Christian Universalism. What's not to like?

[Andrewn]

The only thing I try to avoid is Xmas instead of Christmas.

I agree. My wife and I use the abbreviation "Cmas."

People here almost never say "Happy Christmas." Sometimes I do, just to be different, and they look at me like, "what?"

 

[Andrewn]

My partner is occassionally teaching me how to play the piano and dance waltzes but tbh I'm a mathematician and the only rhythm I've got is loga-rhythms.

It's interesting that music activates the same areas of the brain that people use while solving spatial-temporal reasoning problems.

Is There a Link between Music and Math?

 

[Andrewn]

in Israel before and during the time of Jesus, there was a significant belief in a place of eternal, fiery punishment which the Jews, themselves called sheol and Ge Hinnom, translated as Hades and Gehenna, respectively in the 225 BC LXX and the NT.

While I agree with you that Jewish views about Sheol in the 1st century are relevant to the discussion, it is clear that Jews believed that most people would come out of Sheol / Hades and have an inheritance in Paradise. That that place itself lasts forever is not an indication that all people are punished forever. I think both @hedrick and myself mentioned these facts several times before.

I as well. Also Luke 16:19-31 gives us fairly good view.

The modern popular concept of Hell is akin of the Lake of Fire in Revelation. It is not the same thing as Hades, which is mentioned in Lk 16:19-31. In Hades, souls suffer immediately after death. But in the LOF, after resurrection of the body.

 

[Shrewd Manager]

It's interesting that music activates the same areas of the brain that subjects use while solving spatial-temporal reasoning problems.

Is There a Link between Music and Math?

Maths and music are inextricably linked. The scale has 12 tones. The relationship between an octave is 1:2 (get a string, play a note, cut it in half, the note will be an octave higher). A perfect fifth is 3:2. And so on. This study is fascinating and I spent some time on it years back. Have a quick leaf through this, to give you a taste of the simple stuff!

Music and mathematics - Wikipedia
2,500 years of musical temperaments - Temperament Comparison

 

[Andrewn]

I believe what the Jews believed. Jesus didn't contradict them so why should I? You may read my previous post on this.

OK. "The Talmud offers a number of thoughts relating to the afterlife. After death, the soul is brought for judgment. Those who have led pristine lives enter immediately into the Olam Haba or world to come. Most do not enter the world to come immediately, but now experience a period of review of their earthly actions and they are made aware of what they have done wrong. Some view this period as being a "re-schooling", with the soul gaining wisdom as one's errors are reviewed. Others view this period to include spiritual discomfort for past wrongs. At the end of this period, not longer than one year, the soul then takes its place in the world to come. Although discomforts are made part of certain Jewish conceptions of the afterlife, the concept of eternal damnation is not a tenet of the Jewish afterlife. According to the Talmud, extinction of the soul is reserved for a far smaller group of malicious and evil leaders."

Life after death - the afterlife - Key beliefs in Judaism - GCSE Religious Studies Revision - AQA - BBC Bitesize

Afterlife - Wikipedia

If that is true why didn't Jesus confront them and correct their false beliefs?

He did. Jews believed that souls were punished in Gehenna immediately after death. But the Lord said to them:

Mat 10:28 And you should not be afraid of those killing the body but not being able to kill the soul. Indeed rather you should fear the One being able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.

 

[hedrick]

OK. "The Talmud offers a number of thoughts relating to the afterlife. After death, the soul is brought for judgment. Those who have led pristine lives enter immediately into the Olam Haba or world to come. Most do not enter the world to come immediately, but now experience a period of review of their earthly actions and they are made aware of what they have done wrong. Some view this period as being a "re-schooling", with the soul gaining wisdom as one's errors are reviewed. Others view this period to include spiritual discomfort for past wrongs. At the end of this period, not longer than one year, the soul then takes its place in the world to come. Although discomforts are made part of certain Jewish conceptions of the afterlife, the concept of eternal damnation is not a tenet of the Jewish afterlife. According to the Talmud, extinction of the soul is reserved for a far smaller group of malicious and evil leaders."

