Metropolitan Kallistos, David Bentley Hart, Universalism, and the Church of the East

[Light of the East]

Indeed. I myself feel that embracing universalism due to personal tragedy is the wrong approach; the right thing to do is simply to pray for the deceased, appealing to the infinite mercy of Christ our True God, and seeking the intercession of the Theotokos and all the saints. God is extremely loving.

The reality is that there are some people who really hate God, who really hate Jesus Christ, and who do not want to spend eternity with Him, and God is loving to the point where he will not require that of them, as we have previously discussed.

Neither you nor I have any idea of the soul's response upon being brought into the light of Christ's presence and seeing Him clearly for the first time. In this life, we are deceived, have corrupt natures, suffer the effects of the fall, and are misled by many false teachers who teach us things we either should not know or that bend our hearts away from Christ. We have seen more than one example of people here on earth who are filled with hatred for a certain person or group of people who have, upon getting to know that person or those people, have changed their minds and repented of what they thought and did.

Also, are you saying that it is impossible for God to heal them of their hatred of Him? Did God create mankind foreknowing that the fall would produce this effect without having a plan for the redemption of all things, including those who hate Him most in this life? Sorry, but I'm not buying it, because if He did create mankind in foreknowledge of the fall but without a plan for the healing of even the worst among us, then it means something unthinkable - that just as the Calvinists teach, God predestined billions to an eternity of torment, and it was His will from the beginning.

The problem with universalism is that it represents, at best, a form of monergism in which people are forced into heaven even against their will, and at worse, if we look at the writings of, for example, the Assyrian bishop of Basra in The Book of the Bee, wherein sinners receive “stripes” in Hell before being admitted to Paradise, a scenario in which, if one combines that with earlier models of Apokatastasis such as one sees in Origen and St. Gregory of Nyssa, the horrifying thought of God basically torturing people until they decide they love him, and this is wrong.

Which is weird to hear anyone Orthodox say this because we don't believe this concept of God torturing people. We believe the torments experienced in the next life come from all falsehood being stripped away and our having to face the raw and very painful truth of who we were, what we did, and worst of all, the people we hurt. I had an experience - a very small one - of this many years ago when I was staying at Holy Trinity Monastery. I thought myself a good Christian, but the last night I was there, I was given an experience of seeing myself in truth in regard to how I had treated my deceased wife. I had been very selfish and unloving - not in any physically or mentally abusive sense - but in the way I ignored her as we slowly drifted apart. I deeply realized what I had done, and I will tell you this - the pain of that knowledge was almost unbearable. It felt like a fire in my mind. I spent the night weeping and repenting of how awful I had been. This experience was the harsh and tough answer to my question of whether or not I should be a monastic. The answer was "NO. Now go back home and learn how to love people."

This is what each of us will experience in the next life when we stand before Christ. All our falsehoods will be stripped away and we will see ourselves in the light of His truth. I expect it to be in truth "the dread Judgment Seat of God"

Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, memory eternal, actually provided the best argument against universalism when he asserted the one thing God cannot do is force us to love Him. True love must be voluntary. @ArmyMatt and I recently had a conversation where we found ourselves in blissful agreement on these issues, which was a relief to me, since I look up to @ArmyMatt as being a very good mentor in regards to the specific dogmatic theology of Eastern Orthodoxy.

It is not forcing someone to love Him when the blinders are taken away, the falsehoods removed, and we see Him in all His beauty for the first time in our existence. To love He who is beautiful will be the soul's desire at that point. Who could possibly love sin and hate Christ upon coming into a true experience of Him?

