MKE:
You wrote:
"my spirit leads me to believe that God's mercy rarely would allow a disobediant child to be forever punished"
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I wrote as a reply:
We believe that Jesus Christ is God-in-the-Flesh. We also believe what He tells us in the New Testament. He speaks of a Final Judgment, a lake of fire, and all those fearsome things that present problems for so many. He also tells us that "eye has not seen, nor has ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man the things God has prepared for those who love Him."
It seems to me that the Divine Justice comes in at this point to balance the Divine Mercy. We choose our eternity by our growth here.
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I've heard and discussed these issues for a long time--longer than I want to think about. While it may tug at our liberal sense of giving everyone an eternal number of chances and our idea that everyone can be rehabilitated if given enough time, I still hold to the New Testament, though without making judgments. The Truth is Jesus Christ: He is Truth Incarnate. He not only is fully truthful in what He says but in His very Being. He tells us plainly that there are the Last Four Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. We will have the first two; the third is our own choice.
The problems come into our spiritual lives when we want to waffle on what is plainly there for us to accept or reject. Much like the compelling repetition in St. Matthew's Gospel where Jesus keeps repeating "but I tell you," He keeps telling us about reality while this present age, like every age before it, tries to waffle, water down, and soften what is stark, black and white. It should come to you as something from Ripley's: believe it or not (but don't try to pick and choose, or edit, or interpret it away.)
We can get into trouble when we think of eternity as a long series of years, giving the false impression that at some distant time rehabilitation for all might be accomplished--something like Purgatory only longer. Eternity is one constant present tense: there is no past and no future. So what you get when you first enter it is it.
I can pray that all mankind will be saved, but to say that all will be saved is simply not true. BTW, I do pray for that.
In Christ,
BOB
