Will I see Hitler in heaven?

Non sequitur.You have had all this exposure and don't even get a basic 2 line summation straight. The non sequitur follows inevitably. I know you don't believe it but for the sake of accuracy you might as well insert the correct position into your summary. It goes like this and is copyright freeGod created a perfect man and gave him a choice
Adam exercised the wrong choice and fell - sin enters him a as a disease
All offspring are infected with Adams self-injected and deadly disease. We sin because we are sinners
God, in loving man, provides a way for that disease to be cured
Man can reject the offer. If he doesn't reject he is cured.
There are no works involved. Man doesn't have to 'get his act together' to be savedEdited by iano, : No reason given.

The Christian position is that you, arguing about Hitlers relative-to-you evil is the same as one grain of sand on a beach arguing that it is closer to the sun that the grain of sand next to it.Measured against human standards, Hitler was full of evil. Measured against Gods standards we're all full of evil.The only way to heaven for any grain of sand on the beach is to be released from their responsibility. But if you feel one should pay for their own sins then that is your perogative. Insist on the right to do so and you will.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

The Christian position doesn't say that God is the source of evil but the we are. The Christian position is that if God doesn't act to halt it then we will do evil. This is not the same as him being the source of it - in the sense that evil emanates from an evil attribute of his. God allowing evil is not the same as it finding its source in himThe rest of your post is based on your incorrect understanding of the Christian viewpoint so needs no further reply Edited by iano, : No reason given.

If there is a difference then God can discern it of course. It is not necessarily so that Sidelined is less evil that Hitler. Its Gods measure and standard that will count. If being angry with a brother is considered murder then it rakes the beach up somewhat. Hitlers evil gave an order. But his is only a small part in the whole show. People were actually killed by others. The order was only a signature on a piece of paper. No one knows who will be considered more or less evil than another. It could be that all the grains of sand are equally evil - when all is taken into account. Unlikely but hey! I don't know

In attempting to reconcile things you might consider changing the word 'innocents' at the end of the above sentence to that which more accuratly reflects the Fall view of thing: 'the guilty'. There is nothing irreconcilable about a holy God pouring out his wrath on the guilty. Our own justice systems mirror (if somewhat haphazardly) this concept.

That is the crux of it. Guilt must be measured according to the standard of the person whose Law is being broken - not according to the standard of the law breaker, if that is what you are. We should expect (for our courts tell us so) that a person admitting own guilt is not the norm. Nor are there queues forming outside our police stations consisting of people wanting to confess their crimes. Pleas of 'not guilty' are often entered by people seeking to gain some remission due to the certainty of a guilty verdict whatever it is they plead. A damage limitation exercise."I'm not guilty" is the cry most laughed out of the court of the prisoner population.Although perhaps not seeing your guilt clearly, you have reasonable circumstantial evidence contained within the above argument to indicate such that self-justification may well lie at the root of your opinion. If your anything like me you would recognise employing this technique often enough. You cannot declare yourself an objective observer as regards your own guilt and declaring others innocent when you are in no position to comment on guilt or innocence is not open to you either.You don't have to believe in the Fall Omni. You can insist on innocent-by-own-decree. But if you inserted the Fall into your ponderings you may find that the whole thing begins to stitch together quite nicely. It all begins to fit. Gods Love, Gods Wrath, Gods Justice. And a situation which allows all to be perfectly , self-coherantly and self-consistantly expressed. No loose endsEdited by iano, : No reason given.

Has a free thinker the free will which is essential to free thinking. If he has, has he free will to do bad and good too? If he has, then what is pathetic about the free will apologetic?

Free thinker means free will to think in whatever direction one thinks in. This can include God. It can include Christianity. "Outmoded" and "outdated" is seeking to determine the direction of free thinking by the back door.Your thoughts on free thinking seem to preclude arrival at any destination, yec or otherwise. There is, of course, no particular basis for holding to this view (there are no absolutes is a non-sensical statement). If one does arrive at a destination and that destination precludes thinking freely any longer then so be it. The person has no need of free-thinking in any direction at all anymore. And so what: who says free thinking is some holy grail? You used the word. You tell me. Free will sits at the core of the argument. It always has. Besides, I don't know about your shooting down of any apologetics. I have thought free will through and whilst not the limitless entity you seem to demand of it it is sufficient for Gods purpose. Free will within boundaries - not free will to do absolutely anything at all I like. Like, a person doesn't have free will to ignore God forever or to choose annihilation over eternal punishment - for instance. Boundaried free will As I say above Sure they didn't know ALL the consequences. All we know is that they had a choice between two options. I would argue that it was at this point that they had, for the first time, sufficient free will which allowed for a choice for/against God. Not sufficient? In the measure God gave them fuller revelation about the consequences of choosing against him, he would also have had to allow the temptation of the serpent to increase in like measure in order for the choice to remain a balanced one. We know were God set the line. Where do you want to draw it exactly? If you persist in your estimation of this gig as being about what happens here on earth then this is the conclusion you might draw. But this is not the main event. The main event comes later. And compared to that the suffering of individual is a relative pittance. Suffering is one tool used by God in order to draw all men to himself - for who would come if everything was hunky dory as it was - none I'd wager (hard for a 'rich' man to get to heaven vs blessed is the poor in spirit).Pain is useful - next time you stick the wrong end of a cigarette in your mouth as I did last Saturday you might be thankful for the warning sign. Or you can complain about how unrighteous the whole thing is I suppose So. Gods sovereign choice according to his purpose. Think his overall purpose Brian. The kid can get an ice cream or it can get a slap. I don't mean to underplay suffering but see it within a larger context. God wants that none should perish but that ALL would come to repentance. If (temporal) suffering is required in order for that (eternal) goal to be better met then thank God he inflicts itEdited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Surely you mean fundi-mental error I was responding to Brians comments on the position held by such as myself - not to that held by such as yourself. My position seeks to address problems arising out of his position not yours. I don't think he would think any more of your position than he does the Bibles. But your welcome to try I'm sure. Answer him if you like For the record, I agree. We will not be convicted on the basis of Adams lawbreaking, but our own If you had put an eg: instead of an i.e. then I might have even wholeheartedly agree with you here too Gods laws are a reflection of his holiness. They are put there so that in our breaking them we might come to recognise what we are: sinners. What chance a sinner to sin if there was no law to break huh?

