Origenist Universalism as a system was attacked by theologians, bishops, fathers, and councils for several centuries. The Christocentric, non-dualistic form of Universalism championed by S. Gregory of Nyssa, Isaac of Syria, and others was not condemned. Different things.
Origenism and Universalism are not the same things. There may be some overlap in some areas (as there are with orthodoxy and any heresy) but one does not have to be one to be the other. Origen's is but one school. It is unfair to equate the two without qualification.
I think it is a mistake to write Origen off too glibly. He did not have benefit of the insightful reflections of the Cappadocian Fathers. He did in my mind advance the Christian thinking of his time.
We must understand we benefit from the Fathers. The were defining Christology, and other ologies, we now take for granted. They got some things right and some wrong. Tertullian was a good Church Father until he became a Montanist. Origen gave us good direction and missed the mark when he taught that Christ was subordinate to the Father. Heresy. They, as other fathers, tried to make sense of the scriptures. That is why individual interpretation is so dangerous. We seek to accept that which makes us feel good. Understanding is there, but emotion overrides all. Just look at the comments here, mine included. We are seeking to understand God through our emotions. We must temper that temptation. It allows us to accept sin. Saint Vincent of Lerin's canon should guide us. In all this discussion about univeralism.....we have not talked about the need of the Cross. Why need the Cross or redemption if everyone will accept God as soon as they see him in the afterlife. Oh maybe a time in hell, but what the hell....you get saved. The Cross and Christ's sacrifice for us is reduced to a cruel joke. If everyone is saved, even demons as some believe and some Church Fathers...Origen taught, are saved....why did God setup the sacrifical system the Jews followed. Why even obey God? We get an out, or saved, and accept him when we see him. St James taught against that by the way. Why should I follow Christ? Why not just do what I want, sin as I want, spit in Gods face as I want. Why not, in the after life I get another chance and I can then accept God and be saved. Or spend time in hell and then be saved. We get to bind God to our decision. A God in our own image? Jesus himself spoke on the eternal fire and the eternal punishment. As a Christian, theologian, Priest.....I must and will reject any form of universalism as contrary to the Word of God. Regardless of who speaks it, Roman Catholic Bishop, Church Father etc. Even if an angel himself told me.... Blessings Fr. Mark
Right What is the difference? I feel like this had to have been explained at the outset, before advocating for a qualified universalism, when the impression created so far is an advocacy for an un- qualified universalism (which is a heresy).
I think a fundamental problem arises when we try to use "why" as a justification or proof of a point. Many "why's" can be asked. Why did God put the tree in the garden? Why did God allow the serpent into the garden? Why did God come to earth and die? Why didn't he save us in some other way? Why wasn't Jesus hung or beheaded or any other form of execution? We simply cannot think or reason on the level that God does. We cannot answer a great many questions that God knows the answer too. To say that God won't do something because it doesn't make logical sense to us is akin to saying that God is bound by human rules and laws. God gave the Bible to us and bound us to its teachings, but He is outside of and above the law. God is not bound by any human law or reason. To use "why" as a justification doesn't prove anything. A simple, undeniable fact, is that God can do whatever God wants to do. He is not bound by "why". If God wants an individual to be with Him, then that individual will be, and if God doesn't want an individual, then they won't be. You may call me or Lowly or Toma or Philip or anyone else universalists, you can even brand us as heretics, but nothing will ever change the sovereignty of God. He can save anyone from anything. The Bible provides us with several examples of God changing his mind. Even if God condemns a person, He can still forgive them later. Even if God completely annihilates a soul, he can always recreate it. He created the entirety of the universe. To try to say that His power is somehow limited because of human reasoning feels far more like heresy to me than reasonably hoping that God can and will save anyone that He wants to.
