Thank God for you snitzelhoff!
I agree. Most evangelicals regard the slightest sin as a failure to meet God’s standard of perfection and as loathsome as the most heinous crime. Within that model, there can be no gradation of suffering in hell.
Well Pilgrim, I do not claim to be a mathematician, but there are some things that just make sense to me and the simple reality that 1 x 00 = 00 = 100 x 00 illustrates well what I think concerning there being degrees of Hell. And btw, this simple equation does matter for it is true and I understand it. I don’t understand Cantor’s Theorem, much less how it affirms that there can be degrees of punishment in hell.
From another perspective, assuming there is a Hell (which I do not believe there is) and Hell is separation from God, does it matter if one is separated from God by 10,000 miles or 100,000 miles? I don’t think it does. Or if the punishment in Hell can be measured in degrees of heat, does it matter whether one is burning up in 1000 degrees of heat or 10,000 degrees of heat, assuming both are intolerable. Of course, some who speculate concerning Hell believe that there is also a place of being stuck in between, as in Greek mythology. To me, when one adds the time factor, to be stuck forever in anything less than the presence of God is to be in immeasurable misery = Hell.
Maybe a better way to put what I believe concerning Hell and degrees is that I think it ultimately doesn’t matter IF there were degrees in Hell because suffering endlessly makes that point mute. In like manner, there being various levels of rewards in heaven is not a big concern of mine either; I’m just thankful to be reconciled to God today and to participate in the family of God today, whether I’m adopted or born into the family, whether I get to set at the seat beside the Lord or at the foot of the table and get to serve everyone!
your lack of knowledge is self evident -just as my lack of knowledge in many of your fields of strength would be, but hopefully I wouldn’t be so arrogant as to claim knowledge where I have none, nor to be too stubborn to accept sound teaching. One of my fields of expertise just happens to be mathematics.
Many things that seem intuitive are actually wrong. If you have not discovered this then you have not lived. Your equation is wrong.
The equal signs are wrong.
No mathematician (and by that I mean someone who has the knowledge and experience of dealing with the concept of infinity) would write “equals infinity”. Infinity cannot be treated as if it were a (finite) number.
There are an infinite amount of integers and there are an infinite amount of ‘real numbers’ but these two ‘infinities’ are far from equal. That is just a fact. You can deny truth but it does not change reality.
It is not true and you do not understand it.
That is the first sensible thing you have said.
Did you read what I quoted from ‘joft’ in my last post? If you understood that then you would change your position.
You would have to write with more precision than the word ‘hell’.
Is there a Sheol? Yes.
Is there a Hades? Yes.
Is there a Tartarus? Yes.
Is there a Gehenna? Yes.
Do you have a scripture for this concept of yours?
Even in the church of my youth which believed ECT I was never taught that it was ‘separation from God’. You have introduced a strawman.
I don’t know? Have you ever felt distant from God? Have you ever sung the beautiful hymn “Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer blessed Lord…”
I find it very revealing that you choose two clearly intolerable temperatures. You know that for your argument to work, it must be true for 1 degree of discomfort. Does the fact that you avoided the very point of the debate suggest that you are actually aware of the weakness of your argument but are in denial?
Anyway, if one soul was experiencing a couple of degrees of discomfort whilst another was experiencing 100 -then YES it makes a tremendous difference.
Funnily enough, this present existence is exactly that ‘in-between’ to which you refer. You may regard it as Hell but I do not and if I had to live endlessly in this world then I still would not regard it as hell. Even this earthly life is a beautiful gift from God.
On the contrary, you full well know that you would rather have ‘days’ of slight discomfort ( a paper cut on your little finger say) than EXACTLY THE SAME NO. OF DAYS with, say, 3rd degree burns over 100% of your body.
Would you prefer the paper cut if the no. of days were:
3? …yes!
100? …yes!
10,000 …yes?
an infinite number? …yes!
Me neither, but the fact that you accept there is, confirms the logic that likewise there could exist various levels of punishment (or negative rewards).
I will not repeat myself in another similar post on this thread. I will just clearly state that, whilst God may or may not have chosen any or no punishment, there is nothing illogical about the initial proposition.
Good day.
I think perhaps a salient point is that none of us (now including Cole) believes in never-ending torment anyway. I’m not going to pretend any expertise in theoretical maths, nor do I aspire to gain it. 
It’s good that Father did make us all different because I couldn’t make do without you math types. However if it ever comes down to it, I likely hold title to more useless information than anyone I know. 
