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Old 12-17-2012, 09:14 AM   #19
OBW
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Default Re: Do Most Unbelievers Go to Hell for Eternity?

I would have used different words, but I had the same response to that post by ZNP that VIW has expressed. And this is a very recent controversy in Christianity as a whole. Mostly due to the book Heaven Wins by Rob Bell.

Bell (and others before him) has latched onto the uncertainty of time with respect to the punishment of those who "perish." (The issue is that the Greek/Hebrew/Aramaic words used are not simply some short period, or simply eternity, but rather are said to be of uncertain time period.) On the other side, it is asserted that only the extreme of "eternity" should be understood.

And if you lean toward the "less-than-eternity" side of the debate, then the quote "He is not willing that any should perish" has a different meaning than for those who believe that it is eternal.

And if you believe it is less than eternal, then all punishment takes on a nature that looks something like a Catholic purgatory or Lee's little dark closet. I don't have a problem with discovering that Lee was right on something (if that is the correct view). Having said that, I don't think that any of Lee's teaching that I would accept as correct was uniquely his.
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