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Originally posted by goperryrevs:
So, at least for the first few hundred years of Christianity, there is a fair case to say that, whether or not it was the dominant view, it was a large part of the Christian tradition. And it has always continued to be a part of the stream of Orthodoxy.

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Originally posted by Dubious Thomas:
I don't blame you at all for rejecting Christianity if you genuinely concluded that it is what IngoB claims it is -- and I don't mean this at all as a negative judgment on IngoB: I really appreciate his blunt honesty; he doesn't candy-coat hellfire the way some other traditional Christians here do.

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Originally posted by Dubious Thomas:

To be clear, I'm not claiming that universalism is the "traditional" Christian view. Clearly, it isn't. But I believe that universalism really is there in the tradition, if we will just open our eyes to see it.

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I do a "crap" job of it most of the time! Of which this thread is a perfect example!

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Originally posted by Dubious Thomas:


Calvinism "solves" this problem (sort of!!!) by asserting that God would be unjust if He left it to us -- because we couldn't possibly, in our own power, do what God calls us to do.

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Originally posted by Dubious Thomas:


In my not terribly humble opinion, only universalism solves the problem, by affirming both that God can save everyone and that God wishes to save everyone, which means that God will save everyone. As Rob Bell has it in the title of his book, "love wins.

But, my guess is that this doesn't make much more sense to you than any other Christian claim.

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Originally posted by Dubious Thomas:
I'm glad you enjoyed the contact with Pure Land Buddhism. Many Americans who are into the austerity of Zen find the "Amida loves me this I know for the sutras tell me so" pietism of Jodo Shinshu rather off-putting.

If you study this tradition further, you'll find that it challenges "traditional" Buddhism (including Zen) in many of the same ways Christian universalism challenges "traditional" Christianity. I find the parallel and (as best I can tell) utterly independent development a fascinating phenomenon in religion.

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Originally posted by stonespring:
After some thought I think it's worth discussing that even for universalists it seems to me that it is important that we look into the effects of salvation/regeneration/whatever you want to call it on a person's life before death even in the cases where someone really seems to not believe in God or do good deeds. I'm not saying that I agree with the damnationists and annihilationists that this life is meaningless unless a person's chance to accept salvation/whatever you call it ends at death. Rather, I'm inclined to think that there is a personal salvation story in every person's life, even the people who seem to be the worst people. Every person is caught up in a battle between good and evil, and we all know that some people seem to be affected more by one than the other. However, I would say that even in the worst people there is evidence of the salvation process - although our free will can impede it so that the process is far from complete when we die. God offers salvation - we can reject it but I think that our being in God's image means that part of us is saying yes even when almost everything visible to an outsider seems to reflect our saying no. So although I'm a firm believer in human free will and that salvation is impossible unless a person accepts it without being compelled by God to do so, I'm open to the good in us helping God to save us even when the rest of us refuses. Does that make sense?

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Yes! I don't agree with the free will stuff ... ... but it still makes sense. Ideas that are wrong often make sense!

Where I think you're "on" to something I would agree with is in your suggestion that "even in the worst people there is evidence of the salvation process." I would put it that even the "vilest offender" manifests something of the destiny that God ultimately wills for him/her. Given the Nature of God as Love, I see the capacity to love as one of those manifestations. That capacity may be distorted and broken in various ways (often, terribly distorted and broken), but it is still there. That is the presence of God, who is Love.

I'll take an extreme example--because I think the power of universalism depends on these extreme examples, because universalists always get asked, "Even Hitler?" So ... yes ... Hitler.... People often make snide comments about Adolph Hitler's love for his dog, Blondi (and I can't blame them, given the monstrosity of Hitler's evil). But there was something genuine in that relationship, a mutuality of care and loyalty, that points to the presence of God and the "salvation process."

Yes, with Hitler, the "salvation process" was far from complete when he died -- but, as Jesus tells us, with God, all things are possible.

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שפך חמתך אל־הגוים אשר לא־ידעוך
Psalm 79:6

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
With no hint beyond the glass?

