Why hasn't Christian universalism ever gone away?

[Hmm]

I listened to an interesting talk by Robin Parry on the history of universalism that I'd like to try to summarise. The talk's here:

He focuses on the post-Reformation period and says how amazing it is that universalism seems to have been repeatedly rediscovered over this time. While the universalist genealogies can be traced, what he finds the most interesting feature is just how many people have stumbled onto it for themselves without it having been passed on to them. He gives various reasons for this: some people have personal religious experiences that lead them to universalism; others, simply by reflecting on the Bible, come to believe that it teaches universalism and others find that struggling with the concept of Eternal Conscious Torment (ECT) draws them to the larger hope of universal restoration.

Why is this? Parry believes that part of the answer to this is in the feeling that universalism is a better fit within Christian theology than the alternatives of annihilation or ECT, at least at face value. And as such, there is an internal pressure generated by these doctrines that push in universalist directions. The doctrine of hell is a blocker on that push merely serves to generate a build-up of pressure from unresolved questions that sometimes need to be released. And one of the ways that this can be released is by pushing out the doctrine of ECT, "like a cork from champagne", and embracing universalism.

The idea that we have a God-shaped hole in us is pretty well known. Parry says that Infernalists want us to similarly believe that there is a hell-shaped hole in Christian theology but that this doesn't work quite as well. There is clearly a space for judgment and punishment and so while the hell-shaped hole is not completely out of place, yet something is wrong with it which causes the sense of unease that so many people feel about the idea. That this is the case is indicated not merely by the fact that some people throw the whole idea away but also by the extraordinary lengths those who believe in it go to defend it.

Parry talks about how the salvation story the church tells seems to generate, by its own logic, certain expectations about the end of the story. So while we may well expect that the journey towards the end will involve judgment and punishment, the narrative logic does not lead us to expect it to end in eternal torture for some/many/most of us. He uses a musical analogy to say that that's like a discordant note at the end of a Mozart symphony. We instinctively feel that it doesn’t fit, and indeed that it is rather immoral.

The universalist proposal is that it in fact does not fit, that there is no place in the story for eternal torture. He expounds on how the Bible does not actually teach such a doctrine, that most in the early church never accepted such a doctrine; and that we’d be better off discarding it completely.

He's also worried that by retaining the notion of ECT we do immense damage to the rest of the biblical story. He likens it to trying to force a piece of a puzzle into a gap it doesn't fit and squashing the surrounding pieces. The end result is a distorted picture.

To try to relieve the pressure caused by trying to force this misshapen piece into the jigsaw, we may reconfigure other parts of our theology and say that perhaps God did not create everyone for union with Himself, and perhaps some were created for damnation like the Clavanist Reprobates. Perhaps Jesus doesn't represent humanity but only a subset of it. Perhaps he died only for a few of us and not for all. These ideas do serve to relieve some of the pressure caused by ECT, but they do so at an obviously high cost.

So the main point here in terms of the question of the thread is that universalism has never gone away because it is the most effective antidote to the distortion and stresses caused by the introduction of the foreign body of ECT into the biblical narrative because it rejects it completely. And that people instinctively know that ECT doesn't fit in with the picture of Jesus and so, although they don't in the main learn about universalism from their church, they reinvent it themselves and, in society now, often discover it online too.

 

[HTacianas]

I listened to an interesting talk by Robin Parry on the history of universalism that I'd like to try to summarise. The talk's here:

He focuses on the post-Reformation period and says how amazing it is that universalism seems to have been repeatedly rediscovered over this time. While the universalist genealogies can be traced, what he finds the most interesting feature is just how many people have stumbled onto it for themselves without it having been passed on to them. He gives various reasons for this: some people have personal religious experiences that lead them to universalism; others, simply by reflecting on the Bible, come to believe that it teaches universalism and others find that struggling with the concept of Eternal Conscious Torment (ECT) draws them to the larger hope of universal restoration.

Why is this? Parry believes that part of the answer to this is in the feeling that universalism is a better fit within Christian theology than the alternatives of annihilation or ECT, at least at face value. And as such, there is an internal pressure generated by these doctrines that push in universalist directions. The doctrine of hell is a blocker on that push merely serves to generate a build-up of pressure from unresolved questions that sometimes need to be released. And one of the ways that this can be released is by pushing out the doctrine of ECT, "like a cork from champagne", and embracing universalism.

