Does Hell Mean the Absence of God?

[Arial]

Just an aside: I would caution against going too strictly with the difference between story and parable. I don't think that hermeneutic is a hard and fast rule, anymore than that to consider passages to be poetry means that their statements are necessarily suspect.

No statement in Scripture, regardless of genre is suspect. So, I take it that is not what you meant. But a parable is a story, so what did you mean by "story".

 

[Arial]

I see no intermediate state implied there. We don't know the progression of fact between death and resurrection. We do know, "today you will be with me in Paradise", and similar statements.

IF an intermediate state is implied it would be in Jesus' use of the word "Hades". That is the Greek equivalent of Sheol which simply means the place of the dead. All the dead.

We know from Scripture that there is what might be/is (by some interpretations) an intermediate state for believers. When they die, they go to be with Jesus. But they do not yet have their resurrected bodies. So, if there is an intermediate state, the unsaved dead and the saved dead are not in the same place.

The unsaved dead have not been resurrected to face final judgement yet. And if the Lazurus account is identifying accurately that state, even if it is being told in parable form and is not an actual event, then the unregenerate are not comfortable but in torment---though not in the same way as in the final judgement. And it is an awful thought, one I won't give any longer than a glance, but shaking one's fist at God will accomplish nothing.

We don't know what Christ suffered—we only know something about it. Words and concepts. If I am right about that subject, then it fits this one, too. It's not how long, but what Christ did 'in the grave' —i.e. from his death to his resurrection. It appears even from our view, that it was pretty quick, between, MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?", and, "IT IS FINISHED.", and gives up the ghost. The 3 days may even have been unrelated to the payment, (and I hear those who insist the death in and of itself is enough breathing a huge sigh of relief at hearing me says so!)

Since Scripture does not tell us that the three days in the grave is related or unrelated to the payment, I will content myself with knowing what it clear about the payment that did take place on the cross. That book mentioned in the OP is actually a pretty good book for looking into the depths of what Jesus did on the cross. I had already come to understand those things, but I was looking for a small and clear book to give my son, daughter-in-law, grandkids and gr grands. One that taught who Jesus is and nothing but for Easter. It is perfect.

 

[John Bauer]

I see no intermediate state implied there [i.e., Luke 16:19-31].

You ought to see it implied there. I mean, the word hadēs (ᾅδης) is front and center in the text (v. 23). Regardless of its genre, the passage depicts conscious postmortem existence prior to final resurrection and judgment. The rich man is dead but not yet resurrected; his brothers are still alive on the earth; the final judgment has not yet occurred. That is, by definition, the intermediate state.

We don't know the progression of fact between death and resurrection.

What does “the progression of fact” mean? That phrase is much too vague to assess.

While it is true that Scripture doesn’t reveal everything about the state between death and resurrection, it doesn’t need to in order for us to know something truly about it. Or are you suggesting that Scripture doesn’t reveal anything determinate about it? Because those are very different claims.

In Second Temple theology, which Jesus occupied and addressed, “paradise” denoted the abode of the righteous after death (hadēs), as distinguished from the final state. Paradise is where the righteous enjoy conscious communion with Christ in the presence of God, awaiting the resurrection of the body and the final consummation.

We do know "today you will be with me in Paradise," and similar statements.

And what is it that we know from this, exactly? Whatever your answer, it should take seriously the statement Jesus made to Mary Magdalene: “I have not yet ascended to my Father.” Need I remind you that this was Sunday morning? That is, two days later.

Therefore, the paradise which the thief entered “today” must refer to the intermediate state, not the eternal reward that awaits believers, which is after the resurrection. Believers who die are with Christ immediately in paradise, the blessed intermediate state of the righteous dead—awaiting the resurrection of the body and the renewal of all things.

I can already hear it: “All of this is temporal.” It is. So are we. So are God’s acts in history.

“God’s point of view is different.” True—and irrelevant, for we don’t have or even know his point of view.

The other thread on ECT vs. Annihilationism—in which I was rather excoriated for proposing that neither ECT nor Annihilationism quite addresses the state of hell and its occupants, …

“Excoriated” implies you were harshly censured or treated with unusual severity. In which thread did that happen?

