On Hell and Forgiveness

[LadyForCamus]

The point is that God does not decide what is just. His nature is perfect justice and all actions are governed by that characteristic.

How can god possess libertarian free will if he is bound by his nature? If god isn’t free to consider what is or isn’t just and then act accordingly, then he isn’t actually free.

I have no idea what perfect justice is.

While I appreciate your humility in this answer, it seems to pose further problems. If humans can’t or don’t know what perfect justice is, then we have no rationale to support the notion that god’s actions are perfectly just. We must simply accept the bible’s claim of it at face value. But more importantly, if god is incapable of making cogent determinations about what is or isn’t perfectly just, then there exists no rationale for his actions. Without any rational his actions are essentially arbitrary, and the claim, ‘god is perfectly just’ simply hangs there as a bare, and meaningless assertion. 

I heard a good example this week. For three years people followed Jesus around watching him do miracles. Thousands of people saw and even more heard. In 1 Cor 15:6, we hear that there were more than 500 people that actually saw him alive following his crucifixion. In Acts 2, there were only 120 that believed enough to be wait in Jerusalem as Jesus had told them to do. The point is that being shown miracles, signs, and even the ontological argument, does not get a person's heart to the right place to meet God. It is almost always a process.

Or...that as time passes, people’s credulity becomes more reserved, which is perfectly rational. In any case, I’m not talking about Jesus performing miracles as a man who lived thousands of years ago, and the fallout of that. I’m talking about god revealing himself without any intermediaries, indisputably, to every person on the planet who ever lived and ever will live.  This is the only action that can logically follow from his expressed goal.  

Oh, come on now, Steve.  Don’t be obtuse.  If our consciousness continues infinitely beyond our physical death, then our ability to make choices is obviously also infinite.  God is the one inserting arbitrary restrictions and ultimatums here. Why is that?

Can a disembodied soul make choices? There are no inputs or outputs.

There is so much wrong with this that I don’t even know where to start. First, what the heck does that even mean?  What is existence like for a disembodied soul with ‘no inputs or outputs’? Are you saying that human souls have no experience?  The concept alone seems incoherent to begin with. 

Further, how could you possibly know that a disembodied mind cannot experience inputs and outputs? Where did you derive this knowledge from? 

Last, isn’t god a disembodied mind? According to your faith, does god not speak to us? Does he not hear prayers?  Does he not enjoy an interactive relationship with humans that involves actively giving and receiving love? Sounds to me like you are making this stuff up as you go along, Steve.

Anyhow...all of my objections aside, I’ll give you your assertion about inputs and outputs for the sake of the argument.  Because, my point of contention here is that if we are no longer free to make any choices (into literal eternity) after physical life ends, then your god plainly does not value free will.  If he valued free will, he would not impose an arbitrary time limit on it.

to me the chance for reflection, change of heart, and a life with God have passed when you die.

Why should it?

It seems your objection has no reasons other than to be difficult.

On the contrary, it seems that much of the Christian doctrine discussed in this thread has no rational basis at all.

Forgiveness is not the same as atonement. I can forgive a murderer for killing my brother. I can't take away the consequences. Atonement takes away the consequences. It would be like Jesus literally sitting through the trial, taking on the humility of facing the victims, then prison and then the death penalty and the actual murderer going free.

So basically, ‘somebody has to pay’?  Why?  Why is god so hung up on punishing someone for actions he knew ahead of time that humans were incapable of resisting? Furthermore, how can you reasonably argue that that is ‘perfect justice’ if you admit yourself that you don’t even know what perfect justice is?  If I know my dog is going to get into the garbage if I leave him alone, and then I go for a jog and he eats last night’s table scraps, is it just of me to punish him for that?  Is it just of me to punish some other dog in his place? 

In short, I don’t hear any rationale or reasonable explanation for why forgiveness alone is less than perfect justice. You’d need to be able to define it first, or else your argument doesn’t even have a starter.