Fr. Mark, I believe you must have missed it I so I invite you to re-read the previous posts on this thread. The cross is of the utmost importance in the universalist message, at least in the one I follow and speak about. In fact, I argue that the power and effect of Our Lord's atoning work is only given its full impact in a universalist paradigm. The Cross of Christ is not diminished simply because by it, all people are saved. Rather, it is firmly restored to its true place. Just as water and air not less important to human life because all men live by it, instead they are recognized as absolute necessities. So it is with the cross. Universalists really mean it when they say that Jesus Christ is the savior of the world--the WHOLE world. Consider this. If, through the first Adam, ALL men are condemned to death, a second Adam who saves only some men from the same would be a lesser than the first. Man's sin would be of greater effect than God's promise to save. The old Adam would have greater reign than the new Adam. No, the universalist sees that Christ's words are true and no hyperbole: "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw ALL men to myself." The only condition in that statement was met 2,000 years ago. No other maybes exist in that promise. He bore all sin for all men, and thereby ransomed all from their ultimate fates. Anything less would, at some level, be a defeat. Christ is the king of kings, the lord of lords, greater than all the spiritual princes and principalities of this world, greater than Adam, greater than our ability to miss the mark, and He was--and is--absolute in his victory on Calvary! It was His Father's good pleasure to give Him all things and Our Lord promised that nothing that was given to Him by His Father could ever be snatched from his hand. The good news of Jesus Christ is for ALL people, not just a few. That's why we were committed by Him who brought us the victory to share the Gospel to each each an every soul. Every person should hear the promise, because the promise is for every person, and salvation comes by hearing, and hrearing by the Word of God. Though I am merely a lowly layman, and do not profess to be either priest or theologian, I too am compelled to reject any form of eschatology no matter how currently popular it may be, inluding everlasting concious torment, that is contrary to the Word of God. As you put it, the Fathers (both early and contemporary) are helpful, but their ideas and ologies cannot supplant what we learn in scripture about the will and character of God. I agree with you when you say, the Fathers, as sincere and well-meaning as they may be, get some things right and some things wrong. Where we differ is that I belive it was everlasting concious torment, not biblical universalism, that is the heretical position. I would also point out that biblical Universalism was never declared a heresy by any council, only Origenism. And it was not declared heretical by any of the first four ecumenical councils that Anglicans follow to determine what is heretical and what is not. Just as you pointed out, private interpretation is dangerous, no matter how old and politically ensconced it may be. The Vincentian formula for catholicism is a sound one. And it was one that was first established when universalism was the main school of thought on the issue. Thus, I would conclude that universalism is the catholic, ie the universal, position. I hope that all on this forum would give universalism a second gloss. Not the universalism we've been taught to despise. Not unitarian universalism. Not New Age indifferentism. Not some heretical universalism that betrays the Gospel message and relegates Jesus to the position of mere mortal way-shower. I ask you to consider or reconsider the Biblical Universalism that teaches the victorious Gospel of Jesus Christ: While mankind was lost and enslaved in sin, God, who willed that all be saved, refused to leave them to languish in that state forever. And since all were equally hopeless, God sent his only begotten Son, begotten from before all worlds, to be the savior of them all. To do what men could not do for themselves--to live a perfect life in their place, to bear their sins, to suffer and die in their place, to rise again and prepare a place of heavenly bliss for them, and to return again at the end of all things to save all people, especially, and to make all things new--making God all in all. I think of the old gospel hymn my baptist grandmother used to sing..."When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be! When we all see Jesus, we'll sing and shout the victory!" I hope and believe that, when God ultimately restores His creation, we all--you, me, and all God's creatures--will sing and shout the victory of OurLord, God, and Saviour Jesus Christ. God bless!
"reasonable hope" are the keywords. I'm a member of the George MacDonald society and this is something that, naturally, gets discussed waaaaaay too much. What I find are two camps: Those who say they CANNOT BELIEVE in a God who does, seemingly, cruel things no matter what Scripture says about it. Those who say that they HOPE in the salvation of all, but that because the very nature of hope is that _we cannot know_ then we are to NEVER teach it as doctrine (thus, heretical). I'm in the second camp. Also, Lewis gives a wonderful (horrible?) thought in the Great Divorce that no _human_ goes to hell. Charles Williams was also of this mind. That, those souls who are so rebellious as to refuse God even on the last day are so twisted and thus inhuman that they very much wish to gnaw their own bones in bitter exile for all eternity.
I think you're leaving out Free Will to an excessive extent. God wills us to have free will, that is what He wants, and that includes the option to reject Him should we so wish.
