I was taught that before your child was even taken into the holy sanctuary, some priest stood outside to cast the devil or the evil out of the baby. Then, the child was considered pure. [bolding mine for emphasis]

I don’t doubt that this might have gone on, for a while, at least, but is there a source you can point me to for verification? (Am not trying to bug you; I would like to learn more.)

Certainly there *was* a lot of fear – and superstition – in Europe (and I think there still is a lot of the latter, especially in more places). I have to wonder if the idea of renouncing the devil and all his works (for baptism) didn’t get “translated,” somehow, into a belief that the devil was somehow “in” a baby?

re. fears of babies ending up in hell and infant baptism, agreed there… I have not studied that like you have, but I know it was the case, and I think maybe that is still true in some parts of the world. (Even though the Roman Catholic Church doesn’t teach that anymore.)

My take is that we are dealing with both official doctrine/dogma *and* how it was perceived and taught + strains of folk religion and superstition. Given high infant mortality rates (plus horrific experiences like the Black Death), I can see why fears would mushroom, regardless of what was (or wasn’t taught) by the Western church at that time.

Karlton,

Adam was not created with a sinful nature either. All sin entered the world through the one man, Adam…but it entered at the fall, not before, when he was walking and talking with God. So Lucifer and Adam both were created without sin, without imperfection…and both chose to rebel. In Adam’s case, he believed a lie, rather than believing God, so the impetus didn’t originate in himself…he was faced with a decision and chose pride.

With Lucifer he also faced a decision, obey God and serve humanity, or serve himself…and he chose himself. Along with the 1/3.

The difference in heaven will be the fact that we will be glorified. Our bodies won’t betray us, our minds won’t buy into lies, and the inclinations of our hearts will be glorify God always. This is beyond what Adam experienced, even in his sinless state.

At least, that’s the Christian spin.

That was a deduction I make from the fact that the bible says there will be no sinning…if there is no sinning then our minds won’t be taken in by lies…but you are right, that statement is not directly pulled from Scripture.

Depending on if you are Arminian, Calvinistic etc, the answer to your second statement will vary. I would argue that God did create Angles and humans knowing exactly what would happen, but that he did not create them in such a way that they ‘had’ to fall. In other words, the nature of the beings he created were not such that they were determined, apart from their own volition, to fall. We were created ‘perfect’, meaning without sin, and without a sin nature, and the possibility of corruption isn’t a design flaw unless the ability to choose is a flaw.

Now, you will say, shouldn’t a perfect God have been able to create being with that ability to choose, but with nature’s such that they would always choose obedience? And I would say either the choice is legit or not, so if you are going to create a being who honestly chooses to obey over rebellion, their nature has to be such that it ‘could’ choose rebellion.

@ Muff: I like your take, although I personally don’t think either Isaiah ch. 14 or Ezekiel ch. 28 are about Lucifer, any more than I think that four actual horsemen are being talked about in Revelation. (Though the imagery certainly is powerful.)

Karlton, I thought Dee’s comparison to men who throw it all away for a fling or two is actually pretty solid. 😉

@ cindy: Many, many thanks – but I bet I can find some sources, too – no need to KO yourself over this!

Sr. Marie Michelle sounds like a gem: the best of the Catholic academic (teaching) tradition, as well as a true post-Vatican II believer. I’ve been privileged to know some nuns who were much like her and I wish there were more of them around.

As for strange practices, I have no doubt whatsoever about that; just would like to pinpoint some of these things – will let you know about it whenever (as well as sending a book list). 🙂

Dead Like Me: I loved that show! (The 1st season, anyway… it seemed to go downhill once the guy who created it left to work on “Pushing Daisies.”)