what i really liked about your site, besides the parts debunking the "christ conspiracy" crap, was in your faq where you talk about unbelievers going to hell. its rare that ive found christians who arent in the shelby spong camp who will entertain the idea that maybe God doesnt send everyone who isnt a christian to an eternal, agonizing, punishment in hell. however, i still dont know what i think about it. i like what you said about those being forgiven who accept the nature of the HS, but what is your response to those who would say that the unforgivable sin is resisting the HS leading you to salvation, making the unforgivable sin, simply, refusing salvation? furthermore, isnt it true that you have the "nature" of the HS only once you are saved?

also, what about jesus' parable of the two men who die and one goes to heaven and one goes to hell? isnt jesus saying that there is a place of torment where people go to be punished for eternity? why would jesus put something like that in his parable if it wasnt true? understand that i want to believe that God doesnt just send non-christians who are good, loving, christ-like people to hell (whether just a place of separation, or eternal punishment), but im still trying to reconcile it biblically.

one thing i differ in opinion with you on is your answer to the "if God gave us free will, knowing that we would sin and die, then isnt God cruel or amoral?" another version of this is, "if God knew that adam would sin then why did he put the tree of good and evil in the garden?" and yet another version would be, "if God is all knowing then why did he create lucifer/satan?" my arugment would first be that for adam to truely love God then he had to have the freedom to trust God and choose God. love is an act of choice, and love is never forced. if God gave adam no other choice but to love him then adam wouldnt truely love God because love always has to be a choice. now up until this point i think you and i would agree, but my next point is where we diverge. i would say that the problem with the, "if God knew that adam would sin then why did he put the tree of good and evil in the garden?" question starts with something we assume about Gods omniscience, i would say that God didnt know adam would sin. if God knows everything that is going on everywhere (including thoughts, everything biochemically, everything about the earth and universe etc...) every second that goes by, then isnt God omniscient? doesnt God know everything? why is it that we think omniscience means psychic ability? i would say that God doesnt know what will happen in the future, but that he knows every possible outcome of everything in the future, and the reason he can figure this out is because he knows EVERYTHING right now and can figure out that this event could lead to these possibilities and then that could lead to these possibilities and so on and so forth. think about what kind of amazing unfathomable mind God must have to be able to do this, i think that this possibility of Gods omniscience is much more incredible than others. does this mean God cannot control what is going on? of course not. i believe God does all that is possible, even to the point of suspending the laws of nature on rare occurances, to steer things the way he wants them to go, but he can only do what is possible. c.s. lewis says something very similar to what i am saying in regards to Gods omnipotence in his book "the problem of pain."

anyways, i suppose ive written enough in this email, i need to go get ready to celebrate my girlfriend and i's one year tonight. once again, i love the site, keep it up, it's a great resource. take care,

chris

Chris,

Thanks for writing, and I hope I can continue to be of help.

i just wanted to say that i love your site and that its helped me out alot with the whole jesus copy-cat stuff. ive been into researching apologetics/philosophy for along time now. i went to a baptist high school and we studied some basic apologetics there and at the time i thought atheists were the dumbest people on the planet; i couldnt understand how anyone could be an atheist. after highschool, however, i picked up george smith's "atheism: the case against God," and bertrand russells "why i am not a christian" and needless to say it scared me s***less. furthermore, i visited http://members.attcanada.ca/~fnojd/ (if you havent been to this site, its pretty good) and the stuff on that terrified me even more. so, basically, i went from being this cocky, arrogant know-it-all to almost completely losing my faith, and to be honest, i still struggle with it today.

