Thanks everyone,
I’ve taken several ideas and integrated them into document. I’m waiting to see what Alex makes of Jason’s the universalism from the Trinity theory. I’ve done my best to try and understand why Universalists believe the translation of eternal is wrong but still am struggling a little. Please feel free to post something over the next week.
Some more thoughts on aionios:
We wear interpretive lenses when we read the bible. Everyone does. The more learned you are in the scriptures, the stronger those lenses are. That’s not a bad thing, but they can get in the way sometime. Most of the time you don’t even notice them. You can read entire pericopes of scripture that go against your theological framework and not even notice them at all. Luke, I was a conservative, young earth, republican (USA), right wing, evangelical Christian for 40 years when I started looking into this. It took me several months to understand aionios. The problem was that my interpretive glasses were in the way and I really couldn’t see it. It isn’t that it’s too complicated or bizarre. It’s just that interpretive lenses can be very complicated and very difficult to take off or change. When I read The Evangelical Universalist, aionios didn’t make sense to me. It takes a while to see things differently than what you are used to sometimes.
When the bible was put into English the translators only had the classical definition, which was understood to be “eternal”, for the most part. Paidon disagrees and thinks that it has always been “lasting”. I actually agree with him. You can take any sentence with aionios in it and replace it with “lasting” and it makes perfect sense. Paidon says that the words meaning is modified by what it is describing. So when it is describing God, we know how long he is “lasting”. He gives this example:
So the translators translated it to the best of their ability and used “eternal”. When the dead sea scrolls were finally interpreted it was discovered that the primary meaning in Koine Greek was “lasting for an age”. When this new information came out I think that translators looked at verses like Matthew and decided that “eternal” was still the correct fit for it certainly didn’t make sense to say that the sheeps and the goats would be rewarded life and punishment “for an age”. So they stuck with the traditional interpretation.
In order for it to go any differently someone would have needed to look at this in a completely different way. They would need to have their scholarly and theological curiosity piqued, and be willing to take off their theological glasses and look at things differently than they had before. It would require a paradigm shift. They would need to take a new look at redemption, the nature of God, the atonement, righteousness, punishment, justice, heaven, wrath, eternity, heaven, hell, the kingdom of God, and what an “age” is. They would need to do an intensive study on the word aionios in ancient, classical, Koine, etc and learn what the word really means (as well as “justice/righteousness” in Hebrew and Greek). Some people did do this and they became universalists. Most people just stopped at the sheep and the goats and left it at eternal. It was a logical conclusion if you didn’t do hard research on it. It becomes clear that it is the wrong conclusion if you do the hard research on it.
*one more note on aionios. It’s really illogical to have a word mean its opposite. To mean eternal and not eternal in the same word is really crazy. This is why “lasting” makes so much more sense to be determined by what the adjective is describing. This should have been a red flag to language experts. I don’t think words usually do that. The fact that the word could have meant less than eternity should have inspired the type of research that the universalists have been doing.
A few comments:
God is love therefore God would not endlessly torture his loved ones.
God says, “Love your enemies”, therefore God would not endlessly torture His enemies.
God says, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” Therefore God would not punish anyone disproportionately.
God is just, therefore God’s judgments result in righteousness. (Ps 99:4, Is 26:9)
God is merciful, therefore God will correct sinners by giving to them according to their deeds. (Ps. 62:12, Ps 145:9)
The Consuming Fire will not spare any torment which is necessary to free us from sin. (Hos 6:1)
Sonia
What Sonia said 
The last couple days I have been thinking about a little phrase from Romans 13:10.
“Love does no harm”
God IS love
God who IS love does no harm!
Isn’t “eternal conscious torment” harm?
Would I choose neverending torment for my child no matter how far astray he/she went? No.
Note: I need to try to summarize my earlier replies better, btw.
A lot of universalists do believe this, probably a majority, but I don’t know that it’s a general consensus. I wouldn’t put things that way myself.
I would say the evidence rather points to ‘eonian’ and ‘olam’ primarily referring to God, both as a Jewish euphamism and as a Greek philosophical euphamism, although the term was borrowed from a prior usage of meaning an indistinctly long time (which might or might not mean never-ending but could also mean a few years or even days, olam being a physical metaphor regarding the eastern horizon.)
This multi-variant usage explains the spread of its usage in scripture; and does so in a fashion neutral to the question of ECT vs. anni vs. UR.
