tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post4930018948751561731..comments2024-03-28T13:39:03.094-07:00Comments on Edward Feser: No hell, no heavenEdward Feserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13643921537838616224noreply@blogger.comBlogger112125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-40884456315845470842023-03-16T20:03:20.317-07:002023-03-16T20:03:20.317-07:00Yes, I don't think that is a very good argumen...Yes, I don't think that is a very good argument either. It is, rather, the utter absence of time that makes change impossible. Death is the threshold between time and eternity. Time is a constant succession of infinite moments. Eternity is timelessness, that is, there is no succession of moments, but just one unending present. To change one's mind, at least two moments are needed, for two minds cannot be held simultaneously. That's why angels cannot repent: because they were created in eternity. We were created within time I believe precisely because a large number of moments will allow us a large number of changes between sin and repentance, with the hope that, the last moment will catch us in a moment of repentance. Once we die, time is up. The one never ending present of eternity resumes, and our will becomes eternally fixed, just in the state it was when we breathed our last. Xavier Velasco-Suarezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11774412489992216369noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-49495949788421185472023-03-16T19:51:18.461-07:002023-03-16T19:51:18.461-07:00Rupert, it is not a true prayer if you do it just ...Rupert, it is not a true prayer if you do it just to be able to say "I tried." It is a sham of a prayer. <br />I know that many recommend unbelievers to say this kind of prayer. I myself have recommended it. But an unbeliever prayer is a lot easier said than done. It is crucial to remind the advisee of the need to repent, which, of course, implies the sincere resolution to change your way of life if it is not in accordance with the will of God. Some changes are very very difficult to make and, therefore, they are really tough objects for a sincere resolution against them. This difficulty is somehow mollified by the knowledge that God knows our weakness and knows our heart. He knows if our resolve is sincere, and He knows that we will very likely fall again. He made sure that there is enough grace for us to be forgiven indefinitely while there is a breath of life in our bodies. In other words, to be very doubtful about our prospects to stick to our resolution in no way detracts from its sincerity. <br />Until recently I thought is was all, but then it down on me that there is something a lot more difficult to change than mere behavior: our minds. Anybody who hasn't submitted to a divine authority will very likely have very strong convictions about right and wrong. During a conversation with a friend who is very committed politically, and who is moderately interested in the Catholic faith, it suddenly downed on me how difficult it would be for him to change his mind about the legality of abortion! The thought alone that anybody could tell him that he cannot vote for a candidate who discriminates against and betrays the unborn by protecting those who kill them, would be enough to incense him in such a fit of rage that, absent any supernatural intervention, I doubt he will ever get anywhere close to converting. <br />We cannot make an honest prayer to God asking for the gift of faith if we put conditions to that faith. Someone who says, "I will never recognize that homosexual acts are sinful" cannot possibly be sincere in asking God for faith. It would be as though a child who wants to make a deal with his parents: "I will obey you in anything, but I will set the rules of my own behavior, outside of which your commands will be of no consequence."<br />Hope this helps.<br />Xavier Velasco-Suarezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11774412489992216369noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-78894012314783874042019-07-07T16:24:45.089-07:002019-07-07T16:24:45.089-07:00There is no chance for sin in heaven, yet by keep...There is no chance for sin in heaven, yet by keeping wicked souls in a state of damnation forever, a state in which they continue to hate God and thus sin, God actually keeps sin and death going forever rather than destroying them, as the Cross was intended to do.IrishEddieOHarahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13239323643595343708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-625747448658115062018-05-11T22:38:30.778-07:002018-05-11T22:38:30.778-07:00Responses to Feser,
