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First of all.....my screen name should be a hint for you--I am female .Who are you sir to accuse me and to label me?
How many eyes have you gouged out? It seems you're still able to post? Do you know any Christians who've cut off their limbs to stop sinning? Would that actually help a person to stop sinning & save them from "hell"? Is "hell" avoided by works?
"'And if thy hand or thy foot doth cause thee to stumble, cut them off and cast from thee; it is good for thee to enter into the life lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet, to be cast to the fire the age-during. 'And if thine eye doth cause thee to stumble, pluck it out and cast from thee; it is good for thee one-eyed to enter into the life, rather than having two eyes to be cast to the gehenna of the fire. (Mt.18:8-9 YLT)
There's no eternal or hell in YLT translation. And many others.
"That aiónios is often translated as “eternal” or “everlasting” in mainstream English bibles, also doesn’t settle the matter. Terms for Eternity: Aiônios and Aïdios in Classical and Christian Texts is the most comprehensive academic analysis of these particular words that I know of 1. As it is far more in depth than any lexicon entry, it seems to be the logical starting point 2.
"[aiónios] may sometimes mean eternal but also bears many other meanings … [such as] pertaining to the next aion [aeon/eon]
"Ramelli & Konstan, Terms for Eternity, vii
"This is supported by other respected scholars:
"[aiónios means] belonging to the age to come
"J.I. Packer, The Problem of Eternal Punishment, Crux XXVI.3, September 1990, 23
"[aiónios means] of the Age to Come
"N.T. Wright, The New Interpreter’s Bible"
Quoting various scholars without showing how they arrived at their opinion is not worth very much. Scholars who agree with your opinion may be just as biased as scholars who don't.
deconstruct Christianity
Today's Unitarian Universalism is wilfully piece by piece doing away with the Creeds of Christendom, the statements of belief and the 7 sacrements.
No doubt true Christians will be persecuted by those who label them fundamentalist. Since this ploy was used many tines throughout history.
Well.....you actually just proved my point (which wasn't an "accusation").Who are you sir to accuse me and to label me?
First of all.....my screen name should be a hint for you--I am female .
Sorry if it seems as if I was "labeling" you---I thought I'd phrased things in a way that were communicating that I'm trying to figure out your version of Orthodoxy.....because it seems to be quite a divergence from what I know.
I think we should play "misrepresentation BINGO" and "wait and see" should be one of the squares. I'm pretty sure we'd all have a full row of BINGO right about now.I guess we can sit back and do the "wait and see" game as to whether or not Universalism is indeed God's choice for a salvation economy.
My first post about that was to show that there are "fundamentalists" and "mystics" in just about every denomination (and religion). There is no "fundamentalist" denomination. If you hold to the belief system---why would it be an insult? I'm not insulted if someone were to say, "your language sounds a lot like a Christian mystic".Calling someone a fundamentalist is not the right way to go about it.
And to think that I've bothered to make the effort...nay, the emotionally straining pressure...to repent of sin(s). But, the travesty of all of this is that if Universalism is true, I didn't really need to go through all the bother of repenting at all since everything will just all come out well and peaceful in the end, right?That's if we'll even be able to recognize them at that point.
Should be interesting, in any case.
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Quoting various scholars without showing how they arrived at their opinion is not worth very much.
https://cac.org/a-toxic-image-of-god-2016-01-28/CAC said:Jesus tells us to love our enemies, but this “cultural” god sure doesn’t. Jesus tells us to forgive “seventy times seven” times, but this god doesn’t. Instead, this god burns people for all eternity. Many of us were raised to believe this, but we usually had to repress this bad theology into our unconscious because it’s literally unthinkable. Most humans are more loving and forgiving than such a god. We’ve developed an unworkable and toxic image of God that a healthy person would never trust. The mystical, transformative journey cannot take place until that image is undone. Why would you want to spend even an hour in silence, solitude, or intimacy with such a god?
It’s true that there are some troubling passages of Scripture; even Jesus used dualistic and judgmental statements. Jesus was an honest and wise teacher. He knew that clear-headed, dualistic thinking must precede non-dual or mystical thinking. Jesus was particularly emphatic about issues people normally want to avoid, especially social justice teachings. Here he used dualistic examples like God and mammon (Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13), the rich person and the eye of the needle (Matthew 19:24; Mark 10:25), and the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25: 31-46). Jesus had to make these points absolutely clear, otherwise it’s far too easy to avoid issues of justice for the poor and inclusion of the outsider.
