wow....shades of Sartre...that's a different way of looking at it.
For some reason, the aesthetics involved in my perception of Jesus have had the strange affect of precluding most negative concerns I might be tempted to have about being snuffed out by God. However, I do have to admit that before I was a Christian, I was always concerned about just simply disappearing altogether when I died.
Haha, yes, I have a "take no prisoners" existentialist approach to life, the universe, and everything. It made me a cultured despiser of religion, but ultimately left me wide open to a flank attack by those Russian Orthodox intellectuals.
It's... difficult, though. I know all the tricks in the skeptic's handbook, so it's very much a "three steps forward, two steps back" sort of journey, stumbling and tripping over dogma as I go. (Amusingly, I just recently realized that Trinitarianism actually makes more sense philosophically than any other religion out there, which will hopefully stabilize me a bit.)
What aesthetics are involved for you?
If there is one thing I am confident about in my interpretation is that Universalism isn't an interpretive option. But, what biblical contexts do you think bring some substance to how we should shape our understanding of personal eschatology, Silmarien?
I picked up the Bible seriously for the first time six months ago, so I'm really not at the point where I can have a biblically based debate on this particular topic.
I have seen it argued that most of the passages about judgment were actually referring more specifically to the conflict with Rome, and I know just enough about the way the Jewish Prophets operated to wonder whether these passages are to be taken completely at face value or if they were specifically directed at that particular culture. Would Jesus address a modern audience somewhat differently? Almost certainly.
That said, there are ideas I find very difficult when removed from the realm of theology and applied to reality. Exclusivism, for one. I think everyone is guilty of idolatry to one degree or another--it's impossible not to put your own spin on Scripture. If everyone has their own personal interpretation of Jesus, whose faith is saving and whose is not? How much doubt shoves you back into the nonbeliever category? I don't think the Gospel is very good news at all if you need to be a saint to qualify, and correct belief is an impossible standard when everyone is wrong. I'm not convinced that Calvinists and Eastern Orthodox are even worshipping the same God, which begs a very serious question even without bringing in people who toss out half the dogma entirely and other religions.
Now, I don't view hell as punitive. This is due to personal experience--I've spent a lot of time in pretty serious intellectual rebellion, and it's effectively been spiritual suicide. I've seen the Orthodox talk about being able to get a taste while still alive of what hell actually is, and I would definitely agree. I think it's a matter of self-destruction, not punishment, so I'd say that the warnings in the Gospels are very relevant, but that our approach to the concept of judgment is probably off-base. This really colors the way I look at Scripture, though, since it's hard to put much weight in Reformed theology when your own "conviction of sin" plays out in a way that's
exclusively consistent with the way the East approaches the subject.
As far as Universalism goes... if I had to throw in with anyone, it'd probably be C.S. Lewis and N.T. Wright's pseudo-Annihilationistic approach (i.e., becoming less human until there's eventually not much of anything left), but I'm interested in what the best of the Universalists have to say too. I'm skeptical of the strong claim that
everyone will eventually be reconciliated, but I think it takes drawing some arbitrary lines to say that there are specific points at which someone becomes too far gone.