What you have posted is the "free-will theodicy" of hell, the idea that God must respect our will and choice. And yes, most certainly, love cannot be forced. But thanks be to God, that He has the ability to change the focus of our desire without violating our will. He is my personal response to that:


If God had respected my free will, I would still be involved in a panoply of sins so disgusting and heinous that I will not mention them here. Or I would now be long dead and gone from this world. Given the severity of my wickedness and the insanity of my actions, I think probably the latter. Think of the Hippie Movement of the 1960’s and imagine every licentious, dirty, and wicked thing that the Movement promoted. That was me, and that was my “free will choice,” so to speak. I loved the sins of the flesh, I had declared myself an atheist, and I despised Christians. I wanted nothing at all to do with them or their Jesus. That was my free will. Go away God! Go away Christians!

So how did I come to the point of repenting and turning to Christ in sorrow for my sins? Did God overtake and remove my free will, eliciting from me a robotic response of repentance which He desired? Was my will violated in such a manner that I had no choice but to do what I was told?

No, God simply let me run out my string.

There is a saying in the Twelve Steps book of AA which says that you cannot make an addict change until he has hit the bottom and is watching his last bubble of air float to the surface. That is exactly what God did with me, allowing me to, of my own “free will,” hit the bottom and realize that all the “fun” I was having was about to kill me. Far from the sense of carnal excitement I felt when I took my first hit of marijuana, my life had become, in four years of unrestrained hedonism, a joyless tedium racked with sorrow and drug-induced psychosis. I was in deep trouble, and I knew it, filled with suicidal thoughts but dreadfully scared of the black void which my atheism said was the ultimate end of man. Of my own free will, I began an intense search for the garden gate which offered escape from this fool’s paradise into which I had eagerly dashed. No one had to tell me it was get out or die–and no one was coercing me! I had come to the point that I knew it was the only option left for me. Yet even then, I could have chosen to shake my fist at God and die. I took the choice to live and began my search.

The gate out of my individual hell came in the shape of a cross.

Did God in any way violate my free will? Or did He simply allow me to come to a point where the foolishness, the vanity, and the destructiveness of my choices could no longer be ignored, and the joys of unrestrained hedonism were not worth the price I was paying?

This is the answer to an often-heard objection to Apokatastasis: if God saves everyone, it will be against their free-will choice to reject Him, thus making robots out of them. The author shows how all God must do, either here, or in the next life for those who are particularly stubborn or particularly deceived in this life, is to let us experience the consequence of what we have chosen. And as Talbot said, once the mind is cleared of all false visions, deceits, and psychological barricades, only an insane person would choose against his best interest and select eternal torment as his final resting place.

Thomas Talbott has written on this in his book THE INESCAPABLE LOVE OF GOD, and he answers all objections having to do with "free-will theodicy."

 

[Light of the East]

chiastic writing was a Semitic poetic way of writing, common at the time. John wrote revelation where stuff in the beginning parallels stuff in the end, and the focus is in the middle.

so, as an example of many, Revelation 1 has John in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and Revelation 22 has a depiction of the heavenly worship after the second coming. it’s intentionally poetic.

Thank you. I will reread Revelation to see if I can pick up on this.

 

[ArmyMatt]

Thank you. I will reread Revelation to see if I can pick up on this.

it’s how he wrote his Gospel too

 

[The Liturgist]

Neither you nor I have any idea of the soul's response upon being brought into the light of Christ's presence and seeing Him clearly for the first time. In this life, we are deceived, have corrupt natures, suffer the effects of the fall, and are misled by many false teachers who teach us things we either should not know or that bend our hearts away from Christ. We have seen more than one example of people here on earth who are filled with hatred for a certain person or group of people who have, upon getting to know that person or those people, have changed their minds and repented of what they thought and did.

Also, are you saying that it is impossible for God to heal them of their hatred of Him? Did God create mankind foreknowing that the fall would produce this effect without having a plan for the redemption of all things, including those who hate Him most in this life? Sorry, but I'm not buying it, because if He did create mankind in foreknowledge of the fall but without a plan for the healing of even the worst among us, then it means something unthinkable - that just as the Calvinists teach, God predestined billions to an eternity of torment, and it was His will from the beginning.