Eternal hell as God’s metaphy...Responses to Feser,<br /><br />Eternal hell as God’s metaphysical straight jacket<br /><br />https://edward-t-babinski.blogspot.com/2018/05/eternal-damnation-as-gods-metaphysical.htmlEdwardtbabinskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13036816926421936940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-45687552181186470462018-05-10T01:25:03.437-07:002018-05-10T01:25:03.437-07:00No chance of sin in heaven? Then what happened to ...No chance of sin in heaven? Then what happened to Satan? Edwardtbabinskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13036816926421936940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-91254255552403734732018-05-10T01:20:19.348-07:002018-05-10T01:20:19.348-07:00Yes, but have you considered that many Romans and ...Yes, but have you considered that many Romans and Japanese would rather choose suicide than dishonor? <br /><br />Also, after endless eons of punishment or endless remorse, might one not begin to desire eternal rest? Not sure how many people in concentration camps or Gulags preferred suicide or simply gave up exerting themselves to preserve their daily health and well being and chose to perish from self neglect. But I assume some did. Maybe hell and annihilation can be viewed as a combo, that is if damnationism is what one truly finds reasonable and just. I don’t. But I can see how punishment in hell could be easily complimented with annihilationism. That was also a theme in the novel Only Begotten Daughter. <br /><br />Lastly, yes, non-existence is frightening. Even Paul mentioned death as an enemy. And I suspect that many converts to various religions likewise fear death even more so than threats of divine judgment, which is one reason for staying in a religious fold rather than becoming an atheist. <br /><br />Ernest Becker said that we create meaning as a defense mechanism against death and annihilation. We are all terrified of oblivion, as well we should be. Repression of that terror is a necessary tool toward the continuance of life. Hence we are all busy building "immortality projects," hoping to leave something behind, either in the way of offspring, our work, our creations, or leaping the religion bandwagon and having our faith boosted by being around others who believe with us that the road goes on forever and the party never ends. <br /><br />"The real world is simply too terrible to admit. It tells man that he is a small trembling animal who will someday decay and die. Culture changes all of this,makes man seem important,vital to the universe. Immortal in some ways." <br />― Ernest Becker<br /><br />Personally, I like to think there's something more to life, I prefer to think that way. I don't like the idea of suffering and dying, sleeping eternally. But then, cockroaches don't like to be crushed, all living things will swim, run and fly their damnedest to escape becoming prey. One wonders what they know or think of death or just how instinctual the reaction is even in humans. <br /><br />Apologists for Christianity and/or the Bible all remind me of the same thing. The literature of a Jehovah's Witness, Mormon, Christian Scientist and an Evangelical strike me as the same, people desperately seeking to prove to others that they themselves are not crazy to believe that they alone know the true interpretation of a collection of ancient writings, and that they alone know that they truly are the ones going to inherit eternal life.Edwardtbabinskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13036816926421936940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-91929029987802194952018-04-27T02:14:08.599-07:002018-04-27T02:14:08.599-07:00@ Caiman Cotton "Those in purgatory are desti...@ Caiman Cotton "Those in purgatory are destined for heaven."<br />So you cannot sin in Purgatory? You cannot blame God for creating such a pointless and worthless place? And if Jesus died for our sins, as a sacrificial Lamb, then why do we need to pay for our sins as well?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-3591394759298801062018-04-26T21:31:46.248-07:002018-04-26T21:31:46.248-07:00The purpose of Purgatory is to heal/expiate sin/ p...The purpose of Purgatory is to heal/expiate sin/ pay up the temporal punishment not paid on earth. Those in purgatory are destined for heaven. Anonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11122746359465351676noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-11133227364200263282018-04-24T04:08:42.568-07:002018-04-24T04:08:42.568-07:00Speaking of hell...can prayers for the damned bene...Speaking of hell...can prayers for the damned benefit them in some way (I know that they will never get out of hell...I was thinking if prayers can help lessen their punishment)?