Hello lovely brothers and sisters!
I recently wrote a review of a terrific debate between professor Randal rauser and an atheist.
lotharlorraine.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/the-tentative-apologist-and-the-friendly-atheist-discuss-about-heaven/
I would love to learn your thoughts on this.
I am sure that many topics which have been addressed are extremely relevant for the question of universal salvation.
I do hope we are going to have a fascinating conversation.
Cheers from the (sunny!!!) England 
I wrote a new post reviewing another conversation about heaven and hell:
lotharlorraine.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/the-dark-side-of-destiny/
I would really love to learn your take on this.
I will share a beginning thought. We have to examine “why” we think what we think. It seems totally “wrong” that people who have not received Jesus Christ in this lifetime would “get another chance” and be saved yet so as by fire. Here is scripture:
1 Corinthians 3:10 According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. 11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; 13 every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. 14 If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. 15 If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire. 16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? 17 If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.
While it doesn’t see fair or right that God would save people with no respect to their evil works… this is what God said about His own view:
2 Timothy 1:8 Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God; 9 who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, 10 but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel:
When people speak of “God’s justice”… I believe they are thinking in terms of what they believe is morally “fair”. For example, if you do this… then this is the result… and that is what is fair and right.
What is this saying? It is saying that we are saved not by God’s purpose and grace in Jesus… but through our own works. It is a view that looks at the performance of man within this temporal world, and thinks that eternal destiny must be the result of the scorecard.
For those saved… the scorecard is erased. We receive that. We know that when a person is born-again, all of their sins are forgiven and washed away. So, we see the erasing of the scorecard for Christians through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ as acceptable. We want our scorecard erased. We relate to those who are saved in this lifetime.
We think, humanly, within the confines of the times of the ages of this world… thinking that salvation must necessarily occur prior to Judgment Day… not on Judgment Day.
For any who are on the left of Jesus on Judgment Day, they must be judged by a scorecard of their works… while as we as Christians born again in this life “qualified” to have the scorecard of all of our sins erased.
It turns into this system of works and salvation by works… and about the scorecard. But God does not think like we think. God does not place the weight of salvation on our performance in time at all. God said that He saved us in Jesus before the world began… by His own purpose and grace… not according to our works. In other words, God said, “No scorecard of sin has anything to do with my willingness or ability to save through Jesus Christ”. That’s not even humanly possible to comprehend. That is grace.
Why does it seem “wrong” that God would save people through fire on the Last Day? Because it is contrary to a “scorecard” in terms of works manner of thinking. But that is our way of thinking humanly… it is not Gods way of thinking.
God said that all of the sins of the wicked will be burned to nothing on the Last Day in the fires of Judgment… and they will come through that fire saved. How? Because it is not on the basis of their works and a scorecard. It is on the basis of the decision of God to save them irrespective of their works. Grace.
When the damned are cast into the lake of fire bodily alive to be judged… each one of them is wearing and holding their “scorecard”. Their “scorecard” is all of their evil works. God, on the Last Day, is going to burn up all of those evil works… burning up the “scorecard”. God will not save them on the basis of their “scorecard”. God will save them on the basis of His own decision in His own purpose and grace to save them in Jesus that God made before this world began… irrespective of their works… irrespective of their “scorecard”.
God does not relate to us on the basis of a “scorecard”. God relates to us on the basis of His own purpose and grace made manifest in Jesus Christ.
No one said it was “fair”… but neither can any say it is “wrong”. To say it is “wrong” is to say that Heaven and the love of God should function on the basis of our “scorecard” in our own works… rather than by His own decision in His own grace and His own purpose and grace in Jesus.
Our way of thinking is not God’s way of thinking. His thoughts and ways are higher than ours.
The Kingdom of Heaven does not function on the basis of a “scorecard”. The Kingdom of Heaven functions wholly and solely by the Spirit and grace of God our Father.
That’s what we cannot understand… when we think humanly… according to the “scorecard”.
Jesus paid the price to burn the scorecard… and all sin… at His return. Jesus paid the price to burn all sin out of us in the fire of the Holy Spirit. Jesus paid the price to destroy Satan - the spirit of sin - very spirit of the “scorecard”… on the cross. The spirit of sin… the scorecard… all evil works… have been destroyed by Jesus on the cross.
