Will I see Hitler in heaven?

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)

Sorry, I'm not in on weekends, however I think someone is being punished for a description rather than some explication of them carrying the action out. I think you've jump to a quick conclusion.

It's free when you give. They learn ,the tax of intelligence, by doing. I know this stuff and they'll know it too if they look it up. Plus I hate spinning. I don't want an opinion of a scripture.

I think specification of literary intent is the difference between suspected sarcasm and the truth.

Hi, Ian.Thanks for your input--but if doctrine were reason, agnostics would fly. For all your explication, you remain within the circular arguments of belief, and take refuge in Mystery: indeed, who is to say that murdered infants don't crawl right into heaven?Scenario #1:
God: Okay, kid. This is your last chance--do you admit that you are a putrid, maggot-gagging piece of sinful crap?
Infant: gurgle...
God: Well, don't say you never had a chance.
Infant: *poops*Scenario #2:
God: Okay, Peter, let's get those dead babies in here first.
St. Peter: There are so many of them, Lord!
God: Yeah! Bet they can't believe their luck, huh?!Being one of the millions killed in the Holocaust and the war against Nazi Germany might have been a privilege, salvation-wise, though the (allegedly unsaved) Jews, Gypsies, and homosexuals might be startled to hear it.This is the best of all possible worlds, and only the moral pus running into our mortal eyes prevents us from seeing that.And when the proclaimed nature of God appears to conflict with the observed nature of the world, who are we gonna believe--your doctrine, or our lying eyes?That's the ticket. Edited by Omnivorous, : smilie fix

---

God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the animals, the trees. God said, ”Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It’s yours.’
--Ann Coulter, Fox-TV: Hannity & Colmes, 20 Jun 01 Save lives! Click here!
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC!
---------------------------------------

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.

I suppose that from a Christian perspective, the agnostic rejection of doctrine looks much like the atheistic one. But I do not claim that I cannot know--I admit that I do not know.My understanding of "know" is this context is not purely intellectual. I do have intellectual scruples about proofs of a negative, and that is part of my agnosticism. I also remain in awe of the majesty and mystery of this universe, and that is part of my agnosticism, too.I have no objection when the religious claim to know God on the basis of personal experience, whether it be gradual and dawning, or sudden and revelatory. Should I have such experiences, I shall quite likely claim that knowledge as well. It is my capacity to wonder, to adore, to marvel, to sense a strain of grace in this bloody world--quite as much as my intellectual scruples--that keep me on that fence you so disdain.The human sense of balance is a remarkable thing. If you study the human systems of sensation and perception, you learn that balance is a dynamic process: we do not find a balancing point and remain there, still and poised, without effort; our nerves and muscles make constant corrections--correct a bit this way, oops, back the other way a little, oops, now over here--even when we are standing still.The more I converse with a doctrinaire Christian, the more I begin to sound like an atheist; the more I converse with a militant atheist, the more I seem to harbor religious tendencies. I'll repeat what I've said before, Ian: death holds no terrors for me. The notion of Death as the Great Democrat is an attractive one, but every death has its context, and the context makes all the difference--to an agnostic.One might say that Hunger is a great democrat, since we all become hungry, regardless of our categories of religion, race, or creed; but some categories of the hungry eat on a regular basis, and others starve.Some lives are rich and long, some are grindingly stunting and long, some are horrid and short. A believer in a particular doctrine may well posit that the infants and toddlers had their chance at heaven, though concentrated in a shorter time, or suggest that they receive a special exemption, and, in the context of their belief, find that perfectly reasonable. I don't share that belief, and I find the notion facile in a repugnant way: not the believer, the belief.Outside the parameters of doctrine, I can wonder if such difficulties are resolved by human ignorance of the divine, and thus also maintain a moral agnosticism as well as an intellectual one. *shrugs*The topic is Hitler in Heaven, else I might have mused on the Potato Famine. Indeed. Which god is that? Zeus loved, grew wrathful, and fancied that he handed out justice. Many religions have sacrificed children to their gods because they loved Them so, and craved their love in return. That remains to be seen.

Hi Omnivorous. Thanks again. I basically see this as a discussion more than a debate but I would like to address this point that you make. I did point out that I don't I can't see how it is possible that unlimited evil could exist based on things that are obvious to us all. In the part where I dealt with things that I believe I didn't present them as facts, but only opinion.We have come to a discussion like this based on our beliefs and if you are going to use that as a criterion then every discussion like this is circular. I'm not God. (I hope that this doesn't come as a shock. ) I don't pretend to know what is and what isn't necessary in order for us to have free will. Sure, it's back to mystery, but wouldn't we expect there to be mystery when we are considering an intelligence that is capable of creating us and the universe we live in. I think that there's a great deal that my dog finds mysterious about me and I didn't even create him. I don't understand why mystery is such an issue. We don't understand the true nature of energy but we believe in it. It is my contention that someone else cannot preclude me from expressing my sovereign will. My neighbour might be able to kill me physically but he can't kill the part of me that is real, which is my consciousness, soul, spirit or whatever one wants to call it.If you want to go back to infants then I'll agree. It's a mystery, but I do believe in a just God. The discussion would have to revolve around the verb to "repent". I definitely do not believe that repent in the Christian sense means saying to Jesus I believe and by the way, please forgive me.In my view repentance requires a complete turning of the heart from one (in Hitler's case) that loved death, hatred, and evil to one who loves life, goodness and love. Although not at all impossible, I don't believe that change is made at all easily. Remorse because one loses the war as in Hitler's case is very different than remorse because of the evil that he committed. How can we freely choose evil without the power to enact it? My Christian doctrine tells me this. Christ understands our suffering as He lived it. As well, God has given us the pattern of how to live in a way that prevents us, if we follow that pattern, from hurting our neighbours and protecting our relationship with him. He has also given us the freedom to reject that pattern. You say: "Our power has limits that our will does not." We cannot will ourselves to live forever. Physical death is the final comes to those who love goodness and to those that love evil. There are always limits on the good or evil that we commit.I’m also not sure that I agree that the limits could have been drawn anywhere. As I said, I’m not God but it seems logical to me that if evil is limited then so is goodness. I think I showed, (I believe conclusively) in my last post to you that the goodness in the world is greater than the evil. I suppose in the end, any Theist would have to say that without the creator there would be no life at all. Would it better that mankind had never come to be, as opposed to what is?Greg

---

Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

Maybe i would propose that instead learning is the great democrat. Every person regardless of race, religion, age, creed etc. must learn. Some individuals do it differently, at a different leve, to a different degree, and to become a fulfilled indivual one must find their learning level. But to be human, one must never find that level.