The idea that we have a God-shaped hole in us is pretty well known. Parry says that Infernalists want us to similarly believe that there is a hell-shaped hole in Christian theology but that this doesn't work quite as well. There is clearly a space for judgment and punishment and so while the hell-shaped hole is not completely out of place, yet something is wrong with it which causes the sense of unease that so many people feel about the idea. That this is the case is indicated not merely by the fact that some people throw the whole idea away but also by the extraordinary lengths those who believe in it go to defend it.

Parry talks about how the salvation story the church tells seems to generate, by its own logic, certain expectations about the end of the story. So while we may well expect that the journey towards the end will involve judgment and punishment, the narrative logic does not lead us to expect it to end in eternal torture for some/many/most of us. He uses a musical analogy to say that that's like a discordant note at the end of a Mozart symphony. We instinctively feel that it doesn’t fit, and indeed that it is rather immoral.

The universalist proposal is that it in fact does not fit, that there is no place in the story for eternal torture. He expounds on how the Bible does not actually teach such a doctrine, that most in the early church never accepted such a doctrine; and that we’d be better off discarding it completely.

He's also worried that by retaining the notion of ECT we do immense damage to the rest of the biblical story. He likens it to trying to force a piece of a puzzle into a gap it doesn't fit and squashing the surrounding pieces. The end result is a distorted picture.

To try to relieve the pressure caused by trying to force this misshapen piece into the jigsaw, we may reconfigure other parts of our theology and say that perhaps God did not create everyone for union with Himself, and perhaps some were created for damnation like the Clavanist Reprobates. Perhaps Jesus doesn't represent humanity but only a subset of it. Perhaps he died only for a few of us and not for all. These ideas do serve to relieve some of the pressure caused by ECT, but they do so at an obviously high cost.

So the main point here in terms of the question of the thread is that universalism has never gone away because it is the most effective antidote to the distortion and stresses caused by the introduction of the foreign body of ECT into the biblical narrative because it rejects it completely. And that people instinctively know that ECT doesn't fit in with the picture of Jesus and so, although they don't in the main learn about universalism from their church, they reinvent it themselves and, in society now, often discover it online too.

There are all sorts of things that cropped up in the early Church that have re-occurred throughout history. See antinomianism for one. Others can include Islam's version of Jesus as found in the Quran.

 

[Maria Billingsley]

I listened to an interesting talk by Robin Parry on the history of universalism that I'd like to try to summarise. The talk's here:

He focuses on the post-Reformation period and says how amazing it is that universalism seems to have been repeatedly rediscovered over this time. While the universalist genealogies can be traced, what he finds the most interesting feature is just how many people have stumbled onto it for themselves without it having been passed on to them. He gives various reasons for this: some people have personal religious experiences that lead them to universalism; others, simply by reflecting on the Bible, come to believe that it teaches universalism and others find that struggling with the concept of Eternal Conscious Torment (ECT) draws them to the larger hope of universal restoration.

Why is this? Parry believes that part of the answer to this is in the feeling that universalism is a better fit within Christian theology than the alternatives of annihilation or ECT, at least at face value. And as such, there is an internal pressure generated by these doctrines that push in universalist directions. The doctrine of hell is a blocker on that push merely serves to generate a build-up of pressure from unresolved questions that sometimes need to be released. And one of the ways that this can be released is by pushing out the doctrine of ECT, "like a cork from champagne", and embracing universalism.

The idea that we have a God-shaped hole in us is pretty well known. Parry says that Infernalists want us to similarly believe that there is a hell-shaped hole in Christian theology but that this doesn't work quite as well. There is clearly a space for judgment and punishment and so while the hell-shaped hole is not completely out of place, yet something is wrong with it which causes the sense of unease that so many people feel about the idea. That this is the case is indicated not merely by the fact that some people throw the whole idea away but also by the extraordinary lengths those who believe in it go to defend it.

Parry talks about how the salvation story the church tells seems to generate, by its own logic, certain expectations about the end of the story. So while we may well expect that the journey towards the end will involve judgment and punishment, the narrative logic does not lead us to expect it to end in eternal torture for some/many/most of us. He uses a musical analogy to say that that's like a discordant note at the end of a Mozart symphony. We instinctively feel that it doesn’t fit, and indeed that it is rather immoral.

The universalist proposal is that it in fact does not fit, that there is no place in the story for eternal torture. He expounds on how the Bible does not actually teach such a doctrine, that most in the early church never accepted such a doctrine; and that we’d be better off discarding it completely.

