I have started to read 'God outside the box' by Richard Harries this week. A friend of mine picked it up for £1 in a charity shop and has lent it to me to read. It is an interesting study into the reasons why spiritual people object to Christianity and goes through each objection systematically. This morning I have been reading the chapter on Eternal Punishment. I am finding Harries' arguments compelling, and his opinions about what he considers it means to be sent to hell. He considers that 'If, coming into the presence of perfect goodness and sublime beauty we turn in on ourselves with a mixture of self-pity and resentment, that is hell' (p22). I am agreed with him that I cannot believe that God deliberately sentences people to unending fire, but I wonder about the weight of his statement about the nature of hell being a state of mind. He says that we are free to choose and that this kind of hell is logically possible. However, I am struggling to combine this argument with the possibility and likelihood of all people choosing to be self-pitious and resentful and wonder what the saving power of Jesus has that would save us from this self-centredness?
2 comments:
Good questions, Emma - and good to see you are stretching yourself.
Sounds very interesting.
I have been given some books to read by John Darch and an essay to write, the second of which is called God is dead. I wonder what perspective that is written from.
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