Person 1: Original question:...if the reality were that everyone ended up in hell, and all because of original sin, would you do anything different?"
me: Fair enough, but...
Let's approach the question from the opposite end. If the case were instead of condemnation resulting from the hopelessness of original sin, but rather the grace of salvation being extended to all, because of it, would we then do anything different?
I believe it is, but it is the difference between loving God and His creation versus fearing either or both of them. Although both will make us do things we would not believe of ourselves, the motivation of love affects the source, its benefactors and everything around them very differently than that of fear. Not unlike the difference between the growth and life of a weed and that of an oak tree is that of fear and love in our lives.
Inevitable condemnation and unconditional love...both are truly incomprehensible, to the giver and the receivers of them, but both are the conditions under which many people operate daily. Who then benefits themselves and others more by living as though either were the case?
So...what then should we do differently?
Everything, I suppose.
d(-_-)b
Person 1: "elaborating, if by some interpretations of it, the sense of relief upon relief is a sin. Taking that kind of approach, and thinking of many of the things that we take relief in are we thereby condemning ourselves by our very own nature?"
Me: We've moved to a much bigger subject, on which I'm not qualified to offer much more than confusion. That of predestination and freewill, but it sure feels like we have a choice and so we must assume that we will be accountable for those choices.
In short, yes, I suppose if we choose to continue living in the manner of our nature having been shown the option of doing otherwise, our nature has condemned us, although out didn't have to. That said this too is a bit of a quandary for me for the far bigger implications it would have.
It is in a sense subjecting God to our standards of fair and unfair, thus making him accountable to us. Having been made in God's image we then return the favor by creating him in ours, and reversing the order of things.
It would be untrue to say that I haven't pondered this same issue without true resolve, but it is the finite trying to grasp the infinite.
Person 2: "I think thar sentence means that you have pondered it without the same resolve."
Me: Perhaps. I've found no satisfactory answer and don't expect that I will. Or should.
Person 3: We are born of sin, but you must repent and ask for forgiveness, and wash away sin through a baptism if you believe in ashes to ashes dust to dust, from dust you came to dust you will return, you may be able to see that death is our destiny we live on borrowed time, and i don't believe in heaven or hell, I live one day a time. And when i die thats the end of me. Totally.
Person 1: when i die, its the end of the world.
Me: There's no magic in baptism according to the Bible, its simply a public symbolic declaration of faith. Any action we could extend on our part toward salvation would there by negate the work of grace achieved on the cross, by virtue of making it unnecessary. Although faith without works is dead, it is only by faith that one is saved. If we're going by Biblical context.
The concept of sin presupposes the existence of God.
If there is no God, there is no sin.
