Christian Universalism. What's not to like?

Saint Steven · Dec 26, 2021

Irkle Berserkle said:
Whatever the biblical teachings actually mean, and whatever those eternal consequences actually are, I trust we will see that the fate of the unsaved is worthy of the God in whom we believe.

So you believe in hell, but you don't know what the hell it is? How ironic.

Hmm · Dec 26, 2021

Irkle Berserkle said:
But I'll bow out because my position is admittedly completely intractable and I really have no interest in what universalists have to say because I'm pretty well steeped in the theological literature

Ah yes, if your cup is already full then you may as well.

Hillsage · Dec 26, 2021

Irkle Berserkle said:
No, no, no. The forum I just left, which wasn't predominantly even a Christian forum, got so tired of the universalist proselytizing that they relegated any and all discussion to a single thread. It had something like 20,000 posts last time I looked. The handful of universalists posted every day, day after day, saying the same things over and over and doing their best to shout down any disagreement. They weren't nasty, but they were one-dimensional fanatics.

Granted, CF may attract a higher level of universalist. Saint Steven, God bless him, isn't inspiring confidence. But I'll bow out because my position is admittedly completely intractable and I really have no interest in what universalists have to say because I'm pretty well steeped in the theological literature.

13 years ago I got kicked off the only "Christiain" forum I'd ever been on, after 3+ (?) years. They got tired of THEIR Orthodox 'Eternal Hell gurus' having trouble dismissing my debates, compared to those before me. I got KICKED out on a trumped up violation which THEIR side did to me routinely IMO. But after coming here, I HAVE NEVER REPORTED ANYONE 'HERE' for any violations let alone those which I have received. And in the last 13 years, how many of 'those infractions' are there, to my account? I think they all fit on 1 hand, but for sure 2.

I so appreciate the fact that this, "Christian forums", has extended the grace for our side to survive.

Hmm · Dec 26, 2021

Hillsage said:
I so appreciate the fact that this forum has extended the grace for our side to survive.

I didn't realise until the recent threads on Christian universalism just how much the idea of universal restoration is hated (by a vocal few) so I agree, all credit to this site for allowing the discussion to take place.

Hillsage · Dec 26, 2021

Hmm said:
I didn't realise until the recent threads on Christian universalism just how much the idea of universal restoration is hated (by a vocal few) so I agree, all credit to this site for allowing the discussion to take place.

Yep, the SPIRIT OF FEAR is palpable. Question is, who's really spiritual and who's just religiously indoctrinated? I, like Job, will trust in the work of "HIS HANDS".

JOB 14:14 If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my service I would wait, till my release should come. 15 Thou wouldest call, and I would answer thee; thou wouldest long for the work of thy hands.

And my bible says; ALL WILL CONFESS TO THE GLORY OF GOD THAT JESUS IS LORD. :amen:

AND AGAIN I SAY :amen:

Der Alte · Dec 26, 2021

Hillsage said:
* * *

Hillsage said:
Yep, the SPIRIT OF FEAR is palpable. Question is, who's really spiritual and who's just religiously indoctrinated? I, like Job, will trust in the work of "HIS HANDS".
JOB 14:14 If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my service I would wait, till my release should come. 15 Thou wouldest call, and I would answer thee; thou wouldest long for the work of thy hands.
And my bible says; ALL WILL CONFESS TO THE GLORY OF GOD THAT JESUS IS LORD.

John 9:4 I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
Psalms 88:10-11
10 Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? shall the dead arise and praise thee? Selah.
11 Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in destruction?
Ecclesiastes 9:10 Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.
Isaiah 38:18 For the grave cannot praise thee, death can not celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.
1Thessalonians 4:13
(13) But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.
Ephesians 2:12
(12) That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:
Ecclesiastes 9:5 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.
Isaiah 26:14 They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish.
Psalms 6:5 For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?
JPS Prov 24:20
(20) For there will be no future to the evil man, the lamp of the wicked shall be put out.
Psalms 115:17
17 The dead praise not the LORD, neither any that go down into silence.