I do also believe there will be different degrees of punishment, and I believe scripture backs me up on this. But there will be NO degree of never-ending torment. And what’s more, we to whom much has been given? We’re the ones who’re up for the “many stripes” if we fail to display the love of our Savior and instead abuse our fellow human beings – we who should be showing them tenderness and mercy. God help us to do that in His strength. I know I have none of my own to enable me.
Love in Jesus, Cindy
This is certainly an interesting discussion concerning infinity and I think I’ve learned something from it.
Regarding the thread topic the general concept in Christianity of punishment to me seems rather silly and I’m afraid is a main contributor to much of the suffering in the world today. It ends up being a complete disconnect. If I say a certain prayer at some point in my life then suddenly poof everything I ever did wrong or will do wrong doesn’t matter, I get eternal bliss. If I fail to say a certain prayer at a certain point in my life the suddenly poof everything good I did or will do doesn’t matter. I get eternal punishment. The end result is that our treatment of one another becomes completely irrelevant. The only thing that matters is if we said the right prayer or not. It’s a bizarre simpleminded way of looking at life and I think very pervasive within Christianity.
Also in this simpleminded christian view, punishment doesn’t fit the crime. If I’m a lousy father then I get scorched with fire forever. If I steal money from someone then I get scorched with fire forever. Doesn’t matter what evil you did you get scorched the same as the next guy. (As a side note in the book “The Kite Runner” one of the guys said that every crime boils down to stealing. If I’m a lousy father then I’ve stolen the right of my son to have a good father. I thought it was a profound concept that any evil we do amounts to stealing from another person.)
Now it seems in order for justice to prevail the punishment must fit the crime and in order for righteousness to prevail the punishment must lead to complete restoration of the original imbalance.
Jesus said “God is not mocked, whatever a person sows that will he also reap.” How true this must be and how opposite it is from the christian concept of punishment.
Somehow I feel that sowing-reaping will be the vehicle wherein justice and then righteousness and then complete restoration will run its course of making all things new. I have this almost magical expectation that in the next age or ages we will each go through a period of reaping which I guess may involve pain or some profound sense of loss, only to have that turned around so that we experience the good that (should have been) which will become the true reality. I think this will happen in a communal way since everything we do has far reaching effects throughout humanity.
There will be a time to truly realize and offer thankfulness for acts of love and kindness and truly realize and offer forgiveness for acts of harm and then all the bad will become undone.
I believe the undoing began at the cross where the evil act of killing resulted in the exact opposite: emergence of new life. The evil there involved pain, agony, forgiveness, and then a complete reversal of fortunes so to speak.
Anyway I hope the christian community can grow out of the current ridiculous view on this and embrace the beauty of what I feel must be unfolding right before our eyes.
Thanks for the feedback! It seems that the only way you can make sense of the Bible’s teachings about there being different punishments is only if hell isn’t eternal. It’s here that I must go along with the story of Jonah and how he was in the belly of the fish for only three days yet he says he was there forever. I think the Bible has numerous examples of this where the word “everlasting” is relative in it’s duration depending on what it’s subject is. It seems God’s judgments won’t last forever seeing that His anger doesn’t last forever.
Hi Cindy, also to add to you davidbo yours today
Cindy you referred toTalbot’s book The inescapability of God’s Love in the Forum’s thread John Piper’s latest post of The Reconciliation of All Things ( or Everything) and I now think my post in reply would have been better placed here so will paste it here as well, as it referred to Talbot’s treatment of punishment and the word everyone seems to struggle with -ETERNAL!!
Here’s the post!
I read thru Inescapable and made a few notes before returning to bro Revdrew who lent it to me. I will try to be clear but I can hardly read my own writing!! The key pages eternal punishment are from 93-97 accding to my notes.
I understood that Talbot was equating eternal punishment with eternal love. Punishment exists as a fatherly act as does love as does mercy. He clarifies that the act of punishment is a means in itself as an end to the sin/evil that has been judged as such with its accompany sentence, punishment, and therefore redemption and eternal life, universal reconciliation with God.
Carrying on with the notes which may well be quotes but I failed to put quotation mark:
All ideas associated with divine punishment should be interpreted as redemptive ideas, the punishment not an eternal end in itself for the offender/sinner, but the means to redemption and eternal reconciliation,.
