Quote:
Originally Posted by MarcBee
There's a significant difference between eternal torture vs. a punishment commensurate with the crime. In your god's economy, the smallest sin (a finite incident) is worthy of an infinite, eternal damnation. That's not a "punishment" derived from a sense of justice, but is rather a psychotic behavior. The supposed "escape route," which I'm sure you should invoke, does not obviate the fact that the smallest sin does MERIT the eternal wrath of god. (James 2:10.) And this is all "justice" to the Christian mind--at least to one that believes, rather than spins the bible.
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'In your god's economy'.
Perhaps you assume too much.
The wages of sin is DEATH. Sin is transgression of the law. The penalty for sin is death, not 'eternal torture'. There is no Bible verse which teaches that the penalty for sin on Judgement Day is eternal torture. The Bible clearly teaches that eternal life is the gift of God to those who believe. Eternal life is therefore NOT given to sinners so they can then be tortured forever.
The Scripture is also clear - God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Also, that God is not willing that any should perish, but that all come to repentance. And further, that God commands all men everywhere to repent (obviously so they can be saved from the penalty of their sins).
God is the Governor of the universe. As this universe is populated with moral beings, having moral agency, and thus having moral character (good or evil), his Government over such beings must be a moral government. Thus he has a LAW which is designed to govern their behaviour. But his law also contains sanctions. Some of those sanctions are temporal, applicable to this life immediately. But there is a further sanction, that threatens
death to those who rebel and refuse to be reformed.
You speak of 'the smallest sin' as if sin is a 'trifle'. Let's see...
Idolatry and
rebellion against the universal government, aka
sedition and
treason. Is that a trifle? Is not treason punishable by death or life imprisonment in the US?
What about our relations to fellow citizens?
Murder. Is that a trifle?
Adultery? Theft? Bearing false witness against another to bring unwarranted punishment upon the innocent? How about greed?
While it certainly is true that criminals usually think the punishment for their crime is 'too much' in comparison to the crimes they have committed, yet we have to ask...
should the opinion of criminals as to the 'rightful severity' of legal punishment for crime be taken into consideration when we think about what punishment actually fits the crime? Only a criminal, or his attorney, or some leftist liberal would try to affirm such a thing.
The government of God is by simple definition the most important government of all. The law of God is by very definition the most important of all law. The commands of God are by that very fact the most important of all commands.
Therefore, the violating of the most important law, the breaking of the most important commandments, must of necessity be the most heinous of crimes, deserving of the most severest of punishment.
That punishment is death.
The Bible affirms that nobody will be fail to receive their due, except those who receive a pardon from the Governor. That pardon is available to 'whosoever will'. But who indeed 'will'? Who wills to receive the pardon offered by the Governor?
He very well could have simply decided that since crime is running rampant, He will simply punish the criminals. Offering pardon is not REQUIRED by anyone's sense of justice or fairness. But offering pardon is the very heart of 'mercy and grace'.
Of course,
unreformed criminals do not see pardon in that light. They either see it as an opportunity to 'get out of jail' and go commit more crimes...or they see one criminal pardoned and not themselves and conclude the pardoned one is being shown special favor not shown to them. IE they are jealous and envious and come to despise both the one pardoned and the one who pardons.
But they have no one to blame but themselves, because pardon is offered to all upon condition of
repentance. They, not truly wanting to repent, not having 'true sorrow for their crimes', but only a collection of utterly selfish motives, cannot repent - because repentance means abandoning such selfishness. One cannot abandon selfishness unless one abandons selfishness.
So they do not repent, and are angry at the thought of others being pardoned. They want to be pardoned without having to repent. They know they do not deserve pardon, in their heart, so they begin to make excuses. They blame God, or other citizens, for their miserable condition. Given time, they come to believe their excuses. They even imagine that God's way is 'psychotic', when it is THEY who have broken from reality, projecting all their evils and problems onto someone else, blaming God for their refusals to be reformed, railing against the Government because it punishes criminal rebels like themselves.
In short, they become just like left wing radical nutcases, who are incapable of truly rational thought.
'...wicked and unreasonable men.' Indeed.
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