Which is weird to hear anyone Orthodox say this because we don't believe this concept of God torturing people. We believe the torments experienced in the next life come from all falsehood being stripped away and our having to face the raw and very painful truth of who we were, what we did, and worst of all, the people we hurt. I had an experience - a very small one - of this many years ago when I was staying at Holy Trinity Monastery. I thought myself a good Christian, but the last night I was there, I was given an experience of seeing myself in truth in regard to how I had treated my deceased wife. I had been very selfish and unloving - not in any physically or mentally abusive sense - but in the way I ignored her as we slowly drifted apart. I deeply realized what I had done, and I will tell you this - the pain of that knowledge was almost unbearable. It felt like a fire in my mind. I spent the night weeping and repenting of how awful I had been. This experience was the harsh and tough answer to my question of whether or not I should be a monastic. The answer was "NO. Now go back home and learn how to love people."

This is what each of us will experience in the next life when we stand before Christ. All our falsehoods will be stripped away and we will see ourselves in the light of His truth. I expect it to be in truth "the dread Judgment Seat of God"




It is not forcing someone to love Him when the blinders are taken away, the falsehoods removed, and we see Him in all His beauty for the first time in our existence. To love He who is beautiful will be the soul's desire at that point. Who could possibly love sin and hate Christ upon coming into a true experience of Him?

What you have posted is the "free-will theodicy" of hell, the idea that God must respect our will and choice. And yes, most certainly, love cannot be forced. But thanks be to God, that He has the ability to change the focus of our desire without violating our will. He is my personal response to that:


If God had respected my free will, I would still be involved in a panoply of sins so disgusting and heinous that I will not mention them here. Or I would now be long dead and gone from this world. Given the severity of my wickedness and the insanity of my actions, I think probably the latter. Think of the Hippie Movement of the 1960’s and imagine every licentious, dirty, and wicked thing that the Movement promoted. That was me, and that was my “free will choice,” so to speak. I loved the sins of the flesh, I had declared myself an atheist, and I despised Christians. I wanted nothing at all to do with them or their Jesus. That was my free will. Go away God! Go away Christians!

So how did I come to the point of repenting and turning to Christ in sorrow for my sins? Did God overtake and remove my free will, eliciting from me a robotic response of repentance which He desired? Was my will violated in such a manner that I had no choice but to do what I was told?

No, God simply let me run out my string.

There is a saying in the Twelve Steps book of AA which says that you cannot make an addict change until he has hit the bottom and is watching his last bubble of air float to the surface. That is exactly what God did with me, allowing me to, of my own “free will,” hit the bottom and realize that all the “fun” I was having was about to kill me. Far from the sense of carnal excitement I felt when I took my first hit of marijuana, my life had become, in four years of unrestrained hedonism, a joyless tedium racked with sorrow and drug-induced psychosis. I was in deep trouble, and I knew it, filled with suicidal thoughts but dreadfully scared of the black void which my atheism said was the ultimate end of man. Of my own free will, I began an intense search for the garden gate which offered escape from this fool’s paradise into which I had eagerly dashed. No one had to tell me it was get out or die–and no one was coercing me! I had come to the point that I knew it was the only option left for me. Yet even then, I could have chosen to shake my fist at God and die. I took the choice to live and began my search.

The gate out of my individual hell came in the shape of a cross.

Did God in any way violate my free will? Or did He simply allow me to come to a point where the foolishness, the vanity, and the destructiveness of my choices could no longer be ignored, and the joys of unrestrained hedonism were not worth the price I was paying?

This is the answer to an often-heard objection to Apokatastasis: if God saves everyone, it will be against their free-will choice to reject Him, thus making robots out of them. The author shows how all God must do, either here, or in the next life for those who are particularly stubborn or particularly deceived in this life, is to let us experience the consequence of what we have chosen. And as Talbot said, once the mind is cleared of all false visions, deceits, and psychological barricades, only an insane person would choose against his best interest and select eternal torment as his final resting place.