He's also worried that by retaining the notion of ECT we do immense damage to the rest of the biblical story. He likens it to trying to force a piece of a puzzle into a gap it doesn't fit and squashing the surrounding pieces. The end result is a distorted picture.

To try to relieve the pressure caused by trying to force this misshapen piece into the jigsaw, we may reconfigure other parts of our theology and say that perhaps God did not create everyone for union with Himself, and perhaps some were created for damnation like the Clavanist Reprobates. Perhaps Jesus doesn't represent humanity but only a subset of it. Perhaps he died only for a few of us and not for all. These ideas do serve to relieve some of the pressure caused by ECT, but they do so at an obviously high cost.

So the main point here in terms of the question of the thread is that universalism has never gone away because it is the most effective antidote to the distortion and stresses caused by the introduction of the foreign body of ECT into the biblical narrative because it rejects it completely. And that people instinctively know that ECT doesn't fit in with the picture of Jesus and so, although they don't in the main learn about universalism from their church, they reinvent it themselves and, in society now, often discover it online too.

Thanks for sharing! Keep in mind the early church ,RCC, had several exit strategies out of ECT. Purgatory or indulgence. Blessings.

 

[Der Alte]

I listened to an interesting talk by Robin Parry on the history of universalism that I'd like to try to summarise. The talk's here:
He focuses on the post-Reformation period and says how amazing it is that universalism seems to have been repeatedly rediscovered over this time. While the universalist genealogies can be traced, what he finds the most interesting feature is just how many people have stumbled onto it for themselves without it having been passed on to them. He gives various reasons for this: some people have personal religious experiences that lead them to universalism; others, simply by reflecting on the Bible, come to believe that it teaches universalism and others find that struggling with the concept of Eternal Conscious Torment (ECT) draws them to the larger hope of universal restoration.
Why is this? Parry believes that part of the answer to this is in the feeling that universalism is a better fit within Christian theology than the alternatives of annihilation or ECT, at least at face value. And as such, there is an internal pressure generated by these doctrines that push in universalist directions. The doctrine of hell is a blocker on that push merely serves to generate a build-up of pressure from unresolved questions that sometimes need to be released. And one of the ways that this can be released is by pushing out the doctrine of ECT, "like a cork from champagne", and embracing universalism.
The idea that we have a God-shaped hole in us is pretty well known. Parry says that Infernalists want us to similarly believe that there is a hell-shaped hole in Christian theology but that this doesn't work quite as well. There is clearly a space for judgment and punishment and so while the hell-shaped hole is not completely out of place, yet something is wrong with it which causes the sense of unease that so many people feel about the idea. That this is the case is indicated not merely by the fact that some people throw the whole idea away but also by the extraordinary lengths those who believe in it go to defend it.
Parry talks about how the salvation story the church tells seems to generate, by its own logic, certain expectations about the end of the story. So while we may well expect that the journey towards the end will involve judgment and punishment, the narrative logic does not lead us to expect it to end in eternal torture for some/many/most of us. He uses a musical analogy to say that that's like a discordant note at the end of a Mozart symphony. We instinctively feel that it doesn’t fit, and indeed that it is rather immoral.
The universalist proposal is that it in fact does not fit, that there is no place in the story for eternal torture. He expounds on how the Bible does not actually teach such a doctrine, that most in the early church never accepted such a doctrine; and that we’d be better off discarding it completely.
He's also worried that by retaining the notion of ECT we do immense damage to the rest of the biblical story. He likens it to trying to force a piece of a puzzle into a gap it doesn't fit and squashing the surrounding pieces. The end result is a distorted picture.
To try to relieve the pressure caused by trying to force this misshapen piece into the jigsaw, we may reconfigure other parts of our theology and say that perhaps God did not create everyone for union with Himself, and perhaps some were created for damnation like the Clavanist Reprobates. Perhaps Jesus doesn't represent humanity but only a subset of it. Perhaps he died only for a few of us and not for all. These ideas do serve to relieve some of the pressure caused by ECT, but they do so at an obviously high cost.
So the main point here in terms of the question of the thread is that universalism has never gone away because it is the most effective antidote to the distortion and stresses caused by the introduction of the foreign body of ECT into the biblical narrative because it rejects it completely. And that people instinctively know that ECT doesn't fit in with the picture of Jesus and so, although they don't in the main learn about universalism from their church, they reinvent it themselves and, in society now, often discover it online too.