Thus for example he draws on the parallel with a parents responsibilty with their children. For example (mine here) in a happy normal family Mum and/or Dad punish not out of vengeance, wrath (we are not perfect so that can happen!) etc but to give the child a lesson, and once the punishment has been given, it’s all back to being a happy and loving family, until baby pulls the table cloth with its contents on to the floor!! God is our loving, caring, forgiving Father.
Talbot, and I hope I am getting this right, interprets punishment as an act of love, God being our creator and Our Father as taught by Christ, punishment existing eternally as a Fatherly act, as a means for the individual to receive redemption and finally reconcilaition with God.
Brief note same section in Talbot’s book: The sheep and the goats - the believers, and unbelievers. The unbelievers whose lives are blemished by sin and who have not repented need to be punished to be purified …
I am sure there will be somone more qualified to make a fuller comment on Talbot’s wonderful book, but I guess my notes get the main gist of how he deals with the word eternal.
Blessings all round,
Michael in Barcelona
Fred and George are both in hell, and connected to automated cattle-prods. Fred is a very bad man and gets zapped once every second. George is half as bad and gets zapped every odd second. Even though Fred is zapped twice as often, after an infinite length of time, they both will have received the same number of zaps. Or am I missing something? It’s been a long time since I studied this stuff.
If the tiniest sin is an infinite offense against an infinitely sensitive God, all punishments must be Infinite. But here’s the thing. Was Jesus an infinitely sensitive sort, and easily offended by the sin of sinners? Did he hold a spiritual handkerchief to his nose?
i personally would rather get a twinge every other second than one every second. there are different magnitudes of infinity, definitely.
being roasted at 40 degrees forever vs being roasted at 70 degrees forever? yep, i’d take the former! both would suck, but the first is at least manageable.
pilgrim, would i be right in saying that one could graph time versus pain on a 2 dimensional graph…if x = time, it could continue forever, but y could equal pain, and be relatively low forever, or relatively high forever…or fluctuate, increase or decrease. the time component could increase at a constant rate, and thus be infinite, but the pain component could do anything it wanted. maybe that’s flawed, but i think it provides a graphical representation of a variable magnitude of pain over an infinite period of time?
but we have no Biblical evidence that such quantities of punishment need to be considered.
also, i’d imagine that while initial units of bliss in heaven may differ (i’m fairly certain this is a flawed and finite way of looking at the issue of rewards and greatness in God’s kingdom, especially as that kingdom exists now, not just in the future), i am fairly certain that nobody after 10,000 years of bliss in heaven is going to be the least bit unhappy or dissatisfied with his lot. i would imagine that as we become like Christ in that instant, in fact, such petty degrees of this and that will fall away. it makes sense that on day x in heaven, we may experience bliss y + 100, and on day x + 1 we may experience bliss y + 50, but we know that all tears will be whiped away, and that to me is the important thing.
also, i expect we will be more concerned with increasing God’s experience of bliss, as well as our brothers’ and sisters’, as we will not be caught up in petty selfishness.
all this is pie in the sky till we’re there, just some ideas i had no at 4(!!!) am.
4am !!!
That’s dedication.
for some reason, after having to work overtime, i felt like i still had to have my day of rest…but as i finished work after 9, it took a while to have that day. will regret it today i think
Hi there.
The graph is a great idea! Yes you are absolutely right. One of the aspects missing from the other’s thinking was this the passage of time.
[of course, from the outset we have all, of necessity been considering ‘eternity’ as an infinitely long period of time because, from our perspective we can do nothing else]
I agree. My point from the outset was that, if we are happy to consider differing rewards, differing stations/statuses in heaven, then it would be wrong of us to deny ECTers the concept of differing 'negative rewards.
WOW! I hope you’ve not got an early start tomorrow/today.
Pilgrim is correct in asserting that the number of real numbers (represented by aleph sub-one) is a “greater” infinity than the number of rational numbers ( represented by aleph sub-zero)— though I cannot comprehend the concept of a “greater” infinity.
Yes a one-to one relationship can be set up between the natural numbers (defined as positive integers) and the even natural numbers. Intuitively we might think there would be twice as many natural numbers as odd natural numbers, since in the latter set, all the even ones are missing. But in fact there is the same number — aleph sub-zero. Furthermore between each consecutive natural number, there are an infinite number of rational numbers (fractions). Yet the total number of rational numbers is not greater than the set of natural numbers! Why? Because we can set up a one-to-one relationship between the two sets. However, it has been proven that a one-to-one relationship cannot be set up between the rationals and the reals — that there are a greater number of reals.
However, I am not at all sure that this mathematical fact can be applied to the total suffering in hell (if it lasted forever).