I still struggle with it, as well. I suspect that as long as there are unknowns, I always will. I think that's why I'm drawn to answer the kinds of questions that I try to answer on my website. I still question. I enjoy debating and hearing what "the other side" has to say, since a lot of the questions the non-believers ask are questions that I'm asking (or should be asking) myself. I often visit non-believer websites (I hadn't seen the one you linked above before, but I did just check it out - it's a lot more fair and honest than most of the ones I've seen). Earlier today I was reading from the book "The Case For Faith" by Lee Strobel, and came across this quote from Lynn Anderson, the founder of Hope Network Ministries: "A faith that's challenged by adversity or contemplation is often a stronger faith in the end". There are plenty of examples in the Bible of people who's faith was increased through trials and questioning. I find it dishonest not to ask the questions that you have.

Keep reading those books and visiting those sites if you're drawn to do so. But I'm also glad to see that you're looking at the Christian responses. If you haven't already read them, Lee Strobel's books ("The Case For Christ" and "The Case For Faith") are about the best apologetics books I've ever read (Strobel himself is a former atheist who asked all of the tough questions before coming to believe). I don't always agree with him, but he at least points in the right directions.

what i really liked about your site, besides the parts debunking the "christ conspiracy" crap, was in your faq where you talk about unbelievers going to hell. its rare that ive found christians who arent in the shelby spong camp who will entertain the idea that maybe God doesnt send everyone who isnt a christian to an eternal, agonizing, punishment in hell. however, i still dont know what i think about it. i like what you said about those being forgiven who accept the nature of the HS, but what is your response to those who would say that the unforgivable sin is resisting the HS leading you to salvation, making the unforgivable sin, simply, refusing salvation? furthermore, isnt it true that you have the "nature" of the HS only once you are saved?

I do believe that the only unforgivable sin is to resist the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is something that is outside of yourself if you are not a believer, but it is something that people are naturally drawn towards. While the HS itself is not within the non-believer, the desire to accept the Holy Spirit is within the non-believer, since God put that into us at birth. You don't have to have something in order to desire it - all of us have at some point in our lives desired things we don't have. So we don't have to have the Holy Spirit in order to avoid resisting the Holy Spirit.

also, what about jesus' parable of the two men who die and one goes to heaven and one goes to hell? isnt jesus saying that there is a place of torment where people go to be punished for eternity? why would jesus put something like that in his parable if it wasnt true? understand that i want to believe that God doesnt just send non-christians who are good, loving, christ-like people to hell (whether just a place of separation, or eternal punishment), but im still trying to reconcile it biblically.

If hell is a place where the punishment exceeds the crime, then this is not the hell that the Bible is talking about. If hell really is a place where people are tortured with flames for all eternity, then the crime they are committing in resisting the Holy Spirit is far worse than I believe it is. Personally, I don't think it's a crime that warrants such an extreme punishment, so I don't find it logical to believe it's that kind of place. And besides that, the descriptions of hell would be quite contradictory if literal, since it's also described as a very dark place - wouldn't the fires light up the darkness?

I do believe that there is much suffering in hell, but it's not something that they are subjected to from outside of themselves, but something that comes from our sense of loss at not having obtained what God wanted us to have.. One description of hell that really struck a chord with me is in Richard Matheson's novel "What Dreams May Come", which describes hell as being like Earth, but with its worst attributes amplified (and heaven as being like Earth but with its best attributes amplified). I thought the movie (which starred Robin Williams) screwed up the vision of hell, unfortunately.

I guess the main reason I can't accept that only Christians go to Heaven, is that there are those in other parts of the world who will never hear of Jesus, at least in any sort of light that would allow them the opportunity to accept Him as their savior. I can't accept that these people have absolutely NO chance of salvation based merely upon their geographical location. The Bible says that God is not willing that ANYONE should perish, so why would God make the choice that ultimately gives us salvation a choice that some don't have? That's why I think it has more to do with accepting or resisting the Holy Spirit, since that's something which is available to everyone. I would add (and I've said this on my site) that Jesus' sacrifice on the cross is the only reason any of us are getting to Heaven. I just think that it sometimes covers those who have never heard of Him.

