One reason universal salvation is dismissed is that a lot of Christians treat Augustine as infallible. This is especially strange behavior for us Protestants, but I see it all the time; we like to cite Augie as if he’s Scripture, and this leads to some big interpretative fallacies (e.g. calvinism) as well as the outright unbiblical view that Adam’s original sin imputes guilt onto every human being.
Augustine: "There are layers of hell and different breaktimes, maybe. On the top layer, not-that-bad dudes can even escape, if boosted by the prayers & almsgiving of those still alive."
"The Jonathan Edwards view, that we should rejoice at the glory of God’s justice being enacted in hell, remains influential on much of the Protestant and evangelical church, even though one might point out they hardly act as if everyone they meet outside of the church is destined for eternal torment."
You could honestly make an entire post just unloading the implications of this in particular. If you believe "all humans inherently deserve ECT by default" then why would you ever mourn over someone else's suffering, especially if they're not Christian, given that hell is by definition infinitely worse than any temporal suffering or loss? If all humans inherently deserve this then why should you feel aggrieved over the Boxing Day tsunami in (the vast-majority Buddhist) Thailand which drowned and crushed countless lives or the mass rape and murder of Bosnian women during the Bosnian war, or even the extermination of Jews during the Holocaust? Weren't all of these things also "deserved" by virtue of how disgusting humanity apparently is? And if you hold to ECT you must not only believe that but you also believe that since none or very few of these people were Christian that after suffering and dying horrifically, all of them were swiftly condemned to eternal fiery torment in the hereafter, infinitely worse than what they had already gone through.
I don't think anyone can wholeheartedly believe this because the human conscience doesn't allow for it.
This comment reflects why it's hard for me to fully embrace ECT as well.
I've seen atrocities used as an example for why hell is just, but based on ECT logic, the victims suffer as horrendously in the afterlife as the perpetrators. How can you say violence against a human is wrong, if what happens to them immediately after is far worse?
Still working through my own views on hell, because there are severe warnings from Christ about the results of sin.
A very interesting post. I'm an atheist and no theologian so these debates are very far from my usual areas of philosophical concern. But anecdotally I have always found the very idea of eternal torment for contingent or original sin grotesque since I was a child being forced fed such creeds at school, and I am sure I am not the only one. It is as likely to make people exposed to these doctrines averse not to Hell but to Christianity itself. It casts God as infinitely more evil, arbitrary and malevolent than any Demon, or any human sinner. A divine Tyrant who must be opposed and if possible (or one can wish) destroyed.
I tend toward conditionalism myself, but I recognize that it is subject to some of the same problems, particularly the issue of God’s responsibility. (Although I think it’s much less monstrous than the “dungeon in the basement for those who failed to be other than what they were made as” sort of view). I think ultimately the cross is the answer to that responsibility. Perhaps some won’t be saved, indeed, but Jesus undergoes the full measure of dissolution that the lost undergo (the langue of the descent to hell in the creeds) - solidarity and journeying alongside, even to the void.
I'm a believer with a traditionalist interpretation of heaven-hell. I'm a part of a philosophy group in which all members, not including myself, are universalists.
We are all well educated (masters degree in Phil or higher). My U friends are well read in David B Hart, Sergei Bulgakov, George MacDonald, etc.
Now, I just wanted to write to ask. If I laid out my objections and questions to universalism, would you address them here?
I wanted to ask before writing it all out, because it will take time to do so.
Up to this point, universalism remains unconvincing to me, and the arguments with my friends, although informative, have run their course.
"Ironically" both the ABSOLUTE DETERMINIST & "FREE WILL" people R grossly wrong!!.... absolute determinisim & free will R NOT mutually exclusive logically & bible teaches both equally.
INCLUDING "CHURCH FATHERS" = Acts 20:28...the Holy Ghost hath made YOU OVERSEERS.....29 For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock..30..OF YOUR OWN SELFS ( OF 🚨THE OVERSEERS!!🚨) shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.