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-59971043412753188472018-04-18T14:40:35.509-07:002018-04-18T14:40:35.509-07:00Look at what Saint Faustina said (she was blessed ...Look at what Saint Faustina said (she was blessed with numerous apparitions of our Lord), if might help http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2018/03/no-hell-no-heaven.html?showComment=1523172623750#c5737957533341031865<br /><br />Alessandro Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-49051092594301400872018-04-16T07:05:29.137-07:002018-04-16T07:05:29.137-07:00So a good person who rejects religion as a whole d...So a good person who rejects religion as a whole due to lack of evidence is somehow locked onto "evil" when, after death, they are presented with evidence that would have convinced them of God's existence before death and the only difference to that person is belief or not? Seems a bit harsh, no?March Harehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13116034158087704885noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-87661175310673774842018-04-16T06:57:20.285-07:002018-04-16T06:57:20.285-07:00"That's just the thing, a purely immateri..."That's just the thing, a purely immaterial mind doesn't go through a succession of thoughts."<br /><br />Then what's the point of it?March Harehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13116034158087704885noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-1522439410374462322018-04-09T20:44:03.597-07:002018-04-09T20:44:03.597-07:00I had said "no human has a right to a miracle...I had said "no human has a right to a miracle". I had in mind ordinary people and a natural right to a miracle. It occurs to me Jesus as Son of God would have a right to receive miraculous favours; but this would not be a natural human right but would be related to his divine nature and the union of his humanity with God.<br /><br />I think also if you are in heaven then any desire you have is gratified so if you pray for a miraculous favour it will be granted. This right however would be supernatural and not due in natural justice. Heaven itself cannot be earned by natural justice alone but requires grace.<br /><br />STTJOHMCJohn McClymontnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-2154111905111637962018-04-09T15:46:03.333-07:002018-04-09T15:46:03.333-07:00But even in the arena of mathematics, anyone who h...But even in the arena of mathematics, anyone who has tried it can recall the odd intuitive feeling of "maybe this will prove it" to get from the "given" to the "to prove" proposition. It is certainly logic-driven to actually go through the steps and establish the proof, make it fully manifest. But the initial feeling of "let's try this" is not logic, at least not simply. It is a different thing, which LEADS you to apply logic in a certain definite direction. (And besides, sometimes when you "try this" it turns out to be wrong, which you establish by logic). I would say that the intuitive leap at the moment you think "maybe X would work" is certainly a faculty dependent on the semantic content of the terms of the math at issue. <br /><br /><i>I'm not sure that what we might call humanity's greatest creative achievements - poetry, myth, music, art, literature</i> <br /><br />While I would not belittle these in the least bit, I would add to the list: there are in science and math sometimes certain additions to "man's works" that are so profound, elegant, and worthwhile that they qualify. Archimedes "eureka" moment is a small example; the technique of mathematical induction; the concept of the limit in calculus; the insight to depart from absolute space and time by Einstein in relativity. These too fit as examples of man's greatest achievements. Yet they dependedm, every one of them, not only on the discursive reason, but on the ability to leap forward, an ability we have not yet been able to subject to direct examination - just like we have not been able to subject "making music" to direct examination and analysis. Tonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07159134209092031897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-86331286837459097352018-04-09T13:07:21.919-07:002018-04-09T13:07:21.919-07:00but that higher forms of imaginative, creative and...<i>but that higher forms of imaginative, creative and intuitive functions, working in concert with the intellect, would come under the same immaterial category as intellect... <br /><br />But the test for immaterial or spiritual faculties does seem to specifically relate to abstract concepts, because they cannot be adequately represented by images/signs/symbols stored within the brain. That sounds to me like it means pure reasoning e.g. logic, mathematics, philosophy. I'm not sure that what we might call humanity's greatest creative achievements - poetry, myth, music, art, literature - are in that category.