Quote from: Anatta on January 25, 2014, 06:34:37 PMHowever just out of interest, if the different sects of Christians (& believers of different god-based faiths) all believe that their version of "what heaven and hell is and is not, and who will end up there" differs...it would seem that each cancels each others' versions of heaven out and they will all end up in each others hells...(one must bear in mind good & bad are relative terms-with for the most part no fixed positions)
Remember that monotheistic religions are, to various extents, mutually exclusive (as you point out), and not very interested in agreement. So while there are some shared beliefs (like in the existence of a heaven/paradise/afterlife, and usually some sort of eternal damnation), they can't all be true. I'd say the correct conclusion would be that if
any of them are true, then only that version of heaven/hell can exist. But they'd all be correct that such fates indeed existed; it was simply their interpretation that was (in)correct.
But then many of those religions really go into detail, or accept variations in belief. Like I mentioned about Catholicism; the exact nature of heaven and hell isn't really dogma, there is great variation of belief as to who ends up where, what they consist of and so on. The Latin tradition tends to accept Thomas Aquinas' description of heaven as the "beatific vision", and of hell as "complete separation from God", with the added input of the earlier Eastern Fathers of hell as the complete "un-being" (in lack of a better word - if there is a terminology proper, it has slipped my mind
).
But even though Dante's description is simply a work of fiction and not in any way mainstream theology, no one would be considered a heretic to believe in it literally. There are Catholics who believe that people who don't formally belong the the Catholic Church go to hell for that reason alone - while the mainstream Church views that belief as unreasonable and perhaps even laughable, they're not considered heretics. And there are people who believe that anyone who does his best to strive for good is saved because that person in reality seeks God and hence also receives his grace (I am very sympathetic to this belief), which is also not viewed as heresy. Most people are somewhere in between.
The two "fringes" that are seen as heresy within Catholicism are Pelagianism, which states that salvation can be earned through good works alone (as in no faith or grace, not even subconscious searching for God), and Protestantism, which states that salvation is earned through faith alone, with good works not being part of the equation at all. The first is seen as heretic because it excludes God's mercy, the second simply because it's unreasonable; it excludes the God-given ability we're given to choose between good or evil.
But everything in between is pretty much viewed as acceptable. The Catholic "catchline" is "Grace alone", which means that salvation is always attained through God's grace; faith and good works alike are ultimately products of divine grace. That view allows for a huge variation in personal belief.
QuoteSo wouldn't it be best for the different religions not to speculate on what heaven or hell is and who is eligible for an entry permit... and just agree that there are such places but the criteria for entry is 'unknown'... That way there would be some form of consensus amongst the difference god-based religions for which heaven & hell are part of the package deal so to speak...
I agree to some extent, but at the same time, remember that some of these religions view the rest as false, and hence aren't interested in any agreement. Those are generally also the ones with most clearly defined and rigorous beliefs about who ends up where.
Others again have a "degree of truth" view of other religions - again, since my background is Catholic and that simply is the religion I know the best, we see other belief systems as containing various amounts of divine revelation, which means they're not devoid of truth, but yet, we wouldn't compromise our own teaching to find an agreement. But we definitely can learn from them. That includes Eastern religions, by the way - I often find many elements of Buddhism to be inspiring for my Catholic faith.
But I digress. In some way we already do what you say - we don't know who are saved and not. While we believe the ordinary means are through Christ and the Church, we also acknowledge that God could have extraordinary means to salvation. God is not fully revealed to us, and it would be foolish to claim that He can't do anything we don't know about. Which is why we canonize saints, but don't declare anyone damned, even though we warn about the possibility of hell. In some periods of history, this has perhaps been done with too much zeal (also remember the legitimate variation of personal belief), but there has never been "official theology" regarding the exact criteria.
Yet, I don't think we can expect everyone to pick up that belief. There will always be groups with very detailed and unison beliefs, and I can understand them to some extent. It provides a sort of safety which can be comforting to those who "subscribe".
(Note: To be fair, I also observe this variation is belief within plenty of other monotheist religions - Islam seems to have numerous interpretations, Protestantism of course is split into more than 30,000 denominations with differing beliefs (though many of them of course agree on heaven and hell and differ on other matters), and so on. But there's generally less variation within specific denominations, from my impression.)