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Originally posted by stonespring:
So although I'm a firm believer in human free will and that salvation is impossible unless a person accepts it without being compelled by God to do so, I'm open to the good in us helping God to save us even when the rest of us refuses. Does that make sense?

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Originally posted by Zappa:
Sigh ... having been somewhat absent from the decks of late I pop my head up to find about eight pages on the subject on which I wrote my PhD (universalist soteriology in Paul).

Be thankful I was absent ... I could have bored you all to tears. I'll just doff me hat to y'all ... and head back to the ranks of Origen, Farrar, Robinson, Bell and others who believe that Christ is Saviour of the World, not of a select few.

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Sorry, I missed this post until now!

THANKS for the doff! But, really, I'd LOVE to be bored to tears with your learning on the subject! PLEASE!


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שפך חמתך אל־הגוים אשר לא־ידעוך
Psalm 79:6

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Jesus tells us to make disciples. The Church should be trying to make disciples but not everybody comes to Christ. What happens when they die? I just don't know.

Atheists believe that when they die they return to dust and there is no afterlife. Hard for anybody to complain if when they die God allowed them to turn to dust and cease to exist. Many Eastern religions have as their goal and end to the cycle of birth and rebirth. Again, annihilation gives them what they want as well.

The question comes down to free will and grace. I don't have nor do I need the answer. To the extent that it is unclear perhaps it is unclear for a reason.

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Originally posted by anteater:
Zappa:
Is your thesis available to read (i.e. in electronic form)?

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Well, I found the whole thing. All 469 pages. Ain't I special.

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Always showing off! It's disgusting, really!

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שפך חמתך אל־הגוים אשר לא־ידעוך
Psalm 79:6

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I had vowed, in my late teens, never to belong to an organisation which threatens people with damnation just because they disagree with what the organisation proclaims.

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Originally posted by anteater:
I have a lot of time for your views, but when you make statements like the above, I wonder whether you rejected hell on a false understanding. My most conservative friends would never take this view. However you are recalling the past, so maybe this was the (erroneous) whew you then held.

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Originally posted by anteater:
PaulTh*:

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I had vowed, in my late teens, never to belong to an organisation which threatens people with damnation just because they disagree with what the organisation proclaims.

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I have a lot of time for your views, but when you make statements like the above, I wonder whether you rejected hell on a false understanding. My most conservative friends would never take this view. However you are recalling the past, so maybe this was the (erroneous) whew you then held.

.....

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by stonespring:
So although I'm a firm believer in human free will and that salvation is impossible unless a person accepts it without being compelled by God to do so, I'm open to the good in us helping God to save us even when the rest of us refuses. Does that make sense?

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It does to me. Especially the free will part.

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In simpler words, what I meant was a critique of the fact that universalism tends to emphasize either that what happens in this life has no effect on whether or not someone is saved or that if someone seems destined for Hell when they die, they can repent after death. I suggested that if everyone is saved, that it would make sense for repentance and salvation to have some kind of manifestation in this life - and for a universalist, that manifestation would have to be present, even if very subtly, in even the greatest of sinners.

I have already called into doubt the idea that anyone was ever in any danger of eternal inescapable punishment - and suggested that salvation is just an assertion of the relationship that always existed between creator and created - God would never eternally condemn any creature under any covenant. I therefore suggested that all of the Biblical covenants, from Creation to Christ, are all part of the same act of love and compassion from God. I don't think it's very useful to think of God having a different covenantal relationship with humanity at different points in history - other than as a literary narrative structure in Scripture. Nevertheless, we are free to choose or refuse to be in this relationship with God. Some people may not have fully chosen to be in this relationship when they die, but I'm suggesting that, because this life matters, our God-likeness will always be working to align our wills with this covenant even if our beliefs and actions signal otherwise. Free will, as I understand it, is a property of a whole human person, but perhaps not of all of our parts. I'm not suggesting a strict dualism of spirit and flesh but rather suggesting that maybe there's something in each of us that responds eagerly with unconditional love (and service) to God's grace (the basis for our conscience, perhaps?), and that this is evidence of the future "making new/whole of all things" that we don't always see very easily at work in a person at the time of death. It makes much more sense when I explain it with the usual Fall and Salvation language, but I offered to put it into the context of my hippie way of looking at it so that I seem less like a hypocrite than usual .