And, when He returns, He will fully manifest and thus fully manifestly destroy Satan, the spirit of sin, and the scorecard.
To think that those people cannot and will not come through the fire saved… having all sin removed from them… having God-granted by grace ability to repent, believe, and be saved… because that is “not fair”… because there is no scorecard… is to not yet know the heart of God the Father in it’s fullness and how the Kingdom of Heaven functions in the Spirit of God wholly by His own Spirit and grace and love.
God’s purpose and plan in sending Jesus to save all according to His plan and purpose and grace… not according to their works… will not be thwarted.
Divine Love is not given according to one’s work. It is given solely, wholly, and completely by grace.
There is no “scorecard” that can stop the Divine Love of the Father who gave us back His Spirit and His grace and the Kingdom of Heaven… through Jesus Christ our Lord, His cross, and His blood.
Ephesians 2:14 For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; 15 having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; 16 and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby:
Jesus came to burn the “scorecard”. Jesus came to destroy the very spirit of sin, Satan, on the cross… thereby fully destroying the scorecard… our evil works… to reconcile us all back to God the Father.
God is not taking “no” for an answer.
He doesn’t have to.
He has power to fully destroy the spirit of sin out of existence at His return through the cross and His blood… and to destroy fully the “scorecard”.
He embodies full destruction of all sin, Satan - the spirit of sin,… all evil works… and the scorecard.
1 John 3:8 He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.
If we are going to understand, and stop thinking it is “wrong” and it is not “fair”, we must gain God’s view of the scorecard.
Is this license for sin? God forbid. It is the goodness of God that leads us to repentance.
The goodness of God does not give license for sin… yet destroys the scorecard… and will lead all to repentance on the Last Day.
I disagree. While it seems like athiests are backed up in a corner in coming up with the idea of multiuniverses in order to avoid the problem of fine tuning, the burden of proof only lies within the scope of the existence of multiverses. So far, there has only been speculation based in part by “cosmological bumps” in the cosmic microwave background radiation (CWB) that could suggest such as possibility, but the range of obsevation is beyond our current ability to detect to make any empirical statement about it one way or another.
But the burden of proof of the existence of God does not lie in the hands of the athiest. It lies in the hands of the believer. But like the athiest, God is beyond our ability to detect as well. We have to rely on speculation based on indirect observance. Here the athiest has the advantage. The believer must yield to what they believe is revelation, because the spiritual realm of the heavenlies, if it exists, is beyond the reach of scientific inquiry, seeing it doesn’t consist of any form of matter and energy we can detect, supposedly.
But the hopes of the athiest is that one day a means may be made available for multiverese could be detected since matter and energy would also be present in such a universe. Or at least such predictions could be made according to known laws of quantum physics and mechanics. For instance, it’s only been recently that scientists could conclude the existence of the Higgs-Boson particle, first theorized in 1964, and confirmed with the Large Hadron Collider in 2012.
And it could very well be that whatever parallel universe there is, that is where the spiritual realm is also. So there’s that.
The burden of dis-proof certainly is in the hands of the atheists. It is just as legitimate to ask for dis-proof as it is for proof.
It is also legitimate to ask the atheist: what would you accept AS proof?
There is not a shred of proof that cannot be “doubted” by someone - I put doubted in the “” because there is a kind of doubt, very prevalent, that uses the excuse “I will only count as knowledge that which is beyond any possibility of doubt” - as a mask over the person’s will to believe what he/she wants to believe.
That sort of epistemological exactness is a sham, for a few reasons - for one, it ignores the many ways in which humans do know things; for another, it ignores the presuppositions that underlie (underlay?) our experience of the world.
We try to ask/answer really big stuff on this forum - which is part of its attraction - but really it takes a book or three to really see the issues surrounding so-called ‘radical doubt’. However, Michael Polanyi does an excellent job in a chapter of his “Personal Knowledge”. Perhaps someone should start a thread on his reasoning in that chapter.
But dis-proof would imply that there was a priori assertion on the part of believers. What does the believer do? Say, “Here’s the Bible. Disprove God?”
Athiests have done a pretty thorough job of discrediting the Bible through two avenues. One is to “discredit” the Genesis account through the science of astronomy, geology, and the theory of evolution. It’s difficult to argue through the evidence they present. The other way is to discredit the Bible through textual criticism, which again is difficult to defend due to such issues as inconsistencies and incompatabilities of the biblical accounts (i.e differing Gospel accounts), scribal errors, historical anachronisms (Kings/Chronicles), genocidal accounts (juxtaposed with a supposed loving God), and the like.
