Thread: Lee Strobel says levels of suffering in hell reveals Gods mercy

Actually I was agreeing with Lee Strobel so it cannot be my own ingrained mindset and self perceived authority. Thanks for you personal attack are you going to assume I am a troll as well if I don't agree with you

Your argument was based on spinning the scripture into what you wanted it to say and then coming to you own personal view. As I said Jesus' words speak for themselves and are self explanatory

I didn't assume that you are a troll.

Lee Strobel's view fits your view, that is okay. Your merely asserting something when presented with an argument is a completely different matter.

I will now try to present some arguments, just to see if you are going to do anything else than assert something in return.

* Jesus refers to a day of judgment, which precedes people being cast into hell
* Jesus refers to judgments being made that condemn, which precedes the corresponding sentence being executed upon the person
* In these verses, Jesus does not mention hell, nor sufferings in hell

The purpose of a day of judgment and to pronounce judgments is to evaluate the severity of the acts committed. When Jesus talks about one's judgment being more tolerable than the other and the one's judgment or condemnation being greater than the other he is implicitly comparing the severity of the acts committed, not only the severity of the judgments pronounced.

You may very well argue that the result of the differing judgments is differing levels of hell, though Jesus doesn't state this explicitly.

It may very well be both. But if you want to demonstrate that it is not about the former then you better come up with something more than an assertion to the contrary.

Judgment and sentencing to punishment are all part of the same process they cannot be divided.

In the natural a person undergoes judgment and the final stage is sentencing.

In the law of Moses God gave different judgments and sentencing according to the severity of sin. This is because he is a God of justice and justice always demands the right punishment.

Some were sentenced to exile, others to beatings and some were judged with death. God does not change in his nature he had different degrees of punishment in this life as well as the next.

This is what I said that you replied to :

"I think Jesus' point is to compare degrees of sinfulness and injustice, not particularly to discuss levels of hell"

Then you assert that "You are putting your own interpretation on these verses and saying things Jesus never said or anyone implied"

The contention here is whether or not Jesus compared degrees of sinfulness and injustice, at all. Or if he was only pronouncing different levels of hell irrespective of degrees of sinfulness and injustice.

Or maybe assertions like that is what people simply get for disagreeing with you on something ?

2 Peter 2:4 - For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment;

The Greek word for hell in this verse is 'tartarus'. Why does Peter use a different word to describe hell because there are actual levels in hell. Tartarus was the lowest hell and we can see fallen angels would be consigned here as they sinned in a far greater way as they lived in God's literal presence.

I haven't said anywhere that he didn't discuss that at all. Only that I think that he was more interested in pronouncing the Pharisees more sinful than the common man in one verse and the ones who rejected the disciples more sinful than Sodoma and Gomorra in the other verse.

As for 2 Peter 2:4, he is talking about angels. They are a different class of being than humans, that could be the reason why. In general, they tend to use various words about the same thing sometimes so it doesn't have to mean something very different.

TT, here's a post of mine that touches this subject, from an other thread :

Originally Posted by Colonel

The devil is being crushed under our feet, it doesn't matter if he understands what we are saying or not. He's already a defeated enemy and anyone who serves him willingly will share in his fate.

Some times I think the problem is that you have ingrained mindsets about what other posters mean when they say certain things, rather than it being about what they actually said. Before you claim "personal attack", this is just a theory.

I love everyone

Thank you, that is much better. Now don't forget in your next post.

Originally Posted by Colonel

Some times I think the problem is that you have ingrained mindsets about what other posters mean when they say certain things...