Thomas Talbott has written on this in his book THE INESCAPABLE LOVE OF GOD, and he answers all objections having to do with "free-will theodicy."

Ultimately, what you are doing is writing an apologetic for monergism, and monergism was rejected, for good reason, at the 5th ecumenical council. The Orthodox Church has always stressed the importance of free will. The theology you are advocating as I have said is more in accord with the views of the Assyrian Church of the East late in the first millenium (although I don’t believe this is reflected in their current theology; I should ask my Assyrian friend Fr. Ephraim).

From the substantial amount of reading I have done on the subject, I strongly urge to you hear out Fr. Army Matt, because from my reading of the Fathers, what he is saying is more in accord with Orthodox beliefs.

Also, I would note, as I did previously, that the other huge problem with Universalism is that if we believe all must be saved, why would we bother to pray for them? If we really care about the salvation of everyone, we should pray for the salvation of all, which I would note we happen to do in the Great Litany at the start of every Divine Liturgy, a litany also used in the Divine Office.

So rather than trying to assert that the Orthodox Church believes something, which, in fact, the majority of Church Fathers and present day Orthodox Christians clearly do not believe (for example, St. John Chrysostom), why not instead pray? Metropolitan Kallistos Ware did assert that we can hope that all may be saved. This is a possibility. The error is to say that as a definitive result, all must be saved.

I would also note that Metropolitan Kallistos once asked a bishop who was greatly knowledgeable about St. Gregory of Nyssa “Since St. Gregory of Nyssa once suggested even the devil might be saved, why is it we never pray for him?” To this, the Greek bishop replied “Mind your own business.” Metropolitan Kallistos regarded this as a good answer, in that the devil is our adversary, and whatever plans God has in mind for the devil are not our concern.

So we should simply pray for the salvation of everyone we are worried about and trust in the mercy of Christ.

This mercy surely extends to Him not forcing people to be with him for all eternity who really do not want to be there, for the Fathers wrote that such persons would experience the consuming fire of God’s love as a torment, and thus even the outer darkness is a mercy. CS Lewis asserted, following in this tradition, that the doors of Hell are locked on the inside. There are some people who really actually dislike God and this is unlikely to change, although God might try to positively influence them.

I cannot comment on your own personal experiences because I am not qualified to do so. However, my suggestion would be that you return to that Orthodox monastery or another, and find a starets, and talk with him about your misgivings about Hell and your thoughts on Universalism, and ask him with humility to help you sort this out.

I don’t want to see anyone damned; my preference would be that everyone is saved, but this is something we have to pray for. I have met very few people who identify as Christian who want people to be damned, and I regard such a lack of charity as being somewhat sinful. Thus I am extremely sympathetic to Universalists, and I believe our loving God is as well. However, we have to work with the tradition we have received, which in the Eastern Orthodox Church is clearly predicated upon free will, as opposed to monergism.

I would also note that unlike Calvinism, which does manage to be compatible with its own interpretation of scripture, one which is not in all respects inconsistent with the scriptural text (except with respect to some of the other ideas that some Calvinists have outside the realm of soteriology, for example, the idea of the regulatory principle of worship, or the idea of sola fide and the rejection of church tradition, which are contrary to scripture), while that form of monergist soteriology can squeak by, it becomes much harder on the basis of Scriptural verses to justify universalism, and it is impossible on the basis of the consensus of Orthodox church fathers.

I am extremely sympathetic towards your position, and please forgive me as it is not my desire to distress you in any way. Rather, my thought is that, on the basis of Orthodox doctrine, it is part of our belief that prayer for the dead is beneficial, and I urge you to do that, because in that manner, that seems to be the best way we can help towards the end of maximum salvation. And we must trust in God; God is infinitely merciful, and he will save as many people as can be saved, which might include everyone; we simply don’t know, but I do believe that God respects our free will and desires not our condemnation but that we may receive everlasting life, for as many people as may be saved, and I have faith that God will achieve this.