1 Corinthians 4:6.... that ye might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written.....
A) GOD DOES NOT LOVE EVERYONE
Prov 8:17 I love them that love me
Sharp contrast between 3 groups:
(1) “PREDESTINED DAMNED” NEVER written in the book of life ..Rev 17: 8 WHOSE NAMES WERE NOT WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF LIFE FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD, …as contrasted …EPH 1: 4. According as he hath CHOSEN US in him BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD
(2) “MANY CALLED”= ONLY & ALL SAINTS (those who come to Christ) R written in the book of life … Philippians 4:3…Rev 21:27; (Only saints R Called & elect; Rom 1:6-7 et al) This is THE CHURCH & ONLY these can have their names blotted out of the book of life.….Heb 12:23 general assembly & CHURCH of the firstborn … WHICH …R WRITTEN in heaven,
(3) THE FEW CHOSEN: Those saints who were alive in group #2 who R now physically dead. They died “faithful” these R the FEW that were chosen faithful….Rev 3:5. & I will not BLOT OUT HIS NAME OUT OF THE BOOK OF LIFE, (Ps 69:28) …. 💥💥These R the FEW that R CHOSEN & SINCE THEY ARE NOW DEAD & SAVED ->ERGO: ONCE SAVED ALWAYS SAVED (OSAS) ONLY AFTER DEATH DOES ONCE SAVE ALWAYS SAVED APPLY- CAN NEVER BE LOST.💥💥
Free will is simply A) options B) ability to eccersise or not options within the context of a limited amount of knowlege over the elements and a limited amout of controll over the outcome within a limited matrix of time space, resorces
God is the infinate knowlege, power, time space et al. Even scripture points out that "in him we live move & have our being." It is simply not possible for the finite limited to determine the infinate in which it exist.
What we call free will does not prevent or affect predestination in the slightest! Predestination is the infinate sets of possibilities. Knowlege, control where free will is fundimentaly an exercise in limitations that exist within that infinate God matrix.
⛔Consider 1) your options & 2) the abilities to excercise options. Who created the options? Who decided you to be born at this time under your conditions-upbringing? Who decided that you would not be a member of some harem 300 yrs ago??.... oh thats right you had no say so whatsoever in who your parents were or the social staus of your family⛔
Logicaly the the finite can never be said to superceed the infinate or the matrix in which it is operatimg inside of
Any idea of a conflict or mutual exclusion of predestinstion & free will is a non sequitor
Limited atonement is true and the whole point to:
2Peter 2:20. THE LATTER END IS WORSE WITH THEM THAN THE BEGINNING. …
Heb 10: 29. OF HOW MUCH SORER PUNISHMENT, suppose ye, SHALL HE BE THOUGHT 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?
….. if Christ blood was shed for all men living on planet earth even those who would never came to Christ in the first place, they too would have trodden under foot the son of God and counted that blood of his covenant (which was shed for them also presumably) an unholy thing. But the fact is there is a difference between those who were purchased with that blood and latter reject it and those who were never purchased with that blood. They are worse off because they did something the predestined damned had not done which is to treat the blood that bought them with spite…This blood is not for everyone it is only for those that are called and everyone is not called. This is also why they can and most are blotted OUT of the book of Life (The names are written in it before the foundation of the world) If everyone living on planet earth had been purchased with the blood of Christ or if Christ had died for everyone on planet earth then there would be no difference in the blood of Christ for the saint who reprobates and the sinner who never comes to Christ because both would have treated the blood of Christ spitefully.
- The fact that some were destined for damnation and some were selected to be saved is what the doctrine of ELECTION IS!?! God could have done things differently (you could have been born at a different time and place and or the method could have been different; Unless of course you think you are so inherently good that you would be a follower of Christ no matter what your circumstances could possibly have been; that would be hubris of the greatest magnitude. Mat 11:21 et al) and gotten a completely different set of “saved folks” then the set he has Chosen so When God selected how he was going to do things and knowing the outcome before hand (by name who would be saved and who would be damned) then HE not you decided who would and would not be saved and who would just be damned period without any hope.