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Originally posted by QLib:
But those texts seem to work on the assumption that Adam and Eve originally possessed bodies that were not mortal. This simply cannot be - if they were on this earth, then they were mortal. So the only explanation for that would be God foreknowing that they were going to sin, and so giving them mortal bodies to start with.

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Originally posted by QLib:
Would jesus's earthy body have proved to be immortal if he hadn't been crucified? My guess is that the answer to that question is no - he had to go through a resurrection process.

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Originally posted by stonespring:
My question was not whether retribution has beenisted as a legitimate grounds for punishment, but why. I think we can discuss deterrence as a reason why eternal damnation may exist but I don't see any value in punishment for the sake of inflicting harm on one who has done wrong (ie, retribution).

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Originally posted by IngoB:


First, retributions is everywhere in scripture, including as motivation of holy people and, sure enough, God. It is tempered by mercy, indeed, but not abandoned.

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Second, retribution is a basically universal human response.

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Given that retribution is seen generally as a positive thing in scripture....

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Originally posted by ken:
"Tempered by mercy" is enough to make your opponents point. That's all that's claimed. God's habit of mercy includes the dead as well as the living.

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Originally posted by ken:
Not entirely universal though. And plenty of natural human responses aren't eternal qualities of God, but secular, time-bound, features of our animal nature. Hunger and thirst are universal human (and animal) responses, no-one claims they are eternal attributed of almighty God.

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Originally posted by ken:

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Originally posted by ken:
Given that retribution is seen generally as a positive thing in scripture....

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Not by Jesus, for one. And not always by the prophets. You half-acknowledged that but tried, rather artificially, to twist out of it by claiming forgiveness as some kind of subcategory of vengeance. Not a sermon that would be easy to preach with any logical development of thought.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
The belief in human freedom is probably hardwired into us, as I know no one who can refrain from blaming the guy down the table when you ask, "Please pass the salt," and instead of doing so, he sticks out his tongue at you. Not even hardcore determinists.

That said, I think we do in fact have freedom. Freedom does not mean having no starting point, no raw materials, and thus making choices in an utter vacuum. It means taking the raw materials of your situation, whatever they may be, and choosing one of several possible courses that are open to one. In other words, yes, you get dealt a certain hand of cards because of your birth and upbringing, but it's still up to you how you play those cards.

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If we believe that Satan is the prince of this world, ever ensnaring and fighting against the kingdom of Christ with all his powers; and that he does not let go his captives without being forced by the Divine Power of the Spirit; it is manifest, that there can be no such thing as—"Free-will!"

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“Faith is a divine work in us. It changes us and makes us to be born anew of God (John 1). It kills the old Adam and makes altogether different people, in heart and spirit and mind and powers, and it brings with it the Holy Spirit.

Oh, it is a living, busy, active, mighty thing, this faith. And so it is impossible for it not to do good works incessantly. It does not ask whether there are good works to do, but before the question rises, it has already done them, and is always at the doing of them.

He who does not do these works is a faithless man. He gropes and looks about after faith and good works and knows neither what faith is nor what good works are, though he talks and talks, with many words about faith and good works.

Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that a man would stake his life on it a thousand times. This confidence in God’s grace and knowledge of it makes men glad and bold and happy in dealing with God and all His creatures.

And this is the work of the Holy Spirit in faith. Hence a man is ready and glad, without compulsion, to do good to everyone, to serve everyone, to suffer everything, in love and praise to God, who has shown him this grace.

And thus it is impossible to separate works from faith, quite as impossible as to separate burning and shining from fire."

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Yes, of course I've had a look at Bondage of the Will. Have you looked at the context in which he wrote it? Go track down Erasmus and the Freedom of the Will.

