My last sentence was no “strawman”… I actually had Paidion’s thoughts in view, not your opinions.
As for your questions… I simply replied to your statement as to your misunderstandings of my view; which on your part was no question.
I think qaz (i.e. Geeky Analytical Zombie? Me thinks remembering all the acronyms is so confusing. 
) means this straw man:
For a moment there, he had me going. I thought he met the Scarecrow, from the **Wizard of Oz **:!:
-
Qaz, we have to remember that the holy Trinity did indeed start mankind in Paradise. Adam and Eve fell, thus exiling themselves and all their descendants from Paradise. There were two ways to make it to Heaven, and mankind has chosen the hard way. This was not God’s plan A.
-
Paul’s transformation on the road to Damascus is emblematic of ultra-universalism: The enthroned Christ appeared to Saul, the chief of sinners, and snap he became Paul, Apostle of Christ. And THAT happened while Paul was still in this fallen world. Imagine what happens to a person when he is no longer in the fallen world, but is instead in Christ’s immediate presence in Heaven. Yeah. snap
Imagine an ice cube suddenly appearing a few feet away from the surface of the sun. How long would it take for the ice cube to melt? Perhaps 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000001 of a second, or something like that? That’s how long sin can last in the immediate presence of the enthroned Christ. His Godhead obliterates it out of existence.
Let’s go back to the ice cube example. How do you know** everyone** will react that way? Couldn’t we have cases, like those in this illustration 
The liturgy of Great and Holy Saturday (i. e., the day before Pascha [Easter to all you westerners]) notes that immediately upon Christ’s death, He obliterated all the sin from everyone in the grave and led them all up to Heaven, leaving the grave empty. Who was in Hades? Every single person who had died before Christ died, starting with Abel. Billions of humans, including the likes of Ahab, Jezebel, the pharaoh who ordered the slaughter of the infants, Nero who ordered the slaughter of the infants, etc. were all in Hades. And snap, they were all instantly purified from their sin and taken to Heaven.
Since Christ did that for billions all in the same instant, it is small potatoes for Him to do it for each individual upon his or her death.
In terms of that cartoon, no delusions or illusions can possibly exist in the immediate presence of the enthroned Christ. His very Godhead disintegrates all of that. All of the BS with which we have stuffed our brains here on earth will be gone. We will have no grounds upon which to engage in our specious “reasoning”. Nor will Christ convince us of anything through elaborate argumentation, with premises, philosophical connections, and inductions and deductions. Instead, our minds, everything about us, will be transformed into the perfect image of Christ. We will see the Truth by participating in Him. No possibility of error will remain. “God became man so that man might become God.” “Everything God is by nature, we will become by grace.”
Geoffrey Said:
Yea 
Yep, but that’s immaterial. The world is full of stupid people who will live and die with their stupid beliefs, and there’s nothing we can do about it. What are you going to do?
Similarly, I saw a Roman Catholic priest tell this true story. He was a professor in Rome, and he told his interviewer basically this: “A few years back the newspaper here did a poll, asking Catholics who they prayed to when it was really, really important. You know who was sixth on that list? Jesus Christ. Can you believe it?”
Just as the Roman Catholic Church never taught its faithful that Jesus Christ should be 6th on your “go to” list, neither has the Orthodox Church taught its faithful that there is such a thing as never-ending damnation. Such an idea merely finds its way into stupid books written by ignorant (at least on this point) people.
Or consider that most Christians who believe in sola scriptura also believe that the Bible teaches never-ending damnation. What percentage of people who believe in sola scriptura have even read the Bible cover-to-cover? If it is as high as 10%, I’d be shocked. Yet these same non-Bible-readers “know” that the Bible teaches never-ending damnation.
Belief in never-ending damnation, whether amongst Orthodox, Catholics, or Protestants, is merely a contemptible superstition.
