Heaven/Hell Experiences Leave Unanswered Questions

(This blog was inspired by an earlier blog post on September 15th titled "Heaven is Real")

A lady named Tamara Laroux claims that when she was a teen girl, she died, went to hell, saw heaven, and came back to life. She had been struggling with depression and attempted to commit suicide. She claims that "a voice" told her to shoot herself in the chest instead of in the head. She claims that she died and went to hell where she saw a "sea of people" who could not communicate with each other. In hell she was given perfect knowledge about every one's sins and lives. Everyone was in great agony and no one wanted any other person to experience what they were experiencing. Heaven was visible from hell and there was a known reality that people in hell would never be able to go there. She then claims that because she had cried out to God, He scooped down and took Tamara to heaven. In heaven there were many people who were talking but Tamara was "not allowed" to talk to them. Later she was placed back into her body on earth and faced a miraculous recovery from a gun wound that should have taken her life. to see her story watch the following clip.

In Dr. Corsini's class, it was said that "just because something is real, does not make it true." Although heaven and hell are real places, it does not mean that Tamara Laroux actually went there. The class has been discussing the material and immaterial aspects of the human. Some of the best evidence (outside of Scripture) for immaterial aspects of a person, is the "out of body" experiences that many people have claimed having after dying and coming back to life.
These experiences are hard for skeptics to argue with because the physical body stops working, and people are able to maintain thoughts and feelings.

I must admit that I normally take stories like Tamara's with a grain of salt. I tend to be a skeptic. The one major point that skeptics can use to argue for no immaterial person (in regards to these stories) is that every person's story about what happens when they die is different. For Tamara, she went to hell, then to a heaven where she was not allowed to talk to anyone. In a previous posting, a little boy claimed that he was able to talk to his miscarried sister and to his great grandpa. As a Christian I do believe that there is an immaterial part of a person, but I also believe that these experiences of heaven and hell may not be completely real. One possible explanation that I can think of is that these people somehow experienced a type of dream. Throughout Scripture God uses dreams to reveal important things to people. (it is first recorded in Genesis when God reveals information to Abimelech in a dream, and ends in Matthew where God warns Joseph about things in a dream) Is it possible that what Tamala experienced was a God-given dream? This begs another question. Can dreams be part of the immaterial person, and not just part of material thoughts? These are the questions that Tamala's story left me asking.

Hell - Not So Bad After All?

I came across this article this morning and was surprised by how many mixed responses it brought about in me while reading it. As Christians, we have all heard of the dangers of “Universalism” in religion. We’ve even discussed in class the ways in which followers of other faith systems can be just as, if not more, spiritual than Christians. So what do we do with a Christian who says that the concept of Hell as we know it is in conflict with the message of love that Jesus’ ministry and the Great Commission have sought and continue to seek to proliferate?

My first response, and mind you, I lack formal theological training and am a novice student of Scripture, was – what if he’s right? So I decided to see what the Bible actually says about Hell, and specifically, what Jesus had to say about it. I came to the conclusion that Jesus’ message is indeed one of love, but it is equally one of justice, and that the Bible does not mince words with regard to either (Luke 16, Matt. 13:42, Matt. 25:41, Rev. 20:15, Luke 4:18-19, Luke 11:39-42). To say that Hell is not real is to say that Christ did not descend into Hell when He died – which means He did not atone for our sins, nor did He suffer separation from God on our behalf. Without atonement, there is no justice and we are not saved. We have discussed in class the purpose not only of general and special revelation, but also of the role of the Holy Spirit in making sure that we GET that message – the message is that God is real and we will be held accountable for grasping His Truth. Is Hell a fiery pit at the core of the earth? Is it life here on earth without Christ? I don’t know. What I do know is that it is not a place anyone wants to spend eternity.

To say that universalist messages which profess that all roads lead to heaven, and that heaven can be attained by deeds alone is a disservice to souls is a severe understatement, and one that exacts the cost of eternal fellowship with a loving God. As counselors, we will need to be ever wary of these messages of tolerance that creep in the back door so inconspicuously because they are such “nice” ideas. We all want to be nice. We don’t want to exclude people, but Scripture is clear. Jesus said, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”