Immortality or Resurrection (Updated), William West [black female authors .txt] 📗

like the one's Edwards preached
he would be out of work very soon.
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This version of Hell makes there be something like two kingdoms or two universes
after the judgment with Satan over one with most of mankind and God over a few. Both
God and Satan would have eternal power in their kingdom and the division between
them, between Heaven and Hell would mean God would not ever have a victory over
evil. The god Edward believed in would have no problem with tormenting the lost, he
would love it.
[3] THE GRAPHIC VERSION OF HELL: The sinners will be tormented in the
parts of their bodies that sinned.
"In short, whatever member of the body sinned, that member would be punished more than any
other in hell...In Christian literature we find blasphemers hanging by their tongues. Adulterous
women who plaited their hair to entice men dangle over boiling mire by their...hair." William
Crockett, "Four Views on Hell" Page 46.
[4] SATAN WILL BE DOING THE TORMENTING VERSION OF HELL:
Satan and his angels will be doing the tormenting, but they could only be executing the
will of God that the lost be tormented for they could not torment the lost without God
letting them. This view was believed by most in the Dark Age and by most Jonathan
Edwards preachers who often speak of “the devil Hell” as though Hell was a place that
belonged to Satan. Most Protestants have now abandon the view of Satan and his demons
doing the tormenting, but I remember that this was believed by most when I was a child
and was what most Protestants believed at that time. Many painting in museums and
churches show Satan and his demons roasting those in Hell and tormenting them in every
way the painter could think up. SATAN AND HIS ANGELS ARE NEVER PUNISHED.
In this version of Hell Satan and evil spirits are forever over "Hell" and will forever be
able to torment most of mankind. Instead of being punished, they will have forever
triumphed over God and will forever have a kingdom of their own where they will work
their evil on mankind as they please to and as it gives them pleasure.
[5] GOD WILL BE DOING THE TORMENTING VERSION OF HELL: Satan
and his angels will be tormented by God just as all the lost of mankind will. There has
been a major change by many Protestants from Satan to God doing the tormenting.
[6] THE METAPHORICAL VIEW OF BOTH HEAVEN AND HELL: We are
not told what Heaven and Hell will literally be like. We are told in pictures that tell us
Heaven will be a place of beauty more than anything on this earth and that Hell will be
worse than anything on this earth. Because we cannot understand what Heaven will really
be like, we are given the picture of a city with gold streets and pearl gates to picture for
us its great beauty and value, but it will not literally be made of gold, pearls, or of
anything that we have on this earth. The metaphorical view of is Hell is pictured as a
place of fire, but it will not literally have fire as we know it, or darkness as we know it. In
this view none of the literal torments of the Jonathan Edwards Version are possible for
they are all things of this earth that will not be in Hell. This version of "Hell" seems to be
growing rapidly for it is looked on as a way to make God less evil, but in fact it does not
for whatever would be symbolized by being tormented by eternal fire would be just as
bad as being eternally tormented by literal fire.
[7] BILLY GRAHAM’S MENTAL ANGUISH VERSION OF HELL: Hell is only
a state of mind. In "The World To Come" Page 300, Isaac Watts makes the worm be the
conscience of a person eating on himself for all eternally. A survey by US News, January
2000, Page 47, says 53 percent of Americans believe Hell to be only mental anguish. This
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is an attempt by some to lessen the negative effect of Hell making God cruel and sadistic,
but the attempt is a complete failure. Replacing physical torment with mental anguish
does nothing to change Hell by making the torment be less. Mental anguish can be worse
than physical pain, and it would still be torment without end, and would still be God
doing the tormenting. Billy Graham who is an orthodox Protestant would in no way be
called orthodox by Calvin or Jonathan Edwards, nor would many others that believe Hell
is only mental anguish as he does. The old orthodox is some times the very opposite of
the new orthodox. In the mental anguish version of Hell for sins after death, the
sinner punishes himself after death, it is not God that punishes him.
Alexander Campbell said, "The sinner's suffering by mental agony, produced by sin, greater than
could be caused by material fire." "Five discourses on Hell" 1848. Then he says, "We do not
maintain that men are punished eternally for sins committed in this life only. The analysis of the
sufferings of a future retribution, which we have just given, is itself sufficient evidence of this fact;
for the indulgence of voluntary depravity is itself both sin and punishment. As a consequence of
past sins, the sinner has formed the habit of sinning. It is a law of man's nature, that habit creates
both a tendency to certain acts, and a facility in their performance. As the result of the habit of
sinning, formed in this life, a tendency to repeat acts of sin is carried on the sinner into a future
world; and every such act repeated in that world not only perpetuates, but increases the
tendency to further acts of the same kind: and thus, as by every repeated act the tendency to sin
is increased, and as every act also brings with it its own punishment, so, by the laws of man's
mental and moral nature, the sinner's progress in both sin and suffering in a future world, is like
that of a falling body, which increases its velocity as the square of the distance increase through
which it falls. There is, therefore, just as little probability that a sinner, left to himself in a future
world, should repent and turn to God, as that a falling body should arrest itself in its downward
course, and ascend to the elevation from which it fell...surely the assumption that out doctrine
supposes that God punishes sinners eternally for sins committed in this brief and frail life is
wholly gratuitous." Alexander Campbell, "Five discourses on Hell," Page 65, April 9, 1848, Daniel
Davies Publisher. Not many members of the Christian Church and the church of Christ believe as
Alexander Campbell but many Protestants now do.
