RE: Poor Fundies.....Hell is A Literary Construct, Too!
May 22, 2013 at 8:14 am
(This post was last modified: May 22, 2013 at 8:20 am by Neo-Scholastic.)
I may be a heretic, but in this respect Swedenborg confirms the orthodox understanding:
570. ... for what a man loves he continually lusts after...and after death, when man becomes a spirit, these evils are changed to anger and hatred against these holy things... Heaven and Hell
4663. …for after death man carries with him all the states of his life, so that he is such as he has been in the body…Everyone retains in the other life the nature which he has acquired in the life of the body; and it is known that a man's nature cannot be cast out, and that if it is cast out, nothing of life remains… he who is in the works of charity, or what is the same, in a life of faith, is capable of receiving faith, if not in the body, yet in the other life; but one who is not in the works of charity, or in a life of faith, is by no means capable of receiving faith, either in the body or in the other life. For evil does not accord with truth, but the one rejects the other… Arcana Coelestia
In other words, in this life you set your direction because you pursue what you love most. In the next, you continue on that path because it brings you delight. The Lord does not take away your love or your life, even if you delight in filthy and disgusting pleasures, the Lord allows you to do so unto eternity. And as far as that goes, all the proof-texts you supplied actually point to this conclusion; the Lord's love never ceases. Because love is our life, but in the unrighteous the love that comes from the Lord is twisted into evils. The good news stands forever, but the evil never avail themselves of it.
570. ... for what a man loves he continually lusts after...and after death, when man becomes a spirit, these evils are changed to anger and hatred against these holy things... Heaven and Hell
4663. …for after death man carries with him all the states of his life, so that he is such as he has been in the body…Everyone retains in the other life the nature which he has acquired in the life of the body; and it is known that a man's nature cannot be cast out, and that if it is cast out, nothing of life remains… he who is in the works of charity, or what is the same, in a life of faith, is capable of receiving faith, if not in the body, yet in the other life; but one who is not in the works of charity, or in a life of faith, is by no means capable of receiving faith, either in the body or in the other life. For evil does not accord with truth, but the one rejects the other… Arcana Coelestia
In other words, in this life you set your direction because you pursue what you love most. In the next, you continue on that path because it brings you delight. The Lord does not take away your love or your life, even if you delight in filthy and disgusting pleasures, the Lord allows you to do so unto eternity. And as far as that goes, all the proof-texts you supplied actually point to this conclusion; the Lord's love never ceases. Because love is our life, but in the unrighteous the love that comes from the Lord is twisted into evils. The good news stands forever, but the evil never avail themselves of it.
