The greatest show in eternity is going to be one hell of an act, theologians have told us throughout history. Tertullian was the first to say so:
What there excites my admiration? what my derision? Which sight gives me joy? which rouses me to exultation?—as I see so many illustrious monarchs, whose reception into the heavens was publicly announced, groaning now in the lowest darkness with great Jove himself, and those, too, who bore witness of their exultation; governors of provinces, too, who persecuted the Christian name, in fires more fierce than those with which in the days of their pride they raged against the followers of Christ. What world’s wise men besides, the very philosophers, in fact, who taught their followers that God had no concern in aught that is sublunary, and were wont to assure them that either they had no souls, or that they would never return to the bodies which at death they had left, now covered with shame before the poor deluded ones, as one fire consumes them! Poets also, trembling not before the judgment-seat of Rhadamanthus or Minos, but of the unexpected Christ! I shall have a better opportunity then of hearing the tragedians, louder-voiced in their own calamity; of viewing the play-actors, much more “dissolute” in the dissolving flame; of looking upon the charioteer, all glowing in his chariot of fire; of beholding the wrestlers, not in their gymnasia, but tossing in the fiery billows; unless even then I shall not care to attend to such ministers of sin, in my eager wish rather to fix a gaze insatiable on those whose fury vented itself against the Lord. “This,” I shall say, “this is that carpenter’s or hireling’s son, that Sabbath-breaker, that Samaritan and devil-possessed! This is He whom you purchased from Judas! This is He whom you struck with reed and fist, whom you contemptuously spat upon, to whom you gave gall and vinegar to drink! This is He whom His disciples secretly stole away, that it might be said He had risen again, or the gardener abstracted, that his lettuces might come to no harm from the crowds of visitants!” What quæstor or priest in his munificence will bestow on you the favour of seeing and exulting in such things as these? And yet even now we in a measure have them by faith in the picturings of imagination.
Read through it a few times. Soak it in. According to Tertullian, his admiration, his derision, his joy at the sight, and his exultation, will be roused by the visible sight of those who did not believe in Jesus, groaning, living in consuming flames, tossing in flaming billows. He looked forward to hearing those who took part in plays, although with much louder voices as they scream because of their torture in hell. He longed to fix his gaze on those who were actors as they suffer in agony before his eyes. Surely, he marvels, no human priest or quæstor (a Roman official governing financial affairs) can provide you with any favour as great as watching and enjoying all this! But God will. It’s a pity that we can’t see it now, but, Tertullian encourages us, as we look around even now at those who are still alive and reject Christ, we can imagine all this happening to them. By faith, thank God, we can picture it right now.
Thomas Aquinas shares this belief:
In order that the happiness of the saints may be more delightful to them and that they may render more copious thanks to God for it, they are allowed to see perfectly the sufferings of the damned … So that they may be urged the more to praise God … The saints in heaven know distinctly all that happens … to the damned.
Summa Theologica, Third Part, Supplement, Question XCIV, “Of the Relations of the Saints Towards the Damned,” First Article
Like Tertullian before him, Aquinas was no less clear that watching the suffering of the lost will bring us great happiness.
Protestants can’t wipe their hands here. Isaac Watts put his famous hymn writing skills to work thus: “What bliss will fill the ransomed souls, when they in glory dwell, to see the sinner as he rolls, in quenchless flames of hell.” Jonathan Edwards agreed: “The sight of hell torments will exalt the happiness of the saints forever. . .Can the believing father in Heaven be happy with his unbelieving children in Hell. . . I tell you, yea! Such will be his sense of justice that it will increase rather than diminish his bliss.” – [“The Eternity of Hell Torments” (Sermon), April 1739] Just in case there was any doubt about watching your own children being tortured in fire forever might not fill you with pleasure and joy, Jonathan Edwards assures you: It will.
But modern believers in eternal torment wouldn’t endorse this, would they? Would they actually endorse a theology of hell in which we sit and watch millions of people, including our lost children and friends, actually being tortured in fire – and would they agree that we will gain happiness and pleasure from the sight? In fact they so just that. In the book Two Views of Hell, Robert Peterson defends his view of hell by, among other things, pointing out that some of the most famous theologians in church history have held it. On that list are Tertullian, Thomas Aquinas and Jonathan Edwards. Far from complaining about their view, he names them and aligns himself with their views.
