Is the doctrine of Eternal Conscious Torment biblical or not?

PneumaPsucheSoma

TOL Subscriber
God gave the redeemed the power (exousia) to become the sons of God. Those who have rejected that truth have rejected that power. So it is not incumbent upon God to compensate further when the ontologies of the unredeemed are beyond the scope of the functionalities God put in place for redemption and salvation.

To ask why God can’t do something different or more or better is human vanity and not comprehending the immeasurable miracle of man’s salvation and redemption.

God made possible the vicarious deification of man without man ever being or becoming intrinsically divine. So to ask why the impenitent aren’t allowed to partake of the divine nature is the height of human ingratitude. To ask the question is sin, for it comes from an impenitent heart and mind.

(And nobody take this adversarially, please. I’m just explicating the hows and whys.) :)
 

PneumaPsucheSoma

TOL Subscriber
So they have a bearable state of torment then? How is the fire perpetually purifying? It's not purifying anything if it doesn't result in purification. You might as well argue that a dry well isn't dry if there's a drop of water that hits it every so often. This is as verbiose as it gets but it doesn't really mean anything.

It’s that the purifiER is present. Apart from that, there would be no lessening to the torment.

All of this actually means a LOT. I know you reject most of it, but it is what it is.
 

glorydaz

Well-known member
It is the only remaining post-judgment functional means of setting their sin apart from them in any manner or to any degree.

I can't help but think of verses like this one.

1 John 2:2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.​



Sin is in their nature, so this is God setting their very nature apart from them by Himself as the fire. It’s the only parallel to authentic salvation that they can ever experience.

Here you seem to be referring to original sin. Am I correct?

Forgiveness is not what most conceptualize. It’s a setting apart of resulting offenses by someone for their own sake. The fire is the only thing that will ever do that in any way.

But here you seem to be talking about sins again, and I see a multitude of verses that address Jesus Christ being the saviour of all men, but I guess that would fall under the idea that it's a different kind of salvation.

1 Timothy 4:10 For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe.


Because their ontology was never changed in their physical life. They’re not compatible with the sacrifice for sin (the state of being).

I'm not seeing much change in the physical life of believers. Maybe I'm missing what you're saying here.
 

ok doser

lifeguard at the cement pond
Because the purifying is for an ontology, not economies of action. They cannot be translated into a state of being that can ever be purifiED. The fire must be perpetually purifying for them to have ANY relief from torment.

Their state of being cannot ever be changed into one that doesn’t need purifying. Believers are purifiED. Resting in the imputed righeousness of Christ.

The key is the hypostasis of the Son as Theanthropos. The lost have no access to the divine nature itself, so the only compensatory thing available to them is the flames of the fire. They can never be cleansed and whole by the final sacrifice of Christ. They must bear their own sin and its guilt in and of themselves. The fire makes that bearable in their hopeless state of being.

at the risk of starting a bunny trail, do you know how much of this is rooted in ancient Hebrew?
 

PneumaPsucheSoma

TOL Subscriber
πᾶς

Radically means "all." Used without the article it means "every," every kind or variety.

God is the Saviour of all men, ESPECIALLY those who believe/trust in Him..

Please note;

Malista is not monos or monon.

This is just Objective Justification versus Subjective Justificaton relative to Unlimited Atonement, and they’re not mutually exclusive as you presume and demand.

(Why do you still think you’re a linguist when you’re not?)
 
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glorydaz

Well-known member
ok, so if not the OP, what do you think is the "topic at hand" that's not being discussed?

Still confused, huh? The topic is not about anyone's empathy, or artie, or what we think of killers and rapists. It's about whether ECT is Biblical or merely a doctrine of men that has fallen away from the truth.

asked and answered

six years ago

You asked and I answered.

Now you try and mock me for answering.

Does it never get old, Doser?
 

PneumaPsucheSoma

TOL Subscriber
I can't help but think of verses like this one.

1 John 2:2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.​

This requires understanding the differences between singular/plural anarthrous/articular hamartia (sin), along with hamartano (the verb) and hamartema/ta (the resulting acts of the verb).

