The early church fathers who were universalist in doctrine were far more qualified in Greek than just being able to read the gospel of John. They were native born Greek speakers of NT Koine Greek. And they were scholars of the same.
Did God Predestinate some to Hell/Wrath ?
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The early church fathers who were universalist in doctrine were far more qualified in Greek than just being able to read the gospel of John. They were native born Greek speakers of NT Koine Greek. And they were scholars of the same.
Look boys, Universalism is just flat out stupidity. If your think you language based machinations are going convince anyone who isn't already sitting in the choir loft, you're delusional.
There is a single word that simultaneously forms the foundation of the entire Christian faith and makes Universalism impossible.
Justice
There is a single word that simultaneously forms the foundation of the entire Christian faith and makes Universalism impossible.
Justice
Dear Clete: I do appreciate that the Restitution of all things declared by the Prophets from earliest ages is "dilusional". I also fully grasp the Saviour cannot, or will not, draw all mankind to Himself & is either "dilusional" or does not grasp the purpose in Abba's "Heart". I almost forgot: St. John who declares the Saviour the hilasmos of the holos. is also ""delusional". The heck with St. Paul, that old former Pharisee: speak about "delusional" he is delusional with a capitol "D" DELUSIONAL.
Now Clete, if and when you would like to show me how delusional I am, you know where to find my old delusional bones!
I will start with the perfect equation of "Justice" and go from there.
Right Divider
Body part
At least attempt to provide a scriptural basis for your opinion.
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Scripture reveals that mercy triumphs over judgement. Why don't you believe this?
Nowhere does Scripture say "God is just - period." It does, however, say God is love.
Where is the justice in endless tortures for finite sins?
This sounds like just payback, not endless annihilation or tortures:
Rev.18:6 Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.
Typical stupidity.
You're responding to a point no one made.
In fact, what you've done is make an argument based on the regular English reading of the Bible, albeit a superficial and woefully incomplete one, instead of totally wasting everyone's time discussing how you think this or that Greek word should have been translated.
What's hysterical is that you didn't do this on purpose! You're too stupid to even read my post and respond to what I actually said and are instead prodded emotionally into doing precisely what you're mad at me for having suggested you ought to have been doing the whole time.
You Universalists simply do not know how to think. Yes, that's a generalization and I'm sure there's one of you somewhere that can string two coherent tehological thoughts together more than once a month but based on what I've seen here, you're certainly not him.
Clete
Rom 5:18 Consequently, then, as it was through one offense for ALL MANKIND for condemnation, thus also it is through one just act for ALL MANKIND for life's justifying."
Rom 5:19 For even as, through the disobedience of the one man, THE MANY were constituted sinners, thus also, through the obedience of the One, THE MANY shall be constituted just."
Paul makes a parallel between "the many" who were condemned & sinners and those who will be justified & constituted just.
“In Romans 5, the justification is co-extensive with the condemnation. Since all share in one, all share in the other. If only a certain portion of the human race had partaken of the sin of Adam, only a certain portion would partake of the justification of Christ. But St. Paul affirms all to have been involved in one, and all to be included in the other.”
Therefore there is salvation after death. And corrective punishment.
Jesus shall see of the travail of His soul & be satisfied. Not satisfied a little bit, but the vast majority fried alive forever.
"He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities." (Isa.53:11).
For how "many" (not few) did He "bear their iniquities"? All.
Rom 5:19 For even as, through the disobedience of the one man, THE MANY were constituted sinners, thus also, through the obedience of the One, THE MANY shall be constituted just."
Paul makes a parallel between "the many" who were condemned & sinners and those who will be justified & constituted just.
“In Romans 5, the justification is co-extensive with the condemnation. Since all share in one, all share in the other. If only a certain portion of the human race had partaken of the sin of Adam, only a certain portion would partake of the justification of Christ. But St. Paul affirms all to have been involved in one, and all to be included in the other.”
Therefore there is salvation after death. And corrective punishment.
Jesus shall see of the travail of His soul & be satisfied. Not satisfied a little bit, but the vast majority fried alive forever.
"He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities." (Isa.53:11).
For how "many" (not few) did He "bear their iniquities"? All.
Not quite,Clete!
1. God is Light
2. God is Spirit.
3. God is [the] Saviour.
4. God is Love.
5. God is Fire.
That my friend is Abba's essence!
No where in Canon is His essence described as "God is justice"!
He is indeed just: perfect Just, but flowing from His essence of the above.
"From Him, through Him, to Him."
I know what you were referring too.
I totally accept scripture, it's your use of it that is flawed.
God is never - ever - unjust - period.
These two sentences disqualify you to even discuss Christian doctrine, never mind debate it.
The two terms are not mutually exclusive nor are they even in any sort of conflict. The fact that you could allow these two sentences to flow from your mind in succession is proof that you don't know what either of them mean.
