- Aug 4, 2013
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St. Augustine described it best :
“If both destinies are eternal, then we must either understand both as long-continued but at last terminating, or both as endless. For they are correlative — on the one hand, punishment eternal, on the other hand, life eternal. And to say in one and the same sense, life eternal shall be endless, punishment eternal shall come to an end, is the height of absurdity. Wherefore, as the eternal life of the saints shall be endless, so too the eternal punishment of those who are doomed to it shall have no end.”
Augustine didn't understand Greek and made it clear that he hated the language. This is not a good start if you are going to get to the heart, the very intent, of the Scriptures. That would be like me trying to interpret Russian, of which I know nothing other than "DA."
Secondly, Augustine presented several heretical ideas which, when finally transcribed to Greek and presented to the Patriarch of Constantinople, caused them to gasp in dismay at the garbage he had written. This was a man who wrote and taught that unbaptized babies go to hell.
Really?
Not a man from whom I would take my theology without doing a lot of corresponding cross-checking to be sure that what he is saying is actually true.
“If both destinies are eternal, then we must either understand both as long-continued but at last terminating, or both as endless. For they are correlative — on the one hand, punishment eternal, on the other hand, life eternal. And to say in one and the same sense, life eternal shall be endless, punishment eternal shall come to an end, is the height of absurdity. Wherefore, as the eternal life of the saints shall be endless, so too the eternal punishment of those who are doomed to it shall have no end.”
Augustine didn't understand Greek and made it clear that he hated the language. This is not a good start if you are going to get to the heart, the very intent, of the Scriptures. That would be like me trying to interpret Russian, of which I know nothing other than "DA."
Secondly, Augustine presented several heretical ideas which, when finally transcribed to Greek and presented to the Patriarch of Constantinople, caused them to gasp in dismay at the garbage he had written. This was a man who wrote and taught that unbaptized babies go to hell.
Really?
Not a man from whom I would take my theology without doing a lot of corresponding cross-checking to be sure that what he is saying is actually true.
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