 

[The Liturgist]

it’s how he wrote his Gospel too

I find the Gospel of John to be exquisitely beautiful. Of course I love all four canonical Gospels.

 

[ArmyMatt]

I find the Gospel of John to be exquisitely beautiful. Of course I love all four canonical Gospels.

amen!

 

[Euthymios]

When I read your posts, I swear that I get a whiff of recent convert fever, with a dash of fundamentalism.

BTW - St. Paul also said that non-Christians may be saved. (Romans 2: 13-16)

Notice your naturalistic presupposition? If someone is zealous for the faith, then there must be a naturalistic cause behind it, such as being a convert. I reject your hidden assumption that being zealous for the truth and for the faith is something negative. Let's just stay with the facts and not label people. In Romans 2 St. Paul doesn't teach that non-Christians can be saved. He is teaching that people will be judged by their conscience. It is clear from the entire corpus of Paul's writings that belief in Christ and the Gospel is absolutely necessary for salvation. Some biblical passages make inclusivism impossible (see Rom. 10:1-4; 2Thess. 1:6-10). According to Romans 10:9, one must confess "Jesus is Lord" and believe that God has raised him from the dead to be saved. Do you agree with Paul? Yes or no?

One must be more than sincere, he must be right in his belief. The view that sincere non-Christians can attain to salvation comes right out of Vatican II. The New Catholic Catechism in Part One, Section 847, states that non-Catholics who “seek God with a sincere heart” and “try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience,” will “achieve eternal salvation.” This contradicts Orthodoxy.

The Third Council of Constantinople (680) stated: In no other than the orthodox faith could men be saved. Do you agree? Yes or no?

St. John Chrysostom: "We know that salvation itself is a property of the One Church, and that no one can be outside of the catholic Church and yet share the Faith of Christ, or be saved...Neither do we offer any part of that hope to the ungodly heretics, but we place them entirely outside of that hope; indeed, they have not the least participation in Christ, but vainly assume for themselves that saving Name.” (Migne P. G. 59:725).

 

[Euthymios]

Is there a Moderator here? I want to mention that I am constantly seeing the poll for when life begins all over this forum, even though I made my vote twice, but never received the results of the poll to my email (even though they said they would send it).

 

[Euthymios]

When I read your posts, I swear that I get a whiff of recent convert fever, with a dash of fundamentalism.

I have been Orthodox for over thirty years. Fundamentalism is often misunderstood by people who like to use this label. Historically, fundamentalism was conservative Presbyterianism, which arose as a reaction against the rising tides of liberal theology which began to infect the old Princeton seminary.

 

[The Liturgist]

I have been Orthodox for over thirty years. Fundamentalism is often misunderstood by people who like to use this label. Historically, fundamentalism was conservative Presbyterianism, which arose as a reaction against the rising tides of liberal theology which began to infect the old Princeton seminary.

Also conservative Calvinist Baptists used the title.

Just out of curiosity are you an Old Calendarist?

 

[prodromos]

Is there a Moderator here? I want to mention that I am constantly seeing the poll for when life begins all over this forum, even though I made my vote twice, but never received the results of the poll to my email (even though they said they would send it).

If you've voted on a poll, then the current poll count should now be visible at the beginning of the thread. It should only not be visible to people who haven't voted.

I was not aware that there was an option to have an email sent, and I'm not sure how well that would work as you would likely receive a new email message each time somebody else voted and changed the poll counts.

 

[The Liturgist]

Is there a Moderator here? I want to mention that I am constantly seeing the poll for when life begins all over this forum, even though I made my vote twice, but never received the results of the poll to my email (even though they said they would send it).

I would suggest you post a message in the support forum, and failing that contact one of the admins such as my very good friend @tampasteve

 

[tampasteve]

Is there a Moderator here? I want to mention that I am constantly seeing the poll for when life begins all over this forum, even though I made my vote twice, but never received the results of the poll to my email (even though they said they would send it).

