em_h: (Default)
em_h ([personal profile] em_h) wrote in [personal profile] boxofdelights 2011-09-06 11:25 am (UTC)

Since I don't think I have to include every sentence in the Bible in my theology, I mostly don't. But when I'm counselling people who have been terrorized by it (see [personal profile] oursin agbove), I usually frame it as the refusal to accept the forgiveness which God is always and unfailingly offering.

I am in fact a universalist, so I don't believe that there's anything that can't be forgiven, nor do I believe that anyone can/will refuse mercy forever. But I can imagine that for people who have done really awful things (genocide etc), accepting God's forgiveness probably includes an excruciating awareness of the full extent of the evil that one has done, and I can imagine that one might resist forgiveness for a long time rather than deal with that awareness.

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