unred typo wrote:Now that we have a pretty good understanding of what hell is, maybe since I started this thread I should attempt to get my question answered. Does anyone here believe that God created Judas or Pharaoh or Esau specifically knowing they would end up in hell? Or is everyone who gives a flip actually in agreement that he didn’t know they would be the ones who would do such dastardly deeds from their conception, or as some believe, from the beginning of creation?
The simple answer to this is, No. In Matthew 25:41 (the sheep and the goats) Jesus makes if very clear that this place was "created for the Devil and his angels." There is nothing or noone in this place right now. We are told in Rev. 20 that the first two to go into this eternal fire are the Beast and False Prophet, followed 1000 years later by Satan (the Devil). The next thing to go into the Lake of Fire (LoF) is death (thanatos) and Hades. We can consider these things concepts or places or states of being, it doesn't matter to me for this debate, only that they are cast into the LoF. Now, we come to the hard part for many people, those people, the dead wicked humans that are cast into the LoF. These are those whose names are not found written in the Lamb's book of Life.
The Question, Were you created to be tortured forever?" is fundamentally flawed. No one or thing was created to go there, rather it was created as a place to put the wicked, namely the Devil and those angel' that followed him. Was this place created at the beginning of creation or later after the fall of all those rebellious angels? I can't say, but I can say that God foresaw the fall of Satan and those that followed him, so it may be that it was part of the original creation as part of the 'the heavens.' I won't say that with any kind of conviction, only that it is possible. Perhaps it was created after Satan's rebellion, I don't know. The one thing I do know, is that God created it as a place of punishment for the Devil and his angels, and that humans will have their part in it.
God originally Created Adam and Eve to live with Him forever and have fellowship with Him. This was God's plan from the start, however, and so neither of them were created for the LoF. No human afterward was 'created' in the sense of God creating them from nothing, but rather are a result of reproduction. I won't argue the fact that God's hand is involved in the recreation of this new life, but in the strictest of terms, we are not created, but are a part of the natural reproductive order that God set up from His first two created humans. It was a special gift that He gave man, and not angels. But for argument's sake, I'll accept the idea of creation to include man from after Adam. So did God create anyone to be tortured forever? The answer to that is a resounding NO.
The problem that this Questions does not deal with is imputed sin and righteousness. I include both, because you can't deal with one with out touching on the other. The real question is, Where you created/born with an imputed sin nature? The answer to this is a resounding YES. Paul deal with this in Romans 5. Everyone since Adam is born with Adam's sin. Because Adam sin, we have inherited his sinful nature. We are not sinful because we sin, rather we sin because we are sinful, born with an imputed sin nature. Because we are sinful, God will deal with us on that level, casting us away from Him. The answer to the problem of out imputed wickedness is imputed righteousness. Man cannot be righteous of his own doing, it's simply impossible. This does not preclude the act of doing 'good' things, but they are not in anyway going to make us righteous in God's eyes. Rather, it is solely by Christ's imputed righteousness that we are allow entrance into Eternal Life. On the other side of that coin is eternal death, separation from God for all eternity after death. Because of this imputed sin nature or wicked state, we all are headed to the same place, the Lake of Fire, and that is a fast pass, one way ticket. The only way to get off this train is to have Christ's righteousness imputed to us, and this is a topic for an entirely new post.
Most who ask the question, Are we created for eternal torment, believe in the doctrine of Free Will and do not accept the doctrine of Election. The real questions is this, Is God just in saving some from eternal death and torment? It is in discussing this question that people then are lead to, Were you created to be tortured forever.
Man was not and is not created to be tortured forever. Man will share in the Lake of Fire that was created as a place of eternal punishment for the Devil and his angels. Will they be there for eternity? Yes, it is an eternal torment. The kind of torment can be debated in another topic. But isn't being separated from God for all Eternity torment enough? I believe so.