</i> <br /><br />Well, I would propose it differently. When you talk about "imaginative, creative, and intuitive functions", I would suggest that these are actually hybrid activities that require both sense-based and "pure" intellective-based operations, working together. Take composing a poem: surely the FEEL of the words and sounds being employed must go on alongside the semantic CONTENT of the words being employed to make poetry. Even Jabberwocky, which hangs so much on the sounds, <i>interweaves</i> sound-level and semantic-content level "value" in the words used in a most elaborate way. Surely the nonsense word bandersnatch requires for its success its incorporation of "snatch" within, leaning thus on semantic content as well as meter and rhyme. <br /><br />I would suggest though, that most of what you are demanding is attention to other faculties than those of the exterior senses, imagination, or intellect, i.e. "interior senses" such as (a) the estimative faculty, by which a man would note <i>how much difference</i> there is between one note and another one octave higher; and (b) the <i>vis cogitativa</i> which, by which he would <i>compare</i> the two notes and grasp not only the distance between the notes but also the (qualified) sameness of them both being a "C" note. St. Thomas, if I understand him correctly, calls the vis cogitative a "sense" faculty (of the internal sort), but it is interesting in that it is ONLY found in man and seems (in its other operations) singularly critical to intellection, because it is necessary to the formation of concepts from particulars sensed. <br /><br />I myself wonder whether it might be by nature an <b>intrinsically hybrid</b> faculty that actually operates on both the physical and the intellective planes. That's a weird idea and not something Thomas allowed for, but I think it would sort of account for the fact that neither the <i>end product</i> of poetry or music-making, nor the <i>process</i>, are much susceptible to purely intellectual analysis that "makes sense" of them in a satisfactory way. (Nobody has ever provided a solid, repeatable account for why one piece of music is fantastic and another just hum-drum, before going ahead and <i>hearing</i> them and just plain finding out how they sound.) Tonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07159134209092031897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-44376029431093373302018-04-09T12:30:31.053-07:002018-04-09T12:30:31.053-07:00This comment is for JesseM further up the page: fo...This comment is for JesseM further up the page: for some reason I can't open the reply box at the proper place directly.<br /><br />JesseM had said:<br />What about Lazarus' body, are you assuming it was a "spiritual body" as well, so that he was incapable of changing his basic orientation? <br /><br />Also, is Dr. Feser arguing that as a matter of metaphysical necessity it's impossible for God to put a disembodied soul in an ordinary material body that would allow it to change its orientation, or is the idea just that God chooses not to do this? <br /><br />Reply:<br /><br />I think resurrections to earthly or mortal life, like Lazarus', involve only "clinical death" or loss of vital signs, and do not involve the real departure of the soul from the body. So Lazarus' soul did not leave his body when he was buried but was unconscious, and his first resurrection wasn't in a spiritual body. If it was, Lazarus couldn't have died again, which he did. <br /><br />With regard to whether God cannot or will not cause a soul to be returned to a body in a matter-dominant condition - I would say a body cannot be united to a pre-existing spirit without assimilation of the body to the spirit or vice versa or both. If the body is assimilated to the spirit we have spirit-dominance and the basic will for good or evil cannot change.<br /><br />Since the body in the tomb is corrupted, any attempt to assimilate the disembodied soul to the corrupted body rather than vice versa would in my view result in the soul corrupting or perishing. <br /><br />And if God kept the body from rotting, and assimilated the disembodied soul to this incorrupt body, this would be a miracle, and God would not be obliged to do this because our natural rights do not extend to miraculous favours. Our natural rights are just that - natural rights - and do not extend to the supernatural. So no human has a "right to a miracle" no matter how much suffering the miracle would spare them. <br /><br />Thus even if God can return the disembodied soul to mortal life the fact that this return to mortality was miraculous or not natural would mean God had no duty to adopt this arrangement.<br /><br />I am speaking here of a return to mortal life in the same body. Return to mortal life in a different mortal body (reincarnation) is impossible in A-T because the soul as form of the body is attuned not only to the human species but to the particular individual body and can't incarnate elsewhere. <br /><br />STTJOHMCJohn McClymontnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-61001036795857302182018-04-08T18:32:27.637-07:002018-04-08T18:32:27.637-07:00Thank you for your reply, Tony!