[8] C. S. LEWIS’S THE ALMOST PLEASANT HELL In Great Divorce C. S.
Lewis pictures Hell as not black but only a little gray almost pleasant place where those
in it can take bus trips into Heaven for the day and return to Hell. See “The Destruction
Of the Finally Impenitent” by Clark H. Pinnock at
http://www.abccoggc.org.jrad/volume2/issue1/jrad_v02.1_art2.htm
[9] PROTESTANT TRADITIONALIST VERSIONS OF HELL: Most who say
they are orthodox and traditionalist believes the lost will be kept alive with some kind of
punishment, but beyond this there is little agreement among them. Some believe much as
did Jonathan Edwards and Calvin that there will be torment beyond anything that we can
now know of and others who utterly repudiate Edward's Hell and only believe that there
will be some kind of eternal punishment, but it may be nothing more then a little mental
anguish or just being deprived of all good. Others are at all points between the two even
when they are in the same denomination. From the top (the Calvin version) to its bottom
(eternity existing but being deprived of all good, to forever lose everything that is good),
in those who call themselves "traditionalists" there are a wide range of views; yet, they all
say they are orthodox and traditionalist! Orthodox is a big blanket and growing bigger all
the time. Even so, few if any who are orthodox and traditionalist believe the same and
there is a world of difference in what is orthodox in the Protestants churches. Many who
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say they are orthodox do not believe in once saved always saved, infant baptism,
Augustine's view on predestination, the millennium, and countless other differences in
what is traditional and orthodox. Although they cannot agree among themselves over
what is traditional, they attack all who do not believe in one of their many versions of
"Hell" for not being orthodox or traditional and nonetheless accept many as being
orthodox who believes in an entirely different "Hell" and even accept Premillennial
which has many who do not believe in any version of Hell, or believe that Hell will be on
this earth and will last for only a short time.
[10] PROTESTANT PREMILLENNIAL VERSIONS OF HELL: From all the
information I can find there are many more Protestants who believe in some form of
Premillennialism than not. Premillennial variations found in the Protestants churches are
pre-tribulation, mid-tribulation, post-tribulation, partial-rapture, many mini-raptures,
already past rapture, the tribulation period, historic Premillennialism, Post Millennialist,
Dispensationalist, and many more. Most Premillennial versions of Hell are somewhat
similar to either the Seventh-Day Advent Version of Hell or the Church of God Version
of Hell. See "Seventh-Day Advent Version of Hell" and "Church of God (and others)
Version of Hell" below. Many of the Premillennial versions of Hell are far from being
what is thought of as being orthodox, but most all Premillennialists are thought of as
being Protestant, orthodox and traditional.
Unorthodox In Orthodox Churches
It may come as a surprise to many that those who say they are orthodox Protestant but
do not believe in Hell as a place of eternal torment that there are more who say that are
orthodox Protestants who do believe Hell to be eternal torment than there are
orthodox Protestants who do believe Hell to be a place of eternal torment. When US
New says 53 percent of Americans believes Hell to be only mental anguish, most of that
53 percent are orthodox Protestant and this 53 percent is in addition to the many
Protestant Premillennialists who do not believe Hell to be a place of eternal torment.
When some say that is only Jehovah's Witnesses teaching, they seem to be blind to the
fact that this is the teaching by far more than half of the orthodox Protestants and the
number of orthodox Protestants who do not believe in the Jonathan Edwards or Calvin
versions of Hell is by far greater then the number of Jehovah's Witnesses who do not
believe in Hell. Much of what is accepted as orthodox today would have been called
heresy 200 years ago by most all Protestant Churches. It does not matter what any groups
believe or what is accepted as orthodox but what the Bible says for the Bible is the only
authority.
It came as a surprise to me, as I am sure it will be to many, that many orthodox
Protestants plus a great many who may not be called orthodox, believe none of the saved
will go to Heaven, but will live on this earth for eternity. Many Protestant
Premillennialists believe this. It may also come as a surprise to many that those who say
they are orthodox Protestant but do not believe Christ to be God but is a created being
that did not exist before His birth. Many believe Him to be a chosen one by God and that
He is now in Heaven but will come back to earth, set up the kingdom of God in
Jerusalem and will rule the kingdom