It also explains why different exegetical strategies seem to all work pretty well when trying to reduce it down to one meaning (though none of them perhaps perfectly well.) Things get more complicated when related prepositional phrases (like ‘eons of the eons’) are also factored in, as well as more rarely used terms like aidios. (A term which itself could have one or even both of two distinct meanings!)
As the most important meaning would be the affirmation of the never-ending life of God, and (arguably) the next most important meaning would be the hope of the life of a saved person, it would be natural to start simplifying things for ancient evangelism (just as for modern evangelism!), and try to always simplistically read it as never-ending (despite clear scriptural counterexamples to the contrary). Considering that this would just as easily result in a threat of permanent never-ending punishment (of one or another kind), and that there is documented evidence that this was somewhat useful in scaring people into behaving rightly (and even more useful in initial evangelism), the natural tendency would be to read “eonian” (and related) threats that way, too. (A tendency reasonably reinforced by the occasional Biblical habit of using the term to parallel the life and the punishment to come.)
Add to this any tendencies toward using Christianity as a form of Roman state control, and the end result can almost be predicted. (Completely aside from any question of whether sinful people would be more or less inclined to expect no salvation from sins but would be very interested in salvation from punishment.)
Luke,
You might take a look at my post: Eternal and Aionios – Comments from a linguist.
I think I tried before to explain why I think the BDAG definition of aionios ought to be questioned, but Orville explains it so much better than I’m able to.
Sonia
Everyone,
2 Thessalonians 1:6-9 and Revelations 14:11; 20:10-15
What would ‘Evangelical Universalists’ say about these verses?
Sonia,
I saw some of that. I guess what I’m still trying to understand (regardless of whether or not I agree with it) is the Universalist explanation of “Eternal and Aionios”. In other-words why the mainstream explanation is the way it is. I can’t get a clear fix, I’m getting different accounts of varying plausibility. (Again, not whether I agree or not but a summary of why “eternal” is the mainstream translation and why it shouldn’t be.)
Jason,
Thanks for those comments. (I didn’t really read the whole thread but I saw you getting into a big discussion about the Trinity, which surprised me, I thought belief in the Trinity would be a distinctive of this forum. I’m glad you argued for the Trinity but I was surprised such a core doctrine was so controversial!)
2Thes 1: “Eternal destruction”
Enough has been said about “eternal” meaning “age long” or “pertaining to God”, rather than “forever and ever”.
Destruction: Olethros
Definition
From wiki:
"In Ancient Greek mythology, Olethros was the personification of Havoc and probably one of the Makhai.
Olethros translates roughly in ancient Greek to “destruction”, but often with a positive connotation, as in the destruction required for and preceding renewal."
Paul’s point in this passage is that God will repay evil for evil, and that this repayment will be fair and measured. God is not here redressing some hypotyhetical “infinite injustice” against Himself, but a concrete and finite injustice committed against the Christians in Thessalonica. Now no one can tell me that everlasting destruction is a fair and measured return for a few years of persecution. Nor would the Christians themselves want this to happen to their enemies. After all, they have been earnestly praying for these evil people, loving them and forgiving them. Rather, they would want God in his wisdom and power to visit upon them such punishment as would bring them to their senses.
Jeremiah 17:4
4You will lose the inheritance that I gave you.
I will make you serve your enemies in a land that you haven’t heard of.
I will do this because you have stirred up the fire of my anger.
** It will burn forever.
**
I hear the Hebrew is very similar to the Greek in this in some ways when it comes to aionios and olam. It is interesting that God said His anger would burn forever, but we know that it really only burned for seventy years in this case.
**Luke, perhaps forever doesn’t mean what you think it does. Perhaps it is mistranslated. **
Finished; thanks for the ideas, comments and points of clarification.
post-apocalyptictheology.blogspo … alism.html
i’m sure others are studying this and can give a more knowledgeable rebuttal than me…but in the short time i have to respond at the moment, i can say i am even more convinced of Universalism now than i was before!
Luke, would you like a critique of your blog from my perspective on your blog, or just do so here, or not at all? You are correct in that it’s not likely to change any Reconcilist’s minds; for me, it only, well, irritated me because it came across as dismissive and ill-informed. But that’s always a challenge when covering so many aspects in an abreviated, almost bullet, form.
ditto, though really i found it less irritating and more …ensmugging (i have coined a new word), which isn’t good either lol, as i should be humble in what the Lord has taught me.
i thought Scriptures were taken out of context and context itself malformed in such a way that it became irrelevant.
sorry if i can’t get too much deeper, i am about to leave work for a well-earned (at least in my opinion) weekend.
one thing i’ll add is that i came from a place of believing ECT as the only option available, but its not actually matching up well with the general thrust of the Bible was a key thing that led me up this path.
so for me, i’d have to unlearn things i fervently believe God has taught me to embrace anything less than UR.
