Christian Universalism. What's not to like?

Hmm said:

I guess that's right, our final destiny is predetermined, although we do have a choice in how we get there, the easy or the hard way. There is a big difference though between this and double predestination because UR preserves God's justice as no-one is predestined to eternal hell.

Universalism is a but ike Calvanism but where everyone's an Elect and no-one's a Reprobate, predestined to hell. It also seems similar to Catholicism but without hell where everyone either goes direct to heaven or indirectly via purgatory.

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Would that be predestination, or original design?

While reading posts in this thread over the last several pages, I have not been thinking so much of ad hominem, but of proof methods. It seems to me that some depend on using prominent proof texts as almost monolithic markers. I've played "proof text ping-pong" myself, and it's fun...but does more to raise hackles than to convince anyone of anything.

Then, there is the method mentioned by Isaiah: “Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little.” (28:9-10, KJV). This is the main method I used in my book, and I think the cumulative evidence is more convincing than a few proof texts that are disputed anyway...and convince no one.

The cumulative evidence that I found, btw, impelled me to abandon ECT (as taught in my Baptist upbringing), annihilation (as taught during my brief stay in the SDA church) and fully embrace UR. However, I have noticed that no one on Team Hell will acknowledge my witness.

MMXX said:

Something like that I suppose.

I found this interesting: When people speak of “the Talmud,” they are usually referring to the Talmud Bavli (Babylonian Talmud), composed in Babylonia.
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/tale-of-two-talmuds/

I'm wondering of course how much Babylonian paganism carried over.

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That is incorrect.

When everyone I know speaks of the Talmud, they are referring to the Jewish Talmud.

The JEWISH Talmud is best described as a collection of collections. These collections are of oral laws based on the Torah, or Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament or Tanakh, and of commentary on and additional material relating to those oral laws.

MMXX said:

Would that be predestination, or original design?

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Why not study the difference between Armenians and Calvinists.

Then what about "General" and "Specific" predestination.

I would also suggest a look at the law of Causality. Another way of saying this is that every effect is determined by its cause. Also, every cause determines its effect. This word "determines" may recall to some minds what is known in philosophy as the doctrine of determinism.

According to Christian theologian Norman Geisler, (When Skeptics Ask, 32)
"God did not create the world in time; He is responsible for the creation of time. There was no time "before" time. There was only eternity" .

By "eternity," Geisler does not mean a series of moments without beginning or end (eternal time). He means God's eternal nature itself. Before God created, all that existed was God.

Colossians 1:16.......
"For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him."

This is just a thought and feel free to ignore it and reject it.

Major1 said:

Nope.

That is exactly why I got saved. I believed what God said and did not want to burn in hell fire.

The Rich man in torments right now...is experiencing the pain of reality and he has no possiblity of being purified.

I AM NOT THE RICH man because I have accepted the payment for my sin by Christ so that I would not be in torments.

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I can see how that would shape perspective. And something I can't quite relate to since I accepted Jesus as a small child, way before I ever contemplated hell.

While many turn to Jesus out of fear of eternal damination, many others are repelled by it.

Major1 said:

Why not study the difference between Armenians and Calvinists.

Then what about "General" and "Specific" predestination.

There you might see what it is you are looking for.

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It's kinda silly of you to think I haven't in the last 50 years.

MMXX said:

Seems to me that the statement of "for as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive" fits in quite well with "for if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!". Add to those "God, the savior of all men, especially those who believe" (1 Timothy 4:10) and there's a trifecta. While that's not necessarily concrete evidence, I think it takes UR past "it's not found anywhere in the Bible".

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Again, 1 Cor 15 reading in a UR fashion has been excluded unless you can provide a counter. I'll re-argue it(twice) though since you don't seem to understand what was argued.

First, graphically. The dispute is over how "in" is used because the placement appears to be before both the subject and the verb making it unclear whether it functions as a part of the predicate or part of the subject.

1) Graphically, this presents two different meanings and I will use square brackets to replace "in Adam" and round brackets to replace "in Christ." It is either [All die], (all are made alive) or [All] die, (all) are made alive. The trouble is this ambiguity only exists in English, so if we take the Greek as primary we have to go with the second case. The UR reading depends on it being the first case, as we cannot assume that "in Christ" and "in Adam" refer to the same group.

2)Now we'll just examine the syntax of the first to demonstrate that the UR reading requires being brought into the verse not being taken from it. If we simply have:
All die

This is incomplete, its an adjective and a verb and there isn't enough to infer what "all" is refering to. Now we will add just the words that are in the text:
in Adam all die
While our brains immediately "understand" this sentence, it still requires modification we simply do it automatically. The modifications are either to move the preposition or to supply a noun, added words will be shown in round brackets movement in square as such:
all (men) die [in Adam]
all [in Adam] die

Both of these make the sentence understandable, but they have different meanings as one implies that Adam is the location that men die in and the other implies that the ones who die are in Adam, e.g. [all die] vs [all] die. In order to resolve this we have to look to which best fits the surrounding context, and since Paul's discussion centers on the notion tha their belief is not in vain it is more fitting to read it as their inclusion in the second group being highlighted not th scope of action. We confirm that it is the second reading when we look at the Greek grammar and see that it places the preposition in the subject. That is, of course, without even appealing to the fact that we cannot assume that simply because ellipsis is appropriate in English it would be appropriate in Greek.

The purpose of the sentence comes by way of contrast, to show what I mean I'll craft a similar sentiment:
All flowers wither, all gemstones last forever.

Romans the issue isn't that UR can't be supported, but that it isn't being taught. The purpose of Romans 3-8 is to explore how God can remain just while still extending mercy so while UR could be relevant to the issue it isn't critical. Your restatement of my claim is pure strawman because I didn't say it wasn't found anywhere in the Bible, but that it isn't taught. And I laid out specific criteria for what I mean by taught which no one has even attempted to show a passage meets.