one thing i differ in opinion with you on is your answer to the "if God gave us free will, knowing that we would sin and die, then isnt God cruel or amoral?" another version of this is, "if God knew that adam would sin then why did he put the tree of good and evil in the garden?" and yet another version would be, "if God is all knowing then why did he create lucifer/satan?" my arugment would first be that for adam to truely love God then he had to have the freedom to trust God and choose God. love is an act of choice, and love is never forced. if God gave adam no other choice but to love him then adam wouldnt truely love God because love always has to be a choice. now up until this point i think you and i would agree, but my next point is where we diverge. i would say that the problem with the, "if God knew that adam would sin then why did he put the tree of good and evil in the garden?" question starts with something we assume about Gods omniscience, i would say that God didnt know adam would sin. if God knows everything that is going on everywhere (including thoughts, everything biochemically, everything about the earth and universe etc...) every second that goes by, then isnt God omniscient? doesnt God know everything? why is it that we think omniscience means psychic ability? i would say that God doesnt know what will happen in the future, but that he knows every possible outcome of everything in the future, and the reason he can figure this out is because he knows EVERYTHING right now and can figure out that this event could lead to these possibilities and then that could lead to these possibilities and so on and so forth. think about what kind of amazing unfathomable mind God must have to be able to do this, i think that this possibility of Gods omniscience is much more incredible than others. does this mean God cannot control what is going on? of course not. i believe God does all that is possible, even to the point of suspending the laws of nature on rare occurances, to steer things the way he wants them to go, but he can only do what is possible. c.s. lewis says something very similar to what i am saying in regards to Gods omnipotence in his book "the problem of pain."

I think the issue that settles this question is the issue of how God interacts with our time. If God can only see directly into this moment, and can view future moments only indirectly based on His knowledge of this moment, then I'd say you're right. But I don't believe that God is subject to our time at all, since He created it. He can, right now, see into this moment, and also see directly into a moment a hundred years from now, in which He will have seen everything that happened, and all choices we made, in between. So I don't believe that there is any reason why God couldn't have known what the result of the tree would have been, unless he purposely hid that knowledge from himself (which is always possible, but I don't see why He would have).

Personally, I'm not completely convinced that the story of Adam and Eve is about actual events and is meant to be taken literally. But whether the tree was literal or metaphorical, why did God put that tree in there? I think it's related to our free will - if He's going to give us the ability to choose, He has to give us things to make choices about. Having the ability to choose the right thing means nothing if we don't have the ability to choose the wrong thing.

anyways, i suppose ive written enough in this email, i need to go get ready to celebrate my girlfriend and i's one year tonight. once again, i love the site, keep it up, it's a great resource. take care,

chris

Congratulations on your anniversary!

Peace,

David

I do believe that the only unforgivable sin is to resist the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is something that is outside of yourself if you are not a believer, but it is something that people are naturally drawn towards. While the Holy Spirit itself is not within the non-believer, the desire to accept the Holy Spirit is within the non-believer, since God put that into us at birth. You don't have to have something in order to desire it - all of us have at some point in our lives desired things we don't have. So we don't have to have the Holy Spirit in order to avoid resisting the Holy Spirit.

this is very similar to a catholic doctrine which basically says that if somebody who has never heard the gospel lives their life (uknowingly) according to the way christ would have wanted them to, then they can make it to heaven. the problem i have with this is that it goes against the verse (as well as others) where paul says, "by grace are we saved through faith, not of works..." in other words, it appears you are trying to say that someone can be saved in different ways other than what the bible clearly states. what i do think is true though is that the bibles description of hell is metaphorical. i agree that, in essence, hell is separation from God and that the lake of fire is for satan and his angels etc... i also agree that the way you are separated from God is that you simply "perish" or cease to exist.