There were too many reasons to count for why I stopped being a Christian, but the problem of suffering was probably near the top, like it is for many people. I tended to lump eternal torment in hell along with the problem of suffering, although I guess they're technically separate issues. I was aware of versions of Christianity that either thought we'd still get a chance to repent after death or that we would simply be annihilated, but since those seemed to be minority views, I didn't see the point of being part of a church. I still feel that way when people argue for universalism. (Which, by the way, as an agnostic who is unable to believe, I think is a great idea. If God would agree, I would agree.) Even if Christ really did die for us and was raised from the dead and intends eventually to save us all, what good is the church if God allows it to mostly be in error for most of its existence about such a core belief?
I don't think universalism actually resolve the problem. Even if you grant universalism, classical theism still has a problem of evil, in that why would God create suffering at all?
Even if Hell is not real, there are places on earth right now that resemble it, and people (or factory farrmed pigs, for example) get sent there for the crime of being born in the wrong place..
Atheism has the same problem: Molecules are bouncing around my head, therefore, I suffer? How is that entailment sensible or possible? So atheism does not resolve the problem of evil, either.
I think people are afraid of the truth, they suppress it in their minds and deny it, because the true religion is too terrifying for most people to even contemplate: The devil is much more powerful than the scriptures let on. Suffering is not some natural thing, it is an evil god which seeks to enslave us.
We are born with shock collars in our heads and whenever we do something "bad" we get blasted. That is what suffering is. We think it is normal because we are conditioned to think it is normal. It is not normal. It is abuse. It is the definition of abusive, the way suffering acts upon our minds.
God is love and the devil is suffering. We choose which one to follow, which one we will allow to control us. If we choose to follow suffering --that is, to react to it -- we show how we are controlled, and the future world will be a world of suffering.
If we instead follow love only, then the future will be a world of love.
But Matt, the only reason why the love I have for my wife is worth anything, is if there is a possibility to hate her.
One reason universal salvation is dismissed is that a lot of Christians treat Augustine as infallible. This is especially strange behavior for us Protestants, but I see it all the time; we like to cite Augie as if he’s Scripture, and this leads to some big interpretative fallacies (e.g. calvinism) as well as the outright unbiblical view that Adam’s original sin imputes guilt onto every human being.
Calvinist: "I think Augustine was right on hell"
Augustine: "There are layers of hell and different breaktimes, maybe. On the top layer, not-that-bad dudes can even escape, if boosted by the prayers & almsgiving of those still alive."
Calvinist: "what"
I’m a Catholic and I *detest* Augustine. More of an Irenaeus fella, myself.
"The Jonathan Edwards view, that we should rejoice at the glory of God’s justice being enacted in hell, remains influential on much of the Protestant and evangelical church, even though one might point out they hardly act as if everyone they meet outside of the church is destined for eternal torment."
You could honestly make an entire post just unloading the implications of this in particular. If you believe "all humans inherently deserve ECT by default" then why would you ever mourn over someone else's suffering, especially if they're not Christian, given that hell is by definition infinitely worse than any temporal suffering or loss? If all humans inherently deserve this then why should you feel aggrieved over the Boxing Day tsunami in (the vast-majority Buddhist) Thailand which drowned and crushed countless lives or the mass rape and murder of Bosnian women during the Bosnian war, or even the extermination of Jews during the Holocaust? Weren't all of these things also "deserved" by virtue of how disgusting humanity apparently is? And if you hold to ECT you must not only believe that but you also believe that since none or very few of these people were Christian that after suffering and dying horrifically, all of them were swiftly condemned to eternal fiery torment in the hereafter, infinitely worse than what they had already gone through.
I don't think anyone can wholeheartedly believe this because the human conscience doesn't allow for it.
This comment reflects why it's hard for me to fully embrace ECT as well.
I've seen atrocities used as an example for why hell is just, but based on ECT logic, the victims suffer as horrendously in the afterlife as the perpetrators. How can you say violence against a human is wrong, if what happens to them immediately after is far worse?
Still working through my own views on hell, because there are severe warnings from Christ about the results of sin.