The reason you don’t understand Hamartiology (like most others) is, quite frankly, because the church at large has never done much of a job of teaching it beyond basic shallow concepts.

Jesus was made sin (every aspect of the sin state of being for all mankind), and thus is the propitiation (in potentiality) for the sinS of the whole world. This is why the fire is effective as mercy for the unredeemed in the lake of fire.

Here you seem to be referring to original sin. Am I correct?

Well... I don’t prefer the term or concept of original sin from the Augustinian perspective, because Uncle Augies was not very good at expressing what it actually is. It’s really to be understood in the sense of negation, as in “Lack of original righteousness”. Sin isn’t a “something”, it’s something missing. So sin is a something like a hole is a something. So most confuse “Original Sin” as a weird kind of “something”, and that it was this thing that was added to man like some intangible tumor on his nature.

What I’m saying is that the missingness and lack in the unredeemed is not something that ever be filled after physical death while in their spiritual death. Thanatos (death) as a lack of communion means all that is necessary to fill that void that is sin is not available to them. Christ is the only means of administering this, and that’s done by being hypostatically joined to Him in this physical life.

But here you seem to be talking about sins again, and I see a multitude of verses that address Jesus Christ being the saviour of all men, but I guess that would fall under the idea that it's a different kind of salvation.

It’s the difference between sin as a state of being and sinS as the resulting actions from acting.

Since the unredeemed in the lake of fire can never have their ontology changed (their ousia/being and its physis/nature), then the only relief at all is the fleeting setting apart of the torment within them from the actions they have committed. They bear the torment of the guilt and remorse, etc. This is the torment, and it’s primarily internal. Most perceive the torment as external and physical, when this is not a physical place in the sense that we understand from the cosmos.

It’s much the same idea as a hug giving some kind of external comfort that has a fleeting temporary internal effect, but the grief or pain or sadness inside is not abated. This is maybe as close as words can come to describing this.

1 Timothy 4:10 For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe.

This is Objective Justification versus Subjective Justification. Related to Unlimited Atonement, but not in the Arminian sense.

Savior of sin (the state of being).

I'm not seeing much change in the physical life of believers. Maybe I'm missing what you're saying here.

Well... That’s my concern, too. There are too many false gospels and too much false doctrine. Few understand or even want to know the truth if it differs with their own acquired beliefs; and few have a valid source for their beliefs.
 

PneumaPsucheSoma

TOL Subscriber
at the risk of starting a bunny trail, do you know how much of this is rooted in ancient Hebrew?

All of it, and then rooted also in the depths of expression in Greek that is incomparable to any other language’s ability to explicate it.

This is why English speakers have such a difficult time with minutiae of doctrine and we end up with various tangents of every area of doctrine. English is too low-context with a lack of grammatical forms to express such things.
 

PneumaPsucheSoma

TOL Subscriber
This likely won’t help much, but it’s quite concise for anyone who can understand it...


The bottom line is that the unredeemed are not authentic persons (hypostases). They don’t exist in an authentic manner compatible with creation or the Creator if they’re not redeemed relative to their state of being.

The missingness of evil and sin cannot be in communion with the wholeness that is God and the Saints who are adopted sons.
 

FineLinen

Well-known member
God gave the redeemed the power (exousia) to become the sons of God. Those who have rejected that truth have rejected that power. So it is not incumbent upon God to compensate further when the ontologies of the unredeemed are beyond the scope of the functionalities God put in place for redemption and salvation.

Nonsense! The Living One has given nothing away. Everything is incumbent upon Himself. His will prevails!

Who wills (thelo) all mankind to be saved..

Yup, He is ta panta.
 

FineLinen

Well-known member
This is just Objective Justification versus Subjective Justificaton relative to Unlimited Atonement, and they’re not mutually exclusive as you presume and demand.

Unlimited justification, unlimited atonement, unlimited God!

You have limited the Holy One of Israel.

"Polus "made sinners" = Polus "made righteous"

Every last wicked & deplorable one!
 