If I read you cor...Thank you for your reply, Tony! <br />If I read you correctly you are saying that imagination in its most basic form is simple 'mind phantasms', but that higher forms of imaginative, creative and intuitive functions, working in concert with the intellect, would come under the same immaterial category as intellect. That would seem to me to be correct - we are surely just more than dry logic-choppers. <br /><br />But the test for immaterial or spiritual faculties does seem to specifically relate to abstract concepts, because they cannot be adequately represented by images/signs/symbols stored within the brain. That sounds to me like it means pure reasoning e.g. logic, mathematics, philosophy. I'm not sure that what we might call humanity's greatest creative achievements - poetry, myth, music, art, literature - are in that category.<br /><br />I'm coming at this from the angle of people like Chesterton and Tolkien and more broadly the romantics, Goethe and Coleridge, who saw the Imagination as an alternative faculty for discovering truth equally as powerful as reason. Tolkien for example described himself as a "sub-creator" driven to create worlds by his maker: <br /><br />"Fantasy remains a human right: we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker."<br /><br />If God is the creative force par excellence, then why does Dr Feser's version of the immaterial human soul post-death seem so cold and dry? (This may be a failure of MY imagination...)dimwoohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14647682159670328929noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-11020006130954304032018-04-08T18:26:32.152-07:002018-04-08T18:26:32.152-07:00@John McClymont: So could a resurrected person cha...@John McClymont: <i>So could a resurrected person change their mind? Here the factor of spirit-dominance comes in. According to 1 Corinthians 15 the resurrected glorified body is a spiritual body, not in the sense of non-fleshly but in the sense that the spirit dominates the body rather than vice versa.</i><br /><br />What about Lazarus' body, are you assuming it was a "spiritual body" as well, so that he was incapable of changing his basic orientation? <br /><br />Also, is Dr. Feser arguing that as a matter of metaphysical necessity it's <i>impossible</i> for God to put a disembodied soul in an ordinary material body that would allow it to change its orientation, or is the idea just that God chooses not to do this? The latter would suggest that the argument that God <i>has</i> to damn some people to an eternity in hell in order to grant others an eternity in heaven doesn't really work, not unless additional arguments are given as to why it would contradict some aspect of God's nature to re-corporealize the souls in hell without doing the same to the souls in heaven.JesseMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09993568347649474812noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-67355751741627832682018-04-08T12:21:53.830-07:002018-04-08T12:21:53.830-07:00dimwoo, I suspect that part of the issue is just e...dimwoo, I suspect that part of the issue is just exactly what we mean by "imagination". If I recall Aristotle correctly, (no guarantees), he uses the term expressly for the faculty of presenting to the mind phantasms like those of sense: sights and sounds and smells etc. This faculty would also seem to be in play when one "talks to oneself", i.e. when we imagine saying something. But there are other faculties <i>very closely allied</i> with this kind of imagining which are NOT simply those of sense-type phantasm, for the faculties by which we <i>understand</i> the meanings of the words we are using when we say something "to ourselves" is not merely imagination. So also the faculty by which we go through induction, and also the faculty of intuition, wherein we make a leap to link ideas that we had not previously linked. These may EMPLOY the sense-based imagination, but they are not strictly the same faculty. I strongly suspect that the intuition is critically at play for us humans when we invent or create. Because these are at the level of ideas, they are not merely sense-level activities that phantasms are. Tonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07159134209092031897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-25573941908669404852018-04-08T11:33:59.953-07:002018-04-08T11:33:59.953-07:00I don't understand why Imagination is a purely...I don't understand why Imagination is a purely corporeal faculty i.e. something that purely incorporeal spiritual beings like angels or deceased souls do not have. Can anyone supply a link to where Dr Feser (or similar) explains this?<br />I understand (I think) that the source material for the imagination is sensation, for example visual images recalled and recombined in the imagination in new ways. But that's the raw material, not the faculty itself. If we have memories after death (but before resurrection) why don't we retain the ability to imagine? It's always seemed to me that creativity is primarily a function of the imagination, and God created everything, but if God is immaterial how could he imagine/create? <br /><br />Poorly stated question I'm sure :-) <br /> dimwoohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14647682159670328929noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-57379575333410318652018-04-08T00:30:23.750-07:002018-04-08T00:30:23.750-07:00I think God gives to every to human soul, at least...I think God gives to every to human soul, at least to the souls of persons who aren’t totally corrupted and evil, a “Good Thief” kind of experience, when the end of life is approaching, maybe even in the very last moments of his life (since we know that instant death, even in incidents, is very rare, and even when the person looks dead, the soul has not departed from the body yet).