Hi Stacy,

I’m also new here, and am also a writer (albeit not a very good one,) but I what I found interesting is George Macdonald - who was a writer and artist in many ways - also came to similar views as yourself. I don’t know if you know of him? Anyway, he had a large influence over CS Lewis - and although Lewis never really accepted MacDonald’s particular view of hell (or, universalism) I think Lewis himself had a pretty good explanation too. He comes (I believe) more from the angle of seperation - that God, always respecting the will of man, and showing Him love in that way, respects the CHOICE of some to actually go to hell and be seperated from him. Lewis also doesn’t tend to believe in a eternal conscious hell in the traditional sense, but more like a mix. For a modern idea of this, check Greg Boyd’s ideas of hell. I think this is a good mix.

It’s really OK to question all of this, and even be a Christian and come to a (relatively) unorthodox position - much like MacDonald. Perhaps you should check out his views, you may find them quite interesting and in line with what you’re thinking here.

Anyway, with regards to Calvinism - I hold to the Calvinism view, while holding to the Arminian view. This whole thing has been debated for like 400 years or something, so I doubt whether I will be able to work it out logically- I’m far less intelligent than the likes of Calvin or Wesley or Lewis or Macdonald, and none of those guys could really come to a final conclusion that everyone was happy with. I enjoyed a quote I read by someone - sorry that I don’t know who they were - who said that “The answer to Calvinism or Arminianism is not one or the other, or even somewhere in the middle. The answer is to live and believe both at the same time.” This has helped me tremendously. Personally, I think it works, because as you said we don’t really have much of a clue about the nature of eternity - and, the way I see it, predestination doesn’t have to be a linear-time thing, but appears to be an ‘eternal’ thing - which means, you can be predestined right now for salvation when you make a choice to follow Christ. I tend to believe that, perhaps - just perhaps - God’s sovereign choice is not ALWAYS to decide or know the future, but his Sovereign Choice is to let us make the choice, and then after we have made the choice to be all sufficient and all able to achieve his purpose for us, no matter what happens. In a way, I am beginning to hold more and more to Open Theism, while at the same time affirming that the traditional sovereign way is also right. The argument could simply be over the nature of eternity, and not the interpretations of the Bible.

Ok, I said I was a writer, and so I have written way too much here again. Anyway, I just wanted to encourage you to ask as much as you want - God’s not afraid of your asking, and I don’t think anyone here (or similar websites) would be either. I’ve been asking about hell for years now, and have come to some conclusions - mainly that our presuppositions of certain Bible verses are actually the problem.

I’ve also come to some new conclusions about logic - a lot of our systematic theology has sacrificed the relational for the logical. I don’t think that statement probably makes much sense, but I can’t write a book here so I hope you can kind of get the jist of what I mean.