A Weblog Dedicated to the Discussion of the Christian Faith and 21st Century Life

A Weblog Dedicated to the Discussion of the Christian Faith and 21st Century Life
___
I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand. For this also I believe, –that unless I believed, I should not understand.-- St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109)

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Love Does Not Always Win

So says, Ben Witherington:

"...love, even divine love, does not always win with everyone, not even in the end, and it breaks the heart of God as it should break ours."

Ben takes us on a whirlwind tour of the New Testament teaching on hell. Read it here.

3 comments:

Bruce said...

Good post with balanced approach to the many biblical ideas surrounding the afterlife. Much better than the "large sea of anger,se name calling and ignorance" that has been generated by the coming publication of a single book. Gehenna indeed.

Matthew Hirst said...

Allan, I enjoyed this post. For many years it has been problematic for me to reconcile the concepts of God's mercy and justice. I am inclined to believe that we are either offered eternal life or we perish: our soul dies with our body. Arguably, however, many of us (perhaps including me) need to feel that the truly evil among us will be punished eternally. Without such a possibility, then one could argue that there is no justice for the unforgiven depraved. This, in my view, doesn't align well with the concept of perfect, divine justice.

Allan R. Bevere said...

Matt:

Thanks for your thoughts. This is an important and difficult issue, so it is understandable that reasonable and thoughtful people would disagree.