Monday, August 04, 2008
Sense And Nonsense About Heaven And Hell
I recently read a book I'd like to recommend, Kenneth Boa and Robert Bowman's Sense And Nonsense About Heaven And Hell (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2007). It's a good intermediate-level overview of the Biblical perspective of the afterlife and some related issues. There are some relevant subjects that aren't addressed much or at all, such as near-death experiences and Purgatory (for more on those issues, see here and here), but the book discusses a large variety of topics in less than 200 pages: the immortality of the soul, the nature of the resurrection body, annihilationism, universalism, infant salvation, etc. This would be a good book to read or to give to others as an introduction to a Biblical view of the afterlife and related issues.
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It's interesting to me that many Christians immediately discount any NDEs that are positive. Anything that smells of "kissy-poo" "God is love" nonsense is just discarded as the delusions of someone who was either deceived or just hallucinating. However, if someone is being torn apart by demons, hey, it MUST be factual.
ReplyDeleteJames wrote:
ReplyDelete"It's interesting to me that many Christians immediately discount any NDEs that are positive. Anything that smells of 'kissy-poo' 'God is love' nonsense is just discarded as the delusions of someone who was either deceived or just hallucinating. However, if someone is being torn apart by demons, hey, it MUST be factual."
That's not my view. It's not the view of the sources I cited in the article on near-death experiences.
However, it's not as though Christians have no information other than reports about near-death experiences to go by. For example, they have reason to trust what the Bible teaches about issues like God's identity, the soul, and the afterlife, as we've demonstrated at this blog. It wouldn't make sense for a Christian with such knowledge of these issues to approach near-death experiences with a blank slate. All of the data has to be taken into account. Just as what's reported about near-death experiences can't be ignored, so also what we know about other relevant issues, such as the reliability of the Biblical information on such subjects, can't be ignored. I and the sources I've cited have taken both into account. Where has James done the same?
Considering how James has misrepresented Christian beliefs about the afterlife in his posts, maybe he should read the books I've cited.
i am so glad i came upon this post, i am trying to help a new convert and this subject comes up quite a bit...
ReplyDeletethanks for the recomendation
It's interesting to me that many Christians immediately discount any NDEs that are positive. Anything that smells of "kissy-poo" "God is love" nonsense is just discarded as the delusions of someone who was either deceived or just hallucinating. However, if someone is being torn apart by demons, hey, it MUST be factual.
ReplyDeleteThis is the sort of comment you get from a person who thinks of the book "Fifteen Minutes In Hell" rather than the sources Jason cited, when talking about NDE's.
1. We discount the "kissy poo" "God is love" nonsense as delusional, because we have more reason to trust Scripture than somebody's NDE.
2. We do that because we have a little something called the Protestant rule of faith. Why is God sending people back with that picture of the afterlife? That would mean, if God is behind it, that He's giving fresh revelation. Where's the supporting argument.
3. And we apply the same argument to our REJECTION of books like "Fifteen Minutes in Hell." The people who think that book is true are usually the same ones who believe in continuing revelation.
4. So, in BOTH cases I personally chalk it up to bad theology and demonic deception. The target audience for each set of reports is different. In the case of the former, the target is the unregenerate, to deceive them into complacency. For the latter, the target audience is professing Christians, with the aim to lure them away from the Bible itself. In both cases the vision seems to be precisely what the persons who have them expect: the unregenerate want to see the "kissy kissy God of love," the latter want to hear about hell as a torture chamber, because they've not bothered to do the work and study the concept of hell itself - because they've often checked their minds at the door with respect to learning and maturity.
NDE accounts for the most part are very similar to the kinds of scare tactics brought about by the medieval Roman church, which has also been mimicked by Hollywood. The heavenly bliss that is talked about by the ones who go to heaven is closely related to what Pentacostalism (neo-pentecostalism, charismatics, word of faith) preachers have preached on.
ReplyDeleteAlso, there have been scientific experiments that have brought about these same types of hallucinations. I would have to wonder my self, what would Gods purpose be in a NDE like some have supposedly had? I can't come up with any good reason, but that doesn't mean God doesn't have one. I think a safe bet would be to just stick to what the word of God says about Heaven and Hell and look at anything else with the eyes of a skeptic.