Life after death - the afterlife - Key beliefs in Judaism - GCSE Religious Studies Revision - AQA - BBC Bitesize

Afterlife - Wikipedia

I think that may be an attempt to summarize beliefs that are later than Jesus’ time. In particular, the idea that the thoroughly evil are annihilated doesn’t seem to be from that period. Bernstein’s book considers that a later modification of Shammai’s view. Shammai died in 30 AD.

It's worth noting that the Talmud seems to give two views that might go back to Jesus' time. Both split mankind (or at least Jews) into three parts: thoroughly wicked, completely good, and the intermediate. Almost everyone is intermediate. Shammai thought that the intermediate would go to Gehennon temporarily. Hillel thought they would not go to Gehennon at all.

I understand Jesus as being closer to Shammai, though Gehennon is only one way he talks about accountability, and outside Matthew he only uses it hypothetically. (Lazarus and the Rich Man is Hades, which is understood as a temporary intermediate state.)

 

[hedrick]

John is more interesting. It doesn't seem to talk about punishment, though it does talk about judgement and dying in your sins. I could make a case for conditional immortality in both John and Paul, with sin resulting in death unless you are united to Christ in faith or rebirth.

 

[Andrewn]

John is more interesting. It doesn't seem to talk about punishment, though it does talk about judgement and dying in your sins. I could make a case for conditional immortality in both John and Paul, with sin resulting in death unless you are united to Christ in faith or rebirth.

I can, also, see that in both John and Paul. I read all of Romans, recently. The impression I'm getting is that there is one group, of Jews and Gentiles, who are saved in this life. But the rest of the people are not eternally lost. But contrary to Calvin, Romans seems to give hope for their future salvation. Perhaps one can say the same about other writings of Paul and John.

Rom 11:16 Now if the firstfruit is holy, also the lump; and if the root is holy, also the branches.

Am I reading my bias into the text?

 

[Andrewn]

Ah, that's a shame. Desmond Tutu has died today on Boxing Day.
Anti-apartheid hero Archbishop Desmond Tutu dies aged 90

He was the Archbishop of Cape Town and a Nobel Peace Prize winner for his work against Apartheid.

He was a Christian universalist and here are some words from him on UR:

I strongly recommend Netflix movie "The Forgiven." It is amazing that a person who experienced Apartheid atrocities would believe in eternal salvation of the criminals.

Interesting coincidence is that South Africa's last apartheid president FW de Klerk died a few days earlier!

 

[hedrick]

I can, also, see that in both John and Paul. I read all of Romans, recently. The impression I'm getting is that there is one group, of Jews and Gentiles, who are saved in this life. But the rest of the people are not eternally lost. But contrary to Calvin, Romans seems to give hope for their future salvation. Perhaps one can say the same about other writings of Paul and John.

Am I reading my bias into the text?

I don't know. I see why you say there's hope in Paul. Rom 2 is really about Gentiles, not non-Christians, but I think it can be extended to some non-Christians. Of course the fact that Abraham is a model of faith says it can't just be explicit faith in Christ.

But still, both present eternal life in terms of faith / new birth. There's at least an implication that those without have no basis for eternal life. I think 1 Cor 6:9 is intended as a warning and not a checklist for judgement, but it certainly raises the possibility of not inheriting the Kingdom. That almost certainly means not having eternal life.

Similarly, while John says Jesus didn't come to condemn anyone, still some are condemned. Statements about eternal life are almost all qualified. A typical one is John 6:40:

"This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day."

I'm not aware of an explicit description of damnation in John, but those without faith have no basis for eternal life. The most explicit negative statement I found is "I told you that you would die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he." (John 8:24)

You could try to make a case that faith exempts you from judgement and punishment, while dying in your sins results in finite punishment but not damnation. John doesn't explicitly contradict this. But the implication seems pretty clear that without faith there is no basis for eternal life.

 

[hedrick]

[I hope this isn't a duplicate. I thought I posted it, but don't see it.]

