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Jeff, we are still waiting for you to inform us about what you consider to be the "true" gospel. The unpopular one that doesn't tickle ears. - lol
Jeff likes to carry on about UR being a false gospel. But as I understand it, it isn't a gospel at all. It is rather a position on the final judgment and God's ultimate plans to restore all of creation. The gospel is STILL the gospel. We haven't messed with it.Yes, Jeff - have you ever considered that the masses of folks outside the Church are there because said Church has no destination for them except...Hell?
Given that supposed fate for most of humanity, an attitude of eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die, and then go to Hell...is understandable.
Good point.Yes, Jeff - have you ever considered that the masses of folks outside the Church are there because said Church has no destination for them except...Hell?
Given that supposed fate for most of humanity, an attitude of eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die, and then go to Hell...is understandable.
How would you rate your level of agreement with Dave?I'm called "Calvinist" because I agree with his soteriology even though I part ways with him on sacramentology & ecclesiology (esp. in the area of church discipline).
I am impressed at the amount of research you did in such a short time. I do admit this is a long post to try to deal with. I am still researching your many embedded URLs and multiple rabbit trails contained in them. I do admit that I am disagreeing with some of your conclusions. I truly wonder if part of that is simply the 'bias' or 'doctrinal bent' you may have compared to mine.Okay, so looking into it further, it seems that the original claim for the six alleged schools and their opinions comes from "History of opinions on the scriptural doctrine of retribution" by Edward Beecher; his discussion of it begins on chapter 22. One may view it here.
Having read through Beecher's arguments concerning the schools, while he does have some valid points to make, I also see serious problems with the argument. Essentially, its major basis amounts to "this theologian taught this and was really esteemed by these schools, so said schools agreed with them on it." Alexandria and Caesarea are stated to be universalists due to esteeming Origen. Antioch and Edessa are stated to be universalists due to having great affection for Theodore of Mopsuestia. Irenaeus is cited for Ephesus because he taught conditionalism, and Tertullian/Augustine for Carthage/Rome.
There are three problems I see with this. First, however revered a particular teacher was, this does not mean their "school" in general agreed with every point of doctrine. Not counting the writers of the Bible itself, Augustine was perhaps the single most influential theologian on the Catholic Church (the only other contender for that title is Aquinas), but not all of his ideas were fully accepted by it.
Beecher himself admits and points to several in those schools influenced by Theodore that rejected universalism. And I should note that John Chrysostom, who I will return to again later, was no believer in the doctrine and exerted considerable influence on Eastern churches. So this argument of "this highly esteemed teacher believed this, so the schools they were part of or influenced believed it" comes up wanting for me.
The second is that such individuals can only be counted as representative of their own time. What about before them? What about after them? Irenaeus (who we'll get to), for example, wrote in the last second century. What about Ephesus at other times?
Third is the question of whether these individuals had the beliefs that are ascribed to them. Theodore of Mospuestia I have often seen considered a universalist, even by those who are not universalist. But I am not sure if the evidence for this is actually that strong. It appears, at least in the arguments I have seen, to primarily rest on two points. The first is his writings, but the only writing I see cited that is unambiguously universalist is a quote attributed to him in "The Book of the Bee" (page 140) which was written 800 years later and thus a tenuous witness. Again, perhaps there is more, but I can only go by what I see people cite. The other is to claim there are universalist statements in the liturgies of his churches and their successors, but this post on this very forum from someone familiar with the applicable churches says the claim is in error and comes from misunderstanding of the liturgy by outsiders.
Continuing on the question of whether the leaders believed what was ascribed to him, we turn to Irenaeus, presented as a believer in annihilationism/conditionalism. The chief prooftext for this is Book 2, Chapter 34, specifically the statement "And, for this reason, the Lord declared to those who showed themselves ungrateful towards Him: “If you have not been faithful in that which is little, who will give you that which is great?” indicating that those who, in this brief temporal life, have shown themselves ungrateful to Him who bestowed it, shall justly not receive from Him length of days for ever and ever." This is cited as proof of Irenaeus's annihilationism.
However, that is assuming that is exactly what Irenaeus said. There is a problem with Irenaeus: Most of Against Heresies exists to us only in a Latin translation, and a poor one at that (see here, which says the translation is of "the most barbarous character"). In cases like this, where whether it's an endorsing of something or not depends on the turn of a few words, I am hesitant to take much from it for fear it's the result of the translation being muddled. For the record, I for the same reason am very hesitant of trusting the quotes given in this topic from Irenaeus apparently affirming eternal damnation from Against Heresies, as those too fall under the question of how well it was translated.
This also brings up the question of, even if they did believe in such things, how influential those ideas of them were. Irenaeus, even if an annihilationist, hardly seems to have discussed it much. A highly influential theologian is far more influential in the areas they wrote much about, not things they made offhand references to a few times.