I read through this entire rant and the biggest problem I see is this person makes a lot of assertions and claims but I did NOT see even one verse of scripture. Nothing but this guy's unsupported opinion. His final paragraph also without scriptural support.

"universalism has never gone away because it is the most effective antidote to the distortion and stresses caused by the introduction of the foreign body of ECT into the biblical narrative..."
"ECT doesn't fit in with the picture of Jesus and so, although they don't in the main learn about universalism from their church, they reinvent it themselves..."​

Just some uninformed/misinformed person's unsupported opinion. But posted here as if Moses, Himself carried it down from mount Sinai.
Here is indisputable ECT from the King of Kings Himself.

EOB Matthew:25:46 When he will answer them, saying: ‘Amen, I tell you: as much as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 These [ones on the left] will go away into eternal [αἰώνιος/aionios] punishment, [κόλασις/kolasis] but the righteous into eternal [αἰώνιος/aionios] life.”​

Greek has been the language of the Eastern Greek Orthodox church since its inception, 2000 years ago +/-. Note, the native Greek speaking Eastern Orthodox Greek scholars, translators of the EOB, translated “aionios,” in Matt 25:46, as “eternal,” NOT “age.”
Who better than the team of native Greek speaking scholars, translators of the Eastern Greek Orthodox Bible [EOB], quoted below, know the correct meaning of the Greek words in the N.T.?
Link to EOB online:
The New Testament ( The Eastern-Greek Orthodox Bible) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
…..The Greek word “kolasis” occurs only twice in the N.T., 1st occurrence Matt 25:46, above, and the 2nd occurrence 1 John 4:18., below.

EOB 1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear is connected with punishment.[ κόλασις/kolasis] But the one who fears is not yet perfect in love.​

In the EOB the Greek word “kolasis” is translated “punishment” in both Matt 25:46 and 1 John 4:18. Some mis/uninformed folks claim “kolasis” really means “prune” or “correction.” However, that is an etymological fallacy. According to the EOB Greek scholars it means “punishment.”
Note: in 1 John 4:18 there is no correction, the one with “kolasis” is not made perfect. Thus “kolasis” does not/cannot mean “correction.”
…..It is acknowledged that modern Greek differs from koine Greek but I am confident that the Greek speaking EOB scholars, backed by 2000 years +/- of Greek scholarship, are competent enough to know the correct meanings of old words which may have changed in meaning or are no longer used and to translate them correctly. Just as scholars today know the meaning of archaic words which occur in the KJV and translate them correctly.​

 

[Hmm]

There are all sorts of things that cropped up in the early Church that have re-occurred throughout history. See antinomianism for one. Others can include Islam's version of Jesus as found in the Quran.

How many antinomians do you know? It's simply not comparable.

 

[Hmm]

Thanks for sharing! Keep in mind the early church ,RCC, had several exit strategies out of ECT. Purgatory or indulgence. Blessings.

Well, the practice of indulgences is long gone. Universalism is still here. Why is that?

 

[HTacianas]

How many antinomians do you know? It's simply not comparable.

I've stumbled across antinomians here and there over time. There's one who posts here off and on who is of the opinion that if you abstain from sin you are condemned. Reasoning being that anyone who behaves themselves is counting on their own "works" to get into heaven, which contradicts his own tradition.

 

[zippy2006]

None of the heresies go away.

 

[Hmm]

I've stumbled across antinomians here and there over time. There's one who posts here off and on who is of the opinion that if you abstain from sin you are condemned. Reasoning being that anyone who behaves themselves is counting on their own "works" to get into heaven, which contradicts his own tradition.

But would you not agree that it's nowhere near as prevalent as universalism and so can't explain it's popularity, nor it's persistence from the early church to now? I must say, I've never even heard of antinomianism before now.

 

[Handmaid for Jesus]

I've never even heard of antinomianism before now.

There is much I never knew about until I joined CF.

 

[Hmm]

There is much I never knew about until I joined CF.

Your point being...?

 

[Handmaid for Jesus]

Your point being...?

My point is there was many fascets in Christianity that I did not have any idea about until I joined CF. I said that in resonse to your saying you never heard of antinomianism until now. That's all.

 

[zippy2006]

But would you not agree that it's nowhere near as prevalent as universalism and so can't explain it's popularity, nor it's persistence from the early church to now?

