1st Edition, Unreviewed
Following the last posts, I close the thought with this one, adopting a more colloquial, more accessible tone. As informal as if we were talking face to face.
On many occasions in our life choices, we choose to deny our right to happiness, as if we were feeding a fakir within us, nurturing an intimate pleasure in suffering.
I honestly cannot understand the reason for believing in eternal punishments when God symbolizes eternal love.
If Jesus on the cross, at the height of the suffering imposed on Him, showed forgiveness to the repentant criminal, why would He not forgive all those who also redirected their lives?
His last words were: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Luke 23:34
In John 14:6 Jesus answers Thomas, saying: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me.”
From these premises, through the message of forgiveness, one may conclude that hell is a provisional condition of reformatting our soul through suffering, until repentance gives birth to sensitivity and the desire for repair, opening the doors of our inner hell to the opportunity of eternal happiness.
Jesus was Jewish and a rabbi — and, detail, a precocious rabbi!
Judaism contemplates the temporality of the soul’s stage toward something better after death (Gehinnom), except for essentially evil souls, which implies the opportunity for happiness through purification.
The messages and life of Jesus inspire the idea that He expands this concept not only as a possibility after the death of the physical body, but through life itself, reborn in each new experience. His ultimate proof comes from His resurrection!
Or do you really believe that the Sanhedrin, which condemned Jesus, and through the Romans carried out His execution with such effort, in fact failed to do so?
Rome, at the time, was the most powerful organization of conquest and submission through death. They were specialists who lived to conquer and drain, to feed Rome’s idleness. Roman pragmatism did not care about the beliefs of conquered peoples, only about the tributes they had to pay.
Unfortunately, even today we live under the politics of the ancient Roman Empire when we look at some countries or even certain niches of human activity, such as medicine and so many others! What soothes our souls are other souls who move within these niches, rowing against the current.
It makes no sense to believe in eternal punishments and only one single, fateful opportunity to correct ourselves, given a nature in which we were forged and could not control, lived under such disparate conditions of inequality, where some enjoy advantages that others do not — where a single judgment does not fit.
And after all that, eternal hell!
Seriously!!!!
I come to think that those who believe in this have a gift for masochism.
Assuming our beliefs may be mistaken, then why not choose the one that comforts our soul and reason, inspiring us through love that can be built in all of us through infinite opportunities until perfection is reached?
Did God create us without the purpose of sharing His happiness with all of His creation? Wouldn’t that be selfish? Is your God selfish?
If you answer yes, then God is not love, because love always shares and builds happiness.
The messages of Jesus are summed up in love, forgiveness, and restoration.
Just as He healed the gravely ill, restoring their physical health with a “wave of His hand,” He could have done the opposite with those who persisted in error — but He did not.
Or even with Judas, since the Bible suggests Jesus already knew his reactions beforehand, as is clear in John 6:70–71, John 13:21–27, Matthew 26:21–25, Luke 22:21–22.
And faced with such power, why did Jesus not punish Judas, His enemies, or even defend Himself?
Without the extreme sacrifice of self‑annihilation, how else could He prove His words of conviction in love and forgiveness, if not with the ultimatum of an action?
“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Luke 23:34
Jesus closed with a “golden key” what He preached. Or better, rephrasing, Jesus closed with a “key of love” what He taught.
He was a master who taught not only with words, but proved His convictions through example — even if death became the way to live them out.
It is worth noting that forgiveness is often confused with connivance that inspires repetition, or with the annulment of self‑protection.
To forgive is not to feed resentment or feelings of revenge, but it does not mean restoring the same degree of trust as before. It is, above all, to understand each one’s limits and exercise our ability not to darken our soul with lesser feelings.
The acts of Jesus make more sense when we believe that the future promotes the opportunity for adjustment and redemption, since this is more consistent with everything He said and lived.
Thus, reincarnation makes more sense than a single existence with a punitive end, because it is totally incompatible with what Jesus lived among us — through love that promotes the means of redemption for all, absolutely all — and His resurrection!
Would you punish your child eternally for a mistake?
If God is truly supreme love, and indeed holds supreme power, why can’t a soul once created receive repeated opportunities? Does God’s power fail at this? Is it insufficient? If it fails, then it is not so supreme!
God acts like a coach who forgives the failures of his players because he, the coach, knows that through repetition they will improve their performance until they gather the conditions for victory.
Now then! If we humans do this as a means of growth, why wouldn’t God do the same with us?
Honestly…
It makes no sense to have only one chance at life for an eternal hell!
It makes more sense to choose the option that adds love and meaning to the purposes of life, through the life that Jesus lived.
It is more coherent to choose divine forgiveness that repeats the opportunity to learn until perfection is reached.
If God is supreme love, He created us to share His qualities in the long term, making us worthy of them.