Still, that is concerning annihilationism, not universalism. We then come to Origen, and while his universalism seems quite clear (even if it is debated how far he went in those beliefs), we again come to the earlier problems in ascribing his views on one particular doctrine to the schools he is claimed to have influenced.
To be fair, later on Beecher does start discussing other teachers in Chapter 29. However, his arguments here mostly amount to "they didn't criticize universalism, so they must have believed in it." That seems weak. But further, this is assuming he is portraying them accurately. I see one case where he is not doing so.
In Chapter 30, he begins with John Chrysostom. He says Chrysostom mentions universalism a few times without criticizing it, and therefore believed in it. For example, he cites Chrysostom's commentary on 1 Corinthians 15:38 (I assume he means 15:28, as a different posting of the work has) and says that Chrysostom "simply says that the doctrine of universal restoration has been inferred from that passage, makes a striking statement of the result, and says nothing to refute the opinion." But having examined Chrysostom's exposition of it here (Homily #39), I do not see what it is talking about. Granted, Chrysostom writes a bunch about that verse in dry language so I could have missed it in all of the text, but I didn't see it.
But the bigger problem is that Beecher completely skips over a writing of Chrysostom that proves, no doubt, that he was not a universalist. Please examine Homily #9 of the same epistle. Chrysostom is as blunt as can be: "This is no small subject of enquiry which we propose, but rather about things which are of the first necessity and which all men enquire about; namely, whether hell fire have any end. For that it has no end Christ indeed declared when he said, “Their fire shall not be quenched, and their worm shall not die.”" His statements immediately after that one reinforce his rejection of universalism further. This therefore leaves me with a question: If Beecher is this astoundingly inaccurate regarding Chrysostom, who was as clear as could be considering his rejection of universalism, how accurate am I to trust him in representing others?
To be fair, Beecher does seem to indicate Chrysostom preached eternal punishment: "Elsewhere Neander says that in his [Chrysostom's] field of labor he felt that the doctrine of eternal punishment was necessary to alarm the worldly and deter them from sin, and so he preached it to the multitude (“Ch. History,” vol. ii., p. 676, Torrey’s translation)." Two problems. First, the citation is inaccurate. Page 676 of Volume 2 is found right here, and it's the Torrey translation for the record. Nothing about Chrysostom is there. Maybe he got the page number wrong, but Chrysostom is mentioned more than 200 times in the book and I'm not going to search for it. In any event, when one sees a passage as clear as the above from Chrysostom, one needs more than this kind of speculation to argue he believed in universalism. By this logic, I must as well argue that any early Christians who believed in universalism didn't actually believe in it, but preached it to make people feel better!
All that said, while I believe Beecher overstates his case regarding how much universalism was believed in (at least in regards to his "six schools" argument), his arguments that belief in universalism did not seem to be considered a problem (and something reasonable people could disagree about) in the early church were much stronger. One explanation for this could be, however, that universalism was far down the ladder on things to have disputes about. Things like Marcionism and Arianism were much bigger fish to fry, and compared to them, universalism vs. annihilationism vs. damnation was an intellectual curiosity. Only once these much more critical doctrines were settled did something like universalism become something to be critically examined.
THEREFORE, the conclusion of this long, rambling post is that, if Beecher is the source for the argument regarding the different schools, I have to confess I believe he comes up short in his argument. It simply relies too much on claiming a particular influential person believed in the doctrine and that therefore it must have been thought of highly in the areas they influenced (assuming the instances of claimed influence are as grand as was claimed by Beecher), plus a bunch of speculation on his part. One can take his points and put forward an argument that in the early centuries universalism wasn't looked down upon, but as an argument of the predominance of universalism, I feel it--at least in the form of the six schools argument--comes up short.
What do you mean about "the original if available" that "nowadays always is"?You just need to read the bible! In the original if available---and nowadays always is---but not a must.
What do you mean about "the original if available" that "nowadays always is"?
The bible pretty much explains itself. You put all the verses that mention one word together---whatever you are researching ---and read them and you get to figure out pretty much what it means.
Eternal Death----WHAT?!!!
What a concept; Eternal death; Wow! Death that just keeps going on and on and on without end. Infinite death. Now THAT'S crediting death with a lot of power, especially considering that scripture credits Jesus with destroying him who has the power of death, and that death, the last enemy shall be destroyed. I think it was while reading a study Bible with notes by Dr. Charles Ryrie---a very respected scholar at least within the Dispensationalist wing of western Evangelicalism---when I first ran across the notion that, while all men, without Christ, are dead in trespasses and sins, that state of death becomes eternal when they die without receiving Christ as Lord and Savior. This was given as the meaning of the second death in Revelation.
Think about that: Imagine that scenario. Death existing along with life for all eternity.
Though Paul saw the Day when God will become all in all, it seems -- according to the above theory -- that there's going to be another all where not only will God not be all, but His arch enemy, death, will have its own kingdom where it will reign forever. They're not talking about death as annihilation, they're talking about an eternal state of anti-life existence without love, without grace, without mercy, abandoned by God to eternal darkness.