As for 1 Tim 4:10, I don't have time to get into it now but I will review the context and comment later.

Hmm said:

I would be interested in hearing more about this "special class" that makes citing expert opinion an ad hominem. As MMXX said, an ad hom. is an attack on the person making the argument rather than addressing the argument itself. Citing an expert is clearly not an attack on the expert and it makes a positive contribution to the argument, it doesn't avoid it.

As neither you nor I or probably anyone here are experts in Greek how are we supposed to discuss the meaning of an ancient Greek word like aiõnios without bringing in authoritative voices to the discussion?

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It's not citing expert opinion, it's when you hold up the opinion because of their credentials. It's a special class of ad hominem known as argument from authority. This is especially an issue if you yourself do not have the ability to examine the validity of the argument at even a basic level and instead are simply relying on the claim that they are an expert.

MMXX said:

I can see how that would shape perspective. And something I can't quite relate to since I accepted Jesus as a small child, way before I ever contemplated hell.

While many turn to Jesus out of fear of eternal damination, many others are repelled by it.

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When I was 12 years old, I came to Christ from listening to E.J. Daniels and Billy Graham.

They made hell sound as bad as did the Bible and I decided that I did not want to go there.

Later.....20 years later I learned about the grace and love and mercy of God that He would save me from such a fate.

MMXX said:

It's kinda silly of you to think I haven't in the last 50 years.

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I do not know one single thing about what you have done in the last 50 years.

I was only suggesting and as silly as it sounds.....was trying to help.

As I said clearly.....reject it and ignore it.

Hmm said:

For me, I would choose an eternal hell over a God who would allow it but of course that's not decision I'll ever have to make because ECT is a fiction.

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And again........as all can see, that tells everyone the condition of your heart.

Hmm said:

I'm not sure of the difference?

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Figures!

Predestination is really only God’s foreknowledge. It makes total and logical sense to say that the transcendent God who is time itself, knows what we will choose for ourselves. Hence, we are predestined, but we are also free to choose.

Knowing what one will do does not make that one do what he wants to choose to do.

Hmm said:

You still don't grasp the point. I can't comment on ancient Greek because I don't have the skills to. You say you have basic skills in Greek but that is not sufficient to arrive at a properly informed decision. We have to listen to what the professionals say and try to get a feel for where the disagreements lie if any, and then make our own conclusions which will always be tentative to some extent. This is not an "appeal to authority" and we do it all the time in every other walk of life. It's a practical necessity of living.

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No, we don't have to listen to experts when they present bad arguments. His argument relied on English grammar and then he falsely stated it was the same in Greek. You recognize your inability to comment on Greek grammar, but the issue is elementary in grammar because it's a matter of identifying the subject of the sentence. Appealing to the man's credentials as if that defends his bad argument is the definition of an appeal to authority, because you don't have the sophistication to make an evaluation.

Hmm said:

You still don't grasp the point. I can't comment on ancient Greek because I don't have the skills to. You say you have basic skills in Greek but that is not sufficient to arrive at a properly informed decision. We have to listen to what the professionals say and try to get a feel for where the disagreements lie if any, and then make our own conclusions which will always be tentative to some extent. This is not an "appeal to authority" and we do it all the time in every other walk of life. It's a practical necessity of living.

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NOPE!

Shrewd Manager said:

* * * (Jer 32:35)
There's some of the origins of your paganised Jewish belief in Gehenna, which God specifically eschews. What a brutal irony it is that infernocrats now saddle God with condemning sinners to Gehenna for everlasting punishment.

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Nonsense and rubbish. Did or did not Jesus ever say anything about people being sent to Gehenna and Hades? A yes or no will suffice I do not require any UR misrepresentation what the scripture says and means.
Did or did not Jesus say group of people would go away into "ETERNAL PUNISHMENT?" Again I don't need twisted explanation from UR-land. I can and have shown repeatedly that "kolasis" does NOT mean correction 1 John 4:18. Odd how nobody from the Hell No! crowd has ever addressed that. Guess it's because there is no way that vs. can be twisted.

This is where Jesus teaches us that we have to wait in line while God destroys body and soul of the fowls of the air in Gehenna.

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UR rubbish.

All your citations from the Rabbinic tradition are heretical.

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If that is true why didn't Jesus ever challenge them. Jesus criticized the Jewish leaders many times but NEVER criticized their belief in hell. Jesus taught about Gehenna and hades to the Jews how would they have understood that?

Why not cite the Talmud where they have Jesus burning in boiling excrement?

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Prove it. You evidently don't know what the Talmud is. I have the Talmud please tell me where that can be found?

Do try to rejoice in Christ once in a while, der Alte.

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I do but not the jesus of UR-ites. I rejoice in the Jesus who said "Not everyone who says Lord, Lord to me will enter the kingdom of Heaven." Not the UR Jesus who will let people live like the devil, die in their sins and go to heaven anyway.

Major1 said:

That is incorrect.

When everyone I know speaks of the Talmud, they are referring to the Jewish Talmud.

The JEWISH Talmud is best described as a collection of collections. These collections are of oral laws based on the Torah, or Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament or Tanakh, and of commentary on and additional material relating to those oral laws.

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Did you not view the Jewish website I posted that blurb written by a Rabbi from?

Major1 said:

That is incorrect.

When everyone I know speaks of the Talmud, they are referring to the Jewish Talmud.

The JEWISH Talmud is best described as a collection of collections. These collections are of oral laws based on the Torah, or Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament or Tanakh, and of commentary on and additional material relating to those oral laws.

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That is incorrect.

There are two main versions of the Talmud, the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem Talmud. Some of the contents are shocking.