So on light of all the Rob Bell controversy, it resparked my desire to look into the traditional doctrine of hell. My thoughts on it all began long ago before I went to study theology about 5 or so years ago now. A good close friend of mine was struggling in her faith over the traditional hell concept and found it hard to rectify or justify in her mind. It was the usual question of "how can a loving God burn people forever?" infinite punishment for finite crimes. I had thought about it before then but never in any great depth as I just didn't know where to begin, being a fairly new Christian at the time. I did my best to try work out an answer with my friend as we talked over Scripture, Jesus and God's nature but ultimately she lost her faith (though what her spiritual state of mind is now, I don't know). I don't know for certain if this was the cause or just one of the main deciding factors, but regardless, it damaged her once very passionate faith in God. And it was sad, I was quite upset and mainly at my own failings in being able to help more despite not knowing much in detail about the faith back then.
Nevertheless, this has always stuck with me all these years. I've never stopped thinking about the concept of hell and it implications and whether it really is as clear cut in the bible. I wasn't sure but in the times where i didn't understand fully, I just left it to God and decided that I'm sure he knows what he is doing with people once they passed on.
Then I went to Mattersey Hall and studied theology and biblical studies for 3 years. To be honest this didn't help much with the problem of hell. I studied the afterlife in the Old Testament as part of one of my courses and that just added to confusion. The afterlife is a vert strange concept in the OT. But I never got to study the New Testament concept of hell.
Now I'm taking the opportunity to really study it all properly and find what the Scriptures do teach rather than me just thinking of all the people who have said "well the bible says ... Doesn't it?" and never really being sure of what it really DOES say. I mean, obviously I known of the places where Jesus does speak of the afterlife but what I'm doing now is looking at everything as a whole rather than isolated verses and incidents.
A few months ago I had begun to think about it all again properly and have some discussions with friends on the subject but that's about as far as it went. Now all this Rob Bell stuff has made me begin to question it all again and now I've decided to actually write down my research and really look into the history and context of first century beliefs, rabbinic traditions, the apostolic and early church fathers writings and anything else that seems relevant, all to see what I can find and to see where our doctrine has come from and how it got to be what it is today.
And so far what I'm finding is surprising me! I'm coming from the approach that the earlier beliefs in the Church were possibly closer to the original Christians views. The early church seemed to have much different views on hell than we do now, possible more in line with later Jewish rabbinic traditions from the Mishnah etc and almost closer to Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory (but not quite) and maybe not as eternal.
Now, I haven't completed my research yet so there is still more to discover. I'm not set either way yet on what I think about hell, so I'm open to discover and learn whatever I can. If I come out believing the traditional view, then so be it, at least I've studied it for myself to feel confident and what I believe and have some conviction about it. But should I come out with a view that's not the "orthodox" in today's churches, and at the risk of being branded a heretic, well I'm happy with that too.
I'll write more about it once I've researched more to talk about properly.
No comments:
Post a Comment