If we think that taking the biblical descriptions of hell to be figurative would make it more palatable, we've missed the point of all that imagery.
Whenever I enter into discussions about the doctrine of hell, people ask, “R.C., do you believe that the New Testament portrait of hell is to be interpreted literally?” I usually respond by saying, “No, I don’t interpret those images literally,” and people typically respond with a sigh of relief.
If we take the New Testament’s descriptions of hell as symbolic language, we have to remember the function of symbols. The assumption is that there’s always more to the reality than what is indicated by the symbol, which makes me think that, instead of taking comfort that these images of the New Testament may indeed be symbolic, we should be worrying that the reality toward which these symbols point is more ghastly than the symbols.
No comments:
Post a Comment