Saint Steven · Dec 26, 2021

Hmm said:
Ah yes, if your cup is already full then you may as well.

Maybe that's why the church has a steeple.
Everyone inside is "steeped in the theological literature."

Gone... like a hot air balloon.

Saint Steven · Dec 26, 2021

Hillsage said:
And my bible says; ALL WILL CONFESS TO THE GLORY OF GOD THAT JESUS IS LORD. AND AGAIN I SAY

Yup. In heaven, on earth and under the earth. (in the realm of the dead) Philippians 2:10

Romans 14:9
For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.

Saint Steven · Dec 26, 2021

Irkle Berserkle said:
The handful of universalists posted every day, day after day, saying the same things over and over and doing their best to shout down any disagreement. They weren't nasty, but they were one-dimensional fanatics.

That saw cuts both ways. Same thing could be said about Damnationists.

Der Alte · Dec 26, 2021

Irkle Berserkle said:
Come on, Saint Steven, I've been to a few rodeos before. Universalists are a breed of fanatic that Flat Earthers would envy for their zealotry. I know all the verses that universalists love to pull out of context and fling in my face, blithely ignoring not only the context but the vast number of other verses that are diametrically opposed, not to mention what 99.99% of all Christians have believed and taught for 2000 years. It's the universalists who must do the tap-dancing and explaining away, in spades.
You know as well I do how 1 Corinthians 15:22 is analyzed by mainstream NT scholars.
I'm going to disappoint you by declining to play your game because it's a bottomless rabbit hole of proof-texting nonsense. Believe and promote universalism if you like, but I believe you are doing a disservice to Christianity and skating on very dangerous ice.

You have definitely identified one of the Universal Reconciliation [UR] favorite gotcha verses.
My view is all mankind is inherently "in Adam" because all mankind are literal descendants of Adam.
But all mankind are not inherently "in Christ." That requires a conscious, voluntary action by each person, in this lifetime. No provision for after death.
Our friends over there rather than understanding that the person must be "in Christ" to be made alive, they make the verse say "all will be made alive in Christ." The process of being made alive results in the person being "in Christ."
But that isn't the way the ECF understood it.

Irenaeus Against Heresies. Book V Chap. XII
3.This same, therefore, was what the Lord came to quicken, that as in Adam we do all die, as being of an animal nature, in Christ we may all live, as being spiritual, not laying aside God’s handiwork, but the lusts of the flesh, and receiving the Holy Spirit; as the apostle says in the Epistle to the Colossians: “Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth.”

Tertullian The Five Books Against Marcion. Book V Chap IX
But if we are all so made alive in Christ, as we die in Adam, it follows of necessity that we are made alive in Christ as a bodily substance, since we died in Adam as a bodily substance. The similarity, indeed, is not complete, unless our revival 209 in Christ concur in identity of substance with our mortality210 in Adam.

Tertullian The Five Books Against Marcion VI. On the Resurrection of the Flesh. Chap. XLVIII
For if “as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive,” (1Co_15:22) their vivification in Christ must be in the flesh, since it is in the flesh that arises their death in Adam. “But every man in his own order,” (1Co_15:23) because of course it will be also every man in his own body.

Shrewd Manager · Dec 26, 2021

Irkle Berserkle said:
Universalists are a breed of fanatic that Flat Earthers would envy for their zealotry.

Thank you, I can confirm that universalist flat earthers are indeed zealots...for God's own Truth (next we could be denying the pestilence that stalks by night - shock!). If you find any trustworthy scriptural or empirical evidence to support your eternal tortures and your gyrating spaceballs (oh, and your 29k nt consensus sequences), do feel free to enlighten me.

Free, as in freed from the prison of worldly folly, self-delusion and satanic deceit by Jesus Christ, who has the keys and holds the 7 stars. Just look to Christ and be saved, it doesn't require a masters degree, just a heart and a vague notion of your own sin.

Shrewd Manager · Dec 26, 2021

Saint Steven said:
That saw cuts both ways. Same thing could be said about Damnationists.