Feel free to abandon the traditional, mainstream historical Christian view if you like – or hold it, heck, don’t let me tell you what to think or anything. But let’s all be honest about whether or not we really hold it the traditional Christian view, OK?
Regards,
Your friendly neighbourhood annihilationist
Glenn Peoples
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Tags: hell
Ilíon: “If God says, “Kristian Joensen exists,” how can he also say, “Kristian Joensen exists not?” Is not the very statement, all by itself (even without considering the first), a self-contradiction?”
Dave: “Regarding Ilion’s comment, it amuses me when theologians come up with flashy philosophical arguments that supposedly demonstrate how annihilationism is an absurdity.
God can say “Kristian Johansen exists not” if He destroys Kristian Johansen. It’s not really that complex.”
Have you really thought about this before asserting it?
God calls into being by speaking (that’s an anthropomorphism, of course, but it’s about the best we can do in attempting to understand God).
In God’s very act of saying the name of “Kristian Joensen,” God says “Kristian Joensen exists.” For God to say “Kristian Joensen exists not” it were as though God says, “Kristian Joensen both exists and exists not” — and that is a contradiction, which is impossible for God.
As a wise man once said, it’s really not that complex.
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Glenn Peoples (to Lucia Maria): “…The statement on motive is wrong, and with respect, inappropriate, perhaps even morally so. I think you are also expressing a very strange view of epistemology where people can literally decide what to believe.”
1) Yes, “motive mongering” is generally inappropriate, frequently anti-logical, and is sometimes immoral.
2) Dude! Everyone chooses, literally, what to believe. Whether the choice is made rationally and logically, is a differnent matter. Whether the content of the belief is true, is a different matter.
Belief isn’t something which “just happens” to us.
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Lucia Maria: “Oh, ok, I’ll listen to the podcast! I normally don’t, as I read much faster than I listen.”
I almost never listen to anyone’s podcasts (*) and other media … put it in writing so that I can analyze it; don’t waste my time with ephemeral sounds.
(*) I have listened to some of Mr Peoples’ podcasts, and I’ve enjoyed some of them, to a point … but I haven’t got much out of them, or at least not nearly as much as I might from reading it, because they’re verbal; here and gone even as one hears it.
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Ilion,
‘For God to say the name “Kristian Johansen” is to say ‘Kristian Johansen exists not.’”
So, we have to assume that WHENEVER God utters something, it automatically comes into existence? So before the creation of the universe, when God said, “Kristian Johansen will exist” then he was simultaneously saying “Kristian Johansen will exist but already exists.”
Your “logic” would also lead one to conclude that God could never really destroy anything. Could he destroy the world? Well, then if he said “The world exists not” he would simultaneously be saying “The world exists but exists not.”
Of course, you could argue that he wouldn’t actually destroy the basic material of the world, just change its form. But then the annihilationist could say the same thing about a human being.
In short, your logic is garbage.
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I have to agree with Dave, Biblically, there is a “construct” God uses to “call things into existence”, just saying a name does not make it exist.
Also, perhaps you are confusing “THE Word” with language.
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Illion, there’s no reason to think that something lasting eternally has anything to do with being “timeless,” so my answers seem fine.
Secondly, I don’t think you’ve actually given any good reason to suppose that nothing created by God can cease to exist, anmd there seems to me to be nothing wrong with answering the question in the affirmative.
What you said was: “If God says, “Kristian Joensen exists,” how can he also say, “Kristian Joensen exists not?” Is not the very statement, all by itself (even without considering the first), a self-contradiction?”
Now of course that’s a cotnradiction, but it doesn’t address the issue of whether Kristian Joensen (for example) will always exists. All you’ve pointed out is that it would be a contradiction for a thing to exist and not exist at the same time. However, I happen to know that some trees have ceased to exist. I used them as firewood.
Why then should it be impossible for a person to cease to exist? It’s no good stating that God cannot do something unless there’s a good reason why he cannot do it.
