Universalism?

[Nick T]

This is my first post so hello!

I was wondering exactly where or whether Universal reconciliation (the belief that all souls will eventually attain salvation) fits into EO. I origionally though of it as a definite no however recently I've been reading that apparently certain Early Church Fathers, such as St Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Gregory of Nyssa believed in it. Were they wrong on this matter?

 

[icxn]

Yes, they were wrong. St. Gregory received it unquestionably from his teacher Origen, the root of this false doctrine. For this reason I think St. Gregory is innocent of the condemnation. St. Clement I'm not aware that he taught this. Do you have any references?

 

[Knee V]

Here's the advice given to me on this matter:

Is it possible that all souls may be reconciled to God, even Satan and the demons? Maybe, it might be possible. But that has not been revealed to us, and it's best not to speculate on it. We should worry about being reconciled to God ourselves in this lifetime and on reconciling the world around us. Should we find out at some point in eternity that God had a plan all along to reconcile all people to Him, then we can rejoice about it at that time.

 

[Nick T]

With regards to St Clement apparently the concept was in his third work "Stromata": New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. I: Aachen - Basilians | Christian Classics Ethereal Library

But what knee-v says definitly seems like the best way to think of things. Thanks for the advice

 

[88Devin07]

What I've been taught is that the "official" teaching of it would be that we are to hope and pray that all are eventually saved, including Satan himself.

However, to say that we know that all will be saved is heresy.

I think while Origen was condemned and posthumously anathemetized for this teaching, he actually was kind of mild about it whereas those who took his teachings to the next level actually believed that all would be saved no matter what. It was the later "Origenists" (though no connection to Origen himself) who committed the severe heresy. Origen was condemned (I think) because it was his writings that they were using to defend their POV.