I think I see the true difference in our understandings of god. While I agree that god’s infinite love is truly a miracle, I do not see evil choices as forsaking god. To me, sin is not not-god; it is merely an inevitable facet of being human. God, who understands all such facets (and who is indeed the union of all such facets, enabling her to understand in this way), does not represent only some of them and not others.

I suppose talking about a “should” in the next life is poor word choice, because we both agree that our choices play out in this life and influence what we find in the next life, where there are no more choices to be made or paths to follow. I was trying to say that, while there are evil choices in this life (i.e. there are choices that we “should not” make as humans, and we use justice to punish those who do make those choices), there are no past choices which should be considered evil in the next life. All choices made in this life will be understood well beyond living human capacity, and thus there is no need of the same kind of justice. So when I say there won’t be a “should” in the next life, I simply mean there won’t be any categorizing of past choices (into sin and not-sin, or any other set of categories).

I would say that the miracle is that God chooses to love us – and to forgive us – in SPITE of our choices (which He quite possibly understands perfectly).

I’m not sure what you mean when you say there won’t be a “should” in the next life.

That was my delight. But I’m a bit confused as to why you call yourself speaker for the dead, when it seems to me that those kinds of ideas speak much more to the kinds of spiritual ideas I’m discussing than the Christian ones. That was my initial confusion, at least, but even as I wrote it I wondered if this weren’t another area in which we were speaking of beliefs more similar than I thought, and in which Christianity is more multifaceted than I imagine.

In any case, thank you so much for the above dialogue! You have opened my mind a great deal and increased my interest to learn more!

It seems like we are very close to saying the same thing, because I agree that people pursue love or god or truth or whatever you’d like to call it in vastly different ways, and that even though these are different they can still be considered the same way or truth. But I just can’t see fit to say that there is a way we “should” go. There must be a “should” on Earth, for the reasons I listed earlier when I spoke of justice, but I don’t think there must be a “should” beyond this life.

I agree that assigning god a gender is a pointless venture, but I still must recognize that god *has* been assigned a gender for a long time, and that this assignment has without question had drastic impact. I feel that, as long as we continue to call god Him, we cannot truly recognize equality between men and women.

I am glad that this dialogue has helped you! Perhaps you can pursue it further with your friend here at the Ichthus. There quite literally is a whole Christian world for you to explore.

Free will is certainly a very confusing subject. I see no reason to be committed to a deterministic view of the universe, but there certainly are lots of weird things about this topic. In the end, I am satisfied with the knowledge that God, using His plenary (i.e., complete) knowledge of us and our decisions, will judge in love, justice, and mercy.

There is no need to apologize! You’ve been very respectful throughout this conversation, and I appreciate your attempt to understand more. I encourage you to examine your beliefs critically and never to put Christianity (or any belief system) in a “box.” There’s more to Christianity, philosophically and otherwise, than most people (and most Christians!) realize.

“Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
If I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
If I settle on the far side of the sea,

Even there your hand will guide me,
Your right hand will hold me fast.”

Isn’t what David is expressing similar to what you are expressing? (Forgive me if I am misunderstanding your views.)

If you believe that God is the “union” of all possible ways and lights, then I think you’re not that far away from believing that there is one Truth, one Way, and one Light.

For my part, I think that God is Truth and God is Light. I think that people certainly experience God in different ways and pursue Him in different ways, but I don’t think that means there are different “truths” or “lights.” For example, different people might love in different ways, but the variations are all of one fundamental truth – Love. And God is Love. God can understand us and follow us wherever we go, but that does not mean that deviating from the way we SHOULD go is a good thing.

I think that God, not having a body, is not truly gendered, and so the use of the male pronoun in the Bible is (in a way) arbitrary. Men and women create life together, after all.

An aside on the “her” I threw in there: I generally try to stay away from pronouns when talking about god, because god’s “gender” can be a contentious subject, and was certainly a tough one for me to work out. I always pictured god in a male form, probably because I grew up with Judaism’s male god. But at a certain point, it just stopped making sense. Males have long been dominant in much of human society, and it was males who wrote most of the world’s holy books – especially the Western ones. But females are the ones who create life, who have wombs and ovaries and eggs, who in general are more nurturing and peaceful and forgiving and unconditionally loving than men. Doesn’t it make so much more sense that women were created in god’s image, and men were created from women?

For instance, I have only ever heard of one view on the Christian afterlife – at least until you mentioned Christian Universalism. I have also never before heard a reason for why god chose to take a human form (or send his son to take a human form), except to die for our sins. And I certainly never knew that Jesus may have gone to hell. This gives me much to think about.

