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Is Jeffrey Dahmer In Heaven?

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  • Is Jeffrey Dahmer In Heaven?

    Will a serial killer be there when you cross over?

    Link

    -----

    Can someone who's a cannibalistic serial killer be with God forever? Let's plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

    Atheists often like to talk about the atrocities of God in the Bible that they see. If God kills someone in the Bible, well He's wicked and evil. What is amazing also is that if God is gracious, He's also wicked and evil! Let's consider this image.

    JeffreyDahmer.jpg

    I wrote something about a similar post once in addressing if your murderer will be in Heaven. Some atheists I have seen discussing this picture have asked what it will be like for someone who was ate by Jeffrey Dahmer to see him in Heaven. Awkward?

    No. Not really.

    It assumes that when people are around the throne in Heaven, they will be still in their same sinful natures. Not at all. Heaven is a place of grace and forgiveness. There are no grudges or desires for revenge and there is no hatred there. If anything, those who were victimized will be happy to see Dahmer because they want to see him get the same grace they have received.

    Let's also assume for the sake of argument that Dahmer did have a real conversion. I know some people could bicker that maybe it was a fake one, but for the sake of this discussion, I am going to assume it was real. Why is this really a problem for Christianity?

    If anything, this shows how much God is willing to forgive. God loves His creation so much that He does forgive all the sins of the past. This doesn't mean that everyone will experience Heaven the same way as I think there are degrees of reward in Heaven, but it does mean that one will at least get into the city.

    If forgiveness could ever be earned, it would not be forgiven. When you forgive someone, you just forgive them. It doesn't mean there are no consequences whatsoever, but it means there is no debt between the two of you. It won't be used against you further.

    I don't need to repeat a lot in this post since much of it is in the earlier linked post, but this whole scenario always boggles my mind. God is a problem because He is angry at sinners and wants to kill them all supposedly, but then He's also a problem because He will freely show grace to all sinners and pronounce forgiveness for them.

    Besides, for my fellow Christians. My big amazement is not that Jeffrey Dahmer is going to make it. Many of us will happily talk about the grace given to sinners.

    Our big amazement as Christians and the one we usually doubt is that we're going to make it.

    But we are, and this is mind-boggling. If we think the goal is to get people around the throne of God, the cross should show us that God is more serious about getting us there than we are. God's ultimate goal is to include as many as possible and not to exclude. No. That's not an inclusivism where there are many roads to God or something like that. It is a call that God has made it as simple as He could for us to come to the Kingdom by giving us the Son.

    Atheists. Don't think you're going to make me doubt my Christianity by talking about the grace of God for Jeffrey Dahmer. I'm amazed enough that He has grace for someone like myself.

    In Christ,
    Nick Peters

  • #2
    Yes. The trouble with grace is that it covers even the vilest of us.

    So hard for us to comprehend.


    Securely anchored to the Rock amid every storm of trial, testing or tribulation.

    Comment


    • #3
      If you take what was said about murder starting in the heart I think most people will find that they have just as much a desire to kill as anybody else. Some folks like Dahmer use their hands. Others will act as if the person they are talking to is a dolled up skeleton.

      The truth is I don't think folks like the idea of forgiveness. We seem to enjoy malaise. At least malaise is familiar is the idea.

      I can't look into people souls and see them as God does. If I could I think I would become a monster. I try to be the person God made me to be.

      This post reminds me of a scene in The Great Divorce. A guy actually does meet a murderer in heaven and demands his murderer be tried. The murderer points out it would not mean much as he is already dead so no human court could try him. He also points out that if God has forgiven him a court pardon means little. The murderer then points out that the ghost talking to him killed most everyone he met by dehumanizing them.

      Honestly I don't think we can understand heaven on this side of eternity. Not fully anyway.
      sigpic

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      • #4
        Originally posted by TheWall View Post
        If you take what was said about murder starting in the heart I think most people will find that they have just as much a desire to kill as anybody else. Some folks like Dahmer use their hands. Others will act as if the person they are talking to is a dolled up skeleton.

        The truth is I don't think folks like the idea of forgiveness. We seem to enjoy malaise. At least malaise is familiar is the idea.

        I can't look into people souls and see them as God does. If I could I think I would become a monster. I try to be the person God made me to be.

        This post reminds me of a scene in The Great Divorce. A guy actually does meet a murderer in heaven and demands his murderer be tried. The murderer points out it would not mean much as he is already dead so no human court could try him. He also points out that if God has forgiven him a court pardon means little. The murderer then points out that the ghost talking to him killed most everyone he met by dehumanizing them.