It seems to me that in Matthew 25, when Jesus appears to make threats of “eternal punishment,” he is making strong contrasting statements about issues of ultimate significance, calling the listener to a decision. The trouble with this passage is that we focus on the threat more than on Jesus’ positive promise of “eternal life.”
“The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born” (Matthew 26:24)Universalism says all men will be saved. It says nothing about satan's salvation or even if he/it exists as a being.
As for Judas, Jesus never said he could not "save" him, let alone never save him.
Universal reconciliation - Wikipedia
Early Church Father and eternal punishment.
Origen [a.d. 185-230-254.] De Principiis. Book I. Chap. VI
3.But whether any of these orders who act under the government of the devil, and obey his wicked commands, will in a future world be converted to righteousness because of their possessing the faculty of freedom of will, or whether persistent and inveterate wickedness may be changed by the power of habit into nature, is a result which you yourself, reader, may approve of, if neither in these present worlds which are seen and temporal, nor in those which are unseen and are eternal, that portion is to differ wholly from the final unity and fitness of things. But in the meantime, both in those temporal worlds which are seen,
De Principiis. Book II. Chap. III
6. We must see, moreover, lest perhaps it is with reference to this that the apostle says, “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are unseen are eternal. For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” (2 Corinthians 4:18-5:1) And when he says elsewhere, “Because I shall see the heavens, the works of Thy fingers,” (Psa_8:3) and when God said, regarding all things visible, by the mouth of His prophet, “My hand has formed all these things,” (Isa_66:2) He declares that that eternal house in the heavens which He promises to His saints was not made with hands, pointing out, doubtless, the difference of creation in things which are seen and in those which are not seen.
De Principiis. Book III chap. VI
4.Since, then, those things “which are seen are temporal, but those things which are not seen are eternal,” all those bodies which we see either on earth or in heaven, and which are capable of being seen, and have been made with hands, but are not eternal, are far excelled in glory by that which is not visible, nor made with hands, but is eternal.
De Principiis. Book IV. Chap. I.
25. Thy shadow we shall live among the nations;” (Lam_4:20) at the time, viz., when He will more worthily transfer all the saints from a temporal to an everlasting Gospel, according to the designation, employed by John in the Apocalypse, of “an everlasting Gospel.” (Cf. Rev_14:6)
Origen Against Celsus. Book VI. Chap. XIX
Our Paul, moreover, educated by these words, and longing after things “supra-mundane” and “super-celestial,” and doing his utmost for their sake to attain them, says in the second Epistle to the Corinthians: “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are unseen are eternal.”
De Principiis. Book III. Chap. VI
8.From which it appears to me, that as on this earth the law was a sort of schoolmaster to those who by it were to he conducted to Christ, in order that, being instructed and trained by it, they might more easily, after the training of the law, receive the more perfect principles of Christ; so also another earth, which receives into it all the saints, may first imbue and mould them by the institutions of the true and everlasting law, that they may more easily gain possession of those perfect institutions of heaven, to which nothing can be added; in which there will be, of a truth, that Gospel which is called everlasting, and that Testament, ever new, which shall never grow old.
De Principiis. Book III. Chap. I.
13.For God deals with souls not merely with a view to the short space of our present life, included within sixty years or more, but with reference to a perpetual and never-ending period, exercising His providential care over souls that are immortal, even as He Himself is eternal and immortal.
Hippolytus [A.D. 170-236] The Extant Works and Fragments
Part I. Commentaries on Various Books of Scripture. On Proverbs.
Proverbs 11:30 But the souls of the unrighteous meet an untimely expulsion from the presence of God, by whom they shall be left to remain in the flame of torment.
Justin [A.D. 110-165.] First Apology Chap LII
He shall come from heaven with glory, accompanied by His angelic host, when also He shall raise the bodies of all men who have lived, and shall clothe those of the worthy with immortality, and shall send those of the wicked, endued with eternal sensibility, into everlasting fire with the wicked devils. And that these things also have been foretold as yet to be, we will prove. By Ezekiel the prophet it was said: “Joint shall be joined to joint, and bone to bone, and flesh shall grow again; and every knee shall bow to the Lord, and every tongue shall confess Him.” (Eze_37:7, Eze_37:8; Isa_45:24) And in what kind of sensation and punishment the wicked are to be, hear from what was said in like manner with reference to this; it is as follows: “Their worm shall not rest, and their fire shall not be quenched;” (Isa_66:24) and then shall they repent, when it profits them not.
