Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: nathans@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Nathan Shafer) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: demons and such Message-ID: Date: 7 Feb 90 08:19:53 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH Lines: 67 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article hwt@.bnr.ca (Henry Troup) writes: >This is a question I've been meaning to ask in this group for a while - from >the other side. I don't believe in Satan, deveils, nor Hell. >I'm originally Scottish Episcopalian, now Canadian Anglican (little difference). >My Scottish prayerbook footnotes the creed >"...He descended into Hell" as 'the place of departed spirits'. >To my not very certain knowledge, there is no scriptural authority for >Hell of fire and brimstone, devils with pointy tails and pitchforks, etc. >"The wages of sin are death." Therefore, the unredeemed die completely >and finally, while the saved have perpetual spiritual life. There are other Biblical descriptions of what happens to unsaved souls. One compares the world to a field of wheat, in which believers are like wheat to be gathered, while unbelievers are like weeds, which are to be tied in bundles and burned. (Matt. 13:24-29) As Jesus explains the parable, he describes the weeds: "The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." (Matt. 13:40-41) Thiks image ("weeping and gnashing of teeth") is used again in another parable in this chapter. In John, Jesus describes himself as a vine, and believers as branches on the vine: "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned." (John 15:5-6) John the Baptist, in Matthew 3, uses the image of burning unfruitful branches and the chaff of the wheat. It would seem, then, that the idea of sinners "burning in Hell" is quite Biblical. You state that the unredeemed die completely, yet when some- thing is burned, even if it is burned completely, isn't there a remnant of some kind? Consider such a soul as a piece of wood: if you burn the wood, when you are done, clearly it is no longer wood, but it is still something, namely ash. That is what I believe happens to a soul cut off completely from God. (The idea is not original; I got it from C.S. Lewis, but I can't remember which essay. >Now, for the devil theory - I think that Christianity (actually but not >formally) incorporated this from Persian dualism, specifically Mithraism. Not so, the Devil has been a "character" in Judaism from long ago: read the book of Job, which was likely written very early, almost definite- ly before the first or second century B.C., and quite possibly a millenium before that. >But, to me, the belief in devils is one of those self serving beliefs. >If 'the devil made me do it', then it wasn't my fault. How could I resist >the eternal Evil One, etc. Nonsense. All the evil of the world is the >result of man's misuse of his free will. Well, not really. If there's any problem in the story a devil who was "pasted in" might have solved, it's the initial origin of sin: if Adam and Eve were perfect, whence came the idea to sin in the first place?" Solution: a bigger Actor than these guys, whose motivation to sin could have been simple pride, whom we know as Lucifer. As for this character being an excuse for individual sin, that just doesn't cut it, since, despite a belief in the Devil, Christianity still places an emphasis on responsibility for not just actions, but inclinations as well. (see the Sermon on the Mount) (this, by the way, does not include those who have received grace. In their case, it doesn't matter where they got the idea, since the sin, once confessed and repented, is erased.) >Happy to debate the issue, Glad to oblige. Nathan Shafer Dartmouth College