...patently there is only one way to find outEdited by iano, : No reason given.

I wouldn't mind but CK is a moral relativistGo figure.

Definitely.

Pure free will, as in an equally balanced choice between good and evil was the preserve of Adam. Not so us. With us we have the free will of junkies (Biblically: slaves to sin). A junkie can choose not to inject, in theory: no-one is forcing him to inject. But that is not the usual action of a junkie: inject he will.The point of giving the hit of the drug, sin, lies in connecting its apparently delicious effect with the issue of lawbreaking. The two go hand in hand. Just like a junkie knows there is something awful underlying the rush of the drug, we know there is something awful underlying the gratification that sin brings. The hangover of sin, the bad trip of sin, the appalling behaviour that is involved in sinning which gets supressed at the time but comes back to remind us in the form of guilt.If a central cog in the mechanism of salvation requires us to become knowledgable of and (closer to home) accepting of the fact we are lawbreakers, then it makes sense that we need to break the law in order for the pressure to build up on us. As addicts, we are allowed to inject all we want. As with repenting of other things, we need the hangovers of sin, the bad trips of sin and the guilt induced by sin. We need to become aware that we are trapped in a prison in order to seek release from prison. If there was no law then there would be no lawbreaking and no discomfort associated with lawbreaking. Why would we seek release from the prison of sin if we were quiet happy residing in it?I know you hold that you are not guilty but the theology says that that is mans addicted-to-sin-nature (sinful nature) expressing a junkie-style free will. The junkie would sell his own mother for the next hit. And whilst the sheer forcefulness of the denial of our sinfulness can be felt to be "rational and intellectual and befitting this and that calculus" it can also be taken simply as going as far as one needs even unto selling ones own mother in order that the trip can continue. For as soon as we become aware of being junkies we will begin to arrive at His door. Its not his prison - but he has got the keys.Anothers choices precluding our own choices should serve to illustrate that we do the exact same things to them - we preclude their free choice. It should illustrate our own bankrupcy. Is this not a perfect illustration that the command "love others as yourself" is an impossibility. No one can do it. Some might be inclined towards the relative merit of one sin over another in saying "I don't murder others". Is this not measuring according to a scale of their own manufacture when God aligns adultery with lusting looks and anger with murder. He sees all sin as putrid. How can Hitler deprive anyone the chance of redemption? We cannot know in what way God was calling them through their lives: to what extent, to what intensity, how frequently. God knew when they were going to die and had all the opportunity to give them the level of 'chance' that he gives everyone. We do know theologically, that everyone gets one life. That everyone dies. That everyone faces Judgement. The method by which one arrives there hasn't a central relevancy here. Car accident/Auschwitz/Cancer - whats the ultimate difference?Abraham was declared righteous before God long before Christ came or his Gospel. Abraham believed God then. So did I then. Different means - same end result. God drew, we believed, we were credited Christs righteousness. We might suppose that one who "wants none to perish" not Tibeten sheep herders who will never hear the gospel direct nor babies who die before they can sin or hear the gospel has a way whereby they can believe and be declared righteous too. You might suppose that if he created all this (either evo or creo view) then such a thing wouldn't be much of a problem either.One final point. As the hopeless junkie theology might indicate its free will to choose to inject (heavily inclinded to do so) and free will to merely wish oneself free. A hopeless junkie cannot choose to stop injecting. Hearts desire is the very best that can be accomplished.(let the analogy limit itself to the hopeless junkie who cannot extract themselves - they best represent us in our sinful natures)

Agnostics fly well enough according to the doctrine they believe in ("what I can see with my own two eyes constitutes my terms of reference"). You sail in a type-similar boat to me. Beginning of life? Mystery: and even if it is produced in a lab it says nothing about conditions then. The beginning of the Universe? Mystery: no way to answer that for which no laws of physics (that we know and for which there are no clues about, apply. Where we go when we die? Mystery and likely to remain the most impenetrable of all. You aren't the first, nor will you be the last, agnostic who claims to sit, finely balanced, on the fence. But whilst residing there - for all the world assumes the same position as the out and out atheist. Bar for the intellectual assent: "I cannot know", there is no difference. We all die Omni. Jews, gays, gypsies et al. Death is the most democratic institution on earth. It favors not religion, race nor sexual orientation. The result is the same the world over: 1 death per person. Don't be a rabbit caught in the headlights of Auschwitz. Which god is that? The fluffy, bearded one? If God is love, wrath and justice, then where is the problem with the doctrine - specifically - if able to be specific.Or is it that love/wrath/justice just don't arrive in the sequence and timing required by the doctrine-according-to-Omni. Edited by iano, : No reason given.