I said exactly this back at the beginning of this thread. My argument in the post that you're quoting has to do with the sovereignty of God. The argument has been made in this thread that God has to condemn some people because that makes logical sense to humans. I do not agree with such feelings. I believe that God can do whatever God wants to do. Since the Bible, by its very existence, shows us that God desires all of us to be with Him, then I hold a reasonable hope that most people will be forgiven and saved. Perhaps those who don't serve God in life will have to be "cleansed" at death, but that's pure speculation I also believe, and have stated such, that some poor souls may be so enslaved in their own pride that they reject God even when in His presence. However, as Anne pointed out, such souls are so far from their humanity that they hardly qualify as people. So I think that you have missed the point of my statement, as it had nothing to do with free will. Free will was addressed pretty early on in this thread. The post that you quoted is about love. The Bible contains rules, but it's not a rule book. It contains violence, but teaches peace. The Bible is a love letter from a Father who wants the very best for all of his children, no matter how far they have wandered. He loves all, even the prodigal souls. When we lose sight of this, when we ignore God's love and focus only on rules, we are missing the very essence of Christianity. To teach fear to others is to teach against the word of God. This is, in my opinion, the biggest problem with Baptists and other Fundamentalist branches. They teach selective parts of the Bible, not the whole message. The rules help protect us during life, but they do not define our relationship with God. God gave us free will due to His magnificent love for us, but God is not bound by our will. God can forgive and restore anyone at any time. He can build and destroy anything at any time. If God wants to save a person, and that person wants to be saved, then no amount of sin can prevent God from saving that person. God is all powerful. It is human folly to say that God has to follow certain rules as defined by humans.
I take free will very seriously, myself. Free will is innate to human nature. We cannot be human without it. To limit free will only to this life - locking our choice for sin (or for God!) into eternity - would mean we're not human anymore in the one state in which we're meant to be fully human. When any human person sees God, he will immediately recognize Him for the truth, goodness, beauty, wisdom, justice, and mercy that He essentially is. Due to our sin, we die when we see God; but it was Christ's job to fix that. Now that He has done so in His incarnation, death, and resurrection, our eyes are purified ontologically as a human race. Those who do not recognize it will suffer in Hell until they do. Men will recognize God as the one thing they were freely seeking in all things: in virtue and sin, life and death, sex and celibacy, noise and silence, food and abstinance, architecture and grassland, or coffee and donuts. Even the worst sinner, seeing and knowing God at judgment, is compelled to change his mind by the beauty of God; even if this process takes endless ages in what we'd think of as Hell. Eventually, free will will choose what is good. It is like being compelled to weep by a moving photograph or motion picture. You cannot stop yourself, despite being free. All things are merely expressions of His goodness. This is why He allows all things to exist: that we may come closer to Him with joy, repenting of making created things into God, and making God into a created thing. We may be focused on the Tree and its beauty, as idolaters, but Chist fixed Himself to The Tree so we may never see anything but Him, even in our idolatry. That day will come. "Every tear will be wiped away." If that doesn't include those weeping in the outer darkness, then it isn't every tear. "Death will be no more." If that doesn't include those cast into death and hades, then death won't be no more.
I don't think anyone's said that. Could you provide an actual quote? We're only saying that God will condemn some people. "Narrow is the gate, and few there are who find it," teaches our Lord. But then why exercise it, if it doesn't matter? Why do they need to hear it though? What happens if they don't hear? No, because the Garden of Eden was not Heaven. The Second Adam saves men to eternal life, something the first Adam never could do.
