Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Hell and the Truth

Here is a longer quote from Trinity and Reality about hell. This section of his book is truly terrifying. The picture of man in Hell, as lonely, isolated, separated from God and man, burning physically and psychologically was a picture not easily dismissed from the mind.

"Man in hell cannot control his thoughts and motives. He is caught in the iron trap of his sinful self because that is all that is left of him. God no longer restrains his sin, upholding the nobler aspects of his character as Gods' image. At the same time, the man cannot satisfy his lusts either. He is confined to a world in which lust rages without limit and without satisfaction. The more he lusts, the greater his frustation--the greater his frustration, the more the fires of lust burn.

Thus, hell is dis-intergration in the sense that the sinner contradicts his own self. The horror of hell is the horror of the man who looks into the mirror of his soul and sees all the monsters, all the fearsome and foul fiends he so loathes and abominates. The fire of hell is the fire of a conscience that can no longer escape the penetrating self-accusation, the clear and complete knowledge of one's utter perversity--all the excuses gone, every form of self-justification and self-deception stripped away, so that nothing is left but the most unpleasant, unendurable, unbearable truth. The psychology of hell is the psychology of a man whose greatest torture is to become what he truly is and know it with infallible certainty." (p. 186)

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Let the saints be joyful in glory, let them sing aloud on their beds, let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two edged sword in their hand, to execute vengeance on the nations, and punishments on the peoples; to bind the kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron. Psalm 149:5-8