The contrast between the Synoptics and John / Paul is interesting. There seem to be two major ways to deal with it, though there are subdivisions in how they are interpreted:

* All that punishment stuff in the Synoptics doesn’t apply to us, because we’re forgiven through Christ. This seems to be a common Protestant view. This tends to interpret Jesus’ warnings as being about hell, since they only apply to the damned. Despite a theoretical commitment to justification by faith, most Protestants today seem to say that if you fall into any of the categories Jesus condemns, you don’t have saving faith, so in practice justification is by both faith and lack of serious, unrepented sin.

* 1 Cor 3:12 acknowledges that even though we’re forgiven in Christ, we are going to be accountable for how we lived. Jesus’ warnings about judgement apply to Christians, in which case many or all of his warnings are about accountability, not eternal damnation. I would say most but not all. (After all, we do have an unforgiveable sin.)

I take the second position.

 

[Fervent]

So the idea is that the Jewish religious figures imagined something, and Jesus went on to confirm it and tell them that the reality is even worse than what they imagined. In other words, the reality of the situation isn't to be found in what God told us through all of his prophets and judges, but rather to be found in the imagining of Jewish religious figures who came afterwards. The same Jewish religious figures who's teaching Jesus condemned and who decided that Jesus was a liar and false prophet and had him crucified. I don't see how that can possibly add up.

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, 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.

 

[Der Alte]

As I have said before, Jesus did confront them regarding their false teaching. I've posted scripture showing that. But then you go right back to square one. Round and round, over and over, repeat rerun repeat.

Do not presume to lecture me while misrepresenting what I say at the same time.
I NEVER said or implied that Jesus did not confront the Jews. I in fact said just the opposite. I specifically said that Jesus confronted the Jews many times on their doctrine and their actions but He never criticized their belief in the place of eternal punishment which they called both sheol and Ge Hinnom which are translated as "hades" and "Gehenna," respectively in the 225 BC LXX and the N.T.. I have said this numerous times.

Your belief is that Jesus was teaching things that appealed to and affirmed post prophet writings of things that did not exist in the writings of the prophets that were compiled into the Old Testament. That Jesus was appealing to a system of teaching he condemned as corrupt and to post prophet apocryphal deuterocanonical writings such as Judith.

Absolutely false. I never said anything like this. Try reading what I say and respond to that, or I might have to take it higher.

My belief is that Jesus was reaching back to what was written by his own appointed prophets about Jesus himself and the final judgement of Israel in the role of being Israel's final prophet. That his speaking about the Valley of Hinnom etc was in reference to what had been written by his appointed prophets, rather than to what was written in Judith or any other deuterocanonical apocrypha

.

Still deliberately misrepresenting what I said. Please help me out here what did Jesus' appointed prophets say about the valley of Hinnom that Jesus was referring to when He mentioned"Gehenna?"
Try actually reading this. The Jews considered Judith and Enoch authoritative. When Jesus taught about "punishment" and "Gehenna" it supported what the Jews taught about "eternal life" and "punishment." If what the Jews taught about "Gehenna" was wrong why didn't Jesus confront them about it?

 

[Der Alte]

* * *
Paul needs to remind them in Gal 3 that it is God's promise to Abraham that all nations shall be blessed, which is given by the faith of Christ. That universal spiritual blessing is the making righteous (justification) of the nations, preceding and fulfilling the law. And that blessing is partaken of by all who believe, unlike the fleshy curse under the works of the law.* * *

Absolutely correct. But ponder this there ain't no "nations" in the grave or anywhere else after death. The only thing in the grave, Gehenna, Hades are individual dead bodies. To be blessed it must be done in this life.

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.
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.
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?
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.
JPS Prov 24:20
(20) For there will be no future to the evil man, the lamp of the wicked shall be put out.
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:
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.
Psalms 115:17
17 The dead praise not the LORD, neither any that go down into silence.​

 

[Saint Steven]

Maths and music are inextricably linked. The scale has 12 tones. The relationship between an octave is 1:2 (get a string, play a note, cut it in half, the note will be an octave higher). A perfect fifth is 3:2. And so on. This study is fascinating and I spent some time on it years back. Have a quick leaf through this, to give you a taste of the simple stuff!

Music and mathematics - Wikipedia
2,500 years of musical temperaments - Temperament Comparison

Yes. My understanding is that the 12 tone chromatic scale was developed as you stated with a few observations to begin with. The octave, then the fifth. Equal divisions followed for the rest.