I am not sure, go ahead and open a Ticket here and one of our more technical Admins can help: Create ticket in…

 

[tampasteve]

Is there a Moderator here? I want to mention that I am constantly seeing the poll for when life begins all over this forum, even though I made my vote twice, but never received the results of the poll to my email (even though they said they would send it).

We are looking into this, it seems to be some sort of advertisement - it is not a pole sponsored by the website.

 

[The Liturgist]

Thank you very much for helping us @tampasteve

 

[JSRG]

St. John Chrysostom: "We know that salvation itself is a property of the One Church, and that no one can be outside of the catholic Church and yet share the Faith of Christ, or be saved...Neither do we offer any part of that hope to the ungodly heretics, but we place them entirely outside of that hope; indeed, they have not the least participation in Christ, but vainly assume for themselves that saving Name.” (Migne P. G. 59:725).

According to the source being cited (Patrologia Graeca), the work being quoted from is spurious--that is, not actually by John Chrysostom. If one turns to the applicable volume and column of Patrologia Graeca, we see "Spuria" at the top, showing it's put in the spurious section for John Chrysostom.

 

[Euthymios]

According to the source being cited (Patrologia Graeca), the work being quoted from is spurious--that is, not actually by John Chrysostom. If one turns to the applicable volume and column of Patrologia Graeca, we see "Spuria" at the top, showing it's put in the spurious section for John Chrysostom.

Who made this claim? And what evidence do they have for it? Does this claim come from an Orthodox source, or a liberal/Modernist one? I would need to see evidence, rather than assertion that it is spurious. But I can quote a whole host of Fathers.

St. Pope Gregory the Great (540-604 A.D.): "The holy universal Church teaches that it is not possible to worship God truly except in her and asserts that all who are outside her will not be saved." (Moralia, Lib. XIV, Cap. V. n. 5. PL, Tom. LXXV. col. 1043).

St. Fulgence of Ruspe (468-533 A.D.): "Hold most firmly and never doubt in the least that no person baptized outside the Catholic Church can become a participant of eternal life if, before the end of this life, he has not returned and been incorporated into the Catholic Church." (Migne, PL Vo. 65. pp. 671-706).

St. Theodore the Studite: “Guard yourselves from soul-destroying heresy, communion with which is alienation from Christ.”--[P.G. 99.1216.]

 

[ArmyMatt]

I think we should also keep in mind St Varus the martyr, who is invoked for the salvation of those who die outside of the Orthodox faith. plus the experiences of the saints who have shown certain folks who died in sin or outside of the Church, who are revealed to be in paradise.

 

[The Liturgist]

Who made this claim? And what evidence do they have for it? Does this claim come from an Orthodox source, or a liberal/Modernist one? I would need to see evidence, rather than assertion that it is spurious. But I can quote a whole host of Fathers.

As stated, the claim was made by the editors of Patrologia Graeca, which was the work of multiple scholars in the 19th century.

I would also note that it would be logically fallacious to discount it based on whether or not the editors were Orthodox. I have seen some arguments against the scholarship of Sebastian Brock on St. Isaac the Syrian which basically consist of just that argument, that he must be wrong because he is not Orthodox (which actually, I am not certain of; I don’t know what his religious affiliations are), but ultimately what matters is the truth of the statement. Thus when it comes to ascertaining whether or not something is spurious or not, what matters is how the editors of the Patrologia Graeca came to that opinion, and not their religious affiliation. One can be liberal or modernist and still tell the truth, while conversely traditional Orthodox Christians such as ourselves are not immune from error.

 

[ArmyMatt]

I should add this in no way contradicts the fact that salvation is only through the Orthodox Church, but rather the limitation on needing to be in the Orthodox Church is on man, not God. God is free to save whomever He wills for whatever purpose He wills.