Do The Elect Delight In The Torments Of The Damned?

[tate4242]

On 1/12/2007 at 5:59 AM, Paddington said:

Phatmassers,

What are we to make of this idea of the saints in heaven taking delight in the torments of the damned? Is it part of the deposit of faith? It has been the opinion of many Christians thru the centuries. C.S. Lewis footed around it in the Chronicles of Narnia (imagine if he didn't), but I have seen the idea before from people in the Catholic and Reformed traditions. I'm sure other Christians have believed it too.
Here is a short list of quotes about this issue. I cut them form the site of hard-core skeptic, Edward T. Babinski. edwardtbabinski.us


Peace,
Paddington


AUGUSTINE
They who shall enter into [the] joy [of the Lord] shall know what is going on outside in the outer darkness. The saints knowledge, which shall be great, shall keep them acquainted with the eternal sufferings of the lost.
[The City of God, Book 20, Chapter 22, "What is Meant by the Good Going Out to See the Punishment of the Wicked" & Book 22, Chapter 30, "Of the Eternal Felicity of the City of God, and of the Perpetual Sabbath"]

TERTULLIAN
What a spectacle when the world and its many products, shall be consumed in one great flame! How vast a spectacle then bursts upon the eye! What there excites my admiration? What my derision? Which sight gives me joy??As I see illustrious monarchs groaning in the lowest darkness, Philosophers as fire consumes them! Poets trembling before the judgment-seat of Christ! I shall hear the tragedians, louder-voiced in their own calamity; view play-actors in the dissolving flame; behold wrestlers, not in their gymnasia, but tossing in the fiery billows. What inquisitor or priest in his munificence will bestow on you the favor of seeing and exulting in such things as these? Yet even now we in a measure have them by faith in the picturings of imagination. [De Spectaculis, Chapter XXX]

THOMAS AQUINAS
In order that the happiness of the saints may be more delightful to them and that they may render more copious thanks to God for it, they are allowed to see perfectly the sufferings of the damned. So that they may be urged the more to praise God. The saints in heaven know distinctly all that happens to the damned. [Summa Theologica, Third Part, Supplement, Question XCIV, "Of the Relations of the Saints Towards the Damned," First Article, "Whether the Blessed in Heaven Will See the Sufferings of the Damned?"]

JONATHAN EDWARDS
The sight of hell torments will exalt the happiness of the saints forever. Can the believing father in Heaven be happy with his unbelieving children in Hell? I tell you, yea! Such will be his sense of justice that it will increase rather than diminish his bliss. ["The Eternity of Hell Torments" (Sermon), April 1739 & Discourses on Various Important Subjects, 1738]

They shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: And the smoke of their torment shall ascend up forever and ever. Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her. And again they said, Alleluia. And her smoke rose up for ever and ever.
- Revelation 14:9-11; 18:20, 19:3

I lean Universalist.... and I suspect that the Saints in Heaven know that eventually.... the temporarily condemned in Purgatory or hell..... are taking step by step by step toward repentance........ genuine repentance....and "the restoration of all things......"

 

https://www.near-death.com/experiences/gay/christian-andreason.html#a04h

Quote

 

h. Who goes to heaven?

 

In the end ... believe it or not (sigh of relief), everyone gets to come home! Heaven is a place of ultimate LOVE. When we have learned how to become individuals that base our entire existence and consciousness around manifesting LOVE, we then become capable of entering the domain of the higher Realms of Heaven. If we do not practice Love, we can only go so far and we will be made to incarnate somewhere out there in God's super Universe again and again (unlimited times) until we learn.

 

 

 

NDE accounts seem to be a major fulfillment of John 16:25...... and fit with 2 Corinthians 12:2-4