Or did you mean your post was sharply criticized for being unresponsive to the main exegetical dispute? Because “excoriated” implies something worse than “criticized.”

We don't know what Christ suffered—we only know something about it. Words and concepts.

Are you saying “we don’t know” existentially or in ourselves what he suffered? True—but also trivial. We may not know his sufferings as he knew them in the immediacy of his own experience, but we do know them truly, covenantally, and savingly through the inscripturated revelation God has given—revelation that happens to come in “words and concepts.” Let’s not despise or undercut revelation itself, as though it were somehow a thin or inferior medium. God binds us to what he has revealed; it is ours to know truly. As I have said before elsewhere, we can know something truly without knowing it comprehensively (e.g., the Trinity).

If I am right about that subject, then it also fits this one. It's not how long but what Christ did “in the grave.”

Nothing, strictly speaking, except remain dead. The grave was the place of his burial, not a theater in which he performed further redemptive action.

There is a more dramatic tradition, found in some patristic strands, known as the “harrowing of hell.” It speaks of Christ descending to hell (hadēs) in triumph, proclaiming victory and releasing Old Testament saints. That model has had a long history, but confessional Reformed theology has generally been cautious about building much on it.

 

[makesends]

No statement in Scripture, regardless of genre is suspect. So, I take it that is not what you meant. But a parable is a story, so what did you mean by "story".

Generally speaking, the stories Jesus told have been divided into the two categories, which generally are treated differently. Some people suppose that if it is not a parable, it is true, and therefore, in this case, there is a large chasm between heaven and hell, and there were the two people—a rich man who acted like he was somebody, and a poor man named Lazarus.

True, I misspoke. But the hermeneutic that claims that universally, statements made in the different genres can be used the same way, as though it was all one genre, is a bad hermeneutic. The use is suspect when, for example, someone quotes Ecclesiastes to back up their assertion that there is no real Hell, or to back up their claim that the dead know nothing for a long period of time until the resurrection.

 

[makesends]

We know from Scripture that there is what might be/is (by some interpretations) an intermediate state for believers. When they die, they go to be with Jesus. But they do not yet have their resurrected bodies. So, if there is an intermediate state, the unsaved dead and the saved dead are not in the same place.

I disagree that "go to be with Jesus" is not the resurrection. Our point of view—the time between when we see someone die, until the future resurrection— is irrelevant to what actually happens.

The unsaved dead have not been resurrected to face final judgement yet. And if the Lazurus account is identifying accurately that state, even if it is being told in parable form and is not an actual event, then the unregenerate are not comfortable but in torment---though not in the same way as in the final judgement. And it is an awful thought, one I won't give any longer than a glance, but shaking one's fist at God will accomplish nothing.

"Yet" is a temporal statement.

Who is shaking their fist at God in this context? I don't know what you are referring to.

 

[Arial]

Who is shaking their fist at God in this context? I don't know what you are referring to.

It was just a comment on how humanity tends to look at hell as unjust. We all need to be not so quick to take personal offense.

I will get back to the rest of your post this evening. Right now I am in the middle of getting ready for an influx of relatives.

 

[Arial]

True, I misspoke. But the hermeneutic that claims that universally, statements made in the different genres can be used the same way, as though it was all one genre, is a bad hermeneutic.

Of course, it is but how does that affect anything anyone has said?

 

[John Bauer]

I disagree that "go to be with Jesus" is not the resurrection. Our point of view—the time between when we see someone die, until the future resurrection— is irrelevant to what actually happens.

But Scripture is not irrelevant to what actually happens, and Scripture places the resurrection at the second coming, not at the moment of each believer’s death, describing that event as corporate and public. “The dead in Christ will rise” and “we who are alive … will be suddenly caught up together with them” at the coming of our Lord (1 Thess. 4:16-17; cf. 1 Cor. 15:51-52).