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As for other LCMS Lutherans, whatever. None of us (that I know of, anyway) feel bound to treat Luther as Holy Writ. We certainly take what he said into account--the man was a genius and also, we think, under the leading of the Holy Spirit--but he was a far cry from being an apostle, much less the Christ. No Lutheran is bound to abide by everything the man wrote or said. But every thinking Lutheran is bound to at least consider it, even if we wind up believing him wrong.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Now, back to the subject--

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Originally posted by Dubious Thomas:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Now, back to the subject--

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Honestly, I wasn't aware we were away from the subject....

I must be brief at this moment, sorry.

I think it's important here to distinguish between the freedom of those who have a living relationship with Christ and the "freedom" of those who don't. Since this is a thread about "universalism," my concern is with the claim that those who are not-yet-Christians have the freedom to decide whether to accept or reject God's offer of salvation.

I'm hard pressed to find any Reformer who thought the "pre-saved" have such a capacity. That's why I referred to Luther's The Bondage of the Will.

Obviously, you don't have to agree with Luther (and every other 16th century Reformer). But if you disagree with them, it seems to me that the burden off proof lies with you to explain why and how they so badly misinterpreted Scripture.

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By "away from the subject" I meant the ad hominem regarding my LCMS membership. Anyway--

From what you say above, it's clear you've introduced an assumption Luther would not accept--namely, that a human choice to accept Christ (or salvation, as you put it) is a factor in salvation. Luther's (and Lutherans') position is that NO ONE can accept Christ--with our will as twisted as it is, we can only choose to reject him. What you refer to as "accepting" salvation is what we refer to as "receiving" Christ, or being given him. It is an action that wholly belongs to the Holy Spirit, and, like ordinary birth, is something that happens TO us--not as a result of our choice or actions.

Yes, I know where this is headed logically. It's called single predestination, and it annoys the hell out of all our other brothers and sisters in Christ, because it says "if you are saved, it's 100% God's doing, and he gets the glory. If you are damned, it's 100% your own choice and fault." To which our fellow Christians reply, "but that isn't logical." To which Luther and Lutherans reply, "Damn logic. This is how Scripture presents it, so we'll live with it instead of trying to harmonize it with reason."

There are some similarities with Keats' "negative capability"--that is, the ability to hold on to two apparently contradictory positions without giving up either, or going batshit insane. (yeah, yeah, that may be me)




[ 08. April 2014, 16:31: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]

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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!

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Originally posted by stonespring:
I suggested that if everyone is saved, that it would make sense for repentance and salvation to have some kind of manifestation in this life - and for a universalist, that manifestation would have to be present, even if very subtly, in even the greatest of sinners.

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Originally posted by PaulTH*:
The Catholic Church has never claimed that any particular individual is in hell. Perhaps that's why Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor thinks he can justify saying that we're not bound to believe that anyone is there.

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Originally posted by PaulTH*:
In the Apostles Creed we say:

he descended into hell;
on the third day he rose again from the dead;
he ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty;
from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I would make no arguements nor disputes with this, but I don't feel bound to accept that, after His descent into hell, to preach to the captives, and break the bars, His judgement will send anyone back there.

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633 Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, "hell" - Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek - because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God.(Cf. Phil 2:10; Acts 2:24; Rev 1:18; Eph 4:9; Pss 6:6; 88:11-13.) Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the Redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into "Abraham's bosom":(Cf. Ps 89:49; 1 Sam 28:19; Ezek 32:17-32; Lk 16:22-26.) "It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Savior in Abraham's bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell."(Roman Catechism I, 6, 3.) Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him.(483 Cf. Council of Rome (745): DS 587; Benedict XII, Cum dudum (1341): DS 1011; Clement VI, Super quibusdam (1351): DS 1077; Council of Toledo IV (625): DS 485; Mt 27:52-53.)

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Originally posted by Gildas:
I get the impression from Ingo's postings on this thread that there are traditionalist Catholics who would take that line. Presumably traditionalist Orthodox as well. Certainly Protestant fundamentalists.

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Originally posted by Ikkyu:
If someone was able to create a group of people that were unable to be happy without the help of that person. For example: they need a drug that only He can provide. No matter how hard they try they cannot prosper alone they need Him. Nobody in their right mind would call that person good. Why does God get a free pass?