A very interesting post. I'm an atheist and no theologian so these debates are very far from my usual areas of philosophical concern. But anecdotally I have always found the very idea of eternal torment for contingent or original sin grotesque since I was a child being forced fed such creeds at school, and I am sure I am not the only one. It is as likely to make people exposed to these doctrines averse not to Hell but to Christianity itself. It casts God as infinitely more evil, arbitrary and malevolent than any Demon, or any human sinner. A divine Tyrant who must be opposed and if possible (or one can wish) destroyed.
I tend toward conditionalism myself, but I recognize that it is subject to some of the same problems, particularly the issue of God’s responsibility. (Although I think it’s much less monstrous than the “dungeon in the basement for those who failed to be other than what they were made as” sort of view). I think ultimately the cross is the answer to that responsibility. Perhaps some won’t be saved, indeed, but Jesus undergoes the full measure of dissolution that the lost undergo (the langue of the descent to hell in the creeds) - solidarity and journeying alongside, even to the void.
Hi Matt,
I'm a believer with a traditionalist interpretation of heaven-hell. I'm a part of a philosophy group in which all members, not including myself, are universalists.
We are all well educated (masters degree in Phil or higher). My U friends are well read in David B Hart, Sergei Bulgakov, George MacDonald, etc.
Now, I just wanted to write to ask. If I laid out my objections and questions to universalism, would you address them here?
I wanted to ask before writing it all out, because it will take time to do so.
Up to this point, universalism remains unconvincing to me, and the arguments with my friends, although informative, have run their course.
May I do so?
Yeah I’d take a look
"Ironically" both the ABSOLUTE DETERMINIST & "FREE WILL" people R grossly wrong!!.... absolute determinisim & free will R NOT mutually exclusive logically & bible teaches both equally.
INCLUDING "CHURCH FATHERS" = Acts 20:28...the Holy Ghost hath made YOU OVERSEERS.....29 For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock..30..OF YOUR OWN SELFS ( OF 🚨THE OVERSEERS!!🚨) shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.
1 Corinthians 4:6.... that ye might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written.....
A) GOD DOES NOT LOVE EVERYONE
Prov 8:17 I love them that love me
Sharp contrast between 3 groups:
(1) “PREDESTINED DAMNED” NEVER written in the book of life ..Rev 17: 8 WHOSE NAMES WERE NOT WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF LIFE FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD, …as contrasted …EPH 1: 4. According as he hath CHOSEN US in him BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD
(2) “MANY CALLED”= ONLY & ALL SAINTS (those who come to Christ) R written in the book of life … Philippians 4:3…Rev 21:27; (Only saints R Called & elect; Rom 1:6-7 et al) This is THE CHURCH & ONLY these can have their names blotted out of the book of life.….Heb 12:23 general assembly & CHURCH of the firstborn … WHICH …R WRITTEN in heaven,
(3) THE FEW CHOSEN: Those saints who were alive in group #2 who R now physically dead. They died “faithful” these R the FEW that were chosen faithful….Rev 3:5. & I will not BLOT OUT HIS NAME OUT OF THE BOOK OF LIFE, (Ps 69:28) …. 💥💥These R the FEW that R CHOSEN & SINCE THEY ARE NOW DEAD & SAVED ->ERGO: ONCE SAVED ALWAYS SAVED (OSAS) ONLY AFTER DEATH DOES ONCE SAVE ALWAYS SAVED APPLY- CAN NEVER BE LOST.💥💥
Free will is simply A) options B) ability to eccersise or not options within the context of a limited amount of knowlege over the elements and a limited amout of controll over the outcome within a limited matrix of time space, resorces
God is the infinate knowlege, power, time space et al. Even scripture points out that "in him we live move & have our being." It is simply not possible for the finite limited to determine the infinate in which it exist.
What we call free will does not prevent or affect predestination in the slightest! Predestination is the infinate sets of possibilities. Knowlege, control where free will is fundimentaly an exercise in limitations that exist within that infinate God matrix.