Scripture nowhere says that the resurrection occurs one by one at death. At best, that is conjecture from inference, and it risks overriding divine revelation. By your own standards, that is a Tier 3 response to a Tier 1 point. What is needed here is appeal to and exegesis of the biblical text God has given, keeping things at Tier 1.

The issue is not human perspective or a temporal point of view. The issue is whether we will let Scripture’s own categories stand.

"Yet" is a temporal statement.

Indeed. But then temporality is not a problem peculiar to Arial’s language or mine; it is built into the language of Scripture itself. If your objection is that “yet” is temporal, then your quarrel is not with us but with the Author who reveals truth to us in temporal terms.

 

[Arial]

I disagree that "go to be with Jesus" is not the resurrection. Our point of view—the time between when we see someone die, until the future resurrection— is irrelevant to what actually happens.

You might as well say the Trinity is irrelevant to temporal people bound by temporal life. Or the virgin birth or a whole host of other things. After all we only have finite minds with finite capacities that cannot reach so far as to actually "see" it.

We are meant to reason the things God gives, that he reveals to us. The things of God contain knowledge accessible to the human mind--we are not called to blind faith.

Scripture is clear that we are glorified when Jesus returns and our bodies are resurrected. Dig up any grave and the remains, the body, of the person is still there. Neither the believer nor the unbeliever has been resurrected. And if it is final judgement that the unbeliever faces at the resurrection, they have not yet faced that final judgement. And yet, Scripture is also clear that the believer when he dies, goes to be with the Lord. His mortal body remains in the grave until Christ returns.

It is true that we do not know because we cannot imagine, what it is like to be with the Lord in heaven but that does not mean it is irrelevant.

"Yet" is a temporal statement.

How else would one express those aspects that are temporal. You act as though the temporal has no validity or purpose. Which is only a few steps away from a form of Gnosticisms and not all that far from Christian Science type of thinking. Now, before you get riled up thinking I am accusing you of the above, I am not. I am just saying a better balance of theology and philosophy might be helpful. I see a lot of 1 part theology and three parts pure secular philosophy in much of your wording. As though every point can be made by saying "that is temporal".

 

[makesends]

You ought to see it implied there. I mean, the word hadēs (ᾅδης) is front and center in the text (v. 23). Regardless of its genre, the passage depicts conscious postmortem existence prior to final resurrection and judgment. The rich man is dead but not yet resurrected; his brothers are still alive on the earth; the final judgment has not yet occurred. That is, by definition, the intermediate state.

Jesus spoke as a temporal human to temporal humans existing in this temporal realm. I do not see the afterlife as subject to time. When Jesus tells stories and parables, he is using common thinking, common terms, common notions, as a backdrop for the point of the story/parable. I don't think he was teaching that there is a place of the dead between death and resurrection.

What does “the progression of fact” mean? That phrase is much too vague to assess.

While it is true that Scripture doesn’t reveal everything about the state between death and resurrection, it doesn’t need to in order for us to know something truly about it. Or are you suggesting that Scripture doesn’t reveal anything determinate about it? Because those are very different claims.

In Second Temple theology, which Jesus occupied and addressed, “paradise” denoted the abode of the righteous after death (hadēs), as distinguished from the final state. Paradise is where the righteous enjoy conscious communion with Christ in the presence of God, awaiting the resurrection of the body and the final consummation.

Logical progression of fact. One fact contingent upon another. Think in terms of events, if you wish. Cause and effect.

I think Scripture reveals a WHOLE LOT more about things than any of us realize. For example, the God we love, admire, serve, worship and desire—the God we learn about every day and come to know better every day—that is the God that we will be with. So we DO know a whole lot about Heaven, if only from that. But we don't think that way; we think all we can know about Heaven is specific references such as the streets of gold, and such. I may be wrong, but I don't see passage of time relevant to the dead, but only to us. That is, I see no reason to assume it is relevant, and a lot of reason to assume it is not relevant. God's POV is the only reality, anyway.

And what is it that we know from this, exactly? Whatever your answer, it should take seriously the statement Jesus made to Mary Magdalene: “I have not yet ascended to my Father.” Need I remind you that this was Sunday morning? That is, two days later.

