I don't think you can just say the two things are contradictory. You're starting with an emotion (love), and ending with an action (harm). I think it is necessary to say how the two are related (emotions and actions) before claiming an emotion and an action are contradictory.
If by love we mean the pure form of agape or charity which always seeks the highest good for its object, it is hard to see how that good is advanced by sending the person to Hell, wouldn't you say?
Christians have throughout history affirmed both of those truths.
What, that God is not universally loving and doesn't send people to hell? :-)
Such parallels completely ignore God's right to judge his creatures.
God does not have that right, or at least not an unqualified right. If he stands in relation to us as a parent to a child, we do not allow earthly parents to torture their children, even if the parents think it will do them good. God as envisaged by evangelical Christians is all-powerful and so has the ability to judge, but I don't believe his might makes him right.
Would you consider a non-infinite Hell to contradict the idea that God is universally loving? And be abusive and unjust?
Depends on how non-infinite it is and what the experience is like (and what happens at the end of this non-infinite experience). As I said, it's about proportionality. We recognise that some people escape punishment for their crimes in this life, and so some kind of court in an afterlife is not necessarily immoral. However, evangelical Christianity posits that we are all guilty, another point I'd disagree with.
Correct by definition.
So if God appears to you (or sends an angel, perhaps) and tells you to go on a killing spree or similar, in an old fashioned OT style, would you do it?
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timeasmymeasure
Re: This year's CICCU Main Event - DIRECTION
Date: 2005-02-08 07:34 pm (UTC)If by love we mean the pure form of agape or charity which always seeks the highest good for its object, it is hard to see how that good is advanced by sending the person to Hell, wouldn't you say?
Christians have throughout history affirmed both of those truths.
What, that God is not universally loving and doesn't send people to hell? :-)
Such parallels completely ignore God's right to judge his creatures.
God does not have that right, or at least not an unqualified right. If he stands in relation to us as a parent to a child, we do not allow earthly parents to torture their children, even if the parents think it will do them good. God as envisaged by evangelical Christians is all-powerful and so has the ability to judge, but I don't believe his might makes him right.
Would you consider a non-infinite Hell to contradict the idea that God is universally loving? And be abusive and unjust?
Depends on how non-infinite it is and what the experience is like (and what happens at the end of this non-infinite experience). As I said, it's about proportionality. We recognise that some people escape punishment for their crimes in this life, and so some kind of court in an afterlife is not necessarily immoral. However, evangelical Christianity posits that we are all guilty, another point I'd disagree with.
Correct by definition.
So if God appears to you (or sends an angel, perhaps) and tells you to go on a killing spree or similar, in an old fashioned OT style, would you do it?