⛔Consider 1) your options & 2) the abilities to excercise options. Who created the options? Who decided you to be born at this time under your conditions-upbringing? Who decided that you would not be a member of some harem 300 yrs ago??.... oh thats right you had no say so whatsoever in who your parents were or the social staus of your family⛔
Logicaly the the finite can never be said to superceed the infinate or the matrix in which it is operatimg inside of
Any idea of a conflict or mutual exclusion of predestinstion & free will is a non sequitor
Limited atonement is true and the whole point to:
2Peter 2:20. THE LATTER END IS WORSE WITH THEM THAN THE BEGINNING. …
Heb 10: 29. OF HOW MUCH SORER PUNISHMENT, suppose ye, SHALL HE BE THOUGHT 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?
….. if Christ blood was shed for all men living on planet earth even those who would never came to Christ in the first place, they too would have trodden under foot the son of God and counted that blood of his covenant (which was shed for them also presumably) an unholy thing. But the fact is there is a difference between those who were purchased with that blood and latter reject it and those who were never purchased with that blood. They are worse off because they did something the predestined damned had not done which is to treat the blood that bought them with spite…This blood is not for everyone it is only for those that are called and everyone is not called. This is also why they can and most are blotted OUT of the book of Life (The names are written in it before the foundation of the world) If everyone living on planet earth had been purchased with the blood of Christ or if Christ had died for everyone on planet earth then there would be no difference in the blood of Christ for the saint who reprobates and the sinner who never comes to Christ because both would have treated the blood of Christ spitefully.
- The fact that some were destined for damnation and some were selected to be saved is what the doctrine of ELECTION IS!?! God could have done things differently (you could have been born at a different time and place and or the method could have been different; Unless of course you think you are so inherently good that you would be a follower of Christ no matter what your circumstances could possibly have been; that would be hubris of the greatest magnitude. Mat 11:21 et al) and gotten a completely different set of “saved folks” then the set he has Chosen so When God selected how he was going to do things and knowing the outcome before hand (by name who would be saved and who would be damned) then HE not you decided who would and would not be saved and who would just be damned period without any hope.
https://allendaves.substack.com/p/most-true-christains-go-to-hell?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1xhldx
https://www.scribd.com/document/306868420/Most-True-Christians-Go-to-Hell
https://www.academia.edu/25217564/Most_True_Christains_Go_to_Hell
There were too many reasons to count for why I stopped being a Christian, but the problem of suffering was probably near the top, like it is for many people. I tended to lump eternal torment in hell along with the problem of suffering, although I guess they're technically separate issues. I was aware of versions of Christianity that either thought we'd still get a chance to repent after death or that we would simply be annihilated, but since those seemed to be minority views, I didn't see the point of being part of a church. I still feel that way when people argue for universalism. (Which, by the way, as an agnostic who is unable to believe, I think is a great idea. If God would agree, I would agree.) Even if Christ really did die for us and was raised from the dead and intends eventually to save us all, what good is the church if God allows it to mostly be in error for most of its existence about such a core belief?
I don't think universalism actually resolve the problem. Even if you grant universalism, classical theism still has a problem of evil, in that why would God create suffering at all?
Even if Hell is not real, there are places on earth right now that resemble it, and people (or factory farrmed pigs, for example) get sent there for the crime of being born in the wrong place..
Atheism has the same problem: Molecules are bouncing around my head, therefore, I suffer? How is that entailment sensible or possible? So atheism does not resolve the problem of evil, either.
I think people are afraid of the truth, they suppress it in their minds and deny it, because the true religion is too terrifying for most people to even contemplate: The devil is much more powerful than the scriptures let on. Suffering is not some natural thing, it is an evil god which seeks to enslave us.
We are born with shock collars in our heads and whenever we do something "bad" we get blasted. That is what suffering is. We think it is normal because we are conditioned to think it is normal. It is not normal. It is abuse. It is the definition of abusive, the way suffering acts upon our minds.
God is love and the devil is suffering. We choose which one to follow, which one we will allow to control us. If we choose to follow suffering --that is, to react to it -- we show how we are controlled, and the future world will be a world of suffering.
If we instead follow love only, then the future will be a world of love.