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Originally posted by Ikkyu:
And can anyone explain what is the point of sending people to the Earth in Universalism? To the previously given examples of infants dying I can add mental illness for example. Why send us here as "imperfect" as we are in the first place? Of course damnationism would only make matters worse.

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Originally posted by Dubious Thomas:
Thanks for this. I'm reluctant to overstate the case for universalist ideas in the early centuries of Christian history. But I certainly don't object to others bringing forward the evidence for it.

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Originally posted by PaulTH*:
They thought, as IngoB does, that with one transgression, and we all trangress, if you haven't claimed Jesus as your own, it will lead to eternal hell.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
By "away from the subject" I meant the ad hominem regarding my LCMS membership. Anyway--

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People do not "come into the world". They are given birth to.

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Originally posted by Gildas:
Originally posted by Good for Nothing:

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People do not "come into the world". They are given birth to.

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Semantics.

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Originally posted by Dubious Thomas:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
By "away from the subject" I meant the ad hominem regarding my LCMS membership. Anyway--

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It wasn't an ad hominem.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
If Scripture says so (and that is the point to be proven), then we're stuck with that reality.

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Originally posted by Gildas:
I have never yet come across the idea that coming into the world or, indeed, leaving it is ever other than a matter of brute fact, except possibly in the works of Mr David Icke.

[ETA: Crosspost]

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Originally posted by IngoB:
My point here is quite simple. The structure of this life as we experience it is very compatible indeed with the traditional point of view. This is a test. A race to be run, with a prize for the winner. A fight to be fought, in which you can get knocked out if you don't watch it. What turns it into this test is however not the need to beat (or beat up) another human being, but rather God's demands on us. It is precisely in faith that the full and real challenge of this life is revealed. As we raise our heads up from our feet, up from the the mere struggle to survive, we finally start to see what kind of race we always have been running.

Well then, none of this with universalism. Sorry, it's just not there. That's like these children sports tournaments, where absolutely everybody gets a gold medal just for participating. But we are not children here in that sense. And how do we know that? Well, because children sports tournaments are nice, safe things. But this life is neither nice nor safe. Switch on the news. Or simply interact with all those people around you. This life is clearly about playing for keeps. The only question is what we are trying to keep, and the Christian (indeed, general religious) point is that it is not material gains in the end.

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Originally posted by Boogie:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
If Scripture says so (and that is the point to be proven), then we're stuck with that reality.

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Why?

Fallible people wrote scripture. They may have been God-inspired, but they could only use what they knew. Their lives and times were full of retribution and a 'testing' God. It doesn't mean they were right.

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Originally posted by Dubious Thomas:
I'm hard pressed to find any Reformer who thought the "pre-saved" have such a capacity. That's why I referred to Luther's The Bondage of the Will.

Obviously, you don't have to agree with Luther (and every other 16th century Reformer). But if you disagree with them, it seems to me that the burden off proof lies with you to explain why and how they so badly misinterpreted Scripture.

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by Dubious Thomas:
Obviously, you don't have to agree with Luther (and every other 16th century Reformer). But if you disagree with them, it seems to me that the burden off proof lies with you to explain why and how they so badly misinterpreted Scripture.

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Hardly. Each person has the burden of proof to defend their own interpretation of scripture.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
The whole "incapable of choosing God" thing is one of the greatest evils Augustine, in chasing the phantasm of his imagined Pelagius (who may or may not have anything to do with the real Pelagius), unleashed on the theological world. I gives rise to all the evils of the Reformation.

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Originally posted by IngoB:
I would appreciate if you wouldn't attribute views to me that I find barely recognisable. You may disagree both with me and your former Evangelical Church, but that does not mean that we would agree with each other.

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Originally posted by Mousethief:
Hardly. Each person has the burden of proof to defend their own interpretation of scripture. The whole "incapable of choosing God" thing is one of the greatest evils Augustine, in chasing the phantasm of his imagined Pelagius (who may or may not have anything to do with the real Pelagius), unleashed on the theological world. I gives rise to all the evils of the Reformation.

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Originally posted by IngoB:
One cannot be saved if one is not in danger. Strictly speaking, there is no salvation at all in universalism.

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