Therefore, the paradise which the thief entered “today” must refer to the intermediate state, not the eternal reward that awaits believers, which is after the resurrection. Believers who die are with Christ immediately in paradise, the blessed intermediate state of the righteous dead—awaiting the resurrection of the body and the renewal of all things.

I can already hear it: “All of this is temporal.” It is. So are we. So are God’s acts in history.

“God’s point of view is different.” True—and irrelevant, for we don’t have or even know his point of view.

I disagree. Yes, God's acts IN history are temporal, but how does God see them? A person's death happened temporally. Resurrection is seen as future for we who are not yet passed from this temporal life. In my opinion, (and yes, I can be wrong), 'paradise' is not an intermediate state.

The fact Jesus had not yet returned to the Father was a temporal fact referring to a future completion. That doesn't mean it had to have been past to be otherwise. I see the same thing with the transfiguration, and with Samuel showing up at Endor. I should think that Samuel in Heaven reviewing the events of his life, and considering that, thinking hardly more than, "Well, that was weird!"

Are you saying “we don’t know” existentially or in ourselves what he suffered? True—but also trivial. We may not know his sufferings as he knew them in the immediacy of his own experience, but we do know them truly, covenantally, and savingly through the inscripturated revelation God has given—revelation that happens to come in “words and concepts.” Let’s not despise or undercut revelation itself, as though it were somehow a thin or inferior medium. God binds us to what he has revealed; it is ours to know truly. As I have said before elsewhere, we can know something truly without knowing it comprehensively (e.g., the Trinity)

I'm saying we don't know ontologically. We have words and concepts. I'm not saying we don't truly know them, but that we don't know them completely, nor well enough to make some of the conclusions we do. —At least, I don't.

Nothing, strictly speaking, except remain dead. The grave was the place of his burial, not a theater in which he performed further redemptive action.

There is a more dramatic tradition, found in some patristic strands, known as the “harrowing of hell.” It speaks of Christ descending to hell (hadēs) in triumph, proclaiming victory and releasing Old Testament saints. That model has had a long history, but confessional Reformed theology has generally been cautious about building much on it

Of course no further redemptive action, but I am curious what is the purpose for this 'intermediate state'. I don't see how it is necessary. I do see how people might need to think that way, because of their temporal experience of life.

At the risk of going off-topic, I will copy this I wrote elsewhere, as an attempt to explain my point of view on the whole after-death realm of 'non-time' and its implications to what hell is about:

I'm not saying that I am right about what happens in the afterlife, and in perdition, but there is a LOT that gives me reason to think it is not a question of time spent-and-ended, nor infinite time spent in torment, but something just as bad. 'Intensity', is the only word I have for it. The FACT of it. Just as God spoke reality into existence, (and it may well be to him it was complete at speaking it into existence), so this punishment/payment/torment, for those 'undergoing' it, is altogether timeless, yet precise and thorough, according to their sin. It is a fact, and that's all it is, not even an existence in the same sense as we think of it now. I also believe that even now, but for God, the person that ends up "there" is only that, just as conversely, we in Heaven are finally the "complete" beings that God spoke into being.​

(Edit: The Bride of Christ is pure and holy, incomprehensively loved by God, and so, the Bride is worthy. The reprobate are unworthy, only suited for their punishment. THAT is what they are. THAT is what God spoke into being) (Also edit—to the reader: I repeat, these statements are how I see things. I'm describing a point of view, not positing a fact as such, here.)

​

Thus, the events we consider as temporal, such as Adam's sin, Jesus' death and resurrection, me stubbing my toe or enjoying a just-right BLT sandwich, Job's suffering, are all eternal FACTS from which meaning is drawn into the completed product. I see God's language as not descriptions, but the very thing itself. And this temporal is vapor by comparison.​

 

[makesends]

Please consider just about everything I say here as descriptive of my POV, and not as Tier 1 Fact, even when I emphasize the word, 'FACT'.

