election Flashcards
election definition
the idea that some people are chosen by God to enter hell or heaven.
universal election
JOHN HICK: God’s nature is omnibenevolent so it follows that logic that everyone will be saved. God’s eternal love is greater than any finite sin.
john hick book
UNIVERSAL ELECTION
‘Death and Eternal life’
he claimed that life is a process of soul making where we learn to become more virtuous. this process continues in death despite the evil that may have been committed
Limited election
- ST AUGUSTINE:
-because of original sin in Genesis 3 and the fall of humans, they have been so corrupted that they can only be saved through the grace of Jesus Christ.
-God is all-knowing so will know who would be saved as they are pre-destined. God has predestined some individuals to salvation, but has not actively predestined the rest to damnation
‘all nations will be gathered before him’ = everyone has the opportunity
CALVIN:
-he expands this and argues that since God is all-knowing he not only knew who would be saved but who would be sent to hell (DOUBLE PRE-DESTINATION)
‘some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation’
(catholics reject this saying God will send no-one to hell)
CS LEWIS: ‘the gates of hell are locked from the inside’ - God doesnt put anyone in hell.
‘inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’
unlimited election
KARL BARTH: God is sovereign and Christ died for all. In church dogmatics he argued ‘God is both the elected God and elected man in one’ = God elected humanity by ‘taking on the flesh’ and humanity is brought into God because Jesus represents humanity.
=everyone is invited but you have to answer the call, only God knows who will accept the invitation
Karl Barth book on unlimited election
Church Dogmatics
he argued ‘God is both the elected God and elected man in one’ = God elected humanity by ‘taking on the flesh’ and humanity is brought into God because Jesus represents humanity.
what does the parable of the sheep and the goats suggest about type of election
-Jesus suggests not all people will be saved, so shuts down universalism
-limited election as the righteous were chosen ‘before the foundation of the earth’ = predestination (possible double)
=points towards unlimited election as suggests people’s actions decide judgement
Alastair McGrath
refers to election as ‘one of the most enigmatic and puzzling aspects of Christianity’
debate on heaven is ‘speculative and pointless’
heaven definition
it is the presence of God
heaven is a place
the bible teaches that Jesus has a physical body after his resurrection and this physical body went up to heaven at the ascension - meaning it went to a physical place
-revelations 1-4 quote
-NT Wright argues the resurrection points towards a future hope that all creation will be transformed. in his book SURPRISED BY HOPE, he argues that the transformation of creation is expressed in language that sign-posts what is to come.
-Isiah 25:6, he describes a rich banquet on God’s hold mountain where all his people will join him
-Pam Reynolds who has no measurable neural activity had an experience in brain surgery where she felt joy and love, saw religious figures and deceased people and thought she was in heaven
heaven as a place quote
revelations 1-4: ‘Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth,’
heaven as a spiritual state.
-origen believed the resurrection body was purely a spiritual entity which possessed the same form
-aquinas suggests the soul enters a state of beatific vision where the soul encounters God face to face (corinthians 13:12). the soul will be reunited with the body at the time of eschatology when Jesus returns in Parousia, suggesting a place where all will be raised and final judgement will take place.
key word for life after death
eschatology - the study of the end of the world
heaven does not exist
Marx argues religious concepts were a reaction to socio-economic alienation. religion promised a blissful afterlife to discourage social rebellion. heaven was a psychological projection rooted in the childish fear of death.
heaven is a symbol of a moral and spiritual life
Benjamin Ritschl interpreted the kingdom of God as a present set of moral values - heaven is a present state where they are blissfully happy as they are virtuous in this life.
Waterfield sugests heaven is not a palce but a symbol that represents ‘blissful happiness in our interaction with other people’ ie our moral life together
Jesus says in Luke 17:20 ‘the coming of the kingdom of god is not something that can be observes, nor will people say ‘here it is’ or ‘there it is’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.’
sheep and goats parable on heaven
‘the righteous into eternal life’ is a reward for feeding the hungry, visiting the prisoners, clothing the naked. suggests there will be a reward
does God’s judgement take place at death or at the end of time
+parable of the sheep and the goats: ‘all the nations (of history) will be gathered before him’
-purgatory
hell definition
seperation from God
hell is a place
+revelations 21 vision of ‘a lake of fire’ where bad people are tossed in
+dante’s divine comedy describes the journey through Inferno (hell) down through the 9 layers of immorality
+jonathan edwards: ‘sinners in the hands of an angry God’ = protestants emphasize hell as a punishment for sin and a place where people suffer eternally
+NT Wright suggests that language of hell in the bible sign-posts eschatological judgement but should not be read as dramatically as a literal burning lake.
hell is a spiritual state.
-origen argues ‘each sinner kindles his own fire and our vices from its fuel.’ punishment is not inflicted through a God or Satan but through each person’s ‘interior anger’
-Gregory Nyassa agrees and links judgement to the way in which a person’s consciousness condemns them thorugh guilt and shame
hell doesnt exist
Marx- language of the afterlife is a form of social control aimed at keeping people in their place
Freud - reflects a psychological fear of death
Dawkins - hell is based on fear and to teach children irrational beliefs is abuse
Hume - calls God’s justice into question because a finite sin can never deserve eternal punishment.
Hick: hard to imagine a perfectly loving God would allow his creatures to suffer for eternity. rejects eternal hell.
Leibnz: ‘it seems strange that evil must triumph over good under the supreme authority of the one who is sovereign good’
‘conditionalism’ which was popular in 80s: unless you accept christ, you will cease to exist.
hell is a symbol of a moral and spiritual life
-paul tillich: hell is symbolic. language of hell represents our psychological and spiritual alienation. ‘hell must be taken seriousl as metaphors for the polar ultimate in the experience of the divine’ (heaven represents a fulfilled moral life and fear is the polar opposite filled with dread and despair)
purgatory definition
roman catholic teaching by augustine and origen that people can still be saved after death but have to cleanse their souls. an individual comes to terms with the full meaning of repentanc and grace
purgatory exists corinthians
+corinthians 3:15 ‘anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, through he himself will be saves, but only as through fire’
+ 2 Maccabees 12:46 ‘it is therefore holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sin’
+catherine of genoa: ‘because the souls in purgatory are without the guilt of sin, there is no obstacle between them and god except the pain that holds them back’ = we are released from sins that hold us from God who has already forgiven us.