I see no way of knowing that the one who suffers more severely forever would have a greater sum of suffering than the one who suffers less severely forever. In other words, as someone has pointed out (having given a somewhat different example), suppose Joe Bloe receives 1 lash per minute, while Jim Schlim receives 5 lashes per minute. We can easily set up a one-to-one relationship between the number of lashes Joe receives and the number of lashes Jim receives. The total number of lashes each would receive is the same. It would be analagous to setting up a one-to-one relationship between the natural numbers and the multiples of 5.
I see no reason to regard the number of lashes that Joe receives to be aleph sub-zero, while the number of lashes Jim receives to be aleph sub-one. In my opinion, to do so would be mathematically incorrect.
Frankly, from an exegetical perspective, I find it odd that anyone (at least, any eternal torment believer) would ever appeal to Luke 12 for support for levels of Hell, for two reasons:
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Whipping was not a merely retributive punishment; by its nature, a whipping is meant to be corrective. A master whipping a servant meant, by its nature, that the servant was still serving in the house of the master.
-
The corrective nature of this particular whipping (over-against those who would insist that this is the sole exception to the above point) is emphasized by the presence of a fourth servant who gets cut up and cast out, suggesting that the two that are whipped are not so incorrigible as to merit any sort of “final” punishment.
I’m not, of course, insisting that degrees of eternal punishment make for an impossible situation. I think the comprehensibility of the situation is certainly demonstrable. I DID make the point earlier that the model of divine justice that would demand eternal punishment is intrinsically incompatible with the view of a graduated Hell. But even if one could justify it theologically, he’d still be faced with a dearth of Scriptural support with the notable exception of Luke 12, and an appeal to Luke 12 is a tacit concession to the remedial nature of punishment in Hell.
Of course, Luke 12 is exegetically problematic for the traditional, binary eschatological view of Evangelicalism for other reasons, the most notable being the obvious fact that the servants getting whipped are, well, servants. There is no indication that they aren’t “real” servants of the Master (which might equate them to unbelievers) nor any that they have somehow ceased to be servants at all (which might indicate apostates), but rather, they are servants undergoing corrective punishment from the Master. If this parable is meant to discuss the fate of people in the Eschaton, it seems pointed squarely at us.
Pilgrim, I’ve never been one to just accept things because others say that’s the way it is. Some things make sense to me and others don’t. You might be an expert mathematician, that’s awesome, but that doesn’t mean that I take what you say as fact concerning math or otherwise. I could be wrong in my understanding of infinity, according to you I am. Ok, but that’s no reason to accuse me of being arrogant and unteachable. And I really don’t care to study it out to see if you’re right about it.
Note that Sheol, Hades, and Gehenna do not imply ECT and thus should not be interpreted Hell. As far as Tartarus goes, it’s only used once in scripture, in 2 Peter, where it says that the sinning angels are held there until judgment. Note it does not say humans are held there, and it does not even say that the sinning angels will be held there forever, but only says they are held there until judgment. Thus when I say I do not believe in Hell, I am being precise, assuming that Hell implies a place of ECT.
No, I do not have scripture that teaches Hell is separtion from God. Scripture does not affirm there being a Hell. Hell being a place of separation from God is a common errant evangelical teaching concerning Hell. It’s not a strawman to discuss a common teaching concerning a topic.
We might “feel” distant from God, but the psalmist notes “where can I go to hide from your presence”. I believe that the concept of Hell being a place of separtion from God is wrong, not scriptural. And thus the concept that there are degrees in Hell is wrong also.
Yes, I chose two intolerable temperatures because in the traditional concept of Hell every punishment is intolerable. Which is more intolerable, having one’s flesh seared off the bones once every hour, or twice every hour? I haven’t heard anyone ever affirm that there is a “tolerable” punishment in Hell.
I suppose it depends on how much one is subjected to pain, torment, and anquish in this life. I hope and trust things are going pretty well for you, but some people find this life intolerable. In this present evil age there are degrees of suffering, and there is much comfort from the Spirit and many blessings from God, making for some people this life tolerable. But if the Spirit was removed and the blessings from God were removed, and one was given over to death and evil, I don’t think it would be tolerable at all. And again, the traditional understanding of Hell, at least my traditional understanding of Hell is that it is a place devoid of the Spirit, a place of endless torment and anguish.
But, in the popular concept of Hell there are no “days of slight discomfort”. There is only one unending night of torment and anguish.