I think it would be rare for a learned athiest to come the Bible with an objective approach without addressing these issues. Sure, the scriptures say, “A fool sayeth in his heart, ‘There is no God’”. But what recourse do we have in proving otherwise?
This is why I believe that the debate between Bill Nye and Kenneth Ham was pretty much a wash. It didn’t really move the issue one way or another. It seemed to me to be a prop for Ham to present the Gospel in some way during the debate. But using the bible as he did wasn’t going to change anyone’s mind. It would have been better if Ham could have kept it at a scientific level, ie, why evolution couldn’t statistically happen on the grand scale in the time asserted. Or provide a better philosophical/metaphysical argument for the existence of God.
This doesn’t seem to address the subject at hand, tls. I applaud your argument about second chances, but I don’t see how that relates to the debate about whether there is a heaven or not. Perhaps you could present your case as another topic post. I would be glad to comment.
"One is to “discredit” the Genesis account through the science of astronomy, geology, and the theory of evolution. It’s difficult to argue through the evidence they present. The other way is to discredit the Bible through textual criticism, which again is difficult to defend due to such issues as inconsistencies and incompatabilities of the biblical accounts (i.e differing Gospel accounts), scribal errors, historical anachronisms (Kings/Chronicles), genocidal accounts (juxtaposed with a supposed loving God), and the like. "
I really think those are specious arguments. You were right to put ‘discredit’ inside the “” marks - they have not discredited Genesis in any way, unless they insist, without warrant btw, that somehow the author(s) of Genesis were trying to teach science. THEY have to understand what the intent of Genesis is, who it was written for and why, just BASIC INTERPRETATION. THEY are at fault for not choosing to understand in the way the Bible needs to be understood.
So their ‘evidence’ is against a STRAW MAN. It’s time for them to get sophisticated.
And as to the other issues - again, they are involved in non-sequiturs and straw-man argumentation. To knock down a theory held by a very few unthinking believers is not the same as to face up to the clear teaching of the scripture. That’s really the point of inerrancy - the inerrancy of teaching.
In all, I find the atheistic arguments to be weak to the point of silliness.
Perhaps the Genesis interpretation wouldn’t be an issue if a good chunk of Christians didn’t also interprete it literally. Atheists are going to lump us together, you know. So it’s not just the issue of them “not choosing to understand the way the Bible needs to be understood” (there is teaching that they won’t be able to anyway according to I Cor 2). They are being fed that information. And it is further complicated by the fear of Christians that if they don’t take the Genesis account literally it would compromise the doctrine of Sin and the Fall (i.e. if we evolved, then Adam and Eve didn’t exist, whence then did we fall? Plus, what does that do with Jesus’ references back to Adam?), thus toppling the entire thing.
Again, complicated by literalists who believe that the Scripture is a word for word inspiration from God. They (atheists) didn’t start the fire.
I’m in agreement with you, Dondi. The atheists were given easy targets - they sure did not need sophisticated arguments to attack those targets.
That the targets were not, in fact, germane to the conclusions the atheists wanted to draw, is the silliness of the whole thing IMO.
Case in point, of an article that just came out in the NY Times a couple days ago:
Excellent! I’ll keep that one as an example of what we are talking about.
I don’t know if the article is factually correct, or if its conclusions are sound; I do notice that it is not concerned with the biblical teaching, however, except to infer, perhaps, like this:
The Bible says camels were in ‘use’ early on, as a matter of history;
We ‘know’ that camels were NOT in ‘use’, early on, as a matter of our ‘better’ history;
The Bible as we have it is wrong in its depiction of the use of camels at an early time historically;
Therefore, we cannot trust the Bible as historically verifiable,
and therefore,
we cannot trust the Bible in its teaching about God and mankind, sin, righteousness, the future life, goodness, etc etc…
The non-sequitur is inferred; if it was spelled out, people would see that it does not follow, logically.
I agree it is a non-sequitur.
But given the presence of conflicting theologies in the Bible, you cannot use it** alone** to build up doctrines.
The very basis of my theology is my belief in God’s ultimate perfection.
That’s mine as well.