This question is a logical fallacy, you are asking me to provide a direct quote when I am speaking of the general sentiment provided by you, Fr. Mark, and Neasag. Such a question cannot be answered and you know it, because you certainly checked to make sure that such a quote does not exist before posting such a loaded challenge. Like Neasag, you are taking one tiny aspect of my rather long statement and attacking it, rather than addressing the entirety of my point. See, your question proves my point in its entirety. Rather than look at the entirety of the text, the entirety of the message, you choose one tiny sentence and attack it, just like you choose one tiny sentence in the Bible and use it as the entire foundation of your position. What you are ignoring are the many actions and teachings of Christ. The Bible warns against drinking alcohol, yet Jesus drank wine with sinners on many occasions. The Bible warns of sexual immorality, and yet Jesus protected the whore from stoning. When the Pharisees challenged Jesus with the law, he repeatedly told them not to worry about it. The laws of the Bible are to protect us and help us live full lives, they do not define our relationship with God. I have a toddler son. I tell him not to touch the outlets. Sometimes he does anyway. I yell at him because I am fearful for his safety. I scold him so that he learns to not play with dangerous things. I do NOT throw him out of the house or write him out of my will simply because he has transgressed. How much more is God than I? If I love my son that much, how much more does God love us? We cannot even begin to comprehend the fullness of God's love for us, and yet many people here are asserting that our loving God will condemn many souls for all eternity simply because they did not know him in life. Such a sentiment is counter to every aspect of Biblical truth. I believe that many people will die enslaved to their sin, and of those, certainly a portion will choose to remain in sin rather than accept God, but to say that a just and loving God cannot, or as you put it, will not, forgive people simply because they died without accepting him is not only foolish but denies both the omnipotence and love of God. The message of the Bible is love, not condemnation. The laws given in the Bible protect us during life, they do not effect our relationship with God. Jesus states this explicitly in his many dealings with the Pharisees. But that is the problem with the human brain. We take aspects of the world around us and we decide how things should or should not be. We take one sentence from the Bible and we apply it to all things in all situations, and then we decide that God will condemn all people who we decide this sentence applies too. Of course, we ignore the sentences that apply to us. In handpicking parts of the Bible, we lose sight of the entire message. We find condemnation and wrath where we should see the love and longing of our Father. So feel free to live in fear of sentences. I will walk in the love of my God, and I will worship him daily in thanks for allowing me to be a part of His magnificent creation. I do not need to fear the wrath of my God because he wrote me a personalized love letter explaining to me how much he cares about me, and his excitement to meet me when my time on Earth is over. He wrote you one too, you just need to see it.
By your kingly power O risen Lord. All that Adam lost is now restored: In your resurrection be adored. 1. Sing the joyful Easter cry, Sound it to the souls in prison, Shout our triumph to the sky: Sing Christ risen, sing Christ risen. 2. Sing the joyful Easter cry, Let all times and peoples listen: Death has no more victory, Sing Christ risen, sing Christ risen. 3. Death has lost and life has won; Ev’ry newborn soul we christen Now becomes the Father’s son: Sing Christ risen, sing Christ risen Words: James McAuley (1917-1976) Sometimes I fear that the discussion about free will, double predestination, universalism, judgement and hell, can sound very easily to be a discussion about who we can keep out of heaven. We are called to be the Ambassadors for Christ, not Heavens Bouncers. I do not believe that God condemns people, very often I feel that people condemn themselves. The incarnation tells me that God loved us so much he had to become part of us. Earth is but our refugee camp, for our citizenship is in heaven.
Sigh I'm so sick of this topic....round and round and round.... Two thoughts: to quote scripture in support of universalism - every tear shall be wiped away, death will be no more, etc. - is a futile exercise because one can just as easily site scripture that supports eternal damnation. Just like one can find sovereignty AND free will, plain as day, so trying to emphasize one over the other is an attempt at unveiling a mystery. We have not been told, we simply cannot know. So let's stop appealing solely to scripture shall we? Which leaves us with: what does the Church say? Who gets to define doctrine and who doesn't? Who gets to define heresy? Cue ominous music....
Scripture by no means supports universalism. If it did, then the Church Fathers, the Anglican divines and most Christians through history must have been bumbling fools, and only in modern times did people have their eyes opened. Jesus clearly teaches damnation and hell. He warns that most who follow him will not be saved: "Not all who cry out Lord, Lord, will be saved." He teaches that most people, and most Christians, will be damned: "Narrow is the gate, and few there are who find it." He teaches about the "eternal fire of Hell" and "the Worm the dieth not." He teaches that "if you love me you will keep my commandments." His religion is a very difficult one, not easy-believism. The Church, to follow Anne's point, ratified the teachings of Her Lord by constantly through the centuries and millennia teaching about the sin and damnation, about the Four Last Things, among which Hell and Heaven are very prominent. St. Augustine taught that 90% of all Christians in history will have been damned. St. Cyril teaches that most Christians have gone to Hell, especially most priests and bishops. CS Lewis supports this by saying that all "men" will be saved, because people who are wicked are not human.
Stalwart, not so fast "Jesus clearly teaches damnation and hell" But does He teach ETERNAL damnation? I am inclined to think yes but with caveats -- Because we are also told that God desires salvation for all. And that heaven's gates are always open and unlocked. Thus, a hope. Not a doctrine.