Expert: Eric Christy - 9/7/2006

Question
Why do you even use the Bible to study from or try to debate it if you believe it has errors? It seems that as long as a person believes the Bible has errors then they can claim that not only an eternal hell does not exist but neither does Christ exist. It is a case of throwing out anything that does not go along with your view. If you don't believe in Hell then why believe in Heaven. I don't see the Bible as a pick and choose word from God. You either believe it or you don't. Why spend your effort trying to disprove something that has made it through many men in the past with the same agenda? You will never disprove it. It is vanity to try and disprove something that is the absolute Truth. My thrid and final question is this; Is it hard to kick against the goads?  

Answer
Hi Tim,

You ask an important question regarding how one is to use our Bible. I used to believe that the Bible was inerrant. But that was, of course, before I was as knowledgable about our Bible as I am now. It used to bother me that God could not keep out the errors from His own book. But after struggling with that one, I realized that if God wanted an inerrant book, then He would not have left it to man to do all the copying down through the ages. By leaving it to man, God virtually guaranteed that errors would creep into the text sooner or later. And, we didn't disappoint Him. We came through!

For the Bible to be inerrant, God would have been forced to do all the copying Himself and then distributing the copies to priest, pastor, and lay people, as needed. Since God did not choose this route, He obviously knew that errors would creep into the text. The errors are there so that we can find them, correct them, and in a word, cooperate with God in establishing which is from Him, and which is merely man's writings or errors. In other words, sure God could have given us an inerrant text, but He would have been forced to do all the copying and distributing Himself. Since He uses man for this, He knows errors would creep into the text and wants to cooperate with us in finding them, eradicating them, and perfecting His original text. It's God's intelligence coupled with our own Holy Spirit guided intelligence that God is after to correct the errors in scripture.

As for hell, I have changed my view. I now believe (and this is what the Bible teaches) that hell is eternal suffering for the lost, those who refused to accept Jesus Christ as their savior. As eternal as heaven is, so hell--Matthew 25:46, et al).

I had good reason from the moral argument that hell could not be eternal suffering. However, the Bible teaches otherwise. From the moral argument, I could show that God was acting immoral to punish sinners for all eternity for their lifetime of sin. But the Bible teaches otherwise. In other words, there are intelligent and moral arguments showing that God could not possibly intend to punish lost souls eternally, but the Bible teaches otherwise.

The Bible clearly teaches an eternal hell of suffering, and an eternal heaven of joy. There's no debate about that. It's just that from our perspective, while an eternal heaven makes sense for those who accept Jesus as their savior, an eternal doesn't make sense for those who reject Him. But I'm in good company. To date, I know of no theologian who has adequetely established a rationale for why there needs to be an eternal hell, though many have tried. Heck, not even God can justify it! The Bible teaches eternal hell, but does not provide the requisite justification to support such a hideous and central doctrine. It would have been nice if God would have given the writers of the New Testament the requisite justification showing the NECESSITY for hell being eternal suffering. It does not proivde it, it merely states hell is eternal suffering. We Christians look like blithering idiots, complete fools, when we screech eternal hell, but when asked to justify such a doctrine, we are silent.

This bothers me about God. He tells us to stand up for Him, yet He does not give us the requisite tools to build His doctrine. We Christians look stupid because when asked to justify the doctrine of eternal hell (essential to Christianity) we cannot. Not even God can! Yet, I believe eternal hell now to be the place all lost souls go when they die. But I'm looking forward to the day when I can stand before God and ask Him some pertinent questions regarding these, and other, spiritual matters.

In answer to your third question, yes, it is hard to kick against the goads. That's why I've stopped...kicking...:)


Eric