        Honestly I don't think we can understand heaven on this side of eternity. Not fully anyway.
        That's in the Great Divorce? What chapter?
        Watch your links! http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/fa...corumetiquette

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by DesertBerean View Post
          That's in the Great Divorce? What chapter?
          Early on with the man in the hat.
          sigpic

          Comment


          • #6
            This sounds like a question about either:

            1. cheap grace

            2. the idea that grace is an excuse for continuance in sin.

            3. soteriology.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by mossrose View Post
              Yes. The trouble with grace is that it covers even the vilest of us.

              So hard for us to comprehend.
              It seems, and in sense is, so very unfair. As C. S. Lewis also said, none of us gets what he deserves - and just as well. Grace insults people’s sense of what is deserved.

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by Rushing Jaws View Post
                It seems, and in sense is, so very unfair. As C. S. Lewis also said, none of us gets what he deserves - and just as well. Grace insults people’s sense of what is deserved.
                Ezekiel 18 (beginning to end) addresses this issue at length.
                1Cor 15:34 Come to your senses as you ought and stop sinning; for I say to your shame, there are some who know not God.
                .
                ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛
                Scripture before Tradition:
                but that won't prevent others from
                taking it upon themselves to deprive you
                of the right to call yourself Christian.

                ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛

                Comment


                • #9
                  I wonder if Atheists or Skeptic who made this claim ever take into account that those in Heaven have a changed state of existence. This argument assumes that Dahmer will be the same person he was during his time on Earth This is a faulty comparison, now Scripture shows us that we will know each other in Heaven, but in the different sense that we will be like Christ (1st John 3:2; 1st Corinthians 15:47;49;53). Secondly we know sin will not be present (Revelation 21:4;27; Isaiah 35:8-9). This meme really is missing these crucial points. Finally, I find it interesting they raise this objection, while at the same time complaining when God does punish wicked actions. In other words these statements are just a sort of gotcha moment, the fact is that there is a third option.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by tabibito View Post
                    Ezekiel 18 (beginning to end) addresses this issue at length.
                    Ezekiel 18 is dealing with a different, and (on the face of it, a simpler) issue. The whole point of grace (almost) is, that it is unjust. It is righteous, or rather, Righteous; but not just. This (I think) is the point C.S. Lewis made in “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”, when he wrote of Aslan’s “Deeper Magic from the Dawn of Time” - justice is “deep magic”, grace is the “deeper magic”. Grace is “larger”, or “wider”, “deeper”, than justice; without being unjust in the sense of being wrong. But grace is not based on giving to each what is due to him - it is based on what on what God is, not on what man deserves.

                    Justice is a form of equity, and so is grace - but they are otherwise very different.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by mossrose View Post
                      Yes. The trouble with grace is that it covers even the vilest of us.
                      And I praise God that it does!

                      Oh, perfect redemption, the purchase of blood,
                      To every believer the promise of God;
                      The vilest offender who truly believes,
                      That moment from Jesus a pardon receives.
                      The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        When we get to heaven, some of us would be surprised to see Ted Bundy there. I remember the account James Dobson gave of Bundy's profession. Dobson acknowledged that Ted Bundy was a very devious person, but despite that, he believed that Bundy was sincere in his profession of faith.

                        Worse yet, there's a Jewish rabbi, Saul of Tarsus.
                        When I Survey....

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Faber View Post
                          When we get to heaven, some of us would be surprised to see Ted Bundy there. I remember the account James Dobson gave of Bundy's profession. Dobson acknowledged that Ted Bundy was a very devious person, but despite that, he believed that Bundy was sincere in his profession of faith.

                          Worse yet, there's a Jewish rabbi, Saul of Tarsus.
                          Many of us will be surprised to see who's there... and who's not.
                          The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
                            Many of us will be surprised to see who's there... and who's not.
                            And how many of them will be surprised to see us?
                            When I Survey....

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              This can be a good conversation starter given how many misconceptions there are these days about what Christianity teaches. The other day, I read an article on a mainstream news site (it might have been CNN, not sure) that reported that conservative Christians teach that homosexuality is an unforgivable sin. I wonder how many people out there think this is true and assume that perhaps they have gone too far and could not become a Christian.
                              "I am not angered that the Moral Majority boys campaign against abortion. I am angry when the same men who say, "Save OUR children" bellow "Build more and bigger bombers." That's right! Blast the children in other nations into eternity, or limbless misery as they lay crippled from "OUR" bombers! This does not jell." - Leonard Ravenhill

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