Weblog of a Christian philosophy student

Weblog of a Christian philosophy student. Please feel free to comment. All of my posts are public domain. Subscribe to posts [Atom]. Email me at countaltair [at] yahoo.com.au. I also run a Chinese to English translation business at www.willfanyi.com.

Name:
Location: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Why Did God Create Hell?

A lot of Christian thinkers say that God is infinite. Here's an interesting thought: what if God IS infinity in a way that we don't or can't understand? What if infinity and God are the same thing observed from different vantage points?

An interesting fact about infinity is that it is always a whole that cannot be divided into parts (infinity - 10 = infinity, infinity + a billion = infinity.) So you can't separate some of infinity from infinity.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God has placed infinity in the human heart, which makes us in His image as He is an infinite God. I think what this means is that through His power God allows our brain to 'draw on' infinity somehow, which gives us a 'soul'. We're creatures because we're also finite - our brain contributes to who we are, and the brain is finite. We have to be partly finite because there can only be one infinity/one God.

Somehow, we get our *own* personality when our brain draws on infinity. So we aren't God, even though our soul is one with God. How this can be is a mystery.

So we sin through what is, ultimately, one with God - a soul.

Picture that helps illustrate this [click to enlarge]



This means that when a soul sins God can't disconnect Himself from that soul, because souls are infinite and infinity is always one (it cannot be divided). Therefore, to protect Himself from the sinful soul God has to 'cast' that soul into 'outer darkness' (in a sense), to the very periphery of God. Otherwise, because infinity is always together, the soul's choice to sin would spread to God and make God sin as well. This causes the sinner to suffer because they ARE that soul, and being 'pushed' away from God is very painful (Romans 5:12-14). That's why we suffer: it's a side-effect of God shielding Himself from our soul's choice to sin, which He has to do because our soul (being infinite) is one with God.

Having said that, I don't know why we suffer in the way that we do (i.e. from earthquakes, diseases and so on). That's a mystery.

This also explains why hell exists: if a person never becomes sinless then they must live at the very 'edge' of God forever. A soul, being taken from God, must have an eternally living nature (I think this accounts for the strong Biblical link between suffering and hell - "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him" Rev 6:8)

Labels: , ,

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home