Justin The First Apology Chap. VIII
And Plato, in like manner, used to say that Rhadamanthus and Minos would punish the wicked who came before them; and we say that the same thing will be done, but at the hand of Christ, and upon the wicked in the same bodies united again to their spirits which are now to undergo everlasting punishment; and not only, as Plato said, for a period of a thousand years.
Irenaeus [A.D. 120-202.] Against Heresies. Book V Chap. XXVII
Those, therefore, who cast away by apostasy these forementioned things, being in fact destitute of all good, do experience every kind of punishment. God, however, does not punish them immediately of Himself, but that punishment falls upon them because they are destitute of all that is good. Now, good things are eternal and without end with God, and therefore the loss of these is also eternal and never-ending. It is in this matter just as occurs in the case of a flood of light: those who have blinded themselves, or have been blinded by others, are for ever deprived of the enjoyment of light.
Tertullian [a.d. 145-220] Part First Apologetic Chap. XLVIII
Therefore after this there is neither death nor repeated resurrections, but we shall be the same that we are now, and still unchanged — the servants of God, ever with God, clothed upon with the proper substance of eternity; but the profane, and all who are not true worshippers of God, in like manner shall be consigned to the punishment of everlasting fire — that fire which, from its very nature indeed, directly ministers to their incorruptibility.
Commodianus [a.d. 240] Instructions in Favour of Christian Discipline. Against the Gods of the Heathens.
Learn God, O foolish man, who wishes thee to be immortal, that thou mayest give Him eternal thanks in thy struggle. His own law teaches thee; but since thou seekest to wander, thou disbelievest all things, and thence thou shalt go into hell. By and by thou givest up thy life; thou shalt be taken where it grieveth thee to be: there the spiritual punishment, which is eternal, is undergone; there are always wailings: nor dost thou absolutely die therein - there at length too late proclaiming the omnipotent God.
Hippolytus [A.D. 170-236] Against Plato, on the Cause of the Universe
And we call it by the name Abraham’s bosom. But the unrighteous are dragged toward the left by angels who are ministers of punishment, and they go of their own accord no longer, but are dragged by force as prisoners. And the angels appointed over them send them along, reproaching them and threatening them with an eye of terror, forcing them down into the lower parts. And when they are brought there, those appointed to that service drag them on to the confines or hell. And those who are so near hear incessantly the agitation, and feel the hot smoke. And when that vision is so near, as they see the terrible and excessively glowing spectacle of the fire, they shudder in horror at the expectation of the future judgment, (as if they were) already feeling the power of their punishment. And again, where they see the place of the fathers and the righteous, they are also punished there. For a deep and vast abyss is set there in the midst, so that neither can any of the righteous in sympathy think to pass it, nor any of the unrighteous dare to cross it.
2 and to the lovers of iniquity shall be given eternal punishment. And the fire which is un-quenchable and without end awaits these latter, and a certain fiery worm which dieth not, and which does not waste the body, but continues bursting forth from the body with unending pain. No sleep will give them rest; no night will soothe them; no death will deliver them from punishment; no voice of interceding friends will profit them
Cyprian [A.D. 200-258.] Treatise V. — An Address to Demetrianus.
24. What will then be the glory of faith? what the punishment of faithlessness? When the day of judgment shall come, what joy of believers, what sorrow of unbelievers; that they should have been unwilling to believe here, and now that they should be unable to return that they might believe! An ever-burning Gehenna will burn up the condemned, and a punishment devouring with living flames; nor will there be any source whence at any time they may have either respite or end to their torments. Souls with their bodies will be reserved in infinite tortures for suffering. . . We wearied ourselves in the way of wickedness and destruction; we have gone through deserts where there lay no way; but we have not known the way of the Lord. What hath pride profited us, or what good hath the boasting of riches done us? All those things are passed away like a shadow.” (Wisdom of Solomon 5:1-9) The pain of punishment will then be without the fruit of penitence; weeping will be useless, and prayer ineffectual. Too late they will believe in eternal punishment who would not believe in eternal life.