The diatonic scale is a bit more of a mystery. A look at the Circle of fifths and the circle of fourths charts really make you wonder at the genius behind it. Very mathematical AND beautiful. And always something new to learn about it.

 

[Der Alte]

OK. "The Talmud offers a number of thoughts relating to the afterlife. After death, the soul is brought for judgment. Those who have led pristine lives enter immediately into the Olam Haba or world to come. Most do not enter the world to come immediately, but now experience a period of review of their earthly actions and they are made aware of what they have done wrong. Some view this period as being a "re-schooling", with the soul gaining wisdom as one's errors are reviewed. Others view this period to include spiritual discomfort for past wrongs. At the end of this period, not longer than one year, the soul then takes its place in the world to come. Although discomforts are made part of certain Jewish conceptions of the afterlife, the concept of eternal damnation is not a tenet of the Jewish afterlife. According to the Talmud, extinction of the soul is reserved for a far smaller group of malicious and evil leaders."
Life after death - the afterlife - Key beliefs in Judaism - GCSE Religious Studies Revision - AQA - BBC Bitesize
Afterlife - Wikipedia
He did. Jews believed that souls were punished in Gehenna immediately after death. But the Lord said to them:
Mat 10:28 And you should not be afraid of those killing the body but not being able to kill the soul. Indeed rather you should fear the One being able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.

Since you ignored my post and didn't actually respond to it directly, please give me one good reason why I should read your post?
You quoted an anonymous website which gives no qualifications for the topic and does NOT quote any kind of source. Just some guy giving his opinion. OTOH I quoted three historical Jewish sources, 1917 Jewish Encyclopedia, 1972 Encyclopedia Judaica and the pre-Christian Talmud. What makes you think that anonymous source knows more than the Jewish sources I quoted?

 

[Der Alte]

I agree. My wife and I use the abbreviation "Cmas."
People here almost never say "Happy Christmas." Sometimes I do, just to be different, and they look at me like, "what?"

I don't see a problem, with Xmas. In Greek Christos/Christ is written χριστος. We pronounce it as "K" but it is actually a gutteral, throat clearing sound.

 

[Irkle Berserkle]

What's not to like is that it's completely unbiblical and as dangerously misleading as a doctrine could possibly be. To accept it you would have to believe that either (1) Jesus had no clue what He was talking about (a bit of a problem, I would think) or (2) the Jesus of the Gospels, the only Jesus we actually have, is basically a fraud created by the NT authors in furtherance of some hidden agenda (hmmm ... a bit of a problem as well, it seems to me).

Christianity is what it is. It's either true or it isn't. If we don't like it, the solution is to find a different religion. Reinventing it isn't one of the options.

 

[Hmm]

What's not to like is that it's completely unbiblical and as dangerously misleading as a doctrine could possibly be. To accept it you would have to believe that either (1) Jesus had no clue what He was talking about (a bit of a problem, I would think) or (2) the Jesus of the Gospels, the only Jesus we actually have, is basically a fraud created by the NT authors in furtherance of some hidden agenda (hmmm ... a bit of a problem as well, it seems to me).

Christianity is what it is. It's either true or it isn't. If we don't like it, the solution is to find a different religion. Reinventing it isn't one of the options.

Do you believe you speak for all Christians?

 

[Irkle Berserkle]

Do you believe you speak for all Christians?

Why would I believe that? I do believe the position I articulated is indisputably the correct Christian position, for the reasons I stated. A universalist either has to believe the Jesus of the Gospels was clueless, a liar or an invention of the NT authors. I don't believe any recognizable version of Christianity can accommodate any of those alternatives.

I'm well-aware of the inroads universalism has made within some segments of modern Christianity. This is part and parcel of the watering-down of the Gospel in many respects. I don't think this touchy-feely "I'm OK, You're OK" version of Christianity is merely misguided. I believe it's Satanic and indicative that we're in some stage of the End Times. To anyone who takes the Bible even halfway seriously, there couldn't possibly be a more false and dangerous doctrine than universalism.