This is fantastic Dave… prior to this statement above you spent 7 lines justifying your philosophical approach, and fair enough IMO, but then this above which I think just succinctly shows my approach, i.e., a given TEXT can help derive the reality of other TEXTS — I don’t need to be a philosophy major lol… that just hurts my head.
Probably the only issue after that is where certain texts get summarily dismissed supposedly being untrustworthy because doubt gets thrown up as to whether such was really said OR properly recorded and other such excuses… but for mine THAT just comes across as nothing but an excuse for not dealing with texts that challenge sacred cows brought to the text and in fact end up being slippery slopes when held to consistency. Like take for example… “God is love” — says who? How do we know John actually wrote that? How do we know he recorded this correctly? Etc, etc etc… that rationale just doesn’t wash with me.
IOW… where there is a conflict between what I’m assuming and what the text actually says then my assumptions may need adjusting sooner than the text… IMO
The only problem I have with that approach, davo, is that, apparently, the revelation is progressive, culminating in its full in Jesus. If this is so, I don’t see a way of ‘weighting’ the texts in the OT as fully as the NT. If something is ‘off’ in a characterization of God as between the OT and NT, it seems wise to let the ‘New interpret the Old’. Is that how you see it?
As adjunct to that, that dizzying feeling of dissonance we sometimes get reading about the so-called wrathful death-dealing tyrant of the OT and the God of Love in the new, can be overwhelming.
I don’t like to think I’m not taking the text seriously - but there are some meta-issues, I think, to be dealt with before we even get to the text. I"m not as certain of that as I’d like to be, but I have found going to the NT first - especially Romans - throws the OT into a different light, one that OT authors did not have access to.
Not really - I don’t think that ‘perfecting’ or ‘glorification’ only happens through suffering. Surely other things, such as joy, are also responsible for growth? I can see the Bible advocating growth through suffering, but it does advocate growth through joy and unity and all the good things as well.
2 Corinthians 3:18 (NASB)
“But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.”
I don’t see any reason why a change from ‘glory to glory’ would stop once one is in heaven.
Not quite sure I get what you’re saying, but I’ll say that everyone has the time in an eternity to reach the ever-increasing stages of glory. In a world where jealousy no longer exists and neither does death, I can’t see a problem with some people being ahead in glory while others are still to get there. Each will surely enjoy the state of glory they are currently in, content in that, while enjoying the fact that they can also enter a higher state of glory. That would surely be part of the beauty of the thing. I don’t believe an eternal, static equality is really all that blissful anyway. There is great joy in growing, and why could we not still be growing in the coming age?
I’m sure God might value it highly… but I suspect He might value it differently. It certainly seems to me that He also values those who come to faith now quite highly - John 20:29, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”. I am sure it is a matter of God valuing the uniqueness of each individual and their personal story with Him… God doesn’t seem so keen on equal outcomes per se as much as on equal value. (No, I’m not quoting Jordan Peterson ). I might have worded that wrongly, but I think you get my gist.
I don’t really have a problem with that idea. I think my issue would be the assumption that one enters heaven in a particular stage of glory / perfection and then remains in that state of glory forever. In other words, the idea that we remain static in our growth, our love, our perfection, our glory, is one I think that is untenable. I think a true heaven surely incorporates a measure of change.
Jn 14:8-9Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
I am not so sure hierarchy means superiority or inferiority. Because other parts of scriptures, it say no greek or jew, woman or man or slave or free. Plus, the whole concept of greater and less is more of a human outlook. This is just my take, but the whole emphasis on equality and hierarchy are symbols of a truth that transcends words. The best explanation for Hierarchy I got was that each is absolutely superior at being who they are, but can never be someone else. C.S. Lewis spoke of this in academics, and how not everyone is not meant to be good at everything. Like an engineer would be superior at math than an artist, while an artist would be superior at visualization than an engineer. Plus, much of hierarchy is about responsibility, such as the paradox of greatest as least. In the normal way of looking at hierarchy, and earthly systems often are ran on dominance. On a Godly level, hierarchy is tangled, in the sense that the higher one wishes to be, the more of a servant they are required to be.
Really? Who says that? Our religious leaders keep telling us that. I would say it may be a bit of BS. They are continuing to say that if we do such and such we will be in a good standing with God. Total Bull Crap.
No one will tell you who God really is let alone our standing with him.
In one section, he said that this whole need to accept an inhabited hell is part of Catholicism. Your probably familiar with Richard Rohr, who I am pretty sure believes in Universal Salvation, but sees Hell as an abstract possibility due to free will. I have heard the charge brought up by Eastern Christianity, that Western Christianity looks at sin and redemption in a legal way. But I have found that many Catholics reject the literalization of the legal model of crime and punishment. It seems like many Fundamentalists still hold to the legalistic interpretation, and juridical forms of justice.
Since I started this thread, just a little comment as this discussion is getting longer than I thought it will, and I don’t know what kind of people are going to stumble upon it:
Thought exercise of the OP, which I do see as logical and Scripture-interpretable (although still not true because I don’t believe universalism itself is true), is not a message to do evil. Evil is bad. God hates evil, as we should too. So, don’t do evil.
Jesus Christ paid the highest price for the evil that we do, so we shouldn’t add one iota of evil to our name, if we could be helped so by God.
P.S. Even better, if moderator agrees, delete the whole thread.
It’s true what you say, about Catholicism and Protestantism. I’m in an RC-RCIA class now, that’s wrapping up. And hanging out with the Eastern Orthodox - as a prospect - for an American branch. Yes, Catholicism is very legalistic. Even though folks like Fr. Richard Roch, leans towards universal salvation. And RC Bishop Barron , talks about hopeful universalism.
In Catholicism - for example - it’s considered a mortal sin, to miss a Sunday mass. You must fulfill this publication, unless you have a valid excuse (i.e. illness, etc.). This sin can condemn one to hell. Of course, Protestants and Eastern Orthodox - wouldn’t agree with that. So they (AKA RC) are very legalistic.
And remember that Protestantism, started out with the intention - of reforming Roman Catholicism. So they take much of their starting points from them. But branched out to “Sola Scriptura”, which brought “much unity” - to the Christian faith.
I think the premise is wrong that the most evil beings later will be the most perfect and even if, why would that be a problem? It only might become a problem if you believe in free will and think that people who decided themselves to be Christians have higher virtue than others.
In general the problem you mentioned, perpetrators vs. their victims, is not limited to universalism, murderers etc. might be saved whereas their victims are exterminated or worse, universalism deals with this problem better than the alternatives.
I’m not so much seeing revelation as progressive… I know it brings comfort to some dissonant minds but it opens its own can of worms — like on what authority does this apparent progressive revelation end with Christ? That law and prophecy have their end in Christ does not equate to progressive revelation. Does the Muslim understanding as to the Comforter of Jn 16:13 being Mohammad carry weight? Or, what about said progressiveness with regards to Joseph Smith’s revelations, etc — like why not?
My thought is to take the package as a whole and where there appears harshness in a given text then giving leeway for the possibility of literary device (though we’ve talked about all this before) lest we end up carving the bible apart denuding it of any relevance.
There just appears to be too many OT accounts that are the basis of NT reality that IF they be cancelled out take away any semblance of NT reality — take just one example — ‘the firstborn’. Without the Exodus (the angel/s of death) you have no basis for the redemptive story in the OT, let alone trying to make it fit the NT — BUT it is in the NT because it is in the OT (Ex 11:4-5; 12:12; 23; 29) and as such undergirds so much of the NT thematic story.
). I might have worded that wrongly, but I think you get my gist.