<br /><br />I mean a moment of “clarity” so to speak, where the person knows that that this is the moment where eternal destiny is decided.<br /><br />Maybe not a full-fledged meeting with Jesus, what i have in mind is a moment of major clarity.<br /><br />Let me quote Saint Faustina<br /><br />“God’s mercy sometimes touches the sinner at the last moment in a wondrous and mysterious way. Outwardly it seems as if everything were lost. But it is not so. The soul illuminated by a ray of God’s POWERFUL FINAL GRACE turns to God in the last moment with such a power of love that, in an instant, it receives from God forgiveness of sin and punishment, while outwardly it shows no sign either of repentance or of contrition, because souls [at that stage] no longer react to external things. Oh, how beyond comprehension is God’s mercy! … Although a person is at the point of death, the merciful God gives the soul that INTERIOR VIVID MOMENT , so that if the soul is willing, it has the possibility of returning to God (Diary, 1698).<br /><br />That’s what i meant. A Grace more powerful than others (it makes sense since that is the moment where there can be no more forgiveness if you refuse it) which allows people to be saved, even though it’s predictable that a very corrupt soul would refuse it.<br /><br />That’s what i mean with the “Good thief” moment.<br /><br />There are records of people visited on the deathbed by Jesus in the last moments of life, even great sinners, but i’m not saying that’s the way Jesus acts everytime.<br /><br />But a very powerful final Grace, which nontheless still allows us to retain our power to refuse it, it’s another thing, and i see no reasons to believe that Saint Faustina was wrong about this.<br /><br />Saint Faustina even says, in chapter 1698<br /><br />“But – horror!- there are also souls who VOLUNTARILY AND CONSCIOUSLY reject and scorn this Grace! Altough a person is at the point of death, the merciful God gives the soul that INTERIOR VIVID MOMENT, so that IF THE SOUL IS WILLING, It has the possibility of returning to God. But sometimes the OBDURACY in souls is so great that CONSCIOUSLY THEY CHOOSE HELL; they [thus] make useless all the prayers that other souls offer to them and even the efforts of God Himself”.<br /><br />Alessandro<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-20218553143320177722018-04-07T12:48:49.451-07:002018-04-07T12:48:49.451-07:00Question: If Aquinas argues that our ultimate dest...Question: If Aquinas argues that our ultimate destinies are set at death because the will of someone without a body is locked into place, how does he then square that with the General Resurrection?<br /><br />Both the blessed and the damned will once again have bodies at that point, so there must be something else that would prevent their wills from deviating afterward.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-69052405974080978112018-04-07T00:59:48.631-07:002018-04-07T00:59:48.631-07:00Yes, exactly, it's just that Edward Feser set ...Yes, exactly, it's just that Edward Feser set forth his views about hell and I found myself feeling mildly curious about what course of action he would recommend to me to reduce the risk of hell.Ruperthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06727523613548443634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-78055727391967335372018-04-06T19:02:46.578-07:002018-04-06T19:02:46.578-07:00Then neither point seems to be particularly releva...Then neither point seems to be particularly relevant to the matter; you aren't from your perspective missing out on anything.Brandonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06698839146562734910noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-76263313499069702302018-04-06T14:07:55.949-07:002018-04-06T14:07:55.949-07:00Rupert
If Christianity is true, it will remain a ...Rupert<br /><br />If Christianity is true, it <i>will</i> remain a live option to you and you <i>will</i> one day come to believe that it really does describe the world as it actually is. <br />There is nothing 'hopeful' about that. If you keep an open mind about evrything and you end up not believing that Christianity really does describe the world as it actually is, then the conclusion is simple and inevitable: Christianity is not true. <br />In other words, if you truly seek truth, you cannot possibly risk hell.<br /><br />Whatever you do, do not allow fear of hell distract you from seeking truth.Walter Van den Ackerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16101735542155226072noreply@blogger.com