There should be no disagreement that God may be said to be characterized by one superintending principle: perfection. many attributes are found in God--mercy, love, justice, compassionate, forgiving, etc.--but if He lacks perfection in these or any facet of His essence, He must ultimately fall from being God to being at best, a god....or no god at all.
Informed by God that He was going to Sodom to investigate and, if necessary, destroy the evil city, Abraham quickly struck up a conversation with his Creatorhis nephew Lot and family were there, and Abraham, knowing God's intention for Sodom, was deeply concerned about his kin living there. He began with what we recognize to be his famous conversation with God in Gen 18 by asking in v. 23, .Wilt Thou indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?
Beginning here and running to the end of this chapter, God establishes a principle so fundamentally and harmoniously woven into both testaments of the Bible, its hard to see how the organized church has missed its significance. This principle, what I see as a kind of spiritual essentialism (which the rationally esoteric view of the salvation of all is founded on) is elaborated in vv. 24-25:
"Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; wilt Thou indeed sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from Thee to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from Thee! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?"
Abraham goes on to negotiate the number by which God will spare the whole, to 45, 30, 20 and finally, 10. The significance of this exchange should not be missed. There are two similar but equally important points here:
1) a logical difficulty exists here for annihilationists and eternal tormentists--because all goods proceed from truth, and God is pure, perfect Truth. For Him to destroy or eternally separate literally any good from His creation is a logical impossibility. Corresponding to this, of course, is the fact that all His pronouncement of wrath and destruction in the Bible is only ever toward evil, never good.
2) Abraham elaborated the truth that to destroy good would violate the fundamental perfection of God when he said, "Far be it from Thee to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from Thee! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?"
Resolution of the False Doctrine of Eternal Destruction/Separation/Torment in Hell of the Individual
It may be reasonably argued that there exists in every human being, even the most evil human, some degree of good. This is figuratively implied in the exchange between Abraham and God on the road to Sodom. Further, experience shows us that even the most hardened human minds have the capacity to express certain dispositions we immediately recognize to be good: love, forgiveness, empathy, etc. Thus for God to separate or annihilate a whole human being (body, soul and spirit) would be to perform a violation of His perfection, not only in the destruction of good per se, but in that doing so profanes the perfection of justice as He then destroys or condemns to torture and/or separation a being in whom some good exists and therefore is not 100% deserving of eternal punishment.
These infractions of logic are laid to rest in the view that the literal teachings and principle truths of Scripture are primarily elements used by God to produce a 'bigger picture'. William James used the analogy of paints on canvas as so much saleable material spread in certain ways, from which a greater, spiritual thing arises, the picture which exceeds the meaning and importance of the individual paints which make it up. Because the organized church controls what Scripture may say by the imposition of a "literal only" meaning on it, it must necessarily miss the point of Jesus' teaching and God's inspiration in Scripture in using people, events, authors, background, individual demeanors and acts, etc. as components or players on a grand stage--e.g., as particular elements arranged in such a way as to paint a larger picture. In this, the church--much of which claims to believe in an inspired Bible--ends up denying the greater truths which can only be seen when looking past the literal components to the bigger picture they actually form.
In this view, which is simultaneously rational and esoteric, Jesus uses the example of the good man and evil man bringing forth their own kind of treasure (Mat 12:35) to represent an activity from within the same person; the sword drawn to cut off the righteous from the wicked (Ezek 21:2-5) is directed to the spirit of every individual, wheat and tares, goats and sheep, green tree and dry tree are elements within each person; those of Zion and those who forsake the Lord (Isa 1:27-28) are simultaneously elements within each of us; from the many trees of the forest destroyed by the flame of God, yet a remnant (Isa 10:17-22) will remain (elements within the whole), etc. Even in the aforementioned exchange between Abraham and God in Gen 18, God shows in metaphor how he saves the individual--he separates the righteous before destroying the unrighteous--just as Jesus speaks of the separation of goats from sheep (Mat 25) and wheat from tares (Mat 13) and branches cast off and burned while good branches are pruned to bear more fruit (Jn 15:1-6). We struggle to think beyond terms of good and bad individuals, and traditional theology is adjusted to this way of thinking, but God's thoughts and methods are greater than ours in all respects.
Sanctification is the same regenerational process. In the story of the Exodus, the nation Israel is a metaphor for the individual who is brought to the gates of promise, fails for lack of faith and is turned back into the wilderness until sufficient unbelieving parts are destroyed such that Israel is brought back to the land of promise with faith created from hardship. The people and events are "paints" that create the bigger picture. The constituent elements which produced unbelief were 'cut off' from Israel in the wilderness in progressive, fragmented sanctification with the result that faith was brought forth. Hence, cleansing regeneration is wholly the sovereign work of God, though by granting assent in this life we participate with him in this process, just as Israel trudged through the wilderness until God had performed spiritual surgery in him (them) sufficient to build faith.
Summary
Traditional views of salvation impose logical deficiencies which cannot be resolved using current interpretive methods. When the destruction and eternal separation of God's wrath moves from the individual to her constituent parts, these deficiencies evaporate and how God saves all through the atonement and work of Christ Jesus in the spirit/soul of the individual is revealed.
Thus, the universal salvation of all souls by this essentialist methodology, becomes the "one stick" (Ezek 37:16-19) of truthful doctrine (the salvation of all) from metaphoric Calvinism (Judah) and Israel (Arminianism). After more than 400 years of irreconcilable differences, the violations imposed on tests of truth by the competing traditional views of salvation are laid to rest in the bigger picture of the salvation of all.
