Some excerpts from a continuation of the conversation I have had recently. While the first round went well, it has fallen back to some of the more defensive statements such as;
-God punishing for his own design.
-We are puppets/pawns in a game.
(Both of these are essentially the freewill vs judgement argument.) So here is an excerpt of my response I wanted to share. It is not all inclusive obviously, but to do so would be an overload. Sometimes it is best to make a starter argument that is in understandable terms and hopefully raises other questions. Just throwing a ten page thesis of theology at someone is a poor way to help them gain understanding I think.
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Why a system of punishment at all? Because God does not want puppets, but instead wants us to choose Him willingly. So God gives free will for this purpose. He hands us laws and the will to break them if we choose to. He didn't 'make' us choose to turn away however. (No different than any law system man has built since. To say otherwise (that we are puppets) actually raises some difficult questions for the "divine puppets argument".)
So when we break a law in the normal world what happens? We are found guilty and punished. Any judge who is a good judge will not be able to let murders, thieves, or rapists go when they are guilty right? In this way God is also not able to overlook sin (law breaking) and instead must find us guilty when we have broken the law. Just as a good judge must punish a guilty criminal so to must God then punish us for our crimes. And we have all committed crimes against Him. Their is thankfully a way to remove past criminal records so to speak, but it must still be chosen willingly or our dirty records will hold up in God's court to condemn us when we die. (Mercy comes equally with Justice in a God.)
Why such severe punishment as Hell? Well, God's laws are open to view and scrutiny, but to choose to ignore it means we break that law and so we are guilty and deserving of a punishment. Since upon death we find out that God actually exists we no longer have time to mend our ways, unlike a criminal in the court of man, because their exists no aftermath time for it. Since death is the point of no return the decision must be made prior to it. So this place of "no going back" is a permanent (timeless) one often referred to as eternity. In the real world we call this a span of time in jail or whatever, but when "time" is replaced with "timelessness" so to is a length of punishment replaced. (If that was confusing let me know.)
Of course, to say that we are guaranteed punishment from birth is a mistake as we are instead given a choice (or choices) to make. To follow and care about the commands or not.
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I then went on to apologize for laughing at an argument he raised. I didn't mean it as an offense to him really. I was actually laughing at the person who wrote the article he was speaking of and the argument they put forth. It was lacking and instead of being calm I laughed out loud. I think I offended him and so I had to explain myself. Obviously I need to be more careful in person. Online it is not a problem that I laugh or roll my eyes as no body can see me, but in person these things will kill a conversation in a hurry. Lesson learned I hope.
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