But Scripture is not irrelevant to what actually happens, and Scripture places the resurrection at the second coming, not at the moment of each believer’s death, describing that event as corporate and public. “The dead in Christ will rise” and “we who are alive … will be suddenly caught up together with them” at the coming of our Lord (1 Thess. 4:16-17; cf. 1 Cor. 15:51-52).

Scripture nowhere says that the resurrection occurs one by one at death. At best, that is conjecture from inference, and it risks overriding divine revelation. By your own standards, that is a Tier 3 response to a Tier 1 point. What is needed here is appeal to and exegesis of the biblical text God has given, keeping things at Tier 1.

The issue is not human perspective or a temporal point of view. The issue is whether we will let Scripture’s own categories stand

Of course the resurrection is at the second coming. I have not said otherwise!

From this point of view, which God has provided for our understanding, yes, it is not yet. Yes, (from this POV), it is a long wait from death to resurrection. And I don't say that they one-by-one go from death to immediate resurrection. If time is irrelevant in the afterlife, then they died, and were resurrected, period. To perhaps exaggerate the point, (because I don't know how to talk of this without using temporal terms), consider us seeing Abraham and Adam and Noah and Job and Lazarus all arriving in heaven simultaneously with us.

The FACT is, their earthly tenure is done, and now the glorified product is in God's hands, that glorified product is WHAT/WHO they are. he spoke into existence from the beginning. That might be a Tier 5 conclusion, but I think it is fact supported by many Tier 1 statements, and a hundred Tier 2 and 3 considerations.

But, I could be wrong, and admittedly am at least very short of God's POV.

Indeed. But then temporality is not a problem peculiar to Arial’s language or mine; it is built into the language of Scripture itself. If your objection is that “yet” is temporal, then your quarrel is not with us but with the Author who reveals truth to us in temporal terms.

Not at all. I agree completely with Scriptural terms, but I admit to some pretty obvious anthropomorphic language. I agree with the anthropomorphic language, two ways: 1. It agrees with our current temporal view, and works well there. Eg, indeed the resurrection comes long after Adam's death. 2. God doesn't mean, by the use of much of it, only what we take from it. We look at everything backwards. The eternal is not like this temporal. The temporal has been patterned after the real thing. (But that too is poorly stated, because the eternal is much deeper and richer than that. The words fail.) Eg, the gold of the streets of the New Jerusalem are the real thing, and the gold we are familiar with is only a cheap imitation —even if the Revelation term used is figurative. We have been told that this temporal existence is but a vapor in comparison to what is to come.

 

[makesends]

makesends said:
I disagree that "go to be with Jesus" is not the resurrection. Our point of view—the time between when we see someone die, until the future resurrection— is irrelevant to what actually happens.

You might as well say the Trinity is irrelevant to temporal people bound by temporal life. Or the virgin birth or a whole host of other things. After all we only have finite minds with finite capacities that cannot reach so far as to actually "see" it.

I'm sorry, but, that is really a stretch. Let me restate what I was trying to say there. Our POV is irrelevant to how God sees the afterlife. That he describes it how he does, works perfectly for this POV we enjoy now. But I am sure that there is more to what happens to them than what we presumptively extract from those temporal words.

We are meant to reason the things God gives, that he reveals to us. The things of God contain knowledge accessible to the human mind--we are not called to blind faith.

Of course. How do you see me saying different? But that they 'contain knowledge' accessible to human minds does not, as you have noticed, result in unified concepts. I would venture to say, none of us get the whole picture that should be accessible to human minds, nevermind the eternal implications and uses of the temporal human language God employs.

Scripture is clear that we are glorified when Jesus returns and our bodies are resurrected. Dig up any grave and the remains, the body, of the person is still there. Neither the believer nor the unbeliever has been resurrected. And if it is final judgement that the unbeliever faces at the resurrection, they have not yet faced that final judgement. And yet, Scripture is also clear that the believer when he dies, goes to be with the Lord. His mortal body remains in the grave until Christ returns.

I'm sorry, but this does not deal against what I am trying to say AT ALL. Sorry for my frustration, but, NO! Go ahead and dig. I have not said that temporally they are dead and instantly resurrected and glorified! I have said, that after death, so I believe, the temporal WE that remain experience is not relevant, i.e. it does not govern the 'events' of the afterlife.