Minucius Felix (Octavius 34:12–5:3 [A.D. 226]).
"I am not ignorant of the fact that many, in the consciousness of what they deserve, would rather hope than actually believe that there is nothing for them after death.They would prefer to be annihilated rather than be restored for punishment. . . . Nor is there either measure nor end to these torments. That clever fire burns the limbs and restores them, wears them away and yet sustains them, just as fiery thunderbolts strike bodies but do not consume them"
Lactantius [A.D. 307] Divine Institutes 7:21
"[T]he sacred writings inform us in what manner the wicked are to undergo punishment. For because they have committed sins in their bodies, they will again be clothed with flesh, that they may make atonement in their bodies; and yet it will not be that flesh with which God clothed man, like this our earthly body, but indestructible, and abiding forever, that it may be able to hold out against tortures and everlasting fire, the nature of which is different from this fire of ours, which we use for the necessary purposes of life, and which is extinguished unless it be sustained by the fuel of some material. But that divine fire always lives by itself, and flourishes without any nourishment. . . . The same divine fire, therefore, with one and the same force and power, will both burn the wicked and will form them again, and will replace as much as it shall consume of their bodies, and will supply itself with eternal nourishment. . . . Thus, without any wasting of bodies, which regain their substance, it will only burn and affect them with a sense of pain. But when [God] shall have judged the righteous, he will also try them with fire".
Cyril of Jerusalem [A.D. 350]Catechetical Lectures 18:19
"We shall be raised therefore, all with our bodies eternal, but not all with bodies alike: for if a man is righteous, he will receive a heavenly body, that he may be able worthily to hold converse with angels; but if a man is a sinner, he shall receive an eternal body, fitted to endure the penalties of sins, that he may burn eternally in fire, nor ever be consumed. And righteously will God assign this portion to either company; for we do nothing without the body. We blaspheme with the mouth, and with the mouth we pray. With the body we commit fornication, and with the body we keep chastity. With the hand we rob, and by the hand we bestow alms; and the rest in like manner. Since then the body has been our minister in all things, it shall also share with us in the future the fruits of the past"
I have found it to be most helpful to read a post before trying to respond to it. The sources I quoted, which OBTW were not books by scholars arguing a theological position as yours were, but Greek lexicons and concordances which do in fact provide support for their conclusions. There were quotes from pre-Christian scholars.The book shows that. If i posted it here it would be many times longer than your post of opinions that never show how they arrived at their opinions.
Two can play that game. Everything you copy/pasted in your post can be rejected on the same grounds "English translations of someones opinion with theological biases,""Also cherry picked and out of context. Since the authors opinion is not inerrant, & all things considered, are they even worth the paper & post they are written on? Additionally the persons quoted are also far from being infallible," Your objections might be credible if you want to try to prove any of the accusations you made. If not I think we are done here.Those are mere English translations of someones opinion with theological biases, obviously, not the original language statements. Also cherry picked and out of context. Since the translators opinion is not inerrant, & all things considered, are they even worth the paper & post they are written on? Additionally the persons quoted are also far from being infallible, as showing a bit of their history would expose.......
“The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born” (Matthew 26:24)
I have found it to be most helpful to read a post before trying to respond to it. The sources I quoted, which OBTW were not books by scholars arguing a theological position as yours were, but Greek lexicons and concordances which do in fact provide support for their conclusions. There were quotes from pre-Christian scholars.
And to think that I've bothered to make the effort...nay, the emotionally straining pressure...to repent of sin(s). But, the travesty of all of this is that if Universalism is true, I didn't really need to go through all the bother of repenting at all since everything will just all come out well and peaceful in the end, right?
In almost every era of the Christian church, professing Christian people have found the idea of universalism attractive. And every time it’s been condemned in the history, almost from the beginning, as completely unBiblical. Yet it still keeps coming back.
You know what I find strange. Universalists are semi-Pelagian in their views concerning people during their life. But suddenly after death, everything becomes very Calvinistic. The love of God will convert the unbeliever. The love of God and grace are irresistible. The love of God will secure the salvation of His people.
There is no more love of God to be demonstrated than in the work of our Savior on the cross and the zealous pursuit of his efficacious work in the hearts of living men and women by the power of the Holy Spirit.
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