Oh well, apparently you and I see things from radically different perspectives. And I might be blind and don’t know it.
Blessings,
Sherman
On a lighter note, I just bought a smoker and am looking forward to this weekend, slow-cooking some chicken. Maybe if there is a Hell, some people only get slow-cooked and smoked at 220 instead of baked at 425. I’m looking forward to my first home smoked turkey this year too!
I really don’t have the time to waste on the numerous strawmen and non-sequiturs in your last post-but-one, but when you make a false accusation I feel I should reply.
Then you don’t believe any of the narrative in the Bible as the Bible is full of others, (who it says were inspired by the HS) who say that’s the way it was.
Your statement is a complete nonsense.
That is self evident.
The only time I proclaimed fact was on this matter:
And relax, you don’t have to “take what I say as fact”, Paidon has verified this fact, and a million other mathematicians or school pupils with a rudimentary knowledge of mathematics would verify this fact. So I could care less what disrespect you show your brother in Christ, but when you stand alone against all acquired wisdom in the field… well… I feel some sadness and pity.
From your attitude, and what you have just declared, I leave it to others to decide on your teachability but please don’t accuse me of something I have not done, it only reflects badly on yourself.
Here’s what I actually said and it was no more than a hope I declared about myself:
I said nothing about you and I hope you’ll note that I have not hesitated to accept your expertise and learn from your scriptural studies on divorce (re ‘Aguna’?? etc on t’other thread). 
Well I’m OK with that because I only tutor those interested in learning and my rates are substantial. But the mystery is why you don’t mind misleading people by making erroneous statements on a subject which you know nothing about and have no interest in, then refuse to accept correction.
As for the rest of your post, as I say I really have better things to do with my time, but the term “Hell” is not precise, meaning different things to different people and it is unscriptural. Originally it simply meant hidden or covered.
I must say, I find these discussions very revealing. What a work of grace God still has to do in all our lives! Perhaps we will find out just how painful His post-mortem purging is.
Be well my brother. I don’t know whether I’ve upset you because I happen to hold a different view on divorce or whether times are difficult at the moment but I am sorry that we have not been able to discuss this topic more amicably.
Hi Pilgrim, you’re correct about Hell not being a precise term. Thus for some there being degrees of punishment in Hell can make sense because they allow for degrees of torment that are not intolerable. As far as my using the concept of infinity to make a point that there cannot be degrees of punishment in Hell, I’ll likely change the wording (if I use it at all) and note that the accumulative effect of suffering forever… Well, I probably just won’t use it anymore. My passion is certainly not mathematics, but I hope to communicate what I believe in a respectful way and to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord with you and others.
Actually, for me it was studying what scripture says concerning the punishment of sin that freed me to accept in faith that Jesus is Savior of all. I was raised on the KJV which has the word Hell in it 64 times. So Hell was a certainty for me. But as I studied the meanings of Sheol, Hades, and Gehenna, I found that the word Hell should not even be in scripture except possibly in the one verse in 2 Peter where Tartarus is used. Thus Moses did not warn of Hell. Jesus did not warn of Hell. And Paul did not warn of Hell. And the verse in 2 Peter doesn’t even affirm that the sinning angels will be in Hell after the judgment.
If Jesus or the writers of the NT intended to convey the concept of Hell, Tartarus would have been the word to use, being it was the “hellish” realm within or under Hades (realm of the dead). So Jesus and the apostles NOT warning of people being cast into Tartarus/Hell, is very significant to me.
I started the study of what scripture affirms concerning Hell thinking the traditional doctrine of Hell was rock-solid. The more I studied it though the more I found it to be like sand crubling between my fingers. Until now, I no longer believe in Hell.
I do believe that in Judgment we shall have the hell burnt out of us, purged by the fiery presence of the Lord. And there might be various degrees of remedial punishment. And we who have been given much will be the most responsible and accountable before the Lord for how we’ve lived. Thus the passages on judgment scare the hell out of me.
Well, anyhow, I too apologize if anything I’ve said offended you and I appreciate you and your passion for detail and accuracy in communication. As I mentioned in another thread, I’m writing on why I’ve come to not believe in Hell anymore. I’m thinking of entittleing it (No More Hell? Heaven’s Yes!) and would appreciate you previewing it. It might be a year or more before I’ve completed it, but when I do I’ll check with you.
Blessings,
Sherman
P.S. I likely will not use the infinity equation in the book. 
A point I’ve made many times, but not nearly as well as you have done here!