There is no such thing as a "finite sin". Where did you ever hear that term? (Don't answer that. I don't care.)
Every sin is a rebellion against the God Who is Life. The result is death. God is eternal, thus the death that results from rebelling against Him is also eternal.
The punishment fits the crime.
Further, if sin were "finite" as you call it, there would have been no need for an infinite God to become a Man and die in our place.
Well, that didn't take long.
These asinine discussions always come down to someone wanting to be nicer than God.
The plain reading of the Bible is too mean for your gentle sensibilities and so you find ways to soften God into a sweet little snugly Teddy bear. Cherry picking "proof" texts and ignoring the whole rest of scripture. The author of Hebrews lists eternal judgment as an elementary principle and foundational doctrine of the Christian faith, a fact that you didn't even know until I just told you and that you likely don't believe and are wanting to rush and see what I could possibly be talking about.
Clete
Listen, you need to stop.
I do not tolerate blasphemy and this post came within a hair's breath of exactly that.
I'm one of only a very few people who will engage you at all on this topic. Take one more step down this road and I'll never read another thing you post on this website. (Not that you'd care about that.)
Was it your intention to suggest that any of the things on this list are antithetical to God being just?
If not, what was your point? Do you think I don't know that God is Love, Life, Light (reason), etc?
If so, what would make you think that?
There can be only one answer. You think that God cannot be both Just and Loving; that God cannot be both righteous and merciful.
It is proof that you do not know what you're talking about. You know next to nothing about God. You're practiced in your doctrine but are dumb as a brick when comes to understand who God is.
Do you know what Theology Proper is? If not, just Google it and you can pretend you knew what it meant when I asked the question.
It is the foundation - I repeat - the FOUNDATION of everything theological. Theology begins with who God is. If you get that wrong, everything else is built on sand and anything you happen to get right is in spite of yourself. And I'm here to tell you that if you think it possible for God to be unjust in any respect or for any reason then you need to drop everything you think you know and start completely over from scratch.
Clete
ttruscott
Well-known member
Everyone with a special pleading has their own interpretation, right? I contend that the Bible denies this interpretation of this verse too blatantly to just ignore.
ttruscott
Well-known member
What gave you this idea?
ttruscott
Well-known member
1.
To describe the sufferings in hell as torture is a blatant red herring when it is the result of a righteous condemnation of criminal acts by a perfect Judge. The sufferings of those who are condemned for crime by a righteous perfect Judge are NOT the excessive suffering caused for personal gain or pleasure that the word torture was invented to describe. Ezekiel 18:32 For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign Lord.
2.
No infinite death was commanded for finite crimes. Hell is only for those who sinned the unforgivable crime, blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.
IF anyone can be saved, they will be saved.
Only those who can't be forgiven will not be saved because their crime is unforgivable.
They are unforgivable because their crime was to reject YHWH as their GOD and to reject the salvation found in HIS Son by putting their faith and commitment into the delusion that HE was a lying false god, ie a demon, and the most evil person in creation. Since no one can cure themselves from their enslavement to evil and since they have rejected the only source that can indeed save them, ie, the grace and mercy of GOD, they will remain as infinitely evil, eternally evil, people. In other words, infinite hell for infinite crimes.
Their banishment to the outer darkness is an absolute necessity to keep them from despoiling the heavenly state with their hate and will last as long as heaven lasts...
Dear Clete:
1. I read your informative post.
2. I am not mad at you.
3. Show "stupid" the meaning of the koine words being discussed.
4. Forget the English: focus on the Aramaic and koine.
5. Please explain what "coherent tehological thoughts" mean.
I am still waiting for you to define "justice". I am still prepared to give you perfect justice in one single equation (in English). If you will be a good boy it shall happen, but you must be a good boy!
There's no "eternal judgement" in Hebrews. But there is:
6:2 of the teaching of baptizings, besides the imposition of hands, and the resurrection of the dead, and of judgment eonian (CLV) https://studybible.info/CLV/Hebrews 6
10:28 A man that hath set at nought Moses' law dieth without compassion on the word of two or three witnesses: 29 of how much sorer punishment, think ye, shall he be judged worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?
Generally capital punishment under Moses' law was by stoning. Stoning to death is not a very sore or long lasting punishment. People suffered far worse deaths via the torture methods of the eternal hell believing Medieval Inquisitionists and the German Nazis under Hitler.
Therefore, if the writer of Hebrews believed that wicked, rebellious, Christ rejectors would be punished with something so monstrous as being endlessly annihilated or tormented, he would not have chosen to compare their punishment to something so lame as being stoned to death. Clearly he did not believe Love Omnipotent is an unfeeling terminator machine or sadist who abandons forever the beings He created in His own image & likeness so easily.