… “ensmugging” – I like that word! 
I know the feeling, but I think it’s not hard to channel it into hope and joy rather than pride.
Luke, I have some comments, but I’ll wait till you confirm if and where you want them posted.
Sonia
I just finished reading it and it seems we didn’t do a good job explaining Evangelical Universalism to you, Luke. I can sort of see why because there are many universalists on this site who would not fit into the category of “evangelical universalist”. There are some who think Hitler will be resurrected fully reconciled to God, which I can’t see in the scripture at all. There are some who believe in hell and some who don’t. There are some who don’t believe in a literal Adam, original sin, the flood, etc. There are some who paint an overly “flowery” picture of God. In short, there are a wide range of opinions on this board. I’ve also noticed that we can be sloppy with our language at times: I’ve seen several instances where folks say in a sentence “I don’t believe in hell”, when what I think they meant was that they didn’t believe in an eternal hell. There is a huge difference between no hell and a hell that is both terrible, yet temporary.
Chris
I haven’t gotten around to responding to this document in its entirety (not sure if I have time right now), but the following are some initial remarks in response to the first few parts.
Since most Christian Universalists (myself included) believe that God punishes people, I’m assuming that by “punish” you mean “punish endlessly.” Christian Universalists believe that for God to endlessly punish anyone would be inconsistent with his love, justice and mercy. Justice, for example, can only be satisfied when everyone has gotten what they deserve. But what about God? What does God deserve? Answer: God deserves universal adoration and loving obedience from all of his intelligent creatures. Adoration and heartfelt, loving obedience is what we owe God. It would ultimately be unfair to God for any of his rational, image-bearing creatures to remain in permanent rebellion against him.
“Those who have continued in their rebellion?” We all continue in our rebellion until God intervenes and saves us from our sins. So what I think you should have said was, “Instead of annihilating everyone, God chooses to endlessly punish those he has chosen not to save in order to highlight his mercy to those he has chosen to save.” But refusing to save some rebels would be self-defeating and prevent God from getting what he deserves, and of which he is worthy: universal adoration and loving obedience from all of his rational, image-bearing creatures.
Again, endlessly punishing sinners would be a self-defeating act, as it would entail the perpetuation of sin and rebellion. Only until all sinners are subjected to God will God’s “standards” cease to be violated.
The horror of someone’s being endlessly punished does not become less horrible in light of the “significance of sin” and the “importance of God.” In fact, it makes it even more horrible, because it means that sin is made to be as endless a reality as the suffering being inflicted because of it. And as for the importance of God, we read in Rev 4:11 that God is worthy to receive “glory and honor and power” because he “created all things, and by [his] will they existed and were created.” While a person who was being endlessly punished by God could certainly ascribe supreme power to God, God could not be universally glorified and honored without his being universally adored and obeyed. But anything less than this would be unworthy of God.
I am about halfway through reading “Raising Hell”, and I highly recommend it for everyone here, even if some of the information isn’t new to us. It’s an excellent presentation of Universal Reconciliation.
Looks good; just purchased it for my Kindle!
The following video can be found on the author’s website (julieferwerda.com/).
Here it is on YouTube:
youtube.com/watch?v=lZ3WnRUx … r_embedded
I guess one thing’s for certain, Universalism doesn’t necessarily make you a better person.
Feedback and comments.
Alex, is providing some feedback, I know him, he’s a loving guy. However, if you want to make the affirmative case for Universalism in respect to particular answers I’ve given, your welcome to here on this thread: post-apocalyptictheology.blogspo … alism.html (Anonymous comments with a pseudonym is OK and FYI comment moderation kicks in after seven days, but I’ll keep approving comments after that if all goes well.)
Dirtboy,
Thanks for the constructive comment. Well, I did have “Evangelical Universalists” in mind because you could still be a Christian and a “Evangelical Universalist” as I understand the term.
Aaron,
At Alex’s prompting, I’ve added “forever” to the first point.
In my own experience, Universalism has made me a better person in many ways, but no doctrine instantly transforms one into a perfectly mature person. Finding oneself becoming “ensmugged” over something is notification of repentance needed!
Thanks for allowing our comments on your blog, Luke. I’ll have some time later to see what others have already said and try not to duplicate feedback. The punishing thing was a big one. Most of us here firmly believe in the punishing of sin; just not the hopeless punishing of sin!
Sonia