I think the issue that settles this question is the issue of how God interacts with our time. If God can only see directly into this moment, and can view future moments only indirectly based on His knowledge of this moment, then I'd say you're right. But I don't believe that God is subject to our time at all, since He created it. He can, right now, see into this moment, and also see directly into a moment a hundred years from now, in which He will have seen everything that happened, and all choices we made, in between. So I don't believe that there is any reason why God couldn't have known what the result of the tree would have been, unless he purposely hid that knowledge from himself (which is always possible, but I don't see why He would have).=

i believe that God is an eternal being that exists independantly of this universe. the reason i dont believe God can see directly into the future is because that would imply that the future has already, in essence, happened before it has happened rendering free will non-existent. i dont think God created time as if time were some sort of object. time exists simply because this universe had a starting point, and the only reason God is not subject to time is because He didn't. but that doesnt mean he knows what is going to exist before it exists.

Personally, I'm not completely convinced that the story of Adam and Eve is about actual events and is meant to be taken literally. But whether the tree was literal or metaphorical, why did God put that tree in there? I think it's related to our free will - if He's going to give us the ability to choose, He has to give us things to make choices about. Having the ability to choose the right thing means nothing if we don't have the ability to choose the wrong thing.

im not convinced of that either, i was simply using the adam and eve story as a thought experiment, and i agree that the tree had to do with free will. im reading a couple books right now that both have to do with "design" in the universe one of them alot easier to read than the other, the first is "by design" by larry witham, and the other is "lifes solution: inevitable humans in a lonely universe" by simon conway morris. i would probably consider myself some sort of theistic evolutionist although the jury is still out. not to keep going back to this book, but "the problem of pain" by lewis has a fascinating chapter called "the fall of man." lewis was an evolutionist, and that chapter basically retells the story of adam and eve if it happened by evolution.

chris

this is very similar to a catholic doctrine which basically says that if somebody who has never heard the gospel lives their life (uknowingly) according to the way christ would have wanted them to, then they can make it to heaven. the problem i have with this is that it goes against the verse (as well as others) where paul says, "by grace are we saved through faith, not of works..." in other words, it appears you are trying to say that someone can be saved in different ways other than what the bible clearly states.

I do believe that we are saved by faith - but faith in what? For Christians, it's faith in Jesus. For those who have never heard of Jesus, I believe it's faith in the Holy Spirit (but that salvation even for them comes from Jesus).

i believe that God is an eternal being that exists independantly of this universe. the reason i dont believe God can see directly into the future is because that would imply that the future has already, in essence, happened before it has happened rendering free will non-existent.

I disagree. I don't see how this makes free will non-existent any more than the possibility of time travel, or even the fact that we can look back on the choices people made before us, makes it non-existent. The idea that God knows what choices we have yet to make, doesn't mean that God controls what choices we have yet to make. Only if God willingly gets involved in our choices does the irrelevance of free will come into play - and, yes, I believe God does exactly that on occasion. For example, let's say that God looks at Mr. Smith's future and sees that Mr. Smith is going to commit suicide next Tuesday. God doesn't want him to do that, so he intervenes and tells Mr. Smith not to kill himself, but to give his life to helping the poor, which Mr. Smith does. This would make Mr. Smith's decision to commit suicide irrelevant, thus over-riding his free will. But if God decided not to intervene, then His knowledge that Mr. Smith would commit suicide would not mean that Mr. Smith had no free will in making the decision to kill himself.

But then we have this issue - if God talked Mr. Smith into not committing suicide, and Mr. Smith didn't, then in exactly what future did God see Mr. Smith committing suicide. If it never happened, then it was any real future that God looked into to (since there is no future in which Mr. Smith actually took his life). He only looked into a likely future, not a real one. But God would know the difference. He would know what's going to happen without His intervention, and what's going to happen if He intervenes, and thus changes the course of the future.

i would probably consider myself some sort of theistic evolutionist although the jury is still out.

Same here. The evidence is quite convincing for certain parts of evolutionary theory. But I have a hard time believing that my ultimate ancestor was a single-celled creature, and that evolution ALONE could turn this into me. But I almost consider the evolution question irrelevant to the big issue. If evolution is true, God most likely exists and Jesus was most likely resurrected. If evolution isn't true, God most likely exists and Jesus was most likely resurrected.

God bless,

David