Today's damnationist doesn't even have a clue as to where heaven and hell are located. They have to reconcile their relativistic material cosmology of near-infinite dimensions with a hierarchical invisible spiritual realm in which place and direction are critical.

God's the great trickster to these guys, man's been set adrift in the metaverse of bad 90s graphics sims. No wonder the modern church is such a clown show.

And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left—and much livestock? (Jon 4:11)

Ceallaigh · Dec 26, 2021

Fervent said:
You truly are the king of fallacious arguments. No shame in employing such a blatant strawman coupled with an ad hominem, huh? No one said they imagined something

You did. That's why I started using the term. Apparently that embarrassed you. Sorry.

Fervent said:
but that they had developed an interpretation that Jesus does not repudiate but instead heightened. Jesus actually had a great deal of theological agreement with the Pharisee's, so to try to highlight that Jesus corrected them at points is extraneous to the question at hand because he did not offer any sort of correction to their views on hell instead heightening them.

The idea that Jesus was actually in a great deal of theological agreement with the Pharisee's regarding their unscriptural teachings, is news to me.

Fervent · Dec 26, 2021

MMXX said:
You did. That's why I started using the term. Apparently that embarrassed you. Sorry.

Not in the way you used it, which is why your distortion is a blatant strawman.

MMXX said:
The idea that Jesus was actually in a great deal of theological agreement with the Pharisee's regarding their unscriptural teachings, is news to me.

Care to actually cite somewhere where he offered anything that hints at correction of their view of hell?

Ceallaigh · Dec 27, 2021

Fervent said:
Not in the way you used it, which is why your distortion is a blatant strawman.

Or it could just be more of you frequently being misread and misunderstood.

Fervent said:
Care to actually cite somewhere where he offered anything that hints at correction of their view of hell?

It seems that Der Alte's conclusion, which you're following, is that if Jesus didn't correct a view the Pharisees imagined or developed, outside of scripture, those views must have been correct. Basically silence equals consent or confirmation. Is that what you guys are asserting?

Fervent · Dec 27, 2021

MMXX said:
Or it could just be more of you frequently being misread and misunderstood.

Given your track record it seems more likely an intentional distortion, especially since the difference between them imagining what hell must be like is a far cry from them imagining the existence of hell to begin with. If you couldn't deduce that imagined was used to describe the first case, then it's a comprehension issue on your end. But as I said, given your track record intentional distortion seems more likely.

MMXX said:
It seems that Der Alte's conclusion, which you're following, is that if Jesus didn't correct a view the Pharisees imagined or developed, outside of scripture, those views must have been correct. Basically silence equals consent or confirmation. Is that what you guys are asserting?

No, it is that when Jesus speaks in a way that seems to confirm the Pharisee's theological positions and even intensifies the conclusions it would take direct contradiction to say he was opposed to it. It's not simply that he is silent, but that he spoke on hell extensively and never once attempted to correct the most reasonable contextual interpretation given their theological deductions. Jesus wasn't simply silent on hell, which is why PH tried to find an out by saying Jesus was simply addressing a pre-existing context. So to now try to pretend Jesus was silent on the matter is either disingenuous on your part or completely ignoring the thread that opened this discussion.

John Mullally · Dec 27, 2021

Saint Steven said:
I'll ask again then, since you are dodging my questions.
Did Jesus die to save you from God?

My understanding is that when Adam ate from the "Tree of the knowledge of Good & Evil", men were subject to that knowledge - which they are not equipped to handle without participating in evil. This initial and recurring sin subjects man to judgement (Spiritual death). Although Jesus paid the ransom (1 Timothy 2:6), it must be received by faith. Those receiving Jesus (i.e. termed by Paul the faithful in Christ Jesus below), are predetermined to receive the blessing of Ephesians 1:1-6.

Ephesians 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and faithful in Christ Jesus: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.

Probably not saying anything anyone here has not heard in some similar form before.

