Dread Of Eternal Torture

Supposedly, say some, only the threat of torture without end could frighten us enough to do what is morally correct, as if justice, what people do or do not deserve based upon their beliefs, intentions, and deeds, could be a matter of whatever maximizes utilitarian intimidation.  Setting aside all other logical and Biblical flaws with an afterlife of eternal torture being just, let us focus on this idea that anything short of dreading an eternity of suffering would never compel anyone to stop sinning.  It is possible for people to believe or be motivated by something irrespective of its validity, so it would still not be absolutely necessary on a pragmatic level for all people to expect or fear burning for eternity (or any other torment) to desire to abstain from sin.

Few, if any, of these proponents would acknowledge the logical possibility of sheer sinlessness or that the Bible teaches this state is possible and that striving for it is obligatory (Deuteronomy 30:11-15, Matthew 5:48, and so on).  They are wrong when it comes to this subject as well, but of more immediate relevance to the notion that eternal torture poses the only effective deterrence is the fact that many people who claim to believe an eternity of consciousness in punitive hellfire contrary to both logic and the Bible still sin.  They are clearly not willing to stop sinning!  Has asininely agreeing with infinite torture for finite sins ever compelled the evangelicals who erroneously think being without sin is impossible from giving up the most basic sins?  Perhaps, but it is not the only possible means of deterrence, and not only is it unbiblical anyway, it is illogical.

Adding to their delusion, they think a host of nonsinful things are actually sinful, including neutral mental states like anger that might be entirely involuntary and thus could not be evil one way or another.  They 1) believe there are far more sins than Biblical theology actually entails and 2) perhaps think some of these sins are inevitable.  Ultimately, some foolishly think sin deserves eternal torture and that sin is all but unavoidable, and yet they continue to commit genuine Biblical sins like the conflating the sinful and nonsinful as aforementioned (Deuteronomy 12:32).

Since one must be irrational to believe either that it is possible for eternal torture to be justice (it is the greatest of disproportionalities, and contradicts the very idea that there is an objective line beyond which all treatment is unjust) or that the Bible teaches this fate awaits sinners (Matthew 10:28, James 1:15, etc.), it would not matter if an individual was subjectively fearful of endless pain to the point of not sinning.  They would only experience subjective persuasion prompted by the threat of the ultimate injustice getting used as punishment for sins.  And sin cannot be the just response to sin!  Did the Bible teach the ultimate injustice is in actuality the punishment of God's righteous judgment, then, it would be in error on one of the most important philosophical issues after the inherent truth of logical axioms.

Certainly, nothing could be objectively worthier of dread than things within the hypothetical category of eternal torture, with some kinds of torture still being worse than others even if they all truly last forever.  But the idea that only such terror is sufficient to deter sin is refuted by the subjectivity of experiencing fear (what inspires someone to act or not act sinfully could be vastly different for various people) and the fact that many who profess allegiance to the notion of eternal torture can and do still sin.  It is also tied to the fatal flaw of utilitarianism: if something is evil, the ends cannot justify it as the means.  

In addition to all of these things, this idea, heretical against both the necessary truths of rationalism and the plain doctrines of the Bible, trivializes the real pragmatic reasons to not sin on Christian philosophy.  One should do as one should simply because it is morally right, but there are incentives.  Is a blissful eternal existence in the very presence of God and Christ, with the total freedom to do as one wishes without sinning or pain (including that of boredom) and all that is entailed by this, too small a thing to inspire longing and commitment in moments of wavering?  Though of course there are more terrible hypothetical fates than this, compared to eternal happiness rooted in truth, is not being burned to death and permanently excluded from reality a destiny deserving of terror?

Isaiah And Micah On The Last Days

Isaiah 2:1-5 and Micah 4:1-5 describe largely identical events "in the last days," sometimes using the exact same language.  Both passages speak of a mountain holding up Yahweh's temple being elevated above hills and other mountains.  According to both, swords will be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks, for nations will not wage war on each other and will enjoy then-unparalleled peace.  In fact, there is to be no preparations or training for war because none are looming on the horizon.  More importantly than even this, God's laws are decreed and enforced from Jerusalem as all nations stream to the temple.

This is not said to have already happened in any Biblical account of the Israelite or Jewish monarchies before their respective downfalls to the Assyrians and Babylonians.  If Judeo-Christianity is true, this is plainly eschatological, as the use of the words the last days would already point to, unlike what preterists might think.  These prophecies would find fulfillment in the millennium, the time in which Christ's literal kingdom is realized following his return, as Matthew 13:40-43 and 25:31-34 mention outside of Revelation.  Thus, even if Revelation was almost purely allegorical as preterists pretend, the direct eschatological teachings of Christ would still refer to an actual kingdom on God's part, as would Isaiah and Micah.

God and his servants are ruling the world in Isaiah 2 and Micah 4, which aligns with what Revelation 20 says about Christ and Yahweh's followers reigning in a kingdom for a thousand years on Earth once Satan is bound, with Christ in submission to Yahweh, his Father (John 10:30, 14:28, Luke 22:42).  Jesus is not opposed to the laws of Yahweh (Mathew 5:17-19, 15:1-20, 18:16, Mark 7:1-13).  Nothing short of Yahweh's true justice is obligatory if he and the real uncaused cause are one and the same, as all else is a construct of preference or perception rather than representative of any objective morality on Christianity.  Either way, conscience and social norms are metaphysically and epistemologically irrelevant to morality.

In the words of Isaiah 2:3-4 and Micah 4:2-3, God's law will be imposed on the nations.  Similarly, Psalm 2:7-12 and Revelation 2:26-27 talk of a time when Christ, and by extension those committed to him, rule over nations with a rod of iron, the only just legal standard being that of the moral revelation that corresponds to God's own nature (Deuteronomy 4:5-8, Psalm 119:1-24)—in contrast to the contradictory societal relativism endorsed by preterists and futurist evangelicals alike.  Though morality, if it exists, could only be rooted in an uncaused cause's nature, the Bible gives its very specific standards of morality, including punitive and social justice, that would be recognized by the world at large in the time the aforementioned prophets reference.

A temple visited by many peoples, an elevated mountain associated with worship of God and acknowledgement of his laws, and the abandonment of warfare altogether have not ever occurred in any Biblical narratives or externally recorded human history.  If Christianity is true and they have not come to pass, such things can only be reserved for a future period marked by a superior state of affairs.  And the last days referred to by that very phrase in Isaiah and Micah are not presented in any way as an allegorical stand-in for eventual dominant devotion to some other moral framework besides the one Yahweh revealed in the Torah or for anything other than literal last days.

As if the Torah does not establish theonomy, and as if the New Testament does not affirm it (in addition to the other verses provided, see Acts 23:1-5, 24:14, Romans 7:7, 1 Timothy 1:8-11, Hebrews 2:2, and so on), here are two separate prophetic chapters of the Old Testament that clearly confirm the theonomist doctrines of the Bible as being celebrated in the eschatological future.  As if Revelation does not already clarify some of its own imagery and present parts of its narrative as very explicitly literal, and as if Daniel, Matthew, and so on do not already treat prophecies of latter events as literal, here are two separate chapters of the Old Testament that contradict partial and full preterism alike.  Isaiah 2 and Micah 4 are connected with integral aspects Christian philosophy in the form of morality and eschatology.