I have no problem with a person instantaneously becoming a disciple of Christ. However, that is but entering the door of salvation. Salvation itself is a life-long process, and perhaps extends even beyond death. For at death, many or perhaps all disciples of Christ have not yet been fully delivered from sin. They may retain wrong attitudes, a condemning spirit, hateful feelings, destructive desires, and much else. God will never give up on anyone until their natures are fully refined. He will do whatever it takes to bring this about.
Christ’s death is not about forgiving people. Christ forgave people prior to His death. The purpose of Christ’s death is to deliver people from wrongdoing, to begin the process of refining their natures, and to complete it with their coöperation. If we think we can receive the grace of God without coöperating with it, we receive it in vain.
… We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. (2 Cor 5:20-6:1 ESV)
If we examine the passages that give us the purpose of Christ’s death, we will see that they are not about forgiveness of sin, but about deliverance from sin (yes, even the abolition of sin!):
*I Peter 2:24 He himself endured our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
II Corinthians 5:15 And he died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
Romans 14:9 For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
Titus 2:14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all iniquity and to purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.
Heb 9:26 …he has appeared once for all at the end of the age for the abolition of sin by the sacrifice of himself.*
So we see from all of these passages that Christ’s death for our benefit, is not to forgive our sins, but to deliver us from sin, and that that deliverance does not take place instantaneously, but is a process and requires our continual coöperation.
By the way, the Eastern Orthodox position on salvation is the same as mine— that salvation is a process. Here is a 10 minute video in which Metropolitan Kallistos was confronted by the question, “Are you saved?” and in which he shares the answer that he gave to the questioner, an answer that indicates that his salvation was not an accomplished fact, but rather is a process that Christ is accomplishing in Him.
Yep. Salvation began with creation, and it will not be completed until the Second Coming. 
I do share this in common with Paidion and Geoffrey 
Does that also work with dry ice
Now I have to get back to pondering this mystery from today’s Quora: 
Is this the result of dry ice or did someone cut a tomato
Could be. Hope so. But if so, why wait till then? God can do anything. Why send Jesus? Why all this suffering?
God has bound all in disobedience that He may hav mercy on all. Therefore all Israel shall be saved. Why? Why all this play-acting. Why the ages? Why “Each in his own order”? Why not everyone right now?
The creation was not subjected to futility of its own will, but by the one who did it in hope that the whole creation will be set free from futility into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
That glorious liberty is to love God and one another more than life itself. In ther words, life is not etrnal until love is greater than life, and that is the fire that thoroughly purges the threshing floor, and the threshing floor is life, time, consciousness, experience, trial, discipline, chaos, suffering and death.
I think God set the process up so that we will learn something that can be learned in no other way than to be redeemed, reconciled and restored, and that comes after one repents.
Rev 14:10 says that "they will be tormented by fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and the Lamb". This sounds like more than .000000001 second to me. "Jesus said, “Depart from me into the fire prepared for the devil and his angels, but dont worry, its only for .00000000001”.
He also said, “And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell(gehenna), to the unquenchable fire, even if it is only .0000000001 seconds.”
Who knows? 
)
Who knows indeed? ) You got me… apart from maybe your own, which version is that?
Eaglesway said:
This is a form of works righteousness, No way around it. 
Eaglesway, I believe that all the sufferings and torments that the scriptures describe as being meted out for our sins occur during this life. Thus the passages you put forward refer to all of our sufferings during our entire lifespans here on earth. They aren’t referring to the 0.00000000000000000001 second.
That is also my experience qaz.
The question is: who should we believe?
I can quote experienced Fathers within the ‘orthodox’ church who clearly state that eternal suffering is one of their teachings (and Geoffrey believes that they must believe in and adhere to the entire liturgy to be a member of the orthodox club (let alone an authoritative figure)), or I can accept a more recent follower of ‘orthodoxy’ such as Geoffrey who says many followers are stupid. It’s a bit of a conundrum and I hope that wishful thinking doesn’t come into it.
Here is a typical citation:
This opinion is so widespread amongst ‘Orthodox Fathers’ that I must conclude (unless presented with better evidence) that it is the true teaching of the ‘orthodox’ churches.