It has not been a persistent phenomenon, it is just something that has popped up again, as so often happens with heresies. In technical terms this means that its recurrence is what is referred to as a perennial structuralism vs. genealogy pure and simple (see, for example, Judith Wolfe's question to Cyril O'Regan about whether Heidegger's Marcionism is a structuralist phenomenon or a truly genealogical phenomenon: <link - 35:30>).

And there is nothing mysterious about why Universalism is rearing its head again in our own times. It is because our culture is saturated with the "I'm OK, You're OK" philosophy. Universalism fits perfectly with our own idiosyncratic cultural beliefs. This is a standard case of eisegesis; of reading one's own beliefs into the text or tradition of Christianity; of Christening one's own philosophies and wishful thinking.

 

[Maria Billingsley]

Well, the practice of indulgences is long gone. Universalism is still here. Why is that?

Purgatory is here because the RCC is still here. Purgatory is still the reigning belief and exit strategy used today. Setting that denomination aside, the Universalist merely takes this concept and repackaged it. My take anyway.
Blessings!
"Christian Universalists disagree on whether or not Hell exists. However, they do agree that if it does, the punishment there is corrective and remedial, and does not last forever."

 

[eleos1954]

I listened to an interesting talk by Robin Parry on the history of universalism that I'd like to try to summarise. The talk's here:

He focuses on the post-Reformation period and says how amazing it is that universalism seems to have been repeatedly rediscovered over this time. While the universalist genealogies can be traced, what he finds the most interesting feature is just how many people have stumbled onto it for themselves without it having been passed on to them. He gives various reasons for this: some people have personal religious experiences that lead them to universalism; others, simply by reflecting on the Bible, come to believe that it teaches universalism and others find that struggling with the concept of Eternal Conscious Torment (ECT) draws them to the larger hope of universal restoration.

Why is this? Parry believes that part of the answer to this is in the feeling that universalism is a better fit within Christian theology than the alternatives of annihilation or ECT, at least at face value. And as such, there is an internal pressure generated by these doctrines that push in universalist directions. The doctrine of hell is a blocker on that push merely serves to generate a build-up of pressure from unresolved questions that sometimes need to be released. And one of the ways that this can be released is by pushing out the doctrine of ECT, "like a cork from champagne", and embracing universalism.

The idea that we have a God-shaped hole in us is pretty well known. Parry says that Infernalists want us to similarly believe that there is a hell-shaped hole in Christian theology but that this doesn't work quite as well. There is clearly a space for judgment and punishment and so while the hell-shaped hole is not completely out of place, yet something is wrong with it which causes the sense of unease that so many people feel about the idea. That this is the case is indicated not merely by the fact that some people throw the whole idea away but also by the extraordinary lengths those who believe in it go to defend it.

Parry talks about how the salvation story the church tells seems to generate, by its own logic, certain expectations about the end of the story. So while we may well expect that the journey towards the end will involve judgment and punishment, the narrative logic does not lead us to expect it to end in eternal torture for some/many/most of us. He uses a musical analogy to say that that's like a discordant note at the end of a Mozart symphony. We instinctively feel that it doesn’t fit, and indeed that it is rather immoral.

The universalist proposal is that it in fact does not fit, that there is no place in the story for eternal torture. He expounds on how the Bible does not actually teach such a doctrine, that most in the early church never accepted such a doctrine; and that we’d be better off discarding it completely.

He's also worried that by retaining the notion of ECT we do immense damage to the rest of the biblical story. He likens it to trying to force a piece of a puzzle into a gap it doesn't fit and squashing the surrounding pieces. The end result is a distorted picture.

To try to relieve the pressure caused by trying to force this misshapen piece into the jigsaw, we may reconfigure other parts of our theology and say that perhaps God did not create everyone for union with Himself, and perhaps some were created for damnation like the Clavanist Reprobates. Perhaps Jesus doesn't represent humanity but only a subset of it. Perhaps he died only for a few of us and not for all. These ideas do serve to relieve some of the pressure caused by ECT, but they do so at an obviously high cost.

So the main point here in terms of the question of the thread is that universalism has never gone away because it is the most effective antidote to the distortion and stresses caused by the introduction of the foreign body of ECT into the biblical narrative because it rejects it completely. And that people instinctively know that ECT doesn't fit in with the picture of Jesus and so, although they don't in the main learn about universalism from their church, they reinvent it themselves and, in society now, often discover it online too.

satan has, does and will continue to distort the Word of God .... all will be given over to their beliefs and judged accordingly.