PneumaPsucheSoma

TOL Subscriber
I’d like to very cautiously say this:

Those who reject modern concepts of ECT aren’t entirely wrong, and are often trying to reconcile the misrepresentations of ECT by those I’ll describe as “Westboro-ites”. ECT is often presented by depicting God as a malevolent and malicious sociopath who intentionally chose to eternally torture a huge number of His creation for an indefinite period of time.

So I’m sympathetic with those who have embraced a disdain for such an afterlife with such a God. Because that isn’t what the lake of fire is at all. And hades begins in this life. Ha- and -des are from a- (no/not) and eido (perceptive sight). The outer darkness of this life’s lack of spiritual perception continues into the afterlife following judgment, and this and death are cast into the lake of fire.

It’s the English wording of translations that has partly contributed to thinking that ECT is some malicious eternal preoccupation of God that He takes great pleasure in. But hell hath enlarged itself without measure. The pit was for the serpent and the host of hell; for them to have the only form of mercy they can receive.

The angelic host aren’t compatible with salvation, for they weren’t made of the dust of the ground. They have no human nature that can partake of the divine nature. Theirs was a different estate.

So with Evangelical Fundamentalism perverting “hell” to be scathing fire and brimstone guilt-mongering based on a works soteriological grid, ECT became this radical hyper-punitive thing that many relished for others in their own self-righteousness. It became the default of those who could excuse having no compassion by damning everyone.

What I’ve explicated is the most ancient orthodox understanding of death, hell, and the lake of fire. It’s what the Patristics expounded in the earliest days of the church from Apostolic origins.

The lake of fire has a purgative effect. But the human ontologies there are unconvertable to another state of being. So the purifiER being present (God as the consuming fire) is the sole solace for the torment. But even that solace is torment, for it’s a reminder of their loss amidst them not being able to have the spiritually intuitive revelation of anything else. They have no hope of change. Forever.
 

PneumaPsucheSoma

TOL Subscriber
Unlimited justification, unlimited atonement, unlimited God!

You have limited the Holy One of Israel.

"Polus "made sinners" = Polus "made righteous"

Every last wicked & deplorable one!

You have no gospel at all. No repentance. No faith. No grace.

All you have is a false message that everybody gets a free ticket, no matter what their state of being. God unrighteousnessly accepts the unrighteous. That’s your false gospel.

Universalism is not Christian. You are without the faith.
 

FineLinen

Well-known member
All you have is a false message that everybody gets a free ticket, no matter what their state of being. God unrighteousnessly accepts the unrighteous. That’s your false gospel.

Dear P.P.S. There is no "free ticket" no free ride! Our God saves to the uttermost, not only saving but transforming the fallen wrecks of the children of Adam1 by the "all the more" of the Last.

"Made sinners">>>>>>"made righteous"
 

PneumaPsucheSoma

TOL Subscriber
Dear P.P.S. There is no "free ticket" no free ride! Our God saves to the uttermost, not only saving but transforming the fallen wrecks of the children of Adam1 by the "all the more" of the Last.

"Made sinners">>>>>>"made righteous"

This is not Apostolic doctrine. This is not Patristic doctrine. This is not scriptural doctrine.

This is modernist drivel based upon bad lingistics run amok. Your subjective opinion/s, no matter how strong, do not change this fact.

Why don’t you tell us your affiliation? Tell us what fellowship you claim as your church. Tell us who taught you this garbage.
 

FineLinen

Well-known member
This is not Apostolic doctrine. This is not Patristic doctrine. This is not scriptural doctrine.

This is modernist drivel based upon bad lingistics run amok. Your subjective opinion/s, no matter how strong, do not change this fact.

Why don’t you tell us your affiliation? Tell us what fellowship you claim as your church. Tell us who taught you this garbage.

Dear P.P.S. This is classified information that will require a hit squad upon your poor life if disclosed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Christian_theology

The whole of created life shall be set free from the bondage of corruption...

Whole=πᾶς= the radical all (Romans 8.22)
 

rstrats

Active member
ok doser,
re: " i could consciously choose to reject God"

But can you right now consciously choose to believe that a supreme being doesn't exist?
 
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