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Andrew,
Thanks, but no thanks. I’m done picking and choosing what I’m going to believe. I lived for 20 years like that. Now I’m happy just believing what the Church tells me to believe, and, strangely enough, what she tells me to believe weaves together into a wonderful, cohesive tapestry.
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llion,
Thanks for the comments, you have a clear way of explaining things. Even the American example of Homer Simpson.
Glenn,
I think it’s impossible for a person to cease to exist because every person is made in the image of God. Just like with the Trinity, being made of 3 persons, both the Holy Spirit and Jesus originating from the Father, but always having been in existence. We are, in some way, a tangible though of God that can’t be unmade because we have happened. He thought of us and can’t unthink the thought. It’s not the same with the rest of creation, because the rest of creation isn’t made in His image.
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Lucia, I really don’t know that being made in God’s image is going to do what you want it to here. It’s far from obvious what that phrase even means, and what’s more, if Athanasias is right, being cut off from God and finally divorced from His pourpose for us is to lose that very image.
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Lucia: “I’m done picking and choosing what I’m going to believe. I lived for 20 years like that.”
I find it truly amazing that a person who seeks to take an evidence based approach is accused of literally picking and choosing his beliefs! It’s about as fair as saying that you yourself pick and choose on the grounds that you picked the Catholic church! Being asked to examine some evidence to see if you find it compelling is not at all the same as selecting beliefs. This sort of cheap, graceless rhetorical unfairness is the bane of online discussions and I want to play my part in stamping it out. I think Christians should keep themselves above that sort of thing.
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Glenn,
Are you talking about yourself being accused, or Andrew? Because if you are, I was talking about myself.
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And no, the image of God is not enough. But, if you link it to what God did to the very first human when He created him (breathed into him), clearly something of Himself went into His creation.
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Lucia, I was talking about Andrew. Your suggestion was that to do what he did – namely to take a book that presents a case, examine that case and weigh up how good it is, would mean that you would be picking and choosing your beliefs.
By your reasoning, a jury just picks and chooses whether or not the defendant is guilty!
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Lucia, regarding God creating humans by breathing the breath of life into him, you’ll be aware that the Old Testament also says that the animals have the breath of life from God as well. If you think that proves immortality for humans, it proves immortality for sheep as well.
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Really? I missed that in the Creation story.
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Lucia, I didn’t say it was in the creation story. It doesn’t have to be in Genesis 1-2 in order to be biblical.
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Ah. Here’s the thing. If a book is Catholic and orthodox, I will read it because I can trust it. If a book is Catholic and not orthodox, then I’d better have a good reason to read it, because to deliberately read something I know to be partly false for no good reason is to put my own faith in danger. Likewise with Protestant books. I no longer have to work out what to believe based on evidence. I believe on faith. How I came to this point is a very long story, but having been what I’ve been through and knowing what I know now, I will not jeopardise that faith.
And yes, I do see Protestand and non-orthodox Catholic as picking and choosing (but in that comment I was talking about myself). How could it not be? Basing it on “evidence” is putting the Lord God to the test. Not something I want to be doing.
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Lucia, to read the evidence about what God teaches is not to put God to the test.
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True, but the Creation story, by virtue of it being the Creation story, tells us alot about what we are and what went wrong. If God breathed only into Adam, and not into the animals when they were created – surely that means something?
So, where is the reference to the breath of God in sheep in the OT?
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In regards to timelessness..
If being eternal means that one has to be removed from creation in order to cease experiencing “durations”, then why on earth did God put us here and promise us eternal life?
We, by nature of being human, experience durations (time), and will continue to do so even when we are “recreated for eternal life”.
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Lucia, I don’t know what to do. I know where the evidence is about the breath of life is in the Bible, but here’s the thing: I’m not Catholic. You’ve already told me that “I no longer have to work out what to believe based on evidence. I believe on faith.” You wouldn’t read things that would endanger your existing beliefs, so you say. This means that if your existing theology contains errors, you don’t want to find out about them.
Should I proceed with evidence or not? And if I should, would you read a book written by a Protestant on hell?
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LOL! Touche.
I’ll leave it up to you to decide what to do.
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