Informed by God that He was going to Sodom to investigate and, if necessary, destroy the evil city, Abraham quickly struck up a conversation with his Creatorhis nephew Lot and family were there, and Abraham, knowing God's intention for Sodom, was deeply concerned about his kin living there. He began with what we recognize to be his famous conversation with God in Gen 18 by asking in v. 23, .Wilt Thou indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?
Beginning here and running to the end of this chapter, God establishes a principle so fundamentally and harmoniously woven into both testaments of the Bible, its hard to see how the organized church has missed its significance. This principle, what I see as a kind of spiritual essentialism (which the rationally esoteric view of the salvation of all is founded on) is elaborated in vv. 24-25:
"Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; wilt Thou indeed sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from Thee to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from Thee! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?"
Abraham goes on to negotiate the number by which God will spare the whole, to 45, 30, 20 and finally, 10. The significance of this exchange should not be missed. There are two similar but equally important points here:
1) a logical difficulty exists here for annihilationists and eternal tormentists--because all goods proceed from truth, and God is pure, perfect Truth. For Him to destroy or eternally separate literally any good from His creation is a logical impossibility. Corresponding to this, of course, is the fact that all His pronouncement of wrath and destruction in the Bible is only ever toward evil, never good.
2) Abraham elaborated the truth that to destroy good would violate the fundamental perfection of God when he said, "Far be it from Thee to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from Thee! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?"
Resolution of the False Doctrine of Eternal Destruction/Separation/Torment in Hell of the Individual
It may be reasonably argued that there exists in every human being, even the most evil human, some degree of good. This is figuratively implied in the exchange between Abraham and God on the road to Sodom. Further, experience shows us that even the most hardened human minds have the capacity to express certain dispositions we immediately recognize to be good: love, forgiveness, empathy, etc. Thus for God to separate or annihilate a whole human being (body, soul and spirit) would be to perform a violation of His perfection, not only in the destruction of good per se, but in that doing so profanes the perfection of justice as He then destroys or condemns to torture and/or separation a being in whom some good exists and therefore is not 100% deserving of eternal punishment.
These infractions of logic are laid to rest in the view that the literal teachings and principle truths of Scripture are primarily elements used by God to produce a 'bigger picture'. William James used the analogy of paints on canvas as so much saleable material spread in certain ways, from which a greater, spiritual thing arises, the picture which exceeds the meaning and importance of the individual paints which make it up. Because the organized church controls what Scripture may say by the imposition of a "literal only" meaning on it, it must necessarily miss the point of Jesus' teaching and God's inspiration in Scripture in using people, events, authors, background, individual demeanors and acts, etc. as components or players on a grand stage--e.g., as particular elements arranged in such a way as to paint a larger picture. In this, the church--much of which claims to believe in an inspired Bible--ends up denying the greater truths which can only be seen when looking past the literal components to the bigger picture they actually form.
In this view, which is simultaneously rational and esoteric, Jesus uses the example of the good man and evil man bringing forth their own kind of treasure (Mat 12:35) to represent an activity from within the same person; the sword drawn to cut off the righteous from the wicked (Ezek 21:2-5) is directed to the spirit of every individual, wheat and tares, goats and sheep, green tree and dry tree are elements within each person; those of Zion and those who forsake the Lord (Isa 1:27-28) are simultaneously elements within each of us; from the many trees of the forest destroyed by the flame of God, yet a remnant (Isa 10:17-22) will remain (elements within the whole), etc. Even in the aforementioned exchange between Abraham and God in Gen 18, God shows in metaphor how he saves the individual--he separates the righteous before destroying the unrighteous--just as Jesus speaks of the separation of goats from sheep (Mat 25) and wheat from tares (Mat 13) and branches cast off and burned while good branches are pruned to bear more fruit (Jn 15:1-6). We struggle to think beyond terms of good and bad individuals, and traditional theology is adjusted to this way of thinking, but God's thoughts and methods are greater than ours in all respects.
Sanctification is the same regenerational process. In the story of the Exodus, the nation Israel is a metaphor for the individual who is brought to the gates of promise, fails for lack of faith and is turned back into the wilderness until sufficient unbelieving parts are destroyed such that Israel is brought back to the land of promise with faith created from hardship. The people and events are "paints" that create the bigger picture. The constituent elements which produced unbelief were 'cut off' from Israel in the wilderness in progressive, fragmented sanctification with the result that faith was brought forth. Hence, cleansing regeneration is wholly the sovereign work of God, though by granting assent in this life we participate with him in this process, just as Israel trudged through the wilderness until God had performed spiritual surgery in him (them) sufficient to build faith.
Summary
Traditional views of salvation impose logical deficiencies which cannot be resolved using current interpretive methods. When the destruction and eternal separation of God's wrath moves from the individual to her constituent parts, these deficiencies evaporate and how God saves all through the atonement and work of Christ Jesus in the spirit/soul of the individual is revealed.
Thus, the universal salvation of all souls by this essentialist methodology, becomes the "one stick" (Ezek 37:16-19) of truthful doctrine (the salvation of all) from metaphoric Calvinism (Judah) and Israel (Arminianism). After more than 400 years of irreconcilable differences, the violations imposed on tests of truth by the competing traditional views of salvation are laid to rest in the bigger picture of the salvation of all.
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