It is true that we do not know because we cannot imagine, what it is like to be with the Lord in heaven but that does not mean it is irrelevant.

You and others continue to mis-represent what I think. No doubt it is my inability to get the point across.
makesends said:
"Yet" is a temporal statement.

How else would one express those aspects that are temporal. You act as though the temporal has no validity or purpose.

NO! Not at all. I'm not saying the temporal has no validity or purpose. OF COURSE IT HAS VALIDITY AND PURPOSE, OR WE WOULD NOT BE PUT THROUGH IT! I'm saying that (as far as I can tell) it is not the mode of the afterlife. I don't think the dead have to wait somewhere.

Which is only a few steps away from a form of Gnosticisms and not all that far from Christian Science type of thinking. Now, before you get riled up thinking I am accusing you of the above, I am not. I am just saying a better balance of theology and philosophy might be helpful. I see a lot of 1 part theology and three parts pure secular philosophy in much of your wording. As though every point can be made by saying "that is temporal".

Yes, I will thank you to back off of that.

Again, all I am saying is that what we see as temporal does not govern the afterlife. You and others have taken two things I say, and combined them into one you disagree with. All three of you have agreed with me in one way or another that God's economy is not temporal. So, you tell me: What does God see? Do his temporal words in Scripture imply that the things of his economy are temporal? If your response is, "No, but the afterlife isn't exactly God's Economy." Is it then, sort of like God's Economy? Does that then lend viability to the notion that the afterlife is indeed temporal in the sense that we are familiar with? I think not. I can guarantee you that God sees the afterlife differently in mode and substance from how we necessarily understand and describe it —and that goes for me too.

And no, that is not a bleak outlook, as though we cannot then understand. We learn more of God all the time, and are enthralled. I no doubt have a bad habit of being enthralled with the things my mind jumps to, but I try to rein it in with skepticism. We know a lot, and God has said endlessly rich things beyond what we know, that are still there in the temporal language he uses. But not all those things we even now know about him are temporally dependent. How much more is there? Are the facts God spoke into existence only to be temporally understood? Tautology here, pardon me, but, Are we to understand everything he uses temporal language to describe, as only temporal?

 

[John Bauer]

In my opinion, (and yes, I can be wrong), …

Just a quick question:

• How would you know if you were?

There is what the biblical text says on the one hand, and your metaphysical speculations on the other. Which has priority? Does the former govern the latter? Because at this point it appears that the latter is governing the former.

More pointedly: Is there any textual evidence that could actually falsify your view, or will every relevant passage always be filtered through your prior metaphysical speculations about timelessness and God’s point of view?

 

[makesends]

“God’s point of view is different.” True—and irrelevant, for we don’t have or even know his point of view.

Have you not agreed with me that in some sense, or, whatever your terminology, God is not encumbered by time—that he is extra-temporal? So we do know a little about his POV. And that little, though fraught with mis-conceptions, is huge in its implications.

 

[John Bauer]

Have you not agreed with me that in some sense, or, whatever your terminology, God is not encumbered by time—that he is extra-temporal? So we do know a little about his POV. And that little, though fraught with mis-conceptions, is huge in its implications.

I did agree with that, in a qualified sense. But two things need to be said.

First, we don’t possess or even know God’s point of view. It is inaccessible to us epistemically—Scripture certainly reveals nothing about it—and we couldn’t grasp it even if it was accessible. That has not changed for me. And if we don’t know and can’t grasp that point of view, then we can’t say what implications follow from it. I am sure they would be huge, but we simply don’t know what they are.

Second, the idea that God is not temporally conditioned is nothing more than entertaining brain candy for me; it is not a controlling interpretive grid that governs my reading of Scripture. My posture is the inverse of yours: I allow the biblical text to govern my metaphysical speculations. You treat temporal language as perspectival vapor whenever it conflicts with your metaphysic. Your model is not arising from the texts; it is controlling them.