Rom 5:18 Consequently, then, as it was through one offense for ALL MANKIND for condemnation, thus also it is through one just act for ALL MANKIND for life's justifying."
Rom 5:19 For even as, through the disobedience of the one man, THE MANY were constituted sinners, thus also, through the obedience of the One, THE MANY shall be constituted just."
According to the Scriptures, God is Love Omnipotent, not a mythical deception infinitely worse than Hitler, Bin Laden & Satan combined.
To put that in context, i said:
"The early church fathers who were universalist in doctrine were far more qualified in Greek than just being able to read the gospel of John. They were native born Greek speakers of NT Koine Greek. And they were scholars of the same."
It's quite well received that that is factual. One learns this by doing some reading & research, e.g.:
"Augustine himself, after rejecting apokatastasis, and Basil attest that still late in the fourth and fifth centuries this doctrine was upheld by the vast majority of Christians
(immo quam plurimi)."
"Of course there were antiuniversalists also in the ancient church, but scholars must be careful not to list among them — as is the case with the list of “the 68” antiuniversalists repeatedly cited by McC on the basis of Brian Daley’s The Hope of the Early Church — an author just because he uses πῦρ αἰώνιον, κόλασις αἰώνιος, θάνατος αἰώνιος, or the like, since these biblical expressions do not necessarily refer to eternal damnation. Indeed all universalists, from Origen to Gregory Nyssen to Evagrius, used these phrases without problems, for universalists understood these expressions as “otherworldly,” or “long-lasting,” fire, educative punishment, and death. Thus, the mere presence of such phrases is not enough to conclude that a patristic thinker “affirmed the idea of everlasting punishment” (p. 822). Didache mentions the ways of life and death, but not eternal death or torment; Ignatius, as others among “the 68,” never mentions eternal punishment. Ephrem does not speak of eternal damnation, but has many hints of healing and restoration. For Theodore of Mopsuestia, another of “the 68,” if one takes into account also the Syriac and Latin evidence, given that the Greek is mostly lost, it becomes impossible to list him among the antiuniversalists. He explicitly ruled out unending retributive punishment, sine fine et sine correctione.
I have shown, indeed, that a few of “the 68” were not antiuniversalist, and that the uncertain were in fact universalists, for example, Clement of Alexandria, Apocalypse of Peter, Sibylline Oracles (in one passage), Eusebius, Nazianzen, perhaps even Basil and Athanasius, Ambrose, Jerome before his change of mind, and Augustine in his anti-Manichaean years. Maximus too, another of “the 68,” speaks only of punishment aionios, not aidios and talks about restoration with circumspection after Justinian, also using a persona to express it. Torstein Tollefsen, Panayiotis Tzamalikos, and Maria Luisa Gatti, for instance, agree that he affirmed apokatastasis.
It is not the case that “the support for universalism is paltry compared with opposition to it” (p. 823). Not only were “the 68” in fact fewer than 68, and not only did many “uncertain” in fact support apokatastasis, but the theologians who remain in the list of antiuniversalists tend to be much less important. Look at the theological weight of Origen, the Cappadocians, Athanasius, or Maximus, for instance, on all of whom much of Christian doctrine and dogmas depends. Or think of the cultural significance of Eusebius, the spiritual impact of Evagrius or Isaac of Nineveh, or the philosophico-theological importance of Eriugena, the only author of a comprehensive treatise of systematic theology and theoretical philosophy between Origen’s Peri Archon and Aquinas’s Summa theologiae. Then compare, for instance, Barsanuphius, Victorinus of Pettau, Gaudentius of Brescia, Maximus of Turin, Tyconius, Evodius of Uzala, or Orientius, listed among “the 68” (and mostly ignorant of Greek). McC’s statement, “there are no unambiguous cases of universalist teaching prior to Origen” (p. 823), should also be at least nuanced, in light of Bardaisan, Clement, the Apocalypse of Peter’s Rainer Fragment, parts of the Sibylline Oracles, and arguably of the NT, especially Paul’s letters.
Certainly, “there was a diversity of views in the early church on the scope of final salvation.” Tertullian, for instance, did not embrace apokatastasis. But my monograph is not on patristic eschatology or soteriology in general, but specifically on the doctrine of apokatastasis. Thus, I treated the theologians who supported it, and not others."
https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2016/...of-apokatastasis-the-reviews-start-coming-in/
Ilaria Ramelli, The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis: A Critical Assessment from the New Testament to Eriugena (Brill, 2013. 890 pp.)
Scholars directory, with list of publications:
Ilaria L.E. Ramelli - ISNS Scholars Directory
Dear Clete: This may be your finest statement! God is indeed just; He is justice in perfection. His essence is NOT justice, His justice flows from His essence which is Love/Spirit/Light/Fire & Saviour. Can you demonstrate the essence of God is justice? Dig deep, my friend! English will be fine.
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