Ceallaigh · Dec 27, 2021

Fervent said:
No, it is that when Jesus speaks in a way that seems to confirm the Pharisee's theological positions and even intensifies the conclusions it would take direct contradiction to say he was opposed to it. It's not simply that he is silent, but that he spoke on hell extensively and never once attempted to correct the most reasonable contextual interpretation given their theological deductions. Jesus wasn't simply silent on hell, which is why PH tried to find an out by saying Jesus was simply addressing a pre-existing context. So to now try to pretend Jesus was silent on the matter is either disingenuous on your part or completely ignoring the thread that opened this discussion.

You, repeating Der Alte, asked why didn't Jesus correct them on their view of hell if it was incorrect. Meaning as I see it, since he didn't correct them on it, he must therefore be in agreement with it.

Although I'm not entirely sure what view the Pharisees held at that time. I know Der Alte has a difficult to decipher wall of text, I pointed out several problems with, that supposedly details what the Pharisees in around 30 AD believed. But do you yourself have any evidence of what they believed? And if so can you please present it in a clear concise comprehensive manner?

Fervent · Dec 27, 2021

MMXX said:
There's quite a long record of you either telling people things like they must have a reading comprehension problem, to you accusing them of distorting what you said, to people telling you they don't understand what you're saying.

"telling people?" How many people? From my recollection it has only been you and Hmm that I've questioned your comprehension ability, and in both cases it is built on misunderstandings that are so far off th mark that they either have to be intentional or there is an underlying issue. And I'm not the only one that is routinely being strawmanned by the vocal UR crowd as I have seen at least 5 others have their arguments entirely distorted in order to be attacked by the regular contributors to this thread. Your sophistry is quite tiring.

MMXX said:
No I'm not pretending or any of your several other conspiracy theory accusations. You, repeating Der Alte, asked why didn't Jusus correct them on their view of hell if it was incorrect. Meaning as I see it, since he didn't correct them on it, he must therefore be in agreement with it.

Although I'm not entirely sure what view the Pharasees held at that time. I know Der Alte has a difficult to deciper wall of text, I pointed out several problems with, that supposedly details what the Phaasees in around 30 AD believed. But do you yourself have any evidence of what they believed? And if so can you please present it in a clear concise comprehensive way?

The quote that I responded to was attempting to argue that Jesus' hell-language that confirms a pre-existing belief among the Jews that he was speaking with was merely Jesus addressing things in a contextually sensitive manner. So my response was that Jesus responding in a contextual way in which the indication is that the theological underpinnings about hell are correct implies that Jesus was affirming their beliefs, especially since there is no point at which He seems to attempt to correct potential misconception. The evidence of the belief is internal to the text, external confirmation isn't really necessary because Jesus' words don't make sense without a previous theological ground. So now trying to re-tread the argument misses the thread which my initial post responded to.

Ceallaigh · Dec 27, 2021

Fervent said:
The quote that I responded to was attempting to argue that Jesus' hell-language that confirms a pre-existing belief among the Jews that he was speaking with was merely Jesus addressing things in a contextually sensitive manner. So my response was that Jesus responding in a contextual way in which the indication is that the theological underpinnings about hell are correct implies that Jesus was affirming their beliefs, especially since there is no point at which He seems to attempt to correct potential misconception. The evidence of the belief is internal to the text, external confirmation isn't really necessary because Jesus' words don't make sense without a previous theological ground. So now trying to re-tread the argument misses the thread which my initial post responded to.

Could you please cite in a clear concise comprehensive manner what the Pharisees of 30 AD believed and taught regarding hell, so that it can be compared to what Jesus said, in order to examine the theory?

Christian Universalism. What's not to like?

You can call me Steve

Hey, I'm just this guy, you know

One 4 Him & Him 4 all

Hey, I'm just this guy, you know

One 4 Him & Him 4 all

This is me about 1 yr. old.

You can call me Steve

You can call me Steve

You can call me Steve

This is me about 1 yr. old.

Through him, in all things, more than conquerors.

Through him, in all things, more than conquerors.

May God be with you and bless you.

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May God be with you and bless you.

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May God be with you and bless you.

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May God be with you and bless you.

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