2 Thessalonians 2

10and with every wicked deception directed against those who are perishing, because they refused the love of the truth that would have saved them. 11 For this reason God will send them a powerful delusion so that they believe the lie, 12in order that judgment may come upon all who have disbelieved the truth and delighted in wickedness.…

 

[Bob corrigan]

My point is there was many fascets in Christianity that I did not have any idea about until I joined CF. I said that in resonse to your saying you never heard of antinomianism until now. That's all.

It just amazes me the lack of basic comprehension by those who respond to something posted. It's like you would post that when sitting at a stoplight, the law states your vehicle can proceed forward when the light turns green. Out of this, they somehow come up with an entirely wrong thought and reply, "Why are you trying to run me over?"
The reason that universalism is still taught and believed is that this "teaching" is something that people want to or chose to believe. It's that simple. Just as some people believe in Big Foot or that the earth is flat. Rather than studying all of Scripture on a topic, people follow the false teaching method of only showing "selective verses" to validate what they want to believe and ignore all verses that contradict their private interpretation of Scripture. To those who chose to believe in universalism, the only verses on the subject that matter are the ones they choose to use. Rather than discovering the actual context or word definition of the verses they use, they choose to force their personal context into the text. When you are dealing with this, it doesn't matter what other verses say, they don't allow any room for an honest, open discussion. One of the best ways to determine context is to compare Scripture with Scripture, a method that is never used by those who have determined "what Scripture means to me."
It is best to follow Paul's instructions when dealing with this situation. A "heretic" is one who holds a personal opinion that contradicts Scripture truth.

Titus 3:10, (when dealing with a heretic), A man (person) that is a heretic, after you have tried to admonish (point out the error) him to him once or twice, REJECT." (avoid, shun) Just don't continue in any conversation with these people. It is just like a car stuck in the mud. No matter how much energy is used by pushing the accelerator, the car goes nowhere, no progress is made.

Rom 16:17, "Now I beseech you brethren (believers), mark (observe) them which cause divisions and offenses (that which causes others to stumble) contrary to the doctrine (Scripture truth) which you have learned, and AVOID (turn away from) them.

 

[Hmm]

My point is there was many fascets in Christianity that I did not have any idea about until I joined CF. I said that in resonse to your saying you never heard of antinomianism until now. That's all.

Apologies, I misunderstood you.

 

[Hmm]

Purgatory is here because the RCC is still here. Purgatory is still the reigning belief and exit strategy used today. Setting that denomination aside, the Universalist merely takes this concept and repackaged it.

Well, universalism goes right back to the early church and to Paul so that's not true. Ironically "purgatorial universalism", in which hell is temporary, probably isn't compatible with Catholic purgatory because the Church does teach that hell is eternal. Universalism makes hell and purgatory the same thing, while the Catholic Church says that are different in nature.

"Hopeful universalism", where we may reasonably hope that all will be saved and so hell will be empty, may be compatible though. The trouble with that to me is that it seems slightly odd to say that God only hopes to save all, as if He doesn't yet know whether He will be able to or not. To me, if God intends for all to be saved then that is as much a fact of nature as gravity is.

 

[Handmaid for Jesus]

Apologies, I misunderstood you.

it happens on forums like this. Apology accepted.

 

[Hmm]

It has not been a persistent phenomenon, it is just something that has popped up again, as so often happens with heresies. In technical terms this means that its recurrence is what is referred to as a perennial structuralism vs. genealogy pure and simple (see, for example, Judith Wolfe's question to Cyril O'Regan about whether Heidegger's Marcionism is a structuralist phenomenon or a truly genealogical phenomenon: <link - 35:30>).

If you can post some relevant extracts, I'd be happy to read their views. Or just give a summary of the main points if that's easier.

In the meantime, here's something concrete for you to read: Fr Aiden Kimel on the subject of whether universalism is a heresy or not,

"Over the past three centuries, however, historians have seriously questioned whether these anathemas were officially promulgated by II Constantinople. The council was convened by the Emperor Justinian for the express purpose of condemning the Three Chapters. Justinian does not mention the Origenist debate in his letter announcing the council nor in his letter that was read to the bishops at the formal opening of the council; nor do the acts of the council, as preserved in the Latin translation (the original Greek text having been lost), cite the fifteen anathemas. Hence when church historian Norman P. Tanner edited his collection of the Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils in 1990, he did not include the anti-Origenist denunciations, offering the following explanation: “Our edition does not include the text of the anathemas against Origen since recent studies have shown that these anathemas cannot be attributed to this council.”"