Stand this nonsense up against Jesus' claim that He is making ALL THINGS NEW.
The re-making of all things new is by His resurrection life. THAT life, not death, goes on and on and on eternally. It's life that goes on and on, not death. To understand the operation of death, as opposed to life, our focus must be upon Jesus' experience of death, whose death is inclusive of all death. Yes, that's what the Bible clearly teaches. Christ died for all, the just for the unjust that He might bring us to God. Possibly the most important verse in the Bible for explaining how Christ's death relates to all mankind's death, is found in 2 Cor. 5:14. Nearly every translation that I'm familiar with renders this verse with greater clarity than the KJV.
This is Paul's explanation from the Amplified Version of how Christ's death relates to all mankind's death: "For the love of Christ controls and urges and impels us, because we are of the opinion and conviction that [if] One died for all, then all died." That's what it means that Christ died for us all. We needed to die, finally, once for all; no more dying, so the death of all the generations past, present and future met its destiny in Christ, and death finally, fully died. You see, life is lived, and death is died. "For in that He died, he died unto sin once; but in that He lives, He lives unto God (Rom. 6:10)."
The destiny of death is not to go on and on eternally.
The destiny of death is to die, finally. God's warning to Adam and Eve, in the original Hebrew was, ".....dying, thou shalt surely die." Get that. Not dying, thou shalt continue to die without end; "dying, thou shalt surely DIE." Death doesn't terminate life. Life terminates death. "Death is swallowed up of life," through Christ's resurrection. The Source of death's finality is the same as the Source of life's continuance: Jesus Christ our Lord, crucified, buried and risen.
As I recall--not having it with me at the time of this writing---the NAS translation of Rom. 6:10, makes very clear how death and life work, and Jonathan Mitchell includes it as an alternate rendering. From the NAS: "For the death He died, He died to sin once; but the life He lives, He lives unto God." Ah! There it is. ..."the death He died, He died....but life He lives, He lives..." Death is died; life is lived. Jesus gathered together all death into His death, and now lives, and " It's not that He merely lived; HE LIVES, and we live in and with Him. As the lyrics go to that beautiful gospel hymn, Because He Lives: "Because He lives, I can face tomorrow; because He lives, all fear is gone. Because I know He holds the future, and life is worth the living just because He lives."
As death came through one man, spreading to all men, so death has come to its end in One Man. According to Paul in Colossians, all mankind shall be gathered together in Christ, for He sums up in Himself all humanity, as He is the fullness of the Godhead bodily. To extol the power of death, as does much of pseudo-orthodox Christianity, is an affront to the power of Christ's resurrection. The effect is the same as saying to our Lord, "yes, You live forever, but death is your equal match. It has the same power as your life." -John Gavazzoni-
This is silly---all it is, is life ceases to exist---no life.
“The current Evangelical Theology involves in its system belief in the deathlessness of sin, the indestructibility of error, and permanence of evil. That though there was a time in the history of the universe when sin in any shape or form did not exist, when no cry of pain or sense of guilt darkened the all-extensive bliss and holiness of creation, yet since sin has once effected an entrance into such a scene, it has come in never to go out again, indestructible, unconquerable, ineradicable, endless. Absolute happiness and sinlessness have forever vanished like the phantom of a dream. The ‘eternal state’ is a universe endlessly finding room for myriads of souls rolling and writhing in the burning agonies of ceaseless flame, eternally sinful, vile and morally hideous. It pictures the ‘final perfection’ yet to be attained as having room for a vast cesspool of immoral and degraded beings, continually existing in opposition to God.” –Vladamir Gelesnoff-
The whole (the ktisis) of created life shall be delivered...
Well, honestly, I mostly read through Beecher's assertions and tried to check up on some of the parts most relevant to the six schools.Thanks for all this detailed research. Wow.
Would you agree that your findings prove that Universalism is not a modern invention but has its roots in the early church? (and even in the NT church) I think that is the main point here.
Mostly I was trying to figure out what the basis for the six schools claim was. I've seen the Encyclopedia article cited, but I couldn't figure out where it got the idea, and searching only showed people to be using the same citation without any indication as to where it got the idea. That's why I asked, I was in the process of looking for information, and this thread by pure coincidence was active and had it mentioned, so I opted to drop in and ask if anyone knew about it.I am impressed at the amount of research you did in such a short time. I do admit this is a long post to try to deal with. I am still researching your many embedded URLs and multiple rabbit trails contained in them. I do admit that I am disagreeing with some of your conclusions. I truly wonder if part of that is simply the 'bias' or 'doctrinal bent' you may have compared to mine.
What a load of horse manure!!! Why do you wallow in the opinions of men? They have nothing to say of any value. God will wipe out all sin, all unrepentant sinners will cease to exist, Satan and his angels will cease to exist. The lake of fire will end and nothing but ashes will remain and God will remake the whole earth again---free from any pain, sorrow, death, or tears.
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