You are exactly right about us not always understanding why we do the things we do; I definitely misspoke. I was trying to venture into the question of determinism, a philosophy that is still being developed in my mind and which I still know far too little about. What I should have said was that it is *possible* to understand a person’s lifetime of choices and actions, but no living person can do so. I believe all of our choices are determined by what you call the scientific understandings of human nature, but I do not believe that means we have no free will. Instead of those scientific perspectives determining the choices themselves, I feel that they powerfully shape who we grow to become, and this in turn shapes the kinds of choices we are likely to make. Choosing evil – and choosing good – can be difficult or easy, brief or permanent, powerful or meaningless, intentional or not. The aspects of ourselves that go into such decisions are almost impossibly myriad, but they are still existing aspects of ourselves, and they came into being somehow, for some reason. I believe it is possible to see exactly how and why they came into being, though probably only for god – for to see this, one must see inside the person’s mind and also see from outside of it (to see the things the person does not, which, as you said, are many). This tremendous understanding seems to fit with my idea that god is a force of understanding. I hope that wasn’t too confusing; as I said, I’m still trying to work it out myself.

I’m sorry if I’ve ever belittled your beliefs. I have had some extremely fiery views toward Christianity over the last several years, probably in large part because I have been exposed to such a small part of it – and such a small set of adherents. A year or two ago I had a conversation with a Christian in which I (a bit too harshly) criticized certain aspects of the faith, and she later told me that it hurt her to hear me be so cavalier and careless with her most sacred beliefs. As I have learned more, I have softened, and I certainly recognize the wonderful benefits that Christianity gives to the world and to countless individuals. Moreover, I recognize that the principal core tenets of the faith are ones to which I fully subscribe. I have spent too long relying on my incomplete knowledge of the faith; I must study it in more depth. Already I have begun to see a way in which the divinity of Jesus and my own spiritual views could be reconciled. I still don’t think I will ever be someone who can be considered a Christian on the merit of my beliefs, but then, perhaps Christianity is more expansive and multidimensional than I imagine.

I’m actually a rising senior at the University of Michigan. I’m a high school friend of your editor-in-chief, and I periodically read the Ichthus articles he posts on Facebook.

Universal reconciliation and eternal conscious suffering in Hell are not the only Christian theories of the afterlife. Suffering in the afterlife is not necessarily conscious or (strictly speaking) eternal. Christians understand the afterlife in a variety of ways.

I would be careful to attribute too much of evil to genetics, environment, or upbringing. These scientific understandings of human nature are important (indeed vital), but they do not encapsulate what it means to choose evil. And mankind has chosen a lot of evil.

I am not so sure we understand exactly why we do everything that we do. Looking back on a lot of my sins – the times I’ve gotten angry at people or lied or what-have-you – it almost feels like an alien did those things. Our human experience is in large part defined by the tension between who we want to be and who we actually are. We are, by nature, inclined to sin – and we do not always understand this. (Romans 7:7-25 discusses this concept in more detail.)

I think my God is a God of empathy, though the Bible does not use that word. Empathy means understanding the experiences of the Other. As a Christian, I believe that God became Man in part to understand – to empathize with – mankind.

Are sins still evil if we don’t know that they are sins? I think, in some cases, that they can be. A good analogy from the secular world is involuntary manslaughter. If you don’t mean to kill someone but end up killing someone due to neglect or recklessness, you are still culpable for that person’s death. You could potentially point to Indians in the Amazon who have never heard of Jesus. What about them? I trust that God will handle them with justice and mercy, as He handles us all.

It’s difficult to say exactly what it means for Jesus to bear our sins upon the cross. I don’t exactly know – that’s one of the things I’m trying to figure out. What I do know is that sins are not just physical actions; they are spiritual decisions, with spiritual repercussions and consequences. And Jesus’ death on the cross was (in some way) intended to repair all that sin destroys. Because of this, I am inclined to believe that his suffering on the cross transcended the mere (though hardly negligible) physical pain of crucifixion.

I am not sure what Jesus would have done in Hell (or Hades – I should point out that some Christians, including me, would distinguish between Hell and Hades). The point of mentioning those three days is simply that there are dimensions of Jesus’ crucifixion and death that are, to put it mildly, abnormal. And so we should probably be careful in reducing his suffering on the cross to any one thing.

I know that this is a lot, and you probably are very confused at the moment. (I know that I would be.) The Christian tradition spans three millennia (as of nine years ago) and billions of people, and so there’s a lot of stuff to figure out. I apologize for the inadequacy of my replies, but I hope that you will be able to explore Christianity more. If I may ask, are you a Harvard student?