QUOTE="Saint Steven
Thanks for your fantastic post. I'll respond to just one paragraph for now. And this comes from my Protestant perspective. I appreciate your perspective on this. Here's what I see from mine.
Thank you for your kind words regarding my mental meanderings. Not everyone is so irenic regarding these views. Having been a very dedicated Protestant (Bob Jones Fundamentalists for 12 years then PCA Calvinist for 13) I think I do understand a bit about how you would view this issue. Nonetheless, allow me some further comments in blue.
There seems to be two sides to this coin. (perhaps three) We know it is God's will that all be saved.
I think this is the foundation from which everything must come, i.e. what exactly is the will of God in His act of creatio ex nihlo? To try to give the short sketch of what David Bentley Hart states in regard to this - all actions are done with a telos (end) or goal in mind. What was the telos of mankind in God's view, seeing that God did not create anything out of either lack or necessity, but from complete freedom. If the Calvinists are right, then the end of a large number of humanity created through the ages has been that they in the end are to be damned and tormented. It is the purpose for which they were created, the telos of their creation.
Which leaves us with this question: if this is true, then what is the character of a divine Being who didn't have to do such a thing, but would, for His own pleasure, do it nonetheless? Of what character would such a Being be who takes pleasure, delight, or glory from the immense and undending suffering of another sentient being? Especially if He is all-wise and all -powerful and therefore lacks neither the wisdom nor the power to be able to bring those sentient beings to a place of repentance without violation of their will? In other words, having both the wisdom and the power to achieve a good end for them, He decides nonetheless to abstain from doing such, insuring that they suffer agony forever? That is not love and certainly not the God who is described as love in Scripture. Der Alter can pound all the Greek he wishes, but that language is fluid in meaning, and therefore, I have every right to bring into the equation the character of our Father, along with my disbelief that love would act in a manner consistent with a hellist's interpreation of the Greek.
So, from that perspective salvation through a relationship with God is an open door to all that would come to him.
Love is an ever-open door to all whom it meets. Love waits eagerly for the next meeting with the next other upon whom it can shower all its goodnesses. But more than that, as we see in Romans 5:18-19, the Cross has defeated death, flung the door to the Kingdom wide open, and waits like the father of the Prodigal Son for all to respond. The work is DONE. Death is defeated and salvation is freely given to all mankind. Some will respond in this life (and avoid a nasty necessity of scourging in the next) and some will, unfortunately for them, learn the hard way as they choose pleasure and hedonism over Christ.
And whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. (a promise sure and true) But on the other side of the coin is the need for him to draw us to himself. The Spirit convicts us of sin and draws us to the Father. And even Christ said that if he be lifted up, he will "draw all men" unto himself. He has, of course been lifted up, and is in the process of drawing (dragging in the NT Greek) all humankind to himself. Much of which will happen on the other side. In reference to the countless billions you alluded to, who have never so much as heard of Christ.
Once upon a time, the Roman Catholic Church decided that not only those who had never even heard of Christ would spend eternity in torment, but also all unbaptized babies. In addition to that theological trash, they also came up with the idea that repentance is only for this life and not for the ages to come after this life. I see nothing in Scripture which even hints at the state of life in the next life. But this is what you do when you want to terrorize people in to obedience. Nothing like a little hell-fire, promised to anyone and everyone who will not go along with the Pope, to keep the rabble in line. The problem now for the Roman Church is that the rabble have learned to read, to think, and to do social media. The jig is coming to an end.
Yes, the invitation is to all, gracious, long-suffering, and kind.
The third side of this coin that coincides with the second side has to do with the Elect, those who God has predestined, the first fruits. 1Cor.15:23 says, "But each in turn..." (see scripture below) This, of course is a mystery. Why would God choose some and not others? But there it is. The long-term plan, thankfully, is that "all will be made alive." (vs 22) But as this says, each in turn.
The teaching of "the elect" in regards to salvation is one of the most distorted and warped teachings that ever hit Protestant "intellectuals." Those who hold to this horrid doctrine are fond of pointing to Jesus interacting with the Pharisees and telling them that it has not been given to them to see, lest they believe and be healed. But they forget the rest of the chapter, in which Jesus states that the reason that they have been kept from seeing is that they themselves have chosen this by hardening their own hearts. It is God who respects the choice they continually made, not God who says "Of my own inscrutable purposes I shall damn you forever."
The second thing is (and this is only my opinion) that in the Bible, Jesus came to the "lost sheep of Israel." Everything He spoke of and did, especially in the Gospel of Matthew, has to do with national Israel and His coming to them to offer Himself as King. The context of the elect has to do with the coming destruction of Jerusalem. The "elect" are those who would believe and through their belief, escape the coming judgments, both temporal and spiritual. They would escape Jerusalem to Pella when the armies of Titus drew back from the walls. And they would escape the chastizement which the wicked shall endure in the next life.
I think that entirely too much of what Jesus said is bent and warped to try to apply to people today without any realization of the context and times in which He spoke. The moral law of God is applicable to all people. But the issues which belonged to national Israel belonged to them alone. Romans 7-9, with its famous "election" verses belongs in this category. Calvinists are fond of jumping on those verses to "prove" their horrid little doctrine, while ignoring the end of those chapters in which St. Paul exaults by saying that God has concluded all in sin that He might show the riches of His grace by forgiving all. Paul is speaking specifically about his kinsmen, knowing the coming judgement of the Lord on Jerusalem.
1 Corinthians 15:22-24 NIV
For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 23 But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. 24 Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power.
As you point out - each in turn. The Jews who believed in Christ prior to the end of the Old Covenant when Jerusalem was destroyed, were the first fruits.
I think the real issue is this - can a soul repent after death? When all else fails to uphold hellist points of view, those who love the idea of eternal torment whip out good old Aquinas and insist that once you are dead, you are stuck in the condition in which you died. Which is ludicrous, especially when presented to me by people who practice Prayer for the Dead.
O Consistency....what a rare gem you are!