Pilgrim, I address precisely that point in this thread:
No. An Orthodox clergyman is authoritative only insofar as he is Orthodox. There are innumerable instances in history of the “Orthodox” clergy being heretical. It has happened over and over and over again. Let me recount my favorite instance of such:
In the mid-7th century, the Orthodox St. Maximos the Confessor was convicted of “heresy” by the Monothelite heretics. Virtually the entirety of the Orthodox world’s bishops were at this time Monothelite heretics. In trying to “reason” with St. Maximos, his captors basically said, “Maximos, the entire clergy, the entire world is against you! Look. The bishop of Constantinople believes thus *. So do the bishops of Alexandria, and of Antioch, and of Jerusalem, and of all the world. Even the bishop of old Rome believes thus. You are the only one to obstinately hold to your mistaken beliefs, so why don’t you rejoin the entire Church and give up your resistance?”
To which the heroic and saintly Maximos relied, “I wouldn’t care if the entire universe believed thus. I will not.”
He was then led away and tortured and mutilated, for which he has the title of “the Confessor” (which means someone tortured for the faith).
St. Maximos the Confessor is one of the major saints of the Orthodox Church. He was not a clergyman, and he resisted to their faces virtually the entirety of the clergy of the “Orthodox” world which had bought lock-stock-and-barrel into Monothelitism. He resisted to the point of being tortured.
St. Athanosios the Great has a similar story. In fact, there is a Latin phrase encapsulating his lone stand for Orthodoxy against a world made heretical: “Athanasius contra mundum” (“Athanasios against the world”).
St. Symeon the New wrote at length against the worldliness of the Orthodox clergy of his day and was exiled for it.
Twice–in the 13th century and in the 15th century–the vast majority of the Orthodox clergy betrayed Orthodoxy and signed agreements to become part of the Roman Catholic Church. The lonely figures (such as St. Mark of Ephesus) who stood against them are glorified saints of the Church, while the traitorous clergy are remembered with ignominy.
Etc., etc., etc.
The teaching of the Orthodox Church is laid out clearly and at great length in the Orthodox liturgies–nowhere else. This teaching is accessible to all. It is not the esoteric purview of an elite. God has revealed it to all. The job of the bishops and the lower clergy is to teach and defend what God has revealed once and for all. When they cease to do that and instead start teaching things contrary to it, they cease to be shepherds and become vile and dangerous wolves fit only for excommunication.
Humbly taking the words of St. Maximos the Confessor for my own, if anyone (whether priest, bishop, or angel) teaches something contrary to the clear teachings of the Orthodox liturgy, I say, “I wouldn’t care if the entire universe believed thus. I will not.”*
Anyway, I did come across an interesting blog entitled Eclectic Orthodoxy. Here are a couple interesting elements:
About
Readings in Universalism
It’s also interesting to read the user commentary and questions on** Readings in Universalism** and About.
Since this appears to be both pro-Orthodoxy and Pro-Universalism, I wonder what Geoffrey and others here think?
Hi qaz, hope you are having a fine day!
Fist off, who is the ‘our?’ in “Our position?”
Secondly, ‘After’ denotes that the person must do the thing for the result to happen. If we re phrase the sentence*,“I think God set the process up so that we will learn something that can be learned in no other way than to be redeemed, reconciled and restored, and because of that one repents.” *
Now we have all the same things happening but in the proper order. There is redemption, reconciliation, restoration and repentance. But where it (repentance, or our part) comes from has been severely altered to the Glory of the Father and His Christ.
Many think repentance is to know you’ve done wrong, and strive not to do that again, (usually with a threat or stipulation) but I maintain repentance means ‘change of heart,’ which comes, I believe, after we receive the free gift of grace, so that we may not boast.
qaz, it’s an age old argument
Just something to think about.
Cheers
Yes, I’m familiar with that blog. While I do not agree with its every jot and tittle, there is a lot of good stuff there.