Caroline had an interesting view of Jesus as well. He was a good man with an houra around him, but was there a necessity for Him to be God? Couldn't he just have been influential then? I shared with her why I believed there was a necessity for Him to be God, from a very redemptive standpoint. She then shared her belief there was no hell...therefore no need for redemption. She shared the Mormons believed hell was just living eternally in the absence of God. I couldn't agree more.
In the here and now, in this world, we live in a great tension. This place is run by Satan (as many New Testament writers and Jesus himself describes) yet there are so many elements of God's hand all around us. Some describe this place as hell, others as a fallen heaven. Both are correct. It is hell in that it is the absence of the full presence of God. It is a fallen version of heaven because heaven will be a redemption of earth...a new heavens and a new earth. So currently we have previews, although very limited, of both.
What Caroline describes as an eternity absent from the presence of God is for me the definition of hell. Hell is the result of the rejection of Jesus and His mission and its consequence is living in the absence of the presence of God. Where there is no presence of God there is hell. I'm not sure if we (or I for that matter) understand the significance of God's presence here and now. It is what is sustaining things and holding everything together (I don't have my Bible on me, otherwise I would reference that one :-). Without the presence of God, this place would be mass chaos.
We live in a time where miraculously there are glimpses of God everywhere. Why? In order to redeem. God is present here and now in order to redeem. When final redemption takes place we will live in the presence of God forever. Redemption will be final. The place described as hell will be void of God's presence and redeeming work, for redemption will be done. All that to say I believe the easiest definition of hell is what my seat-mate said: living in the absence of the presence of God.
